June 26, 2007

Down Under

Aborigines performing at Crown Street Mall, Wollongong. credits: Wikipedia Commons.

Down Under in the news; a tragic shooting, with some luck survived by a Dutch backpacker who became a hero, something that could have happened anywhere.

For a few days it took away international attention from a much bigger tragedy: the Australian Aborigines.

I like to think know something about Aborigine history. But even after having been there twenty times, having travelled every corner of the big island for a total of more than three years, I still don't get it. Even worse, the more I read the Australian media about the Aborigine problems, the more books I read about Australian history, the less I understand about the Aborigine soul.

Australian troops and policeman have begun to protect Aborigine children from abuse in the communities up north. How easy to cry out loud about the Australian government.

While this time nobody has used the words sterilization or deportation, Australian prime minister Howard and his political friends are accuses of paternalism and racism.

What else should they do, I'd say?

As Howard himself stated this week in a speech tot the Sydney Institute: In our rich and beautiful country, there are children living out a Hobbesian nightmare of violence, abuse and neglect. Many are in remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. To recognise this is not racist. It's simply an empirical fact.

Last week Howard announced the Commonwealth would push aside the Northern Territory Government and, with extra police, doctors and the military, take control of about 70 Aboriginal communities for at least five years.

Under this plan plan alcohol and pornography would be banned, every child under 16 would have a health check, welfare payments would be withheld. All this in an effort to stabilise the communities and stamp out the widespread child abuse detailed in the recent report Little Children are Sacred.

The real Aborigine tragedy is that they don's succeed to take their own fate and their own responsibilities in their own hands. And not to use all the extra help they've gotten over the years, the millions of dollars waisted, to raise themselves.

Yes, you can close all pubs from Darwin to Mount Isa every thursday, so that the wellfare payments aren't immediately spent to alcohol. The only difference is that everyone up there is pissed and fighting on friday.

He who has better idea's than John Howard, speak.

Posted by Leon at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

January 30, 2007

The B-word

Next week it's Tabloid Day at the newspaper were I'm working, last months all hands on every deck having been busy preparing , restyling, learning new tricks, and, pretty important, learning how to write shorter (and better).

Temporarily there's not as much attention for Internet and multimedia as there should be, but that's gonna be alright, in time to come. If not out by vision, then because of the market: publishers that don't take part in the Internet rat race, will find themselves empty handed at the finish - that is, if there ever will come and end to the race.

Most of my colleagues don't seem to understand it yet, but there's De Nieuwe Reporter(The New Reporter) to tell them it's paramount that they start blogging.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Listen to Jeroen Mirck: Ladies en gentlemen journalists, you are sleeping. You're either sleeping or you are neglecting the most important trend in a decade, but you're feeling pretty satisfied about it. Most of you have written that Time Magazine has chosen me (you too) as Person of the Year 2006, but at the same time you are sneering about user generated content, thinking and saying it's all too unimportant to add anything to your profession.

You are so wrong

And that's why a lot of you will lose their job in the coming years. Luckily enough there's one remedy: you have to start blogging. Not only the Internet freaks under the editors, but each and everyone of you. Or else you'll be first in line when the pinks slips are presented.

The last sentence in previous quotation is not right. At least yet, here in Holland its impossible to receive a pink slip just like that. You might get kicked out eventually, but not before your boss has obliged tot a large set of rules, known as so called social plans or outsourcing rules and regulations, whatever. But so far I've never seen the B-word in all the paperwork accompanying redundancy.

Nevertheless; should you worry, my dear colleague, but non-blogger?

Well, maybe not right away, but you'd better take a subscription on the RSS feeds or the newsletter of De Nieuwe Reporter, to learn and understand what this B-phenomenon might mean for your profession, your future.

Mircks final words: Do I exaggerate? Of course not. You exaggerate when you think I'm talking bullshit. Keep thinking so, If you like, but don't start sulking when we stuff and mount you in a nature museum, like a frozen brontosaur.

In the end of the day it will be a blogger who puts the lights out over there.

Who knows, it might even be a journalist blogger, but that's up to you . . .

Posted by Leon at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2007

Badonkadonk and Death by Milk

Do not try this in Holland, because before you're around the very first street corner it will be confiscated by grumpy men in black or blue, but in Britain or the US it's somewhat easier to drive your own soapbox, powered by something that roars.

You have to pass some kind of MOT, and if brakes, headlights and steering are doing a decent job you receive some kind of green slip and you're on your way. One should try to emigrate to the US for less.

I doubt if the Badonkadonk Land Cruiser Tank is 'street legal', because on most pictures I can find, it's badonkabonking around in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, during the Burning Man Festival. However, if you're prepared to pay 20.000 dollar, and you have a very big back garden, you can badonkadonk in in Holland. She's for sale on Amazon.

Burning Man is one of the festivals I'll hope to visit one day, the other one being pumpkin chunkin. Two great things I've already written about ten years ago, when the web was mainly some manuals and articles, accompanied by small and blurry pictures.

A more mature Internet has made these kind of things so much more fun. Bandwidth galore, photo albums, slide shows, YouTube, Google Video, and more, much more. Go Google for 'badonkadonk', 'burning man' or 'punkin chunkin' and you will see what I mean.

'Probably next year: the first National Dutch Championship of Pumpkin Shooting. After all, all it took to bring TrekkerTrek to the Low Lands was an article about Tractor Pulling in a Dutch farmers magazine'.

I wrote the previous two sentences in 1997, but then years later the first pumpkin has to be shot yet over here.

Carbide shooting on the other hand, a classic Dutch tradition, was almost defunct, but is hot and cool again. If you have been in the countryside in December and you haven't heard the deafening kabooms of the big milk cans, better hurry to a ear doctor.

Google 'carbid shooting' and the first hit is a nice Dutch website, all in English: 'Death by Milk'

A very lively culture, coming to Brabant from the far east Achterhoek.

I'm afraid you have to need a bit of patience when you wanna become a carbide shooter. At least eleven months, because most villages and cities have carbide rules these days: only on the last day of the year, on dedicated meadows.

Enough time to search a heavy duty milk can, and to do some research.

Posted by Leon at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2007

iPhone, YouPhone . . . .

Maybe I should have become a marketeer. Some weeks before Xmas (2006) a song sang in between my ears, when Apple delayed the introduction of it's cross-breed between phone and iPod. Then, somewhere first week of December, LinkSys, either sensing problems or opportunities, presented a new model of its iPhone, the name than mum Cisco had registered seven years earlier. So, I thought, Apple will come with its own phone, but what will be its name?

I don't what you were thinking, but there's only one name fitting in Apple's (what's in a name?) Front Row of devices and applications: iMac, iPod, iLife, iWork and all other iThings I forget right now. Which leaves a little problem to be solved.

At least, that was what we alle were thinking, weren't we? Nevertheless, when super salesman Steve Jobs, able to sell fridges to Eskimo's, or fire to the sun, pulled the long awaited Apple phone out of his hat, he called it an iPhone.

It sure looks a ripper, like everything Apple produces. Too expansive? That's up to you, but I still haven't had one second of regret, enjoying my iMac for 14 months now. If you want to know what the iPhone can do, go to the Apple website to play a video of Jobs demonstrating the iPhone, and when you're done visit some tech sites and blogs for independent reviews.

I might buy one later,but why decided Apple - read Jobs - to use a name it doesn't own? Pure arrogance, or a thoroughly prepared stint of free publicity? In one league with Cisco? Arrogance will result in a court case, what Cisco apparently is going to pursue now. But there's also the chance that in another couple of weeks of free publicity this case will be closed, both partiessigning a NDA.

Meanwhile this old songh is till humming in my head. You know it too.

'Icecream, you scream, everybody wants icecream'.

Why haven't they called the bloody thing YouPhone?

Posted by Leon at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

January 06, 2007

The 80/90 Zeng Rule

My black Aldi's, love and admired as well as despised and hated in the editorial desk room where I'm spending way to much of my time, have led to mail and real time listeners.

An elder classic audiophile needed only seconds of listening to tell me the boxes (as well as the amplifier) are crap, but some younger colleagues with a tiny budget thought the jet black heavy speaker boxes from the German retailer ' stellar'.

At the Internet corner of the central desk we think they're stellar too, so from seven tot nine (digital starts earlier that paper) it's morning disco at war level.

We're playing our favorite songs - varying from The Bolero and Ludwig Von to Creedence Clear Water, and plenty of modern stuff, we love the Scissor Sisters. After all, each day the mailman brings at least ten brand new cd's, to be reviewed by the culture cowboys on the next block, and they don't mind the stuff coming a few minutes later, trimmed and shaved by iTunes.

All legal according to Dutch law, that permits you to make back up copies of something legally acquired. Like review examples sent for free by record companies, right?

By the way; who is the owner when they arrive and the chief culture, who is to split the presents between his disciples, hans't fallen out of his bed yet, after another big night of opera - and after opera?

From 09:00 a.m. sharp we're working under a marching order: the big button on the old Pioneer amplifier is to be tunred ten ticks to the left. Not even enough for some colleagues, apparently gifted with perfect hearing, so the rest of the day we're listening to sleep-inducing muzak. Meanwhile silently growling that the time will come that we have to follow the smokers outside, to do what we can't miss.

But I must admit that the lovers of silence might be right after all.

A lot of blogs and newspapers this week wrote about professor Fan Gang Zeng from the University of California-Irvine, who started noticing something alarming among his students: unexplained hearing loss. In each of his biomedical engineering classes Zeng found several students with the type of damaged hearing you normally wouldn't see until 50 or 60 years old.

It's been two years since the phenomenon began; just about how long it took MP3 player to become a staple for college students nationwide.

Coincidence? Zeng doesn't think so.

"We can't say for sure it's from MP3 players, but I don't know what else has changed," said Zeng, a researcher specializing in hearing loss. "The climate and the food are the same."

While I particular like the last part of the previous sentence (Al Gore doesn't agree), I'm not deaf (yet) for what Zeng is telling.

So, next to the marching order mentioned, we've created another one, The 80/90 Zeng Rule: we won't turn the volume up higher than 80 percent, and limit the listening time to 90 minutes.

In time we'll hear if that helps.

Posted by Leon at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)

December 31, 2006

Her name is Wikipedia

As I haven't produced any predictions at the beginning of this year, we don't have to settle anything. But I have to admit I was wrong about Wikipedia. I've written with at least some scepticism about the online encyclopedia - and all open directory systems - but in 2006 I've been converted: Wikipedia has become my favourite website.

If you haven't discovered the online encyclopedia yourself: find out the differences yourself. Go Google, enter a keyword that has anything to do with what you're searching, and start searching.

And start searching all over again, within the results produced by Google. Most of the time, it's takes a while before you've found what you're looking for, that is if you find it.

Now do the same in Wikipedia. Right, that's what I mean.

Of course there will remain things that Google does so good and fast that there's no need at all to try somewhere else.

Valuable tip for the visitors of the website of BN/DeStem, looking for an article published in our newspaper: don't try this at our own search engine, but use Google instead.

Using the question 'breda site:bndestem.nl' Google comes back within 0.3 seconds with 87.900 articles in our database containing the term 'breda'. Here Google is besting us everywhere, in quantity as well as in quality.

But if you're looking for dedicated information about any certain subject, nicely put together in a well-organized summary, linked to other relevant articles, Wikipedia isunbeatable.

It's getting even better. As the search in Wikipedia is already performing up to - well, Wikipedia - before long Wikiasari will be on the air.

It's gonna be a 'human-editable search engine-project', with Amazon as partner.

It sound very promising, and I think they will deliver, although to Wikpedia: 'Wikiasari is not and will not be the name for the free search engine we're developing'.

Whatever the name, the first three results will come straight from Wikipedia, and I think those will do in at least nine out of ten. After fifteen years I'm in love with the net again, but now her name is Wikipedia.

Posted by Leon at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2006

Where does Santa live?

Every Dutch kid knows where Sinterklaas is living, but where does Santa Claus reside?

Your answer doesn't have to be the right one, because there are quit a number of different Santa's and Xmas cultures. In the US the most given answers will be that Santa lives in Alaska or on the North Pole, but in Finland they know better.

Thanks to a worldwide, very secret society of postmen, who forward every letter addressed to Santa Claus, to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland.

All letters that have a return to address on the back, are answered by Santa Claus, written by volunteers for the Tourist Board in Rovaniemi. Nobody in a right state of mind goes there between November and may, when everything is covered by at least three feet of snow, but in summer its time for return of investment.

If only a percent or so of all people answered by Santa visit Finland, and only one percent of those go north to Rovaniemi, all camping sites, hotels and guesthouse are full during the midsummer nights. It does help that Fins are hard rock and goth metal fanatics, as we all know since the last Euro Vision Song Festival; in summer it's also time for the Rovaniemi Rock Festival.

While they're working hard over there to keep alive the dream of their most famous hard rocker - the one with the red hat and the long white beard - letters to Drobak in Norway, Dalecarlia in Sweden, or to Greenland and Alaska are probably answered too.

Then there's yet another Santa, but this one hates cold feet, and writes back from Caesarea Mazaca, somewhere in Turkisch Cappadocia, but he signs as Saint Basil.

I think that L. Frank Baum's Santa is the real one. The writer of 'The Wizard of Oz' tells us in 'The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus that he's living in 'The Laughing Valley of Hohaho'. That must be the real one, because it's the only place - and I've tried them all - where Google Earth leaves me in the cold.

Posted by Leon at 12:00 AM | Comments (2)

December 18, 2006

Was it The Fool, speaking Dutch?

Real (Dutch) Beatles fans know the answer to the question: in which song, written and recorded by The Beatles a sentence is spoken in Dutch? The answer is 'I Am The Walrus', where someone says 'Dat zouden ze wel willen' in the dying seconds of the song.

In English that would haven been 'they should (have) want(ed) that', or something similar. Play a bit with the settings of you favorite MP3 player and you will find it.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

As far as I 'm concerned the complete text of I Am The Walrus might as well be Dutch - or Swahili - as I've never really understood what John Lennon is telling us there. Might have been due to a favorite hobby of Lennon, who sometimes knotted words together at random, for fun. To keep busy those who came up with all kinds of explanations, even for the simpler things, like She Loves You (Yeah, right, yeah, yeah).

The Dutch sentence came back to my memory in the process of selling my old albums and singles on Marktplaats. I did not sell the Beatles albums, because I'd like to frame those sleeves, and I kept a few rarities like a pristine 'Autobahn' from Kraftwerk, the very first album of The Golden Earring(s), Just Earrings, and some more.

In the process I was listening to The Magical Mystery Tour, and heard the sentence again. Would it also be on the 'new' version of The Walrus, on the 'Love' album, mixed and remastered by George Martin?

Sure enough! When I fired up Google I found out I'm not the only one in Holland who's interested in the whereabouts of Dutch words in a Beatles song. There are some questions on the forum of a Dutch Beates fan club, but while nobody seems to know the answer, I think I do.

I remember I've read who it is, way back in the beginning of the seventies: Simon Posthuma.

Wikipedia: Simon Posthuma: Dutch artist and founder of The Fool, a Dutch design collective who were influential in the psychedelic style of art in British popular music at the end of the 1960s. The colourful art draws on many fantastical and mystical themes. According to Wikipedia the name is a reference to The Fool tarot card, according to other sources The Fool is named to the Beatles song 'The Fool on The Hill'.

Original members were Posthuma and Marijke Koger, who were discovered by photographer Karl Ferris among the hippies of Ibiza in 1966. He took photographs of clothes designed by them, and sent them to London where they were published in The Times of London and immediately caused a sensation.

Ferris took The Fool back to London, and together they opened a studio, with the Dutch artists producing clothes and art, and Ferris pursuing photography. Barry Finch, and an artist recorded only as Josie, joined later.

There's much more on Wikipedia, but nothing about The Walrus.

Google however does find a Simon Posthuma website, and more about The Fool over there: John Lennon and Paul McCartney came to visit the couple in their apartment in Saint Stephen's Gardens, in early 1967. They sat down on the ground and stared at all those outrageous colours and arabesques. 'I want to live in it,' Lennon said.

(At the end of the sixties, beginning of the seventies I'd painted my bedrooms (in Helmond and in Breda) completely in The Fool colors and designs. My parents thought it all horrendous, but my friends loved it, and I did some walls at friends rooms).

Wikiepedia agaion: Later in 1967, during the 'lovest' summer of them all Simon and Marijke formed art collective The Fool, with Josje Leeger and Barry Finch. The quartet visualised the mind expanding spirit of the time so meticulously - a style later to be called psychedelic - which resulted in the orgasmic mural of The Beatles' Apple boutique in London (1967) and culminated with the extensive painting of the Aquarius Theatre (1969) on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where rock-musical Hair was staged.

I seems Simon Posthuma if the one to answer the question about Dutch talking on The Walrus.

So I've send an email to an address I've found on his website and asked if . . .

An hour or so later a reply came from the webmaster of the site, who is also a writer, together with Simon working on a biography. Joost Goosen tells me he never heard Simon talk about, but he will ask him, and If Simon says so, I will receive an answer.

Was it The Fool, speaking Dutch?

Posted by Leon at 02:24 PM | Comments (1)

December 11, 2006

@ The Market Place

During the renovation (initially a one year project, for a number of reasons finished in 3 years and 3 months), and after moving back into our little 1895 house we've become fanatic Marktplaatsers. Marktplaats means MarketPlace, it's the original Dutch eBay, as a matter of fact taken over by eBay, but still running on the original platform, same layout, same name, even while eBay operates in Dutch at eBay.nl.

We found our moving boxes at Marktplaats, sixty good boxes for thirty Euros ('only one time used'), en we've sold three quarters of them for the same amount after the removal, on Marktplaats again (yes: 'only one time used').

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

During the renovation (initially a one year project, for a number opf reasons finished in 3 years and 3 months) , and after moving back into our little 1895 house we've become fanatic Marktplaatsers. Marktplaats means MarketPlace, it's the original Dutch eBay, as a matter of fact taken over by eBay, but still running on the original platform, same layout, same name, even while eBay operates in Dutch at eBay.nl.

We found our moving boxes at Marktplaats, sixty good boxes for thirtu Euros ('only one time used'), en we've sold three quarters of them for the same amount after the removal, on Marktplaats again (yes: 'only one time used').

The fourth quart, filled with all kinds of junk, is still seeking space somewhere in the house, and if we can't find sufficient spots, we'll move them to Marktplaats as well, contents and all.

One of the vacuum cleaners is sold to a lady in Groningen who came to collect it all the way in the far south, for het daughter studying in Breda. The old Ikea wardrobes are sold on Marktplaats, and we've made an offer on an oak kitchen table in Kaatsheuvel. Long live the new economy, that I'm beginning to understand, even though I still have to read - en review - The Long Tail from Chris Anderson, lying next to my Mac.

There's more money to make on eBay. After e-maling, calling and visiting at least ten Dutch shutter dealers and importers, one thing is clear: it's about time that de NMA, the Dutch kartel watch dog, starts keeping an eye on that sector. Whoever you call, write or ask, the square meter price is approximately 400 euro's, and you have to wait at least six, eight, ten weeks. Which means that the stuff is China made, just like the teak furniture you find all over Holland these days: much too expansive, way too long delivery times.

Should be cheaper, somwhere, in this new economy, so we searched on eBay and we e-mailed to China and the US.

A day later we've got a nice offer from East Coast US, shipping included less than half the price in Holland, delivered in Rotterdam in four weeks.

The reviewing system on eBay looks reasonable trustworthy to me, and this shutterman is honoured with flying colors, by his customers as well as by the guys who deliver his shutter materials.

I think we're going to take the risk, and if they don't fit after delivery we'll throw them on Marktplaats, asking Dutch prices.

While I was writing this, I received a phone call: a teacher of the Music School in Tilburg who begs us to remove the ad with our old LP and single albums: he is on his way, and he will pay our asking price . . .

We've placed the ad in question less than five minutes earlier!

It was accompanied by a complete list of all the albums and (maxi) singles from the sixties, seventies, and eighties. The music is no problem, cause I've got almost everything covered on the iMac in iTunes, as well as on an external back up, but the big question is if we missed one hidden valuable jewel that we've sold for almost next to nothing.

Posted by Leon at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2006

How to handle Internet Errata?

How to handle errors published on a website? I'd never thought about it until 1995, when an evident error caught my eye, while reading The Daily Planet, then still King in the Land of the Blind Men, those who'd not seen the Internet light yet.

I mailed the webmaster, listening to the remarkable name of Francisco van Jole, and I remember I was very surprised when a reply arrived in the very same minute I'd send my remarks. Not only the webmaster, but even the man really existed, in that tenderly awakening digital world!

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

His answer learned me something about the Internet. "Thank you very much", Francisco wrote, "But I'm not going to change it, because that would mean I'm forging history. I'll add a note to the article, and I'll be back on it in the next newsletter.

Eleven years on, while couple books have passed about net- and email-etiquette, at the Internet desk of our newspaper website we're still waiting for rules or regulation regarding website errata. What to do when errors are published?

A level up, where rules nor regulation are not made yet, the official advise is to handle practical, with some pragmatism. Translated into daily practising that means: do as you like, until we decide different.

Which means that every once in a while, an article disliked by someone somewhere, for whatever reason, is changed, edited, or simply killed. Even worse: on a number of occasions I've received the marching order from the brass to purge an article from our online archives.

Disregarding the fact that I'd understood the arguments, in all cases I stood my ground - in all cases in vain - , pointing out to Fransisco's lesson: we're forging history if we do so. Once published is published forever.

Apart from the ethical questions and answers, my point is the pointlessness of purging something published on the Internet. If it's really something worth while, it has spread out over the web the moment it's published. By means of theRSS feeds, the newsletters, the caches of search engines, together forming an immediately starting, unbreakable chain.

Those who have blundered in a royal way are rewarded with screenshots on WebWereld, ReteCool or GeenStijl, and will see his errors again and again, also published on paper.

Don't, is my advice, just add a footnote to the blunder, freshly published or archived, with explanation and humble apologizes. Fair, sportsmanlike, elegant, and no fussing with history.

Erratum #1: changed 19951 in 1995 after a comment from Pieter. Gracias.

Posted by Leon at 10:54 AM | Comments (2)

November 28, 2006

The New Reporter

Google video: reporter gets stoned. For real?

Took me some time to land there, but I've become a regular visitor now: De Nieuwe Reporter.

A group weblog they call it themselves, but as I even haven't got a clue how to label my own digital playground - blog, photo blog, weblog, website, web2.0, (mini)portal? - I call website what's got http before URL.

Like VillaMedia and De Journalist, and hundreds, thousands of websites in The United States and all over the web, dedicated to journalism, they offer non-journalist to have a peek backstage, behind front-page or screen.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Pre-Internet one had to take an expensive subscription on our union magazine, something done only by those who needed inside info, like for instance the police, politicians or sociologists.

De Nieuwe Reporter declares to have build an independent platform, serving the debate about the future of Dutch Journalism. I'd say it never hurts, with all the dangers threatening our job, our employment.

There's a weekly newsletter fort those preferring the old fashion way of being kept up, en the smarter ones subscribe to one of the rss feeds, resulting in an automatic alert at the moment of publishing.

Two interesting affairs last week on the 'group weblog': how to handle published errors, and how GeenStijl practises journalism. GeenStijl isn't my style at all.

I hardly ever come there, and when I do its for a quick check of something. To much barking, those who are interested in modern ethics can graduate summa cum laude over there.

I'd probably better not typed the two preceding sentences, because they will mean a lot of extra work moderating comments.

Its about the only boring part of my job: moderating and either validating of rejecting comment postings on the website of the newspaper, as well as on my own website. A number of regular visitors on both platforms can move forever to Geen Stijl, as far as I am concerned, and I'll send them flowers, soapbox and megaphone.
How to handle errors published on a newspaper website? Nothing yet about it in our journalism handbooks, more about it next week.

p.s. I did Google 'New Reporter'; www.thenewreporter.com is there: 'Stories and images from our correspondents around the world, The New Reporter is a collaborative project between independent journalists'. I've signed up for a registration, maybe more later.

Another one is www.newreporter.com, but that doesn't look like journalism at all, maybe the domain is for sale.

Last but not least: The Internet Movie Database: The New Reporter (1910), directed by Lewin Fitzhamon, genre: comedy, color: black and white, sound mix: silent.

Posted by Leon at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

November 25, 2006

Zune: no future?

Google Video: Walktrough of Zune interface (13 minutes by Engadget)

Do you ever care what I am writing here about Mac or PC, iPod or Zune?

While I harbour yes for an answer, there's a writing super trio that does make a difference. One Microsoft doesn't care about at all, not at least because it's not for sale. Walt Mossberg writes about computers in The Wall Street Journal, David Pogue - mostly in Circuits - in the New York Times, and John C. Dvorak for everybody anywhere, except for Microsoft.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Worldwebwide Dvorak is the most famous, because his columns are also translated and published in non-English speaking countries, like Brazil, Croatia Germany and The Netherlands.

Nevertheless; because they write in English, thanks to the Internet, under nerds they've reached the same status as Bono under pop fans. The three of them are subject of a bibliography at Wikipedia. Dvorak the most comprehensive one, but then again, on Wikipedia it might be possible that Dvorak is one of the co-authors over there. Whatever the case; Mossberg is generally seen as the most influential one, by Wired called 'The Kingmaker'; nobody with so much power in making - or breaking - new products.

A week or so ago Bill Gates himself kicked off the sale of Zune, the mp3 player made by Microsoft as the one that has to beat the iPod. If Vista, the OS that's finally arriving, that should have been here years ago, isn't going to save Microsoft's Xmas season, could Zune?

Bill Gates is CTO now, and Steve Ballmer, his successor as CEO, is known for quite a temper. During one of his tantrums he predicted to going to kill 'f..... Google' personally. I assume he kicked at least some chairs last week, when reading the judgments of Pogue and Mossberg, probably while listening to a podcast about self-control form his brand new Zune.

Pogue and Mossberg compared Zune to iPod, tried, compared, weighed up, and came with iPod as the big winner. Mossberg: "This first Zune has too many compromises and missing features to be as good a choice as the iPod for most users. The hardware feels rushed and incomplete. It is 60 per cent larger and 17 per cent heavier than the comparable iPod."

Pogue: "Competition is good and all. But what, exactly, is the point of the Zune? It seems like an awful lot of duplication — in a bigger, heavier form with fewer features — just to indulge Microsoft’s 'we want some o’ that' envy."

I haven't read Dvoraks review, because the head above it tells it all: 'Zune has no feature'

Posted by Leon at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2006

The Dutch Diebolds

The longer, the more I work with computers, the less I trust them. Next Wednesday is election day over here in The Netherlands, so it's all about voting - and voting computers - in the newspapers over here every day.

Some people, who know a lot about it, come and tell that there's nothing wrong with our voting computers, and that they're much more reliable than the red pencils. Even though in a number of cities in Holland the red pencil is the preferred way of voting next week, because of problems with the machines.

I know some people, who have been volunteers on election day for years, and who admit that every once in a while they miss one vote during the final count at night, even thoughthey've been following all protocols and procedures all day. The Dutch Diebold people - company named Nedap - point out that a voting computer wouldn't miss a vote, but then again, these stories are only told by either the people who make and sell the Nedap machines.

It's not that difficult to fin other opinions about voting machines. Go Google, search for 'fixing voting machines', and you won't be ready reading what you find before November 22. Search for the name of 'Ron Gonggrijp', who will show you what can go wrong with our Duth voting machines.

I know I have to use another huge 'but then again' over here: but then again, this is the Internet, which makes it so easy to find things, but so difficult to decide what's right and what's wrong.

Internet or not, America is the superlative of a lot of things. Also over here: if you do a Google search for 'Diebold Voting Machines', you've got enough reading stuff for the rest of your life, before you can make a choice between pencil or machine.

For real voting devotees - everybody who enjoys the privilege of voting in a free country should be a voting devotee - there's HBO. Even well known in The Netherland as the producing channel of the Sopranos and Sex in the City, but also the makers of wonderful documentaries.

Like 'Hacking Democracy', and after watching that one might conclude it's better to stick to red pencils until the end of time.

You will find 'Hacking Democracy' also on Google Video. Take your time, almost an hour and a half, look, listen, and wince.

Posted by Leon at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

October 06, 2006

Mail: so yesterday?

Be warned, those who just completed an e-mail course for seniors; better stop reading at the end of this sentence. Because e-mail is tired, not wired, so outdated, has-been, redundant. E-mail is not cool, no more, Internet youth (is there youth somewhere that doesn't use Internet?) use e-mail for only thing: to communicate with old people.

Youth rather use - apart from mobile phone text messaging - something form the broad spectrum of different ways of chat serving, like Windows Live Messenger, MSN, GoogleTalk, or one of the numerous chat servers on the Internet, or somewhere in some online community.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

According to an analysis on the Ars Technica website, that made headlines last week in media all over the web, it's not only the youngest generations ofInternet users. This new trend also causes some problems on universities; student start missing announcements or are breaking deadlines because they are not using e-mail anymore.

Being a journalist myself I know some of us are more than happy to produce intriguing headlines that invite reading their articles. Worse; that some - not all - journos produce conclusions that make the researchers they are writing about, scratch their heads. When you read - easy inInternet times - the original research yourself, you can make your own conclusion.

In this case it is true that 8 percent less of American teenagers are indeed using no more e-mail, but almost 90 percent is still using mail.

While we'll see how this sinking curve will be developing, it's also a matter of the way you look at things. I am communicating all day, but very rarely I use GoogleTalk, actually only when another Gtalker pops up on one of my screens. Matter of looking at things: if you mail a remark to somebody else on line, and that somebody else replies a line or two, and we keep doing that for a while, one might says a chat session is functioning. The technique, the protocol in use may be a little bit different, but the users experience is exactly the same.

By the way: if you save a GoogleTalk session, and you open it some time later to find out what the hack you were chatting - sorry, mailing - about, it's just the same as opening an old e-mail thread. With all the questions and answers, mails and replies. It may be tired and outdated, I'm sure I'll be using my Gmail for quite some time to come.

Posted by Leon at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2006

Google Earth

Lots of flying these days, in Google Earth. It was an easy prediction: since Google announced that the greater part of Holland is covered in high resolution now, alarming stories appeared in the traditional media, and also in the newspaper were I am working. The silly season barely gone, and politicians too busy with the November election as well as the wake of the fire in the detention centre at Schiphol airport, that killed eleven people, no new questions asked in parliament yet, but they will come, later.

By the way: if you have problems with installing Google Earth, for instance because your corporate firewall plays for CIA, you can go to Google, click maps, and it's like you're in Earth.

The high resolution is not very high everywhere. If I zoom in on my own house in Breda, I run into the same blurred images that I saw a year ago, so the satellite or AeroData, that does the job for Google over here, hasn't been back yet.

They did cover The Hague right. I don't know when those shots were taken, but it was on a sunny day. On at least two spots in town you can spot naked people taking a sunbath.

There's really not much to see, because even in this high resolution it's not clear if the sunbather is a he or a she. But it's pretty easy to find out which house in which street, and so a camjo team from Editie.nl from the RTL Channel called at the door in question, but nobody answered. While Big Brother was pretty close to her or his door, another citizen of The Hague, who was zooming in on his house and his favorite pub found his neighbor naked on his rooftop terrace.

My guess is that Google is not going to change anything, like taking pictures only at around zero temperatures - which would be a problem in (sub)tropic countries.

Lets wait for the next association of Google Fanatics: a club that collects shots of nudists beaches and parks.

Gay or punk, be warned; your favorite sport is somewhere on Google Earth.

Posted by Leon at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2006

Clearing and cleaning

Our living room, after moving back to our little old house, is corresponding with my digital household: everything is for the time being. While in our real world water, gas and electricity are up and running, it's the same story in my little virtual planet. The iMac, the ISDN/ADSL, sound, everything is running like a greased lightning, but sooner or later a lot of things have to be taken care off.

While our new couch has been delivered in parts and has to be constructed according to the Ikea rules and drawings, a door has to be hung, a shed to be build, I still don't know what it's all going to be digital.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

From the umpteen yards of different kinds of cables that I've fed into the walls during the renovation, prescient, only one is being used right now: the phone copper.

That cable is split - for the ADSL - and branched off - for the ISDN phones - under the new computer table, with the the advantage that the complete hardware kit and caboodle is in reach, in view.

In the meantime we're obsessed by cleaning up and clearing out, resulting in almost daily trips to junkyard and recycling center, and every time afterwards a very good clean feeling and more space.

Digital: the same. It took a while before I even thought about it and tried, but the internal sound card of the iMac is at least as good as the old external Creative Extigy. When I connected the iMac straight to my trio of Klipsch boxes the whole house was filled with deep warm bass, and crystal clear high tones.

The old Pioneer combo and the heavy jet black Aldis have been moved to the Internet desk now, where the Extigy has begun a new life as preamplifier for the Pioneer. Everybody over there - well, almost everybody - is happy with the new sound system.

More with less is my aspiration. Last week Steve Jobs danced upon attendance, presenting a little white box, that wireless streams videos en television shows form the iMac to my television set. This new gadget arrives in spring, so another question is more important right now: whether or not to buy a new iMac?

On Tuesday I've visited an Apple news conference in Amsterdam where they showed the new generation of Nano's, and gave a demo of the new iTunes, which I'd installed already last week.

Very interesting, but what really caught my attention was standing on a table in the back of the room: new 24 inch iMac, with the Core 2 Duo Intel.

Wow, my decision is not the problem, persuading the home office might be a higher hurdle.

First thing to do: check out what a G5 iMac with 2 gigabytes of memory does on eBay. Who's making a bid?

Posted by Leon at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2006

Moving ADSL

So we're back. Moving an household with a lot of help from some good friends is one thing, unpacking the boxes, deciding what to dump where, cleaning up, finishing a lot of small and bigger things is gonna take some more time.

In between packing, moving and unpacking I couldn't resist the temptation to knot some wires together. Curiosity may have killed some cats, but I wanted to know if KPN and Euronet had succeeded this time in quietly moving the ISDN/ADSL combo without too much hassle.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

When we moved into our temporary living at Speelhuislaan (Playhouse Lane, there used to be an wooden play house somewhere over there in 1800) I'd simply left the ISDN/ADSL kit and connection at the Van Goor (Van Goor was an historian who wrote the book on the history of Breda) over there.

Originally the planning of the renovation was one year (!) and by the time there were lots of unsatisfied customers waiting for connections. In some cases, as I'd read in Internet forums and in computer magazines, it took out national telco five or six months to move an existing ADSL connection.

The renovation took more and more time, also because we didn't have to pay any rent for the last year, and because we made some long trips overseas. By the time I bought my iMac there were less horror stories about moving connections, so a year or so ago I took the gamble and told KPN to move my line. Within a fortnight, as promised, everything was up and running.

One year later they've performed even better. A couple of days before the arrival of tyhe moving van I'f filled in two forms, the first on the KPN website, the second one at the Euronet site. One day later printed conformations arrived through snail mail, telling me that everything would be okidoki on September 1.

Right they were! All I had to do was to connect two thin wires into a plug: one red, one blue. When I powered up the ISDN box and the ADSL modem, all green lights started to flicker and shine, and the iMac was instantly connected to the Internet. Blazing fast too, probably because my KPN switch is just around the corner, at less than 300 meters form my front door.

Casema, my cable television provider, cal learn some things from KPN and Euronet. It may be our own fault to begin with, cause I'd completely forgotten to tell them to move my cable connection as well, but in 2006 you'd expect another answer on Monday morning: 'No sir, that cannot be arranged before September 19'.

I mean, Casema has not only disconnected, but also really cut the line at our temporary house, because demolition has started in the meantime, so they could have, should have known, and could have asked me something at least.

And all they have to do is change a switch somewhere - be it soft- or hardware. I can;t remember they'd have to dig holes three years ago when we moved.

I think KPN digital TV has just won a new customer, while Casema has lost one.

Posted by Leon at 11:29 AM | Comments (5)

September 06, 2006

Radio rediscovered

I've rediscovered Internet radio. At the beginning of the nineties one of the first things I started playing with when Internet began to grow. It wasn't really what it should be by then over a 24k4 modem, but it was fascinating to listen live to a major league baseball game, or to the Australian ABC.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Sometimes things went well in DOS, Windows 3.11, '95, or one of the different tastes of Linux that I'd sometimes more or less successfully got running, but ever so often it didn't work at all. Listening often meant waiting another minute or two while the box of bolts and nuts had buffered enough bits to produce some more sound, for yet another thirty seconds.

Over the years radio left my digital household. We play with with pics and video, while we had to get used again to the fact that you don't have to think about too many things because on the iMac Mac iPhoto is running. iPhoto is a video and/or photo database/programme that imports, indexes, en everything else that one should want, has been taken care of by Apple. Great application, but we're talking radio over here.

Rediscovered thanks to iTunes. While I started with WinAmp some years ago, iTunes became a logical choice, while still on XP, when I bought my first iPod. iTunes is still running on our iMac now, in which we've imported over 6000 songs now. Most of them ripped from our own old Cd's, or bought through a legal web shop, though maybe not in the eyes of BUMA (the Dutch RIAA) . Until the last word about allofmp3 has been spoken, as long as the website is still in the air, I am customer.

iTunes is almost always in shuffle mode, but, even though it's randomizing 6000 songs, after a while you get the idea you're listening to a tape you've heard before. So, out or boredom, clicked the radio button in iTunes, and browsed some of the available streams.

We're sold. Listening all day to a great American station, called radioio. Go to their website every two hours, click a button over there, and the next two hours you're listening commercial free. Becoming a member is also possible, but wait, there are much more stations.

Long live radio.

Posted by Leon at 09:24 AM | Comments (5)

August 29, 2006

The Black Aldis

With the finish of my renovation marathon almost there – moving back into our old house next Saturday – comes time. Time which I could spend keeping myself busy with my sound.

While I’m writing this in TextMate on the iMac the Airport streams my collection of narco tango’s an classic rock – iTunes is almost always on shuffle – to our 25 year old Pioneer combo. The Sony boxes that were connected to it in the past went kaflooie one day. One of them started rumbling like a erupting volcano, and when I touched one of the speaker cones it fell apart in some kind of thick dust and mouse poo.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

As it happened Aldi – some kind of European Walmart – sold a pair of heavy jet black speaker boxes for 99 euro. I copied the specs form the advertisement in the newspaper and took them to a high end hi fi shop around the corner. Turned out for the amount they asked for boxes with the same specifications we could travel through South America for three months with ease. It wasn’t a difficult choice and when we came back the black Aldis appeared a good choice ever after.

When we moved to our temporary living at Speelhuislaan it took my old Win2k machine, together with the trio Klipsch boxes and the Audigy Sound Card to the Internet desk at the newspaper. To great pleasure of a major majority of happy people – but to much chagrin of a minor minority – that combo became the deciding fun factor on the Internet desk, and most colleagues on central desk – listen, laugh and sing along.

Until nine o’clock, when the daily music curfew begins . At nine the sound level goes down to supermarketmuzaklevel, so that readers who make a call to the newspaper don’t get the wrong impression and think that it’s a complete madhouse over here.

What to do now? Connect Audigy and Klipsch to the Mac, whether or not over the Airport? Or let the Pioneer – beautiful retro 1980 brushed aluminum – do the job with the Aldis? Another option is connect Aldi to Audigy and see what kind of extra bass will result from that relation. But of course I can also make a nice combo of the Klipsch boom box – and the two high tone tweeters - together with Aldi One and Two.

Looking into the future going the renovation I’ve put some miles of extra plastic piping behind the new drywall. One of them contains the ADSL cable, another one coax, and three others heavy duty red and black speaker wiring.

Uttermost fun resulting in writing columns like this comes in my favorite pub next Friday when two hi fi fanatics try to explain – in vain – again – that I’m a complete idiot.

Boxes from the Aldi!

Come on!

Posted by Leon at 09:00 AM | Comments (1)

August 22, 2006

Is Google a Mr. of a Mrs?

The HP Garage is California Historic Landmark No. 976 — Birthplace of Silicon Valley. (1939 photo)

I’ve asked the question on the Movable Type Community Forum, some time ago, when my server almost collapsed under comment spam form porn- and viagra sellers: male or female?

While the thread in question, like everything else that ever will be written in the future, can be found by Google in a second: Is a server a he, or a she, like a ship?

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

I’ve never have maintained a relation so long without having seen her – or him. In 1999, while spending eight months of a sabbatical year in San Francisco, we drove to an address in Napa, right in the middle of the vineyards north of Marin County. Somewhere over there, was my guess, krijnen.com was living, because that was the address where the Tabnet bills came from.

When we noticed it wasn’t a server park, but some cubicles filled with young people phoning or working a desktop, I decided to forget about asking to see my server (they’d probably called a psych and the cops). The rest of the afternoon was better spend, doing what most people come to Napa for: tasting wine.

In hindsight we’ve set a trend then, because in 2006 nerds are doing day trips form San Francisco to important benchmarks in computer history. Like the main office of Apple in Cupertino, the Google campus in Mountain View. And the garage where Hewlett en Packard started playing with transistors in 1939, regarded as the birthplace of Silicon Valley: 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto.

Since Wednesday Mountain View, thanks to Google, is the first place in the world completely covered under blanket of wireless Internet. Through 380 hot spots, that serve 72.000 people on sixteen square mile with sufficient bandwidth.

You get free access through your gmail account, and if you don’t have one, you can get one, for free.

Mountain View is a test for the first big free wifi network Google is planning to set up: San Francisco, forty miles north. The inner city alone at least ten times bigger, so at least a couple of thousand hot spots, and a few million users, slurping bandwidth.

The question is what the consequences are for the classic providers of Internet access. How to compete with Google.

By the way; is Google a Mr. of a Mrs?

Posted by Leon at 08:02 AM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2006

Smuttiness in disguise

We’re seeing quite a lot of different things things during an average shift of website publishing, editing, moderating and deleting.

Some article comments are little jewels from visitors who earn a job as a journalist, to be moderated next to the rubbish from the full time shit stirrers, who we’d rather ban from the website forever.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Because we’ve chosen for a system of validation, all comments have to be moderated. Computers cannot – yet – moderate, but with a couple of hundred of comments a day, we can’t spend the time we’d actually need to do the job proper.

As long as I can remember letters tot the editor from our readers, meant to be published on paper, are almost always shortened, as well as checked for typo’s. Apparently grown from a dualistic approach: the papers face, as well as from the letter writer, is cleaned before it's littered.

On the Internet everything is different. Where the first condition for publishing in the newspaper is a signature with a checkable name and home address, on the website filling in two fields is enough; name and email. He who uses noneofyourbusiness@hotmail.com is blocked – if we’re not moderating in a hurry – but everybody who uses a normal looking email address, passes our censors.

That is, if his text is decent to some level, next to some other considerations. Typos and error in style are not edited or improved: no time. Should we decide to do so, we’d need umpteen extra editors, in these hard times.

A bonus for this way of working are the sometimes bizarre discussions in the threads. Someone who has produced a comment is sneered at by someone who signs as a language teacher, followed by a third one who points to errors in the teacher’s use of language.

Our problems are very minor compared to a site like YouTube, where the most popular new videos on the Internet are published every day. Thirteen million visitors per month, 50,000 new video’s every day.

All those video’s should be moderated by humans, because the porn spammers have discovered YouTube. Everything should be viewed from the beginning to the end, because the smuttiness is in disguise. A video starts a child birthday party and it’s up to your imagination how it ends.

A YouTube video is bound yo a maximum of ten minutes, and the average is 3 minutes, so YouTube should spend 2500 hours per day on moderation.

They don’t do that because it’s impossible, so the problems are predictable.

Posted by Leon at 09:43 AM | Comments (3)

August 04, 2006

Pay This Post! Now!

I think you're perfect, how do you like me? Also online now: an old boy network, where everybody jolly hits shoulders, letting the whole world know how great the other old boy is.

It's the new blogging where every blog boy links and pings the other blog boy, the target is money for everybody (and chicks for free).
Pay Per Post is an American website that contacts bloggers with those who sell something. As always, I'm sitting here, wondering what to think about it.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

While your newspaper is pushed in your mailbox every day, next to free weeklies, junk mail and copies of handwritten offerings from hand readers and chimney cleaners, the spectrum of offerings on the web is much broader - and more bizar.

In this spectrum Pay per Post has discovered a niche, although it's no new hole.

In our newspaper battles are sometimes fought when advertorial salesmen have raped the written agreements between editors and sales, that is, in our view. When a commercials looks too much like a editorial the reader is confused, independence and trustfulness of the newspaper are damaged.

Bloggers that sell their soul to Pay Per Post don't have to worry about such discrepancy. Agreements are crystal clear: positive stories about beautiful products, and the money will arrive. At the seller whose products are recommended, in my account, and above all at Pay Per Post, I assume.

It sounds good. I haven't read the small print yet, so I even don't know if I have to stick a PpP logo on top of my blog if I should want to participate in the program. Although it's possible you don't have to do that, as a blog full of positive reviews might look more trustfully without a Pay Per Post logo.

Keep watching me. For clarity: I'm not (yet) participating, so if you read something very good about my Mac over here, it's straight form my heart. My iMac is up and running for ten months now, always fast as I can wish, always stable, never problems with viruses or intruders, I love my iMac!

Have you heard, Steve Jobs? Pay This Post. Now!

Posted by Leon at 12:25 PM | Comments (1)

August 01, 2006

Read on!

Humility is a virtue. I'll never reach the level of columnist Bob X. Cringely when it comes to computers and networking. As a matter of fact I also have to pass when it comes to quantity.

In his july 20 column - They Wrap Fish, Don't They? - he mentions he has been writing for the World Wide Web since April 1997, which is about as long as anyone on continuous duty can claim: 480+ columns, totalling just over 800.000 words. As it turns out, Bob X. isn't shy of comparing himself with a higher level, pointing out at least one version of the King James Bible consists of 783.137 words. (I assume there's a digital version).

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Let me count. Since November 1995 I declare all kinds of things about computers and Internet, every week, almost continuous. They did quiet me for four weeks a couple of years ago because of paper-cuts, but they couldn't stop me writing and publishing on the website.

Browsing my archives I'm counting almost 500 columns. On a couple of occasions I had to pass because of bad planned public holidays. Word counting is a problem here; over time the column has moved a couple of times to different pages and sections of the newspaper, directed by editors and lay-outers, filling different spaces. Editors and lay-outers are the same everywhere; if your words don't fit in their space it's their scissor that cuts wherever they like.

Wonder what my average of words per column is; the current column bosses regimen is approximately 360, but until a couple of years ago I was allowed twice that quota. With an average of 250 I reach 250.000, so I have to type on at least some years before I'm level with King James.

What matters is if and how often all those words have been read. Cringely calls the Internet ‘the idiot savant of journalism’; supremely good at a thing or two and not at all good at anything else. His belief confirmed somewhat by a recent study from the University of Notre Dame: news stories survive on the Web for an average of 36 hours before half of their eventual readers have read them.

Almost at my quota I can't go on over here, bu Bob X. is afraid that content is hardly read at all, in a world where only heads are quickly scanned.

Tell me: did you finally arrive over here, at the very last sentence?

Posted by Leon at 11:42 AM | Comments (1)

July 21, 2006

The Great Firewall

It appears that some people get wiser when they get older. While I leave any judgement regarding myself to my readers, I'm thinking longer than before about some things before I'm thinking anything about them. The big question is if it's because of wisdom, or because dying grey matter. Twice this week I've messed up my coffee making by putting coffee in the steamer, and milk in the coffee pad. Just a bit absent-minded, right?

Maybe because I was thinking about Google while making my morning coffee. Amnesty International has launched a campaign in which it accuses Google, Yahoo and Microsoft of aiding the repression of freedom of information and expression in China.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Yahoo has been the target of Amnesty before, when it lend the Chinese authorities a hand in locating dissident journalist Shi Tao, who was subsequently put in jail for ten years.

Microsoft kowtowed to the Chines government when it closed a weblog on MSN, and when you Google 'Falung Gong' from within China you're not getting what you're requesting.

By the way, when you Google for 'Falung Gong' on Google.cn from The Netherlands, the very first hit is a 'Fuck China' website. My guess is that you will see another result from an Internet cafe in Shanghai, so if you might read this form there give it a try and let me know.

But Google from anywhere else on 'Google and China' and you've got some stuff to study.

By chance - thanks from my colleagues from documentation at the newspaper, who put it on my desk - I've read the monthly magazine of the Dutch arm of Amnesty International. First conclusion: Amnesty doesn't censor it's own magazine; the editors are independent journalists.

Or did I read the article about Google too quick? I'll be rereading the cover story about Google and China this weekend, because in my mind it's a well written justifiable story. Maybe Google's position regarding China isn't really defended in the article, but I remember at least some understanding.

For Google it's Hobson's choice: filter Falung Gong, filter dissidents, and if not, Google will not be passing the Great Chinese Firewall at all.

What to do?

Update 23.6.2006: Link: Internet Filtering in China in 2004-2005: A Country Study (Thanks to Rick Beemsterboer).

Posted by Leon at 03:49 PM | Comments (1)

July 14, 2006

Living in America

Thanks to Henk van Ess, who showed me the way to the Internet version of a P.O. box in Liechtenstein in his column The Journalist, I'm living in America from now on. Virtual, for the time being, and because an unknown namesake living somewhere else, I haven't got a clue where, let the domain krijnen.us expire, I've registered it on the same day. Earlier his year I was too late when another Krijnen, faster than me, snatched krijnen.eu.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Two (the us domain) has nothing to do with one (the post address), but maybe I can start a flourishing swap action like that Canadian guy who started with a paperclip and ended with a house.

My new post address required a minor investment which will soon deliver profit. For 132 dollar per year I can behave and shop like an American in America, or like an American on the web. Not only the books I order at Amazon, but also the magazines I'm subscribed too, everything I'm going to buy at eBay, will be send to my new address in Bradenton, Florida.

Someone over there wraps it in a brown bag, labels it as 'wholesale', or as a present, en forwards it to The Netherlands. Benefits rife: as 'wholesale' the value on the green sticker will be usually 50%-60% less than the Retail Value. This results in substantially discounted import fees, that is if Dutch customs bother to have a look at it at all, and an unmarked brown bag attracts less attention than a web shop box.

Second benefit: some web shops, and lots of American companies won't deliver outside the US. No problem no more now. Third benefit: ordering American magazine subscriptions in the US. Cheaper subscriptions to begin with, cheaper shipments to The Netherlands. From now on Wired and Fine Woodworking will cost me approximately a Euro, a sixth of my current subscription.

On my new address in Bradenton my orders will be packed once a week, once a month, or when they arrive, it's all up to me. If I ask my new American mail friend to pack my stuff once a month shipment will be cheaper than once a week or on arrival. I can even accept junk mail.

Just wondering what will happen when I send a change of address to the Dutch taxman :-)

Posted by Leon at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)

July 07, 2006

Mexican memory stick

Most companies spend carloads of money trying to prevent their workers computers becoming infected by viruses and spy ware. Expansive licences for anti virus suites, corporate firewalls, nailed up and cemented firewalls, accounts, passwords, and whatever possible to protect.
In the meantime every machine these days arrive with at least two USB ports that anybody can use to connect memory sticks, cameras, iPods or other devices. If these ports are protected virus-wise, there's another danger: data-theft.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Which reminds me of the border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana. North wise is looks like a well configured firewall, where the traffic jams will only become longer years to come. Some smart Mexicans have opened a nice niche there. They rent out bikes to people standing in a two mile long pedestrian jam. For a few dollars you get a rusty and worn out mountain bike, so, according to Mexican regulation you're no longer a pedestrian an you may peddle your way to the top of the cue, backpack on your back.

What the renters don't tell you is that American officers don't give a shit about this Mexican initiative, so once at the beginning of the cue they point you to a separate area, where you have to wait as long as their mood is bad. Ever seen a laughing American immigration officer?

The southern passage is a completely different story. In San Diego you pay two dollar, board the trolley that covers the twenty miles to the border in forty five minutes, the last two miles or so passing thousands of American and Mexican cars waiting. A jam caused by inefficiency, not by thoroughness, just as computers are slowed down by monitoring systems, anti virus measures, or bad configured firewalls or proxy servers.

You get out of the tram and walk into a lock, on Mexican territory.

Arriba!

A uniform points to a pole. The top of the pole is an enormous button. You have to press the button, and a warning lamp lights on. If its a red one, bad luck, you're to unpack your backpack and get out of some clothes. If it's your lucky day, it's a green light; you're a walking memory stick, at random passing the Mexican firewall.

I wonder how long it will take before an alarm lights up when I out a memory stick in my computer at work.

P.s. Sydney Morning Herald: Superglue used to stop data theft

Some companies are taking drastic action - including super gluing computer connections - in a bid to stop data theft.

Ha!

Posted by Leon at 11:05 AM | Comments (2)

June 30, 2006

The Mexico

My friends know that, on top of an Internet addiction, I've got a crush on old German cars. Sometimes I wish it wasn't so, but as I'll never outgrow this habit, I enjoy the times it's all working and driving.

Maybe I should write a book about it, reminiscences and anecdotes galore. Like the time when I had to cripple up my VW Pick Up (a.k.a. Dorus the Ute) in reverse onto a ferry mooring a Greek island, clutch cable broken, hopping foot by foot on the overheated starter engine. While Greek and Turkish seamen and circus artists were shouting abuses at me, an enormous seasick elephant bull, who was yanking his chains so fanatically that the ferry moved like a roller coaster, emptied his bowels - into the back of my little pick up.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Nothing ever shitted on my computers, but apart from that old cars and new computers sing the same song: sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

In a classic car belongs an antique radio. Finishing touch in any old Mercedes is a Becker Mexico from the fifties or sixties, the older models with tubes inside, the later ones transistor innards.

Once upon times I owned two or three, but - not old and wise enough yet - swapped them for something new somewhere in the eighties. Forgotten about it, until I received the bimonthly Mercedes Benz Veterans Club magazine, (my two other Germans - w180 220A, w124 300D - carry the star on the hood). Carrying an article about the Becker Mexico 7948, outside a replica, but inside . . . . Since I've read it and checked out the Koenigs Classic website, I'm (almost) sold.

The front panel of the 7948 Mexico looks like, well . . ., a Becker Mexico from the sixties or seventies: black and simple, two big turning buttons, four push buttons, under the tape cassette lid (do you know what a cassette is?)

Junks peeking inside a parked Mercedes, seeing a radio like that, rumble on; damning the owner; money enough for a car like that, but not for a decent radio.

Spoofed, because behind that sixties front the Becker has everything a nerd driving old junk could wish or imagine. Gigabytes fat flash cards, mp3, talking navigation dialogue system n whatever language you like, sim card, so the radio becomes it's own telephone, but you can also use the build in bluetooth for communication with any other mobile device or with your iPod. Much, much more, and of course a healthy Becker Surround Sound system to begin with.

After all this beautiful news the big bummer is the price; 1500 Euros, 1900 dollar. By cripes! Should I?

Posted by Leon at 11:47 AM | Comments (3)

June 26, 2006

SP@Mmed!!!!!

Click on the image for a view of my activitylog

Beginning bloggers will probably love them. But those who, either for work of for fun, are confronted daily with hundreds of spams, and stupid or rude posts and reactions, is wondering it might be time to start looking for another job - and hobby.

Beginning bloggers will probably love them. But those who, either for work of for fun, are confronted daily with hundreds of spams, and stupid or rude posts and reactions, is wondering it might be time to start looking for another job - and hobby.

My own blog has become such a mess that Í was forced to start moderating all comments. The good thing is that spam postings concerning porn, Viagra, online casino's and mortgage sellers are no longer published automatically, the bad news that I have to check, read and click around, at least a couple of times per day.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

If the increase of spam was corresponding with visits and page views I probably wouldn't mind that much, but all spam on my blog is dumped there by the bloody bots of the spam posters.

From a tech point of view an interesting duel between the spammers bots and the new patches or new anti-spam measures for different content management systems, but I'm afraid this is going to be a never ending draw for years to come.

Our newspaper content management system - knock on wood - isn't pestered at all by spam postings. Not because it's such an intelligent system, but because it's too rare, compared tot the blog systems used by millions of bloggers. Spammers write scripts for those systems, and don't bother to tailor them for a system that's used for a few portals.

Having said that: I have to spend an ever growing part of my valuable time at the hundreds of portal postings put there by humans every day. They all have to be read, and validated or rejected.

I guess about fifty percent of them meets our requirements: a valid (which means valid-looking) email address, real name, decent use of language, a least some comprehensible content.

The other half is mainly crap, hogwash, garbage, junk, trash or litter. Tirades, verbal onslaught, cursing, e-mail address bull@shit.com, postings completely in CAPITAL, which on the web is the equivalent of screaming and shouting.

Remarkable: a space after a punctuation mark is hardly ever used. Not very surprising is that number one of most used marks is exclamation: !!!!!!

Posted by Leon at 12:58 PM | Comments (7)

June 16, 2006

Reckless clicking in the dark room

Some people, not infected yet with HIV, apparently kick on either excitement or relaxation– or the two of them, the second state of mind after the first – in dark rooms.

For those who secretly would love to live dangerous, but don’t want to play fast and loose their own healthiness, here’s a good alternative.

See the Internet as one big dark room, and your machine as your own backdoor. Like Steve Knopper who bought a brand new Dell, and started clicking around like a lunatic in the dark room.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

He describes in the latest publication of Wired what happened to the virgin Dell in '18 days of Reckless Computing'.

After disabling his firewalls and virus-protection software Knopper starts clicking on all forbidden fruits in cyberspace. On all the nastiest-looking spam that friends and relatives sent them on his request. On pop-ups, attachments, on ‘Gain Spyware’ advertisements, offers form the ‘Free Smit Club’, MP3s in Arabic, pirated copies of Tom Raider and every possible .xxx, .gif, .rar, .pif and .exe file he could find on Kazaa.

Wherever his cursor accidentally stuck, or got sucked into, Knopper clicked.

His conclusion? ‘It seems our Internet overlords are sanitizing spam. If I were to treat my body the way I treated this computer, I’d have yellow fever, bird flu and Alzheimer’s.’.

The Dell? Somewhat worse for wear. On the eighteenth day of its ordeal it had to be taken to the Best Buy’s Geek Squad.

The owner told the techs that he had ‘a bit or trouble with it’. A couple of hours later he got a call: the software was declared a total loss. When they ran a virus scan it started beeping and kept beeping until they turned it off. The hard disk had to be formatted and restored with the system disks.

I love stories like this and I hit myself on the shoulder again because It looks I made a good decision (for a change :-)

Since November 2005 I’m working at home on an iMac and OSX. What I sometimes– almost – miss at home are the troubles and irritations I have to live with every day on my job at the Internet desk of the newspaper.

I’ve got the fattest Dell over there, and I don’t blame the machine, but the XP that’s installed on it. I constantly need a program or ten, like PhotoShop, Escenic Web Studio, Escenic Content Studio, an FTP client, Hermes editorial suite, Dreamweaver, TextPad, Outlook Exchange, AutoPhelix, which is based on Microsoft Access, and some more tools.

One of the results is that I have to hard reboot the machine three to five times a day because the one gigabyte memory is full, one way or another and everything just stops.

My iMac at home is a bit boring: it’s has been quietly for eight months what I bought it for: quietly doing its job.

Posted by Leon at 10:12 AM | Comments (8)

June 12, 2006

No signor, no pinpas por favor

Apple Quick Take, 1995

On march 23, in broad daylight, four pickpockets robbed me from my Ixus 400 on Plaza San Francisco in La Paz, capital of Bolivia. Maybe they were inspired by president Evo Morales who at the very moment was delivering a three hours speech on the same Plaza, in front of 100.000 Bolivianos, about Bolivia's legal and eternal right to a part of Chilean Pacific coast.

After all it was water - though not salt - that number one sprayed in my neck, and when I felt it running down my back, number two pointed to the sky. When I looked up where the hell rain on a cloudless day came from, number three knocked me down, running into my left shoulder, and at the same instant number four ran off with my camera.

Because number two helped me on my feet, and pointed into the direction where number four had disappeared, I didn't realise that number two in fact was, well, number two.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

That information was handed to me later that spoiled day in the office of the Policia Touristica by sergeant Wilfredo Rivas, when he made up my statement for the insurance company back home. At which point I got even more pissed than I already was; stupid simple me, that charming and smiling guy was one of the bloody robbers!

'Si', officer Rivas pointed out smiling, while he collected ten Bolivianos (one Euro) from me, which he deposited in a locker under his desk, 'that's the way they work'. Maybe he's saving the money for a new type writer, as my statement shows that the lower case l (for London) had failed on the one he was using, replaced by a capital I (for Itaca) over the document.

Feeling forlorn without a digital camera in my breast pocket, especially during the wonderful bike trips over the last couple of weeks, I've been web- as well as window shopping for a while for a new Ixus. As the old one was three years old, Canon has issued a number of new releases in the meantime, so which one? After reading some reviews I decided for the Ixus 800 IS, to be released 'in spring 2006'.

Spring came, but Amazon Deutschland (cheap shipping to Holland) had no Ixus 800 on stock until june, and when I finally wanted to place my order I found out I had to live in either Germany or Austria. Scheisse, back to a Dutch web shop.

Some things don't get easier over the years. I bought my first digital camera, an Apple Quick Take, over the Internet in September 1995. Things were pretty simple then, because there was only one web shop: Cyberian Outpost, who delivered fast via DHL. I still have the Quick Take, in pristine condition, in the original box, might be a good idea to put it on eBay, maybe it will pay for my new Ixus.

These days you have more web shops than camera models, and even with websites specialized in checking websites for prices, you need a lot of time to find a combination of right prize and trusted shop.

At first I went back to to the same web shop where I bought the one now probably being used somewhere in Bolivia. It turned out that the shop had gone broke in the meantime, according to a very fast and friendly guy over the phone, only minutes after I've filled in a mail form. He's taken over the complete database form the liquidator, and he's very helpful, but he can't find my original bill. I'm in dire need a peace of paper, any piece of paper, for the insurance company, cause I can't find a paper trace in the rummage in the attic.

One of the reason is some kind of idiot customer mismanagement in Dutch post offices. Because I didn't know the web shop three years ago, I'd chosen for carriage forward, in hindsight a wise decision, regarding the bust. Under this form of delivery (rembours in Dutch) the mailman calls at your door, and you have to pay him cash, although every DHL delivery man in Europe is accepting digital cash for as long as I know.

Anyway, when you're not home, he slips a ticket in your mailbox, telling you he will be back the next day. You can't choose to collect your packet yourself, you have to wait at least one extra day (or three over the weekend, no rembours on Saturday). If you're not home for his second coming, you'll find another red slip, and with that one - and a valid ID, like drivers license or passport - you can go the post office to collect your order, but only the next (next) day.

Finally there, after standing in a cue for ten or fifteen minutes, my camera was there all right on a shelve, but the post office guy - I swear he was ashamed - tells me I can't use my pinpas (Dutch for digicard) for rembours. The Dutch post office (TPG) is owned by TNT, their Postbank (Postbank/ING) is part of ING (Postbank/ING), and my credit card as well as my pinpas are issued by Postbank/ING. Nevertheless I have to leave the cue and the building, to put my Postbank/ING bankcard in the Postbank/ING ATM at the wall outside, pull cash out, go back into the building (I admit they did not force me back into the cue) and hand the money issued by the Postbank/ING ATM to the Postbank/ING guy behind the counter. While I wonder if they've put the money straight back into the very same ATM later that day, I tell you this is The Netherlands, and not Wladiwostok.

I remember the case because I can't find a receipt three years on. My Internet banking shows a withdrawal of 700 Euro on that day and that place, but the camera was only half the price of that, so I must have needed some cash for a constructor or something.

All things are coming to good end now. The insurance company showed up the other day with a was very surprising piece of customer care treatment: the old Ixus- I'd sent them the original box and some spare parts - is completely covered. Only a minor write off. Maybe I should sent Wilfredo Rivas a card from Holland, as his statement, even with all the I's, surely has been of some help.

Which reminds me of his smile when when I asked if I could pinpas the one Euro, payment for the statement?

He seemed to like the word pinpas for digicard, pronouncing it a few times, but alas: 'No, signor Krijnen, no pinpas por favor, only one Boliviano or American dollar'. As the statement was already made up that moment, I've forgotten to include the one Euro at the insurance claim (as well as the brand new one gigabyte flashcard inside the old Ixus), but I'm not going to bother them anymore, being a satisfied customer.

I'm expecting my new Ixus 800, and as the mailman has called on Friday while I was out for lunch, I know when to collect it: tomorrow, Tuesday. He'll be back today, but as I'm not home now, I'll find the slip from the second coming on my doormat tonight.

As I'm not as stupid as you might expect after reading until here, first thing tomorrow morning I'll be pulling cash from the ATM outside the building before entering the cue inside the post office.

Come back in a few days, and you'll find new pictures.. To begin I'll produce some images of my Apple Quick Take, shot with the new Ixus.

P.s.

Two hours later: In the end more luck. While driving back into to my home town on this beautiful summer day, I noticed the driver of a big red TPG van, just hopping out of the drivers seat. Should it be possible?

'Excuse me sir, do you happen to have a delivery for the Van G. 52'? Not surprised at all: 'Yes sir, if you have an ID and the money, I can hand it over to you right now'.

Beautiful, fair dinkum! The new Ixis is much smaller than the previous one, while the display is much bigger. The battery pack is charging, which will take, according to the manual, 2 hours and five minutes.

Two hours and five minutes? Now what?

Does it mean you have to send the battery back when it's fully charged charging after two hours and six or seven minutes instead?

Posted by Leon at 01:17 PM | Comments (7)

June 02, 2006

Look, look, don't buy!

You've bought a digital television set so you can watch the Soccer World Cup in digital quality? Enjoy, the next four weeks. You haven't bought one yet? Congratulations, because there won't be much to enjoy after the last whistle of the World Cup.
On the Bright Blog (also available on paper at your local newsstand) Tonie van Ringelestijn has written a very readable article about the (im)possibilities of digital television. Thank you very much Tonie, because I too have been browsing through numerous screaming advertorials that were dumped on my doormat over the last months. They were all in eye-hurting orange (as you may know Holland is playing in our ugly national colour) and they were all about television; flat, lcd, plasma, hdtv or hd-ready.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

Now you don't have to know a lot about (digital) television, you only need a a bit of common sense to realise it's better to exercise some patience. By the way; the bloody color, apart from being ugly (I'm an active member of the anti-monarchist New Republicans :-), is so persistent that they rather say Orange over here instead of Holland, or National Team.

Anyway, if Orange survives the first three matches (Ivory Coast, Serbia-Montenegro, Argentina) it might take a week or so longer. But inevitable - with or without Orange hysteria - the final will be history, and the very next day - in a country either totally drunk or in mourning, the big digital television dump will be on.

Be aware of the fact that the very same flat television set will be half the price at the beginning of summer, so wait, wait, and wait.

Wait a little more, because for an unknown time, there won't be much broadcasting in digital quality. Fans of niche channels like Discovery hd, National Geographic hd, hd1-nl (a Dutch non-stop channel streaming Dutch and Flemish channels in digital quality), will be alright, but that'll be mainly it for a long while.

Do also realise that long-term subscriptions will be more expensive than the ones that cover the World Cup. Currently there's a shortage of decoders, so it might be tempting to buy some available box that you'll have to replace in a couple of months.

The first time you see a digital television set showing digital quality your mouth will fall open and you will want one. Heavenly quality indeed. But he big question is if the biggest problem will be solved: standardization.

As there's no standardization yet (will it ever come?), you might buy an expansive kit and caboodle with a lot of gadgets build in, with the risk that you'll never be be able to use or see a lot of these options.

The conclusion of my blogging colleague (thanks again): enjoy the flat sets in the shop, but wait, don't buy.

But then again, that won't be too difficult for a lot of my compatriots. After all, salesman all over the world know what the Dutch are very good at, and they even know this classic Dutch sentence: kijken, kijken, niet kopen.

Very well, you got it: look, look, don't buy.

Posted by Leon at 12:19 PM | Comments (1)

May 27, 2006

Cracker Jack

The longer I am working with computers - or have to, my combination of job and hobby is daily hit by highs and lows - the older I get, the more skeptic my view at protecting computers and systems, networks or protocols. A view opposing what I adviced during the last two weeks: move your complete kit and caboodle to the web, because that move will make your computerlife easier and you will sleep better.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

I'm still behind that recommendation, because the value of the content in my digital toko - some text, a few pictures, some sound - is such that a hacker is not going to spend one minute of his valuable time trying to get in. Furthermore almost everything is shown in the window of the webserver, for everybody browsable in this free library.

In a secure locker in the back of the shop are some documents and data ment for my own eyes only, but even those are no state secrets worth something to somebody else. Nevertheless I change my passwors every once in a while - and not too simple, mor like #$CracKeR55jacK2309@#, a precaution that probably prevents some misery.

But assumption stays the mother of all fuck-ups, as was shown last week, when Microsofts Xbox was hacked and cracked. In an effort that only took four months, even though somebody at Microsoft had predicted it an impossible accomplishment, because the level of security was something nobody in the hacker community had ever seen before . . .

Regarding security and digital protection of content; that will all be sorted out in a couple of years. Artists, producers and consumer organisations, will reach some consensus, some new commercial model that everybody can live and work with. Without digital protection, always doomed to be cracked sooner or later.

Perfect security is much more needed in other models and systems, like banking and payments systems. By the way; what about voting systems?

According to someone who knows what he is writing about - Bob X. Cringely - it's easier to crack an American Diebold voting computer than an Xbox. As far as I know over here in The Netherlands we are voting for at least twenty years with the same voting computers. I'm wondering if those machines are as easy to cheat as the ATM's over here which were emptied by criminals after adding fake mouth bits tot the money machines. Hows that?

Link: KRO Reporter over Rop Gonggrijp

Posted by Leon at 11:28 AM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2006

Webjunk

According to some people working with computers is very bad for mind and body.

While I’m wondering if that could be true, I’m fanatically hitting keys eight days a week, for work as well as for fun.

True or not, as someone who has been able, by some luck, to turn one of my hobbies into my job, I shouldn't’t complain about long hours.

Although I have to take care not to become addicted, always a problem where work and hobby meet.

Translation @ DutchCowboys

I think I’m socially functioning reasonable well, but whoever who in the real world is skeptical about it, send me a mail, or ping my chatserver.

While I guarantee a reply, there’s only one frequent warning signal regarding my computer behaviour: my still growing collection of reading glasses. One by one they’r being replaced by stronger pairs.

Bigger dangers out there on the web. Two warning were issued last week, both from scientific sources: working with older computers is very bad for morale. And old or new; if you’re sitting on your butt in front of them for too long, thrombosis is a real danger.

Regarding the old machines I fully agree, and I hope IT and budgeteers are reading with me: providing me with a new machine every six months or so is a very good investment indeed. Health, productivity, office morale, work ethos, everything will be better. Guaranteed ☺

The e-thrombosis showed up in one of my RSS feeds – courtesy Sydney Morning Herald. SMH mentions a story in the European Respiratory Journal, in which New Zealand researchers report a thrombosis, caused by computing too long.

Before you start running away from your screen, the case in question looks pretty extreme, even to my ow standards.

A 32-year old webjunk – a patient indeed – ‘who used to sit immobile at his computer screen, at work and at home, for 12 hours a day, and on occasions for up to 18 hours’ .

At first he ignored a swollen calf – too busy chatting – became increasingly breathless in the ensuing weeks, and finally collapsed when a massive blood cloth that had formed in one of his leg veins, finally broke off and travelled to his lungs.

While I am very curious about the strength of his reading glasses, I can’t help wondering about some factors that might have influenced the research.

For decennia we’re been told that drinking too much coffee might be a cause of hart disease. Until someone mentioned another possibility: people who drink more coffee than the average, are also smoking, more than the average.

Someone who sits in front of his computer for 12 to 18 hours daily, hasn't got too much time time left to work on his fitness and his sex life will be completely virtual.

Fort the time being I’m not going to worry about defects caused by doing my work and/or hobby for too long.

What’s more: the sun starts shining. I put my Mac to sleep, perfect day to make some miles on my race bike.

Posted by Leon at 10:00 AM | Comments (1)

May 05, 2006

Moving house and the FlashMac

My complete computer content has moved to the web, I realised this week.

Over time my machine has become nothing more than an interface between my living room and the Internet. Everything that's valuable is somewhere out there on that evil web, but I don't bother at all.

I trust Verio, the keeper of my virtual magazines, I trust Google, my digital amanuensis, I trust Apple, my mechanic.

Behind