I was in the cafe in Marks and Spencers today, when a little old lady nearly had a heart attack. The shock was palpable and everyone on the surrounding tables jumped. There was a sound like the end of the world which turned out not to be a mobile phone, but something much noisier and much more insistent – a “food ready” gadget designed to summon customers to the staff when toasties have been heated up. Now call me old fashioned, but I thought that’s what waitresses were for. Anyhoos, the poor old dear was forced to do that sort of “oo-hoo-hoo i don’t understand all this modern technology” apologetic laugh and leg it to the counter as soon as possible so that someone would take it off her like a ticking bomb and make it stop. The noise reminded me of scene in the I.T. Crowd when the mobile phone gets pimped.

Want some male enhancement? New blouse bunnies? Extend that schlong. Spam can actually be fairly amusing at times – that is if it hasn’t just shut down your server, e-mail account or got you in trouble with your boss. I’m amazed at the number of names for intimate body parts they’ve thought up in the never ending battle against spam filters. It ends up sounding like that scene in Austin Powers:

I do feel sorry for the original Spam though. What a marketing nightmare when your product has a name that is now ubiquitous with illegal and destructive computer programmes. Bugger. It wasn’t that nice after all. Even Monty Python are glad to see the back of it.

Too expensive, I think so! Online gaming? Not easy. Sony’s PlayStation 3 has not been anywhere near as competitive as everyone would have hoped, and its release was put back time and again too.

The PS3 is a resounding failure by all accounts. Still not sure, watch this promotional video.

Well, not quite promotional, but funny nonetheless. Agree / disagree I’m sure you will, leave a comment underneath…

The other day we received a booklet through the post from John Howard. It provided guidance and advice on how to protect your children from the internet.

I was pleased that Mr Howard had taken the time to explain the dangers of the internet to me because:

(a) I don’t have any children, and;

(b) the booklet was absolute tosh.

Every day there are news stories on the major networks about the dangers of the internet and the different filters and censors available.

To re-word a lyric from a famous Welsh rap-band: “The internet doesn’t kill people, rappers do”.

The internet is simply a medium -like money, felt tips pens and witches’ cats. It is not evil in itself. Holding a position of responsibility, posting letters and owning cars can all be used to the same mal-effect as the internet.

The same applies as has always done, keep an eye on your kids. Don’t go shutting down the post office, scout club and requisitioning every white van just because of an over-reaction.

Scare tactics such as these are used to win votes and control over citizen’s lives. Use your head -not a server-side filter.

Buying a printer for your PC is usually fairly inexpensive, they are often packaged into the deal with the computer. However, when you go to buy ink for the things, that is when you realise why companies are practically giving printers away: ink cartridges are hideously expensive.

For one printer I had, the colour cartridges cost MORE than the printer itself. This is very annoying.

You know that the prices are high when companies like “Cartridge World” can make a profit from having high street shops refilling the things. That is all that they do!

I am no longer sure whether printing at home is the cheapest option at all. Maybe I’ll go back to using printing firms.

Another bane of the e-world we now live in are e-hoaxes or well intentioned warnings that are promulgated to all and sundry in your address book.

An example:

Dear All

If you receive a phone call on your mobile from any person, saying that he or she is a company engineer, or telling that they’re checking your mobile line, and you have to press #90 or #09 or any other number, end this call immediately without pressing any numbers.

There is a fraud company using a device that once you press #90 or #09 they can access your ‘SIM’ card and make calls at your expense.

Forward this message to as many colleagues, relatives and friends as you can, to stop it.

Many thanks for your time regarding this matter, take care and regards.

Phil Corris
Police Constable/Crime Prevention Officer
Ext 496696 (Internal)
01524 596696 (External)

Rubbish. Been around for ever. If you get a message like this, check out Snopes.com (there are other websites available). This particular hoax is located here . Please take care before promulgating these e-mails, they use up bandwidth and create panic in the uninformed.

Chain letters are a real shitter. Totally pointless, and a waste of everyone’s time.

These come in various guises:

Chain Emails

They usually say something like “send this on to 10 friends and you’ll feel a little better. Send it to 100 and you’ll get a lot of money tomorrw. Send it to all your contacts and you’ll be showered with wealth.”

Or they say the opposite – “if you don’t send this on to all your friends, an axe wielding marauding barbarian will come to your house and eat you… and your family.”

Chain Comments (on YouTube, or Facebook)

“You have been bitchslapped” or some similar shite “do this to everyone else or you are my bitch forever.

What is the point of them? There is no point. Except with chain emails, generally, you get a huge amount of email addresses in the one message (most of which are current and working) which one could use to send endless spam.

So, if you send these on, you are effectively responsible for all of those Viagra, Cialis and penis enlargement emails you keep receiving. So stop complaining about them – it’s your fault.

Super-fast broadband is an amazing step forward in technology. It is not difficult to cast one’s mind back to a time when accessing the internet consisted of a load of screeches, followed by the joyful experience of watching – over a period of minutes – a page slowly crawl onto a web browser. This experience was followed by ludicrously high monthly telephone bills.

Broadband saw an end to all that. Or, rather, it should have done. Companies in Australia are still imposing ridiculously low usage limitations on nearly all of their broadband packages, after which you are either charged heavily for each megabyte over this limit, or your connection slows to a pre-broadband slow speed.

Such behaviour has rightly been finished by competition in most of Europe and America, and should be consigned to the past.

Quite possibly the most annoying ‘help’ you’re ever likely to be offered. When Microsoft got together to write Microsoft Word, they must have thought long and hard about how to offer support to people who can’t perform simple tasks. They came up with “Clippy”.

I’m pretty sure that no-one finds Clippy’s interjections helpful. Moreover, this annoying little chap only allows you to “hide” him, or not to “show me this tip again.” There should be a nuke button.

One good thing that came out of this was an email that went round a couple of years ago which made a joke out of this – e.g. “Looks like you’re writing a suicide note…”

However, for pure annoyance, Clippy must rate pretty high on the Shitometer. Vote him up there.