Norfolk Nerd Ramblings   The mad ramblings of an aging nerd.

There are a lot of scare stories about phishing and hacking attempts, lately these have spread to Facebook and Twitter, so I thought it might be a good time to give a few hints and tips about online security.

Anti-virus Software

Under no circumstances, should you ever go online onto the internet without good anti-virus software installed.  As well as having it installed, it is also imperative that you use the software’s update process to regularly download the latest version of the virus signatures, this will ensure that you are protected from the latest viruses.  New ones are being developed all the time, and a quality anti-virus software package will have regular updates, potentially multiple times a day.

Microsoft provide anti-virus software for free here.

Trust No-one

Sounds very cynical I know, but be suspicious about anything you receive from anyone, even if it appears to come from someone you know and trust.  Far and away the best protection you can provide is your own common sense.  If you receive something that you weren’t expecting, be suspicious, if you know the person, don’t be afraid to ring them and confirm what it is they have sent you.

eMail

Be very careful of links in eMails, check them before you click on them,  if you move the cursor over the link without clicking, then most eMail clients will show you where the link is going to take you, check that it seems valid.  If it concerns a sensitive subject like online banking, ignore the link completely and type the normal address of the site into your browser.

You should also be careful of attachments in emails, good a-v software should also protect your email, but, as a general rule don’t open attachments from people you don’t know or were not expecting.

Facebook

Many people seem to treat Facebook as a competition to get as many friends as possible, they will accept friend requests from anyone, even if they’ve never met and have no friends in common.  Be careful when accepting friend requests, not everyone on the internet is who they appear to be!  Some Facebook applications will also ask for rights to access your profile and friend list, before you grant this, check out the application, most importantly check out the applications ‘discussions’ page to see what people are saying about it.  If it’s not what it claims to be then people will usually be saying so!

Twitter

Twitter is reasonably safe, the only real risk is clicking on links, because of the 140 character nature of ‘twits’ links are often shortened making it difficult to see where they are really going.  Only click on links from people you trust.  Also beware of Twitter Direct Messages, at the time of writing there is a large number of direct messages being sent from compromised accounts, the message says ‘Is this you?’ with a link to a malicious website.  If the message is not the sort of thing you would expect from the person in question be suspicious.

Be Careful out there

This is absolutely the best advice I can give you, consider the internet to be a hostile environment, consider everyone on it to be suspect, even the ones you think you know, don’t take anything at face value, check it out first.

If in doubt, do nothing!  Ask the opinion of someone experienced, you can paste a question on the Norfolk Nerd Facebook page here.

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Just got back from a marvellous relaxing two-week holiday in Dorset, and thought I’d take the opportunity to pass on some recommendations to anyone visiting the area.

Hembury Mill

Where we stayed, wonderful welcoming, tastefully renovated property with all mod cons.  Peaceful and relaxing mainly because it’s at the bottom of a valley with no mobile reception!

The Spyway Inn

Great pub only a short stagger along a public footpath from the Mill, great beer, great food, very welcoming and child friendly.

Monkeyworld

Well worth a visit to see it’s contented, well-treated colonies of monkeys, most of whom have been rescued from horrible conditions.

The Tank Museum

If you’re in to tanks in any way, this is the place for you, more tanks than you could shake a stick at.  Everything from a WWI Mark I to a Challenger 2.

Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre

If you’re wanting to hunt fossils on the Jurassic Coast then this is the place for you.  The offer an excellent fossil hunting guided walk which is virtually guaranteed to get you finding fossils.  Both my son and I came back with a pocketful!

It would appear that the lovely personage who is John Prescott MP has stated that “nothing good ever came out of bloody Norfolk since Oliver Cromwell”.

Clearly Mr Prescott is an ignorant, uneducated, twerp,  Oliver Cromwell ACTUALLY comes from Cambridgeshire, and obviously he’s completely unaware of such unimportant people as Horatio Nelson, Robert Walpole (The first Prime Minister, a position that Prescott will never achieve!), Turnip Townshend (founder of modern agriculture) and Captain Vancouver  (helped to discover the New World) all of whom DID come from Norfolk.

You just stay in Hull Mr P. which is well known as the centre of the universe.  Don’t bother coming to Norfolk, you might get egg on your suit to match your face!

And we WILL thump you back!

Recently I have been looking at Flock a ‘Social Networking Browser’.  It’s a network browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer, but it incorporates tools for Social Networking Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, YouTube  et al.

I’m finding it a really useful way of keeping in touch with all of these without having to browse between all of them or having a multitude of browser windows open or loads of notification utilities advising you of updates.

If you’re struggling to keep up with everything, I recommend you give it a try, it’s free, so what do you have to lose!

Today is Darwin Day, and in honour of this memorable event the Open University have a ‘Devolve me’ page on their website.  If you present it with a photograph of yourself it will project you back in time.

The page can be found here.

This, apparently is what I looked like 1.8 million years ago (seems like only yesterday!)  It’s good to see Specsavers were already going strong then.

I received this email today:

Dear Manager,

We received a formal application from a person who is called John Alldis is applying to register "idaa" as their domain names and Internet brand in Hong Kong and also in Asia on 2009-02-11. During our auditing procedure we find out that the alleged John Alldis has no trade mark,brand nor patent even similar to that word.As authorized anti-cybersquatting organization we hereby suspect the alleged John Alldis to be a domain or trademark grabber.Hence we need you confirmation for two things.First of all,whether this alleged John Alldis is your business partner or distributor in Asia.Secondly,whether you are interested in registering these domains and Internet brand instead of that alleged person.(The alleged John Alldis will be entitled to obtain a domain not needed by original trademark owner.)

If you are not in charge of this please forward this email to appropriate dept.

This is a letter for confirmation.If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor in Asia,please DO NOT reply.We will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure.

Best Regards,

Judy Lau
Registration Commissioner
Sponsoring Registrar:Asia Network
Tel: +852 3118 1808

      +852 3065 8284
Fax:+852 3065 8189

Email:judy@asianetwork.mobi

Website: www.asianetwork.mobi

Being a cynical so-and-so I smelled a scam and did some research, and it seems my instincts were right, it is a scam.

Basically if you’re foolish enough to respond they will get back to you offering to register the domain names for you for a few hundred dollars.

If you really do want to register some domain names, get in touch with me, and I’ll do it a lot cheaper.  Or I can charge you hundreds of dollars if you really do want to be ripped off!

It seems the new version of Windows, known as Windows 7 will not be able to upgrade from Windows XP.

Microsoft……. THIS IS STUPID……. Many people have missed out Windows Vista and will probably be going straight from XP to W7, and you’re going to force them to wipe their PC’s and reinstall!

Those of us of the nerdy persuasion will know that to wipe and reinstall is always the best option, however, less technical users will want to insert the CD and upgrade.

I predict a lot of users will be sticking with XP until they upgrade then will buy a PC with W7 pre-installed.

Well I’m going to have another go at keeping a blog, as everybody now seems to be ‘doing it’.  My biggest problem is having the conviction that anyone is remotely interested in reading my waffle!

This time I am attempting to do it using Windows Live Writer, not out of any fanatical support for Microsoft’s products, but rather the fact that it seems generally simple and easy to use, have a built in  spell checker to correct my lousy spelling, and might be easy enough that I manage to keep it going!

I’m really not sure at the moment what I’m going to put in it, I shall consult other blogs, see what other people are doing with them and it will ‘evolve’.

It may be that it will just become a blog on blogging, but there is value in that I suppose.  I’m happy to receive any suggestions as to what you would like to see here.