Here’s an idea for a simple app - or a tweak to existing mail clients. Before sending, scan the text and if it includes the word “attached” and there isn’t an attachment pop up an “Are you sure?”

We could reduce the net traffic considerably!

Answers to http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2008/10/17/never-a-crossword-part-ii/

Not too hard I hope - not with the explantions anyway! 

5 Addict alternatively in honours degree (4) - Hidden word but take alternate letters USER

6 Backing parts to support guitar (5) - Sort of anagram but “back” can imply just reverse the letters! STRAP

7 Less than decadent Neil Young compilation (6) - less than or almost, mostly etc can mean use most of but not all the letters (a bit cheating for an anagram I think so I tend to use it as a hidden word type clue) DECADE

8 Postscript contains example tuners (4) - Letter codes, lots of abbreviations and initials are used in cryptic crosswords - about= re,  sappers=RE (Royal Engineers), artist=RA, hesitation=ER/UM, international body=UN. Contains means the letters go inside the others - look it’s PS with EG in OK? PEGS

9 Irish poet loses heart from your threats (5) - heartless, begins ends, … means take the letters from the start and the end to make the word YEATS

10 Magazine with reinterpretation loses entertainer (5) - Loses, without,… can mean take the letters out, if you are lucky what is left is the word, if you are unlucky it is an anagram of the word! ITPRO - had to get that it really!

On http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/davef/2008/10/16/never-a-crossword-2/ I promised the answers and some more clues so here goes.

1 Heavy metal from guitar to amplifier (4)  - Double meaning - so something that is a heavy metal and is spelt the same as something that goes between a guitar and its amplifier.

LEAD

2 Vocalist reigns awkwardly (6) - Anagram of reigns (implied by “awkwardly” or confused, cooked, stewed, upset or a million other code words) and it means “vocalist”

SINGER

3 2 Across seen in chapel visit (5) - Word hidden in “chapel visit” (implied by “seen in” or conceals, contains,….) Linked to 2 ie it’s a vocalist

ELVIS

4 Look at what is reportedly the summit (4)  - Homophone (implied by “reportedly” or we hear, sounds like,…) so it means “Look at” but sounds like another word for summit

PEEK

And some other egs - getting harder!

5 Addict alternatively in honours degree (4) - Hidden word but take alternate letters

6 Backing parts to support guitar (5) - Sort of anagram but “back” can imply just reverse the letters!

7 Less than decadent Neil Young compilation (6) - less than or almost, mostly etc can mean use most of but not all the letters (a bit cheating for an anagram I think so I tend to use it as a hidden word type clue)

8 Postscript contains example tuners (4) - Letter codes, lots of abbreviations and initials are used in cryptic crosswords - about= re,  sappers=RE (Royal Engineers), artist=RA, hesitation=ER/UM, international body=UN. Contains means the letters go inside the others - look it’s PS with EG in OK?

9 Irish poet loses heart from your threats (5) - heartless, begins ends, … means take the letters from the start and the end to make the word

10 Magazine with reinterpretation loses entertainer (5) - Loses, without,… can mean take the letters out, if you are lucky what is left is the word, if you are unlucky it is an anagram of the word!

And I’ll publish the answers to these another day!

The current add on the IT Pro home page gives me an excuse to plug one of my hobbies - cryptic crosswords. I’ve been doing them for years but some time ago I thought “that’s a rubbish clue, I could do better than that” and after a while I gave it a go. 

Only once I had computers and the internet to help did I manage to achieve much - however it is still very difficult and deserves a huge payment ;-) Anyway I regularly write a crossword for a guitar magazine (so it has a guitar theme) and occasionally branch out to other themes.

There are several basic types of cryptic clue - if you don’t know how they are code here’s a couple of clues with hints - I’ll publish the answers tomorrow.

1 Heavy metal from guitar to amplifier (4)  - Double meaning - so something that is a heavy metal and is spelt the same as something that goes between a guitar and its amplifier.

2 Vocalist reigns awkwardly (6) - Anagram of reigns (implied by “awkwardly” or confused, cooked, stewed, upset or a million other code words) and it means “vocalist”

3 2 Across seen in chapel visit (5) - Word hidden in “chapel visit” (implied by “seen in” or conceals, contains,….)Linked to 2 ie it’s a vocalist

4 Look at what is reportedly the summit (4)  - Homophone (implied by “reportedly” or we hear, sounds like,…) so it means “Look at” but sounds like another word for summit

There are other types of clue - I’ll do some more egs another day. And I’m always open to commissions!

QT has been part of Nokia for a while but they seem to have started making their changes. Having been bought out once or twice I can assume most of the changes will be pointless ones that make the parent company feel in control and give waste of space managers something to do (bitter? me?) but their latest mail shows signs of real innovation

• Modular architecture for feature selection
• IP communications framework based on Telepathy
• New Qt UI Test, a tool for automated system tests 
• New reference design - Video IP Deskphone

Wow, IP telepathy - makes routing tables a thing of the past…

I think I may be the victim of a “phone scam”. This morning two lasses came round claiming to be students just moved into the house a couple of doors a way. The said they were trying to set up their internet connection  but they needed a corded phone to check the line - of course they all had mobiles but not much use! In the spirit of kindness I lent them a phone, but it hasn’t some back.

I’ve read about phone scams but didn’t really know what one was until now. I expect the guys from the real hustle are explaining what you can do with four thousand used land line phones…

Update! They just brought it back, with thanks and cake (students feeding me? isn’t it supposed to happen the other way round?).  People being nice to each other, I’m sure this is more frequent occurrence than The Daily Mail would have us believe but they make their money out of worrying the worried with “news” of real scams. If we weren’t worried we wouldn’t buy the rag so they have keep up worry levels to keep up sales.

Qu’est-ce que c’est le point? As Georgia Nicolson might say (I haven’t seen the film but the books are excellent.)