The Child Benefit records scandal

Darling breaks the newsThe disgraceful mislaying of the discs containing 25m people's personal records by the taxman was announced on 20th November. It was a list of people who have received Child Benefit.

That's bad enough, but at least it was a mess-up, not a deliberate attempt to take advantage of a situation (I hope).

Unlike the full page adverts from LoydsTSB TSB that appeared today - seeming to be sympathetic, but actually trying to flog some credit-rating monitoring product of theirs called PrivacyGuard.

This is just taking advantage of people's fears, and should be exposed as such  Let me be clear:

• If you are the innocent victim of banking fraud you will not have to pay, with or without any insurance. 
• This LloydsTSB product offers no protection or insurance anyway - it simply monitors your credit history from only one of the Credit Reference Agencies

If that's what you want, then buy it, although you can get the same service cheaper elsewhere.  But you are still on your own if there's trouble, despite the impression the LloydsTSB advert gave me

If you think you have been the victim of identity theft, you can read some good some specific advice by clicking here.

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MP Website awards - the results

I have had a tough time recently. I was asked to be a judge in the recent British Computer Society MP Website awards – which meant that I had to plough through over 100 constituency websites set up by MP’s (they even get a tax free allowance for it).

A couple of points spring from this rather arduous experience. Firstly, I disagreed strongly with some of the other distinguished judges over the praise that they heaped on the sites of Boris Johnson and George Galloway, both of which seemed to him to be just extensions of their media careers (even down to selling books and tickets to events), and precious little to do with their constituencies.

Secondly, my main complaint was how dull most of the sites are – just not enough jokes. Two exceptions might be Derek Wyatt and Nadine Dorries, both of them have a light and slightly eccentric touch and are usually worth reading. I’m all in favour of MP’s who take a fairly individual, even iconoclastic line.

You can see a list of the winners and links to their sites by clicking here.

You will, incidentally, look in vain for a constituency site for our Prime Minister. He’s one of about 20% of our MP’s who just doesn’t bother. I call that arrogant.

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Saga Zone - Facebook for Oldies

You may have noticed a lot in the Press at the moment about Sagazone - an over 50's version of Facebook promoted by Saga.  It's OK as far as it goes, if you like these Social Networking sites (can't say they appeal much to me), but I couldn't work out why they were bothering to set it up until I delved into the Terms & Conditions and found this:

"We may provide you with information by post, telephone, SMS, or email about other products and services which we consider may be of interest to you, unless you contact us..."

So it's really just a prospect list gathering exercise for Saga.  Oh what a surprise. 

Still I suppose if you tick all the right "no adverts" boxes (if you can find them) it'll be fine, if you like that sort of thing.

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Stannah "Computing for Oldies" seminar

I held the first ever Stannah "Computing for Oldies" seminar yesterday, kindly and generously sponsored by The Stannah Group, and I must say I very much enjoyed it.  I have always believed that Oldie readers are a cultured and charming bunch, and if the ten who joined me yesterday in Church House, Westminster are representative, I am right.

This is the picture I took whilst demonstrating how to use Picasa, my favourite photographic software:

They all made it very easy for me, and I think we all learned somthing of value.

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Men in coats

These two have been touring their act all round the world for ages, and they deserve all the praise they can get.

It's pretty rare to have such an inoffensive and entertaining few minutes on a cabaret stage these days.

Don't forget to turn on your speakers.

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Another telephone rip off

Next year, the awful (and expensive) 0870 numbers will be outlawed - or severely curtailed  - thanks to Ofcom.  So it should come as no surprise that companies are looking for new ways to milk us through the telephone system.

The latest effort is from eBay - who have just announced a text messaging system that will let you know when you have been outbid.  It will cost you 12p to receive this text - most of which, I imagine, will go to eBay.

What a rip off.  If you are outbid you've still got to go online and up your bid, so you might as well check what's going on that way anyway.  Also, 12p is an outrageous price.  The cost of sending a text is almost to small to calculate for the Telecoms companies, and this is daylight robbery.

Naturally, they present it as an "improvement", which only invites one to recall Hutber's Law that "Improvement means deterioration".

I'm not really sure that this service is worth anything anyway, but if eBay want to appear customer friendly, they should be offering this service for nothing - or, at worst, a fixed annual fee.  It is my distinct impression that people are becoming more and more irritated by the way in which they try to ramp up their fees in endless small increments. 

What are the F ing keys for?

A regular request from readers (not users of Macs, though) is an explanation of what on earth the "F" keys at the top of the keyborad are for.  They are mysteriously labelled F1, F2, F3 and so forth.

Well, here is a short list of some of them, to whet your appetite:

F1 - press this and the Help box should appear - this works with most programs

F2 - In Word, Ctrl + F2, releases the Print Preview window

F3 - used to open a "Search" window

F4 - In Word, F4 will repeat the last action. If you just typed a long bit, and want to type it again (but why?), just pressF4.

F5 - F5 will refresh the content on the web page you are looking at, in case it has changed since the last time you looked.

F6 - Moves the cursor to the address bar and highlights the current address.

F7 - In Word, F7 automatically runs the Spellchecker, and Shift+F7 activates the Thesaurus

F11 - switches back and forth from Full Screen Mode. Try it and see what changes.

You are unlikely to break anything by having a go, so experiment - and let me know if you discover something amazing.

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Google starts charging - and so it begins...

Google has introduced charges for those of us who exceed the free storage limits that they make available.  Is this the beginning of the end of the free internet?

Admittedly, the free storage limits are jolly high - at least for us normal users - and at present should not affect all but the most dedicated of online users.  But I wonder if this is a hint of the future?  It's an old trick - you get us hooked on something by giving it away, and just as we crave it more and more you start charging for it.

If, like me, you are a fan of online storage then you need to stand by to start forking out.  The free lunch may almost be over.

Not that I blame them, and I really don't see why we should expect to get free services from anyone, let alone a profit driven company like Google.

You can see their charges (which are far from extortionate) in the official Google Blog by clicking here.

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The Lords and the Internet

The Lords Science and Technology Select Committee has just published a huge report on Personal Internet Security - much mentioned on the radio today.  I won't pretend to have read it, although I plan to, but it's almost 600 pages long, and I haven't started the new Harry Potter yet, so it may be a while.

If you want to read it, it'll cost you over £30 to buy a printed one, but I have arranged for you to download full copies from this site, if you want, just click here for Volume One (Report) and here for Volume Two (Evidence) and follow the instructions.  They are each over 2.5M, so may take a minute or two to download.  Not only does that save paper, but it means you can skim through it to the vital bits.  If you really want to buy the printed version, click here.

I must say that the list of recommendations generally look a bit more like wishful thinking than matters that will actually happen, but it's all well meant.  At the heart of it is a realisation that the internet is largely un-policable, and it's all down to us to look after ourselves.  Burt as we are used to that when it comes to looking after our non-virtual property (when did you last hear of the police recovering some stolen jewellery?) this should come as no surprise.

So make sure your firewall is on, make sure you have up to date anti virus and spyware stuff, and use them both regularly (at least once per week) and NEVER, EVER open an attachment on an email from an unfamiliar source.

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Foot and Mouth site helps you find your home

The current worry about Foot and Mouth disease has spawned a lot of traffic on the internet, including a huge amount of speculation and misinformation.  For an independent view that will appeal to Oldies, I recommend Mary Critchley's Warmwell Blog.

You'll find it at www.warmwell.com.  It was set up during the last Foot and Mouth attack, and to quote an editorial in Country Life: "This website has served as a rapier, puncturing the bladder of Government obfuscation, by publishing a highly informed, topical digest of news".  We need more of that sort of stuff.

For the official line, you need to refer to the Defra website  or for another point of view the National Farmers Union site.

One light moment in a sea of serious news - the Defra site includes an Interactive Map that some clever types within the ministry have put together.  The idea of the map is that it allows you to check if you are within the affected area, and shows the various control or restrictions zones. 

That's what it does - but what it actually says  is "The interactive map allows you to find out where you live and if you fall within any restriction zones."

Always useful for us Oldies to have somewhere to check just where it is we live...