12 Jan

Don’t Panic, We Are From The Internet #366Project #Occupy_London

Written by UrbanVox 0 Comments

Today I’ve been to the Occupy London camp site to do a few photos for a Brazilian publication. I honestly can’t say I understand what they are doing there. I mean… it’s all great to want to camp out and protest against the increase in the rich/poor gap and the huge bail-out to banks and other finance institutions and all that… but… Will it really make any difference?

Today was day 88 of the Occupation since their last eviction… I am not sure how effective they are actually being… Feels like the annoying street preacher shouting to to the 4 winds about salvation and repentance… Shouting to the wind… But one can only hope the wind will carry the message to the right ears.

At least no matter how grim and cold and grey things look… You can always count with a good sense of humor!

Don’t Panic, We are from The Internet…

Carpe Diem!

PS: You can see more photos from the set here

13 Dec

Back to The Dark Ages…

Written by UrbanVox 0 Comments

I know you will say that I am exaggerating on that one, but this is exactly how I feel right now… In the Dark Ages…

Over the past few days we’ve been experiencing quite a few issues with our electrical supply. Power Cuts, Surges, lighs blinking a lot and as of today more time without electricity than with any at all…

No TV, no computers (how am I supposed to work without my computers on?!?! can you tell me that? Well… there is the MACBook, but then what do I do when the battery is over… and even then… what’s the point of having the laptop when there is no internet because there is no electricity?

Which then brings me to more serious issues… also… no heating!!!!!! No hot water for showers… today I mostly smell like a baby wipes… no… don’t ask… you know the answer anyway…

Power supply spent the whole day teasing me today… it came on for 5 minutes… the 20…. then back to 2 minutes and sometimes just a few seconds… How is one supposed to live like that???

And that is not the worse part!!! MY iPhone IS DEAD!!!!!!!!!! Somehow I’ve managed to short circuit it plugging it to charge after using outside when it was marginally damp….

I feel totally cut off from the world… I know this kinda sounds ridiculous… after all one can always go out and speak to real people instead… right?!?! riiiight????!!!! I mean… people did that for like forever before the invention of social networks and other things… Is not imposible… right?!! right?!?!?!!?

*mentally opens the door and sees the empty street… EMPTY*

HOW ON EARTH DID PEOPLE USE TO LIVE LIKE THIS??????

Staying at home was driving me insane… so I picked up my laptop and made my way to Bluewater and am now sitting here in the middle of a million people and… talking to other people over the internet… hehe… hehe…

I wonder what would happen to all of us constantly plugged into this or that social networks, yes… plural… most people I know is in more than one… twitter, facebook, orkut, myspace, path, instagram… what would they do if they sudenly couldn’t share thoughts, news, photos, videos etc almost instantly…. what would it happen if you had to go back to waiting days… maybe months to receive news? What would happen to the world if we were to truly go back to the dark ages in the blink of an eye?

Wow… all of a sudden this post has totally been blown out of proportion now… lol… but it raises a valid point… One that I’d love to hear your point on… what would you do today if in a blink of an eye the lights came off and never came back on????

How dependent on technology are you???

11 Mar

How Young Is Too Young?

Written by UrbanVox 16 Comments

My kids are my pride and joy and I tend to broadcast every single one of their little milestones and pearls over the internet for everyone to see, be it on twitter, Facebook, my blog or whatever means I am favouring at the day. He is no stranger to computers either, at 6 years olf he has his own favorites folder and even uses google to search for subjects he finds interesting (usually lego, star wars or club penguin related things).

They have been blogged about every since they were born, and let’s put it like that, all of us parent bloggers do share the whole of their lives for the world to see. With TB it has been no different. His mum is a blogging addict, being a blogger is one of the biggest parts in my lif too and so is Hales… Hell even my parents are having a go at blogging…

Considering that every single adult that holds importance in his life is, in one way or another, doing it… I wasn’t very surprised when he came to me today and said:

Daddy, I want you to build me a website so I can write things on it every day!

When I asked him if he didn’t think he was too young for it he looked into my eyes and said:

“Daddy, I am almost 7 years old! Even B (one of his school friends) has a website! You have one, mummy has one, Hayley has one… don’t you think I should have one too?”

Although I would worry about his safety, and WHAT he ends up putting there and all that I can’t argue with his logic… I mean he IS NEARLY 7 YEARS OLD *sniggers*.

I haven’t given him an answer yet. I said I would think and let him know next week… The fact is that I AM tempted to let him have it… IF I can make sure his posts can be kept secret and I can have parental control over it all… There are ways of doing it… I’m just not completely sure… I would love to know what goes on in his head…

How young is to young after all… Kids ar so much more mature nowadays…

What do you think???? Would you let your kid enter the blogosphere at 7 years of age? Is that old enough? What would be the limits you would impose??? I would REALLY love to know what you think about that… so please… Comment away!!!

26 Nov

Going Off The Grid

Written by UrbanVox 2 Comments

We’re dropping off the the face of the earth in a couple of hours for a whole weekend without technology in an undisclosed location. Well… not really… We’re both taking laptops, cameras, mobiles and 2 Mobile Internet Dongles, but we have a deal… they get stashed away for most of the time (apart from the cameras) and we are not using any social network for the 48hours we are spending away.

I can’t begin to tell you how I’m looking forward to it…

God knows how much I’ve been needing to get away from life for a while… And yeah… The romantic get-away is also much needed after all we’ve been through for the past couple of months.

I Can’t also begin to tell how difficult it will be as well…

Why??

Well… Where do I begin?!?!

I’m constantly attached to my iPhone and constantly checking emails, facebook, twitter, sms, the works…

Hales is glued to her Blackberry more often than not checking the same stuff (plus BBN) and suffers of a serious case of Blackberryitus.

So… going off the grid should be interesting! lol…

See you Sunday night… if we don’t get snowed under…

Actually… I’m taking bets as to how long she’ll manage not to log into any social network… any takers???

Logging Off!

02 Jul

24 at 28kbps… LOL

Written by UrbanVox 1 Comment

Kids today should really be happy with how fortunate they are with their super fast broadband and mobile internet.

When I first started with my addiction to all things internet all I had was the good and old dial-up. OK, if you can consider good the awesome speed of 28kbps!! Hell my mobile does infinitely faster than that today! But hey…

Yes, I am that old! I am from the time where you would be considered cool for having a lycos, geocieties or angelfire HTML website. From the time that if you knew a few HTML codes you would be king of the chatroom and from the time when hacking other people’s computers “for fun” was not a crime. Me and my friends had a particular game almost every night (yup… we used to connect to the internet during the night and some times all night long because you would spend less pulses if you logged in after midnight) That game consisted in taking over each other’s computers and the last one still able to connect to the internet by the end of the night would win… And half the time we would do it via a DOS prompt (have you ever heard of Microsoft DOS??? LOL)

God I was such a nerd!

It is kinda funny to see how far we have come since then! Today my 5 year old son knows his way around the web… I first touched a computer that I could call my own when I was 14! I had somehow convinced my dad to get me one for my b’day. He was writing a book then… and my argument was that the computer would be so much more practical to do that horrible task that he used to do on his electric IBM type-writer. And I also convinced him somehow that the internet is the future of publishing (God I was so ahead of my time then… LOL)

Of course the fact that the first site the guy at the computer fair ever showed me was playboy.com had NOTHING to do with me being so eager to convince my dad… hehehehe… Don’t judge me!!! I was 14 years old!! Naked girls is the only thing in the minds of any dude that age!