Despite being touted as a "free" app that will allow users to create and publish e-books for the iPad for free through the Apple Store, the End User Licensing Agreement reveals a hidden catch.

Anyone who uses the app will be agreeing to "only distribute the Work through Apple", meaning that Apple will be the ONLY outlet for the publication. However, US legal expert Maxwell S Kennerly questions whether the EULA will be enforceable, because Apple do not have the right to place restrictions on a copyright holder's right to distribute the content. This will leave publishers in a strange legal stand-off with Apple.

This is another example of Apple's attempts to force users to use their distribution channels, whilst simltaneously portraying the company as a champion of open source freedom.

Meanwhile, in a single weekend almost 1 million iOS users decided to "jailbreak" their devices to free them from the obligation to use Apple's iTunes app store. It seems that users are not as keen on Apple's restrictive practices as the company would like them to be.

Less than 24 hours after Wikipedia's SOPA protest, the FBI closed down a file-sharing site, depriving legitimate users of their files in the process.

Megaupload, the 91st most popular site on the Internet, was notorious for allowing file-sharing of pirated content, but the FBI crackdown has led to tens of thousands of legitimate users losing their own content, perhaps permanently.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States, has weighed in on behalf of users to try and negotiate the release of data from Megauploads server hosts, who have not been paid since the FBI freezed Megaupload's assets.

Apart from the obvious lessons learned about the folly of storing your files in the cloud without a backup, this raises interesting questions about the legality of this sort of operation. Already, there is talk of legitimate users taking legal action against the US authorities for the denial of access to their files.

The Megaupload takedown followed a public spat between the site and Universal Music after a video in favour of Megaupload's service featuring many prominent stars of US music including Will.i.am and Alicia Keys was published on YouTube. Universal successfully lobbied YouTube into taking the video down - even though there was nothing illegal about the video itself and it did not contain any pirated content.

It seemed that they were particularly upset to see such mainstream artists - the people that the industry routinely claims are most hurt by file-sharing - apparently endorsing the practice.

In a revenge attack following the demise of Megaupload, the hackers organisation Anonymous temporarily closed the websites of the US Justice Department and Universal Music with a "denial of service" attack. The websites of the FBI and the Motion Picture Association of America's websites were also attacked in what is believed to be the largest ever attack of this kind, reflecting the growing anger at the creeping censorship of the internet that is clearly underway.

This is the shape of things to come - even without the controversial SOPA and PIPA legislation, large corporations and US authorities are already collaborating to take down not only pirated content, but legitimate, lawful content as well.

If you have tried to use Wikipedia today, you will have found the site locked in protest at the proposed US SOPA and PIPA legislation.

Wikipedia are concerned that these two Acts, which are billed as anti-piracy measures, are drafted in a way that "infringes free expression while harming the Internet". 

In a protest aimed at highlighting the risks in the legislation, raising awareness and promoting discussion about the Acts, Wikipedia blacked out their website for 24 hours starting at midnight today. Instead of their information pages, they provided a link to an explanation of why SOPA and PIPA are bad news for everyone except big media companies, and urged people to contact their elected representatives to protest.

Other high-profile companies joined in the protest, including Google who self-censored their home page in the US and provided a link for visitors to sign a petition to Congress.

Even though this legislation is being proposed in the US, if successful it will have far-reaching implications for free speech on the Internet across the whole world.

Campaigning organisation Avaaz has already gained almost 1.5 million signatures on their petition against SOPA, which we urge you to sign today. Even if you are a UK citizen, you can call upon your MP and the Foreign Secretary to oppose this legislation. You can contact your MP very easily here, and send an email to William Hague here.

There is also a UK specific petition which you can sign to send your message of protest to the UK Government.

If you value the freedom and independence of sites like Wikipedia, Google, Facebook and YouTube, and your right to access whatever content you want on the Internet, then don't sit by and do nothing - take action and join the protest now.

The US is proposing legislation that will undermine the freedom of sites like Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is the biggest threat to free speech on the Internet ever. 

SOPA would give US courts the power to take down any website accused of practicing or aiding piracy. Whilst this might seem like a good thing, critics allege that the legislation has been too broadly worded, leading to draconian shut-downs of any site that studios and record labels didn't like. 

The SOPA legislation is THE MOST EVIL proposal for the Internet since its invention. It would make all website owners liable for all content posted on their sites. That means that if someone posts a libellous Facebook message about someone else, Facebook would be liable. If someone posts an inaccurate Wikipedia entry, Wikipedia would be liable. If someone uploads a pirated YouTube video, YouTube would be liable.

This is like making the Post Office liable for what people send in the post, or BT liable for what people say on the phone. It's absolute nonsense. In the words of blogger "memcpy", who has written a summary of the SOPA legislation, "SOPA is disguised as an anti-piracy bill ..... The bill is, in actuality, designed to obliterate free speech on the internet and allow media publishing companies to commercialize everything." (You can also view a 2-minute video summarising SOPA here.)

The legislation means that if a website infringes copyright, ISPs will be required to return an empty response if the web address is entered into a browser. The risk of being taken offline and facing mutli-million pound lawsuits would mean that sites like Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube would cease to operate as they do now. 

In their place, you can expect to see corporate-sponsored sites which replaced freedom of speech with marketing messages. Coming to a computer-screen near you in the very near future if this legislation gets through!

Many big names have spoken out against these proposals. In an open letter published in several US newspapers, the founders of Google, Flickr, Yahoo, YouTube, PayPal, Wikipedia, Twitter and eBay wrote that the legislation would "give the US government the power to censor the web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran". Facebook, AOL, Mozilla, LinkedIn, Sony, Electronic Arts and Nintendo also oppose the legislation.

You may think this legislation won't affect you because it's in the US and we live in Britain - but US prosecutors are already applying for extradition orders against British citizens for breach of US copyright. If they are successful, British student Richard O'Dwyer faces a five-year prison sentence.

Mr O'Dwyer hasn't been to America since he was five years old, his website was hosted in the UK and he has never posted any copyrighted content. But because his site allowed people to find copyrighted content on other sites, the US think that he should be sent over there and jailed. That is not even a criminal offence in the UK, the country of his birth where he lives.

SOPA would make breach of copyright a felony under US law, making such extradition orders easier to enforce. The penalties are completely disproportionate to the "crime". In 2009, a US court awarded $1.9 million in damages to record companies against a single individual for downloading 24 songs. It is inconceivable that the record companies suffered losses of almost $80,000 per song.

HERE'S THE MOST SINISTER TRUTH OF ALL!!

The media companies who have to date spent over $100 million lobbying in favour of SOPA have also been encouraging people to pirate their content, distributing pirating software and explaining how to use it to breach copyright for over a decade! This video makes very interesting viewing, if you can stand the annoying presenter (like Michael Moore on speed).

Yes, that's right, companies like CBS, Disney, Warner and Microsoft have been actively encouraging pirating of their own material for years. In some cases, they were simultaneously suing other organisations whilst using their pirating services. CBS even has a website, CNET, which promotes downloading MP3s and has a search engine that enables users to do it.

Why would they do that? Firstly, because they have made hundreds of millions of dollars from doing it, and secondly because it enables their lobbyists to create the impression with US legislators that there is widespread copyright infringement in order to gain control over what is broadcast on the Internet.

There is a glimmer of hope here - this strategy could just backfire, because by promoting the software to enable copyright infringement, the companies could find themselves liable, not only for their own copyright infringement, but for the loss of income to the artists whose content they were allowing to be pirated.

People power has forced an embarrasing about turn for the US hosting company GoDaddy. After the company announced it's support for the controversial SOPA anti-piracy laws, a mass GoDaddy Boycott was launched, forcing the company not only to drop it's support for the Act, but to begin actively opposing it.

Many big name companies have spoken out against the Act, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo, but GoDaddy stood almost alone in announcing their support for the legislation. In the first two days of the boycott, over 37,000 domains were transferred away from GoDaddy. They responded with a massive PR and advertising campaign, announcing their embarrasing u-turn.

The final straw seems to have been the announcement by LolCat guru Ben Huh, of icanhascheezburger.com fame that the company would transfer over 1,000 domains away from GoDaddy if they continued their support. Meanwhile, GoDaddy had switched off comments on their blog because of the overwhelming negative response that they were getting.

Anyone who thinks that GoDaddy can be trusted after this fiasco is surely deluded. The company has revealed it's true colours - pro-censorship, anti-internet freedom, doesn't care what its customers think, and will cynically change it's stance 180^o to protect itself. At the very least, if they are going to make such a bold stance, they should stick to their values and tough it out.

For the record, Belmont strongly opposes the SOPA legislation, and if anyone wants to transfer their hosting from GoDaddy to Belmont, we will add the rest of your term with GoDaddy to your first year's hosting with us absolutely free of charge. Simply contact us for further details.

The average web page today is 33% bigger than in 2010, according to the HTTP Archive, who bother to monitor such things. The reason is probably that as broadband speeds increase, websites can handle more graphics of better quality.

However, with more and more users accessing the web through mobile devices with lower bandwidth, and with Google and other search engines beginning to take more notice of page load speeds, website owners would be wise to consider reducing the size of their web pages.

Google's Chrome browser overtook Firefox recently to become the second most popular internet browser after Internet Explorer, according to news reports. Chrome had almost 26% of the market, compared to Firefox's 25%.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to be the most popular browser with 40% of the market, although it has been in long-term decline following previous versions that have been plagued with bugs and errors. Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner recently described IE6 as "dead", which was music to the ears of web developers, who have been trying to kill it for years!

So if you're choosing which browser to use, what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the three most popular browsers?

Chrome

Strengths

• Large viewing area
• Very fast

Weaknesses

• Has trouble running some scripts, so some websites don't run properly
• Displays an error message that says "Aw, snap!" if it crashes, which may make you want to smash your monitor in

Firefox

Strengths

• Probably the most stable browser
• Gives the most accurate and reliable rendering of websites
• Open source - so no anti-competitive protectionism or corporate agendas to pursue

Weaknesses

• Mozilla tend to bring out major upgrades too frequently - 4 new versions in 2011 alone
• Annoying habit of automatically installing updates on opening without asking first - very rude

Internet Explorer

Strengths 

• Good for downloading other browsers

Weaknesses

• Painfully slow
• After the dismal performance of previous versions, who can trust Microsoft to have tracked down all the bugs?
• IE10 won't support Flash, and despite what the Apple Corporation and its legion of sycophants and Microsoft think, many people still want to view Flash on websites

For everyday use, Belmont recommends Google Chrome. It's fast, it looks good and it's uncluttered interface gives you the maximum possible viewing area. Download and install a copy now.

For web developers, the browser of choice is Firefox, with its faithful rendering and splendid range of excellent development tools.

At Belmont, we host all our websites with Heart Internet. Why? There's a very simple reason. Heart Internet's service and reliability is first rate, and the servers are based in the UK (Nottingham and London).

It's not just Heart Internet that say so, either. The results of the PC PRO Excellence Awards 2011 have just been announced, and Heart absolutely creamed their main competitors, putting 1and1, GoDaddy and FastHosts in the shade on every measure. Here's the results:-

How Heart compare with our direct competitors:

So if you value your website, why risk leaving it with a lower rated host?

At Belmont, we are so confident that you will find our service better that we will even buy out your existing term with your current host. If you transfer your web or domain hosting to Belmont, we will add the remaining months that you had with your previous provider to your first year's hosting completely FREE of charge.

E.g. You have 8 months left with your current provider. We will add that onto your first year with Belmont so your hosting account will not be due for renewal for 20 months.

Simply contact us to ask for more details.

Researchers have discovered that the mood of the general public, as reflected by Twitter, can predict the direction of stock market movements.

The discovery was made by accident after researchers decided to monitor Twitter feeds to see how the public mood responded to changes in the stock market. Using aggregating software to automatically monitor the frequency of positive or negative words and sentiments in millions of random Twitter feeds, they wanted to see whether fluctuations in the market made us all more or less happy.

However, to their surprise they discovered that our mood swings occur 3-4 days in advance of corresponding swings in the values of stocks & shares. The theory goes that as all analysts have access to the same information on a particular investment (insider trading aside), whether they overvalue or undervalue stocks depends not on their financial wizardry, but on something much more mundane - their general mood.

The correlation between the mood of the public and the next change in the stock market is around 86%, which is enough to make a big difference. An unnamed financial institution has been quick to take advantage of the new technology. By basing their investment strategy on the information about general levels of positivity and confidence, they have been able to outperform the market by "a significant margin".

Although it may seem astonishing, really this research is confirming something that we already suspected - that the value of markets has very little to do with the underlying performance of the economy or the skill of the traders, and everything to do with subjective levels of confidence and optimism.

So come on, cheer up! And then blether on all over Twitter about how good you feel - you'll be doing your bit for the economic recovery.

Everyone knows that Christmas is the busiest time for retailers both online and off - but when is the busiest day for online retailers?

Although each of likes to believe that we are individual and unique, human beings are basically herd animals, and in large numbers our behaviour is extremely predictable. For the last few years, the busiest day for online sales has been the same. It's the day on which UK shoppers spend a million pounds a minute on the Internet.

Surprisingly, whilst offline retailers are usually busier at the weekend, the busiest online shopping day is on a Monday. It has become known in the e-commerce world as "Manic Monday" or "Cyber Monday". So when is Cyber Monday? And why is it so predictable that more people will shop online on that day than on any other?

Cyber Monday occurs when it does because it is the first Monday after the last payday of the year - so it's simply the week when people are feeling most flush as they fritter away their disposable income on gifts for others. People want to shop as soon as possible so that gifts arrive in time to be wrapped and, in some cases, posted in time for Christmas.

Since online retailing began, every year has broken the previous year's records for online sales. PayPal have predicted this year that online sales will soar by up to 60%, with the peak being expected on Cyber Monday - last year's was the busiest ever.

This year's Cyber Monday is 28th November. Online retailers would be wise to organise promotions and special deals around this date, and promote them to their customers using well-planned email marketing and social media campaigns, in order to grab their share of the massive amount of money that will be changing hands in just a few weeks time.  

Following in the footsteps of Apple, who took the decision not to support Flash on the iPad, Microsoft have announced that they will not support Flash in Windows 8.

Neither Windows 8 tablets, nor the new Metro user interface which comes with Internet Explorer 10 will support it. What this means is that any websites which use Flash will throw up errors in the new browsers.

This is bad news for anyone who has invested money in creating Flash for their websites. Many video players deliver videos in Flash, and these just won't play on the iPad or in the new Windows 8 browsers.

Personally, I find Internet Explorer to be the worst browser around, and I stopped using it a few years back in favour of Firefox, and more recently Chrome. So far neither of these browsers have expressed any intention to abandon Flash.

The problem is compounded further because different browsers use different methods for displaying HTML5, the alternative to Flash. The situation creates a lot of problems for developers and website owners. In order to ensure that content displays on every device, developers have to implement several different methods of displaying the content depending on the device.

This pushes up development costs. Web owners who have invested in Flash for their websites are now having to pay for additional development, just so that their content can be viewed on all devices.

Phasing out one technology in favour of another is one thing, but unilateral decisions from powerful manfacturers to refuse to support a very popular technology is quite another. It's just one more reason not to buy an iPad, or it seems a Windows 8 tablet.

Wayne Rooney has joined Carlton Cole and Ryan Babel in being the latest footballer to be censured by the FA for comments posted on Twitter.

Rooney apparently threatened one of his Twitter followers after he took offence at something his follower had posted. He subsequently withdrew the remarks and tried to play them down as a bit of harmless banter. Which is quite believable, considering he referred to the follower as a "little nit". Ooooh! He knows how to wound! Maybe he started with a longer word, but had to trim it down to get his insults into 140 characters.

Liverpool's Ryan Babel was fined £10,000 for a Twitter post in January which linked to a mocked-up picture of a referee, whilst West Ham striker Carlton Cole accepted an FA Twitter charge regarding some xenophobic remarks he posted during England's 1-1 draw with Ghana at Wembley in March.

What this demonstrates is the importance of taking care with your online reputation. You might not be a Premiership footballer, but if you are in business you can be sure that someone somewhere will be Googling your name to see what comes up. So it's important to ensure that anything you post online represents how you would wish to be seen by your customers.

Six days ago Sony's PlayStation network went down in mysterious circumstances, with Sony blaming an "external intrusion" for the failure.

The term "external intrusion" implies some outside interference, but the interesting thing is this - it wasn't the attack that shut down the network. Sony shut it down themselves, presumably to protect customers' data from further attacks.

However, there's no guarantee - yet - that security details haven't been compromised. Sony Computer Entertainment Japan spokesperson Satoshi Fukuoka said the company "has not yet determined if the personal information or credit card numbers of users have been compromised, but that Sony would promptly inform users if it found that was the case."

As the network enters its sixth day of downtime, the latest post on the PS Blog from Patrick Seybold, Sony's Senior Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media, which appeared yesterday, says that there is no "update or timeframe to share at this point in time". In other words, the network is down until Sony think it's safe to put it back online. Rumour has it that they are having to rebuild the entire architecture from the ground up. That could take a while.

So does Sony come out of all this looking good, for taking a devastating pre-emptive measure to protect customer data, or bad for having the security holes in the first place?

The image of legions of gamers staggering blinking into the sunlight this weekend, bereft of their consoles, and having to spend the whole holiday playing with a hoop and a stick, or whatever it was we used to do before computer games were invented, may provide the answer to that question.

The mood on the blogs is ugly, and although Microsoft are no strangers to network problems, I can imagine there's plenty of sly, maniacal cackling going on in Redmond today. Their 2007 outage was as a result of record numbers of new users overloading the servers, not security vulnerabilities.

An interesting situation to watch.

Everyone wants their business to get to the top of Google, but recent eye-tracking research has revealed some surprising truths about where people actually look when they browse online - and it's not where you think! You can download the report here.

Bournemouth University have launched a new eye-tracking service. This technology is not just for websites, it is also proving invaluable for researching where motorists place their attention and even how accurate eye-witness testimonies are by comparing what people say they saw with data about where they were actually looking during an incident.

There is a networking event to demonstrate the eye-tracking service at the University on 16th March. Click here for more details.

Online retailers have had another record Christmas. While High Street retailers suffered in the snow, online sales were up by 25% over 2009. By contrast, offline sales were up by just 2% on the previous year.

However, despite these high levels of growth, experts predict that in 2011 online sales will continue to see double-digit growth.

This time last year, online sales were predicted to grow over the full year by 13%, but actually increased by 18%. This level of growth is expected to continue throughout 2011 despite continuing uncertainty about the UK economy, which is expected to hit consumer demand. Retailers who are not already online could do well by expanding onto the internet.

UK shoppers spent £6.8bn online in December alone (source:IMRG). Boxing Day was the busiest online shopping day of the year, with sales of over £300m, and even Christmas Day saw sales of over £150m.

The highest growth this Christmas was seen in clothing, which grew by 40% as everyone bought more clothes to combat the harsh weather, and alcohol at 36% as we all got properly stuck in to the party season.

Nothing like a new coat and a few tipples to take the edge of the winter chill!

It's good news for recruitment consultants as the Monster Job Index recorded an 11% year-on-year increase in online job demand.

Strongest growth was in Transport & Logistics, IT and Marketing, PR & Media. Sadly, the Banking & Finance sector slipped into decline, reflecting ongoing uncertainty surrounding the industry. So spare a thought for the poor bankers!

There was a slight slowdown in growth during December, which may have been caused by the weather, but could also mean that employers are holding on to see how 2011 shapes up before committing to new recruitment.

If that's true, expect to see continued growth as those jobs are advertised in the early part of the year.

Click here to read the full Monster Employment Index report.

1. Being Boring

The subject line should grab the reader's attention and motivate them to open the email. The copy should be brief, using short sentences. Talk about what's interesting to the reader, not yourself.

2. Overselling

Do you like being sold to? Thought not. Nobody does, and emails that do nothing but sell are a big turn-off. Email marketing is about building a relationship with existing and potential customers, establishing your credibility as a source of useful information and valuable content.

3. Poor Targeting

Email marketing is not about bombarding everyone with emails about everything under the sun. It's about emailing people with what they want, when they want it. The more that you are able to focus your email campaigns according to your customers' preferences, the better.

4. Intrusive emails

You must have permission to send an unsolicited marketing email to someone – that's the law. If you have a business relationship, including enquiries, then that counts as implicit permission to send emails on related topics, but don't assume that your emails will be welcome. The law aslo requires that you make it easy for someone to unsubscribe from your emails. It's good practice anyway – why would you want to email someone who doesn't want to hear from you?

5. Impersonal emails

Write as if you are writing to one person, not writing a sales brochure. Use a system that allows you to personalise the email with the reader's name. Research has proved that this will improve results.

6. Expecting Instant Gratification

Email marketing is like driving a steam train – you have to shovel some coal before you can build up a head of steam. So don't expect instant results from your email marketing. Be patient and persistent, and you will get results.

7. Using Low Quality Servers

ISPs, the people who supply your internet connection and email, work hard to protect you from spam emails. They monitor the reputation of the servers that send emails. If you send from a server with a poor quality reputation, your emails stand less chance of getting through. Worse still, if you send from your own email account, your ISP might cap your emails, or you might get your domain blacklisted. The only sensible option is to use a commercial service for your marketing emails.

8. Using too many images

Many email clients, such as GMail and Outlook, have images turned off by default. If you have too many images, your emails will look terrible to your readers.

9. Not Measuring Results

If you don't measure the results of your emails, you won't know how they are being received or how to improve them. Using a professional email marketing system will provide you with invaluable information about who reads your emails and what they do with them.

10. No Call to Action

Every email you send should invite some action from your readers. It is a great way to get people to visit your website, so make sure that your emails contain clear “call to action” to inspire your readers to do something. You can find out more about quality email marketing campaigns here!

If you have customers or clients who book appointments, a simple but often overlooked way to increase your business is to enable them to book online.

An online booking system can increase orders by up to 40%. With more business being done online, buying decisions are often made instantly. Give your customers the ability to book on the spot, and you could see a huge upsurge in your business

If your competitors don't use online booking, you could be the first in your market to offer this service. For example:-

• Restaurants can take table bookings online
• Beauty salons, dentists and physiotherapists can let customers book specific treatments with named professionals
• Garages can allow customers to book services and MOTs at a time to suit them
• Theatres and music venues can take bookings for performances

Combine online booking with a well-targetted email marketing system aimed at past customers, and you'll have a fully automated system to generate repeat business for you!

The days when online booking systems were expensive and complicated are long gone. With today's modern methods, it's easy to add a booking system to most websites. With a bit of training, anyone with basic PC skills can manage the system using a simple web-based interface.

Online booking systems cost much less than you may think, and you don't have to redesign your website to use one.

To find out more, go to www.belmont.uk.com/online-booking.