Cybersurf

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window on the internet – I am your Cyberhost Steven Lang, who has just had the privilege of visiting Marrakech in Morocco.

The purpose of the trip was to attend a high profile conference on the role of the media in the information society in African and Arab states. The rather long winded title indicates that the Maarakech conference is part of the process for the World Summit on the Information Society.
The first phase of the summit was held in Geneva last December and the second phase will take place in Tunis a year from now.

The summit is really an effort by governments and international agencies to come to terms with, and put some order into the management of the internet. Whether it needs this order or not is the subject of heated debate – but the whole process of conferences and meetings is going ahead – regardless.

I asked the Moroccan minister of communications Mohammed Nabil Benabdallah about the impact of the Marrakech conference on the World Summit on the Information Society:

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The Moroccan minister of communications, Mohammed Nabil Benabdallah, speaking through an interpreter about the Marrakech conference on the role of the media in African and Arab states.

I will put a link on the Cybersurf blog for more information on the conference –

And now to another meeting, this time the annual general meeting of the Internet Corporation on Assigned names and Numbers – or ICANN, which will happen in Cape Town this week.

This meeting is very important for the following reasons – first of all, the California based ICANN, is the organisation responsible for maintaining the registry of all the domain names in the world.

Secondly because many African governments – led by our very own South African government would like the management of the internet to be handed over to an international body within the UN framework.

Thirdly because it is expected that a new organisation called AfriNIC will be officially sanctioned to maintain the registry of African domain names

And finally the ICANN conference could be very interesting because it is believed that they will officially announce plans for an Internet ombudsman.

So watch this space – sparks could fly in Cape Town this week.

I will put up links for more information on the Cybersurf blog which you can find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time - cybersurf.blogspot.com

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to tune in next Monday for a reportback on the ICANN meeting.

Links

• Role and Place of Media in the Information Society in Africa and the Arab States
• World Summit on the Information Society
• Internet Corporation on Assigned Names and Numbers

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly window on the web, and I am your very own Cyberhost – Steven Lang.
Over the past six weeks, the Schabir Shaik trial has always been near the top of the news agenda. SABCnews.com has even created a special feature section devoted to this fascinating case.

If you go to sabcnews.com you can click on the Schabir Shaik button on the right hand side and you will see latest news and all the background information.

Because of my interest in the trial I was intrigued to receive a press release from a student web site – namely the Durban Institute of Technology claiming that Shaik had cheated in his exams many years ago.

Now clearly what he did, or didn’t do in a university exam more than a decade ago has no bearing on the current case, but it does give some additional information on a fascinating character who has had more than his fair share of the limelight in the last few weeks.

The address of the DIT online site is impossibly long – please change it guys – so I am going to put the link on the cybersurf blog. Go to www.cybersurf.blogspot.com and you will find the address.

The site is a really good example of what you can do with minimal resources, and on the line to tell us more about it is Tara Turkington, - a lecturer at DIT.

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That was Tara Turkington, a senior lecturer in journalism at DIT and a founder member of the DIT online site. You will find a link to the site at the Cybersurf blog which you can find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com.
I recommend you visit the site and read some interesting claims about what Schabir Shaik is alleged to have done while studying.

And with that we wrap up Cybersurf for today, be sure to tune in again next Monday for more on the best of the web.


Link: DIT Online - http://olcweb.dit.ac.za/ditonline

Hello, good morning and peace – this is Cybersurf where the web definitely matters, and I am Steven Lang your friendly Cyberhost, taking you through two local-is-lekker web sites.

Let’s start off with the youth - or more specifically Y – Day which is found at www.yday.org.za/ that is Y.D.A.Y dot org.za and if you guessed that the Y stands for Youth you would be right, but I am also told that it stands for Yo – as in Yo day – as in tell Yo friends - whatever that means.

No kidding – this is a great site put up by a group of young people for the young people of our country. It has good messages “Spread Love, Not Aids”
It has phone numbers for childline for youthline and many others.

There is a news section, where not all the articles are in English – in fact Y-day appears to have made a commitment to use all South African languages on its pages.
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Y-Day is currently preparing for a six day training program to help young people learn about information and communication technologies. The program, running from November 29 till December 5 will benefit 50 trainees, who will learn ICT skills, to help bridge the digital divide and so improve their local communities.

The program still needs more sponsorship – so if you are in a position to help check out the yday.org.za web site.

Now for a quick change of face . . . .

(T) Last week, the de beers group had a grand re-launch of their web site which you will find at this address: www.debeersgroup.com . It really was a splendid affair with some of the most unusual catering I have ever experienced – rare fillet steak dipped in chocolate sauces – and so on.

The new site is a very classy effort and a vast improvement over its predecessor. As the URL indicates – it is the debeers group so it is a type of one-stop-shop – everything you ever wanted to know about de beers or diamonds.

Navigation is quick and easy – a classic horizontal nav bar across the top with drop down menus on mouseover.
And then when you go to each section, it has a sub navigation bar down the right hand side.

The debeersgroup site is one of the few that makes effective use of flash technology without over-doing it. Have a look at the section on the four Cs – – Cut, Carats, Clarity and Colour –and find out how diamonds are valued. The quick, easy to understand info graphics explain all the jargon professionals use to describe a diamond.
My favourite section is the one on the history of De Beers – it has an interactive timeline telling the user not only about the company, but also about the history of the diamond industry over the last 140 years or so. Navigation is very fast and content is informative.

One of the designers said that the aim is now to ensure that content is always fresh and that plans to set up an e-mail newsletter goes ahead.

So there you have it – two really top notch sites today and both of them are made in South Africa.

If you didn’t get an address - do not stress – go to the cybersurf blog at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – cybersurf.blogspot.com

Thanks for listeneing and till next week remember to keep on surfing.

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window where web matters. I am your Cyberhost – Steven Lang.

About four years ago, we first made mention of blogging – that strange phenomenon that sounds like some disgusting bodily function. We spoke about the blogger.com site and came up with a few suggestions on how blogs can effectively be used. It sounded a little esoteric, but I set up my own blog and used it a few times and then forgot about it.

The main use at that point was to work on a document from home – put it on a blog – and then be able to carry on using it in your office or while on a trip without having to actually carry the documents on a disc or some such device.

Since those long forgotten days – blogging has taken over the world – OK slight exageration – blogging has become a really valuable and widely accepted way of putting stuff on the Net and communicating.

In Europe and the USA the number of people who maintain multiple blogs is growing ferociously. In South Africa – the trend has not really caught on – and I don’t know why.

First of all – blogs are cheap – in fact, most of them are absolutely free – mahala. I personally use blogger.com – and it is through blogger.com that I was able to set up the Cybersurf Blog – which you can find at the following address – www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – that is the address where I normally put up the Cybersurf scripts AND where you can also add your comments. Yes, if you wish to send any comments about a particular Cybersurf program there is a link at the bottom where you can say your piece – and your piece will be visible to other people who visit the Blog.

Blogger.com is perhaps one of the biggest and best known places to blog – but there are many others as well – www.livejournal.com is another source of free blogs. In fact if you go the Cybersurf.blogspot.com I will put up some more useful links.

In the last few weeks, one particular blog has regularly made the front page of the BBC News web site. The blog called “Diary of A flight attendant” managed to get the owner – Ellen Simonetti fired from her job.

Simonetti who goes by the nome-de-blog of “Queen of Sky” – maintains a semi-fictional diary of her travels on the http://queenofsky.journalspace.com/ site. – Nothing wrong there – but when she posted a few mildly saucy photgraphs of herself on the site she was suddenly suspended by her employer – Delta Airlines. It appears that what really provoked management was the fact that she was wearing the airline uniform when the pictures were taken. There are no obvious airline insignia in sight and even the pictures are quite tame when compared to an average Paris fashion show.

When “Queen of Sky” was suspended, she immediately removed the offending pics. The removal did not impress management and she was fired.

Since then she has put the pictures back on her site, and added a few more for good measure, and now she is taking the airline to court for unfair dismissal.

So what do you make of that? Go to www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – read the script, visit the Diary of a Flight Attendant and post your comments on the blog.

And so we wrap the blog edition of cybersurf – thank-you for listening and till next week, remember to keeeeep on surfing.

More on Blogs

http://www.eatonweb.com/portal/index.shtml
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/WWW/Web_Logs/

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window where the web matters. I am your cyberhost with the most – Steven Lang – and if you didn’t know already that the biggest single online event of the year is about to climax tomorrow – Yes, it’s election time in the United States.
In the next two minutes or so I am going to read out some web addresses - but do not fear if you can’t get them all done, I will put up the addresses at cybersurf.blogspot.com

Not suprisingly election related material is absolutely swamping the ‘Net as we speak. If you want to keep up with what is going on, but don’t want to wade through a huge amount of garbage – a good place to start would be the campaign sites of the two leading contenders.

The incumbent has a re-election site at www.georgewbush.com/ - this is the official site, but in the last few days it has been hard to get on to – too much traffic – or maybe there has been a hacker at work. If you want to find out more about Dubya – you could go directly to the Whitehouse site – and the address is – be careful here – whitehouse.gov – if you make a mistake and go to whitehouse.com – you will be shocked and horrified by the pornography; if you go to whitehouse.org you will be amused and entertained by the satire – so make sure you type in whitehouse dot gov –
Get it, got it – good.

The Republican leader also has a sophisticated on line store which you can find at http://www.georgewbushstore.com and where you can by sweaters, banners and George W golf balls.

The main contender has a campaign site at johnkerry.com he has some interesting sub sites – one for African Americans, one for pacific islanders and even one for Hispanics called unidos con Kerry and another whole section in Spanish called oportunidades.

By the way you can also buy Kerry jackets, banners and buttons at www.kerrygear.com.

If you are looking for a more balanced overview of the election candidates. The place to go is http://www.us-election.org/ - this is a serious site and also gives you some information on the less well known candidates – yes, did you know that there are 14 presidential candidates altogether – from the Green party to the Libertarian party to the Workers World Party.

Open Secrets dot org can be found at http://www.opensecrets.org/ and this site gives you a notion of the story behind the elections and how much it really costs – Four Billion US dollars so far.

The State department has a special section at http://usinfo.state.gov that tells you all about how the election actually works. You know of course that its not a direct election – voters select representatives for an electoral college. And the electoral colleage chooses the President

And that wraps up our US election edition of cybersurf. If you missed any of the addresses that I mentioned – don’t stress, just type in www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time - cybersurf.blogspot dot com and you will find this entire script together with the all the web addresses just waiting for you to click on them.

Thanks for listening and till next week . . . . keeeeep on surfing.