About
Szavanna July 20th, 2007
About Szavanna :
I was born in Hungary - travelled around in Europe & USA - spent 1 year in Tunesia learning Arabic ( the language and music). Since 1997 I have been staying in South Africa. I love playing the violin and the guitar (and whatever I find to make noise with - 
like drums, didjeridoo, rainstick, kora etc.) A few years ago I have discovered the Internet and open source technology - I haven’t stopped learning since.
To find out more about my travels, and studies about music - see also:
- A country for Xmas - the first days in South Africa
- Naseer and the lute - a story about learning Arabic classical music and the lute
- Discovering Africa - A Peopleized interview by Ishtar
- Deja Vu - Poetic experiences in Potch and Washington DC - a post about my visit to Howard University
- I am sure you are wondering - what is guru-shishya parampara and why I write about it - on the importance of being a teacher
- Like the flowing river … - on figuring out who a musician is
- Africa studies - varios personal experiences that taught me all about Africa
- Natural mystic - a series of posts on creativity - my thoughts on why arts and creativity of any kind is absolutely necessary to live life to the fullest
About the words in the title : Remixing open source projects, music, and guru-shishya parampara
- Remix
- I think it is important to view life as a constant remix of all our experiences - artwork is never created in a vacuum - it is a result of the things we learnt, saw & heard & experienced - through being with others
- Open source projects
- we use open source software and open content materials for most things we do on the computer - it has become so much part of daily life that I forget to talk about it
- Music
- the universal language that taught me much more than any school could - that is why I choose to post a lot of songs on this blog - I feel the sound, and the rhythm speaks for itself
- Guru-shishya parampara
- The guru-shishya tradition (also guru-shishya parampara or lineage) is a spiritual relationship found within traditional Hinduism which is centered around the transmission of teachings from a guru (teacher) to a shishya (disciple) - I like to look at myself as a teacher and a student in the same time - always ready to explore and find out more and always ready to teach and give my full attention to anyone that chooses to learn from me - I like to explore various ways of teaching and learning (click to read more about this)
About this blog :
If you have a bit of time to look around, here are some ways to navigate the blog:
- Natural mystic
- this is a section about my musical discoveries, in which I am trying to figure out things about the mystical values of music & artists - I know this seems a bit ‘mystical’ and not really making sense - visit the page to see what I mean
- Open projects
- is a section where I describe the two projects we are busy with (OpenCafe and ArtMarketOnline) I also explain what I mean by open projects and I also include links to some of my favourite open projects.
- Songs
- as you see most of my posts are songs -I somehow like to see the world through songs rather than hm let’s say CNN - much more interesting picture I think…
- Artists
- I decided to have a page that gives you links to sites, and posts about some of the artists I am busy discovering
- Films
- probably the main reason for having a separate film page is because I’d like to share these with you and also - it’d be great if you could recommend me some more to put on this list - films that made a big impression on you - films that made you wonder about stuff…
- Countries
- this is just one last way of navigating the posts - to me it’s a bit like travelling without having to get on that plane…
- Styles
- Here you will find some info on the tools, methods, philosophies, software, programmes, languages, etc. the artists in my posts use to express themselves - we all use a mix of different methods and tools to communicate - you will find some here
- Comments(11)
Hi Szavanna, how are you doing. Sorry I’ve been very occupied these days that I could not respond to your request. You are the first real friend I have since I joined MyblogLog and as a good friend all always try to help:
I use Self-Hosting Wordpress. Its the best you can find out there when it comes to blogging. I stands out for two major aspects.
1) It has an excellent community always ready to help and provide new PlugIns
2)Akismet Spam does the dirty job for you. For all this while have never had a Spam problem
The self-hosted version of Wordpress is a lot more complete and even easier to manage. All you need is to get your domain and if you do not want to host it yourself then get a good web hosting company. There are so many out there. If you can get a local Web Hosting company the better, so that when problems arise you can personally get in touch with them.
I naturally recommended Linux hosting for Wordpress, not just because I’m a pro-Linux but because of a couple of reasons;
Wordpress runs better on Linux and above all Linux-hosting gives us more liberty with respect to Windows hosting.
Linux servers are the most stable out there and have free licenses; I’m talking about Apache and MySql.
On Linux CHMOD (chmod is a Unix command that lets you tell the system how much (or little) access it should permit to a file.) is very easy and gives no problems. On Windows it becomes a bit tricky and often you need a “Public” directory
For all these reasons, Wordpress is easier to install on a Linux server.
If you have any questions let me know.
I remember we talked sometime ago on your projects and I asked you if I could become a guest Author. I’m really don’t want to insist, its just that right now I’ve got a lot to offer as concerns Jazz and Afro-Jazz in particular. Blogging is a time consuming passion and I really don’t want to get another blog, so I was thing if we could get together and co-Autthor a jazz blog
. Ever heard of the TINARIWEN, Tuaregs from Mali….
My regards Sza and hope to hear for you
Martin aka Kanute
Hi there Kanute - THANKS soooo much for all the info!
I have spent the weekend - researching - experimenting - and we now can host my blog on our Linux server. I can add plugins, edit themes, add new functionalities as I like - I love it!
It’s really great - in the future we can set up new Wordpress sites - I am planning to do that for our OpenCafe and ArtMarket sites as well.
Yes I know Tinariwen - they are great - they have a fantastic site as well!
Hope you are having a great Monday!
Dear Szavanna,
Greeting from Penang Island, Malaysia.
Wandered into your amazing blog.
From my travel website, http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/b0c09/
since January 2006, I have been trying to get a real postcard sent from every country worldwide.
Wonder if you know anyone in other African countries who can help me complete my missing African countries to complete this collection. I will give talks on my postcard collections to increase public awareness and understanding of different cultures and nations in our beautiful planet.
Wishing you Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. Hope to hear from you.
Cheers, SL
Hello there Szavanna,
i am an Indian, male 52 years. I saw your site while browsing the internet on life after life. Very interesting. How did you get exposed to Hinduism and the note about Guru-Sishya parambara? I would like to really interact with you, as I have left my email, you may choose to reply at your pace. Thanks, D. Suresh Baburaj,
love to meet you someday. you’ll probably pass through dakar to go most places…
Thanks for the note Kari - hmm yes me too - would love to chat about things one day - hopefully in Dakar
That would be fantastic!
szavanna’s last blog post..Peregrine by nature
Hi Szavanna,
I have enjoyed looking through your blog. It was also good to meet in SL earlier, your comments have inspired me to get on with some more writting myself.
See you again soon.
Avitara
Hi Szavanna, I found your blog thanks to Kari and http://peregrinebynature.com I’ve been browsing through your archives and am really enjoying the music videos - especially Sara Tavares. Thanks!
Hi there - thanks for the visit - Yes I was about to look for some Sara Tavares videos on YouTube just now
Thanks again for popping in!
Hi, I like your blog! I’m Powerslave Paine! Bye bye! Kisses!
Thanks for popping in Andrea :))