Right now one might be wondering if I am a fascist or a communist, or some sort of enemy of the free world. No, not at all. In fact on the contrary.

Back in 2008, I wrote a post condemning Google’s nonchalant attitude towards what users do when using their services. I read a bunch of articles about this new announcement by Google, and some of them seems to me to be a bit (well, way) out of line. Particularly this one which says that “Brazil’s 3,663 data requests and 291 removal requests [...] underscores Brasília’s restriction of free speech”. According to articles like this; racism, pedophilia and cyber bullying are the same as freedom of speech (if citing Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

Funny, it have The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) right in front of me, and according to this document, the author of this article is wrong. In fact, he is full of bull. This is yet another case (as I did before) of citing Article 30 of the UDHR:

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Basically Article 30 asserts this isn’t the “world of do as you please regardless of others by saying you have the right to do so because of the UDHR”, like many people (including many at Google, as per my previous article) seem to claim.

And I am proud to see that the Brazilian government seems to be on pair with the UDHR. Is targeting pedophilia a violation of free speech? No, because paedophilia is abusing the human rights of its victims, thus it is against the UDHR. Is targeting racist websites and pages in Orkut (Google’s social platform, mostly popular in Brazil) a violation of free speech? No, because racism is against the UDHR (Articles 2, 3 and 5 just to name a few). Is targeting cyber bullying (Article 12)… You get the idea – so I hope.

Kudos to the Brazilian government for sending the right message to Google and the rest of the world. We shall defend the UDHR in its entirely (and not just what is convenient to a few) along with our constitution.

It is not my objective to troll Microsoft here, but I want Microsoft to know why I can’t see myself using this product. In fact, I’d like to think this is a constructive criticism, and I did send a feedback to the Office Live Team concerning all the points I am raising here. But I would honestly like to hear back from the community as well if I am wrong about something (misconceptions perhaps), if Microsoft is working to improve on the points I am raising, or perhaps if anyone in the community had similar frustrations but found some sort of workaround.

I use Google Apps for a lot of my domains, and the standard (free) version of Google Apps does it quite well for me. But for some of these domains, I need is a simple Intranet, accessible through a subdomain, where I can collaborate with fellow workers. Google Apps offer their Sites application which could be used for such purpose, but I think it is way too simplistic (even the commercial version of Google Apps).

In technical terms what I needed for these particular domains is an online service like Microsoft SharePoint, which basically is what Office Live is based on. If possible a free one, which I could gradually upgrade by buying extra/commercial services and tools according to my needs.

So when I heard that Office Live would offer a Small Business version for free, I thought that my prayers have been answered. So I signed-in for the service, and based on my experiences so far, I was left quite disappointment as simply couldn’t use the service. Here is think Office Live failed to launch:

1. The requirement of the entire domain name to be redirected to the Office Live service (i.e.: can’t use subdomains):
   Not to be able to use subdomains with Office Live is, to say the least, inconvenient. I want to have an Intranet at http://intranet.mydomain.com but I still want to keep my company’s public website somewhere else, and I am pretty confident that I am not the only one out there with such requirement. Plus I do have other online services that depend on the configuration of subdomains and other DNS records, so I MUST have a proper dashboard where I can administer my domain name. Here is an article that gets more into this premise.
2. Once I sign in, I am presented with some sort of overview page that I can’t customise:
   My point here is, after I sign in into my Office Live account (through http://home.officelive.com), I am presented with the same annoying – sorry for the strong word, but it is annoying – “Getting started” content, explaining how to design my site (already have it, thank you), get a domain (already have it but you don’t allow me to use a subdomain from it since want is Intranet functionality), set-up business email (already have email service from somewhere else). The page is filled with links to instructions and guides. Uff… Come on! I want to present my company’s Intranet here.
3. Allow only one Office Live Account per Windows Live ID:
   Really don’t get this. Simply put, Microsoft competitors (i.e.: Google Apps) don’t have such limitation.
   I think it is important to say that, with regards to the points I made above, Google Apps doesn’t have these limitations (not even with the standard/free version). In fact, a major downer of Google Apps is that they fix almost their entire business model in web-only clients/applications.

NOTE: Recently Google started to realise that they can’t escape the value of certain desktop applications, and started to give-in to the needs of their customers. Google’s Microsoft Outlook Sync Tool is a good example (but not available to users of the standard/free version of Google Apps). There is also some 3rd party add-ins to Microsoft Office to make it work with Google App sites as if they were SharePoint/Office Live sites. I tried one but it was still a long way to go. Also, there are many protests of Google Apps customers complaining that several services and features offered to standard end-user Google accounts aren’t available in Google Apps (e.g.: Google Wave), or have limited features in Google Apps.

Microsoft on the other hand have what I believe to be a nicer business model, which is the integration of thick-client (desktop) applications such as Word and Groove with their offering of online clouds (Live Workspace, Office Live, Online Services), while they are also working on online version of Office Applications (neat!). I am anxiously waiting for the release of Office 2010 and the new Windows Live Essentials (Wave 4).

However, concerning Office Live I am not that enthusiastic. From what I have been reading on the Internet and also based on my experience so far with Office 2010 (although at the time I am writing this the product is yet to be released and I am using a pre-release version), I reckon that Office Live will have a sad ending. The current version of the Office Live add-in isn’t supported in Office 2010, meaning that documents stored in Office Live (or Live Workspace for that matter) can’t be accessed by Office 2010 applications. Office 2010 instead has built-in support for SkyDrive, which indicates to me (and well, to a lot of other people to be honest) a change of focus by Microsoft where SkyDrive will replace Office Live (and Live Workspace), at least with regards to online document storage.

But what about the other features provided by Office Live, such as Team Workspaces, e-mails, contact management and so on? Well I call this another hint, but you might think this is just a hunch: Microsoft Groove 2007 used to work perfectly with Office Live, without the need of any add-in. Now as for the new version of Groove in Office 2010 (which has been renamed to SharePoint Workspace 2010), when you try to connect to Office Live library, it gives an error saying that “SharePoint workspace cannot sync with the specified SharePoint site because its server version is not supported.” Another hunch, perhaps more obvious, is that when you try to use the built-in option to save a file on a document library from Office Live, it simply won’t work. So to me these are yet more evidences that Office Live is going to be deprecated.

It seems that based on the evolution one can notice from other Microsoft products and services, in particular Microsoft Online Services (which is in a way a more serious version of Office Live with a vast set of enterprise features and services, but there is no free version), Office 2010 (supporting SkyDrive but no Office Live add-in) and Windows Live Essentials (which will offer Office Online applications in its next release); and on the other hand no progress with Office Live, I can only conclude that Office Live will be discontinued.

It is a shame, really. I honestly thought that Office Live could go a long way and that the Small Business Edition would be the product that would stand-up for the match against Google Apps Standard Edition. Perhaps is too soon to tell if Microsoft is going will try to keep up with an offer of free Online Services to compete with Google’s, since all I hear at the moment is about Microsoft Online Services. But as far as Office Live goes, I think it is a flat-liner and I wouldn’t touch it until we get some pulse back from Microsoft, which might take a while.

Or perhaps, concerning a decent intranet/collaboration portal, there is no such thing such as “free lunch.”

It seems that for those acting in their own disposition forget that the UDHR has 30 articles, and not 29. The 30th Article of the UDHR is perfectly clear:

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein

So how is it that sovereign states that adopt and recognise the UDHR accept the engagement of organisations, parties and other sort of entities that disregard the 30th Article?

Don’t get me wrong. I agree that instead of having extremist political groups or militants operating in the underground, is better to have them out in the open as it is easier to monitor their activities, and to expose their views. Concerning the recent decision of BBC to invite a far-right activist to a television debate, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he believes it is a duty to expose racist and sectarian politics – which I agree – and that “anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.” Well is this last bit that I am not so sure about. Mr Brown is parting from the principle that everyone has the same opinion. And unfortunately, this is not the case. If that was the case, there wouldn’t be any racism. Particularly, the political party in question wouldn’t have its supporters – which it does, no matter how minimum they are. This is a false consensus bias.

My concern is the use of democracy and the UDHR to destroy these same principles, or to deny these principles to others. An example that is often cited as the use of democracy for the destruction of democracy is the rise of the NAZI party in Germany.

After being elected through democratic means, the NAZI party started to impose authoritarianism and ideologies that destroyed democracy and oppressed minorities, to say the least. Following the defeat of the NAZI regime and the revelation of their atrocities to the whole world, it was the overall consensus that something had to be done to prevent the same to happen in the future. With this in mind, the UDHR was adopted in 1948.

Yet we don’t need to go that far in history to see events of democracy being used to destroy democracy or to thwart the UDHR. You can see clear examples in recent events where state leaders, once elected through democratic means, are violating constitutions to impose their authority, perpetuate their rule and oppress any sort of opposition.
So I think about what Mr Brown said:

“Anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.”

And I wonder: Is there anybody listening? If so, who is listening?

Let me just make one brief point here: The reason we are seeing this escalation of violence is because the police is acting to tackle crime and pacify areas controlled by crime – and the criminals are fighting back. Rio is facing a now-or-never situation, where the government is aware that a change must be made, particularly for the 2014 World Cup and for the 2016 Olympic Games, which are serving as a major catalyst for such changes.

Let’s not forget that one day after being elected the city to host the 2012 Olympic Games, London was hit by a coordinated terrorist attack on its public transport. Since the UK government is under constant threat of international terrorism, one could argue that the public in general would be more vulnerable to violence in the 2012 games rather than in 2016 games. Drug-lords want to sell drugs; international terrorists want to kill people in the name of their ideology.

Being a Special Constable is one of the best decisions I have ever taken in my life. It was more than a volunteer work. To me it was a great honour. But as I went to live abroad, I had to resign from the MET; But G-d how I miss being a cop. Particularly on those weekends when nothing is happening and you are just staying home. I wish I was on the beat helping people in need. London was my home for nine years and I will always have a space in my heart for it.

If you live in the UK and you wish to do something good for your community, if you have that sense of duty in your heart, if you like helping people and being a good person, then I strongly recommend that you consider joining the Special Constabulary. It doesn’t need to be London’s Metropolitan Police, as there are Special Constabularies in every police service in the UK. Trust me. If you are of a good character, this experience will change your life for good – forever.

For more information, you can visit this website.

Plus there will be a lot of surfing, scuba diving, kayaking… You know, all those little perks you get from living in a sunny place like Rio de Janeiro.

Don’t know about you, but I find ludicrous that while “developing countries” like Brazil have strict regulations against such shenanigans, the UK is decades away on customer rights.

An uncanny coincidence or a total rip-off? Well just watch this Youtube video and decide for yourself.

Unfortunately this is not the first case of plagiarism in the music industry, and many cases which are in fact of a much higher profile tend to go unoticed. For instance, check out this Led Zeppelin video.

Sigh… And they used to be my biggest idols! Don’t get me wrong they still rock and I didn’t throw away my Led Zeppelin CDs. But I simply can’t respect them like I used to.

About four years ago, a relative of mine engaged in a public inflamed argument with Brazilian skinheads in a discussion forum in Orkurt (which is Google’s social networking portal, similar to Facebook). The argument went out of hand, and one of those skinheads found some pictures of my relative’s daughter (who was about 8 years at the time) and published some Photoshop collages of his girl in pornographic scenes. In Brazil (and I would guess in any civilised country, really) this is a serious offense depicted in the penal code, which can led to some serious jail terms.

The girl’s father attempted to contact Orkut’s support service, but he was informed that “Orkut wasn’t responsible for the content posted by their users”. After arguing with Orkut’s support for about three days, he asked for my help. I tried to contact Google about the incident but there was contact information to be found. No phone numbers, no emails – there was simply no way for end users to contact Google for support. I then tried to use the white pages, and found out Google’s main telephone number in the USA. As I explained the problem we’re having, I got a similar answer as my relative did: “Google wasn’t responsible for the content posted by their users”. The whole experience was as if Google was completely unaccountable to anything that happens on their systems, and customers attempting to talk to anyone at Google would be treated in a very patronising and condescending manner which such petulance, as if they were some sort of telemarketing reps attempting to sell magazine subscriptions to the White House.

Since Google was getting prepared to enter in the Brazilian market at the time, I decided to push a little harder. I told them that they better start playing ball and respect the laws and constitutions of the countries they are planning to operate on, or else they would start with the wrong foot. The lady on the other side of the phone then told me to call another number, and quote the password “Pizza” when I call – which I did, but never got a proper call back.

The case of my relative’s daughter wasn’t an isolated case in Orkut. The whole incident started because of some racist users creating hate groups. There were also cases of frauds and all sorts of scams running, and even users selling CLASS A drugs through the system – and yet Google continued to wash their hands. This whole Pontius Pilatus attitude really got into my nerves. So when Google finally got into Brazil, they got to feel the heat. The government demanded Google to hand over details of any users under suspect of committing criminal acts, and subpoenas started to be fired at Google’s backend followed by threats of “our way or the highway” by the Brazilian Supreme Court’ – It was music to my ears. Then Google finally decided to play ball, which was often followed by some nice sugar-coated PR on how they do their best to follow the local regulations.

I thought this whole experience would make Google start to realise their liabilities within the spectrum of corporate social responsibility… Well shame on me. Google’s YouTube is a good example on how Google will fight to the last minute for their right of I can’t be bovvered (sic). No matter how much I flagged inappropriate videos of Brazilian criminal factions – Google wouldn’t move a finger to remove such videos. Some of those videos were extremely graphic promoting drug trafficking, violence towards law enforcement agencies (including the picture of a police officer whose head was blown wide open by a gunshot), apology to illegal weapons and gang warfare (including the picture of murdered members of rival criminal factions, with decapitated heads and burned bodies sodomised with wooden broomsticks).

Then yesterday Google releases some nifty piece of PR on how YouTube is getting proactive against terrorism clips. How nice of them!? Well the small print is that Google had USA’s senator Lieberman on their neck demanding the removal of terrorist-related videos. But still, how nice of them…