December

(28.12.08) Holiday Fun! Let's start with something that appears to a be a mainly German phenomena, truck art. This isn't just a bit of customising, a few flames and a scantily clad lady, it's entire 3d illusions created in great detail; click here.

What's David Icke been up to recently? Well much the same as always really, warning us of the dangers of being dominated by a world wide conspiracy of shape shifting lizards of course. Here's him pontificating on the election of Barak Obama.

Where's the Path is a website that displays Google's satellite image next to the OS map of the area, letting you find footpaths and the like more easily. My favourite feature is the button that loads the 1940's map. Click here.

Wikiquote is a wonderful source of quotes from the everyone from Douglas Adams to Jay-Z. Start with Bill Bailey's page here if you want a really good laugh.

And finally a seasonal game, and what could be more seasonal than a snowball fight? Click here.


(24.12.08) Happy Christmas everyone and I hope you all have a really good one. Updates may be a bit patchy over the next couple of days but I'll be back over the weekend with some Friday fun, although possibly not on Friday. In the meantime, I hope you like the cartoon, which just about sums up seasonal planning this year and just in case you're short of things to watch or listen to, here's a classic Christmas edition of I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue.

(22.12.08) I've posted a walk-through of the Java update, partly because it's popping up on everyone's computer and partly because with it's option to install the Yahoo toolbar, it's pretty typical of the installation process of a lot of ubequtious pluggins. Click here to read it (sorry about the quality of the first screenshot, I'll improve it when I can).

(19.12.08) Users of Firefox 2 are receiving a message that the latest update is absolutely the last one that will be issued for version 2 and advising them to upgrade to version 3, so hopefully they will. Thanks to Abby for this tip.

Friday Fun: It's Christmas and as usual, Santa has brought a sackful of lists. Which is OK. I like lists. Click here for a where-are-they-now list of 15 internet celebrities, from the Coke and Mentos guys to tearful Brittany fans and beyond.

The best of the Guardian Online football cartoon gallery can be found here, only of interest because my effort can be found at number 10 and even then, only to me.

This weeks YouTube offering are 40 Inspirational Speeches and The Dark Bailout, a spoof of the Dark Knight.

And this week's game is Top Bun, a promo game for the latest Wallice and Gromit. It's one of those do lots of repetitive tasks game and I usually wouldn't bother with it but it does have some of the W&G charm. Click here. 

(18.12.08) The Java icon that appears in the bottom right hand corner of your computer screen doesn't disappear if you just ignore it nor does Java update automatically. Rather, it reappears each time the computer restarted (possibly every 24 hours) and the browser is opened. So look out for it, click on it and watch out for the option to install the Yahoo (possibly Google) toolbar (you don't need to). Thanks to Steve for help with this.

(17.12.08) Microsoft has issued a series of updates to fix the problem effecting Internet Explorer highlighted yesterday. Most people will receive them via automatic update but you should still be careful visiting fringe websites for the next 24 hours to ensure they've had time to install. If you're on dial-up it would be a good idea to open Internet Explorer, click on Tools and then "Windows update" and follow the instructions to update manually (On edit: When I used manual update there was still one security update that hadn't been downloaded, so it might be good idea to check even if you're on broadband). Read more here.

Firefox has also issued an update which will install automatically and addresses various security issues. It has also announced that it's going to end various aspects of support for Firefox 2, so if you haven't updated to version 3, do so now (link below). Read more here.

(16.12.08) Users of Internet Explorer are being advised to start using another browser following a discovery of a threat that has already infected an unknown but very high number of computers. It enables hackers to "inject" there own code into websites which then infects the computers of visitors giving the hacker access to it. Most of the estimated 10000 compromised websites are in China but the exploit is sure to spread further quickly. The simplest solution is to start using another browser, which is very easy and you can download the most popular, Firefox, here and find a guide to using it here. Read more on the threat here.

(15.12.08) I've noticed a icon appearing in the system tray on a few computers over the last week, it's for Java and when clicked enables you install the latest version on the program (it "plugs into" Interner Explorer and Frefox and enables web content like video and games to run). During the installation process it offers the oppurtunity to install the Yahoo toolbar, which is much the same as the Google one and equally unnecessary in my opinion.

However if you don't click on the icon Java seems to update automatically and the next time the computer is started it's gone away, so if you notice it, ignore it.

(12.12.08) I've been trying out Open Office, the free alternative to Microsoft Office that can work with your existing documents and spreadsheets and loads quicker and is lighter on computer resources, making it a good choice for people using older computers.

The interface is little old when compared with recent version of Microsoft Office but it can perform most of the functions and it has nifty add-on that can shrink Power Point Presentations to email friendly sizes, which considering how many people send them these days, is a must. Click here for more and download links.

Friday Fun: Websites with names like "Make Em Laugh" should usually be avoided, especially when they don't even have the decency to write the Em in lower case and with an apostrophe but in this case it's worth a visit, especially if you enjoy monologues by the likes of Stanley holloway, click here.  

Via Harry Shearer's ever wonderful "Le Show" I discovered there's a guitar shop in Santa Monica that for 50 years has supplied guitars and performing space to some of the best artists of the last century. Click here for a slide show of moody B/W photos and heartfelt thoughts.

The combination of free music and not being arrested is particularly appealing these days and so I was very pleased to come across both OnClassical (click here)(self explanatory) and BeatPick (click here), which is an eclectic mix of genres from World to Heavy Metal. I found The Detroit illharmonic in the World section and they're excellent. Both supply tracks that are quick to play, BeatPick even offers them in Hi and Low Fi.

Big Bod says (click here) is basically a reworking of Simon Says for the computer and requires a lot of concentration, Tetris Friends (click here) on the other hand is reworking of the old computer game and still on a computer.

(10.12.08) As predicted legal firms are being accused of trying to intimidate people into settling claims that they have illegally allowed a copyright piece of media rather than face the possibility of court. The accusation is usually that a film or song has been illegally copied and shared but sometimes it's pornography at the centre of the claim, adding embarrassment to the already worrying letter.

Which magazine has singled one particular firm for attention, saying that their letters "make incorrect assertions about the nature of copyright infringement; ignore the evidence presented in defence; and increase the level of compensation claimed over the period of correspondence. In addition, the letters threaten, incorrectly, that failing to properly secure an internet connection is grounds for legal action."

I think this kind of action is only likely to increase and in addition will be scam email just sent out to random people. If you're contacted first check whether you did download what they say and if you didn't, don't just give in, contact a solicitor. Read more here and here.

(09.12.08) Emailing or rather receiving photos can be really annoying, first your messages seem to take an unusually long time to arrive and then you open one only to be presented with the top right hand corner of an enormous image. Even though most of us have got broadband, many don't and modern cameras take enormous images, these can slow or even stop email services, with many ISPs still restricting attachment size to 2mb. So click here for a guide to emailing images, even if you don't need it, you can email the link to the next person who sends you a 3mb picture.

(08.12.08) Amazon may not be as safe as you thought and according to the BBC'c Watchdog programme, it's become the latest hunting ground for the kind of dodgy seller that haunt eBay. They report stances of fake goods, illegal merchandise such as CS gas for sale and just plain con artists who take the money but don't send the goods.

They all use "Amazon Market Place" which allows non-Amazon sellers to advertise products alongside Amazon's own through the "buy new or used" link. So check out the seller before you buy through this method, they'll often have their own website and a record of previous sales, before you buy. Read more here. Thanks to forum member doggo for sending this in.

(05.12.08) Christmas shoppers are being warned about a flood (I think that's the technical term) of fake Nintendo DS consoles (that's the hand held one with the brain trainer game) on the market. The main clue that the one you're buying is a fake is the price, if you think "good grief I'm not paying that for ione" it's genuine. Read more here and here and check eBay auctions very carefully.

Friday Fun: Everyone has book inside them, unfortunately most are about self improvement, here's a summary of "Wake up and live" which has 12 brain excercises to waste your time on. Click here, I particularly liked number 2, how can you spend 30 minutes thinking about  the concept of 5 minutes? 

Click here for the best online shop ever. No idea if it sells anything worth buying but the intro is great.

This weeks Youtube clip is a player being sent off for tripping a man invading the pitch. Click here.

JigCircle is jigsaw but in a circle, you rotate the bits to form the picture, dead simple, so click here.

Oh, and I'm still enjoying last weels Little People.

(04.12.08) Microsoft and an IT firm called Alchemy Plus are getting together to build a "cloud computing" centre in Inverness. Cloud computing are the hotest buzz words in business and basically they mean online applications accessible to end users, i.e. you, me and Uncle Tom Cobblies company. Inverness was chosen for the £20 million investment because of the cold climate, which saves on cooling costs for the giant servers required to run the project. This is great news with 400 jobs, many of them hi-thech, coming to the area in a time of economic downturn. Read more here.

As reported last week, the BBC has started live streaming it's TV channels this. I've tired it and even on a 512k connection it works pretty well with only the occasional pause in the picture, on a 1mb+ it should work perfectly. Go to www.bbc.co.uk and then the channel pages to try it.

(02.12.08) BTYahoo may be restricting people to sending copied email to total of 20 recipients. I say may because I've had one report of someone having problems sending out a newsletter and a websearch turned up just one report on another forum. According to the poster they spoke to a BT manager who explained it was because other ISPs are blocking BTYahoo mail due to the volume of spam being sent out from their addresses. Click here for the post and get in touch if you have problems too.

November

(28.11.08) Afternoon Scrabble is the title of a harmless internet game that's popping up on forums all over the place (just Google it to see how popular it is). Players just have to change one letter of a word to create a new one and as it's usually a four letter word, it's not that hard.

However it's also mutated into an email game with recipients being asked to send it on to ten contacts and to send the resulting replies back to the origianal sender. Not only that but they're asked to put their addresses next to their new word, so potentially it;s a method of harvesting both email and real addresses. I've no reason to believe that the version I saw had this motive but the game could easily be used for this purpose, so if you get sent the email do use blind carbon copy and don't include the line asking people to add their real address.

Friday Fun: The Secret Life of Words is a book by Henry Hitchings about how words we take for granted arrived in the English language, click here for a slide show of photos with explanations. 

Sand Art is something I think I linked to before but it still amazes me how much work people put into something that is only going to last one tide, click here for a gallery.

Little People -A tiny Street Art Project is another example of transient art, click here to be charmed.

 Vimeo is another video sharing site, it's selling point is that it's high defintion. What's interesting is that even though the videos are noticably better than YouTube's, they don't take much longer to load. Click here.

Finally a nice rain teasing game. enDice just asks you to move a number of dice to place holders, with the numbers of moves each die can make indicated by the number of dots they have. Really difficult but quick loading and addictive. Click here.

(27.11.08) No news today - I've just done a bit of editing to the guides and index enteries on Firefox and Interent Explorer on the forum, plus there's a shout out (as te young folk say) for Fast Dial, a Firefox addon that can turn your homepage into a page of thumbnailed links to your favourite websites, which makes it start a lot quicker, especially if you are on dialup. Also some of the addons that weren't working after Ff 3 was released are now, so I've updated that guide accordingly and I've added a couple of new points to the Stay Safe Online guide. Find it all here.

(26.11.08) Ebay buyers are being given the oppurtunity to "give a pound" to charity when they pay for items. The particular charity seems to be randomly chosen but will be one of those that is using the MissionFish/Ebay charity system. Before this iniative they'd already helped charities raise over £6 million, this one is sure to boost that considerably, a pound is so little to give and it feels mean not to tick the box. Read more here.

(24.11.08) Adobe Flash Player popped up asking me if I wanted to download and install the latest version, I clicked yes and got on with something else as it downloaded in the background. After a bit I was asked to click on "Install", "Agree" on terms and conditions and again got on with something else (I was up to 5000 on Bubble Spinner).

A while later a pop-up from Norton System Scan appeared asking if I wanted to check for problems. Now, I'm pretty sure there wasn't asked if I wanted to install NSS but I might not have been paying attention during the installation process and might have missed the dialogue box asking me if I wanted to. From previous installations I know it;s selected by default, so it probably was inattention, anyway, out of curiosity I decided to do a scan, which took about ten minutes. Once complete it informed me I had two unspecified problems but there was no indication what they were and the results box seemed to be mostly about selling the "pro" version of the program.

Not wanting to buy it, I closed the dialogue box and uninstalled it via the sub-menu on the All Programs menu. So, pay attention when you install Flash Player and deselect the option to install NSS, if you don't, ignore the pop-up it generates and just uninstall it.

(23.11.08) The latest version of Picasa, Google's photo browser/ editor program, is available. Picasa 3 has several new editing and organisational features as well as new ways to share images online via Picasa albums. You'll need to download it directly because you can't do so from within your existing version of Picasa, click here for more detail.

AVG users may have experienced problems updating over the weekend due to a problem with an availability of servers, in other words they didn't have enough computers to handle the demand for updates. If this happened to you the advise is to open AVG (double click on the tray icon) and then click "Update." For more detail click here and thanks to Peabody for reporting the matter!

(21.11.08) Friday fun: Google has put the entire Life magazine online and made it searchable, there's thousands of fascinating images going back to the 1860s, click here.

Monty Python has created it's own YouTube channel in response to, as theor introduction puts it, the tens of thousands of video ripping them off. There's 20 clips, including my favourite, The Galaxy Song, click here. 

Charlies Brooker, Guardian columnist, TV presenter and writer, subject of the marvelous "Charlie Brooker is right about everything" song, now has an entire Guardian style online newspaper dedicated to him, click here to browse.

Here's a strange and apparently real corrospondence between someone who owes some money for something and the person trying to get them to pay up, click here.

Short term memory checker is just that, get shown a group of items and pick them out from a mass of other items. Click here. 

Auditorium is toy rather than a game which involves getting the visuals to match a stream music. You just have to move and expand the circle so it directs the stream towards the equaliser level, click here.

(20.11.08) The Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organisation co-ordinating the efforts of several internetional charities, today launched an appeal to bring aid to the ongoing emergency in war torn DR Congo. The website can be found here and if you don't want to give online there's a phone number (0370 60 60 900). If you ever want to find the link in the future you'll find it pinned to the top of the Off Topic section of the forum.

The BBC is to start live streaming all it's main TV channels across the UK Internet from next week. So if you're one of those people who ends up working on the computer while listening to the TV, now you'll be able to see the pictures too! Read more here.

(18.11.08) Another new guide: Well it's an answer to a forum question but it amounts to a guide to making and printing bookmarks from photos on your PC, perhaps not as vital as yesterday's one on security but might make a nice project for old and young alike. To follow it you need either Photo Elements or Ulead Photoimpact and Word. Click here and thanks to Bearsurus for asking the question.

(17.11.08) New Guide: It's become increasingly obvious over the last couple of years that relying on just a firewall and anti-virus program is not enough to protect you on and off-line. Hackers and hi-jackers have become increasingly sophisticated and the real threats no longer come from people trying to destroy computer for the sake of it but from criminals who want to either steal your personal details or turn your system into a tool for sending out there spam. Often people don't realise it's happened because the only symptom might be the Internet slowing down (until the credit card statement arrives).

So I've written a guide to staying as safe as possible, it recommends changing your browser to Firefox and installing some free programs that protect you from most threats. To read it click here.

(14.11.08) Friday fun: Speechification is a blog that celebrates the best of talk radio, it's mostly Radio 4 but there's stuff from Radio 3 and Canada too. There's embedded programmes, which makes listening very easy, click here to try it.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, the Sugar Bush Squirrel is website dedicated to a squirrel found by a US country singer and her obsession with dressing it up. I'm not sure if I'm appalled or amused. Click here.

Google Earth has a new layer, ancient Rome circa 360 AD. Unfortunately it takes forever to download (90 minutes on a 512k connection) and slows all but the fastest computer down but it is quite an achievement, albeit a unfinished one (if can you have an unfinished achievement). They've mapped and created models of all the known buildings, placed them on the terrain of the time and made detailed models of the most famous structures. It's a bit like the old 3d modelling of New York and is worth getting if have a fast connection and system. Click here. BBC story here.

The US media isn't subject to any need to be fair or balanced, consequently some mainstram broadcasters are widely regarded as being either pro-Republican or pro-Democrat. Click here for one of the most Democratically inclined, Keith Olberman, put through the blender and summed up in a succinct minute.

Escape from the Starship is a bare bones 3d maze game. You're continually in danger of being eaten by something that drops from the ceiling and your only clue as to where they are is a clicking noise that gets faster as you approach them, unfortunately the ability to hear the clicks requires a drink which keeps running out. It's difficult but very well done. Click here.

Last weeks Bubble Spinner proved to be one of the most popular I've ever posted, people actually complained that it made them late for work! So if you missed it, here it is again. 

(13.11.08) The latest version of Firefox is out, for details and download see the link to Software Updates at the top of the Anorak News page. I noticed it was out while I was online and when I went to update via the Help menu, instead of "Check for updates online", I found an option to "Install downloaded updates" and so I updated with that. So far it doesn't seem to have disabled any of my add-ons but it may effect some skins.

The latest expansion to World of Warcraft, the hugely popular online game world, has been released. Called the Wrath of the Lich King, it introduces a new land, new class of player and several additonal levels to quest for. There's nearly twenty million players around the world and some of them queued through the day to be first in line when it went on sale in London at midnight last night. Click here for the story, here for a review and here for the official site. Meanwhile, all is not rosey in the 2nd Life garden as a woman is preparing to divorce her real world husband for an affair he conducted in a virtual world. Ironically, she too met him online, so perhaps that's why she took the affair so seriously. Click here.

(11.11.08) 21st Century Network thoughts: Something I've been wondering about for some time is why is Oban's activation date later than the exchanges that connect through it. Oban's target is the first quarter of 2011, two and half years after Lismore's and later than most of the exchanges on Mull, which are mostly set end of next year.

Reading up on the 21st CN provides a probable explanation. It's because the improvement is to the way the local exchange works, rather than just the connection speeds. Speeds will improve if you are connected to one of the many Exchange Activate exchanges in the area, these are currently restricted to 512kbps and after the upgrade this should rise to a maximum of 8mb (depending on what your phoneline is capable of). Even better they'll be able to choose from the same ISPs as anyone else, instead of the five they can access now.

Whether or not the other benefits of the 21st CN will be available until Oban is upgraded is hard to know. As these are primarily to do with how ISPs provide their service and to quote the Sam Knows website "21CN will have no immediate effect on any end users," it would seem to be a moot point unless the connection to Oban is speeded up.

Sam Knows has a map of exchanges here, click on yours and then on the letter code link in the pop-up to find out when it will be upgraded. There's detailed information on the 21st CN here and here.

(10.11.08) Lismore is set for 21st Century Network (21CN) activation March 31st 2009, just three months after the original target, which is great news for them and a relief to the rest of us who assumed if they were going to be late, our exchanges would be really late.

21CN has ambitious targets for connection speeds both up and downstream, domestic connections can be as high as 24mps for downloads and 2.5mbs up but that is probably for people with fibre connections to the exchange, if you have a copper line then it will closer to 8-12mbs. Read more on the 21CN here.

Following the problems in the banking sector there has been a surge in scam email purporting to come from banks with subject lines like "Your online account needs reactivating." Customers of banks that have been in the news a lot are being targeted in particular (not that the sender knows your bank), so there's lots featuring the HSBC. Hopefully your spam filter will pick them up but just in case, if you are worried go to the banks website in the normal way, not via the email, and check for messages.

(07.11.08) Friday Fun: CNN unveiled a new gimmik on election, interviews with some guests were beamed not to a screen but using a holographic projecton of the subject who appeared in th studio in incased in a Ready-Brek like glow. Here's how they did. 

A couple of news stories caught my eye this week, here's a bi-lingual sign from Wales created using an out of office auto-reply rather than translated text and here is the secret of the perfect golf swing (warning: possibly very dull to non-golfers).

My favourite YouTube clips this week are George Formby's Lean Mean Grilling Machine and Kentucky Maths.

Animation Arcade is a website dedicated to amateur cartoons, here's one about the life cycle of the Pygmy Shrew.

And finally two games; Assembler is a physics based game with simple goal of getting a box to a particular spot on the screen. It's pretty easy but works so well that it's a pleasure to play. Bubble Spinner is a "fire the bubble at the other bubbles to create groups of three or more" game and very addictive.

(05.11.08) For those of you who missed the live coverage or perhaps fancy reliving the whole vacarious experience, here are a few links: The Chicago Tribune has some nice galleries here and here. The moment that the result was announced in New York and Grant Park. Newsweek has had reporter working behind the scenes of both election campaigns on the understanding that nothing would be published until after the result, here (+ links) are some highlights (Palin shopping sprees, McCain nicer than you thought, Obama occasionaly worried etc). Gore Vidal had a wonderfully ecentric response while Jess Jackson reminded us of history. If you think it's all over, it's not, there are still things to sort out, find out what here.

(03.11.08) The US election has become something of an obsession for me and I may well stay up all Tuesday night watching the results coming in. From our point of view it's a good thing that the crucial states are all on the east coast, so their polling stations close around midnight - 1 am our time and with the early voting it's going to be pretty clear early on who has won them.

Essentially the election rests on a few states because of the way the US system works. It isn't a straight national total, rather each state votes to send a number of votes to whats called the electoral college, the states with the largest populations send the most votes to the college and whoever wins the college vote wins the election. As most of the states are pretty solidly Republican or Democrat, the election is decided in a few "swing states" where the opinion polls are to close to know for which candidate their electoral college votes will go to.

Of these Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania are the ones to look out for, whoever takes the most votes out of those will win the presidency.

If you have satellite TV and a Sky package of some sort, CNN (online here), CNBC (click here) and Fox News (online here) are good places to get US coverage, if you don't then BBC 2 and ITV have the best televised coverage. BBC radio has a choice of Radio 4, hosted by James Naughtie and Radio 5, hosted by the worlds stupidest radio host, Richard Bacon. On the Web the Huffington Post has lots of updates (click here) and if you like in depth poll analysis the try 538.com (click here).

October

(31.10.08) Friday Fun: Top Muppet Fozzy Bear caught speeding in Germany - click here.

Handy Guide to what various right wing US pundits and politicians think of Sarah Palin (not much) here.

It never ceases to amaze me the subjects people think worthy of a recording and so I'm amazed by Cake Wrecks.

Click here for the winner and runners-up in the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the year competition.

Reverse Graffiti uses dust and grime on buildings and vehicles to create temporary works of art, click here.

And finally, an octopus takes revenge on a light that was annoying it, click here. 

(25.10.08) AVG users may be having problems updating the program and getting the cryptic explaination 'Invalid update Control CTF File.' Happily there's a solution and a link to it has been posted on the forum here. Thanks to Peabody for posting and apologies for not posting this earlier. Anyone getting fed up with AVG can find alternatives here

(24.10.08) A 26 hour powercut means that there's only time to post some Friday Fun, let's hope the juice stays on long enough to publish it!

An archive of close encounters has been published by the Ministry of Defence ranging from the intriguing to the rediculous, click .here for the latter, here for the former and here for the complete archive.

Click here for a blog devoted to pictures of brokers with their heads in their hands.

Japanese cafes seem to have to come up with pretty interesting stuff to compete, the other week their was one with a monkey waiter and now there's one with blogging plant. It has sensors connected to it's leaves etc and posts in response to various stimuli, click here for the story with video and here for a translated version of it's blog. 

My Damn Channel is a creative outlet for an ecletic assortment of artists, from Harry Shearer to a somewhat dispeptic photoshop expert, lots of entertaining stuff. Click here.

Strange Maps is a blog about just that, they range from ancient visions of the world to the contorsions of commercial graphics and much in between. Click here. 

The Wooden Path is simple looking game that involves getting from one island to another using a series of platforms. It gets harder and harder as you move across the islands. click here.

(22.10.08) New page: I've archived all the Friday Fun items onto their own page called simply "Fun." Some of the older links won't be working because of their age but there's lots of good stuff there and it'll make it a lot easier to find things you vaguely remember. The link is on the left.

(20.10.08) NoScript users should check they are using the latest version of the anti-hacking Firefox add-on. That's because yesterday the Firefox updater was still listing an older version, this has probably changed by now but you may have been online all day, so click here to get the latest version. It's more stable apparently.

(17.10.08) An AVG update on Tuesday led to the popular anti-virus to identify Zone Alarm, the popular free firewall, as a threat, to quaratine many of it's file and generally make it useless. The problem was fixed later in the day but those effected will have to reinstall/repair Zone Alarm. Check that Zone Alarm is working and update both programs, if you need to redownload ZA click here.

Friday Fun: Stupid News: Iron Maiden, a popular heavy metal combo, has become a potent symbol in Spanish politics, click here.

Balloon animals can be art, no really they can, click here.

Tateshots is an archive of modern video installations and the like, very uplifting or a complete waste of time, to decide click here. 

Automated Beacon is streaming record of what people are searching for on the web at the moment, funny, hypnotic and a bit disturbing - click here. (Warning - safe search is definitely off)

 Palin for President - click here (and then around the picture).

This picture is real and enough to decide the presidency.

(13.10.08) Conversations with several friends who fix computers has led me to conclude that there are a lot of computers out there lacking any kind of protection other than the Microsoft firewall. All of us have been called out to clean systems of viruses only after they became unuseable and well after they had been hijacked to send out viruses and other nasties. The users are often blase about the role they are playing in spreading infection and it's only the personal inconvenience that bothers. It's no longer possible to track them down by comparring infection patterns, the only thing we can do is spread the word and make it clear that it's unacceptable not to protect ones computer, perhaps by telling people we know don't act responsibility that we will block their email address if they don't do something. A list of free anti-virus and firewall software can be found here.

(10.08.08) Tidy up: I've archived much of the News and Anorak pages, so hopefully they'll load a bit more quickly. The old stuff can be found on the page links on the left.

MicroBill has rebranded itself as Platte media but it's still using the same tactics to get people to pay up for subscription websites and there's nothing illegal in it. Basically you're offered a month's free trial to premium content of websites, typically speciallising in porn, music or games and when you do so no credit card information is required but you do have to install their software to access the website. After the month is up you're bombarded with pop-ups demanding payment and adverts for other services to the point that the internet connection is unusable. The Guardian newspaper estimates that they're making between £900 000 and £1.5 million and up to 64000 people download their software every month. Read more here and be warned!

Friday Fun: Harry Shearer, of Spinal Tap and Simpsons fame (played Derek Smalls and voices Ned Flanders etc) has a wonderful radio show every Sunday on KCRW. It's an hour of chat about the news mixed in with an eclectic taste in music. You can listen at any time and there's lots of archived episodes. Click here.

Google Labs have developed an addon that prevents people from sending email when they're drunk apparently, click here.

Simian News: I'm not sure if this is fun or a bit disturbing but I felt I had to share these monkeys serving people in a Japanese restaurant. On the other hand this wheel barrow full of Orangutans might be the best picture I've ever posted in Friday fun.

Lastly a game and it's another room escape from Japan, so the graphics are very nice and there's no "pixel hunting", just a straight forward game of logic (except for the very end, which is a bit of a leap), click here.

(07.10.08) A chat with a friend highlighted the danger of downloading "codecs," a subject I mentioned a few weeks ago. Codecs are used by media players to decode files and it used to very common to come across files that couldn't be played because of the lack of the correct one. It can still happen but it's generaly due to not having the required player at all. Now they're often used to distribute viruses, in the case my friend related, it had resulted in the computer being used as a "zombie" to send out material on behalf of the virus writter.

The trick works by tempting someone to download a video, often relating to a celebrity scandal or big news event, which then announces it requires a codec to be played and offers a link to get it. Once installed the video might play but the computer has also been infected.

These days it's best to avoid codec downloads and if presented with a video that won't play, check if there are any updates for the player available (you can tell which player is required by looking at the file extension). As a last resort try using VLC Player, it uses a different method to play video and will often play things that nothing else will. Get it here. Also, avoid so called "codec packs", find out why here.

(06.10.08) BT has started contacting broadband customers offering them the opportunity to take part in the testing stage of something called "Webwise." It's the user friendly name for the controversial Phorm software which tracks users surfing and tailors adverts to them with the results.

It's had a controversial history because it was initially tested without people being aware of what was happening and at one point the police were called into to investigate (they decided not to prosecute) and the new version of the sceme emphsises the ant-phishing (potection from websites pretending to be something they're not) rather than the tracking aspect, which it presents as a service that gives the user more relevant advertising.

It's been called an invasion of privacy but from what I can see it is a lot less intrusive than say, Google's toolbar, which tracs you as an individual. Webwise tracks anonymously and merely sends travel adverts to somone searching for holidays for instance. (Which I would have thought happened anyway, I wonder if this is additional advertising generated in the BT  browser, must investigate).

Some people are very suspisous, click here, while others like the BBCs Click On are less so (click here). Click here. Click here for the BT page. Apart from the anti-phishing aspect, which most browsers protect from, I wonder what's in it for the customer.

(04.10.08) Sorry this is a bit delayed, Internet Explorer keeps crashing!

Weekend Fun: Sarah Palin has been a gift to comedians and satarists, especially since she does much of their work for them. Did you know that the famous Tina Fey (click here) impression of her just quoted her for much of the time? Thursday saw her debate with Joe Biden, here’s a flow chart of her debate tactics and here, if you missed the debate, is random quote generator.

If the US is getting a bit depressed with the state of the economy and the quality of leadership, they can console themselves with the thought that at least they’re not Newcastle Utd. They’ve just appointed their fourth manager in less than a year, here is transcript of his first press conference (warning: if this was audio the amount of bleeping would make it sound like a morse code message).

Click here for a gallery of 20 of the strangest endangered species outside of the Newcastle managers office. My favourite is a doleful sea creature called a Dugong. I was shocked that really famous things like the Duck Billed Platypus are at risk though.

Wikipedia has a great section for art and music lovers called Wikimedia Commons which is full of stuff in the public domain. Click here for a link to the composers page which has links to tracks, images and even reproductions of the original sheet music.

Art Daily is an online Arts magazine which rewards the regular visitor, maybe a little dull at first glance but uplifting none the less. Click here.

I wish I were the moon is an odd name for an odd game, if it is a game, it might be some sort of experiment and it seems to have several different endings. Click here.

(01.10.08) Guide Updates: A very useful tip (thanks Peabody!) has been added to the Blind Carbon Copy guide which enables people not using Outlook Express to have "Undisclosed Recipients" appear in the subject and also links to instructions to using Bcc in most popular email clients and services. Click here.

What's What in Firefox has had a tip about how to delete items in an auto-complete list such as the one that drops down from Google or the address bar using a keyboard shortcut (click here) and WW In Firefox 3 has an item about using the navigaton buttons (click here).

September

(30.09.08) Well, the good news is I don't think my computer is infected with the W32/Sality!mem Trojan, the bad is that I've wasted the best part of the weekend working this out. It seems that my McAfee system scan is generating a false positive when it reports the presence of the Trojan in WinLogon.exe. I suspected that something odd was going on when scans of the folder it lives in using the context (right click) menu found nothing wrong, yet it always turns up in full system scans. Other scanners don't find anything wrong but it was only deep digging into support forums that I found that there were several other people asking about the same problem, some of whom concluded that it was a false positive. I agree with them, hopefully McAfee will fix this soon.

(27.09.08) Firefox 3.0.2 installed automatically this morning and as expected some extensions started to behave strangely or not at all and my theme wasn't displaying icons on the links toolbar. Happily version 3.0.3 has been released, no doubt in response to the complaints about the glitches and it seems to be working fine. If you haven't got it yet click on "Help" and then on "Check for updates."

(26.09.08) Friday Fun: Let's start with another cat video, this tme it's of one that plays the piano. It reminded me a bit of Eric Sate; click here.

Commando 2 hs been released, the sequal to possibly th most popular side ways scrolling shooting game of the lastcouple of years. Click here.

I'm not sure PoliticsHome can quite be called "fun" but it is an excellent website for following political news and the poll of UK marginal seats makes surprising reading, click here.

And just in case you missed him; here's the rocket man.

My email: I had a problem with my email last week and, knowing that there would be lot's to plow through, I've been putting off checking it. I'll be catching up with it over the weekend, sorry for the delay if you've been waiting for a reply :¬(

(25.09.08) Some users of the latest version of AVG, 8.0.169, are having update problems and if my experience is anything to go by, none of the suggested solutions work. Those included a complete reinstall and turning off the firewall. In te end I gave up, uninstalled AVG and installed Avast (link below) in it's place. The computer hadn't updated for more than a fortnight, which is far to long these days.

Firefox users are being offered the oppurtunity to update to version 3.0.2 but after checking the support forums it seems a lot of people are experiencing probems having done so. They don't effect everyone, so it's probably it's probably due to incompatibilities with some add-ons or themes. I suggest that people with a lot of them installed wait a few days before updating.

I was working on a computer with on a 512k connection today and had to download a 46mb program. To my astonishment it arrived in 6.5 seconds, which is a rate of about 7.5mb per sec! For a couple of moments I wondered if the exchange had been upgraded but no, a speed test showed everything was normal. I've no idea what the cause was but now I'm really envious of people with 8meg connections!

(24.09.08) iSecurity Pt III: I found a article on the Register about the iSecurity attack which has some excellent screenshots that give a very good idea of how convincing and elaborate the series of hoaxes are. The intial mode of attack appears to be slightly different, the author maintains a blog and noticed a series of replies that contained suspicous links, all of which resolved to the same address.

The writer visted on of the links using a browser running in sand box mode, which means it was isolated from the rest of the computer, so any infection couldn't spread. The website generated a fake pop-up that warned of spyware and from then on the scam ran pretty much as I described below. He didn't experience the fake restarts, presumably because the virus couldn't access the computers operating system.

So, be careful if you have a blog and see what to expect should you come across this virus by clicking here (link goes to page 2, click on page one if you want to read the bit about the blog). 

(23.09.08) Google has unveiled the phone it hopes will rival Apples iPhone called the G1. It's quite a bit cheaper the Apples at $179 but like the iPhone you'll be tied to a single mobile provider. The main differences between the rivals is that Google's not only a touch screen but also a track ball and mini-keyboard. It comes with several Google services installed, maps, email etc and the operatin system is open source so there'll be plenty of add-ons available. It goes on sale on October 22nd. Read more here (photos), here (review) and here (The Register).

(22.09.08) iSecurity Pt.II I was very impressed by the sophistication of the attack, which might  fool even a fairly experienced user. Part of the problem for this particular victim was that they had only just gone back online with BT broadband and so they assumed that the initial “warning” message that appeared when they went online with the BT browser was from BT. This reinforced the message that was popping up in the guise of the Windows Security Centre.

Once the Trojan (a virus that pretends to be a legitimate program) all the messages and dialogue boxes it generated were almost identical to real ones and the billing website they used appears to be legitimate and actually sends out receipts.

As well as purchasing, for £50, the fake antivirus program, they also installed a number of other pieces of malware, including “Ultimate Defender” and “MalwareProtector”, all of which produced fake scan results which required the product to be activated after further payments. In addition some of them were attempting to steal personal information, such as credit card details.

The behaviour of the computer convincingly mimicked that of a system infected by most peoples idea of a virus, with frequent fake restarts and blue screens. The performance, particularly of the browser, was so degraded that it was difficult to work out what was going on.

However sorting it out was fairly easy once I’d installed Avast Antivirus (click here). That’s because it’s a fairly small download and it offers the option to scan when the computer is restarted. It does this in the same way as Chkdsc does and scans before the computer boots the programs, which means that anything nasty doesn’t have a chance to thwart it. 

It found a long list of viruses, Trojans and malware, scanning 18GB of files in about 35 minutes and once installed was simple to setup. I'm going to recommending it rather than AVG in the future

I also installed the Ashampoo Firewall (click here) which I also liked, again it was a small download and easy to setup, only the double email registration process was a bit tedious. It does pop-up with more questions than my paid for McAfee firewall but that stop with time and it wasn’t as intrusive as, say, Zone Alarm.

I suspect that the initial attack was through a website which installed the iSecurity Trojan as soon as it was visited, a possibility I’ve written about but not encountered before. The moral of the story is that you should never go online without a functioning security system, this particular user seems to have fallen victim within a few hours and it cost £50 and the inconvenience of cancelling his credit card.

(21.09.08) iSecurity pt.1: Yesterday I was called out to rescue a computer that was apparently infected with over a thousand viruses, not to mention several dozen pieces of spyware. I was surprised it was working but that was what the newly downloaded anti-virus program was saying and quite insistently too.

On starting the computer in quick succession Windows Security Centre popped up with a warning that the anti-virus programs needed either registering or paying for, the one that had been paid for needed registering and was generating messages warning of 1024 viruses which could only be removed once it had been activated, the one that needed paying for, which was a newer version, was warning of dozens of pieces of malware.

Going online to find the registration emails which had been sent to an online account was only possible after negotiating a warning page on Internet Explorer warning that we were surfing insecurely and then although there was no email with an activation code there was a receipt from a billing company called something like paymentbt.com.

There were other problems too. The display was very poor because every couple of minutes the computer would “crash” displaying a blue screen warning of something called “Spyware.Monster” and saying that it was dumping memory and restarting, which it would then do and reset display to it’s basic settings. Each time it did though, the programs that were before the crash were still going, so I realised that it wasn’t really crashing at all and the behaviour and all the messages were hoaxes.

It was only after installing a free antivirus program called Avast that I was able to get rid of it and several other viruses, Trojans, worms, malware and spyware. Once the display was back to normal it was clear that the billing website wasn’t called paymentbt but paymentbit and there was one or two spelling mistakes in the “security centre” messages.

More on this tomorrow, with more detail on iSecurity, how the user got into the mess in the first place, my impressions of Avast and the Ashampoo firewall I installed and other nasties found.

(19.09.08) Friday Fun: Time & Date is useful little website that tells simple things like what time it is in different parts of the world and how far apart places are, click here.

TellyAds is just what it sounds, a huge archive of ads off the telly, with over 7000 recent and nearly a thousand classic ads in it's archive, click here.

Click here for a video of a very sneaky cat.

Click here for a slideshow of new species of sea life discovered of the coast of Australia.

Tina Fey has come in for a bit of stick from the Republicans for her uncanny impersonation of Sarah Palin, click here to see what got them riled.

Dog House is sliding box game in which you move the rooms of a house seen in "dolls house" view so the a dog can find its way to its dinner, click here.

(17.09.08) Beware of fake email threatening legal action over illegal music downloads. It was obvious this was going to happen and although there aren't widespread reports of it yet, it's bound to and as a lot of people will worrying about real action being taken against them, it's going to be profitable scam.

On a brighter note, a start-up music download company called 7digital has succeeded in signing four of the largest music sellers in the UK to it's service and is offering DRM (copy protect) free albums at lower than usual prices. Individual tracks are still around 90p but albums, even new ones, the latest from The Streets for instance, can be bought for as little as £5, while older issues are £2 or £3. 7Digital can be found here. 

(16.09.08) Sorry for the lack of updates and email replies, I've been having computer problems which haven't been helped by the recent spate of power cuts.

A recent update for NoScript, the somtimes annoying but essential security add-on for Firefox is causing poblems for users of websites that require complex login cookies such as eBay, Amazon etc. It's due to a new feature called "Automatic Secure Cookie Managmnt apparently. My advice is not to install it if you haven't done so already. If you have and you probably have, click here for instructions of how to get round the problem, it's item 6.5 and when they say "Tools|Options" they mean "click Tools, then Options."

(11.09.08) Friday Fun: Worried that the Cern Collider will bring about the end of the world? The click here for an update from hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com or visit Cern's webcams here.

Free alternatives to paid for software can be found here and here.

The Guardian has made it's crosswords free online again! There's the fairly easy Quick, the do-able with a bit of thought cryptic Everyman, the cryptic Prize and the frankly impossible even if you have the answers in front of you, Azed. Some of them have a "solve" button for clues if you get really stuck, they load quickly and have an easy to use interface. Click here.

The David Rumsey Map Collection is an online library of over a 1000 historical maps, which wonderful enough in itself but he's also created a layer for Google Earth which allows you to see old boundaries, roads etc superimposed on the landscape. Click here.

(08.09.08) Two stories on the BBC technology website jumped out at me today; firstly mass marketing scams have cost the country over £3.5 billion (click here). Not all of them are email scams, the include direct mailing, cold calling over the phone etc but email makes up a big chunk. There's a simple rule, if someone contacts you out of the blue and tells you that you've won a lottery you haven't enteredm they're lieing.

Secondly tens of thousands of computers have been identified as being part of "zombie" networks. That is they've been infected by a malicious software that uses them without the owners knowledge to distribute viruses or spam, for more click here.

There isn't any software that will protect you from being taken in by a hoax once you've opened the email, your only protection is common sense (and a spam filter, which will stop it arriving in the forst place, check that your email service uses one). But there are plenty of free anti-virus programs that will protect you from most things, if you're looking for one click here for a list of some of what's available.

(05.09.08) Friday fun: WorldNames just maps the frequency of surnames across the world on a big map by country and region. It was so popular that the server crashed when it was launched last week but seemsto be working now, click here.

Sweden has it's own lake monster an they think they've caught it on film! Click here to read more and on the link in the story for the Swedish site.

Rapid Wars is a Astoroids style space shooter but much more beautiful to look at and the ship is far easier to control, click here.

Football fans are known for their strong opinions, click here to see how some of them responded when the goalkeeper made a bad mistake (warning: graphically rude and may/will offend)(but funny).

Jerry Seinfeld fans who want to see his advert for Microsoft click here (warning: contains Bill Gates).

Finally not one but 10 brain teasing games! Click here for Conceptis Puzzles Picture logic.

(04.09.09) If you own a website watch out for an email offering to sell you another version of the domain, so if you own blahblah.net you might be offered blahblah.com. It's not exactly a con, I describe it as semi-legal on the forum's email hoaxes thread, but it is deceptive. The sender doesn't actually own the domain they're offering, rather, and I'm sure the fine print of the contract would explain this, they would aquire it and then sell it on to you. Click here for an sample email, a website on which you can check who owns a domain and an amusing corrospondence between the sender and an owner who wrote back to them.

(03.09.09) Google has launched the beta (testing) version of it's browser.Called "Chrome", it's based on elements of Firefox and like Firefox, is "open source", meaning the code behind is available to developers who want to create add-ons for it.

It differs from other browsers in a number of interesting ways. Firstly the philosophy behind it is that it's not really important in itself, rather it's an environment in which web applications work and so should be as "light" as possible, using up few resources and not doing anything more than necessary. Secondly, it's a "sandbox", meaning that it's separated from the rest of the computer to some extent, which makes it more secure, especially when compared to Internet Explorer. Lastly, it uses "multi-threading" which means that each tab is in effect a separate window and isn't sharing resources with the other tabs.

Having used it for a few hours I have to say that it all works remarkably well for test program, I had no problems at all and it is remarkably fast. I wasn't to keen on the look of it, nor the sparcity of controls but it's definitely worth a try. The only thing that really bothered me was Google's reputation for gathering information on users and time will tell if they're using Chrome to do this. It does have an anonymous button though, which when used dumps all cookies and browsing history for the visited pages. Read more, or rather watch short videos and download here.

August

(30.08.08) BT broadband customers will have either received email warning them that they must "verify" 3rd party email addresses and/or been getting "Error 550" messages when they try to send messages from a non-BT email address. This will apply to everyone who has kept their old address after signing up with BT, if they've also added their BT address to their email accounts they'll get the warning email, if not they may just get the error message.

The reason for message and error is that in order to cut down on spam BT has decided that email addresses must be checked that they're authentic before they can be used and also that all addresses require SMTP authentication, a security setting within the email system. Read the email and the basics of what to do on the forum here. The post is a rough outline, it may be amended in the future should members add their own information on the issue.

(29.08.08) AVG update: Perhaps the reason that the AVG server got overwhelmed yesterday (see below) was the warning messages (click here) that were being sent out to users. It warns that support for version 7.5, which most people use, is coming to an end and urges them to upgrade to version 8. The process isn't as straight forward as it might be, what with the warning message's upgrade button leading to the paid for version of the program and the in program update version not leading to v8.

As reported yesterday, it's much easier if people use the link on the Software Updates page and it might be a good idea, if you haven't done this sort of update before, to check out some tips on what to expect from the update process. Click here to read them (including a link to the SU page)(which can also be found at the top of Anorak News).

Friday Fun: Whatever you think of Obama, he crowds like no other politician in my lifetime, Click here to be amazed by the Washington Post's panorama of the stadium in which he made his acceptance speech.

Ever wanted to whiz down one of those airport luggage shoots? Click here.

An albino shark has been spotted of the Galapagos Islands.

Never end is a quick loading maze puzzle in which you can go left, right, jump and rotate the board. It's got a nicely animated running man too. Click here.

(28.08.08) AVG & Adobe Shockwave Player both have updates and both have slight problems. Of the two AVG is obviously the most important and users it may worry users when they find they can't update through the program itself. It seems the automatic update server is overwhelmed by demand but if you can install from the direct download link on the AVG website, which can be found via the Software Updates page link at the top of Anorak News.

Shockwave Player has a similar problem, although in it's case it does download but doesn't seem to install properly and the next time the computer is started it goes through the update process again. Downloading directly from the Adobe website, which again can be found via Software Updates. Remember to watch out for the option to include Norton System Scan when you install it, it's selected by default so you have to click on the little box if you don't want it.

By the way, because the Software Updates page is updated by editing the first post rather than by posting new messages (to keep the newest items at the top of the page), the "new post" item doesn't appear on the forums main page, so you won't know if there are new items. Until we figure a way round this keep checking the website to see if there are updates or go to the How 2 section of the forum where the new post icon does appear next o the topic. Thanks.

(26.08.08) The clipboard, the thing that stores whatever you copy for pasting, is the latest target of Internet hackers. Web pages containing Flash files, like those used to generate animated adverts, deposit a web address onto the clipboard and dump whatever is on there already. Then when the user pastes into something, in the worst case the address bar, the web address appears. If followed it leads to website selling fake security software.

If it happens to you don't follow the link and if you need to clear the clipboard (the flash file just keeps renewing the copy), close your browser and then click on Start, the "Run" and type in clipbrd . The clipboard viewer will appear, click edit and then "Delete." Read more here.  

If you enjoyed the Olympics you'll really like the Washington Post's slideshow of images. It's not all about the USA and some of the images are truly memorable. Click here and then on the "Moments" gallery for the best of them. 

(25.08.08) Yuku, the hosts of our forum has an internal message system and sadly it occasionally generates spam, or it has for one of our members. They received a prize notification, typical of the stuff we discard every day when it arrives in our email but because it came via Yuku, were curious about it and reported it on the the forum. I posted a question about it on the administrators message board and within the day it was confirmed that it was spam and the senders account was deleted. So, thanks to Sylvia for posting the question and if you receive a similar message in your Yuku inbox please report it too and we'll sort it out.

(22.08.08) The makers of Firefox have released the results of their "extend" competition for add-on makers and the winners look really interesting. Most of them Ihaven't even heard of, let alone tried. My favourite from the list is "close and forget" which adds a button to tabs which when pressed removes it from history and deletes any associated cookies, very useful when you're going through search results and if you use the "awesome bar." Click here for the full list.

Friday Fun: To celebrate the 100 year anniversary of Ian Fleming's birth the Times online has published a timeline of his life and the life of his great creation, James Bond. Click here to read it.

I'm not quite sure who made this or why they did it because the website is in Polish or something but I love what they've done. Basically they're co-ordinated lights within a large block of flats, my favourite is "snake," if you've ever played the game check it out. Click here.

Treasure in the dark is a simple game, just walk to the treasure and walk back to the exit, the only problem is that you only have a few seconds to plot your task before the lights go out. Click here and get lost.

I think I've covered laughter lab before, it was the study that surveyed the world to discover it's favourite joke but I checked it again recently and there's a new favourite, click here to read it. (I preferred the old winner, you can find it in second place).

(19.08.08) A woman who uploaded a game to a file hosting site and allowed it to downloaded by others, probably by posting a link on message board, has been ordered to pay £16000 to the manufacturers. There are dozens of others identified as sharing the game, Dream Pinball 3d, although whether they choose to contest the case if they are prosecuted is yet to be seen given that £10000 of the £16k was down to legal costs. I think this is the first time someone has been fined for sharing in this way, which as I mentioned only yesterday, is by far the most popular method of distributing large files. Read more here. 

(18.08.08) BT is closing it's free online "vault" to all but it's Total Broadband customers. The 2Gb online storage facility featured in most of it's advertising until recently but in from November most customers  will have to pay £4.99p.m. for a much larger 50gb vault, while Total customers will get 5Gb free. I'm not sure how many people used it, even though having something like it is a very good idea and an easy way to keep things safe or make them available to others (that's how most files are shared in my opinion)(although not using the BT service as far as I know). So, if you use the service you've got a couple of months to find the money or another place to back up your files. Read more here. 

(17.08.08) AVG had more problems today, this time involving something called a .bin file that was preventing it updating properly and generating "you are not protected" messages for users. The problem was at their end and they fixed it pretty quickly but if you had any difficulties today this is probably here. Read more details here. Thanks to Peabody for the alert.

(16.08.08) The plea to use Blind Carbon Copy (see below) has already born some fruit! A reader passed on the tip I wrote to the people who send them the most carbon copied messages and one of them passed it on to their contacts using blind carbon copy! Wouldn't it be great if it became a popular round-robin? Thanks to Angela for letting me know.

Virgin customers lost their email service for two days this week following a failure in the "Tucows hardware Platform" which according to a company blog was scheduled to be fixed by 4pm Friday. 80% already have full service restored with the remaining 20 only having access via webmail. Apparently it's also effecting other providors using the same technology, so if you've been having problems with sending or receiving, especially if you're with Virgin, this is might be why. I searched for more information on who the other ISPs might be but only turned up stories about Virgin. Ironically the next report in the search results was from Tucows extolling the virtues of it's new platform.

It looks like the Lismore exchange may not be getting upgraded to up to 24mbs broadband in the near future after all. It was scheduled to be th first local exchange to benefit from BTs 21 century broadband initiative that would see all exchanges upgraded to ADSL2 by 2012. BT has announced that 440 upgrade dates have been put back and 340 exchanges now have no date at all. There isn't any sign that they've been dropped from the scheme all together though. Thanks to Steve for the last two tips.   

(15.08.08) Friday Fun: Norway must be a wonderful country, who else would ennoble a penguin? Nils Olav has been an honorary member of the Norwegian Royal Guard since they visited Edinburgh Zoo in 1972. Since then he has worked his way through the ranks, has been reincarnated once and now is now a Colonel-in-Chief. Watch him being knighted here. 

A scrolling map worn on the wrist is just one of the great inventions on display at the British Library Business and Intellectual Property Centre here.

Typeracer is typing trainer that pits you against three other online players as you type out text lifted from books or movie scripts. If you make a mistake the text you type remains on the screen, so correct any mistakes straight away or you'll get a score like "one word per minute" and pop-up messages will appear to confuse you. Click here (there's no need to register).

Political hand gestures and body language is no longer left to chance as they try to reassure us that they're firm but not domineering, open minded but not soft hearted etc. Here's a very nice deconstruction of Hilary Clinton's speaking style.

(13.08.08) Let's stop people using carbon copy or at least including our email address if they do! Apart from anything else, why should we put up with people passing our address on to people we don't? We shouldn't. So I've written a bit of text that can be copied into messages explaining how to use blind carbon copy and sent to anyone who sends us a round robin or sent to anyone we know who's new to computing. Afterall, they're the most likely to be fooled by messages asking to be sent on (see below). You can find it here - pass it on!

(12.08.08) Another round robin "please pass on" email has appeared in the community, this time the contents isn't a dire warning, rather it's a meditation on getting older but it still urges people to pass it on to "at least 7 people and see what happens on your screen . You will laugh your head off!!!!!!!!!" There are other versions about with jokes like "things not to say to a policeman" and th like but they all end with same appeal for it to be forwarded.

Why on earth people think forwarding a message will cause something to appear on their screen or why they'd be happy to let it is beyond me but it seems to work. You can read the whole thing here. 

As usual it wasn't sent blind carbon copy, I'm going to compose a message that can be pasted into replies or perhaps used as a signature, so that those sending out these things will get the message and start using it. Thanks to Angela for sending it in.

(10.08.08) Apple has a reputation for being, how shall I put it, a bit possessive about what can be done with it's hard and software but installing a "kill switch" on the new iPhone seems to be going a bit far. According to a blogging hacker, they are able to switch off applications installed on individual phones if they want to, which effectively means that you can only install stuff that they approve of and can control via the iPhone site.

There's already been several examples of applications (iPhone is supposed to be a bit like Firefox, with developers creating the their own add-ons)(except they're not all free) being removed without warning or explanation from the download site and Apple hasn't responded to requests for comment.

Apart from the fact that a kill switch is one of the most unpopular things a software developer can install (remember Microsoft having to abandon theirs?), it seems to me that if they can connect and manipulate the phone and a hacker can find the switch, then another hacker can use the system too. Which isn't a very nice thought. Read more here.

(09.08.08) Following the hoax Hallmark warning comes a real one. ComputerActive is reporting that email with the subject line "You've received a Hallmark E-Card" contain a nasty attachment marked "Postcard.zip." legitimate Hallmark messages only contain a link, so anything claiming to be from them containing an attachments should be enough of an alert. If the zip file is opened it installs a program that searches the computer for contacts and sends them spam and copies of the original email. Click here for more. If you want to pass this warning on, please use blind carbon copy!

(08.08.08) 1&1 and it's subsidiary Fasthosts users have been suffering email problems following a patchy implementation of a Microsoft update, so if you use either for email and I know quite a few local websites use one or the other, this is why you might not have received as much mail as expected. Read more here.

Two sea eagle chicks from Loch Frisa, Isle of Mull, have been given tracking tags and can now be followed online as they make their first forays away from the next via Google earth, click here to do so. 

Friday Fun: Germany has been attacked by a giant insect according to Google Earth here.

I love this story of a 100+ year old New Zealand lizard that has refound, erm, love following an minor opperation to remove a cyst in a sensitive area.

Celebrate the Olympics with a series of Miniclip games here.

Or if you prefer mindless shooting, click here. The game only lasts a minute after which you're told how badly you did, weirdly, I got exactly the same score three times in a row.

(06.08.08) Who'd have thougt that GPS and other communications data could be turned into a TV show? Well Andrew Marr did and it's called "Britain from above" and it's on this Sunday. The preview (click here) has some great sequences, including shipping passing through the English Channel and the GPS signals generated by taxis as the move through London.

(05.08.08) The Scottish Parliament has opened the consultation process for two bills which have a lot of local relevance. The first is the Marine Bill which is all about squaring the circle of sustainability and exploitation, while the second is about rural access. Click here and here to have your say, it's well worth it because not that many people unconnected to organisations will actually bother. 

Not so long ago hard drives which could a terabyte (that's a thousand gigabytes) were a news item on the Anorak page, now you can buy a brand name external drive of that size for under £100, click here.

I recieved an odd email today, called "Asking out" from "don't-reply to thisATrandom.com" through one of the contact forms on the website. It reads "Well.... first of all this mail is random so dont get mad or what so ever.. if anyone of you anyone as in any girl is single and want to have a relationship with me.. get back to me... its kind of strange asking out random people rofl... but i hope this works.. but from uk only and if any other place then i might want to travel or maybe you im 21 tho.. anyways get back to me thx.." I think it's an auto-message from a web-bot looking for active email addresses but if so it's a lot more subtle than most of them. I did a search and found a couple of other people who'd received it too, one of whom had been fool hardy enough to reply to it. I'm let you know if it's real or a hoax.

(04.08.08) Another virus hoax is doing the rounds and judging from the number of addresses and forwardings it's had, it's spread far and wide. Known as the "Postcard" or "Hallmark" hoax, it's warns of dire consequences if you open an email with an attachment called "A postcard from Hallmark" and links to a page on Snopes.com. Unfortunately the page refers to another threat which arrives via ecard and the warning is just another well meaning waste of time. You can read the hoax email here and click here if you'd like a guide for any friends who are in the habit of including your address on mass emailing but don't use blind carbon copy. There's a haphazard list of hoax messages and email scams here.

If only Microsoft had made blind carbon copy the default method of sending messages to groups pf people, instead of a hidden option, the distribution of email addresses and hence viruses would have been considerably slower.

(02.08.08) A picture posted on the Gawker blog of a pig like creature washed up on a Montauk beach (I've no idea either) has caused a storm of Internet activety because of the creatures strange beaked head. It looks like a pretty straight forward bit of photoshopping to me but hasn't stopped eleven billion hits being recorded by the website and it becoming the most googled item for a short period. Read more , thanks to doggo for sending in the latest examplehere.

(01.08.08) Does the number 000920333 ring a bell? It may have appeared as the caller ID/last call number on your phone and if you tried it you just got a dead line. Well wonder no more, it's the generic number given to all Skype calls. Thanks to Colin for the question.

Friday Fun: Just to items this week (Imight post something more tomorrow). Click here to admire the skills of a 13 year old busking with his electric guitar by the seaside and making £70 an in the process.

Childs Play is more difficult than it may sound, especially if you haven't played a text based game before. It puts you into the mind of baby whose home is about to be over run by the local play group and more to the point your nemisis, Zoe, who is intent on aquiring your favourite toy. It works like an interactive story and every so often you have to type in an action, such as "take toy" or "crawl north" (directions are always points on the compass) and it can be a bit frustrating working out which verb to try. Often the clue is in the previous chunk of text and I find "examine (thing)" is often a good one to try when I'm stuck. Click here to play and here if you get stuck.

July

(31.07.08) Once upon a time, in the days before Google reinvented the minimalist search page, all search engines looked like Silobuster. They packed there home page with groups, news feeds, adverts and anything else they could think, which is what made Google so refreshing. So Silobuster is a bit of a shock if all you've known is the stark search box on a white page because it's stuffed with content but it's really useful content. Type in something and you're presented with all sorts of choices beyond mere page results and you can refine by topic, trend, geography and much more. Click here to try it, I'm almost certain you'll be adding it to favourites. Thanks to RunnyBabbit for the tip!

(29.07.08) Firefox keyboard shortcuts are a great way of avoiding clicking through menus and make life a lot easier once you've got into the habit of using them. Click here for the my ten favourites and link to lots more.

Google have launched user written reference website called Knol (it means a unit of knowledge apparently) which it hopes will come to rival Wikipedia. The difference between the two is that while anyone who registers can edit virtually any Wiki page, Knol writters will be able to decide who, if anyone, can edit their articles. In addition there's an oppurtunity to make money through the Google ad system. Click here for Knol.

Meanwhile a Google employee and her husband have created a new search engine called Cuil (pronounced "cool") which claims to search 120 billion web pages. It displays results in columns and each has a 100 word or so intro to the website, often with a thumbnail image, making it easy to pick the webpage you want and as yet there is no advertising or sponsored link. Click here to visit.

(28.07.08) Well, Stephen from BT, has got me back online. It turned out that a slight nick in the insolation around one of the wires in the pole connection box had caused the copper to corrode producing the intermittent fault. He told me that our exchange would probably show up in the BT stats as the most unreliable in UK due to the high ratio of faults to lines. Thanks to him and BT for fixing it so promptly.

Torosay Castle has made th national news after a cupboard that had remained locked for over a hundred years and revealed a 115 year old bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne. Sadly the contents had evaporated through the cork. Read the full story here . I looked at th VC website (they've now got the bottle on display but they didn't have any news about it, however a pop-up message apologised for the fake offers of free champagne circulating the Internet, evidently it's the main reason people visit the their site.

Speaking of fake messages I'm being inundated with email purporting to come from various parcel delivery companies, particularly Fed-Ex and often with subject lines that mention customs. So if you've ordered something from abroad be very sure that any email notification of delivery is genuine.

(26.07.08) I've got a problem with my phone line, there's so much noise on it that making a call is like standing next to a waterfall. What's odd is that BT couldn't find a fault when they tested it remotely and it's somewhat intermitent, very occassionally it returns to normal for a few minutes, so I face the possibilty of £116 call out fee if the engineer can't find anything wrong with the line on Monday. So there may not be many updates for a couple of days as I'm having to borrow a neighbour's computer and dialup connection to write this. How quickly one becomes used to having a reliable, fast link to the Internet, I feel quite lost without it...

A little fun: "Sand" is simple creative web toy that mimics those sand layer pictures that used to be popular, click here to pour.

Ubertube on the other hand is a challenging and sometimes frustrating game that requires sharp reflexes, click here.

(24.07.08) Five more ISPs, BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse, have joined Virgin and signed up for the BPIs anti-music swapping scheme which commits the firms to "working towards a significant reduction" in illegal sharing.

IP addresses identified as sharing by the BPI will have their ISP identified and the ISP will then write to the user. A spokesman for Carphone Warehouse explained some of the problems with the system on Radio 5 today, saying that it was very hard to know who had used the a particular IP address to download music because of insecure Wi-Fi networks and people spoofing the address their computer appears to be coming from. Add to that firewalls that can make an address invisible and website that anonymizes them and you can see that they are only going to catch the unfortunate and inexperienced. Read more here. The story talks of "heavy users" but this is not the case, some people have been contacted after downloading a single track.

(23.07.08) "Can you help please?" reads like a typical spam email subject line but it isn't. I nearly binned it but it's from a geography Glasgow university student doing a dissertation on Mull and it contains a link to survey about your experience of living on the island which only takes a few minutes to fill in. The survey is hosted by legitimate company and doesn't ask for any identifying details, so if you receive the email don't worry about it being anything other than what it appears.

(22.07.08) Virgin, fresh from denying that they were going to throttle heavy user file sharers' connection speeds, are instead sending illegal music downloaders warning letters. 800 have been sent so far and thousands of more will go out in the near future in a scheme being pushed by the British music industry body, the BPI. They want ISPs to give customers three chances and then disconnect them if they persist in downloading illegally. Read more here. What the article barely touches on, is privacy. How does Virgin know people are downloading or swapping tracks online - are they monitoring customers' data? Neither does it mention that Virgin has it's own music download service, which is probably why they're so keen to help the BPI.

Meanwhile, Sky is the latest company to challenge the iTune monolith, teaming up with Universal to offer a huge library of music to download in return for a monthly fee without DRM (anti-copy) encoding. They think the combination of their broadband service and experience of promoting TV subscriptions gives them an edge in the market. Click here for more (warning: contains picture of Amy Winehouse).  

(18.07.08) Friday Fun: Emoticons, love'em :¬) or hate them :¬(, one thing we can agree on is that they don't really work because they're on their side, unless that is, you're from Japan. In which case you've got a whole world emoticons that are the right way up (o_O) . Click here to find out what that one means, my favourite's "hands up."

Wacky Uses is a great little website entirely devoted to strange happenings, odd videos and weird facts. Just the sort of thing I post here on Fridays actually. Click here and thanks to Jan for sending in the link.

Liquid Story Binder is useful rather than just fun, it's a word editor for budding authors that allows them to see pages and passages in a single view, to create story boards and to annotate easily but it's only freely available for a few more hours. It's being promoted on Give-away-of-the-day and if you want to carry on using it for free you'll have to copy and keep the registration key for when it's needed. Click here for more. (Haven't tried this, it's been recommended by a friend)

Doctor A Tom is a simple game that is pleasing rather than difficult to play, well, it might get difficult at the very high levels but mostly it's just clicking and watching the results. Click here.

Finally something that will make you cry, a clip of five year old blind piano prodigy taken from a Korean talent show, click here.

(15.07.08) It seems I might not be alone in my recent problems, they may have been caused by a Microsoft update called "Software Distribution Service 3." I haven't completely solved the problems it may have caused but when I do and if it is of wider interest, I'll post an item about it. It's not the only update to cause problems, another caused the ZoneAlarm firewall to misbehave and broadband lose passwords. That problem has been addressed on the software updates page, the link to which is at the top of the Anorak News page. 

(14.07.08) I solved the updating problem by reinstalling Internet Explorer, so if you find yourself getting unexpected secuirty warnings from Firefox when opening pages in IE7 try that first.

I thought it was a problem with Firefox and so I reinstalled that first, then I was advised it might be a spyware issue. It was when I was searchign for the latest version of SpyBot Search and Destroy that I discovered that the first result in a Google search links to software pretending to be SpyBot but is actually one of those programs that identifies lots of problems and then asks you to pay a subscription to fix them. This isn't the first time this has happened and it's probably best to download this type of software via a trusted third party, such as Cnet. I've written to Google about the problem and hopefully the link will disappear soon.

(12.07.08) Shockwave Player, if you have it installed which you probably do, has an update which will generate an update asking you to download and install the new version. During installation look out for the pop-up asking if you want to install Norton Security Scan along with the player and uncheck the  box if you don't want it. Which you don't.

(11.07.08) Friday Fun: Let's start with something that could almost be on the Science page; pogoing robots. For reasons best known to the themselves, probably because it sounded fun, scientists have programmed robots to respond music, specifically to punk. I suspect it's easier to get a robot to jump up and down than, say, waltz. Watch them shake their stuff here.

Fans of US TV trash will be familiar with the name Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy and some other rather less successful series. So it's with some trepidation that I post the news that he's created a sort of online musical. Available in three parts for free from the 15th and you can watch the trailer here and read more here.

Meanwhile you can relive your childhood love of Ladybird books and student radicalism with the somewhat over the top and childish spoof "The Ladybird Book of the Policeman" here.

I was a bit unsure about posting this one because I don't really approve of online poker, it's just another way of depriving the gullible of their money IMO and can lead to serious problems for some people. However, unlike most free online poker games, Governor Poker isn't casino promotion and it doesn't give a false impression of your chances, rather it's the first level of a downloadable game. It has a good artificial intelligence, several environments and both cash and tournament style tables. So if you fancy learning how to play Texas Hold'em click here.

Cbeebies "Action Painting" isn't the best online picture creator I've posted, that was Art Pad, but it is quite fun and loads fairly fast. So if you fancy chucking paint around like Jackson Pollock, click here.

(09.07.08) The "Share in Bill Gates millions" hoax first appeared in 2004, I haven't seen a copy for ages but today it reappeared in my inbox eagerly demanding that I forward it to everyone I know. It claims that as a result of court cases against other large companies, Microsoft has decided to share it's fortune with anyone with an email address and asks everyone to pass on the message. It's completely harmless and it's only purpose is to propagate itself for as long as possible, so far it's lasted four years.

I know that it's been sent to a lot of people on the west coast because the person who sent it to me didn't use Blind Carbon Copy, so I received the entire contents of their address book, as well as all the hundreds of addresses it had been forwarded to and through. Now, each and every one of those is at risk of being either attacked or at the very least spammed should any of them be infected by malware that searches for email addresses to send to, which is worrying. Read the original hoax (the new version is different in format but the same in principle) here and how to send using blind carbon copy here.

In news of things I'd had already happened XP SP3 is being added to Windows Automatic Update today. I really thought this had happened about a week after the manual download release but apparently not according to this article. 

(07.07.08) The forum is back to normal, I've no idea what the web fairies at Yuku did but they've weaved their majic and I'm grateful. Plus we can have longer thread titles and the dates are now in UK format rather than US, which is nice.

If you're studying then you need the Zotero Firefox add-on. It works with a variety of academic sites and has some function with others, enabling you to save pages and articles, attach notes to them, create documents with linked annotations and much more. You really need to see the demo to get te idea, so click here if you're interested.

(06.07.08) The forum layout is very messed up at the moment and frankly is looking awful. I made a couple of very minor changes to the appearance, date format etc and after I reloaded it had gone wrong. It's still possible to post new topics (scroll down the page and look for a small text link) and add replies (text link below a message) but it's difficult to use.

I've written to the hosts and hopefully they will sort it out quickly, in the meantime apologies for the inconvenience.

(04.07.08) Friday Fun: Lots of free audio books and stories today, mostly of the detective genre, well, entirely from the detective genre actually. Radio Detective Hour is a long running blog celebrating radio broadcasts of detective classics and there's tons of stuff in the archives which go back to 2005. Click here.

Fans of Douglas Adam's will (might) enjoy the dramatisations of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency entirely enacted by members of it's fan club. Much better than it sounds (as someone said of Wagner), click here.

Beyond the Rave is probably not suitable for everyone, perhaps anyone, as it's a horror movie delivered in 3 minute episodes via website. It's the first of it's kind or the logical conclusion of a long running trend, depending on how you look at it. Click here if you must.

There's a robot bartender doing a touring Britain, starting in Selfridges, London. It's a promotion for a beer but looks fun anyway, click here.

Lastly, a game, Shift 3 is the latest in the series of black and white room progression games that requires you to flip the game occasionally in order to progress. It's tricky, quick loadin and surprisingly atmospheric, click here.

(03.06.08) Firefox will not upgrade itself to version 3 automatically, I should have realised this earlier because the same was true with the move from version 1.5 to version 2. It's a matter of choice and if you don't want to make the change you don't have to, advantages include some new features (see below) and faster performance, the main disadvantage is that a lot of add-ons don't work in Ff 3 yet. Download the latest version here, if you don't you'll probably find Firefox updating to version 2.0.0.15 in the new future (fixes various performance and security issues).

The US Playstation website has been infected with malicious code that seeks to convince visitors that their computers are infected with viruses. The vulnerability probably exists on the UK version of the website too, so watch out for if a family member uses it. Read more here.

(02.06.08) You may remember a company called "Micro Bill Systems" which last year plagued gullible surfers with pop-ups so intrusive that their computer became unusable if they didn't subscribe to the company's services. It worked in a similar fashion to the old dialler scam, people were enticed with promises of free porn in exchange for installing billing software which proved very difficult to get rid of once the free trial period was over.

That was shamed out of existence after a campaign by Radio 4's You and Your's and the Guardian newspaper but it's back with a new website called "Get Films Now." Once again visitors are offered a free trial which requires them to install the MBS software and again it proves very difficult to get rid of after the trial. The new site promises mainstream films and so is in some ways more insidious, even though the only films available are either very old or again, porn.

Interestingly a Google search for "Get Films Now" doesn't find the website on the first page but Yahoo puts it right at the top of the results. The website looks perfectly legitimate and could easily catch the unwary, so be careful as it's being linked to on message boards and community sites. If you've had a problem with MBS the best place to get help is probably on the message board dedicated to the problem here. You can hear You and Your's latest report here (Wednesday's programme).

June

(28.06.08) Anyone who finds themselves flitting between the computer and TV as they try to keep up with Wimbledon should click here and avail themselves of the BBC's excellent online coverage. I've only got a 512kb connection but I can watch the live video and still post on message boards, so if you've got a 1mb or faster connection you'll be able to do most things online without losing a frame. The picture is excellent, can be viewed as an always on top pop-up if you have nVidea graphics (don't know if that's possible with a Radeon) and even looks acceptable on full screen. Well done BBC. :¬)

(27.06.08) Friday Fun: I'd never heard of Frans Masereel until an image search happened to turn up one of his woodcuts. According to the ever reliable Wikipedia, he was a flemish painter and one of the leading woodcut artists of the 20th century and I really liked this slide show of what is considered his masterpeice, "The City." According to the preface there isn't an order to the images, rather they're snapshots of the suddenly expanding city and the effects it has on it's citizens.

Bad Science is a must read for anyone who catches one of those surprising news items in the early morning and wonder if the science behind it is quite what it seems. Written by Ben Goldacre, with contirbutions from many other, it deconstructs them to show that either they're pure hoccum or that the news editor has misunderstood them. It's excellent on the claims made for various alternative therapies and fad diets (search it for Gillian McKeith). Read it here.

Google Streetview has an interesting little site highlighting some of the odder things they've come across as they wander about cataloguing the USA. Click here.

Games: Seek is a simple brain workout, you have a grid of letters and you have to click on the appropriate one as it's match crosses the top of the screen. Starts simply, gets difficult, click here.

Bowja the Ninja 2 is a fun little side scrolling point and click adventure with nice graphics and puzzles, click here.

(26.06.08) iCann, the people that run the Internet address system has announced two significant changes in the way thing work. Firstly, they're going to make more domain names available. Up until now there have been a limited number of top level domains, .com, .net, .org, etc but in the future almost any combination of letters will be allowed. They'll be sold on a first come first served basis, so expect a rush for the most popular and disputes about who should have the rights to certain combinations. Secondly, they're going to enable addresses in scripts other than the west's Roman, such as Russian and Arabic. Read more here.

BT has started to threaten customers who share music online with disconnection and are targeting people who have passed on just one song. Warning emails are sent out containing data supplied by the BPI, the British music organisation, showing the tracks in question and the IP addresses they passed between. It's a bit worrying that such small infringments should threaten someone's connection. Read more here. Meanwhile, Virgin have denied that they're engaged in the throttling of connections, click here

(24.06.08) "What a stupid face you have" may not seem the most enticing email subject but apparently insult is the latest tactic the spammers are using to get people to click on their messages. The "stupid face" one is particularly nasty as they contain what appears to be video file that when clicked takes the victim to a website that installs malware and takes over their computer, turning it into a spambot.

A new vulnerability has been found in Firefox (all versions) by the Tipping Point blog which only requires the victim to click a link in an email or visit a malicious website. Once they have code can be executed from within the browser, most likely to take over the computer in some way. Just be careful on the links you click on! Another way of protecting yourself is to use the NoScript add-on (see addon list below) which prevents any code being run without your permission. It makes surfing a bit slower but a lot safer.

(23.06.08) Google are responding to recent reports of US ISPs throttling users download speeds by developing tools that will allow people to monitor and presumably record their connection's performance. It's not just in the US that this is happening, here Virgin have been cutting speeds to people it considers to be over using, mostly those sharing movies via BitTorrent (click for more.here for more on Virgin).

It's already possible to test your connection speed via several websites and if you use Firefox with an extension that adds an item to the Tools menu (see below) but what Google is proposing would be much more useful (click here for more).

The Favourite Firefox Add-on list has been updated with a couple of new items, such as the connection speed tool and the ones that don't work in Firefox 3 have been highlighted. Add-ons are quick to install and make the browser much easier to use. Click here for the list. 

(21.06.08) More fun: For reasons I can't quite remember I spent an idle hour researching the technology behind Google's Streetview (their project to create 360° panoramas that let you "walk" along the streets of major US cities, look up New York on Google maps to try it) and I found the company that makes it. Streetview is pretty impressive in itself but it's not as wonderful as the company's video system. It's very simple to use but difficult to explain, basically they can make a video of a journey say and as it plays you can pan the camera around. They have a few examples of what it can, just play them and move the cursor around the screen to see it work, it really is amazing. Click here. 

(20.06.08) Firefox 3 guide: There's lot's of new features in Firefox 3, ranging from the purely cosmetic semi-transparent text as you drag and drop to the extremely versatile location bar. To explain them I've written a guide with, thanks to the new forum, lots of pictures, click here.

Friday Fun: Pon Pon House is a charming point and click room escape game from Japan and although the format is familier, the execution is lovely and even the music works well. Click here to play.

Ever fancied making your own font? If so Fontstruct is for you. There's no software to download, it's all online and it's very simple to use. Once you've made your font it can be downloaded and installed on your computer. You don't have to make a complete one either, if you just wanted to make enough letters to write your name that's fine. Click here.

PicLens is new way of viewing online images and video from sources like Google and YouTube. It presents them as "wall" or as a slideshow, removing all the extranious details until you want them and allowing you to zoom in on whatever you fancy. Click here.

(18.06.08) I eventually managed to download Firefox 3 last night and apart from the usual non-functioning add-ons you get with a major upgrade, I'm pretty impressed. There are a number of new features such as a "Smart Bookmarks" folder on the bookmarks toolbar which takes you to recently and most visited websites and the location (address) bar now has lot's of functions. For instance you can check a website's security status by clicking on an icon on the left hand end, add it to bookmarks by clicking on a star icon on the right and even find a website by typing in the first few letters of it's name. There's so much in fact that I'm going to write guide so readers can get the best out of it. It will eventually download via Firefox's update function but you can get it now by clicking here. Note of caution: Backup your bookmarks first, there have been lots of reports of them being partially lost, as mine were. Click on "File" then "Backup" to do so.

(17.06.08) With the predictability of a Germany/England penalty shoot out, the Firefox server has crashed under the demand for version 3. It became available at 6 o'clock and everything from Firefox Central to the "Check for Updates" link on the Help menu went down. When you do get through to Ff Central it's still showing the version 2 download. It's very frustrating but on the bright side, perhaps our extensions will be working by the time it finally downloads.

(16.06.08) Wireless routers are again the target of hackers as Trend Micro reports a simple scam that involves scanning for networks and then trying a list of preinstalled default passwords. Unsurprisingly most people don't change theirs when they install and as two or three firms have most of the market, the hacker doesn't need to try many. Once in they can either simply piggy-back on your connection, potentially taking you over your download limit or do something more sinster, like attempting to obtain credit card details. Happily the solution is simple - change the password, just check your user manual to find out how. Read more here. 

(13.06.08) Friday Fun: To celebrate Euro 2008, let's start with the best goal keeping error I've ever seen, click here, it isn't obvous what happens at first but wait for the replay, it's worth it.

I really liked this slide show of a cruise ship being built, it's like a giant kit.

This video of a man totally losing it at work is extraordinary, I just hope no one was seriously hurt (I assume they weren't or it would have been on the news). I thought it might be a fake but this angle has sound and it cleary isn't.

That's enough slideshows and vids, how abut a nice little game? Mr Bounce is typical "bat and burst" ball bouncing game but somehow it' better, I don't know if it's the trajectory line or the graphics but it's really nice to play. Loads quite quickly too, click here.

(12.06.08) Firefox 3 is due out next Tuesday and they're hoping to set a new record for the most downloads in a day. To that end they're asking people to pledge to do so at this webpage and well over a million people have done so to date, 40 000 of them from the UK. I think the real point of the exercise is judge the demand created by manual downloads on their servers because the new version would download automatically without anyone doing anything.

Meanwhile, Opera, which is the fastest browser at the moment, has an update out today. It claims to be even faster and to include several innovations such as a versatile address similar to Firefox's and bookmark synchronisation. Click here to try it (you can have as many browsers as you like, Opera is faster than Firefox but has fewer addons available). 

(11.06.08) The Cotton Traders website, the popular mail order clothing retailer, has been hacked and the credit card details of up to 38000 customers lost. It occurred back in January and Barclaycard was contacted as soon as it was discovered to cancel the cards. The firm says that security has been upgraded since the attack and it now meets all industry security standards but it is worrying that a firm with sales of £5 million should be so lax in the first place.

The lesson is to never accept the offer to "remember yor details", it may be time consuming to fill them out everytime but it's a lot less time consuming than sorting out the problems a stolen card can cause. Better still, just shop with PayPal or similar online payment system. Read more here.

(10.06.08) Gmail has got it own Google lab with lots of nifty add-ons that are sort of in beta testing but seem to be working very well right now. They include coloured tabs for labelling messages, emoticons to add a bit of fun to comunication and free IMAP. The last is probably the most useful, it sychrinises all your email services, so if you use Gmail to collect messages from other accounts and then pass them onto Outlook, they'll arrive marked read or whatever. Try them out here.

(09.06.08) All Microsoft operating systems have a life cycle, it starts with their release and ends when MS stops releasing security updates for them. XP is currently in the autumn of it's cycle and over the next few weeks you'll probably hear reports that all support will end on June 30th and after that date you'll no longer be able to buy computers with the operating system installed.

This is not entirely true. Some of the large manufacturers, like HP and Dell, will be selling XP systems until Jan 31st 2009 and anyone can sell the operating system providing they got it before June 30th. There will also be systems sold with Vista but with the option to "downgrade," you'll have to install the system yourself though and there won't be so much support from the maker.

Microsoft will continue to issue public bug fixes and security updates until April next year and security updates until April 2014. The lack of bug fixes in the intervening years will mean that unless 3rd party vendors address problems, XP won't work with an increasing number of applications. By then though they should have sorted out Windows 7 though (see below). So, to sum up, after June 30th XP systems will harder but not impossible to buy and support will continue for quite long time.

(06.06.08) Windows 7, the next incarnation of the Microsoft operating system could be with us as early as late 2009. It will be built on the core functions of Vista, which isn't brilliant news but hopefully they'll have sorted that before they release it (only kidding). Read more here.

Friday Fun: Does your character reflect your personality? Well take these quick tests and find out!

ArtCulture is website dedicated to, well, art and culture, I was particularly taken with the animated typography page, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. Click here, my favourite is the Pulp Fiction video, which is obviously a bit sweary.

Even more sweariness can be found in the Teeside Tintin YouTube video, one of which you can find here.

Robokill is fun little top down shooter that involves shooting robots and upgrading your weapons, the first 4 levels are free to play, the next ten cost £5 or so, click here.

Deep Chalk on the other hand is more of an exploration or adventure than an ordinary game, with surreal graphics and lots of little secrets to discover, click here.

(03.06.08) Peter Gabrial, the talented one from Genesis, has launched a music and movie website that claims to have inteligent recommendation software that will learn what a user will enjoy. It sounds like Amazon recommends to me but people who know him tell me Peter is a very principled man and so I guess he wouldn't be backing just another web shop. Click here to read more and here to visit the site.  

Meanwhile Faber and Faber has launched a print on demand for people who want to buy out of print books. To my surprise people like Conrad and A.J.P.Taylor are on the list of potential reprints, authors that you would think someone somewhere would always being publishing. The service works by registering the book you would like and when 49 other people have registered too, they print it. Click here for more.

(02.06.08) Colonsay needs you or if not you, a nice family to move to the island and take up the offer of a plot of land and a £40k grant towards building a house. Like many of the outlieing islands, Colonsay is suffering from an aging residential population and a plethora of holiday homes, so it needs some young people to move in. The idea has garnered a lot of publicity, I heard them this morning on Radio 4 and it's turned up in the Guardain amongst other places. Clickhere for that story and here for the island's webpage on the subject.

Firefox 3 is almost upon us, they're definitely releasing it this month and here are three things to look forward to according to PC Advisor, one of my favourite computer magazines. They seem much taken with the multi-function address bar but for me it's much more basic, Ff 3 is really, really fast, honestly, it's as if your internet connection has been upgraded and if my extensions would work with it, I'd be using it now.

May

(30.05.08) The links on the home page have been updated at last, hopefully more people will find their way to the new forum now. I've also rewritten the guide to copy and paste which is now much easier because of the new format, click here if you know somone who still needs to learn how to copy/cut and paste.

Friday fun: I discovered a whimsical blog called "where is the moon" this and was particularly taken by this animation called "bill murray looms large."

To celebrate the end the football season the BBC has published of the best chants, click here.

The Daily Mail has a nice page of celebrity/muppet look-alikes here.

Music Catch is a sort of game but mostly it's something to do while you listen to the hypnotic piano soundtrack, click here.

(29.05.08) SAYNOTO0870.com is a website devoted to finding direct numbers to companies that seem only to offer expensive 08 numbers and labyrinthine phone systems that end with you listening to mood music as they inform you that your call is important. As they point out virtually all call plans exclude them, so you are at the mercy of whatever they want to charge. Click here and bookmark for the next time you need to call one of them. The website has two sponsors, Moneysavingexpert.com, which I recommend and DiscountedorFree.com, which I most certainly don't. 

(26.05.08) Firefox 3 release candidate 1 is available for download and if you enjoy testing new programs give it a go. It's much faster than Firefox 2, has several new secuirty features and useful features to make browsing easier. Make sure you install it in a different folder than Ff 2, as it can make it unstable if ythey're both in the same location. Click here to download it and here to read moe on the new features. Firefox 3 is expected to fully launch in the next couple of months.

(24.05.08) Some users of Norton Internet Security and Security Suite are having problems with XP SP3 and it's makers Symantec are advising "caution." Problems include losing network connections, not being able to access the Internet, emptying of the device manager dialogue box to name but a few. I don't know how widespread this is but I suggest that everyone creates a restore point (Start > All programs > Accessories > System tools) before SP3 installs, which as far as I can tell is the case for most people using automatic updates. Click here to read more.

Saturday Fun: Let's start with something for kids, a colouring book or rather downloadable pages of fun little outline pictures which can be used on the computer or printed out. Click here.

The BBC's Comedy website is full of good stuff, it's especially good for finding radio shows, "As told to Craig Brown" was particularly nice find and I really liked this little movie which puts Star Wars in a whole new light.

Cubescape is a bit like Artpad, except that instead of painting, you create pictures by stacking cubes in an 3d isometric landscape. It's a bit confusing at first because there's no instructions but that's because it's really simple. To create a column you click on the bottom square and a cube drops on it and to make a space you use a clear cube. You need to think a bit if you want to create a specific shape and start at the back because it's hard to reach columns when they're obscured by things in front. Click here. (May be a bit slow on dialup)

Arachnophila is either a game or an art toy, depending on how you want to play it. As the name suggests it's about spiders, you make webs and catch flies to sustain yourself. Very simple and great fun, click here.

While reading up on the Norton story above I happened across this tale of Yorkshire's dumbest criminal.

(22.05.08) I've made a website! For someone else! It's not the amazing whizz-bang site in the world but it's works well and most importantly, the client can edit themselves. This means that they don't have the hassle of creating the thing in the first place, which can be quite daunting but they aren't locked into a maintenance contract and have to wait for for me to get round to making any updates they want. Click here to visit the new site and contact me if you ever fancy having a website you can maintain yourself.

(20.05.08) Google has launched a health search, enabling all of us to self diagnose and nurture our inner hypochondriac to our heart's content (note to self - check heart is indeed content). It also offers the opportunity to create a "health profile" and even import health records from a number of participating clinics (as yet only in the US) but all that's completely unnecessary if all you want to is research a condition. I looked up a post-op cataract problem and found the results far better than they were in a conventional search of the same terms; click here to try it yourself (may require a Google account).


(19.05.08) A house on Unst, the most northly of the Shetland Isles, has been making the news today, mostly because they've finished building it I think. That and the fact that it has a carbon footprint of zero thanks to a lot of insulation, heat exchangers and wind turbines. The concept has been so popular that their website (here) was ranked fourth in worldwide searches on Google and it's progress has been followed by No. 10 and the Chinese government. Click here for more.

Speaking of No. 10, you can now use YouTube to ask the Prime Minister questions, which he will get round to answering at the end of June. Click here for their slightly sinister YT page and not here, which is just a silly spoof (I hope). Mine would be "why don't you just go away?"

(16.05.08) A few AMD based computers, especially those supplied by HP, are continuously rebooting after installing XP SP3, it doesn't effect many people but there are a few computer maintenance people who read this and may come across the problem. Click here to find out what s going on and what to do about it (also covers a couple of other installation problems).

Friday fun: Anyone who's done a bit of photo editing and used the clone brush will be impressed by the work on Pixeloo (click here). It's not so much the end product, he's into to something called "detooning", the recreation of cartoon characters as real people, it's the way he get there. There are several movies of how it was done which are really impressive.

There seem to be lots of people listening to audio books these, even I've listened to one or two, so I was very happy to find a couple online libraries of free work. Click here for sci-fi and here for classics.

Click here for a website dedicated to charts, graphs and visualisations of all sorts of odd stuff.

(15.05.08) Files masquerading as the PC version of the GTA IV game, which won't be officially available for some time, are circulating file sharing networks and contain a nasty surprise in the form of an information stealing trojan. The fact that the game doesn't have a PC version yet make the files all the more enticing as gamers will suspect that there's one out there in some sort of testing mode and are expecting it to leak to the Internet.

The article on PC Advisor, which you can read here, talks about peer to peer (P2P)  networks but these days message boards, linking to hosting services, are the most popular method for distributing illegal copies of large files. They offer much quicker download speeds and the sharer doesn't lose any bandwidth when the file is accessed. Lots of people use them to get things like TV shows or DVDs available in the US but not here, amongst other things. Or so they tell me. Anyway, apart from the fact that the game not actually exisiting for the PC yet, hiding trojans in this way isn't unusual, so be careful when downloading anything like this.  

(14.05.04) Internet phone services (VOIP) are the latest target of hackers and password/usernames are now changing hands for more than credit card details, probably because they have an immediate risk free financial reward, the ability to make free phone calls. The worrying thing is that there is very little we can do about it except stop using our ISPs VOIP service.

That's because most ISPs are rnning a VOIP service without encryption and over poorly secured wireless networks. One service stands out as being safe and it's the first company that really offerred the service, Skype (click here), their encryption is so good that the German secret service complained that it was hampering their work (click here). Put down that phone and click here for more.

(12.05.08) Computer Shopper has closed it's broadband survey and found the average speed was 3.6mbs. The average advertised speed they'd signed up for was 6.6mb, which means that most of those on supposedly 8mbs are only getting half what they paid for. Despite this over 70% were happy with their service and weren't planning to switch providers. The full results won't be published until next month and will include a break down of averages by suppliers. Channel 5's The Gadget Show is still running its survey, you can find the link on the Broadband News page.

The forum will be down tomorrow for "routine maintanence" between 3 and 10 pm, sorry about the inconvenience, it's nothing to do with me, it's the people who host it. 

(11.05.08) Guides to what's what in Internet Explorer 7 and how to manage it's favourites menu have been rewritten after being lost when the forum migrated to Yuku. I must say that it's far easier to create them now, the message box is easier to use and being able to save pictures without having to host them elsewhere really saves time. You probably know how everything works by now but I'm always surprised by how many people aren't using really basic features like opening webpages in different tabs, so pass them onto someone who might find them helpful even if you won't. Click here for Internet Explorer basics an here for managing favourites.

(09.05.08) MacAfee has issued a warning of a Trojan masquerading as a media file which has infected half a million computers in a week. So far it's spread via the eDonkey and Limewire file sharing networks but it is bound to be found elsewhere soon. It appears to be an mp3 or short video file and when you try to open it, it requests a codec (a small file that enables a player to run a piece of media) in order to play and it's the "codec" that does the damage. Rather than a codec it installs a range of files that include adware that generates pop-up ads and bizarrely a mp3 player that only plays the tracks that come with it. Read more here. Phoney codec requests are a well known method of getting malware into a computer, always be careful when installing them.

Friday Fun: I really like Tim Flache's photo portfolio website, the pictures are really nice but it's the home page and it's wandering dog that really makes it special, click here. Thanks to forum member Bearsarus for sending it in.

I recommended Deezer's radio service last week, this week I going to be more specific and recommend their French singer station, Chanson freancaise. It's wonderful and you may ind yourself listening for hours to artists you never knew existed. Click here.

The Daily Mail claim this is the world's most intelligent fish and they never lie do they. Anyway, they've got pictures of it playing various sports, so click here.

Two games today, Milo is a variation of the top down box pushing maze game but with fewer boxes and more monsters (click here), while Shirk is basically that fairground favourite which involved guiding a ring along a wire without setting the buzzer off, click here. 

What's happened to Dave's Brain? I've no idea and I've no idea what the point of it's website is either, I just happened across during a web search and felt I had to share. Click here.

(08.05.08) I installed XP SP3 via Windows Update yesterday and generally speaking it was trouble free. At first I tried to do things to quickly and had to cancel the install but once I restarted and let things take their course it went smoothly, if slowly. Although it says in the instructions that you can carry on working, I think it's best if you close all other programs while it downloads and installs.

It does take a while, about an hour on 512 broadband and there are long pauses while is "inspects your system" etc. As usual with service packs it suggests that you should backup your files and then spends 10 minutes backing them up itself. Happily there isn't anything to report after I restarted, everything seems to be working and the system seems slightly faster.

(07.05.08) XP SP3 has been added to the automatic updates list and so you'll probably be getting in the next week or so. Expect to be asked to restart your computer or for it to do it all by itself if you're like me and tend to switch on and go make a cup of tea.

The typical download is only 66mb, as opposed to the 300 or so if you get the whole thing because Windows Update checks for the components you already have. If you want to get it straight away click on "Tools" at the top of the Internet Explorer window and then "Windows Update". There'll be slight delay while it looks for the "latest components" and you might to install a small utility that checks if you're using a genuine copy of XP. I haven't installed it yet, I'll let you know how it went tomorrow, hopefully there'll be nothing interesting to report.

(06.05.08) Freesat, the free alternative to Sky, launched today, making it possible for anyone to watch ITV and BBC programmes in high definition for free. It's been so popular that the website, here, was unavailable when I tried and there's already a plethora of new websites trading on variations of combinations of the words "freesat" and "box," I'm not sure how safe some of them will be.

In the temporary absence of their website, you'll need is a HD capable TV, basically any flat panel, a satellite dish, the one you've got will probably do and that's it, unplug the old one, plug in the new and you're done. HD versions of the set top box will cost around £120. Read more here. Oh, and digital TV PC cards will be able to pick it up too but there aren't any that can handle the HD channels yet, read more here.

(05.05.08) Panda software claims that 23% of computers with up to date antivirus programs are infected with some sort of virus, trojan or spyware. The claim is based on the results from the free online scan they offer on their website which checks for over 3 million threats. I tried the quick scan option, which takes about 5 minutes on a 512 connection and it found a piece of spyware lurking in the depths of my computer. I'm someone who someone who has a relatively new antivirus program running regular scans and scans regularly with other adware dtectors, so I was shocked when it found something.

It also found a few "tracking" cookies, which I was aware of already and I would have had to pay to remove them but rather generously I thought, it removed the only real problem for free. Try it yourself here. 

(04.05.08) The BBC's Click programme ran it's story on the Facebook loophole today and you can watch it by clicking here. My advise for FB or any other social networking site members is to lie when you fill in your details. Not a lot but just enough to it's impossible to use the personal information stored on the site to be used to reproduce your identity.

PC Advisor has confirmed that it is only people running Microsoft Retail Management System who need to worry about installing XP SP3. There will still be a delay before it's added to the automatic updates system but that's just so they can create a system for filtering out the RMS users. Read more here. 

I discovered an annoying side effect of the migration to Yuku, all the internal links are broken or at least they were, I spent today reconstructing the guide index. There's still some work to do but it's 90% there now. You can read it here and if you can't find whatyou want either post a question or request a guide here. 

(02.05.08) The Forum has upgraded! At long last we've upgraded to the Yuku host and there's lost of new features to play with. When you visit the first thing you'll notice is that the adverts and links at the top of the page have disappeared, I haven't decided whether I'm going to replace them or not. Next, logging is much easier, you just fill in your username and password at top left but once you're in, an odd toolbox sort of thing appears, thankfully it disappears after clicking a button.

The really big changes are in the posting options. You can now post pictures from a folder hosted on the forum which is really easy to use, you can even post video and embed games into posts! Click here for the new look forum and here for an introduction to logging in and posting. I thought I posted this yesterday but for some reason it didn't get published. 

Friday Fun: I was looking at the Dr Who website today (I'm so sad) and discovered lot's of easy to play online games, most of which load in a reasonable time even on dialup. Test your time and space skills here. 

Deezer (formerly BlogMuzik) has lots of great "radio" stations. No deejays, just streaming music in whatever your favourite genre is. it's a French site so there's quite a bit of French stuff too. Click here.

How good's your geography? Find out here in a game I've posted on the forum!

May

(30.04.08) Computer Buyer, quoting a message on Microsoft's Technet forum, reports that the release "to the web" XP SP3 is being delayed due to newly discovered incompatibility with Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System. It appears to me that this effects retailers rather than their customers but what's odd is that the direct link on the Software Update page still works and so does the one on BetaNews's FileForum here, so I wonder if they're referring to it's addition to the automatic update list. Read more here.

(29.04.08) XP Service Pack 3 became available to download for the general public today. It was a bit hard to track down on the Microsoft website but sgegreen managed to and you'll find the link in Software Updates via the Anorak page. I haven't downloaded it yet, partly because it's over 315mb but mostly because it's probably wise to let others discover any problems with it first. It's already been found to be incompatible with Trend Micro's anti-malware program (click here for article) and there are bound to be other examples over the next few days, so why not wait until next month, by which tme it will be part of the automatic updates system and program vendors will have had a chance to fix any problems?

(28.04.08) AVG, the popular free antivirus program, has released version 8 and it's contains major changes from previous incarnations. Although it's being well received by the industry magazines and blogs, there have been several reports of problems with two of the new features which deal with spyware (etc) and the checking of web links.

The anti-spyware feature in particular appears to use up a lot of resources and time and details of how to switch it off can be found via the Software Updates link on the Anorak page. I've got a feeling that local IT workers are going to get a lot of calls about this over th next few weeks.

(25.04.08) McAfee Site Advisor is handy little free website checker that works with search engines and tells you if the links lead to potentially dodgy stuff. It can be used either as a plugin (something that works with a program you've already got) or you can just visit the MSA website, type in an address and get a report. I've found the plugin effective, easy to understand and it doesn't seem to slow the system down at all. See for yourself by clicking here (it cleverly detects which browser you are using and offers the correct download, which is quite small btw).

Friday Fun: The Apprentice is almost impossible to watch all the way through without wanting to kill someone, that's why we employ highly trained TV critics but the "best bits" make quite compelling viewing, especially when they're rendered in Lego. Click here to watch the apprentices get fired and even better, hit with frying pans.

The Office of Government Commerce has a new logo and it's perfect for a department who's mission statement is “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement,” click here.

I've been having fun with Last.fm, an online music website with a huge selection of free tracks and a nice "similar artists" radio feature that does just waht it says on the tin and streams similar music to your browser. Type in the name of your favourite artist here to try. It's a lot like Deezer's (formerly BlogMusik) "Smart Radio" but with a cleaner interface.

Earth Editor is more of a toy than a game and as such only lasts as long as you want it to. Use the controls to build a small planet and then see what a few meteorites will do to it. Use all the controls, the ones on the right control the curve, number etc of whatever you are chucking into te middle. Click here.

(24.04.08) Hackers with credit card details have so many of them that they've set up websites that sell them in bulk. Most come from traditional sources such as restaurant rubbish bins etc or by corrupting motorway service station or call center staff but many are from hacking either personal computers or more worryingly, small online shops. Read more here, in my opinion the best solution is to favour sites that use PayPal, as far as I know it's never been hacked.

More on Google Earth: First off, I didn't notice that it had been mentioned on the Software Updates page, sorry about that! Secondly I've found a few new features, for instance they've modelled Amsterdam with 3D buildings and appear to be in the process of doing the same with London. There's also several new types of information accessed via icons hovering over the landscape. All in all it's well worth having a tour if you haven't used it for a while.

(23.04.08) Google Earth has a new version out and it's actually a significant improvement on the previous ones. The most obvious change is the nvigation system, the screen buttons have changed (the keyboard functions remain the same I think) and I don't think this better then the old ones, the big improvement is the way it handles the 3D landscape.

You probably didn't notice if you only looked at Europe but if ever used it to visit the US, then you'll got frustrated by the way it reloaded everything when you changed angle, which meant that, say, New York was forever rebuilding itself. Now, once the buildings have loaded, you can move round them just as you would in a computer game.

They've also added a couple of features for places in the US, Street View, which allows you to wander down seamless photo montages and major buildings have pop-up notes explaining what they are. It still uses an enormous amount of memory (300mb) when you enable the buildings in a major city but otherwise its much better. Click here to read more. Oh, and there's a odd glitch, if you hold down the shift key and press the middle mouse button somewhere that has Street View the street view images appear in the 3D landscape like billowing sails.

(22.04.08) I'm not the only one frustrated by the unavailability of XP service pack 3, every other Technet subscriber is annoyed too. We've got to wait until the 29th just like everyone else - the cheek of it! Oh well - just one week to go. Read more here if you can be bothered.

In the wake of well publicised data losses by various government departments, it's being proposed that senior civil servants should be held responsible in any occur in the future. This is obviously a good thing but is the problem political rather than administrative? I recall a minister on the Today programme saying of the way that a junior officer had sent unencrypted discs by insecure mail that, "you can't legislate for that" but not only can you, they have, the way data is handled is set out in legislation but warnings from the Information Commissioner that good practice was not being followed have been ignored, 22 times. Hopefully the proposals will give civil servants the courage required to tell ministers how things should be done. Read more here.

(21.04.08) I'd hoped to bring you a review of XP SP3 which was scheduled for release today but unfortunately it hasn't appeared yet so I can't. The Microsoft runs on US eastern time I think, which is several hours behind us, so it might appear yet. It's bound to put some strain on the networks, so don't be surprised if some US websites take longer to access than normal when it finally arrives and the rush starts.

Ebay "shop" sellers are planning a strike on May 1st, meaning they'd have no items up for sale, in responce to eBay's hiking of fees and the general feeling that the auction site is turning into just another online shop or perhaps Amazon. Read more here and watch this space.

(18.04.08) Firefox has released an update (details in Software Updates on the Anorak page), so don't be surprised if you get asked to restart the browser in the near future. The good news is that most my add-ons seem to work with the new version, even better is a new add-on that let's you switch dictionarys from the US one that wants you change "ise" to "ize", to one that really works. You can get on the same page as you get the British dictionary, which you get a link to when the new Fiefox installs or by clicking here.

Firefox has also updated the add-ons/themes page, it seems easier to find things but that might be just because it's much easier on the eye. Click here and click here for a list of my favourite add-ons.

Friday Fun: The Terminal 5 chaos has spawned some YouTube tribute songs and they're awful but still popular, for examples click here and here.

To make up for that here's a good YT vid, or rather a great song and a terrible video from some Scandinavian TV show of the '70s. Click here for T Rex and Get it On, I mostly like it for, apart from the song, for the completely inexplicable girl on a motorbike and her strange thought bubbles.

We haven't had a good shoot 'em up game for a while, so here's Alien Hive, a completely mindless romp through various levels of something or other that requires you to shoot lots of mindless monsters for no apparent reason.

(17.04.08) XP Service Pack 3 will become available to manufacturers on Monday and to the rest of us on Tuesday week. It won't be added to the automatic updates system until June the 10th though. The update promises an increase in speed of 10% or more, which is nice.

Mind reading cats: There's a new version of the physic email that purports to be able to tell which playing card you've picked from a display of half a dozen cards (if you don't want to knoiw how it's done - stop reading now).  It's not spam, it's just a bt of fun and the new one is presented as a powerpoint presentations complete with a cat in glasses. It goes like this; you're shown some cards and asked to concentrate on one of them, next you're supposedly shown the same cards but with the one you thought of removed. The trick is simple, because you concentrate on one card you fail to notice that all the cards have changed, so no matter which one you pick, it's gone.

(16.04.08) O2 has cut the cost of the iPhone by a third to £169, which is nice but in Germany T-mobile has reduced it to £78. It's thought that this is because of the announcement of a 16Gb version which will be available in summer, it's also rumoured that the new phone will have 3G capability, making it considerably more desireable than the current version. Read more here. 

(15.04.08) Over the last couple of weeks there has been great debate about whether the demand for video could "bring down the Internet" (click here) and if the BBC should pay ISPs for the amount of bandwidth used up by the iPlayer (click here). Now an ISP, Virgin, has let slip that it would really like to restrict its users access to certain websites, such as the Beeb's iPlayer. It can't be a huge coincidence that Virgin also have a TV/broadband package, similar to BT Vision, that gives access to all terrestrial TV programmes for seven days after they were broadcast, which just happens to include iPlayer (click here and for the denial, here).

Anyway, to sum up, despite all the upgrades to the UK infrastructure, there still isn't enough to support the demand that faster connections generate, it's a bit like building a motorway - good for the first six months, then the traffic jams start again. Or, ISPs that want to sell TV services don't want us to access them for free. Take your pick.

(14.04.08) Spybot Search & Destroy, one of the most popular anti spy and adware programs, has an update available that adds quite a few functions. It now comes with a "wizard" to guide you through the process when you first use it and it can now intergrate into Internet Explorer. I've found the latter function nothing but trouble, with IE crashing completely on a regular basis for apparent reason. It's still very good at it's basic task, finding spy and adware but if you get the new version don't go for the IE option until the problem is sorted out.

IP Update: I'm happy to say that our friend with the blacklisted IP address can now send email to Scotnet users without problem. The address is still blacklisted so Tesco must have given them one in a new range.

(11.04.08) Friday Fun: Remember the doo wop band The Darts? Well they've got a website and on that website there's a jukebox with a dozen of the hits. You don't even have to put any money in, just click here.

Slightly different but still music of a sort, a great little song on YouTube called "Charlie Brooker is right about everything." He's the bloke who presents Screenwipe and writes an acerbic column for the Guardian, both of which disect television. Click here (warrning: contains rudeness).

We're all familier with the "Nigerian" money making scam emails, with subjects ranging from fallen African regimes to Saddam's gold but who'd have thought that Patricia Hewitt would inspire them? Click here to read the email.

Lemons are suprisingly useful, click here for a list of the things they can do (no idea if any of them work).

Dirk Valentine is another cute little platform game from Nitrome set in a sort Jules Verne style world of airships and evil masterminds. As usual the early stage are easy but it rapidly gets harder. Click here (should work on dialup). 

(10.04.08) Tesco.net have responded to our friends enquiery regarding the blacklisting of the IP address and basically just washed their hands of the problem. "Unfortunately we have no control over this company who are blacklisting our emails" was the exact response but it could be that they don't understand the problem yet. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the same person who used to periodically send out viruses and then disappear for a while. If you're experiencing similar problems please get in touch.

(09.04.08) eBay fakes: We've always known that there were a fair number of fake goods on eBay but if a survey of auctions of luxury goods auctions by the Daily Mail suggests that you've more chance of picking up something genuine at a car boot sale. They purchased 34 items purporting to be from makers such as Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and Chanel, and only one of them were real. The rest ranged from exact imitations that could fool most people, to cheap knock offs that anyone could spot if they saw them in real life. So, if it looks to good to be true, it almost certainly is. Read more here.

(08.04.08) The latest version of Internet Explorer (7.0.5730.11) is prone to crashing or looping (perpetually loading blank tabs) due to incompatibilities with some add-ons and toolbars. Two in particular seem to be causing a lot of problems, the Google toolbar and the SpyBot Search and Destroy "plugin" that adds protection against spyware.

It doesn't effect everyone but if you find IE not working as it should try disabling any additional toolbars via the "View" > "Toolbars" menu at top of the browser or right clicking on the SpyBot icon in the bottom right of the screen and then clicking on "Exit." In my opinion, apart from the stuff that comes with your firewall or anti-virus programs, anti-spyware software is best left inactive until you want to scan your computer anyway.

If you're still having problems after doing the above, try clicking on Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools and finally on "Internet Explorer (no add-ons)." A visually similar but very basic version of the browser will run, hopefully without problem.

(07.04.08) I helped a neighbour set up their BT broadband today. After initial problems getting the NAIDC computer to find the modem or "hub" as BT call it via a USB port, I got it going with the LAN port, that's the one that looks like a big USB socket.

Two thing's surprised me about the process, firstly that the BT helpline is now free and helpful and secondly the computer connected to the BT broadband network as soon as the network connection was enabled in the control panel. There wasn't any need to enter a password or username, it just worked straight off, which means that it must come with them programmed into the hub.

The hub looks a very nice piece of kit, with USB, two LAN and a phone connection, as well as wireless for phones, laptops etc. I was quite impressed.

Facebook is to start a chat service, similar to Windows Messenger. It's in beta testing at the moment and will launch sometime this summer. There's nothing wrong with this in itself but BT is already a popular stalking ground for all sorts of Internet ne'er do wells and this will be just another route for them to gain the trust and personal details from people who already are in the habit of giving to much away on the site in my opinion.

(04.04.08) Tesco email: It seems that the problem is only effecting messages going to Scotnet, which is good news but probably means it will take longer to fix.

Friday Fun: The disasters in the Photoshop Disasters aren't always that obvious and sometimes the blog seems to be being a bit picky but anyone who done a bit of photoshopping will enjoy it, click here and prepare to start looking at advertisements more closely.

Garfield without Garfield is a very strange idea for a cartoon but in works for reasons I don't quite understand, click here.

This is just mean, lets look at people with poor taste and laugh at them. And why not? Click here.

On similar theme, Phil Neville's (a footballing person) house is up for salehere.

What can I say about The World's Hardest Game except it's quite difficult but at least it loads quickly. Click here.

(03.04.08) Some Tesco.net dialup users may be suffering from email problems and finding that messages they send are returned with the following explanation:

Each of the following recipients was rejected by a remote mail server.
The reasons given by the server are included to help you determine why each recipient was rejected.

Recipient: j******r@s*******t.co.uk
Reason: 5.7.1 j******r@sc*******t.co.uk... Notify your ISP that their 81.103.221.48 is blacklisted by dnsbl-2.uceprotect.net

The long number is the senders IP address, that is the address a computer is given when it logs onto the Internet and as the message says, it's been identified as a source of spam.

Except it's not. The problem is that dialup connections (and a lot of broadband ones too) are dynamic, meaning they change with each login but because of the way the system works, they don't change that much and you're always issued one within a fairly narrow range. That in turn means that an IP address you use one day will be used tomorrow by someone else and if they're sending out spam, then entire range may get blacklisted, so preventing you from sending email.

The only solution is to contact your Internet provider, in this case Tesco.net and get them to sort out the problem. They should be identifying users who are sending out spam and stopping them. Unfortunately the Tesco service is supplied by NTL, who aren't always the quickest when it comes to answering customer complaints.

If you've been experiencing this problem try clicking here and entering your IP address in the "check here" box on the left. 

(02.04.08) All change! Nothing to do with computers but I thought you might like to see new coins from the Royal Mint. It's the first new coin design for about forty years and at first glance looks quite radical. It's based on the British coat of arms but only the pound coin has the complete image, the others have a section of it, as if they were part of a incomplete jigsaw puzzle. Read more here, the video's interesting too.

(01.04.08) There's been a few April Fools jokes around today but none better than this one from the BBC. Also click on the "making of" link which explains how it was done.

There's a firmware patch available for the PS3 which includes, amongst other things, Blu-Ray Profile 2, so if you've got a PS3, you should get it. Click here for more.

March

(31.03.08) April Fools day is favourite with email scammers and spammers who take advantage of all the legitimate messages flying around the Internet asking us to look at some page, video or greetings card. So be careful what you click on.

BBC News has had a makeover, it's wider because most users have monitors with resolutions of 1024 pixels or wider and it's got cleaner, sharper look to it. The pictures are bigger, thanks to the wider page and I find it more pleasing to look at (see the story in Science News for an example). So, don't be surprised if it looks a bit different when you next visit. Click here to visit now.

(28.03.08) XP SP3 release candidate has be released and given the moniker "refresh." What's interesting about this is that apart from the name and support for high definition audio, nothing has changed, which means that the release candidate is pretty good and the release of the real thing must be pretty close.

Friday Fun: Let's start with something really simple; a clock. It's from the BBC and it's one of the many that used to appear on a screen between programmes and at the end of the day's broadcasting. I just really like it, click here.

Growth is a very simple beat generator, the twist is that when you've created your groove, it generates a tree! Click here.

I missed this last week, it's a silly Google Easter game, click here.

iGizmo is a free online gadget magazine, with lot's of reviews, videos and stuff. It works like a .pdf document and is very easy to use. Click here but don't bother to try and sign up, I tried and failed several times.

(27.03.08) You've probably heard of the Miss Bimbo website, it's the controversial social networking site aimed at 8 to 14 girls which encourages them to achieve popularity by having to best clothes and accessories for their avatar (digital representation of the user). Although the website is free to use certain things, basically the most desireable add-ons cost virtual dollars and these are purchased by sending text messages which cost £1.50 a time.

This has led to the website being investigated by PhonePay Plus which regulates premium rate numbers because there are strict rules about services that target children. So, if your child is using the site you'd do well to keep an eye on their phone bill until the matter is sorted out. Read more here. 

(26.03.08) Firefox has released an update which will download automatically as long as you're not using a really ancient version. If you want to get it quickly click on "Help" at the top of the browser window and then on "Check for updates". It requires you to restart Firefox, so don't be surprised if a pop-up message appears over the next couple of days asking you to do so.

(25.03.08) Dell is denying that 30% of the laptops they've sold with solid state hard drives have been returned after a report by Avian Secureties said that they were. What's odd is that the report didn't actually name them, it was just assumed by the media and message board community that it was. It's not the first time I've read reports of problems with SS laptop hard drives, so even if Dell returns aren't running at that level, I'd think twice before buying one. Read more here and here.

Twenga is an odd name for a product search site but it's an excellent one and has some features that others don't. My favourite is "price history" which presents a graph of how the price of an item has risen and fallen since it's release. If you sign up you can get email alerts when something falls below a certain cost, very handy if you're looking for a bargain. Click here to see for yourself.

(24.03.08) Bargains Galore! The first few months of the year are always a good time to pick up bargains but the down turn in the world economy means that price cuts could be deeper and run longer than usual. The main reason is suppliers have an enormous amount of stock and not as many customers as they expected, so they'll be cutting prices to clear it. Eventually supply will reduce to match demand and the big bargains will disappear.

Then there's the state of the technology, which is most areas is mature and unusually, there aren't big advances just round the corner, so if you buy a computer you know it isn't going to be obsolete next week. The same goes for cameras, the basic components are established and manufacturers mostly tweaking functions. Sensors will continue to get bigger but with a 12 mega pixel Canon compact available for just over £150, they're already taking bigger pictures than 99% of photographers need. 

The same is true of LCD televisions, they aren't going to get much better over the next couple of years and picture quality is really determined by broadcast and recorded media, both of which have standards which will remain the same for the foreseeable future.

So the next few months will be a great time to pick up a bargain. Stick to known brands and look out for "cash back offers" (example here), they're often quite large and manufacturers offer them because amazingly, many people can't be bothered to fill in the form to claim them! Always check reviews before you buy, there's a list of good review sources here 

(21.03.08) Amazon has had a make over, so don't think you've strayed onto a fake site if you visit and everything looks different. Basically it looks less cluttered but there are lots of drop down menus to negotiate.

Friday Fun: Let's start with a bit of Google silliness. Open Google's home page, type in "Find Chuck Norris" and click on "I'm feeling lucky."

Click .here for the 60 of the dumbest things said by famous people.

The Internet is now available in handy book form and about time too. Of course it's got a website to advertise the fact which you can find here. My favourite pages were "amasszone.com" and KakBay.

Puzzle Boy is a reworking of the box pushing socoban type ban, except it's much, much harder. Even the getting through the first level takes a lot of effort, so if you want to give your brain a workout click here.

(19.03.08) The Computer Shopper/Buyer group of magazines has joined the campaign to get ISPs to be more honest in their advertising of broadband speeds and have created a speed and satisfaction survey to gather information. They're widely read and so the results will get a lot of publicity, so if you're not getting the speed you expected click here to take part. There's even the chance to win a laptop but be careful when filling in the form at the end of the survey, it has one of those Do, Do, Don't sequence of questions about whether you want to contacted or not.

(18.03.08) Vista with SP1 is available from Dabs (and other retailers probably) which has either in stock now or will be in 3-5 days. Apart from the removal of the "kill switch" which turned off the OS if it wasn't registered fast enough, the main improvements appear to be in performance in some basic tasks, such as file copying but other than some bug fixes things appear to be much the same. Read more here and here. So, hopefully XP SP3 is just around corner.

(17.03.08) BT, Talk Talk and Virgin want to introduce a system called Phorm which monitors users surfing habits so that the advertising they see on websites is closely matched to their interests. It differs from traditional systems like DoubleClick because it doesn't use a cookie but actually tracks the connection as it goes through the ISP. (Read more here)

Although the system would be voluntary and users could opt out, the government has been told by the Foundation for Information Policy Research that it could still be illegal because websites and email senders would also have to give their permission. This is despite that the Home Office already concluding the opposite. (Read more here)

I think the ISPs will still push ahead and in the near future we could see free or very cheap alternatives to current broadband contracts available to people willing to let their connections to be monitored and/or current deals getting more expensive. If you are concerned about the implications of Phorm you can join the 5000+ who have done so already and sign a Downing St. petition here.

(16.03.08) Exchange Activate connections update: The good news is that the connection to Virgin broadband has been completed on Lismore, saving our friend Steve a considerable amount of money on the previous combination of ISP and NTL phonecalls, so we're now advising people on Lismore to go ahead and sign up with other providers.

On my exchange at Tiroran, the Pipex connection is going through after some initial hiccups. It's a bit of a long story but they eventually got in touch to say they couldn't offer the preffered package because of the limited speed and instead an phone/line rental/broadband deal was available. It turned out that this was a revival of an old package that had been discontiuned some time ago, so I don't think it will be widely available for other EA customers.

So, we still need other people to try and sign up with other ISPs, starting with Virgin, to see if the EA exchange restrictions have been lifted. Thanks to Steve for the update.

(14.03.08) The BBC's iPlayer is having difficulties and had to stop downloads today because hackers had found a way of ripping the HQ recordings out of the DRM-free (DRM is copyright system) from the streams for iPhone/iPod systems, the BBC says it's also having problems with it's peer to peer system that allows downloaded material to be shared between domestic computers. Things appear to be running normally at the moment but I've noticed that the programmes that I've been watching online (I've got flu) keep changing from available to unavailable, so it might be easier just to watch online, rather than risk a broken download. The quality is good, albeit on a smaller scale and a half hour programme doesn't require a 300mb download.

Friday Fun: Let's start with a video won the short animation catergory at the British Animation Awards, it reminds me of my old cat, click here.

"Like Fawlty Towers" runs one of the reviews from the UK half of the 2008 Dirtiest Hotels list, which isn't one of the most edifying things in the world but the list is from a website that has some really useful information about hotels and B&Bs all over the UK, including lots in Oban and Glasgow and the US. Well worth checking out if you're looking for a place to stay.

It's that time of year, you can feel it in the air, yes - BBC Springwatch is about to appear on our screens. I thought, why wait? Why not get your own nest box with a webcam in it and so I had a search. Garden Nature has some reasonably priced (under £100) models, recommended by magazines etc and best of all for the purposes of Friday Fun, some great clips of birds nesting last year. Click here to go aahh. (Watch the first clip and lots more become available)

Flies: You thought they were just annoying or at worst a reason to buy Cilit-Bang but no - they're SPYS. For aliens. Reptile Aliens. You can't have enough conspiracy theories and here's another one.

(10.03.08) Be careful when buying Oral-B Flexisoft toothbrushes on eBay, they aren't always the bargain they seem. Selling for around £10 for four packets they're almost impossible to tell from the real, both the packaging, albeit in foreign language is perfect and the brushes themselves identical and you probably be very pleased them when the arrive. It's only after you've used one for a couple of weeks and it comes off in your mouth that you suspect that something's wrong. What's wrong is that the mechanism inside the brush that snaps onto the power unit is made from plastic rather than metal, so it wears out quickly.

The only way to tell if a brush is genuine is to look inside the base and look for a very faint four numeral number etched into the surface. There are real brushes for sale on eBay, so if you buy some and it is tempting given the high street price, check for the number as soon you get them. Don't do what I did and leave enthusiastic feedback, leaving you with no way of getting your money and a pile of second rate brushes. Hardly the biggest scam on eBay but I'm really annoyed! 

(09.03.08) I am, to my surprise, a "silver surfer", I'd always thought the phrase referred to people past retirement age but apparently it includes the 45 - 54 age group. Oh well, anyway, research has found that we are much more responsible about online security than "the young", who make up 80% of those complaining about credit card fraud and the like.

I suppose it's hardly a surprise that older people are more responsible than the young but when it comes to computers most people just assume they know more about them because they've had them all their lives. As a consequence an enormous number will allow visiting young relatives free access to the computer, perhaps we should be more careful in future. Read more here.

Internet Explorer 8 is available in beta form. I'm not suggesting that anyone should download and try as there is always a lot of work to do before these early Microsoft betas function satisfactorily but it's interesting to see what new features will be available when it finally launches for real. The big change appears to be crash recovery, which means that if it freezes for any reason or doesn't close down in the normal manner, you can get back the previous session with all the tabs opening on the webpage that was lost when it crashed. Which is nice but the same thing has been available for Firefox users for over a year. Read more here.

(08.03.08) Shockwave Player, which you'll find on many websites with animation, video or games, has an update out which you'll prompted to download next time you visit one of those sites. It comes with an option to install a "free Norton Security Scan" already selected and just clicking "Next" means you've agreed to the Symantec (Norton) terms and conditions. The scan only checks for malware, which isn't exactly a huge benefit if you already have an antivirus program and a big commercial company doesn't give something away for no reason, so it will probably result in you getting nagged to buy other Symantec programs or take out a subscription for the scan eventually. So I'd advise people to uncheck the option before clicking on "Next."

Friday Fun (sorry it's a day late): The Radio Times has published a list of TV's top 25 put-downs and here it is.

Which prompted me to go in search of the Old Proffessors who supplied my favourite put-down on YouTube. You can watch four of the sketches here (warning: very pointless, silly and rude).

The Radio Times also has lots of easy (well, easyish) competitions to enter here. (Warning: Be careful to read the contact options at the bottom of the entry form properly, they change from "do want to be contacted" to "don't want to be contacted)

Another map thing: Aardvark has an excellent map maker based on Google maps which you can customise by adding markers with pop-up info boxes. It's entirely free and the results can be saved, linked to and embedded in websites. Although people can access the original and edit it if they try hard enough, they will only generate a new map, they won't alter yours. Click here (I found that it didn't always work properly in Firefox, so use Internet Explorer.

(05.03.08) Has the EA dam broken? As you will recall there are about 140 exchanges in Scotland that didn't get a full conversion to broadband, instead they got a limited form of conversion dating back to the early days of broadband and designed for small comminities raising money to get their local exchange converted under the  Exchange Activate (EA) scheme. This meant that they only got a 512k connection, even if it a faster connection was possible and more importantly for this item, a list of only five ISPs to choose from.

Up until now the same five ISPs were common to all the EA exchanges, BT Home, BT Business, Scotnet, AOL and Entanet and until recently that's the list you presented with when you checked an EA number on the BT website. Then a neighbour of mine managed to get connected to Pipex but that could have been because I'd got connected with them sometime ago and it was more trouble than it was worth to disconnect me once it was discovered, so the Pipex option could have been added to just our exchange. 

The latest indication that something has changed comes from Lismore, where people have signed up with various ISPs, none of which have previously been listed as EA suppliers. It could be because the status of the island's exchange is about to change but there seems no reason why the ISPs should become available in advance of that change.

So, what we need is people connected to an EA exchange to try and sign up with a previously unlisted ISP, then we'll know if things have really changed.

And if they have, we have good reason to ask why the limitations existed in the first place. Thanks to Steve for the Lismore update.

(04.03.08) New guide: Prompted by a question from forum regular doggo I've written a guide to creating a reusable template for a greetings card. The template is very simple, it just has a place holder on the front into which you drop the image, it makes life easier because it determines the space the image will take up, meaning that you don't have to worry how far it's from the edges or the fold. There's also instructions for putting text on the back, useful if you're printing cards for sale. The instructions assume a very basic understanding of how Word works and as always look a bit long but in practise don't take long to follow. Click here for the guide and here for the thread with the original question. The forum thrives on questions like this, so if you have one - post it! Thanks to doggo for posting this one! 

(03.03.08) A woman who downloaded four episodes of Friends (why? It's never off the telly) via her her husband's "unlimited" Vodaphone mobile phone broadband package racked up a bill of over £11000. It would have been free had he stayed in the UK but unfortunately he popped over to Germany. It's not the first time that the "unlimited" nature of the deal has been questioned, especially when used abroad, earlier this year a guy got stung for over £1000 for accessing his office webcam from Spain for just an hour and "You and Yours" recently featured a woman who's son had used his phone in the UK as if it was a landline, costing her hundreds of pounds in just a month. Put the phone down and read more here.

(02.03.08) Sky is expanding it's HD TV channels and will add 3 new ones in March. You'll need an additional subscription though and so thing really worth waiting for is the free ITV/BBC service which is scheduled to launch this spring. All you'll need to watch that is a box which will cost about £80 and possibly a new dish if you want to keep your Sky service or a dual LNB (the thing on the dish arm). Read more here and here.

Google Street View is only avialable on the US version of the map site. Click here and then on "Street View" at the top to see where it's available. Thanks to everyone who wrote in!

February

(29.02.08) Friday Fun! I love this video of a dog attacking a stream of air! Click here (it's only 47 seconds but if your connection is slower than it plays, click on pause and wait for it to load).

Google Maps has a nice walkabout feature for New York here. Just click "Street View" on the yellow man's bubble and click on the white arrows to move around, the controls at top left let you look round and zoom in and out. I'd love to know if there other cities available and how to access it directly from a normal Google map. (Probably a bit slow on dialup)

10 Gnomes is simple game where you pan round a landscape clicking on things, zooming in and rotating round them to find ten gnomes. There's two games available, Roofs and A walk in the park.

The Bookseller has an annual award for the book with the oddest title and you can help choose this years by clicking here.  

(28.02.08) Firefox Beta 3 is available and might be worth a look at if you're curious about what's to come when it gets its official release. I didn't have any problems with the previous version, just the usual slight annoyance that the extensions don't work for the most part but then they tend not to after a proper update either. Although it's still in testing, unlike the beta version of XP Service Pack 3, you can install it without getting rid of the your current version of Firefox, all you have to do is to put it in a different folder, then you'll have two shortcuts on your desktop and can use which ever you want. Read about the new features and changes here, the download link is a the bottom of the page.

On the same page are links to stories reporting that Firefox has passed the 1/2 billion mark, which is amazing and that 28% of visitors to the New York Times visitors use the browser, figures that mirror those for this website. I'm just amazed that there are still so many people using Interent Explorer.

(27.02.08) XP Service Pack 3 (Release Candidate 2) is now available as a single file, rather han just as a series of downloads from Windows Update. Remember it's still in the testing stage, all be it the final stages, so it's probably best to install it only on a second computer, not your main one. See Anorak News > Software Updates for link.

Did the earth move for you last night? Probably not but you may have heard what sounded like distant thunder to the south and wondered why there hadn't been any lightning. If so your experience is sought by the British Geological Survey and you can tell them all about it here. The Guardian has a nice interactive webpage of what people felt and heard at around 1am this morning here, that was created from the records of the US Geological Service, which you can find here.

(26.02.08) Pakistan has lifted the ban on YouTube, it's Telecom's Authority told service providors to allow people to acces to the site after having caused it to crash on Sunday when a national ban spread outside its borders. Which is good news but there's no reason it couldn't happen again and with worse consequences.

Vista Service Pack 1 has got to many problems to even list according to Google search and even Microsoft is warning that will cause problems to third party programmes and offering workaround advice on the fly. Just go to Google Sci/tech News and put "Vista Update" in the search box and you'll see what I mean.

(25.02.08) Youtube users may have noticed the site was unavailable for a few hours recently, very unusual for one of the most reliable websites in the world. It was caused by Pakistan banning access to websites carrying the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that caused so much outrage. Or so it seemed when the BBC posted the story here. But now it emerges that there maybe more to the story.

It now being claimed that Pakistan moved against the site because it was carrying videos that proved vote rigging in the recent election (which is interesting because it was the democrats that won, are they the riggers and censors?), according to this story.

But that isn't why the story is really interesting. All Pakistan did was to create fake Youtube links that redirected users to another website. It was supposed to work only within the country but rapidly spread beyond it, effecting people worldwide. What it tells us is that the web is not as stable as we thought and it could be brought down by almost anyone.

(22.02.08) The Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, has announced that ISPs will face sanctions if they fail to stop people downloading pirated versions of copyright music, films and, well anything really. But it's being driven by the music and movie industry and raises a lot of questions. In a discussion on Radio 5's Simon Mayo show a repesentive of the ISPs said he didn't understand how it could be done without them intercepting a user's data, which is illegal without a warrant. John Kennedy reassured him that the system would work by the industry contacting ISPs with evidence of the kind they use in court cases of a user's wrong doing.

I can't but wonder how they can get this evidence idependently of the ISP. There are basically two forms of illegal download. The simplest is a file hosted on any one of many websites, which downloaders find via messageboards, which come and go like the seasons or they're shared through "peer to peer" sites, i.e. the file is hosted on a private computer which is accessed via a sort of notice board. All the websites are hosted abroad and it's not easy to find out where the individual computers are. Try searching for virtually anything along with the word "torrent" or "bit torrent" and you'll see how much is out there. Things get even more complicated when tracking serious sharers as they will be using anonyising services which make it impossible to identify there computer.

What's more, I can see how downloading a lot of movies might be noticable, they're big multi-gigabyte files but music files? Even a whole CD is just a few megabytes at full compression.

So is this just hot air, designed to scare ISPs and users or does the music industry have a way of tracking our computer use they're not letting on about? At the moment this is just a proposal, it will only become legislation if the ISPs fail to come to a deal with the music/movie industry, so I suspect the former. Read slightly less here.

Friday Fun: Fingers on buzzers for the Reaction Test! Human Benchmark has simple test that measure your reaction time, click here to try it. If you get nowhere near the average, it's probably your mouse.

Fed up with trying to complain about something and getting passed from one unhelpful call center worker to another. Well, why not write to the company boss? You can find a list of their addresses here. 

Phillidelphia soccer fans have everything, passion, songs, a growing support base, a nice pub with a big screen, the one they lack is a team to support. Read more here.

Shot is very simple game that involves flicking black marbles of a sort of pimply cushion, very easy at first, rapidly gets difficult. Click here (quick loading, suitable for dialup).

(21.02.08) XP SP3 is a step closer with a "Release Candidate" being made available to the public via WIndows download (see Anorak News > Software Updates for download details), which is great news as it speeds systems up by as much as 10%. A release candidate is something they consider to almost completely tested but it's still not been used on enough machines to know if there are any glitches, the full version is expected to come out after Vista Service Pack 1, which is due out next month. Read more here.

(19.02.08) Toshiba has finally thrown in the towel and announced that it's HD (high definition) DVD format is no more. It's rival Sony seem to have learnt the lessons of Betamax - VHS war and has made the Blu-ray format by far the most popular, partly because it's games console plays them. This meant the there was an existing market for content providors to sell too and so most them chose Blu-ray despite it's daft name. Attentive readers of this site will expected this, as the advantage that the games console gave Blu-ray was pointed out sometime ago. Players are still quite expensive, more or less the same price as the games console in fact. Read more here and a timeline of events here. 

(18.02.08) Forcefield: I've been giving ZoneAlarm's Forcefield a try today and it's surprisingly good for a beta (still in testing) application. Most of the time you don't notice it all, it loads when the computer starts, so you don't have to do anything when you go the Internet but the browser takes a little longer to open than normal. Among the things I've noticed is that it has it's own download manager, which seems very slightly quicker than the normal one but doesn't have an "open folder" option, so if you download something that windows doesn't recognise, you have to open the folder you've downloaded to manually. Also, unless you click on the page first, pressing the space bar opens the "Private Browser" rather than scrolling down the page as it should (this only effects Internet Explorer.

The Private Browser is another option that comes with Forcefield and opens Firefox or Internet Explorer with enhanced privacy functions, killing cookies and stopping the saving of forms etc. I haven't used it much because the BBC radio player doesn't work properly in it. If you don't open it accidentally, you have to open it by right clicking on the icon in the notification area. If you find the whole thing a bit much you exit from the same menu.

I think it's still got some way to go but the basic idea is really good and with most new threats coming from websites rather than email, it could become the way forward for security software, in the same way that their threat detection methods were eventually adopted by other Internet security companies. You can download it here but remember it is still in the testing stage, so it isn't trouble free and eventually you'll be asked to pay for it or have to uninstall.

(17.02.08) ZoneAlarm, the free firewall that many install along with AVG anti-virus, is bundling a new toolbar with it's latest version, numbered 7.0.462.000. It's called Spy Blocker and protects you from spyware being installed when you visit a website but comes bundled with a search bar from "Ask.com", which appears above the main window of your browser. It's a way of funding the free version of the firewall, Checkpoint, makers of ZA, get paid by ask for sending searches their way.

For existing users it will appear after they agree to download the latest version after a pop prompts them too and agreeing to proceed after a dialogue box appears with the option to include the new toolbar already ticked. There's a screenshot of it here, unchecking the box will allow you to upgrade without installing the toolbar.

A lot of people will have already downloaded it and they can either uninstall it via Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel or click on "View" at the top of the browser, then "Toolbars" and click on "Spy Blocker" to remove the tick. I don't know if the latter prevents the anti-spyware aspect from functioning yet. There have already been quite a lot of complaints about this to me (thanks everyone!) and on the web (click here for an example). ZoneAlarm has an excellent reputation for innovation, they were the first firewall to try to detect behaviour rather than rely on a list of known threats and I'm sure that Spy Blocker is an excellent application, it's just a pity that it comes bundled with an unwanted toolbar.

Forcefield: While researching the above I came across a new ZA program that looks really interesting. Called Forcefield, it works with Firefox and works by running the browser within what's called a "virtual machine", something that looks like the operating system to an intruder but is actually isolated from it. The program then acts as gate keeper between the virtual machine and the rest of the computer, checking downloads etc for suspicious content and behaviour. It's in beta test stage at the moment, which means you've got a chance to test it out for free (there may still be problems with the program, so don't if you're not an experienced user). Click here for more. 

(15.02.08) Friday Fun: Fans of TV detective show City of Vice will enjoy "Bow Street Runner", a game based on the show and set in the same grim historical London. It's very atmospheric and well crafted, click here to start detecting.

Another detective series, Ashes to Ashes, inspired me to do search on YouTube for stuff from the '80s, I found this rather disturbing advert for Kinder Eggs.

Lego has already made a great version of the Star War games and there's a Batman series in the pipeline, now it's turned it's square heads to another film franchise, Indiana Jones. Click here for a preview of what's to come.

Gamevial has a new version it's "Fly like a Bird" game, it's now multiplayer and the flight dynamics are much improved. What's amazing is that the whole 3d city downloads in less than 400kb, meaning that even dialupers can enjoy it. Click here.

(14.02.08) Both Firefox 3 and XP Service Pack 3 are a step closer with the release of new beta versions. XP SP3's new beta (testing) version has been released to a closed group of testers and it's hoped that it will be available to manufacturers in the first half of this year, which seems likely as Vista SP 1 is ready to ship to them now and it's generally thought that Microsoft doesn't want to release XPSP3 until Vista SP1 is out. Read more here.

Meanwhile Firefox Beta 3 is now available for download, which fixes thousands (literally) of problems with previous versions, click here for more. 

Valentine's Day is a favourite day for email scams, the combination of flirtation with anonymity is perfect cover for a hoaxer. So watch out for invitations from unexpected sources and e-cards hosted by sites you aren't familiar with.

(13.02.08) File sharers could be cut off by their ISP if a proposed green paper before Parliament turns into actual legislation. It proposes that people accessing pirated material should lose their internet connection after two warnings. The proposal is being pushed by the music industry and is primarily aimed at users of peer to peer file sharing websites, so presumably ISPs will be required to monitor access to sites and the types of material being downloaded. It seems impractical to me, not to mention a gross invasion of privacy. Read more here.

Love Hearts: This really belongs in Friday Fun but it's Valentines Day tomorrow so here it is. Click here to create your own Love Heart and order a box of chocolates far to late to be of any use.

(12.02.08) My computer is up and running again! Installing the motherboard was far less troublesome than I expected, I didn't have to do a repair install nor re-register it with Microsoft. The only thing that took a bit of time to sort out was the graphics, for some reason it took a while to get the card working properly. It's actually running faster than it was before as I was able to install a new processor, which is "dual core" (two processors on one chip or maybe that's the other way round) and so it's very good at multi-tasking. Apart from the memory, I've now replaced every single part of the original computer, so I suppose it's the second I've built, hopefully it won't be the last. Thanks to everyone for the advice and sympathy!

Signing up for broadband: I helped someone sign with BT Broadband last week and was surprised by how helpful they were. On the sign up page there's a "live help" button which when clicked pops up a chat window and a real person helps you through the process and answers any questions. This was particularly useful as the customer was with Pipex for their calls and line rentals.

The reason we'd chosen BT was because they were connected to an Exchange Activate exchange which meant there was a limited choice of supplier or so I thought. The next day they called me to tell me that when they got in touch with Pipex to cancel their call package, they were told that Pipex could supply them with broadband too. Has Pipex been added to the list of ISPs who can supply EA exchanges or have they got it wrong? I've no idea because I can't find a list of the ISPs anywhere.

(08.02.08) My computer is still in bits and after much deliberation I've decided to buy a new mother board with the same socket because old one just isn't available anymore. So hopefully, assuming the mobo was the problem, the rebuild and reinstall goes OK, everything should be back to normal some time next week.

There's an update available for Firefox. It should arrive automatically but if you want to get it immedietally see Anorak News > Sotware Updates for details.

Friday Fun (A bit limited this week for obvious reasons): Vision is one of those intriguing/frustrating point and click room escape games that you either love or hate. This one comes from Japan and is beutifully renedered and just solvable with a little effort and some luck. Click here.

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing and it's got even wonderfuller with the addition of WikiMindMaps. Mind maps are a way of visualising the connections between various aspects of a subject and WMM works in much the same way, type in a search term and it displays the main subject in the center of a web of connections. Click here to try it.

(02.02.08) Updates to the website may be a little scarce over the next few days or so because I seem to have completely disabled my computer. All I was trying to do was fit a new cooler and power supply but unfortunately a connector on each was incompatible and so I refitted the old ones. When I tried to boot up again nothing happened, the monitor displayed a “no signal message,” the hard drive appears inactive and there wasn’t even a beep code to investigate. I’ll try and update when I can from a neighbour’s computer but it’s hard work on a dial up connection!

January

(30.01.08) iPhone customers are going to get a better deal from O2 following widespread criticisms of the high cost of the contract. It's not actually getting cheaper for the lowest tariff though, people on the 35pm contract are to get extra minutes and texts, while the cost of the £55pm contract is to come down by £10. Read more here.  

(29.01.08) The BBC has been given the go ahead to launch a new gaelic TV service, starting on the satellite, broadband and cable platforms. The BBC has commited £2.5 million for new content, the bulk of which will come from the Highlands and islands, s if you have a good idea for a programme, now would be a good time to pitch it. Read more here and visit the Alba site here.

I just got my new TFT monitor, I'll review it tomorrow after I've had a chance to putit through it's passes.

(25.01.08) I often bemoan the price hikes foisted on the UK by some IT manufacturers, games console makers in particular but according to a survey by Tom's Hardware there is more to it than that. Now, the piece does have a rather odd introduction, they seem to be under the impression that we don't use credit cards, finance isn't available and that Americans will have to pay VAT but beyond that the price comparrisons are interesting and the UK isn't always the most expensive place to buy and this is after he dollar has fallen dramatically in value. Read more here.

Friday Fun: Tailtag is a simple game which you have to create chains of ladybirds, the music is a bit annoying though, click here. 

Anyone watching C5's Extraordinary Animals show? Well here's a highlight reel of one of it's stars, Enstien the talking parrot, doing his stuff on a US talent show. He wasn't the brightest bird, basically it's a trick but it's a good trick. Click here.

National treasure Stephen Fry is surprisingly mad about gadgets for someone who cultivates the air of a fogie and he has a very entertaining column called Dork Talk in the Guardian about them every week. Click here for his thoughts.

(23.01.08) Buying a TFT (LCD) monitor: The price of TFT monitors hasn't so much as fallen over the last year, they've more fallen through the floor. Screen sizes that not so long ago would have cost several hundred pounds are now the same, if not cheaper, than the equivalent CRT and a 20 or 22 inch widescreen can be bought for between £150 and £200 including VAT and delivery.

But choosing one is difficult and working out what all the specifications really mean takes time, so I've written a brief(ish) guide to what to look for and what the various terms mean. So if you don't want to be caught out by an exaggerated contrast ratio or are confused by response times, click here. It's still a work in progress, so any suggestions will be gratefully received.

(21.01.08) Foistware: Just when you thought it safe to go into the ether a new tread appears. Nasty things like malware (free software that contains a nasty surprise), adware (free software that displays adverts) and spyware (free software that spys on you) have been around for a while but now there's new kid on the block, foistware. Well not that new but they've only come up with a name for it recently (I think).

A good example of it is the way the Micro Bill Systems makes it's money. It mainly provides billing services for gambling and sex sites and employs the simple enticement of a free trial period, typically three days. Clicking on the free trial button will produce a scrollable set of terms and conditions which you should read in detail because they explain how agreeing explains that you agree to install the billing software on your computer. If you don't cancel in the agreed time a popup will reminding you that you owe them an advance payment and if you don't pay the popups become so prevalent that your computer becomes unusable, all of which is explained in the T&Cs but didn't.

All of this is perfectly legal apparently, the company even has a helpful website for customers worried about the popups here. It is possible to get rid of the software without paying, although they have recorded your ISP and may pursue you further, various methods are described on a message board for victims here. Read more about Micro Bill Systems here. Several people in the community fell victim to "dialler scams", which persuaded people to change their ISP by getting them to install software after clicking on a popup, I hope the same doesn't happen with this phenomena.

(20.01.08) Free music! Renowned violinist Tasmin Little is giving away three new recordings by Bach, Patterson and Ysaÿe as free downloads on her website in the hope of promoting greater interest in classical music. As well as the music, which is available at various levels of compression, so even someone on a very slow download can enjoy it, you can listen to her introduction to the pieces and suggestions for further listening. Click here for the download page and three cheers for her!

(19.01.08) Carphone Warehouse is in trouble, not for it's laptop offer but for the way it handles customer information. It's been accussed by the Information Commisioner of passing inaccurate data to credit agencies and debt collectors, opening accounts with the wrong name and most amazingly, letting customers access details other than their own online. Read more here.

(18.01,08) Yuku update: The much heralded forum revamp, which involve bells, whistles and possibly a fair ground ride or two, has you will have noticed, been delayed. It's due to the techies in charge of it being snowed under with work, I thought it was a bit optimistic that it would happen over the Christmas period but will happen soon(ish) they assure me.

Friday Fun! Fantastic news X 2! The makers of Samorost have released a new game called Plantage and at first glance it has all the whimsical charm of their previous work, click here.

And, that wasn't enough, there's a new game from the makers of Exmortis, the scarriest game I've ever played, called Goliath (click here). If it's anything like Exmortis, it won't be explicitly violent but will conjure up a feeling of real dread with excellent graphics and music.

Have you seen the Tom Cruise video? If not you can do so here. I don't know what all the fuss is about and found Human Tetris much more entertaining.

i Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been having problems with my ISP connection.

(15.01.08) Router vulnerability: Routers are devices used to connect a number of computers together and to the Internet, they're not to be confused with simple modems that just connect a single computer to the Internet. So this only applies if you're connecting more than one computer to th Internet.

But if you are you should pay attention; a vulnerability in UPnP, Universal Pluggin and Play, allows computers to compromised by simple Flash adverts, which appear on virtually every website we visit. Malicious adverts would only appear on websites that either don't check advertisers properly (and there's a lot of them) or on those that are tempting but corrupt, never the less you can't rely on your judgement to keep you save.

The only way round the problem is to either set your browser to stop Flash graphics (Tools > Options > (Security) > Advanced) or to disable UPnP in the router, for which you will need the manual that was supplied with it. What you need is the routers IP address, which you will findin the manual, once in you'll be able to disable it. It may make some, a lot, webpages display with blank spaces but better safe than sorry. Read more here. Thanks to Steve for the tip - I hope I've got this right!

(14.01.08) You've probably seen the AOL/Carphone Warehouse broadband + laptop offer flash by on the TV and perhaps been tempted by them, especially as AOL is one of the few ISPs available to everyone, even those connected to an Exchange Activate exchange but is it all that it's cracked up to be?

Well yes and no. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron, a good brand but it's just about the base model they sell, the 1520, which is sold largely on choice of case colour, a good reason to buy a shirt, not a laptop. Not only that but it's a cut down version, instead of a 160Gb hard drive (storage space), it's an 80, rather than 2Gb of RAM (memory), there's only one and rather than the Vista Home Premium operating system, it only has Vista Home Basic, which lacks many of the features that make Vista attractive to users (although that might not be a bad thing given the lack of RAM).

The full version of the 1520 costs £389 (inc. VAT & del.) (ebay "buy it now" £400 + shipping!), there's a £40 difference in the operating systems and upgrading the memory and hard drive would probably cost £30, so let's say it's worth £320.

The T&C's on the Carphone Warehouse make interesting reading, for instance it's not available in some places, like Cuba and you can't use it for certain things, such as "the development, production, use, or maintenance of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", including without limitation, uses related to nuclear, missile, and/or chemical/biological development." More relevant is that prices of the broadband package only apply to certain areas, after a call to AOL these turned out to be places connected to exchanges where AOL have installed their own equipment.

If you're fortunate enough to be connected to one you can get up to 8mb broadband, with a generous 40Gb p.m. downland limit for £20 p.m. if you sign up for their pay as you go phone package, if you don't it will cost £30 (which is the same it costs if you don't take the phone offer). The minimum service agreement is two years.

So that's either £480 or £720 depending on your exchange, so broadband costs, minus the laptop cost, £80 or £200 p.a. (£6.60 or £16.60 p.m.). If you didn't have a computer, only wanted to do the basics, were connected to an AOL and don't mind changing phone provider, it might be worth thinking about. If you're not, the alternative offer of a Playstation 3 might be a better choice (although it does put the broadband price up a bit as it's only worth about £280). See the offer details here and read a review of the laptop here (very old price quoted).

(13.01.08) The BBC & ITV are launching a free to air high definition TV service around March and all you'll need to receive it is a new "set top" box that costs around £80. All you'll need to watch it is quite expensive HD television but there's no annual subscription fee and you'll be able to use your existing satellite dish. The channels available will the same as those currently on Sky freeview minus Sky3 etc. Click here for more (actually sligtly less).

Tomorrow: The Carphone Warehouse/AOL Broadband free laptop offer - is it worth it and can you get it?

(12.01.08) Google search warning: I reported a while ago about search results leading to spoof websites, which is still going on but is now being policed slightly better but sometimes you have to be careful when clicking on seemingly legitimate links.

Computer Buyer magazine reports the story of someone searching for AVG free download who clicked on the first sponsored link that appeared at the top of the page. They ended up being persuaded by the promise of a discount to purchase a "3 year membership" for $11.65, only to find from their credit card statement that they'd been charged $49. Not only that but once they clicked pay they were merely directed to a link that led the genuine free download site.

Although that particular website appears to have disappeared from Google searches another has appeared that looks genuine, is called avg.co.uk but the prices are about 25% higher than those quoted on www.grisoft.co.uk, the real home of AVG.

I'm sure that AVG isn't the only search being taken advantage of, so be careful when clicking! 

(11.01.08) Friday Fun! Internet speed tests are useful but a bit dull, so I really liked Speedtest.net's. It has an attractive interface and simple but effective graphics as it performs the test. Click here to give it a try and when, if you've got broadband, you've got the result go to the broadband news page and post it on the campaign website linked to at the top of the page. Click here.

This is just childish, I shouldn't be posting it really, you just enter your post code and it generates a list of funny (mostly rude) place names in your area and links to a map showing they're real. Click here.

On a more serious note, are we living in a computer simulation? It's always seemed unlikely to me, I'm sure we'd notice the evidence of previous system crashes but perhaps that's what really killed the dinosaurs. Anyway, the argument that we might well be is pleasingly logical and fairly easy to grasp, click here to question your existence.

Fetch Fido is a charming game with nice graphics that involves getting a little dog in a space suit back to his craft via a series of levels that require you to jump around collecting this and avoiding that. Click here.

I think Captain Paranoid and the Delusions From Venus might be a very old game as it lacks some of the things we now take for granted in a FPS (first person shooter), such as multiple lives or the option to save progress. What's nice about it is that despite loading really fast, meaning you can easily play it on dialup and has a genuine 3d landscape. If you like FPS games click here.

(10.01.08) The year in lists: Normally at this time of year I do a review of the year but frankly 2007 was very quite in community terms, apart from discovering that we could expect super-duper broadband to arrive within the next couple of years, not much has happened. So instead here's a collection of some of my favourite lists, culled from various websites (click on the bold text for links).

Top ten odd news stories from the illustrious pages of Time Magazine. 

For some reason I find the worst lists more entertaining the best, for instance, Rolling Stone best videos is interesting but not nearly as entertaining as FHM ten worst movies of the year.

Which is probably why I enjoyed Popular Mechanicsworst gadgets and Idolator Album Covers lists, apart from anything else, how would you know why Ted Huckerbee should be embarrassed by rock star endorsements and that vibrating plate exercise machine was a waste of money?

I also enjoyed Regret the Error's list of media corrections and Neatorama's dumbest criminals of the year awards but if you still want a list of 2007's real IT stories, you can find them at IT Pro's exhaustive review. 

(09.01.08) A belated Happy New Year to you all after what has been a rather over extended Christmas break. Sorry about that, got caught up in the seasonal spirit and then found myself very busy with one thing and another.

Amazon returns policy: Amazon has extended it's 30 day no quibble return policy for any item purchased between November 1st to December 31st, which means if you bought someone a present that proved less than popular well in advance, you've got until January 31st to get it back to them. Items must be returned unopened and in original condition. For full details click here.

Even better, they will refund the difference if the price of the item has dropped after you've bought it, which given the number of sales they have on after Christmas, there's a fair liklihood that it will have done. I haven't found the relevant Amazon page but the highly respected moneysavingexpert website explains how to go about it here.