Cybersurf

About a year ago I bought an IPAQ 1940 with a windows operating system on it. I threw away my paper diary and loaded up all my info on the little flat screen. For about nine months I was thrilled. It worked like a dream, it was much smaller than my paper diary and carried far more information – including voice recordings, songs, photographs and full length books.

Then one day I woke to find the screen had cracked. Sure that it was still under guarantee, I took it in for repairs and so began a very unhappy experience. I will not bore you with the painful details, but I invited Paul Boshoff, Personal Services Group country manager for HP to find out if this is what we are to expect.

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And with that we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf – thanks for listening and be sure to join me again next Monday, same time, same place.

// posted by Steven Lang @ 8:22 am 0 comments

At the risk of oversimplifying matters – ICANN is essentially the body that administers, or manages the internet. It has meetings three times a year in different parts of the world in an effort to encourage global participation in the running of the internet.

Last December such a meeting was held in Cape Town, and in April it was the turn of Mar del Plata in Argentina. The final meeting for 2005 will be in Vancouver, Canada some time in November.

The really cool thing about these international meetings is that anyone, and I mean anyone, can participate. You can walk in off the street, get your badge at the front desk, and wait your turn to make representations to the ICANN board.

If you can’t get to these exotic locations – no problem – you can still participate online. Many of the public sessions in Luxembourg were web cast and simultaneously transcribed. This means you could hear participants asking questions or making proposals and then you could hear the Board members struggling to find appropriate answers. Full transcriptions of the public sessions are already available on the ICANN web site which you will find at icann.org – that is icann – I.C.A.N.N dot org – remember there are two ens in ICANN and it is a dot org.

The Luxembourg meeting notched up several achievements including the running of several training courses, it passed the budget and signed a contract with a consortium to create a new domain.

The consortium, known as mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd has an interesting mix of shareholders including: Microsoft, GSM Association, Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia and Vodafone. An ICANN press release says the consortium was formed with the specific purpose of “…creating a registry service to the .mobi domain. This will serve as a reliable and recognisable mechanism for internet content and services that are specifically tailored to a mobile experience”.

What all this means is that from now on, anyone in the mobile phone business will be able to purchase a web site address that ends in dot mobi. So in addition to their existing dot com, and dot co dot za addresses, we will probably be seeing sites for mtn dot mobi and vodacom dot mobi.

ICANN had other successes too – it is already preparing a strategic plan for 2006 to 2009 – but there are some uncertainties too.

No-one is sure how the World Summit on the Information Society, set for November this year, will deal with the question of Internet Governance – an issue that could have profound consequences for ICANN.

Other uncertainties stem from a recent decision by the Bush Administration to go back on its promise to relinquish control of the 13 root servers that hold the critical root folder at the very core of the internet.

The decision seriously undermined US claims that it was going to hand over control of the internet to an independent – international body. That body everyone presumed was going to be a reborn ICANN having finally cut its umbilical chord to the US department of commerce.

These are clearly very tricky issues – but ones that will have profound consequences for the management of the internet. To find out more about this, and related issues, please click along to the Cybersurf blog where I will put up this script, some relevantlinks and additional explanations of ICANN activities.

And to find the Cybersurf blog you will need to go to Cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time now: - Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com.

Thanks for listening, and please join me again next Monday morning for more Cybersurff

// posted by Steven Lang @ 4:26 pm 0 comments

So if you are interested in journalism in South Africa, if you are contemplating a career in journalism – pay close attention – the rest of you – listen anyway because there is interesting stuff here.

The internet has been kind to most professions, but I think few have benefited as much as journalists. It has opened up a whole new field called online journalism – that never existed a mere ten years ago. It created thousands and thousands of jobs, and is still the quickest growing field of journalism.

Besides all the jobs, it also created a fantastic research tool. Ten years ago we had to go into clippings libraries to search through dusty old files for relevant articles – nowadays – it’s a Google one two and you are home.

In the old days you had to beg a newsmaker for a phone interview – and of course she was always busy for the next three weeks – but now you find that if you e-mail your questions – the intelligent newsmaker will always find time to pop you a few quick answers.

If you are interested in studying journalism – there are many different institutions – some good and some – well … let’s say I’m going to tell you about a few good ones that I happen to know about.

There are two technikons – one in Pretoria and one in Cape Town. And I have had good experiences from both institutions. Special mention must go to Gilbert Mokwatedi, in Tshwane – one of the most dedicated lecturers anywhere.

As far as universities go – you should look at Rhodes and Wits.

The Rhodes, Journalism & Media Studies Department has a site at: journ.ru.ac.za – that is journ - j.o.u.r.n dot ru dot ac dot za. The site is good, but probably not as good as the department. It is really the place to be if you want to study journalism. It offers a good background in reporting essentials, but at the same time has a fantastic new media section where you can learn all there is to know about journalism in the twenty-first century – that includes flash animations, podcasting and weblogs.

Wits also has an excellent journalism department and in this case you should look at journalism dot co dot za. An excellent site that is highly recommended even for practising journalists.

For advanced training there is no better place than the Institute for the ffaaAdvancement of Journalism. It is a first rate site and well worth the visit if you are at all interested in the fourth estate in southern Africa – and the address of the site is: www.iaj.org.za

And as we draw to the end of the journalism edition of Cybersurf – I have to draw your attention to the fact that as we speak, SANEF – the South African National Editors Forum is holding its annual general meeting in Cape Town. SANEF joins editors and senior journalists from print, broadcast and online media to discuss media freedom and other related issues. To find out what is on the agenda, and later – what has been decided on – go to www.sanef.org.za

Finally, if you have missed any of the urls mentioned in today’s program, never fear – this entire script is available on the Cybersurf blog – which you will find at Cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time – Cybersurf.blogspot.com.

Thanks for listening and remember to keeeeeep on surfing.

// posted by Steven Lang @ 7:45 am 0 comments

In a few moments time – and by that I mean soon after the end of Cybersurf – but before the eight o clock news – one of the most daring and spectacular space experiments will explode in front of all the major telescopes on earth.

A fridge sized impactor – or part of a spaceship is going to slam into comet Tempel one at a speed of around 37 thousand kilometres per hour. It is expected that the collision will create a crater in the comet big enough to put a whole soccer stadium.

Now this is beyond spectacular – and you can see it all “live” on the internet at the following address:

http://www.noao.edu/news/deep-impact/ - I’ll repeat that for luck. The Kitts Peak observatory will be sending out images live from the following address: http://www.noao.edu/news/deep-impact/

I am sure that the traffic to this site will be incredibly heavy but, I suspect that the NASA boffins will have put in some ultra-serious hardware to cope with the traffic.

If you don’t manage to get to the site within the next few seconds, it will certainly still be worth your while because the Deep Impact space craft that released the impactor into the comet will be taking pictures for thirteen minutes after impact.

This means that we should be able to see all the debris being ejected from the comet and heading towards Deep Impact, about five hundred kilometres away from the crash site.

Besides this – it is also certain that all three telescopes in orbit around our earth, and all major telescopes on our planet will be trained on Tempel one for as long as the after-effects of the impact are still visible.

Now the obvious question people will ask is what is the purpose of smashing a spacecraft into a comet that is about 15 km long by about 5 kilometres wide?

Well the crude answer is to see what’s inside – just as geologists smash open rocks to find out what’s inside – well this is just one of those big rocks.

Other explanations include finding out about the building blocks of our solar system; finding out about the consistency of the comet – is it a solid rock; solid ice or just a loose agglomeration of rocks and ice.

We don’t know now, but we should have a pretty good idea in about an hour or so.

Another bit of interesting research concerns the extent to which the collision affects the trajectory of the comet - if at all. Many astronomers have proposed using an explosive missile on a comet or asteroid that threatened to crash into earth – one of the big questions is “what kind of explosion would be required to have the desired effect?”. Maybe the Deep Impact mission will provide some information in that line.

If you are interested in finding out more about the collision and any related research - I suggest that your first stop should be at the NASA Deep Impact site at: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/index.html -

Next you should also take a look at the European Space Observatory site at deepimpact.eso.org/ that is deepimpact.eso.org/ - and of course the ESO stands for European Space Obseratory

Do not stress if you couldn’t write those addresses down in time because, I will post these and other useful URLs on the Cybersurf Blog – which you will find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time www.cybersurf.blogspot.com –

That’s it for today, thanks for listening and remember to tune in again next week same time, same place for more Cybersurf.

Relevant Links:

• NASA Deep Impact mission
• European Space Observatory - Deep Impact
• Kitts Peak Observatory
• University of Maryland - Deep Impact

// posted by Steven Lang @ 7:45 am 0 comments