Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Where’s Waldo? Sorry, Labatt?

Published on 27 February 2007 in Syndicated. Closed

So after nearly four months of silence from “Silent” Rob Labatt, ezboard, Inc.’s CEO (or at least he was ezboard, Inc.’s CEO - I can’t verify he’s still there), there have been one or two changes. The first changes were to his profile page with the disappearance of his Friends List. The significance of this is [...]

Star – Novel Interpretation of “Improved”

Published on 23 February 2007 in Internet Service Providers, Star Technology and Stupidity. 0 Comments

For many years now, indeed since it was first launched, we have been using an online backup solution from Netstore. This has cost us £180 + VAT per annum and as I mentioned, we have been paying this for many years now.

The benefit to us was that it offered us (as early adopters) unlimited storage of backups of our data. We didn’t take the piss by backing up GBs of music files, etc. But all our data and archives, some 18GB or so, are backed up daily and incrementally.

Until today…

Netstore passed on the provision of the service to Star Technology Services Limited a few years ago and we continued to be billed by Star for the online backup facility.

Late last year, we received an e-mail from David Palmer, the Product Manager at Star, which said:

“Early next year Star will be launching a brand new and improved PC Backup service designed to meet the increased demands of our business customers. These improvements will make your online back-ups and restores easier and faster than ever – providing even better protection against data loss, corruption and theft.” [emphasis added]

One of the attachments to that e-mail re-iterated this and added that:

“To continue to use the service and benefit from its new features, you will need to prepare by transferring your users to the new service platform ahead of 28^th February 2007“

One of the other attachments that followed over the next few days stated that we would have to un-install the Netstore software, download and install new software from Star, run a new backup for the first time and then continue as normal. So I’d basically put it off until today, knowing that we could then run a couple of big backups to kickstart it from scratch over the weekend and before this deadline.

Except…

Except one of the unannounced “improvements” is that the service is now capped at 4GB, or around 20% of the storage we’ve been using with no worrries and no complaints up to this morning. 4GB of storage. For £211.52 this year and every year. Only nowhere do you find this out until you install the “brand new and improved” software.

I’ve just spent another half hour on the telephone to Star trying to resolve this but no-one who can do anything appears to be working for Star today (who are now blaming BT for the cap…).

So unless it’s resolved this afternoon, Star can kiss goodbye to our business for good and we’ll buy our own data storage elsewhere. For a lot less than we’re paying Star.

Star – Novel Interpretation of “Improved”

Published on 23 February 2007 in Syndicated. Closed

DBS Datamarketing Liars. Oh and Toyota GB Still Spamming

Published on 2 February 2007 in Spam and Toyota. 0 Comments

Remember I mentioned that Toyota GB were spamming me thanks to good old Spammers, DBS?

Well guess what? When Jenna Bibby from DBS Datamarketing told me on 17 January 2007 that:

“I can confirm that your email address has now been permanently removed from our system”

she was lying to me, as Toyota GB spammed me two days later.

And no, there wasn’t an issue with the lists already being in the system for that one, because I received another spam from “Toyota (GB) PLC in Association with DBS [dbs-...@emailmovers.ec-messenger.com]” today about some crappy “Toyota Arse” or something.

Oh and I asked Jenna Bibby about this on 19 January 2007 and haven’t yet received a ~~lie~~ reply from her yet. I wonder why?

DBS Datamarketing Liars. Oh and Toyota GB Still Spamming

Published on 2 February 2007 in Syndicated. Closed

Remember I mentioned that Toyota GB were spamming me thanks to good old Spammers, DBS? Well guess what? When Jenna Bibby from DBS Datamarketing told me on 17 January 2007 that: “I can confirm that your email address has now been permanently removed from our system” she was lying to me, as Toyota GB spammed me two days later. And no, [...]

Windows Vista Vulnerability

Published on 1 February 2007 in Operating Systems, PC, Software and Stupidity. 0 Comments

Well now, after years in the making, Microsoft has released its latest operating system software, Vista, to consumers after releasing it to businesses earlier.

Except by giving it all the bells and whistles, they’ve given it a huge potential security problem. How so? Well they’ve gone to town with speech recognition (the hyperlinks on the Windows Vista sections of the Microsoft website are changing very frequently, so bear with me).

So all you need is a microphone and you’re away, being able to dictate commands as well as by clicking or typing them. And don’t forget that many PCs have speakers too.

Ah.

So in theory, your speakers could say something and your PC could act on the commands? No, of course not. Er … well, yes, actually.

You might visit a web page, leave it on screen whilst you go and make a coffee or nip to the toilet and whilst you’re away, the page might refresh to another one which has an embedded sound file set to autoload and autorun. And that embedded sound file might tell your PC to open the file explorer, select your documents folder and delete the contents. Then it might tell the PC to delete all the files in the recycle bin too for good measure.

Microsoft wouldn’t let that happen, would they?

Well … yes they did. And here’s more on that.

Oh dear…

More on the T-Mobile Spam Saga

Published on 1 February 2007 in Cellcomms, Spam and T-Mobile. 0 Comments

If you recall, I was a little miffed at receiving spam from T-Mobile. Looks like I’m not the only one and The Register decided to do some digging themselves.

See the full story here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/01/t_mobile_spam/

There are one or two belters that I’m quoting here from that article:

“So, just to recap, T-Mobile hired Quantum Media who hired Mailtrack Media who hired E-Mail Movers who bought a list from Century Communications who bought it from a bloke on eBay.”

and

“All the companies involved are British-based and signed up to the Direct Marketing Association, as well as being responsible to the Information Commissioner’s Office. In light of our complaint, E-Mail Movers has lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner who will investigate the procedures used by Century Communications.”

Now, we all know that the Direct Marketing Association are, by definition, the sort of people you wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire, but I love the way that Emailmovers have lodged a complaint! It was their fault in the first place (and Mailtrack Media before that and Quantum Media before that and, of course, not forgetting T-Mobile themselves who decided to breach a Statutory Instrument).

Well done T-Mobile!

Windows Vista Vulnerability

Published on 1 February 2007 in Syndicated. Closed

Well now, after years in the making, Microsoft has released its latest operating system software, Vista, to consumers after releasing it to businesses earlier. Except by giving it all the bells and whistles, they’ve given it a huge potential security problem. How so? Well they’ve gone to town with speech recognition (the hyperlinks on the Windows Vista [...]