Rubbish ISP Providers

There are some rubbish ISP providers out there.

At the moment I use three hosting companies. All shall be nameless (for the time being). One of them hosts one of my financial websites. Yesterday I noticed that the site was no longer there. It had literally disappeared from the Internet. I sent the ISP an email (as it was an urgent matter I wanted to phone them, but when I dialled their number I got a recorded message saying that they don't provide telephone support. Then why provide a number on their website? Possibly to lure potential customers into a false sense of security before they reach for their credit card).

Anyway, I got an email saying I should log into the ticket system because there was a reply to my previous email. I logged in and was told that the domain had expired. Did I want to renew the domain for £9.99? I said that I did. That was yesterday and the website is still not there. I asked if they had thought of sending their customers a reminder when their domains were due for renewal, and so far I haven't had a reply.

(Update: I have had a reply. They tell me that the renewal costs £15 + VAT, not £9.99.)

When I tried to log into my account at [this ISP] I was told that I had entered the wrong password. But I had NOT enetered the wrong password. I had entered the password that I always use.

There is also periodically a problem with passwords for individual websites hosted with this ISP. There is also a login issue with the other (paid-for) services with this ISP (they are suddenly not such good value when you factor in all the extras that other ISPs provide for free, like traffic stats).

On one domain I had to go through their tedious contact process three times in order to view my visitor stats. First my login didn't work, so I was given a different password. Then that login didn't work, so I was given another password. Then that login didn't work, so I was given a third password.

It seems to me that they are making it up as they go along.

Come on [name of ISP], you know who you are. Buck up your ideas! Otherwise I will tell people who you are.

(Incidentally, if you're wondering why I'm using the apparently tautological phrase "ISP Provider" it is for SEO purposes.)

TV Scheduling

The thing about TV scheduling is that people like me are a bit embarrassed about complaining about it. It implies that I spend all my time watching television.

Not so. Although I am self employed and I work from my functional (and not lavish) home office, I spend a lot of time visiting clients and media outlets, and I do have outside interests. However, when I do find the time for some relaxation in front of the telly I like to see some variety and choice. I don't want to switch channels only to see slightly different variations of "sell junk in the attic at auction and we will record your responses and your partner's comments on your dietary excesses" (that covers about a dozen programmes).

But that's not the problem.

The problem is that they are all on at the same time.

It would be quite good if I could switch channels and see, for example (I know this is out of the question, but I'll try it anyway) Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man (I did say it was probably out of the question) instead of yet another anodyne putting together of an "ordinary couple" and an "expert" and seeing how much their rubbish would fetch at a junk market auction, and take 25 minutes of my life with it.

Comedy shows: good quality shows on at the same time on BBC1, BBC2 and other channels. The same is true of documentaries on the same subject (you can watch a drama-doc about Rome, Rome and Egypt-Rome: except you CAN'T, because they're on at the same time).

Similarly, if I like costume drama (not that I do, but the point is there to be made) a similar problem exists because the costume dramas are all on at the same time.

Documentaries about arial combat, the development of aeroplanes, great sea battles, interesting perspectives on naval engagements that could have changed history, political and military decisions which have shaped the lives of all of us - all of these are of interest to people who have the same interests, by definition. Except we only have one pair of eyes.

I'd like to see a programme where there are two teams, each of which consists of television schedulers. Live on air they are are presented with their P45s. Then we see how they behave. The team with the least dignified behaviour have to clean out their attics, sell the family heirlooms at a loss, move to a place in the sun, move to a place not in the sun, sell some more "antiques", swap houses at their peril, sell scrap rubbish and pretend to argue about it, go on a coach trip which they do not enjoy (neither do we) and abase themselves before elderly women in Monifieth.

What to do with Spam

What to do with Spam? Spam emails are unsolicited bulk emails sent out by people who either doing it for entirely malicious purposes, or because they think they are using legitimate Internet marketing methods and don’t know any better.

Email addresses used to send spam to are obtained by various means; these include, but are not restricted to, the following: using software which crawls websites and harvests email addresses when it comes across them; purchase of bulk email addresses from unscrupulous vendors, usually several million of them, usually on a CD, and usually for around $30; People who will sell your or pass on your email address to third parties without your consent when you sign up for something; manufacture of emails by prefixing an assumed addressee to an existing domain name, i.e admin @ yoursite.com, info @ hersite.com, or accounts @ theirsite.com.

Spam is usually designed to get money for the sender - get rich quick scams, chain letters, "phishing" requests which ask you to log in to a false account which is a way of getting your account details, bogus requests for money and the usual viagra and enhancement offers which give regular affiliate marketers a bad name. But occasionally its purpose may be more sinister (to spread a virus, propagate pornography without any care for the recipient’s sensibilities or age, or even seemingly pointless emails where nothing makes any sense).

There is quite a lot of advice out there about what to do with Spam. Whatever the nature of the spam, in some form it will probably be with us forever. But there are ways of dealing with it. You can apply filters in your regular email software such as Microsoft Outlook Express to stop it from reaching your inbox by defining types of message you do not want to receive. You can subscribe to services which clean your email before it even reaches you. Or you can buy special software which will, on installation, sit on top of your regular software and use its own features to repel spam. You can even get software (some free, some not) that will encrypt your email address on a webpage, so that a human can see the address normally but it cannot be harvested by a robot.

But some spam will inevitably get through, no matter how well protected you are. So what to do with Spam when it does?

The first rule is, don’t reply to it. If there is a Unsubscribe link don’t click on it, as it’ll only confirm that your email address is valid (think about it: you didn’t subscribe to any such list in the first place, so why should you trust their Unsubscribe link?)

The second rule of what to do with spam is that you can report it to any of the various Spam watchdogs. SpamCop is probably the most useful of the Spam watchdogs, as it fulfils a multiple function. It adds the spammer to the database and it also reports the spam sender to the sender’s ISP, who will then, if they are acting responsibly, contact the spammer with a request to stop it.

But in order to report spam properly there are certain things you must find out. Crucially, you must get the "header" information from the email, which identifies the sender. You do this by doing the following (this is for Microsoft Outlook Express):

Right click on the email as it sits in your inbox.
On the menu that pops up move the mouse cursor right down to the bottom and then left click on Properties.
On the window that opens click on the Details tab.
Near the bottom of that tab click on Message Source…
Position your cursor point within the text of the box that appears and copy the entire contents by pressing the CTRL+A key combination to select the entire contents and then CTRL+C key combination to copy onto the clipboard.

You can now paste this information to a file and save it for sending to the above mention Spam authorities.

If you do not use Outlook Express then you should follow the instruction that come with your email client of choice; it will be a similar procedure.

There is one final thing about what to do with spam: delete the rubbish from your Inbox, then delete the rubbish from your Deleted Items box.

Class 2 National Insurance Contributions

I had a letter from the Inland Revenue demanding Class 2 National Insurance Contributions which I had apparently not paid and threatening me with legal action if I did not pay them £291.65 within seven days.

This was the first time they had written to me about the matter. I didn't even owe them the money (I paid monthly by direct debit every month, arranged initially through my accountant). So the first letter threatened to take me to court if I didn't cough up, within 7 days, money I didn't owe them.

They supplied a telephone number and asked me to contact them on this number to discuss the matter OR legal proceedings would be started.

I dialled the number 30 times. Every time it was engaged, apart from on one occasion. On that occasion the number actually rang, someone picked it up after only a couple of rings (I could hear the ambient acoustic of real people in the background) and then ... DISCONNECTED ME AGAIN.

Here's the number, folks. 084591 50567. The number the tax office uses that's designed never to be used. Why don't you try it? Go on, dial it now. Prove me wrong.

So here's the deal: threaten people out of the blue with court action, and with no warning, if they don't pay a seemingly random sum of money, advise them to "discuss" the matter on a telephone "helpline" which is designed never to work, and wait till the cheques come rolling in.

BRILLIANT! Well, wouldn't everyone try that one if it was legal? Apparently the only people who can get away with it are government departments.

Here's my letter back to them:

"I enclose a copy of the document you sent me concerning a 'Demand for Class 2 National Insurance Contributions'.

"This letter came out of the blue and threatens immediate Court action. However no preceding notification of this “problem” has been received.

"I pay my NI contributions by direct debit every month from my bank account, yet you say I have paid £0.00 and you are demanding £291.65 with threats.

"I tried phoning your telephone number about 30 times today and it was continually engaged, so I could not contact you. Your threats would almost certainly result in a small percentage of people paying you immediately in the absence of being able to speak to someone.

"In other words, you’re on a nice little earner here, aren’t you!

"Can you let me have details of the amount of money wasted on the unsuccessful Court prosecutions that your behaviour brings about every year?"

I'm still waiting for a rational, grown-up response to my last question. After all, as a taxpayer I pay their salaries, so I expect good service.

POSTSCRIPT: It is now August 2006 and they seem to have learned their lesson. Well, a little bit, any way. They send me a letter (again) asking me to pay my National Insurance Class 2 contributions (which I already pay by standing order, but they do not seem to be aware of that). They provide a telephone number that actually works! To my shock it is picked up by someone. After a brief (but longer than is strictly necessary) conversation the result is that I am to ignore the letter because it is meaningless.

A step in the right direction? Well, probably. A little step. They have installed a telephone number that works. A little step.

Falling Education Standards with Better Grades?

Every year we see young people getting better grades at GCE and A level exams. This reflects both upon the schools and the government to their credit, it seems. But the increase in standards has puzzled lots of people.

A generation ago it was very rare to get three A grades at A level. Now not only are several people in the same class getting three A grades, but it seems that the A grade itself is insufficient, and has been replaced by the A Star grade. Which would be fine, except, of course, that now lots of people are getting three A Star grades and the whole question of how to really judge a student's competence and ability is again up for question.

Mainstream universities are now talking about their own entrance exams, much like the well established Oxbridge Entrance, because they mistrust the existing state exam system.

This is all in the context of the government insisting that the standards have not fallen, and that an A grade today is as "difficult" (whatever that means) to obtain now as it was 30 years ago. In response to this, some people say that to show this much improvement in a generation the species itself must have mutated, at least a little bit.

Clearly an A today is not the same as an A 30 years ago, because a species cannot mutate in that way so quickly.

So that means there has been a fall in standards. The reason for the fall in standards is that there is more than one examination board. If there was only one board then standards would remain the same - indeed they could remain the same. But because there is more than one the laws of the market have driven them to compete.

It is a whole economic cycle in microcosm: the schools want to be further up the league tables than their competitors, so they select the easier exam board. In turn, the exam boards compete to get customers (the schools) by lowering standards every year. The result is that more people get better grades.

Two years ago one retired head teacher said exactly the same thing. Then he quickly apologised for saying such an outrageous thing, adding that he thought everyone knew that was the case anyway.

Then the media shut up about this, the schools shut up about this, the government shut up about this. Most worrying of all, the teachers shut up about this. Mind you, what would they have to gain by blowing the whistle, and what an awful lot to lose ....