Weekly Photo Challenge: Opposites

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Germany, internet, opposites, photography, photos, Weekly Photo Challenge, Weekly Photo Challenge: Opposites

At the moment I am in Germany and I am currently (sort of) living an opposite life. I am speaking German, not English, I am in the countryside, not in a city. I am close to my family, as opposed to far away across the sea. I writing every day, opposed to working and trying to squeeze it it when I can. The only opposite thing that i find really annoying at the moment is that I don’t have access to the internet, for ten days now and it is driving me crazy, in Dublin I am always online and I have to say I do miss the easy access! Thankfully my mother is giving me refuge and I can write this post.

my home for the next few weeks, lovely place even without the Internet

Germany – the land that denies me access to the World Wide Web

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Gremany, internet, surfing, travel, Tschibo, Vodafone, World Wide Web, writing

I’ve been in Germany for a week now and it has been filled with the search for the Internet. A search that has not been overly successful. 

In theory it is really easy to join the surfers of the World Wide Web, practically near impossible. My first attempt frustrated me with its failing. I bought a stick, dongle or whatever you want to call it, added on some allowance and tried to surf the web, but I never caught a wave. 

The stick was by a company called Tschibo – winner in price and simplicity of usage – but their advertisement was false, just plug-in and off you go turned into me cycling back and forth into the village and calling Tschibo all to no avail. The next attempt was the local electro store, here at least I had some customer service but eve he was not sure he could provide what I need – ‘you can buy this stick (Vodafonr this time and three times the price, plus the allowance double the price as well) and give it a go, but the coverage isn’t too good and I doubt it will make you happy.’

My wonderful sister then drove me to Cuxhaven where a lovely guy from a big brightly coloured media store told me that if my hotspot doesn’t work, neither will a stick. He showed me how to get myself setup, so now, if I climb two flights of stairs until I’m up under the eaves, and sit by an open window, and it’s not raining and not too windy, and not after 5pm I can try and access the Internet. It doesn’ always work but at least I can try!

Who knew that Germany – such a successful and rich country – was so far behind when it comes to Internet coverage. And sadly this may mean I will have to cut my plans short as I won’t be able to work with so little access to the Internet. I’ll try it for a few more days and see if I can make it work, if not I’ll be packing my bags again and finding a new refuge for a few weeks.

wasted time with UPC

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Helen Mirren, internet, internet connection, internet provider, phone calls, quote, UPC

I have just spent more than an hour on the phone, and not because I was having a particularly long girly chat with a friend or was interviewing someone or was ordering lots of shoes, no I was on the phone trying to solve some long standing issues I am having with my internet provider.

As someone who sits many hours in front of her keyboard staring into the world wide web my internet connection is a big part of my every day life. Sadly that connection has not been going smoothly since Christmas and there have been many hangups, time-outs, up-load and streaming issues.

After several phone calls, emails and even a letter of complaint over the past six weeks the issue is still unresolved, even after an hour wasted chatting to FIVE different departments.

Maybe it wouldn’t annoy me so much if I had the feeling that they where trying to help me, but after two hang-ups (yes two people psychically hung up on me) and being asked by a customer-care person: “what do expect me to do?” , I can clearly state that UPC really doesn’t seem to be interested me and my problem.

As someone who has been a loyal customer for nearly 10 years I find that more than just a little insulting, especially since they are upping their price by €5 and are advertising with the fasted broadband speeds in Ireland.

Now I am left with a very unsatisfied feeling in the pit of my stomach, a slight sense of rage niggling the back of my mind and a big question-mark occupying my thoughts. After all even if I switch my provider I may be paying less but the service isn’t better either.

Strange how something that should be saving time and making life easier seems to have so many hidden traps and inbuilt time wasters.

There is no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.

Helen Mirren

twitter-y-do

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alan rubridger, great marketing, guardian newspapers, guttenberg, hashtag, internet, journalism, media, miscellaneous, random, social media, twiter, writing

I have never seen the attraction of Twitter, never signed up for an account of even tried to understand why so many people seemed to enjoy tweeting their time away.

However, the first time I thought I  should maybe change my attitude and take a second look at Twitter, was when I heard that Alan Rusbridger, the editor in chief of the Guardian Newspapers, was praising it’s media usage. The next time was when the Irish Times journalist Conor Pope told my students what a great research tool it was. And then when I met up with a good friend and wonderful journalist after Christmas, she told me about the unlimited resources Twitter seems to supply and what a great marketing tool it is, especially for freelancers like myself.

But no matter how many questions I asked her about Twitter, tweeting and threads, she kept telling me that the best way to learn about Twitter was to become part of the tweeting community. Not wanting to add another form of social media to the constant stream of information already bombarding my screen without doing a little research, I dug around on the internet and found a great transcript of a lecture held by Alan Rusbridger in 2010.

He talks about the changes the media has gone through since the very beginning with Guttenberg’s press. It has never been static and has always tried to find ways of expanding its reach, allowing the flow of information to extend further and be more divers.  Rusbridger also convincingly explains the benefits Twitter has for journalism, emphasising that giving ‘everyone’ a voice that can be heard and can influence the media is possibly the truest form of journalism. After all, we all want freedom of speech and to limit the power of large media companies and their control over what we know and have access to.

So after reading the lecture and digesting the 15 points Rusbridger makes about what Twitter does possibly better than any other form of social media, I signed up for my own account, still not knowing how the whole thing really works. Two days in and I am overwhelmed with the stream of information that now floods my screen and mind. However I think tweeting is something that needs a bit of time to figure out. After all we all have our own unique way of communicating and it is a matter of finding out how Twitter fits in.

But since I figured out today what the hash-tag, hashtag or hash tag (#) actually does and means, I feel as if I am just at the beginning of a twitter-y journey, even if I don’t know where it will take me yet. But since I only have five followers so far, if I get lost it won’t affect too many.

So if you want to be part of my exploration this is me @JensineWall and my twitter-y-do.

I am sometimes giddy with the possibilities new technologies offer us for being better journalists: for reaching even larger audiences; for having more influence; for being embedded in the most astonishing network of information the world has ever seen or could ever have imagined.