Serbia’s arms industryBombs away Serbia’s arms exporters are thriving SERBIA’S victory in the 2010 Davis Cup proved, say Serbs, that it has the best tennis players in the world. It claims to be the world’s largest raspberry exporter. But the latest boast may come as more of a surprise: that the country’s once-renowned arms industry is making a comeback. Before it fell apart in the wars of the 1990s, the former Yugoslavia was a big arms exporter. NATO damaged many of Serbia’s weapon factories in 1999 during the Kosovo war. But the industry has started to recover. In 2008 Serbian military exports were worth $200m. Last year they brought in twice that sum (not including a $400m contract, signed in November, to build three arms factories in Algeria). Yugoimport-SDPR, the trading arm for six of Serbia’s main producers, says sales have been growing by 30% a year since 2002. Defence accounts for 4% of Serbian exports and 10,000 jobs. The industry is also growing in sophistication. Until 2007, says Dragan Sutanovac, the defence minister, ammunition accounted for the vast bulk of Serbian military exports. Many of the ammunition plants in the former Yugoslavia, including the Sloboda factory in Cacak, which was damaged by a series of (probably accidental) explosions on December 27th, were located in Serbia. But in the past few years Serbian companies have begun exporting modernised versions of older mobile howitzers, training planes and fire-control and anti-tank rocket systems. Serbian officials seeking out new business are renewing contacts first made in the cold-war days, when Yugoslavia was a leading light of the non-aligned movement, says Daniel Sunter, editor of *Balkan Intelligence*, a newsletter. “We took out the books from the past,” says Mr Sutanovac. North Africa is a main target. Serbs receive a warm (and nostalgic) welcome in countries such as Libya, where many senior officers fondly recall their training in Belgrade more than 20 years ago. The new year may offer some big prizes. Mr Sutanovac says Serbia is close to signing a $500m agreement to build a military hospital in at least one Arab country. He also hopes to win a $400m contract to modernise 149 M-84 tanks that Yugoslavia exported to Kuwait in 1991. The M-84 was assembled in Croatia from components made throughout Yugoslavia. Now those ties are being restored. Serbian, Bosnian and Macedonian arms companies are working together, and a Serbia-Croatia defence agreement signed in June also envisages co-operation. If Serbia wins the Kuwait contract, says Mr Sutanovac, some of the work will probably be shared between Bosnian, Croatian and Slovene companies. Mr Sutanovac says that NATO has given the Serbian arms industry the go-ahead to export to its armies. Much modernising remains to be done before that can begin in earnest. Still, says Mr Sutanovac, defence sales are the country’s fastest-growing industry after agriculture. Guns are also worth rather more than raspberries.

To se da povedati tudi v 140 znakih. Cel kontekst bo znan kdaj kasneje. Zakaj to trdim? Zato:

Problem: rad bi prenesel kontakte iz telefona na iPad

Koraki:

1. Iz telefona v Outlook.
2. Iz Outlooka via iTunes na iPad.

Pustimo debato, kaj imata Outlook in iTunes s tem, ko bi bilo treba samo en XML file na eni strani napisat in na drugi prebrat. Itak večina ljudi, ki to bere, ne ve, kaj je to file, kaj je XML pa itak vesta dva ali trije študentje računalništva.

Korak 1 ima svoje težave, ampak imam programček, ki telefon izvozi v csv in Outlook lepo prebere CSV. Done! Gre seveda tudi “avtomatsko”, ampak stvari so nepredvidljive. Recimo, na outlooku si imel že en kontakt, pa si ga pobrisal. Pol pride not iz telefona, ampak outlook je pameten in ugotovi, da je ta pa zbrisan, pa ga ne sprejme. Hočem, da gre čez vse in hočem biti siguren, da je šlo vse.

“Če hoče biti program pameten, more biti najprej neumen!”

iTunes ne uporabljam. Da ne bo pomote, tudi Outlooka ne. Na iPadu nimam nič takega, kar bi hotel sinhronizirati po kablu. Če bi se zadeva znala polniti skozi USB od računalnika, bi še kdaj priklopil, tako pa tega ne delam. Nobene koristi, razen, da traja. Če bo kaj hudega domnevam, da iTunes store ve, kaj sem bil kupil za to napravo. Vsaj lahko bi vedel. Najbrž pričakujem preveč, če samo logično razmišljam.

Nekako sem našel opcijo za sinhronizacijo kontaktov. Odkljukam, poženem … pa začne žehtat in žehtat. Seveda ni sinhroniziral samo kontaktov, ti pridejo na vrso na koncu, ampak appse, pa podcaste, pa kaj vem kaj, pa backup naprave (za katerega res ne bi kuril diska).

Prekinem, odstranim kljukice za ostale sinhronizacije … Pa barabe zagrozijo, da če ne bi sinhroniziral appsov, mi jih bodo pa iz iPada pobrisali. Ali neko podobno opozorilo, nejasno v najboljši microsoftovi maniri. Delaj kot mi hočemo, ali pa ti bomo zaplenili premoženje! Spominja na dogodke po osvoboditvi!

Tega si seveda nisem upal. Kolaboriral sem. Slabo uro kasneje so bili kontakti čez. 20k v eni uri! Pravijo revolucionarno, magično … jaz pravim, totalitarno! Za zdaj. Nekoč bom morda tudi jaz vzljubil svojega mučitelja.

I really do not understand their business model. One year subscription (52 issues) would cost me $99. If I was in the US, I could get them all for $20. This does not include iPad access. iPad versions cost $5 each. Each!

Zinio, here I come! I have $99 to re-invest!