How many times have you seen the above title? Have you seen it so many times that you were about to skip this blog post all together? Don't panic I am not introducing some get rich quick scheme although I am writing about what I really hate about them!

If you have ever seen adverts on TV that show some poor bloke in a so called dead end job and that he can solve all his problems with a career in IT. All he has to do is get some qualifications from them and he will have a marvelous car, large figure salary, a large house or supervising people working for him. So many of my friends in IT laugh at these adverts, the adverts seem to make it seem so easy. The truth of the matter is, is that when people hire people in IT one of the most important things they look out for after qualifications is experience, actual implementation of what you have learnt for at least 2 years min or more. Don't get me wrong we all have to start somewhere and the money you spent on training will take a long time to pay itself back or for you to see the benefits. There are plenty of other ways to get into IT but just like any other profession it takes time and some people will pick it up and others will find they are better suited to other careers.

The other thing that annoys me is work from home scams. We would all like to work from the comfort of our own homes and earn lots of money for it. Scammers know this only too well and prey on desperate people or those who would just like to earn some money working from home. Usually this is mothers who are always at home taking care of kids or our parents have seen it and thought it might be a good idea. Some of these scams are so intricate, one of them was a CD sent to a friend of mine containing a professionally done video showing a happy couple driving expensive cars and living in a house the size of a small shopping mall. The couple went on to talk about how successful their lives were thanks to this scheme they had come up with. The funny thing about it is how they talk about how wealthy they are and how good their life is, but nothing about how the scheme works. This is usually saved until the end, where the scheme is revealed it usually involves buying 200 copies of the CD to flog to some more unsuspecting people for 50 pounds each! So how do you recognize these pitches?

• The scheme talks more about the benefits than it does about the actual scheme
• You need to purchase something
• You hardly have to do any work just sit back and wait for the money to come in.

Just remember working from home or running a business from home is not easy in the slightest, being your own boss, while it enables you to decide what times you want to work or how much you want to work. If you don't work you are probably not going to earn any income and then starve ... its that simple. Being your own boss also means going on holiday or taking time off sick means no income.

You would have thought buying an LCD TV was easy if you had saved enough cash, it was the first time I had bought one and I had seen a DGM 32 inch display going for £344 pounds at DABs. I jumped at the chance and and when this lovely TV arrived I plugged it in and was almost immediately dismayed to see 2 red pixels glaring at me (ahhhhh!).

Oh well I thought having never bought an LCD TV before I just logged into DAB's site and registered for a faulty return and booked a courier on DAB's site to pickup the TV. It was just going to be a question of them seeing the fault and saying "Oh its faulty lets send this fellow a brand new TV as a replacement" right? Wrong! Apparently so many manufactures have a policy on what constitutes a faulty LCD TV screen,  according to a certain standard depending on how big your screen is depends on how many faulty pixels your screen has before they agree to replace it!

So lets take that into perspective, if you have a 32 inch LCD TV with 3 faulty red "stuck" pixels, and when you watch your TV that is all you think of as it ruins your viewing pleasure. The manufacturer will not consider it faulty as it does not fit  within their 5 or more faulty pixel rule for your size of TV! So you shell out all of this money for a faulty TV that they will not accept as faulty or replace by their standards! The thing is they don't make this very evident on DAB's website when buying an LCD TV what you have to expect and its all hidden in their help section. The problem I have now is that DAB's do not believe in phones so its very hard to contact them about anything especially when you can't get onto a computer with an Internet connection to use their online chat and the only way I was able to find their "email us" form was by searching for it on Google! Anyway the TV is being collected tomorrow and I have put a note in the box, having not been able to contact them I have not really been able to talk about the fault and how I only read about the returns pixel policy after the return had been logged. I have now asked if I can have a refund as part of their 10 days no quibbles refunds policy. Hopefully I can get my money back and go to AriaPC these guys if you pay £35 extra will test the LCD TV of your choice before sending it to you for faulty pixels! What service! I only wish I had found these guys earlier. I have a feeling I am going to have a lot of problems with DAB's....

If any of you read my wife's blog you would have seen the post about how our cat Lucy bit me (pictures included), followed now by how I have started suffering an infection for which I need to take antibiotics for as a result of the bite.

Now I have been bitten by a cat once before. This was by one of our other cats Oliver

and this was caused by me trying to give him a worming pill. Oliver doesn't like worming pills and decided to bite me for my efforts, for which I had to have an anti tetanus injection. Of course back then I didn't realise that Oliver would do anything for ham and I could have wrapped the pill in the ham doh!. Lucy on the other hand must have been spooked, I picked her up like I always do but this time she struck out at me and I had to quickly throw her away from me, as she set her teeth into my hand. Funnily enough now Lucy is acting incredibly cute, as though nothing has happened trying to get me to pick her up again and brushing past me making cute meowing sounds. Urrrgh cats can be so unpredictable!

I've been very fond of PC2Paper its been a site that has grown in its own little way since late 2002, and with recent changes has shed it old 80's looking logo in favor of a more modern web 2.0 style logo.

It does something that sounds rather simple and which several web sites have started to copy over the years and that is send letters and cards from the Internet. A clever idea that appears to have worked well for.

• People unable or who do not have the time to go to the post office
• Companies who can't afford their own mailing department and prefer to outsource their letter sending.
• Backpackers and students away from home sending letters back to the UK for relatives and friends who do not have Internet access.
• Older people who are unable to get to a post office because most of them are now closed in their area.
• Traveling business people who need to send letters on the fly and need it to appear coming from the UK.
• Web sites that need to send out paper versions of receipts 
• Allow the sending of one off large mail shots without needing to recruit staff to do it for you.
• The list goes on...

Tags: sendletters, realletter, snailmail, mail, PC2Paper

Ever had a problem receiving mail on your email server?

I run my own email server at home and recently noticed that I was unable to receive mail from services such as hotmail. The mail would be in the inbound SMTP queue spooling and then it would just suddenly stop and drop the connection. Mail from services such as Gmail were fine and I couldn't understand what the issue was.

Then I made the discovery that after updating my server I had forgotten to update the servers MTU. What's an MTU (Maximum transmission unit)? Well all you need to know is that its a setting on your network card and it will probably need to be set to 1458. Take a look here to get a tool that will set it all for you.

If Hollywood has taught us anything about house buying in creepy films you should check:

• The house was not built on ancient Indian burial ground
• No one died in the bath
• If its a mansion and its been sold at a fraction of its real value, its probably haunted
• The house was not built on the ground of an ancient orphanage. According to Hollywood bad things usually happen here and there will be ghosts
• The house was not built on the grounds of an old hospital, ghosts of dead patients.
• Find out if the previous occupants are still alive
• Find out if the previous occupants had a tendency to go crazy with chain saws
• Check the basement for a doomsday door or well with a crazy creature inside it.
• Check if anyone of the previous occupants were burnt alive for witchcraft. She/He will probably haunt you.
• If your dog, cat, mouse or what ever creature you have acts strange in the house or barks/squeaks at thin air don't buy it, its probably haunted.
• If your kids suddenly start having imaginary friends they never had before that ask them to climb on the roof of the house, its probably haunted.
• If your kid finds a strange scary looking doll at the new house and starts acting strange take it away leave it in the house and run. Its probably haunted.

We all despise being cold called by someone from a country on the other side of the world, we in most cases cannot properly understand, who can only follow a cold call script and do nothing else.

I admit from time time to time when I have been bored I used to get great enjoyment out of asking them questions that were not on the script.

"You are offering me a great phone deal?"
"Yes sir I just need to take your"
"Do I get free home insurance with that?"
"No sir.."
"How about air miles"
"No sir it is a new Nokia phone its a good deal there is nothing to pay for 3 months its all free"
"And how many of these phones can I get?"
"Just one sir I can take your..."
"And I get free home insurance with the phone?"
"....No sir its the best deal a Nokia.."
"But what good is a phone to me without home insurance?"
[click]

Now they have discovered just how annoyed we have become with call center staff we are unable to understand and who can do nothing more than follow scripts put in front of them they have started using automated cold call center systems. Yes you guessed it.

"Hi this is XYZ company offering you a great deal on home insurance if you'd like to learn more please press 5!"

Now who on Earth is going to buy home insurance from an automated call system? What a flaming cheek! The thing is it must work or they wouldn't try it, right?

Now I have always been a big fan of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse although I can't help but find some of the sketches in their new comedy show together Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul a bit lame and in many times un funny. Some of the sketches seem a bit extreme in my opinion and I found myself not laughing at all and struggling to find the funny side of it especially the sketches to do with Nelson Mandela. Now a show I did find funny was The Fast Show, don't get me wrong I did find some of the sketches funny in Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul but not on the same level as the The Fast Show. Maybe its early days yet with this comedy show they usually take a while for people to get to know and love the character right?