Web 2.0 Reporter/Blogger murdered in Iraq

A very sad story, a brave Web reported victimized for voicing his Opinions in Iraq.
A report from Herald Tribune says that Ali Shafeya al-Moussawi was shot 31 times and found dead in his home in Sadr City early Saturday after Iraqi security forces raided the area and entered his home, Alive in Baghdad reported.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement Tuesday that it was trying to determine if Ali Shafeya al-Moussawi was killed because of his work for the Web site Alive in Baghdad.

At least 124 journalists — not including al-Moussawi — and 49 media support staffers have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to CPJ, making it the deadliest conflict for reporters in the last 3 decades at least.

So sad that the virtual world comes to face the real world in such circumstances.

Homer goes YouTube: a picture a day

What would it look like if Homer Simpson took a picture of himself every day of his life and posted on YouTube?
The result is both funny and sad - how life slowly turns Homer into his present gloomy self.

Posting on the Internet? Think your English is good? Check out WhiteSmoke

Everybody's blogging. Aren't you?
I think one of the things people expect when they read blog posts is good language. Many people get turned off and abandon blogs where the English is clumsy, erroneous, or just plain boring. If you take the time to write posts, and you really want people to read and react, wouldn't you take the bit of extra time and effort to make sure your language will do the work?

Over the last 3 years I have been beta-testing, from time to time, a neat product called WhiteSmoke (www.whitesmoke.com), which really does the job. For people who are not native English speakers, WhiteSmoke helps you ramp up your written English very quickly and adapts to your field of writing. Even if you are a native English speaker, WhiteSmoke takes you to a whole new level of producing high quality, clear, effective English text.

There is a free trial, and if you are serious about your writing, give it a try.

I just got a cool video they made about WhiteSmoke... check it out:

September 11: 6 years later and I still get the chills

I just watched a video taken by a family living 500 yards from the World Trade center, with 27 chilling minutes of footage they shot out of their living room window. They write at the beginning of the video that they were very hesitant to release it, and did so only 5 years later, because of the personal nature of it and their reluctance to have others abuse it.

The sheer horror builds up over the minutes, when at start one person describes to a friend what she is seeing over the phone, and it is clear that due to the shock she initially does not register the true magnitude of the terrible thing happening in front of her eyes. she gradually begins to understand, and her husband joins in the conversation, until the horror takes over them as the second building collapses and the huge, menacing cloud of smoke and dust approaches their window and engulf them.

I remember watching this live on TV from Israel at the time, but this original, plain, untouched video gives me the chills more than any footage of 9-11 I have seen to date.

Here it is: