I did like eMail, but the new Maid Mail makes even SPAM extremely enjoyable.
I did like eMail, but the new Maid Mail makes even SPAM extremely enjoyable.
Dear Corporate, Marketing and PR-People please stop pretending that your company really cares about anything but itself and it’s profits.
You could yourselves a lot of your time and money – and spare us a lot of disappointment, anger and time as well.
Just tell us what you are willing to give us in exchange for our money, data and time – and we decide if it’s worth it.
Spare us the marketing platitudes and false "feel-good-shows" to get our endorsement. Sooner or later your greed will show through and that’s always ugly …
All modern browsers offer a privacy mode for "safely" browsing the web. Most people will use it for pr0n surfing and maybe some Social Network Stalking.
But it’s an illusion that this special mode can "hide" you on the net.
First of all you always will have an IP address that will allow any web site provider to identify you. When you dial in using your DSL or Cable Modem connection you get an IP assigned by your ISP. If you are using a business connection you probably have a static IP anyway.
Any device that is on the Internet has an IP address. No IP, no Internet.
It is possible to use so called anonymous proxy services or browser tools like TOR to hide behind behind another IP address, scramble your data and obfuscate your own IP address.
Is that real "safe" or better say anonymous browsing? Nope!
In many countries your ISP is required by law to protocol all your IP connections, which means some server is recording your surfing habits basically "at the source".
There is no way getting around that. Your ISP can always see from where your data packets come from or go to. Like I said before, you can use TOR or a VPN connection to scramble your data. So your ISP will at least see that you are talking to a VPN service.
All your traffic can be captured by the ISP and if the law services require it, they can try to crack the scrambled data.
But there are other problems: browser plug-ins like Flash or Java. They can betray you by telling websites your IP address. You either need to switch these plug-ins off or have a good security tool to make them shut up (at least for outgoing traffic).
Killing Flash takes out the joy of surfing most pr0n sites. And many other sites rely on Flash too.
So your best bet for anonymous surfing is TOR, but you have to allow it to kill Flash and some other plug-ins to make you really "invisible". But always remember that your ISP is able to see your outgoing and incoming connection (but not the scrambled data packets that are sent back and forth). Those packets can be captured and someone can try to decipher them.
Instant Messaging once was the "next big thing". It hasn’t disappeared, but many people prefer using Facebook, Twitter or Skype to communicate.
The decline of IM is mostly to blame on the various vendors (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc.), because they could not agree on a single standard that would work across several networks.
But thanks to more bandwidth many people use voice calls or video conferencing instead of IM. Why type for hours, when you can simply say it much quicker.
IM was always only a stepping stone to video conferencing anyway.
Human culture was primarily about survival: recording, archiving and handing over proven methods in the fight against nature and the human condition.
Culture can only exist if we can record knowledge. First we relied on our brains and transferred stories via song and rhymes from Generation to Generation (BTW: Is there a Windows Upgrade song?).
The invention of written records changed everything, because it allowed us to document and record all our knowledge in greater details. Written Records were much more secure and reliable than pure Oral History.
No surprise that the first great societies to use written records for taxation, laws and property
And the written word is still the basis for our societies: all our laws and contracts are made in writing …
Can you read old Babylonian Cuniform?
Knowledge tools have the following functions: a standardised code for data, some way of entering/editing the data, an archiving medium as permanent as possible, a way of indexing all the data available and transporting/transmitting the data to others.
Entering data with a Quill on the archiving media Paper was pretty tedious, editing a bitch and data transmission a pretty tiresome process – at least for the last few hundred years …
Knowledge recording is all about standards: if your recording changes the "code" for example in midsentence or it’s meaning only known to you then it’s pretty useless for future generations.
Without the Rosetta Stone we couldn’t "decode" old Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
The stick seems to be the human data entry medium of choice for a long time: it was used to press letters into clay or wax tablets. It got an update as brush, pen or quill. Only recently the "stick" was replaced by keyboards.
One small note on data entry: writing / typing "blindly" was once an important skill in the industrial age. Today most computer users "point" like little kids at the letter they want. Overall our "point and click" interfaces seem a step back and slow us down …
Paper is still the most widely used recording medium and as a very durable too. I honestly doubt that you can "read" anything from a 500 year old USB stick or hard drive.
But Paper, Clay, Wax or Papyrus are not very fast medias and can only be automated for retrieval with a huge technological effort (ever seen a Papyrus-Server-Raid?).
Magnetic Medias like Hard Drives and Tapes are more machine friendly – but we also need machines to make them readable again for Humans.
So today’s knowledge infrastructure is primarily for machines, not humans.
A good example are search machine robots that "crawl" other machines (web servers) to "read" and index their content …
You want your data back … stupid human …
Knowledge without Structure or Index is pretty useless. Try finding all related entries to one topic in ten books and it’s already hard work. Try to do the same with 100 or 10.000 books – or hundreds of Terabyte of Data.
Most people hardly know Index Cards these days, but they know what a Search Function is.
The automatic Indexing of Data (and fast transmission) were the real game changers of the Digital Revolution, they allow totally new knowledge applications.
Data Retrival is fast and almost instantly – anyone who has searched for days or even months in huge archives for (paper) records knows the tough difference …
Gutenberg’s Movable type and Index Cards were a big step. The Renaissance could have never happened without the thousands of printers cranking out books. Reproducing books took months or even years before the printing press …
The Killer App of the Renaissance: the Book and Index Cards.
Today we can copy the whole of Wikipedia under ten minutes. New Knowledge on the Web is often indexed within seconds of it’s publication and is also immediately available for retrieval.
Postal Services and Couriers have long been our fastest "data networks".
Compare sending a holiday postcard via snail mail to sending your snapshots via your iPhone. Almost instant transmission – and very reliable and cheap too.
Once again: transmitting / copying huge amounts of Knowledge is easy, cheap and pretty reliable today. There are no Couriers who loose important "data" or get shot …
The fast data transmission / retrieval has created a new Realtime Knowledge Society with a nasty side effect.
Instead of really needing to remember and understand things we "know" we can "search" for it everywhere and anytime.
We have started to outsource (important) knowledge to machines. Sure we always relied on notebooks, calendars and address books to organize our lives, but "searching" is becoming a more important skill than "knowing" and "understanding".
The problem is, that to understand an ever complex world you need to "understand" stuff and not just know where to find knowledge itself.
How knows everything today?
Producing written records was never easier –and even making audio recordings, videos and photos is child’s play now.
All major technologies (typewriter, punch cards, records, radio, TV, photography and cinematography) have been around since the early 20th century – but in the last twenty years we almost all these technologies converge into smaller and smaller devices.
But it’s not about the convergence of the recording and storage technologies (once machine to record words, sounds, images and videos), but also editing, indexing and connecting all the painstakingly collected data.
The Weapon of Choice for the Modern Jungle …
While Index Cards allowed old fashioned Libraries to "connect" knowledge in the old days – today software is our friend.
Software allows all these new recording devices to be much smarter than a dumb book. Google is the new Index Card, Word the new Quill and the iPad the new Wax Tablet.
YouTube circa 1960′s?
Many Futurists and Writers have warned us about a bleak computerized Future. But many warnings like Big Brother was never about computers, but about a totalitarian System.
The Romans and Nazi Germany created such terrible states without the help of computers.
The future is positive for the culture of the human race: instead of many "storage devices" the Internet will became our mutually shared "book" of everything.
Cloud Computing and Crowd Sourcing (like Wikipedia) emerge as the new Knowledge Tools – and we are all "high" on data …
Knowing stuff is not the same as thinking about stuff …
But the real question is if all these amazing Knowledge Tools are really advancing the Human Race & Culture?
Until the arrival of Digital Tools we humans had to interact and really work with Knowledge to gain Knowledge. (Sure you could buy many books and not read them – and stay ignorant.)
Today Knowledge is more and more outsourced to machines and machine recommendations.
To truly advance as a Society and as an Individual it’s all about understanding the connections and interactions between different pieces of Knowledge.
Robots are more and more translating and editing our Knowledge into atomized Database Snippets. They also keep records of the connections and interactions between these "bits" – but do we Humans?
Are we drowning in a Sea of Knowledge? Are we loosing the daily training of mentally working through knowledge, re-evaluating, rethinking and rephrasing it? Data Surfing is not the same as "chewing" on it.
To stay the sharpest knife in the drawer you have to use your mind constantly and not borrow someone else’s blade …
Great movie and a terrible vision for our future …
The so called Knowledge Society is alive and well. Billions of people use the web to retrieve and discuss bits of Knowledge.
But it’s also true that the "group think" and "well informed ignorance" has increased as well.
Modern Myths, Corporate Propaganda and Political Spin still have a huge impact on Individuals as well as Society as a whole – although often a simple search and some "thinking" could dispel half-truths and lies. It seems that the Knowledge Society is the ideal tool for creating "noise" to drown out any clear signal (of enlightenment).
Processing Knowledge is not the same as retrieving it. Ignorance is today the biggest sin of so called "responsible" Citizens. The excuse "I didn’t know" is an insult in the Age of Google. Asking for Knowledge is so easy these days, but Understanding the Answer something completely different?
With tools like Skype, eMail and movies online notebooks have become the most important line home. Armies have always tried to deliver personal mail to the front lines – and they still do.
But the Internet makes all this much easier.
I wonder if the virtual "closeness" makes it actually harder to be away? You can see your far away kids growing up, listen to your wife / husband in tears …
Vint Cerf is a smart guy – he is one of the Fathers of the Internet. So he know technology and it’s impact.
I think we are slowly understanding the recent impact of “the information at your fingertips”: we have more access to information and better knowledge tools, but more and more people do NOT learn how to dissect, understand and expand that knowledge.
Welcome to your cloud account at Google.
After years of speculation and wet dreams the Nerd world finally got to see the fabled Google Operating System (Chrome OS): a boot loader for a browser. (long video here)
A bit of an anti-climax.
Wired and all the blogs are disappointed – they wanted a razzle-dazzle new OS that would leave Windows 7 and Snow Leopard behind.
That’s not going to happen. Google is first and foremost an Internet company. They live in a “cloud” of servers and web applications. Google doesn’t do old fashioned hardware and applications.
The heralds of the digital age don’t understand that web applications and a cloud based operating system will never offer the same power as desktop computing.
Desktop computing is literally putting “Information AND PROCESSING POWER at your fingertips”. Your data and your CPU belong to you – no stinking net connection needed to “reach it”.
Once we have your data we own you … biatch!
Cloud computing is a step back to how computing was in the old days of Mainframes and Terminals. All the power and data resided in a giant computer the mainframe – and you could “peek” into it by using a dumb and feeble terminal. The terminal itself had no processing power or data storage to speak of – it was just a “window” into the mainframe.
Yesterday’s Terminals are today’s Netbooks, Smartphones and iPhones. Small underpowered devices only meant to “connect” you to small datasets or the “cloud”.
Google, Apple and many other companies want to suck you into THEIR clouds – because once they have your data they won’t give it back so easily.
Services like GMail, Flickrs, Twitter, Google Docs, Apple MobileMe, YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft OfficeLive, Adobe’s Acrobat online etc – they all want your data on their clouds.
And they know: once you have a certain amount of “your life” on their server array it’s too much hassle for you to switch.
Because downloading or deleting all those documents, images, videos and links is a time consuming process via the browser – and it is also a “Social Inconvinience”, because all your friends & colleagues have these links and have their “cloud lives” linked to yours.
And you don’t want to disconnect your friends, will you?
Cloud Computing 1.0 – IBM-style …
Microsoft might have annoyed us for years, giving us software and data formats that were less than perfect. But at least we had everything on OUR computers and hard drives.
Once you save something in a “cloud” you have only limited access to it. Internet connections are far from being so reliable like electricity and not everyone has a brutally fast internet connection at home – or on the road. And without (a fast) connection there is no access to your “cloud”.
A backup or transfer of your “cloud life” to your machine or another provider is often cumbersome or even impossible. (so much about open standards)
That is the same strategy how IBM made loads of money till the late 1980′s: the vendor lock in. IBM’s mainframes only ran IBM software – for their customers was no choice and hardly a chance to get out either.
The PC revolution offered hardware and software even mere mortals could afford and operate. Although MS-DOS, Windows nor Apple OS/X are open source, the platforms allowed users to run applications from different vendors. In the case of the Wintel Universe you could buy hardware from any vendor and the Operating System as well as your applications would run. You were not locked into just vendor …
Now we will be equally “chained” to our cloud providers. If they deny us access we are locked out of our own data, email, instant messages, tweets, Facebook profile and our whole online identity – and in the case of the Chrome OS – our own computers – we are fucked! (and you thought loosing your cell phone was bad?!)
You don’t own the cloud – the cloud owns you!
We demand simplicity instead of control over our own data …
I am afraid the great PC revolution is over and many people will welcome the switch to “dumb web 2.0 terminals”, because they are too stupid to manage their own PCs and data.
I can understand them – keeping a system clean and running is a tough job: system updates, driver updates, viruses, malware, hackers, crash recovery, regular backups and their own chaotic file organization.
It’s so much nicer to have Google (or another data centre) taking care of that. You just USE the cloud, you don’t need to keep it intact, install anything or even do a backup.
All done by some invisible hand … and in most cases even for free! How can you compare that smooth “user experience” to the hassle of fixing a broken or virus invested Windows machine?!
Care for your local data – always make backups. No matter how weird your backup medium is …
But dear consumers: beware what you are wishing for!
Just look how your cell phone company milks you for every bit of data you use via their network and devices. Do you really think that even bigger computer companies will play nice once they got you by the balls?
And one more thing: trying to get your data back from your crashed computer is one thing, getting your data back from a locked down server on another continent a totally different task …
I have high hopes for Postbox a new eMail client, which is based on Mozilla’s Thunderbird. I never understood why Thunderbird has so many obvious flaws that makes it hard to use (and adopt for any user or company – although the software itself is free).
Postbox is basically Thunderbird done right. And that’s even worth paying for it – and available for Mac & PC. The recently released first version is very good, albeit not perfect. But the Postbox team has shown it understands what users need and how to improve the workflow (check the big feature list and great interface here). Excellent!
I am looking forward to the next versions – I am not jumping ship yet. Unless either Thunderbird or Postbox or any other client really combines the feature set of Outlook (especially tasks, calendar, address book and notes) into one package I am not switching. There is a reason why in the corporate world Outlook in combination with Exchange rules supreme – it’s simply a feature set the modern Office slave needs.
If Postbox succeeds in integrating all these features (a lot of work) PLUS a working Google Services integration (GMail, calendar, address book and Reader) than they have a killer. Because GMail clients too focused just on Google and Microsofts hates opening up.
So my dear Postbox team – if you can combine both worlds you deserve all my praise and some money. Such a products is much needed …
No, your personal life is not a "brand" that needs to be shared and fostered by sharing every minute of your life on the intranets.
Collecting and recording every titbit of your existence is not the same of actually living it. Canned memories are not the same as experience. Or are you planning to "experience" it all once you retire and finally grow up?
When you live outside the US you can’t watch many web videos of commercial shows: “this content is not available in your country”
Bugger.
I can understand that copyright owners want to sell their shows to foreign markets, but often the shows arrive a year later and there is usually NO WEB option to watch the stuff. And often I want to see the original version – not a cut down and dubbed mess …
But don’t despair! With FoxyProxy and a proxy server you can watch all that great stuff – if you are willing to fiddle a bit with your browser and pay for a good proxy server to watch restricted videos from YouTube, Hulu or the BBC iPlayer …
Basically all you have to do is this:
* find / buy a free proxy server suitable for the restricted website you want to access
* download & install FoxyProxy in Firefox
* enter the proxy servers address and your account info when you buy a commercial proxy service
* and switch FoxyProxy on or off when you need to access restricted content
In the Stone Age of Multimedia there was just one TV, one Radio, one Phone and one Record Player for the whole family.
Today’s multi-channel multimedia families have multiple entertainment and data devices for each family member. Plus everyone has many different online-personalities all over the intranets.
Instead of living and experiencing a "unified family reality" today we spread ourselves over several planes of virtual existence.
So it’s no surprise that so many families are feeling disconnected, hardly share mutual experiences or participate in each other’s lives. They are connected somewhere else with a million strangers …
The Single-Device-Family was certainly less sophisticated, but they actually had more time on their hands. They didn’t need to learn to handle complex devices, configure their computers, VCRs, cell phones, cameras, digicams, Facebook & MySpace pages, update their operating systems …
Their head were less stuffed with following a gazillion TV shows, celebrities, events in remote places, horrors and hysterias unreported or not yet invented.
Less sometimes really is more.
Wall Street Journal - China Squeezes PC Makers
China requires PC makers to put firewalls on their machines to filter certain websites locally. It’s not enough that China constantly blocks many sites like Wikipedia etc. as it suits the tyrannical government – the control will be directly installed on people’s machines.
But I am pretty sure many other governments dreams of equal measures – even here in the so called free west.
So CompuServe officially died this week – it was the first big online service here in Germany and allowed newbie’s like to go "on" for huge amounts of money.
Sometimes I spent about 1.000 or 3.000 Deutschmarks per month for that bloody service. If I remember correctly my ID was 10015,1352 – it’s almost exactly the amount of money CompuServe ripped off me.
I loved the service and it’s text based interface – and worked quite well with my speedy 12.800 modem.
On CompuServe I discovered all the basics of online lifestyle and communities: forums, eMail, Chat, user profiles and downloads.
CompuServe died a long and miserable death – like AOL (who actually deserved it). But both actually were victims of the openness and their own ignorance to adapt to it.
“Nazi Porn” is one of the search keywords that bring quite some hits from Google. So I felt obliged to offer all those “poor souls” looking for NAZI PORN a posting that actually offers some …
Are you getting excited?
I can actually recommend the video “Caligula reincarnated as Hitler”! Great camera works, excellent soundtrack and the acting … just magnificent …
Look she is a Medic, a Nazi and a Slut in one package!
You should be pretty excited by now?!
Here some hot SS-Studs … that should help?
Honestly, who are these people looking for Nazi porn on my bloody blog anyway?
Today’s netbased social interaction is getting lazier and lazier. Writing long eMails to you friends? Nope. Send a nice eCard with a personal note? Nope. Chat with them for hours via IM? Nope. Write a blog entry or comment on a posting? Nope. Write a Tweet (max 140 keys to press)? Nope.
We are now just down to one click to "connect" to your friends and tell them you are "with them".
Less and less context and "social stickiness" is created with these tools. It’s more like "rating" relationships and friends instead of creating your mutual "carpet of friendship" by creating unique actions and interaction.
On 31.3.1999 the amazing movie "The Matrix" was released – and it new cultural icon for the Internet age was born.
It’s theme is certainly an old one: a heroes descent from ignorance to full power. This was hardly a new tale. And Keanu Reeves was already used to playing messianic roles.
But the setting of the Matrix, it’s environment and Kafka-like mentality hit the Zeitgeist of the final days of the last millennium. It was sexy, it was sterile, it was brutal, it was naked, it was inhuman, it was technical.
The underlying theme of a technology overpowering humanity was nothing new either, but this newest incarnation of this story was even harder to ignore than older scifi flicks. We do live in the age of the Internet, we live in the age of total computerization, we also live in a interconnected – disconnected human society.
The Matrix perfectly touched our own ignorance: how we love to enjoy the perfect illusion of a hedonistic life before we die. We don’t like to wake up and see how reality really looks like.
Everything is an illusion got a new meaning with this movie.
PS: Too bad that the other two parts are basically a remake of itself.
Can any commercial encyclopedia survive in the age of Wikipedia? Maybe if you are selling a specialized product, but generic commercial encyclopedias are a thing of the past.
I owned several editions of the Microsoft Encarta. It had great specials and functions that Wikipedia (still) doesn’t have. So I am a bit sad seeing these innovations gone.
But I am pretty sure they will come back to Wikipedia some day.
I read your eMail – Dalai Lama!
New Scientist: Chinese spy network infiltrated embassies worldwide
BBC News: Major cyber spy Network uncovered
Bad enough that the great Firewall of China suppresses it’s own people. Bad enough that western companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others support such measures. But it gets worse …
China – like probably every big nation – loves to spy and so they built a giant computer spy bot network. It seems like that China can’t afford or built such a big "weapon" like the American NSA. So they simply infected thousands of other people’s computers and made them their involuntary spy bots.
China is growing ever more paranoid and suppressive. When will this totalitarian regime finally fall?
Ah, Claris Emailer – anyone remember that program on the Mac? It was great and it simply worked. It remember it very fondly and used it a LOT.
But back in the late 90′s our computers were puny compared to today’s powerful machines.
Quote: "There is no Information Overload, there is just selection failure!"
Really? Internet nerds and the Generation Web loves to brag about all the information revolution, how it empowers users and saves the world. But instead we are polluted with information noise …
Yeah, the future is upon us – including pictures and comic strips (watch the video and you know what I am talking about).
Too bad that newspapers hardly profit from feeding so much information into the internet today.
PS: I feel very old right now.
No, you don’t need to be always on and connected everywhere just because you get a WiFi signal.
When I moved into my new place I had no DSL for two months. I was reduced to an UMTS-Datastick, which works quit well, but is no substitute for real bandwidth.
Now I have 18.000 down and 1.000 kbit/s up. Now that’s what I call speed.
With my old 2000 DSL connection much less bandwidth and my download queue was always full with stuff I desperately needed to be sucked down from the intranets. But today updating my favorite podcasts takes only a couple of minutes, not hours to finish.
So most of the time the huge bandwidth lies dormant.
It’s a paradox: the more speed you have, the less you use it, because everything comes down so quickly.
Even downloading a whole movie sometimes happens under 15 minutes.
But at least I can skype with my friends, download pr0n and surf the web at the same time. That’s nice.
Slashdot: YouTube Passes Yahoo As #2 Search Engine
This is truly sad: Yahoo is slowly disappearing in the mists of insignificance. I have always loved Yahoo – and it’s (too) many free services were often far ahead of anyone else (including Google’s great free stuff).
Yahoo for example had free eMail and Calendar – and a great Desktop Synching Tool long before GMail was even on the drawing board. The same is true for Yahoo Groups in comparison to Google Groups.
But Yahoo has also the strange talent of fucking itself up.
The interfaces were often overdone – and there was always too much advertising as well. And there was always a serious lack of “cooleness” and “buzz” surrounding Yahoo’s tools.
It’s now just a matter of time before they die, since all desperate attempts to fix itself haven’t helped.
This is just a preview – you can watch the whole interview here.
It is an illusion that there is such a thing as privacy on the Internet, since everything is based on “labeled” data packets that have your address on it.
And most people give away their privacy by shamelessly sharing and providing big companies (not just the Google) with personal information.
How can you force companies to protect your privacy if you don’t do it yourself?
Google gives the Blogosphere a new toys – and the techworld goes bonkers. Calm down people, it’s just a browser.
I’ll admit: it’s nice, clean and works as advertised. Sure it’s minimalism is very appealing – especially when you have propped up your Firefox browser with a gazillion plug-ins.
I am just afraid that more companies will build their browser – which mostly serves their web sites and web applications better. Google’s Chrome is supposed to run it’s services like GMail especially fast (I didn’t notice any difference). Microsoft does the same with it Windows Update Website. Opera and Firefox are truely neutral, can’t say anything about Safari, because I never use it.
I don’t want to be forced to use a different browser for different websites.
Speed. Not really that faster than Firefox. I don’t notice any difference by using it.
Crash Protection. Maybe I have once a year a web page that hangs up on me. So not really needed. And I don’t need another Task Manager (like the Windows one) for web applications. It’s a nerd feature.
Interface. Nice and clean. Well done Google.
Memory Usage. A bit less then FF again, but not much less. FF uses more memory, because it offers the plug-ins more “hooks” to work with.
Adaptibility. You hardly can change anything in the browser. So you hardly can adapt it to your style of web surfing.
Plug-ins. You can expand the bloody Chrome thing. As much as it simplicity as appealing – for daily usage I need several plug-ins to be a happy surfer. For example: Google is obviously very interested that you see all advertising it throws at you – it’s their business. But I prefer my websites advertising free.
Bookmarking. Very easy to make bookmarks, but there are no extra tools to manage them. For example I have over 4.500 bookmarks – just dumping them in a list with no serious organizational tools like in Firefox it would be a nightmare. I am sure Google will improve that, but for now it’s a definitive show stopper for me.
If you are a casual Internet User you should stick to Internet Explorer. Such users are usually overstrained by any browser, so stick to the one you kinda know.
For more pleasure and a more customized surfing experience there is only one choice: Firefox.
Update: One more thing that’s a showstopper for me: no mouse gestures!
Remember: You don’t your mail on GMail – you are only allowed to access it for free when Google wants you to.
So always keep local copies of your email (by using Outlook or any other normal eMail program to access your Gmail account) – AND get an additional eMail account somewhere else as a backup too.
Never trust just ONE provider.
Firefox is currently the best browser available. I do love Opera, but FF with all it’s extensions and themes simply beats my former favorite.
Recently the first release candidate has been … uh … released and it’s a winner. I had no crashes or annoying bug while using this RC1 candidate. I won’t say it’s safe to install – but if you feel brave or simply want a faster and better browser than FF2 NOW – than go ahead an install it.
As usual RC or Beta software should only be used by developers and people who need it or want to fuck up their system. For the rest: they have to wait a few more weeks before the new version is ready – but in this case waiting is good, because several very popular extensions are not yet for FF version 3.0.
Let’s stomp out these ugly reports comrades …
It is easy to blame only the evil communist in China for all the censorship and blatant disregard for Tibet’s Freedom.
But Chinese Nationalism is as rampant as the state controlled suppression of the Tibetans. One only needs to remember the extreme rage against the Japanese during the last years. Japan has a lot to apologize for to China and Korea – and never has done so – so some of the outrage was “just”. But it was mostly insanely angry and fueled by Nationalism instead by a call for justice.
Chinese people – like the Russians, Iranians and North Koreans – live in a mental vacuum. They have no real news, only glints of reality and they don’t really know what’s going on in the world. Freedom of speech, public discourse and social experiments are absolutely limited and controlled by the state.
That is why many Chinese people defend their countries “actions” in Tibet as “just” and “fair” on the intranets. They are simply blind and ignorant. Patriotism is an ugly political disease, doesn’t matter if you scream “China! China!”, “USA! USA!” or “Heil Hitler!”.
I always love it when I see even spammers having problems with their software as well. May I recommend some medicine or penis extension to fix your problem?
Another excellent documentation from Frontline (which you can view online). This time about the first generation (of Americans) who grew up with the Internet, cell phones and computer games.
It covers all important topics: the ‘Always-on’ generation, ego surfing with MySpace and other sites, the new global ‘we’, web slutism, stalking and cyber bullying.
Highly recommended – even if you don’t have kids – because it gives you a better understanding in the psyche of the coming generation and the impact of technology on our society.
Currently China has about 2100 million Websurfers – and the number is climbing fast. Soon they will have overtaken the US as the #1 of Websurfers.
But too most of us Chinese Internet Users are almost invisible – and not just because of the language barrier (the same applies to many other nations that stay within their language bubble – like Japan or Arabic countries).
China’s Internet is heavily policed and censored – thanks to companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco and Google content is filtered, websites blocked (most famously Wikipedia) and users are hunted down if they dare to protest too much.
The old High-Tech-Hippie argument that the Internet can’t be tamed or regulated has been proven wrong – and not only by the Chinese Government. Places like Cuba or Iran are also black holes in the net infrastructure.
Information wants to be free – people too …
More? The Economist “Alternative Reality”
We are heading for the totally wireless gadget Internet: TV, radio and telephony are slowly making it to the net as well. Skype is already a great tool – I use it on a daily basis. For many business users it has replaced all the other instant messenger like AIM or ICQ.
Many people already got rid of their land line or only own one to have DSL – cell phones are the way to go. But I guess Internet phones will substitute sooner or later, because they offer an open basis and more possibilities for less money.
So cell phone providers will face the same struggle as classic telephone carriers and media companies: new technology will destroy their old and overpriced business model.
The new 3 Skype Phone are only available in a few countries, but the rates are amazingly low.
Can anyone still remember life before email? Most companies and private citizens didn’t use eMail before 1995 – so the revolution is hardly 10 years old for many people. (I got my first email address 1991)
You remember the pain of snail mail? Typing or printing your letter on paper, stuffing it into an envelope, finding the right stamp and post it into a letterbox right on time for next day delivery?
Old school mail sucked – although spam is taking the fun out of instant electronic delivery as well.
In which neighborhood in cyberspace do you hang out?
Blogsville?
Pr0natella?
News-Junction?
Home-Makers-Place?
Single-Square?
EyeCady-Heaven?
So many places, so little bandwidth and even less time.
To RGB or CMYK – that’s the Question!
You are a person with many interests and many skills? You love art, you produce art – but you also live with a huge pile of creative guilt? Welcome to the club! It’s hard to be a digital artist, since your computer enables you to run amazing tools – which have been unthinkable twenty years ago. A creative powerhouse in one small box.
Wanna make a movie? No problem use Adobe Premiere or AfterEffects. Are you a graphics person? Your choice is vast and wide – Photoshop, Illustrator, FreeHand, Painter – to name but a few. Wanna go 3D and do amazing effects or animations. Once again the list boasts absolutely amazing tools like Lightwave, Maya, 3D Max.
Oh my – you are a creative person! Wow!
You make music and love to sample and tweak sounds? A small feat these days – cool software is cheaply available, even Star Wars was remixed on a simple PowerBook using everyday digital tools and even great modern musicians use the same Samplers, Synths and Sequencer like you do.
Not to forget our good old writing tools to produce anything ranging from articles or complete books! You can go from a simple solution like Microsoft Word up to publishing powerhouses like Quark or InDesign. And how about your own web page or weblog? I am sure you want to show the world what you are capable off, let’s buy Flash, Dreamweaver or GoLive?
You had enough? Fine.
More human than human – welcome to the new 3D art universe (image: Miles Estes)
Modern designer are rapped and pushed to be digital renaissance artists – nothing is impossible. Since the DTP revolution in the late 80’s smashed the old lines between technician and artist – we creative types have to be both today a Geek and a Michelangelo in one person.
Once it used to be enough to excel as a writer, painter or photographer – know you have to be you own typesetter, reproduction expert, scanner and editor etc. as well. But since this is the analog2digital (A2D) generation we love to have multiple choice – since we know how limited we felt with our old tools: clunky typewriter, tipex, letraset letters, dirty chemicals to develop slides, dangerous cutters, slow snailmail and mechanical copy processes to name a few. No surprise: we love absolute control and absolute choice.
Welcome to a mad artists world.
But it’s driving us mad. Instead being limited to a certain area of art or projects we suddenly find ourselves doing a thousand creative things all at once: writing articles & weblogs, drawing illustrations, retouching photos, programming web sites, layouting a new CV and looking for background music for our presentations.
Did you really think one huge monitor would be enough?!
So much to do, so little time and energy. And the web as a global showcase doesn’t make things easier. There is a constant stream of competition and inspiration to cope with. Have you seen those cool Japanese animations? This great Danish photographer? These old retro covers of some weird fashion magazine?
All these choices, ideas and doors waiting to be opened drive any creator mad. The total overflow of choice makes it hard to focus on just one project, just one set of skills, just one insanely great idea. A tough decision for anyone who loves to surf in possibilities.
Modern artists still want and need to be kissed by their Muses as well.
And we feel a lot of guilt of not pursuing all those ideas that pop up in our minds. The guilt of not pursuing another great business idea or product the world desperately needs. We get paralyzed by all the doors we could jump through and enjoy another adventure in creativeland. And this guilt sucks big time.
Anything else Sir? But there is an additional problem: business. Today’s clients and employers all want a young super geeks with a Maestro’s thirty years of experience and wide ranging skill set. But just one arty farty person please. We are on a tight budget these days.
Ah, when art was simple and computers limited. (Image: Andres Becerra)
So it’s really hard to say ‘I am just an illustrator’ or ‘I can only write good articles’, since you don’t want to cut yourself out of the market. So we learn and buy many different software packages, try to stay on top of a gazillion technologies, names and gizmos. But most of all, we lose the time, energy and focus to be masters of our trade – to be simply open, productive and creative.
Although art involves knowledge and craftsmanship as well, once again we should start to make distinctions between mastering expressive techniques and mastering production technologies.
There is a difference between animating something and writing a flash script. There is a difference between composing a great stream of words to entice your readers and operating a content management system. There is a difference between taking great pictures and layout an art book. Let artists be artists, technicians be technicians and geek’s … oh well …
*repost 2003-08-19*
More and more people find their favorite websites blocked by corporate firewalls. Also email filters clamp down on stupid attachments like the newest ‘funny’ video or porn.
Actually I can only recommend to anyone working in a big company not to visits websites you like in private, nor use the companies email address for mailing your friends and family. Most admin’s don’t care about your stuff – but looking at your mails and surfing habits is a gold mine for any middle management asshole to find a reason to kick your butt.
So get yourself at least a private webmail account that supports secure transmission and is hopefully not blocked by your corporate admin. Don’t surf any pr0n, funny or dating websites during work – not even during lunch break. It will be recorded – and used against you …
I have been using skype since it’s start. Today it’s the only Instant Messaging program I use. I also do many conference calls and all my text messaging to cell phones with it. It’s cheap (to call land lines and cell phones), free (to download and call other computers) easy to use and works fine most of the time.
Highly recommended for all digital human beings. Delete your ICQ, AOL, Yahoo!, MSN or whatever IMs – this is the future.
One professor called this generation once screenies:
We work all day in front of a screen.
We relax in front of a screen.
We educate ourselves with screens.
We socialize via our screens.
We pick out our next date on a screen.
I think he is right.