Michael Carøe Andersen

Category: Blogging

  • 1 year in Prague

    Sunset over Belohorska
    I just realized that 1st of June it has been a year since I arrived in Prague. Time flies and I must say I have been positively surprised by many things about this city and the people I have met here. One thing that is very appalling is my Czech though. When I came I thought I would take language courses and learn some of the local lingo, but I must admit I gave up on that pretty quickly and have resorted to my English, German, a few Czech words and the international language of hand gestures and body language.

    Last week I met with a fellow blogger, Al from the family blog Tischlers in Prague. After having lived in Prague for almost two years the Tischlers are moving back to Minnesota. I have been following the blog and their trips in and around Prague (and around Europe) since before I arrived in Prague so it was great to meet the man behind the words. Al has been working for Radio Free Europe in Prague while they have been building their new headquarters. He had great stories of his time in Saudi Arabia their life in Prague and filled me in on the New Wave music in general after we went to a museum on the history of the rock music in Czechoslovakia in the 80ies.

    We met in a small beer garden very close to our apartment for a couple of beers. Al got photo documentation and posted it here. Its always a pleasure to meet other bloggers and Im glad I caught Al before they went back home. I wish the best for the three of them.


  • Happy B-day to Blogging.Gelle.dk

    24th of April 2005 – 3 years ago – I started blogging here. Back then I started blogging and did it in Danish because I was going to do an internship in US for one year and wanted an easy way to keep a travel journey and keep friends and family updated. About August 2006 I switched to English since I was moving back to Denmark and I decided to leave it at that. Check the archive if you want to see previous posts.

    Blogging Gelle stats

    I have made 207 posts so thats 1.3 post per week. My stats only go back to 15th November 2005 but since then the site has had 29,323 visits. 10,810 of these were on the post about running a company using free office products online. It ended up on the frontpage of digg.com and sent my server to its knees. Apart from that spike I average about 20-30 visits per day – which I am very satisfied with :)

    Photo-op

    I started using Flickr at the same time. Above is the first picture there which is from my graduation from Aalborg University June 2005. Since then I have uploaded 5,226 pictures or 33.5 picture per week. My most viewed picture on Flickr is the guy with the grillz. My most interestingnessed picture is a panorama of the Big House in Ann Arbor.

    Panorama shot Michigan Stadium
    (check out the original)

    Update 29th: Ulrik just pointed me towards this nifty timeline tool :)


  • Getting a picture published

    Big Gus - world's largest running chainsaw

    I recently got contacted by a publishing company because they wanted to use one of my pictures for a book. They said it is going to be used in a re-edited version of Roadside Americana.

    Roadside Americana is a beautiful 130-page, color, hardback coffee table book that features dozens of quirky and offbeat places and events in the United States and Canada. This book inspires curiosity and a taste for adventure! Our travel books in general are big, coffee table titles that display beautiful imagery and lively write-ups.

    Pretty cool if they end up using my picture :-)

    The picture above is from a road trip I took in the fall of 2005. I rented a car and in four days drove the 2000km around Lake Michigan. The trip brought me through some of the more remote areas of Michigan and Wisconsin and in the middle of nowhere I saw this huge chainsaw. It turns out that it is (supposedly) the biggest running chainsaw in the world – 7 meters long and with a V8 engine inside.

    I made the trip alone and it was fun doing a real road trip in a brand new car. It was a great escape from daily life in Ann Arbor were I lived in a house with 20 people with constant partying. So four days of solitude on the road was welcomed. Here is a couple of the other pictures from that trip:

    On the road

    Mackinac lighthouse and bridge

    Still standing

    Teal Lake

    Old mailbox

    Morning mist at Munising Bay


  • Expat blog of the month

    Blog of the month Expat-blog.comJulien from expat-blogs.com asked me if I she could make an interview with me because I had been chosen as the blog of the month for her site :)

    Expat Blogs is a site that lists blogs from expatriates in different countries. Go check out the site and the blogs that are listed there. You will find a lot of interesting stories.

    Click here to read the interview with me.


  • Danish bloggers in Prague

    Rasmus from the Danish BlogMagasinet asked in one of the recent podcasts, how we use blogs to meet people. So I figured I’d tell about how I’ve used it here in Prague.

    Before I moved down here I search on google.com, technorati.com, blogbot.dk or overskrift.dk for people blogging about Prague in either Danish or English and I found two Danes.

    Jazz at U Maleho Glena

    The first one is Laus Sørensen. Laus runs the vacation agency Prag Eksperten and has made a business from renting apartments and giving tours to Danes. He is blogging at prag.urbanblog.dk were he writes about the city, his business and his friends. As a newcomer in town there is definitely some good information about the city and his company site has the most comprehensive site about Prague in Danish.
    A couple of weeks ago I went to dinner with Laus at U Maleho Glena (picture above) a very cool jazz spot in Prague. We talked about the city, running businesses and realized that we both have parents in Jylland so maybe we can carpool to Denmark sometime.

    The second Dane is Holme but he is actually not in town yet. He is going to stay in Prague for a year with his Czech girl friend while studying. I think he is moving down here sometime in August so I’ll try and see if I can catch him over a pivo sometime.

    In my daily life I only speak English – apart from when I’m calling home – so it’s nice that there is a few Danes in town.

    There is of course also a number of English blogs about life in Prague. The ones that I am keeping a tap on these days are:

    [Update 18/9 ’07] Just came across another Dane in Prague called Pavel-Helge – he has a lot of updated info in Danish about what’s going on in Prague.

    [Update 14/1 ’08] Just came across another Danish blog about Prague called Prag HotSpots by Jens Gregersen.


  • Writing at Børsen Mikro Blogs

    This blog has been very quiet lately. One of the reasons is that Ive been blogging elsewhere. About two months ago Børsens Forlag contacted Femi and me and invited us to blog as a company at Børsen Mikro their new portal about micro businesses.

    Børsens Forlag is Denmarks leading publisher when it comes to books for the business world. The publishing company has decided to focus on the area of micro-businesses with a series of books, a web portal with blogs and tools specifically aimed at micro-businesses, independents and freelancers. The first couple of books have been released and they aredeffinetly worth a read.

    At the launch event for the site and the book series they brought all bloggers and authors together for an afternoon.

    Make Mistakes Faster!

    Here we are with the other bloggers, from left;

    In my opinion there are some really interesting post coming out on these blogs. If you want to follow all of them there is a collected RSS feed.


  • Arb Design is blogging

    In the last year or so in Denmark blogging has changed from being something the established media and companies would talk about to be something they read and used. (Links in this post will be to Danish sites)

    I find it very interesting what is going on right now as people in companies are blogging. There are some great benefits from communicating in the form of a blog:

    • Informal way of communicating passion
    • Gain information about costumers through a dialog
    • It can underline and enhance your brand
    • Let the company have a human face and voice

    On the other hand there are some drawbacks or pittfalls as well. Blogging as a private person is different than blogging as part of an organization or a company. Andreas Johansen, former Synkron blogger wrote about some of the difficulties about blogging for his company.

    • Finding the proper voice – not too personal and geeky, not too corporate and marketing-speak
    • Its difficult to get comments so the costumer interaction stays one-way
    • It can be difficult to find the ressources to blog
    • Your boss, colleague, cotumer does not understand the blog format

    All this said we have decided to start Arblog, the blog of Arb Design. Right now it is easy to find stuff to write about because Rotaboard is getting started and getting attention from interesting places.

    Now go read, subscribe and comment and I will be happy :)

    Arblog - The blog of Arb Design

  • [Danish] Hvem er du?

    Så er den store danske blog undersøgelse i gang. Brug 67 sekunder og fortæl hvem du er:

    Gå til spørgeskema

    Tak for hjælpen :)


  • This post is an advertisement, so no need to read on

    I had to try ReviewMe out. The ReviewMe sites scheme is to get people to write a blog post about a specific company and pay them to do it. It doesnt matter what I write about the company as long as I write 200 words and make a link to them.

    The website is really simple to use so its quick to get set it up and get going.

    TechCrunch has has a couple of posts on this subject where theyve talked about a company called PayPerPost:

    Is this a bad joke designed to torpedo the blogospheres credibility in general? It doesnt appear to be. If were all trying to negotiate a space between Hollywood and mainstream journalism, this is taking things way too far towards the most insipid parts of Hollywood.

    And the runner-up ReviewMe gets noticed as well.

    While we do not endorse this business model, we do note that ReviewMe has removed the most egregious aspects of the PayPerPost business model: no disclosure requirement, and a requirement to write a positive post.

    A new advertising business model has seen the light of day:

    The PayPerPost model brings up memories of payola in the music industry, something the FCC and state attorney generals are still trying to eliminate or control. Given the distributed and unlicensed nature of the blogosphere, controlling payoffs to bloggers will be exponentially more difficult.
    Our position on these pay-to-shill services is clear: they are a natural result of the growth in size and influence of the blogosphere, but they undermine the credibility of the entire ecosystem and mislead readers.

    Apparently the site will pay me $30 to make this post although I still have my doubts about that. But if you read this far and I get the money I owe you a beer, punk me for it next time you see me.

    Have I sold my blog soul?

    [Update December 1st] Got the $30 transfered through paypal today.


  • One At All – Danish contributor

    I got invited to join a blog called One At All – Project to write about Denmark.

    One single person from each country.
    The most different cultures on planet
    talking about everything.

    So far Ive written about places you should know in Denmark and words you should know in Danish. Feel free to correct me, comment or elaborate if I have missed anything.

    I love the idea of this project! It is always interesting to see your culture in the perspective of other peoples lives. This project is a great way to share and celebrate our differences.

    Oh, and please support this one:

    Update: Later on I’ve written The most important fact in my country’s history and The one thing my country doesn’t have is….