Martha's Ramblings

Email from Kay Granger, “How to grow our economy:  Tell me what you think’

In all honesty, I doubt Ms Granger has anything to do with the way this plays out, but I just had to post this.

I received an email from her or so it led me to believe.  Included in the email is a survey indicating what I think is needed to grow the economy. There were a number of things listed.  In order to check the ones I felt were most important, it was necessary to reply.  So I pressed reply, checked the boxes by the things I thought were needed and then I sent it.

Please note, there was an UN-CLICKABLE  line  ‘Submit and join’.

So then I got this message:
“This email address is no longer active. If you wish to send Congresswoman Granger an email, please visit http://kaygranger.house.gov and click on Email Kay Granger. For immediate assistance, please call Congresswoman Granger’s office at 817-338-0909 or 202-225-5071. ”

Excuse me?

So now, if I want to let Ms Granger know what I think is needed, I have to go to the site mentioned, click email Kay Granger, copy everything from the email she sent to me and paste it into a form! After SHE sent me asking me to tell her what I think!

(In all honesty, there WAS a link to take the survey on the web, but paranoid soul that I am, I hardly ever click a link in email. Since I have never contacted Ms Granger or her office, this email seemed a bit ‘spammy’,  and how did they get my brand spanking new email address to which this email was sent?)

I don’t think so.  What would you do?

Just another example of our incompetent Congress, or at least that is how it seems to me. At the very least there should be competent web/email handlers! But perhaps they feel the burden (once again) is on the tax payers to make our thoughts known.  In that case they are right.

But don’t do it this way!

Martha

Some time back I wrote a post about ‘Firefox cannot find the server‘.

I had to go back to Firefox as it just has too much going for it the other browsers don’t.  But I do use Opera and Chrome, rarely Internet Explorer (that ActiveX thing is still there) and rarely still, Safari.

Imagine my surprise when Google Chrome couldn’t find Google!

Martha

I keep getting an email from various friends and family about October having 5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. (This is true.) Then the email goes on to say “This happens once every 823 years.”  (Definitely NOT true!)

How can folks be so gullible!

Well if enough people say something, then folks start to believe it however ridiculous it may be. This is true of a lot of the junk emails getting sent around in cyberspace.

There are a number of sites that have taken the time to debunk (explain) the truth about this hoax. One is the Hoax Slayer and another is Snopes.

If people would just stop to think they might realize that some things just aren’t realistic, common sense should tell us it wouldn’t happen only every 823 years!

Martha

Another example of why our schools are so far behind other countries.  The people running the show have no common sense as evidenced by this incident, Toy gun leads to Florida boy’s expulsion.

Read more of the idiotic ‘zero policies‘ enacted by the idiots running the schools.

Rules need to be enforced, but circumstances must always be considered. Is it any wonder our kids are not competing with the world?  They think and rightly so, the powers that govern their lives make no sense, so why should they care?

I read about this stuff in total amazement that we trust our children’s education and futures to such total stupidity.

Martha

Today I called WalMart.  I know, but I wanted to know if they carried a particular item.

I almost fell out of my chair.  It rang once and a real live person answered!  No horrible automated phone menu! I almost forgot why I called I was so astonished.

Later I called AT&T to add a service to my account. Too bad, I got that horrible automated phone menu that makes me want to jump through the phone line and strangle the jerk that came up with it, if only I knew who it was.

Oh well, can’t have everything, but still I wish ‘customer service’ really meant something. Now it’s all ‘the bottom line’. Customer Service seems to be lip service and not much else any more.  I will say when I finally got a real live person, that person was helpful even though I could tell a lot of the time it was scripted.

Martha

Why is it so important to so many folks to have hundreds of friends on Facebook?

By far the majority of these folks don’t have a clue who all of the ‘friends’ really are and I suspect they don’t care. They just say ‘OK’ and ‘befriend’ anyone who asks.

Case in point.

I think that pretty much says it all.

Martha

I always buy my tax software and complete the return on my computer. I have always felt that online services of any sort are subject to hacking and who knows how these sites are really secure? (OK, I’m slightly paranoid!)

Several years ago I decided to ‘test’ the validity of the figures my purchased software produced, so I signed up online to a well known tax software site and input the data for my return.  Being the paranoid person that I am, all I put in for personal data was my name and email address that was required to signup.  No Social Security number, no address, etc. as I used the ‘fill out later’ option for those requirements. Once I determined my purchased software produced the same figues as the online version, I was finished and never went back to
the online site.

This year my paranoid feelings turned out to be right. I started recieving emails from this tax software company informing me that my electronic returns had been sent.

Now at first I thought this was a clever and well coded phish. It all looked very legitimate except for the fact the name of another person was included in the email. I decided I had better let this company know about the phish.  So I found a contact email and forwarded one of the emails to the company.

I was totally shocked when I received a reply saying the emails were from them! The email wanted me to provide the last four digits of my Social Security number and they would provide more information. Since they didn’t have my Social Security number, that was a bit of a problem.

When I got more emails telling me the returns had been rejected due to some sort of errors I decided to see if I could find a phone number and call these folks.

I spoke to a nice man and explained the problem. He seemed to think that the person who filed the returns had used my email address. Now that explanation seemed to be totally lame (and typical!) as I just can’t believe someone would use another person’s email address for something as important as their tax returns. However he spoke to a supervisor and then he told me I would not receive any more emails from them.

Wrong! I have received at least three emails from them since then and today I got one asking me to ‘Tell Us About Your Recent ‘removed’ Support Experience’ and complete a survey!

This experience has just reinforced my belief that some things are better not done online!

Martha

Be careful when installing some legitmate programs or you may get some stuff you don’t want.

When I installed the latest version of Java on my new laptop, I noticed that I was ‘offered’ Open Office as well. While I have nothing against Open Office, in fact it is a very useful and free office suite, and is installed on another of my computers, if I hadn’t been watching I would have got the download for OO as well and it is a big download.

I like Foxit Reader and I like it much better than the piggy Adobe Reader. But the download wants me to take the Ask toolbar as well and insists I do and not just in one place. To me this is just ‘shady’ practice. I recall another ‘offer‘ that wouldn’t take no for an answer and really made me mad! I am not alone, read Bits From Bill.

Now I read that Symantec is doing the same thing! Here comes the Ask Toolbar again!

Are these reputable companies now forcing unwanted apps on us just to pad their bottom line? You bet, that’s just what they are doing.

I understand when individuals that really need the money use Google Ads and that irritating Intellitxt to help pay the bill for their websites, but for companies like Symantec? Do they need the money that badly?

A word to the wise, unless you want all this ‘value added’ stuff, watch out while installing new apps! Getting to be more dangerous on the ‘net every day.

Martha

I normally do not post virus warnings, as they are generally hoaxes.

However since a lot of people will trust stuff labeled ‘Microsoft’, I deemed it necessary to warn folks about a new or rather updated and renamed, rogue antivirus/antispyware software being offered using Microsoft’s name.

For more information, see this site.

The spyware remover being advertised on this site is SpyHunter. The site owner could be affiliated with SpyHunter and I have done some research about SpyHunter. It is a legitimate program but is not among the top ten rated removers. It also has a name that was once connected with a rogue program that is no longer available. (I suspect they should have checked that out and didn’t.)

There are a number of sites that rate spyware removers, but without knowing whether or not these sites are affiliated with any of the programs it is difficult to decide which is the best.

If you want to check to see if your favorite remover is among the top scanners, here are a couple of sites to check.

Top Ten Reviews

Safer-networking

Just keep your spyware scanners updated and scan frequently to prevent malware from installing, and if a program has a name you think you can trust, check it out first!

Martha

All of us have endured the endless onslaught of Spam for a long time and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it in sight.

In the last few months I am getting ‘invitations’ from people I never heard of to join web sites of dubious value and motives.

First it was the invitation to visit ‘my Refriendz page and see my latest photos.’ I blogged about this a while back.

But now it’s a flood from Refriendz, FriendsClub, Question It, etc and of course Grouply. I expect others will soon follow. It makes no difference, it’s all Spam to me.

I am not sure exactly how these ‘social’ sites work and I really don’t care to find out, other than they annoy folks like me who do not want those spammy emails.

But Grouply really worries me. The concept sounds good, get all of your Groups emails on one web page. There is another way to get them all in one place, folks. Download the messages to an email program or to Gmail! That way you don’t compromise your Yahoo login and password by giving it to some website!

You say, well if some fool wants to give up his or her logging credentials that’s their problem. Guess what, it could be your problem and my problem.  All it would take is for some sneaky soul to scrape his Grouply site to a blog and your email address and mine are exposed to the world.

If you have a Yahoo Group and you don’t want your Group posts on Grouply you can stop it. Just use the information here to keep your members from belonging to Grouply if you wish.  Tell Grouply to leave your Group alone

Once you enter your Group’s owner email, you get a code to enter and then you can set the controls to allow or prevent Grouply from taking control of your Group.

Now Yahoo is trying to get in on the invitations. They call theirs ‘Connections’. In all fairness, they don’t attempt to have users send an invite to everyone in their address book, but some of these ‘Connections’ are a tad dubious.

I just wish these sites would leave those invitations, connections or what ever they want to call them, alone and not keep adding to the Spam in our Inboxes!

Martha