Megauploads demise poses a serious question to users of online and cloud storage – how safe is your data?

US prosecutors have said that data belonging to Megaupload users and stored by third parties could be deleted as soon as Thursday.

Users have been unable to access data since the file-sharing service was raided.

The warning was made in a letter filed by the US Attorney’s Office.

Megaupload’s lawyer Ira Rothken told the Associated Press that at least 50 million users had data which could be deleted.

Mr Rothken said that freezing of Megaupload’s funds meant it was unable to pay those who were storing its data. BBC.

Now I’ve never used Megaupload so it might well have been obvious what was happening at Megaupload which meant no sane person should have entrusted Megaupload with their data.

However there’s no room for complacency you need to consider what your favoured storage site allows on to their servers – could they be charged by the US authorities with copyright infringement? Because if they could then how would you survive if you could no longer access the data they store?

The answer with data is having more than one copy in more than one location! Then you won’t be caught out if you suddenly lose access to one copy.

Codecademy is a new start-up that was created out of the frustrations Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski found with learning how to program. Tired with ineffective text and video resources, Ryan and Zach created Codecademy.

It’s early days but the site certainly has potential currently there’s 21 lessons and 109 exercises on JavaScript – there are courses for absolute novices and others for those with some programming knowledge.

Currently it’s free so if you wish to learn JavaScript there isn’t a better place to start.

Hat Tip: Business Insider.

If you’ve got a problem that that you’re installed anti-virus, internet security or anti-spyware can’t fix then you need Malwarebytes – if Malwarebytes can’t fix your problem then the chances are that nothing but a complete re-install’s going to solve your problem.

I’ve been using Foursquare for Checkin’s – not that I’ve seen any benefits – maybe I’m using the wrong system? Drew Hawkins at Social Media Today explains:

Now let’s take a look at Facebook Places. What makes Places effective as a check-in tool is Facebook Deals. Not only can you find and earn certain deals by checking in, Places also allows two different types of Deal setting for business owners: one-time visits and loyalty deals. Similar to the old school punch card, Facebook users can earn bigger rewards for visiting a visit a certain number of times. These loyalty deals are set at a max of 20 check-ins (but honestly, would you want more than that?).

In addition to loyalty check-ins, Deals also allows a group check-in experience. If groups of 8 or more check in together at a venue, they too can earn an additional deal. If a company were to tap into the “Sponsored Stories” advertising option, they would have an even broader scope of personal networks to tap into simultaneously. This would help build loyalty and spread the brand name even quicker across the site. I’ve talked about (on Hinda’s blog) how group buying services like Groupon could tap into location services to increase loyalty. This is just another way checkins and group buying could see a mutually beneficial experience.

Equals Loyalty Dominance Potential

So let’s break this down. Facebook has:

The most minutes spent on it out of any mobile site

Check-in functions

Deals offered based on location and proximity

Small loyalty programs within those deals

Group buying capabilities

An active audience of 600 million people for users to share these deals and check-ins with

I would venture to guess that Facebook will move to a much bigger player in the loyalty space.

via Facebook: The New Loyalty Juggernaut | Social Media Today.

Looks like I should swap to Facebook’s places.

I’ve long been an admirer of OpenOffice – although I’ve been unable to persuade anyone to use it – either at work or home – my employer has no faith in open software – which I believe is at best misguided whilst at home we share computers and none of my family will countenance anything but Microsoft – still I digress.

Oracle’s recent acquisition of Sun raised a few concerns among open-source software supporters. Sun was the main sponsor of the OpenOffice.org project, an open-source spin-off of its own commercial StarOffice suite. Sun’s patronage was generally seen in a positive light by the open-source community, but uncertainties remain over Oracle’s commitment to open source. Expert Reviews.

Anyway the long and the short of it is a group of OpenOffice developers decided to take a copy of the OpenOffice source code and start their own parallel development called LibreOffice. To all intense purposes there’s not a lot of difference between OpenOffice and LibreOffice – you’re really left gambling which will provide the better long term solution.

Like OpenOffice, LibreOffice offers amazing value for money – that’s no-money at all – for which you get a very useable word processor and spreadsheet more than adequate for most people’s needs – how many of us use a database or power point presentation – I suspect not that many of us. That said it reminds me of another reason I’ve not weaned myself off Microsoft and that’s the Access database – OpenOffice and LibreOffice’s alternatives are pretty meagre – still what I need to do is find a more serious database system – Access isn’t particularly good.

The trouble is even with the best intentions apathy will set in and I’ll end up sticking with Microsoft – it’s going to hard work for anyone to break Microsoft’s stranglehold.

Scott Adams is wrong about the budget – it makes no difference upgrades and service is always required.

A new security scare is about to hit as the BBC News reports Microsoft warns on IE browser bug.

Microsoft has issued a warning about a serious vulnerability in all versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser.

If exploited by a booby-trapped webpage the bug would allow attackers to take control of an unprotected computer. BBC.

In reality you’re unlikely to be affected as Microsoft points out.

In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit these Web sites. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker’s Web site. Microsoft.

In reality you’re at as much risk as ever – if your web surfing involves sites like the BBC, The Guardian, Amazon and Wikipedia then you’ve little to worry about – my advice as always is to use your brains.

Personally I don’t use IE and now might a good time you tried out some alternatives –why not give Firefox or Chrome a try?

TeamViewer is a brilliant piece of software that’s free to use for non commercial use – what does it do you ask?

TeamViewer connects to any PC or server around the world within a few seconds. You can remote control your partner’s PC as if you were sitting right in front of it.

So the next time you’ve an elderly relative on the phone with a PC problem you know what you need – TeamViewer which allows you to sort the problem out from the comfort of your own laptop – and if you’re feeling really brave you could even use your mobile! All for free!

I need to edit some large files and use the search and replace functions – I managed to crash the default Windows options – so I tried Notepad++ instead – and I’m wondering why I haven’t tried it before – for a piece of freeware it’s quite brilliant.