Ofcourse the Iphone is a nice thing, cool and smooth user interface, and a very good browser. One of the reasons was a much better browser than the Internet Explorer in my HTC Touch, then… This mobile IE couldnt display the Expat Forum very well, and seeing it on an iPhone was, well, just like home…

But, a few weeks ago I saw Nokia Maps. And guess what? It offers GPS navigation in Bali. I installed it on my 2nd phone, a Nokia E61i, and could do routeplanning from Buleleng to Badung!

This, the ability to be used as an USB modem for 3G and 3.5G networks, and Opera Mini for Symbian made me want a Nokia E71.

I ordered one from Expansys (Europe) and paid with Paypal. Wrong. It took 8 days fro the order to complete, while Paypal kept the money, in order to “clear it”. I was a frustrated impuls buyer. I sold the iPhone pretty quickly (allthough it was the old 2G version, and its ad was amongst scamartist iPhone sellers on Marktplaats).

It looks fine, the E71. Its smaller then the E61i, but the keyboard and screen are good to work with. I hated the iPhone keyboard. Often, if I tried to type fast, the autocorrect of the iPhone garbled my text to what it thought to be right. And, I was still learning the iPhone to spell Indonesian and Dutch together with English.

But the E71 is still a bit buggy, I think. And although it had raving reviews, there are enough users having problems too. One of the frustrating things is Gmail. On the E61i it worked great, but the E71 insists to download ALL the mail in my Gmail inbox (2800 mails), instead of the only 20 (or whatever you want) needed on the E61i (if you want to do automatic retrieval). And with a 2800 mail Gmail inbox, the E71 becomes slow. Very dissapointing. Now, I can’t use automatic email notification, at least I didn’t find a way howto yet.

And, the Nokia Maps on the E61i seemed rather free, but on the E71 I couldn’t get around paying Nokia something for route planning and voice guidance. And this “feature” cost me more money then I thought. I got expensive SMS messages after each routeplanning attempt

Now I am looking at Garmin stuff, see how that works. They have an Indonesian map, and I tried the Netherlands, this seems to work fine.

Ok, the E71 has its flaws, Gmail being the worst for my kinda use, and there are some bugs to be ironed out in future E71 firmware updates, but its a worthy replacement for the iPhone. Ok. I am not so cool anymore, but at least I can type fast.

Android, anyone? With hardware video acceleration, full Flash and Windows Streaming Media support, and a “real” keyboard?

Today, a (spam) post was made on the Bali Expat Forum, where “Hank Freid News” posted something a bit off topic (from a Pakistan IP address). The signature of the poster had a link to a 1994 article about Hank Freid in the New York Times. The (copied) text of the post came from another forum.

It attracted my attention, because spam is usually leading to some commercial site, but why the heck would someone want to spam for the New York Times?

Seaching for “Hank Freid” and Forum with Google shows more than 14.000 results: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22hank+freid%22+forum&btnG=Google+Search

So whats the deal here? Thousands and thousands of posts made by some sort of Hank Freid, and all with some link to a (neutral / positive) story about him or his business.

Searching for Hank Freid with Google shows one site with something bad about him in the top ten, it is this webpage:

http://www.nycworstlandlords.com/nycwl/index.php?top_ten_list

So, mr Freid is in the top ten of worst landlords, according to this site.

A bit further down the search results there is http://www.observer.com/2008/activists-hound-hotelier-hank-freid , an article named “Activists Hound Hotelier Hank Freid”, and on the same site there is more about him, “Hank Freid has been called a profiteer, a slumlord and worse”.

It is obvious there is some bad news about Mr Freid on the net. And Mr Freid’s name (as in domainname) has been taken by an anonymous registerer, so he had to revert to http://www.hank-freid.com/ with the dash.

It looks to me like it went like this: Hee, bad news about me in the Search Engines. Lets find someone who can turn this into good news….

And he used some (India?) SEO company that hired a few people to spam those thousands of sites with “Good News about Hank”.

Now, does it work?

Google is getting smarter, but still, all the Hank Freid search results from Google show backlinks from spammed forums, so yes, it works. Probaly not as good as a few years ago, but it still works. See: http://www.google.com/search?q=miserable+failure

But, while I don’t dare to say Mr Freid is a slumlord, he sure has become a spamlord, I wonder if that’s good for your reputation…….

http://balipod.com/bali-fiction-faction-and-friction-f8/harry-meets-rashid-t65.html

(New title by Py)

Harry met Eny in a café. He could not believe his eyes when he first saw her. A beautiful young girl, and she asked him only $25 to sleep with her. Everything inside of Harry resisted, but he said “ok”. When he undressed in the dirty small room next to the café, he thought of the older men he saw walking around with young Indonesian girls, and how he hated this view. Those stupid men, they should feel shame about what they are doing, taking advantage of a poor country, where girls are more or less forced to go into prostitution to get something to eat. And everyone could just see those men walking around with their failure to make it back home. Yughhh. We should liberate those women instead of taking advantage of the situation, giving them education or something. When he drove back on his rented Honda Astrea to his homestay he thought about his ethics, the future of Bali, post colonialism, and he wanted those thoughts to go away, but they kept running around in his head, over and over again. He laughed when he got the idea to take pictures from white men with young Indonesian girls in the streets, now that would be fun, would do great on the internet. Before he fell in a restless sleep, he decided to ask Eny to come to his homestay, as soon as possible. The next morning he wanted extra eggs for breakfast.

….

Harry got used to pickup Eny from her kos. Eny’s friends got used to Harry. They pointed him where she could be found, usually playing cards. Her friends made fun of Eny, because she is a rich girl now.

This evening her friends shook their heads when he came. “Eny tidak ada”. “Where, where?” Harry asked. “Rumah Sakit with Sitha”.

Eny told Harry a week ago she went with one of friends, Sitha, to some locals for Sitha’s abortion. Only 300.000. Accident at work. The abortion didn’t work out very well, and she was worried about Sitha. When she told Harry about the abortion attempt she made movements like she was holding a stick and poked in the ground with it. Sitha was bleeding. After two days of bleeding they went to the doctor, who gave Sitha injections so “the baby would come out”, and send here home. They made up a story about falling in the bathroom, so the doctor wouldn’t ask too many questions.

He found Eny and 4 other girls, some with boyfriends, in the local hospital, like a wake, as is normal in hospitals in Bali. Today Sitha lost consciousness, and they drove her with a bemo to the hospital. They were worried about the money it would cost, because Sitha didn’t have any, and they could come up with something, but not all. The abortion in the hospital would cost at least 1.000.000 or more. From the room where Sitha was, came groans and cries. Eny went to get some Nasi bungkus.

Suddenly a nurse came running out of the room, with something in her hands. The cries had stopped. A friend of Sitha went to get information. “Hidup, Hidup”. The baby was alive, and she had been pregnant for 6 months according to the doctor. Sitha wanted to eat. More worries. The baby couldn’t stay in the kos with Sitha, what would this cost?

Harry, together with the girls, went to see the baby. The tiny red baby was in a nursing room, with a big needle in his little arm. “He is left there to die”, Harry stated dry to Eny, who was covering her mouth with her hand and looked, as in terror, at the baby. Another girl cried.

Sitha lied relieved in her dirty hospital bed. She wanted to go home, but the hospital wouldn’t let her go, because there wasn’t any money. Harry decided to borrow money to Eny, to pay for the bills. She could pay it back. Sitha had to leave her identity card at the hospital, because the baby, still alive, wasn’t paid for, just for her. Supported by some friends, she walked slowly to a bemo.

Rashid didn’t give up easily. He struggled, abandoned, for air for 2 days, before dieing, without any real care. Discussions in the kos, the dead baby could not be taken there, because of Balinese customs, more money was needed to get the identity card back and to get Rashid properly buried to Muslim customs. The local Muslim leader was consulted, and gave a price for a grave. Cheap. Sitha’s boss came up with half, the owner of the kos gave some, the rest was put up by Sitha’s friends. 1 million.

Suddenly Sonie was there with the dead baby wrapped in a cloth, and she stated, crying, that she had paid for the hospital bills, to help Sitha, but she needed the money back. She came by bemo. Many people took a look at Rashid. Already blue, Eny said. Sonie wanted 300.000 but she was asked for the bills by Eny, she couldn’t show them. Since the grave wasn’t ready yet, and Eny didn’t trust Sonie, the baby was brought back to the hospital again, by bemo. About twenty people were discussing the situation, with high voices. The bills were only 160.000. Eny stated that Sonie has a good heart, but made a mistake.

Rashid found his grave a day later, and Sitha now works as a pembantu in Saudi Arabia.

Harry felt good when Sitha thanked him, before she went. A week later Eny and Harry arranged a girl for a friend of Harry. Harry speculated about taking over the café where he met Eny, and laughed. He liked being involved, feeling responsible. Eny laughed too, she could be the boss.

Ronald Jenkees is a “producer / writer” of awfully great beats etc..

The Digital Mozart…. And I can’t get enough…..

http://www.ronaldjenkees.com/

This is the Raynox HD2200 tel:

If totally zoomed out there is an image circle. Only when zoomed in you get your 2.2 factor in full…

Sanyo Xacti HD1000 with Raynox HD2200 from Bert Vier on Vimeo.

In HD resolution (720p) on Vimeo….

Then you have to “reconnect” the user with the posts and topics, this means changing the posts and topics which now are made by a “Guest” and linking them with the recreated user.

Here is the code, assuming the users had (and has again) a user_id of “4″ and the user name is “ubud_expat”.

$host=”localhost”;
$user=”user”;
$password=”passw”;
$dbname=”your_db”;
$link=mysql_connect ($host, $user, $password);

$nr_posts = 0;

$query = “SELECT * FROM `phpbb_posts` WHERE `poster_id` = -1 AND `post_username` = ‘ubud_expat’”;

$result=mysql_db_query($dbname, $query, $link);

while ($Row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

$queryz = “SELECT * FROM `phpbb_topics` WHERE `topic_first_post_id` = $Row[post_id] AND `topic_poster` = -1″ ;
$resultz=mysql_db_query ($dbname, $queryz, $link);
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($resultz);

if ($num_rows) {
print $Row[post_id] . ” - “;
$tRow = mysql_fetch_array($resultz);
$queryz = “UPDATE `phpbb_topics` SET `topic_poster`=’4′ WHERE `topic_id` = $tRow[topic_id]” ;
$resultz=mysql_db_query ($dbname, $queryz, $link);
}

$queryz = “UPDATE `phpbb_posts` SET poster_id=’4′ WHERE `post_id` = $Row[post_id]” ;
$resultz=mysql_db_query ($dbname, $queryz, $link);

$nr_posts = $nr_posts + 1;

}

$queryz = “UPDATE `phpbb_users` SET `user_posts` = $nr_posts WHERE `user_id` = 4″ ;
$resultz=mysql_db_query ($dbname, $queryz, $link);

mysql_close ($link);

Thats It!

Some pics of the Pawai Pembangunan, Singaraja Parade 2007

Every year, just before Independence day, schools march through thr North of Bali….

Lolot-Lovina-2007 (8)

Originally uploaded by bertvier

Concert at Spice Beach, in Lovina, of Lolot, a famous Balinese rock band.

See my pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bert4/

SEOChat about Duplicate Content Penalties

Google Webmaster Central about Duplicate Content

Search Engine Journal about Duplicate Content and Ranking

So, it would be time to do something about it. I also could choose to rewrite the content as soon as I found a copy, but hee, that would be free copy writing for others.

There is an easy way to find out if people are copying content from your site. You can, by using exact phrase searches, find the copies, but also by setting up email alerts with your Google account. Its fun to see the offenders sites reported automatically when they are indexed by Google. You can also use the service to find out if something is written about you, or others. A great service by Google.

Using a sample letter such as you can find here: Google DMCA Cease and Desist Letter I send a few faxes, and waited for a response from Google.

You don’t’ get acknowledgments if they have received your fax, which makes you wonder if it has arrived or not.

Finally I received my first response after a few weeks, it was about a blogspot site that had copied my whole page, including pictures. The blog was already removed however.

Then, after almost a month, the rest of the DMCA complaints were handled by Google. I received a few emails, asking for clarification, and telling me a fax could not be read correctly. The Google employee was very friendly.

So, after all my doubts something was really done, Google DMCA complaints work. Pfieuw.