Nigerian scam variation of the week
I love collecting these. They get more creative all the time. The latest I’ve seen comes from a guy who calls himself Hassan Mohammed and he has a very creative sob story with the message title “Kindly Fulfill My Last Wish.”
He claims he’s from Dubai, in the U.A.E., (though he uses a French e-mail address) and has been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer, with only a few weeks to live.
He says he was a greedy man who got very rich at the expense of others but, now, facing death, “I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to prosperous.”
So… here comes the come-on… he wants to give away his fortune. Alas, though, he says he can’t trust his family and friends as “they refused and kept the resources to themselves.”
So, poor, dying Hassan writes in his poorly-spelled scam e-mail: “… the last of my belonging which no one knows of, is the huge deposit of eigteen milion US dolls that I have in a safe keeping Company abroad, which I will want you to secure and dispatch to charity organizations… For your time and devotion, I have set aside a tenth of this for you”
Wanna mess with this scamster? E-mail him at moshammed24@yahoo.fr.
Deluge this dude. String him along. Make him work. Get just as creative in your fake replies. For some examples on how to do it, check out this site, which shows how one hilarious counter-scammer did it.
In fact, there are some who have dubbed this reverse scam “spambaiting” and call it cyber-sport. Here’s a Website that explaing how to do it and offers tips for turning the tables on the 419 scammers, so called after the Nigerian criminal code 419 that makes such operations illegal.
This could be fun. It’s time to fight back.
More broadband phone service
The move to get high speed mobile data networks running across the country is set to accelerate again this week with an expanded system by another cell phone company. Sprint Nextel to Launch High-Speed Network.
How to handle customer service problems
I’ve written a lot about lousy customer service from some tech companies.
How about an example of how companies should respond when things aren’t up to snuff?
It’s from Six Apart, the blogging company behind the Movable Type and Live Journal blogging platform and TypePad, which I use for this blog. Recently, access time has been slow. Sometimes over the past week or so, painfully slow. But instead of stonewalling or trying to minimize the problems, founders Ben and Mena Trott posted this entry: Six Apart – Mena’s Corner: The Ups & Downs of a Successful Service.
It basically explained that the company has grown so fast they’ve outstripped capacity and power at the data center they’ve been using. So they’re moving to a new and upgraded center.
That explanation was posted yesterday. Today, it was followed with another posting and an e-mail sent to every TypePad customer from CEO Barak Berkowitz, who not only provided more info on the issue but attached a detailed chart outlining immediate (over the next few days) goals and longer term projects that would correct the problems.
Even more info is posted on a status page.
That, I suggest, is how customer relations should be handled.
Barak, Ben and Mena… thanks for not trying to minimize the problems and for taking the time to explain it so well. I’m delighted to be a customer of such an outstanding and upfront outfit. Do it right. I trust you.
Census Internet stats useless
The U.S. Census Bureau is so laughably inefficient that its big study on Internet use dates to 2003 as most current. The stats are so out of date that they are meaningless, like ancient history in the world of technology. Internet Use Up.
The Census Bureau is exhibit one when it comes to a dead wood bureacracy, trying to pass off two year old info as relevant today. How many bureaucrats do you supose dragged their heels in compiling this report?
Zombie alert
In an attempt to capitalize on Halloween, Microsoft and a coalition of consumer groups have gotten together to warn consumers about online fraud done through malicious programs that secretly install code on a computer, turning it into a so-called zombie machine controlled by hackers.
Computer criminals often use zombie computers to launch spam e-mail attacks that try to steal personal information, such as Social Security and credit card numbers, said Tim Cranton, director of Microsoft’s Internet Safety Enforcement programs.
To prove how vulnerable most users are to these incidents, Microsoft rigged up a test computer with a zombie program gathered as evidence in a real attack, and then watched to see what it would do when connected to the Internet.
Immediately, the infected computer sent an alert with its Internet location and hijack status to a distant server. Then, connection requests from hundreds of other addresses poured into the machine, commanding the computer to distribute millions of illegal spam e-mails.
Microsoft had it rigged so the zombie machine wouldn’t comply, but the experiment showed how powerful attacks can be.
UN and EU want US to give up Net control
The despots who run the UN and the wannabes from the European Union are in a power grab to wrest control of the Internet from the U.S. Hands off the Internet.
Forget iPod video for movies – Get an Archos
Readers are sendlng me lots of links and tips on how they’ve been able to get non-Apple provided video on their iPods.
While they insist it’s all quite easy, my initial read of the instructions for the tools they suggest has convinced me that it’s way, way too cumbersome for average users.
One free download that several readers suggested is called Videora Converter. A forum discussion is devoted to iPod conversions.
For DVDs, readers suggest starting with a free program called DVD Decrypter. But if you think that is a simple process, read how-to guides like this one. If you’re comfortable dealing with things like VOB and IFO files and ASPI layers then have at it. If not, then you’ll agree with me that this is for geeks only.
I see no simple, easy, mainstream solution for getting movies on iPods.
If that is what you want to do, you’re much better off buying a gizmo called the Archos, which is only a tad bigger than the iPod.There are several Archos models, and they do music, photos and video but – unlike the iPod – they actually record and let you transfer movies and TV shows. Archos does it so well that Dish Network is remarketing a trio of its models as a PocketDish player that you can connect it right to your Dish DVR and download saved shows. One version even has a seven inch screen.
Halloween Online
My NBC-TV segment this week looks at Halloween sites. Online Halloween info..
New video iPod could send the entertainment world spinning
There is something really addictive about holding an iPod video player in your hand, no matter how cheesy the program. And the limited shows availabe through the iTunes Muisic Store so far are pretty cheesy, indeed. Still, I believe this ultra-chic device will be viewed as one of those seminal technology moments that take digital entertainment to a new level.
Here’s my review of the new video iPod. Funniest thing in it is that Apple doesn’t want us to call it the video iPod. They want it referred to as just… the iPod. Sorry, that’’s not going to happen, Mr. Jobs. How else will people differentiate between models that do and don’t do video?
Cingular Introduces E-Mail Access on Cells
Now Cingular Wireless is into this fast-developing trend, introducing a service for nonbusiness users to get BlackBerry-like mobile access to their personal e-mail accounts from AOL, Yahoo and MSN Hotmail on a cell phone. Cingular Introduces E-Mail Access on Cells.
Comcast rolls out IP-telephone service
Comcast calls it Digital Voice and is rolling it out across the country in major markets like suburban Detroit, which gets it today. By year’s end, it will be in 20 markets and serve 15 million homes. MIKE WENDLAND: Comcast customers can now use Internet for calls.
Cost is $39.95 a month for unlimited local and digital access for current cable TV and Internet subscribers. It works with E911 service and has a dozen features like call waiting, caller ID and the like. And you can check and playback your voicemails through a Web page.
Video iPod is impressive – but seems to drain battery fast
(click on images to see larger)
I’ve spent much of the day running a new 30GB Video iPod through the paces. I’ll have a full review next week but here’s some quick impressions:
It comes in a typically slick and sleek Apple box, with the CD, instruction book, soft case, earbuds, USB2 cable, earbud covers and the video iPod snugly and ingeiously packed inside.
The unit is noticeably slimmer than other iPods I’ve used (not counting, of course, the Nano and the Shuffle). Gone is FireWire. All new iPods now work only with USB2… which is faster anyways.
After installing the updated iTunes 6 and QuickTime 7 software, it took me about five minutes to download 900 songs, about 100 pictures and my calendar and address book into the unit itself.
I then went to the Apple iTunes store and downloaded an episode from ABC-TV’s Lost and Night Stalker.
On a 4 Mbps broadband connection, it took me about four minutes to download a TV show. Not bad at all.
As far as titles to choose from, there’s really not much of a selection. Some music videos, Desperate Housewives episodes (I’m not that desperate to download one of them) and some shorts from Steve Jobs’ Pixar movie studio.
I watched one of the TV shows (they blessedly download with no commercials and run about 40 minutes) and I found the 2 1/2 inch screen very bright. I watched the show in my car as I waited for my wife to do some shopping and had no trouble seeing, even in the brght daylight. I was surprised, however, at how much battery life was gobbled up by watching that 40 minute show – about a third. I need to test that out good this weekend and see how long I can watch video. Early experience causes me not to expect more than a couple of hours.
I’ll also try and upload some of my own iMovie video to the iPod over the weekend to see how that feature goes.
Initial impressions: Pretty cool. I think this is going to really take off, but probably not until there’s a lot more content. And it would be nice if Jobs works out a deal so we can get full length movies… though I have doubts about whether the battery life would be long enough to watch an entire film.
