Police and economy of truth

Wednesday, 24 December 2008 17:32

Our police are coming in for a lot of criticism recently, and quite rightly so.

First we had the arrest of Damien Green, then the accusation that the Conservatives were trying to obstruct the enquiry, and now the revelation that the police who arrested Mr Green were recording the whole affair in secret. This sounds like underhand covert surveillance. This column has highlighted the wearing of so-called head cameras by police before, and the intimidating nature of such devices. They make the police unapproachable. This latest revelation is a sad comment on the people who are running our police.

If police want respect and cooperation they need to be honest, something they seem to find increasingly difficult like their political masters.

How to stop video adverts on web pages

Friday, 19 December 2008 12:08

Do you want to know how to stop those intrusive video adverts of web pages?

You know the ones I mean, they appear and have a video playing with someone making facial gestures that are very hard to ignore.

The best way

Get the Firefox browser, then install the Flashblock extension, it's magic. All those intrusive annoying adverts get replaced by an icon, so you can click them if you really want to remember how naff they are.

This is what a typical video advert looks like . . .

Notice how this flash advert is a close up of someone's mouth, when it plays it looks like they are shouting at you, and that's very difficult for people to ignore. Obviously advertisers want to exploit to grab your attention.

Now look at what happens when you use Firefox and Flashblocker . . .

All you see if a simple placeholder image, then if you really want to see the video ad just click it and you can be irritated!

Firefox is a great browser, more important is the fact that by using Firefox you will be helping to break the dominance of Micro$oft.

Another way

Just disable Javascript in your web browser and they will not be able to play, it really is as easy as that.

Look in the preferences or options -

• in Firefox it's under the contents tab
• in Safari look under the security tab

In some cases you may find menus and other facilities don't work, unfortunately that's down to poor design on that website where the designer has not thought about people who don't have the latest browser. If you need those facilities just turn Javascript back on.

Enjoy some peace while browsing!