I've decided to publish an essay that I've written for my year 12 Information Processing & Technology social and ethical writing assignment here on my website, because I think it's important for anyone who opposes internet filtering to build up a good set of facts so the debate can be fought strongly against the government's propaganda. The task was to write an argumentative essay which supports or refutes the following statement. “The Australian Government should pass legislation which requires all ISPs to filter illegal and inappropriate Internet content based on a secret Government blacklist in order to protect Australians from exposure to such content.” I have obviously written an essay which refutes the statement. This article will be a lot more formal than the rest of my website as it was a proper summative assignment which had to be written in a formal essay structure with a bibliography at the end. At the end of it I'm going to list one or two extra things that I found interesting but couldn't fit into the already over the word limit essay. So here's the essay I wrote.

Update 9th March 2010: I have received my mark back for this piece of writing and I got an A for Knowledge and an A+ for Research and Development. Very Happy

Windows Vista. A name which makes many people cringe, many people break out in an angry rant about Microsoft and how they think XP is better and a name which makes all the Mac fanboys laugh and point fingers while giving you a raspberry. I'm now going to express my thoughts on Windows Vista in relation to where it fits between 2 successes, Windows 7 and Windows XP, why XP needs to be phased out as quickly as possible and why Windows Vista is actually a fairly decent operating system. I expect I may get a bit of feedback on this article with people thinking I'm a bit crazy and that I don't know what I'm talking about, but after a lot of thought, this is the conclusion I've come to and I don't care what people say about it.

Installing Windows 7 is a simple task. The installation process is very similar to the Windows Vista setup process and only some mild changes were made in this version. As usual it does involve a little planning and a little guidance through some steps but generally it just involves answering questions and waiting for a short amount of time (about 20-25 min). This guide will teach you how to install Windows 7 onto a brand new machine. If you wish to install Windows 7 onto a computer that already has Windows Vista, you can choose an in place upgrade if you wish. If you have Windows XP installed, you must do a Clean Installation, but you still qualify to buy a copy of Windows 7 for the upgrade price. I don't recommend in place upgrades because they bring all the problems and slowness from Windows Vista and bring them into your new Windows 7 system. Before you start make sure you have the following items: your Windows 7 installation DVD and your Windows 7 product key.

Office 2010 will be hitting our shelves (but more likely our downloads folder) in about June this year according to Microsoft, but in November 2009 Microsoft released their new beta version to the public to try. This is a public beta, unlike the technical preview I showed you back in May which was invitation only. The beta adds many new additions and stylings that weren't present in the technical preview. This article will provide a small preview into some of the new features available in Office 2010. You can download your own version of the Office 2010 beta at www.microsoft.com/office2010 .

Ubuntu 9.10 was released on the 30th of October 2009 (I know it's a bit late for me to be writing this, but school and the website crash have delayed some things) and was given the name Karmic Koala. Ubuntu is a Linux operating system and is one of the most popular for people who are new to Linux due to it's user friendliness and support. I believe with each version of Ubuntu, Linux gets closer to being a viable full time replacement for Microsoft Windows. The WINE application which is downloadable to the system allows you to run Microsoft Office using a series of steps (though it's still not easy to do the steps yet) and some other Windows Applications). Using an emulator like Sun VirtualBox is even better. So lets have a quick overview of the latest version of Ubuntu at this time and look at it's major aspects and improvements from Ubuntu 9.04.