Blogging on Kabissa using the offline client ecto

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 1 October, 2010 - 00:27

As part of my ongoing search to make Kabissa more useful to members in Africa, I am exploring Blogging Software - programs that you download to your own computer that let you write your blog posts more comfortably, offline, before connecting to the internet and publishing. Like all Drupal websites, Kabissa supports this (through a standard known as XML-RPC) but we have not yet turned on the feature for all users.

Let me know if you are interested in trying it and I'll give you access - and I would welcome your help with testing and providing recommendations for all Kabissa members about which programs are most useful for blogging on Kabissa.

Generally speaking, I think Kabissa's new email discussion lists will be of more use to members since they let us use the email that we already know and use all the time. Blogging clients also don't support all Kabissa's features, so that for example you can post to your personal blog on Kabissa but would have to log in later to add keywords and move it into one of your groups. In addition, the best blogging clients that I have seen so far also are not free software.

There are many blogging clients out there, but since I use an Apple Macbook Pro, I have settled on ecto. ecto is a blogging client that integrates well with Apple and provides a clean, easy to use interface that looks remarkably like an email program. You can not only draft and publish new blog posts but also view your posts and open them for editing - all offline. 

Copy-paste job from http://illuminex.com/ecto website follows the break.

Trip down memory lane: the origins of Fahamu, Kabissa and Pambazuka News

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 17 November, 2009 - 16:22

I spent some time this afternoon googling 'kabissa' (try this sometime - you'll be surprised what you find!) and was pleased to run into an article by Firoze Manji titled The internet and human rights advocacy in Africa from back in 2002. I had never seen the article before but was glad to be reminded of the early history and the excitement we felt at what we were starting back then.

Rural communication: Is there still a need for telecentres now that there are mobile phones?

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 30 October, 2008 - 17:45
Connecting rural TanzaniaI was alerted to this interesting APC article via a post to the bytesforall mailing list by Esther Nasikye. I've reproduced it below in keeping with APC's creative commons license. Thank you APC! The article presents no major surprises - it was only a matter of time before this discussion started taking place. I agree with the article's author that the crash of many telecentre projects over the last 10 years does not mean that telecentres are irrelevant and can be replaced by mobile phones. Indeed, computer-based access to the Internet is as important as ever. Perhaps underconsidered is also the notion that multiple channels to accessing critical information are needed - not just access via an oligopoly of mobile phone operators. What is your view?

Following the initial rush of Information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) projects in rural Africa, many did not yield the anticipated outcomes, and interest has been dying down. People then began talking about “sustainable ICT” projects, in which it was understood that projects would become self-sufficient after their initial donor-led investment and set-up period. But with the use of mobile phones gaining in popularity, popular rhetoric has begun to question the need of ICTs beyond the mobile phone. While mobile phones certainly have had a great impact in rural areas, a new study by Ian Howard commissioned by APC, through the analysis of two case studies, he argues that the need for telecentres and affordable internet connections exists, as such centres cater to rural and niche markets the way larger companies cannot.

Can we rescue OLPC from Windows? Richard Stallman makes a pitch for freedom

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 1 May, 2008 - 21:49
With gratitude to bytesforall, I learned today about this very meaningful appeal to keep the One Laptop Per Child project on course as a force for freedom in the world, by Richard Stallman, described on Wikipedia as "an American software freedom activist, hacker, and software developer." I've been following this issue personally, and while I'm not quite as activist a promoter of open source software as RMS, I was crushed when I learned a few weeks ago about Negroponte's plans for Windows on the device.

Wouldn't you just love to have this problem: can you survive a day without computers/internet?

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 29 April, 2008 - 20:50
Via incom-l mailing list, I received the following message about the shutdownday.org campaign which is encouraging people to shut down their computers on Saturday 3 May. This is an interesting initative, and from our perspective of working with computing in African civil society it raises the starkness of the digital divide between North America and Africa.

Newsfordev - news aggregator platform for agricultural development practitioners

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 28 April, 2008 - 19:23
I received the very interesting announcement below from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA). The announcement regards the new http://www.newsfordev.org news service for agricultural development professionals.
Initiatives like this in various sectors in Africa present a powerful opportunity for Africans to address the "information overload" issue while keeping themselves informed and connected with events and happenings in their fields. RSS Feeds and e-mail digests such as those provided by CTA are particularly relevant for those lacking regular access to the Internet. Check it out and let us all know how it works out for you.

Trip down memory lane: www4mail support suspended in January 2008

Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 8 April, 2008 - 20:05

www4mail logoI was pleased to get the PingER update from the University of Trieste - it was the first time I had heard from PingER since 2002, when it was presented at the eJDS Open Round Table on "Developing Country Access to On-Line Scientific Publishing: Sustainable Alternatives". I was there talking about (and hoping to breathe life into) the www4mail tool, and am pleased my www4mail presentation (PPT) is still up on their website! www4mail was developed at the University of Trieste and for a time there were a few really good servers running including ours at Kabissa and another at Bellanet in Canada. These servers played a critical role for a time, enabling people with limited access to the web to request web pages to be sent to them by email.

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