Hi All!
The folks at MakeUseOf are offering a free PDF download of their latest user guide,
Information Liberation: Your Guide to the International Web, by author Jim Rion. Download your copy at:
http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/information-liberation-your-guide-to-the-international-webIf you need one, the password for download is "makeuseof" (without the quotes).
Here's what they say about it...
The world wide web is supposed to be just that: world wide. Sometimes it simply isn’t, however: there is government censorship blocking certain sites in certain countries and corporate censorship keeping you from accessing their content unless you’re in another. Want to get around these and other pitfalls of the global Internet? Download “Information Liberation: Your Guide to the International Web”, the latest manual from MakeUseOf.com. By author Jim Rion, this guide is a must-have for anyone looking for access to the complete Internet.
Few would argue that the Internet has not changed the world dramatically. Every day we see how free, instantaneous communication influences politics, social change, and daily interactions at a fundamental level. But even with all of this, there still remains a certain level of provincialism on the net – Americans stick to American websites; Japanese stick to Japanese websites; you get the idea.
Part of this, of course, is due to a simple language barrier; English is an international language, but it is by no means the only one. To some extent this artificial division of the web is by design. Media producers, like the BBC, often insist on restricting access to their products to certain geographical regions to protect their business models. Distributors (e.g. iTunes) are complicit in this, or even instigate it. Even worse, some governments insist on restricting Internet communication and blocking access to international websites.
This guide, then, is a small attempt at helping people deal with all of these problems. The Internet should connect people all over the world, not divide them. Whether you are a backpacker trying to check your email from a hostel in Denmark, or a college student trying to get past the Great Firewall of China, I hope there is some helpful information in here for you.
This complete guide to the International web will show you:
- Which governments around the world restrict Internet access
- Whether its ethical to bypass such restrictions, and which tools to use
- Encrypting your web browsing and email for secure communications
- How to find Internet access while traveling by knowing where to look
- Buying a computer while abroad: an ex-pat’s guide
- Setting up your computer to display non-alphabetic languages
- Getting the most out of translation tools
- Accessing media blocked in your country using VPN and more
I often deal with these issues with my clients, and this guide is useful (in whole or part) for the international traveler dealing with local restrictions or unfamiliar conventions. I know something as simple as the AZERTY keyboards I found at campings and Internet cafes in NL, BE, and FR gave me fits ("Hey! Who mixed up the keys?" I'm used to QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards) and OS installations are often localized in the language of the country you're visiting (Windows looks much different when all the Systems menus, labels, and dialog boxes are in Dutch or Japanese and you're used to English).
I made a tiny portable Skype kit that really helped. It consisted of a microphone/earbud combo and an 4GB flash drive measuring only 12x34x2.4mm that I used with a small attachment clip as a zipper-pull on my jacket so I couldn't lose it. I hardened the drive against malware and even included a virtualized and sandboxable install of Tiny XP and another of Puppy Linux and many portable apps, like portable Thunderbird (mail client) and Firefox (browser) and some graphics editors I made portable using Cameyo and other methods. The thing is, many cafes didn't allow me to plug the drive in, and they certainly didn't allow a restart, so I was restricted in many of its functions to use on friends' machines along the way in France and The Netherlands.
Anyway, I found this guide useful, and hope you do to.
Best,
Dan.
