There is a trend to store your data on the web, rather than your PC, so that if your computer crashes and you haven’t backed up (and how many of us do this regularly enough), you will still have access to your data.
1. All data related to your own web sites and blogs are generally on your host’s servers.
2. If you use web mail, like gmail, your emails are on the web. I advise forwarding many of your important emails to gmail. There’s certainly enough space for them.
3. Google has begun the process of allowing free storage of spreadsheets, word processing, maps and videos.
4. Images, videos and podcasts can be stored on web pages.
5. I have heard of places where you can store data for a fee.
Now Microsoft, in its eternal competition with google, is using a beta form of this, called Live Mesh, but it will cost. It is currently offering 5GB of online storage to 10,000 people in this beta form.
Facebook and My Space are joining the race also. They allow third party developers to write applications for them.
Google is rumoured to be developing a web based operating system that ties all of it’s online applications together. It already has Google Gears which allows access to Google applications while offline.
Amazon too allows huge storage on its servers.
To see the video which Microsoft has developed for it’s Live Mesh you can visit it at Live Mesh
Who would use these storage spaces for a fee though, when so much is free on Google? We’ll have to wait and see. I’d certainly spend time moving most of my stuff over to a storage space on-line. This seems to be the trend, so get going folks! No more worrying about PCs crashing.
My post is to do with the new terrorism laws passed in many countries, but I will concentrate on my own.
The Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 (Revised) is legislation intended to hamper the activities of any potential terrorists in Australia. It was passed by the Commonwealth Parliament on 6 December 2005.
* Potential for preventive detention: short term detention for named individuals: without evidence; and without criminal involvement; the detainee may be interrogated by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO); disclosing that an individual has been so detained or interrogated is, in almost all circumstances, a crime.
* Control orders: Potential for almost unlimited restrictions on named individuals: freedom of movement; freedom of association (including one’s lawyer); banning the performing of named actions and owning named items, including actions and things necessary to earn a living; unlimited requirements to be, or not to be, at specified places at any or all times of the day and week; wear a tracking device; and including encouragement to submit to re-education. These restrictions are referred to as “control orders”, and may be granted for a period of one year before review.
* Significant restrictions on the right of any citizen to express certain opinions: including criticism, or “urging disaffection”, of the sovereign, the constitution, the government, the law, or ‘different groups’; exemptions may exist where the target of criticism is agreed to be ‘in error’; exemptions appear to exist where the claim is that a feature of a group of people is in some way offensive to the mainstream of society; onus of proof of goodwill is on the defendant - the presumption is not of innocence.
* It becomes a crime, punishable by life imprisonment, to recklessly provide funds to a potential terrorist: funds include money and equivalents and also assets; it is not necessary that the culprit know the receiver is a terrorist, only that they are reckless about the possibility; it is not even necessary that the receiver is a terrorist, only that the first person is reckless about the possibility that they might be.
* Police can request information from any source about any named person: any information about the person’s travel, residence, telephone calls, financial transactions amongst other information; professional privilege does not apply; it can be an offence to disclose that such documents have been obtained.
* A legislative provision for ‘hoax offences’ will create a more serious charge for people who cause chaos for the public and emergency services by dreaming up devastating terrorist-inspired hoaxes.
Let’s be clear. I am not a supporter of terrorism, but these laws have led to a lot of mistakes and injustices. I’m not a lawyer, but the whole principle of Habeas Corpus is missing here.
As far as I know a “suspect” can be detained without a lawyer and without anyone knowing, not even family. This is a breach of human rights and in my opinion has achieved what terrorism hasn’t been able to do: it has limited the so-called freedom that the Western countries are so keen on protecting from terrorism. Now, terrorism is not new. So why have these laws been enacted? To restrict the rights of a country’s own citizens. To keep them scared. To discriminate against Muslims.
I only ever use Firefox but now after clicking on it, it takes about 3 minutes before I get a dialog box which says
A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.
Apparently this is a common problem.
When did it start happening? Well I can’t quite remember now but I had downloaded a firefox add on which was a You Tube downloader which never seemed to appear. So I deleted that add on. It can be a conflict between Firefox add ons. I had cleaned out my files, removed some programs which were not mine being careful to leave shared files. I had defragged.
I have typed about:config in the browser and altered dom.max_script_run_time to a higher number but it was already on 10 anyway. No luck.
I ended up deleting Firefox and downloading a newer version. I was leaving this until last because I didn’t want to lose my passwords which are saved by Firefox. They are still there and so is the problem.
Mozilla support isn’t much use. Other forums have suggested what I have already done.
I suspect the problem is in Documents and Settings > Firefox> Profile but I don’t know what to change there.
May 16, 2008 
Posted in computers, podcasting, social networking, software, videos 
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