David:
"Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) machines dominate the makeup of the botnet, a clear sign that the latest version of Microsoft's operating system is falling prey to attacks."
That they show up at all is a clear sign that SP2 is falling prey to attacks
Its probably dominating because its probably the most common OS on the Internet which (combined with its userbase) is highly vulnerable to trojens.
David:
OK, I'm stressed enough that I set up https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ as a blurb
This is a very badly designed site
They won't let me not provide an email address ...
... even though I picked the "Contact me only by post" option
Then I have to pick which direct debit payment scheme I want ...
"Monthy" is a required field
So are "Quarterly" and "Annually"
And the "" to indicate a footnote references a "footnote" at the top* of the page
I gets worse
"You'll pay for your first licence by Direct Debit in equal monthly payments within the first six months."
Why can't I pay for it across 12 months?
"If you don't already have a licence, or your current licence has less than six months to run, you'll make fewer but larger payments."
My current license (which is not my first by direct debit - my next one will be my first by direct debit) has about 1 month to run
So I get to make fewer larger payments?
OF WHAT SIZE?!
"After this, you can start paying towards your next licence in 12 monthly instalments of around £11 per month (six payments before it begins and six after). These payments will always add up to the same amount as the annual licence fee."
After what? After I've paid for my next license in "fewer than 6 equal monthly payments" I get to start paying for my next license?
So does that mean that in fewer than 6 months I get to start paying for a license that won't start to take effect for 13 months from now?
------------
OK, phone call over
So with the monthly payment plan, you basically pay extra until you have paid for 6 months in advance
then you keep payments to keep yourself 6 months in advance
And with quarterly, you pay for 3 months at a time, a few days before those three months start ...
... and that counts as being in arrears and you get charged extra.
So basically, your options are:
1 - pay for each year in advance (on average you are 6 months in advance)
2 - pay monthly ... but 6 months in advance
3 - pay quarterly, only just in advance, but with a premium slapped on top
ats: Yes, you've got to love the license fee. I do wish they'd just make it a tax, which I'm sure would save a large chunk of money...
David:
Probably ...
I just wish they weren't so unclear about what the payments were
David:
Windows systems have a tendancy to be configured to hand over CSV files to Excel
Excel files can have macros in them
Macros can do bad things
So if I email my office account a CSV file, it gets stripped in case it has macros in it
%$£^£$^£
David: A few years ago I wrote some Perl to take JavaScript and so something sensible with whitespace (mostly by adding it)
Today I revisited it (as I'm trying to make sense of some third party JavaScript that has been run through a minimiser)
And I also found a bug - since its not being entirely successful on the JavaScript I've been trying to understand
Maybe its time I cleaned up the code, fixed the newly discovered bugs, and got it onto CPAN.