Category: Uncategorized

It look like this scam has not died a death yet! I received this letter today from The Domain Registry of America, a very official sounding company saying that I had to renew two of my Domain Names and they could do this for me!

The domain names in question were not registered with/through this company so why they think I would want to renew with them I have no idea, but of course on closer reading of the letter you can see that what they are offering is that if I send in the letter (with money) it would effectively transfer my domain names to them from my current registrar, not something that is a good idea.

It seems that this company has come in for quite a bit of stick of the years for sending out these sorts of letters and it has already been barred from carrying out this practice in the USA by the Federal Trade Commission. Click Here to read the FTC press release. They then has to transfer their address base to the UK, the current one being 56 Gloucester Road in London.

You can find about much more about this scam by running their name through Google, there are over a million hits! Be warned!

Much has been/is being written about the position and danger our soldiers are being constantly put in through inadequate equipment and weapons.

In this very interesting article Lewis Page investigates the very shabby state of affairs that we expect our troops to work under. It’s a must read piece.

It seems to me the longer a politician stays around, the worse (and less sincere) there speech presentations become! Maybe I’ve remember too much about Spitting Image.

I had a conversation with my 93 year old Aunt at the weekend, she told me that ‘someone’ had said to her that she needed a new television by the end of the summer as her current one would not work after the Analogue/Digital TV change over!

I do wonder whether the government really cares about its citizens anymore, clearly there is not enough information flowing out of government channels to make sure that people (particularly the elderly) fully understand what the change over is about, what it means to them and how they will be affected. I think I’ve seen some of the TV adverts on the BBC about it, but even for my quick eyes it all seems to pass me by with out conveying any real information.

Of course there is a lot to find out on the BBC web site, but unfortunately my Aunt, like many 90+ year olds are not using the web, she also does not take the Radio or any other TV times, relying instead on her daily newspaper for TV channel information.

So how do you find out the required information, maybe the government hope that anyone over a certain age will not be here to need to help! Perhaps they have created, published, printed and distributed already the piles of information about this and my Aunt missed it!

My look around the web found…

• A web page from UKFreeTV.TV with a lot of information about various aspects of the change over.
• A full list of analogue transmitter shutdown dates divided up into to regions, my Aunt lives in Derbyshire, so she has till 2011 before she will loose the analogue signal.
• A map that also show you how this change over will progress over the UK, but of course only available to Web users.
• The BBC information page for Digital TV and Radio with a Postcode search facility to se if you can receive the digital signal.
• Ricability – an independent consumer research organisation (commissioned by the Department for Trade and Industry – DTI) with a number of pages that discuss and recommend various products such as Digital Set-Top boxes, Aerial and Digital TV’s. Interesting that Which was not commissioned as I have never heard of Ricability, however it looks like they have a great deal of good info.

I am sure that there are many other sites that offer information, but again my 94 year old Aunt has no Internet access so how does she and I am sure many thousands of other similar people find about what they need and prevent themselves from being the target of unscrupulous TV related experts.

Great story in last weeks copy of Computer Weekly about a complete IT idiot dictating his companies log-ons and passwords to someone in his office over a mobile phone on a crowed train! See full article here.

It reminded me of an incident during a flight I was on a few years ago on a business trip to Italy. A fellow passenger sat down next to me and after the meal service opened his laptop and preceded to finish off a Power Point presentation he was obviously going to be giving to a sales prospect sometime during his own business trip.

Imagine my surprise when the title page of his presentation came up with the name of the company that I was going to visit! Over the next hour I had a grandstand seat viewing the strategy that his company was going to use to push out the competition and win that order!

It has always amazed me how cavalier people can be with sensitive company information, over the years I seen financial information dissected on zoomed spread sheets, forecasted sales-revenue figures boldly styled and software development plans revised and reviewed in full view at 30,000ft. Surely all these people can’t be laying false trails just for me!

The same could be said for paper information reviewed in such a crowded environment, though this is always easier to keep to yourself whilst your reading it. But I wonder how many laptop users really think before they make that last minute change to that important presentation!

The guy sat next to me! Well, I could have introduced myself, but declined to do so and went on to my meetings, never to see him again and yes the deal went our way, but without any need to use his free laptop info!

Glad to see the end of the Iran cock-up and very glad that we were able to hear from their own mouths about their treatment in captivity. I am sure this was not a pleasant experience for any of them. But I cannot understand what the MOD is playing at by letting serving personnel sell their accounts of the experience to the main stream media.

It can’t be right as yet more of our service personnel are being killed in Iraq, that these 15 have an ability to financially benefit from their two weeks detention! At the end of the day, they are alive, safe and able to resume their job, unlike the many other service personal that have been killed or wounded over the past few years.

I hope they see sense and stay well away from the media, who are no more interested in their story other than any advantage it will bring them (the media) with increased circulations and increased advertising revenue!

According to the the latest statement by US Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, it seems that we (for this, read All European Citizens) are all now terrorist suspects! I was always under then impression that ‘one’ was presumed to be innocent until proved guilty, however it now appears that in Michael Chertoff eyes, all Europeans are now presumed guilty until proved innocent!

In a ratcheting up of USA visitor entry restrictions, unless you are prepared to now give up your credit card number and your email address for scrutiny by US authorities, you’ll not be allowed entry into the ‘land of the free’!

With credit card fraud on the rise and spam messages clogging up the world mail in-boxes, I wonder what protection is being offered to US visitors to make sure that there data in ‘truly’ protected?

With the US still suffering from a near 20% drop in overseas visitor numbers compared to pre-9/11 figures, and with the summer holidays approaching this is surely not what many potential visitors to the USA wanted to hear.

Whilst the UK still has a lot to do to get it’s own house in order with regards to our own terrorist threat even allowing for stupid legislation from Brussels, I think the USA needs to understand how this comment and I think somewhat racial slur will be perceived across the whole of Europe, which already has a somewhat negative view of the USA.

It’s great that the ‘Iran’ incident has now been resolved and they have all been released, via whatever deal had been done.

However, listening to the media and the way that they keep asking all the relatives of the people released, if they (the released) will be able to cope and would then need any assistance, or in one case, would they be having any counseling, I wonder what we have become as a nation?

What sort of society have we become where everyone thinks that everyone need to have counseling, even the reporter interviewing the Royal Marines Majors’ parents asked if he would be able to cope!! For heavens sake they guy is a Royal Marine, what do you think he should do, break down and cry!

Yes it has been a tough time for the parents/wives/friends as I am sure it was for my mother, when my Navy ship went to cover the Aden pullout – yes I am that old! I know that I never suffered these guys fate, but at the end of the day, they have not had too bad a time from what we have seen via the prolific Iranian press – to be confirmed of course.

But have a thought for these people, they joined a ‘fighting force’, they knew what they might be getting into, I think that they probably will be able to cope, unless of course they meet many of the press that we have had to listen to over the last hour, then I’m sure that will need counseling… from the press!

With news emerging that there is a second letter coming from Faye Turney in Iran, I hope that someone is checking the handwriting to ensure that it’s authentic, many tricks have been used in the past to increase the impact of propaganda, which clearly this is.

If the writing is authentic, then some how the Iranian’s have managed to get a hold over Faye Turney in some way so that she is writing what they want.

I think it is time for both the UN and Euro diplomats to raise the bar a bit higher and show some serious support for the UK. As usual, we are left to fend for ourselves, listening to the quiet sniggering behind many a raised hand!

Finally, we get some movement from the UN with a weaker than required statement about the Cornwall incident and Iran. Talk about taking your time! Not that I think Iran will take any notice of it. Iran seems to be intent on milking the situation for all its worth.

Still think it’s strange that we ended up in this situation whichever side of the border line Cornwall was on. At the end of the day 5,300 tonnes of well-armed heavy metal is more than a match for half a dozen small patrol boats.

It’s the duty of any Captain to protect his crew, I hope he was on duty on the ships Bridge and not some fresh out of training ‘lad’ that panicked and put us in this mess. On the other hand, if the Captain was on the bridge, then the rules of engagement need to be looked at, either way, the Captain has some explaining to do!