We are now officially living in the future as Apple have finally released a tablet. The name made many people cringe, as it kind of sounds like something that belongs inside women’s underwear when it is that time of the month.

Anyway, it looks fantastic and I’m sure it will be a success. Everybody will want to use the iPad to read ebooks. Ebooks are not available on iTunes instead you need to download the iBooks application and buy ebooks through that. Alternatively you could still buy ebooks online from Fictionwise or somewhere like that. This is a minor irritation compared to the fact that due to geographical restrictions the vast majority of ebooks aren’t available in Australia.

I want my ebook

According to the Fictionwise website ebooks are not available in Australia due to the way the book publishing industry works. The publishing industry has always worked on the idea that the rights of books could be sold to publishers according to geographical region. This idea is basically incompatible with the idea of the Internet, but these contracts still apply to ebooks. Publishers are legally obliged to make sure their ebooks adhere to these contracts.

The result is different publishers produce the same titles in different countries and each individual publisher needs to release ebooks in the different countries before they can become available.

Even if a company wants to sell all ebooks to Australians they can’t. That is correct: I can’t buy ebooks because I’m Australian.

Legally that is

This forces many e-book fans to download ebooks illegally using filesharing networks. I personally do not feel comfortable doing this and would much rather be able to buy ebooks legally.

There is also the choice of buying them illegally by using a foreign friend’s credit card or using IP masking techniques.

Why me?

The inability to buy ebooks is an irritation for most people, but there are many people who can’t physically read a book. Someone with muscular dystrophy such as myself can have great difficulty holding a book and turning the pages. With an ebook all you need do is press a button or click a mouse. There are mechanical page turners available, but they are very expensive and don’t work so well. I am also not a fan of audio books as it tends to go in one ear and out the other and what about people who can’t hear.

E-book crusade

I am hoping that the release of the iPad will increase the number of Australians wanting to read ebooks and this will force the hand of publishers to be more ebook friendly.

I also plan on finding out as much as I can about the reasons why ebooks are not available in Australia and to fight for the rights of Australians to read ebooks.

Even though I have been blogging for almost 7 years now I still find it difficult to find good new blogs to read. I don’t have a blogging sixth sense that allows me to feel a ripple in the force when a good blog is near.

Over the last few months my brother and I have been working on a website called Log My Blog. The idea of the website is for people to find a good blog fast. Users are able to add blogs to the site and review them. The blogs are given a rating out of 10 allowing the best blogs to bubble to the top.

Users are also able to subscribe to a blog’s RSS feed directly from our website. RSS feeds are often difficult to find on blogs, but every blog, besides a rare few, has one. For those people that only view blogs through RSS this is a great feature.

Log My Blog will drive traffic to good blogs and give new people an access point to the sometimes confusing world of the blogosphere.

There are many blogging directories out there, but only a few make an effort to sort the directory into any kind of order. Most are simple lists that are rarely updated making finding a blog a hit and miss affair. Others give you the Google Page Rank or the popularity of a blog as a guide to how good the blog is, but as any frustrated author will tell you – popular does not necessarily mean good.

Log My Blog separates blogs into many different categories. A blog is often in more than one category. Each blog is given a blog rank, which is the average of all the ratings left by reviewers. Users are able to easily sort the list of blogs by, blog rank, popularity, A to Z, Z to A and most reviewed. The list can also be sorted by Post Frequency and whether or not the blog allows comments.

Log My Blog will make money through advertising. The ads will be non-obtrusive, placed in positions that do not irritate the user or interfere with the normal operation of the website or the browser used to view the website. I know how frustrating it can be on a website like wired.com that is constantly having those stupid ads drifting across the screen.

Log My Blog will have its own blog continually updated by my brother and I. I will be shifting the majority of my blogging from my old blog ChrisFryer.com to the Log My Blog Blog. This blog will be the place to report bugs or tell me about things you like or dislike. If you do not wish your blog to be on the website you can also tell me that here.

The most important part of Log My Blog is of course the users. We will try our hardest to make log my blog a fun and useful website. With your support I am sure we will be a success.

I have become increasingly frustrated over the past few weeks as my Internet keeps cutting out. I have Big Pond cable broadband with a Motorola SBG 900 modem – one of those black surfboard type modems. Our SBG is completely fucked you cannot even log onto it sometimes. All the lights are meant to be solid, but instead they blink crazily.

Anyway I ordered a new modem. It was supposed to arrive on Friday, Tuesday at the latest. It is Tuesday and the fucking thing hasn’t arrived. It bloody better arrive Wednesday.

Over the past few days I have been trying to integrate my new blog with twitter. I also plan on shifting my blogging activities from ChrisFryer.com to Log My Blog.

The main problem with me twitterising my blog is that I don’t really understand twitter.

I had a number of questions about twitter that I couldn’t answer no matter how hard I tried searching for one on Google or Wikipedia. Nevertheless, I have managed to answer them.

Q: What is the point of twitter?
A: I guess it is another method of communication designed to make money for somebody without the users being aware of it. Some people have called a social networking site, kind of like Facebook without the book.

Q: Can you reply to your own tweet?
A: Seemingly not, but why not? It seems kind of strange that you cannot reply to your own tweet, after all in e-mail and text messages you can. It is probably a method of cutting down on spam.

Q: What is a retweet and how do you do it?
A: Contrary to popular opinion, a retweet is not a hotel for birds. It is when you re-post another person’s tweet on your own account, usually with the prefix RT, this is usually followed by a @ followed by the username of the person you are retweeting. This ends up looking like: twitter_user_1 RT @twitter_user_2 twitter sucks balls!

Q: How does a blog post know when someone is tweeting about it?
A: Usually (on a WordPress blog anyway) an easily installed plug-in takes care of finding the tweets for a particular blog post. Unless I was to interview a plug-in programmer or reverse engineer the plug-in myself I can’t answer this question. I would really love someone to answer this question for me in the comments.

Does anybody have twitter frustrations? I am looking forward to your questions and answers in the comments.

I don’t really like to advertise anything on my website, but today I would like to make an exception. For the past few months my brother has been working on a new photo sharing website, Pics-O.com. He hopes that it will be to pictures what YouTube is to videos.

This website is a new direction for my brother’s business. Usually he creates websites for other people, but this time he is creating the website for himself. The site will make money from advertising, hopefully.

The idea is for people to upload photographs that they think are cool. Other people will then be able to rank the image and leave comments. One interesting thing is that people can vote whether they think a picture has been digitally altered. The site will then work out a percentage of people who think the images is fake.

Anyway make sure you give my brother’s website a visit, upload a few photos and don’t forget to click on the ads.

I love Australia and I honestly believe it is one of the best countries in the world. Australia is one of the few nations that was not founded in war. Our country is made up of people from hundreds of different nations all living together in relative harmony.

It is amazing to just to walk down the street, your nose will pick up the scent of the best food from many different parts of the world.

Our strongest value is to give people a fair go. We don’t treat new people with suspicion instead we buy them a beer. We make sure everyone is included. In Australia we have no aristocracy, everyone is equal and we don’t call anyone sir – even the Prime Minister.

But again a chain e-mail threatens everything we hold dear. The ideas of Pauline Hanson have been discredited and her racist ideals are no longer fit for the political arena, but her beliefs have not died. Many who think as she does are still around – still spouting their theories.

The e-mail is titled: It’s Our Country! – Australia the right to leave.

It brings up a few examples like Sydney not wanting to put up Christmas lights or a Muslim woman in South Australia who apparently is veiled in her driver’s licence photo.

It goes on to say how many recent immigrants are diluting our sovereignty and our national identity.

This rant starts with: “IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It! I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.”

And goes on with: “However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the ‘politically correct’ crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia.”

And later: “We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Leba…” You get the idea.

There are a few questions I would like to ask the authors of this e-mail. Do you eat salami, kebabs, noodles, pizza or lasagne? You do! Well that must make you a fucking wog. Get out. Leave. I don’t want your kind in Australia. Bloody hypocrites. No seriously you are entitled to your own opinion, but try to keep your beliefs consistent.

The e-mail gets a little strange towards the end with: “’In God We Trust’ is our National Motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.”

I never knew Australia had a motto, but anyway… I would argue one of the best things about Australia is that God is not a large part of our culture. In Australia it is considered rude to judge people according to their beliefs. I am an atheist and I do not believe I’ve ever been criticised for my lack of belief. This is part of our belief in the fair go. No matter if you are black, brown, beige or purple or whether you have unusual religious beliefs or if you are disabled.

The funny thing about this e-mail (as you may have guessed) is that it’s not original. This was originally written for a local newspaper in the American state of Georgia. One or two words have been changed for an Australian audience, but essentially it is exactly the same. The two examples at the top of the e-mail about Sydney Christmas lights and the female Muslim driver were not in the original article. A few things were added and taken out and it was turned into a chain e-mail.

The source of the Sydney Christmas lights story is about the Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore in 2004 wished to cut down on the expenditure for Christmas decorations. Some right-wing commentators suggested that maybe the real reason was not to offend Muslims. Then Prime Minister John Howard agreed with them. Clover Moore denied this was the reason and in subsequent years emphasised the role of Christianity in Christmas.

In the American chain e-mail it was a Muslim woman in Florida who was veiled on her driver’s licence – she must have emigrated to South Australia. There is also an English version of the e-mail. That Muslim woman gets around a bit.

This e-mail is another sad example of ignorant people trying use lies and so-called “patriotism” to incite hatred of others.

The authors of this e-mail would see Australia a boring place with only meat and three veg to eat. There would be no cafes with tables and chairs in front. Pizza and the most Aussie of all dishes the chicken parmigiana would be banned.

Cultures that are open and flexible are successful. Those that are closed and ignorant die a slow and often painful death. Even our language is a bastard combination of French, Saxon, Latin and many others. This is one of the reasons why it is the most successful language ever known. The very culture you live in was forged by the blending of others.

As soon as someone begins to believe that their culture is superior people start being hurt. I believe that every culture that has come to Australia has improved our society – from the Chinese during the gold rush and the Afghans that opened up the interior of our country to the aboriginals that were here before we came.

Please do not demonstrate your ignorance by forwarding e-mails such as this.

Over the past few weeks I have received some chain e-mails that really pissed me off. This morning I received two chain e-mails with the following message:

Hi everyone

Ericsson are distributing free laptops for their brand promotion. They hope to increase their popularity and sale by this campaign.

All you need to do is send an email about this to 8 people and you will receive an Ericsson T18 Laptop. However, if you send an email about this to 20 or more people, you will receive an Ericsson R320 Laptop.

Make sure you send a copy to: anna[do not send]ericsson.com
Cheers

As soon as I read this I knew it was bullshit yet the two people that sent it to me were not your usual stupid ditzy fools. This particular chain e-mail is very different from the usual in that it asks for the supposed author to receive a copy of the message that you send on. That does not sound so bad? But when you think about it (less than a second in my case) there are millions of people connected to the Internet if even a small fraction of these people respond to the chain letter poor Anna will be receiving hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages.

This could just be a very nasty practical joke or could even be something more serious. This could be a denial of service attack designed to bring down the Ericsson mail servers and all of the people sending these messages are contributing to a criminal act.

This all boils down to please don’t send chain letters. The odd funny e-mail is okay – that is what e-mail is for. But any message that says, “send me on,” should immediately be sent to the junk mail folder – even if it is something you think people should hear.

Last week I received a chain e-mail telling me that the English public school system is no longer allowed to teach the Holocaust for fear of offending the Muslim population. This was not only untrue (teaching the Holocaust is compulsory in English public schools) it was, ironically, using the Holocaust to whip up racial hatred against a religious or ethnic group.

So please junk any chain e-mail you receive. This is what I have done for the past 15 years. I should have died in horrendous circumstances thousands of times over from all the bad luck I have generated by deleting these letters. Instead I satisfy myself that I have the strength of character to resist my superstitious urges.

I think greed is one the most damaging of the seven deadly sins. Greed has the potential to destroy the thing you most desire. Greed on a personal level is probably not that damaging its when corporations get in on the act when the carnage starts to happen, for example Facebook.

I used to think Facebook was the greatest of all social network sites. The thing that makes Facebook one of the most popular websites on the net is its ability to install third-party “applications”. These applications mean that their website gets content provided by a third party with the operators of Facebook having to a minimum of work. The makers of the applications get to advertise directly to Facebook users. It is a win-win situation.

The problem occurs when the users install the applications. The application developers want their application used by as many people as possible. The more people the more money they receive from advertising. When installing an application you can invite other people on your friends list to use the application. Every time you receive an invitation it adds it to your request list. When I first started using Facebook you could skip the friend invitation stage and just start using the application, but now Facebook forces you to invite 20 friends before you can use the application. This results in a shit load of unnecessary spam.

I barely have enough time to control e-mail spam and blog comment spam – now I have to deal with Facebook spam as well. Facebook has so many other great features that I will continue to use it – but why do they have to abuse their users like this. Stupid decisions driven by corporate greed could destroy something like Facebook. Users aren’t a commodity they are people – without the users there would be no website. Try showing us a little bit of respect.

I was surprised at to find out this morning that Brazil has chosen to ban two decade-old computer games Everquest and Counter Strike.

Everquest is a swords and sorcery massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Counter Strike is a free mod to the popular game Half-Life, both were released in 1999.

The Federal Court of Brazil made the ruling to ban the games in October 2007. But the Brazilian consumer protection agency PROCON has only now acted. According to the judge the games are harmful to consumers health. The games are “the subversion of public order, were an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security.”

According to the site Kotaku, counter strike was banned because it teaches users war tactics. Also one of the maps include a Brazilian streetscape where drug dealers kidnapped three UN workers and police are sent in to rescue them.

EverQuest was banned for even more ridiculous reasons. It allows players of the game to choose both good or bad quests. Apparently this creates a moral conflict that results in psychological stress.

Apparently both these violent games can cause players to become violent in the real world.

There are so many things wrong with this decision that it would be a struggle to list everything.

First of all. What right does a court have to ban games let alone for such ridiculous reasons?

Counter Strike does not even have a regular developer like most other games – it was created by the fans for the fans and remains free to download. It’s not the kind of thing you can ban. This also unfairly taints the developers of Half-Life who had nothing to do with the development of Counter Strike.

They are old games. These games are nine years old and the vast majority of people have moved on to other games. This decision is also counter-productive – the only thing it does is give free advertising to the games they are trying to ban.

Also what about all those other terrible games? Virtually every game has violence, difficult moral decisions and no thought of political correctness. To many all these are the great things about computer games. It allows you to do things that you just can’t do in the real world.

Many older people remain ignorant of computer games. They just don’t understand. It is also a worrying trend among western nations to “protect” the population by limiting our rights. It’s a computer game today a book tomorrow – next thing you know you’re in jail for insulting the Prime Minister.

There is a game, its browser-based, its massively multiplayer and has over a billion players. It is not prohibitively expensive to play and it is not resource intensive; you won’t need to install a new graphics card to play when this game. This game doesn’t necessarily require a lot of attention, you can check on it once a week or once per hour and still be successful either way. The great thing about this game is if you are good at it, it pays! The best thing about this game is it is fun. What is this game? Why the sharemarket of course.

I play world of Warcraft. To start with I was crap, but over a period of years I have become very good at the game, but now I’m sick of it. And what have I achieved playing this game? Lots of wasted time where I could have been writing. I could have written several novels in all the time I’ve wasted playing this game. But with the sharemarket you may lose to begin with, but when you get good at playing the sharemarket you win in more than one way. It is not wasted time.

Anyway I think I’ll sign up. I will tell you how I do.