The Complete Guide to Computer Security, Part I

Randall , as always , your stories are a delight. I wish you would come more often and post your journals.

As to gmc's thoughts as to your accent, for some strange reason, when reading your posts I always "hear" it as Fyfe Robertson talking (famous BBC correspondent/broadcaster). I really dont know why. Maybe your relaxed style of writing

[gmc]

posted by arnold Layne

Randall , as always , your stories are a delight. I wish you would come more often and post your journals.

As to gmc's thoughts as to your accent, for some strange reason, when reading your posts I always "hear" it as Fyfe Robertson talking (famous BBC correspondent/broadcaster). I really dont know why. Maybe your relaxed style of writing

An aberdeenshire accent has to be heard to be believed-it's one of the most incomprehensible even to other scots. if you can listen in to radio scotland travelling folk where the presenter is aberdonian with a highly modified accent you might get an idea.

Originally Posted by randall

randall thanking GMC for all his - or her - advice,
The help line gentleman was very, very soft spoken even when asked to speak louder and I assume he was Indian as he had that almost Welsh tang about his voice.
Polite in the extreme.
Well, I got onto the Internet and as the the writer said, I meant Internet Explorer NOT "OUTLOOK EXPRESS"
My problem is now, that when I am on a page and it says click here to see another part of the programme I come up against a white sheet with "THE PAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED." AND THEN A WHOLE LOT OF PRINTING TELLING HE TO GO TO TOOLS AND SELECT INTERNET OPTIONS AND SO ON.
I have done all that and in desperation sent off another E-mail to Tiscali rather than telephone because then I have hard copy to guide me.
Am I a NATIVE? - well, during all my apprenticeship as a marine engineer I was called a "HALF CASTE"
Discrimination is not limited to colour or sex as Matthew Wright found out to his dismay when he suggested last week that drugs should be tested on criminals, murderers, rapist, paedophiles and REDHEADS!????
He was snowed under with telephone calls and e-mails - I am a Scot and a red head - and if you mess with us - as the American lady said a few months ago, we don't just fight back we get even.
Apparently there are about 3% redheads in Wales and England but about four times that in Scotland. You think I digrees but I am not as you will see.
We suffer physcal pain more than any other people on earth. The black man on Matthew Wright's panel said that to be a redhead is the nearest a white person in Britain can come to feeling being treated as a coloured person.
We are not all bad tempered - fiery tempered is the usual term. As soon a we walk into an interview room they are scarcely interested in what we have to say as they have already made up their minds on seeing the red hair that they are definitely not going to employ us.
Bullying at school is the first initiation - I certainly was and didn't know why. My father said that it was because I was too stupid and should stand up for myself more. "I'll give you half a crown for every black eye you bring home." he promised.
I have lost many jobs through this even when the agent showing me into the room told me ,"I think you will definitely get this one as you have more qualifications and experience than all the others put together - I did not get the job - the interviewer, in Glasgow, was an American so I can hold that against him too.
The recent finding in Dundee about the causes of eczema and asthma - which equals red heads also (generally) - plus the freckles, may make our descendent's less picked upon.
At school the teacher always ignored you even though your hand was up to answer the question and usual picked the person immediately behind you.
No one wanted ot play with you or wanted you on their team.
So I taught myself tennis by the simple process of going up to the tennis courts early and grabbing the young school girls - a year or so younger than I - with the offer of paying for their courts ( six pence for half an hour) and so learned the basics from them.
One Saturday I arrived early at the usually empty courts and the local champion turned up and as there was no one else to ask - after all I was not allowed to join the club - he asked me if I would like "A hit around".
I beat him soundly and within a week was asked to join the club.
The name half caste came from the fact that in Buchan people have extraordinarily long memories - I mean ones that go back generations.
I had one grandmother from New Deer and the other from Lonmay. Only one grandfather was from Buchanhaven and the other from St Monance in Fife.
My two grandfathers were dead long before I was born - about twenty years and my father's mother died at least ten years before I was born so I only had my mother's mother as a grandparent.
She lived in Pittenweem - that was twelve hour journey by train in those days -and I only remember her just before she died at the beginning of WWII as an old irascible, cantankerous bad tempered old woman no doubt formed by the hell of a life she had. Her husband died at 39 leaving her with eight children of which only six survived
To feed them she had to get up at ungodly hours to go down to the fishmarket, buy, clean and fillet fish. Carry them in a basket slung over her shoulders and then walked God only knows how many miles around the countryside selling them to the farmers for vegetable, eggs, butter and the like which she then had to sell back in town.
I always wondered, but was never told, how on earth my fishing parents knew about so many farms and farm families.
My mother was born in the "HALLELUJAH LOBBY" in Peterhead. A large tenement building opposite the old baths and lifeboat shed but so mean are the people in that town that they called her a FIFER (derogatorily) all her life.
I really wanted to be a joiner and had all the tools of the trade before I was fourteen but just would not be accepted into any joiner shop.
In my forties an old joiner/cabinet maker was helping me with the repairs of a wall in my house.
"Why did not you not get into P......... to serve your apprenticeship?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I don't think it was P.... I think it was A....."
"How on earth could it be A.... I never even knew the man until I returned from abroad. And he is a lot older than me." I thought a little. "What on earth had A... to do with P...?"
"A... was his sleeping partner. Few people ever knew it." was the astounding reply.
"What on earth did |I ever do to upset a man I didn't even know existed.?" I asked.
"Well, you see it might not have been you he had a grudge against but it could have been something your parents, grandparents or great grandparents did to him or his family in the past or even the distant pass. You know what like this place is?"
Obviously I didn't.
I was flabbergasted. It meant that real or imagined wrongdoings in Buchan are passed down from generation to generation of the "victim's" (real or imaginary) and never laid to rest.
Worse than the Hill Billies, I thought.
Yet, the book, "The 100 Crappiest Towns In Britain" had Peterhead as 39th and the reason given was far too few pubs and far too many (about 36) religious places of worship.

The only effect it had on me was to have absolutely nothing to do with the fishing industry - no one could then imagine how mechanised it would become so that nowadays ONE BOAT can bring in in ONE CATCH which a whole fleet of hundred of old fishing boats could bring in in a week.
So off I went to see the world in the merchant navy hoping never ever to have to live in the Buchan again.
Unfortunately, I had already started courting a girl from out in the country and she wanted to return to "her ain folk".
Now, thirty odd years later she says, "What on earth ever possessed me to return to this place after a wonderful life in Hong Kong.
So, GMC, my accent is not what you imagine, or alluded to.
When shopping abroad my wife invariably discussed prices in Doric - which the Edinburgh Assembly recognise as a language in its own right.
We even have been asked if we were Russian, German, Australian and one English lady asked me what part of England I came from.????
About ten or twenty year ago a lady Anthropologist from Chicago University came ot work in Marischal College in Aberdeen. Her purpose was to study the local people and their tongue/s.
She said that the last time Buchan was ever invaded was over 4,000 years ago by the "BEAKER PEOPLE" from Friesland, now in north east Holland. She also added that the bloodline has remained comparatively pure since then.
I paid off a ship in Vlissingen (I believe English history books call it Flushing) and we arrived by taxi at a family hotel very late at night where they unexpectedly gave us a good instant meal.
The youngish lady, and owner, at the reception desk greeted us in Dutch and I politely replied that I knew no Dutch as I was from Scotland.
"But of course you are Dutch. When I saw both of you walk through that door I knew immediately that you both came from Friesland!"
I think that American academic was right.
God bless.
Sorry the epistle of St Randall took so long.
randall


"Life's Funny" Reputed to be Doc Holiday's dying words.

As a native fifer I can sympathise with your mother-but like you I have lost the accent and couldn't put it on for the life of me-but leave me with a fellow native for half an hour and it comes roaring back.

We've got friends who come from rural northern germany and relatives from rural austria that speak a dialect of german that seems to be the equivalent of german doric. It's surprising the number of old scots words and old german words that sound the same. same with some old yorkshire dialects and north german.

So all these church going, goodliving people worship God every Sunday with huge bibles under their arms and all those evil thoughts in their hearts.

Ah the tut tutters that go to church and buy the news of the world on the way home so they can tut tut at the depravity of the godless and stare google eyed at all the nude women.

try control panel, network and internet options, and then set up and change your internet connection. There should be a wizard that will guide you through setting up a connection that will ask if you have a CD from the ISP provider. There should have been a CD with the tiscali broadband that you can put in that point that will set it up for you.

[randall]

Shame you, a Fifer to boot, randall was always held up to ridicule when coming home from a visit to Pittenweem - children switch accents in a matter of days. YOU MUST KNOW THAT.
My daughter, born in Hong Kong was always asked "to speak funny" by the children in Boddam as they thought her accent was hilarious.
After living for years in Southsea, five in Saudi, two in Dallas, five in Linlithgow and now three in Tampa I describe her accent to all and sundry as "Mid Atlantic"
It seems to satisfy them?
Traditional we northerners always understood that the best English spoken in Great Britain was from Inverness.
The BBC certainly used a lot of them and for a long period in my life it was an Inverness lady who "taught" the newsreaders pronunciation, etc. before they went on the air.
Living there for a while as a teenager I found that it was cultivated as they all hoped for good jobs in the south. The children who played with me were told off in front of me for having picked up "bad habits" whilst playing with me - i.e. my accent, dialect and words.
The most incomprehensible accent I have ever found in Scotland is Glaswegian
I have always said that they are not part of Scotland as they seem to have culture all of their own and a language to boot.
Or has GMC never worked with them.
On the MV "Norse Pilot" the whole engineroom staff were from Glasgow and made no bones about not wanting me either as a second engineer or a chief.
From the very first hour they told me to my face that they did not want an "EASTCOASTER" in THEIR CROWD!
Even when writing notes to each other on the engineroom blackboard they would write as the spoke - no break, no punctuation and I cannot describe the spelling.(A bit like trying to decipher the old Bible codex's : no breaks, no capital letters. etc.)
It took me the best part of two weeks to understand what they were saying and even longer to decipher their hieroglyphics - so be a little more kinder to Doric. The Edinburgh Assembly has so it cannot be THAT incomprehensible.
By daughter is a fascinating mimic and I defy anyone to tell where she is from when she uses a North American accent, Doric, Fife, Glaswegian, Australian and even Pukka Sahib Indian.
I am sorry to say Arnold Layne that my voice is only as gravelly as Fife Robertson. To get the true gist of his voice you have to have a wee bit of The Gaelic in you - which I admire very much as within my lifetime there were people from as far south as Embo ( on the North Side of the Moray Firth) who could speak no other tongue. I
t is only a few generations ago that it was spoken in Buchan too.
Though, likely, in their own inimitable style with a lot of the Germanic words stuck in.
Everyone of our lads who were prisoners of war with the Germans say that they could speak German within weeks and all came home speaking it perfectly.
On German ships the Germans were always wary of me because they had not the foggiest idea of how much of their language I knew - hearing is vastly different from speaking and even my wife surprised my superintendent in Antwerp when he spoke to his sidekick in German and my wife burst out laughing.
"I dd not know you spoke German." he said in that tone of voice only a German in control can project.
"I don't." she replied.
"Well why are you laughing.?"
She stuck her face close to his and said, "You told Herman that he was to take us to the 'Laching Coo' for a meal." and added impishly "Laching -. Ha, ha and coo, moo, moo."
He almost killed himself laughing.
"The only tragedy with you John, he said, is that you have never been on an all German speaking ship or you would be a fluent as me.
The officers were alway British and the drew either Filipino or Kiribati with an occasional German bosun, mate or junior engineer.
The "Laughing Coo" is still there just off the central square, with a huge plaster cows head above the door and a big laugh on its face. and a place I would recommend to anyone needing a quiet drink, a bit of company and a dance. My wife was never off the floor as man after man whisked her away to dance on the small, slightly raised wooden dance floor - they had the usual live music, an accordion, a fiddle and a violin.
Buchan has suffered two devastating events which many scholars feel it has not recovered from yet.
The first is known as "The Harrying Of Buchan" by King Robert the Bruce's brother, Edward Bruce and the old record say that "He spared neither man or woman, bairn or beast" - in other words he laid the place bare without a living thing left on it. This may well be a slight exaggeration but it was brought about by the fact that Bruce murdered the Red Comyn in the Church at Dumfries and the he was the leader of a huge dynasty which had the greater claim to the crown of Scotland.
Alexander Comyn held Urquhart Castle in Loch Ness and it is in the vicinity of this castles ruins that most sightings of the "Loch Ness Monster" have been recorded.
He wisely surrendered it to Bruce rather than fight and retained the castle as well.
"The Beast of Badennoch." was also a Comyn famed for his cruelty and destroyed Elgin Cathedral. Edward Bruce was actually invited by the several dozen Kings of Ireland to be THEIR KING because they could not agree amongst themselves and died during a cavalry charge in one of the many battles be fought there. He had also led the Scottish Cavalry at The Battle of Bannockburn.
The second devastation of Buchan was much more recent.
In 1716 Prince Charlie's father the true heir to the throne after Queen Anne arrived at Abernethy, now part of Peterhead, and spent at least one night there before being persuaded that there was neither money now men to support him in a battle to claim the throne of Great Britain.
But, as almost everyone one knows his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie did repeat this in 1745 and it ended in the disastrous Battle of Culloden which was fought by a starved and tired Scottish army who had marched most of the night before; a night of wind and heavy rain.
They had no cannon and few guns and the battle was fought against the advice of all the Clan Chiefs who seemed to have no influence over Prince Charlie's favourite adviser, some General Sullivan, an Irishman.
The chief wanted, as was sensible, to take to the hills and fight a guerrilla campaign but at the same time would not disobey their lawful king.
Their loyalty can be measure by the fact that any highlander could have received a literal fortune if he would only betrayed the whereabouts of Charlie. All the highlanders knew where he was at any particular moment. It was a well kept secret and yet they were protecting a man who had literally destroyed their way of life for ever not counting the thousands who had died for him.
The Duke of Cumberland - known a "Bloody Billie" by all Scots to this day - had every wounded man on the battlefield murdered.
As his cavalry had little to do with the actual battle. ( It was over before they could rearrange themselves.) He gave them permission to ride along the Moray Coast and down the coast of Buchan and slaughter whomever they happened to meet.
"I must give my loyal Dragoons some little sweetmeat to cheer them up since they missed the battle."
So once again an almost unopposed army swept through Buchan with rape, pillage and burning of buildings on a grand scale.
Most of those killed probably knew nothing about Culloden as it was more than a hundred miles away but that counted for little.
It may interest some that scholars are coming to conclusion that "BRUCE" is a version of BRUGES in what is now Belgium - so Robert the Bruce is correctly titled as "Robert of Broges" - or at least his grand or great grandfather was and they married into Scottish Royalty. His mother was definitely a Celtic Princess and he, like Sir William Wallace (who was not royalty) spoke at least, The Gaelic, North and Lowland Scots, English, French and Latin - Wallace went on diplomatic mission to at least Paris and Rome.
How many of our politicians today can boast of such abilities.
Comyn was the De Comyn and probably came across with William the Conqueror and also married into Scottish Royalty and ruled over very large areas of the northeastern and north of Scotland.
ON three names are entitled to wear Buchan Tartan, The Comyn (Cummings, etc.) Buchan and Niven's(McNivens, etc.
In recent years it has become very common for surnames to be used as first names in Scotland such as Buchan Baird, Strachan Anderson, Ritchie Sutherland.
The wonder of language is that it is never standing still and continues to grow richer during everyone's lifetime.
God bless.
randall
enschultensiebitte, kommen sei herin

[randall]

randall back having a thought,
NOW THAT IS ORIGINAL?
This DORIC thing has all but obliterated the name of this "FORUM" "The Complete Guide To Computer Security."
Modern anthropologists regard "DORIC" as a separate language in its entirety and not as a regional accent so why should you be asked to understand it. Do you understand Finnish?
I admit that we water it down - like whisky - to a degree where those with an understanding of english can understand us.
One very famous Scottish writer, man of letters and politician says in the preface of one of his books.
"I thank God that my parents brought me up to be be bilingual." He was from Buchan.
As to my computer problems which ave been with me ever since the computer was invented - they continue.
I have little trouble getting onto the internet now but on any page which says click here to..... IS ABSOLUTELY FATAL.
i AM IMMEDIATELY CONFRONTED WITH A WHITE SCREEN on the top of it is written the words, this page is unavailable at present.
The ISP had to give me en emergency password to get onto the net.
Change it immediately you get onto our home page.
Guess what - when I click the button "To Change Passwords" the white Page comes up.
I see a lovely car I would like to win and "Press Here" - Guess what - The white page appears.
It is frustrating to say the least.
Now, having installed my new multifunction printer/photocopier/scanner which I had to buy when my old printer gave up the ghost just AFTER its warranty expired.
I now have tried to put my old scanner back on line - because I like the way it works, especially with photographs - and up pops a notice please set your resolution to 800 x 600 or greater and reinstall.
MY MONITOR'S LOWEST SETTING IS 800 X 600 AND IT CAN'T SEE IT????
I TRIED HIGHER WITHOUT ANY POSITIVE RESULT; 1075 X 750 OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
SO ! ? I DECIDED TO GO THE WHOLE HOG AND SET IT AT ITS HIGHEST LEVEL (around about 1200 x something) AND WAS CONFRONTED BY A SCREEN OF UNDULATING WAVY BLUISH AND GRAYISH LINES.
Mucking about I eventually got at least three versions of my DESKTOP (TRANSPARENT) on top of each other right across the screen. with tiny icons I needed a magnifying glass to read!
It took me the best part of a day to get that sorted out - please don't ask me how - I just did.
Now I am sending e-mail after e-mail to Epson asking for ex plantations as I have given them a lot of money over the past few years.
Both Epson and Tiscali are answering my letters but even when I use the telephone - expensive - I find that they have never heard of MY problems and usually ask me to hang on whilst they consult a colleague or another computer - with me paying the bill.
Nothing ever happening to me that is on their list of FAQ
One computer serviceman said in the media recently that most of his money is made on call outs where all he has to do is either increase or decrease the size of the black edge around the monitor screen. £50 or more a time - great work if you can get it.
So the Northern Saga of randall's computer ills continues.
Soon I'll be forced to do a lot of pruning and gardening and wont have to the time to muck about on stupid errors inside my computer. It is getting warmer.
God bless.
randall
"To everything there is a season."

[randall]

randall back again,
Thanks to GMC and all my friends who answered my query about my computer problems despite making jokes about "MY Mither Tongue"
The result so far has been thus, despite all their sophisticated equuipment (I assume - or do I assume too much) Tiscali finally came back to me and told me that they copuld find no fault between them and me and then proceeded to give me the folllowing rcommendations.
Download Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird and get rid of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.
This I have done and so far there has been no recurrance of the prvious problems althoug, being a canny Scot, I told them that I woulkd let them know later on if things proceeded a smoothly as they have today.
I remeber reading a post by an American busninessman who said that he blest the day that Mozilla was developed as he was able to get rid of Microsoft totally with all its daily problems.
Incidentally, and American businessman said that the had probalems with Microsoft right up until he "SAVED" everything every night when he stopped work and since then had "lost" nothing.
What does he mean "saved" in thsi context.
Simply putting them into files or actually putting them all onto floppy disks or DVD/CD's???
I am so ignorant.
I had a DVD burner installed a copuple of months ago but was givne no instructions with it.
I thought that you simply stuck a CD into the CD drive and copied it onto the DVD burner drive.
After ruining several disks , now I know that is not true.
Does amyone know of a simple - preferably thin book - that gives beginners a good guid on how to do it.
The serviceman installed "NERO 6" which appears to eb a German programme.
My son in law used 1 Click which I beieve is American.
My lack of local contacts in the computer world (who are willing to tell me anything) really shows up in situations like this.
I have just found out that DVD - R is different from DVD + R.
P.S My spell checker still has not reappeared! Darn it.
God bless.
randall


"Life is hell and then you die!."

[gmc]

Keep internet explorer as there are still some sites where you will find the web designers have designed it to work with only IE.

Do you have a firewall installed? to remind you of something I posted earlier

Do you have a firewall on your computer? If you do it may be that you need to alter the settings-some sites use cookies or web bugs to transfer info from one site to another, unfortunately some sites also place cookies to spy on you or to take you in to sites you don't want to go near so most firewalls tend to block then initially and then ask if you want to allow them. It may be you have them blocked without realising it. With some firewalls you can alter the settings for individual sites.

Same with Mozilla. Go in to tools, options and you will see a panel asking what you want to do with cookies etc. You can also set it so any cookies etc are deleted when you close the browser down so anything placed to track your web activity is theoretically removed.

I suggest you also have a look at openoffice.org if you want an alternative to MS office.

Re scanner-go to the manufactures web site and see if there are any drivers available to upgrade the ones you already have-the driver is what they call the software programme that controls the scanner

http://esupport.epson-europe.com/Sof...CEB20F5C2D7D05

http://www.expansys.com/forumoverviewcat.asp?man=EPSON

This one is also good if you need help as well

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/in...689&forumid=20

Re CD writer-open up nero and you should be able to change the language setting. It is a German company.

try this site:

http://www.nero.com/eng/index.html

There is a link in to a support page and also tutorials.

I would suggest you have a look at external hard drives. They have come down considerably in price thanks to all the people who want to save downloaded music-plug it in and back up all the data you would want to keep in case of catastrophic failure of your computer.

I suspect the American may be being facetious. Though that might assume a sublety of wit pushing the bounds of credibility.

[randall]

Hi GMC, randall here,
Many, many thanks for that long post so full of hints, tips and information.
It'll take me a wee while to absorb that lot but I will let you know later on how successful it has been.
I was infuraited this morning watching the BBC News (BREAKFAST) when assiting them to read the "papers" was an ex- New of The World" edito called Phil Hall who made some very drogatory remarks about Donald Trump "wasting" his money by intending to build a new luxury golf course north of Balmedie
He even said that would have to be shut siz months of the year! I assume he was referring to the weather.
"Hasn't he looked at the weather forecast this morning." was another comment.
So I have just sent off about six hundred words to "News Watch" containing a brief history of all the northeastern golf courses such as the huge golf course hotel at Cruden Bay complete with a narrow guage raiway line from Ellon to serve it, built by North British Railways and demolished after WWII.
What a money earer it would be today as a tourist atraction - like the Formantine and Buchan Railway Line it could still be relaid today given the politacl will power and money. UIt even continued onto Boddam which would have been a great help to the RAF for fifty years.
In its hey day it played host to the multi milionaires of the world who anchored their massive steam yachts in Cruden Bay.
Such off the cuff remarks by ignorant people do nothing to close the north south divide.
Thanks again for your information.
God bless.
randall.

"If you get all steamed up either the safety valve will lift or the boiler will exploded."