Fraudsters con Scottish council out of £270,000 - Herald Scotland

A council has been conned out of £270,000 amid police fears that a major fraud is sweeping Scotland.

North Ayrshire Council last night confirmed it had lost the money after falling for a sophisticated scam.

The revelation came a month after South Lanarkshire announced it had been taken for more than £100,000 in a similar case believed to involve West African crime groups.

Law enforcement sources believe the two Scottish authorities are among many more organisations to be targeted by the fraudsters.

Police on both sides of the Border have launched a major investigation with a man from Wolverhampton already arrested in connection with the missing North Ayrshire money.

via heraldscotland.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Pandoc - a universal document converter

If you need to convert files from one markup format into another, pandoc is your swiss-army knife. Need to generate a man page from a markdown file? No problem. LaTeX to Docbook? Sure. HTML to MediaWiki? Yes, that too. Pandoc can read markdown and (subsets of) reStructuredText, HTML, and LaTeX, and it can write plain text, markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, PDF, RTF, DocBook XML, OpenDocument XML, ODT, GNU Texinfo, MediaWiki markup, groff man pages, EPUB ebooks, and S5 and Slidy HTML slide shows. PDF output (via LaTeX) is also supported with the included markdown2pdf wrapper script.

Pandoc understands a number of useful markdown syntax extensions, including document metadata (title, author, date); footnotes; tables; definition lists; superscript and subscript; strikeout; enhanced ordered lists (start number and numbering style are significant); delimited code blocks; markdown inside HTML blocks; and TeX math. Other options include “smart” quotes, dashes, and ellipses; syntax highlighting; and automatically generated tables of contents. If strict markdown compatibility is desired, all of these extensions can be turned off with a command-line flag.

Pandoc includes a Haskell library and a standalone executable. The library includes separate modules for each input and output format. So adding a new input or output format just requires adding a new module.

Pandoc is free software, released under the GPL. © 2006–2010 John MacFarlane.

via johnmacfarlane.net

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Pandoc Converts Text Documents Between Dozens of Formats

Windows/Mac/Linux/Web: Pandoc is a powerful command-line tool for converting text documents between formats like Markdown to HTML, HTML to MediaWiki, and more.

Pandoc reads markdown languages such as HTML, LaTeX, and reStructuredText, and converts them to other markdown languages and document formats such as HTML, LaTeX, XML, RTF, PDF, ePUB and more.

via lifehacker.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

AppMakr Helps You Create Your Own iPhone App for Free, No Coding Necessary

AppMakr is a webapp that lets you design iOS apps with a WYSIWYG editor. It's free to use, and you can create your very own app in just a few minutes.

AppMakr focuses on creating feed-based apps and starts you off by asking you for your web site (or, alternatively, some keywords). From there you'll need to sign up for a free account and you can start creating your app.

via lifehacker.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Microsoft sues Motorola over Android – and all the other mobile lawsuits, visually | guardian.co.uk

There's Microsoft v Motorola - and the rest of the explosion in a spear factory that is our handy cut-out-and-add-more-squiggles guide to who's suing who over mobile patents

via guardian.co.uk

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett explains why Scotland subsidises the UK, not the other way round - Go Lassie Go

Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett  is a world class economist who divides his time between George Mason University in Virginia and St Andrews. He spoke to Newsweek Scotland today about the implications of the Comprehensive Spending Review. He carefully explained how Scotland is actually in surplus, how the calculations on UK spending misrepresent Scotland and why the bank bail out is not the disaster some would have us believe. Forget what you have been told. When the sums are done Scotland actually sents a small subsidy to England, not the other way around. 

You can hear him here on Newsweek Scotland. When I have more time I may transcribe his interview, it really is that good!

via joanmcalpine.typepad.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

New iPhone/iPod app enables automatic reporting of problems to councils.

Is your Council doing enough?

Have you ever tried to report a problem to your Council? Then you'll know how frustrating that can be. We take this problem away by simply using your phone's GPS and camera to route your report to the local Council. The Council now has all the information it needs to deliver a first time fix.

"Social" Responsibility

Yes, it's a bit tongue in cheek but you get the idea. You can publish your report on Facebook and Twitter so your friends can see how easy it is to report their own issues. That way, everyone can see what's being fixed (or not) by your local Council.

Powered by People

No doubt you'll have heard talk of 'Big Society', 'crowdsourcing' and how the government is encouraging people to take an active role in their communities. Well, part of the reason we created Speak Up! was because we absolutely believe that the only way we can make a difference is by working together.

Yup. Speak Up! is iOS 4 compliant so whilst you're taking a photo of the problem and doing your bit for society, we're figuring out who to send the report to.

How does it work?

• Simply click on the most appropriate category for the problem
• Take a nice picture and leave a comment
• Add your contact details so the Council can let you know when it's fixed
• Submit your report and we'll do the rest

via speakupapp.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Langwitches Blog » Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know

As teachers and students become PRODUCERS of content on their blogs it is becoming essential that we model good behavior when it comes to Copyright issues. Rodd Lucier, aka as  thecleversheep ( @thecleversheep on Twitter) has contributed a fabulous presentation to the K12 Online Conference 2010.

via langwitches.org

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Android Manager WiFi Is a Computer-Based Synchronization and Phone Manager

Android Manager WiFi is a free tool for syncing your Android phone to your Windows PC without tethering it via USB. From within Android Manager WiFi you can sync your contacts, messages, photos, videos, music, and more. In addition to syncing it offers a high level of interactivity. If you're not a fan of browsing for applications on your phone, Android Manager WiFi offers easy browsing and import from the Windows client. You can also browse received messages and send them from your desktop.

via lifehacker.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Macbuntu Makes Your Linux Desktop Look Like Mac OS X

If you're a fan of OS X's GUI but don't feel like paying for a Mac (or giving up your precious Linux), Macbuntu will install all the necessary apps, icons, and other resources to make your desktop look just like OS X.

via lifehacker.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Basic Errors to Avoid When Interpreting Survey Statistics

Everyone loves quoting a statistic, and no wonder: specific numbers always sound more convincing than broad generalisations. However, not all statistics are created equal—the results of a web poll are demonstrably less valid than votes in a national election—-and many of us misquote data for our own ends even when the source is basically reasonable. Here are some simple issues worth bearing in mind whenever you consider statistics. They should be obvious, but they're often ignored.

via lifehacker.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Goo.gl’s Awesome Easter Egg To Instantly Turn Any Link Into A QR Code

Earlier today, Google formally released Goo.gl, their URL-shortener, to the public. They’re calling it the “stablest, most secure, and fastest URL shortener on the web.” But it also may be the coolest thanks to an easter egg.

As Google’s Matt Cutts’ just tweeted out, if you simply add “.qr” to the end of any goo.gl URL, it will create a QR code. Scanning this with any QR code reader will take you to the URL.

via techcrunch.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous