Secure Passwords
Posted: Tue 7 August, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Geeky 2 Comments »At work, our password changes roughly every month. That’s fine, and makes sense. My work-related passwords are nothing to do with the ones I have for anywhere else, but they also tend to be sweary, because when I can’t be arsed to think of a new password, I’ll use some sweary combination – for example, the one before the current one was ‘cock-knocker’ . Hyphen and all. Go on, guess it at random.
This month’s one is also sweary, but in a far ruder way. Again, that’s fine up to a point. It’s not visible when I log in, and it’s not saved in clear text anywhere. So that’s fine.
Except that our illustrious IT department ‘fixed’ another section of the work I do, and I now need to enter my network password as part of the batch file that sends site revisions up to the various websites. And it leaves the password there in plain text for all to see.
So, yeah, bit of an oops. I may have to select a new (non-sweary) password in light of this development. Arses.
Spam Mail
Posted: Thu 2 August, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Geeky 1 Comment »Recently, I’ve been getting shedloads of spam email (or it could be viral email, I suppose) with subject lines like “You’ve received a message from a Schoolfriend!”.
In a way it’s quite a smart way to do things – which makes me wonder why it’s not been done before now – and I suppose it’s a development from the entire “See Anna Kournikova nude” and so on that used to pollute the web. But at least it does make you think “Oh, OK, I might click on that” – well, I can see how it would make people think that. Me, I look at the email and see it’s still purportedly from “Lazarus Matthews” or whoever, and then I know it’s crap. (Although some now come via “FreeWebCards” or somesuch, which adds to the ‘reality’ until you look at the email address itself, rather than the ‘pretty name’ and see it’s from zxc@abc.com or wherever)
Mind you, I’ve still no idea what this particular bunch of spam is advertising or what information it’s trying to get hold of – but I can at least see why people would click on this one in the mistaken impression that someone had emailed them…
iPlayer
Posted: Sun 29 July, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Reviews(ish) 1 Comment »So yes, I’m signed up with the BBC’s iPlayer TV on demand. I’ve tried the Channel 4 version, 4oD, which is OK, so I thought I’d give the BBC one a go too.
And so far it seems to be OK. The “zoom” doesn’t work on my machine, leaving you with just ‘diddy’ screen or full screen, but one assumes that’s a bug fix that’ll come along soon. The actual playback quality is pretty impressive, and while the library of available programmes isn’t currently all that great, it’s not bad either. And of course there’ll be more stuff as time goes on.
All told, an interesting idea. Now it just remains to be seen whether I’ll actually use it…
Updating
Posted: Fri 20 July, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Geeky, Sweary 7 Comments »One thing I do very irregularly is update software. A case in point is iTunes. Or “Fucking iTunes”, as it’s known in this house.
Now fair enough, I get why a program can’t be running while it upgrades itself. That’s fine. It makes sense.
But in the name of all that’s fucking holy, why the blue blazing shit does iTunes need to shut down Fucking Microsoft Outlook while it upgrades?!? I could understand (ish) restarting a web browser. But email? (And yes, before any techie spod gets a hold on this one, I know poxy Outlook uses the IE rendering engine for HTML emails – well , until Outlook’07, anyway – but that’s a rant for another day. Oh yes.)
Even more annoying, if I tell it to “Ignore” the problem with Outlook, it goes back, tries again – and still insists that Outlook gets shut down. Apple has the funniest fucking perspective on the word “Ignore”, doesn’t it?
And then, not content with fucking about with poxy bloody email, once the upgrade is over and done with, it tells me it also needs to restart the entire fucking PC. Why?!?
And when all’s said and done, what sits there in the fucking system tray again? Oh yes, it’s Quicktime. Which I drop from the system tray every bastard time, because it’s a system-hungry piece of shit that doesn’t pissing bastard well need to be running every time I start the PC. If I want a fucking Quicktime movie to play, I’ll wait the extra ten bloody seconds for the fucking thing to start. That’s fine. I don’t care. But stop running in my fucking system tray all the time, you bastard piece of crap.
And then people reckon I should buy an iPod as well. Fucking Apple. I wouldn’t touch their hardware with a syphilitic leper’s dick.