A few years ago I started a blog when a former coworker and good friend told me a couple of times to start one. Now after a few years every time something comes to mind, I Post is here. Enjoy reading about my life.
With my work and interests I’m someone with a few e-mail addresses. This is what I have (so far)
2 hotmail
1 yahoo
1 gmail
2 rafieksilver.com
and 1 from work.
That’s 7 e-mail adresses
Checking, sending mail is no problem. Almost all are used with a mailing program. The hotmail addresses and my rafieksilver.com mail are all received at home on m laptop. for the hotmail adresses I use Thunderbird, for the mail from my domain I use Evolution. The yahoo and gmail adres are the only ones I use as webmail. At work I use Evolution to check my mail.
Now there is one problem I have with this all. The different contact lists. Sometimes I want to mail one person but I don’t have the info on that mail account. Theoretically this could be solved by having a shared address book online and connect it to my different mail programs. www.unyk.com is a service that advertised they could to it. After subscribing I read the fine print, They are working on becoming the only address book you ever need, with the option to sync with hotmail, gmail etc. Only they are not there yet. The sync option is not working yet. And they are windows orientated so syncing with evolution is not really the plan.
Wel last week I had come up with the best solution so far. It is possible to import you address book form hotmail and yahoo into gmail. So I did that. It is possible to access your gmail contact list with thunderbird (with a plugin) and with evolution. So I can access my gmail contacts with my work and home mail programs.
To me one of the most important thing was getting my contact list on my phone. I have a HTC touch. A windows mobile smart phone. My phone can access a exchange server to sync mail, calendar, tasks and contacts. Google sync can simulate microsoft exchange. Google sync doesn’t support task sync yet. Using these options I use my gmail contacts as the primary contact list and sync it with my home, work and my phone. Every new contact I make on my phone is synced with my gmail contacts. Every appointment I make is synced with my phone, work and home. Google rocks.
Last Friday we did something I’ve only seen in movies. A friend of mine called me after work to execute a plan. He picked me up, we dropped my work equipment off at home and we drove off. We stopped around the corner of the home of another friend. Lets give these guys names. Mel picked me up and we stopped around the corner of jean’s house. There aren’t the real names of course. Jeans cousin and a few friend where waiting for use. We went to Jean’s house, his cousin called him and asked him to come downstairs. At the base of the stairs we jumped Jean. Blindfolded him and tied him up. We carried jean to the car, put him in, turned on loud music and drove off. We drove around to disoriented him. After 10 minutes of driving we stopped at a club, carried him inside put him on a chair and the stripper removed his blindfold. This was Jean’s bachelor party
The best part was the look on Jean’s face when he saw where he was. We all laughed at Jean as the stripper was giving her show and he did not really know where to look. Strippers usually encourage you to grab their breasts and ass, so did this one. But Jean being the Gentleman that he is didn’t do it. It could have something to do with the fact that brother-in-law and his future brother-in-law where amongst the guys there. But I don’t think so Jean is a gentleman. The stripper was good and she had a cute face but somehow Brazilian women don’t do it for me. After the show he was allowed to stand up and we drank something. After about an hour we left the club and met his female cousins at a beach cafe. We drank something and talked about his wedding the next day.
When I get married you guys are welcom to give me the some treatment. But be sure to get some guys that can restrain me. I wont be as passive as Jean was.
It has been a while since my last post. What has happends since then??
Well I’m single again. Not gonna ga in detail about what happened. That is between me and her.
My mother came and visited. She stayed 6 weeks and now she’s back in holland.
My sister moved in with me. My sister was a teacher in a small city in the interior for the last four years. Now she is gonna teach in the big city. Welcome back lill sis.
Miss Suriname
Last friday the miss Suriname pageant was held. I’m gonna give you my impressions of what happened. Important to know is that I did not attend the pageant. So I’m giving you the view of someone that did not see it from the front row.
There is a reason why I wasn’t there. The publicity they did caused me not to wanna go. First of all they made a hip-hop music clip with all the contestants wearing bikini’s shaking their asses and basically just be the cheap eye candy you see in most of the hip-hop clips. Every body that knows me knows that I love women, I love the way they look and I love them in bikini’s. BUT I do not want to see a girl that is gonna represent my country to portrait herself as a cheap bikini hip-hop eye candy girl.
A miss should be elegant. She should be a example and being a cheap music video girl is not an example.
I addressed this to the organisation in a mail and I got a reaction. The person reacting to my mail only reacted to the bikini part. She told me that miss USA competed in a episode of fear factor. And she was eating cockroaches etc. Did that make here any less of a miss??
Well I saw that episode. Miss USA was not there to portrait herself as cheap eye candy. She was a contestant that had to face difficult obstacles. Completing those obstacles was being an example and an inspiration.
I don’t really know what the qualifications are to become a contestant in the pageant, but after looking at these girl I think they need to re-evaluate the qualifications.
Another reason I couldn’t take the organisation seriously was the website. A website for a miss pageant that is gonna choose a girl that’s gonna represent our country in the miss universe competition can not look like this. No the design is acceptable but there are a lot of death links. The most important link is a death one. You click on contact and you get a 404 page. This means the page you want to view does not exist. There are a couple of these death links. In the photo gallery section they did something no web developer does anymore. They used frames.
For some strange reason the news section is blog with a design that doesn’t remotely resemble the original design. With no link back to the main site.
Now a organisation that does international pageants and with all the sponsors they have, I would guess they could pay for a designer that does a better job. Nobody can tell me there was no money for a better designer. A normal ticket cost SRD100 and a VIP ticket was U$400. U$ 400 is a months salary for a lot of people. A lot of people don’t even earn that much a month.
I started to watch the pageant live on TV but the lack of quality bothered me so much I turned off the TV. Here are a couple of examples of what I saw. There was a bad cheap Brazilian dance act. And if I say bad I mean bad. I had the feeling I could do better and I can’t samba.
There also was a belly dance act. Well in my time in Holland I got to know a few belly dancers and they showed me what they could do. This girl was only doing the basics.
They girls themselves where not properly prepared for the questions round and every one of them chocked. I heard the dumbest answers.
The next part I missed but my sister told me about this. The vice president of the organisation had to come on stage to tell the audience to stop booing etc. The audience expected a lot more from this show and they did not get their money’s worth so I can understand why they acted like that.
The girl that won the pageant did deserve it. She was the best of all the bad contestants. From the beginning you could tell she had what it takes. I only wished she could have won the crown is a pageant that deserved to be called a pageant.
I am seriously wondering how this organisation can still have the right to hold the miss suriname pageant. What can be don to revoke that right and give it to a organisation that can give us a pageant we deserve. No I don’t believe I can do it. I know I can’t. But there has to be someone that can and wants to do a better job.
The website of the organisation: http://www.misssuriname.org
You can see what I mean by a bad site with death links.
In my last post I talked about new media. These posts are inspired by an interview I’ve heard of David H. Lawrence XVII. Less then 24 hours after posting the man himself posted a comment on my site. To say that I was exited is an understatement.
In that post I concentrated on what television networks can do to embrace new media. In this one I’
One of the traditional media groups is already using and embracing this new media.
Internet radio.
A lot of radio stations have a live radio stream of their broadcast. and there are a couple of Internet radio station that only broadcast via the Internet. These services can make use the advantages the Internet brings. It is easy to know how many pc’s are using your stream at the same time and you are not limited by geographical borders.
For example NOS news network in The Netherlands as broadcasts their content on the Internet. On their site you can watch or listen to the news clips. You can also subscribe to the news pod cast. Every morning before going to work I listen to the NOS pod cast.
At work I have the choice between every Internet radio station out there. Most of the times I listen to Dutch Internet radio stations or a few local once.
Now these radio stations have reached me even across borders. Now back to the benefits of using this medium.
Traditional radio has no real way of knowing how many people are listening. They can make an estimate based on traditional rating system. In most countries this done by doing a survey. Now with Internet radio it is possible to know exactly how many people are listening at what time. So you know exactly what radio show has the most listeners and is the most popular. The station can come to the advertisers with this info so they know how many listeners have actually heard the commercials.
The advantage traditional radio has over Internet radio is that you can listen to your favourite radio station with a portable radio. For Internet radio you need a Internet connection and in most homes this is on the pc. But with the growed of broadband wireless connections and new gadgets this obstacle is soon over won.
The Iphone and if I’m not mistaking the G-1 android phone are two examples of gadgets that use wireless Internet or gprs connections and are able to receive Internet radio broadcasts.
Pod casts.
This is a new form of getting the shows etc to the audience.
This was first done via email calling the service net casting. It was simply sending a mail with a sound clip as attachment to a mailing list. One of the first persons to do this was David H. Lawrence XVII. The guy I talked about in my last post.
Since then the service has changed and evolved to what we know as pod casting. You subscribe to the pod cast and every time there is new content you automatically download it to your pc. Because of the name a lot of people think you need a Ipod to listen to pod casts. This is not true a lot of audio programs have a pod cast subscription option. So all you really need is a pc with the right audio software and a Internet connection. The pod caster always knows how many people have subscribed to his pod casts. With these numbers he can easily step to a advertiser and ask to sponsor him.
Advertisers can also make use of the popularity of pod casts. Taking an example for my own experience. The tenth wonder is a pod cast about the nbc show heroes. This pod cast is sponsored by netflicks and Audible.com. Every time I listen to the show I hear the advertisement. And to be honest I went to the website to see if I can use the service. To bad it’s a US only service.
Most pod casts are still made by the ordinary guys, the hobbyists. Some broadcasting networks and other companies have started to use pod casts as an add-on service.
Most hobbyists or fan pod casts shows have embraced more of the new media. So through email, webforums etc it’s easier to get feedback from the listeners.
The most important benefit of new media is that it’s easy to know how many viewers/listeners you have at what time and where they are from. This goes for Internet radio, television, weblogs, pod casts etc.
I was listening to the tenthwonder podcast. This is a podcast about the show Heroes. And in this episode the Interviewed David H. Lawrence XVII, The actor playing Eric Doyle “The puppet-master” on of the creepiest characters on the show.
At this point you might ask yourself, If I’m posting about new media Why start with a heroes podcast?? Well the David H. Lawrence XVII is a pioneer in new media. He is one of the first people using a service netcasting with grew out to become podcasting. In the interview they talked about tv-shows being reached using other then traditional media. Heroes is one of the shows that is on top of the downloads. Which means that more people watch the show then the traditional rating system can detect. In the Interview he talked about networks not embracing this new media. They are doing anything to keep there shows on traditional media. Which is a dumb thing. The internet is here to stay. So embrace it or go down because you’re the only one not doing it.
Okey here a little explanation on new media.
Traditional media are radio, Television, telephones, dvd’s etc
New media are internet radio, Podcasts, Streaming audio/video, Im, blogging etc
New media is mostly using the internet as a carrier.
We all are guilty of using this new media to get our shows, movies or music. The power here is the coverage. Everybody with a internet connection can make use of this. For (live) streaming you need a broadband connection. So it will take a while before Suriname can really enjoy that.
Now the problem big networks are having with this medium is that a lot of services provide content without ads and commercials IN the content. A networks primary income is commercials. Every show has 4-5 commercial breaks. and the traditional rating system is used to estimate how many people have seen the commercials.
With the way it is now a lot of download sites etc provide shows without the commercial breaks. But at the moment the quality of the content is not guaranteed. For me personally I would download the shows from the official site WITH the commercials if quality was parented. Okay think of this taking heroes as an example. Heroes airs on Monday and on Tuesday it is available on the site with commercials. Now the traditional rating system will give you a estimate of how many people have watched it and have seen the commercials. Now after that you can see how many people have downloaded the episode with the commercials. The downloads don’t stop on Tuesday. So at the end of the week or month or even season you can show the clients just how many people have downloaded what episodes and how many times the commercial was shows to them.
For example episode “company man” from season one had 16 million estimated viewers on Monday and it has been downloaded 50 million times within one month.
These number are just example. But that would mean the rating system is missing the 30 million viewers. Now if you embrace the new media and make those download official you can make commercials especially for the international viewers. The clients and the commercials will reach across borders. A good download server can log where the download clients are geographically. Or at least what country/state/city they are in. So if NBC knows that heroes is downloaded the most by people in Australia, they can customize the commercials for that region. Come to think of it you can have multiple versions of the show with commercials aimed at the clients from a certain region. Technically it is possible to force you to download the version with the commercials aimed at your region based on your IP address.
Now doing this would be using the internet in a smart way. If a guy in Suriname with not a lot of money can think of this and knows how to use the technology to do this, What can a billion dollar television network do??
I think the main hurdle the network have is the fact that anybody can put anything on the internet. With television you need permits, expensive equipment etc to put something on the air. So the networks have no way of controlling what is on this media. But why bother?? If you can guarantee quality entertainment for free or very cheap, people will use your service. Of course there are people that go for the low quality service provided by some internet company. But if you control your quality content online the number of viewers using the low quality “illegal” service is gonna shrink fast.
If you want to hear the interview with David H. Lawrence XVII http://media.libsyn.com/media/hancocklg/10w_ep73part2.mp3 This is a 1:06:41 long interview. This is the part where he talks about new media The second part he’s talking more about his character on the show etc.
