Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Ethekwini online
Hello good morning and welcome to the first Wednesday edition of Cybersurf – a mid week update on what’s happening in your neck of the internet woods. I am your host Steven Lang – this week visiting Ethekwini.
The Ethekwini metro – also known as Durban - has a rather interesting site called Ethekwini online which you can find at Durban.gov.za. In fact on the front page of the site it says: Welcome to Ethekwini online – the official website of Durban, South Africa. Once you get past that slight confusion you will find quite a useful site, with tourism playing a prominent part high on the front page.
Down the left hand side nav bar there is a fairly detailed weather forecast that appears to be regularly maintained.
The buttons link to a policing conference, City maps and a section where you can check your account balance and pay your accounts online – pretty cool but since I am not a Durban resident, I couldn’t check to see if they work.
I did check out a very cool feature that allows you to find the name of your local councilor. I typed in “Reservoir Hills” an area that I have heard of in Durban – and out popped a list of councilors who I presume represent the area. The list not only gives you their names but also their home and work phone numbers.
I didn’t actually phone the numbers to see how accurate they are – but the feature looked good. The ward maps next to the councillors’ names did not work so well because instead of giving you’re a ward map as the button said – it gave you a much larger map.
A feature that I really loved is the traffic webcam section. You can monitor web cams strategically located at five major routes coming into Durban as well as North beach.
I checked out all six webcams – I guess it’s the voyeur in me – and three worked perfectly – not a bad average really. And they worked very well – it was so cool watching the traffic on the highway or watching the waves break on the beach – it gives you the feeling that you are actually spying on someone.
The leisure section was a little patchy – the news part did not appear to be regularly maintained – but the museum section was really excellent. The site lists fourteen museums and has sub sections for most of them. Of course I clicked on the KwaZuzulwazi science centre page and found loads of interesting material about the natural history of the region.
One of the most unusual buttons on the Ethekwini online site is a link to the Durban Film Office – a web site located at durbanfilmoffice.com – that is specifically designed for people who wish to produce a film in the city.
On the front page of this site it explains why you should wish to film in Durban in the first place – then it has a list of locations; advice on regulations and tells you about incentives to make your movie in Ethekwini.
So there you have it. And that wraps up this edition of Cybersurf – Be sure to join me again next Wednesday same time, same place for more on the best of the web.
The Ethekwini metro – also known as Durban - has a rather interesting site called Ethekwini online which you can find at Durban.gov.za. In fact on the front page of the site it says: Welcome to Ethekwini online – the official website of Durban, South Africa. Once you get past that slight confusion you will find quite a useful site, with tourism playing a prominent part high on the front page.
Down the left hand side nav bar there is a fairly detailed weather forecast that appears to be regularly maintained.
The buttons link to a policing conference, City maps and a section where you can check your account balance and pay your accounts online – pretty cool but since I am not a Durban resident, I couldn’t check to see if they work.
I did check out a very cool feature that allows you to find the name of your local councilor. I typed in “Reservoir Hills” an area that I have heard of in Durban – and out popped a list of councilors who I presume represent the area. The list not only gives you their names but also their home and work phone numbers.
I didn’t actually phone the numbers to see how accurate they are – but the feature looked good. The ward maps next to the councillors’ names did not work so well because instead of giving you’re a ward map as the button said – it gave you a much larger map.
A feature that I really loved is the traffic webcam section. You can monitor web cams strategically located at five major routes coming into Durban as well as North beach.
I checked out all six webcams – I guess it’s the voyeur in me – and three worked perfectly – not a bad average really. And they worked very well – it was so cool watching the traffic on the highway or watching the waves break on the beach – it gives you the feeling that you are actually spying on someone.
The leisure section was a little patchy – the news part did not appear to be regularly maintained – but the museum section was really excellent. The site lists fourteen museums and has sub sections for most of them. Of course I clicked on the KwaZuzulwazi science centre page and found loads of interesting material about the natural history of the region.
One of the most unusual buttons on the Ethekwini online site is a link to the Durban Film Office – a web site located at durbanfilmoffice.com – that is specifically designed for people who wish to produce a film in the city.
On the front page of this site it explains why you should wish to film in Durban in the first place – then it has a list of locations; advice on regulations and tells you about incentives to make your movie in Ethekwini.
So there you have it. And that wraps up this edition of Cybersurf – Be sure to join me again next Wednesday same time, same place for more on the best of the web.
