“Local Business Lending Partnership” Gets Hijacked
Lancashire and Funding Circle have called their partnership a Local Business Lending Partnership.
But type that into Google, even with quotes and you get adverts for Wonga and Lloyds TSB.
Click here to see what you get!
Not what you’re looking for at all!
Don’t You Just Love The Internet
The Internet is the natural home of all those who see reds, blues and oranges under the bed and want to further all sorts of wacky causes.
As an example type.
Adolf Hitler Angela Merkel
into Google.
You get enough rubbish to fill every skip in London.
The only trouble is that many believe these sorts of stories. There are millions born every minute.
An Infuriating Website
I’ve just booked a couple of Eurostar tickets.
It is rather an infuriating web site.
1. I have used it many times before and it wouldn’t let me login using my normal profile.
2. I thought I might have got the password wrong, but then it kept asking me to type my e-mail address, despite it being the right one.
3. When I created a new profile, I made the odd mistake and had to type in things again.
4. It also made me type in a city, when all I need is a house number, a road name, London and a post code.
5. Printing out the details was five pages.
How To Stop Spam!
A few days ago, someone stared sending masses of spam from a Hotmail account faking them so that it appeared they came from one of my business e-mail addresses. This technique is used to try to get round spam filters. The consequence though, was that I got masses of bounces from mail systems that rejected his junk.
I reported him to abuse@hotmail.com, but all I got was a simple acknowledgement.
Then yesterday I sent the spammer a short e-mail saying.
I have a friend with connections to Mossad and that they have means of stopping spam.
A few hours afterwards and the messages stopped. He could have course just got bored or been chopped by Microsoft.
But who cares! The messages stopped.
How To Deal With Annoying Bloggers – Iranian Style
This terrible story of the death of Sattar Beheshti, a blogger from Iran, shows the regime in its true colours.
While The Big Cats Play The Rodents Strike
Whilst most people in the United States are preoccupied by an election, two British rodents and a few friends have struck.
ARM Holdings and Imagination Technologies are part of a consortium that has bought the rights to the majority of the patent portfolio of rival RISC chip business MIPS Technologies. It’s here on The Register.
This could be a very important deal for the British computer technology industry.
Do Advertisers Get Value?
I wanted to read a report on the Ipswich match at Birmingham on Saturday, so I typed “Birmingham Ipswich” into Google.
I got a few serious reports from papers as I expected, but I also got an advert trying to sell me a cheap flight from Birmingham to Ipswich.
I assume they meant Ipswich in Australia.
All very helpful.
3D Printing
I was shown some 3D Printing in the Department using this machine from MakerBot.
3D Printing
The surprising thing is the cost, as it’s only a couple of thousand bucks, not the tens of thousands I expected.
I can think of so many applications in all of the things I’ve done in the past.
Booking At The BFI
I’ve just booked a film tonight at the BFI.
Their web site annoyed me, as it insisted on having a password with at least one capital letter and a number. I find the shift unreliable because of my gammy hand, so it usually takes several goes to make certain I’ve got it right.
All password entry should have a checkbox to display what you’ve actually typed.
Two websites I use regularly are Zopa and Nationwide. Neither relies on case being needed and Zopa allows you to check a box to show what has been typed. I would assume that neither have security problems as otherwise it would be all over the Internet.
The only site I use which insists on at least one capital is Betfair. But I seldom use it these days, as I always forget and have difficulty logging on.
Whitehall Says Give Social Networks False Details
This article on the BBC, which says that a Whitehall official has said we should all give fake details and an MP disagrees, shows how little the supposedly great and good know about the Internet.
What I would recommend to others I do not know? But I do have a consistent philosophy across the various sites I access. One thing I do, is to use a special e-mail address for the Internet groups to which I belong. This means that I can trace any spam and know possibly where the leak is.
I also rarely give my mobile phone number to anyone.
The Anonymous Widower 