no ifs or buts

no nonsense app development

Coca Cola scam

Last weekend I've received a strange sms:

Congratulation! Your cell number has just won 300,000 pounds in the Ongoing UK COCACOLA 2010 PROMO.Email: cocacolauklive(a)live.co.uk or call+447045730922

This is obviously a scam. Check out the Windows Live e-mail-address or the common telephone number and the fact I've won out of the blue 300.000 pounds.

But I really was curious about how the scammers would try to get my money. So I called the number:

The man on the other side for sure wasn't from Great Britain, he sounded more like an Indian. He told me to send my personal details like name and address to the e-mail-address found in the sms.

I didn't go further but I'm still kinda wondering what the next steps would be. Maybe setting up a fake e-mail and use some fake credentials and wait for their response, but that would be to much work.

After searching the web, there a lots of similar Coca Cola scams with e-mail. Some even suggest it's often not really to steal your money but only your personal details used for fake identities.

Last thing I did was filling in a report to the internet fraud crime unit in Belgium. They've setup a site called e-cops especially for reporting such scams.

Apache awfully slow caused by antivirus software

I've finally figured out why apache was running so slow on my Windows 7 machine.

After trying really lots of suggestions found on the web, I stumbled on the obvious fact that perhaps my antivirus was causing troubles. And yes indeed, after excluding my sites root from the scanner everything worked as it should be.

I've really should of known because playing with a SVN server locally has taught me before about the troubles of antivirus software messing with filesystem access.

Lesson of today: when filesystem intensive software encounters locks or is painfully slow, check if your antivirus program ain't causing the troubles by excluding those directories.

Note: I was using AVG Anti-Virus 9. Open up the dashboard by clicking the AVG icon in the notification area on the taskbar. Open the advanced setting under the tools menu. The directory excludes can be found under the resident shield section.

PS: I know, why still bothering doing webdevelopment on Windows right? So you linux and mac users can have other reason to praise your fine OS :-) And me? Well, I'm really looking out to switch but for some reason didn't do it... yet.