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Monday, August 29, 2005

Civil Society preparations and some Cynicism

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window, where web matters. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang with a program packed full of news – and, whatever you miss don’t worry I will post this script on the Cybersurf Blog.

If you tuned in last week, you’ll remember that we talked about the Internet Week in the Western Cape – one of the highlights of the week was the Civil Society Colloquium preparing for the World Summit on the Information Society also known by the acronym WSIS. The actual summit will be held in Tunis in Novermber, but most of the preparations will take place in Geneva later this month. Civil society – essentially a large grouping of NGOs and other interested parties, met in Cape Town to prepare for the Geneva meeting.

How was the Cape Town meeting? Here is Adama Samassekou - President of the first phase of WSIS.

INSERT:

This Conference has seen . . . .

. . . . process of WSIS.

Adama Samassekou, with his impression of Civil Society preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society.

(T) Back to the Convergence Bill – a very troublesome piece of legsilation that has been provoking controversy for the last three years. On Friday, government relented on one of the most problematic aspects of the Bill – that of licensing content and application providers.

Depending on whose interpretation you accepted – it could have forced anyone who had a web site to apply for a licence.

However, the deputy director-general in charge of policy at the department of Communications, Joe Mjwara, said that government will drop this requirement.

Sanity finally prevails.

Now for a complete change of perspective – to a view from space.

One of the most entertaining sites I have come across in recent months is that of Google earth – or more precisely – earth dot google dot com.

The site carries an enormous number of satellite photographs of the whole world – I did not test the whole world but it is pretty good in the places where I did test.

In the US it is almost as good as a map guide.

But for South Africa, most of the sat pictures are what they describe as “medium resolution”.

That means good enough to see parks and suburbs, but not your house.

There are one or two places that do have high resolution pictures – at Johannesburg International Airport you can count the number of engines on the passenger liners.

The site is fantastic but it does require that you download a rather large file.

An added bonus is the full set of satellite pictures of the moon - it even shows you where the Apollo landers touched down.

With that view from space – we come to the end of today’s edition of Cybersurf. You can find the full script and relevant links on the Cybersurf Blog which is at cybersurf. Blogspot.com – one more time – cybersurf.blogspot.com

Thanks, for listening and remember to keeeep on surfing


// posted by Steven Lang @ 10:05 am 0 comments

Monday, August 22, 2005

Information Society Week in Cape Town

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your friendly Monday morning update on what’s happening on the web – I am your Cyberhost Steven Lang.

If you have ever wondered how information and communication technologies can really benefit society – you ought to be in Cape Town – at least this week, because today the Western Cape’s first ever Information Society Week clicks off at the Civic Centre in Cape Town.

And to find out about the Information Society Week you should visit the Cape gateway site which can be found at www.capegateway.gov.za that is capegateway – one word dot gov dot za.

A number of organisations are working together to ensure the success of the Information Society Week – they include – the provincial government of the Western Cape, the Centre for e-Innovation in partnership with the Cape Peninsula University of technolgoy, the City of Cape Town and the Department of Communications

The Information Society week will incorporate a number of high profile events such as the SANGONET colloquium on the World Summit on the Information Society; a women in ICT conference; an applications conference and the annual conference of CIRN – which is an acronym for the Community Informatics Research Network.

And joining us from the SABC’s Sea Point studio in Cape Town, is Dr. Michael Gurstein – the founding chairman of CIRN.

INSERT:

IN: The Community Informatics . . . .

OUT: . . . . exciting for me.

DUR: 1’33”

Dr. Michael Gurstein – the founding chairman of the Community Informatics Research Network.

If you would like to find out more about the CIRN conference or any other aspect of the Western Cape’s first ever Information Society Week, please go to the Cybersurf blog which you will find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com.

I will put all the relveant addresses and this script on the blog – so remember www.cybersurf.blogspot.com.

Thanks for listening and please join me again next Monday for more on the best of the web.

Relevant Links:


// posted by Steven Lang @ 7:48 am 0 comments

Monday, August 15, 2005

Google Alerts

Hello Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly window on the web – I am your cyberhost Steven Lang – this week having a look at some new features on Google.

And joining me in the studio to help us along is Internet consultant Charles Webster. Charles we are now looking at google web alerts – what is this all about?

CHARLES INSERT:
IN: "It's a beta site . . . .
OUT: . . . . their fundamental strength.

Charles Webster telling us about Google’s web alerts – which you can find at google dot com forward slash alerts – quite simple really.

And for all you news junkies out there – I am sure you must have tried customising Google News.

The regular Google news page is heavily slanted towards the US of A – so what if you want a more local flavour?

In case you haven’t cusotmised the news page – it is really easy – click on the news button above the search field and go to the news page.

There you will find a Customise this Page block.

Click on that and you will soon have the news that interests you.

So we come to the end of another Cybersurf – thanks for listening and be sure to join me again next Monday for more on the best of the web.

Relevant link: www.google.com/alerts


// posted by Steven Lang @ 2:54 am 0 comments

Monday, August 08, 2005

Telkom vs the Rest

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window on the web. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang, discussing today the rather ugly spat that has erupted between Telkom and everyone else in South Africa who wants an affordable, quick connection to the Internet.

How ugly is the spat? Well Telkom essentially said that ICASA, the organisation meant to regulate our telecoms, did not understand what it was supposed to be doing, the phone company also threatened legal action against the regulator – while ICASA said that Telkom was holding the country to ransom and was stiffling the economy.

All this ugliness began in April at a series of ICASA hearings into Telkom’s pricing structure of its ADSL services. To oversimplify the hearings – Telkom said it was not over-charging while just about everyone else said it was.

An ICASA panel heard all the oral submissions, accepted a number of written submissions and then put together its findings in a report which was released at the end of last month.

Still keeping it simple, ICASA essentially agreed with all those who sided against Telkom – and now the swords are drawn.

One of the most vocal complainants, a web site forum known as myadsl, said the report acknowledged that:

Monthly charges for Telkom’s home ADSL services have come down considerably since they were first introduced, and they have also dropped since the hearings in April – but most analysts believe that they are still way too high.

Since the ICASA report was released, Telkom has threatened to cut its ADSL

Services to its customers and to sue the regulator.

So is Telkom the victim of a spiteful campaign while it tries to roll out capital intensive services to underprivileged communities or is it a greedy monopoly trying to make as much profits as possible while government stalls competition from the second national operator?

Well, I am not quite sure, it is a little confusing. There are many strange aspects to this story for example I could never understand why Telkom charges ninety rand for your phone line and then another three sixty for the ADSL if it is the very same line?

Oh well, perhaps I am like ICASA - not enough technical expertise.

A new spin on the story has come from Suzanne Vos of the IFP – yes even the political parties are getting involved. Vos issued a statement appealing to Parliament to protect the rights of the country’s citizens.

She said, - and I quote from the statement: “

Threats of crippling legal action against ICASA's decision-making and national economic sabotage cannot be allowed.

End of quote…..

So watch the battle unfold – and to help you watch, I will put up a few useful links on the Cybersurf Blog – which is tactically located at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time www.cybersurf.blogspot.com

Thanks for listening and tune in again next Monday for more on the best of the web.

Relevant Links (Courtesy of Peter Wakeford)


Parties:


// posted by Steven Lang @ 12:37 pm 1 comments

Monday, August 01, 2005

ZA Domain Name Authority

Hello and good morning, – this is Cybersurf, your weekly injection for the internet connection. I am your Cyberhost – Steven Lang.

And this week we hear about the Domain Name Authority – the organisation in charge of all web addresses that end in dot za.

Through most of the year 2002 a fierce war raged between the department of Communications and the broader internet community of South Africa over who should be responsible for the dot za domain name.

To cut a very long and acrimonious story short – the dispute was resolved when both sides agreed to transfer the task of registering names to a Domain Name Authority – or DNA.

Two years ago – Minister Ivy matsepe Casaburri – announced the names of the freshly constituted Domain Name Authority – but since then….?

Well it appears that nothing keeps happening.

So I asked the Chairman of the DNA – Doctor Hasmukh Gajjar – what are they doing?

IN: What we are doing now is . . . .

OUT: . . . . a number of organisations.

Dr. Hasmukh Gajjar, Chairman of the dot ZA Domain Name Authority. And if you would like to keep tabs on this body – I suggest you click along to their web site which you will find at www.zadna.org.za – one more time www.zadna.org.za

And that wraps it for Cybersurf today. Thanks for listening, tune in again next Monday, same time, same place and remember, to keeep on surfing..


// posted by Steven Lang @ 3:31 pm 0 comments

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