Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

The #InternetOfShit has reached my customer service desk.

A poor unfortunate soul brought a Raven Pro Document Scanner to me for repair because, although it's in near-perfect shape, it quit working when Raven quit answering the phone.

The manual says you have to connect it to the Internet & log in to a Raven account during the setup. That's red flag #1.

From 5-star praise in '23 to 1-star scorn in '24, & no unbricking rumors, let alone a how-to.

Sorry, joe, it's a no-go.

In technology news, CrowdStrike thought the most appropriate apology for their kernel-oops last Friday was a $10 coffee voucher. Rather appropriately, that didn't go right either, as those who accepted the gesture found out.

TechCrunch, "CrowdStrike offers a $10 apology gift card to say sorry for outage": https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/24/crowdstrike-offers-a-10-apology-gift-card-to-say-sorry-for-outage/?guccounter=1

That said, the UK seems to be successfully importing the worst of my country's political beliefs. Although Reform won only five of the 13 seats exit polls said they'd get, Mister High Velocity Milkshake Target won his constituency and is now an MP, and their candidates got more combined votes than the third-place Liberal Democrats, 4,103,727 to 3,501,004 if I'm to believe the Financial Times: https://ig.ft.com/uk-general-election/2024/results/

I wish Sunak's constituency had voted to resign him as MP, sparing him the need to resign as PM and party leader.

During his resignation speech, which was sorry in more ways than he said, his wife stood behind him with an umbrella yet his suit still looked like it was thoroughly rained on.

I guess that's what trying to import a lack of food, water, and health care while trying to blame immigrants and deport them to a place already lacking them gets you.

Did Clacton think they were voting for an MP or the man most deserving of high velocity milkshakes?

When the vote was announced, Kier Starmer looked like he expected to lose to Elmo and was surprised to win.

If it surprises someone you know, & if, like my customers, they just want to go back, then here's my procedure until Microsoft makes the change permanent:

1. Click on the gear icon along the window's title bar.

2. Navigate to "General" (far left), then "About Outlook" (next column to right).

3. Click on the "Open Mail now" button.

4. Give Microsoft a piece of your mind & click "Submit," or don't & click "Skip Feedback," both at the bottom.

Outlook for Windows promises to restore access to blocked POP3 and IMAP4 accounts, but only if you agree to synching them with Microsoft's cloud servers.

Remember: "the cloud" is just a fancy way of saying "someone else's computer," & that someone else doesn't need to give you the time of day, let alone access to the computer, even if you paid for it.

And Microsoft doesn't make clear whether it's settings or content that's synched.

Given Bing AI, assume it's content.

Microsoft's default mail reader in Windows:

Internet Mail (pre-IE5)
Outlook Express (IE5, IE6, XP)
Windows Mail (Vista)
Windows Live Mail (Vista, 7, 8, 8.1)
nothing (8, 8.1)
Mail (10)
Outlook for Windows (10, 11)

This latest switcheroo is the first time ever that I've seen end users' mail account access straight up vanish without catastrophic hardware failure, PC replacement, or major OS version upgrade.

Never using Microsoft's default applications includes for mail.

Microsoft is force-replacing the Windows Mail app with an app called "Outlook for Windows," as if confusion with Office Outlook/Outlook 365, Outlook Web Access, & the Outlook that replaced Hotmail wasn't enough.

Adding even more confusion, it's referenced in-app only as "The New Outlook," & the icon is a generic mail envelope with the word "New" as a badge.

But worst of all, it doesn't fucking work with *existing* POP3/IMAP4 accounts! "Your access is gone now, good luck!"