Sunday 30 January 2005

Geo-green alternative

It's sunday morning and the sunday's edition of New York Times. I found that Thomas Friedman become GEO-GREEN ?
You know, it's a stuff about clashing political ideas by the intellectual class. So, geo-green could be opposite of neocons :)) Ah, excuses! I don't know whether he's the first who used these term.
As he said in today's article:

The geo-greens believe that, going forward, if we put all our focus on reducing the price of oil - by conservation, by developing renewable and alternative energies and by expanding nuclear power - we will force more reform than by any other strategy. You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.

Bellster telephony network

Jeff Pulver is again onto something. He has new non-commercial venture called Bellster.
It's a network for sharing communications networks. It's explained in FAQ section.
Sharing is again keyword.
Bellster is using peer-to-peer concept around telephony with different approach as FWD and Skype and others.
It's like pinball telephony network that routes your phone calls for free over IP protocol. ( PSTN termination for free )
Everyone is crazy these days about broadband telephony systems. It seems Googlephone is in the making as well, some speculations about this, but some would disagree.
One can hear so many news for VOIP every day :)

Saturday 29 January 2005

Alive...

...and well ! I was seeking balance last 2 weeks and didn't wrote nothing at all. I moved my net connection far away and using it only for priority business correspondence etc.
Well, personal blogging anniversary was going on during last 2 weeks. No special party or something weird ;)) No guests either.
I got one comment as support. Thanks to Goran !

Thanks to all of you who come by and read something occasionaly. I don't know who you are, let it be magic :))) I mean , secret. But still, would be happy if you drop me mail, just to say hello. I wan't tell anyone ;)

Monday 17 January 2005

Not so independent study, IMHO

Some consulting firm called Evalueserve recently released study about Skype's ( free internet telephony app) impact on telecoms.
I wonder who paid for a such a misleading study :))
Indeed, VOIP is going to make disruption but not in a way it predicts Evalueserve. I disagree with them. Another time I 'll exlain why.
Still, I am Skype's happy supporter .

Saturday 15 January 2005

Better than Skype?

PhoneGaim is another softphone that makes buzz and waves with minimal marketing effort. Skype is still ahead of game only in terms of brand and buzz, IMHO. And they are nowhere saying it's peer-to-peer as Skype.

I didn't use it, but I've seen some articles about PhoneGaim over at some VoIP blogs. It's looking promising reading FAQ section. Deeper digging reveals who's behind these efforts. It's Michael Robertson ( Lindows ) and SIPhone.

One of the main differences vs.Skype is dedicated virtual number ( US only ) for inbounding calls from fixed and mobile lines and free voicemails.
At the top of that, it will be very soon, according to some rumors , interconnected with Skype users.
Currently , it supports other IM networks as well. Skype still has almost certanly better user interface and some other features done well.

So, in the end, it's more open than Skype.
Will test it soon. The quality of calls is important feature so it must be closely tested, althought they are promising to be working well on dial up lines.

Update: I haven't had luck installing PhoneGaim. It couldn't run it on my PC. So, I am sticking with Skype further.

Sunday 9 January 2005

Desktop blog editor

Simple blogging via w.Bloggar is great, and I just got a version 4.00. I like this way of blogging via blog editor. I can save my post for later and editorial review and post on my terms. No need to go and log on into main blogger interface. I use "just blog it " bookmarklet but it doesn have much features as w.Bloggar.

Six Apart- pure blogging company - for how long?

We all know that Six Apart bought Live Journal. It's a beggining of consolidation in very crowded blogging mini-industry. Now, how much "space or market" with blogging tools consist of Six Apart brands? Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal included?
I belive it's is something about 30-35 % of blog engines in Anglo-blogosphere. I am very conservative in estimates regarding blogging.
IMHO, WordPress is still the best blog engine ( and not only blog engine ).

I am asking myself who'll buy Six Apart one day . Nokia or Yahoo ;))

Saturday 8 January 2005

TinyP2P

This struck me a lot. I am not programmer nor techie but I couldn't belive it is possible making Peer-2-Peer application /software with only 8 lines of code. TinyP2P is one of these.
Now, how could our society ban this kind of stuff? It's impossible.

3rd blogging anniversary

Good ol' blogging for a moment. I really enjoy writing for the web. Now, my Winamp plays collection called "The best of cuban music ".
Nice sounds are coming in my ears :))
It' s so easy blogging right now. Well, I think few days more and I'll be celebrating my 3rd Zec Online Journal anniversary.
Yeah, I started blogging in January 2002.

Currently playing : Cesaria Evora-Besame Mucho

Cheaper distribution on web

Prodigem is again today on my mind. Yeasterday I read what Robin Good said about the applications that is able to distribute large files over web in Peer-to-Peer manner.
James Enck has another article about Prodigem.
Robin said "it is very cost effective distributing files with Prodigem.

Wednesday 5 January 2005

Basketball star in the making

Nobody here in Croatia puts much coverage about Sasa Cuic who gone to US, exactly to Oregon State University, where he'll be playing this season.
He's 21 years old and has tremendouse experience and confidence.
I think this name deserves to be remembered . I would go that far and say that after Drazen we have another basketball player that deserves to be "basketball god". But we need to wait and e patient.
Yes, Drazen Petrovic was unique.