Due to the acquisition of two vehicles, Bendy Computers is now capable of serving Howard County in Maryland on site. Check Facebook for our hours www.facebook.com/bendycomputers or on Google maps.
We are open for remote support and urgent on site
Due to the Coronavirus, we are encouraging people to use our phone, text, and chat support options. Payment is accepted via card and paypal.
For more urgent support or things that inherently require hands on, we are still providing those services on a case by case basis.
We are unfortunately unable to visit anyone on lockdown in a senior community, but will assist over the phone and accept checks from seniors only.
We service nationwide for remote support and in Baltimore City and Baltimore County for on site support.
Businesses, remote, and senior pricing is still active. Visit our store for current offers.
Cord cutters can now get tv from redbox
Redbox has introduced a new live tv offering supported by advertisment. It is available on it’s website. They are working on original content, as well as carrying basic offerings from the major networks. Obviously, you’re not going to find premium content from starz or hbo, but it’s something. Redbox plans on adding it’s content to major smart tv brands and roku streaming devices.
Brown, D. (2020, February 17). Attention cord-cutters: Redbox rolled out a free online streaming service with live TV. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/02/17/redbox-now-lets-you-stream-free-content-online/4783891002/
Former Google Employee alleges firing was retaliation for organizing
A fifth fired Google employee said she believes she was “fired in retaliation” for her labor organizing efforts within the tech giant, as the company already faces similar allegations from its firing of four other employees just days after a staff-organized protest last month.
“I was involved in organizing at Google and I do believe I was fired in retaliation,” Kathryn Spiers, 21, from California’s Bay Area, told ABC News Tuesday.
Spiers said she wrote code that sends a notification to her coworkers whenever they visit the website for an alleged union-busting firm Google reportedly hired last month.
Google said her actions were an “unacceptable breach of a trusted responsibility,” according to a copy of an email sent by Royal Hansen, the VP of technical infrastructure security and privacy, and provided to ABC News by a Google spokesperson.
Spiers “misused a security and privacy tool to create a pop-up that was neither about security nor privacy,” the email stated. “She did that without authorization from her team or the Security and Privacy Policy Notifier team, and without a business justification. And she used an emergency rapid push to do it.”
I don’t think she would have been fired if she did something like leave union leaflets in the breakroom, but she had to go and use company security systems that she did not have a need to use, or permission to use. She took a tool intended for safety and security and turned it into a personal broadcasting tool. There are other ways to communicate in a company, and if I was organizing a union I’d try and be more secretive and not go on the company intercom or use work computers to do it.
Works Cited:
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Business/google-employee-fired-retaliation-organizing-efforts/story?id=67785338.
Anti $h1tpost toilet unveiled
Employers around the world are on notice as workers hold their breath and bowels to see if their workplace will install the new toilet from a British firm called StandardToilet. This toilet features a downward slope of 13 degrees designed to make the user feel as if they are in a squat. Sit on the toilet for any longer than 5 minutes and expect to feel some discomfort, the maker says. Surely this will keep people off the phone and in the cube, right?
This news comes on the heels of the infamous smell check post, wherein an employer posted someone would conduct, “a smell check,” if an employee was in the restroom for more than 10 minutes to see if they were on their phone, and those who were deemed not using the restroom as evidenced by smell would be reported to management. This takes brown nosing to a new level.
I understand employers wanting to increase productivity, but ruining the only break many lower level employees who do not smoke get is not the answer. Perhaps recognizing employees for exemplary job performance or adherence to the attendance policy would do the same thing.
In a slight coincidence, our source material was written by an author with the last name “Brown.”
Works Cited:
Brown, S. (2019, December 18). This slanted toilet might be the meanest attempt to decrease smartphone usage so far. Retrieved from https://www.cnet.com/news/this-slanted-toilet-might-be-the-meanest-attempt-to-decrease-smartphone-usage-so-far/.
My thoughts on Xfinity mobile
Xfinity mobile is a great mvno to go with. They combine the power of Verizon’s LTE network with Xfinity’s 19 million and counting wifi hotspots to give you great coverage at a great price.
They have byod, device financing at no interest, and both high end devices like the Samsung note 10 and low end devices like the moto e5.
There is no need to sign into each and every xfinity hotspot as you travel, and handoff from wifi to cellular is acceptable in my opinion.
The carrier supports wifi calling and e 911.
The only catch I could find was you have to have Xfinity home internet to get the service.
You can drop the home internet later, but you will have to pay a line access fee of $10 per line.
You have two options for data. By the gig for as little as 12 dollars or unlimited for $45 as of this writing. Insurance for phones is $12 a month, and with phone theft on the rise I reccomend it.
If you buy an eligible device and port a number, you can get a visa gift card for $250, which would indirectly reduce the cost of your phone by allowing you to pay off some of it. However, it takes 16 to 18 weeks to arrive in the mail.
All in all, a great product and I’ll post my thoughts again on it in 30 days when I can really test the coverage and my note 9.
Facebook’s cryptocurrency has a trust problem
From the beginning, cryptocurrency was about trust. The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.
Now, that power is in Facebook’s hands. This morning, Facebook announced an ambitious new cryptocurrency called Libra, to be managed by a group of tech and financial companies including Facebook alongside more conventional banking companies like Visa and Mastercard. It’s a hugely ambitious project, basically Facebook’s take on bitcoin. On a technical level, Libra is broadly similar to bitcoin and Ethereum: it has the same semi anonymous transacting, wallets, digital addressing, and the same support for smart contracts and independent apps. In theory, it’s everything good about cryptocurrency, only bigger and faster.
But while Libra plays at decentralization, it’s still a Facebook project. Facebook employees designed it. Libra wallets will be embedded in Facebook apps like Messenger and WhatsApp, which means Facebook products will be the primary way people experience it. Using Libra means trusting Facebook, which is a hard sell in 2019. In the most basic terms, using Libra means trusting Facebook. If the project succeeds, it could mean the end of the decentralized era of cryptocurrency.
While many of the technical aspects are similar to bitcoin, Libra breaks from the model in important ways. The currency runs on a permissioned blockchain, which means that only companies in the Libra Association can mine it. It’s a necessary concession to stability, allowing Libra to avoid the power use and transaction lag problems that have plagued bitcoin. But it also makes the Libra Association a de facto central bank, actively managing the currency for stability backed by a reserve of bonds and liquid currency.
Works Cited
Brandom, R. (2019, June 18). Facebook’s cryptocurrency has a trust problem. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/18/18683867/facebook-cryptocurrency-libra-calibra-trust-banking
We now offer Tech Tutoring
Sometimes, your stuff isn’t broken, slow or have anything wrong with it. But due to a lack of knowledge a phone or laptop becomes intimidating or downright confusing. Fear not though. The folks at Bendy Computers now offer tutoring. For $20 an hour, we’ll come to you or a mutually convenient location and tutor you on the top tech out there. But do yourself a favor and book an appointment while it’s on sale for $15 for an hour for a limited time only.
Now taking clients for Web Design
You read that right. We are now in the web design business, in addition to supporting your normal everyday tech support issues. For $500 you get the website of your dreams custom made just for you in one month or less, and you get three major revisions. We’ll use a domain and host you supply, and some content such as video, pictures, and text that you also supply. Then we’ll add in some stuff that makes sense and makes you shine.
We’ll show you how to manage your website over a screen sharing session, and then let your site go live. You’ll also get support for things like setting up ads, linking facebook or twitter, getting help with api’s, and more.
Buy today and get your portfolio site, blog, store, or social network off the ground today!
New limits on support packages
Due to a reevaluation of time to revenue and other factors, from this day forward the $50 on site support will only cover a maximum of 2 computers in one visit to allow more customers to be serviced and to allow our operations to be funded more completely. We have yet to break even on our costs, and see this as a possible area of improvement.
We’re still competitive on price compared to the big chains, it’s just we might have cheapened ourselves a bit too much.
Don’t worry though, we have a 3 and more machine package we have introduced at a sale price of $80 for two months or until market demands dictate the sale end. For twice the price of our two machine package, you would get 3 or more machines fixed. And as always, no physical damages are repaired by us.