2024 Expo Update

CBC Showcases Affordable, Reliable Backup Solutions


Reliable backup solutions provide a safety net for the preservation of computer data during hurricane season. At the recent Sun Media Hurricane Expo, held at the Charlotte Harbor Event and Conference Center, CBC educated both home users and small businesses on affordable options to ensure budget limitations don’t compromise data protection.

For home users, CBC showcased user-friendly, easily configurable cloud storage and external hard drives for safeguarding personal data, documents, and photos.

CBC also introduced small businesses to additional options, including off-site backup services and network-attached storage devices for the preservation of mission-critical files such as customer information and financial records.

CBC’s primary goal was to help Expo attendees make informed decisions by sharing best practices and criteria to select affordable and reliable backup solutions. While hurricanes pose serious risks to data, a well-designed backup solution will protect your valuable information.

CBC booth at Hurricane Expo

About Yelp Reviews

We recently received an unsolicited online Yelp review from a client. (See our online review policy) Stated in its entirety:

“Had them virus check and clean 5 items on a rush order. They came and picked them up and delivered them the next day. Highly recommend them, very accommodating.”

In our minds, an innocuous, uncontroversial review??? Yelp thought differently and rejected the review for publication. We followed up for additional detail and received the following:

**************************************************************************************************************************

From: Yelp HQ <no-reply@yelp.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2024 10:29:00 PM
To: Don Fernandes <don@cbctech.net>
Subject: Automated software concerns 14381068

Hi don,

We love hearing from our users, and we appreciate you taking the time to send us your feedback.

We use automated software to evaluate every review based on hundreds of signals of quality, reliability, and user activity on Yelp, with the goal of highlighting the most helpful and reliable reviews for our Yelp community.

The reviews that are recommended for any business can change over time as Yelp’s software learns more about the reviewer and the business. Sometimes, a review appears in the “not recommended” section simply because the software doesn’t know enough about the reviewer to recommend it.

That said, the recommendation software is entirely automated. It applies the same objective rules to every business and treats reviews of advertisers and non-advertisers exactly the same. This also means we can’t manually override the results for any single business or review based on individual feedback we receive.

For additional information, we’d like to refer you to our Trust and Safety website https://trust.yelp.com/recommendation-software/

-Yelp’s Trust and Safety Team

**************************************************************************************************************************

Huh???

Fix My 2009 iMac

What exactly do you want us to do?

A client called today requesting on-site repair for a very old (2009) iMac. Parts are scarce, the software is outdated, and frankly, the machine is worth very little.

Our best advice is to get a new system. We don’t sell products, so there is no sales pressure. We’re just trying to prevent clients from being scammed by someone offering a cheap “fix” for an outdated machine.


Bye-Bye Birdie

Why We Deactivated Our Twitter Account

CBC ditched Twitter. It wasn’t a tough decision – Twitter didn’t help CBC achieve its goals of providing tech solutions and support.

Looking for insightful tech discussions? Join our Mastodon community – it’s like Twitter, but with less moderation and no tracking!

Voicemails

‘Almost’ Verbatim Responses When We Return Phone Calls
  • You didn’t pickup the phone right away
  • Who cares if you were servicing other clients?
  • We snowbirds come down 4 months a year. Drop everything when we call
  • We found someone ‘cheaper’ — and it took you 10 minutes to respond
  • We found someone ‘cheaper’ — none of us know what the problem is — but he said it would cost $40, no matter what
  • You helped us 5 years ago. Why didn’t you call us back right away?
  • I have a tech coming tomorrow; if it doesn’t work out, we’ll call you
  • I saw a sign at the traffic island to call an 800 number for a free repair
  • I’ll send you a screenshot. Just tell me what I need to do for the fix
  • Why do I need to replace my perfectly usable, 15-year-old Windows 7 computer?
  • My inkjet printer is 7 years old and cost me $100. Why are you trying to screw me by saying it’s not worth the repair?
  • Yes, I want you to drive from North Port to Siesta Key during I-75 rush hour to replace my $20 keyboard, –but I’m not paying travel time
  • Just replace the Verizon FIOS cable; they will never know