Algarve II

🇵🇹 Autumn holiday time

A slight head ache this morning which is not surprising due to the number of cocktails which were drunk yesterday afternoon and evening.

It is a beautiful and sunny day so I think a lot of walking to discover the area is a must. But before that, it is time go to the next town’s supermarket which basically serves the mostly British 🇬🇧 population living or holidaying here.

Back to the Four Seasons Resort for a small bite of lunch and a rest sitting outside.

Time to go for a walk. It takes only a few minutes to reach sea.

Excellent walk with a pleasant pit stop in the middle.

The evening Apéro started very early as we had to celebrate S.. obtaining her French 🇫🇷 nationality that day.

It was followed by diner a few miles away in our case and back to A..’s villa for a few more drinks and cocktails whilst waiting for the last couple to arrive from Carcassone after delays with their flight.

I cannot really remember what time we walked home for a couple of night caps. Needless to say I slept well.

Day by Day

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Algarve I

🇵🇹 Autumn holiday time

Made it to Toulouse airport, despite torrential rain, in plenty of time which means we can enjoy an early morning coffee and a small bite to eat.

It took over 20 minutes and a steep climb and a few bumps to get out of the very thick cloud cover.

The rest of the 1h50 flight was smooth and pleasant enough.

The pre-ordered rental car was waiting for us and we were soon on our way to the south and the 2h30 journey. Amazingly, the roads were totally empty.

Made it to the resort in Quinta do Lago safely and met up with our friends. All in all there will be 11 of us all from thee Carcassonne area.

The rest of the afternoon and evening consisted of quite a lot of cocktails by the pool then inside the club house and dinner at the club house.

Day by Day

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Algarve

Autumn holiday time

This year we are off to Portugal 🇵🇹 and to be precise in the Algarve in south of the country. There we are staying with some friends arriving on the same day. Quite a few other friends are staying in the resort at the same time so it might prove very interesting indeed.

Day by Day

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SPAM

SIGNAL SPAM

Most of the SPAM mail I receive is from Germany, probably due to the fact that I am registered in Germany and my internet provider is German.

Most of the SPAM is detected by my provider and directed to a SPAM folder.

Since I use Apple’s native email applications which connect to my service provider IONOS to retrieve my emails, I would not see the SPAM emails, those do not get downloaded.

However, for safety reasons, I usually log in IONOS more or less on a daily basis and erase all emails which have already been downloaded to my various electronic devices (phone, tablet, laptop & PC).

I then have the opportunity to check on the SPAM emails, hence the fact that I know that most of them are in German as mentioned earlier.

Nevertheless a few come through and end up in my standard inboxes. In such cases I do 2 things:

  1. Log in to my providers IONOS and establish a rule blocking the sender of the said SPAM email + a rule identifying a few key words in the email subject and if another email with those words is identified, just block.
  2. There is a new service offered by the French Government which helps fighting SPAM. This service is called Signal Spam. You have to be registered, it takes a few clicks to report such an email and you can get a lot of info on the origin, servers used etc etc.

SInce I have been reporting SPAM emails this way, the number has drastically decreased. Maybe to 1 or 2 a week, so I thought I should share this info.

💻 💻 💻

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Winter cleaning

For the past few days I have been reorganising all my files on the different computers, tablets and phone I have. There are a few reasons for this:

  1. I am often looking for info I know I have stored somewhere but am often not able to find it quickly when I need it.
  2. I want one and only data source which I can access from any of my computers or even external ones.
  3. I have too many Note taking applications for which I even pay a monthly fee for some. 

I have decided to get rid of applications like Evernote (€99 a year is now cancelled) and concentrate on Apple’s native and free application iNote combined with Dropbox. The plan being to have a main index on iNote with links to internal iNote notes (this is now possible with iOS 17.1) or links to Dropbox.

For instance I can have a list of documents on Dropbox (ID Card, Passport, Driving license etc etc) and links to them from my iNotes new index.

For the past few days I have been transferring all my Evernote files out of that application. It is a gigantic task, files have accumulated over the years. Some are obviously not longer relevant.

Another big move is that everything is now copied into the “☁️Cloud☁️” so it can be accessed from anywhere. Sensitive information is stored on external disks.

I am nowhere finished but it is beginning to look good

I have started a similar exercise with “To Do” and project applications. Stick to native apps is now my motto with similar links as above. Keep it simple.

🖥 🖥 🖥

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Aquarelle imaginaire

Contribution to the war effort

by

JJ with AI support

Aircraft carrier stuck between two bridges in Paris
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Number 40

The latest (40th) Astérix is out nationwide since yesterday. I just picked my copy up and will enjoy reading it straight away by the pool in the warm autumn 🍂 sun ☀️.

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Vigipirate

Urgent attack / Urgence attentat

The Vigipirate plan is raised to the level of “Urgent Attack”
Published on October 17, 2023 – Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

Following the terrorist attack that occurred in a high school in Arras on October 13, 2023, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced that the “Urgent Attack” level was declared throughout the national territory. This is the highest alert level of the Vigipirate plan. Service-Public.fr reminds you of the nature of each of the three alert levels: “Vigilance”, “Enhanced Security – Terrorist Risk”, “Urgent Attack”.

This alert level allows for an exceptional mobilization of resources (Sentinelle force soldiers…), but also for the dissemination of information that can protect citizens in a crisis situation.

Among the measures that can be applied with the “Urgent Attack” level:

access controls for individuals and vehicles can be strengthened in public buildings;
visual bag checks can be carried out at the entrance of schools, and in case of refusal, the school principal or head of the institution can deny access to the person in question;
places of worship can be subject to enhanced surveillance

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Caught Red Handed / Pris en flagrant délit

Surprise, surprise, on the official FB page of the “Ville de Carcassonne” we make the front page (see pic bottom left) of us enjoying some wine from Domaine deMirausse.

Surprise, surprise, sur la page officielle FB de la “Ville de Carcassonne” nous faisons la première page (voir photo en bas à gauche) de nous en train de déguster du vin du Domaine de Mirausse.

I had not seen my friend Raymond (wearing a hat) in a long time

🍷🍷🍷

Posted in Drinks, Events, Food | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Fighting SPAM

On this official French Government web page, it is recommended to use the application “signal spam” to try and combat the ever increasing and inappropriate as well as often dangereous emails.

I have joined this service and started reporting suspect emails landing in my inbox. I have noticed when trying to analyse the source code of these emails that a few are coming via one of the US Amazon servers. I am looking forward to the reporting from the Signal Spam team.

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