SHOWING ALL the acumen for which politicians are renowned, the upper house of Australia's federal parliament has significantly watered down its proposed anti-spam legislation. What was less-than-perfect legislation but generally headed in the right direction has been effectively emasculated. Or castrated, not to butter the parsnips overmuch. The proposed legislation had been an opt-in model with the proviso that an existing business relationship automatically meant opt-in.
In the upper house, where the right-wing government is in a minority, the opposition and minor parties combined to amend the legislation and allow firms to send emails to anyone they think might be interested in their products, which of course is the fundamental notion behind any spam. The government was unimpressed to say the least. Communications Minister Daryl Williams said in a statement "This is a giant loophole that unscrupulous spammers could not have designed better themselves." and unusually for us, we find ourselves agreeing with a politician.
The amendment to the legislation in the upper house means that it will be returned to the lower house where the government does have a majority and it looks like the issue may be bounced around for a while yet.
News source: The Inq
In the upper house, where the right-wing government is in a minority, the opposition and minor parties combined to amend the legislation and allow firms to send emails to anyone they think might be interested in their products, which of course is the fundamental notion behind any spam. The government was unimpressed to say the least. Communications Minister Daryl Williams said in a statement "This is a giant loophole that unscrupulous spammers could not have designed better themselves." and unusually for us, we find ourselves agreeing with a politician.
The amendment to the legislation in the upper house means that it will be returned to the lower house where the government does have a majority and it looks like the issue may be bounced around for a while yet.
News source: The Inq
GSpot is a tool that can tell you exactly which codecs are needed to play a certain video file. This is very helpful when you have troubles playing a video file.
You can choose between the two different XviD decoders via the startmenu shortcuts that will be created during the installation. When you have problems with the current active one, then switching to the other one usually solves your problems.
DirectVobSub is a tool for displaying subtitles. Your subtitle file should have the same filename as your video file (for example Movie.avi and Movie.sub) and should be in the same folder as your video file. Then the subtitles will automatically be displayed in most players. FourCC Code Changer is a program for changing the FourCC code of a video file. The FourCC code is used to identify which codec should be used to decode the file. This tool is for expert users only. Matrix Mixer can be used to amplify the sound of a video file. It also can mix stereo sound to multiple channels (useful for 4.1 or higher speaker sets). Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher can be used to switch between two audio streams in a video file that has two audio streams. These types of video files are not very common. BSplayer also has this functionality built-in. So if you use BSplayer, you don't need to install this.
DivX Anti-Freeze is not compatible with Windows Movie Maker. So don't install it if you use Movie Maker. It's not possible to install both the Ligos and the Elecard MPEG-2 decoders at the same time, because that would result in neither of them working. So you can only install one of them.
Features of the full version:
- BSplayer [version 0.86.501]
- DivX Pro [version 5.1.1] [Decoding]
- DivX Pro [version 5.1.1] [Encoding]
- DivX ;) MPEG-4 Low and Fast motion [version 4.1.0.3927]
- XviD [24/June/2003] [Decoding]
- XviD [24/June/2003] [Encoding]
- 3ivX [version D4 4.5]
- Windows Media 7 [version 7.1.0.3055]
- Windows Media 8 [version 8.0.0.371]
- Windows Media 9 VCM [version 9.0.1.369]
- On2 VP3 [version 3.2.5.0]
- On2 VP6 [version 6.0.7.3]
- Cyberlink DVD decoder [version 5.0.0.803]
- Ligos MPEG-2 decoder [version 4.0.77]
- Elecard MPEG-2 decoder [version 2.0.0.2525]
- huffyuv [version 2.1.1]
- Ligos Indeo XP [version 5.2820.15.58]
- Intel Indeo [version 4.51.16.2]
- Intel Indeo [version 3.24.15.03]
- Intel I.263 [version 2.55.1.16]
- Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 DirectShow decoder [version 1.9.0.311]
- Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 ACM Codec [version 1.2.0.63]
- LAME MP3 ACM Codec [version 3.93.1]
- WMA DirectShow decoder [version 8.0.0.4487]
- AC3 DirectShow decoder [version 0.70b]
- Ogg Vorbis DirectShow decoder (CoreVorbis) [version 1.0b5]
- AAC DirectShow decoder (CoreAAC) [version 1.0b8]
- MusePack DirectShow decoder [version 1.0.0.3]
- Voxware DirectShow decoder [version 1.0.0.12]
- AVI DirectShow splitter [version 1.0.0.3]
- Ogg DirectShow splitter [version 0.9.9.6]
- Matroska DirectShow splitter [version 1.0.1.9]
- AAC DirectShow parser
- DirectVobSub (vsfilter) [version 2.31]
- Matrix Mixer [version 0.30b]
- Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher [version 0.9.7]
- SHOUTcast Source [version 1.0.0.1]
- FourCC Code Changer
- GSpot Codec Information Appliance [version 2.21 build 030711]
Changelog 2.10 -> 2.20:
- Updated DivX Pro encoder and decoder to 5.1.1
- Updated DirectVobsub to version 2.31
- Updated 3ivx to version D4 4.5
- Updated Matroska Splitter to version 1.0.1.9
- Updated CoreAAC to 1.0b8
- Updated BSplayer skins
- Added On2 VP3 codec
- Added On2 VP6 codec
- Added Voxware DirectShow decoder
- Added AAC parser
- Added AVI DirectShow splitter 1.0.0.3
- Added SHOUTcast Source 1.0.0.1
- Added MatrixMixer configuration shortcut
- Added option to let DivX decode XviD files
- Removed the oldest one of the two XviD decoders
- Removed DivX Anti-Freeze (it's not needed with the current decoders)
Features of the basic version:
- DivX Pro [version 5.1.1] [Decoding]
- XviD [24/June/2003] [Decoding]
- 3ivx [version D4 4.5] [Decoding]
- Windows Media 7 [version 7.1.0.3055]
- Windows Media 8 [version 8.0.0.371]
- Windows Media 9 VCM [version 9.0.1.369]
- Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 DirectShow decoder [version 1.9.0.311]
- Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 ACM Codec [version 1.2.0.63]
- WMA DirectShow decoder [version 8.0.0.4487]
- AC3 DirectShow decoder [version 0.70b]
- DirectVobSub (vsfilter) [version 2.31]
- GSpot Codec Information Appliance [version 2.21 build 030711]
Changelog 2.10 -> 2.20:
- Updated DivX Pro decoder to 5.1.1
- Updated 3ivx to version D4 4.5
- Updated DirectVobsub to version 2.31
- Added option to let DivX decode XviD files
Perhaps there have been a few bank transfers between spamer's and politician's bank accounts.
What would REALLY be good is if there was a law which states that a spammer must put THEIR OWN full contact information on an email. Wouldnt that be fun!
(I mean its law that a company puts at least its fax number on each page faxed after all)
The Inq is WRONG. See here: Australian IT
The "watering down" is similar to the US watering down (i.e. not for profit orgs are exempt) however ALL email from these exempt groups must "have functional unsubscribe options on their emails".
The only reason the government is ****ty is because the ammedment gives trade unions exemptions...not that they send out spam now.
So really, this is all nothing. Not like the Inquirer to jump to conclusions, is it?
John Howard must have had too much fun at the tennis, a shame he didn't join into the Mexican Wave, now THAT would have made front page news.
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