Some notes about why my clients’ computers have been restarting in the middle of the day, and advance notice of next week’s work stoppage at Bruceb Consulting.

Bruceb Remote Management causes random restarts

Some computers monitored by Bruceb Remote Management have restarted at random times during the day in the last couple of weeks. My apologies! It’s part of the process of installing updates but it’s never supposed to interrupt your work. Apparently there’s a new bug in the management agent. I’m working with the parent company to track it down. In the meantime, I’ve turned off automatic reboots for all clients until it’s fixed.

If you’re not a subscriber to Bruceb Remote Management, get in touch! Staying up to date is an important part of being safe online. The service installs updates automatically and silently for programs like Acrobat, Flash, Java, and many more programs and utilities, as well as installing the important updates from Microsoft for Windows and Office that are not applied automatically.

The last couple of weeks drive home the need to be vigilant about updates. Microsoft released almost a hundred updates for Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office on Patch Tuesday last week. Most people needed 2-3 restarts for them to finish installing. They included fixes for critical security issues that are currently being exploited by bad guys. Meanwhile, Adobe released an emergency update for Flash to fix two new critical zero-day vulnerabilities that are currently being exploited by bad guys. Be careful out there!

My apologies for the unwanted restarts.

One week until work stoppage

On Thursday, February 26, I’m going to stop work during intense negotiations with my employer for better working conditions. I’ll be largely unavailable until March 16.

It’s the longest vacation I’ve ever taken. I’m leaving town. In fact, I’m leaving the hemisphere. Much of the time, I’ll be completely cut off from phone and Internet access – here, for example.

Trusted colleague Mike Cook will be standing by to provide assistance for whatever you need while I’m gone. You can reach him at the main Bruceb Consulting phone number, or directly at (707) 827-1524, or by email to mike@mcsolutionsco.com.

I’ll miss you. It is my deeply felt wish that you will not miss me. I’m counting on all of you to keep your technology working quietly and efficiently while I’m gone.