Cybersurf

Fighting Facebook

2007-11-06T05:36:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, three minutes of your time EXCLUSIVELY for the internet. I am Steven Lang.

Pornography is not something we talk about very often on AM Live, but every now and so often we have to mention it on Cybersurf - after all - pornography was the main driver of internet growth in the early years - sometime in the last millennium.

Pornographic sites were the first to develop viable business models for selling content, and because of the widespread interest in dirty pictures, the internet was able to reach a critical mass.

For years pornography was the main driver of internet traffic - this is no longer true.

So, currently what do most people look for on the internet? I'll keep you guessing for a few more seconds.

The online edition of Time magazine says that in the United States, visits to porn sites have dropped from seventeen percent in October 2005 to twelve percent at the end of October in 2007. That is a drop of 33 percent!

Currently the THIRD most clicked-on category of sites is Search engines accounting for 11.6 percent: - FOURTH is web-based email services, then blogs followed by online news sites with a mere 1.5% of the clickability.

Of the 172 categories tracked by Hitwise - the number one generator of traffic is:
Social networking sites.

Yes, believe it or not teenagers and young adults now PREFER TO exchange inane messages rather than slobber over porn sites.

A few weeks ago we dedicated an entire edition of Cybersurf to Facebook; the leader in this category - but there are competitors out there.

The search engine 800 pound gorilla - Google - is busy putting together an alliance of competitors in an effort to face-off Facebook.

Google's own contribution - called Orkut has closed ranks with Hi5, Friendster, linkedIn and Plaxo - it sounds imposing, and we all know that things change rapidly on the internet - but the Google social networking alliance still has only one tenth the number of members of Facebook.

And of course Facebook makes it painful to migrate to an opposition site. The killer app in this context would be something that allowed the user to import all her FaceBook content to a newer, better social networking site.

Personally, I don't enjoy online social networking, but there are millions of people out there who spend an inordinate amount of time networking.

What we really need now is a survey about how much these sites cost the business sector. I know that some companies have already banned Facebook during office hours.

That's it from me Steven Lang, I have to go and check my messages now - yeah right. Thanks for listening and be sure to join me again next week, same time same place for more on the best of the web.

Ups and downs at YouTube

2007-08-07T06:26:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a quick update on what is happening on the internet. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang.

Now if you remember last week’s program when we did a special feature on FaceBook – the social networking site that is gripping the country, you will recall the wide variety of opinions on the site. What has been very interesting for me is the number of people who have secretly confefsseed to me that they are in fact FaceBook addicts.

It’s quite funny really how embarrassed they look.

I must admit that I have become a youTube addict, everytime I have a free moment at home – never at work of course - I log on to the site to check out music videos and the funny stuff.

But its not all time wasting – recently a nine year old boy in Brisbane Australia was recruited to play for Manchester United, because someone saw his prolific skills on a Youtube Video.

Another success story – two comics, Joe Bereta and Luke Barats signed a six figure deal with the NBC television network after more than a million people viewed their clips on YouTube. The pair of 23 year olds will now develop low cost sitcoms and sketches for one year – with an option to renew for a second.

My personal favourite – Brookers or Brooke Brodack has just been given a Hollywood contract to produce TV promos – because some advertising execs liked her satirical lip-synch videos.

The site is doing so well, and some particularly talented individuals have become so popular, that YouTube is trying to work out some kind of revenue sharing deal with people who attract large numbers of users.

But it is not all sunny skies at YouTube – the site has been sued several times for copyright infringements. People post music videos or exclusive interviews on the site without the permission of the owner. This has caused the content owners – big ones such as Sony, Fox and NBC to take legal action against YouTube.

In their defence, whenever a clip is found to be in breach of copyright they immediately remove the offending material.

Attacks against YouTube have recently escalated – now the National Musical Publishers Association in the US of A has lodged a complaint on behalf of songwriters who are not being properly compensated when their songs appear on the site.

Well, of course we are against the breach of any intellectual property laws – but it will indeed be a sad day if Youtube is ever forced to close down.

Oh, and just in case you thought that YouTube was only for us to watch silly American videos – don’t worry it is very easy to put up your own silly videos, – all you need is a good cellphone and an internet connection.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening and please tune in again next week, same time, same place for more on the best of the web.

Ignore calls to regulate MXit and Blogs

2007-05-29T06:48:00.000+02:00

Hello Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – three minutes wholly dedicated to the internet. I am Steven Lang.

About ten days ago, the leader of the independent democrats, Ms. Patricia De Lille, issued a statement calling on government to regulate MXIT and Internet blogging. Her call – carried in full on the ID.org.za website - was motivated by, amongst other things, recent revelations of pornographic images of young girls circulating on MXIT.

MXIT is incidentally, a cheap messaging system on cellphones used primarily by young people – I am far too old for it.

There have been several cases of under-age teenagers taking nude photos of themselves and then privately sending the digital pics to a special friend. Then for some unknown reason the friend distributes the images through a whole network of friends and assorted perverts.

Once a picture is out in the public domain – you can’t get it back – ask Paris Hilton.

This is unfortunate, yes, photos taken in unguarded moments can haunt you for a long time. My advice to you on this – if you don’t want naked pictures of yourself spattered all over the internet or on cell phone networks - do not take the pictures in the first place.

Distribution nowadays is just too easy –

But please don’t blame the network, or the phone system.

In the old days when pornographers distributed their wares through the postal service, nobody in their right minds thought of censoring private letters?

But perhaps what really sparked Ms. De Lille to call for regulation – especially of blogs – was a revelation a little closer to home.

Her statement on the ID web site said – and I quote: “We recently came across a blog with slanderous comments about a famous rugby player, a respected reverend in the church and a prominent entertainer.

‘This blog also included one of our senior politicians, Councillor Simon Grindrod. He reported this matter to the Caledon Square police on Tuesday 15 May and they are currently investigating it,’ – end of quote.

The blog she is referring to – samaleprostitute.wordpress.com – is a trashy corner of the internet where a demented blogger describes himself as a heterosexual male who serviced gay males – including fifty minor celebrities – for a number of years.

The entries – mostly in Afrikaans are slanderous and should be taken down.

But not because the government should attempt to undertake the impossible and regulate the blogosphere; but rather because those entries surely violate every law of defamation of every country on this planet.

Reinardt Buys, a lawyer who specializes in Internet law, says to those who have been anonymously defamed on a blog - the first step is to inform the blog operator of the defamatory postings and request the removal thereof.

Buys says that if the site with the defamatory content is hosted in South Africa – the take down procedure provided for in the ECT act may be used to literally take down the defamatory content.

In other words someone who is defamed on the internet – does rightly have legal recourse – but let us ignore calls to regulate the tools that make the internet the fantastic medium it is.

For more on this issue, please go to the Cybersurf blog – which you will find at Cybersurf.blogspot dot com. One more time - Cybersurf.blogspot dot com.

Thanks for listening - and do join me again next week for more on the best of the web.

======================================================

Date: 29 May 2007

PRESS RELEASE

FROM: BUYS INC. ATTORNEYS

TOPIC: BLOGS, DEFAMATION AND ANONYMITY

DATE: 28 MAY 2007

CONTACT: REINHARDT BUYS, (021) 461 7387, reinhardt@buys.co.za

EMBARGO: NONE

The media recently reported on comments by Independent Democrat (ID) leader, Patricia de Lille, regarding defamatory blogs and the use of MXit.

According to a statement on the ID website, de Lille has called on Government to look into urgently implementing legislation that will regulate MXIT and Internet blogging, where members of the public can with impunity slander and defame individuals and organisations they do not like.

The statement also claims that another worrying development in cyberspace is the abuse of blogging, which allows anonymous individuals to post slanderous and defamatory comments with impunity about anyone they choose, without the legal consequences they would face in other more reputable print and electronic media.

Over the weekend, a number of newspapers reported on a blog, apparently written by a former male prostitute, disclosing the identities of his prominent clients.

IS ONLINE ANONYMITY A BAD THING?

These reports yet again raise the important question whether or not online anonymity is a good thing or not.

Should bloggers and MXit users be allowed to hide behind nicknames? Surely, people would think twice before defaming others if they had to do so under their real names.

According to Reinhardt Buys, Internet lawyers from Buys Inc. Attorneys, the benefits of online anonymity far outweigh the dangers or abuses.

“The right to speak anonymously by using, for example a nickname, is an inherent element of the general right to free speech. For various reasons, people do not want to associate some comments to their true identities. Prohibiting anonymous speech on the Internet would not only be impossible, but would severely restrict the right to free expression”.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, many people do not want the things they say online to be connected with their offline identities. They may be concerned about political or economic retribution, harassment, or even threats to their lives. Whistleblowers report news that companies and governments would prefer to suppress; human rights workers struggle against repressive governments; parents try to create a safe way for children to explore; victims of domestic violence attempt to rebuild their lives where abusers cannot follow.

Instead of using their true names to communicate, these people choose to speak using pseudonyms (assumed names) or anonymously (no name at all). For these individuals and the organizations that support them, secure anonymity is critical. It may literally save lives.

According to the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a collaboration among law school clinics and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to support lawful online activity against the chill of unwarranted legal threats, the Internet has given voice to millions of people who can now share their ideas and thoughts under cover of a pseudonym or screen name. This protection has been critical to opening up discussions among shareholders, political dissidents, victims of domestic abuse, "whistleblowers," and disgruntled employees. But this same anonymity can also shield the stealers of trade secrets and copyrighted material and prevent the unmasking of libel.

According to a statement on the Chilling Effects website: “The ability of Internet service providers (ISPs) to unmask anonymous subscribers and users has proven to be a weakness in the protection of freedom of expression on the Internet. Companies angry about comments criticizing them on public message boards, for example, have found that they can simply file a civil lawsuit with vague, unsupported claims, then issue a subpoena to the discussion's host ISP demanding the identity of the speaker. These subpoenas have effectively shut off discussion in many public forums. ISPs have recently begun to notify their subscribers when they receive these subpoenas, giving them at least a limited opportunity to object. Yet still, many subscribers do not respond in time and their identities are turned over with no analysis of whether their speech actually caused any harm”.

“There are a wide variety of reasons why people choose to speak anonymously. Many use anonymity to make criticisms that are difficult to state openly - to their boss, for example, or the principal of their children's school. The Internet has become a place where persons who might otherwise be stigmatized or embarrassed can gather and share information and support - victims of violence, cancer patients, AIDS sufferers, child abuse and spousal abuse survivors, for example”.

“They use newsgroups, Web sites, chat rooms, message boards, and other services to share sensitive and personal information anonymously without fear of embarrassment or harm. Some police departments run phone services that allow anonymous reporting of crimes; it is only a matter of time before such services are available on the Internet. Anonymity also allows "whistleblowers" reporting on government or company abuses to bring important safety issues to light without fear of stigma or retaliation. And human rights workers and citizens of repressive regimes around the world who want to share information or just tell their stories frequently depend on staying anonymous – sometimes for their very lives”.

According to Buys, online anonymity is more than a privilege and actually a right, much like other human rights.

“The fact that certain individuals abuse their right to anonymous speech, does not mean the problem lies with anonymous speech itself. There are many legal ways through which abuses of anonymity may be addressed and trying to prohibit or restrict online anonymity would be akin to trying to prohibit any other human right because a small minority of people abuse the right”.

“Although no South African court has expressed itself to date on the question of online anonymity, a number of foreign courts have repeatedly confirmed the important place of the right to speak anonymously in political and social discourse”.

As far back as 1995, the US Supreme Court ruled in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission that: “Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society”.

“The fact that youngsters may use tools like MXit anonymously by chatting with nicknames is an important feature that protects them. These youngsters would be much more exposed to online predators if they were forced to use their real names,” said Buys.

DO BLOG AND CHAT ROOM OPERATORS HAVE A DUTY TO PREVENT DEFAMATION?

During 2003 a number of allegedly defamatory comments was made about Natasha Tsichlas, the MD of the Sundowns Football Club, on the Kick-Off discussion forum hosted on the Kick Off website (operated by Touchline Media) – calling her a “Greek hooker", "idiot", "clown", "prostitute" and "bitch".

Tsichlas applied for an interdict against the Kick Off site, forcing them to remove the comments and prevent any further defamatory comments regarding herself.

On 26 June 2003, the Witwatersrand High Court ruled in favour of the Kick Off site, refusing to grant and interdict against the site.

According to the Judge’s decision: “If discussion forum operators were required to monitor all postings for defamatory content, it would severely restrict the operation of the forum and would furthermore grossly curtail free speech”.

According to Buys, not only case law, but also legislation, protects Internet hosts against liability from third party defamatory content.

Section 75 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act protects Internet Service Providers who may host defamatory content against liability if they do not know about it or failed to take it down when so requested in terms of a so-called take down notice.

IN DEFENCE OF DEFAMATORY COMMENTS

Buys argues that one should keep in mind that not all so-called defamatory comments are necessarily bad.

“Sometimes prima facie defamatory comments may be protected by one or more justification grounds like truth and public benefit. In these cases the public’s right to know, weighs more than the individual’s right to dignity or a good reputation”.

DO BLOG AND CHAT ROOM OPERATORS HAVE A DUTY TO DISCLOSE THE IDENTITY OF AN ANONYMOUS POSTER OF DEFAMATORY MESSAGES?

When Internet users subscribe to services that allow them to operate their own blogs or take part in anonymous discussion forums or chat rooms, they first have to register with the blog or chat room operator.

These registrations require the submission of the user’s true identity and contact details. Although the user may provide fraudulent details, his or her email address is generally authenticated by sending the username and password necessary to activate the blog or discussion forum to the email address provided.

The true identities of these users are generally governed by the operator’s terms and conditions, which prevent the operator from disclosing it unless authorised thereto by due legal process.

In other words, blog or discussion forum operators and even the operators of MXit cannot disclose the true identity of a person who uses a nickname merely because somebody alleges that the person made a defamatory comments and requires the person’s true identity, says Buys.

The disclosure of a user’s true identity is subject to due legal process, which means that it may only be disclosed upon receipt of a court order or subpoena authorising the disclosure.

According to Cyberslapp.org a new form of lawsuit called a "CyberSLAPP" suit is threatening to overturn the promise of anonymous online speech and chill the freedom of expression that is central to the online world.

CyberSLAPP cases typically involve a person who has posted anonymous criticisms of a corporation or public figure on the Internet. The target of the criticism then files a frivolous lawsuit just so they can issue a subpoena to the Web site or Internet Service Provider (ISP) involved, discover the identity of their anonymous critic, and intimidate or silence them.

Cyberslapp.org is sponsored by a coalition of civil liberties and privacy groups who have come together to protect the right to speak freely and anonymously on the internet (www.cyberslapp.org).

WHAT STEPS MAY BE TAKEN AGAINST ANONYMOUS POSTERS OF DEFAMATORY CONTENT?

Those whose are defamed anonymously on blogs, bulletin board or chat rooms have a number of recourses.

Generally, the first step is to inform the blog or chat room operator of the defamatory postings and requesting the removal thereof. Whereas some operators may publicly display an abuse report facility, the procedure to contact others may be detailed in their respective terms and conditions.

For example, MXit complains may be send to support@mxit.co.za whereas a complaint against a blog operated by Google’s Blogger.com is governed by its Content Policy available at www.blogger.com/content.g.

If the site with the defamatory content is hosted in South Africa, the take down procedure provided for in the ECT Act may be used to literally take down the defamatory content. This is done by submitting a so-called take down notice to the ISP that hosts the offending site. Guidance on the preparation and submission of a take down notice is available on the website of the Internet Service Providers Association www.ispa.org.za/code/take_down_procedure.shtml.

As a last resort, a court may be asked to issue a court order authorising the operator of the blog or chat room to disclose the true identity of the person who posted the defamatory messages.

If the person’s identity is known, a civil case could be instituted to recover damages and ensure the removal of the defamatory postings.

DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER

Buys offers some sobering advice for those who prematurely calls for the regulation of tools like blogs, MXit and chat rooms.

“Just as we cannot prohibit radio stations because somebody made a defamatory statement over the radio, or prohibit newspapers because a defamatory article appeared in a newspaper, or prohibit telephones because somebody said something nasty about somebody else over a telephone, we cannot prohibit or restrict anonymous free speech on the Internet - and likewise, cannot justify the regulation of tools like blogs, MXit and chat rooms”.

Resources:

· http://www.chillingeffects.org/johndoe/

· http://www.chillingeffects.org/johndoe/faq.cgi

· http://www.eff.org/Censorship/

· http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/

· http://www.eff.org/bloggers/

· http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=76106&highlight=Reinhardt

· http://www.id.org.za/newsroom/press-releases/de-lille-calls-on-government-to-regulate-mxit-and-internet-blogging/

Regards,

REINHARDT BUYS

MANAGING DIRECTOR

BUYS INC. ATTORNEYS

Consumer complaints on HelloPeter.com

2007-04-25T05:05:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly update on the Internet – I am Steven Lang.

In this regular slot, we usually make an effort to find sites that are useful for you, the listener – and today we have struck paydirt.

Charles Webster, joins us in the studio to tell us about a very practical consumer site with a somewhat cryptic name – HelloPeter dot com. Charles, before you go anywhere, please tell us how this name came about:

Insert:

IN: “Peter Cheales is a well known . . .

OUT: . . . . . . in those places."

DUR: 2’10”

Charles Webster is an internet consultant and today he was sharing some thoughts on the Hellopeter dot com web site.

So if you have received shoddy treatment at any commercial establishment – go straight to hellopeter dot com; publish your complaint on the site, and you will probably get a response sooner than you think.

With that we close this week’s Cybersurf – please join me again next Wednesday for more on the best of the web.

JoziKids - what to do with your Kidz in Joburg

2007-04-18T05:11:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – three minutes dedicated to finding out what’s new on the Internet. I Am Your Cyberhost, Steven Lang. This week we take a look at a brand new site – it went live at the end of last month – all about amusing kids in Johannesburg.

Merle Dieterich has two kids and she could never find enough ways of keeping them constructively amused – I am sure it was particularly difficult during the holidays – and of course there was always the “I am bored” syndrome.

Merle started looking harder for things to do and found out that actually – there is plenty to do in Jozi – so what else could she do?

She spent seven months putting together the Jozi Kids web site and now it is live. What is on the site – let Merle answer that for herself.

INSERT

Merle Dieterich of Jozikids dot co dot za – it’s a very useful site that I am sure will become even more useful as time goes by.

And so we wrap up Cybersurf for today. Thanks for listening and do join me again next Wednesday for more on the best of the web.

Digital rights Management

2007-04-11T05:09:00.000+02:00

Hello and good morning it’s time for some Cybersurfing – yes it’s the Internet interlude. I am your host Steven Lang, this week with an interesting discussion on Digital rights Management – or as the cool geeks say – DRM.

Digital rights management is one of the most contentious issues on the internet because it directly affects the way we manage intellectual property – or who own the music and software that moves so freely over the internet?

Heather Ford is a driving force at iCommons dot org and was instrumental in setting up Creative Commons South Africa. So I asked for her understanding of digital rights management.

INSERT:

Heather Ford discussing creative new business models for the Internet age. If you’d like to learn more about Creative ways of managing intellectual property rights, check out the Creative commons web site at http://za.creativecommons.org/

Next week an important Creative Commons conference will be taking place in Cape Town. So check it out http://za.creativecommons.org/

And with that we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf – please join me again next Wednesday, for more on the best of the web.

Movies about making wine

2007-03-21T05:26:00.000+02:00

Hello and good morning – this is Cybersurf – an interlude on the internet. I am Steven Lang, your Cyberhost – this week with a glass of wine.

Or more specifically with wine films – a rather unusual website that can be found at Wine films dot co dot za.

The full name of the site is Wine films South Africa – Visual business. It describes itself as an attempt to collate and make available all of the wonderful films that J Productions have made of South African farms – forty of them to date.

But let us rather hear Iain Anderson describe his project:

IN: Currently there are 33 . . . .

OUT: . . . . to somebody overseas.

That was Iain Anderson of Wine Films South Africa a fascinating site if you are at all interested in wine production – but be warned, you do need a good broadband connection to be able to view the films comfortably.

And that wraps up your web site review for today – please tune into Cybersurf next week for more on the best of the web.

Government Information Technology Officers Council

2007-03-14T00:38:00.000+02:00

Hello, Good morning and welcome to another edition of Cybersurf – an essential briefing on internet news. I am Steven Lang.

In recent weeks we have devoted the last two editions of this program to e-government – today we speak to the recently appointed chair of the council that is supposed to oversee many e-government functions.

GITOC is an acronym for the Government Information Technology Officers Council – a body created to serve as an IT co-ordination and consolidation vehicle in government

I spoke to Mmamathe-Makhekhe Mokhuane and asked her – what is e-government for:

IN: I think the main objective . . .

OUT: . . . at the end of the day

Mmamathe-Makhekhe Mokhuane the newly appointed Chairperson of GITOC.

While doing research for this program, I immediately thought I’d check out the GITOC web site – but guess what?

There isn’t one.

To find out more about this body that is essentially coordinating e- policy, you need to go to the web site of the department of Public Service and administration.

The site is at DPSA.gov.za – and once you get there you have to dig around.

Ms. Mokhuane did tell me however, that her council is working on a new web site.

So thats it from me, please tune in again next Wednesday for more Cybersurf.

Broadband tender for Joburg

2007-03-07T05:22:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a Wednesday morning update on what’s happening on the Internet. I am Steven Lang.

And this week we hear about the City of Johannesburg’s plans to set up its own broadband network. At the end of last month, the city launched a Request for Information process for the broadband network project. And to explain what it’s all about: Douglas Cohen of the City’s Department of Economic Development.

IN: It’s basically there . . . .

OUT: . . . . to those areas.

DUR: 2’27”

Douglas Cohen of Joburg’s Department of Economic Development explaining plans for a city wide broadband network.

In my view, any initiative that will offer cheaper rates that Telkom is a good thing.

So until the network is up and running, I’ll say my good byes until next week when I’ll invite you for more Cybersurfing....

Budget Day web sites

2007-02-21T06:39:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to the budget edition of Cybersurf – I am Steven Lang taking you this fine morning to few sites that might help you find out about, and digest the budget.

The first place you might want to look would be at the ministry’s home page – but that would not be a good place to start because everything related to the finance ministry is actually on the National Treasury page which you will find at treasury dot gov dot za.- that is treasury dot G.O.V dot za

This is a very interesting site that I am sure will receive a huge amount of traffic in the next few hours.

I say it is interesting because it is an old fashioned, mish mash collection of vast amounts of documents. I have been visiting this site for years and it is in dire need of a re-organisation because there is so much information on the site but the navigation is so haphazard that it is not easy to search for anything specific.

Anyway, the most important thing for today – the budget – is very easy to find boldy displayed on the front page. No – don’t go rushing off, the speech is not on the site - yet! But the place is clearly marked where you will be able to find the budget speech soon after two pm.

There is also a link to a “Tips for Trevor” page – a concept that was born on this very program – AM Live – about ten years ago, when we invited listeners to send us faxes with “tips for Trevor”

The links page is useful with links to many, relevant financial institutions – but it also shows its age with links to a number of banks that have long since been swallowed up by the oligopoly.

If you are not going to be near a radio today and would like to hear the Budget speech anyway, you should logon on to SABCnews.com. The site has a really great feature section dedicated to the budget where you will be able to watch Trevor Manuel deliver his speech on a web cast. To get to this section, there is a link right at the top of the front page, or you can navigate down the left hand side till you get to the “Features” section – click on the button, and Cyber gods willing – you will be able to watch the presentation on line.

The full text of the speech will be available on SABCnews.com shortly after the minister delivers his concluding remarks.

For more analysis of the speech you should also visit the sites of the big banks – they all have economic research units and they are usually quite quick to put this information on their respective sites – I am thinking here about absa.co.za; standard.co.za; and fnb.co.za.

But if you want all first hand, listen to SAfm this afternoon from two pm when you will be able to listen to the speech and then have loads of analysis all the way through to six o clock.

And with that, we come to the end of this week’s Cybersurf. Please tune in again next week when we’ll have a look at the status of e-government in South Africa.

MXit - Instant Messaging on cellphones

2007-02-06T05:51:00.000+02:00

INTRO: It's time now for Cybersurf, a weekly look at what's happing on the internet. Today thanks to convergent technology, we hear about instant messaging - but this time on cellphones. A South African business called MXit (pronounced "mix it") has just notched up its three millionth user for its instant messaging service. Steven Lang asked Herman Heunis, CEO and founder of MXit, what exactly is MXit.

Audio Insert
IN: MXit is an instant . . . .
OUT: . . . . talking to kids in Europe.
DUR: 3'16"

OUTRO: That was Herman Heunis, CEO and founder of MXit talking to Steven Lang on Cybersurf. If you would like to find out more about the service go to www.mxit.co.za
ssl/

MXit Press Release

MXit reaches the 3 million mark

In less than two years since its official launch in May 2005, popular instant messaging service, MXit, has reached the 3 million mark in its registered user base.

³Between 18:00 and 19:00 on the 29th January our 3 millionth user subscribed to MXit. We continue to grow at a rate of between 9 000 and 12 000 new registered users per day. But, as our international rollout gains momentum, we expect this number will increase dramatically,² says Herman Heunis, CEO and founder of MXit. ³We have recently established a premium rated payment gateway in the UK, as well as permanent infrastructure in the USA, and are looking forward to an extended international presence by the end of 2007.²

MXit is currently one of the largest generators of GPRS traffic in South Africa.

³Our user base currently logs on to our servers more than 6 million times per day and the total traffic between our servers, mobile phones and other gateways is well over 500 million packets a day. We are continually upgrading our servers and our ongoing commitment to infrastructural growth is massive,² says Heunis.

³We launched greeting cards over the festive season which have proved to be a huge success with 660 000 cards already sent. To our knowledge, we offer the only service in South Africa where users can send greetings cards from their mobile phones via an Instant Messaging system. At a cost of only 10 cents per card and with unique content available to our subscribers, it is understandable why this has been so popular,² says Heunis.

MXit also launched ³Trivit² during the festive season, a trivia game where players answer general knowledge questions covering a wide range of topics.

Swist Technology Solutions (Pty) Ltd, one of MXit¹s primary development partners, developed the game and continually provides updated content.

Making money and drinking wine

2007-01-24T11:20:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your information interlude on the internet. I am Steven Lang with an edition that will catch the attention of anyone who is interested in making money or drinking wine – or better yet – making money and drinking wine.

Making money on the internet has always been harder than it appears – for most people anyway – but I came across a really fascinating blog call gapingvoid.com yep, that’s it – gaping void dot com – that tells readers how a South African vineyard managed to use bloggers to double its sales in one year.

But before we go there, allow me to tell you that the gapingvoid web site is worth a visit even in you’re not interested in the wine story.

Gaping void is the personal blog of Hugh Mcleod who set up the site to show surfers how clever he is at drawing cartoons on business cards. I never quite worked out why he does this, but his comments are amusing, including the story about Stormhoek – the vineyard that doubled its sales in only one year.

Incidentally – Stormhoek has its own site at Stormhoek dot com.

What they did was compile a list of one hundred bloggers. In order to make the list, the person had to be a regular blogger and had to be over the legal drinking age – it did not matter how many visitors the site actually had.

They drew up the list and sent each person a bottle of Stormhoek wine – absolutely no conditions attached. The recipient was not asked to taste the wine nor write about it – they were not even expected to drink the stuff.

But of course quite a few bloggers did write about the wine and all of a sudden there was a buzz – in at least two senses of the word – on the internet, about this wine

And as a result of this buzz – sales increased and we have a great example on how to use the internet for marketing.

The Stormhoek site itself is quite unconventional – at least when compared to other wine related sites.

It has a very informative section discussing advances in winemaking that have enabled the development of new wine styles. It has news about wine tasting events and other such sections that one would expect from a vineyard – but then it also uses certain four letter words and has links to sites that the SABC firewall won’t allow me to see.

The site is liberally decorated with cartoon business cards from the gaping void and several references to the value of viral marketing online.

The Gaping void owner explains the success of the Stormhoek marketing campaign in a note to himself – and I quote:

"Blogging as a marketing tool is easier when you think of it as a chemical catalyst, not as a hammer and nail."

And there you have it – a review of a wine site from someone who doesn’t drink the stuff. But if I have held your attention so far, you probably do like wine so I suggest you click along to wine dot co dot za – yes, it’s as easy as that wine dot co dot za

It is an extensive South African wine portal that has absolutely everything from wine tasting clubs to grape traders and maps of wine routes. They did not leave out anything.

And that wraps up the wino edition of Cybersurf – Have a glass for me and do join me again next week, same time same place for more on the best of the web.

Huge queues for war game expansion

2007-01-17T11:31:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a quick update on Internet news. I am your Cybershost Steven Lang.

Last night thousands of people packed shops across Europe and North America waiting their turn for a burning crusade. Some of those queuing up were wearing bizarre costumes in imitation of their heroes.

No, it was not some charismatic church calling on the faithful to join in the good fight. Those who stayed up all night were eagerly anticipating their copies of the expansion of World of Warcraft – one of the world’s most popular online games.

The expansion is called – the Burning Crusade – and it will change forever, the way gamers inter act in the Fantasy World of Azeroth.

The Burning Crusade creates a new continent, two new races and new foes to be defeated.

Now if you think this is an irrelevant kid’s game – think again.

Massively Multi-player online role playing games or MMORPGs are big business in all parts of the world where the local telco doesn’t strangle bandwidth. To avoid spelling out this peculiar acronym, some users refer to it as a More Peg.

A More Peg is a role playing game that is played online – as its name would suggest. The fantasy worlds depend on which game you are playing – and they go by names such as – Everquest, Ultima and Lineage Two.

To find out more about MMORPGs you can just go along to MMORPG dot com where you will find out everything you could ever want to know about these games that involve hundreds, or thousands of people all playing online at the same time. The site itself claims to have more than half a million members.

A few years ago, the BBC online published an article quoting a report that said that the value of online gaming was worth more than the GDP of Namibia. I have my doubts about that, but it is true that some people actually earn their living from online gaming. This is not gambling.

Believe it or not, there are professional gamers that accumulate virtual assets in the course of the games and then sell the virtual assets for real dollars on e-Bay. It is not a scam. It is perfectly legitimate and the US government even taxes such gains.

Let’s change the music now ….

As from the beginning of this year in the UK, songs that have never been put on CD - or vinyl for that matter – now count for the charts.

This week – history was made when a song that you can only by online – by a rock band called KOOPA made it onto the charts in 31^st position.

The song, by the way is called – Blag, Steal and Borrow. If you would like to buy this track or find out more about the group then pop along to the KOOPA web site that is K.O.O.P.A which you will find at http://koopatheband.com/

And with that we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf – if you would like to look at the script, please go to the Cybersurf blog which you can find at Cybersurf.blogspot.Com – one more time

Thanks for listening and please join me again next week, same time same place.

Cradle of Humankind and Web albums

2007-01-10T08:09:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – the very first edition of double oh seven. I am your Cyberhost – Steven Lang with some tip on how to navigate through the YOU generation.

Just over a year ago – in December 2005 – Cybersurf did a review of the Maropeng, Sterkfontein Caves and Cradle of Humankind sites. Broadly speaking we said yes, they we not bad for starters – but needed some work.

Last weekend I decided to take my family to the caves, but couldn’t quite remember how to get there so I checked out the site on the net. At the Sterkfontein hyphen caves dot co dot za site there is some basic information about the caves and about Dr Robert Broom. There are some not very impressive photographs, nothing about the shiny new museum, and a tiny little map showing ants how to get there.

The map is really the problem – how do you expect visitors to flock to the caves – if you can’t get there?

The Maropeng site is more modern looking and it does have a downloadable PDF map that also shows you how to get to Sterkfontein.

The Sterkfontein museum facility is great, the staff are friendly and our tour guide Wez-Lee was entertaining and informative.

Of course once you get home, you want to share your digital pictures with friends and family.

There are many web sites that allow you to post pictures on the web for free. They allow you to share your pictures with aunty in Australia, Nanna in New York and Uncle in Akron.

However, there are two really big players that enjoy a huge market share. PICASA is directly linked to the Empire of Google and FLICKR – spelt without an “E” is hooked up with Yahoo.

Both are very good, both require you to download some software, and both allow you to post directly to your Blog - but then that is where the similarity stops

I have been using FLICKR for about two years now, and only just began using PICASA this year. I fully intend using both until one of them shows itself to be convincingly superior to the other.

If you download your phone camera pictures to your PC and want to quickly upload to the internet, then I believe it is easier to use FLICKR. You can simply go to your windows explorer, right-click on the relevant file and then upload directly.

When you initially download the PICASA software it spends quite a long time cataloguing all pictures on your machine. I believe it goes for all files that end in the usual graphic extensions such as BMP, JPG and GIF.

This might seem a little intrusive, but it does find lots of pictures that you had completely forgotten about it some old files.

The interface allows some basic manipulation of your images and you can compiles albums which you can either keep on your machine or post to the internet for a Web Album.

And so we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf. I will put the script and some links up on the Cybersurf Blog which you will find at Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com. One more time Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com.

Tune in next week for more on the best of the web.

Time person of the year – YOU

2006-12-18T06:15:00.000+02:00

Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, a weekly look at what’s happening on the internet. I am Steven Lang.

This week, Time magazine announced its person of the year. Normally, the person is given this title for having been the most prominent newsmaker of the year. When the award was originally devised in 1927 it was not surprisingly, called MAN of the year.

Since then the list of People of the Year reads like some sort of American role of honour including Martin Luther King, Rudolph Giuliani, Mahatma Ghandi and almost all US presidents. But it also includes some villains such as Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

This year, Time has named as its person of the year - You – yes you, and you and you and you.

That is the official designation of the person of the year – YOU. And you can check it out at time dot com.

Yes, it’s a little confusing at first but when you read the accompanying article, it becomes clear that the YOU in question is the Internet user – because it focuses mainly on Web 2 point Oh, and especially on YouTube – the web site that allows users to upload and share video clips on line.

There is feature article on youTube.com but the article also highlights the roles of other Web two point oh sites such as MySpace, delicious, Flickr and Wikipedia.

Incidentally – YouTube was featured on Cybersurf twice this year – in August when it was nominated as one of Time magazine’s fifty coolest sites and in October when the site was bought out by Google for U$1.65 Billion .

The article does not explain however, that the YOU in question is essentially the Internet user who also reads Time magazine.

Changing tack somewhat – while following up the recent story about the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari who are campaigning for the return of their ancestral land – I found their web site at this address - www.iwant2gohome.org/

It is a very interesting site including a video message from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and hundreds of tiny photographs of members of the organisation. As you mouse-over each picture a message from that person pops up onto your screen.

A site that links to iwant2gohome has blamed De Beers for the misery of the Kalahari Bushmen. If you go to boycottdebeers.com you will find this site that accuses the diamond giant of manipulating the Botswana government into forcibly removing the Bushmen.

There are further links to two additional sites that claim to have the facts about diamonds. If you go to diamondfacts.org you will find a number of facts and news items from a De Beers perspective.

A parody site – called realdiamondfacts dot org – looks precisely like the original but the facts or so called facts are very different.

I suggest you look at both diamondfacts.org and realdiamondfacts.org and draw your own conclusions.

I will put these links up on the Cybersurf blog if you have difficulty finding the relevant pages. So note this down. Go to Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com. One more time Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com

But before you do that, I’ll sign off for today and invite you to listen to Cybersurf, next week, same time, same place.

Relevant Links:

IDNs at the ICANN conference in Sao Paulo

2006-12-06T07:20:00.000+02:00

Hello, Bom dia, and welcome to Cybersurf, coming to you this morning from Sao Paulo in Brazil. I am Steven Lang

This week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned names and Numbers or ICANN is holding it Annual General Meeting in Sao Paulo, the largest commercial hub in South America, where incidentally it has been raining almost continually for the past ten days or so.

ICANN is the body that coordinates addresses on the internet. Paul Twomey, CEO of ICANN always goes to great lengths to explain that the organisation does not control or manage the Internet. He like to compare his sophisticated set up to a snail mail postal service, where ICANN coordinates the postal address system – but does not deliver the letters, does not set prices and does not say what people can put in the envelopes.

Twomey says that ICANN does not deal with e-commerce nor does it set any rules regarding hate speech or pornography – in fact it has nothing to do with content at all.

Now we know what ICANN does NOT do – so what does it do and what is the Sao Paulo meeting all about?

First of all, although the organisation is headquartered in California where it was originally incorporated, the council makes an effort to be inclusive by holding meetings in various parts of the globe. It’s also a great way to see the world.

In 2004 the final meeting of the year was held in Cape Town.

One of the most important topics of discussion here at the Sao Paulo meeting concerns Internationalised Domain Names or IDNs. When the Internet was initially set up, addresses could only use the 26 letters of our Latin alphabet; the numbers from zero to nine and a hyphen – the system is known as LDH – or Letters, Digits and Hyphen.

This is very problematic for people in countries where English is not a common language – and it can create a lot of confusion. Here in Brazil where Portuguese is the spoken language, people need to write addresses with a C cedilha – the C with a little tail - and a number of letters with accents. The LDH system ignores character sets used by billions of people in countries such as China, Ethiopia, Japan, Egypt and Russia.

There is also a serious risk of confusion when an individual letter is pronounced differently in diverse languages. For example the letter that looks like a P in English is in fact an R in Russian. Our letter Y has the value of a U in Russian.

You might have noticed that Russian language web sites use the country code of dot RU – which is fine if you are using the Latin alphabet and thinking in English. But if you would prefer the Cyrillic alphabet – as most Russians do – and thought in Russian – then logically all Russian addresses should end with dot PY.

The problem is that Paraguay has already secured the dot PY country code top level domain.

This is only a small example of problems created by Internationalised Domain Names. If you had add the characters of all the major languages of the world – the useable character set would have to increase from the existing 37 of the LDH system to more than fifty thousand.

So while you ponder the enormity of that problem, I’ll go back to the conference.

Thanks for listening and please tune in again next Wednesday for more Cybersurf.

My ADSL and ICT Achievers Awards

2006-11-28T23:50:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly window on the web. I am Steven Lang.

It is not often that a web site actually begins to churn out money – in fact if you ever decide to invest your life-savings in a web site – be careful, be very careful – the Googles and e-Bays of this world are very few and very far between.

There are however success stories, and they are encouraging, so in today’s Cybersurf, I want to talk about some of the successes.

Let us start with site that was originally conceived as a platform for venting.

In the “about” section of MYADSL.co.za it says, that the site - also known as MyBroadband - was formed in 2003 to serve the South African broadband and IT community. It provides visitors with up-to-date coverage of local and International IT and Internet related news, and gives them a place to give their views and share information on these issues – end of quote.

You could say that its main objective is to discuss broadband in South Africa, but you could also say that it is a forum where geeks complain about how Telkom is strangling development in this country.

MYADSL.co.zawas set up in 2003 by Rudolph Muller – a university lecturer who is passionate about getting affordable broadband access to all South Africans. He has managed the site so successfully that it currently generates more online traffic than most well-financed news web sites in South Africa.

Myadsl is supported by a number of high profile sponsors that appear to be devoting a considerable amount of money and time to the web site.

Last week, a conference organized by MyADSL, attracted a broadband who-is-who to participate in discussions about the future of broadband in South Africa. Top speakers from Sentech, iBurst, MTN, Neotel, and Vodacom compared WiFi, to WiMax, extolled the virtues of HSDPA over Three G and shared at least some of their strategic plans for the future.

The only missing player was Telkom.

Sentech was often the target of harsh criticism at the MYADSL conference so that Winston Smith – the company spokesman on broadband – only half jokingly put on a construction worker’s hard hat to protect himself.

But at another venue – Sentech fared much better – At the African ICT Achievers Awards held in Sandton at the weekend Sentech’s CEO Sebiletso Mokane-Matabane was named Top ICT Business Woman in Africa 2006.

Other category winners included three candidates who had previously featured on Cybersurf – Translate.org.za winner of the Top Civil Society to Bridge the Digital Divide in Africa category – was on this program about three years ago.

Glory Mushinge - from the ICT Network for Development in Zambia won for her Excellence in ICT Journalism in Africa. Glory was on AM Live during the highway Africa conference in September.

And Nomfundo Nguse – managing director of Shesha Technologies – was named Top ICT Youth Innovator in Africa. And she was on Cybersurf just a few weeks ago.

So congratulation to the winners, thanks for listening to Cybersurf and do join me again next week, same time same place for more on the best of the web.

Sithengi, Borat and the Genographic Project

2006-11-21T19:02:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – news flashes from the virtual side of the Internet. I am Steven Lang.

Only yesterday, the country’s prime Cinema and TV festival drew to a close with the announcement of the jury’s awards. The Sithengi festival appears to have been a huge success that you might want to read about on the sithengi.co.za web site.

So you couldn’t make to the festival itself, no problem, visit the site and you will feel as if you have just been there.

Staying with a film theme, the movie I have been dying to see is the one where Borat visits the USA. You can visit the movie site at http://www.boratmovie.com/ - it is a fairly routine movie promo site, but the short, downloadable trailer is hysterical and whet my appetite even more.

The next two sites, I will tell you about provide a classic example of when the UNofficial site is better than the official one. What’s the difference between an official site and an unofficial one? – We presume that in the case of an official site, the site owner and the product have some kind of agreement with each other. Most often, the unofficial site is simply put up by fans without an OK from the celeb in question.

The official Borat site – at Borat dot tv is an ugly mess, with a few peculiar photographs, flashing links and an advert for Ali G videos – it is disappointing.

On the other hand, the unofficial site at boratonline.co .uk – that is boratonline dot co dot UK is neatly organized, content rich and appropriately over the top. In fact, whoever designed this site has an unhealthy obsession with the fictional, boorish reporter from Kazakhstan.

There are glowing articles about the cult status of the movie, gloating reports about how the movie outstripped all competitors at the box office and many links to other Borat sites.

Let’s take matters a little more seriously now.

The Genographic project has one of the most incredible sites on the internet. It has quite a complicated web address, so it is easier to get to the project site by navigating to the national geographic site at nationalgeographic dot com and then finding the link.

The Genographic project is a five year effort aimed at understanding through our DNA, how humans evolved over the last sixty thousand years or so. Project coordinators sample the DNA of thousands of people from all over the world, and in this way build up an Atlas showing how humans evolved in Africa and then migrated to all corners of the earth.

The Genographic site is fascinating – it explains how the scientists are able to use DNA to calculate a person’s probable lineage. It also invites users to participate in the project by purchasing a Project Kit – but my favourite part is the Atlas of the Human Journey.

It is a beautiful flash presentation, with embedded video clips, that begins 200,000 years ago when the first modern humans are believed to have lived. It then moves through various periods that correspond with important paleontological finds over the last hundred and fifty years.

The Genographic site is essential viewing if you are at all interested in human evolution, or if you just want to see a well designed web site.

And so we come to the end of another Cybersurf. All the web sites mentioned in today’s program will be published on the Cybersurf Blog, at Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com. One more time, Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com. Thank-you for listening and please join me again next week for more on the best of the web

Focus on Africa - Geography awareness week

2006-11-15T08:07:00.000+02:00

Hello – how do you do, and welcome to Cybersurf, a weekly look at what is happening on the internet. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang.

Just in case you did not know, this week is Geography Awareness Week, with the international focus being on Africa.

And so this is a good opportunity to look at some web sites that provide excellent material on our continent.

Let’s start with the Smithsonian Natural history web site that has a special section called African voices. Right on the front page there is a quote from Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya who said in 1966 that “People, like words, are enduring.”

You can find the African Voices site at www.mnh.si.edu/africanvoices.

It is very colourful and has beautiful graphics linked to the exhibition in Washington, but even if you can’t get there, you can still enjoy a fantastic learning adventure navigating though the site.

The African Voices ironically provide a great visual experience, but there are not only pretty pictures there is plenty of substance under themes such as “wealth in Africa” – “Market Crossroads” “working in Africa” and others.

The only drawbacks – well because of the rich graphics, the site is not the fastest and secondly, because it is designed for people outside Africa, one has the feeling that it is a site about Africa, but not OF Africa.

Our next site is the one set up for the Pan African Parliament which is currently in session just outside Johannesburg.

The PAP site can be found at pan hyphen African hyphen parliament dot org. That’s a little complicated so let me repeat that one - pan hyphen African hyphen parliament dot org.

It is a well designed site – navigation is intuitive; the look and feel are easy on the eye, and it downloaded quickly – and if you can sense a but coming up …. Here it is.

One of the stated aims of the PAP is to give all Africans access to the decision making forum, and a web site could be a good way of broadening this access. Unfortunately it does not achieve that, there are no web casts and no updates of what is happening this week.

One of the best sites about Africa can be found at the My Wonderful World Blog – here’s the address – mywonderfulworld dot typepad dot com – that is mywonderfulworld – dot typepad dot com

Again it is a foreign viewpoint of Africa but it has very good content and excellent links to other sites that carry African related material. So for example there is a link to the African Music Encyclopedia another one to African Songs, Chants, and Games.

Much of the material in mywonderfulworld has an educational bent including the quiz to test your Africa IQ on Google Earth.

These are only a few of the best sites about Africa, but I am sure that you will have noticed that most of them are set up outside our continent. It is time for Africans to produce the definitive site about Africa.

But until then, check out the Cybersurf blog for links to some of the most interesting sites about Africa.

You will find the Cybersurf Blog at Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com – one more time – Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com.

Before we sign off, let us thank the news research unti of SABC news for assistance on this program.

And please join me again next Wednesday for more on the best of the web.

Examples of websites publishing lists of Africa online resources and/or Africa content:

- http://mywonderfulworld.typepad.com/

- http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/mywonderfulworld/docs/gaw.html

- http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index.shtml

- http://www.pbs.org/wnet/africa/explore/index.html

- http://www.mnh.si.edu/africanvoices/

- http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AfricaFocus/

Enemies of the Internet

2006-11-08T08:13:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, three minutes of your time devoted to the virtual. I am Steven Lang.

Let’s start off with a quick look at the Reporters without borders web site – you can find it by typing in rsf.org that is rsf dot org. The site is dedicated to fighting for press freedom, and regularly publishes list of countries that curtail media freedom.

The reporters without borders web site also carries prominently a press freedom barometer informing users that as of yesterday – 66 journalists and 29 media assistants had been killed in the line of duty this year.

One hundred and thirty one journalists, three media assistants and 61 Cyber dissidents have been imprisoned in this same period.

Yesterday, the site published a list of Internet enemies – thirteen countries that suppress online free expression. This latest list coincided with the launching of a 24 hour campaign against Internet censorship.

The list of shame reads as follows in alphabetical order:

Belarus –
Burma – where computers in internet café execute screen captures every five minutes.
China – described as the country with the world’s most advanced internet filtering system
Cuba –
Egypt - a new entrant on the list for its systematic harassment of bloggers
Iran –
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
Syria –
Tunisia – where it is impossible to access the Reporters without Borders site
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan and
Vietnam – where ten people have been arrested for what they said online this year.

The good news is that Libya, the Maldives and Nepal have recently been removed from the list because of significant improvements in the freedom of online expression in these countries.

As part of the campaign for online freedom of expression, Reporters without borders invites the user to vote against censorship by clicking on a particular button to register your disapproval.

The site looks good, but most of it is in French, and the voting section appears to be taking the strain with some serious online traffic.

Nevertheless you can still vote – the campaign ends at eleven am today.

Some other news flashes –

This week Microsoft announced that it will be shipping the business version of its new Vista operating system by the end of this month while the consumer version should be out early next year.

In the UK where online fraud is increasing dramatically, a recent survey showed that Britons are more concerned about being victims of a cyber crime than of a physical crime such as assault.

And to close of Cybersurf for today, some good news – a US based company called ZANGO has been fined three million dollars for “unfairly and deceptively” downloading its software onto people’s computers.

The American Federal Trade Commission ruled that Zango had installed adware more than seventy million times generating six point nine billion pop-up ads.

Well I think Zango got off rather lightly but at least they were fined.

With that we end this week’s edition of Cybersurf, please join me again next week for more on the best of the web.

IGF and African ICT Achievers Awards

2006-11-01T10:46:00.000+02:00

Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, a brief look at what is happening on the internet. I am Steven Lang.

This week the Internet Governance Forum or IGF is taking place in Athens, Greece; with the purpose of taking forward some of the aims of last year’s World Summit on the Information Society.

There are many presentations, debates and discussions at the Forum, but the real aim of the meeting is to work out a way of transferring control of the Internet from the US government to an international agency. Quite frankly I don’t think they will succeed but don’t take my word for it, go to igfgreece2006.gr – let me repeat that igfgreece2006.gr.

At that site you can follow proceedings live on web casts and read transcripts of the various sessions.

(T) Back home on a completely different issue, I managed to speak to one of the candidates for this year’s African ICT Achievers Awards. The awards are presented every year in recognition of people and companies who have made significant contributions to information and communications technologies in this and other African countries.

The nominee that I managed to chat with quickly dispelled any myths about ICTs being the domain of the pale male.

INSERT

That was Nomfundo Nguse owner of Shesha technologies a nominee in two categories for this year’s African ICT Achievers awards. Remember that name – Nomfundo Nguse – I have the feeling that we’ll be hearing a lot more about her.

And so we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf, be sure to tune in again next Wednesday, for more on the outcomes of this week’s Internet Governance Forum

Vista and two new browsers

2006-10-25T08:24:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – three minutes dedicated to transforming the virtual – into reality. I am your Cyberhost Steven Lang.

In the last week or so – there has been a lot of bit and bytes about VISTA – Microsoft’s long awaited new operating system. It appears that the first full versions will hit the shelves early next year, but already you can see adverts for laptops that claim to be Vista compliant.

There has been some controversy though about the ability of Vista to check on its own authenticity – Yup, Vista will check itself to see if it is a pirated copy – and if it is indeed pirated then the operating system goes into what Microsoft calls "reduced functionality mode".

It works like this – you buy the product, and then you have to activate the system using a product key within 30 days. So if you pay Microsoft a lot of money, jump through all the hoops - set by Microsoft - hope that the software giant has recognized its own product key - then you will be able to use what you’ve paid for.

If you don’t follow Microsoft instructions properly, prepare for reduced functionality mode:

No start menu, no desktop icons and the desktop background is changed to black. I believe that after a while more things start to go wrong until your machine is, for all practical purposes, useless.

While few people would quibble with the right of a software producer to protect its intellectual property – the whole process presupposes that consumers are thieves, and that you have to prove your innocence by submitting a product key to Redmond.

(T) Let’s leave Vista for later programs and take a look at two internet browsers that have recently been released within days of each other.

FireFox 2 – was only officially launched this week and already it is shaking up the virtual firmament. Building on from the highly successful one point five version – Firefox two has improved on its tabbed browsing so that now when you open a new link, the default setting takes it to a new tab rather than a new window.

This is great because tabs are much easier to work with than windows, as anyone who has worked with Firefox will tell you. One new feature that I still need to factor in is the little cross on the top of each tab that allows you to close tabs individually. On the old system – you had to move your cursor over to the right hand side of the screen to close tabs one at a time.

It still is a little awkward, but I think it will be very practical when I am used to it.

The new Firefox also has a spell checker that could save you some embarrassment if you are doing your web mail or working the chatrooms. It also allows you to download spell checkers in many different languages – all free of charge.

The Firefox release came only days after Microsoft launched IE7 its first new browser in many years.

It took the giant some time to wake up to the Firefox threat, but since Microsoft enjoyed a 96% market share after obliterating Netscape way back in 2002, a little complacency is to be expected.

Internet Explorer is still dominant with around 85% of the world browser market, and it latest release with tabs certainly won’t do it any harm. But in the most recent version of browser wars, the initiative is now firmly with Firefox.

With that it’s time to end today’s’ version of Cybersurf – please join me again next Wednesday for more on the best of the web.

Google buys YouTube

2006-10-11T08:21:00.000+02:00

How do you earn one point six five billion dollars in twenty one months? Now that I have your attention, let me welcome you to Cybersurf, your weekly update on what is happening on the internet.

I am your Cybershost, Steven Lang, this week telling you about two guys who probably made the quickest first billion in history.

In February last year, the two guys, both still in their twenties, Chad Hurley and Steven Chen took a number of videos at a dinner party and thought it would be nice to share the videos with their friends. But there was a problem; there was no easy way of sharing the videos.

Hurley and Chen drew up a plan; spoke to Sequoia investments for start up capital and soon YouTube dot com was born – It was not the first site to offer video sharing, in fact when it came on stream, Yahoo was the eight hundred pound gorilla in video sharing.

A year ago – Yahoo had 85 percent of the market – it has now dropped to less than six percent while YouTube is the market leader with forty six percent.

Google made a concerted effort to get a grip on the market, and did manage to grab a solid eleven percent, but they soon realized that YouTube was better so they bought it – for one point six five billion dollars.

Almost every big media and technology company has courted YouTube as they sought to tap into a new generation of consumers who are viewing 100 million short videos on the site every day.

It was exactly two months ago that YouTube was first mentioned on Cybersurf – as one of Time Magazine’s Top fifty coolest sites.

This week’s announcement sounds very much like the heady days of the dot com boom, when investment companies were forcing millions of dollars into the sweaty hands of Silicon Valley Geeks.

Does this mean Web two point zero is coming of age? The answer is probably yes! But not for us. The high price of broadband access is making sure that the majority of South Africans will not be able to share in the success of Web two point zero.

On a more constructive note… the World Food Program or WFP has released a free video game in seven languages – French, Hungarian, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Polish and of course English. The game, which is targeted at children aged eight to thirteen, is available as a free download at www.food-force.com let’s hear that one time food hyphen force dot com.

Food force is a different type of video game – it is primarily educational, teaching children about the problem of hunger and the importance of humanitarian aid work.

The games are being released in the lead up to World Food Day next Monday, and so far almost five million downloads have made Food Force a big success story.

And so we come to the end of this week’s Cybersurf. I will put this script on the Cybersurf Blog which you can find at Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com – just in case you missed any of the addresses.

Please join me again next Wednesday for more on the best of the web.

Conference web sites

2006-09-20T05:34:00.000+02:00

Hello and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly update on what’s happening on the internet – I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang.

Now, if you have been paying attention to AM Live this morning, you will be aware that there are a number of important conferences taking place in various parts of the world. And it is now common practice to link such conferences to dedicated web sites. In fact it is very useful to use the web site to share information from the conference with those who, for various reasons, cannot attend in person.

It is also a great way of sharing such information with the general public – it is fundamentally part of the publicity machine.

Let us start with the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Last night, President Mbeki, was one of several international leaders to address the opening meeting of the 61^st session of the General Assembly. You could have heard it here – live – on SAfm or watched it on TV – but, if you missed the president’s or anybody else’s speech you can still watch it on the UN web site.

You need to download a Real player in order to be able see the video clips, but if you happen to work at a large corporation, the network firewall might block your access, but normally it is quite easy to either view archived video clips, or later in the day, you can watch the session live.

Besides the video clips, the UN dot org web site has immense resources for anyone interested in following proceedings of the General Assembly session.

Another current international meeting that offers webcasts, is the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA has begun its fiftieth Anniversary year at a meeting at the Agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

The “Atoms for Peace” agency is highlighting a photographic exhibition entitled “Make power, not war”

In my view the www.iaea.org/ site is superb – quick easy navigation on a very intuitive framework – yet at the same time it does have quite sophisticated multi-media options.

The live webcasts use the Windows Media player which automatically sets up and begins broadcasting much quicker than the Real player on the UN site.

Staying with international meetings we go to Singapore where the the World Bank and the IMF are holding their Annual meetings. You can find the dedicated site by either going through the IMF site at imf dot org or go directly to singapore2006.org.

Not surprisingly, the site punts the tourism opportunities in Singapore, but also gives plenty of useful information about the meetings. Unusually, the site also offers regular podcasts and RSS feeds. Never heard of a conference site with those features.

After seeing the great international conference sites, I was disappointed not to find any dedicated site for the COSATU conference. While COSATU does have a substantial website, there appears to be almost no information about the congress that is taking place in Midrand. Perhaps they have other priorities.

With that we draw to the end of this edition of Cybersurf – but before we leave – just in case you missed any of the addresses I mentioned in the last three minutes – never fear, I will put the entire script, including web site addresses on the Cybersurf blog.

Now here you have to pay attention – write this down – Cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time – Cybersurf dot blogspot dot com.

Please join me again next Wednesday for more on the best of the web.

UN Mission in DR Congo

2006-08-25T11:12:00.000+02:00

Hello and good morning – this is Cybersurf – a brief look at what is happening on the internet. I am Steven Lang.

You are no doubt aware of the current turmoil in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the DRC because you are clearly well informed and obviously listen to SAfm. I am certain that you get most of your news about the DRC here on the news and information station.

But if you want to find out more about the political upheavals in the continent’s largest country; where do you go? Well if you’ve been paying careful attention to the station you will certainly have heard of MONUC the United Nations Mission in the DRC.

And MONUC has a very informative site that will give you all the background information and latest news about that country, but particularly about the elections and the aftermath of the recent shooting incidents.

You can find the MONUC site at monuc dot org that is M.O.N.U.C. dot org. When you log on for the first time you can choose to look at the English or the French versions of the site, then after making your selection you are taken to a very clean looking conventional site that is full of relevant information.

The main section of the front page carries one or two smallish photographs and the first paragraph of the top news stories. The stories are not updated with frenetic rapidity but they do have all the latest information.

Down the right hand side there is a section that carries articles from the news wires. When I looked there were two from Reuters, one from the BBC and one from AFP.

Below the News wires there is a section that takes you to election pictures, another takes you to news stories in the press – that is really news organisations that have web sites, and finally a survey where you are invited to give a Yes or a No answer to a particular question.

The real piece of organisation takes place however on the fairly normal looking left navigation bar.

There are buttons called ABOUT MONUC; Newsroom; press, activities, resources etc. all nicely grouped together and when you click on any of them, a drop down menu springs out of the word; so for example when I hit NEWSROOM – a menu spurted out with the following sub-categories:
Top stories, press reviews, Radio monitoring, press briefings, releases and dossiers.

There is plenty to satisfy even the most ardent news junkie – well worth the visit – but if you still crave more, then you can go to the links section and start practicing your French because the UN sponsored radio station Radio Okapi is only in French and so are just about all the other DRC related sites.

Even the one of the DRC Electoral commission – ok this site is in French, but if you are interested in the election results, you should be able to follow what is happening. The address of the site is cei-rdc dot org let me spell that out again cei-rdc dot org you can also type in cei-rdc dot cd.

And that wraps up Cybersurf for today, thanks for listening and please tune in again next Wednesday, same time same place for more on the best of the web.

Google news and the Time fifty coolest web sites

2006-08-16T20:18:00.000+02:00

Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – four minutes of the latest information on the internet. I am Steven Lang.

Yesterday, I attended a conference of the International Marketing Council of South Africa. The aim of the gathering was to develop marketing communication strategies for the country ahead of the Fifa World Cup soccer tournament.

The meeting itself was inspiring, but I still believe the slogan – South Africa “Alive with Possibility” is vague and tame - but if you would like to find out more about our preparations for marketing this country visit the International Marketing Council web site at imc.org.za – that is imc.org.za

It is a reasonable site that encourages feedback. They said they wanted new ideas – so please find a better pay-off line than “Alive with Possibility” and send it to them.

(T) More news from Google is that they appear to have updated quite a few South African photos on Google Earth – the pictures are still quite old – probably from NASA’s deep archive – but hey, now I can see what my house looks like from way up there.

Secondly, Google has just released an online version of spreadsheets – you can find it by going along to spreadsheets.google.com – very easy spreadsheets.google.com
And you will be able to work on a spreadsheet with someone in another place or you can make the spreadsheet available to a whole team.

And still with Google – on their web site they are now advertising job vacancies in South Africa – it looks like they’ll be opening a local office soon.

Now I’ve kept the cool bit for last. Time magazine has released its latest version of the fifty coolest web sites of the past twelve months and the list reveals an interesting shift in the way people are using the web. And perhaps more important just who is using the web and what for.

The complete list for 2006 which you can find at time dot com – does not rank the sites in any particular order – nor does it appear to define specific criteria for what is cool. It does however, split the fifty sites up into seven different categories with interesting titles such as “travel and Real Estate” or “staying connected” and “time wasters”.

The time waster category for your information has sites dedicated to juicy gossip, computer games and other guilty pleasures – that description was, by the way, taken straight from the Time web site.

The big winners in this year’s list are the sites dedicated to sharing video clips, and personal information on the web. It seems to be all about creating the online community – but it’s not really the online community that most businesses want to us to have – rather its just teens and twenty-somethings sharing their personal experiences with others.

For example, Youtube dot com has lots of different sections, but what it is really about is sharing video clips online. I think most of the contributors take funny videos at home and then put them on you tube dot com to share with friends and family.

It is sort what www.flickr.com does for still images.

A big online community is the myspace.com site with a pay-off line that says – myspace.com a place for friends. It has blogs, chatrooms, games, music videos and the list goes on.

We don’t have time to go into any more sites so if you would like to catch-up on any of the addresses you might have missed, click along to the Cybersurf blog which you will find at Cybersurf.blogspot.com one more time Cybersurf.blogspot.com

Thanks for listening and please tune in again next Wednesday same time same place for more on the best of the web.

Mars opposition – yet another urban legend

2006-08-10T10:32:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a moment of reflection on the internet connection. I am Steven Lang.

Today we are going to talk about Mars – the planet – or rather we’re going to talk about a bogus e-mail chain letter entitled “Mars Spectacular”

This e-mail that has been circulating all through the internet contains quite a pretty powerpoint presentation with lovely pictures of Mars saying that on August 27th the planet Mars will appear brighter than ever in history and will be as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

It even has a photo of the moon and another photo illustrating how big Mars will look next to the moon.

Actually this is balderdash.

The e-mail started way back in 2003 when on August 27th Mars did come unusually close to Earth – but it still did not appear even close to the size of the full moon.

If you received such an e-mail and then passed on to someone – you are probably a little embarrassed – but how were you to know?

The answer to that one is quite easy – go to the Snopes dot com web site – that is S.N.O.P.E.S dot com web site. It is all about urban legends and essentially it tells you whether they are true or not.

So for each entry it starts off telling you what the claim is – in this case – that Mars is going to pass remarkably close to Earth.

Then it tells you about the status of the claim – that is whether it is true or flase.

The site then offers an example of the urban legend and an explanation of the origins or the legend.

Incidentally, not all urban legends are without basis.

It is a good reference site because all its explanations are linked to credible sources, and while idly surfing through the site I could not find fault with any of their explanations.

The site has hundreds if not thousands of urban legends, but on the front page of snopes dot com there is a list of the 25 top urban legends and currently the one about Mars Spectacular is number one.

Now if you’re curious about the name of the site – snopes is the name of a family that appears in many of William Faulkner’s books.

I still haven’t worked out the linkage – but the site is well worth the visit – if only for amusement’s sake.

And that’s a wrap for today’s edition of Cybersurf, thanks for listening and do join me again next Wednesday – same time same place.

No more Betas for me

2006-08-02T17:23:00.000+02:00

Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly guide to the internet. I am Steven Lang.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Microsoft has just released a third Beta version of Internet Explorer seven. A Beta version means that the product is still being tested and is not yet ready for market. If you believed the party-line about the new product – IE 7 was set to regain the initiative from Firefox – my current favourite internet browser.

Now not being a great technical expert, I have long since learned never to touch the first Beta version of any product – that is for the geeks who love finding bugs and ways of eliminating them.

My experience has been that sometimes the second, but almost always the third Beta version is just about ready for the market. The overwhelming majority of problems are invariably sorted out by the third Beta version.

So, I decided to try out the latest version of IE7 – knowing full well that it was still in the testing stage – but I had already used so many Beta versions before – what can go wrong?

That was where my nightmare began.

First of all you can no longer get internet explorer on the giveaway CDs that come with certain computer magazines. So you have to download it from a dedicated web site.

Click on download – and a screen pops up telling you to disable your firewall and other security elements. This is making me nervous already. Why do they want me to do this?

Next, it tells you that before you can download IE7 it will check to see if your copy of Windows is legit. This is astounding.

Would Ford say that you cannot install a Ford brake pad until they have checked that you have a genuine Ford clutch plate?

Wait! It get’s worse! Then it says that in order to verify the legitimacy of your Windows XP – it has to download another piece of check-up software before it will even think of letting you download IE7.

Right - so I jump through the hoops and I give control of my computer to the boys from Redwood.
I then spend half an hour unsuccessfully trying to download the program. Eventually I am sitting with Microsoft plug ins monitoring my machine and half a downloaded IE7.

So out of sheer frustration, I make my next big mistake, I try to remove IE7 and all the other stuff that Microsoft has put on my machine.

The next thing is that half my programs stop working because two strange DILL files – files with dot D L L extensions are missing. And guess what? You can’t download the missing files because without them you can’t download anything.

Of course, I thought that I had messed up badly, so I used another computer to visit some chat rooms to find out how to solve my problem.

I found that many other people had experienced the exact same catastrophic series of events and that the only way to resolve them is to download the missing files through another computer and then install them on the problem machine.

I have now resolved not to fiddle with Beta versions of anything and for the foreseeable future I will use Firefox on my home computer.

That wraps up today’s edition of Cybersurf – be sure to join me again next Wednesday for more on the best of the web.

Artnow, Yahoo and Tom Cruise

2006-07-26T17:23:00.000+02:00

Cybersurf updates 26 July

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, a weekly catch up on what’s up on the Internet. I am Steven Lang, this week bringing you a number of quick updates on what is happening – virtually.

Let’s start with a brand new local is lekker web site called ART NOW – you can find it at artnow dot co dot za – the artnow is one word.

The site is there for commercial purposes and offers various types of Art – as the title would suggest – it has sections on “African Art”, “Photography”, Local Original Modern Art”, “Sculptures” “International Contemporary graphics” and then veering off centre a little it also has Exclusive giftware and gadgets.

The specials section offers a Lamborghini Coffee Machine with six Lamborghini Cappuccino cups – it all looks good in the picture.

And then there is a useful category on Artist Biographies – great stuff promoting local artists

From a design perspective - the site is in my view – very good – simple, clear, intuitive navigation and fast.

So if you are interested in buying any local art – then artnow.co.za is your site.

Let’s change the subject a little.

Tom Cruise

Ha, I knew that would get your attention.

Tom Cruise this week won his court case against a Cybersquatter – you know the type of person who buys a web site address that should really belong to someone else.

The judge for the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) said that Alberta Hotrods - the owner of tomcruise dot com – yes tomcruise dot com – used the site to peddle goods that have nothing to do with the actor.

He then ordered the Canadian Cybersquatter to transfer the domain name to the American actor.

Changing tack once again….

The world’s second most popular search engine – Yahoo - has just put up a new web site for users to test drive. I believe the new site is an improvement as it doesn’t feel quite as cluttered. Right at the top of the new front page there is a banner inviting the user to click on a button to be given a guided tour around the site.

I think that if you use the Yahoo site regularly and become familiar with the layout as a home page it could be a very comfortable environment – but it might appear a little too complicated for an occasional user.

On top of the front page it also invites users to test the new Messenger Beta that offers free worldwide PC to PC calls.

And with that we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf. If you would like to read the script for this program please login to the Cybersurf Blog which can be found at Cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time - Cybersurf.blogspot.com.
Please tune in again next week same time, same place, for more on the best of the web.

Qualica measures web sites

2006-07-19T08:14:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly look at what’s happening on the Internet. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang this week talking about how to test your own web site.

In this program we frequently make some very subjective assessments of web sites.
This looks good – the navigation is unworkable or too many bells and whistles

These are some of the descriptions of sites we’ve looked at in the past.

Terribly opinionated of course – but Qualica a local software company has developed a special tool – actually its some sort of software, that can empirically evaluate your web site.

So how does it work? Here is Dave Rogers, MD of Qualica to answer that question.

INSERT: Interview with Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers the MD of Qualica telling us how his company can help web developers measure the functionality of their web sites.
If you would like to find out more about this please check out the Qualica dot com web site that is Q U A L I CA DOT COM - QUALICA DOT COM.

And that wraps up my two megabytes worth. Thank-you for listening and remember to keeeeep on surfin.

Please don't do that!

2006-07-06T11:10:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a weekly peek into Cyberspace. I am Steven Lang.

Yet another round of Internet banking scares hit the headlines yesterday. A newspaper dramatically told readers about an Internet client who looked on in despair as her cash disappeared before her eyes.

While we all feel sympathy for the victims of these crimes – as selfish banking clients – what we really want to know is – how safe is my money? Should I be worried? Will I lose all my savings if I use the Internet to manage my bank accounts?

Well – with the high number of armed robberies in our shopping centres – you would probably do well to avoid physical banks as much as you can. At least if they rob you on the Internet they won’t shoot you.

But how safe is internet banking really?

It is impossible to give a direct answer to the question because banks – for obvious reasons – are not keen to give out details about such crimes.

However, let me say that by and large Internet security is very good and banks are always going to great lengths to improve security – they budget millions of rands every year trying to block loopholes before the hackers find them.

There is one loophole that banks really battle with and that is the clients’ PIN – personal identity number – because it’s the only element of security that they can’t control. People write down their PIN numbers or sometimes give it to someone else who they believe will always be honest.

Please don’t do that

In the latest wave of hack attacks, it appears that the hackers managed to install key tracking software on the computers belonging to their intended victims. What this type of software can do is record every keystroke you make – including passwords and pin numbers – and then pass this private information on to hackers.

They of course, use this information to illegally access bank accounts.

All the major banks in South Africa have taken the latest wave of attacks very seriously.

Standard Bank offers clients a one time password – or OTP – that is only valid for one session. It sounds effective – but a little bit time consuming. I don’t think I’ll go for that one.

The Standard Bank site establishes a secure link built according to 128 bit encryption standards and also offers free firewall and anti-virus software.

Old Mutual Bank – also has a number of security features, but its web site does not offer as much detail as some of the other financial institutions.

FNB – on the other hand, has a large section giving great detail about its so called “three layers of Internet banking security”. To find out more you can go directly to the fnb.co.za site.

The bottom line is – yes, Internet banking is safe provided you take the necessary precautions – don’t give your PIN number to anyone, and do use firewalls and anti-virus software.

I would also advise you not to do your banking at an Internet café, or any other public place where other people can use the machine you have just left.

Personally – and this is a very personal warning – don’t do your banking at work where other people have access to the network. I never do my banking through the SABC network – people can monitor what you are doing.

And with that very cautious Cybersurf, let me sign off till next week for more on the best of the web.

World Cup and Google trends

2006-06-07T11:11:00.000+02:00

It’s Wednesday morning on AM Live and it’s time for Cybersurf, your weekly flip into the virtual and I am Steven Lang with some quick updates on what you can find on the internet.

At this point, you have most certainly gone on to the World Cup soccer site at www.fifaworldcup.yahoo.com and discovered that it lives up to the huge spectacle we are about to see on our TV screens and follow on our web sites.

The countdown on the Germany 2006 site is ticking away – right now about two days ten hours and a few minutes to go. I can’t wait.

If you’d like to get away from the official site – I strongly recommend the www.soccerblog.com. It has huge amounts of information, news, team information and best of all great video clips. The clips are not very long, and the quality is not superb but you do get to see footage of some great goals including some for the recent friendly matches.

I am not sure how legal all this is but – it’s a blog.

There is also a list of the teams slogans – some of them predictably predicatble.

How about the USA with “United we play, United we win”

The Australians – ho hum – “Australia Socceroos – Bound for Glory”

Ghana – “Go Black Stars, the stars of our world”

The Spanish slogan reveals a remarkable lack of ambition:
“Spain, One country, one goal”

And the French recall the name of the cup with “Liberte, Egalite, Jules Rimmet”

And the top prize for jingoism goes to Coast Rica with

”Our army is the team, our weapon is the ball.
Let’s go to Germany and give it our all”

Now let us throw all pretence at impartiality out the window and look at a blog dedicated exclusively to the Brazilian team at the world cup.

If you go to brazil.worldcupblog.org you will find a huge site that collates news articles from around the world about the Brazilian team and at the same time receives comments from users.

If you look at the site now you will see that the biggest concern from supporters is that the run up to the Cup has been so smooth. Many pundits recalling the crises the affected the Brazilian team before previous World Cup victories are worried about the almost complete absence of problems facing the favourites.

Next I wanted to find out what people are searching for on the ‘net – who are the most popular players. So having a good idea where to start – I went to Google Trends which you can find at google.com/trends
And typed in Henry, ronaldinho, rooney and beckham. You can imagine my surprise when Henry came up tops by a long way.

Of course the mistakte I had made was that Henry picked up a lot of entries from the USA where people were just looking for their buddy Henry.

I then replaced Henry – or should I say Enry and fond that in fact Ronaldino was the most popular search followed by Beckham.

Interesting exercise – try it yourself at google trends.

And if you would like to look up any of these addresses, please go to the Cybersurf blog at Cybersurf.blogspot.com

One more time Cybersurf.blogspot.com

Till next week – cheers for now.

Friends of Jacob Zuma

2006-05-10T20:45:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – three minutes of life in the Cyberlane – I am your host Steven Lang.

The biggest single news event of this month – the not guilty verdict in the Jacob Zuma trial was amply celebrated on the Friends of JZ web site. You can find the site at the following address: www.friendsofjz.co.za – and the friendsofjz is one word – so it is friendsofjz.co.za some people use the American pronunciation of the last letter of the alphabet and call it friends of jay zee.

The site is technically very good – please note this is not a comment on the merits of the case.

On this programme we only discuss the web site – which I believe is rather good because it is simple, easy to use and most sections are very fast.

The site was set up by the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust in order to gather funds to help the former deputy president pay his legal fees. At the bottom of each page is a single line that tells you which account you should use to deposit your donation.

A marquee across the top of the page also invites you to send a premium sms to a particular number which will then transfer five rand to the trust fund.

The clean and neat front page of the site carries no less than three photographs of Jacob Zuma – At the top, a banner with a somewhat thoughtful headshot of the former deputy president.

In the left panel of the front page is an abbreviated mission statement of the trust that rapidly changes, at the click of a button from English to Venda, Zulu and Setswana. On the right side is a Latest News panel offering links to a media statement by Zuma as well as statements on the verdict from the Young Communist league, Nehawu and from the tri-partite alliance.

Navigation through the site is by means of a very neat navigation bar near the top of the page. It offers you links to a page about the trust; one for contacts; another for photos of the site-hero and one for Messages of Support.

At last count – this page had almost three thousand messages – some of them very long and detailed. Most of them in English, quite a few in Zulu, some in a mixture of various languages and even some in SMS speak – only teenagers really understand that.

The most interesting section I have kept for last – it is the Documents page which has the full text of the closing arguments of the trial – a Forensic report – a Public Protector Report and Heads of Argument.

This site is an absolute must for anyone interested in a little more depth to the Jacob Zuma verdict.

The SABCnews.com site also has a special section on the ANC deputy president – and it has loads of information on the recent trial, on the Schabir Sheik trial as well as a profile of Jacob Zuma.

And before we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf, let me remind you that you can read the full script to this program on the Cybersurf blog which you will find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com.

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

Ready for World Cup Soccer

2006-05-05T17:43:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – three minutes devoted exclusively and unashamedly to the internet. I am your friendly host Steven Lang.

Just in case you didn’t know, the most exciting sporting event on this planet is little over a month away. The World Cup Soccer tournament in Germany kicks off on June 9 and already I am planning my life around match schedules.

How do you find the schedules – nothing could be easier – I typed “Germany World Cup Soccer” into the Google search field and received more than 21 million hits.

Of course most major news organizations have already set up sub-sites for the tournament – but if you want the official real McCoy - go no further than Yahoo – I think this is the first time that an online company is an official sponsor of the great sporting event. So as an official sponsor Yahoo got to design the official World Cup 2006 site which you can find at http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com

As one would expect it has all the information, schedules and team profiles you could ever want. For the hardcore fanatics it even offers a free, downloadable world cup toolbar.

This tool bar has quick links to the World Cup site and you can customize it to track any of the 32 participating teams.

Now that is really hardcore.

You should also look at the fifa site which is at fifa.com because it has a lot of interesting background information such as the latest rankings, rules and regulations. It is hard to fathom the linkage between the official yahoo site and the fifa site – but it is there somewhere.

Another worthwhile site is at http://www.wldcup.com/ - let me spell that - this is primarily a soccer news site and so it has valuable information about the form of key players – important stuff if you’re a betting woman.

Then if you are planning on watching any games at a stadium, you will need tickets and these can be purchased at http://www.euroteam.info/ .This euroteam site offers world cup soccer tickets but it also offers seats to a whole range of other events from horse racing to the Eurovision song contest.

Next we look at the ultimate world cup blog which you can find at http://www.worldcupblog.org/ - the interesting aspect of this blog is that it unifies thirty four other blogs – including one for each of the thirty two participating countries – so you have team information being constantly updated – and I won’t even mention the betting blog because right now I have to sign off.

But before I do so – here is one last blog address – the Cybersurf blog which carries all the addresses of the sites mentioned in today’s Cybersurf.

Here goes – click on Cybersurf.blogspot. com one more time cybersur.blogspot.com

And that’s it for today till next week, remember to keeeeeeep on surfing.

Matrixview invests in South Africa

2006-04-26T17:47:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly dose of what is happening in cyberspace. I am Steven Lang – this week talking about an interesting new investment in South African information technology.

A multi-national company based in Singapore – Matrixview – intends to set up research centres in this country with the aim of adapting Indian technology to suit the requirements of South Africans.

The company uses Adaptive Binary Optimization – a patented technology that goes by the acronym of ABO to provide architectural solutions to enterprises. It uses its own compression technology to store and manage data.

So why do they intend to set up operations in South Africa:

Ravindran Govindan, Managing Director of Matrixview, is on the line from Singapore:

IN: We intend to set up . . . .
OUT: . . . . infrastructure products.

The products would include security applications, network enhancements as well as products relating to health care.

Matixview intends to employ local development skills and researchers in order to build products specifically for this region, because the company sees South Africa as an information technology leader in Southern Africa.

IN: The core technology, the basic . . .
OUT: . . . or Austrialia.

The company is working with the State Information Technology Agency or SITA to set up Centres of Excellence to develop local applications and as a focal point for skills transfer.

The project is very ambitious – but where will it start?

IN: The first project is most . . . .
OUT: . . . . hitherto not possible.

That was Ravindran Govindan on the line from Singapore telling us all about his company’s plans to use new technology to develop local applications in South African.

And with that we come to the end of this week’s edition of Cybersurf. Please join me again next week, same time same place.

Google calendar

2006-04-19T10:59:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf. A Wednesday morning look at what is happening on the Internet. I am your host Steven Lang – this week testing Google’s Beta version of its spanking new calendar.

Once Google launched about two years ago - Gmail– the search company’s online free e-mail service, it was only a matter of time before it had to launch an online calendar. In fact, in my opinion this offering is way overdue. Most people are happy to use the Outlook e-mail client but online web mail has its advantages so when Google launched Gmail to compete head-on with Hotmail and Yahoo mail it threw the whole sector into disarray – but Yahoo always had its calendar service that would allow you to maintain and share a diary online.

The new Google Calendar is not only available to people who own a Gmail account, but it seems easier if you do – you can use one sign-on for both services and you can go from one application to the other seamlessly. If you are in Gmail – there is a linked text title in the top left hand corner of the window – click on it and you’re in your very own calendar.

I have fiddled with the Yahoo calendar quite often, but never used it as my main diary because the user interface is too slow. I put that down to the lack of bandwidth in this country, and reverted to the Outlook client.

The Google calendar is however, noticeably quicker than the Yahoo version, and the layout makes it so much easier to read.

You can create “events” or appointments in Microsoft-speak by simply clicking on the relevant time slot and then you type in the necessary information about that event. But it also has a feature that allows you to write in normal English something like – meeting with the boss next Tuesday. It then makes a note of the appointment at the top of the day you have indicated. It is very intuitive.

My favourite feature so far – I am still testing the thing – is the ease with which you can make multiple calendars. So you can have, for example, one calendar that you share with your family - and anyone in your family can read that calendar and make changes in it – if you give them the necessary permission. Then you can have a completely separate calendar which you share with your PA and your Boss. You choose who has what type of privileges on each one of your calendars.

This is really cool.

A feature that I have not come to grips with yet – is the ability to import calendars from other applications. I have followed instructions religiously and tried to import a calendar from Outlook – but so far no luck.

Google calendar offers various views – per day, per week or per month. It has pop up reminders for events and apparently it will make an event directly from an e-mail message.

Still have to check out a few features on Google Calendar and this is still only the Beta version. So let us say that the preliminary verdict is very positive – my only question is: what took you guys so long?

If you would like to share your thoughts on the Google calendar click along to the Cybersurf blog at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – I’d love to hear your views on the calendar.

So that’s me for today – till next Wednesday, remember to keep on surfing.

Ethekwini online

2006-03-29T20:33:00.000+02:00

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.

Status of e-government - not up to scratch

2006-03-20T07:53:00.000+02:00

Hello - welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly slot about what the Internet's got - I am your friendly host Steven Lang – this week we have a quick look at how far down the road we've comed in terms of e-government. Is government using informational technology effectively?

Some years ago one of the hottest buzz-words in a sector renowned for hot – but short lived buzz-words was "E-government" – Everyone was talking about it – we kept hearing about how the government was going to put everything on-line and we would soon be able to do all official transactions on the internet.

It was such a fantastic prospect that they even established the State Information Technology Agency – web site address: www.sita.co.za/ . International experts came flooding to this country to tell us about e-government - and a number of local officials made overseas trips.

Almost all government departments set-up web sites – the only one that doesn't appear to have any web presence is the Presidency itself – which is strange because the president is well-known for his weekly letter on the ANC web site.

There is even a central Batho Pele Portal site – you can find it at www.gov.za - it says South Africa government online - putting people first.

The Portal site needs revamping – while it has hundreds of useful links to many parts of the government's online presence – it is far from intuitive. There is a lot of information available but finding it is not easy.

In fact I found a links page on the SA web site that gives you a much better picture of what government resources are available online – check out www.saweb.co.za/links1.html
By the way the SA web dot co dot za is an excellent portal page if you are looking for information about our country.

The individual government sites are patchy – some have loads of information – while others see their main function as nothing more than blowing the trumpet of the relevant minister – plus the usual organograms, ministers' speeches, vision and mission.

While that type of information does have its place, it is not really practical for most of us.
In my view, the city of Johannesburg is closest to having some sort of realistic e-government infra-structure. You can receive your monthly bills on line – and that has been working well for some time now. To become an online user of the site you have to go through a tedious registration process – which is fair enough – but then when you want to look at your online account – they expect you to remember your account number – come on guys through my registration you already have so much info about me do you really need an account number?

I believe you can also type in your electricity and water readings on line – the idea being that you don't have to rely on those strange people who demand to look at the meter readings at odd times of the day.

Then there's a link to "Free Maps" of Johannesburg - but when I tried to look at a free map all I got was a lengthy disclaimer - but no map.

A very useful feature tells you whether you have outstanding traffic fines or not. I just typed in my ID number and hey - guess what - I have no outstanding traffic fines. So that's the good news.

More good news is that you can find the full script for this program and the links I've mentioned on the Cybersurf Bl;og which will pop up on your screen if you type in www.cybersurf.blogspot.com - one more time cybersurf dot blogspot dot com.

As we wrap up today's edition of Cybersurf - here is an important notice - as from next week - Cybersurf will be coming to your on Wednesday mornings not Mondays. So let's make a date for Wednesday mornings as from next week at about a quarter to eight. Cheers for now.

CeBIT and ODI cricket

2006-03-13T07:40:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your Monday morning moment when the virtual becomes reality. I am Steven Lang, this week taking you on a virtual, quick-stop tour of the world’s biggest geek fair.

But before we go there, I have to send special congratulations to Graeme Smith and the Proteas for what was undoubtedly the most exciting cricket match ever.

And for Shane Warne, a quick question (P) “Who did you say doesn’t have big match temperament?”

To read more about the biggest and most exciting one day international cricket match, you should visit the cricket section of SABCnews.com or the United Cricket Board site which is at www.cricket.co.za.

(T) Rapid change of tack

This week, CeBIT is holding its twentieth annual fair in Hanover, Germany. The electronics trade fair is supposed to be only for professionals, which means that you don’t get hordes of teenagers running around collecting, brochures and pens – but consumer products still appear to dominate floor space this year.

Big exhibitors such as Microsoft, Intel or Sharp have put up stands with something for everybody. The professionals looking for business products can be shown through to presentation booths and the general public can ogle digital-entertainment products outside.

Both the professionals and the consumers will be keen to try out Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, which has been on trial for several weeks. All computers on the Microsoft stand are apparently using the successor to Windows XP.

The software giant is also showing off its new office package, Office 12, which Bill Gates says is the most important software for writing letters, keeping accounts and running a simple database since Office 95.

The company says that Office 12, which is set to go on sale in the second half of this year, will replace the familiar fly-out menus and toolbars with a range of cleverly designed symbols that are said to make it far more intuitive to use the software's different tools.

Well, I am keen to see that, and I am sure that in due course, Beta versions of the Office 12 suite will be available for testing.

Other interesting stuff on show at Cebit includes a new Mini PC – sort halfway between a regular laptop and a PDA, and new technology to make longer lasting laptop batteries. The new technology uses methanol to generate power in fuel cells.

To find out more about the dozens of cool gadgets on show at the trade fair use the www.cebit.de address that is C.E.B.I.T dot D.E.

It is a great site packed with information and free videos about all the latest toys.

And so we wrap up Cybersurf for today. Thanks for listening and remember to keeeeeeep on surfing

Monitoring local elections and Microsoft Vista - Beta version

2006-02-27T15:29:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a weekly window on what’s happening on the internet. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang.

It’s only two days to go before the local elections, so I have had a sweep through a number of sites that will be monitoring the elections.

The first stop must be the Independent Electoral Commission’s web site at www.elections.org.za – the problem is that the site has been up and down over the last week. This is particularly disappointing because in previous elections the IEC site has been quite reliable and informative. The site appears to have taken a downturn.

It has a special section on the 2006 municipal election – but this section does not have a complete list of candidates – in fact I couldn’t find a complete list anywhere – this is a problem because I am sure that the IEC does have such lists – so why not put them on the Internet?

Next stop was the Department of Provincial and Local Government – the government department is supposed to monitor the implementation of several municipal acts. The site is functional, but the news section has very little that is relevant to the current election. However, it does have links to two very practical guides to establishing ward committees. These committees are supposed to be the bedrock of local involvement in government – but of course most of us have no idea about the role of ward committees and whether we should get involved or not.

Go to the DPLG site at www.dplg.gov.za and you will find very good background information on wards.

As far as news goes, the DPLG follows the example of most government sites and simply puts up the speeches of the minister and a few press releases.

A site that offers some interesting news about the elections and anything to do with government is the Bua news service which you will find at……http://www.buanews.gov.za/

Let’s leave elections for a brief moment because this week Microsoft made an important announcement about its new operating system. For a long while it was called Longhorn, but the system that will eventually replace Windows XP is now known as Vista. According to the announcement, precisely 500,000 copies of a beta version will be sent to customers for testing with a final version set for release late this year.

The software giant says that together with Internet explorer seven – which is in advanced beta testing – Vista will provide a more secure environment for users.

If the new operating system makes it out on schedule it will have been half a decade since it released its previous OS – five years – that’s a long time in the internet world.

And with that we wrap up today’s edition of Cybersurf – remember to check for results on the sabcnews.com site or you can dial 082 152 for audio results in four different languages.

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

Elections less than ten days away

2006-02-20T04:45:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a special edition with an online perspective of the upcoming local elections. I am your Cyberhost Steven Lang.

As you might, or might not know, the elections on March first are run quite differently to the national elections – and it is not very easy to understand the mechanics of the local election. For example, why is the municipality chosen through a proportional representation system but ward representatives are elected on a first past the post basis?

To explain all this, and other aspects of how the local elections work – the sabcnews.com web site has put up a special presentation explaining the ins and outs of the local elections. Even if you are confident that you know how the system works, it is really worthwhile looking at this presentation – you will need a Flash 8 player. And you can download the player using a link on the SABCnews.com web site.

Now let’s look at some of the web sites.

All the parties that I checked – and I admit that I did not go through all 97 parties – have a serious internet presence. They all appear to focus quite heavily on their respective leader – which is a little strange because their leaders are not up for election. But I suppose they have to start someplace, and the party leader is a good focal point.

The second common element in the party web sites is a party manifesto. This is good because they make it easy to find out what the party is all about.

Last week, the DA announced with some virtual fanfare that it had just released the first party political podcast in this country. Now whether this is true or not depends on your definition of what is a podcast. The Da’s podcast is really an MP3 recording of excerpts Tony Leon’s speech at a school – fair enough – that could count as a podcast.

But then the ACDP also has MP3 recordings available for download from its site. In this case the party describes them as radio adverts in English and in Sesotho. So did the ACDP really have the first political podcast?

The ANC has no audio on its fairly extensive election sub-site but it does have comprehensive candidates’ lists – still no mayoral candidates – but you can see quite easily who is on the PR lists and who are the ward candidates for each municipality. Most party web sites do not carry lists of their candidates.

The DA party lists are a little scrappy – for some provinces they are quite complete; and in others there are only PR candidates while some have none at all.

The IFP – which has a really old picture of its leader – actually has a button on its navigation bar for candidates – but the button doesn’t work.

It really is not a good idea to raise expectations if you don’t have the material to display. And talking about displaying material, while preparing this programme yesterday – the independent electoral commission web site at www.elections.org.za appeared to be off-line – hope they’ll be rocking and rolling pretty soon.

That wraps up this special election edition of Cybersurf. Next week we’ll be coming to you directly from the IEC centre in Pretoria. Till then, remember to keeeeeep on surfing.

Relevant links:

Protest against caricatures of the Prophet

2006-02-05T20:16:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – this week coming to you directly from our studios in Parliament, Cape Town. I am Steven Lang.

And to get some synergy going between the SABC news dot com web site and our special parliamentary broadcasts this week. We are putting up a special section on the SABC news dot com web site where you will be able to have a look at what we are doing. In the features section we will give you an idea of who we are going to interview and what we are going to discuss on the after eight debate.

So remember that – go to special features on sabcnews.com and you will find the section by scrolling down the left hand side navigation bar.

Let us change focus now to one of the more dramatic events of this past weekend. Protestors in Damascus – the capital of Syria attacked the embassies of Denmark and Norway because they objected to caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that were printed in certain newspapers.

The attacks and weekend protests in Lebanon were triggered by a set of twelve cartoons published in a Danish newspaper – Jyllands-Posten - in September last year. They were subsequently carried by one or two Scandinavian publications without provoking a huge reaction. Last week Muslim reaction ratcheted up several notches when French, Spanish and German newspapers republished some of the caricatures.

However, in my view, the scale of the protests would have been far less if these drawings had not been widely distributed on the Internet. While there is no doubt that the perceived insult to Islam greatly offended those Muslims who read Danish newspapers, it is unlikely that the cartoons would have enraged the crowds in Damascus and Beirut.

Without the Internet’s ability to penetrate borders, no more than a handful of people on the streets of Damascus would have known about the cartoons. We can therefore conclude that the existence of the Internet was at least indirectly responsible for the anti-Scandinavian rage sweeping through Muslim communities.

Is this boiling down to an argument against the Internet, or perhaps for facilitating censorship on the Internet as Google and Microsoft have just done in China?

On the contrary, it is an argument against the gagging order imposed this weekend on a South African newspaper. The pre-publication censorship of a newspaper considering the publication of cartoons is an exercise in futility because anyone who wants to see the cartoons can go to any one of dozens of web sites and blogs that have already put the caricatures online. If a listener would like to find the addresses of some of these sites, please check out the Cybersurf blog at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com

If you object to such drawings then please do not go to the Cybersurf blog.

The unfolding reaction to the cartoons is extra-ordinary – the UN is to investigate the publication of the caricatures; Sudan has boycotted Danish products and CNN – that great bastion for free speech showed pictures of the cartoons on air – but pixilated the images out – and the station admitted that it was doing so not because it was against the dissemination of the caricatures but because it was afraid.

And that wraps up today’s edition of Cybersurf. Thanks for listening and please tune in again next Monday for more on the best of the web.

Related links:

CyberHamas

2006-01-31T20:31:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly look at what’s new on the Internet. I am your Cybershost – Steven Lang

The biggest international news event of the past week has been the astonishing victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections. Not even the movement itself expected to do as well as it did – and the surprise win combined with the illness of the Israeli Prime Minister has put yet another convoluted twirl into the normally hazardous Israeli/Palestinian relations.

Now if you would like to read up on how the latest events are likely to impact on the Middle East – I have a few very interesting sites coming up.

First of all I tried to find the official results of last week's elections and thought I'd try the site of the Palestinian National authority located at www.pna.gov.ps – not much luck there – while the site is quite extensive it does not appear to be regularly maintained and when I typed in “elections” in the search field I only found the results of the 1996 vote.

\nDigging around some more I found the Central Elections Commission Palestine – which appears to be the authority that manages local elections – something like our Independent Electoral Commission – at the following address: \nwww.elections.ps. \n \nThis site had just about everything you wanted to know about elections in Palestine – including turnout figures for last week\'s voting – but it did not have the full results.\n\n \nHowever, I was able to find full results in anther web site known as the electronic intifada – to get to this site, type in electronicintifada dot net that is electronic intifada one word\n dot net. \n \nThere is a very official looking scan of a document that appears to contain the official results – and I have no reason to believe that\n I can\'t say. ",1]
);
//-->

Digging around some more I found the Central Elections Commission Palestine – which appears to be the authority that manages local elections – something like our Independent Electoral Commission – at the following address: www.elections.ps.

This site had just about everything you wanted to know about elections in Palestine – including turnout figures for last week's voting – but it did not have the full results – yet!.

However, I was able to find full results in another web site known as the electronic intifada – to get to this site, type in electronicintifada dot net that is electronicintifada - one word - dot net.

There is a scan of a very official looking document that appears to contain the official results – and I have no reason to believe that the results are anything but official.

Electronicintifada dot net is a very interesting site that carries far more useful information and interesting content than the official PNA site. If you wish to understand the thinking behind the intifada this site is a must.

Finding out more about Hamas online was not very difficult provided you take American and Israeli sites at face value – but if you want to read about HAmas from a Hamas point of view it is not that easy; especially if you are Arabic challenged.
However, I did eventually find an English language site called hamasonline.org – it appears to be the real McCoy – so to speak – and it is the official Hamas site but it has not been very well maintained.

In fact, in a rather bizarre turn of events – while still on the Hamasonline.org site I clicked on a button called “newsletter” and it took me to another site called hamasonline dot com that had a category for Jewish singles. How weird is that?

At that point my overheated grey matter just crashed, so this is a good point to end Cybersurf this frisky Monday morning.

Thanks for listening and please tune in again next Monday for more on the best of the Web

Bird Flu

2006-01-23T20:39:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window where web matters. I am your Cyberhost, a very frustrated Steven Lang having spent a good chunk of my weekend fighting a virus – or more specifically a Trojan.

A Trojan is a type of virus – or as the experts call it – malware. It is generally a form of software that was put on your computer against your wishes, or as happens most of the time – without you even knowing it.

Now I take internet security very seriously – I have a firewall, virus protection and anti-spam software – yet I still got this Trojan that is very difficult to get rid of. You can understand if I feel somewhat aggrieved.

(T) H5N1 is a far more dangerous virus that could do much worse than simply bogging down the internet with ridiculous spam. This strain of the Avian influenza virus – H5N1 has been the cause of grave concern for about eight years.

At the moment, it appears that humans have only caught avian flu, or bird flu directly from birds – mainly poultry. Health officials are however, very worried about a mutation of this virus that would allow it to become contagious between humans. Since this flu has a very high mortality rate, scientists say that if the H5N1 mutates – it could cause millions of deaths all over the world.

The World Health Organisation has taken the lead in monitoring and advising on methods of containing the virus. The WHO has an extensive sub-site directly linked to its main site at www.who.int/en . The sub site has a section on “Avian Influenza: am I a risk?” – It has a page on frequently asked questions, a page on “Ten Things you need to know about pandemic influenza and an extensive fact sheet. Incidentally, the WHO has fact sheets on most major diseases.

If you go through the WHO sub-site on Avian influenza – you will be a very worried person – but at least you will have a thorough understanding of the virus.

However, if that is not enough for you then I suggest you try the SciDev.net site. It is also very authoritative and carries more information about bird flu than you would ever want.

To find out about our state of preparedness in South Africa, I went to the Department of health site and found very little useful information – a press release put out last October saying that the department was working with the WHO. Even the Department of Foreign Affairs had more information on avian flu than the department of health. I really hope that the lack of information on the Health web site – www.doh.gov.za – means that they are so busy preparing for the pandemic that there has been no time to update the web site.

I searched through a number of South African web sites looking for information on Avian flu and found that the best resource is the Avian Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town. You need to navigate your way there from the UCT home page at www.uct.ac.za.

And if you still don’t find it – click along to the Cybersurf blog which you will find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com – I will put the entire script on the blog together with a number of useful links for you to do more research on avian flu.
That address one more time – www.cybersurf.blogspot.com
That’s it for today; please join me again next Monday for more on the best of the web.

New Horizons for Pluto

2006-01-16T20:37:00.001+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to a rather spacey edition of Cybersurf where we look to the furthest reaches of our solar system. I am your Cybershost Steven Lang.

Only yesterday, the Stardust spacecraft returned to Earth carrying samples of dust and carbon based samples from its close encounter with comet WILD 2 (pronounced Vilt). The purpose of this mission was to fly into outer space, approach the comet and collect dust samples from the tail and from interstellar space on its aerogel array.

The reason why scientists want to bring some dust back to Earth is because they believe these tiny particles can reveal valuable infomration about the origins of our solar system.

To find out more about this apparently succesful mission - the Stardust comet sample return mission - you should type in the following address: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov.

Not only is the site full of pictures and information – but it also provides a podcast containing interviews with scientists involved in the project. Besides this, the site invites Internet users to get involved and participate in a distributed computing project to help analyse the data brought back by Stardust.

However, yesterday’s landing is only a preview to an even more exciting mission that is set for lift-off in roughly thirty six hours.

Ask any school child which is the furthest planet from the Sun and she will tell you that Pluto is not only the smallest planet in our solar system but it is also furthest from our life giving star.

But ….

This is not neccessarily true – first of all because, Pluto does fly closer to the sun for part of its orbit – thus making it closer than Neptune – but nowadays – it is not universally accepted that Pluto is in fact a planet. Some astromers say that if it were discovered now, in the twenty first century instead of in 1930 – it would be considered too small to qualify as a planet.

Incidently, an eleven year old girl – Venetia Burney – named the planet after the Roman god the Underworld. – And just as a amazing – Mrs. Phair, as Venetia is now known, s still alive and doing well in England

About six months ago, astronomers announced the discovery of 2003 UB313 – a body which appears to be larger than Pluto and further away from the Sun – so if Pluto is a planet well then, shouldn’t 2003 UB313 also be given such a title?

The problem is that there appears to be quite a few planetismals out in the Kuiper belt that are in the same size range as Pluto.

So let us return to the NASA mission set for launching tomorrow.
New Horizons – as it is called - ll be the first ever on to Pluto and the Kuiper belt. To find out more visit this site:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ - I’ll repeat that http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

The front page has a count down read-out till lift-off; a web cam image of mission control; a timeline of all the important dates on the way to Pluto – New Horizons will only get there in 2015, and loads of other relevant infomration.

So before I blast off out of this studio let me remind you that you can find the full script of this program on the Cybersurf blog which you will find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com

Thanks for listening and remember to keeep on surfing.

Keeping Tabs on Sharon and one dollar per pixel

2006-01-08T12:13:00.000+02:00

Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – where matters are virtual, and the Internet is all encompassing. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang.

In the last few days, the declining health of Israeli Prime Minister has been one of the top international stories. News junkies have been checking in all the time for progress reports on his health, and also to read speculation about the consequences of his removal from the Middle Eastern political landscape.

You have frequently heard us on AM Live interviewing journalists from the Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem Post newspapers – both of them well known Israeli publications and both having excellent English language online sites.

The Ha’aretz site at www.haaretzdaily.com/ - let me spell that for you H.A.A.R.E.T.Z. D.A.I.L.Y dot com is a highly commercialised portal site that not only gives you up-to-date news but also offers plenty of opinion from news-makers and from online users. There is lots of advertising – especially travel packages to Israel, study options and real estate adverts.

The other English language daily – the Jerusalem Post – has a very similar lay-out to Ha’aretz and the political viewpoint – slightly to the left of centre - is also very close. Check it out for yourself at http://www.jpost.com/

If you are interested in finding out what is happening directly from government – it is best to use the foreign ministry site which is at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/ - the MFA standing for ministry of foreign Affairs.

I was also curious to find out if there is a kadima site for Sharon’s new political party - and there is at: www.kadimasharon.co.il – but in all likelihood – you won’t be able to read it because it is in Hebrew.

(T) Let us now get a whole lot more frivolous. A young man from Wiltshire in England – Alex Tew is his name – needed a lot of money to be able to pusue his bisiness management studies course at university – so he though of a brialliant way of becoming a millionaire. He is only 21 years old by the way.

His idea was mind numbingly simple and astoundingly successful. He put up a web site and offered to sell off the front page one hundred pixels at a time at a cost of one dollar per pixel.

It is a great publicity stunt and advertisers have bought in big time – and why shouldn’t they. The tiny bit of real estate on http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ allows you to advertise and put up a link to your own site and since his site gets over a million visitors a week – this is a good investment. The last one thousand pixels available Alex has put up for auction and that latest bid was just over one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars – a figure which will comfortably take him past his stated target of one million dollars.

My question now is – if he can earn a million dollars before his twenty second birthday – why does he need to study business management?

That’s it for today. If you need to refer back to some of the web addresses I mentioned, please go to the Cybersurf Blog which you will find at www.cybersurf.blogspot.com one more time.

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

Relevant links:

Citizens journalism & reporter.co.za

2006-01-02T08:30:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to the very first edition of Cybersurf for 2006. Yes. Your very own pseudo geek program takes off into the ether with a new take on citizens’ journalism. I am your friendly Cyberhost – Steven Lang.

The concept of citizens’ journalism has always been controversial at the very least. The notion that new technology allows just about anybody to become a reporter – is very disturbing to some people – especially to fellow journalists.

However, we have seen in the last year or so – some of the most impressive footage of the South east Asia tsunami was taken by amateurs; some of the most horrifying pictures taken after the London bombings were taken by private individuals using camera phones and blog reporting is often so much more interesting than the real things.

But the tsunami videos and the London bombings were opportunistic ocassions – where the poor picture quality undermines any claim to being professional journalism. Blog reportage is very patchy – a few blogs are really excellent, but most are nothing more than innacurate, unverified ramblings.

And therein lies the problem – it is very difficult – and sometime impossible, to tell the cream from the crud. Simply because blogs are not required to go through any editorial process – no one checks the facts, the spelling, the grammar or the validity of these reports.

Does this mean that you can never trust any type of citizen journalism? On the contrary – some of it is very reliable and in Korea, an online citizens’ publication probably changed the course of govenrment.

The news site is called ohmynews.com – that is oh as in O.H. M.Y.N.E.W.S. dot com – ohmynews dot com. The original was in Korean but the English version has been going successfully for a few years already.

The founder, Oh Yeon Ho, heads up an organisation that is part blog and part professional news agency. It receives about 70% of its copy from some thirty eight thousand “citizen reporters”. More important to some – it has a more than viable business model – in 2004 it reportedly made a profit of about four hundred thousand US dollars – most of it from advertising.

Political observers say "Ohmynews" influenced the election of outsider president Roh Moo-Hyun in February 2003 -- and it was no coincidence that Roh granted his first post-election interview to the site.

Great success story – and normally when there is a successful business model there are immitators – Wikipedia is trying a similar model and here in sunny South Africa (P) we have reporter dot co dot za.

The reporter dot co dot za project sponsored by the Johnnic Media group, has apparently only just been launched because there is a devastating lack of content – for the meantime. I am quite certain that it will do well – it has good backing – the site is technically sound and user friendly – but above all – the site will pay for stories – not a huge amount but I think you’re supposed to be a journalist for the love of it – not that my bank manager will settle my overdraft for love, or money – he wants blood.

And that wraps up the citizens journalism edition of Cybersurf – if you missed any of the URLs – or web addresses please click along to www.cybersurf.blogspot.com one more time – www.cybersurf.blogspot.com thanks for listening and remember to keeeep on surfing.

Cybersurf round-up of 2005

2005-12-26T07:55:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to the very last Cybersurf of 2005. I am Steven Lang with a rapid round-up of some the most significant IT stories of the past twelve months.

Let us start with the Podcast - The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected "podcast" as the Word of the Year for 2005. You still haven’t tuned in?

A Podcast, is defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player"

On Cybersurf we have spoken about podcasts quite a few times noting of course that it has mainly taken on in the US of A – but there is an excellent site about podcasting in South Africa which you can find at www.podcast.co.za – seems obvious enough – www.podcast.co.za

It is an excellent site that explains the basics to beginners and at the same time has topflight technical tips for the experts. There is a list of podcasts for South Africans – that includes Afrikaans weekly shows from Sidney, London and somewhere in the USA – Money web in English and Afrikaans, a Shona podcast and a weekly comedy podcast called Toast Fantastic.

Podcast dot co dot Za also gives you very good advice on how you can make your own podcasts

The transformation of Google is another of the most important stories of the year – in the beginning of 2005 it was merely the biggest search engine in the world – now it is still the biggest search engine – including South African versions in four languages – but it has successfully launched Google Maps; Google Earth, Google messaging and only last week a special version of google for your PDA.

It’s a good bet that in the next year we can expect a few head on confrontations between the two giants - Google and Microsoft - that appear to be intent on taking over everything on the Internet.

Still on the subject of search engines – earlier this month a new South African search engine was launched. I’m not sure about the pronunciation of jonga dot co dot za – that is J.O.N.G.A but I believe it is based entirely on open source software.

I tried it on a few local searches and it appeared to be quite good. Let’s give it another few weeks and we’ll really put it through its paces and compare it to some other South African search engines.

The last of our randomly selected big stories of the year concerns the recording industry’s massive campaign against pirated music. We have seen many adverts on television about how evil it is to steal music and how bad it is to make illegal copies of songs.

Now, while Cybersurf fully supports the sanctity of intellectual property rights and in no-way condones illegal downloading – it seems that sometimes authorities are unneccesarily harsh on this type of crime.

Currently there is a celebrated case in the US where almost the entire music recording industry has ganged up on Patricia Santangelo – a single mother of five – because illegally downloaded music was found on her computer.

The 43 year old has been described by a federal judge as "an Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo, and who can barely retrieve her email."

It appears that the industry – which has a site at www.riaa.com – has a huge call centre that tracks people who have made illegal downloads and then demands money from them.

Sounds a bit over the top to me.

But then I hope you don’t go over the top with your new year celebrations – thanks for listening and do join me again next year for more Cybersurf.

On the Net:

Recording Industry Association of America: http://www.riaa.com
Defense lawyers' blog on RIAA cases: http://www.recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com
Site focusing on peer-to-peer issues: http://p2pnet.net

Wikipedia in the News

2005-12-19T07:28:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window on the web – I am Steven Lang.

In the last week or so, one of my all time favourite sites – Wikipedia.org – has hit the headlines in internet publications. Wikipedia, is an online encyclopedia made up of material generated by volunteers – it is essentially an open source encyclopaedia.

The site has been in the news for two reasons reflecting both its weaknesses and its strength.

Critcs say that because Wikipedia has no proper review mechanism and because it is not compiled by professionals – its credibility must be questionable.

And the critics’ position has been bolstered by several recent events including the vandalisation of a biographical entry in the Wikipedia of the Norwegian Prime Minister. Another incident concerns Adam Curry who supposedly altered the entry on podcasting to polish up his role in the phenomena.

The point taken is that yes – it is possible to unilaterally change Wikipedia entries for mischievious or malicious purposes. Nobody can guarantee the accuracy of the Wikipedia.

On the other hand, the highly respected science magazine – Nature – recently conducted tests comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia science articles to those in the well known Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The tests concluded that Britannica contained fewer errors and the articles were better written – but that there was not a significant difference in accurancy between the two online encyclopaedias.

Nature said that in the articles assessed – and I quote - "Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia."

The science journal appeared to have more problems with the structure of the articles in the Wikipedia than the accuracy.

To sum it up – Wikipedia is a good place to begin your research – but I would not treat it as a definitive source for information.

And with that bit of advice, we wrap up today’s slightly shorter edition of Cybersurf – thanks for listening and enjoy your festive season surfing – be it on the Internet or on the ocean waves.

Maropeng.co.za

2005-12-12T08:07:00.000+02:00

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

Last Wednesday, President Thabo Mbeki, Premier Mbhazima Shilowa and Minister Pallo Jordan officially opened the brand new Maropeng Visitors centre near Johannesburg. It was a very impressive affair in a huge marquee just outside the centre itself.

The Maropeng visitors centre is a visually stunning museum, shaped like some type of ancient burial mound. It houses a large number of exhibits that seek to explain the pre-history of humanity as revealed by hominid bones discovered in the area.

The centre displays casts of most significant hominid finds from Southern Africa and other parts of the world. The bones and dioramas are fantastic and well worth the visit.

However, I was not as impressed with the Maropeng web site – which you can find at Maropeng.co.za. Perhaps what annoyed me more than anything - my eternal bug-bear – the area where the actual content is displayed is a small window taking up less than a quarter of the screen space. Why do web designers do this? Do they think users like scrolling up and down to see the content tucked away in squashed up block?

(T) Perhaps I am being unreasonable – it is after all a new site and there isn’t really much content available yet. I do hope they are going to add to it.

In one of the incomplete sections – instead of the usual “under construction sign” there was a “still excavating” graphic – different and cute.

The Maropeng site was clearly done by the same people that did the linked Sterkfontein caves site - and in both cases it appears that there is more emphasis on the commercial and tourism aspects of the Cradle of Humankind ahead of educational content explaining to visitors why this area is so important.

To illustrate what I mean – the restaurants, hotel, conferencing, and tour operators sections are operational – with price lists. But the Education section is “still excavating”.

The contacts section has details for several administrators, three financial officers, two people for food and beverages, a brand manager, a sales person and only one person who does tour bookings, schools and information for Sterkfontein caves.

The Cradle of Human kind web site at www.cradleofhumankind.co.za has much more content, even if it is not all fully up to date. I particularly liked the section with the video clips that I am sure will be incorporated in the not too distant future in the Maropeng site.

To sum it up – the old adage “content is king” still holds true – so I appeal to the people who run the Maropeng Visitors Centre: please put on your web sites more educational information about the australopethecines, homo erectus and cave formations – there is already enough about prices and conference facilities.

And that wraps up the prehistory edition of Cybersurf – thanks for listening and please tune in again next Monday for more – on the best of the web.

Going Wireless

2005-12-05T07:39:00.000+02:00

Hello, hello and how do you do? Welcome to Cybersurf where today the internet is wireless and the through-put is in megabytes.

I am your cyberhost Steven Lang.

Do you remember when a wireless was a clunky art-deco box that you used to listen to the hit parade? Nowadays – wireless is arguably the best way to connect to the Internet.

To come to grips with concepts such as three Gee- GPRS; I-Burst and edge technology you either need to be a genius – or if that is not the case – you need to know someone who really understands how going wireless can make life easier for you.

Internet analyst, Arthur Goldstuck has just written a book to help us mere mortals make sense of the concept – the book is called “The Hitchhiker’s guide to going Wireless”

IN: It’s a guide to the myriad . . .

OUT: . . . good social etiquette.

DUR: 1’40”

And let me tell you about this etiquette thing, two Saturdays ago – I was at a movie in Johannesburg when a woman not only left her cellphone on – but she answered the thing and began chatting to her friend!

Needless to say she was vigorously Sssshed by half the patrons in the cinema.

So you brush up on your cellphone etiquette when you read Arthur Goldstuck’s book entitled “The Hitchhiker’s guide to going Wireless” – and no it has nothing to do with bra’s either.

That’s it for today – thanks for your company and please tune in again next Monday for more on the best of the web.

Mystifying ADSL adverts

2005-11-28T12:04:00.001+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – three minutes of airtime where the Internet really matters – I am Steven Lang – this week trying to sort out what adverts for ADSL really mean.

Several people have asked me to explain the wave of commercials – particularly on TV – that offer an array of ADSL packages.

Just in case you haven't quite caught up to the twenty first century – ADSL or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line is a type of broadband that allows you to access the Internet at much quicker speeds than you would get over a normal dial-up service.

In recent weeks, a number of companies have been advertising ADSL on TV and while I am certain that none of them would ever deliberately mislead the public; it would help if they presented all the additional charges a little more prominently.

Consumers would have an easier time comparing the competing packages and they would know exactly what they are letting themselves in for.

MWEB has been heavily promoting MWEB ADSL for only R145 per month – while Telkom says you can get monthly access on HomeDSL 384 for three hundred and fifty nine rand.

These ads have caused a lot of confusion. It sounds as if the MWEB package is much cheaper than Telkom – From their respective television adverts, a reasonable person could quite easily conclude that the two Internet giants are selling the same thing at very different prices -

But in fact they are offering different products.

Let me try to explain.

In order to have an ADSL connection in your home or business, you need to have a dedicated ADSL modem installed. Several months ago, Telkom offered a self install option – that appears to have fallen by the wayside.

But you can get a modem anywhere – many retail outlets sell them.

Next you need a phone line that is ADSL enabled. To my knowledge, Telkom is the only company in the country that can offer you an ADSL line.

They rent that line to you – and it is the line rental that Telkom has been punting big time on TV.

Telkom actually rents the same physical line to you twice – you pay once a month to rent the line for voice calls and once a month for ADSL access – two completely separate charges.

Now you have your modem and your ADSL line, but do you have ADSL Internet access?

No, you don't!

You still have to pay a service provider who can connect your ADSL line to the Internet – and it is this service that MWEB is punting Mega big time on TV.

The point is – you still need an Internet Service Provider even if you are paying Telkom for monthly access.

However, while MWEB maybe one of the biggest Internet Service Providers on the African continent – it is not a monopoly.

Even Telkom is an Internet service provider – and there are many more who are equally as good.

So if you think you're going to have an ADSL Internet connection for R145 – think again – it's not going to happen – not in this country anyway.

And as we come to the end of this week's edition of Cybersurf I hope that if I did not clear up some confusion regarding the price of ADSL connectivity, I will at least have caused potential buyers to read the small print – carefully.

Thanks for listening and till next Monday, remember to keeeeep on surfing.

Return from World Summit on the Information Society

2005-11-21T07:58:00.000+02:00

Hello and welcome to Cybersurf - your weekly update on the internet and with yours truly, freshly returned from Tunis, where I attended the World Summit in the information society.

It was all about how the internet should be managed, and about finding ways to get more people to benefit from the latest information technologies.

The whole process began some seven years ago - culminating in the two phase summit meeting - the first phase in Geneva in 2003 and the second phase last week in the Tunisian capital.

So, I hear you ask... we know what it was supposed to achieve - but what difference is it going to make - really?

The easy answer is: not much - or we could elaborate and say that the Tunis phase produced two documents - a political Tunis Commitment and a plan of action entitled the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society.

Not much of an action plan because it does not say who must do what and by what deadline - nor does it say who is going to pay for the actions.

As a journalist - I was very concerned about Tunisia' human rights record and particularly about the way it treated journalists.

There was no need to fear on a personal level because we were actually working within a United Nations precinct, and we were accredited by the UN.

It seemed that the security guys were instructed to restrain themselves and to be really nice to all these foreign journalists. Sometimes they slipped a little. - There were security people walking up and down the media room all the time, and one of them even tried to remove a press release from my desk - but by and large they were friendly.

However, the most impressive aspect of the summit to me was how well the technology worked in the media centre. At a rough guess, there were about two hundred desk tops and maybe another eighty network points for laptops. During the day, they were all used all the time - and yet the bandwidth never faltered - download speeds were lightening fast - considerably quicker than I've ever seen in any other major meeting.

The system never ever went down. My laptop connected to the network instantly without fiddling around with any settings - but if ever you did have a query - all you had to do was raise your hand or even just wear a worried expression and suddenly three or four volunteers - all highly competent university students rushed towards your station to resolve your problem. They were good.

Then to put the cherry on the Tunisian IT cake. When we arrived back at the airport, we found that they had laid on free wireless access all through the airport. Once again - no fiddling about with settings - I just turned on the machine and I was instantly connected - good bandwidth absolutely free.

If there was any tangible outcome of the summit it was that Tunisia showed the world that they can do IT - really.

Why, oh why, can't we do the same?

Why are we still paying exorbitant prices for poor services?

Why are we still fiddling about with IT?

Why don't we have a massive IT education program in the country?

A small country on the other end of our African continent is doing all of the above so well.

And so we come to the end of this week's edition of Cybersurf - and don't forget to tune in again next week for more on the best of the web.

World Summit on the Information Society

2005-11-14T04:27:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf- this week coming to you directly from Tunis – on the northern tip of our African continent – where yours truly, is attending the World Summit on the Information Society or WSIS if you are into acronyms.

Why am I here, and why am I telling you about this mega conference?

There are two reasons really, if you are listening to this program you are probably interested in the Internet – and the main topics of discussion here concern who will manage the internet and how can more people get access to it.

The second reason you should be interested in the Summit is because it involves your tax money – yes, our government is heavily committed to the WSIS process and has been one of the leaders in shaping the outcome of this meeting.

The Department of Communications has set up a large, impressive stand in the exhibition hall; Lyndall Shope Mafole, Director General of that same department has been chairing one of the two sub-committees drawing up the final documentation for the Summit; three government departments – Communications, Foreign Affairs and Science and Technology - are sending high level delegations; South Africa is also one of the most generous contributors to the special fund set up to help cover the cost of this UN Conference and finally President Thabo Mbeki – head of the South African, delegation will be one of the Keynote speakers at the first plenary session of the Summit on Wednesday.

Tunisia is normally a very security conscious country, but in keeping with the war against terrorism; following suicide bomb attacks in several Middle Eastern countries and recalling the fact that they are expecting forty five heads of state for the summit – you can well imagine how beserk they have gone on security.

There are thousands of Tunisian security people – police and military – all over the city, while in the Conference centre, UN police work together with the locals to make life very uncomfortable for people in general, but for media in particular. They X-ray everything, make you take off your belt and shoes and go through your bags at every opportunity – so just try to imagine how excited they get with my radio equipment.

The trickiest topic under discussion here concerns Internet Governance – it took delegates weeks to come up with a working definition of the term, but it’s really about who should run the Internet. To put it very bluntly, I think that it galls the rest of the world to know that essentially the US government runs the ‘Net through ICANN – the Internet Corporation on Assigned Names and Numbers.

Most countries want the status quo to change – the African lobby says – and I quote – “We are convinced that there is a need for a progressive process towards a new transparent democratic and multi-lateral framework” end of quote.

In other words – we need change.

Until recently the UK appeared to be the only significant supporter of the US position, but in September even the Brits said that “adjustments need to be made”.

So will the US give up control of the internet? I don’t think so – but I am certain that by the end of this Summit on Friday, a new international body will be created to discuss and formulate Internet policy.

And so we come to the end of the Tunis edition of Cybersurf. Listen for more on the Summit during our current affairs shows this week.

Windeed, newscientist and freshlyground.com

2005-10-31T05:27:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf - your weekly window on the web. I am your Cybershost Steven Lang – this morning with some rather unusual sites for your pleasure. If you miss any of the addresses, never fear, the Cybersurf blog is near – at Cybersurf.blogspot.com.

Let’s start with a fascinating site for cyber detectives – or for the rest of us who are just plain nosy. Windeed dot co dot za describes itself as an indispensable tool of choice for law firms, estate agencies, credit bureaus, valuers, surveyors, conveyancers and other professionals involved in searching for information in the deeds Office, Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office, Consumer and Business Credit Records repository or the Surveyor-General. Wow – that’s quite a mouthful.

What it really does is find and sell information from all those offices I’ve just mentioned. My understanding is that all that information is available free of charge anyway – but Windeed saves you the enormous hassle of trying to find the stuff yourself. I have not personally tried a search, but family members and colleagues have been very impressed with windeed.co.za.

The charges depend on the type of information you want – many of the searches come in at under five rand each while some of the more specialized queries can cost well over fifty rand. This is a really cool site.

Newscientist - the esteemed British weekly magazine that also has a very good web site – Newscientist dot com, will soon be producing podcasts. The site says that it will be putting out nine podcasts per week with all the latest science and technology news. This means that you’ll be able to download the files to your iPod or any other MP 3 player and listen to science news at your convenience. Sounds great, but I hope they won’t be charging for this service – at the moment about half the material on the News scientist is for subscribers only.

Next, I have to tell you about a rock concert I went to on Saturday night – where the supporting band was absolutely spectacular. Freshly Ground is indeed fresh and talented, but for our purposes right now – the group also has a useful fan site at Freshly Ground.com

On the front page you can find out where the band is playing next – in other words a gig guide; click on the horizontal nav bar and you can meet the band, read the lyrics; hear clips of some of the songs

Fade up music – 5 secs and fade under voice

And even watch two of their music videos.

Great band great site

And if you missed their web site address, do not fear, I will post the Freshly ground web site and all the other addresses mentioned in today’s program on the Cybersurf blog which you will find at Cybersurf. Blogspot.com – one more time – Cybersurf.blogspot.com

That’s it from me - Thanks for listening and remember to keeeeep on surfin.

Relevant Sites:

Best wireless and elections

2005-10-17T06:42:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window where web matters. I am your Cyberhost Steven Lang. Today the program is chock full of addresses and sites – but don’t worrry if you miss them, I will be putting the full script on the Cybersurf blog.

And we start off with some news from myadsl.co.za – this site has regularly taken potshots at both Telkom and Sentech – so it was with some surprise that I received a press release praising the Mywireless offering of Sentech as the best wireless broadband in the country.

The site’s owner, Rudolph Muller came to this conclusion after an in-depth study of Vodacom’s 3G, WBS’s iBurst; MTN’s 3G and Sentech’s Mywireless.

Full results of the study can be found at mybroadband.co.za –

Personally I cannot comment because I am still waiting for Cell C to come up with 3G – and guess who has a Cell C connection.

I currently use the GPRS connection to surf the Internet and have found it quite useful. It is not practical on most sites as the bandwidth is restricted – but some clever operators have special low bandwidth sites that work rather well on a cell phone screen. For example – check out the BBC’s news site.

I also use it regularly to check my Gmail address and the cost is very reasonable – last month I connected to the Internet ninety times on my cellphone and the cost was under twenty rand

Meanwhile, yesterday, Estonians had the opportunity to vote on the Internet for the local elections. Surprisingly – Estonia has the largest e-voting system in Europe – eighty percent of voters on the electoral roll had the chance to cast their ballots ahead of voting day.

Well, I don’t think we will have a similar system set up for our next local elections, but if you would like to check out how far we are in terms of readiness, you can go along to elections dot org dot za – that is the web site of the IEC - the Independent Electoral Commission.

One of the most useful features of this site is that you can check to see if you are registered to vote. It works very well, I typed in my ID number and within seconds – out popped a result – with my voting district number; my ward number and the address of the school where I can vote. Check it out – elections. Dot org dot za.

And if you are really interested in more detail on the upcoming elections – visit the demarcation board site at demarcation dot org dot za – it has everything you wanted to know about which areas fit into which ward and municipality. It is great – but it does not yet have a date for the next election – it refers to the 2005/2006 local elections.

Now if you are interested a really spectuacular culutral event – you might want to go to the Newtown Diwali festival in Johannesburg next week. It looks very interesting – but don’t take my word for it – check out the site at

www.newtowndiwalifestival.co.za/ - that is newtowndiwalifestival – one word yes – one word.

If you happened to have missed that address or any other mentioned in today’s program – pay attention and do not miss this next one – the Cybersurf blog carries all the web addresses mentioned in today’s program so go along to cybersurf.blogspot.com – one more time – cybersurf.blogspot.com

Thanks for listening and be sure to tune in again next Monday for more Cybersurf.

Relevant links:

Lack of Mr. Delivery

2005-10-10T10:28:00.000+02:00

Hello Good morning and how do you do – this is Cybersurf, your very own Internet update. I am Steven Lang.

Very often, we hear the people are not happy with government because of a lack of delivery. Sometimes, people are not happy with the Internet for the very same reason – a lack of delivery.

Let me explain what I mean with a personal example, on Friday we thought it would be great if we could order some take out food on the Internet and have it delivered to our home.

My wife easily found the Mr. Delivery web site and we were very favourably impressed – in fact it is one of the most functional sites I have seen.

It is lightening fast and intuitive. Instantly we found the nearest Mr. Delivery franchise and we could browse through the menus of all the restaurants in our area.

Mr. Delivery dot com is a fantastic site – we were a little perturbed when the site informed us that delivery would take an hour – a phone request normally takes 45 minutes.

We were hungry.

After about half an hour, Mr. Delivery phones to confirm the order and informs us that it will take about another hour and a half to complete our order. Why?

“Because we only got your order now”.

Needless to say – we cancelled the order. My wife got in her car and within thirty minutes we were enjoying our Pizza.

The point of this story is self evident – it doesn’t matter how good your site is if you don’t deliver the goods. We can’t eat virtual pizzas – not yet anyway.

The problem with delivery might also have something to do with the recent Kalahari dot net campaign – where they go to great lengths to convince TV viewers that they do deliver – really!

In recent years, I have received quite a few complaints from listeners who have been very unhappy with service delivery from Kalahari dot net – perhaps their new campaign is telling us that they have recognised the problem and done something about it.

Anyway the debate over whether it is better to buy books online from Kalahari dot net or amazon dot com is still raging.

The list price and range of books are better at amazon dot com but delivery does take a long time and invariably you have to pay customs duty on your purchases.

I know of some people who buy their books from lesser known overseas suppliers – but not from amazon dot com – because the customs officials know they can hit you.

And with that we wrap today’s edition of Cybersurf – thanks for listening and remember to keeeeeep on surfing.

Useful links

Panos - Resources for Journalists

2005-10-03T03:18:00.000+02:00

Hello Good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window where the web matters. I am Steven Lang, this week talking about a site designed to help journalists cover the information society in general and specifically the World Summit on the Information Society – or WSIS.

This summit is set to take place in Tunis in November this year. Leaders from around the world will converge on the Tunisian capital to sign agreements aimed at improving worldwide access to infomration and communications technologies.

There has been considerable debate about whether the media should simply cover the event as it happens, or is the media a special part of the information society.

PANOS – a UK based non-governmental organisation that uses communications for development, has set up a special web site aimed at getting jounralists to be part of the debate and to help de-mystify such issues.

I spoke to Murali Shanmugavelan, of Panos London and asked him why should jounralists be involved in the WSISI process:

IN: For two reasons . . . .

OUT: . . . . they want to.”

DUR: 2’13”

Murali Shanmugavelan, of Panos London – if you would like to check out their site – go along to www.panos.org.uk – that is panos P.A.N.O.S dot org dot uk.

(T) Now for a radical change of tack with a quick note about a virtual catastrophe – thousands of characters are dying of the plague in the world’s ffmost popular online game – World of Warcraft. Its makers say more than four million people worldwide play this game – and now the characters are dropping like virtual flies.

And so we come to the end of this week’s edition of Cybersurf – thanks for listening and be sure to join me again next Monday for more on the best of the web.

No Cybersurf

2005-09-26T22:35:00.000+02:00

No Cybersurf this Monday - Sorry!

Presidential Internet Advisory Council

2005-09-05T17:56:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your very own weekly look at the Internet. I am your Cybershost Steven Lang.

About nine years ago, President Thabo Mbeki first spoke publicly about the building of an information society. He took it a step further in his 2001 State of the Nation address when he created the Presidential Internet Advisory Council on the Information Society and development.

This weekend the same Internet Advisory Council held its fifth meeting in Madikwe in the North West Province - where Sherwin Bryce-Pease asked the president if he was pleased with the meeting:

INSERT Thaboone

IN: “Yes, indeed, I am very happy . . . .

OUT: . . . . of the people

DUR: 0’21”

While it is all very well to roll out computers and connectivity all over the country, it appears that language is still a problem.

INSERT thabotwo

IN: “It is but . . . .

OUT: of the people.

DUR: 0’25”

Government has said that it wishes to use ICTs to alleviate poverty and to provide more employment.

And to test methods of working toward this goal, President Mbeki said there was a pilot project underway in Limpopo province. But he recognised that such outreach projects presented their own sets of problems:

INSERT Thabothree

IN: How do you train . . . .

OUT: . . . . as a business person.”

DUR: 0’30”

It is clear that the President believes in the value of the Internet for the country, and we know that he shares his thoughts with the world in his weekly internet column on the ANC web site – but does he have much time for surfing?

INSERT Thabofour

IN: Yes, I mean it’s . . . .

OUT: . . . it helps.

DUR: 0’21”

That was President Thabo Mbeki speaking to Sherwin Bryce Pease on Weekend Live.

Now before we sign off – two quickies.

First - Telkom has withdrawn its case against the spoof site hellkom.co.za. – Moneyweb reports that the communication giant has agreed to drop its suit and cover legal expenses. A Telkom spokesman said it took this decision for “strategic reasons”

And finally, next week, Cybersurf will be coming to you “live” from the Abfab university town of Grahamstown where the largest single gathering of African journalists will meet at the Highway Africa conference .

More on this in next week’s Cybersurf.

Till then – remember to keeeeep on surfing.

Civil Society preparations and some Cynicism

2005-08-29T10:05:00.000+02:00

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

Information Society Week in Cape Town

2005-08-22T07:48:00.000+02:00

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:

Cape Gateway
The SANGONET civil society World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) thetha: Mon, 22 August 2005
The annual CIRN conference: 24 - 26 August 2005
WWW Applications Conference: 29 - 31 August 2005
Women in ICT Conference: 24 - 26 August 2005

Google Alerts

2005-08-15T02:54:00.000+02:00

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

Telkom vs the Rest

2005-08-08T12:37:00.000+02:00

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:

ADSL access charges are not justifiable.
The current bandwidth caps are inadequate
Local traffic should not count towards the cap.
and that Telkom should guarantee certain levels of service.

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:

ICASA (http://www.icasa.org.za)
Telkom (http://www.telkom.co.za)
MyADSL (http://www.myadsl.co.za)
Internet Solutions (http://www.is.co.za/ - DimensionData company)
IFP (Inkhata Freedom Party) - (http://www.ifp.org.za)
Hellkom.co.za (http://www.hellkom.co.za - a website Telkom is suing for defamation. This site brings the facts to the SA public)
Antitrust.co.za (http://www.antitrust.co.za - Telkom activist site)

ZA Domain Name Authority

2005-08-01T15:31:00.000+02:00

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..

IPAQ – the PDA - trials and tribulations

2005-07-25T08:22:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – a weekly look at what’s happening in our neck of the Cyberwoods. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang – this week taking a look at the PDA – short for personal digital assistant. What we are really talking about are those flat rectangular devices that look sort of like cell phones but in fact serve the purpose of diary, e-mail client and much more.

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.

INSERT:

Paul Boshoff, Personal Services Group country manager for HP with a promise for a better PDA experiences.

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.

ICANN uncertainties in Luxembourg

2005-07-18T16:26:00.000+02:00

Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, your weekly window on the web. I am Steven Lang –still somewhat exhausted from hectic week in

Luxembourg

where I attended the 23rd international meeting of ICANN – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

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

SA Journalism sites

2005-07-11T07:45:00.000+02:00

Hello Good morning and how do you do? And what a how do you do is this week’s edition of Cybersurf, your weekly whiff of what’s happening in our neck of the Cyberwoods. I am your Cyberhost Steven Lang, this week taking you through a couple of local journalism sites.

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.

Deep Impact and Tempel 1

2005-07-04T07:45:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – your weekly window, where web matters. I am your Cybershost Steven Lang, taking you this week into outer space – more precisely to a point in space about 133 million kilometres away.

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:

Evolution vs. Creationism - the debate online

2005-06-27T07:44:00.000+02:00

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf – the evolution edition. I am your Cybershost Steven Lang this week with several interesting sites presenting a variety of viewpoints on evolution.

Why did I choose evolution as a subject for a web site review program? Simply because there are so many good sites online arguing the issue from different perspectives. While there are many nuanced versions of each side of the argument, they can be broadly divided into two camps. Those who believe in evolution and those who don’t – that is the creationists. I am going to try really hard, not to reveal my position on the debate – the aim here is to share some ideas on where you can get information on the discussion.

Let’s start with the talkorigins.org web site. Although it is a web site, it is also a usenet newsgroup devoted to the discussion and debate of biological and physical origins. As the site says on the front page itself – and I quote: “Most discussions in the newsgroup centre on the creation/evolution controversy but other topics of discussion include the origin of life, geology, biology, catastrophism, cosmology and theology.” end of quote.

What is really useful about the talkorigins site is that real scientists provide answers to questions normally raised in the creation vs evolution debate.

Talkorigins.org is an excellent site if you are looking for good ammunition in plain easy to understand English.

On the other side of the debate, there is creationdesign.org and this too provides a wealth of ammunition if you are on the creationist side of the fence.

The front page has a beautiful photograph of a galaxy with the words Creation Ex Nihilo covering the centre. I presume it means that the galaxy was created out of nothing.

Down both sides of the front page are basic, yet provocative navigations bars carrying titles such as: Circuits; the Honey Bee, If you believe….; Chances and sixth sense; parade of impossibles and quotations:

All of this out to prove that evolution is impossible therefore a divine creator must have made all this.

Creationdesign dot org is certainly not a boring site.

Then if you go to the debatingChristianity.com web site you will find a whole host of interesting debates – and one of the most visited is of course the creationism versus evolution section.

One of the most interesting sites I found while researching this debate is called the Panda’s Thumb dot org. I will read out how the site describes itself:

The Panda's Thumb is the virtual pub of the University of Ediacara. The patrons gather to discuss evolutionary theory, critique the claims of the anti-evolution movement, defend the integrity of both science and science education, and share good conversation.

A virtual Pub – who would have guessed? But it is Australia.

And as we draw to the end of this week’s Cybersurf, let me remind you that I will post on the Cybersurf Blog – which you can find at Cybersurf.blogspot.com – a list of all the web sites mentioned in this program. I will also put up a few additional web addresses for those who wish to read further, and for those who want to add their voices to the debate – there is a comments section just waiting for you. Remember – Cybersurf.blogspot.com

And tomorrow in the weekly science slot, we’ll take a look at evolution in our schools. Should evolution be taught in schools – listen to the science feature on AM Live Tuesday Morning. Till next time, remember to keeeeeep on surfing.

Relevant Links:

Talk Origins
Debating Christianity and Religion
Creation Design
Where will the science vs. religion debate go next? - SciDev.net
Panda's Thumb
Teaching evolution in schools "not a priority" - Science in Africa
Origin of Species and Evolution - Wits University