Digi-quest

Reading Time:2 minutes

Published: 12:00am, 31 Aug 2008

I recently started receiving junk faxes again, years after I had my PCCW account bar these unsolicited calls. What should I do?

Valerie, Central

DQ: This problem was supposed to have been dealt with as far back as 2005. The Office of the Telecommunications Authority (Ofta), the industry regulator, enacted several measures that year against senders of unsolicited advertisements to put a stop to junk faxes. Hong Kong, like many other cities, allows its residents to put their names and telephone numbers on a 'no call' list. According to Ofta, it has the co-operation of all local fixed telecommunications network service providers to protect consumers from junk faxes. This is in line with the voluntary 'code of practice on the procedures for handling complaints against senders of unsolicited fax advertisements'. You are supposed to notify by telephone or fax any company that sends you unsolicited fax messages. They are then required to desist.

A pamphlet from Ofta (www.ofta. gov.hk/en/junkfax/deal-unsolicited-fax-adv.pdf) explains those steps. If the senders of junk faxes continue to bother you, complain to your service provider. The theory is the service provider must handle this complaint within a few days. If you do not get the results you want, write in again and we shall see what we can do. The Safari browser on my Mac computer often freezes, which means I have to restart the application. When I want all the windows that were open previously, it freezes again. Do you have any suggestions?

Name and address supplied

DQ: This is a common occurrence and it can be very frustrating. The best way to handle this would be to first make a note of the uniform resource locator (URL) of the webpage causing you problems. After exiting Safari, go to your Library folder (it will be in the folder that has your name on it) and look for 'Safari'. In that folder, you should see about seven files, one of which is called LastSession.plist. You may need to get hold of Property List Editor if you haven't got it. (It is part of the XCode package on your System DVD, but installing the entire package would seem to be a waste of space if you are not going to be programming.)