Chriso

Need a website: Creating a internet marketing campaign

2009-09-27T16:23:00.001+10:00

So you want to get on the internet and make money. Your been told you need a web site for your business and you cannot succeed with out one. This article will explore the basics of creating your presence on the web.

Selecting a web designer

This is a very competitive market and and many static designers willing to put together a site for you. You need to carefully consider what your goals are for the site.

Some goals to consider

Who is your target market.?
How will they use your site?
Why they would choose your site?
Will the information be static or dynamic?
Will you need transaction faculties? How will this be done?
How will you build trust into your site?
How will you communicate with your visitor?
How do you get visitors to come to site?
How will you deliver the goods and services?
How will you provide support for you product or service?

Readability of text

Your web designer also needs to have web copy expertise. This means that the text on your site must be readable by the visitor. Readers of web page read differently to how they read a book or a newspaper. Generally they scan the page hoping to find what they are looking for.

Usability of the Site

Some designers a good designer but poor designers for usability. If its difficult to navigate your site then your site will fail to keep the visitor on site.

Collaboration and Participation

Most websites do not allow for this but it is an essential ingredient to successful web design. User who participate in your site will return to your site and refer other to your site. Your site should include comments and ratings. Forums are dead.

Fresh content

Insure you have fresh content on your site. This takes a lot of time and money but if your site is old then your ranking will drop of the search engines. Visitors will not return and your site will fail.

Responding to visitors

If your visitor makes a comment then you need to respond in a timely manner. Use auto responders to inform you visitor that you have noted the comment and will reply shortly.

Networking

Create a network through social media channels and become involved with others in social network. as they get to know and trust you they will participate in your web site. Do not spam them with sales material but socialise with them as you would in normal life. Then tell them when you have put fresh content on the site.

This covers only a few things on planning your web site and to get professional advice from a consultant before diving into the deep of the internet

Chriso

Internet Consultant.

Don’t waste your money on a web site

2009-09-14T20:59:00.001+10:00

This week there has been a lot of discussion amongst some colleagues regarding everyone should have a web site. I argue this point as most websites are a waste of time and money.

Brochure Sites

A brochure web site normally consist of 4 or 5 pages of broadcast material to inform people who you are and what your about. Majority of these sites are a complete waste of money. Designers have tapped into this market advising their client they need to have good design and SEO (Search Engine Optimised). I do agree to this in principle how ever this is very much a baby step in your online presence.

As these sites are costing about $2000 au it is a complete waste of money. You just become another web site in the ocean of millions of other who have exactly the same content. Drop In the Ocean.

eCommerce Site

eCommerce sites are also a must have for all small business so they can get on the world stage and compete at a international level. This is good if you have a product that everyone wants and your the only one that has the product otherwise it a complete waste of time and money. Driving traffic to your site is not something that happens overnight and there is also the art of motivating a visitor to purchase while on the site.

Affiliate Sites

Affiliate web site who provide links to other suppliers has some merit but of little value unless you have content that attracts people to your site. Becoming affiliate to other websites requires good planning and spam marketing. Having said that there is value if your can provide value to the site.

No longer a broadcast Medium

The internet is not a broadcast medium as traditional media like TV and Radio. Your web site needs to be an experience for the visitor and allow them to participate in your site. Your site needs to create a two way conversation and user generated content. Your web site needs to create relationships with people just as you do in your bricks and mortar business.

What do I need to do?

When considering your web site ask yourself what value is the web site to your visitor. Will they use it and can we both benefit from the use. This takes some good analyses about where does your business fit on the web.

Why would people come to your site?
What will they do when on your site?
Will they bookmark your site for future reference?
Will they tell other about your site?
Will they make positive claims about your site?
Will they come back to your site?
Will your site make them do business with you

Quality Not Quantity

Visitor to your site are looking for an experience and if they do not get that experience they will keep searching until they get what they are looking for. Been number 1 on Google does not guarantee to make you money. 100,000 hits a month means nothing unless you getting value from the 100,000 hits.

The quality of your visitor to your site is one that participates in your site and adds value to your site. 100 visitor who do that are more valuable than the 1000 people who visit for 30 seconds.

Conclusion

Before you invest in a web designer get some professional consulting done before hand. Have a qualified consultant evaluate your business and make recommendations on how you should approach the internet and web presences.

Chris Johnson

Internet consultant.

Don’t waste your money on a web site

2009-09-12T10:36:00.001+10:00

This week there has been a lot of discussion amongst some colleges regarding everyone should have a web site. I argue this point as most websites are a waste of time and money.

Brochure Sites

As these sites are costing about $2000 au it is a complete waste of money. You just become another web site in the ocean of millions of other who have exactly the same content. Drop In the Ocean.

eCommerce Site

Affiliate Sites

No longer a broadcast Medium

What do I need to do?

Why would people come to your site?
What will they do when on your site?
Will they bookmark your site for future reference?
Will they tell other about your site?
Will they make positive claims about your site?
Will they come back to your site?
Will your site make them do business with you

Quality Not Quantity

The quality of your visitor to your site is one that participates in your site and adds value to your site. 100 visitor who do that are more valuable than the 1000 people who visit for 30 seconds.

Conclusion

Chris Johnson

Internet consultant.

Amazing photo’s sent to me today of a Death Adder eating a Goanna

2009-06-03T17:48:00.001+10:00

The Death Adder some miners in the Pilbara Mine came across the adder eating a Goanna. Some amazing photos as proof.

Taken at a Pilbara Mine Site

About the Death Adder

(QM, Bruce Cowell)

Identification: Length to 40 cm. Head arrow-shaped. Tail sharply tapered to spine-like scale. Reddish or brown above, often banded with black flecks or darker brown; greyish or cream below. Mid-body scales 17-21; anal single; subcaudals, front single, back divided; ventrals 126-152.
Habitat and Range: Open forest. TNQ, Cooktown to Townsville. Australia, northern WA, NT, northern Qld.
Notes: Preys on frogs, Cane Toads (snake dies), small reptiles, birds, mammals. Live-bearer, number of young not known, probably about 8.
Potentially dangerous. Venom strongly neurotoxic, weakly haemolytic and anticoagulant. (Queensland Museum, 2000)

QM,Bruce Cowell, 2000,Wildlife Of tropical North Queensland [image], Queensland Museum

Queensland Museum. 2000 ,Wild Life Of Tropical Northern Queensland, Queensland Museum

How should Australians stimulate the economy?

2009-04-23T23:18:00.001+10:00

Vote 1 Ausi1 What should we do with the Boat People

2009-04-23T17:05:00.001+10:00

Social Media Experiment 1: Australian Politics, What Policy would you like to have pass in Federal Parliament

2009-04-22T22:45:00.005+10:00

As a Social Media experiment how powerful are we here in Australia to influence direction in Australian politics?

If you where able to make political policy statements what would you believe would be a good policy that would make Australia a better place that people would volte for?

The idea extends from my studies of Internet studies at Curtin University about the roll politician play in social media with the Kevin07 campaign and his presence on social media sites.

To get real value from the presence it would be Ideal to be able to contribute to the decisions making process and prove the power of social media. The idea is this. If we where to create our own candidate for Federal parliament what would the policies be made of?

Leave your Ideas as a comment. If you a twitter please Follow me @ausi1 and leave your twitter handle in your comment.

If you support on of the another comments then just add a comment, “I am in support author Author NAME”

The Politics of the Internet

2009-04-16T18:12:00.001+10:00

The Kevin007 team where very adapt at making the most of all media during 2007 federal election campaign and at the time I followed him very closely on how they used the internet to make contact with those younger social network people.

Barack Obama used the social media to get his campaign financed and collect voters by becoming a part of their world. Its is however that the Australian Political parties are still a little confused on how to make the most of what it has to offer.

By visiting Malcolm Turnbulls website you are confronted with a user form to enter your details about getting a news letter from him. I felt it was a little confronting and not expecting to have to log onto the site with personnel details. After studding it for a few minutes I realised that you could skip the process.

The Kevin Rudd web site was similar but not has confronting as Malcolm Turnbull but still offered the registration for getting a news letter from him.

This of course is adoption of the American sell method that may not work as well in Australia. I have noticed on Twitter that the Australians are more lay backed about jamming things down your throat. There still seems to be a long way for the politician to go before they understand what Social Media is about but lets not forget they have recognised it.

I do have Kevin Rudd on my Twitter and Facebook. I am member of his facebook and I have him as a Favourite on Youtube.

Barack Obama if very much a friend of the Social network movement and is very out spoken about the openness and the future of freedom on the Internet despite the push by other members of congress wanting to control the Internet.

We have similar attempts here by Senator Stephen Conroy with the Clean Feed proposal. Despite all the good advice from industry experts he still insists that it will still go ahead. Is this political suicide for Senator Steven Conroy as the Social media gains the momentum and the public does not want him to place controls on the Internet?

The scary part is that the rejection of the Alchopop tax this week and a key voter is Steve Fielding the Family First member who wants the clean feed for religious reasons may get the clean feed passed as a deal to get the Alchopop Tax vote. The government has a plan here and you have to wonder why they will bring it back to parliament in the face of a double dissolution.

I think although Australia is very active on the Internet with politics it still will be awhile where it will influence the out come of elections or even policy. This I believe that the understanding of social media both with the politicians and the Australian public have a long way to go yet to grasp the concept.

BuzzNet Tags: Australian Politics,Kevin Rudd,Malcolm Turnbull

Great Aussie Anzac Day Tweetup: The Great Aussie Tweetup - Anzac Day

2009-03-23T08:41:00.000+11:00

Great Aussie Anzac Day Tweetup: The Great Aussie Tweetup - Anzac Day

Tweetup Australia 25th Of April 2009 ANZAC Day

2009-03-16T10:50:00.001+11:00

Tweetup is a craze where people meet up that are twitters. Twitter is what called a blog of 140 characters. The popularity of Twitter is fast becoming main stream and now has the focus of the main stream media where there is not a day go by that main stream media has not written,spoken or commented about Twitter.

Tweetup Australia is an initiative of @womencan and myself @ausi1 to create a national day where all Australians who are on Twitter have the opportunity to meet other Twitterverse.

How it works

Organise an event

Decide where the event will take place. A cafe or a park. If you decide on a park you could arrange a BYO Barbeque.

Keep it simple as some followers may not be cashed enough to do anything elaborate.

Inform your local media of the event as Twitter has now got there focus and will make a good story for them.

Promote the event

If your using Twitter then publicise the your event on the 25th of April 2009 in your local area inviting followers to meet.

By using the hash tags you will be able to promote the event and invite people to attend from your area

Please use hashtags #aussietweetpup to Identify the event and #yourtown (the name of your town or city) An example of this would be #Perth #Adelaide #Melbourne #Sydney #Brisbane #Hobart #Darwin

Use the PLEASE RT or the pls RT in your message.

Some examples of the tweets.

#aussietweetup #Perth 25/4 @ Kings Park Cafe (next to Frasers) 2pm - invite all your tweet buddies Pls RT http://tinyurl.com/c25fx8

PLEASE RT: #aussietweetup #Perth 25/4 2pm @ Kings Park Cafe –All invited http://tinyurl.com/c25fx8

Pls RT:#aussietweetup #Perth Join Us @ King park Cafe 25/4 Please invite others http://tinyurl.com/c25fx8

Also promote it on your other Social networks such as you Facebook wall. http://tinyurl.com/c25fx8

Comment

Leave a comment of your event and example of your message and help each other to promote the event.

Have Fun

The most important part is to have some fun. An example of having fun can be seen here at a Twetup event in Perth on Youtube

How Does One Become Friends On The Internet

2009-03-04T22:00:00.001+11:00

David I will draw you a Fire Truck

While Studding internet communications I came across the story of the 7 legged spider David story influenced me when through a discussion forum for another subject I was doing I had a comment made by Mr P that me and another student Mrs M should get a room. Now this other student lives 3000klm away from me so if we where to get a room then a considerable investment would be required. The Victorian Bushfires was the hot topic of the time so I offered to draw him a fire truck for $3000.

This started some very hot negotiations on the sales of this drawing and weather the drawing was valued correctly. I told Mr. P if he was able to obtain a profit from the sale then he was more than welcome to any gains he made from the investment only to be told he does not like fire trucks but his son does. I thought what a great idea he can purchase the drawing and keep it for his son who likes fire trucks. Mr P informs me that he collect empty beer cans not drawings. I then felt sorry for him as I found this website describing Mr P living arrangements .

Its been some time now and I had drawn the fire truck for Mr P however to date the cheque has not arrives. I know this is not as good as David’s7 legged spider there must be an opportunity for some one to have and place it on coffee mugs and TEE Shirts and make a bloody fortune from it. The fool that did not buy the 7 legged spider from David on EBay for $15000 missed a great opportunity to franchise it

I now offer the same deal to the open market.

Drawing of the fire truck $3000

Firemen and extra $2000 each

Bargain

Anyhow the reality is that Mr P and Mrs M and myself are now all very good friends. But my room still awaits my sale.

Reference

The seven legged spider story

I'll spend the money on drugs instead http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html

Living arrangements

70,000 Beer Cans Found in Ogden Townhouse http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=268346

Cited

eBay.com

NET11 Tess: Module 5 - Information Ecologies

2009-02-28T10:06:00.000+11:00

NET11 Tess: Module 5 - Information Ecologies

My Students At University of Ballarat (Horsham Campus)

2009-02-25T22:54:00.001+11:00

Last Week I started teaching again at Ballarat University CIV Info Tech Students. What a fantastic group I have. They are all enthusiastic and gasping for knowledge. I have a great deal of faith in this group an Believe they all should graduate by the years end. But I am not the only one with this view. Jim Carter the teacher of the other units also come out and said the same statement. As CIV is some what entry level for IT professionals and provide a place of students to hide from the dole queue it often attracts people who only there to waste your time. As a teacher it is so rewarding to have students who respond to your work and willing participants in your topics

The challenge for me and Jim Carter is keeping up to their quest for knowledge as they sponge in everything we give them and keep asking for more. How fantastic is that.

Social Networking in the Workplace

2009-02-21T12:42:00.001+11:00

The epidemic of social network places such as Facebook and My Space have created problems for employers as the compulsion of users to spend time poking their friends and telling them what their doing now when the payroll need to me finalised and the deadlines to meet. Now lets face sitting at a computer screen all day processing boring data like watching grass grow and focusing to insure the accuracy at some sort of standard acceptable by the employer. But a good employee set goals for the day on what needs to be achieved and makes a commitment to achieve these goals. This morning I am going to get this done sort of goal. You start the computer wait for windows update to complete then restart windows so you can get the latest virus definition update and restart windows again because there's has been an update to the antivirus that also needs to scan 6 million files before you can log in again. After 20 minutes process your have opened the mail, filed all the work from yesterday, cleaned your monitor, had the first morning coffee and you finally ready to start today's goals. The first thing that happens is a gadget from the task bars says you have mail. You open your mail to find you have 30 emails sent form several department over night that all seem important. The first email says Hi mate did you like the joke I sent you yesterday. The second email informing you that attached is the minutes of the meeting you attended yesterday. With 28 more emails to address your goals for the morning looks to be impossible but you know if you do not achieve this then several people will not get paid.

Achieving the impossible Goals

The impossible tasks then gets hampered by a pop up saying Fred has commented on your photo in Facebook so you just have to know what Fred has said about you so you login to Facebook only to find he has written “Cute kid”. So you type a comment “Thanks” then proceed to logon to the system to start work. You then start entering data and another pop up saying that Wilma has posted on your wall. So you return to your Facebook and see Wilma has written Have a great day. Now that was nice of her so you quickly reply “You to sweetie”. Now back to work and the phone rings. The HR manager Mr Stonehead cannot find his payroll report from last week and ask you do you have copy. You reply that I will get you a copy. So you find you copy you filed last week, Photocopy it and take it to him. By this time more than the 1st hour has passed and you only managed to open the payroll system but have not endeavoured to enter the needed data.

Returning to your desk you begin entering the data and another pop up invades your screen saying Betty has just Poked you. At this point you say I have to get this work done so I am ignoring Betty. you put your head down and bum up and go for it at a rapid pace as you are so far behind in you goal that you think I am never going to get this done. Your mid morning coffee urge is upon you but no time for coffee you keep plugging away so the goal is achieved. Ignoring all emails and phone calls because you had lost so much time this morning. By midday you are almost through and Barney suggests we go to the Bedrock Cafe for lunch. You inform Barney I would love to but I have work to finish so I will be having trouble getting out of here. can you get bring me back a salad.

By the time barney gets back with your salad you are on top of it. You have it beat all the data is entered and the reports are rolling of the printer. You sit at your desk to eat your salad and open your Facebook account and as you scoff down a olive stone you are busily answering all your friends pokes and comments and Mr Stonehead walks behind you and see your on Facebook. He remarks that haven't you got better things to be doing.

Well the obvious answer is to explain in anger what sort of a morning you had and I now finally now have the chance to satisfy my midday cravings and catch up on some friends. No you gracefully close Facebook and continue with your salad feeling guilty about his comments.

The Ban on Facebook

Later in the afternoon things settle down and you decide again to check out Facebook only to find that you cannot log into the site. You ring tech support and say you cannot access the internet. After considerable dialog you finally admit that its Facebook giving you the trouble to be informed that social network sites have been blocked an the request of Mr Stonehead. The guilt set in as it was just an hour ago when Mr Stonehead had commented on my use of Facebook. I then dig out my iPhone and announce to all may social network friends what a jerk Mrs Stonehead is because he banned my Facebook.

Job offer

Within a hour a network friend send me an email and say why don't you come and work for me as I need some one with your skills. Some one that can use Facebook and build relationships online. Some one that can develop a social network on behalf of our company and build a solid reputation. You are just the person.

Job acceptance.

No you say wow this is a great offer so you open you email and send Mr Stonehead an email

to:Mr Stonehead

From: Me

Dear Sir

Owing to the fact that I think your a jerk for banning Facebook in the workplace I have accepted a position with your competitor Stone Hedge Corporation as a network marketer. My role will be to build a social network for the company to help gain market share and acceptance of there new product range. The 33000 of your customers I have on my Facebook will find this new product range very exciting and will see the benefits of the instant support and help they will gain directly from there Facebook account.

I understand that you feel that it is a waste of time and that loosing 33,000 customers to Stone Hedge Corporation is not a big issue because your priority today is your payroll report are on your desk in time.

Thank you

Me

Reaction

Mr Stonehead is stunned. He no 1 employee would do such a thing. He quickly organises you to be removed from the office and demand that you remove you Facebook account and makes out rages claims that you will not succeeds. He scoff at the fact that you cannot gain a market share through that rubbish and people on Facebook are losers.

Success

After your first week in the position you established 6000 new accounts for Stone Hedge Corporation and increase your social network to now 40,000 members. You creditability on line has increase and people are seeking you out about the solutions to their problems. Mr Stonehead however is shrinking by the day and is called to the board room to explain the slump in sales.

What happened here?

What happened is Mr Stonehead failed to identify the value of social networking in the workplace. If he did he would have been excited to know that you had 33000 network friends and that you had a high degree of social networks skill. The arrogance failed him and his policy and lack of understanding that this is the future for the success of the business.

Questions

Should have Mr Stonehead embraced you as a guru and capitalises on your skill?

Is it possible to have achieve 6000 new accounts in a week with a social network account?

What product range or industry could this relate to?

I am keen to read your comments.

Cited

Facebook

My Space

Control of Vigilant Groups On the Internet

2009-02-17T14:27:00.001+11:00

An interesting development happened here in Australia this week with the Arrest of a suspected arsonist in Victorian Bushfire. The man arrested first sitting of the local courts in Morwel and obtained a suppression order for his name and address not to be released. He was then taken to Melbourne lockup for his own protection as angry residents bated the police van as he left the court. By Monday he faced court again and the suppression order was reduced and allowed his name to be released but his photos and address remained suppressed.

The internet soon learned about this fellow and vigilantly groups and angry people stated blogs about him fuelled along with major news feeds providing information. His MY Space account was soon discovered and his Photo and address suppressed under the order was distributed like wild fire over the internet. Facebook groups where created and within minutes there where 1000’s of members. By lunchtime there where news reports by main stream media that this had happened and that a request to have them removed as it may jeopardise the case was pleaded. Police where contacting Facebook to have the groups removed.

Facebook

I logged onto Facebook at 11 am and found one group with the full details of the accused with 1667 members. This was within minutes of the suppression order been lifted. At 12.30 pm the group had been deleted along with 6 other groups. By 2pm 4 more groups had formed to replace the 6 that had been deleted.

2pm 17th Feb 2009 24 hours after the suppression order was lifted.

Brendan Sokaluk is the man who was arrested for arson 2622 members

Yvette Langstaff Who created the group stated yesterday that she obtained the suspects details form the court list on the internet through the Magistrate Court. The legal system failed their own orders.

This group had been modified and discussion are taking place to what is a legal standing and whether members of the groups could stand prosecution for contempt of court.

It does raise some interesting issues.

Can the DPP (Department of Public Prosecutions) track down the Vigilante groups and Prosecute them? If you live in Australia then maybe. But as Facebook owns the data will the DPP need a court order to obtain that data from Facebook and other social network sites? Does that mean that the Privacy Policy of Facebook is invalid in this case? Does the Police have the rights to dictate to Facebook to remove the group?
If the Magistrate Court Published the details on the internet then did it become public domain?
Can all the blogs written be filtered by the DPP and removed from the Internet? I would suggest this is almost an impossible task.
Does this give Senator Conroy more reason to want to introduce Clean Feed Filtering to the Australian Internet? (Scary thought!!!)
Can the Legal System in Australia stop this from happening?

Considering the mechanics of the the internet it is hardly likely that the control of people actions on the Internet will ever be successful but there has been a swing in mood when news broke that it could jeopardize the case and the man could walk free because of these blogs and and social network groups. But its still not hard to find his photo and details through a simple Google search.

References

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25067218-661,00.html

Brendan Sokaluk is the man who was arrested for arson

Cited

Facebook

Google

My Space

BuzzNet Tags: Sokuluk,Facebook,Bushfires,My Space,Social Networking

Samboy Facebook Promotion Attracts 110,000 in a week

2009-02-16T13:54:00.002+11:00

Samboy ran a promotion on Facebook to see who could create the largest group with a $10,000 Prize.A group stared this week in aid of the Bushfires and pledged to give the money to the bushfire appeal. I considered this a genuine attempt to win this prize for the appeal. However I emailed Samboy with my concerns as follows.

Original Email

Hi
Samboy is back competition you are running as a promotion has had nearly 90,000 members join a group to support the Victorian Bushfire appeal. This I believe is a genuine effort by the creator of the group to donate the prize money to the bushfire appeal. However to insure that if this is the winning group that the money is directed to the Red Cross I ask and Samboy make a public announcement that they have given the money to the Red Cross.
For added value it would also be good that Samboy show their support to the Bushfire victims as genuine people did in this group and make a substation contribution to the Red Cross Bushfires Appeal.
Thank you for your consideration of my message.
Chris Johnson

I received a reply from Samboy

Alison Backers wrote:
Hello Chris,
Thank you for your email and your concern about the Red Cross donation promised by one of the entrants in our current Facebook promotion, I will be sure to pass on your feedback to the Marketing Manager in charge of this promotion. I can assure you though we are currently having discussions regarding this issue.
In regards to our business making a donation to the Red Cross Bushfire appeal, please be assured that we made a sizeable donation to the cause on Monday 9th February but we do not wish to make details of this public. Our donation is purely meant to help those in need, rather than an opportunity for our business to receive free publicity or public recognition.
Thank you again Chris for taking the time to email us.
kind regards
Alison Backers
Snack Brands Australia
Consumer Contact Representative

Now that is what I like to see. No credit for their donation.

My reply to Alison

Alison
Hey Hey Great Work Guys
I hope your promotion give you what you where seeking. I was at first reluctant to participate in the Facebook Promotion but your email confirms that your company is a responsible citizen and commend your business philosophy.
Thank you for your reply
Regards
Chris

This is a great example of how social network performs. Samboy promotion was never intended to raise money for the Bushfire as the Promotion had been running for several week. Through collaboration on Facebook more than 110,000 people pledge their support behind the promotion to raise the money for the Victoria Bushfire. The only people who gained from this is the people who need it. I think Samboy unintentionally has gained considerably from this demonstrating a very effective way of using social networking.

So next time your at the shop pick up a packet of Samboy Chips

http://www.samboy.com.au/facebook.html

Coming to the close of Nett11

2009-02-15T18:05:00.001+11:00

In July 2008 I had a accident at work. After the accident I had to undergo a drug test and to my surprise I was proven to be positive for athetamines. As some one who has never taken drugs of any type was devastated and dumbfounded. The company who I was subcontracted to came about with a digital camera and photographed the test results and emailed it around saying that I had failed a drug test. It was later proven that the test was faulty. The questioned remained about the distribution of the email as it already labelled me as a drug user and with my knowledge of how email distribution worked concerned me. After obtaining an Independent drugs test I presented this to my employer who in the mean time had printed the email off and distributed it around the workplace. There is a couple of issue here.

Sampling for drugs in the workplace is classified under the health act as collection of medical records. When you collect medical records you have an obligation to provide security of those records. An obligation under the privacy provisions of the act
The security of email communication to distribute medical records.

Email can be distributed in a viral like fashion once it is released into the wild. Something as Interesting as a person who failed a drug test creates a good reason for this email distributed as a viral email. I send you an email and you see that this may interest someone else so you forward it on and this cycle of pass it on then becomes very broad based. Very similar to the way pyramids schemes work.

Living in a small community of 20,000 people it wasn't long before this email became a well known within the community and that I was a drug user. The devastation this caused me sent me into depression for many months. I would sit in a chair day in and day out playing solitaire on my lap top.

Getting Educated

My son who had started his 1st year on university found that he chosen subjects where not what he thought and decided that it was not the correct choice of careers. After discussing with him about his future goals he said “I am going to study online.” I got interested right then. Not just for his future but for mine. Living in a rural community education opportunities was limited and I was critical about this for many years.

When I moved to Horsham in 2002 I was looking for work and was asked if I could teach IT to some agriculture students. I also thought I could use the time to get some qualifications and approached the local TAFE. They recommended I do CIV in information technology. I all ready had 10 years experience in IT but this gave me the opportunity to to get qualified. The first assignment was to draw input and output computers components and label which was input and which was output. (Keyboard input, Monitor Output). Kindergarten stuff. I rang the coordinator and said come on this is rubbish. He advised me just do the assignments and send them in. I did this for several months. All very simple stuff. I later found that I was required to get a CIV in Workplace Training to continue teaching. Then one day I received a phone call from a teacher asking me why I wasn't in his class today. Oh I said was I suppose to go to a class? I never been to a class before why start now I told him. He did how ever convince me to attend this class and I was put into a group of 3 other students to do a project on documentation. I did the project and the other students did not contribute so I received the credit when the situation was explained. I graduated CIV by doing 3 classes I think with about 13 distinctions of 24 units. With CIV the next step was to get a Diploma. As the campus did not offer diploma would mean I need to leave town to study. That was not an option.

Back to the Online study. This was an option as I had every thing I needed to start now. I contacted Seek and they enrolled me in a Degree course of Information Technology. Considering this is what I do then that seem logical. I enrolled in 3 Units. Text and Context, Information Systems and Internet Communications (net11). Been a little cynical about these 1st year unit I thought that I would have the skills to walk it in. The Text and Context had me a little concerned but systems and internet communications was my game what will I learn from these units?

Well yes Information Systems was a breeze. Read the prescribed text and did the work. Text and context was a little more challenging. Net11 however proved to be something different altogether. Yes we started doing basic internet task that I can do standing on my head and been cynical I plodded thorough with arrogance that this will be easy. I was required to start a blog to record my learning experiences. My son introduce me to blogging and I never really could get into it. Now I blog almost every day. My skill as a blogger has improved in the last 3 months as I continue to learn new techniques.

Beating the Depression

The people whom I collaborated with in net11 have been such a fantastic group of people who did not realise that the Chriso was suffering deep depression because they made me realise that I do have a contribution to make to this subject and I do have some worth. My past experiences and life skills I was able to become involved with this group. I learned from them about social networking on a new dimension and how to be involved in projects with others on the Internet. I never discussed my depression with fellow students as I found that been involved with what they are doing made me feel good and of value. Simple little comments made by other students and teachers made a huge difference to my health. When I could jump in and offer my help and get responses of positive affirmations all contributed to getting out and becoming involved. Yet not one student realised that they helping me through when doing this as they posted their comments. I must say I owe this to the group.

Is it reality

The discussion thread “Is social network reality” on the net11 discussion board I posted a thread early in the unit that stated that by the end of this unit some of us will become very good friends by the time the unit is finished. I have seen this develop over the unit where communications between the group(Teachers and Students) often became emotional and confronting. As the group became more comfortable with one another their where post about people past and personnel experiences that either explained their view of a topic or just a place to express themselves. Out of this relationship developed and collaborations started in many forms. We discovered new dimensions about each other and began to develop a picture of each other that probably very accurate. Some will go on to be good friend for the rest of their lives. At the end of this unit you would have to conclude that social networking is reality.

The future of these skills

Some see this as a waste of time but considering that it is reality it places a whole new meaning on the use of the internet. By developing a social network places you in a position to communicate ideas and share information with some incredible people. Common interest groups from that enables this development of idea and bring to the Internet to a new level of professional standards. The stumbling block I see at this point is education to the average user who has a Facebook with 1000 friends and how to get value from those 1000 friends. By saying value I don't just mean marketing but value can be in many forms. The recent events of the Victorian Bushfires seen groups develop in Facebook of many 1000’s of members to support the Appeals and the Fire Fighters. One group collected Colouring in books to send to the children affected by the bushfires. This was a very effective way to use your Facebook account for value. There was no personnel gain other than the satisfaction that they had done their bit for the kids in the bushfires but gave value through the use of Facebook by creating an interest group.

I had some short discussion with Peter Fletcher about where this is leading and considered that we maybe emerging on a new world of social media. The use of these new tools brings with it new ways to do things and there is a emergence of corporate and private operators scrambling to understand what happening here.

The students who continue with Curtin University Internet Studies will find that they will be the next generation of Hi Tech people required it no longer about software but collaborations and networking on the Internet. It is these skills that will be guiding the Internet to its future. The Internet is a drifting sand but there is a force that is moving the sand and knowledge on that force is your key to success.

Net11

To my fellow students of net11 sp4 2008 I hope you have enjoyed the ride of this unit and found value as I have. I have changed my study career to do BA Internet Studies with Curtin University and believe there are some other coming for the ride as well. I look forward to the next study period with you all. For those who are heading in another direction I hope we cross paths again and be able to maybe meet in person. For those who have an Interest in what I have conveyed here about Internet Studies contact Curtin University I recommend it.

Internet Response to the Bushfire in Victoria

2009-02-14T17:26:00.005+11:00

Saturday the 7th Of February 2009 Temperature at 49c and a gale force wind blowing at 100kmh at about 12.45pm I received a phone call

“Chris Chris There's a fire go outside and have a look quick. Stared at Renlaw Road.”

I went out side and smoke over the back in a wheat paddock that been harvested and thought to myself that it will burn the paddock and stop and the Fire crew will have it under control as the sounds of Fire Trucks racing every where. I quickly went on to Twitter and sent a message that there is a fire in Horsham. This was the start to a very big week. View the video to see what I mean

Lynton Browns Horsham Fire Video 1/2/2009

The Renlaw Rd Fires at Horsham Victoria proved to be a lot worse than I or anyone else would have imagined with the loss of The Horsham Golf Club, 8 houses and a Fire Truck . But that was only the start and has became one of Australian worst Natural Disasters. Most parts of the State of Victoria was ablaze and the final toll still not counted but as of writing the toll was 181 and expecting 300 with the los of 1800 homes and 400,000 ha of land.

I Cannot claim to be the one but all afternoon I was gathering information on the fire and tweeting it trough twitter and Facebook. Twitter is an application where you write 140 Characters messages about what you are doing now. There was a local man from Horsham who received a message trough the internet in Malaya that Horsham is ablaze and Phone his wife to get out of the house. One of the 8 houses destroyed. This proved a very valuable asset to this person that while in Malaya was able to save his family through the use of tools like Twitter. There was a number of user of Tweeds( Twitter users) jump to the task and provided relay messages from the CFA through @CFA_updates who had a live feed from the CFA web site feeding it back to Twitter and @aniraangel who would be quick to resend any worth while information on to others. @774 Melbourne (774 ABC Melbourne) has a news feed running with current and accurate information feeding through and the world stood up and took notice that Victoria was in trouble. It very difficult to really know what the success of this was but if it saved one life then it was worth the effort. All messages carried the #Bushfires # Vicfires Hash tags to enable people to filter the feed by the tag names and keep up to date. This was a very effective tool to use in such a situation.

Also there was valuable information about how to donate. What was needed and who to contact. Links to valuable web sites such has CFA and the RED CROSS where posted at regular intervals that not only help in the fundraising efforts but also allowed people to find the correct information in a hurry. I was impressed with the quality of the post by people who some are just trying to build a following and create a social network. Any post that where not appropriate where quickly dealt with by other users and those people faded into nowhere land.

Facebook

Facebook social network raised to the event by the creation of supporter groups who for the CFA and for those who lost their lives with Samboy is back_Join Now to WIN $10,000 for the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal group attracting 101,000 members in a week. Samboy ran a competition to see who cold get the most users to a group before the 15th of February. This had nothing to do with the Bushfires but the innovative idea of Kimberley Evans thought we can do this. This extended to other states groups to offer their winning prize to the the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal

Samboy is Back - JOIN NOW TO WIN $10,000 FOR THE RED CROSS BUSHFIRE APPEAL

There is also

Zoe Caudle (John XXIII College) who started a group over 27000 members and is a good group for information on the Bushfires

In memory of those who have died in the Victoria Bush fires and lost homes.

Melissa Dower

Victorian Fires - 7/2/09 - CFA volunteers and staff are awesome!!

And Mellissa other group

Donate a "colouring book" to the kids affected by the horrific fires

I was told this morning that by Mellissa that she had collected 1000 colouring in books. She contacted 774 Melbourne to tell them she had the books and a women who's role is to help the people how where Homeless and to get schools and Kindergartens up and running again said she will take them all of Mellissa and see that they get distributed to the kids who need them.

There was many dynamics to how the internet was used during the crisis and a friend of mine Hans posted this blog today on how Google wanted to get involved and with providing information for the bush fire and how it was hampered by backward government departments.

The internet even after this amount of time is still evolving and new realisation of how it can be used is still emerging with the dynamics of Web 2 and collaborating information we have an important role to play in getting others on board this new dimension.

Acknowledgments

Lynton Brown Youtube Video

Facebook.

Twitter

Kimberly Evans Samboy is Back - JOIN NOW TO WIN $10,000 FOR THE RED CROSS BUSHFIRE APPEAL

Mellissa Dower Victorian Fires - 7/2/09 - CFA volunteers and staff are awesome!!

Mellissa Dower Donate a "colouring book" to the kids affected by the horrific fires

Hans blog

Victorian Bushfires still claiming lives

2009-02-08T22:53:00.001+11:00

As some one that live in the Wimmera seen again this weekend the horror of fire. Personally effected by 500 meters down the road was a fire started in High temperature and High winds. Horsham lost 7 houses the Golf Club, 1 Fire Truck and a workshop. After driving around the area the fires went trough there where fences and sheds burnt to the ground. Electricity and water cut from home in around Haven. Mark McIntyre was the golf pro had his business destroyed with the Golf Club and his home under threat in Haven.

But Horsham was very lucky as many other more severe fires took hold across Victoria. With more that 75 people dead and 700 homes destroyed state wide.

Lynton brown posted this comment on my Facebook

From a colleague of mine " I was at De Bortolis just up the road from Chateau Yering yesterday. Fires raged on 3 sides around us. Then suddenly in a matter of a couple of minutes it got really dark and then fire started coming over the hill and straight down towards us. We all (200+ of us) had to rush into the wine cellar and we weren’t allowed outside. It was sooooo close! Then in a stroke of good luck the wind changed and slowed its decent and they were able to control it. But it continued to burn all night. We were supposed to be in a marquee but it turned into a makeshift stand up wedding in the winery. Some people were crying and it was pretty bad. They were hosing the building down and the helicopters bombed it from above. No one was allowed to leave until about midnight. The bride and groom held it together amazingly well though. I can’t believe how close it got! Then driving back down the Melba Hwy everything on the both sides of the road was still burning. "

Lynton Brown I heard tonight that someones house was saved twice last night only to be burnt down when the power came back on

There are many amazing stories of heroic acts from the Greatest Fire Fighters in the world.

Look at some of the amazing photos here

If you have any other amazing stories leave a comment.

Join the social network. All About The Wimmera for updates.

Technorati Tags: bushfires,horsham,grampians,Golfclub,FireTruck

The Invasion of Ants

2009-02-05T12:50:00.002+11:00

With all the hot weather we have been having in the Wimmera has also been the Invasion of ants. The lack of water tends to be the problem as they seems to be chasing anywhere there is moisture. Shower base, Baths and Wash Basins.

I asked for some suggestions on Twitter and @RhyseAtWork provided me the best answer. Virtual Cookie to @RhyseAtWork

Solution

Free Petrol and Free Lunch at your local Service Centre

2009-02-04T21:44:00.001+11:00

Imagine a service centre that offered free fuel for your car. Never you say . but when it come to Google that how they get customers is that all there products and service are free. What makes Google money when it all free.

Well Google not all free. They provide you free services to capture a market of Internet users and present them opportunities to buy goods and service through Google ads The revenue from this supports Google.

So where is the free Petrol?

Well there no free petrol but you would think what would happen if your Local fuel outlet gave the petrol away for free. You would be spending days Lined up in the queue to get your share. Physically for a operator of a local fuel outlet would never be able cater for the demand. However lets take the hypothetical situation on if there where a free fuel at the local fuel outlet. How would this be done As fuel is their prime source of income.

Well through Sponsorship. To get you free fuel you have to agree to apply for a CityBank Credit card. try out our new restaurant and when you pay for your meal you use your CityBank CC to pay and we will give you a free fuel voucher. When you make a purchase from a our retail outlet you will also get a voucher for free fuel. Do new mobile phone contract and every time you make a phone call you get free fuel. Get your Internet Service Provider Deal from the outlet.

Now these companies who want to be the sponsor would pay this fuel the outlet for the fuel he gives away. Ok so this will not happen you say. Your is company is about to launch a major product. The want maximum exposure to the product but want people to experience the product live. The fuel outlet in a very populous area is approached by marketing to provide free fuel for one day only in return the marketers dominate the outlet with there product launch. They would get media coverage and a captive audience to sell there wares.

Your an Internet Cafe and you offer Free Lunch to the first 50 people who com in to day and sign up to a new ISP. As most ISP would pay about $50 spotters fees then the Cafe would turnover $2500 for the lunch trade. No if most people spend $20 in a Cafe for lunch that a huge profit. The Cafe earns $50 for a $20 meal by giving his core business away for free.

You can earn 50% commission on pre paid phone cards so by supply free lunch to any person who buy a $100 phone card would but you business way in front because you will turnover make $50 form a $20 meal.

So there is such thing as a free lunch. Its about exploring new options on how to get business when up against the big guys.

What is Wimmera.ning

2009-01-31T15:03:00.001+11:00

I had created wimmera.nig.com as a social network for people related to the Wimmera. The idea is to consolidate people into the Wimmera community by developing a social network that provide a place to share information about the Wimmera and connect with others. The fantastic thing about wimmera.ning.com is it is dedicated to to people who have an interest in the Wimmera. Unlike other social network members become a part of the sea of global networks and have difficulty connecting with local people and events.

Social networking is important in the future of Internet collaboration as we become more involved in the technology and provides opportunities to reconnect with people and groups. By creating a local community social space then locals people, organisations and businesses have a place to connect to the community.

The goals are to connect people of the Wimmera and give them a portal where they can contribute to and collect information.

Who should join wimmera.nig.com

Individuals. Create a network of friends in your local area
Clubs and organisations. Promote your club and recruit new membership
Service Providers. Connect with the community and provide a new way to distribute information
Business. By becoming involved in wimmera.ning.com you will create opportunities to market you business to a focal group.
Event organisers can promote events for the Wimmera to an ready market
Buy and sell goods to local.
Employers post your job vacancies
Looking for work? Find Jobs here or place a notice for work wanted

But I am not interested in social networks

Yes for some social networking seem pointless and valueless but considered this. You children are using social networks to on the Internet and through SMS on mobile phones. This is our next generation whom will live in a total different world to what we know. Social network will be a part of this world and to get access to it then we also need to become a part of this world. Politicians have over the recent Elections both here in Australia and in the United States have been using Facebook and YouTube to get access to the thousands of people who use it. They are able to connect with the users in a new way and keep users informed of their politics. Media Outlets have also found that the use of social networks build relationship up with there consumers and big business have their advertisements placed on YouTube. With smaller groups it very difficult to stand out against the big guys so with wimmera.ning you can consolidate the social network to a focus group.

But my business is already on the Internet

And that's fantastic and you can use Wimmera.ning.com to enhance your current Internet presence. You create a space that will connect you with others where a web site is more static. People need to go looking for you to get any benefits from your website where social networking at Wimmera.ning.com will expose your net presence and attract visitors to you website.

Getting Started

Log onto wimmera.ning.com and register as a user. Then create your interest group. Once you have your interest group up and running then create a forum. If you have your own web site provide links to the web site.

If you like to blog then create a blog about who you are and and your interests. Be informative rather than a hard sell approach and provide useful information. Give your group time to develop as mare people become aware of you.

del.icio.us Tags: Wimmera,Wimmera.ning

Report Claims ISP's should stop Illegal file Sharing of Music

2009-01-30T14:50:00.001+11:00

There has been a lot happening in the past few days with the recording industry having a few wins. The UK have legislated that ISP inform by letter and education that P2P file sharing of copyright material is illegal.

A Case in Dublin Ireland this week settled to the Recording Industry pressure to do similar with threats of disconnecting them from the service if the practice does not cease. http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20090129a.html

This report commissioned by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's(IFPI) the representing body is pushing the ISP's take the action to stop the P2P downloading of content.

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/dmr2009.html

Why should the ISP industry be responsible to Police the Music industry. Who makes them the police and do they really want to be the police. How do ISP identify genuine P2P download against illegal P2P.

The Film and Music industry should take this as an opportunity to capture and audience as Mark Pesce point out to the live presentation of "Piracy Is Good?", delivered by Mark Pesce on May 6th, 2005 at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney. To down load his presentation you have to use a bittorrent but is legal. This was done to emphasise the value in bittorrent software and P2P protocols (Mark Pesce, 2005)

You can read his presentation here at http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html

Pesce point out how the BBC1 in the UK has used bit torrent to get attention to shows like the First episode of Doctor Who and how Television Programs distribution model is not meeting the demands of the consumer and that producers need to consider other distribution models to change with the new technology and give the consumer better choices .(Mark Pesce,2005)

This is a survey I took part in on National Recording Association Industry Professionals web site http://www.narip.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=5&limitstart=5

Should ISPs require customers to pay a "music tax" to combat illegal downloading?

24
66.7%

Yes

12
33.3%

Number of Voters
: 36

First Vote
: Friday, 25 January 2008 21:04

Last Vote
: Thursday, 29 January 2009 20:38

(NARIP.Com, 2009)

So this is so crazy. They now want to place the burden onto the ISP's as Tax Collectors to support their industry. Its a bit like saying you should pay me a tax for reading my Blog.

Please Pay your Tax to Chris'o Blog at PayPal please

So clearly the so far is telling them that the idea is stupid from their own members. Log on and have your say

The new market opportunities for these copyright holders in a fantastic one and should be embraced. The money you will save of lawyers would fund the new model as you would only need a few million to get it up and running.

Here are a few comments I stolen from http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/42116 that are worth considering about this issue.

MartynDavenport

Jan 16, 2009

When is the music industry gonna get off it's high horse and accept that they're the criminals for the prices they charge? They can keep harping on about how wrong it is to share files, and how it damages musicians etc, but they're patronising people. Call me old-fashioned, but maybe bands would have to go back to earning their wages from doing what it is that bands are actually supposed to do, play live. Instead of only touring to advertise their over produced over-priced albums.

Hackneyman

Jan 16, 2009

Why is it, that the only people who can't work out how to make digital music downloads work for them .. are the record companies Their blanket condemnation of 'illegal downloads' and throwing arbitary figures about doesn't reflect the situation as us music fans see it.Surely some downloads, they might view as having being downloaded illegal, are just the modern equivalent to old fashioned radio play that would then lead to a 'sale'.Apparently 'legal' downloads had a very good year http://mp3.about.com/b/2009/01/02/digital-download-sales-gives-music-industry-a-boost.htm"In the top ten selling digital tracks, Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love was number one with 3.37 million downloads, followed by the track, Low, from Flo Rida Feat featuring T-Pain (2.94 million downloads). For digital albums, Coldplay's Viva La Vida triumphed in the top ten selling digital album charts with 617,000 units; Jack Johnson's Sleep Thorough The Static was number 2 with 325,000 units sold"According to their 95% of all downloads are illegal statement then those figures above = 5% of 'potential sales which means that we were conning Leona Lewis out of 57 million extra sales - it's all just rubbish and propaganda...If the record industry keeps wining like this, the day when all recorded music is free can't be too far away, and the artists can make their money from gigs, merchandise and sponsorship... it will be the record company's own fault.HM

The Felony

Jan 16, 2009

If the record labels weren't so greedy in the first place we wouldn't have this problem. It's appalling what they pay the artists. I'd rather not give my money to them. There is a benefit of illegal downloading; its caused listeners to find new music and not just listen to regurgitated rubbish in the pop charts.

I just note the figures from Hackneyman on legal music down loads and show how artist are becoming popular by producing their music for free and still enjoy strong sales.

For further reading have a read of the reviews on mp3.about.com

http://mp3.about.com/od/digitalmusicdelivery/a/mp3annualreview.htm

References

Mark Pesce,2005,"Piracy Is Good?",viewed 30 January 2009, from http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20090129a.html

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/dmr2009.html

NARIP.com, 2009,"Survey", viewed 30 Januarys 2009,from http://www.narip.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=5&limitstart=5

nme.com,"Music Industry Claim 95% of downloads are illegal",viewed 30th January 2009,from http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/42116

chriso

2009-01-29T12:16:00.001+11:00

My Blog

Clean Feed Filter survey out by Netscape

2009-01-28T23:41:00.001+11:00

Netscape a released a comprehensive survey about the Federal Government Clean Feed policy taken from a sample of 10,000 participants with fairly predicable results.

http://www.netspace.net.au/filtering/results.php

Well worth a look

Survey Update

2009-01-28T13:51:00.001+11:00

After my email to http://freeonlinesurveys.com/ (The Details of the email in my previous post about not letting me getting access to my data)they sent me an email and not only did they reopened my account but also gave me access to the Professional features of there site.
Francesca Lacy wrote:

The first line of the FAQ states the limits.

The limit is also stated on the first page that appears after registering.

I fail to see how this is a scam.

I have extended your account until the 5th Feb.

Please download your results until that time.
Kind regards,
Francesca Lacy
FreeOnlineSurveys.com

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: OIZ-133710
Department: General
Priority: Medium
Status: On Hold

I have sent them an email to thank them

Hi Francesca

You are so kind and have made a bunch of my fellow students happy. Thank you

Regards

Chris'o

Here are the updated Results.

1) Do you like Email List Collaborations

Percentage

Responses

True

17.6%

3

False

82.4%

14

Total responses:17

Email list have some advantages but for the majority it seems did not like the idea.

2) Did you do the Newsgroup Task

Percentage

Responses

Yes

41.2%

7

No

58.8%

10

Total responses:17

Close result here as 42% had a go at this. With new technologies like forums and social networks there seem to be little point to it.

3) What chat client did you prefer

Percentage

Responses

MSN

35.3

ICQ

17.6

GOOGLE TALK

5.9

IRC

0.0

Other

41.2

Total responses:

Comparison response:

- not really fussed as long as it works, I have used msn,skype and recently ICQ

- Adium (multi protocol)

- agent newsgroup reader

- Skype

- yahoo

- skype/twitter

Varied result show that users have a varied prefaces to what chat client to use. This I assume would create some difficulties in finding and staying in tough with Internet contacts. Although one answered Adium that is multi protocol to consolidate their contacts .

4) If you could choose a communication tool which one would it be?

Percentage

Responses

Internet

17.6

Instant Chat

17.6

Video Chat

0.0

Audio Chat

0.0

11.8

Facebook/Myspace etc

11.8

Telephone

17.6

In the post

0.0

Other

23.5

Total responses:

Comparison response:

- face to face, Internet, probably all of them in different settings, not fussed on Facebook type applications though

- A little of all of the above

- F2F

Very mixed response and looks as though we are equally divided between the telephone, Instant Chat,Internet and other methods.

5) Duane started a very hot debate about.

Should reality in the chat world stop?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

23.5%

4

No

76.5%

13

Total responses:17

Moving onto the chat world and creating our own identity is obviously the new culture that most have become adapted to.

6) Jamie started a hot thread about the choice of Blogging sites and students in the class where divided by what Blogger they used.

Now we all chose our sites for one reason or another but to answer Jamie's question did you feel segregated from students on another blog?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

23.5%

4

No

76.5%

13

Total responses:17

The nett11 SP4 2008 group have certainly become a very proactive group in participating and calibrating

7)

Mark started a debate about Virtual Personalities when your on line.

Do you think its your true self in your blogs?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

100.0%

17

No

0.0%

0

Total responses:17

Well stated @ 100%. no other argument to this question.

Peter Fletcher started a hot debate on reality on the Internet that covered cheating on partners to rape on the Internet.

Do you think the Internet is reality?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

76.5%

13

No

23.5%

4

Total responses:17

If you read this thread you will see some drifting sand here as student become more aware of the Internet. Some started saying no this question and and changed there minds over time as experiences set in.

The last hot debate took place over the e-books against the a real book.

Do you prefer to read a real book or an e-book?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

88.2%

15

No

11.8%

2

Total responses:17

Did Peter do the Survey twice?

For Cynthia and Tess your fantasies are real in 85.7 % of those surveyed. The traditional book lives on and Kindle has a small market still. This would be an interesting public market survey where 1000s of samples would show the real answer to what the market for e-books where.

Net11 Survey Results

2009-01-27T11:16:00.001+11:00

This is the results I have from the net11 survey. Unfortunately the web site http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com is not free. Its a scam. They get you to set up the survey and when allow 50 participants over 10 days. I logged on at day 11 and to be told I need to pay then too get my data. WHAT A SCAM. I sent them an email about my view of there service.

Hi David
I am very disappointed that you have scammed me into creating an online survey only to find at day 11 I can not retrieve my data unless I subscribe to your paid subscription.
Let me point out to you what the word FREE means:
1 allowed to move as one pleases; not shut in. 2 not tied or fastened. 3 allowed to do as one pleases; not restricted, controlled or enslaved. 4 said of a country: independent. 5 costing nothing. 6 open or available to all
Your policy of Free Survey do not come under the definition of free:
Let me also advice you that your web site is not operating within the consumer laws of the UK and if I choose I could have your site removed.
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/watch_out/scams/
http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/small_businesses/advertising/
But I think you should review your business model and allow creators of FREE online surveys to access their DATA FOR FREE.
I accept that their are limitation you need to enforce for FREE services such as time limits and number of participants but to hold someone's data to ransom after offering to collect it for Free is not only illegal but very unprofessional.
At least give them say 28 Days to collect the data and spell it out clearly to the user.
Regards
Chris'o

FreeOnlineSurveys.com wrote:

Chriso,

This e-mail has been sent to you to confirm your registration to Free Online Surveys.
Your free account will provide you with all of the tools you need to create
and deploy your surveys.

Don't forget you can upgrade to our professional 'Survey Extra' service for a
more extensive set of features, unlimited storage time and bigger surveys!

Kind Regards,
David Meagor
http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com
----------------------------------------------------------
Service provided by Problem Free Ltd. (http://ProblemFree.co.uk)

Back to the survey

I did however manage to capture some data a couple of days before the survey ended and basically I got the results of 14 form the 17 participants. SO the Data represent only 14 people surveyed but very little changed as the percentages from 14 to 17 so I can assure you that the results are a fair indication to the feelings within the net11 group

1) Do you like Email List Collaborations

Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 20:46
Michael Started a hot debate  on the discussion forum about this topic

Percentage True 21.4% False 78.6%

Responses

Total responses: 14

True 3

False 11

Email list have some advantages but for the majority it seems did not like the idea.

Did you do the Newsgroup Task

Total responses:14

Percentage

Responses

Yes

42.9%

6

No

57.1%

8

Close result here as 42% had a go at this. With new technologies like forums and social networks there seem to be little point to it.

What chat client did you prefer

Total responses:14

Percentage

Responses

MSN

35.7 %

ICQ

21.4 %

GOOGLE TALK

0.0

IRC

0.0

Other

42.9 %

Comparison response:

- Adium (multi protocol)

- agent newsgroup reader

- Did not answer

- Sype

- yahoo

- skype/twitter

4) If you could choose a communication tool which one would it be?

Total responses:14

Percentage

Responses

Internet

21.4 %

Instant Chat

21.4 %

Video Chat

0.0

Audio Chat

0.0

7.1 %

Facebook/Myspace etc

7.1 %

Telephone

21.4 %

In the post

0.0

Other

21.4 %

Comparison response:

- A little of all of the above

- Did Not Answer

- F2F

Very mixed response and looks as though we are equally divided between the telephone, Instant Chat,Internet and other methods.

5) Should reality in the chat world stop?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

21.4%

3

No

78.6%

11

Total responses:

Moving onto the chat world and creating our own identity is obviously the new culture that most have become adapted to.

Total responses:14

Percentage

Responses

Yes

14.3%

2

No

85.7%

12

The nett11 SP4 2008 group have certainly become a very proactive group in participating and calibrating.

7) Mark started a debate about Virtual Personalities when your on line.

Do you think its your true self in your blogs?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

100.0%

14

No

0.0%

0

Total responses:

Well sated @ 100%. no other argument to this question.

8) Peter started a hot debate on reality on the Internet that covered cheating on partners to rape on the Internet.

Do you think the Internet is reality?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

85.7%

12

No

14.3%

2

Total responses:

9) The last hot debate took place over the e-books against the a real book.

Do you prefer to read a real book or an e-book?

Percentage

Responses

Yes

85.7%

12

No

14.3%

2

Total responses:

Did Peter do the Survey twice?

Please comment on the results and keep the debate alive.

There is not one kid I know that hasn't got Pirated Music

2009-01-25T23:24:00.002+11:00

I am on my bike again about the Music & Film Industry's Hardliner approach to copyrighted music. With teenage kids of my own and all my mates kids all have pirated music on their mp3 players and hard drives. That world make every Kid in Australia criminal according to RIAA (Recording Industry Of America) and MPIA (Motion Picture Industry of America). You would think that this Industry would wake up to themselves and start to get a better understanding of their market and how to use the P2P bitorrents to their advantage with compromising people privacy by getting courts to enforce that ISP's hand of IP Address Logs and logs. So are we going to local up every kid in Australia?

Let look a at a couple of more issues relating to this brute force mentality of trying to control the Internet.

Recording Industry Of America

They have a down loadable Pdf file Young People Music and The Internet

On Page 5 it states

One of the risks with P2P is that children may come across
unwelcome content such as viruses, pornographic substance or
violent images. Some files are purposely misnamed to trick people
into downloading them. Because of the way P2P services work,
filtering tools that can block offensive content like porn or violent
images and video on websites are not effective in blocking the same
content when made available through P2P. This leaves children
at risk.(Childnet, 2008)

It also continues to advise about the risks of virus, spyware and malware risk associated with P2P file sharing and I agree with these risks so with the 10 billion turnover you guys make out of dead artist should contribute a little bit more than a pdf file and lawsuits on the average punters. I agree those CD factories need prosecution as there are ripping you guys off but as for all the kids it a cult practice that they see as not breaking the law but enjoying the benefits that file sharing brings.

Motion Picture Industry Of America

Well MPIA haven't spent to much on the problem either their like on the web site is to a another domain http://www.copyrightkids.org/ that is owned by the Copyright Society Of USA yet they want you to put up your hard cash and give them billions of dollars and sue you because you watch the movie for free at your mates place. Now that is customer service for you. They can not get through their narrow minded heads what the Internet is about and how to capitalise on the problem. I have watched downloaded videos where some one sits in a theatre with a camcorder. and walked away. but the industry still see this as a problem. They should that those guys. I tried to watch Ocean 12 and the quality was so horrific that I became interested enough to rent the movie in high quality. I do not want to wait 3 days to down load 3 gig file to find out its rubbish so for $5.00 I can get the proper product from the local video shop. But with the Kids they do not care as one will be getting one movie and another will get another. Burn it to DVD and swap as required.

Its About Sharing

My other post about sharing on the Internet I talk about how the Internet successes is been about sharing yet these guy want to change that by using their obsolete copyright laws to convict innocent children for enjoying there product. RIAA & MPIA should be more proactive in investing in these kids and befriend them. If P2P File share is so risky then take control of this by providing a better product for kids to access music for free. You guys own the copyright so you guys have control if you wish to take control. Set up you own P2P file share for kids to access and provide a safe haven for them. Give them what they want and nurture them to towards your artist and and become loyal fans of your copyright. Be like Macdonald's Family Restaurants who understand if they have sold the kids at a young age then they become customers for many years. Then educate the children that commercial use of the material is illegal and serious fines will results in any one who infringes on those laws. Use the down loads to promote this and make it so the illegal cd presses have no need to set up shop as it will be free anyway.

A wedding I went to last year the DJ owned a local Computer Shop and had a laptop and hired some speakers from the music shop and now he has a Mobile Disco Tech. Does he own the music? Maybe he does but I would have my doubts that any techno nerd has paid for the 1000's of songs on the hard drive.

Technorati Tags: Sharing,Copyright,RIAA,MPIA

Citation

Recording Industry Of America

Motion Picture Industry of America

Macdonald's Family Restaurants

Reference

Chilenet,2008,Young People Music and The Internet ,p5

Privacy with Internet Communications and Calibrations

2009-01-23T16:16:00.001+11:00

When using the Internet to communicate and calibrate we become aware that at certain times we must be aware of protecting our privacy and the privacy of those we are calibrating with.

There are strict rules governing the privacy of information collected by organisations yet for smaller operators the guidelines in Australia are not so set in concrete .

The private sector provisions of the Privacy Act apply to organisations (including not-for-profits) with an annual turnover of more than $3 million. The provisions also apply to all health service providers regardless of turnover and some small businesses with an annual turnover of $3 million or less.( Privacy Commission,2009)

For small business with a turnover of $3 million or less are

a health service provider?
trading in personal information?
related to a larger business?
a contractor to Commonwealth agencies?
a reporting entity for the purpose of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act)?
an operator of a residential tenancy database? ( Privacy Commission,2009)

While you may not come under this category you do have an option to opt in to the national privacy principle by completing an application to the Privacy Commission

The Technical Realities of E-mail Use and Privacy

Information by the Australian Privacy Commission advise that

Most e-mail is insecure. It should be regarded as insecure unless it has been encoded or encrypted. E-mail is often compared to a postcard in that anyone who receives it can read it. E-mail may also be read if it is stored on servers during transmission.

E-mails are hard to destroy. Many people think that if they delete their e-mail it is gone forever. This is not so as most electronic documents are backed up and recoverable.

Logging. Most software used to operate networks, including web servers, mail servers and gateways, logs transactions and communications. These logs will normally include the e-mail addresses of senders and recipients of e-mail and the time of transmission. The content of e-mails themselves would not normally be logged but may be stored on mail servers. Similarly, web server logs record information on the sites that people visit. The keeping of these logs is usually necessary for the routine maintenance and management of networks and systems. System administrators are also capable of reading the contents of e-mails sent and received by the corporate network. (Australian Privacy Commission, 2000)

This is only a basic view published by the commissioner in there is the other issue of forward function of an email system. Any user can easily forward an email to another party with out your knowledge or consent and then they can forward to another party until it can become almost viral like and uncontrolled. The other issue is this case of the Privacy Commission about exposing other peoples Emails in the CC rather then BCC.

Subject Heading:

Improper disclosure of personal information and failure to keep personal information secure

Law:

National Privacy Principles 2.1 and 4.1 in Schedule 3 of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)

Facts:

An individual notified the Privacy Commissioner that the direct marketer sent out a promotional email which displayed the email addresses of all recipients. The Commissioner considered that where an email address amounted to 'personal information' in that the identity of the individual is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained, the privacy of a number of individuals may have been interfered with. While this Office did not receive any individual complaints, the Commissioner decided to conduct an investigation into the incident under section 40(2) of the Privacy Act.

Issues:

NPP 2.1 provides that personal information collected for a primary purpose must not be used or disclosed for a secondary purpose unless one of a number of exceptions in NPP 2.1(a)-(h) applies.

NPP 4.1 provides that an organisation must take reasonable steps to protect the personal information it holds from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Outcome:

The direct marketer responded promptly to the Commissioner's investigation and the incident. The direct marketer explained that individuals provide it with their email address specifically to receive information about upcoming promotions. The direct marketer provided its promotional email list to a third party organisation to issue the promotional email. As a result of human error, the third party organisation distributed to everyone who was on the email list an email showing those individuals' email addresses, rather than using the blind carbon copy or 'BCC' email function. The third party organisation did not follow its usual data quality control procedures in this circumstance.

The third party organisation counselled the individual responsible for the error and staff undertook refresher training in its quality control procedures. These procedures were also updated to prevent a similar incident in the future.

The direct marketer acted quickly to contact all individuals who were on the promotional email list to apologise and explain what happened. The direct marketer also committed to report to appropriate authorities any misuse of the email addresses including issuing spam emails.

Based on the information gathered during the investigation the Commissioner decided to cease her investigation into the incident. In relation to NPP 4.1, the Commissioner noted that the parties had steps in place to ensure the security of the personal information and the incident appeared to have occurred as a result of a one-off error. In relation to the disclosure under NPP 2, the Commissioner also considered that the steps the parties were taking to remedy the situation were adequate in the circumstances.

The Commissioner noted that while her investigation had been closed, any complaints from individuals that she may receive about the incident will be dealt with on their merits.(Own Motion Investigation v Direct Marketer,2008)

While in this case the company was able to satisfy the commission as to how this incident occurred and what steps have been taken to prevent this happening again it does highlight the need for care of handling private information.

Its is one topic that should considers on a serious basis as it easy to think that the tools offered to us with new technology makes communication and calibration easy but also easy to over look what some basic procedure when it come to the privacy of other.

How to Make Money From Free Energy Market.

2009-01-21T13:05:00.001+11:00

This page is how to make money from the Free Energy Market. This is a huge business that promises to save the planet, Put the oil cartels out of business, make government look like fools and line your pockets with loads of cash.

Before you start study this article on Wikipedia Cranks

Prerequisite

You need to have some good communication skill to promote what sceptics say are impossible.
Have a good design drawn up in CAD program to demonstrate your idea's. Plenty of FREE ones on the net
Create Animated gif's of your devices and place on the Internet making some claims over Free Energy
Buy some magnets and start playing with the energy of the magnets to get some ideas on how to make a Magnet Motor.
Get Some PVC tubing, Some Stainless Steel, Multi Meter, Wire, and some drain cleaner an start producing Hydrogen Gas, (Brown Gas)
Get a Web Cam and Record you findings on YouTube.
Join a church and makes some new friends that have money. Southern Baptist, HillSide Church
Self publish a book on the subject. PDF format is a cheap way to do this and sell it through EBay Or Amazon
Create some new form of mathematics that confuses the people who may find you out.
Join the conspiracy theory that the Government and the Oil Cartel are after you and want you to stop your research.

So how will this make money?

With the price of fuel there are people out there who are willing to give you money for your knowledge.
Investors with help you finance your next project for shares in the profits when you succeed.
Place some Google adds on you web site.
Set up a Pay Pal account and seek some donations to keep funding your venture.
Some countries government will give you funding for research into your project. See STERON

Things you don't do

Do not let out your secretes
Never show a working model of your device.
When making claims of free energy never give accurate figures on the data. Always make them up.
After arranging your launch. Never show up.
Have Power leads running all over the place.

How to build creditability

Invent a Professor from a fictitious University that backs you claims.
Get the TV and Radio Station to do a report on your product and let the world know how it will be changed with Free Energy.
Send out news releases of you progress to the media. They are desperate for save the world stories.
Create a mailing list so you can target the true believers in you project.
Do not allow sceptics to comment on your work. Delete their comments from You Tube so you do not disassociate your followers.
Join overunity.com forum. Plenty of customers there.
Get your followers involved in political issues. Convince them you have some large secretive benefactor.

How to use YouTube

YouTube.com is a fantastic media to generate followers of your Free Energy Device. How to Videos are the most popular video on YouTube and Free Energy Videos are very popular.

Create a catchy username "PowerForNothing" Or "NobelPeace99"
Show your parts you bought from the hardware store or your favourite electronic shop.
Introduce your Dog or Cat.. Most people love them.
Show how basic your workshop is on the video so as the viewer can see them selves making such a device.
Make a big deal that this is open source.
Flash blurred figures of results up on the screen.
Do not forget to include the conspiracy about the scientific world, Oil Cartels, Motor Manufacturers and Governments.
Never let your device run for more then 30 seconds. Make sure you stop it and restart it.
Add a couple of Bible Videos.
Use the keywords throughout the video with lots of excitement.
Talk about your valiant battles with the patent office or some government bureaucracy (that always warms people up)
Claim it already has been proven so you need not offer any proof Tell them you are done proving it and need big money to start mass production

Keywords and phrases

I am replication somebody else's failed attempt because?
Resonance
Litres Per Min by X = some Watt
Undiscovered Power
Sceptics are Narrow Minded
I have been threatened by the CIA
Someone stole my magnets
Volts= amps Watts = Volts
Pulse Machine
PMM
x350az model ( Make up your own this ones is mine)
In My Next Video ???
HHO is not Hydrogen its Charged Hydrogen and Water with Oxygen
This is not an over unity machine but we are close
Free Energy
Vortex
Vacuum
The laws of the universe are out dated
Please Visit my Web Site and make a donation
rotational symmetry ???
We are not breaking the laws of thermal dynamics we are just improving efficiency.
Tesla
Scientist have missed this.
If your a Physicist you know what I am saying.
Let Congress know that you will change the world.
This law has been found in the nineteenth century to be a source of a great deal of difficulty
Electrolyte
conversion of energy

Warnings

There are people out there who think you are of the planet. They will publish liable statements about you been a scammer and a cheat. Make sure you have these people stopped by taking legal action against them.

Have a good contract for investor so you are not liable to give them back any money. Tie it up tight. They will start winning when you fail to get results and show returns.

How to deal with sceptics and detractors:

There are a number of approaches to deal with self righteous people who like to point out your flaws of reason, lists of previous victims, etc. out on the Internet:

Label your detractors as CIA agents, or stupid or part of the great conspiracy.
Say they are unqualified unless they are experts in your theory.
Try to restrict your message to newsletters and limited forums where the skeptical voice can be filtered out.
In a public forum deaden the audiences interest with tons of distracting counter "information".
Try to delete their pages from the search engines, or bury their objections in enough distractions to make people avoid the debate
Trying threatening your detractors with lawsuits - it will make some of them shut up
Give up and only try to market to people too old or stupid to get on the Internet. - or try selling to the Amish or more stupid ethnic groups.

Next What Devices can I build

One Dollar Ninety Nine $1.99 Rap Band for 2009

2009-01-19T23:29:00.001+11:00

Our new rap band One Dollar Ninety Nine in the back garage and have book a gig down at the local that we played last month to a crowd of 300 people. The crowd like us so much that we where ask to play another gig other other side of town the following week. The band has now had a gross turnover of $6000 and our web site has had 75,000 hit in 30 days. A small label Sony Music wants to record us and make us into rap legends and is willing to invest $50.000 of producing our first cd. Its all moving very quickly.

Our music is original written by our lead rapper Wazza and already our music is been shared by bit torrents all around the world. I am getting hundred of emails a day from fans wanting us to tour to their location. The whole this is out of control.

Our Manager

Our manager is telling us not to sign up with Sony but to develop our own web site so we can control our music , our fans and our merchandise through social networking. Our music will be free to download and through Creative Commons License and our fans will become registered users to our site. We will offer free news and updates with lots of photo of our tours for fans to access

We can generate income by offering eStore products relating to the band create hole new wave in the music industry.

Our reaction

What give our music away why would we do that.

Manager: The answer is to stop them from stealing it. By offering the genuine product free from virus or malware from a trusted source. This will attract fans to get the genuine product from us by joining our social network. This now gives us the opportunity to get to know our fans and gauge what they want from us and how our music can serve them better. We have opportunities to maximize ticket sales on our tours and offer fee for services and merchandise though the Internet.

Let me show you of an example where an Australian Band Augie March is using MySpace

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=28662614

You can watch their video clips and listen to their music at MySpace for free

Disclaimer

This is a fictitious band and created to illustrate what can be done with the music industry

Group Chatting with Net11

2009-01-19T14:32:00.001+11:00

Last night I joined the Net11 students in a group chat that demonstrated its a mixed bag about the feeling of this unit as some have failed to see the value in it where others have taken it and ran with the experiences. I started out not really that interested in this unit until I came to realise what its about and how to look at the Internet in a different form. As the Internet is a major part of my life and could not see how I could live with out it I have friends that would not know what the Internet was apart from what there told on TV

I suppose some expected to do lectures and write an assignment and may do an exam but the unit is more about experiences and evaluating those experiences and how these experiences can be used.

As an idea's person I have really got pondering about what I have learned and what I can do with this knowledge.

Sharing

Consider the Internet as a sharing tool. We collaborate with contacts over the Internet in many different forms. By looking at the many different forms what is the common thread of the user.

Email: With email we send and receive letters by mail in the electronic form. We able to SHARE information by attaching documents to the email and SHARE information with the recipient.
P2P: P2P in a SHARE system where users of the Internet SHARE files across the Internet directly from their hard drives. This could be music, videos, software or any other electronic document.
FTP: This is also like P2P SHARE where a file server hold the files to SHARE
Facebook: SHARE your thought , activities, photos, views, family, friends and your darkest secrets.
Flicker: SHARE your photos
YouTube: SHARE your Video's
Google: SHARE your search habits
Google Docs: SHARE your documents
Trwitter: SHARE your every thought
Hotmail, gMail, Yahoo Mail: SHARE your email
Google Share Drive: SHARE your files
Yahoo Pipes: SHARE your news feeds
Blogs: SHARE your Ideas

And the list goes on. but as you can see the successfully sites are all basically Share tools that enable people to share. In my Recent Post Music Industry Free Music Model I suggested that the Record Labels should look at supplying music for free under the Creative Commons License and gain control of their Industry and create a new model for sharing music. Other businesses also have opportunities to refocus on how they share information to the clients and what possibilities can they open by been a part of the sharing. The gesture of good will to open new business opportunities through the use of the Internet.

Problem

The problem with traditional business it the mind set that some assets of companies is viewed as the value of the company. This mind set restricts the possible though process of wanting to share those assets. Lets focus on the music industry who among a few major labels holds a major share of the popular music copyrights and considers that the sharing of there copyright through the Internet is an infringement of the copyright holder.

To think down the lines of giving this to public domain is hard to conceive by the label companies as they see it as there bread and butter. To get the music industry to change may be a difficult thing. However they need to look at what it is that drives every mom, dad , and child to break the law by stealing there products. These moms dads and children are registered with YouTube, Facebook,Hotmail and Flicker. They are prepared to share the ideas, there taste in music and political idea's in a public sphere that allows these companies to collect data and profile the user to know how to market to them. Why not the music business do the same thing.

Kodak announced about 3 years ago about wanting to collect every photo ever taken in the world with there photo share web site. They see a changing market form traditional analogue film to digital that has change the dynamics of the market. The goal of cataloging every photo in the world and held on there servers then they have the opportunity to sell their digital print service. You go to Kodak web site find the photo you want and order the print on line. They are also profiling the user as to the subject they are interested in and what type of print they prefer. This then allows them to make offers to you about other products and services they have.

Technorati Tags: Facebook,Flicker,Youtube,Google Chrome,Twitter,Hotmail,Kodak,Creative Commons License

LiveJournal Tags: Facebook,Flicker,Youtube,Google Chrome,Twitter,Hotmail,Kodak,Creative Commons License

Flickr Tags: Facebook,Flicker,Youtube,Google Chrome,Twitter,Hotmail,Kodak,Creative Commons License

Music Industry Free Music Model

2009-01-17T13:57:00.001+11:00

The battle of the music industry with the bit torrent, file sharing,You tube and other Internet mediums over copyrighted material is been a long road for Labels, Artist and copyright owners. Every method to date that has been tried has failed in some form or another. We had DMR in it various forms. Law suits against downloaders and companies sued for allowing people P2P File Sharing and threats of we are going to stop you.

The RIAA has filed about 20 000 lawsuits against Americans for illegally downloading music through peer-to-peer software, as of July 2006. (EFF,2009) This attempt only created more P2P traffic and defeated purpose of trying to set example of what would happen if you illegally obtain copyrighted material.

Success and Failures

First we need to look at what tactics the industry has implemented to protect copyrights and there success and failures. Has this reduced the amount of copyrighted material been distributed through P2P networks?

Electric Slide Litigation

The man who claims to have created "The Electric Slide" agreed to call off his online takedown campaign and stop threatening anyone using the popular line dance for non-commercial purposes. The agreement settles a lawsuit filed by EFF on behalf of videographer Kyle Machulis, who posted a concert video to YouTube that included a ten-second segment of audience members attempting to do the Electric Slide. Richard Silver sent a takedown demand to YouTube under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), alleging he owned the copyright to the Electric Slide and that the video infringed his rights.

Under the terms of the settlement, Silver will license the Electric Slide under a Creative Commons license -- allowing the performance, display, reproduction or distribution of any recorded performance of the dance in any medium for non-commercial purposes. Silver has agreed to post these terms on any of his current or future websites that mention the Electric Slide so that users are aware of the Creative Commons license. (EFF,2009)

MGM v. Grokster

EFF defended StreamCast Networks, the company behind the Morpheus peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software, in an important case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 23, 2005. Though the Court set aside the Ninth Circuit's ruling in favor of Streamcast, it also declined giving Hollywood what it truly wanted—a veto over technological innovation.

Twenty-eight of the world's largest entertainment companies brought the lawsuit against the makers of the Morpheus, Grokster, and KaZaA software products, aiming to set a precedent to use against other technology companies (P2P and otherwise). As we noted in our arguments before the Court, the case raises a fundamental question at the border between copyright and innovation: When should the distributor of a multi-purpose tool be held liable for the infringements that may be committed by end-users of the tool?

The Supreme Court's landmark decision in Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (a.k.a. the "Sony Betamax ruling") found that a distributor cannot be held liable for users' infringement so long as the tool is capable of substantial noninfringing uses. This standard has served innovators, copyright industries, and the public for more than 20 years. Relying on this precedent, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the distributors of Grokster and Morpheus P2P file-sharing software cannot be held liable for users' copyright violations.

The Supreme Court set aside the Ninth Circuit ruling, but it refused to overturn the Betamax doctrine or to force technology companies to redesign multipurpose technologies. Hollywood's main objective thus went unfulfilled. (EFF,2009)

Proposal

May be the movie and music industry are having trouble to come to terms with the digital age and the focus more on trying to stop the unstoppable rather than gaining control of the creative rights. If Producers of entertainment material could become more proactive and provide the product free via their web portal and maintain a relationship. Using the social network platform to create followers to their product and provide under the Creative Commons License free downloaded movies and music to the members. The companies can then generate revenue by offering tangible product relating to the artist such things as photo albums, real cd's and DVD's, autographs, cups, mugs, and T-shirts. Under the Creative Commons License commercial use of the material will still be protected by copyright.

I can see that there would be many benefits to the all parties as major parties would attract millions of users to their sites to download legitimate material for free and have a cost effective method of promoting and distributing content. New Artist would have new opportunities though the portal.

Downfall of retail outlets

Retail outlet will no doubt have objections to this proposal as it will turn the wheel of the distribution process but I still see there is opportunities for this industry to adapt to change by becoming retail outlets for the merchandise. At present there would still be a strong market for hard copy products for people who will remain with just buying the real product and the commercial users like as disk jockeys at the local night club but the face of the out lets would change. Rather than paying $20 for the latest CD you may pay $50 for a photo album of your favourite band with personnel autographs.

Further Information

Microsoft is the largest software company in the world today, with 44.3 billion USD in revenue in Fiscal Year 2006.
[Source]
The RIAA has filed about 20 000 lawsuits against Americans for illegally downloading music through peer-to-peer software, as of July 2006.
[More info] [Source]
In 2004, a survey conducted found that 24% of respondents from eight developed countries said that they have downloaded a movie before.
[More info] [Source]
The first copyright act, the 1710 British Statute of Anne, granted authors a copyright protection of 28 years.
[More info] [Source]
According to a 2004 study by Business Software Association of Australia, out of 84 countries, Vietnam had the highest software piracy rate of 92%.
[More info] [Source]
Under the fair use provision, in the US, limited portions of copyrighted works can be used for certain purposes without contravening the law.
[More info] [Source]
Music consumers as young as twelve have been targeted by the RIAA in its lawsuits against users who download music from peer-to-peer software.
[More info] [Source]
As of early 2005, American TV series 24 ranked as the top pirated TV program worldwide.
[More info] [Source]
Some researches have claimed that companies are able to profit from piracy of their own copyrighted products.
[More info] [Source]
In late 2005, it was found that one of Sony’s Digital Rights Management software could compromise a user’s computer by exposing it to viruses.
[More info] [Source]
Libraries, rental shops and second-hand retailers are all legal alternatives to copyright infringement.
[More info]
Software companies Adobe, Microsoft and Symantec all require product activation in some of its titles; in principle, it would be impossible to install a single copy of the software onto more than one computer
[More info]
The broadcast flag scheme, if implemented, could cause compability problems between old and new digital television devices like DVD players.
[More info] [Source]
Legislation against digital copyright infringement is an ongoing process and the writing and passing of laws continue to take place in certain nations.
[More info]
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Intellectual Property Committee and the Interpol have both found evidence that many terrorist organizations are funded by the production or sale of pirated discs.
[More info]
Users of pirated software often lack standard documentation, proper technical support and software upgrades for their pirated software.
[More info]

References

Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2009,Intellectual Property, viewed 17 January 2009, from http://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

del.icio.us Tags: Free Music,Free Video,Copyright,EFF,Pirates,Social Networks,Photo Albums,autographs

LiveJournal Tags: Free Music,Free Video,Copyright,EFF,Pirates,Social Networks,Photo Albums,autographs

IceRocket Tags: Free Music,Free Video,Copyright,EFF,Pirates,Social Networks,Photo Albums,autographs

Net11 Rocks

2009-01-16T15:43:00.001+11:00

Just 2 nights ago I reviewed all the hot post on the net11 discussion board and came up with 9 questions been debated. Not even 48 hours now and I would say there are 6 more issues have come under debate. This unit is more a social studies unit than Internet Fundamentals and with 2 great tutors on board that loves to fuel the debate makes this one of the greatest learning experience.

How much has changed over the years. I remember some years ago going to a lecture at the University of Tasmania about the Internet and the presenters seem to had a very poor understanding of the Internet. I Started one of the first Internet Cafes in Tasmania in 1997 and with observation of customers and my own experiences I was very adapt to the Internet. The real change came with Web2 applications and the new wave of social networking that placed a whole new dimension on the Internet. One of the main things that is fascinating me is the change in the dynamics.

In 1997

Google did not exist
Everyone had a Hotmail Account
ICQ was the hot Chat Client
Yahoo was the search engine of choice
Email and news groups where the main collaboration tools
Netscape Navigator (@$59.00au) was the the browser of choice and Eudora was the email client to use
OS was Windows 95 ( 16 bit)
No one had a Mac unless you had been to University or Just wanted to do graphics. You could only buy one of a mac dealer.
Laptops where a dream (About $4000 for the cheapest)
The Internet was evil
200 mhz processor with 16 mb of ram, 2 meg video card 1 gig hardrive
56K dial up modem where the hot item
Car Phone that never worked

IN 2009

Google is the fastest growing IT company in the world
The market for Free email account is now shared with Google, Hotmail and Yahoo
Facebook, My Space, Twitter, MSN, Yahoo Chat, and Blogs
Google is the leading search engine
Blogging and Twitter, Facebook, My Space, YouTube and the leaders in Coloration and social networking
Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera, and now Google Chrome are the choice of browses. ( Netscape gave way to to the open source Firefox)
OS is Windows XP( 32 bit and 64 bit version available), Windows Vista(64 bit), The many distro's of Linux, Some wild animal from Macintosh (64 bit)
Macs are sold in most retail outlets and more people are turning to them as the alternative to Windows
Laptops from $699
The Internet is as important as clean underwear
4 ghz processors with 1 gig video, 4 gb RAM 1 terabyte hard drive
High speed Broadband with home networks
High tech Mobile phones with full Internet features , Video camera, 5 mega pixel camera, music player(MP3) and web cams

Most importantly is the change in the way we do business on the Internet. Communications though the Internet with asynchronous tools and the recording of our daily activities. Over the last 12 years there has been some highs and lows with the doing business on the Internet as we seen the dot com boom and bust but there is a new wave coming down the lines with blogger's and social networking giving business a whole new way of communications. Don't let your business miss this one.

Technorati Tags: Hot,Hotmai,l ICQ,Yahoo,Netscape,Eudora,Mac,Macintosh,Firefox,Safari,Internet Explorer,Google Chrome,Linux,Video cameras

Flickr Tags: Hot,Hotmai,l ICQ,Yahoo,Netscape,Eudora,Mac,Macintosh,Firefox,Safari,Internet Explorer,Google Chrome,Linux,Video cameras

BuzzNet Tags: Hot,Hotmai,l ICQ,Yahoo,Netscape,Eudora,Mac,Macintosh,Firefox,Safari,Internet Explorer,Google Chrome,Linux,Video cameras

Survey Of the Discussion Forum Hot Debates on net11

2009-01-15T01:50:00.001+11:00

This should be fun

There are a few hot debates on the discussion forum for nett11 about different issues relating to idealism and views of the Internet. I have designed a survey that I will share the results with you when 20 of you have completed it.

Click here to take our Online Survey

There is only 8 yes or no questions. that will take you about 5 minutes to complete.

The Next Privacy Invaders for $299

2009-01-14T15:53:00.001+11:00

BuzzNet Tags: Ney Toy,Cameras,Video Cameras,Privacy,Video,Helicopter

This toy helicopter for $299 has wireless video camera streaming video back to your laptop from a height of up to 2000 feet "609.6 meters".(DVICE,2009)

Privacy

What is the privacy issues with this new device. We have all seen where mobile phones and cameras have been banned in public places for the protection of privacy and now for $299 we can have our own high tech sleuth helicopters to spy on our neighbours from 200 ft. Imagine going to the next Jimmy Barnes Concert with one of these toys. Send your helicopter up to the stage for some great YouTube Video or get the latest exclusive shot of your favourite celebrity from the privacy of their back yard. Now this is not a fantasy as I am sure some of the sales of this toy will undoubtedly be for some deviate purpose.

I still want one though only because I think it pretty cool and lots of fun.

Technorati Tags: Toys,Cameras,Video Cameras,Privacy

References

DVICE,2009,Precision $299 R/C helicopter delivers streaming video to your laptop from 2000 feet,viewed 14 January,2009, from http://dvice.com/archives/2009/01/low-cost_precis.php

Good News Day

2009-01-14T14:44:00.000+11:00

Today I received a phone call about a teaching position at Ballarat University. As I have already had a position with Ballarat University a few years ago I had a walk up start for this position.

I will be Taking CIV TAFE students in IT subjects as a .4 Position that will allow me lots of time for my own studies In which I thinking of changing course from Information Technology to Internet studies after been so involved with Net11.

I been a programmer for many years and have expertise with database and the reason I went back to studies is because I was not qualified enough to find work.

I am looking at it this way. If I get my degree in Internet studies the experience I have with Information Technology could only enhance my skill set rather than justifying my skill set.

Ok decision has been made I am contacting OUA (Open University Australia) and makes some changes

Today's View on Blogging

2009-01-13T21:28:00.001+11:00

After several week of Net11 at Curtain University how is my view toward blogging now?

Lets start about my view on day one. I had no interest in blogging what so ever. My kids blog all the time but I sometimes use to think about showing the world what there about and those blogs will come back at them when they mature a bit more and realise what they have written.

But really when the web first started people where making personnel home pages with garbage on them to show who they where. They where very popular that companies like geocity.com became bit hits. No the blogger's sites are really not a lot different than than those old sites only they have become a lot more neater with the use of good quality templates and technology of Cascading Style Sheet CCS.

Publishing on the Internet has become a tool for everyone to use to post anything they like from all about their puppy to how to make a nuclear bomb. But more importantly it has become a major communication tool for the Internet to distribute news, Idea's, advice, images, video and music. As some claim to as Professional status the seems to some contention on what that means as Blogging purest sees it as a armature activities and the professionals are article writers especially if there publishing for the major publishing houses. When you get people like Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne Sun Herald gaining 1 million hits a month then is he blogging or is he a columnist for the paper?

So is there money in blogging? Some say there is but I would say that's down to the few early birds and the pro writers who enjoying a monetary benefit from blogging such as ProBlogger Darren Rowse who just got $2m raised capital and employ 4 full time blogger's and publish about 300 blogs per day.( ProBlogger,2009) The revenue for Darren comes from advertising on his Problogger site and others he owns. His sites is worth a look at as he has his story on how he got to where he is today. Remember that some of his links in his blog are to his sponsor.

Content

The content you write in your blog is another argument as some say it needs to be professional and good content where the other say just write garbage. The idea of the the "Just Write Garbage" theory is that it help to make your advertising work better as the visitor to your blog will click an add to move on. Interesting theory here as you might see this on both sides of the argument but certainly there garbage out there and some popular blogger's are getting lots of hits from publishing garbage. I will return to Andrew Bolt blog. When I visited his blog it look like just a heap of cut and paste with one line description of the links. Hardly a professional blog from someone who gets 1million hit a month but he also is a public face in Australian media that attracts his audience. So is his 1 million hit impressive for some one who creates debate in other media and write his daily column in the Sun Herald. that is around 14,000 hit a day accessed through the Sun Herald

Is it too late to get on the band wagon to become a professional blogger well I do not think so as today it more popular than ever but the competition is fierce in attraction attention in the blogging world. But there is millions a niches in the market that people are yet to discover. I did not understand this 2 years ago when I discovered Silverlight from Microsoft that the best way to use this knowledge was to blog about it because people where searching the net for information on Silverlight. Here is The stats ratings.

Key words

Key words is the key to getting a high hit rate on the net and getting a high ranking with Google search engine. The Table above tells you that India and China searched for Silverlight the most and the TERM microsoft silverlight was the key words with the rating of 100. This will tell you that the demographics of a Microsoft Silverlight search would give you many of hits from. Those who research these keyword use these words throughout there blog to attract hits and hopefully revenue through the advertising.(Microsoft Silverlight,2009)

Links

The next tip they say is to have plenty of links in your blog and Google loves links. Not sure how this works but has me intrigued so I will look at this closer soon.

Blogger Consultant

The instant money to be made out of blogging would be a consultant role to business. Small to Medium businesses properly have little understanding how blogs could improve their customer base. Build new relationships with customers by writing blogs on their products and service explaining basic and in depth product information. This is not to be hard sell type web site but more the soft sell information site. Example I use to work for a small chemical company and the success of the company was its information on how to successfully maintain floors. The information came via company sales reps. A company blog would certainly lift the profile of this company and many years of experience would be available on the use of it products. Software vendors are now using this method to provide customer support and there is no reason why any other small business could not achieve the same result.

Another story I have is a Outdoor Supply Shop that stocks some of the best product range in Australia however this store is not online.

Opportunities are everywhere.

References

Andrew Bolt,2009, Blog, viewed 13th January 2009,from www.blogs.news.com.au/heralds/andrewbolt/

Sun Herald 2009, Andew Bolt Columist, from www.news.com.au/heraldsun/columnist/0,21997,25717,00.html

Problogger,2009 "About Problogger", viewed 13th January 2009, viewed www.news.com.au/heraldsun/columnist/0,21997,25717,00.html

Microsoft Silverlight, 2009, Silverlight, http://www.silverlight.net

Google Insight,2009, Google Insight,http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%20Silverlight&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=geo

Google Places Facebook as in top 10 searches in Australia

2009-01-12T16:11:00.002+11:00

Google trend data suggest that Facebook is the no 4 search query for 2008 in Australia(Google trends, 2009)

As in previous post I have grave concerns for these social network sites like Facebook and it seems that the for the most of us we do not care that they are collecting huge amount of data about us.

Ok so here is how it works.

You register with your email address and your real name, location into Facebook registration process
You add a Photo of your self
You then create a photo album with all your friends faces
You invite some personnel friends to join you in face book

This seems harmless but lets think about the six degrees of separation. The six degrees of separation based on Stanley Milgram's "small world study,"say there is only six steps between you and the rest of the world. (Nation Master,2009)

When you consider this then there is only six steps between you and the other 400 million Facebook users.

So how does this work. Well there is already experiments on Facebook testing Mailgram theory. but that is not what I am leading to. But the theory can tell you of the risks relating to social networks. You are only six steps away from the most deviate Internet Facebook user.

Now back to how this works.

On these group photo your friend comes along a views the photo an then tags a person in that photo as been some one they know. This then links them to their profile who then has photos of the friends. Next thing you find that you not anonymous anymore.

Next Problem with Facebook is the data collection. They know you by your Name, your email, your photo's, your friends, the groups you join and the messages you leave when you write on the wall.

So next time you answer the question "What are you doing now?" think about the answer. The whole world will see it. There is a debate now that this could effect your ability to get a job as potential employees can view your profile on Facebook and make decisions based on what your content is.

But more worrying is what they know about you and what will this data be used for now and in the future.

Security is only as good as the key to open it and no body can claim 100% security especially Facebook who's application run on MySQL and PHP that is open source software that any hacker could see the code to.

Secondly although these company have their privacy policy in place and many attempt have been made to the courts to get these company to reveal identities of users and mostly fail there is still the chance that government may change the rules and allow access to this data by the courts or even their agencies.

While you may feel secure now about what you do on Facebook but may come back and haunt you in the future. There is a good case for governments to apply regulation to social network sites that limits the data they can collect on you.

Nation Masters, 2009,Small world phenomenon' viewed 12th January 2009, from http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Small-world-phenomenon

US Study shuns Australian Internet Censorship Clean Feed

2009-01-11T17:46:00.001+11:00

As study this week released by Derek E. Bambauer Brooklyn Law School titled Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship that condemns the idea and reveals it unworkable.

The study also had concerns of the Australian Government lack of clarity on what content will be filtered.

You can down load the study here http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1319466

Or for a brief overview Crikey.com has an article here http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090109-Brooklyn-Law-School-study-highlights-net-censorship-problems.html

One scary though that I read in the study was and I quote.

Furthermore, Minister Conroy has suggested that
opponents of the filtering program support child pornography.164

Minister Conroy your country must be all pedophiles. " You idiot !!!" In a tone to say think about what your doing here sir.

Bambauer, Derek E.,2008,Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship(December 22, 2008). Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 125. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1319466

You Tube used by a Vigilante to lure pedophiles

2009-01-11T14:38:00.001+11:00

Here is a story published today on news.com about this vigilante trying to lure pedophiles on You tube.

He has posted the men's faces, nude pictures, registration plates and mobile phone numbers on the site as well as their conversations.(news.com,January 11, 2009)

The police advice that he may interfere with the other investigations by sending the pedophiles underground. This bring back the question of free speech and space the Internet provides. Although I consider what this man is doing is very Nobel of him but I also believe it is very dangerous of him. Its is well known over the world that police forces are continually fighting the battle of child pornography and pedophilia on the Internet buy joining chat channels and social network sites acting out as children in a bid to lure these leaches. So this mans efforts could interfere with the work they are doing.

Will the governments clean feed stop this man from exercising his free speech on the Internet is worth the debate. Is what he is doing going to make a difference to protecting young children from these sick individuals.

Well I say no he wont. Leave this to the experts who now have several years of experience in the Internet pedophiles.

Clean Feed Self Regulation Model

2009-01-11T12:43:00.001+11:00

As governments continue to control the Internet many advocate that Self Regulation is a better model for controlling the Internet. With the Australian Clean Feed proposal almost ready to go to trial and a loud out burst from civil libertarians Steven Conroy is committed to see this through.

What about select regulation of the Internet? How does it work and and could it be used to control banned content from the Internet. ?

As most European Countries have a voluntary code with ISP filtering its is very much a self regulated model. In the Australian Government report commissioned by the Howard government and completed after the Rudd Government came to power It claims that the filters in Europe contain about 1800 entries blocking Child Pornography sites from around the world.(Internet Industry Association Feasibility Study - ISP Level Content Filtering,n.d)

This is a very small database and if that what we are spending our money on then a data base with 1800 entries would certainly make very little difference to the performance of the Internet. One would say that you could support this proposal as it not a huge database and if it helps against this hideous industry of Child abuse then lets do it. But the idea has a much wider implications than these 1800 records. Suppose the government wanted to block site that where not politically correct or any one who spoke out against them such as the filtering system in china. In Australia and other free speaking countries would bring the Internet to stop.

Some European Countries filter Online Gambling site as well as Child Pornography Site. How many categories can filtering extend to.

The new issue has raised with Bit torrent filtering the the Australian Government wants to implement to combat banned content. Apparently this is feasible possible and I imagine through DNS filtering " Blocking the domain the content is coming from" to do this. Although bit torrent may be a method to access banned content there is still legitimate content available through bit torrents. The commercial world is using the technology to provide content to customers such as software vendors proving trail software. There is also the video market using Bit Torrent to distribute video trailer. Restrictions on this technology will kill it and limit us to high speed downloads.

Now you would have to imagine that there need to be some manual interception to completely stop the transmission of banned content. How do you manage compression files that have been encrypted. How does filtering know the content of these files without the use of the encryption key to decode it. Well the only way is the do the same as the perpetrators of the this material do to intervene its it distribution. Lets face it this is what the filter is suppose to achieve or is there another agenda to it that has not been discovered.

So you would think in the end the money would be better spent on the Australian Federal Police to combat Internet crime.

Rape on the Internet

2009-01-10T18:30:00.001+11:00

There is a hot discussion going on in the Nett11 Discussion group about Rape on the Internet. The real question is can this really happen? Well for most part no but there is ample of case where women and young girls have been lured to meet and greet rapist through the Internet. This of course puts a new dimension on the subject.

Let first have a look at this case where girls as young as 14 was lured by a man who infected their computers with a virus "Trogon Horse" that controlled the operation of the computer. In fear of the unknown the girls agreed to perform sexual acts on their web cam for the man. He now servers 10 years in Jail. Now It may be called Rape but it is certainly child sexual abuse and targeting vulnerable you girls is one of the most feared dangers of the Internet. (guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 November 2006)

This come down to the point of education. If theses children where aware of the pitfalls then they could have made an educated decision about what to do about this pedophile and not conformed to his requests but at the ages of these children you can not hold them responsible for their actions. They are vulnerable targets for these perverted people who do these things to children.

How will the the Clean Filter stop this activity Steven Conroy? It will not and as soon as your filter is in place then these unruly of the world will just work around you with the next scam. Or will there be a new security patch each week like my windows operating system. The money should be spent in education of these children to give them skills in managing Internet use and harassment.

How do you stop child pornography on the Internet? The best measure would be to increase funding to the Australian Federal Police for Internet crime.

Guardian Uk, Thursday 9 November 2006, Internet Rape pedophile Jailed, viewed 10th January 2009, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/09/ukcrime

Bill your Phone Company for wasting your time

2009-01-10T16:38:00.002+11:00

I found this interesting blog about a man who sent his phone company a bill for wasting his time and they paid it. view here

Now would our Telco's here do this? I think not. I had some phone trouble a couple of years ago and I needed Telstra to reconnect my line before I could churn my account. So I gave my credit card details to have the service installed and the day after the phone was installed I change service providers. Telstra sent me a credit notice of $15.35 for overpayment. 2 and 1/2 years later I still receive a credit notice that my account is $15.35 in credit.

Now for those of you that have had demand for payment letters from Telstra know that they don't muck around about asking for their money. I acquired one of these letters and edited it with my details and sent to Telstra. Really only for a laugh and I bet they are still laughing about it at Telstra because I never got a response.

Then there was the door to door salesman selling mobile phone for Voda Phone. He told me he will unlock my phone so I can change to Voda Phone. As I was selling Phone at the time I knew he could not do that. However he got me to sign a contract and when he was leaving he announced that he could not unlock the phone and I needed to go to Telstra to do so. I asked then to cancel the contract as the deal was of no value to me. He ran out the door and I chased him up the street. He wasn't going to cancel the contract.

I rang the company immediately to say I don’t want this and the man on the phone told me to sleep on it. If could have stretched my hand down the phone and grab him by the throat then I may have been writing this from jail.

SO not been happy with this I tried to contact Voda Phone direct. After several trick like never do what they say so an operator then helps you I got to talk to a human who tried to help and put me through to finance who I spoke to someone who said they will make sure that the contract gets cancelled and no money will leave my account.

Sure enough Money did leave my account the next month and I quickly contacted Voda Phone and informed them I am not a happy chappy. Well it took 3 days of negotiations to finally needing to threaten legal action to get the money returned to my account.

Now despite the fact that it was still $1 short. there was the cost of several phone calls and faxes to sort this. But I was happy at the time just to get my money back and stop them taking money out of my bank. But maybe I should have billed them for their trouble.

Satyam Outsourcing Game Revealed

2009-01-10T14:53:00.001+11:00

In recent day it become news that Satyam Computer Services about admitting to fraud by company chairman B Ramalinga Raju, This new has effected some of the big corporate names in Australia with contracts worth millions. This would have to be a big blow to the outsourcing industry that takes all the work of shore purely to save money. Will the money that was saved now come and bite their ass?

Foreign funds were key to a bull run that saw India's market rise by six times between 2003 and 2007. The benchmark index fell 54 percent in 2008, its worst year ever, after foreign funds withdrew more than $13 billion.(Reuters Uk,2009)

Well all I can really say is they got what they paid for. The lesson here is if its to good to be true then it probably is. The use of underpaid overseas workers may seem fine but I would think in this case social justice has been served to the companies who are scrambling to find alternative contractors to complete their projects.

Mr Raju must have known that at some time he will be caught out. With the position he held you would say that the man was no dill. The fraud was not only the over inflation of the company figures but also to the employees who number 53000 world wide and their customers.(SunHerald.com, 2009)

Reuters Uk,2009,Satyam not seen scaring foreign investors off India,9th January 2009,from http://Uk.Reuters.com/article/partiesNews/idUKTRE50820F20090109

SunHerald.com,2009,Telstra, NAB stunned by $1.8b Satyam Computer rort, 9th January 2009, from http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24889172-664,00.html

MySpace Involved in Teenage Party Riot

2009-01-09T23:42:00.001+11:00

News.com Has a story of the wild party in Melbourne last night 8th Jan 2009 where someone at the party advertised on My Space for 100 boys and 100 girls to attend the party(News,com, 2009) The article goes on to say that MySpace Australia's Director of Safety David Batch condemned anyone using the site to incite unsocial behaviour.

The question is because the person had advertised the party on MySpace does the Mr Batch hold some responsibility himself to allow this to happen. Well I do not think so as this will create a hole new set of rule for content providers. How do they maintain their service is they have to monitor ever text submitted to MySpace. I have some experience with this with my son who had a person write defamatory remarks about my son on MySpace and linked it to all his friends. As I was on his friends list then I cot a message to view the rubbish he had written. MySpace acceptable use policy forbid this behaviour and a quick email to MySpace and his account was deleted and blocked.

But when it comes to this party by the time any one may have pointed it out to MySpace the damage was already done. Some of these kids could have networks of 100's of teenagers though many schools in Melbourne and a few line of text and the whole network would be informed. To explain one teen goes to school A and has 60 class mates on his list plus relations and social friends that could count to over 100 contacts of those 100 contacts the teens each 30 or more unique contacts threat the first teen had and then the message spreads like a virus around Melbourne. Lets consider that 200 teens attended the party then there could have been 1000's notified of this event within minutes.

If the police could identify the person who created the text then that person should be held responsible for their actions. As the Internet is a major part of a teens life these days education is the only method is the only practical way of avoiding this type of incident again.

Social network sites could become a part of the education of teens by providing safety information to schools about the risks involved in social networking and how to avoid them.

news.com,2009,MySpace warns users after wild party,viewed 9 January 2009, from http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24891032-5014239,00.html?from=public_rss

Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy Your Next Challenge

2009-01-09T16:42:00.001+11:00

UK e-mail law 'attack on rights

ISP in the UK will soon have to store all email sent and received in the UK. This ridiculous law is another attempt by Governments to control the Internet and another will not work scenario. Who is advising these people. Apart from privacy and civil liberty issues the UK Government say it is vital for crime and terror inquiries. (BBC News, 2009)

Next there will be a tax on sex.

What a complete waist of money for the UK tax payer as criminals and terror activist only need to go through a anonymous proxy server to a free online mail server and send back and forth as much email as they like without any knowledge to the UK ISP or the UK Government.

As for the local punters in the UK you will now have big brother watching you even closer. Every one should be very concerned about what is happening all over the world with the Internet as Big Brother attempt to control us in every thing we do.

So what are the issues?

How secure will this database be?

As all experienced IT people know there is no such thing as total security. every time we fix a hole someone some where finds a new one

What will this achieve?

At £25m you will not get a dime worth from it.

No criminal or terrorist will use a UK email system

More cost to the Internet users

Well governments need to understand that the Internet is a free open space and attempts to control it through stupid radical ideas like this one will be doom for failure.

The trap the world is getting them into is all this data collection. What will it all be used for in the future and how will it used to bring power to those who have it. The governments of the world should be making tighter controls on data collection than trying to implement ridiculous new data collection methods.

BBC News, 2009,' UK e-mail law 'attack on rights', viewed 9th January 2009, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7819230.stm

Access Denied

2009-01-08T21:11:00.001+11:00

This will be your future browser skin in Australia

Today's Reflections

2009-01-08T20:50:00.001+11:00

Today I will reflect on my self since I started blogging.Before I started Net11 blogging was something I didn't think about much. I had written a couple of articles and tried to publish them but as you can see in my previous post the trouble I had. But since net11 I had to push myself into this.

My son introduced me to blogging about 3 years ago when he was 16 and as a 16yo on My Space the bog where like his diary about stuff dads properly did not want to know. Life was a bit tough for him then and needed my support so I contributed to his blog to show dad was here for him.

Without getting into my life story he kept saying come on dad start blogging. and I shrugged it of as this is not for me. What will I write about. I started writing about some personnel problems and then I decided after a day to delete it because I really did not need to to tell the world about it. So my career as a blogger was over.

Well then now I though what is by biggest weakness in using the Internet and that was writing skills. As a strait 'A' Math student at school and strait 'D' English student my skill over the years had improved just a little. My mind goes faster than I can get it out on the screen and when I review it is full of typo's. That many typo's that I can't see them all. Even Harder now that the eyes are a little older. How ever I am improving. In the last 6 weeks I think I have type 30,000 words and I am starting to see the difference.

Its funny how I Can write scripts and programs but to text. I can rattle of Visual Basic as though its my other language without even looking at the screen.

So if you ask me what is the best computer function you have used and I would have to say the f7 key in MS Word. (Spell Checker).

Well thanks to blogging I am trying to publish something every day to keep the practice up. May be I lack some confidence because when I read other blogs there so accurate. and mine I feel Like rubbish and want to delete it when I read it.

Well here enough waffling for now.

I Bet I Can Find 100,000 Aussies Who Will Fight Against Internet Censorship

2009-01-08T19:29:00.001+11:00

I thought this may be of Interest.
"Australia is planning tough new rules to protect children from online pornography and violence.
The new Labor government wants internet service providers to filter content to ensure households and schools do not receive "inappropriate" material.
Civil libertarians have condemned the plan as unnecessary, and say it will erode the freedom of the internet.
But telecommunications minister Stephen Conroy said more needed to be done to protect children.
The Australian government's aim is to ensure that children only have access to family-friendly websites.
Service providers will be expected to stop the flow of pornography and other X-rated or violent content.
The government is set to compile a list of unsuitable sites, although at this stage it is unclear what will be deemed unsuitable.
Australians wanting unfettered access to the web will have to contact their supplier to opt out of the new regime.
Critics of the proposals have insisted they have no place in a liberal democracy, and have accused Canberra of being oppressive.
But Mr Conroy has been unmoved by their arguments.
The minister stressed that if people equated freedom of speech with watching child pornography then he would always disagree with them.
Concerns have also been raised that the government's filters could slow down access to the net, in a country where connection speeds are often below international standards. "

No Australian Internet Censorship,n.d. viewed 8th January 2009, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37744441605#/group.php?gid=7968823265

For more indepth details visit http://www.efa.org.au
For facebook fans you could support this group.

I Bet I Can Find 100,000 Aussies Who Will Fight Against Internet Censorship

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37744441605
And also this group.

No Australian Internet Censorship

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37744441605#/group.php?gid=7968823265

Here is a list of the contacts who can block the Internet Censorship Proposal in parliament. We all need to do some contacting.
Family First senator Steve Fielding
http://www.aph.gov.au/SEnate/senators/homepages/senators.asp?id=e4r
South Australian senator Nick Xenophon
http://www.aph.gov.au/SEnate/senators/homepages/senators.asp?id=8iv
Senator for Tasmania Greens Senator Bob Brown
http://www.aph.gov.au/SENATE/senators/homepages/senators.asp?id=QD4

Experimental JavaScript

2009-01-06T13:00:00.001+11:00

Well as I have blogged before about my Live Spaces account and the reasons we parted company. Today I though i would experiment with JavaScript in a blog. JavaScript is a a client side scripting language for web pages

I am going to do a simple show hide method to show and hide some text inside a div tag.

This is easily done by using the visibility style of the the div tag.

You could place any html in you div tag that makes for some interesting effects and if able to do this in my blogger account then I can do some really cool stuff.

First of all we need to define some styles using Cascading Style Sheet 'CSS' . We are going to use 2 classes 1 to show the div (showdiv) and the other to hide the div(hidediv).

<style>

.showdiv {visibility:visible}

.hidediv {visibility:hidden}

</style>

The step is to create our JavaScript method to change the class of the tag when we select an element that will show and hide the div.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> 
function ShowCode() 
{ 
var d=document.getElementById("Code"); 
if(d.className =="hiddendiv") 
{ 
d.className='showdiv'; 
} 
else 
{ 
d.className='hiddendiv'; 
} 
} 

</script>

An that is it. No all we do now is create the div and provide a method to show and hide it.

<div class="hiddendiv" id="Code"> 

<h1> Hello World</h1></div>

Click this

Hello World

Well I did not work.

I havent given up thou becaust wen I look at the code behind the JavaScript is still there unlike Live Space

Limitations to Live Writer

2009-01-05T15:30:00.001+11:00

I posted a blog a few days ago about the 4000 character limit of Microsoft's Spaces blog post and it had been suggested to me to go blogspot and try there http://ausi1.blogspot.com/

Well last year I tried to post a long document on

How to wire up MySQL on Apache Sever to Silverlight with little success but to day I have it posted on blogspot as one post.

Hey Microsoft what are you guys doing over there. I trusted you guys to provide a great place to blog here on Spaces. You have let me down here guys.

So now I have to pack up my bags and move camp, Learn Java rather then .Net. , PHP rathere than ASP, open a gmail account and tell my friends I have left you guys.

We need to negotiate a divorce settlement here.

I wonder if I can use Javascript at blogspot!

How to wire up MySQL on Apache Sever to Silverlight

2009-01-05T13:16:00.000+11:00

Table Of Content

Required Knowledge

Required Tools
WHY Do
This
Getting
Started, lets build a simple RSS feed

The PHP code to install
database table
The PHP Code.

Silverlight Client.

Building a class to manage the
feed
Create a serialiser

PHP Error Handling
So Far

Doing some JavaScript

Some VB
RequestRssFeed

Respond To Request

Wire Up JavaScript

Place the data into our control

StartTimer method

timer_Tick Event

Are We There Yet

Run
insertrecordstorss.php to put some records in the table

Required Knowledge

Apache
Server

MySql

JavaScript

Dot Net (VB, C#)

Silverlight

Required Tools

VS2008

Apache server with PHP
extensions installed

MYSQL on server

PHP Editor. I have the free
PHP4Vs2008 works great in Visual Studio

FTP Program to Upload your files

WHY Do This

My ISP provides me web space as
part of my account. This Server been Apache Server also provides MYSQL Database
and PHP Server side scripting. As a home account there’s certain limitation to
the service for security and commercial reasons.

So how can I use this
service to consume data in a Silverlight application? So first I tried building
a Web Service. This all tested great in PHP however when I tried to hook in
Silverlight I had a Security Exception. What I needed is was a
clientaccesspolicy.xml file. So ok I set about doing creating this file and hole
and behold this file is required in the root of the apache server. Something
only the Administrator can do. FAILED!!!!

Ok let’s try Json Still the
same issue Web Client refuses to call PHP files even though it is stated in the
Silverlight Beta 2.2 Documentation that local files do not need an access policy
file. STUCK!!!!

Then I came across the bridging Managed code to HTML. HUH
I THINK I HAVE GOT IT!!!

So ok, why not consume the data in the Host Page
and use this data in my Silverlight Application.

Getting Started, lets
build a simple RSS feed

So first we need a Data source. My Case
MYSQL.

So let’s create a Table to hold the data.

The sql
Statement

CREATE TABLE `rssfeed` (
`rssId` TINYINT( 18 ) NOT NULL
AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY COMMENT 'Id of feed',
`createdate` TIMESTAMP ON
UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP NOT NULL ,
`headline` VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL ,
`bodytext`
TEXT NOT NULL ,
`uri` VARCHAR( 60 ) NOT NULL
) ENGINE = MYISAM ;

The PHP code to install
database table

The statement include_once points to my database connector
that includes all the security settings.

createrssfeed.php
<?php
include_once (‘dbsettings.php’)
$sql = 'CREATE TABLE `rssfeed` ('
. ' `rssId`
TINYINT(18) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY COMMENT \'Id of feed\', '
. '
`createdate` TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP NOT NULL, '
. ' `headline`
VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, '
. ' `bodytext` TEXT NOT NULL, '
. ' `uri`
VARCHAR(60) NOT NULL'
. ' )'
. ' ENGINE = myisam;';
$result=connect_db($sql);
?>

“dbsettings.php”
<?php
// Place in your connection php file
$DATABASEHOST=’localhost’;
$DATABASEUSER= ‘SomeUser’;
$DATABASEPASSWD=’mypassword’;
$DATABASENAME=’mydatabase’;

//generic database handler
function
connect_db ($sql)
{

if(isset($result))
{
mysql_free_result($result);
}
if(empty($cnn))
{
$cnn=@mysql_connect($DATABASEHOST,$DATABASEUSER,$DATABASEPASSWD);
if(!$cnn)
{
die('error message:' .mysql_error());
}
}
mysql_select_db($DATABASENAME);
if($result=mysql_query($sql,$cnn))
{
return $result;
}else
echo ('error message:' .mysql_error());
return
false;
}
?>

We now should have a table for our `rssfeed`. If
you ran this createfeed.php on a public server delete the file from the server
to avoid running it again of extend the file to do security checks to avoid
others from running the script. You only need this create feed once to create
the table.
You can now insert some records into your table.

The SQL
For this is
INSERT INTO `rssfeed` ( `rssId` , `createdate` , `headline` , `bodytext`
, `uri` )
VALUES (
NULL , NOW( ) , 'Chrisos Great Poker Night', 'Chrisos
is having a poker night on Thursday all welcome if you bring some beer.',
'http://www.somewhere.com'
), (
NULL , NOW( ) , 'Free beer at Chrisos on
friday', 'Chrisos is giving away free beer on Friday until stock runs out. Those
who where not their Thursday for the poker night are invited.',
'http://www.somewhere.com'
);

The PHP Code.

insertrecordstorss.php
<?php

include_once(‘db.php’);

$sql =
'INSERT INTO `rssfeed` (`rssId`, `createdate`, `headline`, `bodytext`, `uri`)
VALUES (NULL, NOW(), \'Chriso Great Poker Night\', \'Chriso is having a poker
night on Thursday all welcome if you bring some beer.\',
\'http://www.somewhere.com\'), (NULL, NOW(), \'Free beer at Chriso on friday\',
\'Chriso is giving away free beer on friday until stock runs out. Those who
where not their Thursday for the poker night are invited.\',
\'http://www.somewhere.com\');';

$result=connect_db($sql);

?>

You could merger the two scripts together and call this once but for the
purpose of the article I have done this is steps.

So we now have 2
records in the rssfeed table and ready to build our application.

So while
still working with PHP we need one more file that will act as our rss server.
The purpose of this file is to return an xml document from the server.
Create a file rssserver.php and call it from your PHP server and if you get an
xml document everything is fine.

‘rssserver.php’

<?php
ob_start();
header('Content-Type: text/xml');
header("Cache-Control: no-cache,
must-revalidate");
//A date in the past
header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997
05:00:00 GMT");
// Above must be the first thing in the file to create a xml
header

// Declare as xml
echo '<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>';

include_once('db.php');

// Get the
records for today
$sql = 'SELECT * FROM `rssfeed`';

$result=connect_db($sql);
// error handler
if (!$result)
{
// note the xml element tags here
die ('<rssfeed>< errormessage >ERROR: Server Error Getting Feed From MySql</
errormessage ><logedin>0</logedin></rssfeed>');
exit;
}

// you have
a result
// function in db.php
echo createXmlFromResult($result,’rss’);
exit;

// Parse a dbresult to the function to get xml doc return
function createXmlFromResult($dbresult, $tablename)
{
$str='';
if($dbresult)
{

if ($count=mysql_num_rows($dbresult)>0)
{
// $str="<" .
mysql_field_table($dbresult) .">";
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($dbresult))
{
$str="<" . $tablename .">";
$a=mysql_num_fields($dbresult);

for
($i=0; $i<=($a-1); $i++)
{

$str= $str .'<' . mysql_field_name($dbresult,
$i) .'>'.checkfieldfornull($row[$i])
.'</'.mysql_field_name($dbresult,$i).'>';
//

}//end for
$str=$str .'</' . $tablename .'>';
}//end while
}
//end if count
}
return $str;
}?>

There is one line missing here
and that’s the namespace has not been declared. I will come back to this later
as vs2008 has a neet way to get this right.

So appart from that we are
all set up to create a client for our feed.

So we need a Silverlight
Application consume the xml file. As I said before the documented methods failed
in my case. So I need another way.

Silverlight Client

.Start a new app SilverlightRss

When ask
select Dynamic Web Page for this application.

You can make a new control
or just use Page.xaml

For this I using page.xaml
You can do this in
Vs2008 or Expression Blend. Because of the simplicity of this control I will use
Vs2008.

Lets change a few items. First lets change the size of the page
control to Width="300" Height="250"

I myself don’t like the grid control
so I use canvas but this is up to you.

<Canvas x:Name="LayoutRoot"
Background="White">
</Canvas>

I now add an image, rectangle and a
textbox. The image is the rss logo file, the textbox is to display RSS, and the
rectangle is for a background

<Image Source="icon_rss.png" Canvas.Left="245"
Canvas.ZIndex="2"></Image>
<TextBlock Text="RSS" Canvas.Left="270" Canvas.Top="3"
Foreground="Blue" Canvas.ZIndex="3"></TextBlock>
<Rectangle Height="30"
Width="300" Canvas.ZIndex="1"/>

Last thing I need is a container to hold
my feed.

I am going to use a Stackpanel for this and call it lbRSS.

<StackPanel x:Name="spRSS" Height="220" Canvas.Top="30" Canvas.Left="0"
Width="600"
MaxWidth="600">
</StackPanel>

That’s it the control is
built.

Building a class
to manage the feed

The first class we need is Rss class.
In your project create a class Rss.vb.

You need to
create some fields for the class

rssId
createdate
headline
bodytext
uri

rss.vb code

‘Imports
Imports
System.Xml.Serialization
'Note you may need to set a reference to
'System.Xml.Serialization

'now declare as xml type by adding the declartion to the class
<XmlType()>
_
Public Class rss

'declare some fields that match our database as its
'xml been returned the field can be strings in this

'case. You can have
complex types but that’s
'another subject.
Public rssId As String
Public createdate As String
Public headline As String
Public bodytext As
String
Public uri As String
End Class

<XmlType()> _
Public Class
RssMessages
Inherits List(Of rss)
Sub New()
End Sub
End Class
That’s it. We will use this class to bind to our Rssfeed control later in the
artical.

Save your work and test it by runing the f5 to debug

Create a serialiser

I now have a simple
console application to serlialise our rss
class.

Create a new VB console application in Vs2008.

Call it
MySerialiser.

Now in Solution Explorer import an excisting Item into
MySerialiser. Browse for your Rss.vb File.

Now your imports, you will
need these 3 references
Here is the code.

Imports System.Xml
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Xml.Serialization
Module Module1

Sub Main()

' call the method
serialise()

End Sub
Private Sub
serialise()
'Declare as RssMessage Instance
Dim MyRssMessages As
RssMessages = New RssMessages

'Add some data to the MyRssMessages
Dim
msg As Rss
For i As Integer = 1 To 6
msg = New Rss
msg.rssId = i
msg.headline = "This is the number " & i & " I have done this"
msg.createdate
= Now().ToString
msg.bodytext = " This is the body text of the number” & i &
“ headline"
msg.uri = "http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php"
MyRssMessages.Add(msg)
Next

' Insert code to set properties and fields
of the object.
Dim mySerializer As XmlSerializer = New XmlSerializer(GetType(RssMessages))
' To write to a file, create a StreamWriter object.
Dim myWriter As
StreamWriter = New StreamWriter("rss.xml")
mySerializer.Serialize(myWriter,
MyRssMessages)
Console.Write(myWriter.ToString())
myWriter.Close()

End Sub

End Module

Pres f5 to Run this code and it will create a
xml file for you.
Here is the xml file rss.xml

<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<RssMessages xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<rss>
<rssId>1</rssId>
<createdate>29/08/2008
8:40:20 AM</createdate>
<headline>This is the number 1 I have done
this</headline>
<bodytext> This is the body text of the number1 headline</bodytext>
<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>
</rss>
<rss>
<rssId>2</rssId>
<createdate>29/08/2008 8:40:20 AM</createdate>
<headline>This is the number 2 I have done this</headline>
<bodytext> This is
the body text of the number2 headline</bodytext>
<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>
</rss>
<rss>
<rssId>3</rssId>
<createdate>29/08/2008 8:40:20 AM</createdate>
<headline>This is the number 3 I have done this</headline>
<bodytext> This is
the body text of the number3 headline</bodytext>
<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>
</rss>
<rss>
<rssId>4</rssId>
<createdate>29/08/2008 8:40:20 AM</createdate>
<headline>This is the number 4 I have done this</headline>
<bodytext> This is
the body text of the number4 headline</bodytext>
<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>
</rss>
<rss>
<rssId>5</rssId>
<createdate>29/08/2008 8:40:20 AM</createdate>
<headline>This is the number 5 I have done this</headline>
<bodytext> This is
the body text of the number5 headline</bodytext>
<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>
</rss>
<rss>
<rssId>6</rssId>
<createdate>29/08/2008 8:40:20 AM</createdate>
<headline>This is the number 6 I have done this</headline>
<bodytext> This is
the body text of the number6 headline</bodytext>
<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>
</rss>
</RssMessages>

Now you have a test file for your Silverlight
Rss Control

Now here is the namespace you need for your php file.
<RssMessages
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

You will need to modify rssserver.php

After

// Declare as
xml
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>';

//Insert this
to send the namespace
echo ‘<RssMessages xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">’

//and before here
include_once('db.php');

You can see that the namespace is RssMessages the
name of our class.

PHP Error Handling

Now we all know that computers are not the most relaible thing on earth and things do go wrong. I aways say:
quote If we made it then it will break.

So if it breaks what do we do.

Well those thieves from the insuance company know about this. Prepare for
the worst.

PHP like other codes can break.

How does silverlight
know when it breaks? Simple, format the error so that its in our xml format.

So when we write code in PHP to handle a error then exit like using die
function we must close the xml tag with </RssMessages>

$result=connect_db($sql);
// error handler
if (!$result)
{
// note the xml element tags here
die ('<errormessage>ERROR: Server Error Getting Feed From MySql</errormessage>
</RssMessages>');
exit;
}

Now we know our namespace we need to
change line 22 of our rssserver.php file from this

die ('<rssfeed><
errormessage >ERROR: Server Error Getting Feed From MySql</ errormessage ><logedin>0</logedin></rssfeed>');

To This.
die ('<errormessage>ERROR: Server Error Getting Feed From MySql</errormessage>
</RssMessages>');

And on the very last line before the program exits you
will need to add this line

//Closes the xml document
echo '<rssMessages>';

So now the server is complete and ready to serve our feed. GREAT MATE!!!!

So Far

So far we have a database, an install script,
a test script and a RSS server.

We also have a RSS control that does not do anything, Rss
class that’s lonely, a useful tool to create xml documents from our class.
Nearly forgot the xml file to runs some test with ‘Rss.xml’.

Check List:
createrssfeed.php (For creating database)
db.php (database connector)
rssserver.php (our RSS server)

In our SillverlightRss Project We Have
Page.Xaml
Page.Xaml.vb
App.xaml
App.xaml.vb
Rss.vb

Our
console application we have
Module.vb
Rss.vb

Tie it all together
in a tight knot

Doing some JavaScript

Open your SilverlightRss
Project.
Add a new item myrss.js JavaScript file.

Add this to the file
to create an Ajax request.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//ajax Request
//Creates a request object pending browser platform
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
function
ajaxRequest()
{
var activexmodes=["Msxml2.XMLHTTP", "Microsoft.XMLHTTP"]
//activeX versions to check for in IE

if (window.ActiveXObject)
{
//Test for support for ActiveXObject in IE first (as XMLHttpRequest in IE7 is
broken)
for (var i=0; i<activexmodes.length; i++){
try{
return new
ActiveXObject(activexmodes[i])
}
catch(e){
//suppress error
}
}
}
else if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
// if Mozilla, Safari etc
return new
XMLHttpRequest()
else
return false
}
// to hold the request
var
myrequest;

//Now we need a method for Silverlight to call and //some data
from our server.

////////////////////////
//Generic Call to server
//data array Parameters, pagename is the name //serverfile to call
/////////////////////////

function genericCall(data)
{
//return
"This is from login";
var path=data(0);
// var path="games.xml"
// var
slctl=document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").getHost();
var
myrequest=new ajaxRequest()

myrequest.open("POST", path, true)
myrequest.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded")
myrequest.send(encodeURI(data))
//
if (myrequest.overrideMimeType)
myrequest.overrideMimeType('text/xml')
myrequest.onreadystatechange=function(){
if (myrequest.readyState==4){
if (myrequest.status==200){
var txt=myrequest.responseText;

sl.Content.mySLRssapp.ResponseText=txt;
}
else{
alert("<error>An
error has occured making the request<error>");
}
}

}
}

////////////////////////
//Sets a reference to silverlight host
///////////////////////
var sl;
function silverlightLoaded(sender)
{
sl=sender.getHost();
}
//end myrss.js
///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Ok so we now have
JavaScript file communicating with the server. Later we will reference this in
our html file. I add the javascript Silverlight error handler to this file for
ease of use but you can leave it in the html document.
What now? !!! This
still cannot work.

Some VB

Well I thought of that and decided that we
need to do more work with our SilverlightRss app.

What came first? The
Chicken or the Egg?

Well let’s create a request to get the data and then
handle the response.

However first the Egg or was that the chicken.
We
need a new class to manage the data and make a request.

Create a new
class and name it RssHandler.

Import the following assemblies. You may
need to set references for System.Windows.Browser

Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text
Imports System.Xml
Imports
System.Threading
Imports System.Xml.Serialization
Imports
System.Windows.Browser

Add a few properties
‘This will accept the text
returned from the server
Private m_ResponseText As String
Public Property
ResponseText() As String
Get
Return m_ResponseText
End Get
Set(ByVal
value As String)

m_ResponseText = value
If m_ResponseText.Length > 0
Then
'we got something
CreateFromResponseText()
End If
End Set
End Property
‘Add the method
Private Sub CreateFromResponseText()

End Sub
‘We need more Properties before we write the method
''' <summary>
''' Stores an instance of RssMessages from the Response
''' </summary>
'''
<remarks>Use this to populate your control</remarks>
Private m_Messages As
New RssMessages
Public ReadOnly Property Messages() As RssMessages
Get
Return m_Messages
End Get

End Property
''' <summary>
''' Informs
yo if we succeded with the request and created a valid RssMessage Object
'''
</summary>
''' <remarks>Used to validate the request</remarks>
Private
m_Valid As Boolean
Public ReadOnly Property Valid() As Boolean
Get
Return m_Valid
End Get
End Property
''' <summary>
''' Informs you
that there has been a response recieved
''' </summary>
''' <remarks>Could
create an event for this but there is a chance of an endles loop of
errors</remarks>
Private m_ResponseRecieved As Boolean
Public ReadOnly
Property ResponseRecieved() As Boolean
Get
Return m_ResponseRecieved
End Get
End Property
''' <summary>
''' Stores the errors if any.
'''
(Programers view and a testers nightmare.)
''' </summary>
'''
<remarks>Server side error are in the rssmessage object </remarks>
Private
m_ErrorMessages As List(Of String)
Public ReadOnly Property ErrorMessages()
As List(Of String)
Get
Return m_ErrorMessages
End Get
End Property

RequestRssFeed

Our Class will have two methods. One to handle the request
the other to handle the response.

‘Method 1 Request
''' <summary>
''' Makes a request to the server though javascript
''' </summary>
''' <param
name="Data">String Array of Parameters for the requsest. Data Sent to server in
the POST</param>
''' <remarks></remarks>
Public Sub RequestRssFeed(ByVal
Data() As String)
Try
' you cannot run it under debug
' this will stop
you
If Not System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached Then
HtmlPage.Document.Invoke("genericCall", Data)
'genericCall is the JavaScript
Method
End If

Catch ex As Exception
ErrorMessages.Add("RequestRssFeed
Error: " & ex.Message & " Trace:" & ex.StackTrace
End Try
End Sub

Respond To Request

Replace the method CreateFromResponseText we created
earlier place this code.

<summary>
''' Processes the data from the
response text recieved from the our javascript
''' </summary>
'''
<remarks></remarks>
Private Sub CreateFromResponseText()
'clear the
message bank
m_ErrorMessages.Clear()
'set Valid to false
m_Valid =
False

'create a string reader with the response text
Dim sr As New
StringReader(ResponseText)
Dim reader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(sr)
'Create a serialiser

Dim serializer As New XmlSerializer(GetType(RssMessages))
'If we are any good at this we should have a list of messages from the server
Try
m_Messages = CType(serializer.Deserialize(reader), RssMessages)
m_Valid = True
'Response Recievied and done
m_ResponseRecieved = True
'And if we are no good handle the error
Catch ex As Exception
m_Valid =
False
ErrorMessages.Add("CreateFromResponseText Failed. " & ex.Message & "
Trace: " & ex.StackTrace)
End Try
End Sub

Fantastic Effort. Cannot
go to bed yet as this is almost happening for you. We have two more jobs todo.

1.Wire up the JavaScript Response
2.Bind The Data to our SilverlightRss
Control

Wire Up JavaScript

As far as I know you have to do this in
app.xaml.vb as I have tried in other files without success. But it took a few
goes to get it to work this way.

For those of you who type the code from
this page may well remember in the javascript method stateChanged we had a line

Javascript code
{
sl.Content.mySLRssapp.ResponseText=myrequest.responseText;
}
sl.content is your host Silverlight Control.

mySLRssapp is an alais
to an instance SilverlightRss.RssHandler

ResponseText is a property of
our instance of RssHandler

In your App.xaml.vb file import.

Imports System.Windows.Browser

Declare a RssHandle Just after Inherits
Application

Public MyRssHandler As New RssHandler

This creates the
instance

In Application_Startup place these line after Me.RootVisual =
New Page()

‘vb code
'Avoids problems running in the debugger
If Not
System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached Then
HtmlPage.RegisterScriptableObject("mySLRssapp",
MyRssHandler)
End If
‘cut here

Well Done Guys and Girls. But
just before you leave I have one last task for you to do.

Place the data
into our control

It is now only a case of referencing myapp. MyRssHandler
to use the client server

Ok Open page.xaml.vb

Here are your china
men. Sorry Imports!

Imports System.Windows.Threading
Imports
System.Windows.Controls

‘Create a timer for our feed

After
Inherits UserControl
‘The time is used to provide a checking system to see if
there is any data
WithEvents timer As New DispatcherTimer
Dim rssData As
RssHandler

Now we need two sub methods to handle our feed.
StartTimer

Timer_tick Event

StartTimer method

Sub
StartTimer()
'get as reference to app
Dim myapp As App = TryCast(App.Current,
App)
' get a reference to the handler
RssData = myapp.MyRssHandler
'setup the timer give it time to get a response
'This is set to 2 seconds.
adjust to your liking
timer.Interval = New TimeSpan(0, 0, 2)
'call the
request
'Create a String array
'if you had a query for the server you
would add
'?varname=value&varname2=value to the data array as the next
element
‘example: Dim data() as string={"filename=rssserver.php",”?varname=value&varname2=value”
}
Dim data() As String = {"filename=rssserver.php"}
'This gets it running
‘Call the method we created earlier in RssHandler
RssData.RequestRssFeed(data)
'Start the timer
timer.Start()
End Sub

This is Strait forward
so far. Next thing to do is handle the tick event for the timer and grab our
data.

timer_Tick Event

The timer_Tick event handles the data from the
RssHandler Class

First we check the flags to see if we came home with the
goods.

ResponseRecieved Flag tells us that we got a response from the
server. If that passed then we need to know if the data was valid. Checking the
Valid Flag tells us this.

Both test have passed we can the enumerate the
Messages (RssMessages Class) and fill the controls

When the both codition
fail the TimerCounter increments to 6 and finaly stops.

We then check the
messages to see if we had a client side error.

Note that the server side
error will be in the message and if you do not have messages then you can not
find the server error. Another night of no sleep.

There is an error
raised with uri class if you don’t pass a valid url so we need to test before we
add it to the HyperlinkButton.

'TimerCounter is used to trap an
endless loop
Dim TimerCounter As Integer
''' <summary>
''' Event when
timer fires
''' </summary>
''' <param name="sender">timer</param>
''' <param
name="e"></param>
''' <remarks></remarks>
Private Sub timer_Tick(ByVal
sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles timer.Tick
'Declare a
HyperLink Button and as TextBox
Dim hyperlink As HyperlinkButton
Dim tbox
As TextBox

'look to see if we got a response
If
RssData.ResponseRecieved Then
' if we have then is it valid
If
RssData.Valid Then
'Your a winner
'bind to control
'enumerate the
messages
For Each msg As rss In RssData.Messages
'Create a new
HyperlinkButton
hyperlink = New HyperlinkButton
'Make the headline its
content
hyperlink.Content = msg.headline
'adjust the font sise
hyperlink.FontSize = 12
'Add the uri

'Ensure we have a URL else this will
fail
If Not msg.uri Is Nothing Then
hyperlink.NavigateUri = New
Uri(msg.uri)
End If
'Add the HyperlinkButton to the ListBox Control
lbRSS.Items.Add(hyperlink)
'Create a new TextBox
tbox = New TextBox
tbox.TextWrapping = TextWrapping.Wrap
'Add the Text Body
tbox.Text =
msg.bodytext
'Add it to the control
lbRSS.Items.Add(tbox)
'should work
Next
Else
'look at errors
If RssData.ErrorMessages.Count > 0 Then
'we logged some errors
For Each StringErr As String In RssData.ErrorMessages
'not goo practice live to show user your errors but

'for the purpose this
will do
' you could write a debug condition here but I am tired
tbox =
New TextBox
tbox.TextWrapping = TextWrapping.Wrap
tbox.Text = StringErr
'Add to your list box
lbRSS.Items.Add(tbox)
Next

End If

End
If
Else
'Still waiting
'Add 1 to counter to prevent endless loops of
the timer
TimerCounter += 1
'Stop after 12 seconds. Again you can adjst to
your liking
'Realy its timer.Intervals X 6
If TimerCounter = 6 Then
timer.Stop()
'We stop the time so there could be errors
'See if there are
errors
If RssData.ErrorMessages.Count > 0 Then
'we logged some errors
For Each StringErr As String In RssData.ErrorMessages
'not goo practice live
to show user your errors but
'for the purpose this will do
' you could
write a debug condition here but I am very tired
tbox = New TextBox
tbox.TextWrapping = TextWrapping.Wrap
tbox.Text = StringErr
'Add to
listbox
lbRSS.Items.Add(tbox)
Next

End If
End If

End If

End Sub

So all go from here mate! Nearly time to feed the cat.

Are We There Yet?

No we are not there yet. One last thing to do is to get
Silverlight to listen for the response from the server, “Or JavaScript I don’t
know anymore”

Oh Yea. Upload the files to your server after testing of
course dur!

Here is a variable ‘or use to variable now called field’ to
help you debug the application. This worked on my old box so it should work on
your flash new one.

For those who type out the code in this article I
suggest that you copy and paste this into your RssHandler Class to avoid further
errors.

Dim xmlstring As String = "<?xml version='1.0'
encoding='utf-8'?>" _
& "<RssMessages xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'
xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'>" _
& "<rss>" _
& "<rssId>1</rssId>"
_
& "<createdate>29/08/2008 8:40:20 AM</createdate>" _
& "<headline>This
is the number 1 I have done this</headline>" _
& "<bodytext> This is the body
text of the number1 headline</bodytext>" _
& "<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>"
_
& "</rss>" _
& "<rss>" _
& "<rssId>1</rssId>" _
& "<createdate>29/08/2008
8:40:20 AM</createdate>" _
& "<headline>This is the number 1 I have done
this</headline>" _
& "<bodytext> This is the body text of the number1
headline</bodytext>" _
& "<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>"
_
& "</rss>" _
& "<rss>" _
& "<rssId>1</rssId>" _
& "<createdate>29/08/2008
8:40:20 AM</createdate>" _
& "<headline>This is the number 1 I have done
this</headline>" _
& "<bodytext> This is the body text of the number1
headline</bodytext>" _
& "<uri>http://home.people.net.au/~chriso/rss/index.php</uri>"
_
& "</rss>" _
& "</RssMessages>"

To use the variable you need to
modify your RequestRssFeed Method of RssClass

If Not
System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached Then
HtmlPage.Document.Invoke("genericCall",
Data)
'genericCall is the JavaScript Method
‘Modified for test purposes

‘adds local xml to the application
Else
'Just Prentend that we have
data
ResponseText = xmlstring
End If

Now is the time to see the
winners and the loosers.

Press f5 hold your breath and wait.

Kool
Bananas. It tested ok.

Create your HTML page for the app and set a
reference to your myrss.js file in the script tags.

<script type="text/javascript"
src="myrss.js">

</script>
Uplaod your files to the server and run your
php files in the browser to make sure we done it right.

First run
Createrssfeed.php .
Check your database to see if we have the rss table.

Run insertrecordstorss.php to put some records in the table

Run
rssserver.php to test your xml file. You should see xml rendered in your
browser. If it has the same files as your class then you have got it right
again.

That’s it.. Bed time.. you now have a rss for silverlight using
cross platform technology.

Sorry if your not asleep yet but I need to
inform you that this is demo software and no warranties or liabilty claims
accepted. Run at your own Risk.

One more thing before you go. With this
knowledge you could build a client that enters data into your database with
little or no more code than an UI for this and the two methods in Page.xaml.vb
StartTimer and timer_Tick

I Hope you follow the Ausie humor and accent
ok. Thank you for taking the time to read to here.

Good Luck

Chriso
daddysgreat@hotmail.com

Where is Chriso Blog

2008-12-28T23:10:00.000+11:00

You will find my blog @ http://dadysgreat.spaces.live.com/