I did actually reply to Warren’s post which can be found here - however it seeems as though my comments have not appears so I shall fill in the space here.

I said when I made my posts, that there was alot to think about and remember. Really the point of the blog night was to invoke discussion and generate feedback, positive and negative. I’ve dwelled on some of the negatives and I’ll pull out some positives.

I brought my partner M with me purely because there was a “how to make money type” discussion, and I was most interested. My partner has 10 plus years in the internet industry here in Perth, and is a professional web designer. He is always looking for new ways at promoting sites he designs for his customers and how to help them make the most of each site. He walked away from the blog night with some ideas and some of them were fueled by Warren’s discussion. He probably didn’t agree with some of Warren’s discussion, but overall, he enjoyed it.

I do apologise for not getting Warren’s Job title correct. My Bad.

I knew when I wrote my first post it was going to be a long one, and really there was so much to think about that I left out a few comments about others who were present and did some talking.

The opening speaker, Veronica I think provided a good insight into jnr bloggers which can lead to graduating into grownup bloggers I do know btw, that there is a healthy contingent of Perth LiveJournalers, and most of them are in the late teens early 20s and still write the angsty teenage/young adult stuff. Alot of them use IRC aswell as a form to communicate, and when you ask people how they are, their reply is usually “read my LJ”. It was a warm introduction into the session, but I think perhaps should have been thrown into the mix a little later so we weren’t stuck in serious mode for so long.

Anthony the spice blogger was most enjoyable. I have an appreciation for Japanese food, and now have an idea about how simple it is to make some Japanese food in minutes, making it alot more accessible. I now understand why a girlfriend of mine would only do Japanese nights. Quick and easy. It’s a shame M does not share my love of most foreign food. I am stuck eating boring food, and I guess the most interesting place i can go to with him, is the Red Turban off Albany Highway in Kenwick. There’s an awesome indian restaurant.

Tama - apart from having a most interesting name, made me smile as he talked about presenting part of his class content on line. Something I totally agree with. My workplace uses WebCT for alot of its training courses and online quizzes that staff need to do periodically to keep up with current and new information that comes out on an almost weekly basis. I find it a very enclosed environment. Often I will spend time browsing on different websites and find out information which I use at work for my customers. Granted some of it may not be on blogs - however I did start my own mobile phone blog to record information I find maybe useful to myself and others. I don’t get many hits or comments, but that’s not the purpose. It’s for my own education and benefit.

Bret’s presentation about how to promote WA with blogs was, a challenging idea. I do feel that perhaps some of it is wishful thinking, and the nature of the bureacracy we live in dictates they would not be so adventurous as we would hope for. Let’s face it, the current federal government doesn’t understand the nature of the Internet, how can we expect that a state govt. would do anything which *may* run into trouble with Federal plans for regulation. However, I do believe that we should try. WA has always been out there, the only state with ISP’s charging a flat rate for internet useage for many years till the rest of the country caught up.

A side note: It is interesting to observe a few people are now from the blog nite complaining about comment spam, which was referred to by Warren from ineedhits.com. This recent phenomena strikes me as somewhat.. ironic. I wonder if Warren has any useful ideas on how to remove comment spammers from blogs using his own tools?

On a more personal level: I’ve been fighting a dreaded lurgy the last few days and have a huge lump just behind my right ear at the base of the skull, which does feel like a whopping huge gland. The pain extends a little down my neck on the right hand side, and I have been feeling sick most of the day. I am hoping I am not going to be too sick over the weekend, I have work on sunday at 5.30am and I need to be in bed at 7pm on a saturday night! *sobs*

I have been included in a preselected group at work for 1:1 discussion/informal interview to be part of the first group of call centre consultants to be trained up in ADSL and DUI support. I am really only interested in ADSL support, but I guess I have to do the other stuff too. I know from experience in previous jobs, that internet users tend to be dumber than mobile phone users. (please convey my apologies to newbie internet users in the world but it’s true).

My work is also slack in giving me my formal letter that I am now a full time permanent staff member, and I haven’t been given my measly 30 cent per hour pay rise yet. It’s been nearly a month, and I’ve earnt alot of money in the mean time and my backpay is going to be taxed like a bitch. Two weeks ago I earnt enough to qualify paying some HECS for the first time since I left uni back in 1993.

I am envious of David, and another friend who recently started working in IT support on Fraser Island, living at one of the resorts. *sigh* David the lucky bastard is going to Korea to teach.

I have other thoughts for the week, centring on the death penality and our govt.s hypocrisy, oh and who the hell gave them the senate majority? stupid aussies.

Something interesting

I have noticed recently a trend in the browser share of those viewing my site. Less IE browsing and more in other browsers like Mozilla based products, such as FireFox. I include a nice purty graph of the proportion of GEEKS viewing my site.

Most interesting!

Good morning/afternoon and goodnight.

Last night I attended the First Blog “conference” Seminar thingy held in the great land of Oz, in Perth. Perth being the type of city it is, always leads the way in my eyes, and this was another shining example about how we do things first! First for the niceties, Thanks to the organisers etc - it was enjoyable and thought provoking, I left the university with more questions than I had going in. Thanks to Curtin for proving the venue and the munchies, very nice, loved the fish. Thanks to the speakers: ochweidnit; Bret Treasure; Richard Giles; Anthony the yummy Blogchef , and he wasn’t naked either; Tama , a lecturer at UWA; Robert, and I read his blog often; Warren, who makes money from search engine optimisation; and Chris, I did’t know he wrote software for photoblogging! The compere for the night was Graeme and he was great! You all challenged my views on a few things, and clarified other thoughts I had.

I took my partner M with me, and I was glad I did, had I gone by myself, I would have been all by myself like a shag on a rock and felt very self conconcious since I didn’t really know anyone, except David. I’ve met some of the other geeks, but due to work/life committments I hadn’t attending blogging meetings on that monthly wednesdays. I should change that, but I need more girls to be going cuz i don’t like being the only chick at a geek meet. M got alot from the conference/seminar and walked away with lots of thoughts about current programming projects he’s working on.

I think there should have been someone there to talk about the other side of blogging, the ethical side, the impact it has on the human being and their psyche, on what it can do to a group of people. Despite the fact that there were alot of people talking about the “humanisation” of the net over the last few years with the social software coming on to the market, the focus of the seminar was still very corporate and business focussed and not focussed on the human side at all. Except really the first speaker - the rest were on business, what we could use blogs for to promote WA, business, make more money.

Robert’s discussion about politics and the history of it and using blogs as just a new media and type of way to for people to get their views across was interesting and eye openining, and not sure, but perhaps tinged with a bit of cynicism. I am a regular reader of Robert’s, and understand how he may feel when attacks come from other more right wing blogs about his views on subjects. I’ve seen them and they are quite vitriolic. My main thought being that most of the time, the abuse is almost always served by right wing believers and factions, and most people left leaning just accept it. However I’ve seen a of lefties give as good as they get.

The most disturbing speaker of all to me was the man from Ineedhits.com. He struck me as someone who makes a living off other people’s creativity. Not actually content to make something of their own, there is a group of people who make money by using other people’s websites. He stated he wasn’t a blackhat, and for those who don’t know what black hats and white hats are in the search engine optimisation industry are.. There’s an article here, which explains a bit about the different techniques.. keep in mind, whitehats are ethical use of search engines and blackhats - aren’t. Even though he said he didn’t use it, he didn’t actually say those words, but he does possess the tools for blackhatting. I think Robert and a couple of others felt the same way judging by his request not to use that kind of software on his blogsite. All in all however, it was most illuminating.

Richard spoke about corporate blogging, and how it’s good and positive and enables people to communicate with eachothers and the internet world in general and perhaps provide a better light as to who the company projects itself to be. He points out microsoft even have a man who blogs, but he was employed to blog, to me, it’s a cynical exercise in marketing. He pointed out that companies have blogging policies, but here’s a thought - do those policies extend to cover the employee’s private thoughts out of work hours?. What if you have a blog, in which you talk about your work at times, where is the line? between private thoughts and ideas about companies, and what a person should say. Do they need to be on guard 24/7 ? Companies like microsoft have sacked staff for saying things which haven’t gelled with the company ideals, or perhaps in their thoughts given out critical company information - perhaps they are right - maybe they did (in one person’s case he said Microsoft purchased some Mac’s)

Hypothetical..what if a person is sacked for talking about how horrible their boss is, and never mention the company name, and someone finds out who it is and passes this information on to that guy’s boss? I know I have bitched about one of my employer’s big time in this blog. I have never mentioned the company name, or his name to preserve his privacy and my own. What if I was sacked for talking about him? Lucky for me I wasn’t. I know that he did search using google every single employee’s name in the company to see what they had written or about them that has been published on the net. Lucky for me my real name isn’t listed in google except for some vague reference to UWA when I worked there in the mid 90s. I have another friend who have bitched about their managers on a regular basis but never used names, and then this manager has read the blog, but could do nothing because no names were mentioned. (these people worked for an Aust. Telco).

I think people blog online because they can choose to remain anonymous. They can reveal their inner most thoughts and feelings, and not feel ashamed because people they don’t know can’t judge them and if they do, it’s not going to matter. It’s the last great freedom really, your thoughts there for anyone to read, anyone to comment about, and there is no existing social stigma - people can talk uncensored by those they know. That is the one great gift that blogging has brought to the world. Honesty. There are times when we see blogs which make us want to cringe, rage, scream, that might promote hate, illegal activities.. but it opens our eyes to people we may never meet in our lifetime - their thoughts, their fears, their dreams. I just hope that the great machine of progress doesn’t take over weblogging and turns it into something ugly, and manufactured.

Those are my thoughts so far on the subject, no doubt, more will surface over the next few days/weeks. They are thinking of holding a national blog convention next year and possibly hold it over east. Can I suggest Adelaide? It’s kinda in the middle and cheaper for everyone to get to!?

Well I have read everyone’s kind comments today to my last post. As I replied, funny what the mind will let me type when it’s tired enough, and looks like I said more than enough.

Today at work was pretty nasty when dealing with customer who were having problems, virtually everyone in the call centre was taking bitchy calls from customers who are once again unable to read their customer agreements. I dealt with a mistake that the company made and passed it on to a supervisor at the customer’s request after he got a refund and a credit for it all.

Another customer rang to find out what he could do about a contract his daughter was forced to sign under duress by some gang thug who forced her from shop to shop buying phones and computers etc. Stupid Risk management were saying, if she signed the contract and she was of sound mind she’ll have to honour it, and I’m like.. wtf ?! That won’t happen. I also went to alot of trouble to help a customer sort out her problems with her bills, and despite the fact she had a great credit history in the past, Credit said no we can’t help her. fuckers. Our job is not to punish but help!

I am looking forward to the seminar tonight The perth blog nite looks like it will be very interesting. I am sure I’ll see a couple of readers of my blog there like David *waves* and I am bringing M along.

well .. time to get some food into me and my headphones on to chill out to some music for a couple of hours

There are times like today where I sit in my room, isolated, and close my eyes, imagining my life differently. Some aspects at least. What would I be like if I was alone, or lived alone, what would my beliefs in life would be, would I be doing the stuff I am doing now if it wasn’t for the choices I have made. Chances are, no.

Do i want to change the direction I am heading? Yes for sure I do. I know that to the core of my soul each time I go to work, look out over the river at lunch time, every time I walk home, every time I eat, every day I wake up. I feel like road blocks are put in place to make my journey that little bit harder. Harder to say no, to walk away from my past, and current life, harder to to step blindly into the next phase.

There’s alot more out there for me. I don’t want to spend my life in one place, in one city, never moving and exploring the world around me. I just didn’t think I would need to work as hard as I am doing so now.

Mum’s had health issue after issue recently, the latest being a mole cut from her arm was a malignant stage 3 carcinoma on her arm. Now I need to get myself tested. Then she developped shingles. Dad is looking tired and worried about mum and making her take baths in dettol to stop the shingles from getting infected and sore.

M is a bottomless pit of money sucking. I am going to stop telling him how much I get paid and start moving money across to the new savings account.

Too tired to give a damn about spelling or typos. All I do is work, and I have no reward for it. I get nothing. Just more work, more bills.

I was thinking tonight I would go out, or do something energetic, but fact is, I am beat. I woke up this morning and looked at my face in the mirror after having a shower and saw deep blue rings around my eyes. I am seriously not getting enough sleep. So here is my catch up with the news from the last couple of days that I haven’t blogged. PS Sorry for bailing out again.

HastalaVista!

Greetings people in the bloggiverse.

I am going to try and attend tonight’s blog meet which is in freo.. If i had to choose; I’d say it was marginally more acceptable than Miss Maud’s in the city, and I still want people to consider FAST EDDIES! It’s been a busy few days here at work, I am doing the shifts from 9 - 5.30pm and this means really it’s the busiest time of the day, so I haven’t had the time to do much else except answer the phone
My call times are dropping slowly, so that’s a good thing, and it’s possible I will get to do some training for the adsl product that the company is launching soon - not sure when but it’s all exciting. We’re also looking at moving further down the road - new premises.. perhaps will give the company more energy, as we’ll be all enthused about our new surroundings. Rumour has it that the call centre may no longer have to have hotseating (please god) I am so tired of cleaning the workspace every morning I start work with the disinfectant wipes. On the plus side, this practice has helped me avoid some colds and nasty bugs floating around the call centre.

Home life is ok, but there is a stress still, about money - and I am a little concerned about how I am going to pay for my car reggo this week. I really don’t have the funds. It’s ont like I spend a huge amount of money on the car, but still it’s kinda necessary to have a car when I’ll be rocking up to work this summer at some moments in time around 4.45am. Damn daylight savings, that’s all i can say!

I’d vote for daylight savings if it was introduced here in WA. Why can’t lil jonny use his dictator-like powers for my benefit and force WA to have Daylight savings? WHY!

I’ve run out of tea I have to dig out more green tea at home, I have some stashed away somewhere and I need to drink tea at work. GIVE ME GREEN TEA!

I’m feeling good tho today. I’ve been sitting here feeling peckish, so I have a fruit cup and a marmalade roll to munch on when I have my teabreak. Better get back to it, it’s going to be busy this afternoon, some people have called in sick.

Edit: time at 6.26 - sick cat again, another trip to the vets is needed and thus, no going out tonight. *sigh*

When you make friends, and give committments, sometimes you expect reciprocation. I am glad they don’t read this blog, since they won’t see how disappointed I am tonight. A lacklustre response full of a lack of any certainty and committment fills my chest up with pain and hurt. It might not help they aren’t feeling the best, I think there’s something going around, especially in the office - so talking to them probably wasn’t a good idea, I am reminded of when we were first friends. I feel the need to withdraw from that particular friendship for a while - but I’ll see how it goes.

M has subjected me to a crappy film, at least that’s what it looks like right now, and I am not really in the mood to watch it, Since I am sitting here feeling quite blah. I feel like getting up and leaving the room this movie is horrible and we haven’t finished going through the credits.

Work was ok .. i did my MPA and did good. MY TeamLeader thinks that perhaps I am going well and can do advisor type work. I told her I was interested in training aswell, just not the Admin side. There was a potential for doing some ADSL stuff, but not able to do that now cuz the places were offered to other people. *sigh* maybe next time. Another friend of mine that talk with at work wants to go for an ATL position in sales. She said she was bored, but really..

She’s not that great at the job she’s doing at the moment. She gets alot of requeues (calls returned to queue) - Her notes aren’t always clear, and if she does want to do sales stuff, why isn’t she pushing for more sales and getting people to sign up for home phones - like “we sell home phone connections, would you be interested”… Plus there’s the lack of being on time from rostered breaks.. and she says she’s bored… how can you be bored when you’re not 100% at the job you’re still learning? Maybe I wasn’t wired the same, but I don’t find it boring at all.