Apple’s a little upset about RealPlayer’s ability to let users buy music from its site and upload them to your iPod. (TechDirt and Slashdot are just two of many sites carrying the news.)

Oddly enough, I just downloaded RealPlayer today to watch a webcast. In the process of poking around and checking out its features, I attempted to buy a song online. Do you think they will let Aussies buy songs from the US? Nope. Does Apple iTunes store let Aussies buy songs? Nope. Apple’s been dragging its feet on this issue for months.

So while Apple worries about losing a few dollars to Real, the rest of the world outside the US remains a lost opportunity for both companies.

Here’s an amusing one straight from the “oh, really? who could have known?” Department.

Salon’s in a flap about how CNN and MSNBC reporting of the big Democrat gig in Boston is “substance free.”

CNN wasn’t alone. Over at MSNBC, soon-to-be “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams snagged Sharpton by the podium for an interview and pressed him on the exact same point; why was his speech longer than expected and was he concerned he had messed up the timing of Edwards’ speech?

What, exactly, does that have to do with journalism, with analyzing information, with educating voters? It’s embarrassing to watch.

Richard Giles has launched Gadget Lounge. Plenty of iPod, phone, camera and handheld news - but from an Australian perspective. He’s also linked to news on one of our sites, ARN. Thanks, and good luck with the sponsorship hunting!

“Australian spammers have been keeping a low profile, many appear to have almost ceased activities and at least one is known to have left the country,” it said in a statement. “The Australian anti-spam law is working.”

I hope this report at The Aus holds some truth. I suspect the volume of spam generated by Aussies is dwarfed by an order of magnitude less than that generated by Asia, US and Europe.

Despite being snowed by a series of work and personal issues that have reduced my blogging, I’m still doing tons of newsreader-ing.

On the corporate blogging front, I’m enjoying Sun’s blogger feed. It’s a great example of how blogs and RSS can amplify, complement, or challenge your view of a vendor that otherwise attempts to control its perception exclusively via the media and advertising.

For example, you can see what happens went a courier drops an expensive server:

There’s the “working mom’s” blog (she really sounds too busy to blog).

Then we’ve got this honest appraisal from a Sun employee:

Sun used to be this amazing place full of life and promise. Lately, though, it’s become a rather depressed, confused mess. Our management keeps changing. Our products keep changing names. We live under the constant threat of layoffs and office closures.

On the serious side, Sun PR Jim Grizanzio offers his selection of Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz quotes from Sun’s Q4 announcement. Meanwhile, Schwartz himself has taken to Red Hat pricing with a stick in this post.

I might be catching up here, but Red Hat bashing sounds like a new tactic for Sun. On the surface it seems a little odd because I recall meeting with Jonathan last year and he sang the praises of the Red Hat-based application stack as the Microsoft Office-alternative nirvana. Although, given the new Microsoft pact perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised.

My humble diary has its very own landing page at CIO Australia. Check it out for my latest column.