I'm just doing a bit of testing to see if I can synch the Flock browser with LJ on my WinME PC! It worked exactly once with blogger/blog*spot, and I'm hoping I can coax the two into partnering. 

This blogger says her beaver is angry! So what originally pissed Marzie the Mariucan off? THIS!

In my recent post, Ten Ways To Become A Famous Blogger, I pointed out one major annoyance that is sweeping thru twitter right now: people tweeting annoyances.

Nothing irks blog readers (blogders) more than some idiot who sends out a tweet with a catchy headline that links back to a blog that only has a link to another person's blog. A big time-waster!

The worst offenders appear to Malaysian bloggers. Twitter prohibits re-tweeting the same crap over and over again, but they circumvent the rules and manage to get away with it. They also publish ads disguised as posts.

There's another annoyance that is resurfacing: super-annoying popup ads that completely take over computers that open them. This morning I went to visit one of the blogs I drop ECs on, http://heniperrr.blogspot.com/, and was just about to drop when the screen went blank and was overaken by a box. URL information being displayed in the lower left corner or my FireFox browser showed URLs containing terms including "seekyz.com" and "serw.clicksor.com" and "clicksor," although when I peered into the blog sourcecode the "find" feature wasn't able to detect any such character strings or text.

I had an experience with one of these intrusive ads when I was writing the old "Capital Region People" blog. Secretly piggybacked on a widget there came a popup ad so cleverly disguised it took three people to finally figure out the source. The widget that injected it had been on my blog for about four months, so it wasn't immediately apparent that it was the source.

How to pinpoint and remove an offending widget? Go to your template and one at a time, remove and then re-add the code for every widget and badge on your blog. Unless someone has managed to break into your account and add malicious code (usually happens on WordPress) you'll eventually find the pest, and then be sure to alert other bloggers! Don't hide your head in the sand or take honest inquiries the wrong way!

I heard something last night on an internet radio show about blogging. I liked it and sent it out (shortened) as a tweet this morning: "Be a blogebrity: do something to get people talking and writing and tweeting about you!" Those words are exactly true. Singapore's #1 blogger saw her blogebrity status (and traffic) catapulted when blog*spot made her it's "featured blogger" - she made the most of that oomph, learning as she went along, sending that blogebrity status into the stratosphere!

I touched a nerve among a batch of Malaysian bloggers this week when I posted an article critical of them. It began innocently enough, with me trying to leave a comment on one of their blogs several weeks back. Now, this was a very friendly comment to be sure. The problem was, the blogger who writes under the hat "Lady Java" employed js-kit comments on her blog. My high-speed public library connection could not seem to lock on to the js sytem. Eventually, a box popped up and I was listening to an apparently audio-only advertisement!

I blogged about this on my blog*spot blog, which for reasons known only to her, infuriated this "Lady Java" character to no end!

And then, something else happened. I am a subscriber to the entrecard system (you'll see the ad widget and logo at the top right hand corner of my blog) and time after time, as I indicated my interest in placing ads on blogs authored by "Lady Java" and her Malaysian BFF "Mariuca," my ads would be rejected. That was okay, until Maripuca's ads began displaying on MY blog via adgitize! Incredulous, I was! Then, I noticed that even though I have been a consistent EC dropper on the Javuca blogs, my blog never appeared in their "top dropper" lists (even though blogs which did not drop everyday DID in fact appear on their lists)!

I documented that on my journal, which really ticked them off! My remarks got them blogging and twittering to no end - and even though they did not link directly to my blog - my traffic has skyrocketed over the last three days!

Having said that, it is really unfortunate that this scenario played out the way it did. Had "Lady Java" been a little more courteous, we could have been friends - we might have been able to figure out where that advert came from (js says not from them) - there have been several blogs in the entrecard network that have been re-directing because there is a sneaky way hackers can insert hostile scripts into blog templates (WordPress blogs are especially vulnerable, as are some "new Blogger" blogs that use 3rd party templates.

LJ was also p.o.'d when I mentioned in January that her blog loaded quite slowly. You'd have thought I burned her house down, judging from her reaction! At least the LJ blog loads within 3 to 5 minutes. There are other blogs so overstocked with buttons, badges, widgets and gimmicks that, even on broadband, take up to 15 minutes to fully load!

In conclusion, I sincerely apologize to anyone who feels offended. LJ + Mariuca adverts are always welcome on my blog, even if they refuse to allow mine on theirs. If their blogs appear in my EC "top droppers" list, you can be certain I'll recognize them and link to them, without prejudice.

CLIQUE blogs are "closed" to outsiders. Not password protected, but basically, "BFF only." When you run across such a blog, don't bother to stop and play any contests or leave any comments. It is a waste of time. How to spot such blogs? The same five people appear over and over again as contest winners and commenters. They usually communicate via twitter, where you can keep up on their activities (you don't need an account with twitter, as they don't bother protecting their tweets). You might invoke one of the 48 Rules and befriend the bloggers and their ilk, infiltrate the core (possibly with a false online persona you've crafted) and that way have a shot at winning one of their bigger contests!

My buddy, who is always careful about where he goes online and what he downloads, just had to wipe his harddrive clean and reload Windows. The other night he went to download a movie (legally!) and of course when he tried to watch it Windows Media Player popped up an advisory it needed a particular codec to play the filee. It asked permission to search & download, but hiding inside whatever that codec was: a nasty little virus that hijacked his browser toward unimaginable porn and warez and mlm websites. It was outta control and unstoppable. My buddy is an IT pro and moved the harddrive to his workbench unit to make sure he could writedown the disc to zeros. He says he never encontered anything like this before. I told him, as I tell you now, seek out and grab a free copy of VLC player. I have it on my old WinMe PC. It plays ANY video, crystal clear, no pixellation, repairs broken or damaged video files of any extension, and NEVER needs to go fetch a codec! Google it!

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A generation or two stands between the 33rpm vinyl album with its artwork and liner notes and the digital music CD which is what it is. On Facebook this week Yarah Bravo has been plugging her new CD and mentions she won't be pressing any more hard copies. People who had a copy commented back how glad they were to have an original. This morning I heard that a local music distributor is closing several retail shops because people are buying and downloading music online. I see two great marketing opportunities for artists: issue limited edition specially enhanced mixed media CDs, numbered like artists number prints of their works, like "3 of 300" - and - offering an "enhanced download" including liner notes and artwork that can either be printed out or simply viewed on the computer. The CDs have the potential to increase in value over time. Downloaders get more goodies (which cost the artist next to nothing to add to the CD package.) ----------
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My two trusty tools: the VM Kyocera Wild Card and the Fly Ying F003. It's an interesting (and a great) time to be alive, as far as the ability for one to communicate goes... these days that's pretty far! The meshing of internet with mobile phone technology diminishes the space between us all quite impressively.

Last night on my Fly Ying phone I chatted with friends near and far, texted friends in some very faraway places, checked my e-mail, jumped on Yahoo Messenger for a minute, read the New York Times online, watched a youtube video and downloaded a couple of java games. Then, I looked through the directory that contains photos, deleting a few that I no longer needed, e-mailing a few others to friends and family, and sending a couple to my computer so I could put them on CD. All of this, on one little mobile phone!

The technology already exists and is available on that phone to use the device as a one-to-one or one-to-many video/audio broadcasting device. Not only that, when either cellular or internet technology or BOTH are NOT available, my phone can entertain me with audio (mp3s or built-in FM radio) or video (it can hold 5 full-length movies and has built-in TV) or eBook reader (I have two books and a dictionary loaded onto it). I can view saved webpages, play games or WRITE and save my work for later! Just 25 years ago, the ability to posess such a marvelous communications tool was at best a sci-fi dream, and now, it is here.

With the speed of the internet itself, the mobile phone industry is changing day-to-day. There are many among us who have not and probably will never have a land-line telephone. My advice, as always, is to keep an analog system as a back-up. Although the "Dark Angel" TV show is fictional, imagine the impact if some sort of pulse bomb succeeded in wiping out all electronic data!

Hand-powered Windup Mobile Phone Charger

Solar Charger from thinkawesome

Freeloader Solar phone charger

Mobiles are no longer a luxury. They are an absolute necessity. A Cell phone is also a fashion statement. The kind of phone a person carries speaks volumes about the person. This year the number of worldwide mobile phone users hit 4.6 billion people. Much of that growth has taken place in the developing world. And, as phones expanded in some countries, so did economic development.

Think Media, Not Medium

Wordpress has launched two themes that will automatically be displayed when a Wordpress.com blog is accessed from a cell phone... the type of mobile phone a user employs dictates what the different blogs will look like, the company said in a blog post. Websurfers who access Wordpress.com blogs from their iPhone or Android-based devices will be able to access the particular blog's "posts, pages, and archives." WPtouch will also support AJAX-based "commenting and post-loading." Header images will be scaled to fit the device's screen. Those accessing blogs on other phones won't be treated to all the bells and whistles. According to the company, those visitors will see a simple page that focuses mainly on loading blog content as quickly as possible. *more on C-net In some countries, mobile telephones have been the driving force and social glue behind "flash mob" gatherings.

The American book and TV series "Gossip Girl" demonstrated the power of electronic communication slightly ahed of the curve when it was first introduced. I guess Dick Tracy's two-way wrist radio was cast from a similar mold. People have WANTED to communicate and be informed like this for years and years! NOW is the time! The trend hasn't caught on just yet in North America (although I recently signed up for mobile banking with my financial institution) but Mobile phones are also being used to transact business. " The continual expanding coverage and use of wireless mobile devices such as mobile phones in developing regions such as Africa and South East Asia, are leading to increased applications to deliver financial services, especially to those in remote regions and whose low income have typically excluded them from the traditional banking system." Mexico Eyes Mobile Phones To Boost Financial Service Use - WSJ.com The blog Crisscrossed details what makes the mobile phone so important. I've rewritten the original post to explain, from my point of view, what the mobile phone has done for me, both personally and professionally.

But what makes mobile phone so special?

It is so especial because it combines all former media, such as telephone, Internet, and even radio and television, and because one can:

1. Communicate and receive information (radio, television and Internet)
2. Document and collect information
3. Publish information in text, audio and video
4. Can network in different ways on a peer-to-peer basis

So a passive recipient can become an active user or citizen.

The excellent Pomise of Ubiquity report from Internews has some fascinating statistics such as the different media access. In most countries, 2008 signified a turning point as more people owned mobile phones than televisions. So, the mobile phone becomes a key instrument to receive information via Internet, listen to radio (FM mobile phone) and watch videos although the latter has not worked yet and is unrealistic due to high costs. Location-based services will be very promising.

“A world in which nearly everyone owns a mobile linked into networks advanced enough to offer video and location-based services is years, not decades, away.” Internews

Different spheres of mobile activism I looked, during my presentation, at political activism and focused on four different spheres and examples even though there is still a lot more happening (and much more in many African countries than in Europe).

1. Public sphere The mobile phone will become an important tool to shape the public sphere. Two examples are Voices of Africa and mobile African reporters. I showed a great footage from Cameroon about a Guiness factory polluting water sources. This example shows the potential to report better from the local context. But I also wonder when will there be a critical mass of an audience for such reports?
2. Participation The radio still plays a decisive role, because it reaches many more groups of people and particularly illiterate listeners. Combining a mobile campaign with the radio can be a great package. The organisation AZUR in Congo launched a while ago an SMS campaign, where they asked women to report about cases of domestic violence. The answeres were then portrayed and discussed in a radio show.
3. Transparency For some years now, the monitoring of elections has been happening in different African countries such as Zimbabwe or Nigeria. Digiactive has a great comparative case study analysis. In Barcelona, I followed an insightful presentation by Ethan Zuckerman, where he describes a great example from last year’s election in Zimbabwe: “SMS is an effective tool for monitoring all sorts of large, dangerous mammals. You can make the argument that Morgan Tsvanagarai was able to challenge the first round of Zimbabwe’s presidential elections in no small part due to SMS. A change in polling law meant that every local polling station in Zimbabwe was required to post local voting results publicly. Zimbabwe’s opposition party, MDC, organized an effort to collect these results via SMS. As a result, the MDC knew, within a few hours after the close of polls, that they’d received more votes than ZANU-PF.” By the way, an organization called Sokwanele has also been doing some pioneering work in Zimbabwe for mobile activism. Another one is Kubatana, which developed the Freedom fone.
4. Networking A bit more than a year ago cotton-workers in the Nile delta striked for a higher salary. They went into strike for a few weeks long because of the inflation, which took most of what little was left. Unrecognized by media in Egypt and internationally, an Egyptian woman, who did not use to be an activist, decided to set up a Facebook group to solidarize with the strikers. The group grew in a few weeks to more than 70,000 members (Egypt has about around 700,000 Facebook members). There is an enormous potential to use social networks for campaigns and protests. I think these networks will be working over the mobile phone in the future as I described here. Nevertheless in this case the protest could not made it to the the street, as the Egyptian authorities hardly allowed any protests on their streets. But mobile phones play a decisive role in protest coordination. Patrick Meier, also from Digiactive, did a great presentation about Mobile for Advocacy and Activism.

Challenges

Unfortunately, there are numerous challenges to mobile activism in Africa and, therefore, it is even more incredible how many initiatives are happening. Just to name a few:

• Usage The costs of mobile communication or SMS are still very high. Although rural areas a now much better connected, there is a disparity between rural and urban areas, where one part becomes only passive recipients of information.
• Government Mobile networks can be even easier controlled such as the Internet, because they belong to one provider. Recently, it came out that half state owned Vodafone in Egypt gave out its customers data about the above described strike to the Egyptian police.
• Mobile Provider As much as mobile providers have done positive for the dissemination of mobile phones , they have their own business interests, which do not necessarily fit and promote activism. Such are walled gardens, where companies can and want to control what is offered and exchanged.
• Activism Although mobile activism is at least 8 years old, since the Estrada campaign in the Philippines, it has just started and a lot of experimenting is happening. It is also clear that it can also be a tool for a mean and cannot be useful for any form of activism. A theatre group might have more impact on the issue of HIV/Aids than an SMS campaign.

Patrick Meier, from the group DigiActive, argues that people can now become activists simply by using a mobile phone. Portable telephones have been employed to organize and coordinate protests – specifically in the Philippines, Spain and Pakistan. Mobile phones have also been used to document human rights abuses, in Egypt, Tibet and Morocco. Cell phone sales inch up in third quarter 9 Examples of innovative tools for the mobile phone Girl attempts suicide in Jammu and Kashmir over sim card Stop Positioning Mobile Phone as a Mere Tool for Entertainment and KIT

Tags: mobile phones, cell phones

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