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.