Saturday, April 7, 2012

Email in 2012

Hi everybody,

I've been watching 'did you know' videos on YouTube for years. The figures that they have on the World's population and what the upcoming trends in technology are projected to be are amazing.

The newest one for 2012 is reasonably predictable - It's geared around social media, notably Facebook (for obvious reasons, I hope if you're reading this). Predictable because it is used by millions of users and because it has made many people connected online for large amounts of time. The internet has been populated, in fact if Facebook itself were a Country it would be the world's third largest by population with a greater population than the United States of America.  The video goes on to say that 50% of the world's population (3.5 billion people...me being one of them) are under 30 and that 96% of Millennial's have joined a social network.

Now to the statement it makes which is entry is all about, there is a part of the video that states "Generation Y and Z consider email passe" and that "some universities have stopped distributing email accounts" adding that they distribute 'e-readers', iPads, and tablets (PC's I would imagine!).

It was this that really got me thinking. Is it true that email is on the way out?

Personally I consider email to be alive and well, it just may not be as recognizable as it once was - To me an SMS or MMS is simply a watered down version of an email that has limited formatting options and greater size restrictions on the amount of content you send...oh and email is cheaper for the user (at least where I come from...with SMS's costing far too much for what it is).

The Facebook inbox or Twitter interactions I don't see as becoming a replacement for email, nor SMS...I'm not sure how Apple ID's (is that what they are called?) work but if that's touted as a email killer I really hope the concept sinks.

Thanks for reading - I'm not going to host the video to which I have referred to in this entry, however if you are interested it will be a top result of searching for 'Social Media Revolution 2012' into a YouTube Search.

Thanks for reading and feel free to share, leave a comment, etc :)




Thursday, April 5, 2012

How to set up a blog website

Hey I noticed when I typed into Google search "how to set up" that 'website' and 'blog' were suggestions made by Google, therefore they must be somewhat popular searches.

I'll be honest, if I can create a blog and maintain it for a considerable amount of time anybody can match that :P

I've been blogging with Google Blogspot (Blogger) for around 5 years now however I only really got into it last year because I realised the potential to earn some potential passive income via ad hosting.

Google have made the process of having a website or a blog as easy as creating an account and creating pages...which is like creating any other word processing document, as well as having options to link to YouTube videos, images (upload or direction to image that is online) and text options...not to mention options on how the blog itself actually looks!

I created my first website with Geocities...anyone remember that?

I would encourage anyone that likes to share thoughts, ideas, findings, and anything worth documenting should create a blog...I would remind anyone interested to just be mindful that people will be able to view what you have posted - Some may not agree with your opinion, so if you're intending to be offensive confess to it upfront.

If you have a blog existing or just created I invite you to follow me as I generally will follow back those that have interesting blogs :)




The Australian 'Drug War' - Finally a topic of discussion

Recently Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr (to those that forgot, Kevin Rudd quit the position) spoke up about the Drug War being a failure in Australia with a report to come.

According to ABC News:
 A group of eminent Australians, including former federal police chief Mick Palmer and former New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, are about to hand down a report which says the 'war on drugs' has failed and concluding that Australia should consider legalising some substances.
...Australian Medical Association president Dr Steve Hambleton also believes a debate about how best to tackle drugs is overdue.

Think about that for a second. The former premier of New South Wales (NSW) and current foreign minister...along with a former Australian Federal Police Chief and former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions believe Australia has progressed to the stage where sensible drug policy is at least a topic of discussion in an political environment usually consisting of mining assets, 'education', climate change, and who the leader is.

Bob Carr stated the obvious in saying that police resources are wasted hunting down cannabis users and those outside nightclubs with ecstasy....and that people that use certain drugs should not be labeled as criminals and suffer the consequences of such a label (i.e. inability to travel to certain areas)

Already the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, has expressed an opposing view to that of...you know, experts.

According to Sydney Morning Herald:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has rejected the idea of decriminalising narcotics, saying tough policing is necessary instead to prevent the devastating consequences of drug use.
Which just goes to show that she only supports scientifically backed evidence when it supports her decision to introduce a new tax on everyday Australians.

What irritates me perhaps the most are those that dismiss the concept of discussion of the subject - Old school prohibitionists with their blinders on.

When anyone questioned the carbon tax they were labelled as people living in the dark ages and spoken down to being told something along the lines of "ZOMG the sky isn't going to fall!"

However it seems the sky would in fact fall if cannabis or MDMA (ecstasy) were to be legalised :S

Other interesting points of note about this recent news is that Bob Carr's brother reportedly died of a heroin overdose in the 80's and that Bob Carr was the premier of NSW when the 'Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre' was opened, which has since been proven to be a success and made a permanent fixture.

In other drug news "Ecstasy with a street value of $120,000 has been seized in the NSW city of Wollongong. A police raid on a home at Blackbutt yesterday uncovered 150 ecstasy tablets, worth $2000"

$2000 / 150 tablets = ~$13.35 per tablet, considerably cheaper than what most would price ecstasy at in Australia - So where's the effectiveness in the disruption to drug supply the 'drug war' seeks? It seems that these drugs are cheaper than ever.

I'll end it here before I write a novel.

Thoughts?