Free loan at Kiva

I've made a free loan (financed by Kiva) at http://kiva.org/invitedby/alan3949

Walking directions from Guildford to Lifton

Google map's walking directions from Guildford to Lifton go via France and Eire:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Guildford,+United+Kingdom&daddr=51.23795,-0.83654+to:Lifton,+Devon,+UK&hl=en&geocode=FUPODQMdTUz3_ynfWZa3r8R1SDGhqOv5splmlA%3BFT7UDQMdRDzz_ylnQR1cIix0SDEQmY-tLa4OEw%3BFdDABAMdiKi-_ynDdIwzFGBsSDGMqhoclC9yDQ&mra=ltm&via=1&dirflg=w&sll=50.805935,-3.317871&sspn=3.610556,7.294922&ie=UTF8&ll=50.485474,-3.460693&spn=7.272199,14.589844&z=6

Facebook, https and ipv6

I wasn't able to set up secure browsing on Facebook using the old internet but, when logged in using ipv6 https://www.v6.facebook.com/Alan.Clifford, I was allowed to. On the legacy, ipv4 internet again, I was still set up to use https.

Chat seems to be no longer available on the Facebook site under the old internet but that doesn't matter; I use ipv6 at home and have Facebook chat set up in Adium anyway.

Theft of photos by deep linking

Stealing photographs from my website by deep linking is not without its perils.

Flash and auto iso on the Nikon D7000

The way auto iso and flash interact on the D7000 seems to have changed since the D80. And the new algorithm seems to make a complete pig's breakfast of the job.

Here are 3 photographs, all taken at f5.6, 30th sec.
The first is without auto iso and flash. Iso is 100.
The second is auto iso and no flash. Iso is 2200.
The third is auto iso and flash. Iso is again 2200. You can see the shadows from the overhead domestic lighting and it seems the camera is trying to use a mixture of lighting, squelches the flash and puts up the iso instead. But the white balance for the mixed lighting does not appear to work. And the iso is ridiculously high.

I've taken another photograph where the camera has decided to use f8 and iso 6400, 6400 being the maximum iso I've allowed. That seemed to have been a very daft choice for a combination of settings.

The algorithm seems all wrong to me.

Man fined for taking photo of woman being sick

Article in The Scotsman

There seems to have been three crimes committed here.

The sheriff is there to uphold the law; he is not there to abuse existing laws to impose his own morality on the public. The photographer did not breach the peace and was not behaving in a disorderly manner but the sheriff is trying to use these laws to bring in a "right to privacy" law by the back door. He should be dismissed from his post.

It appears that the photographer was assaulted by the friends. Why weren't they prosecuted?

Presumably the police arrested the photographer. It looks like a case of wrongful arrest to me.

Nikon photo contest international email problem resolved

I emailed Nikon. I had a couple of replies from various parts of Nikon and they fixed the dns problem immediately. Well done Nikon.

Nikon photo contest international email problem

The process to send your photos to this contest starts with filling in a web form with your email address and a password. They then send you an email with a website URL.

Unfortunately, although I can see from my mail server log that they attempted to email me, their email was rejected by my mail server because they sent from a non-existent domain:

Sep 1 20:38:16 malander sm-mta[22038]: m81JcGjv022038: ruleset=check_mail, arg1=, relay=mailx.photohighway.co.jp [211.13.226.3], reject=553 5.1.8
... Domain of sender address sys.npci@2008-09.nikon-npci.com does not exist
Sep 1 20:38:17 malander sm-mta[22038]: m81JcGjv022038: from=, size=0, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=SMTP, daemon=MTA-v6, relay=mailx.photohighway.co.j
p [211.13.226.3]


Maybe this is happening all over the world at this very moment and, if you don't have access to the mailserver logs, you wouldn't know why you didn't receive the email from Nikon.

After browsing my list of logins, I discovered that I already had been through this process about three years ago so they already have a (different) email address and password for me. But I am a bit reluctant to use it as they might try to email me again!

Photography in public places

Austin Mitchell has tabled an Early Day Motion concerning attempts to restrict lawful photography in public places in the UK. Please email or write to your MP (your MP can be found using your postcode here) asking him or her to support the motion.

The text of the motion is:

"That this House is concerned to encourage the spread and enjoyment of photography as the most genuine and accessible people's art; deplores the apparent increase in the number of reported incidents in which the police, police community support officers (PCSOs) or wardens attempt to stop street photography and order the deletion of photographs or the confiscation of cards, cameras or film on various specious ground such as claims that some public buildings are strategic or sensitive, that children and adults can only be photographed with their written permission, that photographs of police and PCSOs are illegal, or that photographs may be used by terrorists; points out that photography in public places and streets is not only enjoyable but perfectly legal; regrets all such efforts to stop, discourage or inhibit amateur photographers taking pictures in public places, many of which are in any case festooned with closed circuit television cameras; and urges the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to agree on a photography code for the information of officers on the ground, setting out the public's right to photograph public places thus allowing photographers to enjoy their hobby without officious interference or unjustified suspicion."

Have the euro MP's replied?

First off the starting blocks is Caroline Lucas of the greens. Just an acknowledgement from Cath Miller, Constituency Co-ordinator and Researcher, but certainly top marks for politeness.

An email to my Euro MPs about .eu domains

I followed the proposal over the years, and the eventual set up, of the .eu domain and was hoping to acquire clifford.eu. Unfortunately, this was acquired by a company called Direct Electronics inc, which appears to be a UK subsiduary of an American company.

I did feel it was wrong that a company could buy the name during the "sunrise" period rather than it being made to take its chance with individuals like me. But, OK, that was the rule, even if I think it was a bad rule. But I really object to the fact that clifford.eu is not actually being used. I guess that it was bought precisely for that purpose - to stop it being used. (This is verifiable because there is no DNS for the domain). So an American company has bought a .eu domain, is not using it, and is preventing a EU citizen, me, from using it!

All of the above does not break any .eu rules but what was the point of setting up the .eu domain just for companies to buy .eu domains and not use them? It would be interesting to find out what proportion of .eu names are being abused in this manner and how much tax payers' money has been wasted on setting up the .eu infrastructure just so companies can stop the .eu names from being used.

An alternative domain name would have been ahc.eu, ahc being my initials. http://ahc.eu is a website offering the domain name for sale. Again, this is not against the rules but, again, seems to have made the setting up of the .eu domain a pointless waste of time. I wonder how many .eu domain names come into this category?

Being a keen photographer, a domain like f8.eu would have been perfect for my website of photographs. So what is occupying this domain name at the moment? It's a page of click-through advertisements and again, the name is offered for sale. No rules broken but a pointless waste of time to have set up the .eu domain for click-through advertisement pages. I wonder how many .eu domains come into this category. How much tax money was used to set up all of this pointless infrastructure?

Amex and Halifax bank prevent payment

I am trying to pay my Amex account with my Halifax debit card. I reach this point on the Amex website:

"Please note: For added security your debit card issuer requires to authenticate your debit card details. You will be sent to your issuer's site temporarily. Once the authentication is completed you will be returned to the American Express site to continue your payment process."

On the website I am taken to, I am only given the option of clicking on a button that forces me to agree to their conditions of use. (I can't give the exact wording as the Amex website has gone into nightly update mode and I can't get back to the Halifax sponsored site). I do not want to agree to their conditions of use as they require a unique password and a unique user name and

"You are responsible for keeping your password and username secret. You must not write down, store (whether encrypted or otherwise) on your computer or mobile phone handset or let anyone else know your password or username ..." Strewth, I have about 100 of those and could not possibly agree.

Next step is to telephone the Halifax. I am told that authentication is an optional service, they cannot do anything and I should contact Amex. I ring Amex. They tell me that I can no longer use the website to pay my bill but I can pay over the telephone.

"OK," I say, "I'd like to pay my bill." Unfortunately, that was not possible as their computers were busy.

Why does software have to be "helpful?"

I copied some html into the Seamonkey mail editor.

This code

<ul type="square">
<li>Email: <a href="mailto:alan@clifford.ac">alan@clifford.ac</a></li>
<li>MSN instant messaging: msn@clifford.ac</li>
<li>Google Talk instant messaging: alanclifford@gmail.com</li>
<li>VoIP telephone on my laptop: sip:alan@clifford.ac</li>
<li>POTS to VoIP at a Guildford number: +44 1483 604719</li>
<li>Voicemail: on the VoIP address/number</li>
<li>Fax: +44 871 5042804</li>
<li>Mobile 'phone: +44 7980 418683 but in all probability it will either be switched off or will be using a local sim
with a yet unknown number</li>
</ul>


that should display as

• Email: alan@clifford.ac


• MSN instant messaging: msn@clifford.ac


• Google Talk instant messaging: alanclifford@gmail.com


• VoIP telephone on my laptop: sip:alan@clifford.ac


• POTS to VoIP at a Guildford number: +44 1483 604719


• Voicemail: on the VoIP address/number


• Fax: +44 871 5042804


• Mobile 'phone: +44 7980 418683 but in all probability it will either be switched off or will be using a local sim
  with a yet unknown number

(well almost like that as Blogger seems to be putting in extra blank lines)

became

<ul type="square">
<li>Email: <a href="mailto:alan@clifford.ac">alan@clifford.ac</a></li>
<li>MSN instant messaging: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:msn@clifford.ac">msn@clifford.ac</a></li>
<li>Google Talk instant messaging: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:alanclifford@gmail.com">alanclifford@gmail.com</a></li>
<li>VoIP telephone on my laptop: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:sip:alan@clifford.ac">sip:alan@clifford.ac</a></li>
<li>POTS to VoIP at a Guildford number: +44 1483 604719</li>
<li>Voicemail: on the VoIP address/number</li>
<li>Fax: +44 871 5042804</li>
<li>Mobile 'phone: +44 7980 418683 but in all probability it will
either be switched off or will be using a local sim
with a yet unknown number</li>
</ul>


which displays as

• Email: alan@clifford.ac


• MSN instant messaging: msn@clifford.ac


• Google Talk instant messaging: alanclifford@gmail.com


• VoIP telephone on my laptop: sip:alan@clifford.ac


• POTS to VoIP at a Guildford number: +44 1483 604719


• Voicemail: on the VoIP address/number


• Fax: +44 871 5042804


• Mobile 'phone: +44 7980 418683 but in all probability it will
  either be switched off or will be using a local sim
  with a yet unknown number

Those are not email addresses.

The html also contained a link to a photograph on my server at home. This was changed to an in-line link and the photograph itself included in the email.

Viewing child pornography versus killing babies

There was a very odd Any Questions program on BBC radio 4 today.

The first question was about looking at pictures of child pornography - not actually abusing children but looking at pictures on the internet. The second question was about abortion - the killing of unborn, human babies.

The conclusion regarding the first question was that people who look at pictures of child pornography, ie people who are not actually abusing children, should be sent to jail. The conclusion about abortion, ie murdering unborn children, seemed to be, although the panel prevaricated, that preventing abortion would infringe upon the rights of women.

It does seem very odd that the same panel and audience could come to these conclusions.

Knife on my hand baggage

Today at Frankfurt airport, a knife was discovered on my hand baggage by the scanner machine. The offense was caused by one of the patches on my logo festooned backpack.

I wonder whether this would have caused amusement to security staff in other parts of the world?

Difficulty closing a credit card account

I am trying to close an Alliance and Leicester credit card account. The trigger for this was that they started sending unsolicited credit card cheques.

They tell me it is closed. Then more unsolicited credit card cheques arrive. They tell me it is closed. Then today, about a month later, a statement arrives. Not a closing statement but a statement with a transaction on it. The transaction is "Interest £0." How can there be a transaction on a closed account? I asked Alliance and Leicester. I was told that the marketing department are 6 weeks behind. Since when are transactions on a closed account the marketing department?

If anyone would like to ring Alliance and Leicester and tell them that "Alan Clifford has closed his credit card account so please stop sending him stuff", the number is 08000 688 638. There is an irritating menu system but just wait and you eventually reach a person. Or +44 1244 673 700.

I couldn't find an email address but marketing@alliance-leicester.co.uk was accepted by their mail server. So send them an email, "Alan Clifford has closed his credit card account so please stop sending him stuff."

Other contact detail:
Alliance & Leicester plc,
Group Customer Relations, Customer Service Centre
Narborough, Leicester LE19 0AL
Tel 0116 200 4444
Fax: 0116 200 4150
Textphone: 0870 010 0161

What a pain

I received the minutes from a meeting with my intials changed from AHC to ACHE by the word processor. How can I use this? As an email signature perhaps?

--
ACHE
Always a pain in meetings

Hundreds of pregnant women at the dive show

We went to the diving exhibition at the Excel centre in London last weekend and as we got closer and closer to the centre, there were more and more pregnant women! It was rather surreal. But it was just the mother and baby exhibition happening at the same time which we didn't know about.

A deep link to my website

I discovered that someone had stolen one of my photographs and put it on their blogsite.

And not only that, it was a deeplink rather than a copy so that every time someone looked at his blog, the picture was downloaded from my home server.

And not only that, he'd use a big picture to download and just shrunk it in his display.

If he's asked, and put up a by-line, I would have gladly let him use the picture of my wife and me in China. Anyway, I sent him an invoice and, true to form, he didn't reply but he did remove the deep link from his blog.

Can a few billion friends on the internet stop some sms spam (part 3)

Had a call from, I think she called herself, the marketing manager and she actually managed to address me as Mr. Clifford rather than Alan. I sensed she was about to launch into a spiel of verbal diarrhea so I asked her if esporta would stop sending me sms's. "Absolutely" she said (whatever happened to the word "yes"). "Thanks," I said and put the 'phone down.

Maybe they will stop.

Can a few billion friends on the internet stop some sms spam (part 2)

Had a call from esporta tonight. I asked them to stop sending me sms messages. The girl came over all grumpy and rude when I said it wasn't me who had actually asked them to call me. Then she lied, saying that all I had to do was ask them to stop sending me text messages. I explained that I had already asked and still they kept coming. She put the 'phone down.

Can a few billion friends on the internet stop some sms spam

The story is this. I went for a trial day at Esporta health club in Guildford. Since then, they have been sending text messages to my mobile 'phone. They even rang me so I instructed them not to send me any more text messages. But they persist in continuing to send me text messages.

So perhaps a billion or two friends on the internet could send them an email with the words

"Please stop sending text messages to Alan Clifford"

to one or all of the addresses here: Guildford Esporta.

If you want to send the email from esporta.9.scatology@spamgourmet.com that is OK with me as it one of my blackhole addresses.

Alternatively, on that page, click on "make an online enquiry" and ask them to "call me now" using the following details in the web form:

Club location: Guildford
First name: Alan
Last name: Clifford
telephone: 07980 418683

Hopefully, with a billion or two emails from my internet friends, they might get the message.

Myth that Google search ignores "and"

Search for "michele and dani wedding" and then for "michele dani wedding". You get different results. At the time of writing, my website appears in third place if the "and" is present in the search but, without the "and", it doesn't appear until item fourteen.

This guy has written a book about searching Google and gets it wrong. On this website at www.informit.com, he states in "Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches, tip number 3", "Speaking of the words "and" and "or," Google automatically ignores these and other small, common words in your queries."

NO, IT DOESN'T!

And Google even throws up a line on the search page, "The "AND" operator is unnecessary -- we include all search terms by default". Erm, Google, your search engine doesn't behave in the way you think it does!

Travel Kettle

We wanted to buy a new, small travel kettle. There are travel kettles on sale at Heathrow airport, terminal 2 but they all have 3 pin plugs suitable for the UK. This seems very illogical as that is the one plug that is guaranteed not to work at your destination.

Never mind, I thought, I'll be able to buy one with a small two pin plug on my return. Sadly, Frankfurt airport didn't have any kettles at all.

Hiding those irritating "disclaimer" messages that other people add to your emails

I was trying to leave a <s> tag open at the end of my out of office message - I failed - but discovered by accident that I could persuade the program that adds the "disclaimer" text to add it into an html comment. Further investigation confirmed that the same technique could be used with ordinary emails using Microsoft's Outlook.

Start with this:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN'
    'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd'>
<html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>

<html>
<head>

</head>
<body>

<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<br />

<!-- end of email
</body>
</html>

-->

You can "save as" a copy to your local computer from here on my website. By the way, on my computer at work, "save as" actually produced "modify and add stuff", so you might like to look at the file with a text editor to remove anything you don't want. As you can see, the important bit is the end tags for body and html within a comment.

In the webbrower, use something like edit, select all, copy. Then create a new, html message in Outlook and paste to the new message. Add your message text above the line and send.

The mechanism seem to be that when you paste to Outlook, the incomplete html is detected during its "modify and add stuff" phase, the lack of end of body and html tags is detected and they are added. However, the program that adds the irritating "disclaimer" text seems to parse down from the top, finds the first </body> within the comment and adds its text just above it. The result is that, in the html version of the email, the disclaimer is hidden.

Language learning in England

The BBC reports on how we don't learn foreign languages in England. The BBC could do its part by broadcasting the Italian equivalent of Neighbours everyday during prime time.

Edward VIII postbox

I discovered today that the local postbox at Burpham is an Edward VIII. There can't be many of those about.

War on Moisture

A women was told she couldn't fly with her prosthetic breast because it was a security risk. And then she was allowed to. Which was the worse decision, the "no" or the "yes"? And which criteria, or changes in circumstance, allowed the "no" to change to a "yes"? Perhaps they waited to see if another gel breast turned up on another passenger with which to make the two-liquid bomb?

But wait, aren't humans about 98% moisture? And humans are still allowed on aeroplanes. Could two humans alter the moisture content of their bodies such that if they exchanged bodily fluids, there would be a mile-high club bang?

Banks still just don't get it

Credit card people rang today and immediately asked me to answer some security questions. "OK," I said, "prove you are the credit card company."

"I can give you a telephone number to ring back" she said. Duh!!! that's just a random number and not even the number on the back of the card.

I rang the number on the back of the card and eventually got back to the first woman so it was all OK. But really, did they expect me to just trust someone on an unsolicited telephone call?

A Photogram

I saw in Amateur Photographer that a Man Ray photogram has been sold for £232,000.

Here's one I made in the 1960's. Start the bidding at £100,000 for this genuine Sir Alan photogram.