Whatsapp Spam direct to your mobile and in ur face deception

This single image shows the whole process of Whatsapp spam process. Get a WhatsApp account (free) Load up a load of random or guessed phone numbers into a group. Send a cheesy message and then unload the group. Simples. A pain in the a***e international spam in short order. Cheaper than international SMS and no blowback.

And what is WhatsApp doing about this - nothing I as far as I can tell. 

Who who'll have guessed that a free messaging app would be used for spam ? Where's the president for that ? Just about the last 30 years of internet, Usenet, Email, worms, Viruses, Facebook.

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Here is another ugly face of the net - pop up deception right in your face. Triggered from from a random interesting post on Facebook this javascript dialog box locks out your browser.  The use of a deceptive domain name "com-macupdate.info"  preceded by apple. gives the impression of legitimacy.

Action to take - Force quit Safari then restart Safari holding down Shift to avoid dropping right back into the same issue.  This and other similar scams are discussed on the Apple support forums.

http://apple.com-macupdate.info domain is a part of com-macupdate.info nothing to do with Apple.com

Engine Complexity in 30 years

Engine bay from a Ford Escort 1600 - mid 1980 vintage..

Nissan WER Nismo LP2 2015 race car engine bay

Nissan photo from Marshall Pruett on FB.

The gods of Google are fickle and don't look at what you expect.

I write this blog as a place to push out ideas, describe topics that interest me and practice writing skills. There is little danger of finding fame and fortune from a random collection of posts with little topic focus and absolutely no publishing schedule.

"Art is nothing without an audience" and for a blog that means looking at the viewing stats provided by Google. Generally this is low traffic blog with a few 10s of views on most entries, and a couple 100s of hits on the more popular entries.

Up to the start of this year the most popular entry was "The seven habits of successful technical support." with almost a 5000 views. The the start of a new career, fame at last ? Sorry no all the searches leading to the page were looking for the colourful 7 logo.

Last month the blog viewing stats suddenly went through the roof with over 1000 hits a day.

All the traffic was going to a Feb 2014 entry based round a picture of a maths question that had previously been circulating on Facebook. The blog has some added value describing the maths behind the question and adding some humour on the end. I was surprisingly pleased by the number of page hits and even added an advert for my sisters new book on the end of the entry.

 The joy did not last long and the stats tailed off quickly. A recent search for "old time maths question" shows why.  The image and the article are still at the top hit but the image link goes to a Pinterest page. No added value on that Pinterest page, it just redirects back to my blog entry.

However the traffic is stolen and the link to the blog is lost behind a sign-up click wall.

What I learnt from this, make an eye catching image and don't rely on great content to find traffic. There is little sense of time in search with derivative works valued as much as original content.

Apple Watch the distance from an original prediction to actuality

Lets have a look at an early prediction of the watch sized computer and how it turned out after 34 years of development.

Byte Magazine cover from April 1981

Apple Watch advert from March 2015 ( 34 years later )

Detail changes:

Keyboard -> Touch screen

Removable media -> Wireless connection

Text screen - > Full graphics screen

Stainless steel strap -> Stainless steel strap ( or leather etc)

Nothing -> Sensors for heartbeat, location, time, motion

Nothing -> Communication connection to iPhone

Text based adventure - > Angry Birds.

Software from early version would have been text based, limited by the lack of sensors, communication and 10 years of smartphone software development.

BT Openreach - Fails to provide phones lines to new houses in over 9 months.

Today yet another email from BT Openreach arrived with confirmation of yet another failed connection date at Torridge View new house site in Bideford EX39 4HH.


After BBC Watchdog castigated BT Openreach  for long delays connecting new housing developments back in November 2014 I contacted Openreach directly to track when the installation date was set.  We really hoped things would change as the site had already been waiting for connection for at least 4 months by that time.


After some delay the reply came….


> we expect to have all of our work completed at that development and to be able to provide your site with service by 16/02/15. 


On 19th January this changed to ...


>provide your site with service by 04/02/2015. 
then

> be able to provide your site with service by 18/02/2015.
then

>provide your site with service has changed and is now 10/03/2015
then today ….

>provide your site with service has changed and is now 19/05/2015.


Broken promise after broken promise.


This repeated failures to stick to connection dates and deliver a basic service is both annoying and exceptionally poor service for the residents of the site.  It has been mentioned that some of the houses have been provided with temporary lines but this fails to address the core problem of lack of site connectivity. The length of delay at over 8 months was previously enough to cause Watchdog to run a report and yet this length of delay continues. 

Having a moan on behalf of a couple of residents on the site. We will be asking for free line rental for the same duration as the delay in installation.

This failure has already made the local paper back in October 2014 to little apparent effect.

Electrical consumption meter failures.

All houses have electric consumption meters that measure current used for billing purposes.  Over the last few years I have seen two metering failure that have worked for the benefit of the householder. I report these here in the light of open disclosure. Neither are things that were deliberately done and cannot be replicated except in special circumstances especially if you want to remain honest.

1) After the fitting of a set of solar panels the consumption meter was not upgraded. The meter that was in place was one of the older rotating disk types. As the solar generated power was exported to the grid the meter unwound the previously recorded consumption.  The householder was paid for the power generated via a generation meter and received a discount as the previous consumption was unwound. That is double accounting.  For one summer quarter the total electric bill was 1% of the normal/expected amount.   The situation was unwound when during another summer the consumption bill reading was negative and the electricity company realised the mistake.  

2) After moving house into a slightly larger house, it was found to have a dual rate meter.  These meters known as Economy 7 are matched with a special tariff arrangement where by the cost of electrify at night is cheaper than the day rate.  The day rate is higher than than the normal day rate. The meter shows three numbers in sequence labeled 1,2,T   The 1 & 2 numbers are the two rates and the T number is a total of the two rate numbers.  After a visit from a real meter man a letter was received from the utility company sating that the number types from the meter had been entered round the wrong way and would be corrected in future.  Turns out that the day and night number had been reversed and the house had benefited as a result of that.  Like most houses we use more electric in the daytime despite my (now futile) efforts to put the dish and washing machines on at night.  There are solar panels to cover some of the daytime consumption and under floor heating to eat that up.

That was two metering errors that worked out in the houses favour, most certainly an unusual sequence of events.  

Peter Gabriel - Why he is the best rocker in town.

I saw Peter Gabriel live in concert last night and it was a great show. Booked up in March this was a long anticipated treat.  The songs were great, the band focused and engaged, staging compact and driven.  Over all that great lyrical voice with distinctive edge. Awesome show.

Looking back there are lots of other reasons that I am a solid PG fan.  Over his long career his has driven for the democracy of world music as well as oppressed peoples. His early forays into CD-rom multi media and the music downloads biz opened doors that whole industries have followed through.

A creative force right from the start of his early music days with Genesis, PG has built an impressive opus of solo albums, live work, film scores, music vids and political influence. This is celebrity status built on a long solid foundation of delivered greatness.

PG resonates with me because:

• His concerts rock and surprise and lift and deliver as only the best live gigs can.
• He looked after his Dad
• Innovated beyond the stage and on the stage.
• Reinvention of himself but still dug back to the glory days
• Take time to get it right
• Elders.org - lets see how that delivers
• Took a year out to travel with his family
• Does his own bootleg albums ( Encore series ) 
• I so wanted to sing that duet (or just be next to) Kate Bush

Personal favourite album & track is "I have the touch" on the Security album. A real HiFi tester with a subtle influence of world rhythms in a tasty rock shell. Was used as the sound track for the feature film Birdy.

A story of post war PTS recovery told through the eyes of two friends.  PG songs integrated into sound track. His other movie scores have been more mood music orientated.

Many concerts available as "bootleg" recordings direct from the house sound deck and sold via the Encore series.

Sledgehammer - most played MTV video ever

Go see a PG concert if you ever possibly can. Or check out the footage on www.PeterGaberial.com

Wow o wow

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

It's easy to look back and think of might have been if different choices had been made.  The good news, at least in the motor cycle space, is that the past is reinvented for the future. In the car world we have the new retro focused Mini, Fiat 500 and Beatle. Over in bike land recreations of Norton, Brough superior and Triumph are available.  Here is a quick then and now with the modern link under the title

Norton

The classic

The Modern Norton

Triumph

A jubilee edition Bonneville

Modern interpretation 

Brough Superior 

The classic

The modern interpretation

 Using any excuse for a few retro photos of bikes I never had :-) Here is Laverda Jota pic similar to one that lived on the wall back home. Displaced eventually by Souixsie Souix ( but that is another story)

Photos via bikeexif,  Google and Autotrader.