austraLasia 1666
Taking stock of austraLasia
ROME: 17th October 2006 -- The last two months have been interesting ones for
austraLasia. Its coordinator has been anywhere but Rome and
at times in places and climates which test portable hardware to the extreme (to
the point where it is currently undergoing corrective surgery at a Roman
clinic! All under warranty). There have been minor breaks in service due to
location, or hardware failure, but the reality is that 3 or 4 new subscriptions
a week have been the rule rather than the exception and over a period of months
and years that is quite some increase. Welcome to one from Thailand today, two
from Vietnam yesterday, plus six from Fiji last week!. We are just
concluding our ninth year of existence and on the right side towards two
thousand news items.
So, we speak of some 1,000 who personally receive austraLasia,
and rising. We can only guess at the actual number of readers if, as
sometimes happens, a receiver puts it on the community noticeboard or passes it
on to others. But is 1,000 a real number? Give or take, yes, in
terms of names on lists. But global email is in difficulties! How many receive
austraLasia prefixed by a SPAM notice? How many are not
reading this one because their own spam settings quietly slip it into the Junk
folder! How many are returned to me because it has been blocked or because the
receiver has altered his address (about 100).
For your information, this problem, even with all the
suggested safeguards, is not one that we alone can overcome. In the email
dance it certainly takes two to tango, maybe four. Sender and receiver
(persons) are involved, as well as exit and entry servers, for want of a better
term. I try to avoid words in austraLasia which spam hunters like
Spamhaus automatically pick up, but cannot go to ridiculous lengths like the
Bayesian spam you receive these days: random words in the title and even
in the body, but someone trying to sell you something underneath!
Furthermore, the Rome server (not based at the Pisana) limits me to 35 in a
group for sending. Gmail allows me 500 then cuts me out until a new calendar
day from sending any further emails. If you change your address, that is
another problem only resolved by my receiving your new address - from you.
What else can you do? Where you can advise your
incoming server to let sdb.org emails through, please do so. This goes not just
for austraLasia but all sdb.org mail including ones from the
Rector Major if you get them! And even better - use Firefox or Opera as
your web browser, go into Bosconet and click on the little orange square in the
address bar to put an RSS feed for austraLasia on your browser
toolbar. That automatically brings the latest austraLasia
(and any other material you choose to receive) to your desktop with a single
browser click. You don't know how to do this? Write to me and I'll explain it
in simple detail.
austraLasia invites you to be interactive. It takes
little effort - please try to be interactive. We hope to introduce the same
technology to www.sdb.org very shortly. Just click where it says 'click here'
in your austraLasia and follow through from there. Writing a
comment is easy enough at that point. A suggestion - do not address your
comments to me. Apart from the occasional embarrassment it causes me,
this interactivity is not about centralised communication. Write a
comment (along the lines of a blog if you like) which invites others to comment
on yours. I prefer not to comment at all. I'm doing my bit after all.
And finally. Remember that in EAO every receiver of
austraLasia is a correspondent. Receivers are SDB, FMA and other members of the
Salesian Family. You are austraLasia, not me. It comes out more or less daily because
you send me the news. I simply check the facts, polish it up where needs
be, and publish it. 'Basta', as they say in these parts! JBF
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service
for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an
agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Use BoscoWiki
to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE
to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world. To contact
austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.
