Those of us lucky enough to have regular work that involves travelling a lot in far flung lands, soon become aware that not everyone speaks our native language with the same fluency as ourselves.

In fact, the more we travel, the more we come to realise that English has more variations than eBay Customer Supports’ interpretations of eBay policy for a particular topic. We also, without realising it, soon get drawn into becoming ad-hoc teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), and it is the wise frequent-traveller who keeps a set of notes in their baggage for fulfilling the all too frequent requests to present something on the EFL topic when visiting distant destinations.

Thus it happens that I keep in my “journo-bag” a set of notes for giving a brief presentation regarding descriptive English, which was first presented years ago to a group of undergrad journalism students. It’s a presentation that I can now give from memory, but I keep the notes handy as they can be copied and used as hand-outs, which are always appreciated.

Following up on an email from a BuildaSkill reader, I downloaded eBay Australia’s new 12 page manual for how to use their New Search system, already imposed on the UK and ready to roll in Australia soon. Currently New Search is only available to Australia in the eBay Playground, where in my opinion it should stay. After all, as the BuildaSkill reader said, if it needs a 12-page manual, then it should be ditched and taken back to basics … ummm … a bit like Google search perhaps?

Anyway … browsing through the New Search tutorial, I managed to just in time stop myself from spraying my keyboard and monitor with coffee, and somehow avoided choking myself with it as I burst out laughing at this graphic on page 4 …

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Get a FREE Issue of Videomaker Magazine and learn how to make the best vzaar and YouTube videos for use in your eBay and eBid auctions. 

If what vzaar and eBay are telling us is true about video in listings, then it’s time to up your game and have some fun at the same time.  (Yes, you did read that first bit right - eBid has, since before Christmas, had a facility for you to put your YouTube videos into auctions on their site.)

Computer Videomaker Magazine is an industry-leading, monthly publication from the USA, that will mail subscriber copies to anywhere in the world. 

They also have a free e-newsletter (who doesn’t nowadays?)  and when you sign up they’ll give you a free tips sheet to instantly improve your video making.

Videomaker covers the use of camcorders, digital video editing, and desktop video and audio production for novice and expert enthusiasts alike.  Its articles survey and review the latest equipment, teach production techniques, and explain the newest technological advances.  The product reviews alone could save you from an expensive mistake, or give you a bidding advantage if you buy at online auction - learn what’s incoming and what’s outgoing technology, and bid accordingly.

But it doesn’t just stop at the printed tome coming through your letterbox.  Videomaker have their own website (naturally) and are building a community of video buffs to share and assist each other the world over.  If you’re based in North America, you’ll also be pleased to hear they have a series of 1, 2, and 3 day interactive workshops that drift about from place to place, but don’t worry you can find the full schedule in the magazine each month.

Of course, if you don’t want to shell out for a monthly magazine from the professionals, you can always pop across to the BuildaSkill Photography Forums and chat with other shutter bugs, or with some of the longest serving eBay and eBid sellers around.

Ed

Concerns about border security and terrorism drive government surveillance initiatives, says report

from ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON - Individual privacy is under threat in the United States and across the European Union as governments introduce sweeping surveillance and information-gathering measures in the name of security and border control, an international rights group said in a report.  Greece, Romania and Canada posted the best privacy records in a survey by the London-based watchdog Privacy International, which assessed the state of surveillance and privacy protection in 47 countries.

Malaysia, Russia and China were ranked worst, along with Singapore.

‘The general trend is that privacy is being extinguished in country after country,’ said Privacy International director Simon Davies.

‘Even those countries where we expected ongoing strong privacy protection, like Germany and Canada, are sinking into the mire.’

In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst-ranking country in the democratic world.  In terms of overall privacy protection, it performed very poorly as well.

US President George W. Bush’s administration has come under fire for its domestic wire-tapping programme, which allows warrantless monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mail involving people suspected of having terrorist links.

‘The last five years have seen a litany of surveillance initiatives,’ Mr Davies said.

He said little had changed since the Democrats took control of Congress a year ago.

‘We would expect the cancellation of some programmes, the review of others, but this hasn’t occurred,’ Mr Davies said.

The worst-ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which fell into the ‘endemic surveillance’ category along with Russia and Singapore.

Britain was criticised for its plans to introduce national identity cards, a lack of government accountability, and the world’s largest network of surveillance cameras. 

Mr Davies said the loss earlier this year of computer disks containing personal information and bank details of 25 million people in Britain highlighted the risks of centralising information in huge government databases.

Along with the US and Britain, some of the countries with the least privacy protection, such as the Philippines, are also considered at risk of terrorist attacks.

The correlation with terrorist threats, however, is unclear. Ireland, Spain and Germany, which have been victims of terrorist attacks, scored better than relatively calmer countries such as Norway and Sweden.

The 1,100-page report released on Saturday said privacy protection was worsening across western Europe, although it was improving in the former communist states of eastern Europe.

Surveillance initiatives initiated by the EU headquarters in Brussels have caused a substantial decline in privacy across Europe, eroding protections even in those countries that have shown a traditionally high regard for privacy.

The privacy performance of older democracies in Europe is generally failing, while the performance of newer democracies is becoming generally stronger, said the report.

It also said concern about terrorism, immigration and border security was driving the spread of identity and fingerprinting systems, often without regard to individual privacy.

The report said the trends ‘have been fuelled by the emergence of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes’.

The survey considered a range of factors including legal protection of privacy, enforcement, data sharing, the use of biometrics, and the prevalence of CCTV cameras.

The 47 countries surveyed were put in five categories, from the best - countries with ‘adequate safeguards against abuse’ - to the worst - ‘endemic surveillance societies’.

————–

When I discovered the above article here, I felt I just had to share it with you all.  It seems to be such a contrast to the article praising Singapore for attracting foreign owned businesses and IPOs that I posted here a few days ago.

Performing a google search on “surveillance centre” almost the first result back was for a UK operation, openly advertising on the Internet and nestling in a full page of results for communicable disease surveillance units (  I’m saying nothing about that juxtaposition) ….

If you read their “About” page, it reads like a “what’s what” of everything you hoped would never enter your business life, although the “counter surveillance training” sounds intriguing   … it also sounds like a way to create a self-perpetuating market.  Or, is it all just pandering to the paranoid? 

- “in this classroom we teach you how to spy on the competition, and in that one, we teach them howe to find out if you’re doing it.  This means you will have to come back next year to upgrade your spying skills, but of course they’ll be coming back to improve their spycatching skills, so you’ll then need to come back again …..” etc etc. 

Nice customer loyalty, if you can get it.

Another quick google led me to www.hiddenpinholecameras.com who have got lots of “toys” and “toys detectors” to play with, in fact I could happily spend a few hours learning about the whole surveillance and counter-surveillance technology game, if I had the time to spare.  Maybe I’ll have a nosy under the guise of checking out their web technology for posting in our forums IT sections   any excuse huh?

Be good - you never know who’s watching, or listening, and remember the WW2 slogan - “Walls have ears”.  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there’s no-one out to get you.

Ed

A comment I read somewhere prompted me to think about domain names for websites ….

Our own domain name buildaskill.com might seem obvious enough, especially when we Capitalise within the name string - BuildaSkill.com - but there are people out there who like to play with words, and why not?  It is after all an ancient form of humour.

BuildaSkill.com could be punned as BuildAskIll.com (I’m sure eBay think so from some of our blog and forum posts and comments).  But it gets funnier, or more insulting, or dangerous, for some other domains.

Consider those famous Microsoft support professionals ExpertsExchange.com (providers of deep-core support for individuals and corporates running Microsoft Exchange Server and associated server suites) - how about someone calling them ExpertSexChange.com ?

Then there’s the leisure complex company, Pen Island Resorts, who aught to shoot their webmaster for opening them up to jokes about PenisLand.com - or they could change their marketing strategy to attract bored housewives and Club 18-30 female members?

As much as there is an aversion to using hyphens and underscores in domain names (a sort of stigma that doing so means you’re a Johnny-come-lately to the web world), there are clear cases for when it’s advisable.

As the online retailer Perfume Bay found out - online auction mega-site eBay took exception to their domain name taking them all the way through the US court system because of name-copyright infringement - www.perfumEBAY.com (All credit to TamEbay  for discovering the story).

Sometimes it pays to find your office joker and run a proposed domain name past them first

China has launched it’s first lunar orbiter & surveying spacecraft.

India and Japan are said to be close on their heels, and China has announced it wants to put a robotic rover on the moon within 5 years, followed by a manned expedition by 2020.  They are looking for an element known as Helium-3, a non-radioactive isotope they hope to use for fuelling nuclear power stations.

Those of us who remember the USA v USSR space race, during the 1960s and 1970s, will remember all the technological advances that came from it.  Inventions that today are mundane, such as Teflon non-stick cookware and 2-part epoxy adhesives, came from the last space race and opened a whole new world of products to trade.

It leaves me wondering what wonders will be mass-produced from China’s massive capacity for cheap goods in order to fund their stellar aspirations?

Ed

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