Beyond

Yesterday I opened the post "Dwindling Economy Hits US Trade Shows" with the words:- "Steve Jobs has not had a heart-attack; indeed Steve Jobs [aka "Jobsweh"] is not in poor health, nor is he dying."

My timing was impeccable considering the announcement today by Jobs himself. My information sources may not be quite right though:

According to Scientific American website:

"Apple co-founder and chief executive Steve Jobs posted an open letter to customers on his company’s Web site today in which he says that he’s being treated for an unspecified "hormone imbalance" that has caused severe weight loss and kept him out of the public eye."  http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=apples-jobs-hormone-imbalance 

‘Maybe not quite as much  weight loss as suggested in the illustration left; but it is nevertheless apparent that Jobs is suffering from a bit too much lean-ness.

INTERLUDE

At this point during writing this article the power went out. Fortunately I have 2 UPS’s looking after my entire system; so I was able to finish the line I was on and shut down everything without data loss or damage of any kind to my systems. For further reading see http://www.pcmech.com/article/avert-disasters-with-a-ups/ .

Is that the way to lose weight without trying? Hormone imbalance? If so then perhaps I should find hormones to start taking at random? I’ll just have to be careful I don’t start speaking in a gruff voice, or grow wings, or something. - Not that I’m particularly overweight; but I could do with a little weight-loss nevertheless.

Perhaps the hormone imbalance explains Jobs’ overly aggressive marketing, combined with his control-freak style? Whatever the case; I didn’t get it quite right:

I stated the information that I’d heard from Robert Scoble on Twitter. - This was largely accurate; but not 100% so.

Anyway that’s cleared up the misunderstanding; so now onwards and upwards: I have another article which I’m intending to get written and published; hopefully today.

Do please comment on this article.

Steve Jobs has not had a heart-attack; indeed Steve Jobs is not in poor health, nor is he dying: In fact, according to @Scobleizer on the microblogging service Twitter last week, after visiting a shop frequented by Jobs, Scoble says that staff there report that Jobs is in the best of health.

Filling the role of Jobs at this year’s Macworld will be Senior Vice President Phil Schiller. Although Apple are continuing to be on a roll, despite the current conditions, tech analysts expect there to be less in the way of stirring innovations from them this year.

*See also this BBC report.

- But it’s not Macworld alone that’s been hit: This week’s CES in Vegas is showing a decline in exhibitors this year, with figures down by 10% on last year: Some exhibitors even pulling out at the last minute, while others are making cutbacks in their showing.

Personally I take the David Risley line on this, and I think that, if anything, companies should be increasing their advertising budgets rather than cutting them in an economic downturn. - Each to their own though: Some will survive, some will fall by the wayside regardless.

Some companies, such as Cisco, are taking meeting room suites rather than exhibiting, in an effort to cut costs.

Analysts are now questioning the viability of trade-shows in the light of today’s climate: On the other side of the coin; Jason Oxman, senior vice president at the Consumer Electronics Association, disagrees:

"Trade shows take on renewed importance in a down economy. Every major consumer electronics manufacturer, buyer, installer and retailer is there. It’s the most efficient travel saver imaginable."

Will this type of opinion retain validity in the light of experience though? Could we see a considerable cutting-back of trade shows? Will we see many going the way of Macworld in the light of experience and reality? It’s certainly a possibility. Time will tell.

Are the secret Royal Codes now in the Public Domain? What other secrets accompany them?

On Thursday 18th December 2008, The Daily Telegraph reported that a laptop belonging to Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, had been stolen when A thief broke into a photographic studio in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, in England.

One of Fergie’s aides had taken the computer there in order to have private snaps of the Duchess, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and her former husband Prince Andrew downloaded and archived.

They have very little, if any, chance of being published in a British newspaper, unless the editor is willing to be interrogated and probably charged by police. The thing is that there was almost definitely other data on the laptop’s hard-drive that was of a more sensitive nature: Passwords, address-book, secret royal codes? Would some mad identity thief attempt to pass herself off as Sarah Ferguson? It is a possibility.

Let’s hope that the Royals encrypt their data. Do they though? The UK Government don’t; or at least they didn’t: ‘Remember all the hoo-hah over the last couple of years when sensitive unencrypted records on disks were "lost" in the post, when ministers left laptops with unencrypted disks on the train, and when drives with unencrypted sensitive data were sold on eBay? The UK Royal Family will probably have to change all their passwords and security codes, if they haven’t already done so.

Whether or not the thief was an opportunist who stole the laptop to sell for drugs or similar; the criminals who end up with the machine in all probability are going to be trying every effort they can muster to get at the data on the hard-drive.

While the Duchess has had personal details disclosed in the past without her permission; could this lead to an expose’? Can you imagine headlines such as:-

"Laptop Thief Exposes Diana Death Royal Conspiracy" ?

Everything has both a negative and a positive side at the end of the day; although maybe not for the Royals if this were the case. - However such an occurrence is unlikely.

It does make one wonder, though, about what secrets are contained inside the laptops of the stars and the like.

If Madonna or some such celebrity were travelling on a train in the same carriage as you, and she left her laptop on the table when she got out; what would you do? Be honest now; and do tell.

There are times when things can be hard to write; and maybe this is one of them, but what the…

OK I’ve been somewhat of an anti-proponent of Apple up until now; and I have to say that I’m still having problems in my mind with what I term "the Steve Jobs modus operandi". I’ve borrowed incidental comments from others and expanded upon them, slating Apple and Steve Jobs in the process. I’ve even used the name "Jobsweh" as a derogatory name for Jobs, (A parody of the all-powerful and demanding Yahweh in the Bible.) which I picked up from a term used once in fun by Ded Ryzing in July of this year, 2008.

But it’s starting to get to my head, and after almost actually, without realising it, trolling in a comment I made on PC Mech earlier, which owner David Risley described in his follow-up comment as a "knee-jerk reaction every time he mentions the word "Apple"", I’m beginning to realise that all that’s happening is that I’m, without meaning to, starting a pointless one-woman-crusade against Apple; which is a ridiculous thing to be doing.

So what got me started on this foolhardy idea in the first place? Well during July I had a long conversation with a taxi-driver whose brother-in-law worked for Apple, and who had passed on some insider-information to him that Apple had rushed out the initial iPhone platform to get the iPhone to market ahead of the LG Viewty. I looked up the LG Viewty on the web and realised that it was a very nice cameraphone. From then onwards I became a proponent of the Viewty in opposition to the iPhone.

At the same time the world went iPhone mad: Suddenly everyone had an iPhone, but very few people owned a Viewty, despite the Viewty’s camera being far better than that of the iPhone. The thing was that the Viewty was a top-class camera-phone, but that’s all it was; a camera and a phone. It wasn’t a mobile personal computer like the iPhone.

At this point I was on the verge of admitting defeat and going with the flow; when suddenly up popped the news that Steve Jobs; control-freak extraordinaire, had a lever that would remotely block any chosen application on any selected customer’s iPhone. The iPhone suddenly became just like a Mac: The property of Steve Jobs, right down to which applications you could run on it. It was no longer a personal mobile computer as in your personal mobile computer; it was Steve Jobs’ personal mobile computer that you’d paid to lease on the proviso that he dictated what Apps you can and can’t run on it. It was yours to do what Jobsweh liked with, literally. It seemed like people were paying Apple for a computer that they were told was their property, but was under the remote control of Apple, with Steve Jobs at the controls. That; to my mind, is a con.

From that point onwards I’ve been expressing my distaste of Apple and Steve Jobs; which is starting to go overboard and is serving no useful purpose as such other than possibly to negatively affect my popularity of late.

Unfortunately it’s time for me to accept the fact: Apple, despite what I may think, and regardless of my opinion, have pulled it off, and they are a successful company, and growing too. Whatever I may think of the tactics of Steve Jobs; they work and they have made him a fortune: More than anything ethical or that I consider ethical has ever made for me. Do I need to redefine ethicality within my own mind? It may be so; maybe not? - I have to think a lot on that one.

Whatever the case; Apple have the iPhone as probably the most popular phone on the planet. Apple are the only company who managed to get everybody excited about their phone product: Think about it; no other mobile device has such a buzz associated with it. Why? The iPhone seems to just work the way people want it to. I don’t know if they envisage Steve Jobs at a remote-control booth somewhere in iWorld booming "I am the Almighty Jobsweh! Thou shalt not run that program upon thine iPhone that I have granted to thee." and pulling the lever. I have no idea whether they see it anything like I do but just put it out of their minds. Whatever they do or don’t do they buy iPhones - millions of them. - And now everyone is trying to make their latest mobile device look nd feel like an iPhone to the greatest extent that they can. Am I missing something here?

Why iPhones? Why not Blackberrys? Why not Sony Eriksson z750i like I have? Why not a Windows Mobile-powered device like I have? Evidently the others seemingly don’t have what it takes. I love my z750i - It’s cute, it’s a cool girly flip-phone. I’m content with my Windows Mobile-powered device to a certain extent too; although it could be better. - But I heard something today which went down like a lead balloon with me: Microsoft are prepping the ancient IE6 to work with Windows Mobile: In itself that’s good news, the current browser I’m using is insubstantial. - BUT would you believe it - here’s the bad news - it’ll require a 500MHz processor to work properly! My device has a 201 MHz processor, 64MB RAM with 128MB flash RAM. Great! No wonder they’re not offering it as an update; millions of people will require a new device! Thanks Microsoft!

Will I be getting a new Microsoft Windows Mobile device? Will I fsck. I’m getting an iPhone next: Not right at the moment; but when I decide to upgrade, which might not be until a better model iPhone is released, I’m getting an iPhone. There you are all those who I’ve slated iPhone to. - Flame bait for you all.

I don’t know if it’s a wise move; I don’t know if I’ll regret it, but in for a penny, why the heck not: It seems to be the better of a bad bunch.

As time goes by I expect mobile devices to improve, and the future is anyone’s guess. Right now; if I can’t beat them - join them.

In the UK; VAT will drop from 17.5% to 15% from Monday. The cut in VAT is one of Chancellor Alistair Darling’s tactics to encourage UK consumers to start spending again.

I think it’s a joke, and that the UK government have given too little away to make any real difference. Why so little? Because the UK Government, just like UK businesses; are greedy, and they don’t want to impact a high-income source too much.

Had they dropped it to 10%, or even 12 1/2%, that would have made a difference; but the proposed miniscule reduction will have negligible if any effect.

(Don’t forget; we’ll be paying for this eventually with a 20% VAT rate: I give this particular prediction a 4/5 chance of becoming a reality within the next 5 years.

The next government; if it’s Labour, will realise that there just isn’t enough revenue from GDP, despite a partial recovery, to balance the books against the massive debt built up when today’s Labour government threw money at the recession in the hope that it would go away before the available coffers ran out. (It won’t, but the excessive spending will help to cushion the depression.) Up will go Income Tax in the higher rates band for people earning £150,000+, and National Insurance Contributions, by up to 2%: But the prominent rise will be in VAT; which will then be raised from the reset figure of 17.5% to 20%. That will leave some people up to 5.5% worse off in order to pay for the current governments current plans, in addition to an increased burden on an already well-overstretched NHS.

A Conservative government would also increase VAT to 20%, if it’s not already at 20% when they are elected, and make cuts in public services rather than increase taxes, although the National Insurance Contributions rise appears unavoidable at some point.

The first thing they’ll be considering is their own pockets, and then paying off the huge debt.)

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So let’s take a look at how the 2 1/2% reduction will affect you; the British computing/geek public:

Your "cutting-edge technology" computer from PC World (UK retail store.), with a dual-core processor, 2GB generic RAM, and a 500GB hard-drive (Hardly cutting-edge!) will drop by £12.50 from £499.99 to £487.49. The 5-year warranty that they nag you into buying will only be £341.25 compared to £350. At the end of the day, then, your "yesterday’s technology at today’s prices" cloned computer will cost you a total of £829.74 compared to £849.99. (Operating system included.)

If you were to buy an equivalent purpose-built computer from Kustom Komputa with a 1TB hard-drive and 2GB branded RAM, but with only the standard 1-year warranty other than for some components with a longer manufacturer’s warranty, you’d still be paying £487.49 compared to £499.99. (Operating system included.)

Yes, I suppose that was an advert for Kustom Komputa. Of course, if you’d rather; you could always build your own:

Your new 1TB hard-drive by itself will cost you about £1.60 less. 2GB DDR2 RAM will cost around 25p less. A new chassis-fan will cost less than 5p less…

Across the board, then, the savings are so small as to be academic. Even a £16,000 Porsche will retail at £15,600: That’s £400 the government won’t be getting its hands on; it’s only £1600 rather than £2000 the greedy parliament will have to add to their coffers, but I very much doubt in itself it’ll get anyone spending any more: People will just offset the miniscule saving against inflation so far this year.

Someone’s bound to say "PC World are the bees-knees: Without PC World there wouldn’t be computers. PC World are great value-for-money. Kustom Komputa must be utter crap if they only charge that much…" (Someone actually said that to me already in essence!) Each to their own. I won’t argue with an "expert". Please email me and I’ll happily sell you a Kustomised Computer with those specifications for over £800, just to make you happy.

Do you think 2.5% is enough to get the nation spending; or is it too little too late? Leave a comment below:

I couldn’t be arsed to hypelink this article as I normally do. Let it be an exercise in the reader learning to use Google.

The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show that 42.3% of broadband connections are slower than 2Mb/sec.

Last year, telecoms regulator Ofcom was claiming that "the average headline speed has doubled in a year to reach 4.6Mb/sec". That’s the headline speed; the fastest it peaks at. In reality the average speeds are much slower. - I myself have known my broadband connection to drop below 2Mb/s on rare occasions, yet my average speed is 3.5Mb/s. - It’s supposed to be 8Mb/s, and I don’t live miles from the exchange in some far-flung corner of the British countryside in the middle of nowhere.

The ONS figures could be taken to imply that average speed figures are being heavily weighted by  truly high-speed connections, such as the 24Mb/sec ADSL2+ broadband offered by ISPs with Local Loop Unbundled services. These decent connections amount to only a small percentage of UK broadband connections.

"The proportion of broadband customers unaware of their connection speeds has continued to grow - 55% were unaware of their connection speed (actual speed)." Claimed a separate report issued 25/11/2008 by Ofcom, whose Consumer Satisfaction report also claimed that almost 20% of broadband customers were unhappy with the speed of their connection.

This is a general trend amongst British businesses these days: Give as little service for as much money as is possible, and rip the customer off in as many ways as can be accomplished without the customer realising it. Meanwhile their workforces use a similar principle in doing as little work as possible for as much money as possible, ripping their bosses off too if at all possible.

This is rip-off Britain; and the trend has caught on countrywide. Something has to change; this greedy moneygrabbing culture can’t continue without severe consequences. I can see how it started; looking back at the Thatcher years of the 1980s, where the divide between rich and poor became pronounced as the yuppie-culture fed off the poverty-stricken; driving them into deeper poverty whilst those with the upper hand continued to get fat from the losses of those that they exploited.

Not that much has changed today either…But that’s another story.

Back on-topic; and the ONS figures show that the number of fixed-line broadband connections has fallen by 0.4% of late; probably due to the growing number of mobile broadband connections contributing to the decline of their fixed-line counterparts. If you’re on the move all day then what’s the point of only having a connection at home?

Do you agree with my "rip-off Britain" synopsis? (it’s not actually my original idea, but a widely-held view which I am fully in agreement with.) More to the point; do you think that UK broadband speeds suck, and that something should be done about it? After all it’s the British citizen who’s paying for it; yet those taking the money with glee are promising one thing and giving less than half of what they promised in a lot of cases.

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This symbol is causing some controversy and has sparked a furious row between Microsoft and HP in addition to causing the software giant to be sued by customers in the USA. It’s also kicked off some internal bickering within Microsoft itself.

‘See it’s turning out that the claim is exactly what it says on the tin: "Designed for Windows XP". Although the systems concerned will run Vista, they’ll only run Vista Home Basic.

The future? I predict that Microsoft are going to lose this case and get another hefty fine plus maybe a compensation order. How about your opinion and prediction? What do you think?

Last month; October 2008, I reported on BT’s plans to create its own fibre-optic network in the UK, starting with Muswell Hill, London, and also Whitchurch, South Wales, (Not Whitchurch in Hampshire.) at a total cost of some 1.5 billion. Short-sighted shareholders, however have basically vetoed those plans for the time being. The shareholders expressed concerns about spending that much money in the current economic climate.

Chief executive Ian Livingston was better foresighted, and said that he still believes that BT should go ahead and make the investment, which he initially announced not long after becoming chief executive. Although he echoed the shareholders’ concerns, there appears little point in cutting back on investment, job creation, resources, and investment, simply because the media have decided that everything financial is doom and gloom. All that will do is aid the recession to deepen, and amplify its effect upon the company in question.

“‘But we need to have the environment in which our shareholders feel there is a good chance of us making a return,” Said Livingston. “If we cannot have that environment this is not the time to be taking on sure-fire losses.”

Also, last week, BT announced that it plans to lay off 4,000 of its own staff and also 6,000 contractors, in order to reduce operating costs by £1.25 billion.

That seems a rather silly move to my mind; but in the light of that move it can now fund all but 250 million for the above project. - It will not do so, however. - So where does the money end up? Probably it appears on the end-of-year profits so that the BT bosses can award themselves another pay-rise as a reward for increased productivity under "detrimental economic conditions": I wouldn’t be at all surprised; the greedy ba—-ds!

On October 10th 2008 I stated the following:

"In general I think that most computer users are too lax don’t take security seriously enough.

I am fairly certain that the number of machines that are still unprotected by any kind of firewall is fairly big.

I am fairly certain that the percentage of machines unprotected by any kind of anti-virus and anti-spyware software is quite high: Higher than you’d imagine.

I am fairly certain that the number of people who have anti-virus and anti-virus software installed, but whose databases have never been updated is quite colossal.

I am fairly certain that the percentage of machines that have not once taken any update to or Windows components is probably in the twenties.

I am also fairly certain that there are a number of people who’ll click on links or open attachments from unknown sources without giving it a second thought."

A new survey by the UK Government’s Get Safe Online Campaign allows me to put some actual figures to those statements:-

Overall almost half of UK internet users fail to keep their security software up-to-date.

48% do not update their anti-virus software frequently enough to ensure it remains effective.

47% do not have website authentication software to protect against phishing attacks.

23% do not have any protection against spyware.

As a result cybercrime is on the increase, especially phishing, according to the campaign.

23% of those people surveyed said that they or someone they knew was the victim of a phishing attack this year, 2008. In 2007 the figure was only 8%.

According to Tony Neate, managing director of Get Safe Online: “If internet users invest a relatively small amount of time and money in ensuring they are fully protected and up-to-date, the risk of such financial loss is almost negligible.”

‘Typical couldn’t-care-less "Der I’m a Brit so I don’t need none ov this crap" attitude. What is wrong with people? Are they really so unthinking and irresponsible in the UK? Unfortunately the figures seem to speak for themselves. I’m still getting visitors to this blog who are using Windows ME and 9x. Read this article - I wasn’t joking; these operating systems are a security risk, even if you do apply all the patches available.

"Oh who’d want to bother hacking Windows 9x? It’s outdated and Microsoft don’t have anything to lose ." Bad answer; you’re missing the point: The attacks aren’t so much virus and other malware attacks by criminal Linux zealots designed to discredit Microsoft these days. They are designed to rip off the public in any way possible, to steal money from you and me. Criminals launch malware designed to target old Microsoft operating systems still in use which aren’t patched against the latest threats. Your old relic machine running Windows ME/9x is probably being used right now as a malware relay and/or a remote server under the control of a criminal gang; and I also bet you that those criminals have any of your security details left on that computer too.

There’s no need to buy a new computer necessarily: If your machine will run Windows XP, or Ubuntu Linux even if you can’t afford a second-hand copy of XP, then all you need do is change the operating system. I’ll write an article at some point on this.

Please please please peoples; for the sake of all internet users, follow these simple rules: Yes it’ll take a little extra time; but you and everybody else will reap the rewards of doing so:-

1. Ensure that you have antivirus software installed and that it is updated daily. If you can’t or don’t want to pay for it then download Avast! Free Edition. Avast free edition includes antispyware. It updates automatically and will inform you audibly when it has done so. (Male American voice: Unchangeable.)

2. Get website authentication software. (Microsoft have this built into Internet Explorer 7 and above.)

3. Get spyware protection. Avast! free antivirus has built-in spyware protection. Some antivirus programs do not. (If your antivirus program is more than a year old it needs changing as it’s unable to detect or cope with current threats.)

I’ll be blunt here: If you can’t be bothered to stick to these simple rules then I hope you get scammed/robbed; after which you might just take some care to abide by them. If you can’t be bothered then you deserve anything and everything you get. Despite that I suggest you do the sensible thing and ensure that your online security is 100% - Before it’s too late for someone else; or more importantly before it’s too late for you.

I’m not going to say much about this: It speaks for itself, but I felt that I needed to blog it. Haggard was a money-making-minister who was preaching against such "evils" as homosexuality (Evil?- WTF? Certain people have some strange ideas!) while ripping off the US Bible-Belt to pay for his gay affairs with male prostitutes and his secret drug habit. - One among many similar stories that have surfaced this year, 2008. Personally I fail to see why being gay is such a big deal that they make such a great fuss about yet ignore the reality that they themselves are spreading phobia-based hatred throughout society based on the ramblings of a bronze-age book. They do a lot more harm than good as it is; and when one or more of them at Haggard’s level is found out to be a total hypocrite it hits the headlines.

In my opinion I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they’re all up to much the same thing; from the average lay-person (Pun intended.) in the congregation to the leaders.

It’s all a huge farce; the only point of which is to fill empty lives with some sort of meaning, in addition to making the select few stinking rich: It’s a joke; and not a very tasteful joke either.

This kind of thing appears to be fairly standard and widespread practice in the USA; although only the reports of bigtime hypocrites ever make it to the newsrooms. Draw your own conclusions:

Three London hospitals; Barts Hospital in the City of London, Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, and the East-End London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green, have been forced to shut down all their computer systems since lunchtime on Monday 17th November after being infected by a computer virus.

No information has been released regarding the nature of the virus attack. Official press releases stress that everything is under control and that the institutions are handling the matter competently and effectively: "The Trust’s well rehearsed emergency procedures have been activated to ensure that key clinical systems continue safely while the system is being stabilised and a solution is being found." This is the official British way of saying "We’re hoping that we can handle it and that the resultant losses aren’t that bad." Stiff upper lip included. The spokesman said the virus was "not malicious", and the infection was "self-contained".

From the above it appears that it probably wouldn’t be all that difficult to get a rootkit into the NHS computer system and steal confidential information by having it downloaded to a remote server. Maybe that’s what they discovered was happening and covered it up?

Aside from Government incompetence in leaving sensitive personal information on a train in a laptop, the Government losing unencrypted disks full of confidential records; or the banks dumping sensitive customer information including account numbers, PIN numbers, and the like, into open skips outside their premises in paper format, it makes you wonder just how secure the UK actually is.

All it would theoretically take is for one employee to open one attachment and every piece of personal confidential and private data stored by all government departments gets into the public domain. Maybe that’s already happened; but the standard cover-up operation has been executed?

Privacy is maybe becoming a thing of the past? What do you think? What security threats would this pose if it were true?

ank

There’s a rumour going around on Twitter that Twitterank is no more than a rather clever phishing scam.

Twittereers and some Twitteresses world-wide have disclosed their details to discover their numerical rating for the purpose of massaging their egos. This colossal waste-of-time venture appears to be just another no-brainer Twitter App that is doomed. However there are suspicions that it may be more of a waste than at first thought.

Oliver Marks of ZD Net saw the following retweet on Twitter:-

"@t RT @brianoberkirch Twitterank is a vast conspiracy I created to steal all of ur passwords + shame Twitter into OAuthing. + make u look vain."

My advice, if you’ve got your Twitterank, is to look at this, read this, and then change your Twitter password - just to be on the safe side.

There are those in the geek community who say that Microsoft have seen every error report and there’s no point sending in error reports to them. As a consequence of this they switch error reporting off, advise others to do likewise, and no longer bother sending error reports to Microsoft.

Admittedly I was starting to formulate the same opinion lately: Fairly recently I had a computer - a self-build - that had started repeatedly encountering stop errors. My primary hard-disk had recently died, which’ll teach me not to use second-hand disks in computers that I build for myself. (To save on costs I’d bought a batch of few second-hand disks off eBay which I thought I’d use for experimentation and in prototype-builds at the time. Most of them were still stuck in unused prototypes etc that were stored in the junk cupboard, but one of them was lying around spare when I built this computer, so I used it as a primary disk and used the larger disk that I’d bought new and intended for purpose as an additional disk.) This caused a spate of stop errors, ending in the computer’s refusal to boot at all. Having replaced the faulty disk and reinstalled everything I assumed that the system would operate as normal. I was surprised when, a week later, I encountered another stop error, followed by another the next day, and the next…

Several days of fairly intensive tests showed that the component causing this problem was the floppy drive, which I replaced and the stop errors stopped. I had sent every error report to Microsoft, who each time informed me that the error was caused by a device or driver.

Very helpful: I checked every driver and updated if possible. I checked every device thoroughly; ending with the floppy drive which was faulty. All those hours could have been saved if Microsoft had been more specific about which device or driver had caused the errors.

I started to think that Microsoft were just deleting most/all error reports from Windows XP users: After all XP was now considered outdated by them, and it appeared that Microsoft were only interested in Vista. I didn’t switch error reporting off, neither did I get any more stop errors. - Until yesterday.

This time M$ reported that the stop error had been caused by malware in the form of spooldr.sys. I ran all the checks Microsoft suggested, but found nothing, and no spooldr.sys either. I’d had an identical report when my disk was dying- surely the new disk wasn’t on its way out too? Today I encountered another unexpected stop error. The error report went off to M$, and I was expecting them to say either it was caused by a device or driver, or by spooldr.sys: The former telling me that they couldn’t be bothered to be specific, the latter telling me that they didn’t have a clue.

I was extremely surprised to see the message that they returned on sending the error to them:-

"This problem is being researched"

"Thank you for submitting a problem report to Microsoft. At this time we are researching the cause of this problem."

So they are still interested in error reports regarding XP!

"Please continue to submit all Windows problem reports. This will ensure that when a solution is available, you will receive updated information."

Either way round; to my mind it’s a Microsoft fault. The other computer that I built for myself shortly before this one is a totally different model. (One from my "Exel" line of "Kustomised" computers, and which runs like a dream with only a single hiccup so far after a year plus.) The one in question is from my "INXPense" line of "Kustomised" computers; of which I’ve built quite a few, and none of which have been plagued with any unexplained issues. The component models currently incorporated in this computer have all been previously used in other INXPense computers which have all been shipped to customers and which as far as I am aware are still working perfectly today.

The only untested, "un-prototyped" shall we say, thing about this individual unique computer is the combination of components: The power supply and motherboard are standard and are used in all INXPense computers, as is the case and lower front panel, recessed and covered by a sliding flap. The IDE DVD-RW drive is of the type used in most INXPense computers. The graphics card ditto. The processor type as far as core and speed is concerned has been incorporated in one other INXPense computer. The identical Seagate SATA HDD has also been incorporated into one other INXPense computer, but as a secondary disk. Identical RAM with identical frequency of operation has been incorporated into a number of… All INXPense computers bar one are fitted with a floppy drive.

At some point in the future I’m going to try installing a different HDD, processor, and probably almost every other component too, until and if I can discover what is causing this latest issue, if it has anything to do with the way the machine is constructed, unless Microsoft beat me to it.

Yes, you’re right; I was going off topic somewhat. Microsoft have said in essence that they are interested in what went wrong, that they don’t know what went wrong, and that they want to try and work out the problem so that they can find a solution. They are interested in my error reports that I send in to them.

Perhaps they have seen 99% of error reports before, and maybe they do know what your particular problem is, despite their reply only being sketchy in nature. I suggest, though, that despite this Microsoft’s customers don’t switch automatic error reporting off and that they do continue to send error reports to Microsoft for their analysis. - Even if they have seen most error reports 1000 times or more before, what happened very recently to me proves that they maybe haven’t seen every conceivable error report, that they don’t have a cause and/or solution for every error, and that they may still be totally clueless as to some, possibly extremely rare errors, that can occur with even "outdated" operating systems.

Your thoughts? Please do comment.

Addendum: I eventually discovered that the fault was file-system corruption which was causing a mis-read of data and a subsequent BSOD, as well as an old outdated driver installed for the graphics card from an installation CD. It took a while to locate the f/s corruption, and the problem was initially pre-diagnosed by deduction. However the system works fine now.

As expected, malware dealers are attempting to capitalise on the results of the US Presidential Election: A spammed news message arrives in email with a link to a web-page that supposedly has a video of the event. Of course it claims to require a special viewer, said to be adobe_flash9.exe (MD5 47c86509a78dc1edb42f2964bea86306) and nags you to download it.

The viewer is not a viewer: It is rather Trojan-PSW:W32/Papras.CL, that hides itself by using a rootkit, steals all your personal details, and uploads them all to a server in Ukraine.

The link in the email takes you to this page: Note the download link for the "viewer".

• Some of the subject lines of the email include:

• USA Election 2008 Results

• Election Center 2008 - Election Results

• Obama’s Win Reshapes the Race

• Election 2008: Time lapse of U.S. counties

• The new President’s cabinet?

• Obama win preferred in world poll

• Can Obama win popular vote but lose election?

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While on the subject of Flash Player, there is a new version of Adobe Flash, version 10.0.12.36 which fixes a bug in previous versions.You should, of course, download it directly from http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ rather than from any malware-dealer’s email.

This is the 200th post on kkomp.com - I know; only 200! It seems like I’ve been blogging a lifetime, even though it’s only a few months at date of publication.

What better way to celebrate this than to show the victory speech of President Elect Obama; and quite a speech it was too. Among other things he promised to get scientists and intellectuals together to develop technologies that would free the USA from the tyranny of oil. That was a very positive promise. If he delivers it could lead to a new technological revolution, utilising cleaner and greener ways to generate energy that aren’t reliant on fossil fuels such as oil. This would be a massive step in reducing greenhouse emissions and can only be good for the environment. If he can lead the world in a global utilisation of these new greener cleaner technologies it will be a great bonus, and our planet will be a pollution-free place yet again.

It won’t, however, make him popular with the oil-barons and those who have become extremely rich from the oil industry. The middle-east with its massive underground supplies of oil won’t be happy bunnies about it. Even Texas with its oil-wells will have to change tack and find another way of making a living from the available resources.

He also promised to end the war in Iraq. That pointless war that was engineered by George Bush, assisted by the lies told by Tony Blair to the British people, has cost many thousands of people their lives needlessly. It was probably true that Saddam Hussein had to go; but not in an endless tide of sorrow and bloodshed while Bush pursued his objective of controlling the area’s oil wealth. Yes I truly believe that the motivation behind the attack was purely financial on the part of Bush, and to a certain extent of Blair also.

Obama promises change: He promises healthcare for the American people: Affordable healthcare for everyone; young, old, black, white, gay, straight, Republican and Democrat alike. He promises education, recovery, economic enhancement, technological achievement.

McCain, on the other hand, could only promise 4 more years of Bush strategy. The American people wanted change rather than stagnation.

Let’s hope Obama delivers. I leave you with the victory speech of President Elect of the United States of America; Barack Obama:-

Congratulations Barack Obama: The next President of the United States.

(Only 200 blog posts eh? It’s time to get the proverbial finger out.)

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New research data from Point Topic, which details profiles of broadband DSL and ADSL services worldwide, indicates that the number of new broadband lines added to the UK’s infrastructure between July to September was a clear 20 per cent below previous forecasts.

"To keep on track Britain needed to add 390,000 broadband lines in the July to September quarter, said Tim Johnson, chief analyst at Point Topic. "We estimate that the actual number was only 313,000. That’s 20% down on the target". Point Topic also estimates that Virgin Media may have gained another 60,000 cable modem customers at the expense of BT and other smaller alternative broadband ISPs, who actually lost around 70,000 customers during this period.

Local loop unbundling - where ISPs such as Carphone Warehouse, Utility Warehouse, and Sky install their own equipment in BT’s telephone exchanges - was found to be the main driver of continuing growth in broadband, adding 323,000 lines in the third quarter of 2008.

"By the end of 2009 there should be about 18.4 million broadband lines in Britain, 300,000 short of what was expected six months ago." Continued Johnson.

He predicts that this means that fewer people will switch from dial-up lines to broadband, and about 240,000 more homes will be without any kind of internet access by the end of 2009.