The top posts over the past year

The most popular posts on this blog (the titles and number of reads):

• How to take ownership of a folder protected on an second hard drive in Windows XP. - 1345 views over the past year (more than viewed the home page) - says alot about Microsoft ...
  
• Apple Macbook Pro Battery replacement - 703
  
• Baby sleeping with eyes open - 383 - a recent post that seems to hit a hot topic
  
• The Egg Man A Symbol of African Unity - 293 - a two-year old post that's still popular
  
• Open Source Software and Information Society for South Africa
  

Then some of my own faves that I thought would be more popular:

• Adding a fat PVR - Windows Media Center (MCE), Joost, Snapstream or GB-PVR
  
• Natural Swimming pools
  

Longevity of Blogger posts

I'm confused. I haven't blogged for a month because I'm trying to work out some issues with the Blogger. My old posts aren't properly indexed on the search engines because they're 'archived' and no longer have their own unique URL. Some old posts do still have a unique page. I've played with all the Blogger settings but I can't seem to find a way to ensure every blog post gets and keeps it's own URL/ page. Am I missing something? Shall I just migrate to a proper Wordpress blog? Please help!

On the issue of confusion, I'm also a little confused about Jacob Zuma. Is he corrupt or not? Will we have a corrupt President or is he going to make some positive changes to the Parliament?

More confusion. We had an 'end of year' even at FPC last week. I took a few photos and I'm not sure where to share them. Do I post them to flickr (which I use less and less), picasaweb (which we use more and more) or Facebook (where I think many people I know may get to see them, or since it's a past event, may not), which also begs the question, where on facebook to post (on an event, my photos, a group or why not just via picasa or flickr plugin)?


I'd love to hear what you think.

Facebook, good or bad?

Facebook has been banned in many organisations, and people have been fired. So is it bad? Good? Useless? I shared concern with many others about the recent sale of a minor percentage to Microsoft, I also use Orkut and LinkedIn (not Plaxo) and I'm very eager to see Yahoo's play here. Anyhow, the main reason for my post I saw in a recent FORTUNE, Brent Schlender writes a super story about it, "Facebook makes me cringe" ..but it's still the most profound Internet innovation since eBay.

Don't buy banner ads, especially NOT from Yellow pages

I've been trying to get a response from the staff at the Yellow pages about the value of their banners and listings and they do not respond. I guess that if I was them I also wouldn't. One of our SEO clients paid them R1750 per month for 6 months and they received 77 referrals. That's hundreds times more expensive than advertising using Googles' adwords, and unfortunately other banner type advertising is similarly ineffective.

The frustrating part was that Yellow pages reported to the clients that they had 1781 click throughs although our logs and Googles analytics confirmed it was only 77. They still had the chutzpah to ask the client to renew the contract...

Beware of banner ads, especially in SA!

South Africa = Wisconsin

If you haven't yet had a look at this strange maps blog, it's worth a quick look. This one renames all the US States with countries of similar GDP (to the State). So South Africa has the same GDP as Wisconsin. :P

Open Standards in SA - know the law

I'm sure you've reached a SA government site that breaks in your firefox browser. In 2002 I participated in a workshop at SITA to discuss the regulations on interoperability and I've recently got a bee telling me that it's time for an upate... Any champions out there, please get involved.

Here's some background...Published in the Regulation Gazette No. 7491 Vol. 449 of 2002, Ammendments to the Public Service Act states:
PART III. INTEROPERABILITY
A. PRINCIPLES
Building and continuously adapting minimum interoperability standards is necessitated by the quick obsolescence of information communication technologies, expensive nature of information communications technology products and services, and a myriad of non-compatible information communications technology products in the market. If interoperability is not carefully managed these factors can result in the public service investing in obsolete, expensive and non-compatible information communications technology products and services that impede effective service delivery. Mandatory compliance by all departments with minimum interoperability standards for the public service is essential for seamless and integrated service delivery.

B. MINIMUM lNTEROPERABlLITY STANDARDS
8.1 The Minister shall, after consultation with the Government Information Technology Officer Council (herein referred to as the “GITO Council”), issue Minimum Interoperability Standards (herein referred to as’ the “MIOS”) for the public service in the form of a handbook called the Handbook on Minimum lnteroperability Standards.
8.2 The MlOS shall include provision for standards and specifications for-
(a) interconnectivity;
(b) data integration; and
(c) information access regarding browsers and viewers.

Subsequent to the amendments to the Act the MIOS was developed. I attended a SITA workshop in 2002 where it was discussed and agreed.

Most recently an e-primer was released 29 june 2006 by IOSN, introducing readers to what and why they are important and explaining setting processes provides examples of policies (excl SA), initiatives and formats. It also addresses the challenges faced in implementing open standards.

At the establishment of the MIOS it was agreed that it needs to be extended and revised on a regular basis. I suggest that it's something that will have strong support from the GITOC and I am sure that SITA will be glad to facilitate the process again. If you want, I'm happy to assist by suggesting it through the GITOC OSS WG and/or through other individuals. Note: The MIOS is also mentioned in the FOSS policy docs (i.e. from the conference).