HM2K

I have been on the lookout for a decent FTP Deamon/Server that runs on windows. Its not very often that I do require one, but every so often having one does come in handy.

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The thing that has been bothering me recently most of all, even more than online spam and junk mail, are telemarketing calls. I recently had an increase of unwanted telemarketing/telesales calls.

So I went stright onto the BT website, and went to their contact phone numbers list, I then called the “Malicious Calls” number on 0800 661 441.

They advised me to call two numbers, the first was BT Privacy at Home Service on 0800 121 8000. They told me to first signup to the Caller Display service (which is completly free, and takes about 24 hours to become active), and to register with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), you can also choose if you want BT to call or not (I chose no).

You can also register with the Silent Call Guard on 0870 4443969 registration is free, lasts for one year and takes no more than 28 days to become effective.

Although I HAVE signed up to all these services, I have to wait 28 days for anything to happen so I am STILL getting calls.

Did you know?

• Most telemarketing companies use a tactic called “predictive-dialing”. Basically what this means is that their computer auto-dials your number, assuming it will take you about 2 rings to pick up, before switching you over to the next available telemarketer when you do pickup, so as not to waste the telemarketers’ time while waiting for you to pick up, after all, time is money to them.
• Due to “predictive-dialing” if there are no availible telemarketers, the computer will hang up.
• Also due to predictive-dialing, you get a delay before someone says anything, apparently often they wait until you say “hello” twice before they pickup, therefore DO NOT say “hello” twice, as dialers register a single hello as an invalid number.
• Finally, when you suspect you are getting one of these calls (usually calling from an unknown or withheld number) simply pickup, and do not say anything, if you hold on the line, you may eventually hear a message that is designed for answering machines explaining that you have received a call from whoever is calling.

So I have decided to take matters into my own hands, the following list is simply a collection of things you can do while you wait for these services to come into action.

• Ask the caller to remove you from their database and put you on their “DO NOT CALL” list.
• You can report the caller to UK Data IT who will research it for you.
• Read the Ofcom Silent Calls FAQ – useful if your not sure what to do.
• Enigma Anti-Telemarketing Software v1.2 – An american based peice of software to make logs of callers.
• How to stop telemarketing calls – A useful website with information about telemarketing calls.
• Anti-Telemarketing EGBG counter-script – A counter script to use on telemarketers.
• Dealing with Telemarketing Slime – Counter-Telemarketing Tactics – Telemarketing Scum Page.
• Telemarketing Blocker – A free Caller ID screen software that retrieves caller’s telephone number using your voice modem.
• JUNKBUSTERS Anti-Telemarketing Script – Another counter script, american based.
• Telemarketing – A wikipedia definition.

Note: This document is aimed at UK anti-telemarketing only, I have no idea about outside of the UK apart from what I have read.

telemarketing.html

I have been looking for a decent FTP client for years, and now I think I have finally found it!

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These days I find myself buying all sorts of things off of ebay.

The problem I have found in the past is that I cannot keep track of the items I am bidding on, and then forget about them, consequently ending up with nothing.
I set out to find a FREE method of tracking eBay auctions. An application that allows you to snipe would be good too.

My first port of call was freshmeat.net, where I found:

• BidNobble – This piece of software looked great, however I soon find out that it doesn’t actually work correctly.
• eBay Agent – This was a nice application written in Perl, which could be run from a server however with no decent frontend.
• bidwatcher – This application was okay, the problem was it was slow, and this didn’t work properly either.
• Bid Monkey – Written in python, I tried this, I didn’t like it at all.
• JBidwatcher – Another java based Bit watcher, that is very poorly designed, and difficult to work with.

I crawled the internet for other applications out there, only to find they don’t REALLY exist.

In the end the best thing I found was a Google Gadget for Google Desktop called eBay Auction Watch. This plug-in is fantastic, its just a shame you’re forced to use it with Google Desktop considering it uses so much system resources.

Just before Christmas, I decided I was going to get an MP3 player for my girlfriend as she wanted a new mp3-player, as her 40gb one was too much and now old, so she was looking for something with around 4gb or 8gb of storage space.
A friend suggested there were tuns of 4GB MP4 Players on ebay, I questioned him and said, I wonder why they are going so cheap, his reply was thats because there are so many. I figured something wasn’t quite right, but as the sellers had over 98.99% positive feedback I figured it seemed like a half decent deal.

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