To open or not to open

This e-mail came over the weekend - well written, good English, apparently genuine. Except that Google Mail, i.e. gmail, does not send these kind of messages. We didn't click on the link because common sense told us not to. So use your common sense and bin it.

One of the reasons we like Gmail

Click to enlarge

This e-mail just came in. See the notice at the top of it? That's one of the reasons we like Gmail. No, we're not trying to sell you anything, but as a general rule, those of us who are, shall we say, under-teched, and don't always remember to update our anti-virus, etc., we get some protection from our e-mail service provider. In any case, it's an interesting scam: One Adam George, supposedly out of a Lagos, Nigeria (a haven for scammers, indeed) pharmacy -whom we've never heard of, ever- wants to order a whole lot of medication from us, who are not in the pharmaceuticals business at all, at all. We're going to fall for it, are we? Many do, that's why they keep trying ... But Gmail tells us not to provide any personal information. Thanks, Gmail, and Adam George, go fry!

If you rent accommodation, and even if you don't, beware of this scam

We had the e-mail below twice in two days. Aside from the obvious ungrammatical English, th return e-mail address (a business would be likely to have its own domain, though in this case there is such a company in the US, not in Londonderry) and the fact that we're not a hotel or anything like, everything else could be genuine. However, when we googled the name of the signatory, one Dr. Hoffman, we came across a site called Anti-Fraud International (image), a forum in this case that soon put us on the right track. See the scam e-mail below, but DO NOT call any of the numbers or use any of the info it contains>

Too slow to work

All of Jimena, and as we understand, a good part of the Campo de Gibraltar, was without landline connection this morning - and as we write, the connection is a bit iffy, to be very polite. Some people had an Internet connection, others didn't. Banks and the Post Office couldn't operate, and we couldn't do a lot of this work, just as we come back from a couple of days off. Yet Telefónica ain't half fast at cutting you off if you don't pay, as someone said. Yes, we know; we're still on borrowed connections because we can't pay the bill. PLEASE TELL US IF YOU HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH THIS TODAY! (Photo: illustration only - but you knew that.)

Did you know you have 24/7 access to the Town Hall?

JIMENA What is being called an Oficina Virtual is now available from the Town Hall. This new online facility is part of a 2007 law that ordered all municipalities to offer direct access via Internet to their principal functions. Thus, Jimena's offers a total of 32 procedures that can be managed this way, 12 of which refer to the Padrón (register of inhabitants), 9 regarding town planning (Urbanismo, including building licenses), 5 on citizen participation, (Participación Ciudadana), 3 about local taxes (Tributos) and 2 on the cemeteries. Naturally, these are all available in Spanish only, but>

Did you see Google's tribute to John Lennon?

John Lennon would have been 70 today if that shithead (no need to excuse the French it's what Mark David Chapman is) hadn't shot him dead on December 8, 1980. Anyway, Google has paid tribute to John: if you click on the drawing, you'll hear a little of one of his best post-Beatle songs - and, because Google now owns the world, you'll be transported directly to the what else but Google page for John Lennon. We like the little movie (Google also owns YouTube now) that accompanies the music, but they went a little OTT, don't you think?

Have you checked your speed today?

We often run a speed check on our Internet connection, usually through www.bandwithplace.com and especially when it seems to be slow, like today. There's not a lot one can do about it (except perhaps relax and wait for the US to go to bed...) but it's as well to know what the difference is between 'download speed' and 'upload speed'. The simple answer is: Upload is when you put some of your stuff like music files or picture files from your PC to the internet, while dowload is when you take files from the internet and download into your PC. There is a more thorough answer here.

WARNING: This is a scam!

Having received this e-mail (image, click to enlarge), we contacted its sender, Jean Sassoon, who told us that the problem began last Thursday, when several of her friends called to ask what was going on. Other friends, alas, sent money without checking first. We offered to put up a warning, for which Jean thanked us and asked us to also offer her apologies for the inconvenience, but it is not her fault - her e-mail account was hijacked! Some more information:>

Are you having problems with Hotmail?

If you Google 'problems with hotmail' you'll get over 95 million results; 'problems with hotmail today' elicits over 22 million. Not many are dated this very day, most results go back several years. Why do we mention it? Because over the last week or so we've had several local reports that say we have been sent comments, e-mails or photos and we have not received them; nor have several e-mails we sent to Hotmail accounts been received. All of them would have come from a Hotmail account if there weren't a problem. We're trying to find out what the problem is, whether it's global, European or local. If you have any news, please let us know.

Internet problems for days and days ...

We have to admit we're lucky today in that we haven't had any Internet problems. However, according to them who know, 'a hub' must be down somewhere. If you call the Telefónica number you will get a message saying that, indeed, there are problems 'in your area' andthat they 'will be fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, cash machines and bank computers are non-functional, as iare the connections for many private users. This usually happens when it rains, but it hasn't lately, has it?