Over the last few weeks e-mails have been floating around the Internet asking users to upgrade their Adobe PDF reader software and have allegedly been sent from Adobe.com.

Please ignore these e-mails and do not use the link enclosed in these e-mails to download ANY software.

The subject line of the e-mail is as follows "Action Required : Upgrade Your New PDF Acrobat Reader"

If you need to download a new version and/or update or upgrade your Adobe Acrobat Reader please can you do it using the official Adobe website, which is www.adobe.com

With these malicious e-mails floating around the Internet at the moment it is a good idea to make sure your antivirus software is up-to-date and ready to fight any malicious infections that may come in via this kind of e-mail.

News International's flagship paper, The  Times has seen a 66% drop in readership,  since it introduced its paywall according to Experian Hitwise.

According to Alexa, there has been a 57.1% drop in traffic to the website over the past month.

To read the full story please visit: http://thefrontline.v3.co.uk/2010/07/the-times-onlin.html

When will the fat cats at News International realise that the Internet is free?

If you are reading this post, I would think you are like countless other people throughout the world each day, like me, who receives numerous spam e-mails into your junk folder.

These e-mails start off, my dearest friend, congratulations, your bank account has been suspended or we have a bank transfer for you, to name but a few.  (Yes I know about the other junk e-mails we receive, but I am trying to keep this blog post clean!)

Unfortunately, there must be people in the world who are gullible, vulnerable or frightened, when reading the content of these e-mails, because the spammers must at some point received a percentage or "payback" from people giving their personal information, out on returning these e-mails.

When a company does a mass mailing or a leaflet drop, in an area, they work on a percentage of approximately 5% return on their investment, one would presume that this must be the approximate percentage, the spammers will work on.

To put this into perspective, if a company sends out 20,000 leaflets, the return percentage should be approximately 1000 contacts on an average of 5% return.

So, if you were to scale that up by the amount of electronic mail, that could be sent out at the press of a key, the figures are staggering.  

Just for argument sake, if 1,000,000 spam e-mails were sent out each day, the spammers could expect a return of 50000, not a bad afternoon's work.

If you receive junk mail, and its allegedly from your bank for example, do not reply to the e-mail, take time to find your bank cards or statements, and look for the telephone number, do not take it for granted that the telephone number, shown in the e-mail is the correct number, it may be that somebody has set up a Voip (voice over Internet protocol) number so that they will be able to gain your confidence and in turn your private information to gain access to your accounts.

If on the other hand, you do Internet banking, do not click on the link in the e-mail, this could send you to a phishing website, which in turn could get your login and password details and access to your account.

There are some very good Internet websites, which you can use to check if an e-mail is genuine or not.

One we use from time to time http://www.snopes.com/ it’s a good place to check if an e-mail is genuine or just plain junk spam.

Always have your antivirus software turned on and make sure that it is up-to-date, this will also give you very good protection, not only from e-mail attacks but for potentially harmful websites.   

Then there is the BIG, NO, NO, never click on an attachment, unless you are sure where it has come from, but sometimes this can also be misleading.

If someone has taken over a computer as part of a  botnet (for more information on botnet’s please read and watch this page from the BBC Click archive: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/7932816.stm ) you could open some software that could run in the background on your computer and do the same thing.

Take time out of your busy day to give that friend or work colleague a ring, just to make sure that they sent you that e-mail, and at the same time have a quick catch up, its good to talk.

Remember, you would not like a person in your home going through your personal possessions, looking at your documents etc.

When you leave your home it is locked and secure and the alarm is primed ready for that unwelcomed visitor, well you need to do the same with your computer, with the antivirus and your own vigilance, Spammers are your electronic burglars.

No matter where you are in Hampshire the brand new Culture-all iPhone mobile app will show you where your nearest country park, arts centre, library, discovery centre, museum or outdoor activity centre is.

The Culture-all app can be downloaded for FREE from Apple’s iTunes app store (http://bit.ly/daTcXS) to an iPod touch or iPhone, and provides a new way to find out about all the exciting things to see and do in the county.

A short demonstration screencast can be seen at www.hants.gov.uk/iphone.

Hampshire County Council is one of the first councils in the UK to create an iPhone app in an effort to tap into the ever increasing digital generation. The free app is extremely quick to download and easy to use, with ideas for indoor and outdoor activities, attractions that are nearby, maps to the venues, directions using GPS, and opening times of over 80 different sites and attractions. There is also a direct link to the Culture-all twitter stream which gives up-to-date information on different events and activities.

Executive Member for Culture and Recreation, Councillor Margaret Snaith-Tempia, said:

The brand new Hampshire County Council Culture-all app is a fantastic way of finding

venues and attractions that are within minutes of you, no matter where you are in the county. The app shows off the breadth of cultural services the council has to offer at the touch of the button and with well over 100 downloads in the first few days it is already proving to be a great success.”

Hampshire County Council has launched the app as part of its Culture-all campaign to inspire people in Hampshire to look at some of the fascinating family cultural attractions in the county. More information on the campaign can be found at: www.hants,gov.uk/culture-all.

Hampshire County Council worked in partnership with Loud Cloud (www.loudcloud.co.uk), a technology company specialising in the development of innovative iPhone applications.

The Waterside Arts Festival kicks off its festivities this year on Saturday, 26 June with "The Mela Day".

It is fantastic to see all the work and enthusiasm the volunteer committee put in to this festival every year, and how many people visit and enjoy the events which are held in different locations around Hythe and Fawley.

This is one of the reasons why TLC Online got involved and offered our services free of charge, to build a maintain the Waterside Arts Festival Website (please visit: http://www.watersidearts.org.uk/ )

This is a festival which offers such a wide choice of entertainment. The committee is sure that arts lovers will definitely find something within the events diary, they will enjoy.

From TLC's point of view, it has been a pleasure working on the website, and with the committee, who bring such an excitement and passion to this event, each and every year.

If you are visiting the locality from 26th June to the 10th July please check out the website for daytime and evening entertainment.

This Tuesday/Wednesday coming Windows users will have a large update, which will be sent through from Microsoft.

The new update will include sorting a problem out with Internet Explorer version 6, 7 and 8 . The updates are to close vulnerable backdoors in the browsers software.

There are some other vulnerable problems, which Microsoft is having with XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

The good news for Microsoft users is Microsoft has realised there are vulnerabilities within their software and are fixing the problems as quickly as possible.