Saturday, 1. March 2008, 16:33:11
There is some really innovative and interesting stuff around at the moment if you are into how technology can make your life easier.
If you life your life from a cybercafe and want a computer-based online "home" then there is Jooce -
http://www.jooce.com.Logging in gets you to your own personal home page where you can upload music, avatars, photographs, videos, files ... you name it. It is in its early stages and has a long way to go, but it's an interesting concept.
If you don't want to make Bill Gates even richer and refuse to buy MS Office and OpenOffice is still too much of a spacehogger then there are some great online alternatives.
Google has its own suite of word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software, which, if you are familiar with Google offerings, is powerful but pretty basic. I find myself running documents in the background and cut and paste articles, recipes, etc into Google Docs for storage.
If you have concerns about Google holding too much of your information then you have alternatives with Zoho - www.zoho.com - and, if just want a word process, Adobe's new acquisition Buzzword -www.buzzword.com. Both look nicer on the eye if GUIs are important to you.
My best online discovery recently is Mozy -
https://mozy.com/?ref=W2LCPD- which provides a hefty 2gb of online storage free of charge by way of automatic backup. Sign up for the facility and download some software and you are ready to go. In simple mode the software looks for likely contenders for backup - Word documents, spreadsheets, photographs, etc and then prepares them for upload to the Mozy server. You can bypass this and use the advanced options and choose your own files.
As you would expect the first backup takes a bit of time but it's a lot quicker after that. Security is pretty robust and a colleague who works for the European Commission says it is solid from a security point of view. So if backing up files is not your standpoint then Mozy is for you.
Sunday, 20. January 2008, 11:43:29
Things continue to go downhill for the Labour Government. Dodgy payments for use in elections for some post within the government hierarchy look like ruining Peter Hain's current career. However, no doubt, in true Labour style his disgrace will not stop a resurrection a la Mandelson or Blunkett. These days politicians have little pride and no honour and continue to grasp the reins of power when they should resign. The only man to have entered Parliament with honest intentions looks like being Guy Fawkes.
And out glorious leader Gordon Brown is in China, ignoring the appalling human rights issues there, and pledging increased trade between the two countries. I suspect that much of the trade will be one way with a flood of underwear and cheap electronics coming here and very little being sold to Mao's heirs.
In the meantime Brown maintains a high profile in the UK by popping up for soundbytes over every subject available. Two pilots crash land a plane at Heathrow and every one escapes - Brown says well done lads, great job. I suspect this is because Brown is such a non-entity with as much personality as a lobotomised melon that he has to keep the soundbytes coming just so we remember the smug little bastard is still alive and functioning.
At the back of it is a tremendous slump in Labour's popularity. I have a strong feeling that if we dug up Yassar Arafat and put him into a leadership competition with Brown the dead Palestinian would wins hands down.
In the meantime Blair is cashing in on his mindless, puppy-like following of Bush with a $500,000 a year post with an American bank. As his premiership unraveled it became clear that the man had fewer moral scruples than a pimp who feeds off $5 heroin hookers, so it comes as little surprise that the sleazy individual should be stuffing his pockets with cash while Iraqis continue to die.
Sunday, 6. January 2008, 16:29:57
Back in the 60s and 70s I took a lot of interest in the US political system, there was a lot of stuff about Vietnam, naturally, and a lot of action from radicalised hippies and the build up to elections was always a pretty fun affair, if you can call what George Wallace did in Chicago in 1968 fun!
The circus that is the US elections was particularly good when you consider that Hunter S Thomson generally got involved somewhere along the line - and he wasn't just sitting at the back of the room making notes, but sitting with key figures on the tour planes and limos and came pretty close once to blowing up Nixon while smoking a cigarette during a fuel stop and the pair of them were talking football.
Thomson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail was a classic, allowing us to see the world of American elections through Thomson's somewhat twisted cerebral processes.
Looking at the current line up the one thing that struck me is that the candidates are all so bloody dull. At least with Bush, who has the IQ of a lobotmised amoeba, you can have a little bit of fun in trying to work out which unfortunate puppet master has their hand shoved up his anal orifice and is working him today!
So let's get out our ouji boards and call on the spirit of HST to entertain us during the run up to whoever whatever takes over the White House after spending so much moneyt they could pay off the World Bank loans for several third world countries.
I'm just waiting for some journalist with balls to ask Hilary Clinton what part she played in the death of Vince Foster, but I'm not holding my breath!
Friday, 28. December 2007, 16:43:23
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto presents a greater threat to "world peace" than all the current shenanigans that are currently going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. There can be little doubt that the deed was carried out by Islamic militants allied to if not directed by Al Aqaeda as Bhutto was seen as a strong believer in stronger links with the United States and had she won the elections in two weeks, as she was strongly tipped to do, that would have been unacceptable to Islamists.
In little more than a day Pakistan has been reduced to chaos with thousands of people fighting with and shooting at police, raiding banks, burning cars and petrol stations and the only remarkable thing is the small number of people who have died so far.
Musharraf will find the pressure of the next few weeks the toughest he has yet faced and he has to stamp his authority on the revolts that will break out because the only other option is that the fundamentalists will cause further chaos and eventually win power and get their hands on the county's nuclear arsenal. Is that happens I suspect both India and Israel will look strongly at the need for preemptive attacks as there can be no doubt that the political masters of the Islamic foot soldiers will have little hesitation in unleashing the nuclear option as there is little threat to them squatting in the dust of the mountains.
Monday, 17. December 2007, 17:53:37
Just when you would have hoped that this Government might have learnt a lesson or two following the loss of disks containing more than 25 million names, addresses and financial details, it appears that details of three million candidates for the driving theory test have gone missing. The odd thing is that this information has gone missing in the United States though the kind auspices of a contractor to the Driving Standards Agency.
This latest farce means that so far this year the Government has managed to lose the personal details of almost 30 million people, that's roughly half the population.
One piece of good news is that it appears that Golden Brown is becoming isolated from others in government and the party and that the start of a meltdown within the Labour Party. This can only be good news and this Goverment has been one of the most systemically corrupt of those that have heldm power and even the Grey Man, former PM John Major, has broken his silence of many years. OKay, so this is like being savaged by a toothless amoeba but the more pressure on the Dour Scotsman the better.
We just await the shock news that several million letters from children to Santa Claus has been lost and the Government has had to cancel Christmas.
Sunday, 16. December 2007, 12:51:53
It appears that the threat of bacterial warfare hitting the UK - and United States - is quite strong but not from the usual enemy. While those in power have warned repeatedly about the risk of dirty bombs and germ warfare, soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are bringing back a new superbug which could cause chaos.
The bacterium, Acinetobacter baumannii, first emerged as a 'mystery infection' afflicting US service personnel returning from the war in Iraq in 2003-04. It was described by a scientific journal specialising in hospital epidemiology as the 'most important emerging hospital-acquired pathogen worldwide'. The journal added that it was potentially a 'major threat to public health' due to its ability to mutate rapidly and develop a resistance to all known drugs.
Although different types of acinetobacter have been known for decades in hospitals, the new 'T' strain identified in the injured troops is particularly virulent and has been observed to appear in US servicemen within two hours of being admitted to a field hospital. It affects the spinal fluid, bones and lungs, causing pneumonia, respiratory failure and other complications. Equally worrying is its resilience. Extremely difficult to eliminate from medical facilities once established, the bug can survive for up to 176 days in a human host. US officials concede that, once established in the medical evacuation chain, the germ is almost impossible to stamp out.
Thursday, 6. December 2007, 06:30:17
The ongoing meltdown in the Government gathers apace with some interesting developments over and since the weekend.
Revisiting the disappearing disks debacle, it is rumoured that not only did the two CDs contain 27 million names, addresses and bank details of everyone in the UK receiving child benefits but also the identities of those under the witness protection scheme. So those people who have had the guts to stand up to organised crime and other acts that have forced them to reinvent themselves - bearing in mind this could also refer to the two who killed Jamie Bulger, one of whom I know is living in this county - now find themselves threatened by a stunning ineptness. I just hope the Information Commissioner fines the Government a substantial sum of money, but that won't come out of the pockets of the idiots responsible but from the taxpayers.
The dodgy donation saga rumbles on with Peter Hain and the leader of the Labour party in Scotland now admitting they have received illegal payments for their campaigns. It appears that one of the few not affewcted by this is Golden Brown but we all know that man is so puritancial he would not have accepted ten free commandments if he went up a mountain to talk to God.
The Government must be dying for the Christmas parliamentary recess just to get away from the grilling and jibes, but I fear that worse could be waiting for them when they return from their festive jollies.
Thursday, 29. November 2007, 17:05:02
Gordon brown’s lifelong dream of being prime minister must have turned to sawdust in his mouth in the last month. Northern Rock, the island Revenue database fiasco and now more dodgy donations from a bloke that has changed his name and has been scattering largesse through third parties. Not only is the latter incident embarrassing because it follows so hot on the heels of the cash for honours investigation that you can smell the burnt rubber of police size tens, but all three have their roots back to when Golden Brown was chancellor of the exchequer.
Back in the days of the last Conservative administration there was the “Cash for Questions” scandal when apparently certain MPs had taken cash from an Egyptian who runs a corner shop in London to ask questions on his behalf. This now seems small fry when you consider that Yates of the yard who controlled the Cash For Honours investigation has intimated that there is a substantial amount of information that has never been made public. I can’t wait for memoirs when he retires.
Of course it is common knowledge that Labour cannot wait to get their grubby little mitts on filthy lucre without too much regard as to where it came from. Back in the mists of time when Blair had a bit of a reputation, Labour was positively happy to take a large donation – reputed to be around £1million – from the Political Animal Lobby, an alleged welfare group that is for profit rather than a registered charity, and shortly afterwards a ban on foxhunting became law.
So it comes as no surprise that leading politicians within Labour greedily snapped up money donated by David Abrahams without so much as a second thought.
What really sticks in the craw is watching these gluttonous individuals try and claw their way back to respectability when they do not realise that the general public just see them as grasping, unscrupulous, opportunists without a shred of conscience. I can think of no better description than Hunter S Thomson’s portrayal of the brutal pack of inhuman reprobates at the Kentucky Derby who amply demonstrates that Western civilisation is in steep decline.
Monday, 26. November 2007, 17:46:34
So keen are the Americans to nail someone’s ass to the wall over the alleged BAE corruption charges that was halted in the UK on orders from Number 10, they have resorted to sneaking in a witness undercover to ensure the Brits didn’t find out.
This might come as a surprise considering how keen the UK Government was to extradite the Natwest Three to America to face charges linked to the collapse of Enron. Anyone who followed the case must have been embarrassed as to the level of “brown-nosing” undertaken by the UK government, but hardly surprised considering that Blair was little more that Dubya’s poodle over the past two or three years.
As the aborted BAE investigation by the Serious Fraud Office involved Saudi Prince Bandar and no doubt senior officials from within the defence department, there were some big names to protect, certainly more important than the pondlife Natwest Three who were thrown to the wolves even though there is no formal extradition policies in place.
It appears that the US are so keen to rub noses in the dirt that they flew UK businessman Peter Gardiner to America via Paris to avoid attention. It is alleged that Mr Gardiner has boxes of invoices involving payments by BAE to members of the Saudi royal family. It could well be that Mr Gardiner was aware of the fate of Dr David Kelly and feared that if he did not co-operate with the Americans then he, too, would end up dead in the woods.
However, this is not the only matter that the Americans have gone behind Downing Street’s back in the BAE affair. It seems that they have access to papers from a Swiss Bank relating to the affair and it is believed that Berne was the centre where the UK filtered backhanders to the Saudis. So much for the reputation of Swiss Banking if the men in suits roll over and have their tummies tickled just because some spook in Washington cuts up a bit rough. I'd like to see the reaction of those in the Bush administration who have made a financial killing out of Iraq if they knew some pinstripe was ratching through their account details.
It would appear that with the disappearance of Blair, the special relationship – albeit one way – forged by Thatcher and Regan is well and truly over.
Sunday, 25. November 2007, 13:46:27
It's hard to believe that Tony Blair actually led this country given his latest blunder. In his latest role as peace negotiator to the Middle East, whose population are Muslims, he comes out and blurts about his conversion to and belief in Catholicism!
It is hard to see how the Arabs will have faith in Blair's impartiality but the smart money knows that Blair's role was given by the idiot in the White House and as such is little more than Bush's puppet with George's shoved firmly up the rectal orifice instead of pulling his strings
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