The International Routing System

....in which I am threatened with being sent to jail.

Yes, really.  A man phoned me up and ended up telling me that I wouldn't be laughing when I was behind bars, just before he hung up on me.  The sequence of events that led to this proclamation of doom went like this:

My wife answered the phone. They asked for me, and I found myself speaking to a (clearly Indian, although that's irrelevant) gentleman who proceeded to tell me that he was a "Microsoft Certified Technician" and that my computer had been sending out messages or some such thing (I think the gist of it was that my machine had some sort of deadly virus but I pretty much stopped listening at that point, as I've had this kind of call before). 

If I'd listened he would probably have told me that he'd got this information from the "International Routing System"; but I wasn't listening. I said "Before you start your scam, you should know I'm a software developer and a Microsoft Certified Professional (I really am, although my certification is in an ancient programming language that nobody uses any more) and I'm not going to fall for it", and then he started getting pretty cross and told me I could end up in court.

At which point I burst out laughing.  If he'd had any sense he'd just have stopped at the point where I told him I knew it was a scam to save the phone bill, but no. Even after I'd laughed at his threat of court action (quite what I was going to be taken to court for I'm not sure) he carried on, telling me that "You won't be laughing when you're behind bars".  At which point I virtually went into hysterics.

I then I said I'd like him to answer some questions (I was going to ask him what my I.P. address is - after all, if he knows there's a problem with my computer specifically he must know that as there's no other way of identifying a computer on the Internet).  I never got chance though - as soon as I said I was going to ask questions he hung up.

Now, here's the thing.  My ISP do sometimes make this kind of call, or email me.  It's happened once or twice when a relative has called round with a PC infected with a virus which I've had to connect to my network to clean up.  However, to my certain knowledge, neither Microsoft nor anybody associated with them will ever make this kind of call.  There is such a thing as a Microsoft Certified Technician but the clear purpose here was just to associate themselves with Microsoft in some way so that I'd trust them.

Here's the other thing: I write software for a living.  I've been doing it for 10 years or so, and if there was such a thing as the International Routing System that sent your personal details to Microsoft every time there was a system error I'm pretty sure I'd have heard of it.

A quick search on google (other search engines are available) for "International Routing System" will bring up several articles which will tell you in no uncertain terms that this is a scam.  If you listen to them they will get you to go to a website, get control of your computer by remote control (at which point they'll have access to whatever unencrypted data you have on your hard drive) and then probably try to persuade you to buy some anti-virus software (which won't actually be anti-virus software at all, in all probability).  See the articles above for more details...

However, I do worry that people who are less technically knowledgeable might be taken in, particularly with the high pressure tactic of them claiming that you might be in legal trouble if you don't.  So here's a warning: if you do get a call like this, hang up. Unless you're technically adept and have time, in which case string them along for as long as possible so they can't call anybody else who might be taken in.

So, a blog with a serious point. Although I thought it was very funny (and so did my wife, who was sitting next to me while I took the call), it could be you paying £79 for software that does nothing plus the risk of having your personal details stolen...

C.

Warning: Serious post ahead

In which I have a bit of a rant.

I live in a small town (Oswestry) where last year the district council granted planning permission to a building developer to build an out of town supermarket on what used to be the livestock market.  I'm not quite sure why they think we need another supermarket (we already have a Morrison's, an Aldi, a Sainsbury's and an M&S food, and the total population of Oswestry and the surrounding rural area is only around 17,000 according to WikiPedia) but apparently we do.

There were quite a few potential developments, one of which was in town but would have meant there was virtually no parking in the town itself and would have led to utter traffic chaos, as far as I could work out.  The bid which won did so because it promised to provide strong links to the town centre along with a cinema (which we haven't had here for many years, apart from films shown in local halls) and various other commitments to the town.

It now appears the developers are attempting to renege on many of these commitments (see Oswestry21).  The council are having a meeting about this tomorrow (Thursday 28th April) but have claimed there is "litle public interest" in the matter (this despite the fact that 250 odd people turned up for a previous meeting regarding the development), but then they haven't actually publicised it and it's very difficult to be interested in something when you don't even know it's happening.

Now, I don't personally like large out of town developments; it's been shown in various studies (including ones financed by the supermarkets themselves) that generally they lead to an overall loss of jobs (see this study), and I can't really see the point of us having one at all in Oswestry when it's only 20 minutes to Shrewsbury or Wrexham, both of which have much bigger supermarkets and out of town retail parks than the one planned for Oswestry.  The argument of "it will bring more people to the town" looks very weak to me when you consider that, but then that's just my opinion.

However, my gripe in this post isn't about the duplicity of the developers, as annoying as it is; no, what makes me cringe and wonder what on earth the council are up to is the attempt to say there is little public interest in the matter.

Not because it's not true (it may be - many people are too apathetic to take much interest in this sort of thing, but I doubt the veracity of the statement myself).

Not because saying there's little interest when they've done nothing to make it public and deliberately held the thing in a small building (when there are much bigger venues available on the day) is duplicitous at best.

No, because it's just plain stupid to expect that this will not get out in today's world.  Here's a statistic for you: "Total broadband penetration in the UK is now 71%, with fixed broadband at 65% and mobile broadband at 15%" (see Google's Internet Stats).  Even given that Oswestry is a reasonably rural area a lot of people in the town itself will have access to the Internet.

There are people that care about this and they absolutely will blog about it (Hi mom!), or write articles on local websites, or go to the local paper who will put the story online, and therefore people will find out about it, whether you've publicised it or not.

As a politician or a councillor or whatever, you simply cannot afford to be ignorant of the fact that there is absolutely no way that something like this will not get out into the open one way or another; you can no longer expect to have nothing appear until next week (when it's too late) on page 5 of the local paper.  We live in a world of instant communication, where writing an article and getting it on the web is as easy as having access to the Internet; you don't even need a PC any more, a mobile phone will do (as long as it's a posh enough one).

So, the people making this decision are either totally ignorant of the Internet and its uses or they just don't care.  Or, possibly, they sincerely believe that there would be little public interest in this even if they did publicise it.  The latter option seems the most optimistic, but is certainly the kindest as it at least qualifies them as just misinformed rather than deliberately deceptive.

 Ah well, my first serious post.  I must be pining for something...

And so it ends...(or does it)?

...in which my legs perform a monologue.

If you've been paying attention you'll know that the original point of this blog was for me to write about how I was getting on with training for a half marathon.  I've kind of meandered about talking about lots of other stuff on the way, but that's just par for the course with me.

Today was the day that all that training and preparation had been for, except...there hasn't really been much training and preparation for the last 3 - 4 months, and none at all for the last 3 weeks.  This is because I've been working away (on a different contract to the one that I was on when I started the blog) and this time I haven't had much time for training; I have to drive across the country twice a week which leaves me with 4 days out of seven when I could train (weekends are out as that's family time), but recently I've had to work evenings as well because the contract isn't paying the bills so I've had to take on other work as well, which has to be done sometime.

Anyway, now my excuses are out of the way I shall tell the story of the event itself, in the words of my legs.

At the start: "Oh, we're going to some running?  OK, well that's OK.  We haven't done much for a while but I'm sure we'll be fine."

1 Mile in: "We're running up steep hills?  Oh well, that's a bit new but you know us, always willing to learn.  We can keep this up all day, no problem."

2 Miles in: "Yup, we're good.  Keep on running, we're with you on this."

3 Miles in: "Toilet break?  Why didn't you go before?! Come on, we're raring to go here!"

4 Miles in: "No more upwards hills now?  Excellent!  Let's get whizzy!"

5 Miles in: "Hahaha, look, a shop called The Knob Shop.  And it's next to a family church!" (Editor's note: this is really true.  They sell doorknobs and stuff.  Here you go: http://www.knobshop.biz/ Yes, that link is safe for work, honest.  Unless your manager objects to doorknobs).

6 Miles in "We're not stopping yet?  Okay.  You know it's in our contract that we don't have to do this, right?  But we'll keep on going.  For now."

7 Miles in: "We didn't sign up for this.  We're not talking to the brain now.  Lungs, tell the brain that if it wants to sign up for this sort of thing in the future it can damn well do the running itself."

8 Miles in: "You said there were no more hills to go up! You said so back at 4 miles in! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

9 Miles in: "*Dark muttering*"

10 Miles in: "Okay.  We've tried to be reasonable.  We've been nice.  We've carried on well beyond the call of duty.  If you carry on running We Will Hurt You."

11 Miles in: "Don't say we didn't warn you.  Because we did.  Here it comes.  Let's see how the brain that signed us up for this enjoys being carried on two quivering pieces of jelly."

12 Miles in:"Argharghargharghargharghowowdamnyoubrainwehateyousomuchrightnow."

13 Miles in: "Alright, alright, we'll let you run the last .1 miles; because we're nice like that."

13.1 Miles: "It's over?  Seriously, there is something very wrong with you.  We quit.  Oh wait, we can't, we've got tenure here...well we're going to ache at you for the whole of the rest of the day.  So there."

On realising there was a mile or so walk back to the car park: "*censored*".

So, there we have it.  What my legs don't know is that I will be signing up for the Bristol half marathon in September, because I hate my legs.  Right now the feeling appears to be mutual...more on that soon, hopefully,.

For those who really want to know, I completed the half marathon in 2 hours and 53 minutes according to the website; I'm sure I can knock that down to 2 hours 20 at least with more training, and hopefully less.

Thanks for reading - I shall post more about the emotional and physical side of doing something like this soon - now I'm off for a hot bath.

Cheers,

Chris

Back on the treadmill

...in which I mutter vaguely about stuff.

Christmas and the New Year have staggered passed in a whirl of (over) indulgence; in Wilde's words, "I can resist anything except temptation" and so all of my good intentions of reeling in my usual excesses went straight out of the window the moment the Christmas goodies came out; unfortunately this means I'm back where I started 5 months ago, with about a month and a half to get fit enough to run 13 miles.

Hmmmm....

Still, nil desperandum and all that.  I'm still working away from home (and to be frank getting pretty fed up of it - I was expecting to be working at home at least every other week by now); because I'm now driving down on a Sunday night and coming home on a Friday I seem to have a lot less time at home than I did at the last contract and even less time to run.  I do need to get myself sorted very quickly though 'cos I only have about 7 weeks left before I have to run 13 miles.  Put like that it suddenly sounds very scary.

So I'm going to start running at least twice in the week, but weekends are a major pain since that's all the time I have with my family at the moment; unfortunately I'm not likely to have much choice other than to start running on a Saturday or Sunday as well.

Anyway, it is now time for my regularly scheduled moan, and this week my moan is...people that stand and chat in supermarkets.  More specifically, people that stand in the middle of the aisle that I'm trying to push my trolley down, or in front of stuff that I need to get to; almost as bad as the chatters are the people that apparently need a 5 minute discussion with someone else before they can make the monumental decision about which sort of bread/milk/biscuit they should buy, and apparently have to stand right in front of whatever it is with their trolley blocking it while they do so.

Just to be clear, I don't mind people standing and chatting; what I mind is people standing and chatting where they are (obviously) in the way while a queue the length of the M6 builds up on both sides of them.

Moan over for the week.  I shall now hopefully be resuming normal service...