Thursday, March 24, 2005
Blog: Random Sentence Short Story Challenge
Just thought I'd link to this here - a friend of mine has a great idea for a blog: Random Sentence Short Story Challenge
How to make a stupid headline, and not have any relevant pictures?
BBC's done it again - on their Technology News website an article entitled 'How to sell your self for a song' explains how, lo-and-behold, many computer users will happily give out personal information. Also, lacking any reasonable pictures to go with the story, the BBC has opted for a picture of a dog with the title - 'Many of those questioned [in the survey] revealed pet names too'. I mean - come on... find something relevant... I know it's often difficult on the BBC Technology News website, as someone in the know told me, but really - this is pathetic.
On to the topic of the article - the matter of users giving out information like this is nothing new. As most system administrators of large office systems will know - many computer users are often stupid. I'm not criticising anyone (although I suppose I am), they need more education about things like email-use... and companies should be providing that. For home users that don't have access to company resources, they should consider going along to some evening classes (although I understand the quality of many of these is currently quite poor - and people are simply told to 'click here' and 'drag there' without too much thought to what they are actually doing).
Maybe it would be worth the government creating some advisories for computer users in relation to this, rather than just offering services like the new publically funded Internet Security alert system (which, I note, has already told me of problems that happened days previously - so they've got that right, not!).
Perhaps - even better than that - have a banner on all Email Clients and Web Mail interfaces saying 'Email you recieve may come from users/organisations trying to trick you' ... which sounds just as stupid as they old American saying - 'things in the rear view mirror often appear closer than they are' which is engraved on some car mirrors in the US.
So, I suppose some lessons from this are: 1) computer users should be more defensive online, 2) BBC Technology News needs a good slap.
On to the topic of the article - the matter of users giving out information like this is nothing new. As most system administrators of large office systems will know - many computer users are often stupid. I'm not criticising anyone (although I suppose I am), they need more education about things like email-use... and companies should be providing that. For home users that don't have access to company resources, they should consider going along to some evening classes (although I understand the quality of many of these is currently quite poor - and people are simply told to 'click here' and 'drag there' without too much thought to what they are actually doing).
Maybe it would be worth the government creating some advisories for computer users in relation to this, rather than just offering services like the new publically funded Internet Security alert system (which, I note, has already told me of problems that happened days previously - so they've got that right, not!).
Perhaps - even better than that - have a banner on all Email Clients and Web Mail interfaces saying 'Email you recieve may come from users/organisations trying to trick you' ... which sounds just as stupid as they old American saying - 'things in the rear view mirror often appear closer than they are' which is engraved on some car mirrors in the US.
So, I suppose some lessons from this are: 1) computer users should be more defensive online, 2) BBC Technology News needs a good slap.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
If you are going to fix something, fix it in the right place.
Today, BT publically announced that it's trials of an add-on piece of software to allieviate the problem of the 'modem dialler scam' problem. This is where a computer user downloads a piece of software that swaps in a new dialler for the internet with one of it's own - usually tied to an expensive premium rate phone number. It should be noted that this is aimed at Windows users.
Great - wonderful. Thanks for that BT. Surely Mr Microsoft should have instigated a fix within Windows rather than BT providing an add-on which, no-doubt, can be disabled by these rogue dialler installation programs. Why doesn't BT get Microsoft to fix this one... it really wouldn't be that difficult - just ask a user if their Internet connection settings should be changed.
As for BT upgrading their Billing system to look for unusual account activity - it's about time. BT were always very quick to bill you for anything on your account... and very loathe to give it back if they find that they were told about problems with a target telephone number on a previous occasion. This can only be a good thing, but the software thing isn't.
Great - wonderful. Thanks for that BT. Surely Mr Microsoft should have instigated a fix within Windows rather than BT providing an add-on which, no-doubt, can be disabled by these rogue dialler installation programs. Why doesn't BT get Microsoft to fix this one... it really wouldn't be that difficult - just ask a user if their Internet connection settings should be changed.
As for BT upgrading their Billing system to look for unusual account activity - it's about time. BT were always very quick to bill you for anything on your account... and very loathe to give it back if they find that they were told about problems with a target telephone number on a previous occasion. This can only be a good thing, but the software thing isn't.
Monday, March 07, 2005
3G Radio Broadcasts? Why
This news report at the BBC Technology News website says Virgin Radio claims that "it will be the first station in the world to offer radio via 3G mobiles."
The article goes on to describe the situation where a codec is used, and basically - we're talking about radio being streamed as per usual Internet Radio stations (including Virgin Radio). This very situation was raised by myself in a meeting with independent record labels a couple of years ago - the main issue being : 'why would anyone want to listen if it's going to cost them an obscene amount of money?'
As it'll be classed as data, you'll be streaming data over 3G (and even 2G GPRS) - so the networks will charge you on average £1 a MB. Come on guys. This isn't news, again I have to ask myself who moderates the BBC Technology news site - this is just a Press Release from Virgin Radio, hardly a journalistic view.
The article goes on to describe the situation where a codec is used, and basically - we're talking about radio being streamed as per usual Internet Radio stations (including Virgin Radio). This very situation was raised by myself in a meeting with independent record labels a couple of years ago - the main issue being : 'why would anyone want to listen if it's going to cost them an obscene amount of money?'
As it'll be classed as data, you'll be streaming data over 3G (and even 2G GPRS) - so the networks will charge you on average £1 a MB. Come on guys. This isn't news, again I have to ask myself who moderates the BBC Technology news site - this is just a Press Release from Virgin Radio, hardly a journalistic view.
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