The worst tech column ever aka why you don't want to buy a Zenith PC

I just came across this column, apparently by Raj Saraf - the Big Kahuna of Zenith Computers, and to put it mildly, it hasn't exactly inspired me with boundless confidence in the competence of the company. In fact, a google suggests that this is actually a regular debacle. Furthermore, a quick perusal through some of the past editions indicates that the quality of the "advice" being distributed with this .. wild weekly abandon, always manages to plumb new depths in ignorance. In other words, this is not a one-off.

While this is very likely just put together by some lowly minion in his organisation, or maybe this is a weekly homework project for one of his brighter prepubescent grandchildren, you'd think someone at Zenith would actually read through this stuff before letting it hit the press.

From this week's column:

• Question 1 asks for directions on restricting access to tools like Regedit etc. only to the Administrators group in Win2k. His answer subtly (like a sledgehammer) circumvents everything with a neat li'l fob - "You haven't mentioned which file system you are using.. Now if you are using FAT32, you can convert it to NTFS by ...".

  Now really.. lol! NTFS is the default file system on both XP and Windows 2000, and while FAT32 is available, it is seldom used and really should not be the focus of his answer, leave alone in it. He then informs the user that after he converts to NTFS, he can restrict access to the aforementioned tools by "assigning the rights, and by assigning the permission". That's what the question is, Einstein - Which rights? Which permissions?

  The correct answer would have been to direct him to the right place in the group policy settings. I've no idea exactly where though..

• Second question: User states that he has a system with a 2500+ Sempron processor and 256 MB of RAM, but is wondering why his computer states that his computer is a 1.4GHz with only 192 MB of RAM. Our expert tip-toes behind the user and performs a very precise roundhouse kick that sends him sailing all the way to the incorrectly linked AMD website or his PC vendor. And there we have it ladies and gents - another well-executed fob!

  The right answer is something that every PC vendor/manufacturer/assembler [Zenith is all three] is usually aware of - that AMD's processor ratings do not indicate the clock frequency, and that the "loss" of RAM is due to it being shared with the onboard GPU.

  0/2 for our expert.

• Question 3: A little sketchy on details, the user states that he is having issues with sending e-mails, and gets a failed delivery message stating that "illegal host / domain name found".

  Our expert's advice is that this is a clear issue of the mail servers - POP3 and SMPT [OK this might be a typo - I'm not going to be too picky :P] - being incorrectly set in the user's mail program. However, the overwhelming conviction in his answer is unfortunately misplaced, as the error message, combined with the use of the terms "failed delivery" and "erratic" very likely indicates that e-mails are failing intermittently [so the mail servers are fine], and that the e-mails in question are bouncing back to his mailbox.

  The correct answer to the user's question should have been to "check the recipient's address, try sending from a hotmail/webmail account to confirm, contact tech support"..

• Question 4 [the last question]: A twist in the tale as he gets this one right! Woohoo!

Overall score: 1/4 or 25% :( Better luck next week.

Now I know where to go when I'm really bored.
-K