The digital space or the World Wide Web is the world´s ”new” wild west. I still feel drawn to it and am slowly crawling back into it, after having taken part in shaping it. This blog site will help me become a more active player in the digital world once again.
As an editor-writer-manager in the information and communications (ICT) sector in the Philippines from 1995 to 2003/2004, I was one of those who were able to peek first and write early about new technologies by traveling to some of the world´s first product launches or product prototype unveiling events. I could also interview face-to-face some of the biggest names in the ICT sector. I saw the first prototypes of the smart house in the NCR Knowledge Center in Atlanta, Georgia, USA in 1995. I was there when the first Pentium III-run PC was launched in San Francisco, USA in 1999. I couldn´t anymore remember well, but perhaps it was there I first met the late Andy Grove, Intel Corporation´s legendary CEO.
At a press conference in Manila in 1997, I got to ask Bill Gates two questions: one about the Y2K millennium bug issue and another about Microsoft´s vision as a software company in relation to the increased competition from the open source operating system and office productivity applications at that time. His answer to the second question would haunt me for many years. I thought that they would succeed like he said, because of the way he said those words — without ifs and buts. I couldn´t remember the exact words now, but I thought I heard him say Microsoft would become the number one software company by beating all its competitors in the long-run. In later years, I also met the IT world´s most charismatic CEO at that time, the dynamic Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp.
During those years, I worked hard and with passion about making ICT more available (and affordable) in the Philippines (and I hoped around the world). Sadly the company I worked for then folded up, three to four years after the new millennium rolled in. The business model our company was built on worked well during the heydays of ICT as a niche market, but it became inoperative when ICT became more and more a part of mainstream life and business. Other trade publications with the same or similar business model like ours followed suit after a while.
Since I´ve moved from the Philippines to Norway in 2005/2006, I´ve shifted back to the field where my core competencies lie (where my studies in the universities in the Philippines and here in Norway focused on): business economics, including taxation and financial accounting. I´ve liked how my brain has functioned when dealing with numbers in my work as an economic and financial consultant for the past 10 years, but I´ve never forgotten my fascination for words.
Blogging is, therefore, a part of my efforts to assuage my subconscious for not having used much time to give more space to my interest and talents in the game of words in the past 14 years. Thankfully, I´ve stopped having the dreams about me dying, ever since I´ve started writing again, In one of those dreams, I asked myself I why I died, and the answer I gave myself in that dream was: ”I died because I have given up.”
While blogging will provide an outlet for my creative juices, it can also create new learning routes and habits that will help me keep abreast of new technologies and innovations, especially gadgets, programs, and apps that are becoming more and more integrated with modern daily living.
I have come up with my own site so I can write the things I´m interested in, instead of letting others decide it for me or waiting for others to do this. I can freely choose topics, and write about them with my own angles and writing styles, and publish posts at any time during my free time.
Practical issues about this blog site
I put premium on the quality and security of information I publish online, so the task at hand is not just about writing and publishing contents that others will want to read, but also making the site secure for such readers.
The first technical step to creating my site was to register and pay for a domain name that is easy to remember and can easily be associated with me as a private person. In the digital era, it is common for content providers to use their given names in marketing their outputs. I ended up registering pruds.no, because pruds.com, pru.no, prus.no, and other easy-to-remember combinations involving my known nicknames or first name prudence or prudencia were already taken.
I will be publishing blogs as a hobby in the first months, but may turn this into both a creative and commercial venture later on. As a new hobby enterprise, I don´t have to be registered in the government´s or EU´s registry of businesses, so a business registration number doesn´t yet appear on this site.
The intellectual property rights to the contents of the site belong to me as a private citizen of Norway, even if this site was still a hobby venture. I am also personally responsible for the contents I publish on this site.
My husband is a self-taught expert in many tech-related matters, including IT hardware, software, and Web site creation and maintenance, so I´ve asked him to help me design and build this Web site during his free time. We had to get a digital certificate for this Web site that would serve as an electronic “password” allowing a person or organization to exchange data securely over the Internet using the public key infrastructure (PKI). This is not as easy as it sounds. After buying the digital certificate, we had to activate it, install it, and finally, update the site to use HTTPS.
We also have to ensure the site is compliant with Norway’s new Personal Data Act, which consists of national regulations and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This involves, for example, fine-tuning the site´s privacy policy, obtaining clear consent to using cookies, and ensuring that the site´s plugins comply with the GDPR.
My husband also helped me choose WordPress as a content management system (CMS) because it offers the best templates for the blog site I had in mind. I´d start this site using WordPress free template system, and then consider using and paying for their upgrade options when the site would be able to generate respectable traffic and income streams within the next few months.
I haven´t used WordPress before, so I was relieved to find out that its editing program is as they describe it on their Web site: fast and intuitive, and includes HTML support. It is also easy to drag and drop images into posts one works on in the WordPress templates.
It is disappointing to discover that most translation plug-ins today can´t handle automatic translation of the contents of this site, if I posted articles in both English and Norwegian. Thus, I must post all articles in the chosen main language, also right in the menu for the site´s selected main language, and then, translate each content into the other language. The site’s translator plug-in allows me to translate manually one section at a time. I use Google Translate to help me translate some paragraphs outside the site’s translation tab (every time I am stressed or not working fast enough). I manually edit the translated version in Microsoft Word or any other text editing tool, cut and paste the edited version into WordPress’s translation tab, and then save it. Clicking on the language switch buttons on the site will then allow a reader to read chosen contents in the selected language: English or Norwegian.
Loving IT at the First (Bit and) Byte
I think I became fascinated with ICT at the first ”bit and byte.” I had a good start with techie stuff in 1984 and since then, I´ve always liked how ICT has helped me do things more efficiently. Thus, blogging about techie stuff is like eating my favorite foods or watching my favorite Netflix series.
I´ve done hands-on product reviews and write-ups as well as supervised and edited product reviews done by others as part of my work as editor of an ICT trade publication in the years 1995-2003/2004. Since I find it exciting to learn about the features of new products or compare a new model of a gadget with the older versions and the competing products, I´d be writing and publishing about my hands-on reviews of some new tech products or smart kitchen gadgets (including, but not limited to smartphones, smart wearables, tablets, and other smart home devices).
