Islington Gets Another Mobile Phone Shop!
My chiropodist has gone and Upper Street has another mobile phone shop.
Islington Gets Another Mobile Phone Shop!
They won’t get me to indulge in a smart phone. In fact sometimes, I think about giving up my mobile phone altogether to annoy those that insist on having the number.
A Classic Phish
I received this today, purportedly from Vodafone.
Dear Customer,
You have a pending security update on your Vodafone account to protect you against online theft.
Kindly visit http://www.vodafone.co.uk/new_security/update/account.html
Regards
The Vodafone Team
It’s been well setup, but it does exactly what you think. It points to a fake site and probably steals all of your details.
It actually points to a site called eadecom.net which is registered by Jose Canyellas Vila, who gave details of.
josep@senyal.com
LLuis Companys, 1 8-2 Lleida 25003
It wouldn’t make any difference to me, as I’ve never had any account with Vodafone.
Nice one, Jose. All it meant that was your details are now with the guys with heavy boots and even heavier truncheons. You better get the toilet paper ready. You’re going to need lots of it.
I’m not the first person to find Jose. He’s mentioned on PhishTank.
The Self-Filling Bath
I am refitting my bathroom in the next few weeks, as the current bath is one of Gerry’s El Cheapo specials, which is actually dangerous to get in and out of. It also has taps that work on a hot-one way, cold the other basis. There’s a video here.
I’m fitting a whirlpool bath and whilst talking to the saleslady, I thought it would be nice to have an self-filling option. I was told she’d never seen one. On the other hand you can get taps that set the temperature.
I searched the Internet and haven’t found a system.
I wonder why not! It’s a dream for a farmer, a builder or someone who works outside in the cold, wet and filth. Imagine you’re just coming to the end of a hard working day and are walking home or just about to get in your vehicle to drive there. You bring up an app on your smart phone or send a text from your Nokia 6310i to tell the bath to get itself ready in fifteen minutes say. It then fills itself to your required level and temperature, a couple of minutes before you get home.
The logic for the self filling bath is overwhelming. Even in my situation here, I would love to be able to set it off and then perhaps finish a post on my blog or a bit of cooking, whilst it was filling. After all,most of us just hang around in the bathroom, whilst waiting for the water to get to the required level and temperature.
It’s not that the technology is at all difficult. In my view, you wouldn’t actually measure the depth of water directly, but probably by weighing the bath with a simple load cell.
It’s just straightforward automation, that’s been around for years.
What I can’t understand, is why it is not commonplace? But then there are other simple pieces of automation that aren’t either.
NatWorst Opens The Door To The Fraudsters
Natwest have brought in a system called Get Cash based on a mobile phone app. But according to this on the BBC’s web site, it’s all started to backfire.
It looks to me that the Get Cash app is just too easy a target for fraudsters and it appears to me as a humble programmer and system designer, that they used programmers and designers, who didn’t understand the criminal mind.
If my bank offers me a mobile phone app to do my banking or use a credit card, the answer is no, no a thousand times no!
Incidentally, the computer that does my banking, never leaves my house and sits behind a door with a powerful lock on it.
I usually only draw out cash from a small number of cash machines fairly close to my house or at the Angel.
Who Needs 4G?
I was one of the first users of a mobile phone, many years ago. Today, the BBC are reporting a big meeting about the next generation, 4G
But I have not even got onto 3G, just staying with a good old-fashioned phone; a Nokia 6310i, that gives me text messages and calls.
The only thing, it cant do that I need, is put up a skeleton topic on my blog for editing later when I get home. If I needed to, I could tweet from the phone.
4G is only a way to get more money out of the gullible.
An Interesting Slant On Apple
I found this article on the BBC web site. I like this interesting snippet.
This is what happens when a company is too cheap to invest in research and development. Did you know that Apple spends far less on R&D than any of its rivals – a paltry 2% of revenues, versus 14% for Google and Microsoft?
I’ve run R&D and you must spend to keep ahead of the game. Perhaps, Apple are too interested in making money?
But mugs will still queue up for the iPhone5. I won’t!
Nokia’s Critical Handset Launch
Not my headline, but one on the BBC’s web site, that links you to this story.
Sadly, it’s not a new version of the legendary 6310i, that many want, but some smart phone that they don’t.
It’s apparently based on Windows 8. Come to think of it what’s with Vista that I use.
I’m no technophobhe, but developments in hardware and software should be like men and women. As people have developed, the next generation is always perfectly understood by the previous one.
A Better Way To Pay By Credit Card?
There are certain things, I don’t like where money is concerned.
The first is smart-phones, as they are just status symbols, beloved of the light-fingered. So if anybody suggests that I need those to do things like buy a train ticket, a coffee or a pair of knickers, or even replace my rail ticket then I say a big no!
I don’t like too to always have to carry more than one payment card. At present, I usually carry two; my Freedom Pass for transport in London and usually my John Lewis/Waitrose credit card for purchases. I would like to be like the Queen and not carry any cash, but as I do like coffee, which is almost as good as milk for my throat, I’ve always got a few coins in my pocket. So I have a small folder with these cards, my Senior Railcard and a few of my business cards in my pocket. My wallet stays at home most of the time, when I’m in London. I did lose the folder once and within a few hours, the bus driver had phoned me saying he’d got it and I could get it from the garage.
So I was rather intrigued, when I saw in the Sunday Times, an article about Square, a payment company started by one of people who brought us Twitter. You upload your picture, a recording of your name and credit card details to a web site and then when you go into say Starbucks, their iPad app recognises you and your name recording is the password. You can get your receipt as a text message to any phone as new as a Nokia 6310i. I knew I was right about smart phones being dead end technology. Nothing will persuade me to get one. If for instance, a shop, a theatre or a train company said I must have a smart phone to purchase their product, then I will make sure that I take my business elsewhere and give them all the bad publicity they deserve.
I can’t wait to walk into Starbucks on Upper Street, say “Anonymous Widower” and get my cappuccino.
Parking Sensors And Phone Apps
The BBC is reporting that Westminster Council is installing sensors in the road, so that drivers can use a smartphone app to go to the nearest free space.
How do you use the smartphone, whilst you are driving?
Technology At The Olympic Venues
One thing that has dissappointed me has been the information at the venues about what is happening elsewhere. For instance, I really didn’t realise yesterday how we had won the team show jumping until I got home.
Perhaps it’s because everybody relies on their smart phones. But I don’t! I would have paid for a medal update text alert. But I couldn’t find one.
The Anonymous Widower 