Friday, September 4, 2009

The UP side of grading or dating

Plugging in...

Security seems to be all the rage today, home, business AND computers. But in trying to keep current with an internet security program, a Tutor client ran into some trouble with what should have been easy-peasy.

Security suites usually have an annual renewal fee. And most security suite vendors hope you will buy their newest security product, not just renew the one you have. It all seems very easy and innocent when the pop up box asks one to renew.

In this particular case, the client opted to UPgrade which means to buy the latest security suite. The vendor website failed to provide a tiny piece of information that would have allowed the client to UPgrade without a Tutor intervention. Seems the client's existing suite was too OLD to UPgrade and it required an uninstall by the client before downloading and installing the UPgrade.

But it gets worse (doesn't it always get worse before it gets better?). The failed UPgrade not only caused the old security suite to no longer work BUT, get this, it prevented any internet access. Stumped, the Tutor was called and it took the Tutor some time to find the problem because the error messages were somewhat, ahem, irrelevant to the situation.

Can you say confusing? UPgrading is getting a new version of a software or hardware product designed to replace an older version of the same product. UPdating means keeping the existing software or hardware and receiving small changes to it on a regular basis.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: before calling for help - is it plugged in, it is and upgrade or an update, and is it turned on?

Unplugged

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