Sunday, January 9, 2011

ROBBLOG # 205

I almost fell off my swivel chair in front of the Swisssh Radio computer screens.

One of my servers for Swisssh Radio has offered a new service in the past week. At no extra charge- so far, I can sign in and see just where in this wide, wide world, where people are listening in to Swisssh Radio.

Now without the server’s help, in the past six months I have received e-mails from listeners in:

Kelowna and Comax B.C.
Paris, France,
Tin Can Bay, Australia
Brisbane Australia
and
from somewhere in Russia. The spelling looks like this: JKAAEHCVCHKLAA

Now, with this new service from my 128k server, I can see the names of the countries where I have listeners, at the precise moment they are tuned into Swisssh Radio.
It is kind of high tech.
It is 1984 George Orwell stuff.
It’s like James Bond and CSIS all rolled into one.

Not only can I see the country name and country flag. I can also look at a Google map on the same page and see the name of the city/town as well as the street name where the listener is residing. I can’t see an exact house address but I can see an isp address.
Now that could be spooky- or at the very least a tiny bit of an invasion of privacy.

Ah- but there’s still more.

Using a satellite image on the Google map, I can see a picture of the street where the listener lives and an overview of their house and property, right down to cars parked in the drive and nearby landmarks like water, clover leafs, highways, buildings and shopping malls. Now, if I wanted to take that a step further, I could record the street name and the closest crossroads from the Google Map and by going into my Google Earth programme I could “drive” up their very street and take a look at their house and neighbourhood.

Now, I don’t intend to “snoop” on a regular basis. However, back in the fall of 2010, I did use Google Earth to find a business establishment called “The Max Café” in Tin Can Bay Australia, who e-mailed to say they feature Swisssh Radio in the Cafe during the lunch hour. It was interesting looking along the street where the Café is located and seeing the Café Max sign above the front door. The pictures were not “live” of course and many were taken in the past year or two but still it’s an amazing programme to use.

Now here are a few cities and countries that tune into Swisssh Radio through the 128k player. Keep in mind I cannot see the same information my second server that sends the Swisssh Radio signal out to the world.
I also want to say that in December 2010- Swisssh Radio's most listened to month ever, listeners tuned in for 7500 hours!

I would say that Germany is the country- besides Canada, that listens to Swisssh the most but you might be surprised who else tunes in to “little old” Swisssh Radio from around the world. It’s not just Orillia and Central Ontario.
Who knew?

Nanaimo B.C.
Oshawa, Ontario

Hanover, Germany
Mannheim, Germany
Walsode (near Bremen), Germany
Duisburg (Oberhausen), Germany
Konstanz, Germany

Linwood, Washington

Falkoping, Sweden

Hatsushama (on the Phillipine Sea), Japan
Nishinomiyahama, Japan
Ashiya (on Osaka Bay), Japan

Aracaju, Brazil

Ljubljana, Slovenia
Guadalajara, Mexico
Dublin, Ireland
Grenada, (Carribean Island)

So, while you may be listening to Swisssh Radio, I’ll be watching- for you.
BoooHaHaHa!