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This is a blog about countries, travel, life abroad, culture shock. Yet this post is about technology. About Twitter, to be exact. Why?

I’ve been “using” Twitter off and on for over a year now, but it was only up until very recently that I really got it. I love it. They only thing I don’t love about it is that many of my friends, readers, family, acquaintances are not using it and I’d LOVE to interact with you via Twitter.

Briefly, Twitter is a service where you can share your thoughts in micro-blogs of max. 140 characters. These messages are shared with your followers who get your updates. They can then choose to interact with you. You can also follow other people for their updates.

Here are 5 reasons WHY you should sign up for a Twitter account and start using it.

• Friendsourcing. Got a question? A problem? Let’s say you want to know what the cheapest airline to travel to a particular location in Europe is. Before doing a lot of research, post it on Twitter. Let your friends help you out.
• Network inside your niche. Are you a travel blogger? A PR expert in France? A Norwegian expat? An amateur photographer wanting to go pro? You can follow other people in the same position, but also experts in your niche and stay up to date with them. Through Twitter I’ve communicated with Guy Kawasaki, DoshDosh, had some email exchanges with Michael Arrington, got linked by John Chow, (yes, I’m namedropping) and became acquainted with Andy from CommentLuv – he even commissioned me to produce a DJ mix for him. I also met many fellow expats from around the world through Twitter!
• Learn about the every day lives of others. You might be a medical student, about to graduate soon, maybe you’d be glad to follow doctors and see what their everyday lives are like as a preparation of your professional life.
• It’s the easiest way to stay up to date with friends’ daily lives. Yes, you probably don’t feel like reading all about people’s daily lives. Don’t worry, some people leave maybe 1 tweet per day… and even if you get a lot, you’re not expected to read each and every tweet.
• Stay up to date on current events. Twitter was my main source of updates during the recent Mumbai terrorist acts.

Maybe I convinced you… Maybe you just need to try it out and see for yourself. Here’s what you need to do to get a good start on Twitter:

• Install Twhirl. After signing up with Twitter, please do yourself a favour and use Twhirl. Nearly nobody uses just the web interface of Twitter… and those that do are the sporadic users (like me, in the past). If you’re doing it right, you’re going to be receiving a lot of Tweets from a lot of different people (Tweeple). Using Twhirl keeps it manageable and pleasurable!
• Start following! First of all, find people you know. Have you seen that the authors of blogs you like reading use Twitter? Visit their blog and find out where to follow them on Twitter! Also, use Twitter Search and look for specific things you find interesting. Start following people that write about them. Don’t worry about them possibly not being interesting. It’s fine to unfollow them if they annoy you or you get bored of them. Just grab a lot of people now. Then start selecting later. Here’s a bunch of interesting people to get you started. Oh, and don’t forget to follow me!
• Interact. This is where Twitter really gets fun and offers an awesome value. You can communicate with experts in almost any field through Twitter. You see someone posting an interesting Tweet? Reply to them (here’s how).
• Tweet! Write about what could fascinate others. Found an interesting link? Share it. Pondering an interesting thought? Put it out there. Need some help? Tweet it! The world is listening.
• Promote the fact that you’re Tweeting. Share it on your blog, put it in your email signature, your Facebook status, et cetera. Maybe more people you know are already using Twitter… if not, maybe you’re usage might motivate them to join up. The more, the merrier. After all, that’s why I wrote this post.

First things first. Go to www.twitter.com. Sign up. Follow me.

Are you already using Twitter? What’s your nickname? Why are you using Twitter? Do you have any other useful tips?

Besides following me on Twitter… you can also follow this blog via RSS or email updates.

Thank God I didn’t wake up with a hangover today. Where to begin!

Germany Shuts Down Wikipedia

Censorship’s creeping up on us. Just 3 weeks ago I wrote about Turkey’s ban of Blogger/Blogspot, which I didn’t write about because I specifically care about Turkey’s internet, but because I care about the freedom of the internet. I’m sure a lot of visitors were able to stay detached from the situation and not care so much, maybe this time the news will have more impact because even Germany is guilty of web censorship now.

Lutz Heilmann, a German parliament member, took legal action against Wikipedia, because of an article mentioning his alleged involvement in the Stasi, Eastern Germany’s secret police during communist time. Great job in proving you’ve not been a member or showing that you’ve changed by getting the web censored, it’s almost like if the police called for web censorship after being accused of Gestappo practices. Oh wait, that actually happened.

What happened in Germany is that www.wikipedia.de no longer links to wikipedia.org, the main site of wikipedia. The German version of Wikipedia is still available through de.wikipedia.org.

It looks like Heilmann realized what kind of shitstorm his legal procedures were starting to bring down on him and before accidentally flushing his future political career down the toilet and he issued a press release (in German) saying that Wikipedia can make Wikipedia.org accessible via Wikipedia.de again. He also adds that it wasn’t about censorship for him. Hey, guess what, this is exactly what China says too. Good job, Lutz.

More at TechCrunch.

Earthquake Hits Sofia, Bulgaria

Last night after coming home from meeting with Hans, a Dutch expat and international communication specialist in Istanbul, I had an email in my inbox from my girlfriend telling me that there was an earthquake in Sofia. She’s fine, her family’s fine and I believe my friends are all safe, since I already spoke to those living closest to the epicenter. It was a 4.0-magnitude (Richter scale) earthquake lasting 2.3 seconds.

This morning there was an aftershock, which was less heavy.

More at Novinite.

Brazilian Bloggers Take To Streets

Coming back to the topic of internet freedom, Brazilian bloggers and internet junkies (in the good sense of the word) took to the streets in São Paolo to demonstrate against the Digital Crimes Bill, which defines cyber-crimes and stipulates penalties accordingly. Bloggers feel the bill, which was passed by the Brazilian Senate in July, is too loosely formulated and might lead to over-surveillance of the internet at the cost of freedom of speech and expression.

More at Global Voices.

What are some of the best initiatives you have seen regarding the freedom of speech on the internet? Or, completely unrelated, have you ever been in an earthquake?

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In response to the intimidation of a Dutch police woman, both on- and offline, head of police union ACP, Geert van de Kamp, has called for web censorship.

An investigation has been launched into the intimidation of the police woman, who works for the foreign police of The Netherlands. In the night of Monday to Tuesday, unknown people vandalized the front door of the police woman’s house with red paint.

Also, the tires of the police woman’s car were slashed.

A group called the Winterschilders (Winterpainters) claimed responsibility for the act by posting a message on indymedia.nl, which included the full name and address of the police woman (and a picture, claims the police union). Their message reads:

Tonight The Winterpainters visited XXX, foreign police, XXX, XXX. (XXX replacing her personal data which have been removed by indymedia)

Her frontdoor got some red paint on it; symbol for the blood of the people that suffer due to the practices of the foreigner police.
We also made sure she couldn’t get to her work quickly today (flat tires).
This is a warning to all her colleagues of the modern gestapo (foreign police, immigration and naturalisation service, justice dept.).

You are responsible for what you are doing.
Stop it.

The Winterpainters

Gerrit van de Kamp, head of police union ACP, calls the incident “unheard of”, saying this “absolutely cannot and may not happen again.” And what better way to react to Gestapo accusations than calling for censorship?

Van de Kamp wants to ask the ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs to make it impossible to publish messages like the above on the internet, saying it should be “technologically possible” to filter such messages.

Gerrit van de Kamp, you are either unaware of what exactly is “technologically possible” or you are calling for censorship. In a statement on ACP’s website, you call for “preventive measures to prevent name & address data of police people to be posted on the internet”. That’s a lot more nuanced and understandable, yet it is impossible to put such filters in place without seriously endangering the freedom of the citizens you’re serving. You are asking for ISPs to filter what their users are posting to the internet:

• Should the ISPs report every filtered instance to the police?
• How will the “technologically possible” filter prevent innocent people from being censored?
• What prevents the government from adding more and more terms to the filter once it is in place?

Such a filter would be a step towards fascism. Yes, you have the duty to protect police staff, as do we, as Dutch citizens, but you are calling for a very extreme measure. The internet shall not be filtered, instead, prosecute websites or people that post this data on the internet. Call for tough laws and higher penalties to discourage people from committing these acts. That way it will be the websites’ responsibilities to filter the content posted to them.

Also, there have been many reports over the last 5 years about ill-treated asylum seekers and there has been a lot of protests about this, this incident being the most extreme protest thus far. Maybe it actually is time for the government to have another look at what’s going on and punish those responsible for incidents.

The suggested measure in your reaction is disproportionate. Please reconsider.

That will be all.

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I became a fan of ‘Everything’ on Facebook and got this announcement which I thought was particularly funny. I’m sure it would have made Douglas Adams proud. I know it has nothing to do with this blog’s normal topics, but since it I found it exceptionally humorous for an online thing, I had to share it.

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Right now, Blogger and *.blogspot.com domains are available again while courts await further evidence backing Digiturk’s claims. Great. Let’s hope it stays that way. After YouTube got unbanned, it got banned again, so who knows what will happen.

The ban has been lifted by the Turkish court that previously blocked Blogger last Friday. They have requested “missing evidence” but made it clear that the ban could be reintroduced after the legal procedure is completed by the prosecutor.

Digiturk, Turkish license holder for the broadcasts of Turkish football league games, asked for blogs with links to pirated streams to be removed. Blogger did not reply and Digiturk went to court, getting millions of innocent blogs blocked. The statement that “Blogger did not reply” makes me think all Digiturk did was send out an email – and as some of us know, if you email Google services, be prepared to wait two weeks. They should have called.

The law that allows for the blocking of domain names still stands. Many popular sites are still blocked. Blogger can be blocked again. It’s not over, but at least Blogger’s available again. Yet still we can expect to see more of this:

And the protest banner posted on Turkish (as well as international) blogs hosted at blogspot.com:

Thanks to Hans for his useful tip!
Thanks to the Istanbulian for further information.

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Apparently Caucasus Online, an internet provider in Georgia, uses Turkey’s service network, as it is reported that internet users in Georgia are now also unable to visit sites from Blogger and *.blogspot.com domains.

A solution for Windows users to “unblock” Blogger and YouTube has been posted here:

Find the file named “hosts” under windows/system32/drivers/etc/
folder.
Open this file with Notepad

Append those lines

72.14.207.191 blogger.com
209.85.165.191 www.blogger.com
208.117.236.69 youtube.com www.youtube.com
208.117.236.70 youtube.com www.youtube.com

Save and close it.

This solved my problems, I posted as if there is no ban.

More about this solution can be read by clicking here.

So, no more this:

This is bad though. It’s one thing that Turkey decides to ban a whole domain based on poor logic, but it affecting people in another country makes it a lot worse.

Some useful links to unblock YouTube/Blogger (blogspot)/other blocked pages in Turkey (and Georgia):

• http://atunnel.com/
• http://unblocked.org/
• http://unblockyoutube.org/

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For those of you that are not familiar with Entrecard, click here.

Ok, time to do a roundup of this month’s topdroppers. With the moving abroad and the travelling, it’s been tough to always drop back, so an extra thank you!

Topdropper: Wonderful Pic Collection (you get 500 ECs!)

Second place: iWalk,U2? (you get 300 ECs!)

Third place: Juliana’s Site (you get 200 ECs!)

I think most of you are aware of the 12.5% tax introduced by Entrecard for the credit transfers. I won’t deduct that, I’ll pay for it myself! Keep dropping and earn credits!

Other topdroppers:

Picturing of Life – My Imaginary Travels – Beyond Taiwan – From a Yellow House in England – Zen Tricks – Iconz World – WebFrap

Go check out my Entrecard page and leave a recommendation/review!

For those of you that are not familiar with Entrecard, click here.

For all the visitors from Entrecard, I have a special deal for you which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Add my blog to your daily dropping rounds and get credits! At the end of the month, I will spend 1000 credits on the top 3 droppers.

Number one gets 500 credits.
Number two gets 300 credits.
Number three gets 200 credits.

So get to dropping on my Entrecard widget and please try to participate on my blog. I have SezWho installed, so it’s yet another way to earn credits… Oh and if you drop, I follow!

Happy dropping!

This month’s EC top droppers. These are the people who stopped by my blog the most to “drop” a card at the widget at the top right. Since a drop’s always well-appreciated, I make sure to drop back, but another sign of thanks is presenting the top droppers of this month publicly.

1) Wonderful Pic Collection – About 2 funny pictures per day are posted on this site. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

2) iWalk, U2? - A travel blog & travel guide. Well-written and well-designed.

2) Travel Asia - An Asian travel blog.

2) From A Yellow House In England – The blog of an American ex-pat who lives in the English countryside.

5) Chuvaness… Chakanesss… Eclavu… - One of the most popular ex-pat sites on Entrecard. This blog’s written by a ‘Pinay dreamer’.

6) What a bald guy told me about technology! - A personal ‘technology’ blog about gadgets and software.

6) Search Engine Panel - A blog by a Toronto Search Engine Optimization expert.

6) Sonnie’s Porch - An Assistant Vice President’s take on life, from the Phillipines.

6) PragueConnection - Travel stories from a guy based in Prague.

6) The Traveling Pants - A blog covering a family’s travels, but often relating it to some historical background.

As you notice, many people tied. Would like to be in this list? Start dropping.

To all droppers: thanks a lot.

While using EntreCard, I’m doing a couple of things to add even more value to my actions or drops. Since it’s rainy and grey outside (can’t wait to go to Turkey), it’s a perfect day to write about it.

Firstly, I’ll explain what EntreCard is. Secondly, I’ll go through some of the basics for all the readers who are not members yet. Thirdly, I’ll explain what I do in the form of some tips and pointers, so hopefully the whole EntreCard experience will become better for all of us.

I find it extraordinarily hard to explain what EntreCard actually is. It’s a blogging community, it’s an advertising system, it’s a way to network with other blogs… On the main page Entrecard talks about themselves as “your businesscard 2.0″. The most essential thing about Entrecard is surfing to other community members’ blogs and “dropping” a card on their Entrecard widget (see top right sidebar). By dropping cards, you earn credits, which you then can spend to advertise on sites that are on Entrecard.

Entrecard partnered with SezWho, a comment tracking system, so that it can give you credits every time you comment on another person’s blog. Great way to stimulate community-forming on members’ blogs! So as you’re going through your daily dropping, be sure to leave comments! Maybe you get tons of comments nowadays and they don’t mean much to you, but remember that time when one or two comments did matter. Comment on other blogs and experience the gratitude and reciprocation.

Something else I do regarding comments on my own blog is I generally give them 5 stars through SezWho. What can I say? I love every one of them. This helps people to build their rep on the net.

If you like a certain post on someone’s site, or like the whole overall site… Stumble it! Digg it! Whatever you use… Just do it! Write a Tweet about it, it doesn’t matter. When using Entrecard, many people are so wrapped up in it, that they forget to give a “thumbs up” for content they like. Start Stumbling content you like of other Entrecard users and you’ll notice that the next time people you stumbled visit your blog, they might leave a stumble before leaving.

If you place an ad on a site… Stumble or Digg the site! Either when you apply for it, or on the day it’s actually running. Increase your chances of visitors in any way you can.

Reciprocate drops. Check your inbox and reciprocate. That’s the easiest way to get a basic reader community on your site via Entrecard.

Put some statistics on your website. I generally check for three things:

• Number of subscribers to the site.
• FEEDJIT. Since my blog’s about Istanbul, Turkey, it helps me to assess where most people’s visitors are from. I find that Europeans are generally more interested in my site than people from Indonesia or the Philippines.
• BlogCatalog. It allows me to see how often the blog gets visitors. It shows the names of BlogCatalog community members and shows how long ago they visited the site. It gives me an indication of the traffic the site gets.

When none of these are present, I can be a bit wary about spending my EC credits, but not always of course. A lot of Entrecard is about experimenting! After all, it’s just credits you’re spending, so spend away.

Monitor your EC statistics, award your top ten droppers publically (giving an incentive for others to drop on your site regularly), and make friends! Because EC offers such a friendly environment, if you’re the least bit active, it’s impossible not to make friends.
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