November 30, 2020
Ten years blogging in – English to the day (almost)!
I love numbers (it must be the mathematician in me). Any kind of numbers really, but those that you have to really rack your brains over – they’re the best. Numbers that are particularly round and milestoney – they’re awesome too. And talking of round numbers that are milestoney and awesome, it just so happens that 10 years ago, on November 27, 2010, my first ever blogpost on this here blog you have open in your browser now was published!
Accordingly, on this veritable jubilee, I don’t see why we can’t have a mosey back through those 10 years for some highlights, aka greatest hits, of each one of them, with brief analysis and commentary given the benefit of hindsight regarding how things have worked out for the company, the industry and the world since the posts were originally published.
So what makes a ‘greatest hit’? Simple: the most read and commented on. So we had a quick look over the stats – at both the total number of views and of comments added to the bottom of each – and chose the top-two posts of each year. All righty. Let’s do this!…
2010
As it took a while to get momentum going early on, there were just two posts on this blog in 2010, both of which I’ll mention here.
My first ever blogpost in English was this: 100 in a Year! One of my briefest ever, too. Besides the following avia-route given in it, there was just a bit more text and that was it! Still, the first step is always the hardest, as they say.
Moscow – Novosibirsk – Moscow – Rome – Paris – Santiago – Patriot Hills – the South Pole (New Year) – Patriot Hills – Santiago – Paris – Moscow – Beijing – Singapore – Paris – Rio de Janiero – Lima – Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) – Madrid – Barcelona – Geneva – Paris – Milan – Rome – Munich – Hannover – Hamburg – Berlin – London – Hong Kong – Tokyo – Moscow – Paris – São Paulo – Iguazu Falls (Argentina-Brazil border) – Buenos Aires – Lima – Bogota – Paris – London – Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City – Frankfurt – Barcelona – Athens – Corfu – Dubai – Sydney – Brisbane – Cairns – Ayers Rock – Sydney – Dubai – Larnaca (Cyprus) – Tokyo – Paris – Moscow – Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – Moscow – Beijing – Milan – Moscow – Munich – Singapore – Hong Kong – Istanbul – Nice – Moscow – Paris – Mexico City – Guadalajara – Shanghai – Guangzhou – Tokyo – New York – Chicago – Dallas – Boston – Munich – Moscow – Abu Dhabi – Bali – Moscow
The other post from 2010 was: Mobile OS Market – My Bet.
This is where I stated my predications of the share of the global mobile OS market in the future – in around five years time (2015). And I didn’t do too badly either! My rough forecast went like this:
80% – Android
10% – iOS
10% – all the others
And here’s how things panned out:
Yes, I should maybe think of becoming a fortune-teller ).
2011
This was the year my English blog really started to fire on all cylinders…
Top-post 1: A Blast from the Past. Part I – the Pack-shot Odyssey.
The pretty boxes of our early Antivirus, Antiviral Toolkit Pro, Anti-Hacker, Anti-Spam, Corporate Suite, Internet Security, Pure, Crystal, Ferrari Edition, Crystal, and all the rest – they weren’t designed willy-nilly. There was always a good reason they were as they were – and most of the time it was a curious reason. There was the Michelangelo’s David box, the Umbrella boxes, and there’s the story behind the ‘K’ logo that featured on many. Click the link to find out more.
Top-post 2: SOPA-Dodger
This was all about our decision as a company to withdraw from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) to demonstrate our opposition to the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act bill. SOPA was basically an ill-conceived, idiotic, clumsy, legacy-style approach to trying to combat online copyright infringement (a worthy end, but the means they were proposing: multiple facepalms). Opposition to it was pretty universal. In the end it simply died a death before ever being made law. Phew. There are other – better – ways to deal with things like online piracy. I mention a few in this post.
2012
Top-post 1: Apple – Listen to Us, Before It’s too Late!
It looks like there will always be the argument (aka holy war) over which is better – Mac or PC, but here’s a post on a bucking of one trend that always saw Apples come out on top over the Microsofties: ‘Macs are never infected with malware’.
Yeah but, no but…
In early April of 2012 a gigantic Mac OS X Trojan botnet appeared – Flashback. Oops! That sure upset the Apple cart!
In this post – some kind advice to Mr. Jobs, sadly today no longer with us. Fast-forward to this year, and the Apple cart still looks a bit lot shaky; alas, our advice appears not to have been taken (they must have been thinking different:).
Top-post 2: Kaspersky Lab Developing Its Own Operating System? We Confirm the Rumors, and End the Speculation!
It was back in 2012 when we finally ended the rumors regarding what some of our cyber-boffins had been up to on the quiet – developing a cyber-immune OS. Three years later (in February 2015) its first version was launched. Fast-forward to 2020, and it’s been improved no end, and is now looking slicker than a greased eel! But in this post, here’s how things were looking before all the slickness, before a product even – merely a project with a lot of promise but still years of hard work ahead.
2013
Top-post 1: Instead of pouring it, ya cut milk in Yakutia
I remember wondering why this post was more popular than, say, the posts on patent trolls that were also published in 2013 (and there were plenty of them (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6!)). Maybe it was the curious title that did it? Cutting milk?! It sure does conjure up… curiously unusual images in one’s head ).
The post was about is about (stuff on the internet never really goes past tense!) my trip to the remote (think – Siberia, only even more remote) Russian Republic of Yakutia (actually, formally – the Republic of Sakha), specifically – its phenomenal Lena Pillars, and the nearby Permafrost Kingdom museum.
Phenomenal pillars; phenomenal trip. Have a read and scan of my zillion pics therefrom. Even better – go visit Yakutia and see the extraordinary sights there yourself!
Top-post 2: SQ22: The world’s longest flight. For a few more days…
Here’s another post I was surprised was so popular, for it was real simple: it was a commentary on flight I took. That’s it. Ah, yes – but it was the world’s longest commercial passenger flight: that’s what probably did it. (These simple social media ‘hooks’ that grab attention… Hmmm. I’m getting a feel for them now.)
The title says it all really. The route: Singapore > New York. The plane: Airbus A340-500 (curiously, perhaps, not the world’s largest). Another interesting feature: only business class! Have a read for the rest of my impressions (and of course, the inevitable abundance of pics:).
2014
Top-post 1: The rainiest city in Europe. Allegedly.
Come on, can you guess it? Manchester? Reykjavik? The Faroe Islands (which I’ve also visited)? Nope. It’s Bergen, Norway.
We paid a brief visit to the small coastal city, and set sail therefrom for a spot of North Sea fishing. And splendid it all was too; so splendid I wrote this gushing report on it. In a word: gushing!
Top-post 2: Island No. 14: Ushishir.
A volcano! One had to crop up here sooner or later, since they’re my favorite category of natural beauty on the planet, and so I’ve written quite a lot about them – after scaling them, crater-walking them, adoring them, photographing them…
Ushishir is arguably the most extraordinarily photogenic volcano of all in the Kuril Islands, which is saying something as there are a full 59 of them in the archipelago. Monumental volcanic awesomeness you may not believe when you see the pics. Of course – the impression is all the more breathtaking if you see the place in the flesh, which I highly recommend you do one day…
2015
Top-post 1: The Santiago–Sydney Antarctic ‘Smile’: QF28.
As the title suggests – another flight report, this time on ‘one of the most unusual commercial air routes I’ve ever taken’: a Qantas flight over perhaps the world’s most barren portion of the globe – across the southern Pacific Ocean just north of Antarctica from South America to Australia. Barren it may be, but there was still plenty of amazing pics to be taken from my window seat…
Top-post 2: Kamchatka-2015: white waterfalls and abandoned stone boats.
Ah – of course: Kamchatka! My favorite place on the whole planet – and I’ve seen a great many OMG must-see places on it! I managed to take some great ‘action shots’ of the ‘white waterfalls’, and the stone boats – actually, they’re the ones abandoned by the ancient god Kutkh, when he set off for outer space. Of course ). Outlandish legend. Outlandishly outstanding rock formations today like no others I’ve seen. Must-see!
2016
Top-post 1: Legoland: not just for the kids.
When in Denmark, go to Legoland! Yes, Lego is aimed at children, but, being the big kid that I am, I loved it too! So much to see – and all of it made out of the famous, ubiquitous little plastic bricks! Lego didn’t pay for this post btw, but I guess they should have given it’s so descriptive, glowing and pic-heavy ).
Top-post 2: A brief history of DDoS attacks.
Even non-techies have heard of DDoS attacks these days. But it may come as a surprise to many that they’ve been around since the 1980s. In this post – a quick run through eight highlights low-lights of this cyber-curse.
2017
Top-post 1: KL AV for free. Secure the whole world will be.
Up until mid-2017, all our products were paid-for items. That changed with the introduction of Kaspersky Free. The reasons for the change of heart and policy (all reasonable, of course) – in this post )…
Top-post 2: Iguazu: no seasons – just a lot or no water.
This was the final travelogue-post (of several) from my trip to Brazil and its Iguazu Falls. Why this one was the most popular I don’t know is clearly due to the curiously click-bating title, no? How can there be no seasons and just a lot or no water? Is it still curious enough to make you click it now?…
2018
Top-post 1: What’s in the box? A Cycladic surprise!
We sponsor the archeological digs at Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini, and last time I was there to see how they’re getting on, I witnessed an extraordinary discovery during the excavations. A box was found under the volcanic dust, and I actually saw it being ‘opened’. And lo and behold, they found inside it… you’ll just have to read the post)…
Top-Post 2: Four oceans and seven seas in 2018.
‘Each time we find ourselves at the seaside – or ocean side – we make sure we get in that sea/ocean for a spot of bathing/paddling/swimming. But it’s not just seas and oceans; also a river or a lake… in fact, any body of water must be entered and our bodies fully submerged in.’
Well, in 2018 I managed to get myself practically all over this planet of ours – and took a dip in whatever body of water I found there, including in: Indonesia, the Caribbean, the Faroe Islands, Mexico, Tel Aviv, Kamchatka, Panama, Vanuatu, Fiji, Mauritius, French Polynesia, Seychelles and… near the North Pole! In this post – bathing-swimming highlights from each location! But these two ‘blue eyes’ – no swimming in them :) ->
2019
Top-post 1: The world’s largest man-made explosion ever – by far: in the Kurils, where else?!
Click bait or what?!
The Kurils are extreme in many ways (harsh, changeable climate; remote and inaccessible; mostly deserted; astounding, untouched volcanic scenery…), but there’s also this odd-ball extreme happening that occurred there in Soviet times. The military needed to deepen a bay to allow massive naval submarines and ships to get to the base that was built on its shore. So, obviously, they bombed the *#%& out of it! Bay deepened. Result! Check out more to the story, plus pics of what’s left of the naval base and of course the dynamited bay itself ).
Top-post 2: Threat Intelligence Portal: We need to go deeper.
It was a surprise to me that this was so popular, since it could only really have been of interest to around five percent of readers. For it was very techy – introducing the new ‘diet’ version of our Threat Intelligence Portal. Well, maybe it was the way I made this cyber-boffin topic accessible to the layman? Yes. That’s it – clearly ).
2020
Though we haven’t reached the end of this darn-awful year just yet, we’re nearly there, so here are the top-two posts as of November:
Top-post 1: i-Antitrust: time to give you your choice back, folks!
It seems anything printed, talked about, or blogged about regarding Apple will always be popular. And so was the case here…
Basically, this post is about Apple going rogue – all monopoly-abusing-&-gangster with regard to its App Store in general, and to parental control apps in particular. This is unfair, and in this post I outline exactly why and how it’s unfair, and what we’re doing about it – which is a lot (since, you know us: we never lie down when we’re being treated unfairly).
Top-post 2: ILOVEYOU – 20 years ago – to the day!
Much like this here ‘ten-years-of-English-blogging’ post you’re reading, here’s another trip down memory lane for a dose of nostalgia; rather – anti-nostalgia, if that’s a thing. For it was 20 years ago when the online world suffered at the hands of the parasitical ILOVEYOU email worm (~’virus’), which caused untold (actually – told: several billion dollars’ worth of) damage after infecting millions of email inboxes around the globe. Here’s the outline of the whole sorry saga, which incidentally sees me stating the obvious – ‘Back then we had no trouble detecting and neutralizing Love Letter’ – plus also a pic of the Philippine gent who was behind it: a free man who never saw the inside of a jail!
So there you have it folks – my top-20 posts (two per year) from the first 10 years of this here blog in English. Hope you liked! Thank you for your attention, and here’s to the next 10 years of cyber-oddities, cybersecurity curiosities, travelogue-unusualnesses, and more…
