Fake Grand Piano Scam - Courier Service Payment for Non Existent Piano

I run a local magazine and from time to time we get letters from locals who are offering items to other people for free so an email offering a piano wasn't entirely out of the ordinary. However this one is a courier payment scam and on reflection there were a number of red flags that we could have picked up.

The email we received was from andreafreeman90@hotmail.com but this could come from other addresses too.

Don't pay any money for something without seeing it.

Hi,

Thanks for your response, the Yamaha Baby Grand Piano GC1 model used to be owned and played by my husband who passed away last year, the dimension is "151cm by 146cm". It was last tuned sometime last year before he passed. She's about 2 years old and in impeccable condition.

I'm moving my properties to another place and I don't think my husband will be happy if I sell this piano, at the same time, I am settling for a home with less space, so I'm hoping to give it out to someone who is a passionate lover of the instrument. I wasn't going to leave it alone in an empty house.

The Piano is currently in storage with the movers I employed to move my properties from my house. The movers can deliver anywhere. However, the beneficiary has to pay moving costs. In the attachment are the pictures of the Piano, I look forward to your reply if you are interested, if not I can contact someone else.

Regards,

Andrea Freeman

Oracle Apex Email Stops Sending via Gmail SMTP Relay Jan 2026

We send a lot of emails from our various Apex applications and as of late January 2026 these emails have stopped sending. There is no error message shown, the Apex mail queue just builds up with messages waiting to send. There are various posts online about Gmail implementing additional security but no definite answers as to why Apex has suddenly failed to send out the Oracle email queue.

There is a post on an Oracle forum from another user that has the same issue and an Oracle Apex developer has posted that it has been identified as a bug and needs to be patched. This is apparently a level 3 bug so might take a while to resolve but unfortunately isn't listed on the Oracle support website so we still don't know what the bug is.

https://forums.oracle.com/ords/apexds/post/apex-mail-gmail-custom-smtp-host-and-ehlo-2004

The Oracle Bug ID is 38950783

In the meantime we've switched to using Mailgun for our Oracle Apex emails which is working fine. We already had an account with Mailgun as we use it for our website so it was an easy transition.

Oracle Apex Classic Report Not Refreshing from Dynamic Action Dialog Closed

 I've had this issue previously where the data in a classic or Interactive report on the same page as a Form disappears after the data in the report is edited. After searching around for ages I finally found the issue and it's nothing to do with the report or the dynamic action!

If you have reports on a page that you want to refresh you need to ensure that the Session state of the Primary key of the form on the page is set to Per Session (Persistent) rather than Per Request (Memory).

Oracle Apex Classic Report Not Refreshing from Dynamic Action Dialog Closed

Change this value and the dynamic action will now refresh the data in the report!

Oracle Apex Classic Report Data disappears from Dynamic Action Dialog Closed

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65327945/oracle-apex-20-interactive-report-not-showing-any-rows-on-refresh

Carbon Black Update Causes BSOD Windows 10

 Our company is one that uses VMWare Carbon Black as a security product. As of around 1520 on 23rd August 2022 devices around the company started crashing and then failing to start up with the Windows Blue Screen of death (BSOD). Despite repeated reboots the laptops were stuck in an endless reboot loop getting into the Windows desktop before then crashing.

The error given was PFN_LIST_CORRUPT

Oracle Apex View Clob File - Error on Google Chrome

I had an Oracle Apex application error reported by a few users that were unable to view a file loaded into one of the applications. Originally it only appeared to be PNG files that were affected but later it was clear that it impacted any type of file. When you clicked to view/download the file that had been stored as a Clob in Oracle there was an error page shown with the message

<ServerName> sent an invalid response.

 ERR_RESPONSE_HEADERS_MULTIPLE_CONTENT_DISPOSITION

On further investigation it appears this is a known issue with Google Chrome and not a specific Oracle Apex error. There are various characters that can cause the error if they exist in the file name of the file you are handling such as commas, quotes etc.

I've now put a DB trigger to rename any files to remove characters that could cause a problem so that users don't need to worry about renaming themselves.

Adobe Flash EOL Fix Blocked Applications Jan 12 2021

 Adobe Flash was made End of Life (EOL) at the end of December 2020 but Adobe gave users a short period of grace until turning the product off on 12 January 2021. As of today any websites will no longer be able to play Adobe Flash content as it is blocked by Adobe.

You can view a video of the steps here

However there is a way to still run Flash applications if you have access to Internet Explorer 11 and haven't applied the patch to remove Flash (KB4577586) We have successfully used this method to reactivate one of our applications that relied on Flash based graphs and had stopped working on Jan 12 but users are now able to access again. Bear in mind this should only be a temporary fix until you can rewrite the code, using Flash is not a long term solution. You need to create a file called MMS.cfg. Within the file you need to specify the domain and port that your flash application is running on, for example https://https://www.bbc.co.uk/:80. This is the website/domain for your website that you need to enable flash to work on.

The port number for standard websites is 80 or 8080 but if you have access to your webserver you should be able to check the number in the configuration. For my application it was port 7777 but that was part of the URL I need to enter to access the site so fairly obvious. 

Other parameters in the file I used are as below:

EOLUninstallDisable=1 AutoUpdateDisable=1 EnableAllowList=1 AllowListURLPattern=https://www.bbc.co.uk/:80 The file mms.cfg needs to be copied to the following 2 locations: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash Do not install this optional Microsoft update KB4577586: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/search.aspx?q=4577586

Oracle Apex Form Download File link error - Server sent an invalid response.

I had the following problem reported by a user of one of my Apex applications when they were trying to download an attachment that had been added to a record as a clob using the built in functionality for Apex clob form fields. The error message wasn't very informative and gave "server name sent an invalid response."

The issue seemed to be that the file name the user was adding included commas in it which is obviously allowed in Windows but maybe not in other system processes. Once I removed the commas the download worked fine again.

In order to remove unwanted characters in file names I added the following code to the insert trigger on the table to automatically update them

-- Check and update Filename remove unwanted characters 

--*****************************************************************************

       :NEW.FILE_NAME := REPLACE ( REPLACE ( REPLACE ( :NEW.FILE_NAME, CHR(44), NULL ), CHR(59), NULL ), CHR(39), NULL ) ;   

Oracle Apex Form Download File link error - Server sent an invalid response.

SecureDoc Password Different Windows 10 After Change

 SecureDoc is used to protect laptops so that the disc is encrypted before logging into the operating system. I have Windows 10 on my laptop and normally it's a seamless process to log in where you enter your credentials to SecureDoc on startup and this automatically logs you in to Windows.

However there seems to be an issue when Windows requires a password change and SecureDoc doesn't seem to be able to cope with this so you end up with the situation of needing a different password for SecureDoc to the one used for Windows and need to enter 2 different passwords.

The SecureDoc website is useless for finding information about this and doesn't have any support info - I guess because they expect support to be done by company helpdesks.

The answer seems to be to log in to the SecureDoc control center on your laptop once it has booted into the Operating System. Select the menu option to Communicate with Server and this appears to resync the password between Windows and SecureDoc. I don't know if the same process works for MacOS but it might be worth a try if you find that your password no longer matches SecureDoc.

IOCrest SATA 6g Host Controller Not working - Hard Drives not showing

 For ages I've had an IO Crest 8 channel PCI-Express SATA (Serial ATA) host controller card that I've been unable to get fully working on my PC so it would allow the additional hard drives I'd got connected to it to be visible. There were a few suggestions online but nothing seemed to work and some posts had suggested the card was unlikely to function properly for various reasons so I'd not dug further into it.

I finally decided to give it another go and to look for new drivers. The driver CD that came with the card didnt have anything of use on it - not sure if it was the wrong CD but it had video software nothing to do with this card. It seemed that the card had Marvell chipsets on it so had a look on their website which was utterly useless and gave no information.

I then stumbled on a very informative post here https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/60112-marvell-92xx-sata-controller-6gb-driver-windows-10-1-2-0-1039-whql.html which gave some details of a site that had the drivers as well as the right driver to install.

Downloaded and installed - bingo - suddenly the missing drives all pop up in Windows explorer so I've now got it all working.

The website with the drivers on is https://www.evga.com/support/download/

The Marvell driver to look for is with the Intel Z87 motherboard, FTW part number. Select Sata 3G/6G and then the relevant Operating System.

Download and extract the files and a folder called 1.2.0.1039-WHQL will be created. Run the drvsetup.exe file and the drivers will be added to your system.

Once done you will see the following in the Control Panel Device manager and hopefully a bunch of disks if you have any attached.

Garmin Forerunner 45 Not Showing or Recording Distance Since Hack July 2020

Garmin systems appear to have been hacked from 23 July 2020 and as of 27th July are slowly starting to come back.

However I've found that since the systems started to come back online my Garmin Forerunner 45 hasn't been showing or recording the distance for activities. I rebooted it but that made no difference. The run or ride still records, it still detects the GPS signal but no distance is shown on the device screen. It shows the pace so something is getting the data for that but the distance stays as zero.

The solution that I've found is to turn the bluetooth on my phone off, then reboot the Forerunner 45 watch and the do the activity so that the watch isn't aware of the phone sync at that point. 

It seems to be the phone that is stopping the distance recording on the watch but not sure how that is being triggered. Until the problem with Garmin is sorted I'm leaving the watch like this so that I can still record distances. 

The Forerunner 45 watch stores quite a bit of data so I'm not in any rush to restart the sync if it stops distances being recorded

I've now done a video on How to Fix the Garmin not getting GPS signal

Strava Sony Smartwatch3 Data Sync Fails - How to Fix

Strava have long since stopped supporting the Sony Smartwatch 3. I first found the problem with loading my runs & rides from my watch to Strava back in late 2017 and all was working relatively smoothly with my Android phone being kept on the latest working version of Strava which I'd found to be v20.0.0

I've now got a new Android phone and am looking to sell my old phone so need to get another way to load the Strava data from my Sony Smartwatch to Strava online. I've found a great website that maintains old copies of the Android Strava app where I am able to obtain a copy of v20 of Strava.

https://strava.en.uptodown.com/android/versions

Luckily I have a very old phone that I'm able to install Strava on and use that purely for loading my activity from my Smartwatch up to Strava. I can then use my new Android phone with the latest version of Strava to view my activity and those of my friends - the old version 20 no longer shows any activity on the phone but still syncs the data from the Smartwatch in the back ground.

So if you want to continue to use Strava on your Smartwatch I'd recommend using the link above to get v20 of the Strava app to load to your phone which will continue to sync your data.

Printing Clob Attachments from Oracle Database Along with Report Data

One challenge I was set by a manager at work was to enable users to be able to print from one of our in-house Apex applications and have a single button to print a record that included both rows of data from an Oracle database as well as various attachments that are linked to that record. These attachments could be PDF files, Word documents or Excel spreadsheets.

Looking online there doesn't seem to be much in the way of options for being able to use a single tool to produce a report that includes rows of data from an Oracle table along with CLOB or BLOB data in a single place.

However one idea came to mind when I was talking through options with colleagues. We already have the facility within the Apex system for a user to email themselves a copy of a specific record with any linked data. If it was possible to add the Clob attachments to this email then it would give a way to be able to print them.

Within Microsoft Outlook there is the ability to print an email and one slightly hidden option is to also print all attachments. The main print screen is below.

Printing Clob Attachments from Oracle Database

Click on Print Options and you see the screen below with the option to Print attached files. If you tick this option then the email body will be sent to print and each attachment will also be sent to the printer as a separate print job. 

How to print clobs in report with Oracle data

You will see a message asking if you want to open the program that processes each attachment type - answer Ok and the print is generated. You don't even see the program opening, the print is just generated. The print jobs will be sent directly to the printer and be held for printing by the user or print immediately depending on your print server setup.

To generate the email from the Oracle database we're using the Apex_Mail PROCEDURE which is part of the standard Oracle UTL_SMTP toolkit that has lots of documentation online.

https://docs.oracle.com/database/121/AEAPI/apex_mail.htm#AEAPI341

You can use the APEX_MAIL package to send an email from an Oracle Application Express application. This package is built on top of the Oracle supplied UTL_SMTP package. Because of this dependence, the UTL_SMTP package must be installed and functioning to use APEX_MAIL.APEX_MAIL contains three procedures. Use APEX_MAIL.SEND to send an outbound email message from your application. Use APEX_MAIL.PUSH_QUEUE to deliver mail messages stored in APEX_MAIL_QUEUE. Use APEX_MAIL.ADD_ATTACHMENT to send an outbound email message from your application as an attachment.

So the process to print a report from Oracle that includes table data as well as PDF, XLS, DOC or other attachments stored as Clobs is below:

• Generate email from Oracle Apex
• Add attachments to email
• Send email
• Use Outlook to print email and all attachments

An improvement/variation on this would be to include the Oracle table data in a PDF as an attachment to the email rather than being in the email body. This would allow you to control the layout and format of the table data more closely and avoid the email headers being shown.

If you have any questions, comment or feedback please post below

OpenHabian Raspberry Pi 3 Installation Failure Error

I've been trying to install OpenHabian 1.4 on my Raspberry Pi 3 and repeatedly getting a failure error with the installation when it tries to update packages. My Raspberry Pi has been variously plugged into a wall socket charger, TV and router to power the micro USB supply which have all worked fine when the standard Raspian Operating system was used.

However it appears that OpenHabian is very susceptible to voltage fluctuations during the installation process and if there is any slight drop it can cause the process to fail giving an error in the package installer but not making any mention of the voltage being the cause. The only sign that there may be an issue was when I connected the Pi to my TV monitor to view the install and noticed the yellow power symbol flash on screen a few times.

After seeing this error I downloaded the image onto a fresh SD card and started the installation again but this time using my mobile battery charger with 2A output. The installation completed flawlessly and I now have a fully working OpenHabian install ready to use!

Question From eBay Member - Email Virus Malware

One of the latest virus/malware attacks is an email that purports to be a question from an eBay member. Crucially the email is not shown as being from eBay but is spoofed as being a different sender - the ones I've seen are from wincanton.co.uk and meterreading@britishgas. The message says:

Hello Your ad is posted twice . Which is the right price ?Is this your product? 

The link below the question appears to be eBay but if you hover over (don't click!) then you'll see that the URL isn't the same as the link text. The link is to a compromised site so that when you click your PC will be infected with malware that can steal bank details or be controlled remotely.

This was quite an effective attack as I do currently have eBay listings running at the moment but fortunately the email came in on an account that isn't linked to eBay and all eBay emails come from them not the third party who has the question.

Company Investigations Inquiry Notice Email Scam

Latest scam/virus email from Investigations Enforcement services mail@localmail.com which is probably a spoofed email address. If you're asking if an titled Company Investigations Inquiry Notice is real or fake then we can confirm it is a fake, scam email. As usual the advice is to just delete the email, it is a scam to get you to click on the link which will download infected software to your PC.




Company Investigations Inquiry Notice Email Scam

Email details below:

Company Investigations Inquiry Notice

We have received a complaint about your company which suggests corporate misconduct.

This may involve:

• Causing significant harm to customers, suppliers, etc.
• Breaking the law, e.g. double-dealing
• Serious misbehavior, e.g. company assets have not been used properly
• Having a notable impropriety in its affairs.

As part of this procedure we have made our own background fieldwork and if it happens to be in the public interest, we can apply to the court to wind up the company and stop it trading.

Your Inquiry Number: 33IFMP344

Also if the conduct of the director(s) who run the company is questionable enough, we can commence proceedings to disqualify them from managing a limited company for a period up to 15 years.

The investigation may give us details that we can pass to another regulatory body that has more appropriate powers to deal with any concerns the investigation uncovers.

Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) Speeding Ticket by Email Fake or Real?

If you have received a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) Speeding Ticket by Email and are wondering if it is fake or real then think about these points.

 

In the UK Police do not send speeding tickets (Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP)) by email. The notice has to be sent by post within 14 days to the registered keeper, there is no option to email.

 

• Does the email claiming to be a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) show the vehicle registration?
• Does the email claiming to be a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) show the Registered Keeper Name?

The answer to both these questions is likely to be no as the emails are sent at random and the spammers have no idea who they have been sent to.


A Notice of Intended Prosecution has to be linked to a vehicle and a Registered Keeper so these emails can be deleted as spam.


If you have clicked the link on the email then I'd recommend using a virus scanner on your PC as you are likely to have infected your machine with a virus or Trojan.

 

 

Fake Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) Email

 

Manchester Police Speeding NIP Email Scam Virus - Notice of Intended Prosecution

The latest email virus scam/spam purports to be from Greater Manchester Police and to be a speeding ticket titled Notice of Intended Prosecution - M24181 There is a link in the email to view the photo which will be a virus that infects your machine if you click the link. Opening the email itself should not harm your machine but you should delete the email. Remember: UK Police DO NOT send speeding tickets known as Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) by email. The email also has no vehicle details included despite claiming to have detailed information about the location of the alleged offence. =============================================================== Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) Information Greater Manchester Police In accordance with Section 1 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988. we hereby inform you that it is mandatory to take proceedings against the driver of motor vehicle. Details of the Violation ·         Time & Date: at 18:56 on 30/11/2016 ·         Fixed Speed Camera UIN: 1WJT2 ·         Location: A560 Hyde Road, near Wyecroft Close, Stockport ·         Violation: EXCEED 25 MPH SPEED LIMIT ·         Vehicle Speed: 85 We have photographic data that the driver of motor vehicle failed to comply with a speed limit at the date, time and location. You have been announced as driver of the vehicle at the time of the supposed offence and have a legal obligation to comply with the provisions of the notice.

Check The Photographic Proof

Whether you agree with the NIP or not you have to fill out the section 172 notice declaring who was driving the car at the time of the offence within 28 days. The NIP with the section 172 notice were sent to your mailing address Time & Date: at 19:17 on 30/11/2016 Speeding Device ID: 6QDI5 Location: A664 Rochdale Road, near Queens Park (inbound), Manchester Offence: EXCEED 25 MPH SPEED LIMIT Vehicle Speed: 80 .

Oracle Apex Admin Password Locked - How to Unlock/Reset Apex User Account

If you get the message that your Oracle Apex account is locked because the password has been entered incorrectly then you have a number of ways to unlock and reset the account password.



Oracle Apex admin account locked

If you know the email address that was registered to the Apex workspace then you can click the link below the Sign In button.


How to Unlock/Reset Apex User Account

Unfortunately this option doesn't always work and might not be relevant if you know the password for the account and just need to remove the "locked" flag against the account.

If you have access to the underlying tables as SYS or other suitable Oracle user then find the appropriate Apex schema (APEX_050000 for Apex 5) and look for table WWV_FLOW_FND_USER.

Oracle apex WWV_FLOW_FND_USER reset account

If you use a tool such as TOAD or SQL Developer then you can navigate to the columns ACCOUNT_LOCKED, FAILED_ACCESS_ATTEMPTS and update the values so that the account is no longer locked and can be used for normal login.

Set the value in these columns:

ACCOUNT_LOCKED  to N
FAILED_ACCESS_ATTEMPTS to 0 (zero).

ACCOUNT_LOCKED, FAILED_ACCESS_ATTEMPTS

As long as you know the correct password for the workspace you will then be able to login as normal to the Apex admin screens.



Met Police Crime Prevention Advice - Scam Phishing Email

Beware of new email titled Crime Prevention Advice which contains a malware attachment that will infect your PC with a key logger

Received from the fake email address crime@content.met.police.uk and containing the subject line ‘Crime Prevention Advice’, the email asks readers to open the attached file to learn more.


Intelligence suggests that if the attachment is opened, iSpy key logger malware is downloaded onto the host device. The malware has the potential to capture keystrokes, steal passwords stored in web browsers among other malicious activities.


Other phishing emails to watch out for include:
• those from a ‘delivery company’ about an expected order which is delayed or held at the depot
• a bogus order tricking you to confirm or cancel it
• a fake ‘invoice’ attached for a recent order
• warnings or advice from the Police such as our example




Crime Prevention Advice Scam Email

Data Security & Patching - Advice for Dictators

With all the news about the Panama Papers I thought this article was an interesting take on data security and how not to do it, all from the viewpoint of a dictator trying to stash their millions. For the rest of us there are still some useful lessons about how to keep our data secure and away from hackers.


http://www.zdnet.com/article/three-important-lessons-crooked-world-leaders-can-learn-from-the-panama-papers/


The bottom line is patch, patch and patch again. Make sure you always keep your software up to date with the latest patches and install updates when there are any security alerts. For most of us all might happen is that someone could have access to our data or hack your email/social media but potentially you could lose money from fraud on your bank account or lose important personal data like photos if your phone or PC is at risk from unpatched security flaws.
If your PC or phone prompts to install new security updates then it's always worth making sure you take the time to apply them. From an IT perspective it may be a pain when systems need to be taken down to apply updates but there is good reason for keeping software fully patched as this shows!