Internet scams have been around for as long the internet has existed itself. It must have been roughly what, a few seconds after email was invented that people realised that was a lot of money to be made by sending out phishing emails. These emails usually contain some rubbish story and then ask for money. [...]
Long time readers of OzSoapbox will no doubt know that my relationship with the clothing brand American Apparel has been a turbulent one. By far my favourite brand of tshirt out there, for years now I’ve been caught between loving the style of American Apparel’s plain fine jersey tshirts and learning to live as a [...]
I’m a bit late to this one so you’ll have to forgive me. I got back from a weekend away and was checking my Twitter feed for anything interesting. One particular tweet from Wikileaks caught my eye; Hilarious WikiLeaks rap gets it right. Is comedy the only honest commentary? Hilarious Wikileaks rap? What did Wikileaks [...]
Sometime in the 1990s the internet suddenly became useful as people gained the ability to ‘message’ eachother in real time. This was particularly useful in Australia where SMS charges were still priced around the complete and utter ripoff mark. The dominant messenger program of choice was ICQ and such was the influence this software had [...]
When I woke up this morning one of the first things I read was a ‘How Aussie are you?’ meme over at Daniel Bowen’s blog this morning. Daniel saw it somewhere else and they saw it somewhere else etc. etc. you get the idea. Anyway, as I read through the meme I couldn’t help but [...]
Defamation is always going to be a tricky subject on the internet. For the most part you’ve got outdated laws policing a technological platform that didn’t even exist when they were drafted. Couple that with problematic worldwide jurisdiction, internet companies making billions and clueless internet users will dollar signs in their eyes and you’ve got [...]
Whirlpool is Australia’s largest technology forum and each day thousands of people contribute to discussions on the site, ranging from not only technology issues but also covering a wide range of topics. I am one of them and yesterday night noticed the Whirlpool was down. Usually when Whirlpool goes down a maintenance message comes up [...]
Somebody seems to have broken news.com.au’s breaking news service. Yesterday news.com.au were having rampant problems with server timeouts and today the entire breaking news section has disappeared off their front page.
As a publisher who uses Google Adsense, I’m a regular user of Google’s Adsense Keyword Tool. The tool, previously accessibly to anyone, allows publishers and advertisers (both potential and current), to look up a whole host of values specific to certain keywords. Sometime in the last 24 hours Google went ahead and blocked access to [...]
Hitler being appointed the caretaker of a holocaust memorial museum. Osama bin Laden put in charge of a construction team rebuilding the Twin Towers. Kevin Rudd being asked to judge diving at the next Olympics, except for the backflip event. All of these are horrifying absurd scenarios the world wouldn’t want to be confronted with [...]
