• 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.

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.

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.

Yep I’ve starting Tweeting. For those who don’t know what twitter is.

Twitter is a mirco-blogging service. You have a profile and send short messages to it, 140 characters. In a lot of social networks you have a status option. Myspace, Facebook etc have this feature. Twitter is just this feature. Now when I came in contact with this service I though I would never know what to do with it. My brother in The Netherlands started using it. And because of him I started using it to. We keep each other up to date about our daily activities using twitter. And yes it’s public so everybody can follow us.

I think the best way to use twitter is to install one those small twitter programs on a mobile phone with internet capabilities. That way you can tweet whenever something comes to mind. My brother has a Iphone and with his account he can use twitter anywhere anytime. My phone is a htc touch the same model I lost a while ago (Losing a Limb) The phone has internet capabilities but the telecom accounts with internet here are a little to expensive for my tast. So I have another option. My phone also has the capability to use a wireless network. So I added my phone to my very secured wireless network at work. Being the Systems administrator I can do it . At home I just plug my phone onto the computer. And having adsl that computer is online 24/7.
Every time my brother updates his twitter I know it within 4 minutes. That is if I’m home or at work.  I’m following my brother and a few friends, but my brother is the one using it the most. (little hint to the other guys. You know who you are)

So if you want to follow my tweets there are two things you can do. My tweets are displayed at the right of my blog. So just come to my website often. Or if you have a twitter account you can add me http://twitter.com/rafiekslvr
Try it.

A lot of people read these posts on Hyves, myspace, facebook etc. These sites display the RSS feed from my site.

I invite you to visit my site once in a while. It’s http://www.rafieksilver.com
You can also subscribe to my RSS feed just add http://feeds.feedburner.com/NotesOnMyLife to your favorite feed reader.

For feedback just post a comment ad the bottom of the posts. I’ll put a contact form on the site in few days.

A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers. Though the same content may also be made available by direct download or streaming, a podcast is distinguished from other digital-media formats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

This is what Wikipedia says about podcasts.
Am I gonna be pod-caster?? I don’t know.
Maybe in the future when I have the equipment, the desire and something to talk about.

I’m I gonna give a technical tutorial of how to create a podcast?? I think there are enough of those on the internet.
No I wanted to talk about the podcasts I’m listening to.
First off I’m gonna say somethings that some of the loyal Ubuntu people are gonna dislike. I have a WinXP machine with iTunes to sync music and the podcasts to my Ipod. There are some who are gonna wanna send me links for ubuntu and Ipod. Tried that, but that’s a story for another post.

I wanted to Talk about some of the podcasts I’m enjoying. Or used to enjoy.
Here is my little list.

• The 10th wonder podcast (A podcast about the show Heroes)
• Dilbert (Animation about a office worker)
• Talking Metal (the name says it all)
• College Humor TV (show very funny movies)

I used to listen to “Lets get naughty” Maybe I’ll add that to my list again.

The 10th Wonder
Just a weekly Show made by two guys who are fans of the tv-show Heroes. They Speculate about the characters, the story etc. I just started listening to them so the podcast is still in season one. But it’s nice to hear them talk about the old episodes. Reminding my about some things I forgot and understanding better why some things are happening now in the series.

Dilbert
If you work in a office and you recognise these situations… I feel very sorry for you. But it’s funny when you are just looking at it.

Talking Metal.
Two guys talking about metal and interviewing artists etc. I really recommend this one to metalheads.

College Humor TV
The Guys (and Girl) from this podcast make short movies. Very funny movies. You need to see it to believe it.

Lets get naugthy
The name reveals a little, but I’m guessing you know what this one is about if not you need to reboot your dirty mind.
Yep a Guy and a Girl talking about sex. Two ordinary people talking about their sexual experience. Nothing is taboo.
The problem with this one is listening to it makes me horny. And listening at work on my Ipod…. Not a very good time/place to become horny.

I’m still looking for a good LOST Podcast. The LOST podcasts I’ve started did not meet my expectations.
I love that series, But they are one a very long break. The fans have to wait until February for the next season.

Here are links to the websites from the podcasts.
http://www.dilbert.com
http://www.heroespodcast.com/
http://www.collegehumor.com/chtv
http://www.talkingmetal.com/

and
http://www.lgnshow.com/

It’s bad to lose the phone the timing made it worse. I had to meet a girl in the mall. One I haven’t seen in 8 years. The deal was I was suppose to go to the mall after work and call her. Now how can I call a girl if her number is in the phone I just lost. I went to the mall hoping to bump into her. Didn’t happen. I did meet her later that night, I did have her phone number at home.

In the mean time I blocked my number and informed what to do next. I can get my number back on a new sim but for that I need some info I left in the office. Until then I can only be reached via mail or MSN.

PS. The Halloween Party was tha bomb. I’ll post pictures on the rock site I manage.

• (sub) domain change.
• Coppermine gallery is making a come back.
• Guestbook and FAQ will be removed.
• Portfolio will return.

The only thing I’m not really sure of is the links page. But untile I know if I want it it will stay on the shelf.

Now on another note. I’m back on my coffee addiction. I don’t sleep well, especially in the weekend (party time) and I have to work during the week. So after I had a party weekend I need something to stay awake on mondays (like garfield said: I hate mondays). And coffee is my drug of choice. At the moment I’m up to 4 cups of coffee a day. I think if I was gonna have to loos a drug addiction It would go easier then losing my coffee addiction. I’m smelling the coffee now. Until my next post, I’m gonna get a cup of coffee :)

I’m banned from a metal discussion forum that I helped build. If you read that sentence you’ll probably think “What the hell did he do to deserve that??” Well I don’t know.

I’ll tell the story here and maybe while I’m telling it I’ll start to understand it myself. And because this is my weblog and I have the time I’ll tell the long version.

I’m this story there are a couple of people who might not like it if you use there name or nickname. To be save I’m using other names. If you know me you know if I like or dislike this person or not based on the name I’m giving him or her.

A few years ago Bill G. wanted to start a metal website. But because he had little experience in web development I helped him. First with advise later a little scripting.

The site became a metal community and later a metal forum.

One of my contributions was uploading the site and repairing the database. Thinking I was part of the team I started to react irritated when changes where made without my knowledge. Not that this was my site, but I though I was part of the development team. The “partnership” ended but my contribution to the discussions in the forum did not. I was a regular on the forum. I had a lot of friends there and loved to talk to them about serious stuff and about nonsense. Well one of the members G. Bush was a desperate guy who wanted to be friends. On the metal forum I always though he was a guy who wanted to be interesting and in doing so he was bluffing a lot. On the forum he can go one and do this, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll be friends with him outside of the forum. And that is just what he wanted. He contacted me on myspace, begging to be friends. If I put him in my myspace top friends he would do the same for me. I really don’t like people crawl to be you “friend”. So I declined. Afterwards he asked the same thing two or three times. And I declined every time. I wrote him and told him that I wouldn’t add him as friend even if he asked me a thousand times. And this wasn’t helping his case.

Now back to the metal forum. I told this story on the forum without mentioning his (nick)name. I just called him a moron. He posted that he was the moron from my story. Well if he wants the world to know I think he is a moron, be my guest.

After a few weeks of participating on the forum Bush did his sad routine again. Something like “I’m a nice guy and I really don’t understand why Rafiek doesn’t like me”. If there is something I don’t like it’s a fake sad routine. So I posted that I don’t like him but I think I’m not the only one. One of the other members asked why I don’t like him so I posted the short version. Maybe I shouldn’t have don that. Bush was so angry that he posted on a public internet forum that the next time (which would be the first time) he meets me he would put a bullet in my head. Yep I was threatened with my life. By a moron so no reason to be scared.

A other member James H. asked why the admin Bill G. never responded to the threat. Bill told him that he would not because it would not matter. Other members Alanis M., Ozzy O. and me started to discuss with Bill about his responsibilities as a admin. We told him things like if you let this one slip don’t be surprised if other members start ignoring other rules. And how can we take a admin seriously if he doesn’t do anything about a threat. His response was “Try to ignore my rules, see what happens.” and “Stop this discussion, we’re going back to the original topic.”

Because Alanis and I didn’t stop, we demanded a response from the admin, we where banned from the site.

But this story does have a happy ending .

Without having knowledge of this “War” a friend and former colleque of mine Linus T. started a discussion forum with rockers from every genre as a target audience. When he heard what happened I asked me if I wanted to help him run this new forum. I looked at it and liked the possibilities so now I’m the admin of a new rock forum.

Since I’m banned from Bill’s site I send a mail to my friends that they can contact me on the new forum. They told there friends etc. The new forum is only three days old and we have 20 members, 36 topics and 296 posts.

I’m not gonna post the link to the old forum because that would look like bashing him some more. I am gonna put the link to the forum I’m co-running.

If you are interested in rock music, Suriname, or just want to have some fun you can always come by.

http://www.rockinsuriname.com

C-ya on the internet

• The MSN database is full with users that are not really using there account. You have to forward a mail to every person in your adressbook so that they can see you’re still using your account.
• MSN is stopping with giving there service for free.
  Old users still use it for free, but you have to forward a mail so they can see you still use your account.
• There is a little girl with brain cancer and microsoft and aol will give the the father $5 for every person you forward the mail to. Don’t copy past it, because they can track the mail.

In this post I’m gonna talk about the msn procedure for deleting accounts, tracking e-mails and the poor girl with brain cancer.

If you get a mail about msn stopping thing about this.
MSN/Hotmail is the place your where your e-mail adres is made and storred in there servers. IF msn was really making such drastic chances they can mail you themself.
And on top af that, msn/hotmail have there own procedure for deleting accounts.
If you don’t use your account for 3 months it will me deactivated. This means not checking you e-mail on the hotmail website, not using windows live mail or outlook express to check your mail and not using your account on msn or windows live messenger.
After the deactivation of your account you have 6 months to re-activate it. If you don’t do this within the 6 months your account will be deleted. So if you do nothing with your account for 9 months it’ll be deleted.
Beside you have to loge in to the msn/hotmail account server so they know when you use your account. You don’t have to do anything special for them to know if you are using your account.
In the last 10 years I’ve never forwarded one of those e-mails and my hotmail account is still active.

Tracking e-mails. We can be brief with this one. It’s not possible. There is no possible way you can track an e-mail.

The poor girl with braincancer that gets money for all the mails that can’t possibly be tracked. The first time I got this mail was 8 years ago. So by now she’s death.
We already covered the part about not being able to track e-mails so no new baby with braincancer is gonna get money if you forward an e-mail.

If you’ve read this post you know that you don’t have to forward those stupid mails, because you will achieve nothing with it. But if you do believe your hotmail/msn account is in danger or you will save a little girl with brain cancer, please remove my e-mail address from your mailing list.