Hi all:)
I am a relatively new member (Australia) to OSM but have spent a few months casually “watching”. Now I have uploaded 4 sets of tracks myself (a friendly GPSAust member loaded and traced a large set of tracks earlier on for me) and (mainly) where no-one else had, I traced my tracks. I feel I am getting the hang of potlatch, tagging etc - almost ready to go to JOSM.
However, apart from trying to follow OSM etiquette I have 2 concerns/questions. Firstly - up to a little while ago I could view maps quite easily - I have cable. But over the last month or so I have been unable to view maps. They may start to draw but never finish. I have left them in a window for quite a while to open. Worse is that when I leave the particular window and go to other windows and return I have lost the partial map image that I may have had. 
Any tips please? I am using Vista home premium SP2 with lots of RAM.
Secondly - irrespective of not being able to see a map - how do you search for a particular tag that is specified when you upload a GPX track in the first place? I am aware that some OSMers put user names in the tag - how can I search for these? I have used the “search” box in the left hand side of the screen but it takes forever to give results too.
ta
Detectist