eNewsletters

..... of whatever variety - be they additional extras to mainstream publications, tips & tricks or purely an expression of online content delivered to your inbox - why do the vast majority of them presume that we all want to know the ins and outs of America and its voting practices and that we should all be urged to vote. I challenged one of these online e-letters recently when it reminded me, AGAIN, not to miss my chance to vote. In short I asked why it had to detract from its main message and keep reminding me - a non US person about their upcoming elections. And before you ask, I did it politely .... got a pleasant answer that basically said tough and if I didn't like it to unsubscribe.

Really, I ask, what is so difficult about identifying that I am not from the US? The eMail address I use is quite clear on where I am based and it can't be that hard for these alleged intelligent people to create more than one variant of their newsletter. They do it to differentiate between those who support them and those who don't ......

OK - today's moan over.

Quick question ....... how do you write the word eMail? And why?
Do you use:
email
eMail
e-mail
e-Mail
EMail
or some other variant?

Friday ....

So, another one rolls around and no surprise the weather people got it wrong again - and there's me being grand fireworks master tonight as well. One hopes it won't be a damp squib.

My faith in eMail support has been restored though. Two companies - LogAnalytics and Preloved.co.uk - both responded to a query within one day, whereas it took DABS almost two weeks and a threat to invoke my rights as a shopper to get the appropriate response. Let me put it this way - never ever shop at Dabs unless you can guarantee you won't need support of any kind - I recently purchased a headset, a nice and innocuous item you might think. Well it works fine, but it was supposed to come with a voucher to give me credit on the Skype system. You guessed, no voucher. Anyway I finally got a response to say that they have approached the manufacturers - in the meantime I did precisely that and got a code for myself direct from Plantronics (which was unexpected). Final word on this - Dabs might be cheap and there is a reason for it, be warned.

Time to go and do my sunshine dance and become pyromania^H^H^Hpyrotechnics master. Mu ha ha.

Firewalls and stuff ....

It's interesting to note, at least to me, that most of the application software I end up using is top notch stuff that doesn't seem to get widespread reviews or plaudits. What they do get though is always good. Recently my favourite personal firewall (that I also use) has had a facelift to version 2.5 and it looks better than ever.

I am of course referring to Outpost from Agnitum - they also do other bits and bobs such as trojan scanners ... anyway, go see for yourself and decide and hey, don't just take my word for it .... see here and also here. I, of course, have no affiliation to these sites or to the software house but I have been a user since version 1.0 (difficult to understand for beginners or even intermediate users) and since the release of 2.5 it is really starting to come of age. Whatever, if you have broadband you owe it to yourself to have a good firewall and don't just fall for the flash packet and schmaltzy advertising. Go out and investigate it .... Oh yes, one should add, that along with my AV, my Adware scanners (yes, plural) and my trojan /keylog scanners I have managed to keep my home system free from nasties - not that they haven't tried ...

What else .... well, I am really starting to get to grips with how I want to use my gMail account and have so far invited 6 friends - all accepted - BUT I still have one left. Now, no begging letters, but I am willing to give this... yes I said give ... to the writer of the most entertaining, which doesn't always mean funny, eMail received in the next two weeks. So, mini-comp, closes November 22nd 2004.

No 1 son is moaning about his PC constantly crashing and have "I done anything to it" well unless he means my removing the acres of adware he managed to infest it with within 10 days of me finally getting the internet to his PC, then no, I've done nothing . Sometimes a rebuild is the only answer and it is going to server a two fold purpose. 1. He can do the rebuild and learn about it first hand and 2. After my lecture on internet "safe surfing" he should be more aware of what he's doing ....

Be happy ....

OK - bug out time ... but get them eMails rolling.

MsSt (Hons) Master of Stupidity ....

Ok - so you want to hack off your staff in one easy lesson, then I guess you need to talk to my management! They've become experts at prevarication and mastered the art of staff annoyance.

Their latest trick is to change the access to vital parts of the building without actually informing staff that this has happened and then putting their heads up their collective arses when challenged as to the reasons why and to what end. It's not that I object to the change or to the fact that they may even have reasons that are valid. What I do object to is that they haven't bothered to advise anyone of the "new rules" and in reality had I done a similar thing without proper paper work and change control documentation then I'd expect to be torn a new one! Proverbially speaking of course.