Weekus Horribilis

...in which a rather Bad Thing has occurred

First things first; I'm still within my target weight range, or at least I was on Monday when I got weighed (I now get Slimming World membership for free as long as I'm within 3lbs either side of my target).

Marathon training is continuing, and going pretty well; I'm still doing over the actual amount suggested by the Asics training plan as the runs would be quite short if I stuck to them (5 miles...I'm not sure when 5 miles became a "short" run for me, but it's weird how perception changes).

Anyway, the Bad Thing...this week my PC's hard disk has been more or less completely wiped due to a combination of a Blue Screen of Death and a hard reset performed out of impatience (not by me, I hasten to add - I was out at the Younger Teen's football match). 

When Windows attempted to reboot it ran ChkDsk (a utility for scanning and "fixing" a disk) and the result was that it moved nearly all of my files to a hidden directory, but in the process it's renamed them to nonsense.

I'm currently running some software to attempt to recover what data I can; I have backups of my work for clients, of course, but some other data that should really have been backed up to a different drive has not been for a little while (I'll be setting up an automated backup procedure as soon as this is done...lesson learnt the hard way).

This has led to a sequence of events that can be summed up as buy new hard disk, install Windows 8, realise I have to install Windows 7 first because I only have an upgrade license for Windows 8, Install Windows 7 Home Premium, upgrade that to Windows 7 Pro, then upgrade that immediately to Windows 8, all the while wondering why Microsoft couldn't have just included the ability to check a Windows 7 key in the Windows 8 upgrade install.

That process (and the missing data) has led to a few days of being a bit fed up, which in turn has led to not eating brilliantly, culminating in a bit of a crisp-and-wine-fest last night. Today I am back on the Slimming World train though; Slimming World quiche will be made for dinner, with paprika wedges (the kids can have pizza and chips as they won't eat the quiche).

Anyway, on the plus side I now have a "clean" C:\ drive with very little on it other than the operating system, development software, Open Office and a bit of software that tries to recover deleted files (currently doing a scan on the ex-drive, which is apparently going to take a total of around 75 hours).

Oh yes, and I was in the local paper last night. They haven't put the story online, but it was about the weight I'd lost and the fact that I'm running a marathon next year. So that's quite nice :).

Too little too late

....in which I am too tired to write anything much

Nothing much has happened today. Or at least nothing you'd want to hear about, unless you care about how you can use an ImmediatePostData attribute to force a message to be sent to a server before it normally would in a software framework I use sometimes. Or you're interested in how long it can take a domain transfer from one registrar to another to happen even after you've unlocked it and got an EPP code.

Also I'm tired (probably because I haven't done much today) so here's what I ate today...I promise I'll make more effort tomorrow. This is feeling like a really long week so far...I can't believe it's only Thursday.

Thursday 3rd July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Bacon with tomatoes on a wholemeal roll (healthy b), yoghurt

Lunch

Fruit (wasn't very hungry at lunchtime today for some reason)

Dinner

Baked bean & bacon lasagne

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, yoghurt, low fat cottage cheese, pickled onions, fruit.

Exercise

15 minutes exercise bike. That's it for today - another longer run scheduled for tomorrow!

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.