Keyboard Frustration
It is usually after using the computer for about an hour or so, that I hit control and some key to mean that the only way out of my mess is to reboot.
It is so frustrating! Especially, as I know the solution is to be able to cut out the control key, just like I’ve cut out caps lock.
Pfizer Strikes Back
Vast amounts of spam are advertising one of Pfizer’s products; Viagra. On a spam list, I’ belong to, there has been a lot of discussion, about how the company has gone for a guy in the UK, who has been faking Viagra and selling it on the web. Here is a report from the Sydney Morning Herald.
I applaud Pfizer for what they are doing here, although others think that the company is acting outside of the law. But in the UK, if you do go outside the law, you’ll receive the proverbial ton of bricks.
Russian Spam Comments
This blog doesn’t get many spam comments, except for a load of Russian ones to A Better Keyboard. Usually, it’s about ten a day, all in Cyrillic and complete rubbish to me.
They obviously have a way of putting them in automatically.
Hopefully, by marking them as spam, WordPress will treat the with the contempt they deserve.
Alliance and Leicester Building Society
This building society has now been rebranded as part of the Santander Group.
But the spammers seem to be unaware of this change and they still keep sending me masses of e-mails trying to get me to give away my login details. It’s pointless anyway as I’ve never had an account at the bank or its parent.
On the subject of phishing spam, I’ve been watching it for about ten years now and it’s hardly changed in the wording and layout. So of the billions the crooks send out any day, how many actually reach a sucker, who is prepared to open their web site. On one today, I tried to open the link and the crooks web site had been taken down.
Hopefully, there must come a day, when the crooks give up and go away? But we don’t seem to be trhere yet! I don’t seem to have read of any prosecutions of phishers either. Surely, the banks are hoping for more than that the crooks give up?
On the other hand, today the Americans have swapped the Russian spies, when they should have prosecuted them! So is it now the policy of governments to only arrest those that have committed minor crimes?
Eliot Weave
The usual load of junk. Ignore it totally, except possibly with the delete key.
My name is Jonathan Brockley, human resources officer of Elliot weave Ltd., an establishment that deals in the Import and export of textiles and fabric materials, i am looking for a trustworthy representative in Your Country that will aid as a link between us and our customers in the United States Canada and Australia and Europe.
This part time job will not affect your present job and you earn an attractive salary(100-1500dollars) weekly.
I would like to know if you are interested. Respond only if you will like to work from Home / Part-Time and get paid weekly without leaving or it affecting your present job. (EARN 10% OF ALL PAYMENT, PAY IS GOOD)
Please if you are interested Just reply this message.
FULL NAME : ……………………
FULL ADDRESS : …………………………(No P.O. Box) CITY : ………………………………………
STATE: …………………………..
ZIP CODE: ……………………..
PHONE NUMBER (S) : ……………………………
OCCUPATION:……………………………
GENDER : …………………………….
AGE : ………………………………..
WHAT IS YOUR BEST MEANS OF COMMUNICATION ? e-mail or phone ? ……………
Your Swift reply will be appreciated in order to get across to our client for immediate payment and you start earning.
Thank you.
Warmest Regards,
Jonathan Brockley .
Elliot-weave
Why I Chose My Bank
I did this because it is in a convenient place in the High Street and I’d heard from people I trust, that the on-line banking worked well.
I also chose it because, I didn’t get too much spam purporting to be from the bank trying to get me to login to a fake site. This cut the chances of getting fooled.
Except fot two e-mails in the last week, which I knew to be very fake, as they were so obvious and lacked security check information, this is still the case.
But there are banks out there, for which I still get masses of phishing spam. I immediately delete them, as I have no account at the bank, so they must be crooked, especially as they go to undisclosed-recipients, which is a sure sign of fraud.
So are these banks ignoring these messages, which are an affront to their good name and a threat to their and their customers security?
There is a Lot of it About!
My page on NetTemps Inc, is just a repost of a spam e-mail I received. But yesterday it had 404 hits, so there must be thousands of these scam e-mails going around the web and people are doing the sensible thing and using Google to find the truth.
Look at this web site, where someone turns the tables on this type of scam. He’s just having fun and it’s a very interesting way to waste the criminals time. But as he says, he’s had death threats, so don’t do it yourself.
An E-Mail To The University of Ulster
I wrote this e-msil to the team developing the computer games at the University of Ulster.
You could argue, that I’m in a sorry state, being a 62-year-old widower of three years, who has just lost his youngest son at just 37 to pancreatic cancer. To cap it all I have just had a series of strokes,which have left me with a gammy left hand amongst other smaller issues.
As someone who has spent nearly 50 years programming, writing reports and lately blogging on the Internet, the standard PC keyboard totally frustrates me. You want to hit shift to get a capital and you hit caps lock or control, which means the precise document you are creating gets into a mess, because you have capitalisation all over the place or say you hit something like control-W which opens a new window in Internet Explorer.
I have found a partial solution in the Microsoft Comfort Keyboard, but sadly it doesn’t quite go far enough.
One of the features of this keyboard is the ability to disable individual keys, so they don’t work.For example, I have disabled the Caps Lock key and this now means that I don’t have to rewrite large portions of documents, when I accidentally toggle the key. Having no Caps Lock is no problem to me, as I have never ever used the key in my work.
I also want to disable other keys :-
- One and/or both of the control keys – Disabling just the left would be an interesting option, as for things like control-C and control-V, which I still use would be available using the right one. My right hand is still 100%.
- The Windows key – I’ve never used that key and used with some keys it does lot of things that you don’t want to do in a Word Document or Internet Explorer. With L it locks the computer, which is something you don’t want to do inadvertantly.
- The ALT key – Who uses that? Except in control-alt-del.
The driver of the keyboard should be able to be modified to disable any key and perhaps allow certain combinations, such as those commonly used ones with Control, but that would need co-operation from Microsoft. Microsoft’s driver and control panel is a good template and starting point.
I should say that I programmed quite complex keyboard drivers in some of my software, but that is actually a level above the actual deep-level driver. When you hit a key, you first check which of the modifier keystrokes, (control, alt etc.) are depressed and take an appropriate action, so it should be easily possible to ban single keystrokes as Microsoft do in part, but allow the combinations you want. If I could write a Windows keyboard driver, I know I could do it. I also have the money to pay someone who can to create something that would ease the lives of many stroke sufferers and disabled individuals.
I have discussed this driver with my doctor at Addenbrookes and he feels it would be worthwhile, but has never come across anything like it. If you search my blog for keyboard you will find more thoughts. As this e-mail is effectively a specification for the driver, I shall probably post it on the blog, together with a link to your work.
I see that you have developed computer games for stroke sufferers. I have never played any computer games, as I prefer games to be real. I am going to get back to playing real tennis, which is a game with a world-wide handicapping system, that can be used to measure your progress. You can also find quite a few gentle players, like the elderly or kids to play with, so that you can build up your skill and power levels gradually.
Keep up the good work.
But as my Irish racehorse trainer, Tadey Regan says, “The Struggle Continues”
Some might say that publishing here is just giving away an idea, thst might be stolen by someone else.
As Rhett Butler said in Gone With The Wind, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. If I get my driver I’ll be pleased.
Computer Games For Stroke Rehabilitation
Researchers at the University of Ulster have been carrying out trials of specially designed computer games to help rehabilitate stroke sufferers.
Ulster’s School of Computing and Information Engineering in Coleraine has collaborated on the project with fellow researchers at the Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Institute at the Jordanstown campus.
The Games for Rehabilitation project, which has been funded by the Department of Employment and Learning over three years, focuses on rehabilitation of the upper limbs and involves the player using their hands and arms to touch targets which move around the screen.
Read the full article here.
I can see the point, but I’ve never been someone for computer games. On the other hand, I’ve had some good physiotherapy in both Hong Kong and Addenbrookes. The stuff that I liked had an element of play in it. Especially, when you were playing with an attractive twenty-year-old or so ypung Chinese woman. Addenbrookes were also using a Nintendo Wii.
How to Replace a Key On a Laptop
I am a computer professional of long standing or should that be sitting. But my expertise is software and not hardware!
On the other hand, my friend, Pula, has had little computer training, other than on how to use Windows and the various applications. But she comes from a family that prefers to face up to challenges rather than duck them!
So when the B key on her laptop became sticky, she attempted to fix-it. Getting the key out was the easy part, but putting it back was a but tricky.
So Pula struck and searched the Internet for some help and found this web site, where there was a page for her computer.
Well done Pula! If she can do it without any experience, surely you can try!
The Anonymous Widower 