Well, here we go again!

Panic is setting in regarding the w32.novarg and w32/mydoom worms.
An e-mail from sarc.com doing the rounds suggests you must update your virus definitions immediately and that your definition files must be dated 26/1/04 or later.

Once again I wonder if the worms are being generated just to give a boost to the anti-virus business.
If you want to get a bit more information so that you can really judge if you are even likely to be at risk check out the related Microsoft Web Page.
Read between the lines and you will discover why, if you are running Outlook 2000, Outlook Express v6 or later AND have downloaded the security patches (use "Windows Update") you are not at risk of this type of e-mail borne virus / worm - and, in fact, why you would have been protected for months already.
Note the comment about ZIP file name extensions. I do not block these because ZIP files are extremely valuable for sending compressed data files which would otherwise be blocked - however - you MUST be able to recognise the file and be aware that it could be a virus so that you do not inadvertently execute it from within the Winzip program itself or after if you save it to the hard drive. A hint - NEVER send a raw document or spreadsheet file as an attachment - always zip it first - otherwise the recipient will not be able to open it if they have their e-mail protected using the Microsoft security features.

One of the things that anti-virus software does very effectively though is to soak up your system resources - causing sluggish behaviour and annoying delays.
NEVER run it on your server - unless you really are paranoid or have workstations running on old software without the MS Security patches.

While we are at it - please make sure that you have a firewall installed. If you cannot afford an external hardware firewall at least make sure that you either enable the software firewall in Windows XP or use another product. Just remember that software firewalls and software based modems are always at risk - its worth a few pounds more to get the real protection affored by a box which is designed for the job - your PC isn't.

Well they are into revenue maximisation again.
On November 1st 2002 they changed their Terms and Conditions for Internat Access to time limit accounts.

A BT Openwold Anytime account now has a limt of 150 hours per month. If you go over this you get cut off until you have paid your next months subscription.

They excuse this on the basis that it improves Internet services for everybody.

Well, the limiting factor on Internet is the bandwidth used and not the time someone is simply connected. BT, of all people, should be aware of this so their only excuse really is revenue maximisation.

This backfires on BT now because they lose all my new account set-ups which used to go to them. I now use Tiscali or OneTel and this also gets the clients into the cheaper telephone call charges as well - except, of course, for 0870 numbers which is the BT rip-off shown below.

Wow - progress has been noticed at last.

Firstly I noticed that Watchdog - the BBC's high profile but rather nit-picky consumer affairs program - had changed their contact number from an 0870 back to a "geographic" number.

Then I found that Ofcom have issued a consultancy paper dated 28/9/05 regarding the future of the 0870 charging regime with the acceptance of the "excessive difference" between 0870 and "geographic" calling rates.

There is also another Ofcom paper regarding the use of 0870 by public bodies - suggesting quite strongly that large organisations should not use 0870 numbers because it causes problems for those on lower incomes - however it is a problem for us all.

Whilst reading these various Ofcom documents it also prompted the braincells over 0845 number which, I thought, had always been marketed as "local rate" numbers - this is apparently not the case!

I think its about time that all "08" numbers were forced to be either local rate or free because it is getting very difficult to know what a call will cost. It appears that even some Sexual Service numbers are in the "08" range although there is a suggestion of moving these to "09".

Don't forget - if an organisation chooses to use an "0870" number I suggest you e-mail them and ask about a proper contact number. It is often possible to look them up on the Internet and find a contact number for a different department and ask to be transferred. I found that you might have to also tell them that your exchange blocks 0870 numbers as being "premium rate" - mine did!

Did you know that 0870 is used for 'National or Non-Geographic Numbers' (ie where organisations don't want to admit where their call centre is) and this is charged at BT National Rate (approx 8p per minute)?

Now check out the prices charged for a call to somewhere in the UK outside your local area through the different providers - you will find that you can make peak calls for around 2p per minute on Tiscali if you can use the STD code but it is actually cheaper to use BT for the 0870 numbers at 8p per minute. This is a rip off - Organisations think that a 'National Dialling Code' makes them appear to be big and efficient but BT don't point out to them that the calls clients make to them can work out far more expensive. Punters are mislead by the use of '08' as these are often considered free or low-cost.

Its about time the companies that use 0870 numbers were brought to book - they should realise that when the news gets around that they are using 0870 numbers to earn around 2p a minute from their callers (yes they benefit from revenue sharing on these numbers too) - that they will lose their credibility. Which Companies are so hard up that they have to resort to these tactics to make money?

So PLEASE..PLEASE will organisations stop jumping on the 'National Number' 0870 bandwagon - its costs us callers dear!

Oftel (http://www.oftel.gov.uk) are aware of this but they seem to have been sitting around for ages waiting for consultations or something.
BBC's Watchdog use an 0870 number themselves and haven't responded to my comments - well calls to them make money for their Xmas party so I suppose thats reasonable.

If you need to call someone on an 0870 number it is likely to be cheaper to do a quick Internet search (google is quite good for this and it beats Directory Enquiries on cost) for the organisation and to then call one of their numbers with a real STD code.
If you can't find their STD number then either use E-Mail or find another supplier.

Well - the Carphone Warehouse sells the Fresh SIMM card for use with mobile phones.

When you look at the offers it very good value especially for my requirements - I chose the Fresh Reducer tariff and coughed up a whole £5 on the basis that I hardly ever make mobile phone calls but need to be contactable when out and about.
There are no rental charges etc - just a limit according to the terms and conditions booklet that you must make one outgoing call every 60 days.

Oh well - yesterday I tried to use it and guess what - the phone was barred.
It appears that Fresh now say that under their terms and conditions your credit expires after 28 days. Well - I hadn't been informed of this and being ready to become a bit more forceful discovered that Fresh publish updated terms and conditions in their magazine which is available at carphone warehouse stores.
Of course I haven't a clue where my nearest store is because shopping and visits to town are avoided as far as possible and I certainly haven't seen any Fresh magazine. A quick check of my handbook did state that they can vary their terms and conditions at any time and will be published in their magazine.

The very helpful lady on the other end of the customer service helpline did offer to re-instate the £4 I hadn't used and also offered me an additional £5 credit - as long as I used them within the next 28 days so I won't grumble because I suppose I was pushing the limits of reasonable expectations to be able to have a mobile phone service including incoming calls only for years for just £5.

I wouldn't knock Fresh except that I do feel that I was mislead and had succumbed to marketing slight of hand - over the years I thought I had got a handle on finding the catches and it comes as a disappointment to be caught out.

Since taking the plunge a week ago and replacing my trusty Windows 2000 installation with an updated system (Intel 2.4GHz with 256MB of PC1066 RDRAM, Promise RAID controller and ATI Radeon 8500 based Sapphire video adapter) based on Windows XP Professional I have been plagued by a flickering display (until now that is!).

All attempts at setting a reasonable refresh rate failed - the ATI drivers (display settings etc) reported whatever refresh rate I set but despite this I was presented with a 60Hz refresh rate. Anyone who has sat in front of a screen with such low refresh rates will know the effect it has on your eyes.

Checking on the Microsoft Web and ATI Web sites (natural starting ponts) I did find a reference to a default refresh rate problem with Windows 2000 (which I never experienced) and Windows XP. A couple of their suggestions later and nothing had improved.

In desperation I then tried a Google search. The first search came up with some utilities that claimed to solve the problem and, not being a coward and quite prepared at this stage to go back to Windows 2000, I downloaded and tried the two which sounded most hopeful.

Firstly R3DTweak - well this put loads of nice tabs within the display settings windows and even gave me hope by letting me select the refresh rate I wanted for the resolution I use (100Hz at 1152x768). After a couple of attempts nothing changed on the real display so R3D was uninstalled.

Secondly I tried RefreshForce. Again hope but again abysmal failure to fix the issue.

Well I then noticed a link that contained "ATI Radeon" in the title and it was a site in the Ukraine.which appeared to be an official ATI site. Downoaded the ATi RefreshFix for Win XP and Win2k, installed it and ... BINGO ... straight into 100Hz refresh.

NOTE: Whilst the above describes my experiences I cannot provide any guarantees that it will work for you. In addition you MUST take great care that the monitor you are using can support the refresh rate you want to use - 'cheapo' monitors can destroy their driver transistors and 'not quite so cheapo' monitors will blank the display leaving you only to power off, scandisk on restart and safe mode to recover your picture.

We always recommend Iiyama monitors (I know there are a FEW other quality makes too) although even though these did start off as real quality the market place dictated that they should produce some lower cost models so my recommendation is simply not to go for the cheapest!

Great magazine for free adverts - BUT

They seem to have started producing POPUP advertisements - I counted at least 5 adverts for Weight Watchers whilst creating a new advert.
There are several advert blocking programs available but these can affect your browsing experience in general - you may miss things you really should see - so it is not recommended that you use them.

The answer appears to be to filter out all accesses to "valueclick.com" using your firewall (setting this domain in restricted sites does not produce the required filtering) - because they have several web addresses set your firewall to filter out "*.valueclick.com".

Luckily I have Microsoft ISA Server running on Microsoft Small Business Server 2000 and by setting a destination set of "*.valueclick.com" followed by a deny site rule all adverts seem to have disappeared.

Subsequent to this "doubleclick.com" and "doubleclick.net" have also been encountered as a source of pop-up adverts. A quick addition to the filter has removed these annoyances too.

Last Wednesday (a week ago) 2 of my customers lost the capability of sending e-mails. I was on holiday and no-one else knew how to change their settings.

Anyway, on my return, I checked and the problem was that neither could contact mail.btopenworld.com on port 25 (for outgoing SMTP).

Further checking proved that lack of SMTP server connectivity was limited to BT Openworld (Tiscali and IDWeb worked a treat) but only when connected using their dial-up accounts. My conclusion at this time is that BT Openworld are filtering connections to their mail server and not admitting to it.

Talking to the BT Openworld helpdesk (50p per minute) is really like talking to a stuffed parrot (sorry guys and gals you are probably limited by management to the words 'Outlook Express', 'delete your account' and 'recreate your account'). OK I appreciate that you can't know everything associated with networking and protocols and modems and routers and ... but surely you are providing an Internet Portal not just a virus susceptible e-mail link and you must have someone there who knows if connections are being filtered or not.

Anyway none of the support calls elicited any more than 'a technical specialist will have a look' followed by 'try again in half an hour'. Needless to say half an hour came and went, lunch came and went, a few other things came and went and still nothing - a call to the helpdesk again asking what had happened on call reference nnnn (Note the call reference numbers had increased by 115974 in just 4 days! A better way to make money from call charges than to provide a mass market service and screw it up in a few places just could not be found) brought forth the 'Technical Specialist? "No, nothing entered on the log about that, your login details for the POP3 (receiving e-mail) server are wrong and that's why you can't send" - so that was it - I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere because there was no problem receiving at all - apart from the spam.

Because one of my clients is using a sensible software package I was able to restart their e-mail sending by by-passing the BT Server and going direct to the recipient (however this does not always work - depends on circumstances). The other, however, on a lower budget installation (not using Exchange Server) has had to be switched to another service provider (OK it took about an hour to set up the various e-mail accounts and enter his credit card details but at least he can send e-mails and, when he has informed people about his change of e-mail address, he will also be £1 per month better off than he was with BT Openworld).

I have always had a very high respect for BT - in fact I would have given a lot to work at their research and development headquarters if I actually thought that I could work for someone else again - but in this over-competitive commercial jungle the quality of products have been sacrificed in order to generate a quick Euro (and the quicker we have the Euro the better!). Give us back the Royal Mail {gosh that was quick} and a BT that can provide working and world leading products again. Oh - and lets have British Rail back too - I haven't a clue how to catch a train anymore let alone how to work out the true cost of a ticket or whether I have to get on a red train or a brown one!

One moral of the story is - keep your e-mail addresses separate from your ISP. That way you can change ISP's if you experience problems and not have to worry about the e-mail addresses.

I have moved my own E-Mail account now from BT Openworld because, if I ever get problems, I want to be assured of knowledgable technical support. I thought I was going to have problems with BT Openworld because my next credit card payment was imminent and I knew that I would probably end up losing a months subscription - however, it only took a couple of e-mails and BT accepted my termination in a very pleasant way so I would now say that I am actually upset at being driven away from BT - they acted very fairly which is more than I can say for last years foray with PlusNet ISP (I haven't included my bitching here about PlusNet because I would rather forget the whole saga).

This is one of my current pet gripes - all those machines out there being supplied with software modems - "Of course Sir - the machine has a 56K modem" - well Buyer Beware - all is far from what it seems.

Unfortunately Hayes (they've been making modems for centuries - well not quite but I have used them for years) went belly up and have been taken over by Zoom - basically because consumers buy on price and think that one 56K modem is the same as another. There are still some 'Accura' and 'Optima' modems around (under the 'Zoom-Hayes' banner) but a discussion with someone at Zoom requesting details of a decent Hardware based modem revealed that Zoom are not making hardware based modems so I assume that the Accura and Optima modems sitting on shelves will be the last.

Recent tests gave me consistently 33Kb with a 56K software modem, 46Kb with a 56K modem with hardware DSP and 53Kb with a full hardware 56K modem. Not all modems are equal!

ADSL would be great but I have been registered for 2 years and so far, out of the 400 registrations BT require to enable an exchange, there are 200 (as of 25/10/02) so, sorry folks, one of the leading Computer Suppliers in the South West is again stymied because we are located in a pleasant quiet area but still only a couple of miles from the town centre.

Note - not that I am getting at BT Openworld again(!) - but one of the nice things about ADSL is the 'always on' feature. This will let you access your machine from the Internet - just imagine being on holiday abroad, getting a local ISP dial-up account and being able to access your own machine and files for the cost of a local phone call - well not with BT Openworld you won't (or, at least, not that easily or cheaply) because they don't provide you with a fixed Internet Address in the standard subscription and so whilst your machine is connected to the Internet you don't know which connection it is on so you still can't connect to it. There are ways around this using FREE software which will keep your address (under a strange name) updated on a Name Server on the Internet so it can be found - unforunately using this can make you fall foul of BT Openworld's terms and conditions of service and you can have your account disabled by the time you jump off the plane.

So - if you want ADSL and access over the Internet - I suggest that you shop around a bit.