While Windows 7 is a massive improvement on Vista and is now worthy competitor to Apple's OS X (sure WIndows might have market share but few could argue that Vista was better than OS X - XP was better than Vista!).

Microsoft's latest desktop OS is really the hub of an all-out assault to recapture the hearts and minds - and wallets - of everyone that needs to manage lots of media. Windows 7 is the foundation upon which Microsoft is betting its multimedia farm and Expression Studio 3 is the toolkit they're hoping pros will embrace for media management and distribution.

You can read the full story on Silverlight Studio over at AusCam.

Viocorp is an Australian company with a flair for distributing video for viewing on just about any device you can imagine. I recently looked into this company. The story appears at AusCam.

Distribution has become an increasingly complex element of the movie business. In times gone by we'd plan, storyboard, shoot, edit, print and distribute. While the tools we use to create our movies, documentaries and other visual artworks have largely taken the same tasks we did before and added a new twist or automation, distribution has changed in ways that were unfathomable. Now, videos need to be "consumable" on everything from a mobile phone to a big screen TV.

Now that we live in the YouTube age, it's important to have ways to make video "consumable" across multiple platforms. While Avatar on a mobile phone might not be the best way to appreciate that movie, other videos, like news, TV series and conference highlights can be viewed just about anywhere.

I think it's incumbent on all Australian Internet users to understand exactly what the proposed Internet filter really means.

I've penned a story at Hydrapinion about this very important matter.

Please read it and respond in whatever way you feel is best.

I've been a very busy little bee over recent weeks. However, a number of my stories have appeared around the place. One was on the subject of CAPTCHA - those boxes of hard-to-read characters that are designed to stop automated web-bots from working.

You can find the full story in the technology section of The Age by clicking here.

Right, so not only is the digital copy that comes with Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince limited only to Windows users, in order to access it you need to install a spacial Warner Bothers application in order to download the movie.

What Warners has effectively done is shift the cost and pain of video distribution to their already paying customers. Installing an app to get something I've already paid for is poor behaviour.

Oh - and to top it off, clicking on the Minimum System Requirements page Warners refers me to is a non-existent page with a HTTP 404 error.

After going past a couple of terms and conditions pages I then got to install yet another application. This one is the Digital Copy Manager. That application then prompted me to install Adobe Air. Can you tell that I'm getting a little grumpy now?

So, 10 minutes later, I'm still downloading and installing the stuff I need to be able to download the movie I've already paid for.

After the Adobe Air installation, I have to install a Windows Media Player security component (I still haven't started downloading the movie!). After all that, the movie is finally downloading.

By the way, just to prove how stupid this all is, the DRM won't even work with a Zune!

I'm now 20 days into Movember and there's a respectable amount of fur over my top lip.

Movember raises funds for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue, the national depression initiative. Movember is a joint initiative of these two organisations and aims to raise funds to deal with health issues facing men. I have several good friends who have been affected by both these ilnnesses so it's a cause that's close to my heart.

You can help by sponsoring me as I grow a moustache this month.

Just click this link and following the instructions.

I watch a lot of video on my iPhone. As I have a 45 minute train trip to and from work most days, I use that time to catch up on TV and occasionally watch movies (Walk the Line filled two days of commuting nicely). However, in Australia, it's still technically illegal to rip DVDs even for personal use so I've been very pleased with the advent of digital copies coming with Blu-ray movies. No more ripping and 100% legal - great news.

So, yesterday i picked up copies of Star Trek and the latest instalment in the Harry Potter series. Both made a big deal on the shrink wrap of including a digital copy. I just opened the Star Trek packaging and was happy to find a DVD with the digital copy and a leaflet explaining how to access either an iTunes/iPod friendly version or a Windows Media copy.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, on the other hand, has presented something that I think is bordering on deceptive. The digital copy is Windows only. This isn't made clear on the packaging (at least as far as I could tell).

This makes no sense to me at all. I know that Windows is the dominant desktop OS - I may be a Mac fan but I'm not that deluded - but surely the point of a digital copy is for portable video players. Last time I looked, the iPod/iPhone was the most popular portable media player on the planet.

Can someone out there explain to me why Warner Brothers doesn't get it. It's not as bad as the Sony rootkit debacle but it shows how some old style companies really don't get it.

Each year I do some sort of fundraising. In the past, I've done the Leukaemia Foundation's Shave for a Cure where I've shaved my head and tried to get folks to sponsor me to do that. I've done that a couple of times, raising close to $10,000 in the process. This year I'm participating in Movember.

Movember raises funds for the Protrate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue, the national depression initiative. Movember is a joint initiative of these two organisations and aims to raise funds to deal with health issues facing men. I have several good friends who have been affected by both these ilnnesses so it's a cause that's close to my heart.

You can help by sponsoring me as I grow a moustache this month.

Just click this link and following the instructions.

Every few days I'll post an update on the mo. Here's how it's coming along so far.

Even though I've been busy that doesn;t mean that my work has stopped cropping up on the Intertubes. Here's a smattering of stories that have appeared around the traps.

Hydrapinion

• Staying Social on Holidays
• Facebook Lite Trims the Fat
• Why Social Media Will Prevail
• Twitter Rules the US Open
• Has Twitter Jumped the Shark?

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
This is one of favourite stories: Computer dream sees light of day

I've also had stories appear in the latest issues of APC, Australian Macworld and AusCam but for those you'll need to hit the nearest newsstand.

Earlier this week, I was invited to give a talk on Twitter to a group of journalists in Melbourne. Although the crowd wasn't huge, they were enthusiastic. We met in the backroom of the funky Softbelly bar in Melbourne. One of the great benefits for me, as someone who mainly works in tech, was to mingle and learn from travel writers, health writers, novelists and lots of other cool people.

I've put my slides up on Slideshare. You can view them from here.

In addition, I've prepared some notes that flesh out some of the material on the slides. Please note that the linked PDF file is 8.2MB.

Download Twitter for Journalists Notes