Bruce Schneier's Blog on passwords, security and security technology

Final chapter of The Powered Hub.

Following the lead from my gurus around here I have junked the seven socket hub and recovered two four socket hubs, both Belkin, that were in a drawer. They work perfectly and the annoying 'USB drive not recognised' has gone away.

This was the criminal.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=45619

Barge poles at the ready. Luckily I did not pay 29.99. They must have upped the price to deter mugs like me from buying them.

TP

TP: That's great, glad your problem is solved.

USB hubs seem to be of very variable quality, and the 7-port hubs seem to be the most susceptible.

Is it possible to have skype on a IPhone 3G i understand that the 3G network have some phones that have this ability but i also think they work on a differant network to all the others but i was just wondering is this possible with a app as i have never heard of one before.Gut feeling tells me its not possible.

And i have just checked the skype website and yes they do a app for the IPhone so will be uploading over the weekend,this phone just keeps getting better all the time.

Mega: And the Skype app works very well - but some carriers will not let you make VoIP calls (such as Skype) over their 3G networks - it's a revenue issue. But your iPhone will work fine with Skype on WiFi. O2 will et you use Skype chat (text) over 3G, just not VoIP. In the US, AT&T finally relented and you can now VoIP on their network.

Thanks Delboy for the information.

Had a few problems with my PC's after updating windows this weekend.

Desktop running Win XP
After updating Windows was getting runtime error on Panda Internet Security 2010. Had to uninstall and then reinstall Panda.

Laptop running Win 7
I purchased my Win7 licence from Ebay about 6 months ago. Installed Win7 no problem, it passed authentication and has been fine for 6 months now. After updating Win7 I now get a message saying that my key is not genuine and I need to purchase a genuine key.

Anyone else had problems?

Jeffmack
Getting something similar with one of my xp versions although second version, from same installation disk, is running normally. 7 also OK.
It's not too difficult to get rid of the messages re genuine validation which appear on boot up and the effected disk will run normally but you won't be able to update it any more.
I think that micro must have a bit of a campaign running to shoot down pirated versions.

if you buy broadband and you have to subscribe to their telephone line rental, do i cancel the line rental with BT???

If you have a UK landline then (in most cases) BT own the line, so you have to still pay them for the line even if the broadband contract is with some other company. However many broadband suppliers offer a deal where they pay the rental for you, so they should notify BT of the arrangement.
Initially, my advice is not to cancel anything with BT as getting it re-instated is very tricky & very pricey.

Can anyone recommend a decent, reliable Broadband/Telephone supplier?
Alternatively a reliable, trustworthy free email provider of an uncomplicated system compatible with Thunderbird?

I'm currently with Virgin/NTL but have had a bellyfull of them making a total lash up of hiving their email off to Google Gmail.

There are still lots of ongoing problems for many users despite the migration having taken place about 2 or 3 weeks ago.

My big issue is that I don't trust Google in terms of security & privacy one iota, and that they seem to be trying to persuade people to use the webmail site rather than getting it via Thunderbird etc. Emails continue to sit on the server after delivery to the end user and I don't want to keep having to access the web site to delete old mail, and to check whether anything that should have come through has been flagged as spam and held back.

ChuffChuffChaser: Well, I can't help you when it comes to whether you should trust Google's Gmail or not, but I can tell you that you can configure Gmail to delete mail automatically from Google's servers after you've downloaded it to a POP client like Thunderbird. Specifically, you have options to keep it in the Gmail inbox, mark it as read, archive it, or delete it.

I don't know what the blessed Virgin have offered you in the transition, but what I've listed are standard Gmail options.

Also, Gmail's spam filter is reckoned to be one of the better ones.

MM

MM.
Do they actually delete it or block access?
mac

Tks MM. I don't know if the Virgin interface to Gmail allows files to be deleted automatically as I haven't, as yet, been able to find it, but it may be there somewhere but well hidden.

Gmail may well be fairly efficient & reliable but my innate paranoia doesn't allow me to trust Google. They've become too big and too ambitious in terms of what they do, allegedly for free.

Everytime I go in to VM mail I am exhorted to use the webmail rather than an alternative. Why do they want everyone to leave their email on the servers? They now provide users with 7.5gb of storage per account, which will accommodate a lot of messages.

Can't help suspecting that Google are likely to do some data mining to provide themselves with a larger income stream from advertisers.

I'm currently trying out www.inbox.com as a possible alternative to see if it serves my email needs. Their free account provides 5gb per account. I haven't entirely mastered to the link to Thunderbird yet, but when I do I might stay with them, & ditch Virgin completely for everything.
Alternatively it might be TalkTalk for phone & bb as my brother is quite happy with them.

Sky switched to Gmail a couple of years ago. Aside from one or two early teething problems, it's been fine and their spam filter is effective as MM says.

I would have thought that your own email client will control if or when emails are deleted on the server after retrieval and download. MS Outlook includes those options for sure.

I'm on TBird 2 & in server settings have "leave messages on server" unchecked, so once downloaded to my PC they shouldn't, in theory, be on the server afterwards.
On the old Virgin system this was how it worked, but now they still show up as being on the Virgin/Gmail server.

ChuffChuffChaser:

I'm unsure of how Virgin's gateway to Gmail works, but with regular Gmail the following works:

If you go to www.google.co.uk, you will see a menu item 'Gmail' in a horizontal list, top left. Click on that and it'll take you to a Gmail login screen. Enter your Gmail username (which will be your email address) and password.

This should log you in to your account and display your inbox (needless to say, this is the Gmail web interface). Top right, just beside your login name, you will see 'Settings'. Click on that.

In the middle of the horizontal menu you will see 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP' - click on that. You will now be presented with all the options for mail forwarding and, in particular, under 'POP Download:' see option '2. When messages are accessed with POP' and you will see you can select 'delete Gmail's copy' in that dropdown.

Hope this helps.

MM

Can't log into Gmail direct. If I enter my existing email address (***.******@ntlworld.com). Also If I go to Google I have another address, ***.******@ntlworld.com.test-google-a.com which also does not allow me to access Gmail

CCC: I think I'm beginning to understand your frustration. Where did that wierd second email address come from?