This is certainly a great news for so-called “regulators” in countries that are still controlled by military regimes and those who are opposed to free speech. Although Twitter only mentioned countries such as Germany and France, featuring laws prohibiting pro-nazi speech, the feature will be warmly welcomed by many other regimes around the world. While stopping pro-nazi hate speech might be a worthwile feature in the social network, the feature certainly has other uses, just like anti hate speech laws could be used against people advocating social change.

The changes in Twitter is clearly a move to appease speech regulators around the world, which once again poses the question of public needs vs private ownership of networks such as Twitter.

As time went on, I realised that most of the places that I visit during my work routine allowed me computer access as well as wifi. After weaning myself off the laptop and the backpack idea, I slowly was able to go to work with just a USB stick and a portable Hard drive. Even though the phone was great for firing quick emails here and there, I felt that I needed something that could function like a computer if I needed it to, light enough to carry around all day and has the battery life to last all day.

Originally, my thoughts went straight to the iPad2. However, I soon realised that the iPad2 had quite limited utility for my purpose. Its lack of expansion options and the lack of USB ports and the marginally useful camera had pushed it down my list of tablets. The tablets that were near the top were the Asus Transformer TF101 and the Acer Iconia A500. After a few days of agony I decided to go with the Acer A500 simply because it had a full-size USB port which makes transferring files to a work computer a breeze.

A couple of years ago the top of the list would have been filled with netbooks, but after buying one which was bundled with a 3-cell battery (lasting a lengthy 1.5 hrs–I am looking at you HP), netbooks just didn’t do it for me anymore. I just found the idea of having to wait for a netbook to boot into either Linux or Windows XP kind of took up more time than the short task that you wanted to do with it in the first place. Plus, the short battery life on offer in the netbooks just did not fit into the idea of all day mobile computing. I decided to go with a tablet because of the instant-on nature of both Android and IOS.

A few days after I got the Acer tablet I decided to put it to work. I would go to work with my bag filled with the following items:

• USB stick to carry small files
• A Western Digital 1TB portable hard drive
• Acer tablet
• A Ricoh GX200 camera
• A USB to micro USB cable for transferring files
• A Huawei wifi modem for internet connectivity.

I would fit all the above items in a small shoulder bag which barely strains my shoulder.

After a few days, I found that I did not need a notebook at all. I found that my notebook was sitting idle for a few days, not seeing much use at all, other than for heavy-duty typing of documents. Even the USB stick was becoming marginally useful when I could use Google Docs to work on various files on the tablet and continue it on the desktop computer at work.

The only problem that I have encountered so far was the fact that one of my workplaces still used Internet Explorer 6 as the standard browser and that made me bring my notebook to work once a week to be able to edit files on Google Docs.

It’s good to travel light. Plus, Angry Birds and the comic reader software keep me entertained on long bus and train rides.

Luckily, my sanity was saved by the ability of Mozilla Firefox (for Android) to have a proxy setting (via an Add-on), but the method that I had to use to connect to the wireless network at TAFE is so bizzare, that it defies any logic (this same craziness applies to using my Mac laptop as well). Unless you are using Internet Explorer on Windows, then your milage varies quite a bit.

The procedure on the Android tablet goes like this:

• Start Firefox mobile, then turn off proxy settings in the proxy add-on
• Type some random URL in the address bar
• Authentication page will come up.
• Authenticate
• Go to Add-on setting and enable proxy.
• Close the browser
• Open the browser
• Authenticate again
• Browse the internet
• After an hour, repeat all the above steps.

Bizarre or not?

I waited a long while before Samsung brought the 7-inch Galaxy Tab to the market, but, alas, it was only powered by Android 2.2 (Froyo) and it was also a phone which made it a little awkward and after a few hands on time, I decided it was lagging a little in the normal operations of the UI. It was only when Google released Honeycomb that other manufacturers started to come to the tablet party. HTC released the Flyer, although it was only running Gingerbread (2.3), while Samsung promised the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which in Australia manifested into the 10.1v sold through Vodafone.

While I liked the HTC Flyer, no one in Australia was selling it (except for a few on Ebay) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v that I managed to look at in a Vodafone store, has no expansion slot whatsoever, with a steep price of $729 outright. I was then hoping that I would be able to find an Asus Transformer TF-101. I looked everywhere around town and no one had one. Furthermore, I found out that to have access to the USB port and HDMI, one would have to plug the Transformer TF-101 onto its keyboard dock. I mean, if I wanted a netbook, I would get one! So in the end I went and bought the Acer Iconia A500.

Why did I choose the Iconia A500? Well, one of the main reasons was that it was there in the stores that I went to. Hell, I even found one in Officeworks. Furthermore, it has a full-size USB port and expansion slots with an 8-hour battery life. The camera seems to be quite decent too. So without further ado, my money went to the Acer for availability and expandability.

In the Android camp, at the moment there is the new Samsung 10.1v being sold through Vodafone. The tablet runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb and it has good specs, such as a nice camera, 3G connectivity and being an Android tablet, it can be used as a USB storage device. However, the Samsung lacks any expansion slot whatsoever. This makes it a slight disadvantage if you are one of those movie and music hogs who like to take a lot of media on the go.

Recently, I started to see some Acer Iconia A500 tablets around the shops. Yesterday, I looked at a couple in a JB-HiFi store somewhere in Sydney. The unit definitely feels nice to hold and amazingly light. It has a brushed aluminium back and the camera seems to be quite good. However, so far there is no 3G version available in Australia.

Dilemma is sometimes a wonderful thing, as I think I will wait until there is a tablet in the market that will fit in as a daily use tablet without being tied down to any particular device ecosystem.

Soon after I installed the app, I noticed that the battery would drain quite quickly. Within about 4 to 5 hours the battery would be totally flat. As soon as unplugging from the charger, the battery would be down to 80% within about 10 minutes.

Thinking there was a problem with my phone, I began to check all my settings. I then realised what the problem was when the juice defender app was starting really slowly. In fact, the app was causing the phone to really lag badly.

I immediately uninstalled the app and believe it or not, my
battery life improved after uninstalling Juice Defender.

You might want to try this if your galaxy s suddenly drains battery like there’s no tomorrow. Now my battery lasts 8 hours plus like it should.

After the unlocking, I checked the version of Android installed and found out that the phone was still running Eclair (Android 2.1). Using the version of Kies (the Samsung Phone Manager) that came with the phone on two mini CDs, I was told that the firmware on the phone could not be upgraded. This was quite disappointing since I had just upgraded my HTC Legend to Froyo (Android 2.2) the week before.

A few Google searches later, I tried to use the Registry spoofing method that was discussed  on a few websites and it just didn’t work. In the end, the method that worked was updating to Kies 2.0 and it seemed to find the Froyo update for the phone straight away.

The update took quite a while, but it seemed to have done a proper job and restored some of my settings minus the apps that I have downloaded. So, if you want to upgrade your Vodafone Samsung Galaxy S to Froyo, there is no need to use any spoofing or custom-cooked ROMs, just update your version of Kies to version 2.0.

Both cases demonstrated the crucial role played by the internet in this age of digital communications. The Tunisian government attempted to censor discussions and remove any material that might provoke discussions and outrage, by hacking into the accounts of journalists and reporters who were writing about the situation. In Egypt, the government ordered the shut down of all operations by the few internet service providers in the country.

While Facebook took action, albeit a week late, by forcing users to login via the secure http protocol (https), Vodafone was one of the first internet service providers in Egypt to shutdown their services. The contrast between attitudes of the two corporations could not be more stark. Facebook decided to move to protect their users while Vodafone just complied with a ridiculous request from a government that has been well known to be a collaborator of the military state of Israel and an agent of the United States in the Middle East.

On the face of the issues, one should applaud Facebook for standing up for the privacy of their users. However, it may be the case that Facebook was just trying to protect their corporate image in the eyes of their users all over the world. In the cases of the journalists who had their accounts hacked and deleted by Tunisian government agents, Facebook would not let them open accounts without using their real names. It might be OK to enforce this policy under normal circumstances, but to force these journalists to publish in Facebook under their real names would be like giving them death sentences.

The actions of Vodafone Egypt, however, was completely deplorable for letting a corrupt government control the connectivity of the country to the rest of the world. Their action in complying with the Mubarak government’s request basically left their subscribers in the dark and unable to reach the outside world effectively to expose the goings on in Egypt.

Some food for thought, I guess.

The implication of this is quite significant, as it means that GSM eavesdropping is now possible with commodity hardware that does not cost five figures in US Dollars. Anyone with access to the right software and the right phone hardware could decrypt any conversations or SMS across a GSM network.

This process has been made somewhat easier by the tendencies of mobile phone networks to send voice and SMS traffic to the old GSM network while reserving UMTS for data use only. On top of that, the researchers revealed that often the same key is used across multiple sessions, which means that once the encryption of a particular session has been cracked, the same key can be used in the next few sessions without having to decrypt a new one.

Read the original article at arstechnica for more details

Experience: After getting the remote out of its box, I briefly read the manual. I honestly first thought that I could find a way to add the devices to the remote using the computer by visiting the Logitech website. After poking around for around 5-10 minutes, I failed to find any mention of where you should go to carry out the setup procedure. In the end, I noticed that the manual said that you have to visit a website with the address myharmony.com

After going to the site, I was greeted with an account setup screen. I filled in all the necessary details (email, password, etc, etc) and then I clicked next. After the account creation step was successful, I was told that the setup procedure would only work through Safari 3 or Firefox on OS X.

I felt that this part was a bit of a let down, since I had come to the site using Google Chrome browser and  was not warned of any impending doom until after I clicked next in the setup procedure. This meant that I had to launch Firefox (I prefer Firefox to Safari) and login again before being able to continue. It is a minor issue, but I feel that a company such as Logitech should try to make the experience as smooth as possible even for non-technical users. Telling a user that the browser being used is not compatible is not necessarily bad, but letting them know after the process had begun (in this case in the third step), is a little annoying and confusing. I would have preferred to be told in the very first step that the browser I was using was incompatible.

Despite the little hiccup, the process as a whole was quite smooth and orderly. You put the batteries in the remote and then you plug it into the computer’s USB port when prompted during the setup process. Once the software can see the remote, it then prompts you to add devices. I added the following devices to the remote:

1. Sharp Aquos LC-37D85X Television
2. Rowa RDV650 DVD player
3. Samsung DVD-R155 DVD recorder.

After the setup process finished, the remote seemed to work just fine with all three devices.

Verdict: I would recommend this device to others, even though the Harmony 300 is limited to only 4 devices (reasonable for most homes). The setup is quite quick and straightforward and the software used in the setup is quite intuitive.

What’s in the box: 2 AA batteries, remote, manual, warranty card, USB cable.

Merry Christmas people.