Young indigenous Australians. 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 I 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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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:… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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 to nine (digital starts earlier that paper) it’s morning… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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.… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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 quite 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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
@ 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,… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
The New Reporter
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
Zune: no future?
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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 email is tired, not wired, so outdated, has-been, redundant. Email is not cool, no more, Internet youth (is there youth somewhere that doesn’t use Internet?) use email 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.… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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… >> Lees verder . . . >>
The Black Aldis
Met de meet van een uit de klauwen gelopen verbouwingsmarathon in zicht arriveert tijd, tijd, waarin ik me weer met mijn geluid bezig mag gaan houden. Terwijl ik dit op de iMac zit te schrijven streamt de Airport narco tango’s en klassieke rock – iTunes staat meestal op shuffle – naar onze 25 jaar oude Pioneer combo. De Sony boxen die eraan hingen vielen een paar jaar geleden pardoes uit elkaar; speakerconen vermolmd, vergaan. Net die week had de Aldi een mooie aanbieding: twee gitzwarte, loodzware speakers voor 99 euro. Ik heb de specificaties uit de krant overgeschreven, en vervolgens… >> Lees verder . . . >>
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.… >> Lees verder . . . >>