I Say It’s About Time

As the father of four and a long time netizen I applaud the move by Australia’s Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy to require all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material. It’s high time government stepped in and eliminate some of the crud that is ruining the internet for so many families.

The argument that it’s an invasion of privacy or that it violates free speech just doesn’t make sense. It’s no different then having zoning laws to prevent strip clubs (not even close to the horrors found online) from opening up in just any neighborhood. As for the fear of giving them an inch and forfeiting a mile I just don’t share that fear.

The internet has brought with it a lot of foul content that any parent would fight hard to keep away from their children, and rightfully so. In fact, a lot of parents don’t have connectivity at their homes to eliminate the problem altogether when it comes to their homestead. The culprits in this battle are the disgusting, twisted, soulless, people who make it their mission to inflict emotional pain on others through their content and not those in government who want to bring the best the net has to offer and attempt to leave out the worst.

For more: Conroy announces mandatory internet filters to protect children

A Webmasters Dream Come True

A nose spray that eliminates the need for sleep. Now that’s something I could use! Of course, it would have been great to have way back in college days (so I could procrastinate just a wee bit longer before cramming for an exam), or during the diaper changing era, but it’s never too late to find good use for a nose spray that replaces sleep. Check out the article in Wired magazine:

Snorting a Brain Chemical Could Replace Sleep

I say ‘heck with the testing! sell it now!’. Life’s too short for sleep!

Warning Fake Hallmark eCards

I received a Hallmark card a short while ago and was within a keystroke of “opening” the card, which turned out to be an executable file. The email looked so real and I just couldn’t believe it was a fake so I went to Hallmark.com and sent one to myself just to double check before I opened the “card”.

The ecard I received from Hallmark bore no resemblance to the one I had received earlier so the email I almost opened was a virus. Ecards are a great way for a hacker to gain access to your computer. Be wary of any and all ecards.

Hallmark and all other ecard companies I’m aware of will send you to their site to view the ecard. If you don’t recognize the URL as being from the company the ecard is from I just wouldn’t open it as it’s not worth the risk of a virus.

Winners of Web 2.0 Awards

If this is old news to you… oh well. I hadn’t seen these Web 2.0 Awards yet and for the benefit of all the other cyber-tortoises I decided to post about the awards.

The SEOmoz team reviewed thousands of sites in the Web 2.0 realm to find the best sites in each of 41 categories. Once their pool of Web 2.0 award candidates had been rounded up they put their SEOmoz panel of experts to work evaluating the sites to determine which ones were the best.

All of their results can be found here: Web 2.0 Awards

You’ll discover a lot of hot new tools that you’ve never heard of so plan on bookmarking a bunch of them and checking them out over the course of a few days.