br23 blog - minsk, belarus

I sent an e-mail to Microsoft about it several years ago, but since then nothing has changed. If in your browser settings you chose Belarusian as the first language (variable HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE or Tools | Internet Options | Languages in Internet Explorer), then all the materials on support.microsoft.com would always appear to you in Russian. Even […]

All four potential candidates who’d collected more than 100,000 signatures were registered today by the Central Election Committee as presidential candidates. It means they can officially start campaigning.
Alexander Lukashenka is an authoritarian ruler who’ll be using falsifications schemes and all kinds of illegal means to claim another “elegant victory” (just like he did in 2001).
Siarhiej […]

Today there was supposed to be yet another solidarity demonstration in Minsk, but it was brutally dispersed by the police:
BBC: Dozens arrested in Belarus demos
And tomorrow it’ll be finally known whether our main opposition candidate Milinkevich will be registered or not. There’s already a small scandal regarding the Central election committee. Lukashenka’s officials denied entry […]

• 3SAT program about Belarusian culture, music and Lukashenka
(in German, a very nice 7-minute video, 100 Mb)
Bonus track:
• A hillarious “German” commercial from Google Video
(ze Germans are cool!)

Last week I was invited to a workshop in Ukraine, to teach a two-day class about internet, blogging, web publishing and CMS systems to a small class of Belarusian NGO activists. This sounded like a great opportunity! I would’ve loved to share whatever knowledge I have about WWW publishing with my fellow countrymen, and even […]

Here’s another “brilliant” example of ze German journalism, an item from the #1 German news agency dpa:
Belarus to cut off home computer internet access nationwide:
Minsk - Belorussian Ministry of Communications officials on Friday announced new laws effectively banning home access to the Internet.
A policy statement from the national telephone monopolist Beltelekom defining legal internet […]

The next week promises to be very busy and hectic (but hopefully, fun). Instead of sorting out papers and preparing some documents I’m watching Olympics on Eurosport, glancing at the live tennis scores on DavisCup.com and blocking all thoughts about the upcoming week.
1) In Davis Cup 1/8 finals, Belarus tennis team impressed everybody in Minsk […]

I think that Google Print is a wonderful project! And I totally agree with PC Magazine columnist John C. Dvorak that it should be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for doing this, instead of getting all the flak from the publishers and writers…
Much Ado over Google Book Search
The fuss over this book-search initiative is idiotic […]

Belarus: Opposition Politicians Embrace Internet, Despite Digital Divide
With newspapers, radio, and TV under state control, the Belarusian opposition is using new technologies to get their message out — in particular the Internet. All the candidates campaigning in the 19 March presidential election have launched websites, with many users taking part in online discussions. However, these […]

As we were enjoying the weekend in the beautiful Czech countryside, somewhere near to us a famous Belarusan Olympic medalist in aerials was busy getting another world cup victory (in fact, he is our only hope for a medal in Torino):
Špindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic — Dmitri Dashinski of Belarus earned his third victory of the […]