We seem to have reached a new era of fake news. The article here, suggests how you might detect fake news. Worth a read!
Robin
Sunday, 12 July 2020
How to Detect Fake News
Anyone who reads the news media knows that much of what is posted is intentionally fake, intended to align our views with views of others and their agendas, or fake because the authors are incompetent or stupid.
Tuesday, 7 July 2020
Barossa Valley's Chocolate Company - a Great Attraction
I'm sure everyone likes chocolate, I know I do but I purposely avoid it most of the time.
Despite so-called "scientific" reports suggesting chocolate is good for us, it is chock-full of calories and a challenge for some of us watching our calorific intake.
If you're one of those lucky people who can eat whatever you want, or young enough for the rot not to have set in, you'd be able to pig out here. There's certainly plenty of variety.
Although the Barossa Valley Chocolate Company is only a few kilometres from where I live, I've driven by numerous times but never visited. Today on my daily walk, I thought I'd walk in and take a look now that businesses are returning to normal.
The Chocolate Company has a wine-tasting centre that was closed and a restaurant that had the government proscribed maxima of attendees, so I couldn't buy the flat white coffee I'd intended to. Next time.
I took a few photographs of the nicely decorated and laid out areas inside. The different colour scheme for various types of chocolate is visually attractive as you can see from the photos.
There are also small packages for gifts set up to make the task easier eg, one gift has a mug filled with chocolate options.
I think a good strategy for buying chocolate would be to visit the cafe first and buy lunch. After lunch when you are no longer hungry, then go look at the chocolate.
That way, there's less of a chance you'll overdo the chocolate purchasing and blow your budget.
One of my favourite chocolate recipes - that includes peanut butter (I love both) I got from Chocolate Covered Katie (Doesn't the name say something?)
Robin
PS: What's your favourite chocolate? You don have one don't you?
Tuesday, 30 June 2020
How to Lose a Customer by Dell
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| Dell Receipt |
A couple of days ago I ordered a new laptop worth $1258 dollars. I placed the order online and used my credit card to pay for the purchase. As part of the credit card processing activity, my bank sent me an SMS message with a code that I had to enter online before the payment would be authorised.
The payment was authorised which meant that Dell had my money. I received an official Dell email telling me that they had received my order and a confirmation would follow soon.
The next day I received an email from Dell that had all the hallmarks of attempted fraud. Although it quoted my correct name, order number etc, it was poorly formatted and looked amateurish. My first thought was that fraudsters had intercepted my order or otherwise obtained details of my purchase.
The email asked me to provide an alternative email address and verify my residential address. This seemed strange since I had already provided those details.
I replied to the email stating that I had already provided the details and had no intention of providing them again as I deemed it unnecessary when Dell had already been paid.
I received another email asking for the same details and advising me that I could cancel my credit card order and send money via a bank transfer. This made me even more suspicious.
The author of the email advised me that they required verification because I was using a "free email address".
To my knowledge half the world uses free email addresses. They had my money, my phone number, my residential address and my email address. What more could they want?
Because I expected this was an attempt to defraud me or Dell, I cancelled my order and ensured the $1258 was refunded.
If it was an attempt at fraud by a third party, then obviously it's no fault of Dell's, however, if it wasn't a fraud attempt, it demonstrates what would be best called a piss poor business practice.
The concept of a customer for life doesn't enter my thoughts now that I think of Dell. They've lost me forever.
Robin
Tuesday, 23 June 2020
What I love about Gmail
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| Photo by Kon Karampelas |
There are also numerous subscription email clients like ProtonMail that also have free (limited) versions.
Many of them are no doubt excellent but if you've been using the same client for years, perhaps it's time to review whether it is doing exactly what you want. Or perhaps you want an alternative email account for a business, sports club or another specific purpose.
For example, you may want a "conservative" account for business purposes and a less conservative account for general communication. When I was involved in recruitment for an Australian Government agency, you'd be surprised at the number of email addresses that applicants submitted that were really inappropriate eg, "hotrodjamie@something.com" or "pleasurepuss@something.com".
It's not a good look when you're applying for a job!
Why I love Gmail
I've tried numerous email clients throughout the years and I love Gmail because it's:
- easy to load and use
- available on all my devices
- available to use offline
- capable of using encryption for all messages
- capable of providing rules for filtering
- able to send "out of office" messages
- has a confidential mode
- allows multiple addresses to be used receiving and sending email
- is free with plenty of storage
- able to download and distribute large attachments
There are several features you may not know about, so I'll briefly explain those.
Encryption
Some email clients provide it, some don't.
Encryption means that between you and your recipient, your message is encrypted and if intercepted by a third party, cannot be read. These days, this should be a necessity.
This is another great capability designed to improve security and privacy.
With confidential mode you can:
Prevent your messages being forwarded, copied, printed or downloaded, set an expiry date and require a passcode to access. The code can even be sent to a recipient via SMS.
These features are recommended when sending information that is sensitive. For example, if I sent my bank account details to someone, I can use confidential mode.
The expiry feature means that a day or two after I send it, nobody else will be able to access it.
With ordinary email, although it's encrypted during transit, while it sits in your email sent box and your recipient's inbox, it's vulnerable to being viewed by someone else using your device or who may have hacked into your device.
It's an excellent feature and one you shouldn't live without.
Multiple Addresses
There are two parts to this topic. One is about your email address that can use a suffix and the other about the different incoming and outgoing addresses you can use.
First - Gmail provides a capacity to add a suffix to your existing address eg, say your address is charlie@gmail.com. You decide to sign up to a subscription with G-Man Magazine. Instead of using your charlie@gmail.com address as is, you could use charlie+gman@gmail.com.
Adding the suffix provides several benefits. You can use as many as you want for different people and organisations and when you receive them use a Rule to Filter them into a specific Folder.
If you find a specific address you have allocated is spamming you, you can set up a Rule to Delete the messages when they arrive. You can also contact the organisation to which you provided your address and inform them about the spam.
There are several other alternative characters and options you can use. If you want to explore it further, look in the Gmail Help section.
The second option relates to alternative email addresses you might have. You can do this:
- Set up another Gmail account and redirect it to your charlie@gmail.com inbox. My wife and I use this setup. We have a formal address we use for business matters such as dealing with banks, insurance companies etc. I explain how it works below
- Receive email from alternative email client accounts in your Gmail inbox and send replies using that account's email address and not your Gmail address
Case Study A
Belinda and Charlie DOE are a couple. They share a common email account for their combined business and family affairs and have separate accounts for themselves to use with friends.
Their common "formal" email address is: bandcdoe@gmail.com
Belinda's personal email address is: belinda@gmail.com
Charlie's personal email address is: charlie@gmail.com
They have set up their respective personal accounts ie, belinda and charlie to receive everything sent to bandcdoe@gmail.com. Every formal email that involves their family goes to each of the inboxes so both Belinda and Charlie know what is happening. They never have to check the bandcdoe account because it has been set up to forward every incoming message to both of them.
When either party replies from their personal accounts, the recipient will see that it came from the joint formal address. However, if one partner sends an email from the formal address and wants the other partner to know, they need to CC or BCC them at their personal account.
Case Study B
Belinda has a cosmetics company called BC Cosmetics. She uses a Microsoft Outlook account for all company correspondence. Her address is info-bcc@outlook.com.
Belinda decides she doesn't want to open her Outlook account every day to check her email, so she has set up Gmail to receive email sent from her Outlook account in her personal belinda@gmail.com account.
She's also set up Gmail so that when she replies or sends a message from BC Cosmetics via her Gmail account it appears to have been sent from her Outlook account.
Conclusion
Using the features provided by Gmail can make your communications efficient and uncomplicated. I've been using Gmail since it first appeared and have not come close to filling the free 15 GB storage capacity it offers.
Another serious consideration is the encrypted email. According to Australia's Scamwatch businesses are being scammed when, "Scammers intercept legitimate invoices and change the details to include fraudulent payment information. The recipient will pay the invoice as normal and not realise they have been scammed.”
You cannot afford to use email that doesn't encrypt before sending.
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