• My Aunt is on the sunset side of 60, and isn't the greatest with technology (though she can email, etc).
• She owns a 2 year old MacBook

So, what happened?

Well, it started in the late afternoon, with three phone calls. When my Aunt answered the phone, there was no one on the other end of the line, and then a few seconds later, a recording saying "Thank you for you call".

The fourth call had an Indian sounding man on the line, who started by claiming that the company he worked for was receiving "Error Messages from your Microsoft Computer".

My Aunt found this odd, not because she has an Apple MacBook (because she doesn't really know the difference), but because the Guy didn't give her any information about himself.

She asked what his name was, and for a phone number, so she could call back (this was so she could ask me about it all). Well, he gave her some innocuous name like "John Brown" (not a really Indian name), but no contact phone number.

"John Brown" continued to inform my Aunt that her "Microsoft Computer" was sending error messages to their computer. He also asked for her name.

My Aunt in reply asked what details he had of hers? eg her email address. "John Brown" still continued to insist that her "Microsoft Computer" was sending error messages to their system, and that it was a virus.

Now I give props to my Aunt, as she didn't buy into this attempt at phishing, and ended up hanging up on "John Brown".

My Aunt then called me and told me about what happened. I explained that first, she didn't have a "Microsoft Computer", that the likelihood of her computer having a virus was slim to none. I also pointed out that there is no way they would have been able to get her phone number from them receiving "Error Messages" from her "Microsoft Computer". They (if they were legit) would have to have contacted her ISP, and they wouldn't have handed them her contact details. So, I told her that she had done the right thing.

I could easily see others with little technical knowledge falling for this scam. I don't know where it was heading, and what information they were trying to find out, but it just shows that you truly need to be wary of cold calls.

So to sum up, if you or a less technically minded friend/relative get a cold call asking techie questions and blaming you for causing problems, I'd suggest you do the following.

1. Ask for or confirm the name of the person you are talking to.
2. Find out the company they are calling from.
3. Get a contact number (which could still be fake), and ask if you can call them back.
4. Hang up.
5. Talk to someone that does have a clue about computers and find out if there is even a remote chance that your computer could be causing problems.

Bon Soir.

EDIT: I've just had the following Blog post pointed out to me http://gbmcomputing.com/microsoft-phone-support-scam-beware/ 
It seems like Garry's post is what this scam was leading to if my Aunt hadn't hung up on the call. Please read Garry's post too.

I don't care if you have an iPad, have fallen in love with your iPad, want to marry and have babies with your iPad…

IT'S JUST A COMPUTER!!!!

And before you say "OOooo… You're just jealous that I have an iPad, and you don't."
No I'm not. I've used one, and DO think it is a really impressive machine.

I don't have an iPad cos I don't need one, want one or afford one.

I'd rather save up and get an iPhone 4GTS (or whatever it's going to be called), because that will be a much more useful tool for me.

Regards,

Griffmiester

So this post I decided that now I have an iPhone (that’s another post I’m in the process of writing) I needed to make my blog iPhone friendly. So how do I do that.

I searched WordPress.org and found the WPTouch plugin. I’ve installed it and it’s working well.
I’ve also added the WordPress Mobile Edition plugin, which means that it should now also work for other mobile devices (you know, the ones that aren’t an iPhone). As I currently don’t have a 2nd Mobile phone, I haven’t been able to test this to see how it works. If you do try it out, could you leave me a comment on this post, and evena link to a screenshot would be nice.

I’ll throw up some screen grabs when I can do this on a computer.

Do this on a computer? That’s right I’ve written this post on my iPhone.

And here are some screenshots from an iPhone that I took of my blog.

I’ll write again soon.

You know the usual in regards to changing from PC to Mac (they also got a new 20″ iMac), printer issues, Mail issues, etc.

Last thing that was going on as I was planning on leaving was that they were installing Adobe CS3 Design Standard (Academic) and Office 2008 for Mac (Home and Student Edition). And here came the problem…

Having just bought new equipment, there had been boxes everywhere, and a clean up had been done to cull all the boxes, and stuff that wasn’t needed anymore.  With all the stuff thrown out was the Jewel Case that the Office 2008 DVD had come with, and hence the Product Key.

I googled “recover product key from Office 2008 for mac” to see if the was software or a method for extracting the Product Key from the currently installed version, but all methods for doing that were Windows related, and useless for me. But the forth link turned up a forums post on macrumors.com that had the comment

“Simply copy the Microsoft Office 2004 (or whatever version you have) folder in Applications to the new Mac’s Applications folder. No need for anything else. ” find it here. 

Really…. That can’t possibly work… This is Microsoft your talking about… The company that forces you to phone someone to update your product key for windows if you change your hardware too much.

Well, I decided that It wouldn’t hurt to try, plenty of space on the HDD, and I wasn’t doing anything else. So I copied the Microsoft Office 2008 folder from the Applications folder on the iMac to the Applications folder on the MacBook.  15mins later….

I tried opening Word on the MacBook, and it was happy as Larry. So I tried to do a Check for Updates, and that failed. Came up with a message telling me to reinstall Office. So I inserted the DVD and ran the Setup program.

“A previous Installation of Office 2008 with Product Key …. has been found… Continue Installation?”

Yep.

Took 20mins to run the Install Program, and it automatically ran the Auto Updater Program.

All working Fine.

So to Sum up;

• You’ve lost your legitimate product key and have Office installed on another computer already
• Copy the Office folder from the Applications Folder from existing Computer to the New Computer
• Insert the Install DVD in the New Computer
• Run the Installer
• Let Auto Updater do it’s thing
• SWEET

As far as I know this process works with the previous versions of Office for Mac also.

Microsoft Copy Security for Mac = FAIL