MICRO SOLUTIONS PUT IN A LOCKBOX
I recently bought a new external hard drive with
fingerprint authentication, called the LockBox from
Micro Solutions. I’m currently deployed with the U.S.
Army in Kosovo, so I had to have it shipped to my
house first. It broke after a week of use. The unit has
a one-year warranty, so I sent it in for repair after
speaking to a Micro Solutions’ technician. He said it
was likely the results of a bad circuit board and that
it would be replaced. When I got the unit back, there
was nothing in the box that indicated it had been
fixed, so I called Micro Solutions again. This time the
main message on the answering machine said Micro
Solutions was “no longer in business”! I tried tech
support anyway and managed to reach someone. He
said Micro Solutions had been out of business since
March, but that tech support and warranty service
would be good until December.
What really kills me is that I did my due-diligence
research and purchased my drive in May, and the
company had already been closed for two months! I
explained the situation to Buy.com and am awaiting
an answer as to whether I can return the LockBox.
I think it’s too late for me, but I wanted to let
everyone else out there know to not buy any Micro
Solutions products.
—Lt. John M. OrosThanks to John for alerting the Dog and
other Maximum PC readers to avoid Micro
Solutions products. The Dog confirmed that
Micro Solutions’ phone lines say the company
is kaput. Micro Solutions’ website, though,doesn’t indicate that anything is wrong. The
Dog attempted to reach the founder of Micro
Solutions, but repeated calls to his home were
unanswered. It’s a sad tale, too. Micro Solutions
is an old hand in the PC world; the Dog himself
remembers paying $300 for a Micro Solutions
BackPack parallel port 1x CD-ROM drive back in
the day. Ah, well. Readers should consider them-
selves put on notice to avoid Micro Solutions’
products given the impending lack of technical
and warranty support. Woof.IS MY LAPTOP SPYING ON ME?
I recently received an email linking to a website that
claims Dell builds key-logging devices into its note-
books. The website has pictures of a Dell notebook
taken apart, with pictures of a key-logging device
embedded in it. Whenever I hear something that I
believe is too far-fetched, or too good to be true, I do
my research. This recent revelation, however, is a
little hard to verify when you don’t have the budget
to buy a laptop for the sole purpose of dismantling it.
Can you get to the bottom of this?
—VincentYou’re the recipient of a bizarre hoax email/web-
site that’s making the rounds on the Internet.
The website and email claim that Dell secretly
builds a key-logging device into its laptops at the
behest of the Department of Homeland Security.
The hoax even includes a mocked-up letter from
the DHS to “prove” its authenticity. Dell denies
this and the rumor has been thoroughly debunked
by such sources as Snopes.com, a website
that chronicles urban legends. The pictures of
the device are apparently purloined from other
websites. Hardware key-loggers aren’t hoaxes,
though. KeyKatcher.com’s KeyKatcher Pro and
Amecisco.com’s Hardware KeyLogger work on
the same principle as the hoax hardware, except
that they’re the real deal.MY UNLIMITED ACCOUNT HAS LIMITS
I pay $9.95 a month for “unlimited” access to my ISP,
Intergate.com. Unfortunately, I recently discovered
that it’s not so unlimited. I like to leave my computer
on and connected to the Internet even when I am not
using it. Today I tried logging in and was told the pass-Our consumer advocate investigates...
Jake, Watchdog of the monthRumors that Dell
builds keystroke mon-
itoring hardware into
its laptops are bogus.Micro Solutions is asking consumers to
“pull my finger” after going out of busi-
ness earlier this year.PMicro Solutions PDell
PIntergate.com PGlobe2000.com
MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005
Continued on page 22 ËQ;t=B dodogg MAXIMUM PC TAKES A BITE OUT OF BAD GEAR