Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
Entry: RC Sensitive Sunglasses
Description: Eye wear proscribed by the Australian Government, designed to go black, preventing ‘inadvertent exposure’. Always keep your cool when viewing the Internet.
Category Archives: Tech
iiNet one, AFACT zero
This morning the twitterverse was abuzz with the news that iiNet had won the cast AFACT brought against them. It was found that ISPs are not responsible for what users use them for.
Nice to see you can’t punish ISPs for hearsay copyright infringement notices.
Now, can the same be applied to what users view? ie. why should ISPs be responsible for filtering Internet content?
A collection of interesting articles about the AFACT vs iiNet case.
- Sanity prevails: iiNet did not authorise its users’ infringements (Nic, EFA, 4 Feb 2010)
- iiNet wins video piracy trial (Renai LeMay, Delimiter, 4 Feb 2010)
- AFACT v iiNet: Statement in full from the losing party (NewTechnica, 4 Feb 2010)
A humorous interpretation of events after the ruling was announced. - Document: Judge’s summary of iiNet trial (Ben Grubb, ZDNet.com.au, 4 Feb 2010)
- Pirate Party Australia Welcomes Decision In IiNet Trial (Pirate Party, 4 Feb 2010)
- iiTrial: Telstra welcomes “legal clarity” (Renai LeMay, Delimiter, 4 Feb 2010)
- Mixed reaction to iiNet ruling (SBS, 4 Feb 2010)
- iiNet outcome an “application of common sense”: EFF (Tim Lohman, Computerworld, 4 Feb 2010)
- An attempt to cast a pall over internet usage (Robert Corr, 4 Feb 2010)
A summary of points the author thought were important in the 200 page judgement. - Piracy case to shake up global fight (Bronwyn Herbert and Tim Leslie, ABC News, 2 Feb 2010)
At the start sounds like it assumes that all users are pirates, but has some useful comments further down.
Australian Internet Blackout v1.0 released
Just updated my Australian Internet Blackout WordPress plugin to version 1.0.
Version 1.0 makes use of the wp_enqueue_script() function to load the Blackout JavaScript. This should stop the double loading of jQuery, and avert possible conflicts (that is the theory anyway).
You can find the new version here:
You can also get later versions of WordPress to install it themself. Just search for ‘blackout’ on the ‘Add New‘ plugins page.
Australian Internet Blackout WordPress Plugin
I have been a bit lax recently about posting to my blog, and updating the Conroy’s Christmas present list. But my spare time has been taken up learning to write WordPress plugins.
For my first WordPress plugin I present the Australian Internet Blackout.
This plugin automatically adds the necessary JavaScript to you blog to display the protest message to people visiting your site. With the hope of bringing the government’s censorship plans to a larger audience.
The Easy way to install:
- Go to the ‘Plugins’ ‘Add new’ menu in your WordPress blog
- Search for ‘Australian Internet Blackout’
- Find the plugin in the list returned (it should be the first one) and click ‘Install’
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
The hard(er) way to install:
If you prefer to install things on you blog yourself you can.
- Download the Australian Internet Blackout plugin
- Unzip the plugin.
- Upload it to your blog’s plugins folder
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
For more information about the protest please visit:
Which anti filter group should you belong to?
Filed under Social, Tech, Web sites
Tagged as Australia, censorship, Internet, Monty Python, nocleanfeed, politics
Tagged as Australia, censorship, Internet, Monty Python, nocleanfeed, politics
One of the big problems is the anti filter campaign at the moment is its divided front. There is no clear leader giving direction to the campaign.
The No Internet Censorship site, run by the Australian Democrats, has an interesting article about this problem: ‘Taking control of the campaign against internet censorship‘. It clearly addresses the problem with having multiple bodies trying to run the campaign from different angles.
Although, it makes me think of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Here is my adaptation of The Colosseum skit:
Brian: Are you the Internet People's Front?
Reg: F*ck off.
Brian: What?
Reg: Internet People's Front. We're the People's Front of the Internet. Internet People's front, caw.
The article mentions that there are 3 political parties involved in opposing the filters: The Australian Democrats, The Greens, and The Australian Sex Party. And it asserts that one of these would be best to lead the campaign.
Brian: I hate Stephen Conroy as much as anybody.
PFI: Sssh. Ssssh, sssh, sssh, ssssh
Judith: Are you sure?
Brian: Oh. Dead sure... I hate Stephen Conroy and his Internet filters already.
I noticed they missed Pirate Party Australia. Though, reading PPA’s FAQ, I see that they are not yet a registered party. Hence the current membership drive to get the required 500 members.
Reg: Listen. If you really wanted to join the PFI, you'd have to really hate Stephen Conroy.
Brian: I do.
Reg: Oh yeah? How much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than Stephen Conroy are the f*cking Internet People's Front.
The underlying message of this article is good, but it also looks like political posturing. With The Democrats having no members in parliament since the last federal election.
My take on it all
In my opinion these political parties should take a back seat on pushing the issue. The Democrats are seen as irrelevant to current Federal politics; The Greens polarise people with their other politics; and The SEX Party is seen as representing that which Conroy is telling the public is bad about the Internet.
Their article also forgets to mention of the two non political party groups that are involved in the campaign: the Electronic Fronteirs Australia (EFA) and GetUP. Both of whom have had an important role in delivering the message to the public.
In my opinion the EFA has the best mandate for being the focus for the campaign. The EFA is an organisation ‘independent of government and commerce‘ and formed in 1994 ‘representing Internet users concerned with on-line freedoms and rights‘.
There are many sites that are campaigning against the filters. There needs to be one central hub, that people link to and that provides a clear direction to the campaign.
Conroy already has the jump on the anti censorship people. The anti filter folk don’t have time for a long Darwinistic evolution to find the best candidate, the creationists are currently on their crusade against the Internet. And a divided campaign will be easily swept aside.
Banks Y2K10 bug
So it appears that the Y2K bug has turned up a little late. Maybe the big had budget and scope problems, and is running behind schedule?
The Bank of Queensland EFTPOS machines have had problems since the 1st. And now it appears Bank West EFTPOS terminals are having the same problem. All deciding it is really 2016 and rejecting cards as expired. [1]
Then there is a the Window mobile SMS messages being future dated.[2]
Best explanation I have seen for this is a ‘10′ in decimal being read as ‘10′ in hexadecimal, which become ‘16′ in decimal. Hence jumping from 9 to 16.[3]
Or there was an atempt to avoid the year 2012 on the Mayan calendar.
- Welcome to 2016: Eftpos glitch spreads (Chris Zappone, SMH, 5 Jan 2010)
- 2016 bug hits Windows phones (John Oats, The Registry, 5 Jan 2010)
- The 2016 hit-list is getting longer (David Heath, iTWire, 5 Jan 2010)
And on the 8th day…
And on the 8th day God created the Internet Filter.
Commanding ‘Thou shall have no other Internet before me’.
Bookmarking in the iTunes store
Do you ever find things in the iTunes store and think “I don’t want that now, but might be interested later”? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bookmark feature in iTunes?
Well its good to see that I am not the first person to want it. Back in 2003 Chuck Toporek wrote an iTunes store feature wish list, with bookmarking a feature high on the list. And even the idea of a wish list so people could buy you stuff.
Then I came across kirk’s suggestion of dragging out urls to make webloc files. But I really don’t want to have to file the bookmarks somewhere else. A directory of bookmarks it not that easy to manage, of space efficient.
The best idea I saw is from AgingGeek of creating a playlist in iTunes and dragging songs to it from iTunes store. That this should create a list if files you are interested in. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to work in iTunes 9.
So it looks like we are back to the drawing board?
No, not completely. As of iTunes 9 there is a small drop down menu arrow next to the ‘buy’ button for albums and tracks, which has an ‘Add to Wish List‘ option.
So, now there is a wish list. But how do I access its contents? And where did my Shopping Cart go?
The Wish List can be access via a link (hidden) right at the bottom of each iTunes store page.
The Shopping Cart has gone. It is no more. Only 1-click shopping is offered these day in the iTunes store.
From iTunes help:
IMPORTANT:Only 1-click purchasing is available. If you were using Shopping Cart in earlier versions of iTunes, the contents of your Shopping Cart can now be found in your Wish List.
So, Apple have decided that a shopping cart gave you too much of an option to back out of purchases. And moved to only having a 1-click purchase model. Cutting down on the ummers and ahhers.
IMPORTANT:All sales are final. You can’t cancel a purchase after you click Buy or Buy Now.
Some like the new iTunes, and gave it a good review:
- Apple iTunes 9 (Donald Bell, AppleSource, 28 Sept 2009)
And others detest the new iTunes store interface:
- Bring Back the iTunes Shopping Cart! (Ted Landau, MacObserver, 29 Sept 2009)
- Can’t Drag Songs to Wish List (KMDMD, Apple Discussions, 22 Dec 2009)
Personally, I think hiding the Shopping Cart as a Wish List at the bottom of the page is a not very user friendly.
I still want a way to Bookmark songs or albums. Much like you do in a web browser. That would allow you to categorise and file your bookmarks, not have them all dumped in one list.
As the iTunes store is really just a web site (using iTunes as its browser). I don’t see why this would be hard to implement (I presume that iTunes uses the same web technology as Safari). It just requires some realisation from within for the need to change.
Q: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.
Conroy’s Christmas present, Internet censorship #nocleanfeed
Filed under News, Social, Tech, Web sites
Tagged as Australia, censorship, filter, Internet, manditory, nocleanfeed, politics, Stephen Conroy
Tagged as Australia, censorship, filter, Internet, manditory, nocleanfeed, politics, Stephen Conroy
Stephen Conroy has delivered his Christmas present early, ISP level Internet filter. Tuesday afternoon the government announced that was giving the green light to its controversial censorship plan. And Conroy stated that we can look forward to legislation being introduced next year, ahead of the election.
Yesterday news sites, blogs and twitter erupted in a furore over the plans. Below are some articles on the subject I though were interesting:
- Internet censorship plan gets the green light (Asher Moses, SMH, 15 Dec 2009)
- Scott talks to ABC PM about net filtering (Scott Ludlam, The Greens, 16 Dec 2009)
- Internet filter to protect her children from porn and other horrors gives mother some peace of mind (Mahesh Sharma, The Australian, 16 Dec 2009)
The tale of computer-illiterate mother who is deluded, and thinks that te filter will protect her children. - Australian Internet Screwed (Jeff Engert, 15 Dec 2009)
- SMH poll on the Internet Censorship
Over 21000 votes, 96% NO. - ZDNet Australia poll – Do you support a mandatory internet filter?
Over 1100 votes, 96.4% NO. - ISP blocking – our evaluation report (Telstra, 15 Dex 2009)
Telstra’s report on why they think the filtering they tested works. And people’s comments about this. - Our views on Mandatory ISP Filtering (Iarla Flynn, Google Australia, 16 Dec 2009)
How Google thinks the proposal is extreme and uncalled for. - Net censorship move a smokescreen: expert (Asher Moses, SMH, 16 Dec 2009)
How the filter test was designed to succeed, so wasn’t really a fair trial. - Conroy’s Clean Feed Won’t Block Child P*rn (Mark Newton, NewMatilda, 16 Dec 2009)
- Net censorship trial report brings more questions than answers (EFA, 15 Dec 2009)
- At what point does internet filtering become censorship? (Gordon Farrer, SMH, 16 Dec 2009)
- Abbott drawn into filter debate (Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet Australia, 16 Dec 2009)
- Child groups slam Conroy’s ISP filtering plans (Kathryn Edwards, Computerworld, 16 Dec 2009)
- Net filters ‘thin end of the wedge’: Kirby (Asher Moses, SMH, 17 Dec 2009)
Kirby’s view on the filter, and a rehash of what everyone else has said of the last day.
Trending Topics Mash (20091116)
Have not done a Trending Topics Mash for a while. So her is one today
I Have Never Used New Moon in Modern Warfare 2 on Dravid, Although #theresway2many #wherethehellyoubeen for #musicmonday Goodnight #TTMash (permalink, image)
