27/03/2009 by Bertha.

or a radio, or a Hi Fi for that matter?

The world of “Cloud” entertainment is coming to a computer near your soon and yes, it will change the way you use your TV, radio and Hi Fi.

Not many people can have escaped the adverts (sorry “public service announcements”) on BBC about the iPlayer. For those of you who have missed out its a way of listening to radios shows and watching TV shows which have bee broadcast over the last 7 days. What you may not have known is that all the main TV channels also have their equivalent of the iPlayer. ITV have the ITVPlayer, Channel 4 have Catch-Up, Channel 5 have Demand Five, while even Sky have joined in with SkyPlayer.

What about Radio though? Here the market is even more open with the BBC (see iPlayer above), local, national, international and Internet radio stations fighting for your attention. In fact the main problem is fonding which of the thousands of stations you actually want to listen to.

A good place to start with is Windows Media. Want something more local? Try a Google search for your local favourite - Trax FM here in Doncaster transmit via the Internet in parallel with conventional broadcast.

OK, so you might want something different. Why not make use of a “streaming” music site like WE7 (big fans of this one here at Bertha Central). All you get is a quick advert of a couple of seconds before each track and they have just about everything you could want available. Try the Noel Coward selection HERE as an example of the more obscure tracks available.

It’s not just old stuff either. The latest releases are available just waiting for you to listen all day. The Killers 2008 album Day & Age can be heard HERE.

Not content with all of that? Don’t blame you - what about the video???

Try YouTube for the best in all things video (though only in 10 minute chunks). Admittedly it’s not so good at the moment as they are having a spat with the UK record industry but it’ll get sorted soon I’m sure. Fortunately it’s not all music, how about Extreme Shepherding? Click HERE, give it a watch - mad, computer aided but still good and till next week try and work out which bits are real and which needed help from a computer!

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20/03/2009 by Bertha.

After the last few postings it must be time to have a bit of fun!! Luckily Google Earth has just added a new feature, Street View.

To enjoy it you will need to have the latest version installed (v5.0.xx) so nip over to the Google Earth site to download it. You’ll also see that there are lots of other new things included (or buttons making them obvious anyway).

Once you’ve installed the latest version open it as normal and then look at the “Layers” panel down at the bottom left. It’s full of little boxes, some have ticks in them, others have little blue boxes and others have absolutely nothing in.

To use Street View you need to find the box marked (surprise surprise) “Street View” - it has a little yellow person next to it. Put a tick in the box by clicking on the box with the mouse and a little circle of flashing dots will show for a time. Everytime Google Earth refreshes the list of Street Views, this circle of dots will show again, so don’t worry if it flashes now and again.

Now, as we all know that Yorkshire is the centre of the Universe and York is the capital type “York” (without the “”) and then press the “Enter” key on your keyboard. Once you have “flown” to the City of York you’ll you’ll see lots of little camera shapes scattered all over. If you then zoom in they will increase in numbers and, eventually, change to a globe.

Click on one of these globes (or the camera if you can’t be bothered to zoom right in) and hey presto, you get a view of the local area.

Now, up at the top right corner there is a little window with a box in it. Move the box with your mouse (hold the left button down) and the main image moves!

In the main image there will be a line (or 2 or 3) of cameras. Click on one of those and you can travel around York!

When you’ve finished (or want to return to the normal Google Earth) click on the “Exit Photo” box in the top right of the main screen.

Facncy more? Then look at the top of the actual image area of Google Earth - yes the row of buttons.

Find the button with a little clock. If you click on that a slider scale opens. Move it left to right and you’ll get a historical view of the place you are looking a, usually back to 2002/3. Amazing what building has gone on in some places! Click the clock button again to close the slider.

Fancy going further afield? Click the button with a little yellow planet, it’ll drop down with three choices. Click on Mars and you can go to where no man has walked before!Open the drop down again and click on Earth to return home.

If that isn’t enough, try putting ticks in some of the boxes in the Layers panel (bottom left).  That will keep you happy for hours! Have fun.

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14/03/2009 by Bertha.

Phishing:

(fish´ing) (n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

Source: Webopedia

Everyone gets them (even from the banks they don’t have accounts with) but do you know how to recognise a Phishing E-mail and it’s related site? Read on…

	The E-mail shown to the left is a genuine Phishing e-mail supposedly coming from the Halifax. Click on the picture to see a full size version if you want to have a better look.You can ignore the red area (boxed and labeled 1) as this has been inserted by Outlook to warn that the e-mail is suspect. The program you use for reading your e-mails might not be so determined in giving a warning.Now look at the box labeled 2. You will see that it’s round the “To:” section of the header area and there’s nothing there! If this were a genuine e-mail from your bank there would be your address in there. Unfortunately for the Phishers, they don’t know your address so they have to leave it blank. This is the number one giveaway.Now on to box 3. It looks wrong. Why? No pictures! Think of all the e-mails you receive from large companies offering you a service. There is always a series of pictures even if they are only the company logo. Yet here, on a supposedly very important e-mail, there are none.
	If you have been caught out by the Phishing E-mail above then you will arrive at this site (again click on the picture to see it in full size). At first glance it looks convincing. Unfortunately for the Phishers the Halifax have just updated their site and so the Phishing site still looks like the old genuine site. Not a problem as people are unlikely to notice and keep going if they don’t know what to look for.So what should you look for? Three boxes again, numbered 1 to 3, which should be compared with the genuine article below.Box 1 shows the address of the site you are visiting. Two things to notice here. Firstly, the address should start with the letters “https” where “s” stands for secure. Secondly, the next bit shouldn’t be a series of numbers but a written address starting with “www.”Box 2 should have a little gold coloured padlock in it, right at the end of the address bar but before the two little blue arrows. Finally, in box 3 both the Phising and Genuine tabs are shown. The Phising version (on the left) just has an “E” icon and the words “Online Service”.
	Compare this, the genuine site, with the Phishing one previously.The address starts with “https” and has the full Halifax address in words (box 1).In Box 2 you can see the padlock symbol showing the site is a secure, encrypted one.In Box 3, the genuine site (to the right) clearly shows the Halifax icon along with a full title of the page being viewed.

So there you have it, the secrets of telling a Phishing setup from the genuine article.  If in doubt though use the simpler way of staying safe. Never give details out to someone who approaches you. That includes not just following links from e-mails, but telephone calls too.

 If someone e-mails or calls wanting any personal details don’t give them. Instead contact the organisation involved as you usually would (log onto their web site as normal, telephone them using a number from a bill or statement you already have or call in to see them at the local office) and deal with the matter then. Remember, you have no way of knowing for sure where a cold call or an unsolicited E-mail has actually come from!

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06/03/2009 by Bertha.

Ever had an E-mail warning of impending doom if you receive a certain E-mail? Have a look at the warning below received this week.

Subject: FW: HUGE VIRUS COMING!!! PLEASE READ & FORWARD

Hi All,I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus!

I checked Snopes (URL above:), and it is for real!!

Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!

You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,’ regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which ‘burns’ thewhole hard disc C of your computer.

This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts It is better to receive
this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called’ POSTCARD,’ even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately.This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vitalinformation is kept.

TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US

Oh wow that’s scary!! Or perhaps not, at least if you know the classic signs that are there for all to see in every Hoax E-mail like this one.

It is always a “Huge” virus coming. Well OK, sometimes it’s the “worst ever” or the “one with no cure” or any other doom laden prophecy that you care to think of. Grabs the attention eh?

There is always a reference to one or more of the popular, well known anti-virus program vendors - in this case both Norton and McAfee are there. Obviously this is put in to give credibility.

There is usually a reference to some other(s) well known and respected company/organisation/government department. Sure enough, there’s two of them again - CNN and Microsoft. Perhaps the credibility of these two isn’t quite as good though as neither are in the virus crunching business?

Dire warnings of impending loss of everything on your computer is a dead give away. The “burning” of “the whole hard disc C” and the destruction of the “Zero Sector of the Hard Disc” are used in the above example.

Contradictions within the message often creep in due to the efforts of the author to push home the message. Two examples above. Firstly, McAfee discovered it yesterday and there’s no repair yet. What then are Norton doing to get geared up for it? Secondly, If the whole of drive C is destroyed then how can only the Zero Sector be destroyed?

You are always urged to send such E-mails on to everyone in the Universe - or at least those you happen to know!

Hoax E-mails like these are meant to scare the unwitting computer user into sending a tidal wave of E-mails to all and sundry. Yes I hear you, the one at the back, “But I only know ten people so it can’t hurt to send it, just in case”.

Ever heard the story about the Indian Emperor, the grain of wheat and the chess board? If not read about it HERE and then say that it would be OK to send “just in case”.

Don’t fall into the trap cleverly laid for the unwary then. Trust you Anti-virus program which will, I assure you, stop any virus laden E-mail much better than you sending warnings of impending doom to all and sundry.  

Final thought.

You might find it interesting to learn about Message Labs, a company who filter E-mails for major companies and organisations. Every month they publish their results. Read the latest results HERE and yes (when this was written) that does say 2.6 BILLION E-mails checked each day in February with 73.3% of them being Spam!!!!

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