The James Kilgour Blog

The Net is home to hundreds of millions of websites, ranging from Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, to the taboo, illegal, murky side of the Web.

Should the government be able to stop us accessing this content? What about Torrent sites etc? If the government has power to block any site it wishes, perhaps it will start blocking sites that are critical of it, that speak out negatively about new policy?

What is the limit? Could we start living in a Chinese-Communist society, where our internet is firewalled? I believe this is against our human and civil rights. We should have freedom of speech, and that means accessing any sort of web content that we wish to.

In Australia, the Government has asked the major ISPs to participate in a trial of filtering over 10,000 websites that are deemed to have illegal content on them.

Rightly so, Telstra, the largest ISP has denied this, and other ISPs are following suit. My worry is could we see the same sort of thing over here in the UK? Could we be monitored? 1984 may become 2009. I hope not.

JK

The BBC is reporting today that there is a new virus affecting Facebook users, known as ‘Koobface’, (great name!). Now, when I saw this I thought déjà vu. I blogged about this a month ago on November 2nd. 

Apparently the virus send out messages acting like a friend, linking to a virus. Hundreds of websites are now reporting the same, see here. In fact, Google returns 5,580,000 results. If only people had listened to me lol.

1. My Post here.
2. BBC here.
3. Google here.

JK

Controversy has erupted, after the BBC 2 radio broadcast of the Russell Brand show, featuring Jonathan Ross.

They made a call to Andrew Sachs, (one of the stars of Faulty Towers), and said that Brand had slept with his Granddaughter, along with other comments.

Announced last night, Brand has resigned from his £200,000 a year radio show on BBC 2, and Ross, (one of the biggest paid TV stars) has been suspended (with full pay).

After watching the clip form the show on YouTube, I can completely see why it was inappropriate and insulting to both Andrew and his Granddaughter, but I can also see the pretence of humour. If they had been directed towards a friend of Brand’s, or done as a set up with someone, it most likely would have been fine. The fact was, this was a 78 year old man.

Firing Brand and Ross perhaps would be going a  bit far, especially when this show was pre-recorded, and approved for broadcast. Obviously, some sanctions should be taken towards the “talent”, but the Directors of the BBC should take the ultimate rap.

JK

Today, BT has announced a ‘trial’ of fibre to the cabinets technology. In Muswell Hill, London, and Whitchurch, South Wales. Homes and businesses in the area will be able to enjoy broadband speeds of up to 40mb! The trial is due to start next year, and it’s definitely a step in the right way.

But why couldn’t they have done this earlier? What about the rest of us? In Japan and South Korea, users already enjoy 100mb broadband; costing the same as my 4mb! (Sky Unlimited, £10 per month).

The Internet is apparently on the brink of collapse, with the popularity of Youtube, BBC iPlayer and others. This would solve the issue, and make surfing the web amazingly fast. It would also lead to ‘Cloud Computing’, (the use of processing power of high performance computers elsewhere), which demands high speed Internet.

This is something I blogged about a few months ago. Hopefully BT’s trial will be proved successful!

JK

Halifax Bank of Scotland is one of the UK’s big four financial institutions, and whether separate or together, have been part of the highstreet for years. In fact, the bank holds 20% of all mortgages in the UK, and has millions of savers.

The events of the current economic climate though have caused unsteadiness, with the HBOS share price falling by more than three quarters.

But is a Super Bank a good idea for the UK? The new bank would have just under 40 million customers, with a 28% hold of the Mortgage market. (Under UK law, no financial institution is permitted to hold more than 25%.) The Bank would also have nearly 3000 branches, making it unmissable on the highstreet. 

The bank would offer unrivaled security, and would prevent collapse of HBOS, which if this were to happen could be devastating for the UK economy.

The bank would also have unrivaled financial powers, and would gain a controlling stake in the UK economy. However, with plentiful smaller alternatives,  I doubt it would really have an affect on the consumer.

JK

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of Google Chrome, a new web browser, from the company whose business is the web.

The news spread across tech sites like the plague, with everyone waiting to try the browser. But is it really better than Internet Explorer?

I’ve been using the software for a few hours now, just going around doing my usual things, checking email, catching up with friends and watching video.

The first thing I noticed was the sleekness of the software’s interface. The way new tabs open up is all very mac-ish, and the way the window integrates with Vista’s glass interface is all very streamlined.

Video works, just as well as in IE or Firefox, and everything seems to work, even pluggins not designed for the new browser. I tested YouTube and BBC iPlayer, which worked perfectly. However, the Channel 4 Watch Online service failed to work due to Google Chrome not having a Windows Media Pluggin. 

Another great feature is the address bar itself, which gives very intuitive guesses at what it is you want, as soon as you begin to type.

The New Tab Page in Chrome is a great development. In IE, all you get is a useless About Tabs page, but in Chrome, you get a lot of info: snapshots of your history and past searches, and your bookmarks as well. 

But is the browser as good as IE? Not yet. Loading Pages seems to take that bit longer than in IE, and the software seems to become suddenly slow. Also, the way it generates pages sometimes goes amiss; my webmail page for instance looses it’s beauty in Chrome.

The overall design isn’t brilliant either. In IE, you have access to everything you need on every page, but without being intrusive. With Chrome though, to access your bookmarks, you have to open a new tab. Also, there’s no individual print button for example, or a history button. It just seems to take… longer.

That said, Chrome can only get better. Some of it’s features would make IE fantastic. One can only wonder if IE8 will incorporate some of it…

JK

The Olympics was created in 1859 as an international sports game, with the aim of bringing together the world with one passion; Sports. Since then, the Olympics has visited hundreds of different countries, and the Olympic spirit has brought us all closer together.

Beijing 2008 begins soon, but for me, the communist Government of China breaches this very Olympic ethos. Despite their promises, Human Rights in China has still not improved as far as it should have done, and as for international openness, last night’s Panorama episode revealed how this is not true.

One poignant example is the Internet in China. Millions of sites are blocked, in what’s known as the Great Firewall of China. This plentifully list includes this Blog, the BBC News Website and any other site that is derogatory towards China or Chairman Mao.

China is no where near a democracy. People can’t express themselves, and if they are unhappy, no one will listen. Everyone remembers the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, where hundreds of peaceful protestors were murdered with tanks. This happened in Beijing itself, where the Olympic games will be, and continues to happen today, as more protestors are killed or tortured, when people don’t follow the rules.

The Sichuan earthquake in May caused a local school to collapse, killing hundreds of children. It was the only building to collapse, and poor building quality is suspected. However, due to local corruption, those who speak out are silenced. With force. How is this openness? How is this human rights?

I won’t be watching this year’s games. How can we celebrate sports achievement and the nation hosting it, when they corrupt the very fundamental pillars underpinning the Olympic Spirit. It makes a mockery of international cooperation and democracy. As for so called “democracy”, it’s little more than a dictatorship. How is everyone equal, when some, such as Chairman Mao are more equal than others?

You can watch the Panorama episode here. (Short time only!)

JK

Medicine is one of the most stressful careers out there. Not only do they have to deal with the pressure of treating hundreds of patients daily, but also the stress of getting something wrong and litigation.

Now the idea of testing doctors every few years on clinical skills is being thrown about, with the least efficient doctors being struck off. But is this fair? No. Doctors have to firstly get into Medical School, (which is extremely difficult), then train for 6 years, followed by another 5 years working as a foundation doctor.

How is it fair that they should then have to repeatedly be re-tested for the rest of their career; at a cost of 15 million! The NHS already claims poverty, and 15 million, in my opinion, could be much better spent.

JK

Anne and John Darwin, the couple who scammed £250,000 of insurance money, have been successfully convicted and sentenced to jail, after faking the death of John Darwin (57) for the large sum of money. John and Anne have now been jailed for 6 years and 3 months.

What I can’t understand is how they could do this to their two sons? Mark and Anthony, who lived for four years thinking their Dad had died in a canoeing accident. How could any mother put her children through such a horrific ordeal? I can’t begin to imagine what sort of person she must be, and I wouldn’t ever be able to forgive her for putting money before me like that.

Both of them deserve harsher sentences; six years? That’s hardly anything. Not only have they victimised their sons, but have wasted thousands of pounds of Public Money, which was spent on the rescue search which ensued John’s disappearance. Throw the book at them.

JK