A Result from LateRooms.com

 

The Lowry Hotel is one of the best in Manchester. Celia stayed there and in a couple of others of the so-called best and she felt it was streets ahead.


I stayed in the hotel on Thursday night and got a room for £125 from LateRooms.com.

That must rate as the best value I've ever had and a real result for the Internet and LateRooms.com.

God Tosser

 

I've used this term a lot lately.

It's fairly simple and is defined as a crook, who uses God as a means to ensnare his or her victim.

I doubt that God would approve. Even if she existed!

Rent-A-Gent

 

This is an interesting idea that fits well on the Internet.

I wish Rent-A-Gent luck.

Nuisance Calls From 07975-825284

 

This idiot rings me twice a day. I've not caught him yet and I only know because my phone tells me someone has rung. So I've no idea whether it's a silent call or someone trying to sell me something.

So I tried to report it to BT's nuisance call bureau on 0800-6614413, but they said I must report it to Orange. Guess what, every number I could find needed an Orange mobile phone to report the problem.

But I'm happy with mine and think it a bit rich to have to change my mobile to Orange to report one of their idiot customers.

Eventually I found an e-mail form and sent this. I doubt I'll get a reply.

The Orange number 07975-825284 rings me twice a day. As yet I've not managed to catch it, but my phone says I've been called. I've tried to ring it back, but I get an answerphone with a full voicemail box.

Can you please sort it?

My landline is 01440-783789

I should also say that I couldn't find an address to write to on the Orange web site.

That is a disgrace and it should be the law.

As a follow up to this, I caught the call this morning. It was a company called Financial Connections, ringing despite the number was registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

Let's hope that stops it.

Registering a .hk Domain

 

I just tried to register a .hk domain. There were no checks as to who I was, but to register a name would have cost me sixty nine dollars for one year.

I can get a .com for a lot less than that per year!

All seems a bit fishy to me.

A Busy Lady

 

I got two adverts, one from BT and the other from EBuyer in the last couple of days. (I should say that they were not spam and I use both companies and have no complaints.)

It was interesting that they used the same picture.

Here's BT's girl in a white bikini.


And here's EBuyer's one.


As Private Eye would say. Are they by any chance related?

A Complete Film on Google

 

That's what it looks like.

Click here to have a look.

It's two hours though, but who knows how we will watch films in a few years.

Not Impressed With Monster

 

I put an advert up on Monster for my Search Engine Optimisation work. I said that I had experience of legal services, which is one of the industries I provide services to.

So what did I get?

A whole load of job offers from firms of lawyers in the States looking for lawyers.

What a monster waste of time.

BRIBEline

 

What an interesting idea!

I just wonder though, if your company had just secured a thousand jobs, by bribing a rather odious potentate, that you'd report the fact to this anonymous web site.

The Ultimate Car Number - W3WWW

 

Just saw this numberplate in Cambridge on an old Rover 216.

Surely W3WWW is the ultimate status symbol for any web fanatic.

WUMP Models Agency

 

I've had 43 e-mails trying to sell me the services of the WUMP Models Agency.

This is a typical e-mail.

Hello,

You are seeking a companion or true love?

You need an intelligent well-educated girl speaking your language for escort in a business trip?
Your business deals with exhibitions and presentations?
You need an sexy girl to spend holiday?

Our international agency WUMP Models is ready to help you in any of these questions.

We are in international modeling business since 1996 and we perfectly know the tastes and preferences of our clients.
We work only with the best-looking girls.

You can invite any girl to your country!

Visit our web site and you won't be disappointed:
www.euro-models.biz

You will be as the web site is down.

But would you ever deal with a company called WUMP?

And one that has a domain name registration like this :-

Domain Name: EURO-MODELS.BIZ
Domain ID: D19219079-BIZ
Sponsoring Registrar: DIRECT INFORMATION PVT LTD DBA PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 303
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registrant ID: PP-SP-001
Registrant Name: Domain Admin
Registrant Organization: PrivacyProtect.org
Registrant Address1: P.O. Box 65
Registrant Address2: All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Registrant City: Monster
Registrant Postal Code: 2680 AB
Registrant Country: Netherlands
Registrant Country Code: NL
Registrant Phone Number: +45.36946676
Registrant Email: contact@privacyprotect.org

What genuine company ever hid its identity on a web site registration?

If you're going to create a scam shouldn't it be worth looking at?

DestroyAPrinter.com

 

This is an interesting piece of viral marketing.

It was posted in my topic on Cleaning a Printer.

Inappropriate Advertising

 

I am a coeliac and some of you will know that I run a coeliac diary and am also the moderator of an active Yahoo group for coeliacs.

Today I found this pornographic advert on the group that had been added by Yahoo.


Who wants to buy an overweight and planet-killing American pickup?

sexyfootballbabes.com - 2

 

The bloody porn women came back. It's not that I'm a prude where soft porn is concerned and that was all that was on the front page of the site, but they looked silly with too much silicon.

Does anybody like that? They must.

I do seem to have solved the problem this time, by first using a program called HijackThis and then installing Prevx to remove the virus that was causing the problem.

But what a sweat.

If I ever come across the bastard who invented this virus, I'll put a shotgun up his arse backwards and then pull the trigger. Hoefully, He'll break his neck when he hits the ground.

sexyfootballbabes.com

 

Somehow this web site got into my computer.

Basically, it would move the current browser to that web site. It's porn coming out of Panama, so don't bother complaining.

I searched the Internet for it and found that it has infested Italy and most of the complaints about it are in Italian, so as my Italian is only as good as a menu, that wasn't much use.

I did get the impression that it was caused by some sort of cookie, file or registry entry.

1. I ran my anti-spyware and virus check software and found nothing. Always do this first if you think you have been infected.

2. I then ran the Regedit program and searched the Registry for "sexyfootball". I found nothing. (If you want to know more about Regedit use Google to search.)

3. As the sexyfootballbabes turned up regularly, I looked up Scheduled Tasks in the Windows Control Panel. There were none.

4. Finally, I searched for any files with names contained "sexyfootball". I found several and I deleted them all.

The problem was now cleared, but I still don't know how I got infected.

Compliance And Privacy

 

Obviously, these are big topics for anybody using or developing Internet or computer applications. Tim Trent pointed this site out to me, when he commented about Patientline.

At a first glance it looks a very comprehensive resource.

Freecycle

 

We're building a new set of stables and offices here at the moment and we have lots of old curved bricks and roof timbers to get rid of.

So I put them on the Cambridge Freecycle site.

Quite a few of the bricks and wood has gone.

So if you want to get rid of something look up your local Freecycle Group on the Internet.

I also have been chatting to an interesting artist called Syrah Jade, who will be taking some of the offerings this Sunday.

Recycling A Computer

 

I have just got rid of a large number of old computers with a company called Cambridge Computer Recycling by the football ground in the Newmarket Road.

No charge either.

Mobile Phone Repairs

 

I use a Nokia 6310i mobile phone which is about five years old. Last week it developed a fault and so I searched for someone to repait it.

I found CBS in Cambridge.

Let's hope they sort it out, but the quote was a lot less than a new phone.

Anyway why should I change something that I am comfortable with? It works anywhere in the world, is ideal for texting and I can surf the Internet with it.

Who needs more?

999 Inks

 

Just got a next day service for some inks from these people at a very keen price.

Looks good.

Mobile Phones

 

I'm very much a technologist and in a year or two, I will be giving up my mobile phone.

Voice over IP will be much better and with the exception of when you are in the countryside, you will use that much cheaper alternative. For areas like that, I'll probably keep a pay-as-you-go mobile for emergencies.

It will be a big cost saving.

We mustn't underestimate how much new technology will save us in the field of telecommunications. Many people pay £12 a month for a landline, they hardly ever use.

Threshers 40% Discount on Wines and Champagnes

 

Threshers may have made a mistake with their Christmas offer.

They put up a 40% voucher that could be printed over the Internet and it has been well and truly distributed. I heard about it on Radio 5 Live where they were talking to a South African wine company called Stormhoek.

Affordable Christmas Presents

 

Try eBay and the other auction sites.

I've bought some very interesting things for under a fiver, including a brand-new £30 Endurance swimsuit for the wife! She a manic swimmer and wears them out!

I've also sold some very odd things that I know have made good presents for that sum. Currently, I'm selling hundreds of tools that can be used to point brickwork that are the remnants of a bankrupt company, I once invested in. Most go for under a fiver including postage!

UTube and YouTube

 

This is an interesting Internet spat, that if people don't watch will end up with large legal bills.

Make sure when you put up a web site there is no confusion over the name.

Tax Discs On Line

 

In the last few days, I've just bought two tax discs on line.

Generally the system works well, but we had terrible problems today in that the site was very busy.

So does that mean that the general public is embracing Internet purchase of Vehicle Licences?

President Putin has Dead

 

No he hasn't. It's just that I've had several e-mails purporting to com efrom the BBC, saying that he has dead. Note the tense.

The e-mails point to a site selling fruit drinks.

Very strange.

www.SayNoTo0870.com

 

An interesting web site, although when I looked at it, the Google Ads were showing rather inappropriate ones for those trying to sell 0870 numbers!

Turkey and the Internet

 

We've just been on holiday in Turkey.

The country may have many problems, but it has certainly embraced the Internet as the future.

Charity Flowers

 

We received some flowers today. They were nice too!

They came from a web site called Charity Flowers in Guernsey, which is run by Age Concern.

I think this is a very interesting development, where a charity sets up a special business to make money.

Enfield Rolling Mills

 

This company, often called ERM for short, at Brimsdown on the Lee Valley in Enfield was my father’s biggest customer. Strangely in recent years, we have met, Ray Agnew, one of the people there that dealt with my father. I learned a lot about how my father worked to create sophisticated stationery for unusual applications.

I also worked there during three vacations from school in the electronics and instrument department. It was an interesting grounding for what I have done since. It is rather a pity that kids today don’t get the opportunity as easily as I did all those years ago, as all experience is valuable.

One of the jobs I did at ERM in the mid 1960s, was to investigate the detection of small ferrous inclusions in copper wire. This is important as inclusions damage wire drawing machines and also increase the electrical resistance. I was able to detect micro-gram particles with ease. It surprises me that with more modern techniques, we can’t do better than we do to detect knives and guns!

But then I got the job because my father phoned the excellent and much admired John Grimston and asked! So if you want something for yourself or your family a well structured approach can often get the right results.

This company as the name suggests rolled and formed copper, aluminium, bronze and other non-ferrous metals. To me it was an engineer’s paradise, as I used to walk around fitting instruments on to fearsome machines that squeezed and pressed hot and sometimes cold metal into any number of shapes. I can still see images in my mind of men catching hot copper wire in tongs and turning it on the wiremill. That was extremely skilful and highly dangerous.

Interestingly, that wiremill had been taken from Krupp as reparations after the First World War, to setup ERM. It still had the Krupp symbol of three interlocked railway tyres in the castings that held the rolls. The company logo for ERM was four interlocked rings, so they even took that as well!

But Enfield Rolling Mills was also part of one of my worst gaffs!

Their phone number was Howard 1255 or 1266. (I can’t actually remember which, but the story works both ways!) I was about thirteen and was setting some type for my father. I needed some 5’s so I borrowed them from the Enfield Rolling Mills letterhead that was always setup in a chaise ready for printing. I stupidly replaced them with 6’s. What I should have done was put the 6’s in upside down so the replacement was obvious.

Luckily they were spotted before the letterhead was used again. It was one of the few times my father ever seriously told me off.

I have always been pedantic and very careful since. Perhaps, that is why I have been such a good programmer.

Poor E-Mail Management from ASDA

 

A couple of months ago, I started getting e-mails to WingfieldHotel@daisy.co.uk from both ASDA and Tesco. The address does not exist and I have no connection with any Wingfield Hotel.

I tried to login to both sites and couldn't remove myself from the list as I hadn't created the entry.

So I wrote to both ASDA and Tesco. For a bit of fun, I enclosed the letter to ASDA in the one to Tesco and vice versa.

After a month or so, I got a charming e-mail from Tesco.

Thank you for your letter regarding the above, after some investigation and difficulty in getting hold of Mr & Mrs Wright at the Wingfield Hotel I have an explanation for you. According to Mr Wright, his wife made a mistake when registering on our website and that of ASDA, their email address is the Wingfieldhotel@daisybroadband.co.uk, a pleasant place to stay apparently, but unlikely to get much business if they make the same mistake in advertising.

We have updated our database to ensure we direct any future email correctly, I'm sorry if this has caused you an inconvenience.

Good luck with Daisy Analysis Ltd.

regards

Crawford Davidson

Marketing Director Tesco.com

As not a word has been heard from ASDA, I've sent a complaint to the Information Commissioner.

Call Centres

 

Are we starting to see the end of the dumb call centre?

On the BBC News tonight, they were talking about PowerGen bringing one of its call centres back to the UK from India.

But this will only create about 400 jobs in the UK.

Perhaps, more and more people are using the Internet to deal with PowerGen.

Mice and Baby Wipes

 

In this hot weather, the mice are getting stuck to the mouse mat and the desktop. This is because your hand sweats and leaves muck all over the surface.

Make sure you have some baby wipes handy to improve their sliding performance.

This Blog

 

This blog is the update system for the book, where I can post comments, add new topics and others can reply.

I can also introduce topics that perhaps shouldn't be in the book. Or perhaps some that are an ongoing story, that needs to be updated on a periodic basis.