Hervey Bay Gossip

Jump into the new year at the Hervey Bay New Year’s Eve Family Film Night and Fireworks Display at the Seafront Oval on Saturday night. The fun commences at 5pm so bring a chair or a blanket and join in the fun.

It seems to me that Ergon Energy are not really addressing the problems that ordinary people are having with the standard of service Ergon provides.

Perhaps it’s time for Ergon to start explaining publicly why it takes 21 hours to get the power back on and why they want to cut power to small businesses at important times of the day and why the cut power to homes during the hottest parts of the day.

Little things like that are important to your consumers Ergon Energy just as you will see if you follow this link. They might even be more important than flower shows and financial consultancies.

2005 saw the formation of the Hervey Bay Camera Club. The club meets on the second and fourth Wednesday nights of each month at 7pm at the Tavistock Centre in Tavistock Street Urangan. The club is open to film or digital photographers and the first meeting of the new year will be held on January 11.

Contact Bruce Butler on 4194 6404 for more details.

Although this is the holiday season things can still be rather busy around your home. The house can be full of visitors demanding your care and attention, the days are hot and humid and some how you still have to find time for your normal routine.

It’s at times like this that you really do need to find time for yourself and if the house is full of guests then why not find half an hour or so and get down to the beach to unwind. You’ll find the perfect place to do that at Aquavue on the beachfront at Torquay.

They’ve got great coffee and the best view in Hervey Bay.

And if you really want to work out your frustrations they can have you skimming the waves of Hervey Bay with their jet ski hire

The late Fred Daly - well known Australian Labor politician - once said that in politics you could be a rooster one day and a feather duster the next.

Perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger - movie star and Governor of California - should have gone to Fred’s School of Political Reality because he’s facing that situation right now.

Not only is he on the nose with his constituents in California but his home town - Graz in Austria - is doing all it can to disown him. His name has been removed from the stadium in his home town and now all references to little Arnie have been removed from the city’s website.

It seems that Arnie is well on his way to becoming a feather duster just about everywhere.

As you surf the net you will often come across little pop-ups that appear on your monitor warning you that spyware and other nasty programmes have been found on your computer. Almost without exception nothing has been found on your computer at all.

Instead the pop-up generates automatically and you’re about to be conned.

It doesn’t even matter which sites you are surfing when those pop-ups appear, there is no guarantee that the message in the pop-up is genuine. I’ve even seen them appear on sites that you would probably trust with your life.

No matter where they appear they are basically a total con and more and more people are being fooled by them every day. That’s why Bruce Cramer from Cramer’s Computer Services in San Antonio has taken the time to give you some good advice about these bogus programmes.

With the proliferation of spyware, or malware there has also been a proliferation of applications claiming to be your partner in fighting the problem.

Many folks get into a jam worse than they were in before they started using what they thought was a legitimate antispyware program. Rogue antispyware programs usually start out by alerting an individual in some unambiguous way, perhaps through a pop-up or unsolicited email (spam), that they have a spyware and or virus problem.

They will urge the person to buy or use their product. It may even tell them that they that it has already found (through osmosis I guess) a large amount of spyware and that by purchasing their product you will be free of the ugly vermin once and for all.

Not only are these programs digital snake oil serving no useful purpose and charging $30 and up, but it is like having a mole or insider infiltrate your computer. Once the rogue program is in your system it opens the door for other malicious programs to come in and wreck havoc on the computer.

Most of these programs go by heroic names such as Error Guard and WinFixer, or other names that sound very similar to reputable, well established antispyware programs. The user should not be fooled by the name or its claim or you could be in for a long ride.

Once the seed is planted and the rogue program has opened the door for his partners in mischief the programs will work together try to ensure their survival so it is not as easy as terminating a singal piece of spyware. After one is gone another one will take his job sometimes even regenerating the one that was just terminated. Once these guys have enough for a full team it can be an uphill battle unless the user has some experience in dealing with the tactics they employ.

What the user can do to protect themselves: First of all, be wary of any antispyware application that does not offer a free, fully functional, trial of their product. If it can’t be driven it around, kick the tires and ask some questions through tech support, either by phone, email or website because it might not be the real deal. Don’t buy from a pushy salesman, meaning don’t buy from spam and pop-ups.

Don’t be fooled by the fools.

Stay safe and happy computing.

Cramer’s Computer Services provides In home, on site computer service in the San Antonio area. Specializing in virus and spyware removal, upgrades networking and more.

Cramer’s Computer Services
210-865-2933
http://www.mysahomes.com

There comes a time in just about every man’s life when they start thinking about buying that final car, the one that will last right through until it’s time to let someone else do the driving.

When that time comes it’s quite natural to also think that it’s time for something a little more up market. The kids have grown up, the hard work’s been done so it’s time to take things easy and what better way to enjoy your retirement than with a car that is fully optioned.

Air conditioning, power windows, leather seats and everything else that you could never really afford before now look quite affordable and you deserve them. You’ve worked hard to get to the point where you can afford a car like that so why shouldn’t you have something a little special? After all it is going to be your last car and it will last you for a few years.

But are you missing something there?

All those options are great, it’s wonderful to drive in air-conditioned comfort with power everything and it really is quite affordable while your luxury vehicle is under warranty. Unfortunately though, your fully optioned luxury car is going to change. In the twinkling of an eye it will change from a comfortable luxury vehicle into a very large collection of very expensive spare parts.

And it is inevitable that it will change and the change will occur at midnight on the day your warranty expires.

On the 15th of March this year that change happened to our vehicle. The luxury of power windows turned to the incredible expense of $250 when a minor part in one of the window mechanisms failed. Multiply that by four and you begin to see just how expensive power windows can be.

And that is just one of the things that can and will fail on any vehicle and it’s always more likely to fail when the vehicle is outside the warranty period.

So take a moment to consider whether your last car really should be that luxury vehicle you always dreamed of owning. Dreams are nice but reality can be harsh.

A 19 year old man was killed in a head-on collision on the Bruce Highway near Howard at 8am yesterday. It seems that one vehicle veered to the wrong side of the road.

Three adults and a baby were also injured and were flown to Hervey Bay Hospital for treatment.

Ah the title takes me back to the days of my youth when Holden sin bins were all the rage but this is not about tarted up Holden panel vans.

This article is about Wicked Campers and if you’ve lived in Hervey Bay for more than five days then I’m sure that you will have seen at least one somewhere along The Esplanade.

Wicked Campers are actually an Australian wide company that caters for backpackers who want to arrive in style and with attitude.

You can read more about them right here on Aussie Motoring

What do you do with those Christmas presents that you will never ever use?

Do you quietly slip them into the garbage when no one is watching? Perhaps you just put them on some convenient shelf in the garage and forget about them?

Well you can always do what some people do … auction them on eBay. One couple in the US is doing that right now. They received a gift from someone they don’t like so they decided to sell the gift and donate the proceeds to charity.

But for them, and for their bidders, there is a catch. They didn’t want to look inside the box so they have no idea what they’re selling.

While that might not be a problem for the rest of us there is still one hurdle for us to overcome. How do we sell that unwanted present without being caught?

And just for the record your scribe did not receive any gifts this year that I have no use for