Stephen Conroy is still pushing ACMA to continue with it’s blacklist despite the unpopular sentiment from both the public and Reporters without Borders. If the list is private – how would you know in advance you were in breach of the linking rule? … Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

Working with a new client on eZ Publish last month we came across an unusual request for multiple fixed priced addons. On the surface it sounds like a simple request until you get down into the nuts and bolts of what that means, what you have to store and how it all fits together in the realm of eZ Publish.

Why oh why would you ever request such a thing? In the case where you are a distributor across multiple countries you run into the unique problem of wanting to fix your price list to ignore foreign exchange fluctuations. This price book approach works well offline and really well in spreadsheets… in eZ Publish it simply doesn’t exist, until now.

When looking at the requirements for the implementation it became immediately apparent there were two datatypes very close to the functionality we were looking to introduce, the multi-price datatype and the multioption2 datatype.

• Multioption2 provides an enhanced product option datatype that allows you to specify product additions, their prices and associated images along with rules for how these options can be chained together.
• Multi-price integrates directly into to multi-currency system to provide automatic or fixed pricing for given products.

This gave an excellent base for extending multioption2 to support multi price values. The resulting datatype uses the same underlying option and rule logic from multioption2 with the multi-price functionality of the multiprice datatype allowing customisable fixed or automatic pricing based on forex rates.

The extension remains rough around the edges and will be tidied up in coming project enhancements and released back to the community should it be of value to others.

Mike Speiser delivers an interesting article on the Microeconomics of the Consumer Web. I would argue that this certainly applies to publishers and those delivering non-tangible benefits in an ad-supported model, but has little relevance to eCommerce-related tangible products.

Twitter is such a wonderful service for discovering new things. The other day I came across a website called Blue Lounge, a company building very cool products to solve common, every-day problems.

From their cableyoyo for keeping your cables tidy through to their Cool Feet for keeping your laptop elevated off the desk for cooling.

Sexy design meets common problems. I am definitely looking at picking up some of this gear. If anyone is already using these products I would love to hear about your experiences with them.

Following on from the continued adoption of Twitter since events like the attacks in India we again find Twitter providing the best rapid-fire news on the escalating situation in Iran… Twitter Emerges as Best Rapid-Fire News Source in Post-Election Iran Media Vacuum

Social media experts, the latest snakeoil salesmen of 2009 are discussed and better defined at Broadstuff in… What is a Social Media Expert these days?

Recordings from the Webstock ‘09 conference in New Zealand during February this year are now available for viewing/downloading.

Tom Watson delivers a measured, accurate response to the continued elevation of Twitter as a tool for revolution… The Revolution Will Not Be Twittered

Opera releases a lab preview of Opera Unite, a new extension of the browser.

I think I am working backwards, sideways and every which way most of the time, but it is certainly still a good suggestion… Move Forward by Working Backward

This is not a surprising move, what is surprising is it has taken this long to implement… Here Comes Google’s Twitter Search

Twitter as a broadcast medium has a number of benefits, one of which is increased reach and the resulting traffic… TechCrunch is certainly reaping benefits from Twitter.

Inevitably if you open up naming like Facebook did then things like this happen… Facebook Name Disaster

An interesting case study on the use of Web 2.0 tools for running remotely-staffed businesses… How one company uses Web 2.0 tools to run and promote their business

Last.fm is a great service, even since acquisition, and the streaming capability through their own applications has played for hours both within the Quiqcorp offices and through my laptop whilst travelling.

SweetFM, a new application from choko moko bridges the gap between Last.fm and iTunes. Described as “Last.fm + Awesomeness” the author is not far wrong with his claim.

Not only does SweetFM stream Last.fm stations, but it also supports shuffling tags. Simply define a number of station tags you wish to hear and let the app take care of the details.

While there are a number of features such as impressive album art from Amazon.com, growl support and customised styles there are two features which make this app an absolute gem.

• Stream pausing: Really like the song you are listening to when the phone rings? No worries, hit the pause button and resume the stream when you come back.
• Export to iTunes: Yes it’s true, you can directly export streamed songs to your iTunes library for local storage. SweetFM can automatically export your loved, playlist or all tracks. This certainly isn’t legal in every country, but it is very slick. And in case you were wondering, even on poor connections with continued buffering the resulting iTunes stored copy is identical to the original stream.

Do yourself a favour, go and download a trial.