Dissappointed with the Virgins
I say virgins, as all of the services are not really up to scratch. Or at least what I expect.
- The broadband has now failed five times and I have to switch off the modem and reboot every time. As it improved when I undid all the connections and reconnected them, I think it’s all down to a bad joint. But it’s annoying.
- They still haven’t transferred my previous landline number to the new connection.
- But the biggest problem is the design of the box that provides television. I give it about four out of ten, whereas I’d give my previous Sky-Plus nine. The reason it would only get that, is that it lacks the back button, which the virgin has.
- I’m also paying for ESPN and it’s not being delivered.
They will be getting an ear-wigging today.
Installing the Virgins
Men living alone have curious habits. But two things they need are decent broadband for the Internet and football on the television.
As the new house is in a cable area, one of the reasons, I visited yesterday was to get the cable connected.
By twelve and ahead of schedule, they were both working, after installation by a competent and charming young lad, who didn’t seem to make any mistakes, except leave a cable in his van and go back to retrieve it.
I also got a speed of 54 Mbps, when I’m only paying for 20!
So virgins aren’t as expensive as they used to be!
Wikileaks Gets Nasty
I’m not sure about Wikileaks. I’m all for it, when it exposes injustice and cruel regimes around the world. On the other hand, if the founder has commited sex crimes in Sweden, then I would of course not condone that! But that has nothing to do with Wikileaks.
But now that their supporters are supposedly attacking the likes of Mastercard and PayPal, I’m not sure.
I’m also very much against people leaking information they have been given in confidence. Unless of course, that information exposes crime, injustice or incompetence. But a lot of the Wikileaks disclosures would appear to be diplomatic or political tittle-tattle, available in many autobiographies of the supposedly great and good. So have Wikileaks ruined the value of these memoires, which no one buys anyway?
Spammer Responsible for a third of all Spam in Court
I like this story from The Register. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
A Russian who allegedly at one time ran a network of compromised machines responsible for a third of global spam appeared in federal court in Wisconsin on Friday to deny the charges.
Oleg Y Nikolaenko, 23, a resident of Moscow, faces charges that he forged email spam messages in violation of the US CAN-SPAM Act, following his arrest in Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel last month.
Prosecutors allege that the Russian was responsible for pumping out a staggering 10 billion spam messages per day, touting penis pills and counterfeit goods using the infamous Mega-D botnet network.
I wonder how many spam e-mails we’re going to see from Russia selling tickets, hotels and flights to the World Cup in 2018? Probably none, as Putin has given Sepp Blatter his word!
He Must Be Joking
I just received this e-mail from some idiot called Nepon Smith. With a name like that his parents must have been very stupid and they’ve obviously passed him a set of extremely crap genes.
Hello ,
Am interested in a champagne called Louis Reoderer Cristal Champagne
2002 vintage for an event this month i know the champagnes are expensive also let me know if i can have them in Gift boxes but i will like to know if you can source them for i we be happy if i could have them on hand be the Date of the event Let me know how soon you can get them I’ll get back to you with my Credit Card number as soon as i get the total cost for the cases and i will arrange for the pick up at your location as soon as payment is clear by my carrier to the location of the event below is the bottles needed i will like you to get back to me with the total cost for the bottles.
Champagne Name
Louis Reoderer Cristal Champagne 2002 vintage ……….24 bottles
Waiting for you quick respond.
This has scam written all over it, so I used my favourite Delete key.
I was tempted to e-mail him back, with a suitable address in Kabul.
Crazy Utility Suppliers
My new house has four different suppliers for gas, electricity, telvision/broadband/phones and water, as is fairly typical in the UK.
I’ve now got them sorted, but sometimes you wonder what sort of muppets designed their systems.
- One supplier needs me to sign a contract, but they don’t have any means to send the contract to an address other than that of the property. And as the property has had tenants in it, good knows where the contract went to! I would vote for the rubbish, if my previous experience with tenants is anything to go by.
- One wanted me to sign on on-line for good reasons, but after two hours I gave up, as they kept asking who was my previous supplier, when obviously there wasn’t one. They also said I should phone a particular number, which had a fault. After I’d finished, they asked me to fill in an on-line survey, which I did truthfully. As it didn’t ask for my name, phone number or e-mail address, I doubt I’ll get an apology for the time I wasted.
- The water company were OK, but tried to sell me things I’ve never needed before.
- On a first call, nPower were short and to the point, so after I’d given up on the other energy company, I phoned them back. I did a combined gas and electricity deal, which may not be the cheapest, but it took me just ten minutes on the phone with a salesman who seemed much more competent than the rest combined.. He also informed me that my new house had a prepayment meter and arranged a suitable date for its removal.
It just goes to show that you can win some and lose some.
It would certainly help if some companies had properly designed systems.
The FBI Wades In
I posted the question, Are We Winning the Spam Wars, a few days ago.
Today there is this fascinating article on how the FBI is targetting a Russian spammer, on a web site called The Smoking Gun. The web site was started independently, but is now part of media giant, Time Warner, and gets a lot of its information through the Freedom of Information Act.
The numbers in the article are huge. The Russian is alledged to have controlled 500,000 computers and sent billions of spam e-mails every day, selling fake Rolexes and all the other rubbish. For one six-month period, he was paid, $459,000 by his clients.
I hope Mr. Putin is taking note and sends a few men round with heavy boots and large machine guns!
Visits to This Blog
I would have thought that traffic would have been higher in the last couple of days or so, as people would be sitting at home with nothing to do, as they would have decided that going out wouldn’t be worth it. After all, with freezers, I suspect that there are a lot less people who need to go to the shops every day. And those who can, are working from home.
But since last Friday, when the weather started to get really cold, the traffic has been well down. I have also received very few e-mails, serious or spam, so perhaps everybody are just concentrating on keeping life together and are not at their computers.
It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between the weather and the amount of Internet traffic.
After Payday Loans, We Now Have Payday Sales!
I buy my Sloggi knickers from Figleaves, as it is so much easier to buy them there than in a real store, as most never have my style or anything smaller than medium. And as they are just a few miles down the road in Haverhill, they usually arrive in the post the next morning!
Today, I received an e-mail from them with a new twist. The title was “20% off at figleaves.com – Payday treat!”
I like that and it is very much the acceptable face of the Internet, as opposed to some of the payday loan companies.
A Real Corker
I just had to put this spam e-mail up, as anybody who believes it, should be automatically certified.
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN
THE PARLIAMENT COUNCIL
SUB-COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN DEBTS PAYMENT
ENGLAND- BRITAIN
OFFICIAL GAZETTE 23/11/10
NO. 33 GOVERNMENT NOTICE NO. 37 VOL. 2010
PARLIAMENT COMMENT!
ATTN: FUNDS BENEFICIARY (ON COMPENSATION/INTEREST CALCULATION) AMOUNT:
? 1,850,000.00 GBP
With reference to the petition filed by the Payment Review Commission (PRC) to the Parliament Sub-Committee on Foreign Debts Payment requesting the immediate payment of foreign/local beneficiaries within forty-eight hours (48hrs.) as interest/compensation of this last quarter payment schedule. We are sorry over the time you have been looking to receive your payment and the huge disappointment s most of you have encountered.
The British Counsel has therefore given instructions to the Director of Economist, Transfer & Relations, Debt Management Office (DMO); Tel: +44 208 8199432; Email: dmo@europe.com with immediate effect.
Congratulations!
??????????
DR. JONATHAN ELLIS MEMBERS
CHAIRMAN, (SBERR)
MR DAHOMEL CEBALOS
(Parliament Committee)
BRAIN LUCAS
(Member, Parliament House)
There are a lot of things I find funny in this but nothing more so, than the dyslexic Brian.
The Anonymous Widower 