I’m trying out some of the online music sites, and am presently playing around with Napster. What ticks me off about these services is they try to confuse the novice into handing over their credit card details before they can get into the service, even if they have already bought a pre-paid card. The offer … Read more
Further to my column in today’s AWSJ Personal Journal on Daniel McNamara, who I (tho certainly not he) have christened the ‘Anti-Phisher King’, are some tips I asked him to put together on avoiding phishing scams. User Tips Standard Phishing Emails Just remember that NO bank will ever, ever ask you to confirm details via … Read more
Fans of Loose Wire may possibly recall a column I did a year or so ago, when I tried to match quaint English placenames with computer matters, assigning the names to things that didn’t yet have them. Here are a few: chettle (collective n) The debris, such as crumbs, dead insects and lint, that gets … Read more
By Jeremy Wagstaff from the 1 May 2003 edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review, (c) 2003, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. It’s unsurprising, given the kind of people who design and play with computers, but I’ve always felt there to be a chronic shortage of terms to describe what we actually do with our … Read more
Folk ask why I live in Indonesia. Here’s why. The Associated Press reported today that villagers in the South Sulawesi town of Watampone were protesting Tuesday outside the local police station demanding action against a local man they accused of practising black magic when it started raining. The police invited the protesters to shelter inside. … Read more