DCI Konferensie
Uno as Uncategorized
Aug|30|2006
Hierdie is een vir al die bloggers daar buite.
Die SR betaal/organiseer vervoer en verblyf op na die Digital Citizens Indaba in Grahamstad, die 14de en 15de September.
As jy wil gaan, dan moet jy vir my laat weet. My adres is Uno[at]sun.ac[dot]za
dit gaan cool wees, maar jy moet my soos in gister al laat weet het want daar is eintlik vrek min plek, en dit is eintlik al omtrent vol. Afhangend van hoe baie mense wil gaan, sal ons ‘n ander groter kar dalk kan organise.
Oh ja, jy moet ‘n student wees, en jy moet ook verkieslik ‘n interest in blogging he^, en dit sal help as jy volgende jaar hier gaan wees om te blog. dis soortvan die deal (maar nie te ernstig nie). en jy moet ook vrek vinnig gaan registreer. En dan as jy ‘n blog het moet jy vir mense vertel deur te post.
Defending Studente Pret
Uno as Stellenbosch Universiteit, studenteraad
Aug|30|2006
Ek het hierdie week se Studenteforum artikel in Die Matie geskryf, iets wat ek nog van my eerstejaar af wou doen maar net nooit by uitgekom het nie.
Ek skryf oor Helderberg, tradisies en die ironie van al dit haat en dit op dieselfde tyd verdedig.
Kliek deur vir die volledige artikel. Read the rest of this entry »
Hoekom Periodicals en Journals useless is vir sommige research
Uno as Uncategorized
Aug|29|2006
Ek probeer nou nuus soek vir ‘n “kort opstel” vir Politieke Wetenskap. My topic is African and Terrorism.
Hierdie is so ‘n nuwe en dinamiese onderwerp dat dit moeilik is om deur die 500 miljuisende artikels wat beskikbaar is te sif, om nie te se^ van eers die regte joernale kry nie. Ek kry baie goeie bree inligting van plekke soos die BBC af, maar die UN het niks nie want hulle update nie hulle internet profile nie.
Useless.
Thean.wordpress update
Uno as Uncategorized
Aug|29|2006
Thean het uiteindelik ‘n update gepost op sy blog. Hy skryf vrek snaaks. Gaan lees sy nuutste:
Ek moes vandag van winkel tot winkel gaan om ‘n nuwe tas te koop wat
35cmx45cmx26cm measure. Nou hoekom sal enige bliksem so spesifiek wees
oor die groote van sy tas mag jy dalk vra? Wel, dis die Britte en hulle
onnodige regulasies!
ECC conference wrap-up
Uno as Uncategorized
Aug|27|2006
Last week Kobus and myself had the opportunity to do a presentation at the Electronic Communications Convention (ECC). Our original topic was “How the internet has changed the academic and social life of students”. How condecending can you possibly be, we thought. While giving us the opportunity to speak was great, when we had finished we felt as if we had been the freak show, or a nice spectacle for the rest of the delegates.
We decided to do our presentation on Web2.0 and Higher Education Institutions. The argument we went out to make is that universities (by which I ofcourse also implicitly mean Technicons etc.) should adopt Web2.0 platforms. We structured our presentation as follows:
A brief intro on what Web2.0 is and the technologies used. The shift from content to platform.
Typical Web2.0 design (Kobus of course loved this!)
We then moved to some typical Web2.0 products.
I had prepared screencasts of flickr, Myspace, Linkedin and Threadless. This might have been where we lost the audience and where we became a show. The screencasts were very quick (a minute a site!) and we tried to demo a few of the features. It might have been a bit overwhelming for the person who sat there in the audience as he/she saw these new websites and the possibilities of everyone. That was probably also the most disconcerting. IT people should know about these products otherwise they aren’t doing their job. Atleast Myspace!
After the product showcase we had a comparison between Web1.0 and Web2.0 sites. It was funny that we had used Google Maps as an example of a Web1.0 product. 
One of the earlier presenters had used it as an example as a “Typical Web2.0 company”. We had instead chosen MapSexOffenders.com as our Web2.0 type company. Using Google Maps as a Web1.0 example might be controversial in some cases, but we were working according to a strict set of criteria do make our point.
After the comparison we started to expand on Web2.0 products that are currently being used fo academic purposes. Here we went past Urpu, WebCT Bulletin Boards (boring!) and Turnitin. We actually really struggled to get content for this section as there isn’t anything the university is currently really using that is stricly Web2.0.
We moved on to the Potential Academic uses of Web2.0. We demo’ed Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, blogging and podcasting (I think this was left out in the final presentation though). Once again, this was done with screencasts which might not have put out all the possibilities properly.
As a final way to integrate everything we had “a day in the life of John” which tried to explain how John might use all of these technologies. We went from IM, to Amazon.com, to shared calendars, to social bookmarking, to podcasting to shared notes. I really thing we tried to cover all the possibilites. We used examples of current sites that can be used. E.g. we said Amazon.com has a system where if you are browsing and you look at a book, you can view what other books people liked who also looked at this book, read user reviews and use social mechanism, i.e. Web2.0 platforms.
Finally, kobus summarized with the challenges of Web2.0, that it can fuck up and that you must use it properly. And that this requires that you let go of the control mechanisms put in place as with most of the HEI products. Also that products shouldn’t have a 2-year roll-out phase, they need to happen now, otherwise they’ll miss the boat.
Overall I feel that we had a very powerful presentation. We had good examples, we were explicit over what we were arguing for and I feel in an audience that had a better understanding of what we were telling them, we could have fielded a lot more questions. In contrast though, what really happened, we were given a nice pat on the back, regarded as “industrious students” (this from the post-ECC review on their website) and not listened to at all. We were in the company of one of the audence members when someone asked what our presentation was about, she thought a bit and then said it was our original topic (which hadn’t been changed on the conference sheets), completely missing the point of our argument. We wanted to see HEI adopt these kinds of technologies that we were talking about, we didn’t simply want to show you them, we want you to take them and do something with it!
Then there were the other presentations. Prof Botha’s was as good and clean and corporate as you get, maybe a bit too much use of bullets, and sometimes still a bit “Wow look at all the cool gadgets we’re using”, but generally OK. Two of the other speakers should never have been allowed near Powerpoint. Their presentations were shocking, I felt offended that they thought I would fall for their Fuscia, Teal and off-yellow colour scheme as pretty. The presenter on Podcasting, Dean Keats (I have decided to actually use his real name, sometimes I hope they read this and realise the error of their ways) had decided to be really forward thinking and used another computer in the background as a server from which he ran his website. Screenshots/screencasts would have added a lot more content and also not have had him switch desktops the whole time. But apart from the disgusting layout of the presentation, the topic was boring as well. Between Kobus and myself we realised that we could give exactly the same presentation in about 10 minutes. What was the point in showing people what podcasting is (there is a Wikipedia page for doing exactly that) when they still don’t know how to use it at their HEI. A workshop was what the poor bastards needed!
So on to Purple Cow Marketing, which some how wanted to show us how Internet marketing has expanded. I don’t really know what he wanted to showcase, except his company. Obviously the idea was to get HEI to use Purple Cow as their marketing agent. One question from the audience took his whole ugly presentation apart. “Taking into consideration that our HEI has a waiting list already, and that we are restricted into who we allow and how many, and that we can’t allow a higher than 1% enrollment rate, what are you actually trying to say to us?” It was something along those lines. Either way, the guy couldn’t really answer. HEI don’t really need online marketing as much as he was thinking. It’s a great tool for universities to put up on their websites, and for them to sell ads, but I don’t think that that is exactly what our Mr. Purple Cow guy was planning on selling.
Our own university did a presentation or showcase aswell which demo’ed the new MyMaties.com portal. It was a good piece as far as one can go with demo’ing something like that. Nice screenshots and a good explanation for everything.
Another womand did a presentation on African Sun Media. Why, I’m not really sure. I wasn’t listening as attentively as I probably should have as I was still finalising some text on our own presentation. I know she said something about the move to digital medium, but it was a bit of a flat, dispersed structure that hadn’t really said anything at the end of the day, except for a few nice stories here and there.
Overall the ECC was very well organised, we had a generally good time and enjoyed the food. I skipped the second day as I had to finish some rather NB stuff at the office, but Kobus gave the short of it: It was Ok.
Kobus has a full PDF copy of our presentation on his site. It doesn’t have the screencasts with, you’ll have to get those on your own. The thing I learnt from the conference is that conferences are not intended for the speaker. Remember, you are the expert here to impart knowledge. We found ourselves bored out of our skulls with the other presentations as we probably knew more about their own topics than the presenters did. At least to some extent. Something that is still bothering me is why our presentation isn’t available on the ECC website. I’m not sure if it’s an oversight, but it reflects the feeling that I had with the attitude of the conference towards us, we were the spectacle, look at what the students are doing, wowzers, amazing, now go play in your sandbox again and don’t bother the adults. We had some people talking to us afterwards, most notalby from NMMU and CPUT. The guys from CPUT were very interested in what we were doing, while for most of the others we were still the circus act. It sucks not being taken seriously.
I promise to add come pics as soon as my internet connection is stable again.
I should probably add the disclaimer: These are my own views, and not necessarily shared by Kobus. So take it as my review and hassle him for a review of his own.
‘n Nuwe SR webwerf
Uno as Online, Stellenbosch Universiteit, studenteraad
Aug|7|2006
Sjoe, wie het gedink dit sou ooit kom?
Uiteindelik is dit up and running. Ek het finaal en al die Studenteraad se webwerf online gekry. Dit was nou al vir so ‘n hele tyd aan die gang, maar dit was die ou ene en was nie baie mooi of gebruikers vriendelik nie.
Hierso is hoe die nuwe ene lyk (Hulle is clickable vir groot prentjies. clickety click!):
en hierso is hoe die ou ene gelyk het:
So nou wat is die verskil?
Wel die nuwe ene gebruik Joomla, wat net baie beter is as die vreeslik oud en gekronktde Portaal sisteem wat die universiteit gebruik as standaard pakket.
Ok, so die nuwe voordele wat ons het is:
Poll hosting
Banner hosting
RSS feeds
Gallerye
Form submission (mens kan nou alle vorms online invul sodra ek uitfigure hoe die goed werk)
Forums (die universiteit gaan moontlik lekker kwaad word hieroor, alles moet mos ge-authenticate word teen 500 miljuisend background checks)
Nog baie meer (daar kom omtrent elke week ‘n nuwe plugin vir Joomla uit, wat nogals lekker is, mens download dit en plug en play)
Die mees belangrikste nuwe feature egter is hoe maklik dit is om nuwe content by te sit. En dit is iets wat bekend is aan my, en hopelik ‘n paar ander SR lede. Die WYSIWYG interface help helse baie met nuwe content byvoeg, en as mens banners wil manage is dit geen probleem nie, mens kan dit baie maklik doen met die Advertising ding. Lekker lekker.
OK, ek weet die site lyk vrek sleg soos dit daar is, maar dis nou maar een van daai dinge as mens glad nie enige HTML kennis het, nog minder PHP en as jy nog wonder hoe om Mysql uittespreek. So vir nou is dit goed genoeg ok. Daar is content. En dis up to date (amper). Nou los my uit.
As daar enigiemand daar buite is wat enige voorstelle sou wou voorstel dan stel ek voor jy stel hulle voor in die comments. In ‘n kort tydjie gaan ek comments op die SR site enable dan kan julle mal gaan. En ek gaan die forums oop maak. En die job board, en as ek regtig lus het sommer die Property listings ook. Lekker lekker.
Nou: Hoekom het dit so lank gevat? Wel, ek kon nie enige van die pakkette wat ons uitgetoets het op die ou PHP laai wat die US gehardloop het nie. Die US het hierdie vakansie wat verby is die nuwe PHP gelaai en nou kan ons mal gaan met nuwe dinge. Daar was sprake van ‘n sandbox implementeer, maar ek weet nie hoe ver daai idee gaan strek nie. Vir nou is dit maar net PHP, Mysql en Apache wat geupgrade is. Hopelik is daar eendag ‘n maklike userinterface wats als makliker gaan maak. Eendag.
New Review
Uno as Uncategorized
Aug|5|2006
I’ve written a new review on Java Cafe in Stellenbosch. It’s over at Restaurants Reviewed clickety click action.