Ever had a carefully formatted email squashed down to plain text as your colleagues forward it on or replied with follow up ?
You have been "brambled".
Brambled (verb) -
The process by which email has all the formatting combed out, usually when sent via a PDA.
Another i-aarrgh moment brought to you by .. Gannett
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Friday, 17 October 2008
Office communiator gone East
Hi,
Ever had done of those really long days at the office when every things comes at you all at once ? Email, phone ( desk ), messenger pings, Phone (mobile ) Well that is exactally when this bug will byte ya.
As you type furiously away in messenger, you'r slightly distracted then Wham, your typeing Chinese ( simplfied ) or Koren.
It looks a bit like this ...
There are no settings in messenger to fix this.
Restarting messenger won't fix this. A reboot will reset this but like I said your having a busy day and there is no time for a reboot. As far as I can tell there is some wierd key combo or bug that switches your input languge.
Ever had done of those really long days at the office when every things comes at you all at once ? Email, phone ( desk ), messenger pings, Phone (mobile ) Well that is exactally when this bug will byte ya.
As you type furiously away in messenger, you'r slightly distracted then Wham, your typeing Chinese ( simplfied ) or Koren.
It looks a bit like this ...
There are no settings in messenger to fix this.
Restarting messenger won't fix this. A reboot will reset this but like I said your having a busy day and there is no time for a reboot. As far as I can tell there is some wierd key combo or bug that switches your input languge.
Here's how to fix it ..
In Win XP
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional and language options [ Languages ]
In the [ Settings ] tab
Use remove button to remove unneeded language options such as the Korean one ...
Another i-aarrgh moment brought to you by .. Gannett
Monday, 22 September 2008
Biker phrases.
"Fast bikers quickly reach the end of the road".
"Oops I didn't seem him govn'r" whilst thinking ( I didn't really look ).
"He made a grave mistake on that corner."
"Wheelies are easy ... just watch me."
"Helmet, jacket, boots, gloves, Why bother it's not far."
Take care out there .....
Gannett
"Oops I didn't seem him govn'r" whilst thinking ( I didn't really look ).
"He made a grave mistake on that corner."
"Wheelies are easy ... just watch me."
"Helmet, jacket, boots, gloves, Why bother it's not far."
Take care out there .....
Gannett
According to your recent phone calls and private letters you may be interested in these products ...
"Hi, I am calling from you local phone company. We know that you have been talking with your friends about getting a new car. Have you considered a Ford from Fred Blogs your local dealer ?"
If you had call like this you certainly would be outraged. How can a phone company justify wire tapping you so that they can make money pushing adverts ?
If you postman said "I have read your banks statements, may be you should consider a loan from Sharky loan company." You would be concerned. We take for granted the separation between communication providers and processors.
We expect our phone calls, mail and web activity to be secure end-to-end. An agreed exception is hunting for criminals but even in that example "Probable cause" has to be established before the interception occurs. However such interception is essentiality what BT/Phorm have been doing and plan to do across the data network. By reading your web browsing habits BT and other ISPs plan to deliver content targeted adverts.
Interception of phone and data communications is a key privacy area, in which the few public safeguards have been hard to secure and protect. To see a blatant example of illegal interception just brushed under the carpet for commercial reasons is hard to stomach.
Gannett
If you had call like this you certainly would be outraged. How can a phone company justify wire tapping you so that they can make money pushing adverts ?
If you postman said "I have read your banks statements, may be you should consider a loan from Sharky loan company." You would be concerned. We take for granted the separation between communication providers and processors.
We expect our phone calls, mail and web activity to be secure end-to-end. An agreed exception is hunting for criminals but even in that example "Probable cause" has to be established before the interception occurs. However such interception is essentiality what BT/Phorm have been doing and plan to do across the data network. By reading your web browsing habits BT and other ISPs plan to deliver content targeted adverts.
Interception of phone and data communications is a key privacy area, in which the few public safeguards have been hard to secure and protect. To see a blatant example of illegal interception just brushed under the carpet for commercial reasons is hard to stomach.
Gannett
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Domain poisoning by spam
Hi,
I hold and administer few private domain names for friends and family and each in turn has fallen prey to domain steeling scum. This is not a new problem and is well documented on the net.
An innocent domain name is used as the return address for outbound spam resulting in that domain owner getting all the out of office and non-delivery bound backs. Often the email addresses being used are just "random characters"@domain.net eg: resuling with an email box full of junk such as
From: "yy Maskiew" yy-aecirp@MyDomain.net
From: "Landon Button" adresbeh1965@MyDomain.net
From: "Faramarz Leake" Faramarz-affubs@MyDomain.net
.. snip
From: "Duy meisenheimer" Duy-afgegeve@MyDomain.net
From: "aguskos Greenlott" aguskos-aeristic@MyDomain.net
From: "prasenjit Bluett" aduriked1970@MyDomain.net
From: "DiQiu Giaimo" DiQiu-agijukos@MyDomain.net
From: "Galen Grabek" adyhtims2005@MyDomain.net
From: "elsie masson" elsie-aermster@MyDomain.net
and there can be 100s of these. So here are my tips on handling a long term non-commercial domain name to try and prevent/reduce the impact of this illegal activity by spamming scum.
1) Set up multiple email addresses and keep some for private / trusted contacts and some for public correspondence and websites. Be prepared to change email address about every 2/3 years as even the private ones will leak out.
2) Set up a Sender policy framework on your domain. This should restrict how useful the domain is to spammers. An SPF record says which mail servers can legitimately send email with that domain name. I have to say that this is not as widely implemented as it should be amongst mail servers.
3) Black hole or set email rule and bucket all email that has not be specifically sent to your live email addresses. Some domain hosing companies will have a forwarding address such as blackhole@ispXXX.com that you set as a forwarding address for junk.
4) If you have email addresses that have fallen into the hands of spammers don't let them have a free ride with it. Hunt down any even vaguely legitimate company that has sent you email without your prior consent. Phone up and complain, demand to know how they got your email. But don't bother chasing the pill pushers.
5) Remember "Commercial speech is not free speech." The fact that audiences cost money to reach is one of the few limiting factors that keeps rampant mail/email marketing in check.
Cheers
Gannett
I hold and administer few private domain names for friends and family and each in turn has fallen prey to domain steeling scum. This is not a new problem and is well documented on the net.
An innocent domain name is used as the return address for outbound spam resulting in that domain owner getting all the out of office and non-delivery bound backs. Often the email addresses being used are just "random characters"@domain.net eg: resuling with an email box full of junk such as
From: "yy Maskiew" yy-aecirp@MyDomain.net
From: "Landon Button" adresbeh1965@MyDomain.net
From: "Faramarz Leake" Faramarz-affubs@MyDomain.net
.. snip
From: "Duy meisenheimer" Duy-afgegeve@MyDomain.net
From: "aguskos Greenlott" aguskos-aeristic@MyDomain.net
From: "prasenjit Bluett" aduriked1970@MyDomain.net
From: "DiQiu Giaimo" DiQiu-agijukos@MyDomain.net
From: "Galen Grabek" adyhtims2005@MyDomain.net
From: "elsie masson" elsie-aermster@MyDomain.net
and there can be 100s of these. So here are my tips on handling a long term non-commercial domain name to try and prevent/reduce the impact of this illegal activity by spamming scum.
1) Set up multiple email addresses and keep some for private / trusted contacts and some for public correspondence and websites. Be prepared to change email address about every 2/3 years as even the private ones will leak out.
2) Set up a Sender policy framework on your domain. This should restrict how useful the domain is to spammers. An SPF record says which mail servers can legitimately send email with that domain name. I have to say that this is not as widely implemented as it should be amongst mail servers.
3) Black hole or set email rule and bucket all email that has not be specifically sent to your live email addresses. Some domain hosing companies will have a forwarding address such as blackhole@ispXXX.com that you set as a forwarding address for junk.
4) If you have email addresses that have fallen into the hands of spammers don't let them have a free ride with it. Hunt down any even vaguely legitimate company that has sent you email without your prior consent. Phone up and complain, demand to know how they got your email. But don't bother chasing the pill pushers.
5) Remember "Commercial speech is not free speech." The fact that audiences cost money to reach is one of the few limiting factors that keeps rampant mail/email marketing in check.
Cheers
Gannett
Saturday, 12 July 2008
Fly your kite
No day is wasted if you get your kite out to the end of the string especially when the kite is small and the string is long.
Cheers
Gannett
Cheers
Gannett
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Gigabyte Mobo Bois update
I was updating a GA-73PVM-S2H motherboard BIOS. It should not be too hard you just download the file from the website put it on a USB sick, reboot to BIOS level and install using the Q-Flash Bios update process.
Only a couple of issues :
Firstly the BIOS does not recognize some USB keyboards even when you plug them into a USB/PS2 adapter. No keyboard, no chance to jump into the BIOS menu. There is a setting in the BIOS to enable USB keyboard but that does not help at this stage even when the operating system later recognizes the keyboard.
Secondly, Buried in the motherboard manual is the instruction "Extract the file and save the new BIOS file (e.g. 73PVS2H.f1) to your floppy disk, USB flash drive, or hard drive" The files you download have to be run, un-Rar extracted first on a PC. Not much use when the only other machines you have are are a MAC and Linux box. The symptom you see is the BIOS file browser will just not see any files on the USB stick which just so happen to look very like the file browser is not working at all.
You can get a bit of a clue is given using file
$ file motherboard_bios_ga-73pvm-s2h_f4.exe gives
MS-DOS executable PE for MS Windows (GUI) Intel 80386 32-bit, RAR self-extracting archive
This is just plain awkward and certainly not a space saving exercise as the uncompressed file is 512k and the archive only 504k. There should be a link to an uncompressed version of the file.
Thirdly : Also the BIOS when it is being installed it gives a checksum but the website does not say anywhere what the checksum is so you don't know if the checksum is right or wrong.
A simple service operation made awkward by neglect of the small details that matter.
Another i-aarrgh moment brought to you by Gannett
Only a couple of issues :
Firstly the BIOS does not recognize some USB keyboards even when you plug them into a USB/PS2 adapter. No keyboard, no chance to jump into the BIOS menu. There is a setting in the BIOS to enable USB keyboard but that does not help at this stage even when the operating system later recognizes the keyboard.
Secondly, Buried in the motherboard manual is the instruction "Extract the file and save the new BIOS file (e.g. 73PVS2H.f1) to your floppy disk, USB flash drive, or hard drive" The files you download have to be run, un-Rar extracted first on a PC. Not much use when the only other machines you have are are a MAC and Linux box. The symptom you see is the BIOS file browser will just not see any files on the USB stick which just so happen to look very like the file browser is not working at all.
You can get a bit of a clue is given using file
$ file motherboard_bios_ga-73pvm-s2h_f4.exe gives
MS-DOS executable PE for MS Windows (GUI) Intel 80386 32-bit, RAR self-extracting archive
This is just plain awkward and certainly not a space saving exercise as the uncompressed file is 512k and the archive only 504k. There should be a link to an uncompressed version of the file.
Thirdly : Also the BIOS when it is being installed it gives a checksum but the website does not say anywhere what the checksum is so you don't know if the checksum is right or wrong.
A simple service operation made awkward by neglect of the small details that matter.
Another i-aarrgh moment brought to you by Gannett
Saturday, 29 March 2008
confused.com about phishing
The rules on phising prevention are quiet clear
" The Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center, also offers these guidelines:
Be suspicious of any unsolicited email requesting personal information.
Avoid filling out forms in email messages that ask for personal information.
Always compare the link in the email to the link that you are actually directed to.
Log on to the official Web site, instead of "linking" to it from an unsolicited email.
Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the email to verify if the email is genuine. "
So you would think that the insurance companies sending out email renewals requests would have that in mind. Obviously not with www.confused.com. And yes it is a genuine renewal request.
Gannett
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