Cloud storage for personal files made safe

 

Utilise various services: As different Cloud services are suited to different types of files, it makes sense to spread your files out over several different Cloud storage providers. — Illustrations: MUHAMMAD HAFEEZ AMINUDDIN/The Star

Find the best space for your personal files on the Cloud.

In the movie Creed, Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa character looks baffled when a young boxer snaps a picture of a handwritten exercise regime with his smartphone instead of just keeping the paper.

Balboa gets even more confused and looks skywards when the young boxer tells him it’s stored on the Cloud so that the information won’t be lost even if he loses his handphone.

It’s hard to deny the rising importance of Cloud computing in our daily lives, as most of the content, services, apps, and even enterprise systems today reside on the Cloud.

Most of us are probably aware of or have used services such as Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive.

These services, also known as public Cloud, requires little effort from you other than having to sign up for them.

Most are free and offer up to 15GB of space – if that’s not enough you can subscribe for a nominal sum to bump up storage space.

As these services are mostly operated by tech giants, you don’t have to worry about any of the technical stuff, but on the flipside, you don’t have much control over it.

If you wish to create your own Cloud, it’s now easier than ever as the price of devices and components ­needed to set up such a service have fallen a lot.

Also known as private Cloud, it allows you to keep your files within your own servers and manage them as you see fit.

It takes a bit of investment and know how – our accompanying story will help you decide if you should go for public or private Cloud.

Here we will explore the best public Cloud services so that you can pick one (or two or three) that meets your needs best.

Free and easy

Almost all the public Cloud offerings have a free option – they differ mostly in the size or additional services offered.

Our pick for the best free Cloud service is Google Drive, as you get 15GB without having to spend a single sen.

More importantly, Google has tied Drive to its online services such as Gmail, Photos and Keep, as well as ­productivity tools like Docs, Sheets and Slides.

So all your photos and documents will be synced automatically and will be available from one place.

If 15GB option is too limiting then you can opt to subscribe. For US$1.99 (RM8) a month, you get 100GB of ­additional space.

If you just want sheer volume then try out Mega which offers a whopping 50GB of space for free.

It doesn’t set a limit on file size like most of the other services, but we found the data transfer speed to be a bit slow.

Space for shutterbugs

It goes without saying digital cameras and smartphones in particular have made it easier than ever for everyone to shoot photos.

The real problem, however, is in managing your photos and finding a place to store them.

Most back them up to a desktop or laptop and while it’s better than not backing up at all, is not a good solution as all hard drives have a finite lifespan.

If you don’t have redundancy then you need to find a better solution in the Cloud and we recommend Flickr.

It gets our vote because it offers 1TB of space for free, which should meet the requirements of most users.

Photo size is capped at 200MB while video at 1GB for a single file which is reasonable.

It also has smart photo management which will automatically sort out ­images according to groups such as animals, people and buildings.

Free users will, however, see ads and will not be able to access the ­desktop app for uploading photos.

Like most services, it doesn’t support the uncompressed RAW file format which is preferred by photographers who use DSLRs.

If you like keeping your file as RAW, you will need a service like Amazon Cloud Drive which allows you to upload an unlimited number of ­photos, including RAW files.

Its Unlimited Photos plan will cost you US$11.99 (RM50) a year which is not too bad as RAW files take up a lot of space.

The unlimited offer doesn’t extend to other files, including video – for these files you are limited to only 5GB.

If you need to find space for your videos then you will have to opt for the more expensive plan called Unlimited Everything which costs US$59.99 (RM240) a year. This service, while expensive, lets you upload to your heart’s content.

Cross platform

Nowadays it’s not uncommon to own multiple devices running on different platforms.

If you have, say a MacBook Air for work, Windows PC at home and Android smartphone, you need a Cloud service that supports as many platforms as possible.

While the dominant operating systems – Windows, OS X, Android and iOS are usually supported, other operating systems such as Windows Phone and Linux are often overlooked.

Thankfully Dropbox doesn’t do that – it supports almost every platform, including the ones mentioned above. If you want an alternative, try Box, as it also works on many platforms except Linux.

By Lee Kah Leng The Star

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‘Free trade’ in trouble in the United States

 

  The United States

  Current Bilateral/Multilateral FTA's

  Proposed/Suspended Bilateral/Multilateral FTA's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_trade_agreements

As free trade reaches a crossroads in the US, developing countries have to rethink their own trade realities for their own development interests.

“FREE trade” seems to be in deep trouble in the United States, with serious implications for the rest of the world.

Opposition to free trade or trade agreements emerged as a big theme among the leading American presidential candidates.

Donald Trump attacked cheap imports especially from China and threatened to raise tariffs. Hillary Clinton criticised the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) which she once championed, and Bernie Sanders’ opposition to free trade agreements (FTAs) helped him win in many states before the New York primary.

That trade became such a hot topic in the campaigns reflects a strong anti-free trade sentiment on the ground.

Almost six million jobs were lost in the US manufacturing sector from 1999 to 2011.

Wages have remained stagnant while the incomes of the top one per cent of Americans have shot up.

Rightly or wrongly, many Americans blame these problems on US trade policy and FTAs.

The downside of trade agreements have been highlighted by economists like Joseph Stiglitz and by unions and NGOs. But the benefits of “free trade” have been touted by almost all mainstream economists and journalists.

Recently, however, the establishment media have published many articles on the collapse of popular support for free trade in the US:

> Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary, noted that “a revolt against global integration is under way in the West”. The main reason is a sense “that it is a project carried out by elites for elites with little consideration for the interests of ordinary people”.

> The Economist, with a cover sub-titled “America turns against free trade”, lamented how mainstream politicians are pouring fuel on the anti-free trade fire. While maintaining that free trade still deserves full support, it cites studies showing that the losses from free trade are more concentrated and longer-lasting than had been assumed.

> Financial Times columnist Phillip Steven’s article “US politics is closing the door on free trade” quotes Washington observers saying that there is no chance of the next president or Congress, of whatever colour, backing the TPPA. The backlash against free trade is deep as the middle classes have seen scant evidence of the gains once promised for past trade deals.

> In a blog on the Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip’s article The Case for Free Trade is Weaker Than You Think concludes that if workers lose their jobs to imports and central banks can’t bolster domestic spending enough to re-employ them, a country may be worse off and keeping imports out can make it better off.

Orthodox economists argue that free trade is beneficial because consumers enjoy cheaper goods. They recognise that companies that can’t compete with imports close and workers get retrenched. But they assume that there will be new businesses generated by exports and the retrenched workers will shift there, so that overall there will be higher productivity and no net job loss.

However, new research, some of which is cited by the articles above, shows that this positive adjustment can take longer than anticipated or may not take place at all.

Thus, trade liberalisation can cause net losses under certain conditions. The gains from having cheaper goods and more exports could be more than offset by loss of local businesses, job retrenchments and stagnant wages.

There are serious implications of this shift against free trade in the US.

The TPPA may be threatened as Congress approval is required and this is now less likely to happen during Obama’s term.

Under a new president and Congress, it is not clear there will be enough support.

If the US does not ratify the TPPA, the whole deal may be off as the other countries do not see the point of joining without the US.

US scepticism on the benefits of free trade has also now affected the multilateral arena. At the World Trade Organisation, the US is now refusing attempts to complete the Doha Round.

More US protectionism is now likely. Trump has threatened to slap high tariffs on Chinese goods. Even if this crude method is not used, the US can increasingly use less direct methods such as anti-dumping actions. Affected countries will then retaliate, resulting in a spiral.

This turn of events is ironic.

For decades, the West has put high pressure on developing countries, even the poorest among them, to liberalise their trade.

A few countries, mainly Asian, staged their liberalisation carefully and benefited from industrialised exports which could pay for their increased imports.

However, countries with a weak capacity, especially in Africa, saw the collapse of their industries and farms as cheap imports replaced local products.

Many development-oriented economists and groups were right to caution poorer countries against sudden import liberalisation and pointed to the fallacy of the theory that free trade is always good, but the damage was already done.

Ironically, it is now the US establishment that is facing people’s opposition to the free trade logic.

It should be noted that the developed countries have not really practised free trade. Their high-cost agriculture sector is kept afloat by extremely high subsidies, which enable them to keep out imports and, worse, to sell their subsidised farm products to the rest of the world at artificially low prices.

Eliminating these subsidies or reducing them sharply was the top priority at the WTO’s Doha Agenda. But this is being jettisoned by the insistence of developed countries that the Doha Round is dead.

In the bilateral and plurilateral FTAs like the TPPA, the US and Europe have also kept the agriculture subsidy issue off the table.

Thus, the developed countries succeeded in maintaining trade rules that allow them to continue their protectionist practices.

Finally, if the US itself is having growing doubts about the benefits of “free trade”, less powerful countries should have a more realistic assessment of trade liberalisation.

As free trade and trade policy reaches a crossroads in the US and the rest of the West, developing countries have to rethink their own trade realities and make their own trade policies for their own development interests.


By Martin Khor

Martin Khor (director@southcentre.org) is executive director of the South Centre. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

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Locking horns over human rights

 

Human rights matter: Demonstrators protesting the shooting death of 16-year-old Pierre Loury confront police after shutting down the Eisenhower Expressway during a march in Chicago, Illinois recently. — Getty Images/ AFP

• Examining the Record of the “Defender of Human Rights”

• Examining the Record of the “Defender of Human Rights”.

  
  

http://english.cntv.cn/2016/04/17/VIDE0l4zwWjzir4IqZ8mEs9m160417.shtml

It’s April and time for the usual tit-for-tat exchange between China and the United States over their human rights practices.

APRIL is the month when the two biggest economies in the world – the United States and China – lock horns in an annual exchange over each other’s human rights practices.

Since 1977, the United States has been releasing its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, giving its review of human rights issues in countries around the world (but not its own).

And in a retaliatory fashion, Beijing would follow up the next day with its Human Rights Record of the United States in response to the criticisms piled on China.

The Chinese tradition began in 1998 and functioned like a “mirror” for the United States to examine its own human rights flaws. In the words of this year’s document: “Since the US government refused to hold up a mirror to look at itself, it has to be done with other people’s help.”

This year’s collision happened last week.

In the US 2015 report, Washington criticised China’s repression of people involved in civil and political rights advocacy and China’s crackdown on the legal community.

It also highlighted the disappearance of five men in Hong Kong’s publishing industry, believing that Chinese security officials were responsible.

Among others, the report also drew attention to the repression of the minority Uighurs and Tibetans, and tight control on the Internet and media.

As expected, the comments did not go down well with Beijing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang accused the United States of politicising the human rights issues in China to undermine the country’s stability and development.

“It’s nothing new for the United States to find fault with the internal affairs of other countries in the name of human rights,” he said.

China’s report, on the other hand, curtly labelled the US human rights record as “terrible”, “no improvement”, and plagued with “numerous new problems”.

Citing statistics, surveys and news reports, it zeroed in on the gun violence and excessive police violence, corrupt prison system and the prevailing money and clan politics in the United States.

Racial relations are “at their worst in nearly two decades,” it added.

And, most notably, Beijing reprimanded the United States for violating human rights outside its borders. Examples cited were the deadly Iraqi and Syrian air strikes, drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen, and bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan.

The United States is “treating citizens from other countries like dirt,” the report said.

One of the sections in China’s report was reserved for the economic and social rights of US citizens, which Beijing said did not record substantial progress.

A gloomy picture of the United States was painted: “Workers carried out mass strikes to claim their rights at work. Food-insecure and homeless populations remained huge. Many US people suffered from poor health.”

When the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Lu rejected the US report last week, he pointed out that China’s efforts in promoting human rights have resulted in “great achievements that have attracted worldwide attention”.

While he did not elaborate on the great achievements, China has always been championing eradication of poverty as “one of the greatest human rights successes a country could hope for,” as state news agency Xinhua put it early last month.

In an article to dispute the West’s attack on China’s human rights record at the United Nations, Xinhua pointed out that lifting people out of poverty is an area of human rights that is often overlooked by Western countries, in particular the United States.

“China’s achievements in alleviating immense poverty along with its other human rights feats are victim to the West’s selective amnesia,” it stated.

China has a “moderately prosperous society” goal to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020. Among the efforts by the Government, according to Xinhua, are increasing the budget to relief poverty by 43%, improving infrastructure in regions with minorities, and reforming the healthcare system.

By rolling out these facts and figures, Xinhua hoped it could change the West’s “tired and dated view” of human rights in China, but added that it won’t hold its breath.

Till next April, then.

By Tho Xin Yi Check-In-China, The Star

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Source: Global Times | 2016-4-21 0:38:01

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Release of fraud suspects disgraces Taiwan

http://t.cn/RqKXOaH

• Dialogue  Taiwanese telecom fraudsters

• Parties, media call for justice for telecom fraud victims

• Parties, media call for justice for telecom fraud victims. Political parties and media outlets from Chinese Mainland and Taiwan have denounced a telecom fraud case, and said the suspects must be brought to justice. This is after Taiwan police on Saturday released 20 suspects who were deported from Malaysia....

Malaysia repatriated a group of telecom fraud suspects Friday, including 20 Taiwanese. Taiwan authorities maneuvered to have them sent to Taiwan.

To the surprise of the outsiders, these Taiwanese suspects were released in a few hours after arrival at Taoyuan International Airport.

When Kenya last week sent a batch of telecom fraud suspects to the Chinese mainland, also including Taiwanese, it triggered a public outcry in Taiwan. Pro-independence media and leading figures, including Tsai Ing-wen, protested against the mainland for "illegal abduction." Now Taiwan is showing that it is more lenient to fraud suspects than anywhere in the world.

Taiwan's judicial authorities expressed that the crime was committed in Malaysia and victims were mainlanders. Since they do not hold evidence against these suspects, they have to release them first.

However last week, the same department stated that it was in accordance with international law that Kenya repatriated Taiwan suspects to the mainland, and "only the mainland can hold them in control." Pro-independence forces would not admit the change was a result of pressure they exerted.

To the outside world, protests against the mainland and releasing suspects show the ugly side of Taiwan politics when it is taken hostage by radical public opinion.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is manipulating and coping with populism.

The release of the 20 suspects has disgraced the Taiwanese media and Taiwan's rule of law.

The mainland is clear how the DPP is manipulating public opinion to instigate "anti-China" sentiments. Swayed by such sentiments, Taiwan politics prioritizes stance over facts.

Western democratic politics can easily provide a hotbed for radicalism and extremism. Taiwan and Hong Kong both have demonstrated this tendency.

A judiciary case, which should be fact-oriented, is turned into a political event across the Straits. The suspects even applauded Taiwan for its "human rights" after being released. Should the mainland feel indignant or treat it with disdain?

The key is that the mainland should stick more firmly to its principles, and resolutely resist the rascally demands by Taiwan's twisted politics.

Taiwan's poor performance in handling the suspects is also teaching a lesson to other countries. Malaysia is proved wrong in repatriating the fraud suspects back to Taiwan. Kuala Lumpur should learn from the case and not be tricked by Taiwan in the future.

Taiwan, which is an inseparable part of China, is always eager to prove it is a "country." Taiwan's ingrained sense of inferiority and paranoia have permeated into its politics, resulting in its self-righteous performances, of which Taiwan's public should be aware.- Global Times

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Leftover women and men: the sheng nu and sheng nan (guang gun)

http://t.cn/RqKJeMK

Pro-singledom ad goes viral

Women in China who don't get married after a certain age are often called 'leftover women'. By telling what many of these single women are really thinking, a cosmetics ad has gone viral.


http://t.cn/RqoWcGm

Studio interview: Leftover women a popular label in China

Now for more discussion, we are joined in the studio by social affairs critic Han Hua. Ms.

Marriage isn’t the only path to bliss

“I AM a sheng nu,” Jenny Yan, 30, proclaimed.

The car sales executive has been single for about a year after breaking up with her boyfriend of three years.

“I am now searching for my life partner with the frame of mind of a sheng nu,” she said.

Literally “leftover women”, sheng nu is a derogatory term in China for single women who, in the eyes of society, have passed the ideal time to get married and still remain unattached in their late 20s and beyond.

The term sheng nu suggests that Chinese society sees the singletons as undesirable, almost like the coarser particles that are left on a sieve.

Single men, on the other hand, are known as sheng nan (leftover men) or guang gun (bare sticks).

The situation seems to be more dire for men, as they will outnumber women by 24 million by 2020 due to the country’s gender imbalance, but they are less stigmatised than single ladies in the patriarchal society.

While Yan said her parents look forward to her settling down, they are not putting too much pressure on her. She is taking the initiative to search for a suitor.

“When I was in my 20s, I relied solely on feelings and paid no heed to all the realistic factors, but now I won’t have too much expectations,” Yan said.

“To create more chances for myself, I’ll agree to meet and get to know the other person whenever friends recommend possible suitors to me.”

The stigma surrounding sheng nu often leads to heated discussions, with single ladies determined to shake off the shame and outdated judgment that society forces on them.

A recent advertisement by Japanese beauty products brand SK-II rightly triggered a flood of support from women in China.

Themed “Change Destiny”, the four-minute long clip walked viewers through the humiliation single ladies faced in China, which more often than not resulted in self-doubt and self-criticism.

“Maybe I should give up on someone I love for someone who’s suitable,” one of the ladies said to the camera, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

Their parents were a major source of pressure, urging them to stop being so choosy and quickly settle down. Instead of being supportive, they were critical of their daughters.

“I used to think my daughter has great personality.

“She is not too pretty, just average. That’s why she is a leftover,” a mother said with a light chuckle, while her daughter, who was sitting next to her, tried hard to contain her tears.

A father said: “As long as you are not married, I cannot die in peace.”

One of the single women featured in the advertisement said remaining single is considered not filial in China.

“Maybe I am being selfish. I want to say sorry to them,” she said, breaking down in sobs.

In the advertisement, the ladies decided to attend the Shanghai Marriage Market, a weekend fair at the People’s Park where parents “promote” their single and available daughters and sons with details such as age, height, profession, income and assets.

In a turn of events, it was revealed that the ladies were not there to look for partners but to tell their parents that marriage isn’t the only path to happiness.

Professional portraits which depicted them as confident and glowing women were exhibited in the park, along with a personal message.

“I don’t want to get married just for the sake of marriage. I won’t live happily that way,” one of them, identified as Li Yuxuan, 33, said.

Another lady, whose mother has previously dismissed her as just average-looking, said to the camera: “Even if I am alone, I can be happy, confident and have a good life.”

Since it was posted on SK-II’s official Weibo account, the video has recorded two million views and was shared 25,000 times.

Sindy Huang, 36, said she was touched by the advertisement.

“The details in the advertisement were moving, such as their skin condition, their sleep-deprived look, and the helplessness in their eyes. I feel like I am watching myself,” she said.

The Beijing-based journalist who hailed from Zhejiang province said Chinese society has the tendency to sympathise with single ladies.

“Many people think sheng nu is the main cause of an unstable society, and parents are desperate for us to get married because they don’t want us to grow old alone,” she said.

Both Yan and Huang said while they yearn for true love and a family of their own, they would not rush into a relationship and preferred to wait for the right person to come along.

Huang said girls have to have a strong inner centre to help them face the pressure from society.

When ridiculed by married friends, she said she would retort by asking them if they are in a state of perfect happiness.

“That shuts them up. Some of them even conceded that I was right,” she added.

However, not everyone held the SK-II advertisement in high regard.

Some were in the opinion that the short film has exploited single women’s weaknesses to boost views.

A writer identified as Gu Yingying likened the advert to “a bottle of dirty water splashing onto (women’s) independence and confidence”.

Towards the end of the short film, one of the mothers exclaimed, “Sheng nu should be proud!”

In taking an apparent jab at this particular line, Gu wrote on her WeChat official account: “Sheng nu is not an honour, and neither is marriage. This is just a life choice and has nothing to do with honour.”

She said the women yearned for marriage and love but had to emphasise, with teary eyes, in front of the camera that they are okay being single.

Huang disagreed with the comments that dolling the ladies up in the advertisement is just a typical way to confront the dominant ideology of patriarchy.

“There isn’t anything wrong with dressing up. Those who are not sheng nu will never understand the pain of singletons.

“I am okay with the creative execution of the advertisement. It isn’t targeted at men or housewives, after all,” she said.

As for Yan, she said she won’t search blindly, but she won’t slack either in finding a suitor.

“Since I have reached the appropriate age to get married and get pregnant, I should be more proactive,” she said.

“I am planning to participate in mass dating events. Let’s see how it goes.”

 By Tho Zin Yi Check-in China