Today is Australia Day. A day that’s really only been celebrated consistently in the last 15 years or so although it was around for most of last century (thanks to Anonymum for passing along this link on the history of Australia Day, an interesting read).

Today I’ve seen a lot of people expressing their Australian pride in various ways, both in the real world and online. Normally I’d be up there among them: I am an Australian in every sense of the word (I was born here, and both of my parents are naturalised Australians, having emigrated from European countries as children).

But today, I am not waving any flags or professing pride in my country. Hell, I’m not even having a barbecue. Today is the first Australia Day where I can honestly say I am not proud of being Australian.

Let me explain why – but first, unlike some other people, I’m not even talking about the rise of this weird “yobbo” pride in the last few years, the goddamn awful Southern Cross tattoos or the “fuck off we’re full” idiots. While the attitudes that these people have is a cause for concern, I don’t think they are the problem.

No, the real problem is the current Australian government and its policies.

Censorship is not the answer

First and most heinous, it was announced late last year that the Rudd government were pushing ahead with their plans for mandatory ISP-level internet filtering, despite less than brilliant results in the official trials and a lot of outcry. A cynical person might point out that the announcement came in the pre-Christmas rush and at a time when news channels were dominated by talks of the Copenhagen climate change talks. Far be it from me to suggest that the government was trying to pull a fast one past the Australian public.

I could talk all day about each of the things that they’re doing and why it’s the stupidest idea ever, but this is not really the place for that. So I’ll quickly summarise for now:

• mandatory filtering is a massive waste of taxpayers money
• the filter is technically flawed and will not protect children from accessing refused classification material (the primary stated reason for the policy)
• the filter is technically flawed and will result in important information being denied to people who might need it, in some cases seriously so – think information about abortion, euthanasia, anorexia, sexually transmitted diseases and drug use to name a few
• the filter will slow our already ridiculously inadequate network speeds by as much as 40% in some cases
• the government’s blacklist is secret and it and the complaints system which will be put in place is open to abuse by those organisations and individuals whose agendas involve blocking access to information
• Senator Conroy has repeatedly stated that only “refused classification” materials will be blocked, and that those things include child pornography, bestiality and sexual violence. But in actual fact, by the very nature of the Australian classification system, anything that hasn’t been presented for classification is classified “RC” – so theoretically, all manner of innocuous and legal items could be blocked under the “RC” banner at the whim of the censors and most Australians will never know about it.

So what can we do about it? The bill has yet to be passed through parliament to make it law (it has yet to be introduced) so if the Coalition and the independents oppose it, it will not become law. So Australians all need to get onto their local Liberals and demand to know what’s what (as far as I am aware, the Liberal party has no official policy as yet on internet filtering).

Electronic Frontiers Australia has a list of ten things that you can do to help. One of EFA’s suggestions is to participate in the Australian Internet Blackout, which this site has done this week as well as my personal blog and our business web site. That’s the black informational overlay that you might see if you visit the actual site (rather than reading this through RSS or Facebook). If you’d like to join in it’s not too late – you just place a small piece of JavaScript on your web site and it takes care of everything. Details on the Internet Blackout site.

The thing is, that most non-geeks don’t really understand what’s going on and as a result they aren’t as concerned as they should be. So the best thing that we can do is educate our non-geek families and friends. That’s why I’m involved with a small group that will be launching a mass-media-friendly campaign shortly.

Apparently, gaming is only for children

Anyone over the age of 18 had better hand in their consoles and PC gaming rigs because according to the Australian government, games are only for children. That’s why they refuse to support an “R” rating for games, instead banning outright anything that doesn’t fit into MA15+ range.

The South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, is blocking all attempts to introduce an R18+ rating for games (and due to the quirks of our judicial system, all state attorney-generals must agree in order for the rating to be changed), despite the average of a a gamer being above 30. What’s worse, he’s actually brazenly called adult gamers “criminals”.

That’s not all

There are other issues – for example in South Australia, a law has passed requiring special packaging and other rules for R-rated DVDs displayed for sale or rent. The covers must be black and show only the title – not other text – in small white writing. All R-rated materials must be shelved together. So classic 80’s action flicks are being treated the same way as soft porn and there are so many problems with this that my head is exploding just thinking of it. The bill was introduced by the Family First party and we can bet they’ll be trying similar tactics in other states soon.

All of these issues just show that the Australian government is out of touch with technology and trying to legislate the digital realm the same was as non-digital media.

If we don’t do something about this, we’d better find ourselves a new national anthem because the current one will not be accurate anymore.

“Australians all, let us rejoice
For we are young and free.”

Young, sure. Free, not so much.

Posted from kay lives here

Not a proud Aussie

When compiling my “week in ColdFusion” blog posts for SitePoint, I sometimes come across JavaScript “frame-busting” scripts that drive me around the bend. Let me explain…

After a long time as a FeedDemon user, I switched to Google Reader. Much as I love FeedDemon’s smart interface, I found more and more that I needed all my browser-based toys (extensions, social bookmarking tools, etc) close by. Grabbing links that I had flagged in FeedDemon to open in Firefox was slowing me down. I subscribe to over 200 feeds, so getting through them all quickly is important.

Google Reader is great, and with the Better GReader Firefox extension it’s even better (haw haw). I’m particularly a fan of the Preview button the extension adds, which lets you open the full page inline in Google reader. It’s great when working with partial feeds, like those delivered by Fullasagoog and MXNA – I can quickly check out the full post without leaving the comfort of Google Reader.

But there’s one annoying and rude “feature” of some blogs that is causing me grief – JavaScript which, on page load, checks if the site is being framed by another, and if so, busts it out into the full window. This is annoying because when I use the preview function in Google Reader, sites with this script replace my current Google Reader window with the full site in question and I lose my place in what I was doing.

I can understand why people don’t want their content being framed by another site – but people, it’s 2008, you make the content in your feeds freely available and it gets repurposed in so many ways it’s not funny. Trying to control how a site is viewed is rude and pushy, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s making it hard for me to bookmark, Digg or otherwise share the content, which is to the site’s detriment. It goes against the open and flexible nature of the semantic web.

I do acknowledge this is partially a browser issue – my browser should stop rogue sites from misbehaving in ways I don’t like. Unfortunately neither Firefox 2 nor 3 offer this level of control, the Preview Greasemonkey script does not yet include this functionality (although it has been suggested) and using a JavaScript blacklist extension like YesScript on just offending sites stops my bookmarklet tools from working on these sites as well, which really defeats the purpose.

So let’s all share the love and drop the 1999-style frame-busting scripts. How about it?

Posted from kay lives here

Annoying blog trait: please stop trying to hijack the browser window

Last week I asked the burning question: do web professionals use anti-virus programs on their own machines? I don’t – I find no need to. I was curious as to how many of my peers shared my view.

And the results?

• 66 people voted.
• 41% – the majority plurality – said that they believed anti-virus was necessary.
• 30% (20) of those people agreed with me that anti-virus was unnecessary for people who knew what they were doing.
• 14% said that they have anti-virus, but only because they shared their machine with others.
• Another 14% ran their anti-virus only on demand.
• Only one respondent thought the poll was stupid and pointless – a surprisingly low number!

The percentages who either shared their machines or used anti-virus only on demand didn’t surprise me – I’ve been in both situations in the past. Of those who insisted that anti-virus was necessary, one was quite forceful about it in the comments, reminding me that I hadn’t put in a disclaimer to say that I do always surf behind a firewall router. Another commenter was strongly in the no-AV-for-me camp. And apart from Jamwerx Dave yammering on about his beloved Mac – despite my dire warning that I wasn’t interested – all the other commenters were fairly middle-of-the-road in their attitudes.

One interesting statistic was that for the first few hours – in fact, until about the first 40 responses – the “I don’t use anti-virus” camp was in the lead. The post was put live on a Saturday morning in Australia, so maybe this means that those fanatical individuals who have their feed reader open permanently, all hours of the day and night including weekends, are more likely to be confident enough in their own computer skills to not rely on anti-virus. Or maybe it’s completely random and meaningless.

So was I surprised by the results? Not really! Have I been convinced that anti-virus is necessary for me? Absolutely not! Was it an interesting exercise? Actually, yes, despite the predictable outcome, it was interesting to see how strongly people feel about the issue. It will be interesting to ask the same question in another 12 months or two years, when Vista has been out for a while, to see if that changes anyone’s opinions. Hmm, so many more potential questions. How many web developers disable UAC? What about Windows Defender? Bah, I’ll leave those for when I’m bored

Posted from kay lives here

Poll results: do web professionals use anti-virus?

WebDU was on in Sydney last week. I didn’t go along, although several of my colleagues did. I thought about going, but we’re really busy this period of the year. I also feel slightly bad because I also went to Web Directions South in September (pictures from that conference above), and poor Dave doesn’t get to go to the developer conference for his development platform of choice because it costs more for entrance alone than both WebDU and Web Directions put together.

I did go to three MXDU conferences in previous years, and enjoyed them very much. However, if I had to pick one conference only to go to, it would be Web Directions (and in fact that has been the case these past two years). My reasons are varied:

• Web Directions covers a wider range of technologies that I can actually use, and I like the fact that web standards and accessibility underlie everything else that is discussed. The conference is no longer about best practises in web development – everything that is presented assumes best practises to start with. My kinda people.
• The speakers are the rock stars of the web world – people I am really excited about meeting, listening to, and hanging out with. People like Molly Holzschlag, Derek Featherstone, Doug Bowman, Andy Clarke, Kelly Goto, Jeff Veen, and Eric Meyer. And that’s just some of the internationals – there are plenty of Australian luminaries as well. I can’t get as excited about the WebDU speakers. Perhaps because I’m not a Flash/Flex developer.
• There is an incredibly strong feeling of community and togetherness. At both Web Essentials in 2005 and Web Directions in 2006, I have really felt like I was part of something amazing. My circle of colleagues and friends has expanded each year, and these are people I continue to communicate with. I didn’t really get that from MXDU.

I just read a post on Gary’s blog about Sexism at WebDU. It’s an interesting read – and I must say I’m quite surprised. I didn’t really see or hear anything similar in the years that I attended the conference, and I know that Geoff Bowers usually runs a very tight ship. However, I can easily believe the kinds of things that Gary and Katrina are reporting – the “boy’s club” mentality is evident in any kind of IT-related event, and the more developer-centric the event, the stronger the bias tends to be.

I remember arranging to meet up with an online colleague at MXDU – the exchange went something like:
Him: I’ll be the tall guy with glasses, wearing a red t-shirt.
Me: I’m female – more than likely I’ll be the only one.

While that wasn’t strictly true – there were a couple of other women, including presenters, although most weren’t ColdFusion developers – we were definitely in the vast, vast minority. Being from the far western end of the continent enhanced the feeling of being outside of the clique.

After reading Gary and Katrina’s posts, I’m looking deeper into my decision to skip WebDU and go to Web Directions instead. I think I’ve realised what it is: even though the male:female ratio still strongly favours the male side, the atmosphere at Web Directions feels friendlier and more inclusive. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s definitely there.

I hope that Daemon take this kind of feedback seriously and do something about it for next year.

Much has been said in web standards circles lately about the lack of female presenters, and what can be done to encourage women to be more vocal in their participation, while not including under-qualified speakers for gender equity’s sake. I don’t really have any answers. I feel I’m doing something positive with our local Web Women networking group – helping to provide a small amount of community support for local women in web development. If every town and city did something similar – and I know many are – surely things will start to improve.

Update: anyone else who went to WebDU care to comment? Did you see or hear anything that made you uncomfortable or that you thought was in questionable taste?

Posted from kay lives here

Gender and conferences, yet again

Hmm… DRKs are not available to purchase. They’re only available to subscribers to Devnet, the subscription service which Macromedia is in the process of killing off – so you can’t subscribe to it. Previous DRKs are not available to purchase either. So essentially, there is content on the DRKs that is known and publicly discussed, but the vast majority of Macromedia customers cannot access or purchase them. That just doesn’t seem like sensible business to me.

Why does this piss me off so much? I would very much like to use the Pollster Flash/CF polling app on a client’s site – and I have DRK4, where it first appeared. But I can’t get it to work properly, and the DRK5 version, which is supposed to fix all the bugs in the DRK4 version, I can no longer purchase. I’ve looked around for an equivalent but nothing that works in CF. My Flash skills are not up to the job and anyway, the client’s budget does not extend to custom programming the entire job from scratch.

It’s things like this that make me want to scream. So if anyone knows of a Pollster clone – or any pretty-looking CF polling app, even if it’s not actually Flash – please let me know. If doesn’t have to be free either, just reasonable – if it solves the problem, I’m happy to pay for it.

Posted from kay lives here

DRK Rant