[donspatch] 2006-09-15
- From: "Don Guitar" <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Don's Patch" <donspatch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 03:42:37 -0500
Don's Patch #54 from http://www.don-guitar.com September 15, 2006
First word, from Don:
I got an obviously fraudulent email recently that began like this...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"My Friend, This is personal information to you. It is a pleasure, I am
Mr Paul Hall. Accounts supervisor with standard Bank plc London.
I have urgent and very confidential business proposition for you. On
June 6, 1999, a Foreign Diamond consultant/contractor with the
London Diamond Corporation, Mr.Eric Brawn made a numbered time
(Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at SD$24,000,000,
(Twenty-four Million Dollars) in my branch. Upon maturity, I sent a
routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a
month, I sent a reminder and finally I discovered from his contract
employers, the London Diamond Corporation that Mr.Eric Brawn
died from a rebel attack."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can see where this is headed, right? Instead of just deleting it
I goggled for the Standard Bank PLC and sure enough, this is a real
bank. I located their contact page and emailed them the text above
and offered to forward them the entire email if they liked. A day or
two later I got a reply...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good day Sir,
The email that you received is what is called a 419 scam. It is an
attempt to get you to pay some funds out of your personal bank
account into the fraudsters account. You will however not see
any of your promised funds. There is no employee of Standard
bank that goes by the name of Mr Paul Hall either.
For more information regarding the 419 scam, follow the link
http://www.419legal.org/
If you have any other queries you can contact me.
Sheldon Bennett
Standard Bank IT Security - E-Crime Division
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Consider...
I live in a small village in Texas but I didn't hesitate for a moment
before contacting a bank in South Africa and Mr. Sheldon Bennett,
who works in their IT Security department, didn't hesitate to answer
me.
Isn't the web creating some amazing changes in our world?
Still more fun and games:
On September 11 at about 1:50 PM, I received an email that appeared to
be from the National Credit Union Association which offered me $50 to
take part in a brief survey. I don't belong to any sort of credit union so
I knew it was a scam. I googled "National Credit Union Association"
(in quotes) which took me to this page.
http://www.ncua.gov/
where I clicked on the "Contact Us" link on the upper right-hand corner
of the page which took me to this page:
http://www.ncua.gov/AboutNcua/ncua_directory.html
where I found the following:
HOTLINE NUMBERS:
Fraud: 800-827-9650
I called and a fellow named Dave Eno assured me that the FBI was
already on the case and had me forward the email, as an attachment,
to him so that he could pass it on to the FBI.
Will it do any good? Who knows, but at least I'm not just putting up
with scam emails. I'm doing all I can to fight the bad guys.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lisa and I have had one of those weeks where we've been busy every
moment but nothings getting done for one reason or another. As I
write this, for example, it's the afternoon of the 14th and we haven't
started on the ezine yet. Fortunately we both gather links almost
every day so we've plenty of interesting websites for this issue but
we haven't started writing them into the ezine and, since we check
every link as we list it, that can be time consuming. I had a lawn
mowing job this morning and just got back, she has a house
cleaning job this afternoon and just left, and I have a guitar playing
gig this evening (I'm in the host band for Open Mic Night at a club
called 'Pardners' in Buchanan Dam, TX). So, I'll work on my part of
the ezine this afternoon while she's gone, she'll work on her part this
evening while I'm gone and I'll probably get it posted at around 3 AM
in the morning. We'll see.
Don
Don's feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html
Lisa's feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/lfefo.html
Our personal news page.
http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html
Don at myspace.com http://www.myspace.com/donguitar
Don's blog. http://blog.myspace.com/donguitar
Lisa at myspace.com. http://www.myspace.com/81825549
Lisa's blog. http://blog.myspace.com/81825549
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Resources for small business.
http://www.businessownersideacafe.com/
http://www.bestforbusiness.com/
A (costless) blogging site. http://www.20six.co.uk/
Writeboard is perfect for...
Authors, journalists, PR folks, editors, and publishers
Bloggers or freelance/independent writers
Letter writers, songwriters, poets, comedians, creatives
Students, professors, and groups collaborating on a paper
http://www.writeboard.com/
Ta-da makes it easy to...
Keep track of all the little things you need to get done
Make lists for other people (co-workers, friends, family)
Share lists with the world ("My favorite movies of 2004")
Subscribe to your lists in RSS so you're always on track
http://www.tadalist.com/
Both of these interesting web-based applications come from
these folks: http://www.37signals.com/
A place for kids, parents, student teachers, and teachers.
http://www.abcteach.com/
An ad-supported searchable database of acronyms.
http://www.acronyms.com/
Alan Turing is often considered to be
the father of modern computer science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
http://snipurl.com/wf2a
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Turing.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing/
http://www.cs.usfca.edu/www.AlanTuring.net/
http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/turing.html
There are a few images these albums which make superlative
computer wallpaper but you have to select an album, select a
photo and, in most cases click on it a second time to get a
full-sized image and the size of that image may, or may not
work for you but either way you'll have had a chance to view
some great photography. I wasn't able to figure out who the
photographer was (so I could thank him) but I tried.
Here's the album index. http://www.liamhart.org/pictures/
and I found this album, in particular, to be spectacular.
http://www.liamhart.org/pictures/thumbnails.php?album=17
I'd suggest giving the DVD a pass but if you enjoy dazzling
your friends with tricks and puzzles there are over a hundred
of them here. http://bartendermagic.com/
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and is brought to you by me, Don Crowder, my wife, Lisa Miller,
and //www.freelists.org
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Artificial skin is an intriguing and important subject.
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1298/de98ski.htm
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
http://www.atf.treas.gov/about/mission.htm
Bandera, Texas is the cowboy capital of the world, and much more.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/BB/hlb5.html
Facts about college drinking.
http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/
Have an analytical mind? Like to cook? http://snipurl.com/uuj8
Coptic Christianity is alive and well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_Christianity
http://www.coptic.org/
http://www.copticchurch.net/
Games, unplugged. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/
The surprising truth about diamonds.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond
Who's your favorite drummer? Don's is Gene Krupa.
http://www.carlocavallini.it/halloffame.htm
Edward S. Curtis was one of the most prolific and significant
photographers of Native American culture. A picture is worth...
http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html
This guy really, really hates frames.
http://users.ipa.net/~djhill/frmain.html
Gallery Atsushi. http://art.kagurazaka.chu.jp/
Gemstone and Lapidary pages.
http://www.tradeshop.com/gems/
http://www.gemstone.org/
Everything gyroscopes. http://www.gyroscopes.org/index.asp
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
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At the time this issue was posted, the current
subscriber count for this publication was 341.
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This issue's collection of news/magazine/informational sites
(these are chosen for maximum diversity regardless of "spin" ).
http://australiananthill.com/
http://news.bostonherald.com/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/
http://www.giantmag.com/
http://handbag.com/
http://independentsources.com/
http://www.laweekly.com/index.php
http://www.marsdaily.com/
http://www.news.com.au/
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/
http://www.nih.gov/news/
http://www.npr.org/
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A sexually discriminatory blogging site (i.e. for women).
http://blogher.org/
An artist's blog. http://20six.co.uk/bohemian_weasel
Bookish things. http://www.booksense.com/index.jsp
Here's another site that's part news, part blog, part magazine.
http://www.burntorangereport.com/frontPage.do
The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/
Chemical Ecology of Insects.
http://www.wcrl.ars.usda.gov/cec/h.htm
Mary Elizabeth Ladd knows a lot about Cher
http://www.cherscholar.com/index.htm
and has other interests worthy of exploring.
http://www.cherscholar.com/Ladd.htm
CinePaint is a useful tool for Mac and Linux which should soon
be available for Windows as well. http://www.cinepaint.org/
Of possible interest to die-hard rock fans.
http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/
This website allows people to conduct grassroots-level
research and investigations on any issue.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/
An awesome informational resource from the UK.
http://www.copac.ac.uk/
I don't think this is for everybody; I don't need it myself,
but if you have so much information stored away somewhere
on your computer that finding it has become problematic,
Copernic desktop search may offer a solution.
http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/
A collective blog. http://crookedtimber.org/
The website of programmer Dmitriy Apraksin.
http://www.dwebplace.com/index.htm
A nice newsletter for information junkies.
http://www.docuticker.com/
A semi-commercial site for pet lovers.
http://www.doghause.com/
A nice collection of dog humor.
http://www.hoflin.com/humor.html
FreeDOS is an open source computer operating system
which is designed to be 100% compatible with MS-DOS
computer software. Everything old is new again?
http://www.freedos.org/
I'll let you ponder out the potential business uses of
FreeDos for yourself but, if you have an old computer
tucked away in a closet and kids or grandkids who
love computer games, there are quite a number of
abandonware or costless DOS games out there.
http://marge.uvm.edu/sdempse/games.htm
http://www.retrothing.com/2006/08/234_classic_dos.html
http://www.classicdosgames.com/
http://www.dosgamezone.com/
http://www.abandonia.com/index2.php
http://www.dosgamesonline.com/index.php
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/
http://www.dosgames.com/
http://www.xtcabandonware.com/
An awesome electronic magazine that's costless for
educators. http://www.edutopia.org/index.php
Electronics Definitions And Acronyms.
http://www.electronicdefinitions.com/
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Rube Goldberg lives on! In Japan, no less. This
Google video has sound. http://snipurl.com/wfi5
A compendium of Linux games. http://www.happypenguin.org/about/
Mark Russinovich's Sysinternals blog.
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/
Much ado about Math.
Forum http://mathforum.org/
Games http://snipurl.com/wfiy
More games http://mrhall.org/mathgames/mathgames.htm
Magic http://snipurl.com/wfiz
More magic http://www.mathcats.com/
Even more http://www.magicofmath.org/
Puzzles http://www.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/
Numbers http://snipurl.com/wfj1
Do Math http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/domath/
Interactive http://library.thinkquest.org/27103/eng/home.htm
Mathworld http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
Introduction http://www.kibble.net/magic/math.php
Jim Loy's http://www.jimloy.com/math/math.htm
Miscellany http://www.cut-the-knot.org/
Math.com http://www.math.com/
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We welcome all comments, suggestions, or criticism. The form
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I've discovered a young woman who calls herself emdot and is
a very good amateur photographer.
http://www.emdot.com/
http://www.emdot.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emdot/sets/289351/
The (U.S.) Federal Judiciary. http://www.uscourts.gov/
Ever heard of Fibonacci numbers?
http://snipurl.com/wfg4
http://snipurl.com/1xy
http://pass.maths.org.uk/issue3/fibonacci/index.html
http://www.branta.connectfree.co.uk/fibonacci.htm
http://ulcar.uml.edu/~iag/CS/Fibonacci.html
Um, I know there's a lot of controversy over MySpace and we're
thinking of abandoning our pages there but here's a site that, in
my eyes, is a lot weirder than MySpace. Parental discretion
required. http://www.flork.com/
A Firefox chat extension. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3330/
A rudimentary CMYK plug-in for the Gimp.
http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml
What is GPG? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPG
GPG for Windows. http://www.gpg4win.org/
New-pig? http://www.gnupg.org/
There are three people who seem to feel that their mission in
life is to see that I get at least one joke in my email every day.
If you aren't 'blessed' with friends like that but would like to
receive a joke every day, here you go.
http://www.caerleon.us/hb/
A surreal domain name generator.
http://www.immerse.org/surrealist_domain/sdng_frameset.htm
Other weirdness. http://www.immerse.org/eclectic.htm
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http://www.don-guitar.com/currentissue.html
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Meet people in your area who share your interests.
http://www.meetup.com/
Mouth and foot painting artists.
http://www.indiabuildnet.com/art/mouth_foot.html
Blog on web technology and science.
http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/
Neon art. Too cool. http://www.atelierduneon.fr/blues.htm
Geek heaven. http://www.neoseeker.com/
Pelee Island, Canada's Galapagos.
http://exn.ca/stories/1996/12/05/04.asp
Australia's web archive. http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html
Paleobiology and Biodiversity.
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/
Try out some of the best open-source software systems.
http://opensourcecms.com/
Open-source, general purpose graphics program for
Unix platforms. http://www.xaraxtreme.org/
Foreign exchange and currency trading information.
http://www.oanda.com/
Prevention magazine online. http://www.prevention.com/home
Internet consumer recycling guide.
http://www.obviously.com/recycle/
A supremely talented, brilliant man, we owe Gene
Roddenberry rather a lot. http://snipurl.com/wfkp
Writing code just got easier.
http://www.latenightrabbit.com/simple-organism/
Old wood for new instruments.
http://www.desertrosebanjo.com/oldwood.html
Old wood for everything else.
http://www.timelesstimber.com/
F. W. Woolworth, to whom we owe today's "dollar store".
http://museum.woolworths.co.uk/1800s-biogfww.htm
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Websites everyone should know about.
These aren't sponsors, they're the best of Internet
publications and I highly recommend them all.
http://askTCL.com
http://www.langa.com
http://www.tourbus.com
http://www.lockergnome.com
http://www.neatnettricks.com
http://www.scotsnewsletter.com
http://www.tricksandtrinkets.com
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
============== Humor =============
A little humor courtesy of my
web sibling, Vinette Dephillipe.
A man said to his wife one day, 'I don't know how you can be
so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time.' The wife
responded, 'Allow me to explain. God made me beautiful so
you would be attracted to me; God made me stupid so I
would be attracted to you!'
A man and his wife were having an argument about who should
brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, 'You should do it,
because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long
to get our coffee.' The husband said, 'You are in charge of
cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your
job, and I can just wait for my coffee.' Wife replies, 'No, you
should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should
do the coffee.' Husband replies, 'I can't believe that, show me.'
So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament
and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says
'Hebrews'
============== Tips ===============
Learning resources from Intel. http://www97.intel.com/education/
PC Lube and Tune is a Service Station and convenience store in
business since Feb, 1994 at Exit 130.132 on the National Information
Highway. An ordinary Service Station provides gas, sodas, repairs,
maps, and advice. The PCLT objective is to supply usable introductions,
tutorials, and education on technical subjects to the large audience
of computer users. The method is to supply system independent
hypertext files through the Internet and World Wide Web.
http://pclt.cis.yale.edu/pclt/
The Secret Guide to Computers. http://www.secretguide.net/
======== Reader Contributions =========
Links from readers are always welcome and
you can even write your own link descriptions
if you like. Guidelines are available here:
http://www.don-guitar.com/descriptivetext.html
=================================
Reader Bea Butler got a warning email from her sister which
didn't ring quite true so she checked it out. Have you seen
this bogus warning?
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/wtcsurvivor.asp
Editor's Rant:
Always check on any warning you get in your email, no matter
how plausible it sounds or how much you trust the person who
sent it. Anybody's email address can be faked and even if it
wasn't, any of us is subject to being preoccupied and having
the sort of momentary lapse that would let us act on something
before we've fully considered it. Everybody makes mistakes;
it's that simple.
If you get an out-of-the-ordinary or unexpected email from your
bank, ebay, paypal or any company with whom you regularly do
business, be careful of clicking on links in the email. Read it
carefully through, assuming that it's bogus, and if it actually
seems fairly plausible, go to the site via the permanent link you
normally use in your browser favorites, rather than the link in the
email, and log in. Once you're logged into the site, if the link in
the email is truly valid, clicking it will take you directly to a page
on the host site without asking you to log in again. If the link in
the email takes you to a site that asks you to log in, you may
safely assume the email is totally bogus, but don't just delete it.
Contact the company which the email is impersonating and
report it. Help them, to help you. They may want you to
forward a copy of the bogus email, to an address they'll
supply, before deleting it.
Thanks Bea.
=================================
I've got more reader contributions but I just don't have enough
time to work them up. Sorry everyone. I'll get them into the
next issue though.
=================================
I've been reading lately on the subject of 'simple living'.
Having a head start because of the constraints of
numerous sensitivities, I've found less and less 'stuff'
makes me happier and happier. When I make a purchase or
accept a hand-me-down from a friend, I ask myself,
* Do I need this?
* Do I want this?
* Do I want to take care of this for the next -- years?
* Can I use this and pass it on?
* Is it beautiful (or does it make me happy)?
Googling 'voluntary simplicity', 'free time', 'minimalism'
and 'what to do with your life' has been informative and
entertaining. So has research for this ezine.
We thank you for the impetus to research what interests
us--everything!
Lisa
Lisa's feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/lfefo.html
Don's feedback form: http://www.don-guitar.com/contactme.html
Lisa at myspace.com. http://www.myspace.com/81825549
Lisa's blog. http://blog.myspace.com/81825549
Don at myspace.com http://www.myspace.com/donguitar
Don's blog. http://blog.myspace.com/donguitar
Our personal news page.
http://www.don-guitar.com/babbleon.html
Don Crowder and Lisa Miller
Friday, September 15, 2006
3:40 AM CST - Buchanan Lake Village, Texas, USA
Served by the U.S. Post Office in Tow (rhymes-with-cow), Texas
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The most important people on the Internet, for you and I as computer
users, are software developers. The world's coolest computer, without
software, is like a car without fuel. It might look great, but what
can it do? It doesn't matter who produces the software you love and
use regularly, the developers of that software need your support.
A bit of advice from Internet veteran Bayard J. Fox:
New computer users are often in awe of the things you can get without
cost on the Internet. There can be hidden costs for the unwary. Use a
"throw away" email address to register, and be constantly on guard
against giving away personal information. Use a firewall, and provide
only the barest minimum of information on questionnaires.
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