The Temple of the Mighty Bague

One of the few things that keeps a windows VM lying around for me is Microsoft Money. It’s one of the few applications that Microsoft have actually made a pretty good job of.

My judgment of this, though, is pretty superficial. Money provides a nice pretty cash-flow graph that lets you see, at a glance, if you’re at risk of crossing the evil overdraft limit line.

In an attempt to finally shake off the specter of windows, I periodically look at the free alternatives available and, after reading this blog, I thought it was perhaps time to give KMyMoney a look.

Rather than importing my (extensive) money files, I thought a good way to evaluate the software would be to set up a set of accounts from scratch, including all my regular scheduled bill payments. This was satisfyingly easy - actually quicker and less painful than Microsoft’s offering.

Having everything in, though, the one glaring hole I can see is that it’s all past-based - there seems to be very little in the way of forecasting other than the scheduled payments. This makes it awkward - I like to be able to evaluate whether or not a purchase is helpful by seeing what it does to my cashflow over the following weeks and months and KMyMoney just doesn’t seem to do that - at least with the current release.

So, I’m going a step further and installing the current CVS build, which the developers claim has a lot of shiny new stuff and seems pretty close to release. So, it’s compiling as we type and I’ll post my thoughts later.

Well, according to El Reg, BT have been Baaaaaaad Monkeys and have finally owned up that they carried out secret tests of the Phorm system they’ve “not decided to use” well over a year ago. Without telling the people whose traffic they intercepted.

Something tells me they’re going to get a little bit sued.

Full muck here.

Well, at least BT are straight up about it. They replied saying “we don’t know anything yet, but when we do we’ll let you know.” Which is better than my mate RedSmartie got. He mailed Virgin pretty much the standard letter I put in my previous posting and in reply recieved a bunch of waffle about how bombarding him with unsolicited ads was “protecting him from ZOMG TEH PH1SH0rZ!!1!one!”

They also mentioned “ill-informed ’stories’” which are currently being circulated by people who don’t understand the systems.

People like RedSmartie. And me. Oh, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

If an ISP wants to make a shedload of cash by snooping at my browsing habits and sending ads targeted at a 37-year-old male to my 7-year-old daughter, then they should at least have the courtesy to say so, and not attempt to play on security fears by trying to pretend they’re protecting me from something.

If you’re a customer of BT, Virgin, or Carphone Warehouse, the chances are you’re going to see a change in your Ts and Cs at some point this year. That’s because these ISPs are planning to contract the services of an AdWare company called Phorm to monitor every bit of web browsing you do in order to serve you with targeted ads. And it’s all apparently for your own good. More information on this unsavoury bunch of individuals can be found here.

Knowing the way ISPs tend to behave, the likelihood of getting fair treatment is fairly slim. Given that many people are tied in for 12 or 18 month contracts, you may not even be able to vote with your pocket. So, I would urge you to send an email like the following to your ISP. In fact, feel free to lift this one verbatim.

I have been following with interest BTs plans to incorporate Phorm’s targeted ad software into the BT Broadband package.

As I do not consider myself to be anyone’s “target market” and value my privacy highly, I would be grateful if BT could confirm either:

1. That opting out of the service will mean that none of my traffic will go anywhere near any hardware or software owned, operated or supplied by Phorm or their subsidiaries.

or

2. The substantial change in the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy that implementing this system will require will allow me to leave my fixed term contract early with no penalites.

Gary Gygax, legendary co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, died today at age 69. For three decades, his work has allowed children and adults alike to escape real-life and take on the persona of mighty warriors, haughty magic users and sneaky rogues.

To a lot of people, it seems like the man did nothing more than legitimise sunlight-dodging nerdy behaviour, but his work on D & D has made a profound impact on almost every entertainment media - books, film, games, you name it.

Despite ever increasing health problems, Mr Gygax was running weekly D & D games at home right until the end. His contribution to escapism fantasy has made the world a better place for us all.