What ?

Well, how I feel today ? Thanks for asking. Crappy . Variation on the theme.
Nothing important. But these weeks are tough, much to do, not so much time for myself. I am busy all the time. Week before Christmas was tough.
So, blogging must wait better mood and more time on my hands. We are in the last week this year.
Indeed, it was for me successful year. Really. Always could find space for "BUT". But what ?
I am observing myself right now. I am very intimate right now. My public diary and I. I don't wan't just news blog.
Blogging is about personality of its author, so should I more time reserve for personal stuff.
I feel I need more reflexion these days.

Deported to Croatia after 18 years

A Croatian man deported from USA who lived 18 years illegally. The parking space dispute led authorities to investigate him. Bad luck !
I can't find a link where I read the story.

Start your own blogging service

21Publishing is interesting solution for everyone who wants to run weblogging service out of box and it is aimed for groups and organizations. That's how they are trying to be differerent.
But it comes at cost. As far as I can get, it's blog portal that one can set up and offer blog hosting for other users. No need to find programmers to build blogging tool from scratch. It's all there .
See how this wizzard explains !

Blog Superman !

So, Superman comic is guilty for the word ''blog'' !
Apparently, Superman comic book from 1959 mentioned Blog, and it was the name of a cavemen that was engaged when helping Louis Lane fighting dinosaurus.
Cavemen ? Altamira blogging :))))

Bad business-to-business app for web tenders

In today's Dnevnik business newspapers I saw an article about croatian B2B web service for tenders ( matching buyers and sellers for the products and service of smaller value , more than 5.000,oo kuna).
It's called OPEN ( in croatian : Oglasnik privatne nabave.)

I said, "wow" ! I thought for a while, "finally !!". But after I opened Open page / I was dissapointed. It's not properly executed and is a good laugh for me.
I am not making fool out of this service, just I am dissapointed. We can't here in Croatia make decent business web application. Shame !

After digging more deeper trough sidebar links I found out that aformentioned service is offered by the press cliping agency Briefing.

Oh, and Briefieng doesn't seem to understand living web around blogger's buzz and writing and their importance to properly service their clients. RSS is for their freelance contractors unknown and uncharted territory. But that-s another story...
As far as I can tell according to my sources.
Still, web service made by Briefing is good idea ( immature still ) but very bad executed. Just look at the user interface ( can you see login button immediatly ? )
Look at the carefully and marketing naive wording...

There are several legal constraints regarding web tenders services. First, they can't be legally offered for the companies from public sector ( where the biggest pie is , remember Narodne Novine), and second, it lacks know-how in Croatia for this service. Awareness , too !
One can argue about the second, but I believe it's the case.

Have I mentioned that press cliping agency Briefieng doesn't grasp online sources as a real-time generator of news and buzz of interest to their clients ? :)) My guess!
Ah, old-fashioned press clipping agency :) "Do you know what other write about you, your products and services on the living web ? " :P

Not so private anymore

Sometimes I ask myself the very same question when writing this blog in english.
What happened to my private thoughts and blogging about my private stuff?

I feel I've done more reporting after reading so many RSS feeds. It's all so newsy, or how should I call it ?
Opinions and attitudes is still there, fascination about small losely part of politics, economics, web, technology , blogging that makes me "high" is still there, but lacks personal stuff ?

Why so ? Do I feel I need it ? No. But this was allways part of this salad called Zec Online Journal. Maybe I write more news -oriented because of the language and because I feel I want do that right now.
Don't know what's the right answer .

Blogroll adition

I wonder why I have not already put Goran's blog on the blogroll list.

Very good read over there at Goran's blog called Svakodnevnica. Goran is from neighbouring country Serbia and writes about many interesting issues and has a very strong voice and opinion.

He's long -time blogger ( one of the first in Serbia ) and enthusiast about blogging, RSS and the one from whom could be learned much about software , web design and services, etc.

I really need to have some good sleep. Lately, too much work, too much stress.
As this article suggests....

New York's major in Dubrovnik

New York's major Micheal Bloomberg is visiting Croatia this week. On friday, he will be present at the conference in Dubrovnik a bid for 2012 Olympics to a group of European Olympic committees.
Newsday reports on that.

Mobile meets atom

Interesting read for today, blog named The Pondering Primate. All forms of mobile future are topics of this blog.

Top blogging service

I am sure, BlogSpirit is currently the best web based blogging tool in the world.

Forget for a moment about TypePad ( which isn't free ) and Blogger.com or closed blogging gheto services
( LiveJournal ). Blogspirit is free with the same simplicity and power ( just like many blog scripts), and much , much better then Blogger.
It's up and running as of today. Very warm recommendation to the people to let try this clean, easy to use and features rich blogging experience.

It's very fast and full customizations available. It's made by the team of people who know a lot about blogging, web publishing and the whole blogging ecosystem. Everything is considered and nothing left to coincidence, very carefully planned and executed , indeed.

It's the best blogging tool for the novice and for the advanced bloggers, in my view ( exept for those very advanced and with different requeriments such as domain name etc..who can have their WordPress running).
BlogSpirit is just great and I am sure time will prove my words ;))

Mobile scent

After music melodies and pictures for alerting mobile phone owners about incoming calls , now there's available another "signaling" mode, namely smell !

It was only matter of time, I guess. Remember those "refreshers" hanging in a car ? I remember how croatian workers , coming on holidays from Germany during second part of 20th century, were introducing this refreshers inside cars and after that almost every Ficho ( Zastava car ) had a one in place :))
The smells out of mobile phone ornamentsare , you know already, Japan's invention deep-seeded in their Ketai ( wireless) culture.
It can stink or it can have nice aroma :)) I wonder will it be used for diversions in public spaces ;)

I can easly see how fashion industry could jump on that bandwagon. Simply put, fragrance manufacurers and designers could have millions of people available for advertising and promotion. Look someone is calling me , it's Gabriela Sabatini parfume and I know who's calling ;))

Just like music industry used opportunity to sell ringtones and make great promotions for their contractors ( musicans), the fashion industry could use it for obvious reasons.

No booga booga !

Is there someone who didn't read today's article from Boston Herald ?????

Stephan Roach is well known strategiest for Morgan Stanley ( bearish all the time but this...???), and it struck me a lot when I heard what he said to exclusive club of fund managers .
I can only think what kind of a Domino effect it might folllow. At fears it could be slow way down, and not suddenly crush.
Roach according to Boston Herald:

"Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that ``we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.''
The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe "

This is to me no booga booooga !

Blogging words flame over Balkan !

Bosnia's blogging. Blogger.ba is in beta testing .
This is a third blogging service ( web based ) made exclusively for Balkan and southeastern Europe ( as some would like to call ''slavic langauges '' )
The first was croatian BLOG.HR blogging service, and the second was ''mojblog''.
The common for all three seems to me is that they have an idea source in the BLOG.HR, but that's not the issue now.
They are here and work fine for the bloggers. I tried Blogger.ba yesterday and seems to me it's a very good and clean web based service for novice bloggers.
It has only simple features ( no RSS and categories ) and works pretty fast. I was thinking to write few observation but I'm tired right now, so maybe next time.
One thing's sure, Bosnia is becoming web- diary land :))

The Caffe is closed

The case is closed, at least for me, regarding Vibbi blog. He set up his own destiny with naive and immature blog writing .
I feel sorry for every person who lose job because of blog. It could be everyone, but blogging is hobby, and everyone should think about their words and how far she/he might go.

Update: Diplomat blog

The news about croatian diplomat in Washington, who wrote web diary , is becoming world news. Reuters picked up this story today, and it reveals blogging emergent impact here in Croatia only 6 months after the first blogging service opened its doors.

UPDATE , media reports about the sad story:
Blog Herald, Digital Media Europe, Washington DC blog, Online Journalism Review, Toronto Pulse 24 , MemeFirst,

I already wrote about Vibbi web diary when the story broke in croatian blogosphere, but then, it was mainly speculations that under "vibbi blog " could be croatian diplomat ( Vibor Kalogjera ) in Washington and son of a well known croatian journalists who by accident covered US presidential elections for croatian television from Washington. And now, it seems that they are both out of office ( her mother was recalled as a correspondent from Washington )

Author called Vibbi wrote his web diary at WWW.BLOG.HR blogging service ( the first croatian blogging service), and after one of the bloggers wrote a blog article where she speculated who could be author of this blog, vibbi blog was terminated, apparently by its author.

Later on, croatian media Vecernji List and some other online media covered unfolding story as well. Seriouse questions were raised going up all the way to the Foreign Ministry who launched offical investigation into the case and our ambassador in Washigton was alerted because diplomat blogger wrote very openly about his meethings with World Bank officials, and other sensitive taughts like for example " Americans are stupid'' , harsh words indeed, possible case for the diplomatic scandal in the making )) , Reuters:

he described most meetings as boring and predictable and also said there was "no difference at all" between President Bush and his rival John Kerry in the U.S. presidential elections earlier this month.

Although this blog had been deleted , some bloggers set up mirror site with the content of this blog and it's still available here ( croatia language ).

As I already wrote, blogging mini revolution is spreading trough out croatian web space. For those who are unfamilar with the advent of blogosphere in Croatia, just to remind, the first blogging service called WWW.BLOG.HR started in May this year and after only 6 months become a place for more than 11.000 blog authors.

It's spreading very fast and the main reason for strong media impact at its infany is that bloggers voice and writing work can be very widely distributed over Monitor.hr ( the sisters site of blog.hr ) , one of the most visited news portals here in Croatia.
It's a true beggining of citizens reporting in the making.

I had a privilage and opportunity to work from the start as the adviser for BLOG.HR project with a person who cofounded www.blog.hr, a young croatian Dario Markus, editor for the online version of croatian daily Vecernji List who started working for online media with only 15 years old.

He's now 19, and he wrote all this years for numerouse croatian web portals and news sites and was the IT editor for Monitor.hr news site. ( We started project blog.hr from August last year )
I 'll use this opportunity to ask him few questions on the croatian blogosphere and context for case about diplomat blog affair.

Dario, what was your first reaction when you heard that other media covered blogging issue about Vibbi blog?
Well, I haven't expected that BLOG.HR can have so much influence. The news spread very fast. BLOG.HR has an interesting feature not very much known to foreign blogosphere, namely, every blogger has a button for sending his blog post from blogging editor to the editors and impressum of BLOG.HR, who can then publish news on the main page.
And what's more, almost immediatly, the same news could be published as news on the MONITOR.HR news portal , which is sister's site by BLOG.HR ?
BLOG.HR was started in partnership with MONITOR.HR news portal, which is one of the most visited news portals here in Croatia. In that case, if we pick up valuable story of one of the bloggers from BLOG.HR , we have this ability to spread the news to potentially 100.000 people every day.
I think, it's a strong case for citizen reporting, and mainstream media are starting to wake up to this possibility and as many say, BLOG.HR is apsolutelly hit this year on croatian internet . What was first aim in building BLOG.HR project, simplicity of use ?
Yes, the simplicity was our voiding star, blogging should be easy, and it is with the simple registration procedure for a new user and has a clear interface, and seems that every web user in Croatia can participate with only basic understanding of internet and become publisher of its thoughts, opinions, etc. At the same time, we made easy-to-use web publishing tool and strong media voice for the authors.
You are not schooled journalist but I know you have ambitions, you write online for years. Currently, you write for online edition of Vecernji list and you are part of their editorial stuff .What's your dream for the future ?
I have a great wish to work and live in New York , actually. The New York has a magnetic infuence on me, and I think that in the future only US market and the life overthere can bring me opportunity to make all my projects and ambitions for real. One day I'll make it ! I am sure.
But, first, there's so much still to do about blogging here in Croatia ;))
Thanks for this too officialy small talk :)) We must make self-congratulations from time to time :))
hehehe

PBS and Balkan blogs

Strange, PBS producers happened to mention Zec Online Journal blog in his Frontline World series.
Drax blog and Zec Online were profiled on their select blog listings .
Quote:

Zec Online Journal
A young blogger writes about life in Croatia and expresses his feelings about the November 2004 elections in the United States.

They picked up my writing about US presidential elections and I must say I was vindicated by correct predictions of the ultimate outcome ;)
After more search I have found out that Frontline World produced by PBS is :

Developed by FRONTLINE producers in conjunction with public television stations KQED San Francisco and WGBH Boston, FRONTLINE/World is a national public TV series that turns its lens on the global community, covering countries and cultures rarely seen on American television.

Blogger's hunt on Radovan Karazic

A law student in the United States ( obvioulsly, of Balkan heritage) writes blog Finding Karadzic.

Somehow I discovered this blog today. It' s devoted to to the task of disscusing hunt on the famouse war criminal who is hidding somewhere in Bosnia or the neighbouring countries.
For those who aren't familiar with Balkan issues, Karadzic was the leader of bosnian Serbs during 90's and accused by International War Tribunal in Hague for war crimes.

The international forces are hunting Karadzic who managed to escape and hide to this day.
Finding Karadzic blog has many pictures of the locations in Bosnia and Montenegro where he could be hiding according to public speculations.

Natural Naomi

Nice comment found on one of the blogs I read today. It's about advertising in general, antropology perspective.
I like that quote even ads are not so ''cool '' every time :)

commerce is a naturally emergent phenomenon
in any sufficiently advanced community system.

heideger + habermas = mobile phone

it's okay to have advertising.

when it's gets too much, your readers
will find a quiter place to read.

it's all cool.

Rohit Gupta said this words.

Microsoft's search engine toy

The selected team of technology enthusiasts ( so called MSN Champs) was today alerted that they can officialy announce Microsoft Search ( in Beta - testing version ).
Roobin Good has an early call for the first use of the MSN search engine. So, is it MS as usual or something which is viable alternative to Google and Yahoo search ?
Hard to tell as far as I can say. It's still all in the brand, easy to use, relevance and people habits.
To me, Google is still up on the list, but their future is not granted as far as I judge for myself.

When diplomats write blogs !

Another blogging scandal shakes croatian web space, specifically blogosphere.
Apparently according to media reports croatian diplomat in Washington wrote anonymously weblog/online journal in which he revealed many details about his personal life and what's more troubling, insider information about work for croatian diplomatic stuff in the United States.

The trouble is , he could be a son of a known croatian TV journalist according to some media reports. The blog was deleted from internet ( Blog.hr) apparently by its author but the content is still available on Google cache.

Croatian daily Vecernji list picked up story which came on the surface from croatian weblog service blog.hr.
Croatian bloggers read for months blog called "Diplomat in the USA ".

Now, media and bloggers are speculating that this blog wrote Vibor Kalogjera ( his blog was at vibbi.blog.hr address and has revealed on comments on other blogs that he's working in the ambassade ) , son of the well known croatian correspondent for Croatian television in Washington -Silvija Luks.

Silvija Luks covered US presidential elections recently, and was accused this week about lack of profesionalism for her reporting from Washington.
It's obviouse that this is an example of irresponssible and naive blog writing revealing too much.

The most troubling words he wrote on his blog when he said that they were laughing Americans and the waitress in the bar. Is someone for diplomatic blogging scandal, perhaps ?

In my view, this is now moment when croatian blogosphere is approaching tipping point and when it's starting to be force not only for valuable purposes but for doing damage to people.

Therefore, it is legitim starting discussion about bloggers ethics here in Croatia before someone gets hurt.

For those who aren't familiar with emerging blogosphere here in Croatia, it has differences to foreign blogosphere. The most popular blogging service in Croatia is BLOG.HR which started to educate people about blogs and offer them place for setting up free blogs.
The difference is that in the 6 months blogosphere becomes more information -oriented ,at least according to impact scale ( not communication, learning, projects...) and a true citizen reporting started to raise some seriose questions. The main questions are related to some legal issues ; libel , invasion of privacy and author's intellectual property.

After all, we are small country and the information is spreading very fast over net.
Therefore, it's a need having some sort of disscusion about blogers ethics before it is too late and people get hurt.

Short on words

US presidential elections are among ordinary people here - already passe. Today, silence and not much talk about Bush and election. Nobody seems to be willing to recycle these issues.

Croatian media are somehow shy about their analysis of foregone election. Maybe there's more than enough reasons for the above mentioned behaviour.
One reason is that we have our own media stories currently at the spotlight, croatian foreign minister Zuzul is accused of corruption, and the second reason might be that croatian presidential elections, scheduled for January next year , are becoming hotter to watch.

General wisdom says ( and all relevant polls) that president Mesic does have very clear chances to win these elections.
Only for note, I made several contacts few months ago with president's advisers and offer them blogging strategy as a part of online presentation for upcoming election.

After few weeks, I got the phone call from Pantovcak that they are not interested into "blogging thing".
So, it's still not prime time for presidential blogging here in Croatia.

Crazy guy on the bike

Last year Mark Boyd added me on his mailing list for his bicycle tours. He visited Croatia last year on his trip from Portugal via Croatia and back up to Poland. I was beta tester for TypePad blogging tool ( few months in 2003 ) and I have wrote short piece on our talk at the caffe on the old blog ( no longer maintained).
My mail account got another letter from his last tour across US. He ended his tour in Ohio.

Cheers !

Ok, I was right ( here and here ). Bush won another presidential mandate "to rule" with tremendouse credit by american people.
Early exit polls were wrong again. Damn buzzy and laying blogosphere ! Dan Rather is laughing now :)
American democratic party becomes joke ! America is redecorated and the fear is , generation will be needed to put American again on the path of a modern society. Stop !
New Zealand is waiting on american students and youth :))

Woof, It seems I was completly wrong. Kerry is winning this elections according to some early exit polls.
Now, it is 00.15 AM here in Croatia, 06.15 PM in New York.
And all this by much wider margin than it was expected. Maybe it is too early, it is not verified trend...Key states Florida and Ohio got Kerry.

Recount

My bet for today's US presidential elections. I don't like betting actually, but I'll make exception here.
I prefer "most likely scenario" phrase, and it's well known I do not prefer Bush as a first choice for the Empire.
Nobody knows who' will win.
Here's a list of the most likely scenarios", in my view:

a.) Bush is re-elected

b.) Recount- voting scandal about irregularities in key regions or ...............House of Representatives is choosing Bush in case of tight results ( neither candidate get 270 electoral votes)

c.) Kerry's clear victory

d.) Booga booga, Al Qaida is allowed to strike again and the emergence situation is in place ( most unlikely)

e.) Will Smith fail to save US from alien's attack and White House is gone, and Croatian ministar Zuzul express deeply regrets for this unfortunate situation :))))

Web marketing myths I heard, yay!

Few mistakes noted when speaking with some PR/ marketing people here in Croatia. I saw an enormouse misunderstanding regarding marketing on the web.
These people are terrible wrong with the nature of doing online advertising and presentation. I am deeply convinced of that.
So many myths I heard from them.

They are deeply in this " banner" web shit. I

t doesn't work for most advertisers on the net. Capito ? Big , well-known companies can use the classical banner/type of advertising on the web as a mean to build awareness for the company on the web as yet another chanel having in mind their marketing mix strategies ( TV, radio, web, print..).
The first and foremost mistake these people are doing is that they just don't understand that internet is not mass media. It's not. No, seriously! I mean it. The web is not mass media, and the people on the web are not crazy about mass messages. Stop.

The second myth I tried to debunk in their minds is pure concept of advertising as known in other media like TV, radio, print.

A type of mindset which is present mostly in middle -size businesses with more growth potential and "easy" marketing budget available for selling growth story in the media ( advertising products and services ).
Often is the case that the plan is to slice the marketing budget pie ( either they'll do it alone or "experts" from PR agencies will do ) and burn the cash for advertising on the web. It's only "advertising " for them. A huge , ineffective ADvertising. Stop. It doesn't work because they are focusing on "space", not search engines,Yay strategice alliances , rich and relevant message...oh, and mostly on the wrong places on the web.

Third, who needs flashy , blinking, loud, and has hippy colors ( and fucking ugly rainbow ) ? Nobody. Ok, some of them think it's cool. It's about taste ,too. But , generaly, forget it ! Consuming content doesn't go with that.
The ad should be cleare, exhaustive, focused, organized...Stop.

Wait a minute, why I am giving and writing this !
I won't anymore.

One day, people will eventually find these misconception alone, by error and trials ;))
There's so many web marketing myths I heard I couldn't belive it.
Yay !

Spleak

I didn't use Spleak, but it sounds very interesting, and it comes from Copenhagen, Denmark. But why is this plug-in only for MSN Messenger ?
Mrrrr...I'm not using instant messegers very often, but ones that imitates natural talk is allways welcome.

PRESS RELEASE: 25,000 People Talking to Spleak Interactive Agent Only a Week After Launch of the First Beta Version on the MSN Messenger Network: "committed to combine instant messaging and artificial intelligence into a totally new interactive medium, where the interface is simple natural conversation. These messages exchanged with the 25,000 people who have downloaded Spleak as soon as the first beta version was released and talked to her through MSN Messenger."

Iranian lawmakers approved the bill over Iran's nuclear activities. This will be huge issue in the months to come, and if Bush wins US elections a lot of various pressures could come to the addres of Iranian ruling class.
Therefore, european diplomacy is this time ahead with the plans for negotiations before State Department starts to dig deeper in their own fashion ;)

``the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is required to make use of scientists and the country's facilities ... in order to enable the country to master peaceful nuclear technology, including the cycle of nuclear fuel.''

Today I 've started reading Timbuktu Chronicles. Africa is blogging, the voice is heard.

China's cool

Now, who would that thought, China's central bank today raised interest rates for the first time in 9 years.
The implications for this decision could be seen in commodity markets all around the world.
As of now ( thursday, 18.30 croatian time - 10.30 am in US ), gold is down , oil is down, Alcoa ( aluminium maker ) is down.
But dollar is UP !
The reason goes that commodity prices ( oil, silver, platinum..) are rising for many months because of the China's demand for their booming economy.
But related to China, this news ( Yuan peg) could be of the most interest in months ( years ) to come.

Blogger users can make podcasting

Finally, there's an interesting solution for the people who can't alone make feed enclosures ( RSS 2.0 ) for the purpose of Podcasting. SmartCast is announced by FeedBurner three days ago( provider of smart feeds ).

If you're a Blogger publisher and you want to create a podcast, create items that point to your audio file (mp3s or torrents or whatever) in the link element, and then use our service. SmartCast will do what's necessary to make this feed podcast-able!

It's fantastic solution. Look what these folks at FeedBurner done further, they've set up podcasting community at del.icio.us bookmarking service.

Vauuu, although elitist by many counts, podcasting is fast web virus that is spreading before some basic question like copyright, bandwith are answered.

Podcasting is stupid name and it is confusing those who think that this is only for iPod users ( Apple connected) , but it's not, as Jake Ludington made excelent tutorial on how to podcast with Windows Media Player and some other MP3 player.

Little James Bonds

Few weeks ago there was a story in croatian papers about british secret agents ( MI6) exposed in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia.
It's those little secret spy "power games" that foreign secret services are doing here in the Balkan to gain infuence and promote interest of their country. But they were trapped into conflict.

MI6?s over-riding objective is to protect and promote British economic and political interests in the face of greater economic penetration by its rivals. The Croatian Embassy in the US reports, for example, that the US, Germany and Austria each invested approximately one billion US dollars in Croatia between 1993?2000, whilst Britain invested only $US102 million.

Is there a need to say that some of the most wanted criminals charged for war crimes in the Balkan wars are still on the large despite all these services operating in the region .
A lack of political will ?

Me-To-Me copyfight

Interesting read about the latest push to tighten copyright in digital age. LawGeek blog has a great article about so called INDUCE drafts.
The author mentioned "Me2Me" apps.
It's a strong opinion:

Me2Me technology, however, would be much much harder to outlaw. Many Me2Me uses would arguably be fair or non-infringing uses. For instance, they tend to be private uses involving only family or friends. Many would involve use of media legitimately purchased by both the sender and recipient of the content (i.e. oneself). Thus, under current copyright law, it would very difficult to outlaw any of them. It would also be difficult to chastize them politically in front of Congress.

Today, I am in a great mood for bashing the president of the United States. Tadaaabooom !!
No political correctness please, no, not this time !

Yes, " lovely" George is again at the spotlight. George, God here ...
The world is watching, polls for the American elections are showing tight possible outcome, and we can't surely say who'll be the next US commander in chief.
But the world is clearly against Bush the Greatest- the candidate ;))

The world don't want american dollars as a reserve currency for their needs.
So, in the end, idealogy won't matter but economic reality and social change.
We are not there, yet. But in the meantime we should watch elections parade.
I am guessing, this year US election could be as well decided in the court after the process called RECOUNT.

The old ( and silly) US electoral system is in a tight race poised for another scandal .

Otaku mobile TV

How many times should I repeat to those folks from business skycrapers ( mobile communication companies ) that I don't want TV on my mobile phone. Said that, I mean that, I'll do that.
It's so silly idea and I just can't figure it out why industry insiders are pushing blindfolded these concepts ?
I really can't understand. Am i missing something ?
It's so simple .
This article is so so so so so ( one more time: soooo ) stupid and I am laughing like a mad :)))

For example, when the BBC made its first colour TV broadcast in the summer of 1967, producers and writers came alive to the possibilities of the medium. 37 years later and the mobile phone industry is embracing colour screen technology. Colour screens have had the effect of shifting the perception of the mobile phone from being a tool for voice calls to becoming an entertainment device, and are a key driver in the purchase/upgrade cycle for handsets.

Oh my, oh my...the sky is falling :)) Don't you know that "color screens are shifting the perception of the mobile phone industry" ....:)))))

SMS as a cash cow

Look, at smarthphone blog, great, great article about SMS, and how telecom operators earn money with SMS cause , you know, it doesn't cost them much.
The article tone seems to be appropriate one ;)

SMS really costs nothing, once there is a GSM network in place. SMS is like software - create it once, sell it a thousand times, no costs-per-item involved. So if you pay the telco 8 cents per SMS, they pretty much earn 8 cents per SMS.

Podcasting buzz

There seems to be much noise these days around blogosphere about podcasting. Truly great way for distributing audio content over web. How to...

But for some time it won't be for Mr.Everybody with a lots of bandwith and hosting storage.

At this early stage it's only expensive and have very little add value in my opinion. It 's one of those blogosphere hyped fads. Still, thank god, one should not have iPod to make podcasting and the iPodder sofware is born.
But RSS with enclosure is here to stay.

Podcasting obviously has it's fans who will show all possible applications and plug ins for the practices of distributing audio content over web ( not mobile networks ).

My question is however, how to pay for the bandwith and hosting files as an ordinary web user ?
I think commercial institution will make the most of these concepts of podcasting as the way of distributing their audio content to the end user in on -demad fashion.

It's easy to put ads that way , too.

Again, there will be need for some web based services who will aggregate available audio content and make it easy to navigate for average web user.
Issues about copyright should be resolved before it can be adopted by some mainstream content producers.

And the real "party" could make mobile operators when they offer audio streaming for storage rich mobile devices in the future, and it'll have more broader impact than podcasting. ( recently news are pointing in that direction )

But still, what about battery life ? ;)) What about content producing for a Mr.Everybody and make it accesable to anyone on mobile phone ? Web is more useful for the distribution than mobile networks .
Not yet clear to me.

Social web space for music

It's a kind an interesting social networking hub for music listeners called LAST FM. Today found out about this web service. Here's FAQ.

Didn't try it much, but it enables to connect people with similar music tastes. As far as I can see, members have to build profile and name their favorite tracks and artists so they can be accesible for others ( you can put small icon signed as Personal radio on your blog or web site that will deliver over MP3 player your picked tracks to the visitors who want to listen ).

I can imagine how music critics could use this feature on their personal weblogs/web sites or any music related web space.
Why not recording labels to use this social component for discovering new music and founding what goes and what not ( having in mind aggregate tastes for specific music generes ), or using it like a hub for customer loyalty ?

Last.fm is in beta and it seems they are starving for cash ( they are paying licencing fees ) , so their goal could be subscription service.
And it does not play well for dial -up/modem connection.
It's a toy for western broadband societies :))

Rojo's way of navigating web

Since yesterday I've been playing with the new web service Rojo. It's web based RSS news reader with social netwoking features included and the reputational system possibilities.

Nice thing , but so far have no definitive conclusion.
I'll work on it in days to come.

Above all, would like to thank Thomas for the invitation . Rojo is fresh web service, still in beta , and works invitation-only.
I can give few invitation to those who would like to have it.

This service is still fresh, having in mind it's only few days ago announced during one of the sessions held for Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

Film festival

Zagreb Film Festival is under way.

ZAGREB FILM FESTIVAL is a competitive festival that presents and awards new film authors wit their features, short and documentary films, and the FESTIVAL OF THE FIRST establishes the value of debutants' achievements in various areas of creative expression.

Bush's edge

Today, Croatian daily, Jutarnji list, in their foreign politics section concluded " Kerry won all three debates ".
So what ?

I still don't believe Kerry is winning. This latest Reuters/Zogby poll says the same.
The wishes are not the reality, unfortunatly !
In my humble opinion , I think that undecided voters are the key for Bushs victory along with the results in those swing states. The economy is equally important but as US consumer data shows it' not used in debate effectively, and democrats didn't played that well.

Undecided voters are more inclined to vote for Bush. The republicans are more supportive of their candidate as the poll shows ( 89 % of them ) , and the democrats are not so strong behind Kerry ( 79 % of them ).
In this historical voting for US ( and the world I belive ) weights security fear of world wide terorrism that could be, in this post 9-11 world, decisive for the candidate who shows streght in those issues ( although Bush didn't use it 100 % )

Many are aware that Kerry can't pull US substantialy out of global war the Bush administration started. Many are aware , in case Kerry wins, that the foreign politics will be only more sophisticated and not so agressive in cases like building alliances. But, the war goes on.

In case Bush wins, there will be unstopable plans for their ''War on terrorism '' fought on their terms.
Better said, the world will be place of action and reaction to these facts ;))

Dossier Oil

Lately, my favorite subject is OIL. I have been writing and reading much about oil issues. I think It depends a lot on the current war for oil resources that has begun since 2000 with the Bush's and Cheney's entry into White House.
Cheney is today most informed and the most influential person on Earth, he said many times how severe consequences could be if world runs out of oil very fast which is now the case ( demand for oil is booming , and only China's economic slowdown could bring some relief)
Let me quote Cheney's speech to the International Petroleum Institute in London in late 1999:

'By some estimates,' Cheney stated, 'there will be an average of two percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three percent natural decline in production from existing reserves.' Cheney ended on an alarming note: 'That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day.'

Peak oil theorist are delighted to quote these sentences. I think these theorists are right in a essence but wrong and naive about reality.

It's game, pure and simple said. Although, peak theorists are right that proven world reserves and the dynamic of extracting new oil is lesser than general public is aware ( Royal Shell corrected their reserves estimates down this summer ). What would happen if there's correct accounting of underground and above-ground oil ?
Crash, and seriouse economic reset. It's just a game, and nobody expects it'll happen. That's not even option because it would set up prices at correct value having in mind supply and demand, and the realistic price of oil at current situation would be at about 182 dollars for a barrel.

Financial wizards are starting to wake up to this reality and world's ( foxy ) hedge funds were buying oil futures contracts like crazy for about a year. Oil costs today 80 % more than at the beginning of this year.
The prices of oil will probably break 60 $ for barell this winter but will come down next year although not under 40 $. But nobody knows this things for sure.

Around the world still echoes BBC report from the conference in Berlin this summer.

How will you pay to run your car? How will you get the children to school? How will you heat your house? How much will transported food go up in price?
How will we pay for plastics, metals, rubber, cheap flights, Simpson's DVDs, 3G phones and everlasting economic growth?
The basic answer is, we won't.

Their reporter painted very gloomy picture of the world addicted to the economic growth and western lifestyle as we know it, and with the expections of the new technogies to change the world for better, who is suddenly challenged with high energy costs.
But seems that an old ingredient of economic prosperity will at least for the moment sometime in the future slow down these dreams.

Although I have not finished thoughts on this subject I will stop. Too long article.

10th

Oracle Croatia celebrates their 10th year of existence . They've opened new offices yesterday in Zagreb. "Special" guest was, as reported, Oracle vicepresident for EMEA region. His talk was pathetic as far as I can judge :)
He said so many pathetic sentences about Croatian accession to European Union..bla...bla...''We are part of the Europe already..'' and that sort of things.
Still, Oracle grew up as an respected medium enterprise in Croatia who's main asset is their 40 domestic experts, and the network of 90 partners .
Last year company growth rate was 35 %.
Marin Tadic, CEO Oracle Croatia, said employees are having remote connection for every desktop in the company, and the company is aggressively using VoIP telephony.

Lada Adamic talks about blogspace

Seems there are some really serious blog researchers of croatian heritage. During my google sessions discovered Lada Adamic , a research scientist at Hewlett Packard Lab.
She'll be speaker at Accelerating Change 2004 in one of the sessions at Standford University in early November.
Her presented work will be "Implicit Structure and the Dynamics of Blogspace"
Lada has personal homepage, and she's got to be nostalgic about Bol ( it's a beautiful croatian island ).

SoftCOM -cruising technology conference

SoftCOM conference has started yesterday , 12th year in a row. I was looking for news articles in croatian media and nowhere to found them.
Media coverage is apsolutly zero !

I wish I could be there on a ship ( named by Marco Polo ) while cruising on the adriatic coastline between Split- Dubrovnik ( Croatia ) and Venice ( Italy ). But I'll have to stay in the office :(

It's exciting to have technology conference on the ship. Although, it's more academic and research oriented conference .

I have been looking at the official web site and seems there'll be many interesting events on board. Commitee board is strong this year. Atendees are Naohisa Ohta, Sony Corporation, Japan, Alex Gelman, Panasonic Research, USA , Roch Glitho, Ericsson Research, Canada and many others.

SoftCOM 2004 will provide an open forum for communication and information technology researchers and engineers to discuss new and emerging systems, services and their applications particularly with emphasis on the ?soft? aspects and technologies.

Though, I don't get it , what's here ''soft'? :)
Would love to here firshand accounts from these symphosiums . There will be presented research papers about future wirelles systems.

Am I too much curious ? :) Yes, they are telling me this all the time .
Nevertheless, why croatian technology news sources are so shy when it comes to presenting such an event ?

They are first when it comes to covering IT news in the world and printing a press release of some obscur company who just offered great discountes for - bluetooth headphones :)
Oh, and why should I supposed to worry about all that ? :p

Still, a ship...See...Venice ( yes, dirty chanels in Venice )...but clean and too expensive Dubrovnik :)

Croatian blogosphere shows influence

Blogosphere in Croatia is only 5 months old but it starts to show its impact very fast.
Latest incident is breaking story for croatian blogosphere . BLOG.HR is on their fits.
Sandra is a teacher ( elementary school Zagreb ) and the author of a blog on croatian blog service BLOG.HR and recently she was blackmailed by his employee because she wrote about injustice in her school.

Few days ago Sandra used useful feature in blogging service BLOG.HR which gives possibility every blogger to forward her/his story from blogging post editor to the editors of Blog.hr service.

Sandra's story was posted on the main Blog.hr page and soon reactions and comments started coming in. Everyone wanted to express and show support for Sandra's writing and her actions.
Later, Sandra erased those comments under pressure and blackmailing by the head of stuff of above mentioned elementary school ( these are saved from Google cache and posted on my Wiki page) .

What she wrote on her blog to actually pissed off the head of stuff of her school ?

She said that condition in her teaching room were very bad and awful ( she even posted picture ) . The rain and cold comes in. Then she's confessed that she gave her own money ( aprox. 500 $ ) for the building's adaptation. No support she get from the head of school and her collegues who were trying to isolate her. She becomes the black ship in the school among stuff.
On her blog she posted open letter to the head of stuff in which she expressed her sharp views for bad conditions and working with kids in such an environment.

The head of stuff ( director ) was described as someone who laught on all these Sandra's efforts and even called her " nut" and of very "bad psychological health.''
The open letter she put not only on her blog but to the info panel in the school. Parents of classroom's kids were also notified on numerouse meetings.

What's more, her collegues found out for her blog and started to copy her blog posts among themselves, and some of these posts were of very intimate content.

The hole story culminated on Wednesday afternoon while she reported on her blog that she got treats from the head of stuff because of the truth she posted on her blog.
The blackmail was, either blog or her job in the school. The stakes were high.
As all said above, editors alerted croatian blogosphere and support from other bloggers come in. The injustice was in the air and all had started to ask questions for what could be possible legal grounds for quiting Sandra's job.

Next day, the blogosphere found out that the head of stuff gave up firing her ( obviously he was aware of the blogger's storm and reactions ) but Sandra was blackmailed that she can work further only that she should DELETE "dangerous'' posts and she should discontinue writing her blog.

The editors of BLOG.HR service ( myelf included ) offered Sandra every help she'll need. Obviously, she expressed her view of not going further with scandal but to possible give up current blog and open another anonymous sometime in the future. It's her decision and it should be respected.
She saved her job for now , but nobody's sure what's coming next.

No doubt this story shakes up croatian blogosphere ( and possible will be picked up by croatian media which expressed interest lately for the blogging phenomenon ) which is still in early phase and immature.

Some quick facts about Croatia and our blogosphere:

- 4,3 million inhabitants
- 1,3 million internet users
- about 11.000 blogs ( first croatian blog tool is only 5 months old)
- 76 % mobile phone penetration rate

UPDATE

Sandra shut down her blog after all. It was her desicion.

The Google saga

Fidelity, world's largest mutual fund , owns 16 percent of Google.
Now, this news comes as surprise to me. I am still sceptical about Google financial future, and won't put much hope for a long-term perspective ( Google is in my view still too shy about explaining their business, maybe one day ) although I think it's great company with constant inovation flow.
The second news from Google says that they launched yesterday a beta service to search web via SMS .
It works only in USA for now :((
This is great idea and I already wrote about something similar more than year ago asking myself why we don't have that kind of possibilities here in Croatia, since is well know Croatia has very deep penetration od mobile phones in every day life and croats are crazy about sending and recieving SMS ( short message service ).
As far as I know , no other search engine in the world has tied up searching web service with SMS.
Since I write about Google I'll check my news reader about other news regarding Google Inc.
And here's what I found, current news about Google ( above news excluded ):

Google launches Google Print

The Cost of Page Rank

Gmail adds Atom feeds

Use your Gmail account as online hard drive

First ranked news on Google News is- blog ( for the first time)

Google faces employee retention challenge

On/off

As I already wrote, I've done some changes for this blog. The title of the blog isn't anymore "Zec Online Dnevnik", but now stands for "Zec Online Journal". Naturally...No big deal, yeah.
Default languge isn't croatian anymore but broken english because of reasons I already explained.


Today, I made complete overhaul regarding language of this blog. Sidebar is now newly organized, and all links are translated in english.
Only basic elements and links should stay. So, it's nothing so much new. Some of these links are on my blog for a long time.
Detailed explanation for better organised sidebar:

changed section "who and what";

Google box: searching older posts and web;

xml/rss button for reading content via RSS feeds:

blog optimization for reading on mobile devices;

finaly, after almost 3 years of blogging , picture is up;

contact information;mail and quick chat feature;

Photo/mobile blog or journal/gallery

web bookmarks;

my micropublishing efforts for focused content;

latest syndicated news from mainstream sources and blogosphere;

blogroll ( only not current and up to date )

latest articles;

archives from 2002 to 2004.;

disclaimer

Today I looked at my blogger profile page and saw an interesting number, namely, user stats counts blog posts and the number currently stays at 989.
This week I'll write 1000-th article for this blog.
I expect more to come :P

Snap

From Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco comes fresh and exiting search engine SNAP.COM

Bill Gross, famous IdeaLab boss announced this new web searching service that challenges the best search engines in the world.
PC Mag has a coverage.
Do not forget he was the one who actually invented context advertising within Overture company, and later on Google build advertising business model very similar to Gross's.
Now, he's back.
I played a bit with SNAP, although it seems very powerfull , interface is cloacked and confusing , slow and not so clean.

Evan's message

Imagine where I found this news?
During regular inbox checking , in my gmail account's sidebar !
So, Evan Williams is leaving Google team. Evan was co-founder of the most popular blogging service in the world, namely Blogger.com.
This news comes to me as surprise . Is he outgrown Google now when he cash out Google options ?
Eweek has a story. Even wrote about his departure on his blog.

Williams is a well-known figure in the blog-tools industry, regularly speaking and attending conferences on blogging and social software. He wrote that while he is interested in exploring a new Internet startup at some point, for now he plans to take time away from the hustle and bustle of the technology industry.

I can remember Evan's role from the beginning of my blogging odissey. I used to read his writing, thoughts and ideas. He wrote his blog pretty short and not so regular. I think he hadn't have RSS feeds for long time on his blog.
I think that his ideas and work helped very much for why blogging is so popular in some parts of the world, and the simplicity as a strategy for building simple and usefull blogging tools was partially voiding star for croatian blogging service BLOG.HR we introduced this May ( Myself included ) .
Evan co-founded Pyre Labs, provider of web hosted service Blogger and blog hosting called Blogspot. Other co-founders were Jason Shellen, Matt Haughey, and Meg Hourihan
Inovative story about blogging come from a small apartment in downtown San Francisco but soon team almost tear apart apparently because of some ego issues.
Here's story of how it all started confessed by Meg Hourhian.
Later on, in early 2003 , Google bought Blogger team and become blogger company with plans to tie up their marketing programs with living( blogging ) web.
In may this year Blogger had revamp , almost at the same time as we launched BLOG.HR service here in Croatia .
It's interesting to compare growth of popularity here in Croatia and the history from 1999 and 2000 US experience. Blogging culture is in very early phase here, about year 2000 ( comparing to blogger.com growth ).
Since we are very small country, growth generation and general popularity of blogging is very fast and very hyped.
Next year we could expect more mature situation with blogging here in Croatia .

Mobile fetish

Danah Boyd , US technosocialogist and blogger, make interesting cultural observations about Sidekick ( HipTop ).

Why people love it and what makes Sidekick so appealing among American youth. Keyword is feedback. The company behind this product is Danger.
Every product manager should read this story. But there's alternative story to these glamour stories, one that's different.
T-Mobile managers are already familiar with sidekick. T-Mobile pushed this mobile gem in US and was successful selling story.
CNET had a review.

Newsmastering with style and no hassle

The latest trend ( if I may say so ) in blogosphere names reBlogging.
One uses reBlog open source software to streamline interesting rss feeds found in your RSS reader.
The credit is given to original author who's blog posts are reblogged.
It is great way for focused content ( community interest) , just in style of a great Newsmaster ( a new profession emerging :))
Unmediated blog is one of this type of blogs. Sexblog is one of reblogged blogs as well.
ReBlog was developed by Micheal Frumin for Eyebeam R&D

Oil blues

Oil prices broke today magic level of 50 $ a barrel in New York futures market. There's almost certanly continuouse trend of higher oil prices.
Some may argue it is not oil shock, but it's definitive goodbay of cheap oil.
Indeed, by some historical benchmarks, notable oil crisis in 70's, current oil hike isn't as severe.
Many experts and so called "experts" ( me ) ;) now are trying to explain causes and glitches for current situation on oil markets.
IMF said in an official report that higher oil prices are likelly to stay during this decade.
Any prolonged situation of high prices could and will cut economic growth.
Really great article about these issues found in newspaper The Independent written by Bill Robinson who is director of economics at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Croatia eyes space

Croatian blog Mracni again covered this story as it happend.
SpaceShipOne successfuly reached space and win Ansari X- prize. Congratulations !
And here's explanation why ( croatian ) this flight acctually matters.

video :
SpaceShipOne u svemiru

news

Florida Today, BBC News

MMS not for all

No wonder for Croatia. MMS services aren't as popular as SMS services . Well known fact.
But for Britain...Seems they have same problems with tehnophobes. Many people posses mobile cameraphone but very few are using it everyday.
The Inquirer writes photomessaging needs a kickstart.
According to the Autumn 2004 Mobile Phone Report 36 percent of british cameraphone users have never sent a photo message. That's a growth year on year of very slim percentage ( last year this figure was 27 percent).

Part of the problem lies with education. Only 11 per cent of handset owners regard themselves as technologically savvy while nearly one third (29 per cent) are technophobes who shy away from the latest innovations.

Nokia corp: In hardware we belive !

Nokia won't sell ringtones, games, and other graphics anymore.
They are focusing on core businesses, and realised they can't compete with network operators on this segment.
Few years back, Nokia pushed multimedia services as a showcase of things to come. Club Nokia was hub for all those activities.
But these market segment is to small and in money terms-insignificant for them. Now, they give up.
It is estimated by analysts that fragmented market for ringtons globally is about 1,5-3.5 billion a year.

The service has been alternately as a huge future income generator or as a serious stumbling block to good operator relations.

Oil fight

www.vecernji-list.hr

There seems do be an open fight between croatian goverment and croatian state oil company INA.
Today, croatian television HRT broke the news about new price hikings on INA's gas stations. The rumor was that suggestions were made about new calculation for gas prices and were sent to Banski dvori ( Goverment's headquarter ).
Goverement officials are denaying that such a letter existed. Notable, Andrija Hebrang, croatian minister , said in an interview for HINA " he's not aware of any official letter ''.
But Vecernji list in tomorows edition writes it could be fight between various interest groups in which they try to gain positions for their goals in this almost unescapable situation. Main target could be Mr.Dragicevic ( CEO of INA ) .The world markets are dictating market prices for oil.
In this situation , croatian goverment few days ago asked INA to stop raising prices and suggested INA should lower its profit margins for targeted prices on gas stations.
In respons, if this rumors are verificated, INA made clear and pull decisive move to block state interventionism.
But, do have in mind, croatian goverment owns 75 percent stake of INA and hungarian company MOL owns 25 percent+one share.

Space Ship One

Personally, I am not great fan of nothing which comes with attributes "space".
But I am fan of aeroplanes and flying. Few days ago I found out what X-prize Ansar really is.
Mracni blog , a croatian blog, covered this story eagerly waiting for history to be made in front of our eyes.
Then I look around and found it very fascinating indeed.
BBC covered this story very well.
Virgin boss has really serious business plans for making commercial space flight - a reality.

Blogosphere knows already

Today, I saw inflow of new readers on this blog. Then , later on I figure out reasons. Drax blog informed its readership about default language change on my blog. I had switched from Croatian to English.
Thanks Drax !
I am curious know, how many croatian blogs are there and have english as primary language for the content and writing ?
I know there are some on blogger.com, and livejournal.com hosting platforms, but they are somehow unknown in general here in croatian blogosphere.

Crash or slow dead ?

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > A Seismic Shift Under the House of Fannie Mae
Interesting article in today's New York Times. We can read about current investigations of Fanny Mae accounting practices.
It's a big financial company by many parameters. Therefore, in case of any seriouse financial scandal, the US economy ( and world's economy ) could face itself with slowdown and many people could suffer as well( homeowners )
But still, it' s huge and complicated task to understand all these facts surrounding Fannie Mae business.
Basicly, Fannie is publicly traded company but it's investors have protection in case of losses that could be covered with taxpayers money.
Their main job is to buy mortgages from Banks , so that Banks can lend the money further.
It's called securatization of debt.
But the trouble is that Fannie Mae used derivatives ( hedging tool ) to shore up their financial positions. Derivatives are risky business, and sometimes it can get out of control ( specially, during volatile periods in the markets ).
The reasoning goes that Fannie mounted losses during the bear market on Wall Street ( from 2000-2003) regarding derivatives positions.
Therefore, they used aggressive accounting techniqe to hide this things out of public.
Many insiders talked about derivatives during various public sessions but it was very hard to prove and very hard to break the silent wall of Fannie Corp.
Because of a very important place in the US business financial system, Fannie's problems could make disruptins far wider than many think.

Soros's message

GeorgeSoros.com
George Soros has a message. Again. This time he's deeply partisan.
He thinks GW Bush should come down the Trone.
Hungarian born rich asshole is philosoph and philantropist. Oh, he's finance wizzard as well. We all know that.
And I wonder how many people know what is open society idea all about?
I certanly don't and I don't care :p

PhotoStory: how to make a violin - IPIALL Stradivari

PhotoStory: how to make a violin - IPIALL Stradivari
Making a violin . Nice explanation. Violin is not dead.

Who could forgot Poland ?

Not so much benefits out of so much sacrifice !
Poland buys today expensive oil . Just like any country on Earth.That was not the promise of Iraq picnic adventure. Things turned ugly since than.
If oil isn't much needed gift, what's next possible compensation ?
I am not from Poland.

Micro Persuasion: City Hall Insider Blog Puzzles LA Mayor's Office

Micro Persuasion: City Hall Insider Blog Puzzles LA Mayor's Office
Croatia is waiting for this type of whistleblowers. It's well know how anonimous blogs can be great tool for insiders to spit out dirty and covered secrets on the web as a public space.
Steve Rubel writes about LA city hall blogger that features post ranging from rumours and gossip to job listenings.
Just for the note, croatian local election are to be possible covered my croatian blogosfere, but I wouldn't be so optimistic it'll have any impact on election results.

A New Kind of Light

A New Kind of Light

Roland covers New York Times story about light chips ( an old article ). It could be future sometime by 2007 for offices and buildings.
Currently, chips are powering famouse displays on Times Square for example, Nasdaq sign is one of them.
I wonder, Las Vegas if survives few more years , could be big customer :)

Zec Online Dnevnik: Changes?

Zec Online Dnevnik: Promjene/Changes ?
By "blog this" feature.
From this day on, minor ( or somehow ) big (? ) change will take place here at Zec Online Dnevnik. My pseudo-name for blogging here will stay Zec, and those who know me and have contacts with me have full knowledge of who I am
( my real identity ). So, it's never the issue here.
I am starting to write this blog in english. The desicion starts as of today.
Not sure yet whether it'll be pure english -worded blog or coctail regarding blog language. Croatish, somehow :))
Obviously, it depends a lot on my mood and inspiration. Yes, and time !
There are few reason for this sudden change.

First, my english skills aren't as good , and blog writing could be incentive for learning .

Second, it's about challenge ,too. I was more than one year ( and still am ) part of a great team of people ( Dario, Anderlon ) who invented, founded and run the first croatian weblogging service BLOG.HR since May 2004.
And my personal satisfaction lays in the fact that these Zec Online Dnevnik blog provided inspiration and ideas for young and clever web entreuprenuer Dario Markus who contacted me in the summer of 2003, for helping him set up first blogging tool in this part of the world.
And we did it . BLOG.HR is great success here in small Croatia and the culture of blogging is born.

Third, it's about possible communication with ''outside''(foreign blogosfere ) which I was part since early 2002 but language was obviouse barrier for meaningfull communication.


And, you reader ( if there are some ), please be gentle toward my writing and english grammar. I'll try to correct mistakes but It won't be hurdle for my further writing no matter how bad it could get.
Just for note, my first foreign language was allways - german.
Of course, every advice is welcome, but I'll be free to move on after that.

One more thing. Is there someone who's interested in writing ( blogging on english ) with me this blog ?

Please, if so, drop me a line in mail: dalibor [at] gmail [dot] com

Konferencijski bicikl

Je li ovo ono što će se tražiti u dobu skupe nafte i skupog gradskog transporta ?
Naletio sam na taj sajt . Pise u objasnjenjima da se taj trocikl koristi vec u Berlinu, Londonu, Dublinu .
Navodno ga koriste za gradske ture po Berlinu.
Definitivno luda stvar. Sedma ljudi može gaziti pedale.
A za sva zbunjujuća pitanja moguće je dobiti odgovore na njihovom FAQ-u

Zagrebacki plavi tramvaj :)

Glavni kolodvor
Originally uploaded by Dalibor.

Kako je ugodno blogirati i s ovoga mjesta. Esther Dyson ulaze u malu kompaniju koju su pokrenuli Stewart i Caterina.
Gledao sam sto je Joi Ito napisao povodom toga. Naravno, ego mu je stradao jer nije bio jedan od prvih ulagac, pa se sad izbavlja da je pasivni ulagac :))

Promjene ?

Danas mi se motala jedna misao vezana uz ovaj blog. Razmisljam da ovaj blog pocnem pisati na iskljucivo slomljenom engleskom jeziku.
I da mozda jos neko pise blog ( na engleskom ) pa da ovaj blog prekrstim u grupni blog.
No more croatian...just broken english :))
Jos cu razmisliti. Ionako imam onaj glavni blog pisan hrvatskim kojeg uskoro mislim malo bolje dizajnirati i organizirati samo najnuznije linkove.
Vidjet ću.

Dodatak GMAIL-u

Vidim da ima nekih dodataka za one koji za mail koriste Googleov GMAIL.
Boingo blog ima link na neke dodatke, posebno na neki uzbunjivač kad vam pristigne mail.
Geekovski dodatci, nema što.
Postajem li ja geek ? :p:p
Našao sam i wiki posvećen GMAIL-u.

Firefox

Instalirao sam neki dan Firefox mrcinu za navigiranje webom. Prije sam imao nekih rezervi i stalno odgađao taj čin.
Bome se dobro marketinski pokriva širenje najboljeg browsera na webu.Imaju i blog za tu namjenu.

Sada više ni ne želim surfati bez Firefoxa. Dobar je to browser. Ne otkrivam toplu vodu. Mnogi to znaju.
Fino sam ga tunirao skinuvši neke teme za njega tako da je sada prilagođen mom ukusu.
Iskustvo korištenja ?

Pa, prije svega učitavanje je brzo. Čuven je blokiranju reklama i to šljaka.
Google tražilica mi je na dohvat nosa. Svi to već znaju.

Ipak, ovo kako su riješili s čitanjem RSS fajlova nije mi 100 posto po volji. I dalje ću čitati vijesti i blogove iz RSS čitača nego li iz Firefoxa. Dobro je to što Frefox automatski signalizira da je došao na stranicu gdje postoji RSS link.

Zagrebačke priče

U utorak sam se pojavio u Zagrebu. Bilo je skroz OK razmjenjivati mišljenja s ljudima.
Anderlon , Dario, Davor i ja pričali smo o BLOG.HR i blogovima općenito te kako sve skupa može to i bolje te što i kako dalje. I dogovorili smo nešto, kreće se u realizaciju , mislim da je će biti vrlo uzbudljivo pa će za koje vrijeme biti implementirano u BLOG.HR.

A zapravo glavni povod našem okupljanju je bilo snimanje priloga za HTV o blogovima.

Simpatična Sanja je radila 5-minutni prilog za emisiju koja se , ako sam zapamtio, zove Znanstveno 5 ( isprika ako nije ). Snimljene su naše izjave o koječemu
( ja sam rekao kolko je kila paprike na placu :p ) i biti će kratki prilog emitiran sljedeće srijede u 16.25

Trabunjao sam svašta. Ponajviše o stilu pisanja blogova.
A nisam rekao ono najbitnije. Popularni i omiljeni su zbog :

a) jeftino- ne košta bogatstvo, ne plaća se u većini slučajeva hosting, osim troška surfanja

b) jednostavnost- ne treba se biti tehnički ekspert za PC ili web dizajn, znate koristiti mail, znate onda izrađivati i blog

c) dostatna nazoćnosti na webu- većina ljudi nema velikih zahtjeva za nazočnost na webu ( praksa je pokazala, jedostavni su za održavanje i jednostavne strukture koji omogućava zadovoljavanje tri potrebe:
1. prezentacija 2. informativnost 3. komunikacija


Bilo je kratko vrijeme za reći nešto konkretno a možda sam otišao malo preširoko i spominjao neke stvari koje su totalno nezanimljive početniku oko blogova. Trebao sam malo prizemnije govoriti o blogovima. Zabrazdio sam oko iranskih blogova objašnjavajući kako mlade iranske snage koriste blogove kako bi zaobišli restriktivne medija u rukama iranskih mula.

Dotakli smo se razlike između inozemne i hrvatske blogosfere, a bez da smo uopće objasnili što ta kovanica "blogosfera" znači ( i je li uopće bitna ).
Generalno gledano, stvari se kod nas razvijaju drukčije nego vani. To sam i očekivao iako me neke stvari kompletno iznenađuju.

Rekao sam i da svatko nema potrebu, volju, vještinu, vrijeme niti novac da bi pisao blogove.

Ako neko kao jedna moja poznanica crnči u Erste banci do 8 navečer onda garant neće imati volje niti želje pisati blogove i trovati se radijacijom s kompa ( a da ne govorim o onima koji mail pišu jednom retku, ili oni kojima je internet veza luksuz kojim nemogu upropastavati kućni budzet ...)

Šteta što se o tome želi tako kratko prikazati na HTV-u. Nek posvete tome čitavu LATINICU.

Anderlon je pričao općenito o pokretanju projekta BLOG.HR na hrvatskom webu.
Dario je pokazao ekipi HTV-a kako u 2 minuti otvoriti svoju besplatnu web stranicu za pisanje blogova.
Davor je pričao o fenomenu blogove iz svoje perspektive i dodirnuo se nekih osnovnih motiva.

Inače po meni postoje samo tri motiva zašto se pišu blogovi ( varijacije na temu spadaju pod to ), a to su: dijeljenje informacija, izgradnja reputacije, potreba za izražavanjem. I to često kombinirano zajedno. I ne nužno tim redoslijedom ( da,da , produciranja ega spada u jednu od tih kategorija :))

Sanja, novinarka HTV-a, pokazala se znatiželjnom oko blogova. Priznala je da je nedavno bila na seminaru mladih novinara u Salzburgu i da im je tamo predavanje održao Dan Gillmore, novinar San Jose Mercury News i moj stari poznanik iz blogosfere koji je ujedno i novinar i bloger( njegov blog je dolje u blog listi linkova s desne strane ).
Pa je skroz pohvalno što se ona zainteresirala za problematiku blogova.

Dan Gillmore je napisao knjigu koja je nedavno izašla a zove se "We the Media ".
Spominje u njoj zanimljive , moguće, i inovativne koncepte kreiranja vijesti u digitalnom dobu. Dan je jedan od rijetkih novinara velikih medija koji razumije umreženost, instant mogućnosti, i linkove blogova.

Nakon što je snimanje obavljeno zadržali smo se u kratkom razgovoru, gdje smo komentirali upravo aktualna zbivanja u blogosferi u SAD-u ( s kojom se nemožemo uspoređivati ) ali koja je prije neki dan imala itekako medijskog utjecaja.

Aktualno je da su blogovi u SAD-u ( gdje ima kritične mase ) prvi put imali utjecaj na mainstream medije tako da je kružok desničarskih blogera osramotio površnosti i podmetanje javnosti od strane CBS-ove emisije 60 minutes a legendarnog novinara Dan Rathera su prisilili da katapultira i ode s crnom mrljom na leđima u penziju. I nažalost blogovi su pomogli da Bush odmakne od Kerry za jos par postotnih bodova.

Sve u svemu, zagrebacki dan je bio korisno iskorišten dan. Onaj birc u Šubićevoj nema ledeni čaj od brusnice al nema veze...a pamtim taj birc još od 2002. Motao sam se onuda kad sam bio u vojsci u Samoboru a naša ekipa vezista bila je na centrali MORH-a. Šire u kuvertama su se nosile iz Samobora :)) Bakula i Šarić...Gdje su sad ti ljudi ( interni monolog ).

Ostale servisne informacije: 2 kune javni WC na kolodvoru, korištenje kabine 3 kune:)
Vrijeme je bilo dobro i toplo. Mafija je mirovala po ulicama i nije mi niko drmnuo torbu s papirima u pol bijela dana.
Zašto su inače u ZG-u u nekim mjestima prodavač/ce tako hladne i nadrkane ? Kao da bi trebao nešto odmah kupiti s vrata. Tak su se ponašali.
E pa da, napravili smo fotke. Možda ih sada uploadam a možda kasnije. Trebao sam više fotkati.

I nisam stigao predložiti....Drugi put hoću vidjeti kak se kuha u kineskom restoranu u Petrinjskoj. Stoput sam rekel da bum otišel pogledati kako se tam priprema neka egzotika , pa zaboravio.

Zabreg

U utorak stižem u Zagreb.
Dolazima kupiti žvaku ( čunga lunga, bazuka prolazi ) :p Selak stiže u metropolu.

Rasčistite makadame i avenije od šana-mana stalaka s krpicama.
Gumijene čizme za ugodnu šetnju gradom nisam još odabrao iako imam uski krug kandidata.

Najveće izgleda ipak imaju gumijenke proizvedenoj u najčuvenijoj manufakturi donje Podravine- Šport Mesu, poznatog lokalnog poduzetnika i športsko-obućarskog mecene Željka Meseca :p

Jedino me brine što još nisam uspio nabaviti kravu na napuhavanje koju bi držao na uzici dok bi ona lebdila iznad glave poput Zepelina .
Ako je moj deda mogao nekad pješice s kravama do Popovače i nazad onda ni Zagreb ne predstavlja veliki problem za slične poduhvate. Je, tak je !

Sutra idem na proščenje u Brodić pa si možda od kojeg pod šatrom uspijem nabaviti kravu na napuhavanje u boji ovog bloga.

"Letim kak toča"

Što hoće taj [LINK=http://www21.germanwings.com/]Germanwings[/LINK] ?
Čujem zadnjih dana priopćenja da imaju nekakvu akciju za jeftine letove Zagreb - Dojčland.

Gledam i tražim jučer na njihovim web stranica gdje i kako rezervirati letove po toj promotivnoj cijeni- i ništa. Veliko ništa.

Jesam čorav ili te promotivne akcije nije moguće naći na njihovom webu? Nakon pretraživanje moguće je naći ponude [LINK=http://www21.germanwings.com/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi]po standardnim cijenama .[/LINK]
Nigdje nema te famozne promocijske cijene od 1 € .

A na web stranici imaju nešto malo i [LINK=http://www21.germanwings.com/vorschalt/index_hr.html]na hrvatskom jeziku[/LINK] rečenog. Vidi se da je i to malo na kroatišem napisano iz nužde, "sam da je " .
E, onda treba tražiti alternative. Kad su te jeftine avio kompanijice tak zahrdane onda im se baca pljuska iz centra Podravine.

Traže se dioničari . Dokumenti su spremni. Konkurencija titra.
Registracija će se obaviti na trgovačkom sudu u Bjelovaru te ćemo nadležnu službenicu zaposliti da umjesto što piše blogove pod radnim vremenom- ispuni obrazce sa sljedećim podacima:

ime pravne osobe: "LETIM KAK TOČA "
skraćeno ima subjekta: LTK - šumarski prijevoz presadnica i algi bez karnistera
odgovorna osoba/direktor: Zdravkina ( sada ) - od malena Zdravko
opremljeni raketni sustav: zrak -zemlja, zrak-zrak, zrak- marketing Germanwings
djelatnost: prijevoz s placa i na plac
sjedište : Frančinine gorice- Fruškogorska bb

[I]Nepojem ja nikam .[/I]

Čitanje bloga preko RSS ili ATOM kanala

Skužio sam da mi nije radio link na stare RSS kanale. Sada imam novi link i gumb koji omogućuje posjetitelju čitanje ovoga bloga bez da dolazi na ovu stranicu. Pa ko želi , nek se pretplati na to ( besplatno, jel ).

Oni koji su upoznati s RSS/ATOM sindikacijskom tehnologijom cijene takvu mogućnost na web stranici jer im štedi vrijeme i živce.
Eto, tako ja danas ubacio još jednu novinu.

To je ko ono kad imaš ribice u akvariju pa ima baciš malo hrane. Nekonvencionalnim razmišljanjem- to je zaljevanje blog biljke :p

Blog tražilica

Konačno imam pravu blog tražilicu na ovom blogu. Pretraga ovoga bloga konačno donosi relevantne rezultate. Gore s desne strane jasno sam prikeljio Google tehnologiju. Pretražuje se web ali i stari sadržaj na ovom blogu. A bome ga se sakupilo.
Pretražuje sadržaj od siječnja 2002. do danas.

Super je ta Google tehnologija. Sve više vidim da smo si Google i ja dosta dobro :))
Blogger je njihov,Gmail je njihov, koristim Picasu za slike na desktopu, Hello za postanje slika na blogove.

A mislim da je bome vrijeme za mali redizajn organizacije linkova na blogu. U narednim tjednima ću baciti sve suvišnosti ( ono kaj ja mislim da je suvišno ) i logičnije to posložiti.
A i konačno stiže jesen i očekujem da ću više pisati.
Nadam se da će biti dovoljno slobodnog vremena usprokos gužvi koja me okružuje.

Nadopuna 15.09.2004.

Primjetio sam da mi ne radi čitanje bloga preko RSS-a ( RIJEŠENO ! RADI! ). Dolje s desne strane je naranđasti gumb koji je link na RSS fajl koji je hostao RSSSifry,ali je on odustao od hostanja jer mu jede bandwith. Zato sam morao na rezervno rješenje i nakon malo sim-te-tam-te XML gumb je slobodan za kopiranje i RSS i ATOM čitanje blog postova je MOGUĆE !!

Razgibavanje prstiju

Uhu, pa ja pišem blog post!
Nije baš ćesto bilo na ovom blogu toliko pauza u pisanju...
Vrati se.
Malo za razgibavanje.

Radijacija Free !

I dalje sam radijacija-s-monitora-free ! I drzim se dalje od interneta neko vrijeme. Isprika svima koji nisam u mogućnosti ( ! ) odgovoriti na mail, te se ustrucavam od inace stalne želje za pisanjem pa tako i na blogu neće biti novih stvari neko vrijeme.
Glavna mi je igračka ovih dana lopta i trčkaranje u kopačkama ( Hi, hi ! )
Ne, krivo je shvaćeno, ponovno. Al' naviko sam na to pa nije problem .

Entschuldingung !

Njemački bloger krenuo je na ljetovanje u Hrvatsku i tamo doživio - razočaranja. Ljetovanje se pretvorilo u noćnu moru. Mediteranski gulag, kaže on !
Wolfgang je autor čitanog web dnevnika pa ima medij za neposredno širenje istine o svojim doživljajima. Ima blog. Preko bloga se vijest o "mediteranskom gulagu" brzo proširila njemačkim dijelom weba.
Preko bloga svjedoči o katastrofalno lošem apartmanskom smještaju i čudenju kako je teško dobiti pristup internet priključku na Jadranu. Nepojmljivo mu je da u zemlji u kojoj ljudi prevrću u rukama najmodernije mobilne telefone nemože do internet veze bez dobivanja ćira na želucu i deranja po đepu !!
A najveće razočaranje bilo je ponašanje domaćina koji su mu prijetili da će ga prijevremeno izbaciti iz apartmana s " lijepim zelenim vrtom" ( u kojem je bila razbacana žbuka ) jer , ako mu se ne sviđa apartman - nekome će se sigurno svidjeti!
Prijetnja ga je ohrabirila da uspije vrlo brzo spakirati kofere i otići s lijepog plavog Jadrana.
Turistička zajednico gdje si ? Je li Wofgang trazio previše ili smo mi domaćini koji neznaju pružiti gostu uslugu koju želi i za koju je spreman platiti ali po fair okolonostima ?
Mediteranski gulag odzvanja u web krugovima u Njemačkoj ...
Wir bitten um Entschuldingung !

POMOC NJEMACKOM BLOGERU !

U ovoj brzini prije odlaska na godisnji vidim krik prijatelja Roberta Basica koji mi javlja da Wolfgang ima probleme s hrvatskom gostoljubivoscu i ponudom na Jadranu.

Wofgang ljetuje ( ljetovao je ) s obitelji i nazalost u svojim postovim blogira o "mediteranskom gulagu " koji prozivljava.
Sve to me potaklo na aktivizam da preko HR blogosfere pokusa se pomoci covjeku.


Ovo pisem nabrzaka pa jos neznam u kojem se mjestu nalazi Wofgang.
Pa ako ima netko tko moze pomoci mu oko boljih uvjeta smjestaja i gostoljubivosti domacina te povoljnijeg prikljucka netu ( a da ga se besramno ne dere po novcaniku ) neka to ucini .***kasno je sad***

Njegovi tekstovi ( na njemackom ) nalaze se na njegovom blogu.
Ajmo isprobati umrezenost blogera.

Mo?da se nece dogoditi nikakvo cudo s ovim apelom i mozda to izgleda smjesno ali ta je prica vec blogirana u najcitanijim njemackim blogovima...Kakav ce dojam izazvati nije tesko pretpostaviti...


Nasa turisticka zajednica ne kuzi kako blogosfera u njemackoj je dobro umrezena i da je pametna mogla bi tu uskociti i sanirati narusen imid.

Vrijedi barem pokusati.
Samo sada je kasno nesto konkretno jer kolko cujem Wolfi je napustio zemlju u pravcu Karavanki.

Sazetak:
Wolfgang blogira:
Showdown Gulag
Mediteran Gulag
Gulag 2