Author: admin

A blogger has been invited on to the set of the TV show she blogs about to exclusively meet the cast and crew of the show!

As I write this Sheila is in a hotel getting ready to visit the set of Medium. Congrats Sheila. Amazing stuff.

There’s a tie up directly with a major Hollywood Celebrity on another blog (not sure if I’m able to disclose at this stage, suffice to say there is freebies for the readers), and of course there was the previous deal with Fox’s promotional arm with 3 blogs.

Congrats to Arieanna and her amazing team of bloggers who never let some of the snide and degrading comments get them down, and whom I was lucky and fortunate enough to have once worked directly with.

Sorry to those who had emailed me saying they had looked forward to meeting me, or catching up either at Techcrunch, or the day after it in New York. Unfortunately I’ve had my permission to attend removed and am unable to leave work in Toronto for the trip. Maybe another time, or even in the future with another company one day.

My article this week at The Blogging Times is dedicated to Reporters Sans Frontiers 24-hour online demo against Internet censorship (more details at RSF here). I wrote the article on Monday morning. 24 hours later and what do I read in Bloglines:

The Guide:

On November 3rd, US telecom giant Verizon says it will disconnect a Montreal-based internet service provider (ISP) Epifora whose clients host sexually edgy chat sites. Civil-liberties experts say it’s an unprecedented assertion of corporate control over legal expression.

they also provide other disturbing news out of the United States, some of which I wasn’t previously aware of:

The US government has also lately been turning down the thermometer on internet speech.

?Ǭ? Based on SM stories she had written and posted to her web site, Karen Fletcher was indicted in September for obscenity by US federal prosecutors on charges that carry up to 30 years in prison.

?Ǭ? US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urged Congress in September to pass legislation requiring that ISPs log all users’ internet activity

?Ǭ? In August, the US Senate ratified the International Convention on Cybercrimes– which requires signatories to investigate and arrest people for suspected crimes– including crimes of expression– that may not be even be illegal in the place where they were committed.

According to Slashdot:

“The Brazilian senate is considering a bill that will make it a crime to join a chat, blog, or download from the Internet without fully identifying oneself first. Privacy groups and Internet providers are very concerned, and are trying to lobby against the bill, but it seems they won’t have much success.”

It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it. I’m no anti-war, raving lefty, but you’ve really got to ask the question: what in the world are US, UK and Australian troops doing in Iraq, because they certainly aren’t fighting for freedom, after all, our freedoms continue to be taken away. The one thing that sets the Western World apart from the barbarism of many other countries is being given up. Dare I say, but are the terrorists actually winning?

Support RSF by posting in support of free speech online, on your blog, on November 7, and by visiting their site. If we don’t speak loudly now, we may never have the opportunity to do so again in the future.

Tags: RSF, internet censorship

Video as follows (not viewable in the RSS feed, sorry):

Benjamin Haslem writes at Corporate Engadget about experiencing poor customer service from Foxtel, and suggests that it’s evidence that Telstra’s pathetic customer service.

I’ve got relatives here who just moved house: Telstra for phone and Telstra Bigpong for the net. The phone went across ok, but the stupid thing is, despite both the line and the net connection being owned by Telstra, you can’t book your ADSL move until after the new phone service is put on, and then you’ve got to wait a minimum of 3 days. It got worse, the ADSL goes on and it didn’t work. Now I’d note we’re talking same phone number, same exchange for the connection, indeed they literally moved 3 street down in the same suburb. So Telstra blames my relatives and tells them that their ADSL modem must be stuffed and they should buy a new one. $170 later, they’ve got a new one….and the ADSL still doesn’t work. Telstra continues to state that it’s their fault, and nothing is wrong. So thankfully I tell them to get onto Telstra Countrywide locally, these guys are about the only decent and good people working for Telstra. Next day a technician comes out and tests the line: guess what, somethings wrong in the exchange, it’s a provisioning problem! So now it’s nearly two weeks, they are $170 out of pocket, and they still don’t have internet access, and Telstra is unable to tell them how long it will take to be fixed!

F*ckers.

I’ve still got Bigpond ADSL under contract till May 07, but I don’t use it, got myself a nice 2mb Cable connection. Phones are still with Telstra, need to change that now that I’m not moving house again any time soon.

And while I’m at it: bring on the privitisation! All this BS about Telstra getting worse in private hands. Rubbish: no self respecting, proper private company provides this level of service. Scary thing is though: once upon a time it was actually worse, but maybe I’m showing my age, because I can still remember dealing with them when they were Telecom and 100% owned by the Federal Government. Think Centrelink but with your phone connection.