At least once a month I get an email from someone or another offering to teach me (for a fee!) how to take advantage of cloud computing so that my 'business can prosper'. The blurb is always the same and goes along the lines of 'how to use free tools on the Internet to make life and work more manageable'.
I have no doubt that many small business owners who are conscious of reducing their capital expenditure and increasing productivity take up these offers, but it makes me wonder whether these self proclaimed cloud experts are really aware of the legal implications for migrating IT infrastructure to the public cloud. In practice, I'm guessing that the cloud expert would tell me how to install the Dropbox or Google Drive client software, move my important files & folders across, wait for everything to sync up, then show me the way of the future by opening an Excel spreadsheet on my iPhone.
As you might suspect, there is a little more to it than that. The legal implications of placing your valuable data into the public cloud are not to be ignored.
Let me be clear: putting your data onto a public cloud service does not mean it will be openly available to the world. A public cloud service is one such as Dropbox for storage (infrastructure-as-a-service or 'IaaS') or FreeAgent for bookkeeping (software-as-a-service or 'SaaS') - where your files or data are stored alongside that of other customers using the same hardware and is almost always off-premise. Your data is still supposed to be secured, encrypted and backed up - but because you're sharing the service with others, the prices are lower. This isn't a remotely new concept - web hosting providers like 1&1 have been offering shared hosting services for years with the option to upgrade to dedicated servers for an increased cost. The apparent upsides are clear: reduced costs on IT hardware, no need to worry about making backups, remote working becomes easier, etc. So what's the problem?
Public cloud services operate in a different way to traditional IT outsourcing. The 'old' way of doing things is to get an expert in who will assess your needs, order the appropriate hardware, install it for you, then charge a hefty ongoing fee for maintenance and technical support. This would be done on a case-by-case basis and would most likely be accompanied by a lengthy outsourcing contract depending on the size of your operation.
Cloud services turn the entire concept of IT outsourcing around: it is up to you to shop around the various providers (so while considering Dropbox for storage, you might also take a look at OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, Apple's new iCloud, etc) and make a decision based on the price and the terms of their standard contracts. You should also understand that you have no room to negotiate. Public cloud providers aim to cater to the majority which means there is not much scope to negotiate individual terms with smaller customers.
This is why it is important to carefully read and understand the terms of service being offered by the provider - they may all look the same, but small differences in wording can have huge knock on effects. For example, Rackspace Cloud specifies that that the governing law for their services provided to English customers is English law, while all Dropbox users worldwide (free and paid) are subject to the laws of California.
1. Try to understand where the provider fits into the stack. The stack is how your chosen service provider operates - Dropbox uses Amazon S3 as its backbone for storage. Google Drive uses Google's own servers, and Box operates their own CDN. Knowing how the provider is set up may help provide assurance about what will happen if there is a problem down the line and give clues as to how reliable the service might be.
2. Free vs paid. Think twice before entrusting your valuable files and data to a free service. It might look great and have a slick phone app, but when considering data security and integrity, just remember - you get what you pay for.
3. Does/will any of your data infringe the provider's acceptable use policy? Different providers will have different definitions of exactly what is acceptable and what is not.
4. Who has the ultimate responsibility for your data? You might be surprised to find out that most cloud providers are not liable for the confidentiality or integrity of the data they store. That means you still need encrypt particularly sensitive data, and keep local backups of everything in the event that the cloud provider suffers a catastrophic loss.
5. How long will your data be stored? What happens after your relationship with the provider comes to an end? Some providers will hold onto it for a set amount of time, while others may discard it immediately after your relationship ends.
6. What format will your data be stored in? Can it be migrated to another system without much trouble? Many SaaS solutions are built on software which can generate standard format XML or XLS files.
7. Where will your data be stored physically? Yes, it's on the cloud but there is still a physical drive somewhere in the world holding your data. Is that location physically secure? Who owns the building the servers are sitting in? What happens if that building catches fire? Does the physical location comply with the UK's Data Protection Act? The more you know about how your chosen cloud provider operates, the safer you will be from catastrophic data loss.
8. What sort of warranty does the provider offer, if any? I've yet to see a cloud services provider offering a comprehensive warranty - most standard contracts will try to exclude any warranty relating to the performance of the service.
9. Who is liable in the event of a direct loss of data or service? What about indirect loss stemming from that direct loss, like losing your own clients? US law generally provides that liability for direct loss can be excluded, while in England this is not so easy. Liability for indirect losses is almost never admitted.
10. What happens if there is downtime? All your files are online, your Internet connection is up, but you can't access your cloud provider. Now what?
Migrating to the public cloud is a great way for small businesses to reduce upfront and ongoing costs, but it's not as easy as simply signing up and copying your files into the right folder. A careful comparison between the providers and analysis of their standard contracts might make you lean towards a provider you had not previously considered. If your business is dependant on IT infrastructure it is essential to think about these matters before blindly signing up to the next free service that comes your way. Private cloud solutions are an alternative, providing a halfway house between full IT outsourcing and shared hosting, but at an additional cost.
What it boils down to is how serious you are about protecting the integrity of your data, and how accessible you want that data to be. If you are a growing business and are looking to scale up while keeping costs down, migrating to the cloud is a sensible solution - so long as you are aware of the risks.


text:
La. Gov. Pushing Insurance, Tax Credits, Pay Raises in Special Session
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the costs of her special session agenda of tax breaks, pay raises and insurance relief could be covered by an expected $800 million jump in state income this year – on top of an $827 million surplus last year.
The governor offered more details Nov. 20 about her proposals for the 10-day special legislative session set to begin Dec. 8, including the financing. She said she expected the state to have at least $1.6 billion to spend from the current and prior budget years.
Blanco wants lawmakers to plow the state's expected new dollars into child tax credits for families, a quickening of business tax breaks, road improvements, building repairs, retirement debt and pay raises for an array of state-funded workers, including public school teachers, university faculty and prison guards.
"This is good news for Louisiana after all the challenges we have been through," Blanco told the Louisiana Association of Educators union, which cheered talk of pay raises and tax breaks.
The state's coffers are bulging on the strength of high oil and gas prices and state taxes generated by the post-hurricane recovery, as people rebuild and replace flooded homes, cars and furniture. The state's revenue estimating panel must recognize the dollars before they can be spent, but substantial income boosts are expected, according to Blanco and financial experts.
"The numbers are very, very good," said Greg Albrecht, an economist for the Legislative Fiscal Office who works on the income projections for the state Revenue Estimating Conference.
Albrecht said the state is on track to continue bringing in the hefty streams of money for a number of years as billions of dollars continue to flow in the recovery efforts.
"It's hard for me to make the case to be as conservative as we've been anymore. I think we're probably in good shape for the out years," he said.
The Revenue Estimating Conference is expected to meet in early December to formally revise the state's general fund income projections. Then, lawmakers can decide how to spend the cash in the special session.
Blanco's giving them a list of her spending suggestions as Louisiana heads into the 2007 statewide election year.
The two pots of cash must be handled differently.
The $827 million surplus from last year only can be spent on one-time items, like debt payments, highway improvements and construction projects. Blanco wants those one-time dollars used for retirement debt, road repairs and building upgrades at universities.
The expected $800 million for the current fiscal year has none of those one-time restrictions and can be spent however lawmakers and the governor choose. For those dollars, Blanco is seeking pay raises, the tax breaks for families with children and insurance rebate checks. She also wants to speed up the ongoing phase-out of two business taxes, the sales tax on machinery and equipment and the corporate franchise tax on debt.
Blanco was vague on many of the amounts, saying she was waiting for the Revenue Estimating Conference meeting.
Among the raises on Blanco's list are salary boosts for public school teachers, school support workers, university faculty, prison guards, police, firefighters and state employees. Teachers, support workers and professors received pay raises from the state earlier this year.
Rep. Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, head of the House Republican caucus, said the special session agenda should be more limited and focused on insurance relief and transportation needs.
"We don't have enough money to do all of this, even if we have $2 billion," Tucker said.
Lawmakers pressed for a special session to help cover the debts of the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-run insurance company of last resort for people who can't buy insurance in the private market. Citizens borrowed $1 billion to cover claims after hurricanes Katrina and Rita and is repaying that debt by passing on fees to private insurers, who in turn are charging their customers rate hikes to cover those fees.
Blanco proposes using some of the state's extra, unbudgeted dollars to pay down Citizens' debt and give property owners rebate checks for the fee hikes they already paid to cover Citizens' claims costs.
The governor said she's scrapped a previous plan she floated to use the state's tobacco settlement dollars to bail out Citizens – an idea that proved unpopular with legislators.
Insurance rebate checks should be in hand by Jan. 1, Blanco said, "so that people can pay their holiday bills off."
TikTok Video Helps Louisiana Woman With Storm Claims
Categories: Texas / South Central NewsTopics: Claims and Costs, Settlement
Patricia Ellis says:
I truly agree with the fact that we as State Employees have not received a payraise since the Former Governor Edwards pushed so hard to give us one and it was done, this has b... read more
Arizona Man Wrongfully Accused of Selling LSD Settles Suit

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Morrie's Brooklyn Park Nissan suspected Lead Source X was not delivering qualified leads to their showroom. They needed a way to prove this particular provider was delivering high defecting leads to validate their decision to cancel the service. They also needed a solution to showcase incremental improvement in their sales operations after removing Lead Source X from their marketing mix.


Previously in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion: The Empire has built the deadliest weapon the galaxy has ever seen. But even the most ruthless Imperial officer might hesitate before unleashing the Death Star's power to kill millions in an instant. Behold the secret story of Grand Moff Tarkin, the horrors that hammered and honed his resolve, and the terrifying steps he takes to ensure that the Death Star lives up to its deadly name!
…and then he ejects them all into space. It's a really shocking moment that helps to remind us why he's nearly as feared as Vader in the first film, especially when he returns to his quarters and quietly reads as though he didn't just murder an entire planet AND a couple dozen of his own officers. This issue also understands that a large part of the character's menace is the face of Peter Cushing (aka Professor Van Helsing, Baron Frankenstein and the movie version of Dr. Who, which is a long and difficult story to explain so we'll just move on), and the likenesses are excellent throughout the issue. Even though a large portion of this comic records a sequence in a film most of us have seen more than once, it never feels like it's dragging or being predictable, with several big "OH HELL YEAH" moments, thanks to Pak's excellent script. The final page reveal that he actually has the ceremonial blade that he imagined murdering his subordinate with.
All in all, this issue succeeds in making Tarkin as terrifying as the Emperor or even Darth Vader himself in span of a few pages, making him more than just an angry man in a N*zi-inspired uniform, and making it clear why he alone was able to command the Sith lord in the original 'Star Wars'. Star Wars: Age of Rebellion – Grand Moff Tarkin #1 features strong art, a compelling story and fits into the movie continuity seamlessly, earning a very impressive 4 out of 5 stars overall. If you've never understood what the big deal was about this relatively minor character, this is the issue for you.
If you've never been afraid of Grand Moff Tarkin, this issue will remedy that for you.


As of March 1, 2019, a new way to charge periodic or subscription services.
I have already got a Linksys pap2, can I configure it with Hablaporinternet?
Linksys PAP2 or any Cisco ATA device. Of course!
1) Download and install the MOBYX application. It's free!
How to obtain a VoIP account with Hablaporinternet?
Gray, GSM, white, premium, CLI, direct, standard voip routes? What does it mean?


text:
Q: Not able to get id in controller I am sending ID through anchor tag in codeigniter

and I am catching the value in controller like:
public function sectionEmpList($id){
    $secID = $id;
    echo $secID;
}

but it shows following error

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning Message: Missing argument 1 for
  Dashboard::sectionEmpList() Filename: controllers/Dashboard.php Line
  Number: 302 Backtrace:
File: D:\xampp\htdocs\mecon\application\controllers\Dashboard.php
  Line: 302 Function: _error_handler
File: D:\xampp\htdocs\mecon\index.php Line: 292 Function: require_once

Can any one suggest what is the solution.

A: Its due to single quote.  Use as below
$url = $post_array['userSecId'];

A: Try this:

A: You need to pass the id to the view
public function sectionEmpList(){
    $data['secID'] = $this->session->userdata('id');
    $this->load->view('some_view', $data);
}

Then on view
<a href="<?php echo base_url('your_controller/function/'. $secID);?>">

Autoload the url helper. And the session library.
You also may need to create a route.

A: You're router file under application/config/router.php needs to look something like this (this is roughly, may be different depending on your set up.
$route['sectionEmpList/(:any)='] = 'YOURCONTROLLERHERE/sectionEmpList/$1';

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