The article I shared on Facebook and the workplace last week wasn’t too far off.  One of my classmates works at a boutique store at the local mall.  He said that his employer recently asked all employees to sign a waiver authorizing management to check employees Facebook pages randomly.    If a worker’s page was found to be critical of the company they can be disciplined or fired.

Is your computer losing time?  This may be happening if your system is 4 to 5 years old or more.  I encountered one such computer today, still in working order, but purchased in 2004.  Before Windows even booted up, a black screen popped up saying that the system was losing time — please configure SETUP.

The warning message may be different from computer to computer, however if you notice that you are losing time significantly (not related to daylight savings), a simple fix could save you a lot of money.    Chances are all you need is a new CMOS battery.   These batteries are not the same as laptop batteries, they are very small, inexpensive, and usually the size of a watch battery.     Today’s customer was fortunate to have their problem solved with an 11 dollar part and one hour of my time.

For those of you on the Apple orchard, I have not heard of this issue happening to older Macs.  However, I come across a lot more 5 year old Windows systems than Macs.  Generally speaking, a 5 year old Windows computer has the potential to be much more usable in 2010 than a Mac of the same age, not because of reliability but because Apple changed to from IBM to Intel processors in 2006.