Motorola's marketing and empty promises

As you remember, I wrote about how great my phone was. True, it has great components, it's well designed and the OS isn't crappy either. As such, it's a big improvement over some of my earlier cells, and as such, I'm happy.

I am not, however, completely satisfied.

Backstory first. Motorola is a company that has a history of building one great phone, and then releasing new versions with some cosmetic changes and ignoring R&D till the phone is hopelessly outdated and they're bleeding money. Latest example; Motorola Razr, which even at the start had a bad OS, but sold because it looked sleek. For this and related reasons, Motorola has lost markets during recent years. When I was buying my phone, I heard that no company (either electrics stores or phone operators) imports Motorola's models to Finland because the tech is hopelessly outdated.

Now, enter Milestone. As I said before, the phone is really cool. It runs Google's Android, a fact that defines it. It's marketed (in the States, under the name DROID) as "a phone without compromise". It has keyboard, great components, up-and-coming operating system and you can give yourself root (administrator) access to the phone, even load your own operating system (making sure the phone will never be outdated, and helping writing software for the phone).

I bought my cell only to find that unlike the American version, the bootloader is signed, meaning that you can't do any of your own upgrading. Motorola marketing has gone back on its word that Droid and Milestone are the same model, and shouldn't be expected to be treated the same (even though they share the same components and software). [1]

This wouldn't be much of a hazzle if Motorola could be trusted to update the phone with the latest version of Android as they come out. However, the version 2.1 (the latest version as I write) hasn't been released yet for Milestone, two months after the release. This may have something to do with the fact that not only did Motorola (apparently) divide the coding of the Droid and the Milestone, but EVERY SINGLE REGION OF MILESTONE AS WELL. The European, Canadian, Mexican and and Asian version of the "same phone" actually contain just enough different code that you have to write them separately.

Which leads to questions, when does Motorola upgrade the phone? After promising the upgrade originally in January, they finally published the revised schedule.

"Under evaluation" is marketing talk and means "will not be released". DEXT, CLIQ and DEVOUR are other Motorola's Android models.

Would help if the roms weren't signed. So, Motorola has made their flagship phone - the one developers and bleeding-edgers will buy- into one they can't use. Which gives us hilarious discussions like this one in MotoDev's Facebook-page;



I've started to really hate the American marketing talk, where the company asks you to "wait for announcements" or "follow our twitter-account" etc, while no announcements will be forthcoming. Nearly every message at the Facebook-page is like that; apparently it has been going like that for several months now, and the storm isn't coming down.

However, the PR-person is one to be admired; probably intern or underpaid marketer, with no ability to affect the company policy, she/he tries to make everything look sunny, while the mob is at the door.

This is what happens when Marketing does their own thing without consulting the technicians. There would never have been any problems if they would have from the start told that DROID and Milestone have different standards, instead of pushing for maximum sales while forgetting honestly.

Also understand; my phone is serving me wonderfully currently. No problems. I'm just afraid that if Motorola is cutting support from the second world now, it probably has no qualms for dropping Europe when the sales dry out (probably inside a year). But I'm sure someone has found a way to circumvent the bootloader by then. Here's hoping.

Replacing Ipod Touch

Few weeks ago I was careless and put my Ipod Touch (Gen 1) into the washing machine. It's now really clean. Also - really dead.

My Ipod Touch - sleeping with the fishes.

Well, things could be worse. My insurance paid most of the money back (they were surprisingly generous), so I'm not weeping myself to death. This does leave me with a problem - how should I replace the machine? Please understand; Touch wasn't just mp3-player for me (as such, it might even have been inferior to the Gen 5 Ipod Video I had ordered in 2006). However, the machine had several redeeming qualities. First and foremost, a big screen that was suitable browsing the Internet with WLAN, watching Youtube and pre-downloaded video-files while on a train. It was also shockingly thin, and as such, I loved it.

I however didn't have much love for the way Apple ran the game behind the curtains. Mainly, that I couldn't install programs freely, but had to use the App Store. Sure, you could jailbreak it (and I frequently did ), but the hazzle to keep the thing both up-to-date AND usable was getting on my nerves.

But, that's all water under the bridge. My point, however, is that I'm not running to buy a new Touch (Gen 2), no matter how much I loved the previous version. This brings me back to the stated question; how to replace it? I could get a mp3-player fairly cheap, but the thing I find I'm mostly missing about is the ability to look up facts on the go (and amuse myself with videos, ebooks etc.).

My phone is also getting up there with the years, and I was thinking that maybe I would do a coup and buy a new machine that takes care of both of the problems at one go. The thing is, I dream of a device with;

• a long battery life
• thin (easy to pocket)
  
• big screen for internet browsing and video
• mp3-player
• hazzle-free
• easy to use
• maybe QWERTY
  
• compatibility with Mac and Linux
  

You don't really have to be a technology-adept to see that the thing I'm descripting is actually two phones. Of course, there's available multiSIM-service from several operators, but let's save this option for later, and not only because it would cost me about 4 euros more per month.

About some of the phones I've been considering;

The pinnacle of human civilization.

The Iphone. Yes, I'm a hypocrite. But as it is the standard for the moment, I suppose I have to consider this before I can objectively look at the rest of the alternatives. Otherwise, the whole post would be just a knee-jerk reaction of "I don't want to be like everybody else! And in any case, this phone doesn't do [something I will never use]!"

So, I hear the battery life is getting better. There's a new model coming in few months, and it might actually be something to see; however, I feel that as a phone, it has been really standing still ever since it came out in 2007. Sure, back then it had a big headstart to every other phone out there, but the competition has been gaining, and Apple has been essentially standing still. After everything is said and done, however, it's a solid phone. It synchs with a Mac and should be "hazzle-free".

And it has all the same problems that the Touch had; I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with this alternative. And that's to forget the two year contract I would have to sign (this being the only contract-only phone in Finland).

+I know how this works.
+Compatibility with Macs (if not Linux)
-The two year contract
-No QWERTY
-I would feel like I'd be buying a three-year old phone
-The amount of features isn't really dazzling.

Three options for easier colour-coordination.

The N97 Mini. It has the QWERTY-keyboard and I love how it slightly pops up when in use. And the phone comes with a year's contract of "Comes With Music". It's being marketed as "Buy a Nokia Comes With Music handset and get millions of tracks for free, yours to keep". The thing is, the tracks are in WMA and tied to only one Windows-computer. And I don't own a Windows-operated computer. And of course; keep till I switch the computer or the authorization server goes offline.

Plus this is Symbian-operated phone. Symbian is solid enough, I suppose, but if Iphone is 2007, this is 1995. And I've never really liked it, though I understand it has been getting better lately. So this is a bit knee-jerk reaction, I suppose. I also hear that the processor isn't quite up there.

+QWERTY
+the music
-symbian
-the processor
-compatibility

The thing is more powerful than some home computers.

Nokia N900. Well, this is hard to look at objectively. It's the heir to the Nokia's Internet Tablet-line, and as such isn't really a phone-that-can-get-to-internet as it is an Internet-Tablet-that-allows-you-to-phone. Nokia has also been very frank that this isn't for the average user; that it doesn't quite get there as a phone. It has about every technology they could try to fit into a handheld device, such as an infrared-port (last seen in a phone around 2004). In short; it's a high-tech Swiss army knife. One of the more expensive ones, with fifty functions. And that's why it's 6 mm thicker than Iphone and 50 grams heavier (181 g as opposed to 133). But you can do almost anything with it.

And it runs Maemo 5 Linux. So, compatibility should be excellent.

All this is to say, of course, that the battery life is threatful. One reviewer wrote that with nightly charging, you can make it through a day (all that pretty tech consumes a lot of energy). Not to mention, that Internet Tablets aren't actually meant to be on 24/7, unlike phones.

+has everything and the kitchen-sink
+compatibility!
+Maemo is future
-battery
-thickness

Even as a clamp, the phone is thinner than some of my pens.

Nokia 6600 Fold. Well, the screen is about fourth of the size N900 has, there's no QWERTY and the compatibility is reduced to moving the microSD card to computer and back. But it's small, the operating system (S40) works well and battery should last well over a week. And it has an mp3-player (and FM-tuner). Design-wise it's the best of the lot. Can connect to 'Net, but the experience should be rather modest.

On a plus, this one is so cheap, that I can afford to buy a netbook to go with it. Or buy a new Touch.

+battery
+size
+solid operating system
-Internet-experience nothing to write home about.


Well, let us see how the wind blows. The engineers promised a new and improved version of N900 even before the original model was out (showing once again how Nokia is ran) and Iphone should be updated before Summer is here. And even if updates are coming, should I lock my answer now and then faithfully expect for the new generation to fix the problems of the current one?

Firefox in Europe, at the start of February 2008

I think I wrote about this few years back in the old Gulag-blog (I can't seem to find the url). I thought to take a fresh look;The average is said to be 28% (IE has 66%), which is quite high; +5% in one year, and I think closer to +10% since I last posted this graph..

I've noted the trend in my own family. One of my brothers decided to run with Firefox few weeks back after heroically defending IE6 since it came out (I never used the browser, I'm proud to say). My mother avoids IE like disease and I think that even my sister (age 12) is preferring this to IE.

The last 50%, I expect, are company computers and few hold-outs that just don't care. I think, apart of some system admins getting the whole company into converting, this would be it.

(Source)

Blogs and Internet

Follows a fast, free (as in "done in haste") extended quotation from one of my favourite reporters.

In my opinion we can well call the communication and cross-linking between bloggers as citizen journalism. Especially if this conversation gains critical mass and explodes into the public conciousness. This is one of the results of phenomeon known as "the wisdom of crowds".
[...]
Even in Finland we have had occurrences where blogs have affected public conversation.
[...]
The new copyright law which has gotten the name "Lex Karpela" is [an] examble of this. The feedback on the law and its preparation process was so massive, so clearly cut out of the same cloth -or, in other words, based on past conversations- that the minister Karpela took it to be "astroturfing"*.

The child porn-filtering conversation hasn't even been worth following on the official level. The "experts" and all other politicians, with the expection of Jyrki Kasvi and Kimmo Sasi have been -so to say- "lost in the field".

Much smarter conversation has been had in the blogs. Essensial is that from blogs these opinions have made their way thru editing process and into the [traditional] mass media.

The quotation serves two agendas; first, it shows that traditional media doesn't always know best (several magazines happily spread the minister's view in the child porn/censorship-scandal even thought the previous day 500 people had been rallying in front of the parliament house -- in the middle of workday!) and that traditional media tries to use the blogs as sources when the crosslinking reaches certain stage.

Second, it brings worth once again the sad fact of reality that the people in power are not always the best suited for it - and for some reason in Finland the same people usually have a pet project which involves limiting or making use of Internet difficult.

I know some of the references might be hard for foreigners, but they are pretty easy to google -- or just ask in the comments. It's not like they are in use.


*in this context, from few individuals, and not from the people as a whole.

A fast comment on piracy

Lately several people have mentioned that the failing music industry/artists should get slice of the monthly fee of Internet subscription, in a similar way that the industry gets money from empty VHS- and C-tapes and CD- and DVD-ROMs.
I had some troubles with this - particularly with the last one - I know I downloaded lots of questionable material on CD's back on the day, but today most CD-R's and DVD-R's of mine are full of photos, game-saves and other things I wouldn't hesitate to show to police. Mostly because the actual questionable material can safely be stored on hard drives and deleted after use. And then downloaded again, if need be.

Yeah, I'm not really making much of a case against, now aren't I? Well, this is the punchline;

When people talk of Internet, piracy and monthly compensation, how do we divide the money between the right parties? I mean, the number one legal way of using Internet is to browse web pages - why don't they get a share? What about porn? I have a feeling that porn is at least as big part of the traffic as Hollywood-movies or music from the big cartels.

Instead of trying to keep their stuff illegal, they could try to develop ways to get money out of Internet legally - for the U2 manager even iTunes was piracy against artist*. Radio seems to have worked well for the industry for decades. Over the past ten years, the music industry has done everything it could to shoot net radios down with fees that far outweight their income.

I'm not saying I'm opposed to subscrition system (I would be happy to get the whole copyright question sorted out, so we could concentrate on some real questions) - I just think that paying one group of people who claim their property is shared illegally isn't very good while people who provide their stuff for free on Internet get nothing - nor does game, film, porn or software industry. In the worst case scenario, each of them will be knocking at the door for their own $5. And in the best case scenario -- well, that's just fucking lazy, innit? If I were to forget a keg of beer at busy junction and then notice it empty afterward, I can't really ask the police to take $5 from every person in the neighbourhood who has alcohol on his breath. Or everyone else (he might have just hidden it for later consumption!).

Advertisements work as a model for webpages, for flash, blogs, even amateurish doodles - the Swedish procecutor is claiming that the owners of Piracy Bay are raking millions (YouTube certainly does) and Last.fm is doing fairly well as far as I know.

And the music industry is saying that they, armed with the best artists in the world can't do as well as a 14 year old kid with a pen and a scanner?

And if not advertisements, then maybe subscription -capitalistically chosen between competing alternatives, mind you... or just a dollar per song. I understand it's working very well. 2007 was -again- a record year for digital music transactions.

*and I bet he doesn't mean the fact that the artist gets 5 cents of the dollar, because the rest goes to printing and spreading the CDs. And of course manager will take his 20% out of that 5 cents as well. Plus taxes.

References; U2 manager blames Microsoft et al, Canadian songwriters propose legal music sharing, Music-industry tries carrot after years of stick, Internet radio may face crippling fees, Digital sales up worldwide.

Netscape is finally dead

The unquestioned king of browsers in the 90s has finally come to it's end; AOL is announcing that it shall no longer support the browser.

In mid90s, Netscape had nearly 80% marketshare and it was bundled with Windows till version 98.

After Windows 98 (when Microsoft only packaged Internet Explorer with the OS) the market share started to fall. People didn't really care what browser they used, just as long as it worked.
It didn't help that Internet Explorer wasn't standards compliant, and as soon as it's market share got to around 50% they announced their own modifications to the HTML-template, which Netscape for understandable reasons didn't support.
The end-result was that Netscape's browser showed some of the pages incorrectly. Thus we got those "Designed for Internet Explorer" buttons of the late 90s, and to the steady drop of userbase (in the diagram on the right, taken from Wikipedia).

In -99 Netscape was bought by AOL, after which the development of the browser was given to the newly-created Mozilla Foundation. Netscape still published a new browser more or less every other year, but it was just reskinned, skimmed Mozilla (without popup-killers etc.).

I used Netscape products loyally to around early 2002 or so, when a friend of mine introduced me to Opera. At that point, I was really disgusted with Netscape, and only the fact that I wanted to have total control over my surfing experience (I didn't have my own computer andthe rest of my family used IE) stopped me from jumping the ship.

I was kind of surprised to learn that after Netscape 6 (which was the last version I used) they still produced new numbers, going as far as to release Netscape 9 last October (being actually just Mozilla Firefox 2 with a new skin and few extensions).

But all in all, it used to be a king, and a king needs a proper burial.

Rest in peace.

Facebook

Little over month ago I promised I might write about this.

Beginnings
I have been an Facebook user for six, eight weeks now. I don't really remember why I originally joined; probably it was just a moment's fancy. I did comment on MySpace. And, in case you happen to have forgotten, I disliked it immensely. So maybe I wanted to do similar piece on Facebook; this is entirely inside the realm of possibility.

I did get an invite months ago, but as it ended up being one of those accidentally sent ones - Facebook asks if it can sent an invite to everyone on your address book - I didn't join and even complained to the sender that you shouldn't allow companies to endorse their products on your name. And if you believe in a product, you should believe in the product enough to write your own endorsement, invitation... and not just use the default one.
Never trust an default invite. It's probably fake or accidentally sent. If you ever find one from me, I didn't send it voluntarily. But I digress.

Background
The first thing I learned about Facebook, nearly a year ago was this; in Iraq, the privates use MySpace... and the officers Facebook. In civilian life, MySpace is used by the young, the alternative crowd.. in other words, people who value experimentation, "their own terms" over standards or "the way found best". I don't particularly like this definition, as it leaves me in the non-alternative crowd - a demographic I'd rather not belong to.
Where MySpace is known for its individuality, customization - with very poor tools, as mentioned - Facebook in turn believes in standards. MySpace has flashy colours; Facebook has some blue on white. MySpace handles the whole page as a single entity; Facebook uses java to arrange the information and layout (inside assigned grid, with limitations) so whatever you do with your profile, it looks at least semi-professional. And while Facebook doesn't allow you to change your background colour, add music or bling.. what it does allow to do is far easier to do than anything on MySpace. All in all, I would say the difference is that of the personal homepages of last century to a profile on a company page - this is not a perfect analogue, but gets pretty close.

What is it good for?
There are several ways to handle your profile, I suppose. I hear that many IT-professionals use it to create contact networks for viral advertising and job prospects, some use it to play some sort of minigames with each other (I saw rock-paper-scissors in one profile).. I mainly use it to stay in contact with my friends, keep track of interesting events and so on.
On longer term, it's also excellent for contact information. You can enter your contact names, phone numbers, home addresses.. and then limit who will see it. Therefore, I can allow my "true friends" to see all the above information, but my "friendsters" only one email and instant messenger-id. The rest will have to be satisfied to my name, mugshot and location.
It's very handy if you happen to need to send a postcard, lose your phone or format your computer... or need a reminder when the birthdays are coming up (I, at least, can never remember those). But daily? I see what my friends are up to, share photos I have taken and paste recommended pages to other profiles. Small things that say that I remember you, you are still my friend even if we haven't met lately due to distance or time constraints.

In the end
But all in all, I find Facebook to answer a need I didn't know I had (aren't the best innovations like that, really?). I have used several networking sites (starting with IRC-Galleria and MySpace) and they often work only vanity-pages - look at my face! Look where I am! Facebook (while nodding to the mentioned things) has the focus on actually contacting other people and keeping touch.

It does what MySpace does, in the same way as business suits and jogging clothes are both basically there to keep you from being naked - but there is a difference, now isn't there?

Buzzing in my mind

I have so many things I would like to write about, but can't seem to get anything together! I'm going to throw them up here, and if I ever develop them further, change them into links. How does that sound?

Comics Festival.
It's great to meet new people and old ones, but it's so hard to make people stay in contact afterwards (because of the whole "your a girl and I'm a guy and I kind of like you.."-factor). Which is a bugger, because not all the girls I like talking to I would like to bed.
Also; the hectic timetable and not sleeping enough.

Instant messaging etiquette.
1.) When you start talking to someone the first time ever, after greeting establish where you know each other from or where did you get the address. There's lots of idiots out there and you can't expect the other to do research to identify you.
Also: the person to start the conversation also has to establish the topic.
2.) If you are going to leave the computer, you are doing something else and can't answer - let the other party know. It's not nice to wait five to fifteen minutes for answer to a question or to carry on the conversation - IM's are not just about keeping boredom at bay. It's also legitimate way of conversation, and you have to take precautions for the fact that the other person is giving you his undivided attention.
3.) When the conversation ends, let the other one know - don't just leave it hanging.
4.) Remember, when you IM, you are talking to another person and not to a computer with limitless patience.

The connection between personality and the work the personality creates.
You love somebody's art, stories or jokes, and then find that your political views are almost opposite. Does it make the creations any less likeable? Many people seem to think so..

Facebook.
Unlike MySpace, it rocks.

Graduation paper
My "maturity sample", what I'm going to create to graduate from my "University of Applied Sciences". I was mostly thinking logistics, software, piracy and how copy protection is a see-saw between limiting too much and too little.

How organizations survive
Thinking about comics festival. None of the original founders are around anymore, but somehow it's still the same event. Why? Because of the same name? The feeling? Or just that it has been "passed on", like set of dinner plates, from one one generation to another?

Changes in the blog

§1. The writer of Town of Ponte Corvo noted how my blog would need some colour. I started looking into the possibility and was surprised how much Google had developed the Blogger-template engine since I had last looked at it (about year ago, when I tried to make The Gulag-blog (now in deep hibernation, with all the illustrations broken links) all pretty. It used to be hard work and involved reading through the Blogger-template code and making alternations.
Now it was much easier; the only thing I had to modify in the template were the header-wilth, which didn't click with the new at all well. Even the sidebar - which had to be modified by editing template - can now be worked with using Java(?)-tools. Very easy, very simple.

§2. I checked the tags I have been making the past few weeks. I had been adding new tags like they were last day on sale, which is not very smart - too detailed tags will never get more than two entries in them, and are therefore useless. They are now sorted by categories (TV, Internet, philosophy) that are so wide they should get several entries. "Guest of the Third Reich" is exemption I made in hope that if ever finish it, readers that are solely interested in that should find it easier to check out. In the following weeks I hope to go through my posts from the last two years and tag them as well (only about 70 to go!), hopefully giving them some more value.

§3. I also added links to few (very good) blogs by my associates in the sidepanel. They are all worth looking, provided you are interested of my blog, which might be too strong of an assumption.

What do you think?

What blogs do you read?

I promised myself that as I don't really have any other commitments I would at least practice my writing by writing five texts per week, either to Blogger or to some other thing.
Last week I did four; the previous three blog-entries plus a review for comics-page. I don't know if I have mentioned this earlier but I aim to improve myself to the point where people actually pay to publish my texts. Not because of the money but for the knowledge that I'm actually good enough in something that people pay to get it.

I know I don't have that many readers (two, three?) and only one person who actually comments without prompting (thanks Vlad, you're a true friend) but yeah, that's my goal.
Anyway, I know the entries about problems I have had have been rather boring, and I thank your patience if you have actually read them thru.


So, I have been using Google Reader. It's the first RSS-reader I have ever used, and without knowing anything of the alternative ways to home on the subject, it beats checking the webpages one by one hands down. If you read this and don't use RSS-reader, check this one. It will change your life. Trust me.

Anyway, what blogs do I have on the reader? Currently I have 16 blogs. Some of them update very slowly (ergo, I wouldn't bother to check the webpage because chances would be good that there wouldn't be anything new there) but that doesn't cause any problems with this piece of code.

Anyway, what I do have on my Reader are;

5G - a blog about technology. The bloggers are Helsingin Sanomat-newspaper's tech-journalists.

Beaucoup Kevin - a blog about comics. Honestly, there was a time I didn't like this blog at all. Too many photos of "me-with-my-friends-with-funny-texts" but those have gone. Also; new layout and amusing old comics-panels.

Blog@Newsarama - A blog about comics/nerd-news. Rather funny and sometimes very enlightening.

Boing Boing. Eh, you know Boing Boing. One of the most read blogs in the world. Tech, tech-politics, nifty things and other such stuff.

Dave in Suomi. Only added this little while ago. Don't really have anything to say about this one yet, expect it gives outsider's perspective to familiar things, which is always welcome.

Dave's Longbox - a guy reviews old comics with very hilarious phrases, which makes you remember why comics are awesome in other ways than just because of plot. This blog has made me appreciate "so bad it's good" comics and "radness" factors, which earlier escaped me entirely. Thanks Dave.

Finland for Thought - American talks about the Finnish system and Finnish news. Outsider perspective plus life philosophy which is quite far apart from mine. Again, helps keep perspective and keeps things on my radar that I wouldn't otherwise. You know about the thing about reading only things that please you? That's excellent way to round up in cocoon and miss some important things.

Jyrki Kasvi - My representative in the Parliament. Green but has brains. While this is off topic, I'm often annoyed by people who complain but don't offer solutions. This one has his feet on the ground and actually understands modern technology. Alas, this is so rare I have to mention it..

Katuoja - Finnish comics/meta-blog kept by my...associates.. and which is very well written. Wish I were half this good.

Life in Silico - Exellent when it (1) updates and (2) doesn't talk about coding. And I'm not saying this because I count Vlad as my friend, and not just of the internet-variety.

Paleo-Future -A blog about past visions of the future. Very charming. Like everything else made in the past decades, even futures age and grow old. It's amusing, charming and somehow so innocent.

Peter David - Book/comics/telly/what-else author. Has sometimes pieces of information on the site that fall under "good to know" category.

Rajatapauksia - a blog by culture reporter of Helsingin Sanomat. Fantasy and scifi as seen in comics, games, novels, music etc.

Retromania - a blog by reporter of Helsingin Sanomat. About past futures.

Teräsmies elää - a Finnish blog about Superman. Updates seldom, but when it does it is very good. The texts handle like engineer's blueprints, which is very amusing.

The Beat - Comics news site, which updates (1) too often and (2) with information I don't need. On feed because sometimes it hits gold.

Town of Ponte Corvo - blog about the politics of Israel, mainly. I disagree with the author regularly but he writes and argues well, which is something that's always welcome.

No links because writing this on laptop and adding them is a nuisance. Hope you can manage without. If I have readers, might they do similar listing? It's always nice to know what other people read..

Short comment on MySpace

MySpace. The name itself conjures ideas of freedom, about liberty to customize, change and design your own place in the Internet. The freedom does not always work; many youths and even companies have badly designed pages.

Personally I don't have very high opinion on MySpace -- the few profiles I've seen (even professional ones) seem rather clunky and remind me of the web pages I did during the late 90s in the IT-lab. I thought the reason for the pages to look so clunky was because the tools given for customization were hard to use, people were not trained in layout-creating (and thus adding the most clashing of colours and images to their profiles) and finally; because the people Just Couldn't Do It Right.

I seem to owe them an apology.

Yesterday I was bored and thus registered to MySpace. I thought it would be interesting to create a page, maybe do a simple and refined design to show how to Do It Right. As soon as I had finished the registration progress, I started browsing the account-settings. But.. where is the "Layout Settings"? Where do I change the background, fonts, tables-colours, link-colours?

After brief Google-search the answer dawned to me; the reason MySpace-pages look so bad is not because the customization tools are hard to use; it's because there are no customization tools. The pages code has to be set --by hand-- to the ABOUT ME-box. The attached image should make things clear.

I kid you not. All the MySpace design is entered into this box, titled "About Me". Those people with bad profiles? Those are the fucking gurus who fought a horde of dragons to get where they are. It's a miracle they get anything out of this at all. You can customize school property with axe easier - while your teacher is watching.

I have not seen such a bad design in ten years. Actually, not even then. I registered at Angelfire around early -98 (at least that's when my oldest file in the space was dated). It gave 15 megabytes of space, url and all it wanted was a banner on top. It had some limited custom tools; you could set the colours of the background and the text without knowing html. When I was 14, that was a really great thing. If you did know html, you could use that as well.
Of course, I didn't have anything to put on page - though I did try to create content few times (the front page I did back then, can be found here as well - made for 640x480 resolution).

It is miserable to note that as far as MySpace goes, it gives less chance to custom than a ten year old hosting site (which even by that time's standard was pretty basic).

So, what does MySpace offer then, if not your own space? Instant Messaging services; I suppose sending a message thru MySpace can be deemed to be less important, less direct, than sending email or contacting someone in MSN. Marketing products and networking. Exellent service for people who don't irc with a shell or know how to use forums.

I see no reason why there shouldn't be a custom-page in the settings. People seem to custom them anyway, and the lack of tools makes the end-results ghastly. Companies and groups that use the page for networking could easily make their page easily more attractive. This is the page of US Presidential Candinate. If this were a normal web page, I would laugh the designer all the way to the sea. I could do better. Infact, I have*. As things stand, I have to conclude that the writer was probably elite. And the guy who designed the Marine Corps-page? He must be some sort MySpace-Messiah.

But the fact still stands, that if the user interface were easier to use, you should not need sacrifice goats to dark gods to get to Barack Obama-class.

In conclusion, I have hard time understanding how this could be the sixth most popular page in the whole damn world. I can understand how the service the page offers could be needed.. but it's hard to believe that no other site has been able offer the networking and Instant Messaging with easy customization... or, have done so and made it popular. There is something really wrong with this world.

*I might add a link here once I get my web page back online.

Problems with establishment - Part 1: Elisa

There's something magical in the border where company turns from an extension of a person into something that nobody quite claims as their own. Years back one of my brothers said this about a company that had turned from one-man enterprise into company employing hundreds, just in five years; "it used to be that the clerks felt like they were part of something bigger, doing something new and amazing -- now they are just working there". He was talking, of course, about the level of service.

When the people who deal with the customers get farther and farther from the people who make decisions, and decision-makers from the customers -- that's when the companies become evil. Or, if not evil, inept.. which, in a way, is even worse. I mean, you can trust evil. Evil always knows what it's doing, and it has manuals how to deal with different sort of complaints. Inept... well, it's hard to complain to the customer service that your broadband isn't working when the other end of the line doesn't acknowledge that anything is wrong. But I'm going too fast. Let's start from the beginning;

Elisa is a telecommunications company selling -- among other things -- broadband and mobile phone accounts, under several brands. Founded in 1882 as Helsingin Puhelinyhdistys (Helsinki's Phone Corporation), it used to be a co-operative where you had to own a share to get a phone installed. At some point they abandoned the you-need-to-own-a-share mentality, but otherwise it worked thus till the year 2000, when it incorporated into a public company, where each old share was worth about 20 new ones. The stock changed hands (and price) several times during the following years, and I believe that the majority of the stock is owned currently by some Icelandic millionaire.
After 2000, the company has grown aggressively in size by taking over smaller companies, not always kindly. They currently employ about 5 000 people.

I'm currently subscribing to their broadband because it was one of the two companies that at the time served my area (the other being TeliaSonera). I had some bad experiences on the other company (my mother had, and still has, their broadband). Long story short, the broadband worked at times really slowly, sometimes not at all, and the company never admitted any problems.

Now to my story. As you might or might not know, I was at student exchange from the late January to early June. Naturally, I contacted Elisa before-hand to let them know of the situation and to find out how I could avoid paying the bills - €25 per month - during the following months. They proposed to put my broadband on hold, which would have cost me €9 per month, but would have let me keep my homepage-space (where I hosted several avatars and a homepage I had made as a school project) and email-addresses (which I didn't use because I didn't want to be tied to a provider so strongly). I then said I would simply end my subscription on the last day of January and start a new one at June. For the credit of the person on the other side of the line, she was very courteous and innovative and arranged it so I didn't have to pay the fees of connecting the broadband (apparently about €50) and I even got a new ADSL2/WLAN-modem/router for free. At the time, I thought I would return home during late June, and so I asked the Internet to be connected on 18th day of that month.

On 5th day of June (when I was already back home) I got a call from Elisa; they were marketing a new broadband connection (25MB) and wondered if I would like one, for the additional price of €2 per month till the end of the year, with no commitment to stay with the plan. The person on the other end of the line didn't really seem to know what he was doing and several times I thought he was actually working for one of the competitors or tried to speak me into doubling my bills. After getting the gist of it, and after seeing that I was agreeable, he got better with his service (if not with his work) and even shared me few ways how to easily switch off the plan with minimum trouble when the year was up.

On 18th day I got a text message, proclaiming that my Internet was now connected, have a nice day. After trying different configurations for hours (new modem, old modem, switching the lines etc) without anything tangible to show of my efforts, I went to sleep. The next day I called the Customer Service again (finding out that (1.) I was supposed to have 1MB connection till they would separately upgrade my account on 4th of July and (2.) Elisa's definition of "line of eight minutes" meant the same as "wait forty minutes") trying to explain that the fucking Internet does not work.
After explaining that yes, I have some minor knowledge with technology and that I suppose I know how to connect the modem to both power and phone socket and yes, the Green Light indicating working ADSL-connection seems to be missing. The Customer Service says that perhaps he COULD send someone to check the wiring. But most probably the problem would be between the keyboard and the chair, and if so, you are the person who will pick up the bill (I find out that the bill is €70/hour). And somebody would probably come around during the next two days.

Two days later, there still wasn't any light in the modem. It was Wednesday and 21st of June. New call to the Customer Service (and forty minutes of elevator music later, thank God the line was only eight minutes long, I don't know how long I could have survived) I find out that "two days later" means 26th or 27th of June. Midsummer, you understand.

Today, on the 26th of June, I get call from my Father. Apparently the papers for my new 25M connection just arrived. To his apartment. New call to Elisa ("the line is over 20 minutes long, please hold the line, you can also go to our web page for service") and everything seems to be in order. Apparently the cable man is currently going trough the wiring, and yes, the upgrade should come to my address.
Two hours later call from the very friendly cable man explaining that the wiring had been set improperly and should now be fixed.

Now waiting for the 4th of July, when my Father might very well get a new, much better, broadband (though the Customer Service disagreed).

EDIT: The letter to my father indicated (and the Customer Service agreed and corrected) that while the new connection (which apparently is either 24M or 25M depending whom you ask) was coming to my address, the bills were going to be sent to my father.

ICQ and problems II

I dont care to comment on this

(17:01:36) 312067175: Hello
(17:01:57) iJ: good day
(17:02:13) 312067175: СОСИ
(17:02:19) iJ: ..?
(17:02:43) 312067175: Fuck of niger
(17:02:59) iJ: Err..
(17:03:17) 312067175: иди нахуй сучка
(17:03:18) iJ: Either you are really confused person who dosent know the definition of word 'niger' or you dont know who you are talking to..
(17:04:24) 312067175: The ugly creature
(17:04:35) iJ: Right. Good bye.
(17:04:44) 312067175: соси

ICQ and problems

I have username or number in three instant messaging protocols, all managed thru Gaim, a splendid little piece of software.

Of all the protocols I have (AIM, ICQ and MSN, btw) only in ICQ people call me and start bugging.
And this only started after I went over 21. I imagine I went from one group to another, but I have no idea where and is there some change to get back to the "dont bug me" group.

This would be ok, if people would want to talk to me about comics, books, history or some other thing I would actually be interested in, but usually the people who talk to me are girls (or women, as it is) and braindamaged.

Anyway, this is the sort of conversations Im having over it. For context, it should be pointed over that my personal information (available next to my nick in the chat window) had all the information she is asking about, and more besides. Her info only had the name 'veronica' there.

(19:25:07) 263446539: hi
(19:25:39) iJ: evening
(19:26:55) 263446539: where are you from?
(19:27:26) iJ: Hmm
(19:27:32) iJ: Where did you get my number from?
(19:28:07) iJ: I live in Finland, which I have probaply written next to every place where my id is up
(19:28:37) 263446539: age?
(19:28:59) iJ: Who are you?
(19:29:57) iJ: I am not very delighted that someone who hasnt even introduced herself suddenly pops up and starts interrogating me
(19:30:24) iJ: With questions that I have already answered on the page where you found my number
(19:30:48) 263446539: ok bye
(19:30:57) iJ: thank you, and good bye
(19:31:35) 263446539: thank you for what?
(19:31:50) iJ: Sarcasm
(19:32:21) 263446539: you not want to talk with me
(19:32:30) iJ: I would love to talk to you
(19:32:46) iJ: But I have asked two questions from you, and you have not answered me once
(19:32:56) iJ: Thats not dialogue, thats interrogation
(19:33:45) 263446539: you haven't asked nothing
(19:34:25) iJ: Where did you get my number?
(19:34:29) iJ: Who would you be?
(19:35:20) iJ: Listen, I bet you have talked with people via phone?
(19:35:43) iJ: When you call someone, you introduce yourself.
(19:35:51) iJ: And before calling, you find out something about the person you call to.
(19:36:16) iJ: In this case, if you found my number somewhere, you probaply found that the page also had information about me, like my country, age and gender
(19:36:36) iJ: You dont just select random number from phone book and ask "who am I talking to?"
(19:36:45) 263446539: i haven't read nothing about you
(19:36:53) iJ: Where did you get my number then?
(19:38:00) 263446539: i don't remember. here
(19:38:08) iJ: "here"?
(19:38:22) 263446539: yes
(19:38:29) iJ: What would "here" be?
(19:38:42) 263446539: excuse me but i don't speak english very well
(19:38:55) iJ: What was the page where you found my number?
(19:39:08) iJ: "here" isint a location :)
(19:39:37) 263446539: i don't remember
(19:40:58) iJ: Right. Good bye.

Makes you really connect with the human race, dosent it?

Why Judaism Is Cool

Found this some time ago in Warren Ellis' dirty blog.

At the time I didn't think much of it. I found it disgusting, but that was about it. Today morning I was at shower and thought how much trouble those fucking idiots are going to destroy something so precious. Wouldn't it be much easier all around if these dimwits would just camp outside synagogues and mosques instead of going to the tropic getting eaten by mosquitos that probaply spread all sort of nasty diseases.

And then I thought some more of those "spreaders of word". I remember how they go door to door disturbing all sort of honest folk.

Jews never do that. Whatever you say about jews, they never interrupt you in the middle of your favorite show or bath. Thats a huge plus in My Personal Up and Down List.

Recomendatons on Blogsphere

Just Like That. Jokes and amusing pictures. If you are bored, this is a good way to spend your time. The jokes didnt even seem to be of the boring variety, these were inventive, and not so many times used you can see the light coming thru.


...


I actually browsed for two hours, and only found this one. Hope you enjoy it, though.

EDIT: Found the kippledrome too. Looks something like my own blog, I think, with interests that are not really mine, but cool nonetheless. I think he has some belief in aliens and finds pictures of yesterday fascinating (me too of course).

EDIT2: AMERICA the Blog. Has all those newspieces from America that are so much fun to rant to your friends. No "this happens everyweek" stuff here, but all that stuff that makes America-bashing so much fun.

Will probaply add these links to the right later on.

Found this...

Carl Barks made some really cool cartoonboxes. Check this and select something under the OBJECTS AND IDEAS. Some really funny stuff.

Still about Flags

I have been hitting that NEXT BLOG button again. Now most of the blogs that came out were actually people who put thought in what came out. No more printer-adds or whatever. Still, most of the blogs were pretty uninteresting, but that could be expected.

Vast improvement.

Flag?

Notice that "Flag?" button up there? You see it, next to "Next Blog"? It feels like its tailormade for my "Walking the Blogosphere" posts. Apparently I wasnt the only one with these thoughts.

Now, just hoping I dont get flagged..

About Walking the Blogosphere

I thought would be amusing to do some more "next blog" surfing. This time, instead of telling you of the blogs, I will LINK you to them, with description of what you can see behind the link. Hopefully exambles I give you will be amusing, useful or interesting. Alas, I think most will be in the category 'disgrace'. Maybe you thought I was joking last time, eh? HAHA! You wish!

Links will open on new page, so you can click freely. Comment if you would prefer, in future, to see them open in the same window. Anyway, I hope to get to ten, and report you every blog I click. If I go nuts, please tell my family I really loved them, and ask them to formate my hd's without going them thru. Very well. Lets start.

Blog 01. - Office. This blog is inane post after inane post about - apparently - office machines. The words seem to be random words that you can usually see in adds on papers. Each topic is infact a link to copy-central.com - and as far as I can see, the suburl they link to dosen't exist.

Blog 02. - Infinitely Curious: Musings & Ponderings. This blog belongs to webring of "WomenBloggers". Seems to work as diary, with now-and-then amusing tracks into other territory too. Found this picture on the page. Dunno where it is taken from, but it is most amusing, and easily worth your time.

Blog 03. - Awassa. This blog only has one post, written in english, broken by internet slang and bad sense of grammar. Dated in second day of March. The message ends "cheers till next time".

Blog 04. - WE ARE THE INCREDIBLES !!!. Apparently some sort of community blog, with users belonging to University of Signapore. In english, though you can hardly tell from the spelling in that page. And some - you know who you are - insist that MY writing is horrible.

Blog 05. - 5 sia chabohz. Apparently five teenager girls. Lets see if I can mimic their writing skills..............no commas or other stuff is uses..haha....particualyr ncie how they tlk of yaoi and manga and smut...lol.... actually respect fr them... my head hrts even this much writing......lol... and they cn do it page after pages..... and its actualy readable... LOL.....NEXT NEXT NEXT!!!!!!!!!!

Blog 06. - Auto Parts For All Makes And Models. Each post has the same link, and the same text; "Go Home Auto Parts Newsletter Archives Auto Parts Links Advertise on this site Add URL & A Auto PartsA & A Auto PartsA&a Auto PartsAbc Auto PartsAccord Auto PartsAce Auto PartsAcura Auto PartsAdvance Auto PartsAdvance Auto Parts ComAdvance Discount Auto PartsAdvanced Auto PartsAdvanced Discount Auto PartsAfter Market Auto PartsAftermarket Auto Body PartsAll Oem Auto PartsAltima Auto PartsAmerican Auto PartsAnd Auto PartsAntique Auto PartsAu..". Also Google-adds. Freaky.

Blog 07. - Gardening Info Source. Im actually pretty interested of this. Taking the blog name into account, its amusing that each of the posts this month - and there must be hundreds -have only url in them. Im not kidding. I also fastly scrolled the messages thru. They all have one of two url's in them. First "Hot-Gardening.info" and then - for most messages - "Laptop4U.info". Great.

Blog 08. - Some Thoughts About Corn. Honestly, I was starting to lose my hope to get to "Blog 10". This is just so depressing. But this one - if not a golden, is at least good. Not about anything, its still full of life. I would do blog like this, if I just could. But I cant. Cos I suck. OK, next blog. Maybe its good too (but I doubt it).

Blog 09. - Asset Managment Info. I knew it. I KNEW it. This sucks. Pretty much like Auto-Parts above. Oh well, one to go...

Blog 10. - merdümgirlz. This blog is actualy empty, with lacking even one message.



Oki, that was it, and Im still pretty sane. Conclusion: I did ten blogs. Wow im good...