Nigerian Letter? No, it’s a Hopeless Dream!

Field Reports

Here’s the latest twist on the now-classic Nigerian Letter. The names in this letter are real people who really do hold jobs in the United Nations, but don’t blame either of them; they didn’t send this letter–it arrived today from an email service in Italy! (Ms. Lapointe is Canadian.) And yes, the letter does admit that it’s all a Hopeless Dream. (1st paragraph, below)

For those who don’t know–it’s a scam. They want fees to send inheritance or winnings, or want you to cash a counterfeit check for them. More information is available at the Internet Crime Complaint Center, here:
http://www.ic3.gov/crimeschemes.aspx
(Scroll down to the section “Nigerian Letter or ‘419’”)

From: Ms. Carman L. Lapointe.
UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL OVERSIGHT SERVICES
Internal Audit,Monitoring,Consulting And Investigations Division.

My name is Ms. Carman L. Lapointe, from the United Nations. It is a distinct pleasure to write you again and as you are well aware many foreigners have invested thousands of United States Dollars into Nigeria transactions in Hopeless Dreams to have none of them become a reality.

Right now, as directed by our secretary general Mr.Ban Ki-Moon, We have agreed with the Nigeria Government that US$100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only) would be paid to you through the Western Union Money Transfer Via special arrangement as first installment.

This is to enable you have enough funds to pay for the Tax Clearance and bank charges before you will receive the balance of US$4.1M (Four Million One Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only). Please take note that you will pay US$185 only, being Notarization fee and this is the only financial obligation that you will undertake to receive the US$100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only) through the Western Union Money Transfer.

Lastly,i will like you to reconfirm your information to me such as your full name, address and telephone number so that I will proceed with your Western Union Money Transfer within the next 24 hrs and the transaction information will be released to you.

I await your response for further proceedings.

Sincerely yours,

Ms. Carman L. Lapointe
{Under-Secretary-General}
United Nations

Oops. AVG is Offline; Software Design Example for Today

Definitions

Here’s a screen capture of bad software design–sometimes you just can’t go online to find out why you’re offline.

AVG error and bad software design example

OK, if the Internet is down, it’s down. It’s not down for a program, and up for the online help files. OK, I get it–online help files, as part of software design, are easy for a software publisher to update, and there’s value in that. But down is down, and bad planning is bad planning.

Graphcat Updated, Photo Albums in WordPerfect X7

Definitions

Graphcat, the ultimate photo cataloger for WordPerfect for the past two decades, has once again been upgraded, and now supports WordPerfect X7, along with Windows 8.1, in both 64-bit and 32-bit versions. The installer is updated as well, and auto-detects all versions of WordPerfect, and adds Graphcat to any or all of them. Corel released WordPerfect X7 in April, and added PDF form creation options.

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Graphcat creates editable photo albums. You can adjust just about anything in the catalog, including the size of images, borders, centering, naming, page size, and more. And the catalogs are editable, using WordPerfect graphic styles, so that the entire catalog of images can be resized at once, or have nearly any image option changed for every thumbnail in the album at once.

Graphcat requires any version of WordPerfect, now including WordPerfect Office X7.