A Round Up …

Wowsa … !!

I’ve got to admit, I’m in the Gazette, again … !

Which is nice, obviously.

Or it is, if you’re a complete attention hog, like me … !!

But, at any rate, that’s not the END of the story.

In theory, anyway: we STILL don’t know if the cinema will be built.

Either way, we know more than we did a fortnight ago.

And that I owe the Gazette a big ’Thank You’

At any rate, I’ll happily admit to sending ANOTHER email.

But more on that, in a tick …

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At any rate, with the council meeting about the St James’s road development due at the start of December, I couldn’t help but notice that Councillor Chilvers — on top of highlighting the same sign I’d seen, telling us that Taylor Wimpey had put in an application to extend their plans for the area — also had something of a call about that.

But I’ll let you read about what happened, here … …

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But let’s move on, again, shall we … ?

Yes, let’s … !!

Do you remember, about a month ago, I told you about Kelly’s problem’s with a rather dead rat scented phone call … ?

You don’t … ?

Well it’s handy, in that case, that Piers Meyler of the Gazette ran a little story about a chap in Hook End — called Jason Lovell — had also had a call.

From the same scammers …

You know, this sort of thing can get monotonous, can’t it … ?

But here’s the email I almost immediately fired off.

Dear Sir,

I’ve GOT to admit, I read your article about computer fraudsters with a certain amount of amusement.

Because the software engineer, Jason Lovell, has inadvertently highlighted something that’s been close to my heart.

I’ve got to confess, I had a friend of mine get a call from the same scammers, a company called Comantra, a month ago. She — bright woman that she is — immediately smelled a rat, and told the caller that she’d happily give them a call back if she needed to. And that her PC hadn’t actually used any Microsoft products, for the past six months.

Including, I should add, the version of Windows XP it came with.

Now, Mr Lovell is right in encouraging people to make sure to get their machine checked out, if they think something’s wrong with it.

And following basic security procedures is always a good idea.

But I think I’m going to raise an old issue I’m fond of talking about.

Did you know that much of the malicious software doing the rounds is aimed at Windows, in one way or another: as are many scams, like the one we’ve mentioned. One of the simplest ways to make sure our machines aren’t affected by Windows viruses? Simply make sure we’re either using a Mac, or a user-friendly version of Linux — like Ubuntu — for example.

Instead of the best known — and most hackable — operating system around … ?

Yours,

Yes, I know, this is kind of thing is a bugaboo.

But …

Welll …

A boy’s got to do what a boy’s got to do.

But I do know a couple of things.

Firstly, I owe the Gazette a big thank you for mentioning not only the blog — by name — but also giving the address.

And that also it was kind of handy to know what the key combos the scammers mentioned to Kelly were supposed to do … !

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Oh, and while I’m at it … !!

Bless ’er, Lisa — a regular reader of Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar — happened to mention to me, the other day, that she, too was having trouble with her operating system on her PC.

My response … ?

Was to mail her a copy of Ubuntu 10•04 Lucid Lynx.

If all goes well, I’m hoping she’ll manage that ok, and be able to let us know what happens.

Here’s hoping … !