Let’s Stay Connected

Let’s all stay connected, yippee yay!

Peaceful air travel is at an end. After all the hassles of getting to the airport on time, dealing with cancelled flights, changed boarding gates, immigration formalities and customs checks don’t look forward to sitting back and relaxing to the droning throb of your flight. Try not to switch off for you are going to be switched on in a big way. Forget the reading, contemplating, sleeping. All this will soon be of the past with plans for the new kind of travel.

The importance of connectivity is here. Flying three hours, or fifteen hours does not make a difference. Above 10,000 feet? Not a problem. We shall be moving with the times. Singapore Airlines will the first with this great connection innovation and Cathay Pacific Airlines is soon to follow. Access to wifi, internet and mobile, yes, mobile telephone service, not just texting or sending and receiving of emails but real life calls.

Just lean back, stay connected, talk, talk, talk. A mobile phone stuck to the ear and multi-tasking – eating, drinking, filling up forms or anything else one does on the plane. One might have to bring two or three mobile phones for those urgent calls that come in while you are on one. Of course, the airline company will take into consideration the other passengers like me, who will be slowly sliding into total insanity with a talking passenger next me. To minimize my discomfort a code of conduct will be introduced. Travellers will be asked to follow the new flying etiquette – consideration for fellow passengers. The staff will be trained to help everyone in this respect.

‘Please set your phone to silent mode and talk at a normal level.’ Note the key word here is normal. And more etiquette bonus. During night-time flights, voice function of the mobile phone will be disabled. Wow!

Flying days with innovative airlines will soon come to an end for some passengers. I am saving up for a private jet or maybe grow a pair of wings in my garden along with herbs, potatoes, papaya and banana.

CookieJacking

Cookies, not the edible ones.

Cookiejacking
Do not be alarmed, I have been using search engines for a long time and purchase all that I can online. There are ways of protecting yourself but:
Be aware, be responsible, protect yourself.
Five simple ways to protect yourself from identity theft
1. Make difficult, good passwords
2. Do the same with PINs
3. Delete emails containing passwords
4. Keep computers safe from loss
5. Shred sensitive documents
Leela

Horizons from Christian Science Monitor
Chris Gaylord

“How ‘cookiejacking’ could steal people’s Facebook passwords. Cookiejacking could let hackers compromise Facebook profiles, says a computer security expert. But Microsoft argues cookiejacking isn’t a high-risk threat.

Cookiejacking could hijack your Facebook log-in credentials by Chris Gaylord May 27, 2011

A new hacking scheme called “cookiejacking” could expose a person’s usernames and passwords for Facebook, Twitter and countless other websites, says Rosario Volatta Internet security researcher.
Most websites that require you to log in will save your online credentials as “cookies”. These small browser files can contain anything from passwords and site preferences to the contents of an online shopping cart. Cookiejacking, according to Mr. Valotta, lets hackers steal those cookies and get away with your personal information.
“Any website. Any cookie. Limit is just your imagination,” Valotta told Reuters.
Cookiejacking only works against people using Internet Explorer he says. But all versions of the browser, including the latest edition of IE9, are vulnerable.
There is, however, a very big catch: To access your cookies, a hacker must design a website or game that convinces you to drag an object from one side of the screen to the other. For example, Valotta “built a puzzle that he put up on Facebook in which users are challenged to ‘undress’ a photo of an attractive woman,” reports Reuters. Once players move the digital clothing, they unwittingly trigger the cookiejacking trap.
Valotta says he harvested more than 80 cookies from his 150 Facebook Friends in less than three days.
Microsoft says it isn’t too concerned about cookiesjacking, according to company spokesmen. A hacker needs to jump through too many hoops for this tactic to be a major threat.
“Given the level of required user interaction, this issue is not one we consider high risk,” Microsoft’s Jerry Brant told Reuters. “In order to possibly be impacted a user must visit a malicious website, be convinced to click and drag items around the page and the attacker would need to target a cookie from the website that the user was already logged into.”
While cookiesjacking goes down as yet another potential exploit against PCs, Mac OS has suddenly come under attack from malware. First Mac Defender and now Mac Guard have tricked Apple users into installing malicious software onto their computers.”

WRITING RULES

My six

I often come across fellow writers who advice me not waste time worrying about Writing Rules. Rules curb your creative process they say.
I write without rules when I create the first draft. I try to churn out at miles per hour, definitely no rules here, very creative indeed.

Writing rules can be broken to your advantage and to your writing needs but you need to know and understand rules first to know which to bend and which to break rather than not know rules and make a hash of your writing. There are some guidelines you ought to adhere to.

It is important to avoid:

1. Jumping from character to character in the same paragraph. It tends to confuse readers.
2. Use of a profusion of noun/verb qualifiers. It leads to flowery language.
3. The use clichés, too many similes and metaphors to further enlighten the reader.
4. Reduce foreign words. A smattering adds colour, too many add annoyance.
5. Overuse of weak words like ‘was and were, and –ing words’ lead to telling not to showing.
6. Passive writing. Passive loses the positive punch.

I am a big fan of ‘the simpler the writing the better’ and am working hard towards that goal.

SPRING

Spring

In Close Conversation

White lilac tangle
Flamboyant rose red
Not unravelled by
Last night’s wild winds

Flowers In quiet conversation
Sweetly intimate
Perfume more than jasmine
Scenting, calling out

A butterfly unfolds wings
Finds refuge in blossoms
Bees anxious harried
Rustling quick nectar

Colours bold, not muted
Glimpses of fleeting spring
Elusive sounds, fragrances
Beckon speedy summer

Poems

Poems from Betty Bhownath

LIFE

Life

A life bled dry of all colour
Except for a growing grayness
Dulls my days, dampens my spirit,
Etches a frown on my forehead,
Makes frail my heavy heart.
Tedium, in itself, is tiresome
But a life bereft of colour
Stamps out optimism,
Kills enthusiasm

TIME TRAVELLERS

Time Traveller

I’m boxed in, bound and gagged,
Frail-hazy images fly past
Flung briefly into memory,
Splintering….
Then, dissipating into blackness-
Save for quiet breathing,
I stand frozen, blind staring
Into the pock-marked face
Of a stranger.
Cold fingers touching mine,
Intimate…….indifferent –
Motionless….MTR mates.

Poet, Artist, Writer, Educator Betty Bhownath