Hello again.

I had totally forgotten about this site. I'm not sure if it's still relevent in 2022.

This is from The Gaurdian journal
Backups
Google can lock you out of your email or delete your account at any time for any reason, and you can never be certain of getting it back. Worse, your Gmail account could be hacked. It’s important to have one or more backups.

My first line of defence is a backup account at Microsoft’s Outlook.com. When you have set one up, go to Gmail’s Settings and click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”. Set it to “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” your new account, and “keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox”. Also, tell Outlook.com to fetch all your email from your Gmail account. (This can take some time.)

If I can’t access Gmail, I can switch to Outlook.com, though I assume Gmail will start bouncing my emails once my inbox is full.

You can also keep copies of all your Gmails on your PC hard drive, using an email program such as Microsoft Outlook (the Office program) or Thunderbird. Select IMAP to download copies of your emails while leaving the originals on the Gmail server.

You can also use Google Takeout to download your Gmail in Mbox format, though it’s not too much use outside of Thunderbird. However, you can use Mbox Viewer to view it.

There are lots of alternatives including Upsafe and MailStore Home 10, both of which are Windows only. You can also set up an automatic sync in open source Gmvault, which is available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. However, it’s a command line program, which won’t suit everyone.

Have you got a question? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com

Trident Renewal

Trident Renewal

The UK parliament is voting today to maintain the submarine nuclear deterrent

I have seen film of the Hiroshima bombing many times and have that image of what a nuclear bomb does in my mind.

This is not correct however because nuclear bombs are more than 1000 times more powerful now than the image I know.

One of these bombs aimed at Fylingdales in Yorkshire would remove Yorkshire from the map. One of these bombs would remove the south east from the map not just London.

To be part of the Nuclear Arms Race now is to be part of a suicide cult.

To think you will be able to hide a 100 meter submarine from technology in 10 years time is naive.

There's a chance today to make a better future for our decendants.

I hope they don't say one day "Oh oh, they blew it ! " literally.

Google bullying.

This can only be described as bullying:-

 'Account security changes coming: Add your mobile phone'

It's a threat from Google on Gmail login today.
It's followed by a barely disguised threat that knowing your password may not be sufficient to access your mail in the future.

The joke is of course that Google and many others already know my mobile number, it will have been harvested from email long ago, along with more data than I can remember about myself, my relatives and friends.

As yet, I have not had the misfortune to share a name with a mass murderer or ponzi scheme fraudster. Nor have I shared financial information with any but the most reputable organisations and their 'associates'. This does not mean that I have an unblemished record to be used as evidence of good character in the future.

When the day comes that my history of purchases from supermarkets is shared with health service providers, I will probably be assigned a below average score and dropped down a list of deserving priorities without even being consulted.

Using anything but cash to buy a bottle of Scotch for the old soldier across the street on a regular basis could be detrimental to your future health. Getting the points on a store card would be particularly daft.

So what of the need to hold my mobile number? The promise is that it will only be used for some verification of identity, implied that it will be associated with the Login procedure. As it happens, along with a lot of other people, i don't happen to be able to rattle off my mobile number because I never call it, so if I go back-packing and get all my stuff stolen when I'm asleep, I may not be able to login at an internet cafe and tell anybody what happened.

But that sort of thing is just what happens to real people in the real world, they're at the bottom of the list to worry about because they can't be reached by advertisers at that moment.

I hope you like the new layout, hopefully this will look better on mobile devices. I have used up all the bloging time creating the look so more guff tomorrow.

Delays expected.

I'll be back to the blog when:

I've mastered 'Tears in heaven' on acoustic guitar.

I can make it more interesting.

I believe someone else has read it.

Left right, left right, left right, left.

When New Labour waltzed into power in 1997 in the United Kingdom, it was to a different rhythm from the natural beat of the protest march. By taking the Clinton election as a template for what you need to do and say to win over the middle ground voter, I mean nothing definitive enough to be held up as an actual policy but memorable everyman sound bites such as ‘It’s the economy stupid!’ or Blair and Browns’  ‘Prudence’ and ‘Third way’, it was possible to swing onto the political dance floor with a shuffle and sway that could be abandoned at any moment as a misunderstood  manoeuvre for the exit.

A Product Manager of an everyday consumable such as a soap, knows he can increase sales by slapping on the adjective ‘New’ as a quick fix. It’s tantamount to an oxymoron of course since it sends a conflicting message. The reassurance of the old brand name which had been marketed as the best for years has somehow been improved to the point where its undefined shortcomings have been addressed in an exciting and rejuvenated way. It works best when the ‘New’ characteristics of the product are not well defined, allowing the recipient of the message to apply the fix to their own perceived issues with the product.

While the music remained nondescript and the floor remained crowded, the movers and shakers could strut their stuff, only occasionally attracting the attention of the crowd. The sound bites continued, ‘The 50^th consecutive quarter of growth’ and other ‘You’ve never had it so good!’ on mission messages were streamed at regular and timely intervals. Less attractive snippets, apologies and announcements were leaked to friendly forces and finally spun out on a Friday before the bank holiday if at all possible. Media management on a scale never seen before became a dark art so bad it was good, with the main players lauded as Masters of Spin. The world of journalism failed to properly confront this loathsome activity as so much government energy went into what appeared in the media tended to enhance their own sense of importance in world affairs. Even now, the story is often the story and the event is the backdrop.

Give them something to love, something to hope for or failing that something to do...Well by the third election the love affair was definitely over but people don’t lose hope easily, especially when they’ve never had it so good, the house is priced twice what it was bought for and the kids could get a loan to go to college. Everybody knows ‘on average graduates earn more’, the target was to get more than 50 percent of school leavers into college. Presumably at that point the average graduate would earn more than a graduate. Lake Wobegon is the model no doubt.

Unemployment remains surprising low, not just because of ‘improvements’ in the counting techniques that would leave a gang master of innumerate illegal immigrants blushing, but because a new erstwhile invisible army  of souls who were given a tag of ‘Economically Inactive’ which sounded more of a choice than ‘Given up Hope’. This hope was more likely to be an aspiration towards something that was preferred even if it was unlikely it was to be achieved, it was still theoretically doable. Now however, the option of falling back on the something to do, even if not wanted, has slipped away like a half empty lifeboat from the Titanic.

It’s true that the party that has attracted the most voters of the middle ground has achieved office in recent times. That’s what you need when you sense that the mood is for more of the same. If your policies are hard to distinguish from the opposition, you don’t alienate any groups and you do a good job of pointing out the failures of people and personalities in the previous term, you get your period of power.  An ever decreasing voter turnout will turn up and take a punt, give you more time, better the devil you know and a second or even third term is grasped.

Events however, conspire to rock the boat from time to time. Wars, though noticeably not on this occasion, since Blair and Bush were both re-elected despite dragging their countries into war, sleaze, scandal and economics all play their parts. The last election in the United Kingdom was brought about reluctantly by running out of the allotted term of office despite numerous wobbles in the previous years. While an economic catastrophe did not bring about an election, the election itself was almost exclusively about the economic situation.

More of the same, media spin, middle ground appeal was never going to win the day. ‘This is no time for a novice’  may well have been true if it was referring to an economic strategist at the world bank, but a political party in the 21^st Century must have a nimble tactician pulling the strings, not a stoic strategist. A savvy tactician would have ensured maximum mileage of the strong and heroic status of the countries leader in the opinion of the world’s statesmen and grateful economic leaders and the enhanced status of the United Kingdom as a result. Instead it was actually botched into a negative gaff as a Superman like comment about ‘Saving the World’ which was ridiculed with relish and yesterday’s joke in 24hrs.

So without the middle vote you can’t win?  Let’s assume you weren’t going to get enough of it anyway. Many disillusioned middle voters will simply abstain, none of the above, for which you can vote for with your feet. The alternative then is to revive your core vote by emphasising your differentiating policies, re-empowering marginalised voters sufficiently to believe in turning out and voting for you again. But you better believe in what you say and you better be sure what you say can be delivered, because it’s been such a long time since that’s been the case, if you get it right, it could be so refreshing it might just work!

For those reading this comment in parts of the world affected by military activity and bewildered by the absence of reference to any conflicts, you need to know that it’s not the custom to express opinions on the pro’s and con’s of such activity while information is difficult to objectify and staff are actively deployed.