The world of internet access

Well I'm back after a wonderful trip with Mr Dodo through Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Austria and Hungary, and a quick stop in Singapore.

As I decided against taking a laptop, I had to access the internet via various services along the way. It was an interesting exercise.

Some hotels provided free internet for guests, some charged a fee, the highest being £3 (AUD$7.20) for half an hour in Slough, UK. Public libraries were another great source, thought again charges for access varied from free for a maximum of half and hour per day (Paisley, UK), 100 huft (AUD .65c) for an hour in Visegrad, Hungary, to £1 (AUD$2.39) for half an hour in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Many airports also offered internet access from free (Changi, Singapore) to £1 for 10 minutes (Heathrow, London). I only used an internet cafe once - in Biarritz, in the south of France. It was 1€ (AUD$1.63) for half an hour.

Not only did prices vary greatly, but so did the conditions of use. Some places required you to sign declarations that you would not use the service to do anything illegal etc. Some just wanted proof if identity, while others didn't even ask for your name before you were allowed to log on. This variation did not seem to be governed by country laws as different locations in the same country would have different access rules.

All systems I accessed were high speed, and just as well, because not only did I need to work out the French, German and Hungarian text within browsers, but also the varying keyboards - something I hadn't thought about at all!

Australian Keyboard (QWERTY):


Austrian Keyboard (QWERTZ):


French Keyboard (AZERTY):


Hungarian Keyboard (QWERTZ):


UK/Irish Keyboard (QWERTY):


[More information on keyboard layouts around the world at the Wikipedia site]

The differences may appear minor, but when you are used to a particular keyboard type, and you are trying to maximise your online time, the differences can be hugely frustrating. I had to ask for help in faltering German because I had never accessed a keyboard that had keys with three options. But having discovered the "Alt Gr" key wasn't the end of my woes. Finding the "y" key, the ever moving "?" key, and various other symbols were also a challenge when you are trying to rush through a few emails. You don't realise how many times you use certain keys until you can't find them.

WiFi access is practically everywhere. I think next time I'll take the lap top!

Does my bum look big in Europe?

Mr Dodo and I are in the final stages of planning a much-needed and long-awaited European holiday - Mr Dodo for the first time.

I though as we were spending a bit of time in France in may not be a bad idea to brush up on our French. This started Mr Dodo on a perverse mission to learn how to say "Does my bum look big in this?" in as many European languages as possible. [Is he trying to tell me something?]

Mademoiselle Dodo, who sadly has her father's sense of humour, is encouraging him. Groan!

But then maybe it will keep him too busy to cause other mischief.

"Nagy a fenekem eben?" covers it so to speak, in Hungarian.

Resolving in the new year

I haven’t made a new year’s resolution for a long time. They are after all the procrastinator's nightmare. Or their dream come true. Depends on how you look at it.

But I started this blog with all the best intentions and after four months I’ve barely posted. I have written heaps, but I never quite finish. Once I start to write, do a little research, write a little more, the urge to finish and post just vanishes.

Is there a procrastinators anonymous? I could do with a good 12 step program.

Some of the things I have not posted on in the last four months include:

# Wiki your way to wisdom – Wikipedia vs “authoritative” sources of information

# Celsius 233 : Librarians, censorship and sedition in Australia.
Some links:
Next they came for the librarians ... crikey.com.au
Book ban Green Left Online
Uni terror books shelved due to prosecution fear The Age
Melbourne Uni to challenge terrorism laws ABC Lateline

# Political parties as religions in Australia – has ecumenism worked too well? [This one was turning into a thesis]

# Flog the blog!
The A&NZ Award of the 2006 Weblog Awards was given to a commercial (Fairfax) blog – All men are Liars [I won’t give the link. I don't think it needs more promotion].
Increasingly good indie blog writers are being lured to write paid blogs by media organisations, e.g. the author of The Road to Surfdom (see Crikey), not to mention the proliferation of paid ads on blogs.
Are these an indication that the blog will go the way of the web in general? Which lead to...

#All that glitters in the spider's web - what happened to the "gift culture" of the World Wide Web?

I still hold hope for the other dozen or so topics I've thought long and hard about. Just maybe you'll read more from me this year!

Don't be left without rights

The rights of Australian workers are being eroded by a federal government that has put the needs of big business (many of which are now owned by foreign concerns) ahead of its own population.

Since the WorkChoices legislation took effect in March this year, there have been several reported cases of serious worker exploitation and government back-peddling.

Many people have either forgotten or are too young to remember the working conditions that existed before the union movement fought for the forty hour week, the eight hour day, annual leave, equal pay for women...

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is spearheading an ongoing campaign to protect these rights.

There is a view that the union movement is an archaic institution representing a minority of workers and, among other things, has lost touch with workers' needs. While there may be validity to some criticisms of today's union movement (there is no thing without flaws), it is only through and within such a united movement that workers have any serious voice and power.

On November 30 there will be a nation-wide rally. I will be there, as I hope will many thousands of others.

And as a further reminder of why you should be there...

Searching for Google

Back in 2004 Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology at Google said: "My guess is about 300 years until computers are as good as, say, your local reference library in doing search. But we can make slow and steady progress, and maybe one day we'll get there."

This was an interesting admission by a senior manager of the leading internet search company - acknowledging the expert skills of librarians in a public forum.

Fast forward to 2006 and the buzz on a number of library-related discussion groups is that Google wants health librarians to volunteer their services to help build one of their sites, Google Health.

While I'm sure many librarians are delighted to be asked to contribute, perhaps Google could show it's appreciation of these specialised skills by paying for them. Does Google expect the IT professionals employed on the Google Health site to offer their services for free? I doubt it! Google employees (Googlers) enjoy some of the best employee benefits around.

Google is estimated to be worth around $20 billion. So why does Google expect professional services from librarians for nothing?

Has it something to do with the fact that libraries and librarians are seen traditionally as giving information away for free? Or is it something else?

I do not want to "shut the down the internet to save the libraries" (I, Robot - movie version), but just some acknowledgment that the library, and librarians still provide valuable information services and skills in a world where many of us "google" the internet for a quick fix of info.

Name that blog!

Having finally accepted that I would never write that world-shattering book (you know - the one that would change civilisation as we know it; make my name synonymous with literary greats; have the public gaze upon me in awe…) I decided to write a blog instead. That’s doable. Short pieces. Not too much to procrastinate over you’d think. Oh so wrong!

The first thing my blog needed was a name, a title. After all, I couldn’t write a single line until I had that title. (Funny, I had the same thought about that book.) Well that exercise took some deep thinking. Being such a late entrant to the blogsphere all the clever, witty or profound (read silly) titles I had originally thought of were gone – including several possible titles for that never-to-be-written world-shattering book!

Are names/titles important? Would rubbish by any other name smell like garbage?

So why Dodo Farming? Will there be another post?
For these answers and more stay tuned. Test-pattern follows….

[There is a whole page devoted to old Australian TV test patterns. Something we don’t see anymore, except for Channel 31’s fishcam.]