This is a personal rant about UK broadband, phone and TV provider TalkTalk. I've been in dispute with TalkTalk since 2010, or 2007 if we include the time TalkTalk has been over-billing me for my Internet service since it took over Tiscali. I understand service prices go up. That's not the problem. What is the problem is that TalkTalk have increased my bill from £9 per month to £25 per month for a below standard ADSL connection. TalkTalk's own website (not listed because I refuse to send any link love) says I can have TalkTalk Plus which includes phone, broadband and TV for £24 per … [Read more...]
Is Google Screwing Up?
May 17, 2012 by 2 Comments
No one can escape Google's relentless tweaks to catch spam and build search result accuracy. No one! Not even WPMU and JournalXtra. Panda, Penguin, Parrot... Okay, I made the last one up but the point is that Google is screwing up. When Penguin was released, WPMU's traffic dropped from over 8,000 daily visits to under 2,000 daily visits. At around the same time, JournalXtra's traffic dropped from over 1,000 daily visits to around 500 daily visits (still getting around 7000 daily page views though ;) WPMU uses white hat SEO techniques. JournalXtra is white hat. So what is going … [Read more...]
Jetpack Takes WordPress Stats into its Fold
August 26, 2011 by 6 Comments
As you might have noticed if you updated your WordPress plugins today, WordPress Stats has been added to the Jetpack plugin package and all future updates to WordPress Stats will now be done through Jetpack. Once Jetpack is installed it is safe to deactivate your old WordPress Stats plugin before authorizing Jetpack's connection with wordpress.com. If you're using multi site you will need to authorize Jetpack to connect to wordpress.com on a site-by-site basis. Glorious Errors Jetpack might hit you with a couple of errors when you try to connect it with wordpress.com. You might get the … [Read more...]
Scam Alert: US Department of State Visa Lottery Winner Email
July 15, 2011 by 198 Comments
Woohooo today is my lucky day: I won the Green Card Lottery despite being ineligible!!!! Below is a duplication of the textual content of the very official looking email I received today from gov.travel@usa.com (gov.travel@diplomats.com) telling me that all my dreams had come true and I have won a visa to live in the good ol' US of A. My email spam detector wrote the email off as "Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)". I completely agree with its assessment. The email states "You are one of the 50,000 winners selected by the computer random draw from the 12.1 million entries … [Read more...]
Why, Oh Why Is the Royal Mail So Difficult to Contact?
April 18, 2011 by 7 Comments
And I don't mean through post offices. I'm just venting here because I'm annoyed. Maybe I woke up on the wrong-side-of-the-bed, I don't know but what I do know is that Royal Mail's idea of customer service has royally pissed me off. It really does not do justice to the wonderful people who deliver mail or those who work in post office branches up and down the country. I've just spent over an hour of my time trying to track a parcel that was posted a few weeks ago but which was returned to a sorting office (or delivery center). One hour! A lesser man might have given up but I have … [Read more...]
PayPal Email Scam Alert
Most email scams are easy to spot but there is a new PayPal email scam that's a lot better put together than the usual rubbish. The email looks very official and the stated purpose of the email is plausible. I can see a lot of people being caught out by it. The email subject reads 'Please update your information' and the sender's email address appears to as service@paypal.com, which masks Support@PayPal-banque.com. Here is what it says: We need your help Dear Customer, We need your help resolving an issue with your account. To give us time to work together on this, we've temporarily … [Read more...]