Posts by Matt

Please change your email address...

The link you need is www. gmail. com

Nice idea, but

Are these the same people that push for war-rockets and bombs to be environmentally friendly?

This one's nasty

Seen it a few times in the past week, the giveaway is in the hosts file: "127.0.0.1 zeif.pl" at the top. Lockups, slow performance, script and Internet problems, occasional virus alerts....

And the fact that every ruddy .exe and .htm is infected when you scan the disk from another uninfected pc. No live-CD trojan removal here, full format and reload I'm afraid. Bloody nightmare.

It even tried spreading to my network install drive (which is now most definitely read-only) and my USB stick.

Already done

I saw something very similar on a documentary once, only they used the brain of an almost dead bloke and they gave the robot guns instead of lame nets. Very worrying.

oh, wait... maybe that was robocop.

Good technology for text messages too...

1. Great, now I've got your new number. Now who are you?

2. Sorry, I'm off duty at 2am. Now f* off and ring me between 9 and 5.

3. No, I'm not with Orange. And I don't want a free upgrade.

4. Can't you just ring me? This conversation is costing me a fortune in texts.

5. I'll ring you later. The missus is here right now.

Good call

Could you imagine that defence being used if the kids had taken someones minutes / text allowance, or emptied his Paypal account? Is that really any different to *any* site that uses some kind of points allowance (regardless of whether it can be related to money, time OR effort?)

Pr0n ridden PCs

I try not to think what's on the keyboard and mouse of those porny PCs I spend all day fixing. Not just p1$$ and truds.

Mine's the one with the alcohol gel in the pocket

@Matt Smart

Oh... I hadn't noticed the laptop in that picture

Money money money

Well, as frustrating as scareware is, "programs" such as XP Antivirus and all the Registry Destroyers -sorry- Cleaners keep me in work. I see a couple of these every day while fixing slow computers and promptly remove them.

But the oddest thing is that people get annoyed with me for removing them - either because they paid for them - or because they think they are part of Windows.

Don't get me started on MyWebSearch and Zango.......

How long before...

... they go after the average desk worker playing the radio through the Internet or desktop radio? Or the factory / workshop / office with 2 or 3 workers that listen to the radio, but never get public visitors.

And does it make any difference if an office is part of a private residence, or business premesis?

Where do we draw the line?

Go centralised...

Too often my Orange phone number (on O2) can't be connected to, because there are 2 networks involved (3 including the caller's network). Sometimes the Orange system is down, sometimes O2. I use my phone for business. So yes, centralised would be better.

Appeared on the 'net...

So who made the copies of the pics and sent them to the papers? The customer or the staff?

S60

Ugh. Nokia put me off symbian for life.

Purely for the money

I tried ringing one of the utility companies recently, I avoided the 0870 number by using their 'Calling from abroad number (+44 1xxx xxxxxx), substituting +44 for the 0. The message said I needed to use the 0870 as it detected that I was calling from within the UK. Not at 20p a minute from O2, I wouldn't. So I withheld the number, rang it back, and got through. Proves that they were just after the revenue.

Drive-Thru

Um, my local ASDA is 80% of the way to a solution... the petrol station is a Drive-Thru. You get the fuel, get in the car, and drive up to the Windows to pay, McD style.

Just add some one-way spikes at the entrance and a decent barrier at the exit and most of the problem is solved.

You can't buy any goodies like a conventional rip-off forecourt though. May be a sticking point for most of those who sell Red Bull for £2 a can, dry pasties for £3 and manky sandwiches for £4 each. (You know who you are).

Criticism

I came straight to the comments expecting to find things like "At last", "Yippee!", and "Thank god, now those 90+ updates are history". But no, apart from the few, it's another chance to bash Microsoft - for releasing a roll-up of patches (including finally sorting all those issues that require a hotfix, but you can only get by calling MS to get access).

Don't forget that XP is probably the version of Windows (if any) that most Reg readers are using. And it's finally getting some TLC.

For me, SP3 could potentially save me hours of waiting around (and lots of download GBs) installing Updates on customer's PCs and fiddling with homebrew WU CDs.

Come on guys, Vista may be a disaster for many people (it's also more of a pain to fix), but let's give MS the benefit of the doubt on this one. At least until our CDRw, P2P and AV softwares break on SP3.

@ratfox

Then Paypal can go sod off too. Some of us don't have much choice of decent browsers (Windows Mobile, here... can't see a phishing filter in any browser!)

Tunnels

If someone had the foresight (and balls to spend money on) wide utility service tunnels a few years ago then perhaps there would be less problems with supplying services to homes now... ahhhhh, no roadworks! Perhaps new services (extra phone lines, broadband, cable-style TV etc etc) they could have been rolled out quite quickly, and when gas and water mains need replacing, that would be easier too.

How about...

1. Providing a default key (as it is now)

2. Redirecting the first www connection to the router in order to input a passphrase

3. Creating a stronger key to cut'n'paste? (WPA unless specified)

... This could all be fixed in a simple software update, could it not? (just like the "we changed your admin password to the HH serial number" thing)

@ All the people with Belkin, Netgear, etc - at least there is *some* security with the Homehub out of the box - think about the average customer here - I've set up over 500 routers and think that Netgears etc are pretty OK - but where's the default security?!!! Even WEP discourages casual connections from the neighbours looking for their daily pr0n.

If only it was so easy

As a home-user Desktop PC Technician, I find that many of my customers are running less than XP SP2 (98, ME, 2000, XP SP0/1 etc) so they haven't been upgraded to IE7. This means a lot of my customers are running IE5 and IE6 by default. Many are also on Dial-up. Many have problems accessing websites with Flash, ActiveX, Java, https, etc either because their PCs are old and/or borked (hence they need me). Many don't know what a browser actually is let alone what Firefox is. Expecting EVERYONE to change isn't an option. That's why my site is written in really basic static HTML - I can't afford to alienate my potential customers with anything that might not work.

Escalators, too

Just keep an eye on the direction the user is facing, and send the escalator in the opposite direction

Installed like a (long) dream...

Took 25 mins to install here - no immediate problems that I could see. Although when I tried many of those 'made for XP but works with Vista' tools such as Acronis Disk Director, these are now blocked until I get updates :-(

Not too shabby though, lets hope my customers are more willing to buy the Vista-loaded PCs now SP1 has arrived instead of asking for an XP reload. If MS manage to iron out these problems and perhaps speed up Vista a little more, it could finally be as good as XP became 3 years after it was released...

(look back at the forums in 2002 -2003 to see what I mean!!)

Damn Hotmail MSN Live thingy-ma-jig.

I was expecting an email from a nice nigerian lady trying to get her £250,000 inheritance from her dead uncle. If I don't get back to her tonight with my name and address details I'll probably lose my 25% cut. Grrrr. Damn Microsoft.

Just wait

It will be out on *-disk in a few weeks so you can watch it on a high-def screen of your own on a nice clean seat in a nice clean living room. Hang on, let me just move that pizza box for you...

Benefits

Surely the ads currently benefit the websites - in many cases keeping them in existence for the benefit of anyone that wants to use them (for cheap or free)? If the ads are being provided by the ISP instead (which we already pay for) how long before the websites revenue starts drying up and we either lose content or pay more for it? That benefits us *how* exactly?

(On a side note, what's the betting that the first site to get forced adverts is BBC iPlayer?)

Malware!

Where are all the teenagers going to download their trojans and adware from now?

Reminds me of some sales T&Cs I saw this week...

.... which essentially said "any changes you made to the Terms and Conditions of your order, written or otherwise, agreed by us or not, are null and void - and only this copy of the T&Cs you **received with THIS product** shall apply" (paraphrased, of course). All this from a very big, well known, online memory company (with generally very good service, I may add - but this does make me worry).

The Neighbour's wireless

I went out to someone the other week to fix their Wireless Internet problem, when I asked them who provided their service, they looked at me blankly. Next I asked to see their wireless router, but they didn't have a clue what I meant. Turns out that they'd bought a laptop a year ago and assumed that their neighbour's wireless was 'just the wireless Internet that came with the laptop'. I'd already fixed the neighbour's computer and added WPA security a few days before. Needless to say, she was not happy that I advised her to start paying for an ISP instead of "sorting out the fault"...