13 Jan 2007
Comments, that is. If you posted a comment in the last week and it wasn’t automatically approved, I’m zapping it now. I need to get Akismet setup, which depresses me something horrid. Internetz sucks.
If your comments don’t usually auto moderate (typically because you don’t provide the same name & email address as on a comment you’ve posted in the past that I’d let through) then probably don’t bother commenting until I say it’s safe to do so, coz it’s only gonna get zapped.
04 Jan 2007
As of four days ago, UK companies now have to include certain mandatory business information on their websites & all emails.
The linked article explains really well what this change entails (short version: not much for many websites, as nearly everyone will probably already have these kinds of details if not in their footer then almost certainly on a contact or legal info page), but I’ve still got a few burning questions — mostly to do with fairly inane stuff that only web geeks would think of.
Viral marketing, for example. It’s illegal if you don’t say who you are, so no more viral web marketing in the UK (and EU generally?). Crampin’ style since 2007.
This point from the article is interesting, too:
It is not sufficient to include a ‘contact us’ form without also providing an email address and geographic address somewhere easily accessible on the site. A PO Box is unlikely to suffice as a geographic address; but a registered office address would. If the business is a company, the registered office address must be included.
Say hello, email scraping harvesters. I realise that with filters improving this is theoretically becoming less of a problem, but even so — very few filtering providers are up to the standard of Gmail (usually the poster child for “Feel free to post your email address on the web” experiments), and are unlikely to become such in the near future.
If you’re a sole trader, I imagine you don’t have to list your home address, as you’re not considered a company. IANAL and IANAL who lives in the UK, but if the terminology is the same as in .au (which, given our common heritage, I’d imagine it wouldn’t be far from), that seems to be the logical interpretation.
If the business is a member of a trade or professional association, membership details, including any registration number, should be provided.
That seems… very hazy. If it means entities such as ICAA, that’s nearly fair enough, but for organisations like that membership is individual, not corporate. Same goes for trade unions, etc. The only equivalent I can think of here might be something like CRICOS provider numbers for educational institutions providing services to overseas students — though there are probably other examples one could give.
Perhaps our government has become more liberal than that of the UK, but, even so, it seems a rather odd stipulation. For electricians you might have green licenses and so forth — but, again, that is administered at an individual level, so you’re only really effectively getting this information out of sole traders: it seems unrealistic for larger organisations to publish this type of information.
Given the surprise it seems to have taken people by (the OUT-LAW publication is dated 20th December 2006 at the time of access), it seems unlikely that it will ever be very strictly enforced, and appears to be EU-associated politicking more than any intentioned policy. Some of its stipulations offer something in the way of consumer protection, but, really, if consumers aren’t already on the look out for this sort of information (or lack thereof) when participating in the web, then education in this regard should be far higher on the agenda than legislative measures. But perhaps that’s just my inner liberal getting cranky.
04 Jan 2007
I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on this for so long. It’s useful for so much more than handsfree headsets and brain-killing wireless headphones!
My phone has a presenter mode when paired with a PC (and, yes, it can be used as a mouse as well… but I’d never do that :P) and works at a range of at least five meters (which was kind of as far as I could walk whilst still seeing a screen in this place). You’d pay $90 for that kinda gadget on its own!
The only problem I’ve got with it is the lack of a presenter timer built in — if it had that, it’d be perfect. Guess that’s what you pay the $90 for these days :P
If I ever said anything bad about Bluetooth just being a gimmick, consider it sufficiently retracted.
03 Jan 2007
That is, an interesting way of saying “I have a new phone that doesn’t require a concerted weights training regime for several months before you can begin carrying it around with you”.
Nothing amazing, it’s a fairly average looking Sony Ericsson V630i. My rationale in buying it was that it’s not as though it’s part of the same business units as the DRM morons, anyway, and actively subverts their cause by offering MP3 & WMA support, instead of retarded ATRAC specialness. It does use an M2 card instead of microSD, though, which is a bit of a shame.
Its PC Syncing is adequate, though obviously not up to the Windows Mobile perfection to which I am accustomed :P
Mostly I just wanted PC syncing to make contact transfer painless. The “PDA” functionality (if one even dare call it that) is very much a secondary thing: I’m vaguely considering buying a Palm, but not until I’ve got my head around this completely. It’s rather on the usable side, but the interface is obviously more limited than a touch screen would ever be.
It cost me… nothing, on a Vodafone contract. I didn’t mind that because I’m not locked into the handset for the contract length — I can unlock it from the Vodafone network today if I want, without any charge, and stick my (3G, but, alas, I’ve only got partial 3G coverage at my house — with both 3 and Vodafone/Optus, haven’t tested Telstra — so there’s not a great deal of UTMS going down here at the minute — regular triband GSM wins out) SIM into any other phone.
Yes, that’s right, petty 3 users. I can change phones without having to go grovelling to my network provider. Howdyalikethathuh? *gloats* :)
Anyway. It’s still good fun. It also has an MP3 player, but the probably-prohibitive cost of M2 media for this thing, combined with the supremely uncomfortable bundled headphones (they’re designed for like, elephants or something) and lack of regular 3.5mm jack (*tear*) mean it’s not likely to get used much. ‘cept to say it supports WMA & MP3 ringtones, which is about as much fun as I had with the iPaq, only Windows Media Player actually supports this as a media device.
Yes, friends, that too is irony.
