WIN11 HUGE FLAW BOO! Verizon.net mail issue in High Sierra. Meet Jiuzhang. The Cloud?

TOPTECH/THE ELDEST GEEK IS ADDING A NEW STRASBURG LOCATION!
BUT WE ARE STILL IN ALEXANDRIA (AND WILL REMAIN!!!) 🙂
Folks think the shop is moving. ITS NOT DONT WORRY! But I live at 425 Stover in Strasburg if you need to bring something by in the meantime! Call me first!

WINDOWS 11 SHOCKER! Ran into it last week.
A customer brought in their 3 month old windows 11 laptop for performance issues. I was horrified to find the SSD was at 92% in Crystaldisk.
This is what you might expect after SEVERAL YEARS. It turns out WINDOWS 11 is DEATH ON SSDs. And is wearing them out vastly faster than Win10.
And upon reading its a COMMON issue. Win 11 does MANY unnecessary reads/writes to the drive, slowing it down and often making it SLOWER than
Windows 10!!! On a SSD – you have to realize they have a bunch of SPARE memory cells when cells start to fail. They can remap access so that a failed cell
becomes a good one (reducing the available spares). Now the life of an SSD (as measured by Crystaldisk) drops from 100% over time and is a measure
of how much use the SSD has had. At some point the SSD starts to warn of failure. And when spare cells are no longer available you get memory locations that
read wrong – and the SSD must be replaced.
THIS HUGE AND UNEXPECTED WEAR AND TEAR ON SSDS IS ENOUGH REASON ****NOT TO UPDATE TO WINDOWS 11!!!! *****
NEEDLESS to say people are reporting that Windows 11 performance is WORSE THAN WINDOWS 10! So you upgrade and SLOW DOWN! what a selling point!

BIG MAC MAIL PROBLEMS if you are still running HIGH SIERRA
We have run into multiple cases of customers who are on Verizon who had their emails moved to Aol (Verizon got OUT of the email business!)
This causes real problems and the purported fixes (Aol one time password for an older app) DO NOT SEEM TO STAY WORKING!
Only solution seems to be to UPGRADE TO MOJAVE!

YOU LIKE THE CLOUD? STILL? WANT YOUR OWN Cloud?
Have you noticed the recent big outages? Amazon WebServices was down for what 7 hours? taking with it Netflix, Yahoo and many others.
There have been a number of these recent problems. NEVER is there an explanation, but its got to be worrisome if your data is up in the Cloud!!!
ANSWER – Keep a LOCAL backup of your information. And if you have a real need, we can put together a small server for your home or business, and use NextCloud – which is a free linux based package that gives you YOUR OWN CLOUD! (under YOUR control, not Amazon’s). You need a static ip, but that can be arranged!
And also if its not in Amazons Cloud – it cant be spied upon can it? (well, at least not as easily)

CHINESE NOW RULE THE COMPUTER WORLD. In several areas! Fear Jiuzhang!
People should be concerned – the most powerful AI systems in the world – and the worlds fastest computers – are in China!
From an article on fastest computers:
“The latest edition of the Top500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers saw little change, with the Fugaku system retaining the top spot. But while Fugaku is the world’s most powerful public supercomputer, at 442 petaflops, China is believed to secretly operate two exascale (1,000 petaflops) supercomputers, which were launched earlier this year.”
Fugaku is in Japan btw. The 2 chinese super computers are believed to be true quantum computers – a long-time dream in the computer world.
From another article: “

Chinese optical quantum computer Jiuzhang 2.0 can solve a problem 10^24 faster than a classical computer. … In principle, a quantum computer with 300 qubits could perform more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the visible universe.”
10^24 by the way is 10 followed by 24 zeros. its THAT much faster than a ‘normal’ computer. 10000000000000000000000000x faster.
By comparison it is 10 MILLION times faster than Google’s supercomputer.

Among other things, this sort of computer power will let it crack things like Bitlocker (or Cryptocurrency transaction security) – in feasibly short times. I recently had a customer with a bitlockered drive who needed his information. The available tools would have provided the solution in approximately 300 years.
Jiuzhang could do it in minutes. So much for our banking security – or ANY security based on public key encryption (which is most of them btw). Not to meantion our codes for secure transmissions to embassies or military units.
We INVENTED computers folks (well, actually a French fellow, but that’s getting a bit arcane). We invented the MODERN computer. But we have given/had stolen/ all this technology to a country that many very well (satire alert) not mean us well!
Also, systems like this make a True AI in the very near future (something that would pass the Turing test – and be indistinguishable from a person.
As I’ve said for years when we have a true AI – one that truly understands what we are saying, it will be a help desk and will speak in an Indian accent (the nation, not native american!) Its closer than you think!

CHRISTMAS is almost here. Check out the ADOPTION CORNER below – many nice laptops needing homes

TOPTECH REMOTE SUPPORT PLANS! AVAILABLE NOW! (give us your feedback!!)
We’ve had several customers ask about us doing service contracts for them. And these days, we can
easily do that and with Remote Support the price is reasonable!
With our Remote Support technician we can visit you anytime you run the program on your system – or
we can install (with your permission) a remote service that allows US to take over the computer anytime you wish!
We are pricing this at only $20 per month, to cover 3 remote support hours (normally $180), and THREE computers!
If anything cannot be resolved remotely, then we can pick up the system, and you will get a 1/2 hour discount off what work is needed back
at the shop!
There are scammers out there who charge considerably more than this – and RIP YOU OFF! This way we can check
your system from time to time. Call us with any questions you might have!
Want to sign up for our service? Call me at 7034013806 🙂

SUPPORT TOPTECH! LOTS OF NEW ITEMS IN ADOPTION CORNER! GIFT CARDS! (?)
(hey I’m not too proud to beg. And any donations would be most welcome – ‘prepay’ your next need?
If you want a gift card of our services for a friend just ask! Happy to make up one!)

LIQUID SPILL REPAIRS
We are busy doing these for folks. if YOUR mac or pc is dead lets see if we can get it back on its
feet! Estimates no charge, 6 month warranty on repairs! Have been having GOOD luck with Macs AND PCs!

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
Need your website fixed up? Many don’t know that I do WEBSITES – and have done over 700 of them anywhere from $100 to $100k!
Recently have been bringing in some good Irish talent (I went to college in Ireland) and they have been helping do sites with me!
Need help?? Let me know! We also HOST sites on my servers for only $6-10 per month including emails and minor updates!

NEED HELP WITH GOLD/SILVER? Or Antiques? We have a LOT of expertise 🙂
I’ve been a precious metals dealer for years – started in the Antique Center. And we buy gold/silver – we pay more than pawn shops or jewelers!
And if you have something you THINK is valuable I can find out what pretty much anything is worth!

THOUGHTS ON 2021. What a nasty year – from many points of view!
I’ve been reflecting on what 2021 has brought – and I cant lie its been VERY hard on us here. Many people no longer want house calls (which
I used to have quite a number of and which were rather profitable) – and the Virus has been a real blow to me and Toptech.
We only got a little of the PPP money and I have to pay some of it back! whereas Nathans Hotdogs got 10Million! On what planet are they a Small Business?
We lost several employees who went to Vermont and parts Elsewhere. We have done our best to carry on, but we could really use YOUR SUPPORT! Any computer needs? Any programming or websites? Happy to help you and you will be helping US! And if someone wants a Gift Card for Christmas I’ll hand make you one!
I’ll be happy to see the end of this year.

CHRISTMAS ADOPTION CORNER:
here is the current adoption list – all are basically ebay prices but come with 6 month warranty and we do trade-ins and move-data as well 🙂
And we are open to haggling!

CDB PCS

LENOVO 17in MOBILE WORKSTATION P73 i7 9th gen! 16gb. 256gbSSD + 2TB SSD! GREAT!!
HP Zbook 14u G6 1.6 Ghz i5 16Gb/256gb. ***SOLD***
Surface Pro 7 -2019 1.5 i5 8gb/256gb SOLD
Surface Pro 5 LTE (cellular modem) i5 8gb/256gb. ***SOLD***
MSI GE63 Raider RGB 85F – 2018 2.2 i7 32gb/1TB/512SSD Nvidia Geforce RTX 2070
HP Omen 2.6ghz 12gb 1TB/512SSD Geforce RTX
Sager 2.6 i7 16gb/1TB/500gbSSD GTX 1650
Dell XPS 2.3 i7 4gb/128gbSSD Geforce GTX 960M
Lenovo Thinkpad P52 2.7 Xeon 40gb ram 500gb SSD Quadro P2000 GPU
Dell Latitude E5450 2.3hz i5 8gb/500gb HDD Geforce 830M
MSI Titan MS-17A1 2.9 i7 16gb 1TBHD GTX 1080 GPU
Clevo Origin 4.2ghz i7 48gb ram 500gb SSD GTX 1060 GPU
Dell Inspiron 5759 2.5 i7 8gb/1TB SSD Radeon R5 M335
HP Pavilion Wave 600-a014 Desktop 3.2 i3 8gb/1TBHD

CDB MacBooks

>>>16″ Macbook Pro 2019 A2141 i7 2.6 6-core 16gb 500gb SSD. SIXTEEN INCH1
15″ Macbook Pro 2018 A1707 6 core i7 2.2ghz 500gb SSD NICE
15” MacBook Pro 2016 A1707 EMC 3072 2.6gb i7 16gb 500gb SSD Big Sur
15” MacBook Pro 2018 – Needs new battery 2.6Ghz 6-Core Intel Core i7 16gb/500gb SSD A1707 E3072
15″ Macbook Pro 2019 i7 1TB SSD! NICE!!
13” MacBook Pro Retina 2019 1.4 i5/8gb/128gb SSD Catalina A2159
13” Macbook Pro 2017 A1708 EMC 3164– Crack in plastic at bottom of screen 2.3Ghz i5 8gb/256gb SSD Mojave
13” MacBook Air 2012 1.8Ghz Intel Core i5/4gb 256gb SSD A1466
13” MacBook Air 2013 1.3 i5 4gb/128gb A1466 EMC 2632
13” MacBook Air 2017 1.8 i5 8gb/128gb/A1466 EM 3178
13” MacBook Air 2017 1.8Ghz Intel Core i5 8gb/500gb
11” MacBook Air 2015 1.6 i5 4gb/128gb A1465 EMC 2924
13” MacBook Air 2020 – 3.2Ghz 8 Core M1 8GB 256gb SSD A2337 EMC 3598