Volume:  24

  No.: 9

September 2008

     A fairly good turnout for last month - I counted at least 9 members present - in spite of the meeting being an informal one with no presentation.  A bonus was an unexpected visit from Alan Secker, who was one of the founding members of SWIG in, I think, 1968.  Alan is now resident in London and consequently ceased to be a member a few years ago.  Nevertheless it was nice to see him and chat about the good old days!
    This month Louis is giving us a presentation on 'wiki' websites.  These are sites that are open to contributions from people accessing the net.  I suppose the best known wiki site is the on-line encyclopedia 'Wikipedia'.  Louis has been investigating wiki sites and has some interesting findings to share with us.

Husbands may lay down the law but wives make the amendments.

        Those of you who regularly read SWIG News will be familiar with my obsession(?) with our on-line financial services security systems.  In the past I had often trumpeted the advantages of our chip & pin debit/credit services to our foreign visitors, particularly from the U.S.A.  However, I read recently that the bad guys have now taken to stealing chip & pin terminals from places like restaurents, where the terminals are of the portable variety, replacing them with 'doctored' terminals which enable the crooks to steal pin No's etc, and hence our money.  It seems that we now have to be extremely vigilant, not only at A.T.M.s but also when we pay for meals!  It is my habit to boast about our electronic systems to our American friends but now even that has to be tempered with restraint.  However I can still boast about our ability to monitor their flight arrivals on teletext, as they have nothing like it in the States!