I learned early on in the military that no one expects you to know everything all the time, but what is expected of you is to have the ability to know where to find the answers, and be forthright when you don't know. In most cases it is better to refer to a source than rely on one's own memory or experience unless you are exceptionally well versed in the topic at hand.

Age old wisdom from Proverbs 17:28 to the more familiar "It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool……than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” - (often attributed to Mark Twain) shows that if you don't know what you're talking about - stop talking or research and get back to the topic when you do.

I've been listening to a competitor's radio show recently, and at was first impressed with his approach and his apparent knowledge and helpfulness to the callers, but that has quickly changed in light of his attempts at answering questions beyond the experience that being a journalist, a theologist, and now for several years a computer shop owner would allow him to accurately answer.

I could take the high road and ignore him and his show, indeed our area and its rapid growth rate could support many computer stores and still not handle all the business, but I hate inaccuracy, especially in the parlance of knowledge, and especially in an area that someone should know better, but obviously doesn't. To make matters worse is he's adopted a pretentious moniker over the years that implies he is smart about computer technology....therfore I feel compelled to counter, and expose those ignorances that he puts forth as fact.

As time allows and I hear his show or read any print that he puts forth, and only on topics he is obviously wrong or ignorant about, I will provide you the accurate and correct information with sources that will allow you to fully explore the correct answers to your questions that were otherwise answered on his show. Now, I have no issue with telling the EscaRosa area that the radio personality is in fact Kenneth E. Lamb, but won't mention his store or absurd nickname, mainly due to it being a trademark. Please, listen to his show for yourself on WEBY 1330 am Saturday morning at 10 a.m., but do so and don't take his answers to heart unless you've personally verified his answers to be factual, so far in two weeks they have not been so.

Here are a few examples that I have personally heard and winced in pain as Mr. Lamb didn't heed the adage, to just be quiet:

Week one Mr. Lamb suggested that a caller should buy a computer from him if he could only afford 32bit processing now, but wanted to have 64bit in the future. He directly indicated all you would have to do is pull the CPU (using same motherboard, memory ,etc.) and replace it. Well in the history of computing there have been some companies that tried to pull this bridging technology approach, and did so poorly. I may well be ignorant on this point, being that I have not been able to find a single (reputable) motherboard company that supports AMD's 32 bit processors and AMDs 64 bit processors on the same motherboard.

(Correction: Subsequent research has revealed that AMD actually made an Athlon XP 32-bit Paris socket 754 that works on most 754 pin 64bit supporting motherboards.  Therefore Mr Lamb is correct that this could be done.)

In week two Mr. Lamb really blew it. He got almost nothing right this go around. A caller asked about satellite Internet service, and Mr Lamb suggested his knowledge was limited, but that as of 4 MONTHS ago you still needed a phone line to dial up and send information to the Internet. Well, I'll be the first to admit time does fly, but all major satellite companies have had two way via satellite only since 2001, that's 4 years not months.   A great research site for kids and adults alike is HowStuffWorks.com, and here is their article explaining satellite internet service and how the two way works...with no wires http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question606.htm.  The two man services are Direcway and Starband.

Additionally, he made a lame attempt at explaining networking indicating a header is sent from the Internet to your computer, then if accepted, packets then start flowing back and forth (this is a paraphrase). Sorry Mr. Lamb, being the "go-to guys for networking has taught you nothing about networks.   This was the straw that broke the Lamb's back and prompted my response here on our website.

So here is some accurate knowledge that 7.5 years of working in (packet data) networks at Sprint Long Distance taught me - the header is a part of every packet sent in any packet data network (packets are used in many types of networks, not just IP networks). It is the first third of a packet that usually is made up of a header, a payload, and a trailer (or footer). Headers don't float about magically on the network while packets wait for the header to whistle and call them in to your computer. You can get the specifics of how IP networks work at this HowStuffWorks article http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question525.htm and for those more technically inclined, TCP and IP are two separate things - networks are defined by a seven layer OSI (Open Systems Interconnection ) model that you can read up on also at HowStuffWorks article http://computer.howstuffworks.com/osi.htm.

Mr Lamb spoke with another lady about a computer she'd recently purchased with the conversation covering anti-virus (AV) software. She had gotten the same AVG anti-virus that Panther Computers recommends and sells to its customers, so his comments on the product caught my attention. AVG is a European based company that provides its software free to home users, but charges all others for the professional and network products. Mr Lamb suggests that the product will only be free until they gain market share and then will charge you and inferred the product was less effective than a purchased product.

Well first off, the Europeans have long recognized the marketing smarts to give away one product to enhance the value of another. For example, In the 1986 to 1991 period I ran another computer business (ACS-West {Advanced Computer Services)}) at which time McAfee and Norton were around at that time during DOS days. A European programmer that started Frisk Software International in 1993, had a DOS based anti-virus product, F-prot, that danced circles around the US based companies. The product was free for home users, and (forgive me if inaccurate on this price) charged $5000 per copy for businesses, it was that good.

The concept is simple. Most of us won't remember to renew our AV software, most of us that remember will let it lapse anyway, the more computers that are unprotected - the more likely a mass outbreak will occur and infect the world's computers. If you are a company that makes AV software, the faster you can get a fix to market on new viruses, the more valuable your product will be to the (business) customers who have the most to loose, and the most to pay for a product. This is a game of marketing so if you get your free product on million's of home computers that detect and report to you potential problems (using heuristics), the sooner you can fix them, and if you do so faster than your competitor, the larger market share you'll have in the business world.  When I took economics, larger market share meant more profits, if all else is equal.

Since there are many companies around the world offering their AV products free to home computers, it will be hard for many of them to start charging for the product when competition doesn't. Even if you did have to pay for AVG Professional, like many of my EscaRosa business customers have opted to, it is only $33.30 retail (we charge $30) for a two year license....or $16.65 ($15) per year, which is nearly half the US based companies products.

(1/12/2006 - correction: AVG Professional has gone up to $38.95 for two years $38 at Panther Computers)

Free must mean inferior...right? Not hardly, both US companies infect your main Windows database (the registry) with hundreds and possibly now thousands of entries. If anything goes wrong with the install, uninstall, or a virus or spyware product corrupts the program, it takes hundreds and thousands of search and deletes by a qualified programmer to carefully and time consumingly remove the product when their removal tools won't work. Furthermore, I can cite case after case of Internet being blocked by the US company software, of computers with 0 (zero) viruses found by them and AVG finding 68 worms (in one case) of a freshly updated and scanned PC, and where slow computers with no other problems miraculously operated normally after removing the US software. So you decide for yourself.

Meister Lamb should have a computer near him while he does his computer show with at least www.google.com and http://www.howstuffworks.com added to his favorites so he can access reliable facts to answer the technical questions that are obviously beyond his smarts on cyber-technologies. I verified my facts while he was still talking about things he would be best to avoid. Hopefully he will take this to heart and improve the reliability of his information, and I will no longer have to rebuke his answers.