ANZ have recently launched M-Banking, ANZ Mobile Phone Banking, giving bank customers secure, instant access to account information.

This is big news for Friday spenders who can now be notified when their scheduled salary goes in and when to hit the nightlife.

ANZ Mobile Phone Banking has been launched in two flavours, a secure Java application named M-Banking - which is set for continued development as ANZ’s standard mobile platform - and it’s handicapped sibling TXT Banking, a handshake of cryptic SMS’s to gain basic account information.

This is great news for mobile users, except the Sony Ericsson P1i, who are presented with “Download Failed. I’m sorry, but your phone does not support M-Banking” when downloading the M-Banking application. In the meantime Sony Ericsson P1i users can register for TXT Banking to access critical banking information.

I hope ANZ get onto solving this issue very soon as I’m confident this message will be appearing on other mobile devices. Are you an ANZ customer? What are your thoughts on ANZ M-Banking? More importantly how long will it remain free?

Why the Reinvigorate for Wordpress plugin - available from Reinvigorate - doesn’t work is beyond me! Making a hard-coded fix isn’t, and as an added bonus it doesn’t distort your statistics by filtering out Administrators browsing the site. Read more »

Earlier this evening I received an invitation from Mister Wong - not the man, the social bookmarking portal - to beta test and provide feedback on how the well greased engines performs.

Have to say, for starters I’m impressed! This post is part of my series detailing the new portal soon to be launched.

Mister Wong: Private Information

Summary

Wong’s taken an alternate path to presenting individuals details which I approve of, instead of filling in interest fields you are able to link out to other social networking communities. Profile support includes Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Criticism

• Additional custom communities cannot be added to your profile (eg. Twitter, LastFM, Digg)
• Field ordering needs better priority
  • First Name, Last Name should be beside each other
  • No support for MSN Messenger means Australians are missing out (#1 chat client in Australia)
• Field presentation needs work
  • Brief description should be a text box element using a Rich Text Editor (eg. TinyMCE)
  • Notes should be appended below fields to assist users (eg. “Enter your full MySpace profile URL”)

Beta Screenshot

In conjunction with the public release of the NetAlert client-based Internet content filter, The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Hon Helen Coonan issued a press release detailing budget spending, goals of the campaign and allocated maintenance resources.

The $84.8 million National Filter Scheme will provide access to the best available PC-based and ISP-level internet filtering technology free to every Australian family. This will be extended to make free filters available for all public libraries and will require filtering products to be regularly updated to keep up with advances in technology.
Extract from NetAlert – Protecting Australian Families Online at NetAlert

So, we can obviously expect a unified content filtering solution for public libraries, whether it will be enforced by strict legislation is up for debate. Another point of particular interest was the integration of the ACMA Blacklist into the list of restricted websites.

In addition to the extra compliance funding, ACMA and the AFP will also investigate the extension of the existing ACMA Blacklist to include malicious websites not caught by the current National Classification Scheme.
Extract from NetAlert – Protecting Australian Families Online at NetAlert

A little over a year ago Doug Jenkins of Loop Technology wrote a highly informed article - which is still very relevant - on the ethical and proactive verses reactive challenges of public Internet content filters. In closing I recommend you read the article, it’s truly a great read.

Just like the ‘junk mail’ that still finds its way into our household letter box, what one person calls spam another calls valuable and interesting mail. It’s up to the recipient to decide. So it’s not really as black and white as it first seems.”
Extract from Content-Filtering - Proactive Vs Reactive at Loop Technology

Can you possibly say yeww! any louder?

The Windows Media Player Firefox plugin has been available since March but since recently - like last week - upgrading to Windows Vista I’ve found my browser lacking in third-party player codecs, so go get it!

Another gem to top off this find was the Open Source Software Lab within Microsoft, named Port 25. Whether you’re following the giants Open Source developments or just want to throw ideas around with members from the Microsoft labs the whole community holds a positive vibe from some very friendly Microsoft employees.

Shit, I’d be grinning too after the exposure Tom Wood received for releasing a work-around for the all inspiring NetAlart Internet content filter! Big pat on the back also must goes out to the contractors responsible for taking on the DCITA sponsored project for leaving the package so vulnerable to exploits. More details covered by News.com.au.

I’m not usually one to kick up a storm on government spending, frankly I dodge the topic, but the spending of over $11.7 million on an internet awareness program for schools is a joke! I would be surprised to find even 10% of those teachers co-ordinating this campaign to more knowledgeable on general Internet behaviour than 90% of the students that regularly interact on MySpace, Facebook, flickr, YouTube and other online social communities.

What’s got my goat is the lack of communication between those at risk and those fastening the chains. Where was the public forum, submission of ideas from informed experts and views from the target audience; children. Internet filters will always be at risk of exploitation, visit your local primary school, then high school and university, putting locks on young people is exactly the wrong tactic to employ as those that do take on the challenge of circumventing software are likely to build on their skills and wham you’ve got Bruce Willis kicking ass in Die Hard 4.0 all over again!

Wong’s back with more updates! The German Mister Wong community got a taste of the improvements early but now that the creases have been ironed English Mister Wong members can now enjoy all the member interaction features we’ve come to expect from social communities.

Basically everything MySpace, LiveJournal and Facebook have been able to slide under our noses, this means privacy, invitations, buddies, messages and more!

I’m a big lover of the tagging support, would be great to see a detailed cloud with Flash/AJAX specific bookmarks in time, but overall this is a sweet overhaul, Mister Wong’s been hard at work to get this out!

Mister Wong’s giving out $12,000 USD to the winner of their new logo competition. Creatives, designers, hobbyists, get to it, 12K can go a very long way! That’s like $15,000+ AUD! Head over to the Mister Wong website for more details.

The Australian Federal elections are nearing and it’s becoming clear young voters are an obvious asset in securing a clear-break win for either major party. This means poorly-executed online campaigns, over-zealous supporters, and friend requests from John Howard?

Prior to the last U.S. presidential election MySpace (U.S. and Australia) operated various campaigns featuring popular members, in-page ads and supporting themes. A very similar style campaign is being operated in Australia with various party members reaching out and drawing support from influential youth.

It seems the ability for party members to appeal to first time voters with a view of trust, dedication and genuine interest is an obvious way to gain support in the coming election, what makes MySpace such a promising campaign is it’s ability to connect with soon-to-be voters as well - those under the legal voting age - it’s the “getting them while they’re young” method in action.

The High Court’s ruling on defamatory critiques and reviews is a huge loss for professional reviewers. Deborah Cameron of The Syndey Morning Herald covered the recent case awarded to Coco Roco of a ‘distasteful’ review from popular restaurant reviewer Leo Schofield in Curtain lowered on age of fearless food critic.

With this ruling sealed reviewers now need to take proper caution of possible litigation from unsatisfied business operators. Don’t expect to read any flagrant criticism covered by traditional media, online however, it seems the noose on professional etiquette is firm but nothing a smart online writer can’t avoid.

Today hasn’t started well, Pandora - the free music streaming service - has been forced to restrict International access to anyone outside the United States due to current international licensing restraints.

As of now - 4:31 PM on 3rd May 2007 - I still have access to my account and playlists but I expect this to be revoked or limited by days end.

This is a real shame as I’ve grown to love using Pandora to expand my knowledge of bands, as of today I maintain 10 radio stations and have bookmarked almost a hundred favourites from artists I was previously unfamiliar with.

My biggest concern at the moment is:

• whether I will lose my account and history
• when international users will be able to legally access Pandora

Surely a premium service will avoid the issues of a free music streaming service and cover licensing fees (if any) for the listeners country. I’m not planning to stand down without a fight and am preparing emails to be sent to local government and federal members to bring this issue to light.

Looking forward to listening to great music again soon!

Update: Sufficient advances have been made in Canada and UK to keep Pandora running, read more at Update on Pandora international licensing.