It isn’t Cloud computing its Careless computing dummies! Richard Stallman founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the operating system GNU explains.

Google’s new cloud computing ChromeOS looks like a plan “to push people into careless computing” by forcing them to store their data in the cloud rather than on machines directly under their control.

Two years ago Stallman, a computing veteran who is a strong advocate of free software via his Free Software Foundation, warned that making extensive use of cloud computing was “worse than stupidity” because it meant a loss of control of data.

Now he says he is increasingly concerned about the release by Google of its ChromeOS operating system, which is based on GNU/Linux and designed to store the minimum possible data locally. Instead it relies on a data connection to link to Google’s “cloud” of servers, which are at unknown locations, to store documents and other information.

The risks include loss of legal rights to data if it is stored on a company’s machine’s rather than your own, Stallman points out: “In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company’s machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company’s server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant.” Source: The Guardian.

You’ve been warned!

I’ve been messing around with Steve Atty’s Wordbooker that puts OutofRange.net posts on my Facebook pages – seems to works rather nicely.

So if you’ve a desire to put your WordPress blog posts on Facebook then give Wordbooker a try I found it easy to set up.

Warning this is pretty techie and unless NAS box, mapped drives and online backup mean anything to you I’d skip this.

So you’re still with me – I’ve been using Mozy to back up my system over the Internet.

However I recently purchased a NAS box to relieve the pressure of data on my laptop and to add additional protection by storing my data on mirrored disks.

Now, I assumed, as it turns out incorrectly, that Mozy would backup the NAS box. As always assumption is the mother of cock-up’s and Mozy won’t backup mapped drives – well not unless I purchase a Mozy Pro server licence – which makes online backup ridiculously expensive.

So when my current 2-year-agreement runs out I’d thought I’d use a service that supports mapped drives – we’ll I’ve been looking and it seems a four leaved clover might be easier to find.

So when I read:

IDrive also has some backup features that might be welcome within small and media businesses. Mapped network drives can easily be backed up, and scheduled backups can be set up within the client or by using a web-based management console. Stuart Andrews, PC Pro.

So I checked IDrive’s website and yes IDrive supports backup of mapped and external hard drives and all for $4.95 US dollars a month – so if you’ve a NAS box IDrive looks the affordable online backup service to use.

Microsoft has given us the choice of 12 browsers and I’ve started trialling them – giving each one a week – last week.

So which browser’s the best? Of the twelve eight aren’t really a sensible choice either they work poorly or are best suited to people who like to customise their software – and I’m not that person.

Of the four remaining Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera I prefer Firefox – which to be honest was the browser I was using before I started. For me it worked the best and during the trial week didn’t fail once – which is not something I can say about the rest – if you want to sacrifice some website compatibility then Opera would be my choice it’s faster than all the other browsers and also there’s Opera Unite which is a great way to share files – Of the other two Chrome is the new kid on the block and getting better each time I’ve looked at it whilst Internet Explorer’s for the diehard Microsoft fans.

Still you might find differently – in fact you will – you don’t use the web like I do – so for me the answer to the question best browser is Firefox.

Microsoft has given us the choice of 12 browsers and I’ve started trialling them – giving each one a week – last week I’ve been using Sleipner.

Looks pretty good on first looks however it suffers from many of the same problems as other browsers but the worst of it is Sleipner is so slow in fact it’s so slow it should be named Sleepner – no I can’t recommend anyone uses this browser – it’s pretty awful.

Well that’s it I’ve tried them all – back to Firefox for me.

Microsoft has given us the choice of 12 browsers and I’ve started trialling them – giving each one a week – last week I’ve been using Safari.

On first using looks pretty good it’s even configured for Google UK which is good – pretty easy to configure as well – so pretty positive.

However that warm feeling quickly evaporates – Safari has a split personality when clicking a website link – you might get a new window or a tab or you might be lucky and stay in the window you’re using – I improved the situation by configuring Safari – but it’s still far from perfect.

However that’s a minor annoyance compared to Safari’s tendency to crash far too often and in too many cases failing to restart without a re-boot – time consuming and deeply annoying –

This really is an unmitigated piece of rubbish – you’ll get a new window or not – copying links is erratic and a nightmare – there’s too much not to like about this browser – it might well be a great product on an Apple but this port to Windows isn’t good – I’m tempted to cut the week short – the first time I’ve thought that – it really is that bad.

As I’ve been away firstly at The Hay Festival and secondly at Wychwood I persevered with Safari for another week – better the devil I know – so instead of cutting short I used Safari for two weeks – it didn’t get any better – Safari isn’t a browser for a Windows PC. This week I’ll be using Sleipner – the last of the browsers.

Microsoft has given us the choice of 12 browsers and I’ve started trialling them – giving each one a week – last week I’ve been using Opera.

Looks pretty spartan and no menus – however once you realise you need to click on the logo in the top left things are fine – even configured itself for Google UK – which is nice.

Chris H recommends I look at Opera Unite – and it certainly looks very useful on first looks – in fact it’s pretty useful for sharing files and you could even host a blog with it.

One thing you do notice about Opera is it’s quick compared to the others blindingly so.

Now the downside – Opera like all the browsers I tried so fax – excepting Firefox – fails to run a number of sites correctly – that said it’s no worse than the most ubiquitous browser – Microsoft’s Internet Explorer – so if speed is your need then you should give Opera a spin as I said it’s quick blindingly quick.

This week I’ll be using Safari.

Microsoft has given us the choice of 12 browsers and I’ve started trialling them – giving each one a week – last week I’ve been using Firefox.

Oh what a joy back to the old familiar – and so far Firefox is the best – forget all the fancy features you probably don’t need or rarely use – Firefox just works – no problems at all unlike every other browser I’ve trialled so for. This week I’ll using Opera.

Microsoft has given us the choice of 12 browsers and I’ve started trialling them – giving each one a week – last week I’ve been using Maxthon.

Like many others I’ve trailed Maxthon looks pretty professional if a little busy with plenty of icons and menu options – however disappointment soon set in.

My first sticking point is you can’t have two browser windows- I have two screens and I use a separate browser window in each – not with Maxthon.

Then there’s Maxthon’s search box – getting any sensible use out of it is nigh on impossible it took me a fair while to get it to default to Google UK but then any search was lost and all I got was a blank Google homepage – 24 hours later I finally solved the problem.

Maxthon isn’t a browser for the faint hearted it’s particularly difficult to configure.

In day-to-day use Maxthon failed to work correctly with iGoogle – passwords a particular difficulty, using WordPress was awkward and forget adding pictures to blog posts, then there’s Google reader which would crash with out of memory errors – I could go on – but I won’t.

All-in-all another browser I’m happy to see the back of – this week it’s Firefox and I’ll have to be honest this is my browser of choice – so I’m expecting a very happy week.

Microsoft has given us the choice of 12 browsers and I’ve started trialling them – giving each one a week – last week I’ve been using K-Meleon.

First Looks and K-Meleon looks fine – however it won’t correctly set itself as default for short cut links on the Windows desktop or those from within emails. I also use iGoogle which K-Meleon makes something of a mess of – it seems any widgets with a password won’t work correctly – then Google docs has the message “Google Docs is not supported in your browser” but worked fine for me.

Then there’s no search box – I looked in the tutorial and FAQ’s and couldn’t find a solution – it seems what you should do is type a word or phrase in the URL bar and then click a button – I wasn’t impressed and I couldn’t seem how to configure the search to Google UK and not COM – I guess I might get to the bottom of these problems but life’s too short.

In the end K-Meleon is far to annoying to use and I’m happy to be moving on to Maxthon2.