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Internet

Adobe Flash Player Exploit

No Comments 30 May 2008

Time to update your Flash Player, to 9.0.124.0 (however that’s just until Adobe release another version hopefully soon) as looks like an exploit is doing the rounds on some websites that could install software to steal your usernames and passwords.

Article over at Security Focus, gives more details “Adobe investigates Flash Player attacks”. Update your Flash Player today at the official Adobe site, go here to do this now!

World of Warcraft

Level 70 Blood Elf Paladin

No Comments 27 May 2008

Way hey, I finally got my Blood Elf Paladin to level 70, my first Horde, this brings the total number of level 70′s in World of Warcraft I have to 4. On the Alliance I have 3 level 70s, a Shaman, Priest and Mage ;)

I totally love World of Warcraft and I will be going to Blizz Con Paris at the end of June this year. Have to say it was a chore to get my Pally to level 70 as to start with I was only doing it a couple of hours every other evening so took longer than it really should have, ah well it’s done now :)

Work

Office Space in Glasgow

No Comments 23 May 2008

At the start of the year our landlords served notice on our city centre offices giving us 6 months to find a new place, as we already knew in advance that our office block was to be made in to flats we had started searching before, however it took until April before we found a half decent place. We acted quickly to make sure they had the information they needed and everything was going fine until this week, when all of a sudden the landlords of the new place stopped replying to our emails, and phone calls, we found out from another source also looking at the same office they where told end of last week that the office was no longer on the market as they where in final legal stages with new occupants, sadly not us, basically looks like either someone has come in after us with a better offer or we where getting strung along in case the other people pulled out. So that leaves us looking for a new office again (and legal costs from the other, gits), and we have until middle of August to find, and move in to a new place. Thankfully we have a few back up plans none of them ideal but then if you could see the state of what is on offer in Glasgow for a business of our size you would actually think the back up plans where very, very nice indeed.

Ah the trails of running a business, thankfully got few people around me who can deal with checking out offices to save me seeing the crap ones (however I have seen a few so maybe they need to vet them better LOL) but all in all moving offices is not top of my “want to do list” but certainly creates a challenge for a business that has expanded every year since we started, especially when we had pretty good, well priced and very centrally located office right on George Square. I guess it doesn’t help with everyone else in the building all looking for offices of similar size at the same time, so I won’t be letting on where we are thinking of moving to at this stage, just in case they stumble on this page LOL ;)

News

In the Evening Times

No Comments 22 May 2008

Fame at last, I am in the Newspapers (again). When a bunch of us from Paid On Results (top right photo) went to the races last week, we got our photo taken by an Evening Times photographer and to be fair with far more interesting people around I didn’t expect we would actually be in the feature. I think Colin is trying his best to look like he won some money on the races LOL!

Personal

BMI Hospitals – Private Medical Care

No Comments 22 May 2008

Yesterday I went to Rosshall Hospital in Glasgow, I been waiting to be seen on the NHS however it would be several months before my appointment would come through and while it’s not an emergency I didn’t fancy waiting this long, so I looked in to Private Hospitals. Initially I thought you could only visit one of these if you have Private Healthcare Insurance but it turns out they operate a self-pay scheme meaning you can be pretty much seen for and treated for most things in matter of weeks.

I called up last week and was given a brief outline of the costs involved, and was asked what Consultant I would like, having never been asked this question I had not expect it so hadn’t done any research. I was speaking to one of the ward nurses and ask her, who would you pick and she recommend one to me. I then looked him up on Google to see what I could find, interestingly he is one of the top consultants at the Royal Infirmary Hospital and if I was going the NHS route I probably would not have got to see him or if I did he certainly would not be the one carrying out the operation as it’s pretty minor as these things go. In fact what I found very interesting is that if you have the money you can pretty much meet a specialist consultant in most fields in matter of days, however you do need a referral letter from your local GP (and that I found took longer to get than the appointment to see the Consultant, madness!)

So the consultant explained what would happen and offered next week for the operation, now clearly he is undertaking this work after hours and on his days off from his NHS work, so not impacting anyone waiting to see him on the NHS but it got me thinking, why doesn’t the government pay these guys who want to work extra hours and days money to do this, wouldn’t everyone get treated and seen much quicker that way?

One interesting thing came out of the conversation with the consultant, he explained two things I didn’t know, 1st that most private hospitals in Scotland don’t treat children, you can meet a consultant who can explain what the problem is but you can’t get treated as most places don’t have paediatric nurses, kind of making Private Healthcare Insurance a bit of a waste of money for children (however I have a friend who has had very positive results going private with her kids) and 2nd thing was he doesn’t have Private Healthcare Insurance himself, simply said your better taking the money you would pay each month and saving it up, this way when you need access to Private care you can pay for it yourself and probably over the years have money leftover and I guess if you think about it, it costs £1,000+ a year for most people and if you have not been to hospital much or at all for many years and generally healthy that could be a considerable amount of money building up and besides long term conditions are not covered anyway.

So looks like the best idea is to apply for a BMI Card (the hospitals credit card that can only be used for medical stuff inside BMI) as you get 0% interest free for 6 months after any health care purchase and then a typical APR of 9.9% and save up the money I pay on Private Healthcare Insurance in something like Premium Bonds each month.

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