Consumerist reports on some bad news today. It seems that Circuit City, the giant electronics retailer, is planning to close 155 of its stores. The news comes as no shock to those following Circuit City’s recent tumbles in the stock market. Consumerist says,

“According to anonymous insider tips, Circuit City is closing 155 stores and withdrawing from 12 markets. This will be officially announced tomorrow at 8am, says our source. A scan we received of a letter distributed to CC employees helps corroborate the story.”

The story goes on to say that Firedog positions at those stores will most likely be the first to go. 

This is sad news. No matter what you might think about Circuit City and its policies and quality, it’s always disheartening to see so many people lose their jobs. It looks as if the service departments will be the first to get their pink slips and that means that a lot of our fellow technicians will soon be out of a job.

This is likely to be a lesson to other big retailers. They’ll want to avoid the mistakes of Circuit City. Here’s what NOT to do:

1. Don’t fire all of your best employees and hire lower paid unskilled and less knowledgable people.
2. Don’t rip your consumers off with prices that are so much higher then your competitors.
3. Don’t position your stores so close to your (bigger) competition. (<cough> Best Buy.)

CRN has alerted us to an urgent update for a variety of versions of Microsoft Windows,

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) issued an emergency critical update Thursday addressing a malicious Internet worm that could allow attackers to infiltrate systems remotely and take control over users’ computers without any user interaction.The critical update is one of a handful of out-of-band patches released in the past few years, experts say. Microsoft issues regularly scheduled updates on the second Tuesday of every month, which has become known in IT security circles as “Patch Tuesday.”

The fact that Microsoft has released what is known as an “out-of-band” patchindicates that the vulnerability is pretty severe, experts say.

You can download the update by running Windows Update, or download it directly from the TechNet website here.

It would appear that Future Shop (the Canadian version of Best Buy) has launched their own branded tech services. Future Shop has had computer repair before now but not under any name.

Future Shop joins those honored retail tech repair places such as Best Buy’s Geek Squad, Circuit City’s Firedog, and Staples’ Easy Tech.

Source: connectpro.ca

From our good friends over at PCMag,

It looks as if Walmart is set to open a computer repair place called “Solutions Stations.” These will reportedly be staffed with Dell tech staff….

Does this not sound like a bad idea to anyone? I mean even if they are “Dell trained” the technicians are not going to be the cream of the crop if you know what I mean. And sooner or later we’re gonna have Wal-Mart general staff being “transferred” over with little training.

It just seems like another computer repair place that does reloads (reloads for spyware, reloads for POST issues, and reloads for overheating) charging hundreds of dollars. I really doubt they will have any training, certification or experience. I mean what kind of people do you attract for about $11 to $15 bucks an hour? There are many techs who are committed to their work (even when at those wages) but the vast majority do not care about quality or their customers.

And our reputation as computer technicians as a whole will suffer in the end.