A New Toy
This is my new Acer Iconia W-500.
Acer Iconia W-500
It’s a tablet computer that runs Windows. When I get my network sorted, I’ll use it to demonstrate Daisy and also to browse on my travels to access my bank account, Zopa and GMail.
I think I might write some stroke-friendly software for the device. Of course, it will be in Visual Basic 6. You might ask why I don’t want an iPad.
The reason is simple. Real programmers don’t use Apple products and anyway, I’d need to learn a whole new set of progrmming tools. As it is virtually all of the software, I’ve written will run on this machine. I won’t need to buy anything else, except possibly a case to protect it. But it does fit my manbag.
Here’s an old joke.
Q: How do you make an Apple go faster?
A: Drop it from a higher building.
Faster Rural Broadband
It has been announced that the first round of funding has been agreed for faster rural broadband.
I am not a high consumer of broadband capacity, as most of my on-line activity is e-mail and blogging.
However, I’m a strong believer that every home and business should have superfast broadband, as this will be one of the ways to create employment everywhere.
It can’t be installed everywhere too soon!
Phishing Scams From Someone Claiming to be HMRC
We all get these and some look like they come from sensible addresses like alert@hmrc.gov.uk.
Here’s a typical content.
Date 21/05/2011
A tax refund of 1560.10 GBP .(Still Pending) Due to invalid account record we were unable to credit your account Please submit a verified tax refund request.A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.
Click the “Refund Me Now” link below and follow the on screen step in order to have us process your request.Refund Me Now Note: For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time,Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.
Best Regards,
HM Revenue & Customs
They are all a scam designed to get your login asnd password to the HMRC web site.
They show all of the typical mistakes of scammers.
- Why would they say 2510 GBP, when the £2510.00 would probably be used?
- The English is a bit clunky. But then so is a lot of Civil Servant-speak!
- I especially like the last bit saying “Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.” What do they mean about indicated? Does a nice young lady all dressed like Lady Gaga in leather come round and give you a ticking off? Now that will be fun!
- And then there’s the Best Regards bit! Very HMRC! I don’t think!
So what should you do with these e-mails, other than comply with what they say?
The real HMRC have a page which says what to do.
Note this clear statement on the page.
HMRC will never send notifications of a tax rebate by email, or ask you to disclose personal or payment information by email.
You should never disclose your personal and/or payment information in reply to an email that may look like it’s from HMRC, you may well be revealing your details to a fraudulent website.
It also says you should forward them to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
I shall be sending a few today, so let’s see what happens.
You Can Fool Quite A Few Twits Quite A Lot of the Time
This article on the BBC proves that there is one born every minute and most are on Twitter.
The Hornets React
I said in this post, that the hornets would react and they have according to this piece on the BBC.
Hundreds of Twitter users have reacted to a footballer’s bid to find out who is putting information about him on the website by posting new messages online.
I’ve just looked and the BBC is right and they’re even easier to find, even if you don’t know the name of the footballer.
I think that this story has run its course, so if Imogen would like a nice meal one evening next week, all she has to do is post a message here and I’ll see what I can do. As the lady is Welsh some nice Welsh lamb in marmalade might be a suggestion. It would be more appropriate if we can find some Welsh marmalade.
But on second thoughts, why would she want supper with me, a broken down widower?
Princess Beatrice and Her Charities Have the Last Laugh
The price of her hat has now passed £75,000 according to the BBC.
Noone could call that anything but a good result for the charities she is supporting.
If you want to bid, the hat is still on sale here on eBay.
Poking a Hornets Nest
An unnamed footballer, who everybody who wants to know, knows who he is anyway, is trying to take action against Twitter, so that those that posted his name there can be hauled before the Courts to be punished.
All this will do is make matters worse, as many more Twitter users will just add to the posts.
The man, whoever he is, is an idiot and he is just pouring more money into the pockets of greedy lawyers. C did her first pupilage in defamation chambers and if she were still alive today, she would be cursing her decision to go into the much more rewarding field of Family Law, rather than stay in a more lucrative field, that relieves the vain of their easily earned money.
Alex Ferguson and Twitter
Alex Ferguson is quoted today as saying that his players should abandon Twitter and go to a library and read a book.
Why Twitter appeals to the average football and idiots of all kinds, is that because the character limit is 140 characters. Books are generally much longer than this!
On the other hand Boris Johnson was quoted yesterday after his first experience of Twitter was that this character limit makes you think about how to say something concisely. But Boris is a man who knows his words well, even if he sometimes puts both feet in his mouth occassionally.
Perhaps this thinking idea, is what Sir Alex should instill in his players. Lawyers wouldn’t be too pleased, as it would close off the quite a few routes, like superinjunctions of trousering a lot of readies.
Does the NHS Computer Records Fiasco Create an Opportunity?
I am certainly convinced and there are many others out there of the need to have a wordwide on-line database with the important details of my health records.
In my case, I think it should contain such things as.
- GP and specialist contact details.
- A health summary. Most people could write that themselves.
- Repeat prescriptions.
- Test results for things like INR, B12 etc.
- Eye and hearing tests.
- X-ray and other images. It is getting commonplace for specialist to give you these, but all we need is for them to be in a standard image form.
- E-mails from health professionals.
You would be responsible for the uploading of the data. In many cases it would just be ticking a box or writing a simple sentence.
Suppose someone was to provide such a service, then I would use it a shot. Someone might already have created such a database, but I’ve not heard of it.
People will worry about privacy, but then look at the average Facebook page. A lot of much more confidential information is often published there.
So go for it! There is a lot of money to be made!
And money to be saved by health consumers.
Imagine on a simple level you lose your glasses on holiday. If you’ve uploaded your prescription, you could probably walk into any optician and get new glasses quickly. Whether they’d want to supply without giving you an expensive eye test, would be up to the optician, but in most cases you’d be fixed up without trouble.
The NHS Computer Records Fiasco
Fiasco is not too strong a word for it, as this report shows.
Isn’t the whole NHS records missing project something here?
If I deal with my bank, solicitor, utility and phone companies, or many shops, I can go on-line to see what is there and communicate directly by e-mail, telephone or post as I require.
Where is that objective in the specification?
After all we can’t let patients see what’s wrong with them as it would be a breach of their confidentiality!
But my body and mind are generally under my control, so why shouldn’t I have the right of access? In some ways, it’s going that way, as my previous GP let me read my past records without any cost or hindrance. Also nearly everything about me from Addenbrooke’s has either been copied to me directly by post and in some cases e-mail.
Interestingly, when the practice nurse and I went through my records a few years ago, we could see the pattern of coeliac disease , which no-one had picked up. I know this was with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and nothing really serious was missed, but is the reason doctors don’t like patients seeing their records, is that they might get sued? Doctors have told me my atrial fibrillation is fairly obvious, so perhaps I should have been referred to a cardiologist before I had the first stroke?
But what is the past is best forgotten!
I should say one thing though. In Hong Kong when I had the stroke, they wanted to know my cholesterol levels, to check them against. As I put them on this blog, they were able to read them. So now, I put things like that up here, so that if I need them at any time, they are there.
Surely, this illustrates the power of an on-line database, where we all have a simple ID/Password system so that we can access the data.
If I could access my bank records from any Internet connection and a browser, why can’t I do the same with my health records?
The Anonymous Widower 