Fraud - It's a menace and that's official

This is the the new(ish) location for reporting and information about internet and other frauds.  The site is based in the UK and closely tied to the fraud bits of the city of London police.

The site has lots of information about types and operations of internet and other frauds.  419, Phishing, dummy invoicing, ponzi etc.

Useful for victims and consumer organisations that need access to fraud awareness advice, give its read.

Lets be careful out there and keep an ear out for friends losing money.

Gannett

Retail fail - Homebase schoolboy errors

DIY is supposed to be straight forward and easy for the average chap to achieve. Swapping some outside lights is one of those tasks. The wiring is in place so a simple substitution should be possible.  Not so simple if you get this product from Homebase.

This PIR (motion) activated low energy bulb fitting in a plastic casing. Sold at a reasonable £20.  Included in the box are instructions ( Ref INS-OD0035-B) for the wiring, Neutral Earth and Live N, E, L.

Unfortunately not matched by the connections in the fitting that are L1, N, L with a separate Earthing post on the reflector. FAIL.

See that mention in the instructions of the two adjusters on the base of the unit, one for "Dusk" and the other for "Time". Nowhere on the device or in the referenced diagram 4 is there and indication of which adjuster is which. FAIL.

Come on Homebase these are schoolboy retail errors that should be caught well before product get on the shelf.

Cheers

Gannett

Inovation in everything

Inovation in everything is the driver of growth. Take a couple of items as simple as as a comb and brush.  

The comb is a Ferminator de-shedding tool used to remove the excess hair from dogs and cats.  We have a hairy dog and he sheds and moults and loses inch long back hairs at an amazing rate.  We even have a house phrase "Everything tastes better with Griff hair in it." because they just get everywhere.  The Ferminator, applied once or twice a week, removes large handfuls of hair each and every time. Griff still sheds hair just not so much of it gets in the house.  Normal brushing has been tried, and sure he looks better afterwards, but for effective hair reduction this is the tool of choice. 

The brush is a wire brush with the handle of a surface plane. Used for removing rust and flaky paint from all sorts of surfaces this brush really nails the function. Easy to hold and manoeuvre this brush is perfect for cleaning some decking planks this weekend.

The innovation here (which I admire) is to take a simple function, see how it's done now and improve it. Each tool has a patent number, lets hope that protection delivers value to the inventor that had the insight to make a new twist on the simple ideas of a brush and comb.

Olympic flame outage in Torrington

The internet abounds with legends, conspiracy stories and plain old hoaxes. I am happy to add to that body of knowledge with the strange tale behind why the Olympic torch went out in Great Torrington on Monday 22nd of May 2012.

Great Torrington is a town with a long history going back to well before the 13th Century. The towns most noticeable historical event was during the English civil war. The Royalist Cavaliers and Roundheads of Cromwell battled in February 1646 resulting in the defeat of the Cavaliers by the army of General Fairfax. Royalist prisoners were locked up in the church, that had also been in use as a power store.  Due to a stray spark or flame the church burnt/exploded destroying the church and killing the 200 local prisoners.

Wind forward a few hundred years the sight of a government sponsored flame approaching the town with an army of 300 supporters and 30 vehicles may just have been too much for the sad old ghosts of Torrington.

The good news is that the current local society of Cavaliers are very much in control of most of the flames around Torrington. Holding bi-annual fundraising bonfire events that involve setting alight historical reconstructions such as life scale Nelsons Victory and in 2010 a huge castle complete with dragon the Cavaliers continue to assert individuality in a good cause.

If you can get the chance visit Torrington in North Devon do take the opportunity. Surrounded by 200 acres of common land and linked to the coast by the cycle friendly Tarka trail, Torrington is a great classic Devon town where legends live on.

Cheers
Gannett

What's brewing at the Country life brewery ?

www.countrylifebrewery.com

Devonshire 10'der'

10 % - the new ale from

Country Life Brewery. At

10% this is the strongest

ale in North Devon. A dark

barley wine style made with

Devon malt, UK hops and

a special yeast imported

from the U.S.A. Available

in bottles and a limited

number of casks.

As the name implies, Golden Pig

4.7% is a full bodied and

smooth tasting ale; it was the

first brewed and still remains

the favourite among many a real

ale drinker. Crystal and wheat

malts are both used in the mash,

with the Challenger being the

main hop which gives this ale its

distintive taste.

Black Boar 5%, the dark ruby

red porter, is brewed using Maris

Otter and Black Malt. With a mix

of Fuggles and Golding Hops,

this gives a very easy drinking

dark beer to be enjoyed at any

time of year. 'Smooth and

Smokey'.

Bumpkin 6% is dark and has a 

slightly malty ease. Not sweet

as other beers in the strength

band, it is a great beer for the 

winter months or for drinkers

who enjoy their beer with a 

serious punch.

Old Appledore Ale 3.7%

Is a classic session beer. This is

the most popular beer produced

by Country Life Brewery; it has a

real depth of taste and character

without being too strong. Marris

Otter and roasted malts combine

with Fuggles and Goldings hops

to give Old Appledore a taste to be

enjoyed at any time of day.

Copper in colour, Lacey's 4.2%

ale Is made from Marris Otter and

roasted malt with Challenger hops

giving this popular beer a gentle

sweet malty taste without being

too strong.

Pot Wallop 4.4% is a very light

coloured beer brewed for a local

festival. Jt was so popular we had

no choice but to include it in our

regular range. A favourite with the

younger drinker and in the warm

summer months as it is a very light

refreshing ale.

Buy Direct

Visit the brewery and shop - open daily

No Entry charge to visit the brewery shop

Take hope ales

2-pint Cartons

500ml Bottles

10 Litre Minipins (18 Pints)

20 Liter polypins (36 Pints)

9 Gallon Firkins (72 Pints)

Outside bars available

Weddings, Birthdays, Festivals

100 - 10,000 People

Bar Hire

We set up - you do the rest

We are based at the big sheep

North Devon's No.1 tourist attraction

Come and stay for the day !

Country Life Brewery

at

The Big Sheep

Abbotsham

Bideford

EX39 5AP

Phone +44 (0) 1237 420808

Bideford, North Devon. UK

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Some of the favourite brews of Gannett.

Easy Philosophy for the business school generation

Sometimes ideas just strike a cord. Often those ideas are things you kind of know and understand but the way they are described makes the concept resonate and appear as if for the first time.  It's quite a gift to be able to present ideas in this way with clarity, precision without resorting to greeting card schmaltz.

One person currently blogging for Forbes that seems to capture this style is Jesica Hagy. She uses a simple business graph or diagram to really capture the essence of a philosophical idea. Here is one such graphic that completely captures the idea of how much burning passion is welcome on any subject you choose. Known as the "Goldilocks factor" you can apply this to religion, politics, recycling or even expressing keenness for the wonderful taste of Marmite.

She has lots more concepts collected in series such as "Nine Dangerous things you we taught at school" and "Six enemies of greatness (and happiness)". Really worth a read and maybe even a close study.

Marmite for the celebration generation - thanks for the Ma'amite

The latest in a short line of Marmite special editions has been released in celebration of Her Majesty's olden Jubilee 2012.  

And here it is, available in Sainsbury UK.  Unlike the previous special editions there is no indication that the recipe has changed, just the same wonderfully Marmity goodness.

Love and Joy.

Pimp my ride - even if it is a company van.

I have been working at he same large software house for about 14 years now. After moving away from desktop systems in the early '00  the PC policy has been to provide a laptop that is "refreshed" about every 3 years or so. Over the years I have had 2 Dells and most recently a Lenovo Thinkpad T61. The Thinkpad has been struggling under the weight of Windows Xp SP 3 with a full suite of system security and configuration management software. Windows Xp also suffers from progressive slowing down due to registry entry bloat and disk fragmentation.  The system has been struggling with it's hard drive access with almost constant activity. An examination of the process involved show configuration management scans, Anti-virus scans, content index scans, System backups, and software updates. Just once in a while a stuck WinLogin processes nails a CPU core. 

Finally a refresh system arrives and is a bit of a disappointment. The hardware has hardly moved on to an under specified Lenovo T410 and the system image is still Windows XP service pack 3.  Maybe this is a procurement wrinkle but the system is already a year old (manufacture date 4/11), has only 2GB of memory and just 320 GD hard drive.  

This is just not good enough, time to "Pimp my ride" even if it is just a company van. Luckily the Lenovo is easy to upgrade. First up is the memory, adding and extra 4GB to the 2GB already built in is a snap. Unlike some systems memory modules don't have to match so adding 4GB gives a very usable 6GB in total. One screw secures the memory slot cover on the back into which a SODIM memory unit can be clipped in.  

As mentioned the previous system was bogged down with hard drive activity. There is a £110 solution that is revoluionising the hard drive market. SSD drive replacements delivers staggering performance in a laptop system. These plug compatible units replace mechanical storage with all electronics. Think large USB stick but with out the delays.  Traditional hard drives have built in delays apparent with just about every read or write transaction. A typical disk read request sequence goes as follows, send read request specifying number of blocks at certain block offset, Hard drive moves head to select cylinder, Drive waits until disk platter rotates to required sector, read commences.  The sectors pass under the head at different speeds resulting is a speed disparity between different parts of the hard drive.  An SSD drive is all electronic so there is no delay between sequential blocks read wherever they are located in the drive. This no-seek time aspect makes SSD supremely fast in random read situations such as system boot and program load sequences.  The speed of the connection between the drive and system can be fully utilised and sustained.  The random read nature of system scans, backups, configuration checks are all in the sweet spots for SSDs. 

SSDs are more expensive than regular hard drives even when taking into account the Thailand flood factor. About £1 per GB is normal. Having looked at the data on the current laptop I have about 60GB of documents and email. Remembering that that data has accumulated over 10 years at least a desk cleaning is in order. After pushing all the data to an external hard drive and calculating the size of just the last 2 years of material, it will all fit in 30GB.  I went for a 120 GB SDD to allow for increased use of photos and multimedia in the future.  This is a work laptop the photo, music and video collection live on another better endowed system.  If more storage space is needed larger SSDs are available or the DVD drive can be replaced with a traditional drive in a special frame with an external DVD drive used.

The hardware install of the SSD was easy on the Lenovo T410. Just undo the disk drive bay cover screw, remove the cover and pull out the drive. Noting carefully the connector alignment, move the rubber edges over to the new SSD and insert back in the drive bay. Once in place the SSD is installed and used just like a traditional drive.  

The extra memory just installed beyond 3.5 GB would not be utilised by Windows XP due to technical limitations so next up is upgrading to Windows 7 Enterprise.  A fresh install is required with just transfer of documents and email storage. Avoiding the "Transfer all my documents and settings" gives a fresh start losing the past years of bookmark and program baggage.  Windows 7 install was easy as work provided a properly engineered install image disk set.  W7 has lots of useful features such as auto update and auto driver location and proves a much improved all round visual experience. Be sure to also follow the manufacturers update process to bring BIOS and drives up to date on a new(ish) machine.

Finally the last upgrade is to recycle the hard drive into an external drive enclosure with an eSata connector. eSata give much faster connectivity than USB 2 or 3.  The Lenovo has an eSata port ready for use. Using this port as as the backup drive finally gives acceptable backup times, 

All in all these updates memory, SSD, W7 and eSata backup makes a fast and more power efficient laptop experience. At a cost of about 10% of the new supply price I have 300% memory size and 300 % disk speed increase and 100 % less frustration.

Parts used

Laptop - Lenovo T410

Memory - NovaTech 4GB Sodim

SSD drive - Corsair Force 3 120 GB

Windows 7 Enterprise

Esata Drive Enclosure

 Memory Insertion in user accessible slot.

 Disk Replacement