Abate of Florida

Next State Meeting

Personal information for 600,000 current and former Time Warner employees has been lost, the company announced on Monday, potentially setting the stage for one of the largest cases yet of identity theft. 

Time Warner said the mishap occurred on March 22, when data storage company Iron Mountain was transporting its backup tapes to a storage facility away from its offices. The company lost the tapes while in transit, said Kathy McKiernan, a Time Warner spokeswoman. 

"The tapes were discovered missing on the same day they were picked up," McKiernan said. "We launched an investigation, and when we could not rule out foul play, we contacted the (U.S.) Secret Service to investigate." 

The Time Warner case is just the latest in a string of data theft cases to rock corporate America, from Bank of America to educational institutions such as the University of California at Berkeley. 

Keep the sun's heat from hitting windows, doors, walls. Install window shades on the outside of your house. Be creative and you won't spend much money. An inexpensive bamboo roll-up window shade works fine. Keep the sun from actually hitting the windows. Inside, one or more curtains will help, and choose white or another light color. Don't forget the doors. Keep your thermostat set at an even temperature. 

By John Borland 
Story last modified Fri Apr 29 15:31:00 PDT 2005 The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox Web browser passed a significant milestone in adoption on Friday, with more than 50 million copies of the program downloaded, according to its distributors. 
To commemorate the moment, the foundation said on its Web site that it would create 50 limited-edition coins, to be distributed to people with stories of spreading the browser online. An additional, a still-unnamed prize will be given to the owner of the Web site responsible for the 50 millionth download. 

"It's funny how the counter just blows by 50 million without a care in the world, isn't it?" Mozilla developer Blake Ross wrote on the foundation's Web site. "But it's not just a number to us. It's a validation of half a decade of work, and the beginning of half a decade more." 

With its first full-fledged release last November, Firefox has shaken up a Web browser market that most analysts had deemed almost wholly mature. For the first time in years, the market share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer has begun inching downwards as Firefox adoption rises. 

Much of the interest in Firefox has been driven by repeated security holes found in Internet Explorer. Some prominent security researchers have even recommended against using IE if possible, a criticism that has stung in Microsoft executive suites. 

Harley-Davidson is extending its product warranty coverage for military personnel deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. If a soldier’s motorcycle is under warranty, Harley-Davidson will provide an extension equal to the number of days of deployment. More information about the program is available from Donald Ehlerding, River City Harley-Davidson, 493-9900, and Lana McAfee, River City Harley-Davidson Glenbrook, 471-0222.

Don't ruin the carafe by scrubbing with harsh cleansers, add a few teaspoons of salt and some crushed ice. Let it sit for a minute, then swirl the mixture. Most of the burnt coffee should come off, the rest will be loosened so that it will wipe out fairly easily. 

If your bottle of correction fluid dries out, add a few drops of nail polish remover and shake well until it thoroughly mixes and begins flowing again. 

FLFLHTC: Because of how I feel about this reprehensible POS I pains me to print this but fair is fair:
SIOUX FALLS (AP) -- South Dakota students tired of waiting for time on the family computer have one more reason to finish up their homework before leaving school.
A new study shows South Dakota once again leads the nation in providing computers and Internet connections in classrooms.

Education Week's 2005 Technology Counts survey ranks South Dakota first among all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the ratio of students per computer. It also gave South Dakota the top spot for the percentage of students who have access to a classroom computer that is connected to the Web.

According to the report, South Dakota has 1.7 students for each instructional computer in 2004, compared to a national average of 3.8 students per computer. It also had an average of 1.9 students per Internet-connected computer, compared to 4.1 nationwide.

As the Internet changes the way students are educated, having the right tools in the classroom gives South Dakota students an edge, South Dakota Education Secretary Rick Melmer said.

"Where we used to look up things in the dictionary and encyclopedia, now students are using the Internet," 
Melmer said. "It's to the point where if you're in the classroom and want to do any kind of research you need to have access to technology."

Former Gov. Bill Janklow's push about to wire South Dakota schools gave the state a solid start, said Melmer. But in recent years individual school districts have recognized the importance of technology and made it a priority, too, he said.

Deelopers of the 32-foot long ABB E-motion are hoping it can beat the land speed record for electric cars. The auto, which is powered by technology from ABB, a Switzerland-based electrical engineering company, is trying to best the current record of 245 mph. To do so, the ABB E-motion will have to travel at 252 mph in two runs, each of which must be at least 0.622 miles long. 

The ABB E-motion relies on four packs of 52 lead acid batteries. A "regenerative standard inverter" converts the 600V DC power generated by the batteries into AC power that's then used by the car's motors.

WALTON COUNTY – The State of Florida closed on 17,300 acres of land in Walton County recently as an addition to the Northwest Florida Greenway. Designed to conserve 100 miles of land and air space, the proposed Greenway stretches from Gulf and Franklin counties along the Panhandle to Eglin Air Force Base. A partnership between State, federal and private parties, the acquisition unites the missions of national defense and environmental protection

“This unique partnership is acquiring land for the dual purpose of protecting Florida’s wildlife and natural resources and reducing encroachment on the nation’s military installations,” said Secretary Castille. “Adding to the large corridor of open space in the Northwest Florida Greenway provides space for Florida black bear to roam and buffers Eglin Air Force Base.”

Governor Jeb Bush and the Florida Cabinet approved the purchase of a 16,750-acre conservation easement just last February. The conservation easement was acquired in partnership with the Department of Defense who provided $1 million through the Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative, which allows the armed forces to partner with states and nonprofit organizations to reduce encroachment on military operations by preserving habitat.

At the same time, landowner M.C. Davis also donated to the State a conservation easement on an additional 550 adjacent acres. A real estate investor and conservationist, Davis purchased nearly 60,000 acres in Walton County in 2002 to connect hundreds of thousands of acres of land already in conservation. He donated 1,500 acres to the State last December through a perpetual conservation easement. Easements are voluntary agreements that protect natural communities and wildlife in perpetuity while allowing the property owners limited continued use of the land.

The Northwest Florida Greenway is a partnership between the Department of Defense, DEP and The Nature Conservancy. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, Florida Department of Community Affairs, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Northwest Florida Water Management District, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and Okaloosa County also joined the effort last summer. So far, the partnership has conserved more than 50,000 acres.

SARASOTA COUNTY -- With Joseph P. Smith's murder trial about six months off, his attorney has filed the first in what is sure to be a series of motions aimed at figuring out what the state can prove about Carlie Brucia's death.

Assistant Public Defender Adam Tebrugge has asked the state to produce the names and addresses of witnesses who identified Smith as a suspect.

Prosecutors have said that Smith's family and friends identified him in a car wash surveillance video that captured the grainy image of a man grabbing Carlie Feb. 1, 2004. The video was played on televisions across the country.

Smith is accused of abducting Carlie from behind the car wash as she walked home alone from a friend's house off Bee Ridge Road. Authorities say he raped and strangled the 11-year-old girl, then left her body near a church.

Investigators compiled more than 2,000 pages of evidence that they say link Smith, a 39-year-old mechanic with a history of drug arrests, to Carlie's death. The evidence includes tips from a number of callers who watched the video and thought the man who approached Carlie and led her away looked like Smith.

Still, attorney Tebrugge wrote in his motion that he "cannot determine accurately which witnesses have purportedly identified the defendant." He also asked the state to produce names and addresses of those who identified the station wagon that prosecutors say Smith was driving that day.

Along with the evidence against Smith, Tebrugge wants the names of witnesses who failed to identify his client.

And in a separate motion, he said the state had a burden to reveal any "favorable" evidence to Smith's defense, including anything that would help him during the trial.

"I want to make sure I've got everything," Tebrugge said Wednesday.

More motions could follow as the trial approaches. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Nov. 7. The first phase of the trial could take two weeks. And if jurors convict Smith of first-degree murder, they will come back Nov. 28 to decide whether he should be sentenced to death or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Tebrugge has said in the past that he believes Smith can get a fair trial in Sarasota County. To ensure that, a judge has sealed about half of the evidence.