Passing clouds of inconsequential observations
A report has found that the Internet is not quite the nightmare like environment some would have us believe. Â In fact it is mostly occupied by relatively normal people. Â Who could have imagined that?
Report Finds Online Threats to Children Overblown – NYTimes.com.
I used to have a broadband connection with Namesco but their amazing (lack of) customer service put an end to that. They managed to break it twice within six months. The nice man on the telephone assured me that they would “As a goodwill gesture…” not charge me for correcting their cock ups. I hung up.
This site is hosted by them. I have just renewed, after seriously contemplating moving it elsewhere, the hosting package. Yesterday things stopped working. There was no warning. There was no notification of what was going on. Having been a customer for some time I have become use to their somewhat cavalier attitude to customer service. So I rummaged around on their website and found this…
14 Jan 09
13:54:22
FTP Password updates
As one of the UK’s leading web services providers, we pride ourselves on offering the highest levels of security and protection.
As you may be aware, the number of attempted security attacks in the UK has recently been on the rise, and yesterday we detected a higher than usual number of attempts to break into websites hosted on our network. Our systems remained unaffected as we invest heavily in the security of our infrastructure.
However, as a precautionary measure we immediately disabled a segment of our customers’ FTP passwords. Furthermore, we have changed one of the rules for password length from being 6 characters to 8 characters. To reactivate your FTP access you will need to login to your Online Control Panel and create a new FTP password.
“Our systems remained unaffected”… but we are going to disable your [W:FTP] service and delete your password but not bother to tell you what we are doing.
Thanks!
Amazingly their billing department can send out reminders that they want you to give them your money months before the actual due date, and they will keep on sending them until you pay up. They even have warnings appear on their Control Panel when you log in…
…but they are unable to find any means to notify you when they disable your account.
Fortunately they do have a Tell The Boss page. Fortunately there are other hosting companies….
Yet another switcher whinges that Macs do not work the same as Windows PCs and that Microsoft’s software for the Mac is different to the Windows version. Ok it is the day before MacWorld Expo so the article is probably more click bait than serious journalism but you have to wonder what these people are thinking. If you do not like Microsoft’s software for Macs don’t use it. If you prefer Picasa to iPhoto then ask Google for a Mac version – oh look here it comes now! But Picasa’s insisting that my EyeTV stream was a picture became rather irritating. I am guessing that iPhoto’s new Facebook button will be the deal clincher in this house :-/
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One commentator to the switcher article said:
It still boggles my mind the hoops I have to go through to do something simple like renaming a file on Mac. What’s the hotkey for that? Oh, there isn’t one. You need to click and hold the mouse button down on the file name for what feels like a random amount of time (and if you get it wrong and “miss”, the file opens instead… which means whatever app it’s associated with also opens).
What? How hard can it be? Select whatever you want to rename, hit Enter, Type a new name, hit Enter, done.
Look…
[local /wp-content/uploads/2009/01/renaming.mov nolink]
Another common theme is the Mac’s menu bar not being attached to individual windows. Just because Microsoft managed to get this, and much else, wrong when they tried to recreate a window based operating system like the Mac had is hardly a reason to condemn the Mac. What you are doing is opening a document in the window not running an application in the window. You can open lots of documents all using the same application. You do not want lots of windows with the same application running in each. Which is why when you close a window on the Mac the application does not Quit.
Hey ho!
In the bizarre times in which we live some bankers and accountants (No! Don’t laugh!) are spouting some nonsense claiming that a lack of maths skills cost us £2.4bn each year. Think of a number any number! Of course by maths they mean “core numeracy skills” (whatever they are!) so we are talking arithmetic rather than mathematics. Have they never heard of the numerous maths failures like Richard Branson? Of course non of this is new it has all been tried before with (surprise surprise!) the inevitable failure. Are you bored yet?
There is a Simple English Wikipedia for children, non-English speakers etc. which seems like a good idea and an opportunity to waste even more time 😉
You can use your UK library card number to access all manner of online resources. Usually the larger your local authority the larger the range of resources available but even our modest library service offers many useful links. Guess I will have to get a library card now 😉