Recent Posts

176

Living Room / Re: Migrating from Google Gmail.com to Microsoft Outlook.com

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 16, 2013, 07:15 AM »

Afraid I filter everything through Google - I get a lot of mail (most of which I don't get round to reading) and GMail's spam filter is one of the best. (Athough recently I have noticed an increase in false positives). I filter out adverts so I am not bothered by the nonsense served up - but I don't really care if an automated system wants to scan my email to target me for specific ads - at the end of the day those ads are filtered out anyway. By definition any service reads your email in one way or another - even if they don't make use of the info - if only to provide spam filtering, so nothing is really private.

Don't really care that much about privacy too much - most email is not that private anyway - but at least Google are up front. I don't trust MS or Yahoo to tell you the truth until they are likely to get caught. And Yahoo just sucks as a service - ironic since it is now MS too! I have been waiting from Yahoo to disappear into Bing and Outlook.com ... seems MS want to give the illusion of choice.

Ironically most of my email is actually filtered through my own server but I find GMail a handy place to do it all. I do daily backups offline.

Re. SSL/TLS - isn't it all an illusion anyway - it is secure to and from the provider (and only possibly at the other person's end) but in the middle there isn't any secure layer? Or am I missing something?

177

Living Room / Re: Migrating from Google Gmail.com to Microsoft Outlook.com

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 13, 2013, 03:55 PM »

GMail is quirky in its approach (like POP doesn't work the way it is supposed to) but IMAP seems to work fine.

The only real issue with GMail is privacy but then ANY email service is hosted by a provider somewhere (even if you pay for your own server at a data centre) so as far as I can see GMail are relatively honest about what they do (in their despicable way) - MS have just been despicable in the past and resisted being honest until caught - and anyway just because they say they don't automatically gather info from email and document contents today doubtless at some point when no one is looking there will be tiny change in T&Cs to allow them to do what they like.

Apple are probably worse than both but who really knows - just my opinion.

178

Living Room / Re: Migrating from Google Gmail.com to Microsoft Outlook.com

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 13, 2013, 08:57 AM »

If you are going to migrate from GMail why on earth would you choose Outlook.com - I use it with an old hotmail account occasionally and find the whole experience pretty unpleasant. Plus I trust Microsoft server maintenance even less than Google!

If you want to use the desktop Outlook why not just access GMail via IMAP - works pretty well here.

179

General Software Discussion / Re: Spammer Question with Webmail server

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 06, 2013, 12:28 PM »

  LOL - I forgot you are whipped! 

180

General Software Discussion / Re: Spammer Question with Webmail server

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 06, 2013, 10:33 AM »

Tell her to sort out the problems and not to complain in the future!!!

Nothing like withdawal of free support to provoke a response ... she can always pop mail from the old Yahoo account if she wants to but she needs to get rid of the online contact list on Yahoo otherwise her contacts will be getting pretty fed up with the spam!

181

General Software Discussion / Re: Spammer Question with Webmail server

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 06, 2013, 07:40 AM »

Probably not a spam trick - Yahoo servers have been under attack for at least 2-3 years and regularly hacked into. Accounts have been compromised without passwords being needed.

I have had many Yahoo customers (and BT/Yahoo users) in the UK who have had spam sent out to their entire contact list and I know this has been an issue worldwide for a long time.

Also check any email addresses attached to your account - one other trick from this hacking I have seen is a bogus email address added in to your account settings which means that if you try to change the password the spammers are informed too!!!

I have also seen some people locked out of their account by passwords being changed by unknown parties - so far managed to get their accounts reinstated.

Best advice at the moment is find an alternative email provider and make sure you backup you address book from Yahoo and then delete your entire content list from their servers otherwise it will continue to happen.

182

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Genie Timeline Professional 2 for 10USD

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 12, 2013, 05:55 PM »

I know Acronis has its haters but it is a mature product.

-Midnight Rambler (November 12, 2013, 11:10 AM)

Really - I used to love Acronis until it became a bugfest. Don't know if things have improved but I was seriously embarassed by them when I recommended the business version clients and the software kept being updated and introducing ever more bugs which meant that even if you could get it to complete a backup (rare IME when I dropped it) the backup archive usually wouldn't verify - or if it did wouldn't restore properly .

183

General Software Discussion / Re: Does anyone know how I may remove Trojan Dropper:MSIL/Livate.A ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 09, 2013, 03:05 AM »

If it were me I would just go nuclear - even if you think you have cleared things you can never be 100% certain you got everything.

184

General Software Discussion / Re: Does anyone know how I may remove Trojan Dropper:MSIL/Livate.A ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 07, 2013, 09:16 AM »

Probably best and quickest to go for the clean install - assuming Windows Recovery hasn't got infected!

185

Living Room / iPads banned from Cabinet meetings over surveillance fears

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 03, 2013, 06:03 PM »

Anyone else find this hilarious?

http://www.telegraph...itics/10423514/.html

186

Living Room / Re: Android upgrade ... help ... lost internet page shortcuts

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2013, 08:52 PM »

 

187

Living Room / Re: Android upgrade ... help ... lost internet page shortcuts

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2013, 08:22 AM »

I have a simpler solution - if I want a link on the home page I add it to a bookmarks folder too!

188

Living Room / Re: Android upgrade ... help ... lost internet page shortcuts

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 01, 2013, 04:16 AM »

Oh bum! Thanks for the info though. How annoying. They could at least warn you!

189

Living Room / Android upgrade ... help ... lost internet page shortcuts

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 31, 2013, 08:42 PM »

Samsung kindly just upgraded my tablet.

In the process they cleared my Home Screen apart from the standard icins.

I can easily restore my apps but it is particularly annoying that I had a second screen of useful internet shortcuts (which weren't in the shorcuts in my browser). Some are relatively old and unlikeky to be in my browser history.

Anyone got any idea if it is possible to recover these webpage shortcuts?

190

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz' bold new subscription-based update plans - brilliant? or suicidal?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 31, 2013, 04:32 AM »

Doesn't really address the issue - if you have to send a manual request for every missing film and wait 24 hours - it is supposed to be a convnient and quick way to catalogue your collection. With that level of interaction with developers it would probably be more convenient to use Excel.

I gave up using the film software because in the UK there were practically no films actually in the database once they removed IMDB/Amazon and other sources of information as they have different bar codes to the US versions. I didn't see why I should provide massive amounts of data so they can sell it!

191

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz' bold new subscription-based update plans - brilliant? or suicidal?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 30, 2013, 10:32 AM »

Have I got that wrong?

-katykaty (October 29, 2013, 04:27 PM)

A bit but not entirely. He certainly pissed off a lot of people in the past and the glums are still lurking out there.

What particularly annoys me (apart from all the license change nonsense) is that most of the development, before I chucked out the toys from the pram, seemed to hinge on the use of databases. They were using a lot of very good databases as sources for Movie and Music catalogues (such as Amazon and IMDB). They then decided to drop ALL support for those, even for existing users, and move on to their own - very inadequate at the time - database.

They then started charging users who were actually providing the data for that database. So now they build a product on the backs of users who they charge for the privilege!!

All in all I don't find their approach to their customers terribly honest, open, reliable or respectful - and if they offered me a 100% free life time license on all their products I wouldn't bother.

192

Living Room / World's fastest WiFi @100Gbps

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 24, 2013, 03:25 PM »

German researchers have combined photonics and electronics to create a world-record-breaking wireless network that can send and receive data at a heady 100 gigabits per second (Gbps). This beats the same team’s previous world record of 40Gbps. At 100Gbps, or a transfer rate of 12.5 gigabytes per second — ten times faster than Google Fiber — you could copy a complete Blu-ray disc in a couple of seconds.

http://www.extremete...an-scale-to-terabits

193

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz' bold new subscription-based update plans - brilliant? or suicidal?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 24, 2013, 12:39 PM »

I think it lost steam over the past years for a number of reasons - the two main ones being he thoroughly pissed off his user base with changes to lifetime licenses and there was a massive number of people rubbishing the products on the internet as a result and also he decided to change the database support to their own database and no longer make use of other useful services like IMDB and Amazon and go over entirely to their own database - which in the early days was pretty useless, esp. if you lived outside the US.

I stopped using the programs for both reasons - firstly I don't like business that renege on contract terms and secondly in the UK the database was an utterly pathetic waste of time depending on users like me to build their resources (should I say reinvent the resources).

Personally I wouldn't consider going back and there is absolutely no justification for software like this being subscription based.

Once he realises that users are savvy enough to sign up for one month a year to get up to date he is likely to change the terms again - either to the subscription model itself (force annual subscriptions only) or if you lapse you can't reregister for updates but buy an upgrade with 12 months registration. Most likely both in the long term. I suspect at this moment he is dipping his foot in the water and waiting to see what happens.

194

General Software Discussion / Re: Is the day of the paid OS over?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 23, 2013, 06:17 PM »

Probably - especially if they don't start listening to users.

I certainly think Office (the old cash cow) is on the skids - can't say I have met anyone yet who is paying for an annual subscription to 2013 and precious few who have purchased a copy of it. I am still meeting people on a daily basis who are buying 2010 in preference on DVD (even at highly inflated prices), others just moving to OpenOffice or LibreOffice rather than shell out for any version of 2013.

I currently have a MAPs subscription (probably won't renew next May when it comes time to pay again) so I get latest versions as they are released but must admit even with free access to Windows 8 all my machines (apart from one laptop) are still on Windows 7/Office 2010 and I can't see me upgrading any more.

I need to start thinking about decamping to another system. Trouble is I am not sure what to move to - I don't want to lose my entire catalogue of applications and start from scratch. Linux doesn't seem to have the quality of apps I need for photo/video editing and digital recording/mixing/effects type software and moving to Apple would just feel like more of the same.

Really depressing.

195

Living Room / Re: Core Internet Institutions Abandon US Government

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2013, 03:11 AM »

Tech Dirt weighs in on the topic:

http://www.techdirt....vernance-model.shtml

Always worth reading Tech Dirt, so no point in posting a quote.

-Renegade (October 15, 2013, 02:40 AM)

Interesting article - also some interesting links in the comments section.

196

Living Room / Re: Core Internet Institutions Abandon US Government

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2013, 06:08 PM »

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

-40hz (October 14, 2013, 05:08 PM)

  Heady days - I remember them well!

197

Living Room / Re: Core Internet Institutions Abandon US Government

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2013, 10:56 AM »

Much of the governance of the web (and other things) defaulted to the United States because the general perception was that the United States was law abiding, rational, predictable and fair.

-40hz (October 13, 2013, 10:37 AM)

ROFLMAO on ALL counts

198

Living Room / Re: Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2013, 04:53 AM »

(see attachment in previous post)

-Deozaan (October 14, 2013, 01:52 AM)

 

The UK government are happily selling NHS medical data to companies now and the system is opt out.

It is all supposed to be anonymous but IIRC postcodes are included so that regional discrimination of data can be generated. It wouldn't take genius to work out form medical and postcode data who you are talking about (my postcode only covers 8 properties and 5 of them a holiday lets with no registered patients!)

So much for the UK Data Protection Act!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16026827
http://www.opendemoc...ta-on-sale-for-pound

199

Living Room / Re: Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2013, 05:52 AM »

Assuming you are logged into google services try this link:

https://plus.google....ndorsements?hl=en-GB (in the UK)

You can untick the endorsements settings at the bottom and click save.

I don't use (and don't intend to use) Google+ but even so because I use GMail this is still set in my profile!!!

Anyone else think it is immoral that user data is used and they sneak it through knowing that only about 1% of people actual look at T&Cs.

This is the sort of setting that should be set to off by default and a screen pop up to ask you whether you agree when you login (with a no nag setting).

Google's motto of do no evil seems to have gone right of the window. This is basically theft by T&Cs that most won't read.

If everybody read every word of every T&C they agree to (and all the updates designed to bamboozle and obfuscate what is going on) there would be nothing done in the world other than reading T&Cs !!!!!

200

General Software Discussion / Re: LastPass - What are your thoughts?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 03, 2013, 04:44 AM »

Thanks IainB - useful tip passed on. I have to say LastPass could do better at letting users (especially paid users) what changes they are making. How often do people sit and scrutinise settings for changes? Since updates are pretty much silent in most cases most people aren't aware of things changing over time.