Helene’s site of wonder

I’m on Facebook, and it’s not  on a voluntary basis. It started out by signing up because “everybody” talked about it, I were there for some weeks, then deactivated my account. After six month people were STILL talking about it, so I reactivated my account. Now, I’m still there, but I still don’t get the big thing.

Before that I was on orkut. One guy told me he could be there for hours and find interesting things there. I didn’t get it.

The latest site I have registered on now is LinkedIn - a community to show your business network. I’m there, but I still don’t get what benefits it will give me.

I’m waiting for twitter to hit in and somebody wants me there.

Will all of these social networking change my habits? It haven’t. I will continue blogging, simply because I like writing. I like writing about the things that I’m passionate about, the things that goes on in my head, things I find funny, and because this blog is MINE, ALL MINE! No networking website will give me the same flexibility like my blog gives me, something the good guys at NRKBeta have realized as well.

I will call the people I care about, I will not send them messages through facebook etc. (okey, I do have two people that I mostly message). I will meet them, invite them to dinners, go to the movies, cafees etc.

The blog is about letting people staying connected to me and it doesn’t matter if wired thinks the blog is SO 2004 because we have all these different social networking tools. More so, most of my readers aren’t really interested in me at all. Most of them, give or take 70%, are interested in how to crack the DRM on ebooks. They are looking for troubleshooting of some sorts, and social networking doesn’t give me the proper tools write down my experiences, knowledge and frustrations. I usually have about 15 - 20 people looking into my blog each day. No networking tool will be able to give me that.

Bloggers today are expected to write clever, insightful, witty prose to compete with Huffington and The New York Times.

And since I’m neither trying to be clever, insightful or witty I guess I’m out. And do I get noticed because I have this blog? Pheew, yeah right! That would be the day. I have no job opportunities or the likes that have knocked on my door because of this blog, but STILL I continue writing this blog. I guess not everything is about publicity. It’s a tool for me to express myself, even if nobody hears it. It’s also an archive where I can store things I want to have, a backlog of sorts where I can find previous articles, lessons, knowledge etc.

If somebody else happen to find this blog interesting, it’s a bonus. But get it right - This is all about me.

I will continue being sooo 2004 ! And boy, do I like it…

This was on the frontpage of the written edition of VG today (I didn’t find the article on its website) and was about a wedding party that were supposed to be held on Stena Saga.

The bride in that wedding party was my mother, and I was there. My mother had phoned them and ordered a wedding party with dinner and seats in the bar afterwards. She even phoned them to confirm the order and was told everything was in order.

When we came there, the crew had not received this information and everything had to be done then and there (which took the crew at least 30 minutes or more before they actually managed to get tablecloths on  it). There was no extra service and attention from the crew. They gave us one drink (after an hour or so), and that was it. We were supposed to have free alcohol during the dinner and a waiter that served it, but that didn’t happen.

My mother stood in the restaurant crying.

The whole dinner set a terrible mood for the rest of the wedding celebration (which was just as bad as the dinner).

Me and Martin will NEVER take any boat from Stena Line again unless there is a urgent need for it. I hope they will burn in hell.

The newsitem have been written about in Adressa and P4.

The folks at iRex Technologies have written a about creating optimized content for the iliad.

How to create content for your iLiad

You never know what you’re gonna get. (Forrest Gump)

One of the things I have been thinking about are how people tend to place others into boxes. Humans have a way of rationalizing everything down into something they understand. That rationalization can be a positive force or it can be a negative force.

On a basic level we need it for categorizing things like females/males, human/animal, skilled/unskilled, fat/thin. This is all very good and necessary. In our everyday life however, we don’t keep it on that level. We add some preference - chocolate (good), tomatoes (bad). A tomato will always have some different flavours, but basically we will not change our perception of the tomato much. A tomato is a tomato.

When dealing with other people we tend to do the exact same thing, but in a more subtle and extensive way. We get a first impression where we evaluate people based upon looks, clothing, body language etc. Already on the first impression we get the feeling of “do we like this person or not”. That impression gets refined each time we have an encounter with that person or based upon others impression/experience/gossip. We can have an instant emotional response and/or we create an image in our mind which validates our feelings and thoughts.

The problem usually arise when negative thought patterns arise. They are there for a reason - there is something within us which responds to our image of the other person. Of course, the image we create might be right, but we can’t automatically assume it’s correct.

Example:
Person1: I would like to work within the marketing division.
Person2’s interpretation no1: Person1 demands to work only within the marketing division.
Person2’s interpretation no2: Person1 doesn’t like to work in the sales department that he currently work in.

So how did the situation go from “would like to” to “demand”? It’s connected to the inner dialogue of person2. When talking to another person we always interpret other peoples messages based upon the body language of the other, our own reality and our inner dialogue. By inner dialogue I mean the voice in our heads (our thoughts) that wonders what and why the other person said what he did. That voice is also the one that tries to rationalize our feelings into something logical. Example: If I don’t like another person, then I will find several reasons why I don’t like him/her. Consciously or unconsciously I will search for reasons that I don’t like the other person, because it will validate my own impressions.

By doing so we are effectively closing down the lines of communications and we are not even aware that we have a judgemental attitude. It’s our own limitations that gets in the way of dealing with other people.

In a discussion we might disagree strongly with another person, but we have to be careful so that it doesn’t validate our own bad impressions.

So how to deal with our own negative impressions of other people?
Usually there’s a situation that is the reason for our negative impression. Then we need to validate if our impression is correct by asking:

Correct way: Do you only want to work within the marketing division or can you work within other divisions as well?
Wrong way: I think you are difficult to deal with because you only want to work within the marketing division.

Correct way: Why did you respond that way during that situation?
Wrong way: It was really bad of you to deal with the situation that way.

Notice that in the correct way of dealing with it, there is no emotional response, only a question where person1 has the possibility to explain his viewpoint.
In the wrong way to deal with the problem we add our own negative impressions and person1 must instead use his energy to weave out all misconceptions of person2. Something that is timeconsuming, difficult and might never succeed.

The problem is that when dealing with peoples misconceptions, a person is guilty until it’s proven otherwise (which can be never in such cases). This can be a huge burden for a person. Person2 will never know how much of a burden he/she places upon other people simply because they are different people.

I have personally used an approach for dealing with persons I don’t like based upon first impression. I smile and tries to meet them without any preconceptions. What I have experienced on several occasions is that they seek me out and likes me better than I apparently like them.

So:

1. Try to leave preconceptions when dealing with other people
2. When something seems negative, ask if your understanding of the situation is correct, but leave your negative imprints out of the question.

By doing so, you might improve the life of others (and your own).

So, you want to buy items from ITunes’ US store, but you’re not anywhere around there, are you?

First you need to create a new ITunes account. Find an american adress (for example an hotel or another “public” adress), and follow the instructions in this video:

Now you have access to the US store, but you still can’t buy anything. To buy something with your non-us credit card will get you nowhere. The answer is an US ITunes Gift Certificate.

I suggest checking out EBay and see who sells them there. To ensure you don’t waist your dollars, take a look at the sellers feedback.

It’s amazing that it has to be so difficult to buy music, films etc. The reason is probably because of the contract ITunes makes with the producers. The producers take is their contract with television channels in the different countries. TV channels pay a lot of money to air TV series. TV series produces viewer ratings, which again provides commercials, which leads to increased revenue for the TV channels itself.

The problem is that producers are fighting a loosing battle. People don’t want to wait for their favorite shows, so they download it illegally as torrents or any other means available.

By doing so the producers actually loose money, but not only because of piracy. The problem is that the producers needs to make things internationally available for purchase, not only for the US. If something is unavailable, then people will turn to piracy. Pirated items are cheaper, but they are also usually of low quality. If something is available (and for a reasonable price) people will purchase it.

And the producers should entice people to buy their products by making the products available, at good quality and even may be give some extra value (like extra features etc) when people buy their products. Furthermore, when people like a show they want to purchase items connected to it, because it supports something they are interested in. If I like a show, then you can be damn sure I want to purchase items connected to it. I want to see the product succeeds because it’s in my interest.

So dear producers: Put a little trust in the consumers of your products. We want you to succeed and we will give you dollars for your work if you only let us to do so. Because we do care (how is that for a slogan? Naah… googling showed it was overused by many others).

…..What is the future of the tv industry then?

I want to have wii and wii fitness

Eirik Newth had a blog entry (norwegian) with this video

A bit scary.. I’m just waiting for my head to say… pop!