First time home buyers: what a helpful government we have!

Details

Category: Private Thoughts

This is the second “personal” non-IT or IT security article of the year and the 80th article I have written and published in some form. Typically, I only write about issues I see in the country or affect me in some way presently or in the future.

What you need to buy a property money wise and the process: right property check, deposit check, mortgage agreed check, surveyor fees check, legal fees check, hire a van fees check and stamp duty not check.

Read more …

Brexit and recession: if you think negatively that is how the economy will go

Details

Category: Private Thoughts

Rarely do I write a non IT article but little has changed in how people think in years. This article is not here to sway down remain or leave it is to talk about how people think and how more importantly what we read influences us.

In November 2010 I was at a sizeable business event in a London hotel with the guest speaker being (Sir) Vince Cable, ex business secretary in the coalition government. Before the event I put my name down to ask a question. My question was roughly around during or in the run up to a recession if the media reports negatively and everyone reads it, it will make a recession worse.

Read more …

Backup! Data loss can happen to anyone including me who is paranoid on security and privacy

Details

Category: Cyber Security (Personal)

As you can imagine from my websites name I take security and privacy extremely seriously unlike a lot of companies who say this but do not. It is called do as you preach. Drive encryption, hardware encrypted USBs, file encryption, UTM firewall, web filtering, long passwords, encrypted DNS, application whitelisting, little cloud used and so on. My security would likely beat the strength of most central government departments.

On Wednesday I was happily using my speedy, well looked after and well maintained SSD desktop. Without notice the computer bluescreened (BSoD) while using an internet browser. It turned itself off and after turning it on it said insert boot media which means no HDD/SSD is present or no operating system is loaded. Resetting the CMOS, removing the CMOS battery or swapping the SATA and power cable did not help. It was not seen by the motherboard nor did inserting it into another computer make it visible.

Read more …