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TG’s WEBlog (Known as a BLOG or Blogging) December 2001

 

TG’s Weblog Nov 2001

 

Monday 31st December 2001 23-07

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my readers.  Do I have any?  Keep going Tony, write and they will come!

 

Stayed in tonight with baby Georgia, and Annie.  We were going to drive into Melbourne but it’s pissing down with rain, so we’ve stayed in and eaten chocolate.  Georgia (aged 14 weeks) obscurely must know it New Year’s Eve.  She won’t go to sleep and wants to stay up for the action.  She’s also been jumping out of the rocker for the last hour whilst I try and write this.

 

That’s it, Bye Bye 2001.  It was a great year for me.  But not for some.  In some ways the world changed.  But I remember my excitement and anticipation for 40 years towards The Millennium.  And you know what?  Everything was exactly the same as it was the day before the Millennium.  It will take far bigger things than what has happened this last year to permanently change things.  Life goes on in all its weird and wonderful ways.

 

For me, I can’t think of anything better than spending my New Year’s Eve with Annie and little Georgia, and eating chocolate!

 

Sunday 30th December 2001 21-50

2002 New Year’s Resolutions -  Draft (2001 Retrospective)

Thinking about what I’d like for 2002, resolutions, dreams to come true.

 

2001 has been a hell of a year.  Found out Annie was pregnant whilst on our honeymoon.

She told me at Singapore airport as we were flying back to London.  WoW Fantastic.

I decided that 2001 would be the year of gadgets, and boy have I fulfilled that.

New PC, scanner, lots of software, MP3s, dictation machine, new mobile, 2 cars, all new white goods for the house.

Blood Pressure machine! Printer.  The speakers on my PC and living in a detached house have revived my love of music.

 

Of course the major event has been moving to Melbourne, and the birth of Georgia, our first baby.

Unbelievable.  I’ve waited for so long, and it’s even better than I’d hoped.

Sometimes I just want to cry with joy when I look at her and she’s gurgling and smiling away, kicking me as a lean over her.

Sleeping on my chest snuggled up with her bottom in the air as she sleeps.  Gorgeous Georgia.

And Australia.  A new start.  Great so far.

 

So many of my dreams have come true.  So let’s have some more dreams.

 

2001 was the year of the gadgets.  I’m sure there’s a few more to come.

2002 I sense is time to write.  The year of writing.  Content.

Continue to grow my website. Continue to contribute to the debates I feel passionate about. More of that. Create the start of something big in a large corporation.

Start to write more on Sales Training and Self Development.  I feel there’s something else there, something BIG.

A Novel?  E-Learning?  Business Website?  I don’t know yet but the start of something very big is out there.

 

Time with Annie.  Time with Georgia.  Cycling and Roller Blading.  Even more sports events.  Water Sports?  Windsurfing again?

 

The perfect day for 2002 would include the following.  Up early, Journal for 45 mins, go for a walk or cycle, breakfast, read email, surf the internet, time with Georgia, time with Annie, writing, developing/delivering course work, build my website, read, networking, cycle or rollerblade by the sea, send emails.

And that’s just the start.

How am I going to fit it all in? Oh and FUN!

 

And most important are my new set of 5 year dreams.  Since all my dreams come true, not always in the way I expect them (so be careful what you ask for Tony).

 

That’s it so far, in draft.  No links in this one entry!

 

Saturday 29th December 2001 22-15

First Hot Weather in Melbourne

Finally a hot summers day in Melbourne.

The wind switched from South East to North West which means it’s coming off the Outback.

 

Very different being blasted with hot air like a hair dryer.  And of course it makes the air temperature very high.

Even though it doesn’t feel hotter than a hot English summers day (if that exists!) the temperature today was 35ºC!

Went for a cycle down to the sea and that was easier, because I was cycling into the wind and down to the sea and I had the hot air on my back coming back.

 

Hello Northern Hemisphere.

 

I still can’t get used to the sun moving in the opposite direction and rising into the Northern sky.

 

Friday 28th December 2001 19-43

Yippee, top of Google

I wasn’t sure what to write about today.

I was messing around for the 1000th time doing a search for my name (“Tony Goodson”) and my “TGtips” website on Google.

Up until now I’ve had nothing showing up.

 

And suddenly Yippee, I’m top for both my name and website.

I don’t know what I did but it’s worked.

All that contribution to the Cluetrain debate has paid off.

Intuitively I’ve been writing a lot on Cluetrain without knowing where it was going.

And something weird and indirect has happened.

My dream come true.

I’m really excited!!!

 

Strange isn’t it that I’ve been using up time adding to the debate, time I could have used working out how to get my name and website on Google and it’s happened automatically.

 

Coincidence

Serendipity

Synchronicity

 

Thursday 27th December 2001 22-30

My Music

Just recording all my favourite songs and here it the top 20 so far in order.

 

Of course this is a moving thing.  Bet you can’t beat it though.

There’s another hundred tracks below the top 20.

I think I’ll put them on a webpage.

Give everyone a laugh!

 

Melody Melody Melody.

 

Two Verses with Chorus, twiddly/instrumental bit after second chorus, and then third and final verse and chorus.

Now that’s how a song should be!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Wednesday 26th December 2001 20-00

Blairgowrie

So we spent Christmas and today down on the Mornington Peninsular in Blairgowrie.

Staying with Annie’s family who have rented a place for 2 weeks.

Our first outing away from home with baby Georgia, who was a delight.

 

I finally drove down all of the Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne is at the top of the bay and we headed south.

Checked out many of the towns now, Frankston where the train I get into Melbourne terminates.

Mornington, Rye, Portsea, Sorrento.

 

The only problem was the weather was shit.  Imagine mid-summer and this morning we were gathered around the fire because it was so cold.

 

Good to be back.

 

Tuesday 25th December 2001 8-18

Christmas Day in Australia

Just like any other day really.

Just changed Georgia’s nappy.  She’s 3 months old now

Weather looking good, though stormy overnight and it looks like there was a power cut.

The oven is flashing “HELP”

Our first longer trip out with Georgia.  Going down the coast to have lunch with the family.

 

I was on honeymoon a year ago in Queensland, Trinity Bay near Cairns.

We were so tired after the wedding that Christmas passed us by.

And now we’ve moved to Australia and I’ve witnessed the second Christmas here.

It’s weird, Santa, carols and all that in summer.

 

I think the Aussies should get rid of Christmas and get rid of the Union Jack off their flag ASAP.

 

Happy Christmas!

 

Monday 24th December 2001 20-55

Famous Birthdays

Tomorrow is Jesus’ birthday and he’s famous.

What other birthdays are on Christmas Day?

 

Who died on Christmas Day?

 

With my birthday coming up in February, I’d better get adding to my memorised list of

Ronald Reagan, Gayle Hunnicut, Rip Torn, Leslie Crowther, Babe Ruth, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jimmy Tarbuck, Natalie Cole, Patrick McNee, Axl Rose, Rick Astley, Lionel Blue, Keith Waterhouse, Bob Marley, Billy Wright, Fred Trueman, Manuel Orantes, Mike Batt. 

 

I have less then 2 months to come up with more names (Eva Braun and Megan Gallagher weren’t included!)

 

Two good links for birthdates are www.famousbirthdays.com and www.dailyalmanacs.com

 

Sunday 23rd December 2001 23-50

Request for Scenes

Dave Weinberger’s JOHO Blog for Mon Dec 17th has some research asking about the impact of memorable scenes from movies on our lives.

 

The following questions for research purposes are asked I’ve thought about my immediate answers and a few more films as well.

“What scene from a movie (or several such scenes from different movies) do you regard as really consequential in your life? A scene(s) that you cite when you want to make an important point. A scene(s) that altered your view of things. Or taught you something you value deeply. Or scared you forever. Or that you treasure for its humane quality. Its deep-reaching humour. Or its unique perspective. Please share your scene(s) - in your own words,

1. Title of the Film?  The Graduate

2. What year did you see the film?  Lots of times but probably first in about 1975.

3. How old were you? 14

4. What was/were the impact of the scene?  Why?  Of course it’s Dustin (Benjamin Braddock) rescuing Katherine Ross (Elaine Robinson) from the church and running off with her in bridal dress on to the bus.

 

Impact of the scene? 

 

5. And what are your thoughts/feeling now about it?  See Above!

 

Other films that immediately come to mind

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Not everything has a happy ending

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Chief escaping, anything is possible, rebellion. Nice Music, again

Sound of Music – Cunning Escape from those Nazi Bastards, and you can make clothes out of curtains.

Schindler’s List – (Sitting right at the front of the cinema, on my own)  My, those Nazi Bastards look enormous.

 

Saturday 22nd December 2001 22-22

Nothing to Say

Nothing to say.  Should I fill in each day’s Blog even if I have nothing to say?

 

Friday 21st December 2001 17-40

Navigation Down Under

Moving Down Under to Australia in the Southern Hemisphere is a navigational nightmare!

Non of this walking upside down or water spinning in plug holes the other way, type rubbish.

 

Just simple navigation!  It took me a few weeks here to have the courage to work out and then confirm that the sun is mostly in the Northern sky for the day and not the Southern sky.  It also moves right to left across the sky, when facing the sun, the opposite of good old England.

 

Ask me now where I am at 2-00 in the afternoon and I haven’t a bloody clue.

Now in the northern hemisphere I know where the sun is, what time it is, so I always have a rough clue of where I am and where I’m heading.

Not any more.

 

And whilst I’m on this one, where has the plough (saucepan, Big Dipper) gone, which points to the Pole Star!

I’m lost without my Plough, always a source of comfort when I look up in the dark skies.

 

Thursday 20th December 2001 22-30

More Health Conspiracies

I read with horror today an article taken from the Dr Mercola newsletter I’m subscribed to.

It’s about the con that is going on with getting the whole of the USA vaccinated with the anti-Anthrax vaccine, even though it may not work and may not have been tested properly.

Have a read, it’s shocking. Anthrax and War: The Marketing of Disaster

Is there really that much corruption in the world?

And there’s the Small Pox vaccine to come.  Good Luck America

 

The good news is Restrict Your Calories and Live Longer!

 

Wednesday 19th December 2001 22-54

The Customer Comes Second

I was going to post this to the Cluetrain discussion on Topica, but I’ll try it here first and gather my thoughts.

 

“CEO Hal Rosenbluth chronicled the incredible success of his travel-service firm Rosenbluth International, in..

 

                                    The Customer Comes Second

Love that title!

Who comes first?  Don’t be silly, says King Hal; it’s employees.

That is – and this, dear Watson, is elementary – if you genuinely want to put customers first, you must put employees more first.

         You get it, right?”

Tom Peters – Pursuit of WoW p55

 

And the more I’ve thought about it over the years since reading The Pursuit of WoW, the more it seems true.

Most of the great companies over the last 150 years have put the employees first.  How can a company that doesn’t care about its people, genuinely care about its customers.  Think of the Quaker companies.

 

When I was a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, my Mum used to drag me and my sister shopping through Marks and Spencer.  She always used to tell us that it was a good place to work because they looked after their staff.  Now let’s come forward in time to the present, and the demise of Marks and Spencer.  Everyone has their own pet theory about the demise of M+S, Marks and Sparks.

 

Here’s Mine.  They Stopped Putting the Employee First!

 

Simple really.  If I go and complain about an M+S product now, do you think the M+S employee gives a shit?  They just want to know when it’s 17-00 and they can clock off.  They have no pride in the company, because the company has no pride in them.  It’s the same with most companies, the employees have no pride in the company, and why should they?

 

Marks and Spencer’s demise started the day they stopped putting employees first, as a management cost cutting exercise.

Marks and Spencer can update their product range and revamp their stores as much as they like but it won’t work until the employees have a pride in the company again.

 

The next time you see the demise or growth of a company see if they put their employees first.

The next time a company says The Customer is King or The Customer Comes First, check out what the employees think.

 

Ask Marks and Spencer employees what they think of their company as an employer!

 

Tuesday 18th December 2001 13-26

TGtips Website How is it constructed?

I’m often asked by no-one so far how I build and run my website.

 

Firstly, TGtips of course are my initials Tony Goodson, and as I train and coach, then TG tips seemed appropriate and it does sound like the UK tea PGtips, but of course I didn’t get the name from PGtips.  Also www.tonygoodson.com is routed through to this website.  Maybe I should say some more for those who don’t know about this.  You can buy a website name from companies on the Internet that generally are agents/representatives of the registration companies, Internic (USA .com), Nominet (.co.uk).  Once you have the name, firstly it’s easy to use that name for email like tony@tgtips.com. You don’t have to have the name registered with your ISP to receive email for you new name, you just route it to your current email address, it’s very easy.  I generally use www.domaindirect.com (not domainsdirect), who are part of www.tucows.com a technical download site who I trust as much as it’s possible. The pricing isn’t the best but I hear so many stories of problems with registration companies, I’ll stick with what I know and trust.

 

Once I had the name registered I sat on it for year, started using it for email a year later when I had the confidence to work it out (it was much easier than I thought), and then finally I wrote this website, which I’d been putting off for years, partly because I didn’t know what content to put on, perfectionist, and also the technical fear.  Finally, moving to Australia, getting bad jetlag for 3 weeks meant that I was waking up in the middle of the night and I wrote in Word2000 what I’d like to have as a website.  Word2000 has templates for building a website which convert to HTML, the language of websites.  So that’s it!  I write the pages in Word2002, used the template which has frames, and link in any new pages.  By the way, frames are the way in which a page is divided so that parts of pages move and update but other parts remains the same, and have separate control.

 

Looking at my website.  This Weblog appears in one of the frames, my TOC (Table of Contents) is frozen on the left in Lilac and Red without a scroll bar coz it looks better! and the top logo of my picture and TGtips is another frame.  Frames are a bit controversial because they don’t work with all browsers and some don’t like them.  I’m thinking of moving to a single scrolling page but to be honest I don’t know how to convert the frames into a single page with wide enough margins!  One of the key advantages of this is there’s more room to fit contents and links on the left when people scroll down.  I like it as it is because it keeps the navigation simple.  Also because I don’t have that many pages yet, I like the idea of all content being on the front page so you don’t have to drill down for hidden gems, so effectively my front page is a sitemap.  But I’m running out of space as I grow it!

 

The colours and design.  I love Lilac but I didn’t think it would work either as a font colour or as a background.  The red text on lilac seems to work and matches my logo, I know my Brother-in-Law Rafi hates it, vote now. I love clear websites and clean design, my biggest pet hate is coloured background with a text colour you can’t read like white text on a black background. Or serif font, curly font, that looks like some kind of cult website.  So for the time being it’s Ariel font in black on a white background with red titles that I didn’t think would work well but seems good, I think.  I also have the date the website was last updated so that you know it’s up to date.

 

Photographs. I’m a strong believer in photographs of the people in the company, running the company, and website.  I love photos, who are the people, who are their relatives and friends.  Of course, it does slow a website down with too many photos.  Not so keen on graphics unless necessary, and also I don’t know how to create them and do things with them yet!  It took me a while to understand how to make photos smaller and the right dimensions and file size but I think I’ve sussed it out now.  I use Jasc PaintShop Pro 7.

 

Links.  I’ve learnt from www.cluetrain.com to have lots of links on my site, so that it’s not a dead end, a cul-de-sac.  It also says who I am by what I link to.

 

Performance.  I’ve not needed to look at web performance yet except for download times of pages and photographs.  I have cable internet so sometimes I take for granted my download times and I tend to overload my pages with pictures.  Recently, I’ve had to start archiving my Weblogs into months because the page was getting too big.  Same with my photos.  The page just with thumbsize photos was getting too large.  My large photos I try to make full page size and below 70KB which is still a bit large, but mothers will wait for photos to download of their beloved.

 

The Future.  Do I put my TG’s Weblog on to my front page to make it up to date and current each day?  I lose saying who I am with an opening statement, but I gain up to dateness and blogging is all the rage and says who you are.  I’ve found a couple of fun things recently on websites. ‘Ten random facts about Tony Goodson” “How this website was constructed” “Fun Biography” “Favourite Words”.  Maybe soon I’ll move to a web editor such as DreamWeaver in which I create my web pages and edit the HTML.  Not yet though!

 

Web Logs.  I’m still not sure about Web Logging, or how interesting they are.  They’re a bit one way.  Most people seem obsessed with promoting their Weblog/ego even though the philosophy isn’t necessarily about that.  I’ll go along with it for the time being so I can criticise it by knowing what I’m talking about.  You can host your Blogs at a site and route it to your own site, but I can’t get mine to work yet, and besides I don’t know enough about HTML to be able to add things and change design, so I’ll stick with Word2002 and send it to my website.

 

Upload Once I’ve created my pages in Word2002 I convert it to HTML by saving my pages as WebPages in Word2002.  I view the pages in my browser to check they convert properly and look ok.  I’ve had a few problems here between my Word2002 look, my offline viewing of these pages, and what it looks like on-line.  The link colours don’t always translate so some come out as links, others as viewed links in a different colour, even though it looks right in Word2002.  Also, photographs don’t have mouse roll-over (the finger) to show that it’s a link.  Am I missing something to do this easily?  Also, the most irritating thing about doing it in Word2002 is that when I have  pictures in the page, the images are randomly renumbered on the files so that I have to download all 130 thumbnail image each time I upload to my website server.  Uploading is easy.  I use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client that works on my PC and lets me send my files to my Internet Service Provider where I have 10MB of space to run my website from.  It’s really quite easy.  I use CoffeeCup Free FTP.  It’s like copying files in your PC except on of your files/discs happen to be not on your PC but with your Service Provider.

 

Summary I use the following products

Website Names Registration www.domaindirect.com

Website Word2002 www.microsoft.com

FTP Client for Upload www.coffeecup.com

Photo Editing Paint Shop Pro 7 www.jasc.com

 

 

Monday 17th December 2001 12-44

Wedding Anniversary

So much to write about today.  It’s my wedding anniversary.  Married a year ago in Melbourne, came over from London.

My how things have moved on, moved to Melbourne in June,

Georgia was conceived on our wedding night, and now here she is.  Gorgeous.  My dream come true.

Bought Annie her (and my) favourite perfume, Intuition, and earstuds with joined hearts.  And of course 2 cards

Going out tonight to restaurant overlooking the sea at St Kilda, near where we got married and walked on the beach the morning after wedding.

I Love You Annie.

 

Proclaimers

Just listening to the new Proclaimers CD ‘Persevere’, I love The Proclaimers, melodic, witty, passionate, truthful, clear, and one thing, they sing in their own accent unlike most singers who sing in a standard American accent.  Love their songs, Sunshine on Leith and Your Childhood.  Love em.  And they remind me of my friend Ricky Grimes, I can smell Glasgow when I hear them.  And Ricky Grimes!  I was overjoyed to read that The Proclaimers toured with The HouseMartins, another favourite of mine which spawned Beautiful South and FatBoy Slim.

 

Cycling

I tried to get into the local shopping centre car-park on Saturday to buy Annie’s Wedding Anniversary presents.  How stupid was that two weekends before Christmas!  I just couldn’t get parked, so after half and hour I gave up.  Cycled there on Sunday.  WoW! Back to cycling.  I haven’t been on my bike enough, the weather hasn’t been good enough.  Finally the Melbourne weather has improved for the last few days.  I cycled to the shopping centre, 2 miles, I cycled to the Elwood at the sea to meet Annie, 4 miles, and I cycled back home, 3 miles.  9 Miles yesterday, welcome back fitness.  I love my bike, it’s an Aluminium, mountain bike with road tyres, an orange Kona Koa.  Stiff ride but responsive.  Mind you not as responsive as the 531 racing bike a traded it in for.  Come back racing bike I’m missing you now I’m on Melbourne cycle paths and not London potholes.

 

I love cycling, for some reason I take to it naturally and maybe have the right physique, 5’7”, 11½ Stone, Short legs!  There’s many that look fast on the road but I catch most of them.

 

Man Utd

Man Utd win 1-0 at Middlesbrough, Liverpool lose 4-0 at Chelsea, and suddenly Fergie is a genius and United will win the title again!

 

Saturday 15th December 2001 23-50

England World Cup 1966

Just watched the England World Cup finals 1966 on Fox Sport.  Always great to watch.  “Bobby belting the ball and Nobby dancing.”  Shit it’s good.  Mind you, all I can remember aged five is watching it on telly and saying “Mummy, look, there’s the Queen”  Er, that’s it.  Good team, not a great team.  But surely better than the current England team.  Maybe Sven can change all that.  Alf Ramsey certainly did.  Funnily enough I’ve been playing “Three Lions on the Shirt” song over the last few days.  Maybe it’s a sign of more World Cup victories.  I doubt it.

“Some people are on the pitch.  They think it’s all over.  It is now!”  World Cup Willy

 

My sister’s birthday today.  Happy Birthday Carolyn!

 

Friday 14th December 2001 23-08

Dunno?

Time to write my Weblog and I don’t know what I’m going to put here or why, or who’s going to read it.  I still don’t get Weblogs, even though I’m doing one, maybe because I haven’t made it truly public.  Looking down at yesterday’s entry, I have changed the photos page on my website, reduced the number of photos and archived the rest.  I don’t like doing it, archiving, it’s the weakness of computer technology, one screen at a time.

 

Also, how much is this for the Weblogger or the reading public.  I mean, journaling is personal; I can slag off anyone I like, but on this public thing the Internet I’m censoring myself.  I can’t really talk about some things, therefore I’m choosing, so what am I choosing, who am I trying to impress here.  The reading public.  Myself.  Just write Tony and see what happens like the Artist’s Way.

 

I feel I have to put a link in here somewhere to make it more interesting, so here goes.  Hoogerbrugge!  The coolest thing on the Internet!

 

Thursday 13th December 2001 13-40

My TGtips Website

Right that does it, I’m off to Rollerblade from North Rd car park at the sea to St Kilda pier to have a think about things and business and life.  Wil Wheaton has inspired me.  I’m thinking of where to take my website next.  Get the Blogging on the front page, either design it in myself or get the bloody link to Blogger.com or another site working.

 

Get that Music list a la Wheaton.  I also like his wishes and hopes up on his website.

 

Explain how I write my website.

 

Explain better what I’m working on and update my Biography.

 

Cool!  Spunky!

 

Thursday 13th December 2001 13-00

Spunk on the Web!

Just having a surf as usual on the Web, and it’s taking up too much time.  And suddenly I’m inspired.  I’m getting a bit tired of reading the same old blogs, good as they are, but they’re mostly the same.  Techie.  Fine, I’m a techie but I’m also a Man Utd fan, and yes I even watch the telly!

 

And then in Doc Searls blog today I find this link to Wil Wheaton an actor, formally in Star Trek (The Next Generation) who runs his website.  I don’t know who he is, I don’t watch Star Trek beyond James T in my youth on a BBC Friday night, but Wil Wheaton is cool, spunky, and it would seem honest.

 

And talking of spunky, to quote Wil Wheaton directly and why he’s written his website;

“This site is different from your average celebrity site. As a matter of fact, the only other "celebrity" sites I know of that were written and maintained by the people themselves are Asia Carrera and Roger Avary, so I'm in the company of an academy award winner and a pornstar, which is nice, I think.”

He’s started his website at the same time as me and he’s well ahead of me.  Where does he find the time?  I’m going to nick some of his ideas and layout!  But then again I’m not a minor celebrity.  Have a look at Asia Carrera and Roger Avary’s websites, not my cup tea in design but I give them credit for doing something out there.  Asia Carrers’s looks like a porn website, of course she is a porn star!  Look at the number of hits on her website.  Porn Pays!!!!

 

Tuesday 11 December 23-44

Georgia and Annie and Tony

Just spent the last few hours re-sizing the new pictures of Georgia for my website.

Love doing it but it takes a long time just to cut everything to the right size.

 

 

Monday 10th December 18-30

What’s Tony Reading?

I’ve been meaning to do a “What’s Tony reading” like if anyone cares!

Actually, I write my website and Blog for the type of things I’d be curious about other people.

To quote Scott Adams again “All people are idiots”.  I often wonder what people do with their time.

I still don’t know.  And another profound quote I noticed today for an Autistic Scientist like myself.

“Every Atom in your body was once part of a Star.”

That blows my mind.

Especially hearing yesterday that a person I grew up with father’s died.  And it’s her mother who is ill.

On top of that another friend from the past, wife has died.  I was with him when he met her in the 80s.

Made another contact through www.friendsreunited.co.uk today.  Sent photos.

 

So I’ve created a book list of what I’m reading, what I’ve recently read, what I recommend, what I don’t recommend, what I’ve never quite got round to reading, or started reading it and never finished.

 

A lot of the titles start with “The”.  What does that mean?

 

Sunday 9th Dec 15-42

Copyright Protection and Peer to Peer Networks

Oh No, is it really last Wednesday when I last posted my Web Log.

 

Always something to do, mainly sorting out 2000+ photos of family and friends, so watch out, I have embarrassing old pictures of you, and a new scanner.

 

Reading Wired Magazine, December 2001 firstly there’s an article, on The Geek Syndrome, Autism and Asperger’s syndrome.  Taking the AQ test, in the magazine, I am clearly Autistic which explains a lot.  If ever you feel my emails ramble on for too long, or I repeat myself than it’s all explained in Wired Magazine!

 

The other article in Wired combines with some software I’ve just downloaded.  The article “May the Source Be With You” is about the “The Laws protecting software code are stifling creativity, destroying knowledge, and betraying the public trust.  Lawrence Lessig argues it’s time to bust the copyright monopoly.”  It’s about reducing the ridiculously long copyrights on software which means that programming is lost to the public interest by fading into the past.  Nobody can build software and learn from what has happened except the commercial interests.  What use are old copies of Word and Windows?  Let them become open source in 5 years time and not 95 years time.  Intellectual knowledge is being lost.  I’ve never really thought about it but Good Point.  I’ve been reading about open source software and generally I agree, when it finally all works!  In the meantime I’ll stick to Microsoft!

 

What this led to was reading about Limeware in Doc Searls’ Web log.  Limeware let’s you copy files from other people’s PCs, across the Internet.  This is peer to peer networking.  You search for a file and the Limeware search engine tells you where to go to download the file, and it gives you a choice.  MP3 music files are probably the most popular, and you can find anything you want.  I’ve never been one to believe in “free” music and I’ve never been into MP3 files, but with cable, the download speeds are fast, and I’ve been thinking.  Do you know how many times I’ve bought the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album?  At least 5 times.  One vinyl stolen.  One vinyl scratched.  Still have a vinyl.  One CD version jumps.  Fifth one works.  I’m being ripped off here.  Do you think when you’ve paid for a vinyl copy you should get the CD at cost.  We were always misled to believe that there was a high cost in making the CDs, but when AOL started giving the CDs away, the game was up.  I think I’ve paid my dues.

 

And of course I blame the record companies.  I’d like to pay for MP3 downloads of their libraries.  Not rip off charges either, otherwise I won’t bother.  But then neither have they bothered.  Unless I’m mistaken, you can’t buy MP3 music of the top artists over the Internet. Peer to Peer networking will be the end of a lot of things.  I didn’t realise that until I used Limeware.

 

One worry is that I’ve had to change my firewall software level to allow Limeware to work.  I’m not keen on letting anyone in or out of my PC, even if I’m assured that it’s just one file!

 

Wednesday 5th Dec 17-00

Presentation Skills (and let’s see what my blog looks like in a smaller font)

Presentation today to a group of CEOs and executives at the CEO Institute here in Melbourne.  “The Internet and Future Technology, How it Effects You”  A goodish presentation, I didn’t flood them with the deadly PowerPoint slides.  I have a single slide which builds into a network over 30 minutes, starting with how the internet started, routers, TCP/IP, the growth of the network, packets, email, browsers, growth of ISPs and home computing, WebPages, business on the Internet, Intranets, Extranets, Wireless and the Future.  Blimey! No wonder that took most of the 90mins with discussion and questions.

 

I don’t feel I’m really nailing my presentations and training recently, neither achieving my personal objectives and goals, nor getting attendees to take enough away that they will remember and do something about.  I run good training and presentations but so what.  They’re not memorable over time.  They’re not making most people do something different.  I came away with a so what feeling!

 

I set objectives for the meeting, but often I run out of time, and I make the body of the presentation too important rather than the beginning and end.  Actually, I get over excited by the main body and lose track of time and objectives.  Maybe that’s a good thing!  Passion.  Fun. 

 

I recommended three things they must do.

  1. Read The Cluetrain Manifesto
  2. Go Have a look at MarketingTips.com
  3. Register their own website address

 

I also suggested they read the following authors

!           Tom Peters! (Pursuit of WoW and Circle of Innovation)

 

Look at the following websites and magazines

 

And I didn’t have time to tell them to read the following blogs to get them started.

 

Not much to ask is it?

 

Tuesday 4th Dec 8-44 8-45

Let’s Log What I look at

I’ve noticed that many Bloggers log down exactly what they’re surfing, so let’s give it a go.

Firstly, I’m disappointed at so few emails received this morning, one from Coffee Cup for webspace and an HTML Editor, actually I’m looking for both so it’s timely!

 

Next there’s an email from Doc Searls, one of the co-writers of Cluetrain, who’s posted to the Cluetrain discussion group on Topica, in responses to a posting from Doug Kaye.

 

A year ago--before I got started on the Blog the Organization book

>(http://blogbook.weblogger.com/), and before reading The Cluetrain

>Manifesto, I might have agreed with him. But I've come to realize how

>backwards the ideas are in this interview with Jakob Nielsen

>(http://www.it-director.com/article.php?id=2383) regarding Proper

>intranet design. I've quoted some of Nielsen's ideas that are most

>antithetical to weblogs in the workplace.

 

Next, time to surf and catch up on the news.  This is my morning ritual.  First to the BBC, and straight away “Sharon say Arafat ‘will pay’” catches my eye. Next a look at the BBC sport headlines, not much happening except Spurs v Bolton.

 

Next, on to Football365, for a more irreverent look at Football.  Lots of headlines to go into here.  Take a look at the weekly player rankings for who is going to the world cup.

 

Dilbert next, the daily cartoon from Scott Adams.  The very best, totally inspiring with his humour.  Love his books and written stuff even more than the cartoons.

 

Wired news, the website of the magazine for the latest technology updates on a daily basis.  Ah yes the mystery “Ginger” project that has been revealed this week by inventor Dean Camen.  Speculation that whatever is was would revolutionise the world and be a shocking new thing.  Errrr, it’s a scooter!!!  Two words to say to that Clive Sinclair.  C5 and the Zike.  It seems all inventors end up with a transport invention that is over priced and there to amuse rich people.  At $3000 a pop where is this thing going.  You can get a motor powered scooter for less than $1000.  Nice try.

 

Then again, reading the Time.com article on it, Segway as it’s called is going down a storm with Andy Groves-Intel and Jeff Bezos-Amazon.

 

Just had a chat with friend Jules in the UK, using AOL chat.

 

Now I go to the big 4 webloggers.  Chris Locke (Rageboy), he’s been a bit quiet recently, and padding the last week out with irritation lyrics copied of the back of some LP cover and another plug for his book doesn’t count much.  Is he losing it?  Then to Doc Searls good to read, sometimes a bit technical but that’s his thing, but there’s gems in there.  Ants today.    Now to complete Cluetrain there’s Dave Weinberger who has just returned to blogging.  And finally the daddy of blogging Dave Winer who’s Userland site develops blogging software.  These guys are all interlinked a bit and I’m falling for the trick of not spreading my wings wider yet.  Where’s the sport, the TV, the sex, the Dilbert in all of these?

 

That’s it.  Time to go and work on my presentation to several CEO’s of medium/small companies, that I’m giving tomorrow.  The Internet, the Future of Technology and How it effects you.

 

Monday 3rd Dec 22-20

Intranets!  What are they good for……

Following the Cluetrain discussion at Topica, on Intranets.  It’s hardly inspiring.  Makes me wonder if anyone has used a large company Intranet.  Maybe I’m the only one.  Maybe ICL’s CafeVik is the only large Intranet in the world!

 

I’ve asked the question so many different times, and still 300+ people don’t respond.  Is there a conversational Intranet in a company?  If not, then what happened to all the people that signed the Cluetrain Manifesto?  Is it all just Intellectual Floss?  Reading some of the postings, it seems that way.

 

Intranets don’t seem to have gone the way of the Internet.  Why is that?  They’re not as open as the Internet.  Conversation, choice, fun, creativity.  Maybe it’s fewer people, maybe it’s fear, maybe big brother is watching you.  Maybe in this case Big Brother can do something about it.

 

So how are Intranets going to become conversational and clued, assuming that that’s a good thing.

 

Dunno!  I’m going to sleep on it and save the corporate world starting tomorrow.

 

Sunday 2nd Dec 23-00

Blah Blah Blah and Man Utd

Haven’t written for a few days, so I thought I’d better add something.  Just been trying to get my scanner software to work again.  Finally I worked it out after many hours of frustration.

 

Watched the last half hour of Man Utd v Chelsea.  Lost 3-0 at Old Trafford.  I’m fuming mad.  I’m not one to demand immediate change normally, but enough is enough.  Fergie has definitely gone mad.  Keane at the back is bad enough; I did say so to Football365 a few weeks ago.  It’s a nice idea a midfielder as a central defender but it rarely works.  But at the same time Fergie played Brown at right back.  Fergie’s taking the piss and now it’s time to go.  At least if Keane is being played at the back, give him a chance with a steady set of backs.  How often has Wes Brown played at full-back compared to Gary Neville?

 

Veron and Beckham are doing nothing, Scholes is out of form, Fortune is crap, and Jim Ryan has a sour look.

 

The two biggest problems were McClaren and Stam leaving.

 

Fergie lives by the sword and therefore he can die by the sword.  He doesn’t hesitate to slag people off, so I have no sympathy for him.  He’s a ruthless bastard.  If he were a great manager he should have become a statesman of the game in his latter years and cut out all this diving and cheating that’s going on, by insisting his players will not dive.

 

The problem is, who replaces him.  Unless it’s Martin O’Neil then alas we might as well hang on to Fergie and see what he does in Europe. Many teams that win the European Cup often don’t win their domestic league in the same season.  So maybe just maybe.