Charles on… anything that comes along

According to this page, Since 11 December 2003 it is unlawful to send an unsolicited SMS marketing message to an individual.

I’m an individual. I got a spam text from Club Mobile offering a phone upgrade. How did they get my number? “Similar to one we’d sold a phone to,” said the woman at customer service.

In other words, generated randomly by a computer.

“This is illegal,” I said to her, quoting the TPS site.
“No, if we have an opt-out, it isn’t,” she said. “Our lawyers have gone over it.”

I do believe I’ll call the TPS in the morning. This is just too annoying. Spamming *and* claiming it’s legal? Sanford Wallace should be alive now. Oh dammit, he is.

Update Weds 15:37: Called the TPS. Indeed, my mobile phone number is one there - registered July 7 2003. Asked them if it’s legal to text someone if you have an opt-out. No, they said: text spamming is illegal. . And can the TPS (an arm, it turns out of the Direct Marketing Association) take any action? Ah, no. That would be the Information Commissioner’s job. Righty-ho, off to the website.

Update Thurs 11 Nov: subsequently, have discovered that Club Mobile were absolutely right - even though I received text spam which came from them. They did take note of the TPS database. More explanation here.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• ...and a last word (for now) on link spamming (1 February 2005; score: 40.95%)
• Ho hum, more spammer collateral damage: trackbacks are off (1 February 2005; score: 36.23%)
• Wild about wild cards; aahh., Fight Club.. (19 February 2006; score: 33.88%)

Read “I’m afraid that the hole is still present Mr Microsoft”, which is a warning from NTA Monitor, a security company.

Severity: Medium to High
Affects: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Internet Explorer
Solutions: Apply patches and seek alternative software where applicable
Summary: The holes that Microsoft said were fixed indeed are, but the goal posts have changed with the exploits now challenging a new hole

It’s a well-written explanation which also shows how imaginative people are being in trying to find holes in Windows. Note that the folk who found this one are the nice people, who tell us about it, not the ones who exploit it on the quiet.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• No, Google *isn't* because of MyDoom [though I could be.. I *am* wrong..] (26 July 2004; score: 29.18%)
• It's only possible once a year: Borat, and then the Eurovision judging (12 May 2007; score: 24.91%)
• When OSX loses its mind: passwords don't work, internet dead, but Appletalk OK (29 December 2006; score: 24.31%)

OK, so the headline figure for the cost of items at Apple’s iTunes Music Store is 79p (UK), or £7.98 for an album.

But that’s not the whole story. Buy an album with loads of tracks and you can get a bargain; buy one with very few and you’re miserable. (But hey, you’ve got some music to cheer you up, right? Unless it was a Leonard Cohen album.)

My own search for the best and worst value on iTMS turns up these (links will only work if you have iTunes installed):
Best: Talking Heads ‘Sand In The Vaseline’ which has 33 tracks for £9.48 = 28.72 pence each.

Worst: Relayer by prog-pomp-rock band Yes. (It was the 70s. I was young.) There, the three-track album has two tracks each available for 79p - and the third is “album-only”. This means that single track - “Gates of Delirium” - costs £7.41. (To add insult to injury, if you buy the CD from Amazon, you get the whole lot including a rehearsal run of Gates… At least, that’s what the reviews say.)

Can anyone do worse/better?

Update 16:06: Of course, there’s always the free downloads, which are hard to beat for value. The Euro store now has them; this week’s is Tina Dico. Never heard of her, but free is hard to beat. However, this competition is for paid-for songs only. Go on go on go on go on..

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Microsoft packages, and fixing the iTunes Music Store (someone else did) (11 March 2006; score: 85.93%)
• Chapters in podcasts: OK, that's smart (30 June 2005; score: 71.2%)
• One last thing from the Expo: music store divisions (2 September 2004; score: 71.04%)

While trying (and nearly failing) to find a press office contact for O2, I came across this page (because I was using iCab, a non-CSS browser, to browse it).

If you read the page, it all sounds well and good: explains how the W3C finally came up with an open web standard (their bold) “to be followed by anyone creating new web browsers”.

So what page do they point you to for an upgrade? Yes, Internet Explorer. Standards-compliant? W3C-approved? I’m not so sure. Another, classic, case of the inertia of large organisations.

And I’d point out that O2 gets somewhere near an “F” for how easy it is for a journalist to find its press releases (which Jakob Nielsen points out means lots of wasted time and money on both sides). Go on, you try: start at O2’s home page and see how long it takes you to find the press releases. No search box, so you’re stuffed there too.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Gmail POP is broken - again (3 October 2006; score: 40.89%)
• This will make *no* sense if you're reading on RSS (14 June 2005; score: 40.84%)
• ..though equally, people think you've evil even when you're not (22 October 2006; score: 40.6%)