just to share my surprise

For work reasons, I've been browsing lots of personal blogs recently and just caught myself on some thoughts:

1. How surprisingly many active blogs are out there - I was kinda under the impression that personal blogs (professional ones are all the rage, I know) was long dead and now its all FB and Twitter.
2. The long-long time ago (about 7-10y) I did a little scribbling here, it was more of an intellectuals'pastime - now the blogosphere seems a broader representation of society, and why not, right.
3. And then I remembered to check out my own old blog here, was surprised it's still hanging out here (unlike the Edicy one I mentioned some 6y ago) and it turns out 77 people read it yesterday - mmm, seriously people, a blog that's been dead for 6 years?!

Maybe I should reconsider this whole blog-is-dead thing ...

... and I'm back, maybe

So it turns out that instead of becoming a more active blogger & web-owner, I became an inactive one. To be honest, I'm just too busy or too lazy to spent too much time regularly on public babbling. Which does not mean I'm babbling less - it's just that I still like doing it more f-2-f over a glass of something, rather than on the web. But - I have still kept my comments coming on our collaborative SPROTTT blog.

So after my 2,5 year break from blogging I am noticing that I'm not the only one. Most of the blogs I had been following while being a somewhat active blogger myself are not active anymore ... with one big exception, it seems. Namely the blogs that have survived are the ones that are upheld as a team, not as person-blogs. I suppose it's a sign that blogging works better in teams, just like doing sports often does.

see you in Edicy ...

Edicy is a simple product to create your own website. It is brand new, so be patient with it - the guys are working on it, so it is getting better every day.

I have just created myself a new website and I am an almost classic case for Edicy - I have no web-programming skills and have done only very little html-based information inputting in a wiki. So you can take my word for it - it is simple enough for virtually anyone to use.

And - it also has a blogging tool, of course. Although not as advanced as Blogger, but I bet they'll be working on it. So I am now swithing to blogging on my Edicy page, but will keep this one for an archive for now.

If you are interested in reading the random few comments of mine visit MyWorld and I very much recommend you try out their product for yourself. So see you in Edicy ...

mourning Estonian newspapers :(

And now they spoiled the last online daily in Estonia ....

It was in early 2007 or late 2006 when they made a photostore out of my previous favorite Estonian daily Postimees. By doing so, they decided against easy access to real news and glossed out all the crappy news. That time around I actually bothered myself and wrote them an email informing that their website is so crap now that I am switching my preferences for good - to another major daily Eesti Päevaleht.

Yet today morning I had to think twice whether I accidentally clicked a wrong website or something, because from today on Eesti Päevaleht website looks more or less exactly like that of Postimees. So here goes the last readable online daily in Estonia. This time I will most likely not even bother to write them an email, and simply have to switch reading international news only or check out maybe some news services have decent online editions.

And this is all sad - it is not like Estonian newspapers had superb quality anyways. Now they have gone and spoiled the visual experience too.

Touring Eastern Europe

Team: Kristi, Raiko, Maile & Mihkel

4.06. The planned start at 4pm was delayed by 2 hours. First because Mihkel needed express replacement for his last pair of unpacked pants that someone had thrown into the washing machine and were soaking wet when he got home to change the suit. And then because the TomTom we borrowed apparently only has a proper map for the Baltics, so Mihkel borrowed a small GPS locating device that can be attached to a laptop and used for routing with maps in the computer. It turned out a small and nice-looking gadget that was useful sometimes in large cities, but useless on highways as the lag was too large to enable real-time navigation.

But once we had the pants for Mihkel and the GPS-thingie we were on our way towards Riga to pick up Raiko who had decided to make good use of the fact that we were on the way towards south anyways and get some work done.

5.06. Kutna Hora and Prague
highlights - church decorated with human bones in Kutna Hora

6.06. Prague
highlights - palace, art museum and dinner

7.06. Prague - Ceske Budejovice - Ljubljana
highlights - beer festival; sluts on the border; passport control on Austrian border; car accient in the tunnel (fortunately not our car)

8.06. Ljubljana - Opatje
highlights - killed the laptop; met Veikko and his rooftop apartment; finally at the seaside

9.06. Opatje -Rijeka - Krk island and city - Plitvice lakes - Split
highlights - dead snake; bullet-dotted houses; the lakes; Split old town

10.06. Split - random beach - Dubrovnik - small town close to Herceg Novi
highlights - beach; Dubrovnik old town

11.06. small town close to Herceg Novi - random beach - Bar - Uljnie
highlights - beach; male-centered society

12.06. Uljnie - Skodr - Tiranja
highlights - horrible Albanian roads and lack of signs; horse- and goat-carts all around; rabbits and parrots and a skunk in hotel; rotating Sky-bar and striped houses of Tiranja; small kids selling smokes and slutty 5-year old girl

13.06. Tiranja - Vlore
highlights - bubble-bath; bookstore with no books; again horrible roads; cows on the road; romantic sunset; party on the beach

14.06. Vlore - Dherm - Skopje
highlights - on top of the world on the way to Dherm; serpentines and more serpenrtines goats and lots of bunkers by the roadsides; Mercerdes- country; most beautiful beach; Estonian-loving Albanian friend; dead animals on the road

15.06. Skopje - Belgrad
highlights - Turkish bath building; bazaar - all-you-need- and-dont-need place; more Estonian-loving people; no shopping on Sunday; Serbians do not like Albanians indeed - they'll let you know already on the border; as though there's never been a war

16.06. Belgrad - Zlate piesky by Bratislava
highlights - could be almost another Prague; military museum; lots of hedgehogs and lots of campers

17.06.Zlate Piesky by Bratislava - till home next morning

individual's information manager ... continued

Just to follow up with more ideas/options - yes, last time I forgot to mention the various types of tagging systems for files that have been created. While this is a useful option and a step forward, I would still call it just a baby-step as it only solves a tiny bit of the bigger issue.

... to be continued further

individual's information manager - is there anything good out there?

Like many people, I like to read a lot, and every once so often I come across a very interesting bit of information that I certainly want to save for my own reference. And the easiest way, of course, is to add another file to the complex web of folders in My docs. Yet the problem is, that these files and folders and subfolders and subfolders .... keep accumulating and by the age of almost-30 and with My docs around for about 10 years, it is most likely that I will never manage to dig out or use effectively I guess about 80-90% of that accumulated information.

So the options today are:
1) never-ever read that stuff again;
2) do exploratory tours in My docs folder every once in a while (which will always remain about one but last item on my personal time schedule);
3) write some scribbles with references into my blog - NB! having browsed and collected information for about 10 years you also discover, that some interesting web-references tend to go off-line, so keeping a reference link doesn't really help either!
4) create a personal website or wiki to manage the info
5) ....?

So far, it seems to me that today the best option is number 4) if you are prepared to spend sufficient time on setting it all up and playing around with it so it becomes at least remotely interesting, user-friendly for my own use and sharing etc.

I bet that there are many of you around that have struggled with the same problem - so if you have found a good solution, please let me know! Also, if you have found any particularly easy-to-use, -manage, and -read wikis - I would also appreciate any suggestions for those!

Best suggestions will earn my eternal gratitude!