Telemarketing Scammers

Not a linux or PC topic, but, I have been getting a lot of telemarketing companies calling me.  Since I am on the DNCL (Do Not Call list)  I keep telling the telemarketer to add me to their do-not-call list.  Obviously they are scammers and don't add me to their list and continue calling me.  I do a little bit of homework looking up their calls and when I see where they are from it is almost obvious they are forging the caller id information.  Several of the calls came from out west and the location has at most 100 houses and not a call center.  I keep filling in the complaint form on the DNCL web site, but, since caller id is forged it is an exercise in futility.  The last call came from 999-910-0221.  If you know anything about area codes then you know that 999 is an impossible value.  I found a spot on the CRTC web site and I filled in a question on why they have not launched an effort to stop caller id forging.

It is at the point now that I cannot trust the caller id information until I hear the voice on the other end.  If it is a co-worker, family or friend then it is not a problem.  For not-for-profits I keep telling them to send me a pledge form in the mail as I cannot trust caller id anymore and just because the name/number shown is for the charity I cannot believe that!  I never give out my credit card information to anyone over the telephone.

If you are in Canada I would suggest that you send the CRTC a short note requesting that they start a discussion with the telephone companies about this problem.  We are paying for a service, but, cannot trust it as scammers/spammers have hijacked the system and are forging telephone numbers that show on the caller id.  If you are in the USA You may want to check the FTC to see what can be done there.

PCLinuxos 2011 and Flash Crash

A while ago I upgraded Jane's machine to the latest version of PCLinux and then updated all of the software.  When she was surfing sites with Flash it would crash and nothing would work to enable flash.  I did the update to the latest version and it still didn't work.  I eventually found out that Firefox was pointing to the older version within the add-ons manager section (Tools, ad-ons, and then go to the plugin section).  After I disabled the older version of flash and restarted Firefox the Flash pages started to work.

PCLINUXOS 2011

They finally released the new version of PCLinuxOS.  I downloaded the latest version and put in on the memory stick as a live USB.  When it launched it didn't like my video card, but, I was able to get it to run using VESA.  This isn't a surprise as a number of distros for some reason won't boot with the card in my HP laptop (Pavilion dv6).  It launched cleanly and the desktop itself is nice and for me well organized.  The only program I had a problem was the software update.  It seems to have crashed to the launch in and then looped showing a message so fast I couldn't read it and the logon prompt.  I may try it on other machines to see if this is a problem with the distro or my laptop.

On another note my daughter created a profile picture for me so I now have that for my overall picture rather than the old shot of me having a beer in the pool a few years ago.

Update:

I tried it on my Acer Netbook and everything I tried worked.  Firefox, not a problem.  Software updates worked without a hiccup.  The only thing is that it is a netbook so it was running a bit slow.  At least I now know that it is the HP laptop that had a problem and not the distro itself.  It would appear that I may have to try again and then see what causes the problems and if there are workarounds.  I would like to make every machine in our house use one distro.