Since starting the Net-Net Blog we’ve never had as long a break since the last post. The blog is not run by some conglomerate with an army of journalist. This is pretty well clear if you read some of the content. We nerds have been busy running the business. This time of year starts getting busy as our commercial customers prepare to wind down the year and catch up with the end-of-year IT projects. October illustrated this as it was one of the busiest months in our seven years of operation.

We, of course, make a serious effort to post worthy items to the reader. Unfortunately, one post a month isn’t quite hacking it. On the other hand, we never nor will attempt to pull this place off as a legitimate source of “serious” journalism. We are, just like the bazillions of nerds out there, keeping in touch with our readers and our St. Louis, MO based customers. You can refer to the commercial side of your venture at Net-Net Tech, LLC.

The site is not intended as a commercial revenue maker. However, we are now actively seeking ways to fund the service. Something new we are adding to the service is a very limited amount of advertising to start subsidizing some of the costs. The advertising will refrain from obnoxious full-page commercials and cleverly place links attempting to sneak in a buck. We do ask if there is something you feel is noteworthy or worth looking at to do so and check it out.

Thank you for your patience and do hope you continue to check the content out.

Digital States Survey is developed by the Republic Center for Digital Government.  The survey evaluates the digital technology uses and practicum of all 50 US states.

The states are graded on a traditional grade scale (A, B, C, etc) and the criterion used for the grade are compiled from “quantifiable results in better serving citizens and streamlining operations.”

Categories for the grade included the following:

Missouri received a B+.

First and foremost we wish to apologize.  This week the website has gone through quite a “touch-and-go” process.  Everything went pretty well as scheduled and most of your objectives are now met.  There is minor maintenance issue on the administration side that doesn’t affect the website operationally.

Last week we began a transfer over to a new server.  The server provides better response.  A number of prerequisites were planned, deployed and achieved prior to the new site going into production.  Furthermore, this did cause some unexpected outages for a brief period of time.  The longest downtime was on Monday.

Thanks for your patience.  If you would like to drop us a line you can contact us here.

We cannot say this enough.  Just a quick post to remind you to run your security updates.  Don’t assume that because you have antivirus and/or spyware protection that it is updated.  This is the worst type of attitude to have on the management of your computer.  Otherwise, you will be in for a computer repair eventually.

The method to protect your system is by updating all software and Windows OS updates issued by Microsoft.  Today, I am on my way to a customer here is St. Louis to repair and secure their computer.  It contains all the classic symptoms of the most recent variation of the Conficker.  I’ll be busy to say the least.  To give you an idea to the extent of damage.  The system is completely locked.  The customer cannot even get the login screen to come up.

Don’t think April 1st’s passing was the end to Conficker.  In fact, April 1st was just a publicity opportunity for the media to gain attention to their periodical or news source.