Exciting things lie ahead with emerging browser technologies supporting the new HTML5  standard.

I found this blog post “Video Tag and Subtitles” which demonstrates the new video tag, but also uses JavaScript to add subtitles.

The demonstration requires a standards compliant browser supporting the HTML5 video tag, which currently is Firefox 3.1 / 3.5 or the nightly build versions of Safari (Webkit) or Opera.

Just when I’d thought most ill conceived internet censorship laws, New Zealand tops them with this one.

Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment Act forces the removal of material from websites following any accusation of breach of copyright, even if it was not proven. However, it is up to the ISPs to play proxy policeman.

It is a growing trend of governments worldwide to force ISPs to do their dirty work in censoring online discussion and to pay lip service to large corporations. Something I predicted over a year ago.

But the question that remains to be answered, is whose side will the ISPs take?

Our politians (law makers, a good joke) are lacking any real understanding or education when it comes digital society which shows in the headline grabbing polices they tout and hair brained legislation they are ever so quick to ram through their assemblies without any informed community consultation.

Much of these numb skull ideas seem to be pushed by the major media outles. I have increasingly seen “journalists” complaining on their media websites about the blogsphere appropriating their content. I agree it is only fair that original source be cited. However, these same whining journos say nothing of the fact that modern journalism is increasingly turning to and drawing from the same digital pool that bleat about their content disappearing into.

“Airline passenger tweets about jet crash landing“, “Facebook community protests change in TOS”, all make it into the mainstream media these days.

More on the situation and community action can be read in this article… if it hasn’t been removed in breach of copyright that is.

NZ blogs in copyright law blackout demo

I’m currently working on Alan Moore’s SMLXL engagement marketing and mobile blog and adding podcast features as part of our internet marketing campaign.

I chose the PodPress plugin to manage and deliver his podcasts.

The online documentation for the plugin seemed unailable from the wiki that the author’s website directed me to. So I then did some searches and came up with a number of video tutorials. These are very nice because you can also see the exact options that they are talking about. There appears to be an explosion of video tutorials on the web as many are attempting to add value added service to their web sites.

Here is one of the best I found for PodPress.

Everybody wants to be on Twitter, spammers included. There is now software available to assist and manage a spam campaign. The biggest security failing of Twitter which allows this abuse is that the registered email is not validated. So unless Twitter acts quick, its days of big time celebrity media fueled fame will come to a screeching halt.

WordPress by default is set up with only one ping service. But you can add more to increase your chances of extra traffic. In my convoluted internet wanderings while searching on various WordPress plugins I came across the WordPress Ping Blogging List from Breeze Media. The list and the instructions on how to use it can be found on their website. It is a good tip that will help a lot with SEO.

As a footnote, I’ve now found an more extensive XML-RPC list of sites on OptimizeYourWeb.net.

Tom Chandler writes a witty post about a new sleep condition, sleepwriting. It seems we all now finally have an excuse when we next send an embarrassing email that we shouldn't have. 

Biggest Menace Facing Copywriters Ever (So Far This Week): Sleepwriting

Careful what you post online, be very careful.

Steven J. Murdoch , a security researcher at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory recently had his WordPress blog hacked. The hacker created an administrator account on the blog. However Steven quickly deleted it. He then began investigating how this happened. In the process of doing this he was curious about the password that the hacker used.

WordPress stores raw MD5 hashes in the user database. It is believed to be computationally infeasible to discover the input
of MD5 hash from an output. Someone would have to try out all
possible inputs until the correct output is discovered.

Steven looked at various lengthy methods of uncovering the password, but in the end he turned to Google. It seems that many sites use hashing for query strings. His search led him to a genealogy page with the surname of Anthony. Bingo, this was indeed the password.

More detail can be found in his original posting about Google as a password cracker.

Here are some very sucinct tips for growing your website's reader base.

5 Things That Will Improve Your Web Site Traffic (Plus 1 to Avoid)

Webworker Daily – 9/10/2007

WordPress 2.3 Beta 1 is now available for download and testing. Some of the features of 2.3 include automatic notification for plugin and core code version updates, built-in tags support, faster javascript, and SEO-friendly URL redirection.

There have been reports of compatibility issues with a few plugins due to the changes to the category system (plugins that only used the API functions should be okay, but those that used direct SQL queries may break). Also, some file moves in the admin area have affected a few other plugins. Please report problems on Trac, and document compatible plugins on the Codex.

I've already installed the beta on one of my blogs and quite like some of the new features, such as tags and automatic notifications. In fact I already found the plugin notification useful, and upgraded one. I have also however seen some bugs. I'm looking forward to the final release. 

One of my social media enabled clients, Rebecca Caroe recently blogged about her burgeoning FaceBook profile. Reading the comments on the article she references, and many others I've come across on the internet, it would appear there are a rash of anti-cool nay sayers who are waving their red flags attempting to warn people of the "evils" of the closed model that FaceBook is.

FaceBook serves a purpose and is filling a niche that other sites such as LinkedIn are failing on. The issue is not whether one should be using either for professional verses social play, the issue is that LinkedIn is showing its age and unwillingness to adapt to the changing needs of online community members and provide the tools they want or need.

Both FaceBook and LinkedIn have their pluses and negatives, but what astounds me with this current fad for social networking sites is how some of the most seasoned internet denizens are foregoing putting real effort into their what should be their main web presence, their own websites and bemoaning what the social networks are not.

You make your website as feature rich and as socially enabled as you want. The clamour of the social tech commentators voices are calling for Glastnos, openness, Open Source goodness from these socially irresponsible networking websites. Open the APIs and let the people in to claim what is their own, their own personal information. If you truely want to claim control of your own personal information, do it on your own web space, and not that of the latest and greatest web business sky rocket.

Why is it that people feel compelled to complain about something that
they get for free? You get what you pay for. You are playing on their
space. There are those who think that these companies have a moral responsibility to bow to the every whim of the proletariat. These are the people that come to a party, but hold themselves above it, and proceed to complain loudly to everyone who will listen, that various details are amiss. If these social networks aren't doing it for you, then go elsewhere, or do it for yourself. The Open Source tools are out there.

To complete this, yes I do have a profile on LinkedIn, FaceBook, but also, Xing, Tribe, MySpace, DeviantArt, and a string of other art networking websites. The main windows on my world are this site and my art site. All of those others will always be secondary.