Microsoft Outlook uses American English in subject field when Australian English is the default setting.

Sometimes you see strange things when using computers. Ultimately it is simply someone has programmed something unexpected. Recently I noticed when I typed the word flavour, which was spelt correctly for Australian English, into the subject field of a new email in Outlook, the word flavour was marked as a spelling error.

I've not seen this before and I can't help feeling it's a recent change. The subject field is being checked using American English (which isn't correct) and the body of the email is being tested against Australian English, (which is correct).

I can only feel this is a recent change and a mistake by the programmer/s. I'm sure once they realise they'll patch the program and fix the issue.

NOTE: I did have US English installed with Australian English as the default. Removing US English made no difference.

At this time, the only way around this issue if you wish to make sure the subject of your emails is spelt correctly, would be to write the subject in the body of the message and then cut and paste the text into the subject field.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support.

Google Blogger exposing users to scammers. Reason not to use apps like Blogpress to post articles and photos to blogs.

These blogs use Google's Blogger. At one stage I decide to use an app to post articles to the blogs. Everything worked well.

For a while I've noticed images from old posts to be missing. Not good I thought. Perhaps Google's killed off another service I'm not aware of. But today things became a little more sinister. For some reason I decided to click on the missing photo to see what site it used. Much to my surprise it went to a scam site. As you can appreciate the last thing I want is for people going to my blog to be exposed to scammers.

So what's happening.

Some years ago I used an iPhone 4. I installed an app called Blogpress from the Apple store. Apple are very good in blocking scammers. So no problem there. However fast forward a few years and you can see how an app that no longer exists can be used by scammers.

What I didn't know was at the Blogpress stored photos on their own site and then my post provided a link to the Blogpress site. Blogpress has now died and gone. The photo in my post has now gone but the link is still there. The domain has now been taken over by someone else for nefarious activities. Even a search in Google for Blogpress returns a link to this site now owned by someone else. The site simply presents Google ads.

Clicking on the link in Google search results opened the following among others.

Therein lies the problem. The domain the third-party app Blogpress used and the live links in my blogs has now moved into other hands and is being used for completely different reasons. No way to report the issue to Google (as there's no real way to contact them easily) and the site uses Google's AdSense service so Google is even helping scammers make money.

Google should provide the ability to report nefarious sites people find in the Google search results. That would mean at least we can easily let Google know.

Now if like me you've found yourself in this situation, you need to go through your blogs and delete any reference to Blogpress. If you have thousands of posts this could be tedious to find every one.

To make my life a little easier this is what I did.

Export the blog using Back up content

Open the blog using Notepad

Search for src='http://photo.blogpressapp

In my case there were 14 entries.

Now for each entry you can find text that you can search for in Blogger and then delete the image. Not ideal as it takes time, but at least you have an approach.

NOTE: Weirdly some of the posts in the backup could not be found in live posts. That means some of the posts are not up for some reason in Blogger. That's a concern.

As for your images, they've most likely long gone. That's a problem with having your images hosted by another organisation. All is good whilst it is working, but always keep in mind you don't know what the future hold for the hosting company. We've seen companies like Microsoft dump hundreds of millions of users (Windows XP) as part of their business direction. Twenty million for their blogging software. If things aren't working for a company they need to close direction. Many fail and close down.

Lesson learned. Even with the experience and knowledge I have in IT, I'd not seen this before. I continue to learn which makes IT interesting. For some time it has been my desire to write my own blog software so I can incorporate posts directly in my site. Perhaps this is the bump I need.

Kelvin Eldridge

www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Just how fast is Vodafone's 1.5Mbps unlimited data when you've used your plan's data.

I use Vodafone as my mobile service provider and my internet service. Gone is the landline, ADSL2+ and no need for the NBN. With a bit of planning, patience and a bit of luck, I managed to get 100GB of data allowance. That's plenty for my needs. Yes the plan also includes unlimited national calls and text, and some 2,000 minutes of overseas calls. Vodafone even offers $5 per day where you can use your allowance when overseas at selected locations. Overall a pretty good plan for $50 a month.

However, and there's always a however, once the data allowance is up the speed drops to 1.5Mbps. At least you don't get charged (unless overseas). The real question is just how fast is 1.5Mbps. I decided to use up all my data for the month and test a range of commonly used services with the restricted speed.

First general internet usage for a single user you're probably going to feel everything is OK. Writing this post for example really doesn't use much data. Browsing the web, sending emails, no real problem. It's when you want to use a lot of data such as watching videos, that's when you may find the service not good enough. Of course if there's multiple users sharing the data, that could make a considerable difference.

How much data do you get at 1.5Mbps?

At 1.5Mbps there's 8 bits per bytes and 3600 seconds in an hour. Thus in an hour at 1.5Mbps you'll be able to download around 675MB of data.

Now if you're only interested in the results jump down to the conclusion section for a summary. If detail is your thing, the following lists the tests I performed. Not quite scientific, but should give you a guide in terms of performance.

Let's see how we go.

Initially did a few tests and the results were better than expected. However as I used the service for longer I found there were more delays and pauses. I decided the best way to test was to get a feeling for each service over time.

Samsung Galaxy S7 - mobile phone

10 app for catch up TV. Works well. No stuttering.

YouTube. Works great. No stuttering or delay.

9 app watching live. Works well. Short pause.

7 app watching live. Works well at first but then fails with audio only and a white triangle with an exclamation for video stating there was a technical issue. In other words doesn't work.

Acer notebook computer. Not very powerful but usually fine.

Watching my YouTube video (https://youtu.be/E2c36V6c5OM) of the red light camera on Warrigal Rd and Batesford Rd. Works OK but quality seems a little low. Checked and the speed was auto giving 360p. 

Changed the setting to 720p HD and the video frequently paused and parts were jumped. Not really usable at all.

10 catch up. Started with jumping, stuttering, adjusted fairly quickly with lower quality. Then streamed OK with the noticeably lower quality.

7 catch up. Started lower quality, paused a few times then OK. Pauses every now and then for more data.

9 catch up. Paused every now and then. Skipped some parts.

Older Apple TV (2nd version).

 The Apple TV was set to 720p HD.

Watching 10 Play. Selected Seal Team. Watched for five minutes worked well.

Watching movie trailers many ended to pausing to get more data. Could become annoying if this happens during a movie.

The Apple TV for a movie will download a considerable amount, perhaps 10-20 minutes before starting the movie. However you never know if movie will end up pausing to get more data.

Watched a TED episode. No issues.

Set resolution to 576p. Watching trailers paused multiple times to catch up.

Watched 10 Play. Selected Seal Team episode. Watched for 5 minutes no issues.

Google Chromecast 2nd Edition - cast from mobile

YouTube videos from app. Worked without a problem.

Hayu. Very poor quality at start but quickly came good. Then performed very well. No delays.

9 app. Cast live TV. Works well.

7 app. Cast live TV. Worked well.

10 app. Cast live TV. Worked well.

Conclusion

Overall you can't be sure which services will work and which won't. It really is a matter of testing each service you use. Even different shows on the same device produced different results.

With the reduced 1.5Mbps speed it can help if possible to reduce the resolution you're using. Less data increases the chances of a good streaming experience.

Keep an eye on other devices that you may be sharing the data stream with. Other devices or people sharing your data allowance could cause issues with streaming.

Before completing this testing I felt theoretically, if the video was streaming at SD quality, the chances would be good it would work. In general this has been the case, but not necessarily with all services.

Video streaming uses the highest amount of data. If video streaming works then other services that use less data should work as well.

Kelvin Eldridge

www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Update: 8/8/2019
Watched another movie yesterday, (The Ninth Gate) and worked well using Google Chromecast.

Update: 9/8/2019
Tried watching a movie (Robin Hood) on Apple TV. Took far too long to begin (much more than the 10-12 minute the message said on the screen). Time to load quickly dropped, then went up, then just went up and down and took a long time around the 8 minute mark. Decided to give up and watch using full speed.

Scam - NBN to cut-off phone service within the next 48 hours

Received a call today from a client. They'd just received a telephone call reportedly from NBN saying their phone service will be cut-off. The company had been trying to contact them for some time.

This is most likely a scam, although it could also be an overly eager sale rep trying to close a deal to get people to sign up to their NBN based service. Either way this is a telephone call you want to hang up on and then check your facts.

First in this case the NBN had only recently been installed and no notification had yet been provided on a cut-off date. Services will not be cut-off until 18 months after the NBN has been installed.

In addition you can go to the following NBN site and check when the cut-off date is.

https://www.nbnco.com.au/residential/learn/rollout-map

Enter your location and then click on the More address information link. In the information displayed you can now find the cut-off date.

It's a fact of life our telephone services are now becoming useless. Many people won't take calls now because most are scammers or marketers. Nothing the government does appears to work to stem the unwanted calls. Millions of dollars of lost income and much grief is caused by these callers. Hopefully the information provided above helps others avoid the scammers and less than desirable marketers.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au