Author: Olly

  • Chill the hell out about “Your Data”

    Every single day I hear a news report about how some new app is stealin your interwebz or how some new “thing” poses a danger to information stored about you on the web, and within offline systems like the NHS.

    This morning on the radio they were talking about a new scheme that the NHS are starting to roll out that allows the data from GP’s (your data! :P) to be used to improve healthcare and help improve medical research.

    Its worth noting at this point that your personal identity information IS NOT part of this data – only anonymous info about your medical history that is presented to them without being tied to you or any person.

    The radio presenter interviewed a few people who said that due to their “unusual” medical history, anyone looking at their data would be able to identify them without the need for it to have their name or anything next to it.

    I’m genuinely amazed people put up a fight with stuff like this. Why wouldn’t you want the info from your doctors being shared with the hospital? And shared with researchers that might be able to tell you you are going to get cancer at a certain age as they’ve been able to build amazing algorithms that analyze your family medical history, spot trends and report things before they happen?

    Its being able to harvest, analyse and utilise “data” that has brought us into the amazing technological age that we live in today. Google can assist you in your day-to-day life just because of the data you give them when you use their services. They’re not spying on you for sh!ts and grins, they are trying to make your experience of using their services mind blowing so you tell your friends and keep using them!

    It may just be me, but when I search Google on my laptop for a company that i’m going to visit – then get my phone out and Google Now has already loaded a tile up so that with one click, I can load navigation to the place I just searched for – my mind is blown every time. This is an example of Google “spying on you” and as you can see, its not scary at all 🙂

    Don’t get me wrong, there are bad guys out there that do want to trick you but if you stick to well known apps and websites and ensure you have virus protection and scan for malware on your PC – and only install apps on your phone from the Google Play store you should be OK.

    The next time you hear a news story about some big company stealing info, texting adverts to your mates behind your back or recording your private conversations without you even realising (Facebook messenger!) get in touch with someone who is in the know before you start ditching amazing services and products from awesome companies.

    PS Facebook Messenger is fine too – stop being dingbats!

  • 2014 Yahoo! Email Lottery SCAM

    Wow. I find the constant “evolving” methods used by scammers to extract money out people a continued source of major LOLs.

    The most recent Style of 419/email scam i’ve encountered is this beauty, from mr.swart.johan@outlook.com (nice to see Microsoft are still providing these knobheads with email addresses to use, first Hotmail and now Outlook.com – when will you clamp down, MS?)

    Anyway, it appeared like this – all official lookin’ heh;

    Email Lottery Scam

    And the attachment was quite clearly a word document (no threat on its own) so i opened it;

    wow_yahoo_lottery

    It definitely looks  authentic, don’t you think? 😛

    Its a sad state of affairs when such a badly designed POS like this can actually scam money out of people – but the fact is it WILL!

    If you get anything through on your email like this, first remember

    “If its too good to be true THEN IT PROBABLY IS”

    Secondly, remember branding guidelines – no multi million/billion dollar empire would allow their main logo to be SQUASHED like at the top of this document! Also Yahoo’s logo changed from that about a year ago!

    I know all these things because I’m in this industry, i keep up to date with changing branding and stuff as its an interest of mine, and also i have a tiny degree of common sense that looks at something like this and, without question, files it under B.

    If you are unsure or would like something looking into then please contact me either through here or through work and the team and I will happily advise and assist you in being able to spot these scam and how to officially report them.

  • Struggling to decide on direction

    My head is literally bursting with opinions and conversations that I feel I need to unload somewhere and I figured it would help me to write some of them down on my faithful blog, but when I start to write I just go on and on and on and on and before long I realise what I’m writing no longer reflects the initial subject I was writing about – and I just save it as a draft and forget about it.

    I just read two of them now and they both end up sounding like the beginnings of some new age scripture written by some crazed anti-society nut.

    Maybe that’s what I am. Hah.

    Anyway, I’m going to attempt to pull bits of them together pretty soon, I probably won’t include so much of the crazy stuff, maybe I’ll post them in the future when my opinions don’t get me into trouble as much.

  • Internet killed the [everything] star

    I often hear people talking about how “the internet has killed the high street” and to be honest, i’m getting really sick of it!

    The internet didn’t kill the highstreet – they did that all by themselves!

    In actual fact the high street could massively benefit from the internet if the town centre businesses started using it more to their advantage! Take Argos for example – they could have quite easily given up when the internet started picking up pace – as no one wanted their catalogs any more! But no, instead, they modified their business model and embraced the internet – now their “Click and Collect” model is being copied by Tesco, Asda and everyone else in-between.

    The internet has also made things like fashion, and the ever changing face of it, more accessible to the world. People know what their favorite celeb is wearing as they see it on twitter, and if the high street stores could react as quick as online stores do – they could still be in with a chance of getting the sale. People still like to try clothes on after all!

    The main issues as i see them are as follows

    • Not enough help from the councils and governments – give people free shops for 3/6/9 months and see if they can make it work. They’re all sat empty, so why not?
    • Business overheads – someone who employs 10 people cant compete with someone who sells from their bedroom – not a lot can be done to fix this apart from the bricks and mortar retailers making their offering better!
    • Being idiots – Making silly choices, bad advertising decisions and generally being crap at running a business. I have friends in business and they all do well – its because my friends are not idiots.

    Financially, the economy is on the rise and things are starting to look peachy again – if you have a business idea, if you want to open a shop selling something and its burning a hole in your head – then just go for it!

    What are you waiting for? 🙂