ICT MOVEMENT AFRICA

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:49:00 +0000

SECOND WORLD JOURNALISM EDUCATION CONGRESS AFRICA-REGIONAL PREPCOM: RHODES UNIVERSITY, GRAHAMSTOWN

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:39:00 +0000

Rhodes University, through the School of Journalism and Media Studies, has offered to host the 2nd World Journalism Education

Congress (WJEC-2) in 2010. The bid, which has received wide-ranging endorsements, is currently being considered by the Council of the WJEC.

The bid document can be visited at: http://www.ru.ac.za/jms.

As a consequence, the SAB LTD-UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy, Professor Fackson Banda, is convening a high-level "prepcom" of African journalism educators on the 9th of September 2009 (during this year's Highway Africa conference), so as to co-ordinate African-regional input into the WJEC.

Funding for this is already available from South African company Telkom and the Open Society Network Media Programme. The rationale behind this

Africa-regional preparatory meeting is partly underpinned by the realisation that African journalism educators are underrepresented in international

initiatives of this kind, as was evidenced by the low number of African attendees at the 1st WJEC held in Singapore in July 2007.

In addition, the practice of journalism in Africa is in flux, constantly answering to the global influences of liberalisation, privatisation,

commercialisation and internationalisation. At the same time, the local exigencies are conditioning the practice of journalism in ways that render

it neither global nor local. The 'glocalised' nature of journalism in Africa must surely raise many questions for journalism educators. Such questions,

if they are to be properly answered, must be placed within the historical conditions that have shaped and reshaped African journalism -- colonialism,

post-colonialism and globalisation. Such a historical contextualisation of journalistic practice in Africa should hopefully spur African journalism

educators to launch a critical enquiry that will deconstruct most of the 'received' conventional wisdom about the theory and practice of journalism

in Africa. This should become an organic process of 'owning' African journalism as a social practice that can be transformational in many of our

countries which are wrestling with the very real problems of underdevelopment, bad governance, poverty, social exclusion, xenophobia,

sexism, and the like.

The papers thus prepared for the colloquium could cover a variety of topics, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Journalism studies and media studies -- theoretical divergences and convergences

2. Theorising journalism education in Africa

3. Journalism education for democracy and development

4. Journalism education and xenophobia

5. Journalism education and experiential learning

6. Journalism education and technological innovation

7. Models of sustainability of African journalism amidst the global financial and economic crisis

8. Journalism education research in Africa

9. Peace journalism education in conflict-ridden African countries

10. The theory and practice of community journalism in Africa

11. Citizen journalism versus conventional journalism

12. Journalism education and industry

13. Journalism education and community-building

14. Assessing the quality of journalism education in Africa

15. African journalism education in the 'global village'

The Chair is able to sponsor up to 40 African journalism educators, subject to stringent conditions. Here are the conditions:

1. Each sponsored educator will be required to prepare and present a scholastically sound paper during the Africa-regional preparatory

colloquium.

2. For such a paper to be considered for inclusion in the programme,educators are invited to submit abstracts of their papers by the 17th of

June 2009.

3. Full papers must be submitted by the 10th of August 2009 in order to allow sufficient time for respondents to prepare their reviews of the

papers.

An added incentive is that most if not all of the papers presented during the meeting stand a chance of being published in peer-reviewed journals. The

organisers are negotiating with potential journals in order to finalise this aspect of the initiative. As such, younger journalism educators, especially

those associated with the UNESCO Potential Centres of Excellence, are encouraged to apply for consideration for sponsorship. Some of the papers

will be presented during the WJEC itself.

Needless to say, this is a rare opportunity for African journalism educators to showcase the unique variety and richness of African journalism

educational experiences. You are most welcome!

Abstracts, as well as finished papers, can be submitted to:

Professor Fackson Banda

SAB LTD-UNESCO Chair of Media & Democracy

School of Journalism & Media Studies

Rhodes University

Africa Media Matrix

Upper Prince Alfred Street

PO BOX 94

Grahamstown 6140

SOUTH AFRICA

Tel: +27 (0) 46 603 7156

Fax: +27 (0) 46 603 7101

Mobile: +27 (0) 78 208 7529

e-mail: f.banda@ru.ac.za

Website: http://jms.ru.ac.za/sabchair

N computing

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:10:00 +0000

This could be of interest to some of you saw it at the energy week exhibition at the national theatre.

Today's PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications only use a small fraction of the computer's capacity. NComputing's virtualization software and hardware tap this unused capacity so that it can be simultaneously shared by multiple users. The access device itself has no CPU, memory, or moving parts—so it is rugged, durable, virus free and easy to deploy and maintain. The result is the lowest possible cost for computing access.

With the NComputing solution, each user still has their own monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers. However, instead of connecting directly to a PC, these peripherals connect to a small NComputing access terminal on their desk.The access terminals then connect either directly (X-series) or over Ethernet (L-series) to the terminal services software that is installed on the host machime.

NComputing uniquely delivers a high performance solution at the lowest cost.

seminar on journalism and democracy 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Journalism and democracy are an important component in our societies, especially in our developing countries and it is indeed a honour that i am one of the 20 participants who have been invited to attend a seminar in the town of kalmer in Sweden. The theme of the seminar is journalism and democracy and will take place from the 7th to the 26th September 2009. Will keep you posted on the same

WEB 2.0 technologies training

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:26:00 +0000

After i had been commissioned to develop a website for Jinja Senior secondary school, i couldnt leave without giving back and that is when i started training free of cost 35 students and 2 teachers in new and innovative technologies. The students responded well and even went ahead to create a social network for their school, it is probably the fiirst school in Eastern Uganda to have a social network. On fourth of July at an ICT workshop, they were given their certificates.

After a long time

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:21:00 +0000

Well its taken me a while to post anything but that is just because i have been on the road for the last couple of months. Well as it is several people have gotten websites thanks to the efforts of ICT movement Africa. Some of the websites that have been developed over the last couple of months are www.jinjasecondsryschool.co.cc, unitedworldwideforwarders.com.

PIONEER BLOGGERS TRAINING KICKS OFF

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:40:00 +0000

One week ago i started a month long training program in web 2.0 techs with christian youth from Oasis of life ministries located in the Jinja Town of Uganda. Although a bit confusing for them in the beginning, progress has been good and they are catching up fast. The objective of the training program is to use technology in glorifying God while giving the participants knowledge they could use in earning a living. For in areas like ministry in Uganda online presence is rare thus they could charge a minimum fee to get the said ministries on the internet.

Please pray for us and any contribution towards this effort is highly welcome.

Be blessed
Higenyi K Phillip

Why 2008 was another great year in Web technology

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:50:00 +0000

It’s hard to believe that another year has come to an end. It was a year filled with plenty of software updates and brand new products. Web developers continue to embrace standards with plenty of tools available to provide a boost. Here’s my look back at 2008, with an eye toward 2009.

SOA

The service-oriented architecture (SOA) concept continued to flourish in 2008. While many developers built such services within their organizations, more public companies opened up their services for use.

Industry giants Google and Amazon continue to make certain features of their architecture available for outside use, which includes Google Code and Amazon Services. This allows developers to utilize existing features, such as a Google search or the Amazon book catalog, as opposed to building it. In addition, ChannelAdvisor and UPS are offering portions of their systems via Web services.

Social media

Social media sites continued to gain popularity. Basically, these sites promote information sharing and discussion via the Web. A key aspect of social media is that the content is created by actual users rather than a business.

Some of the more popular social media sites include MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I must admit that I did not foresee the rise in popularity of these types of sites, and the business integration was surprising as well. Companies take advantage of tools like Twitter to stay in touch with consumers, while MySpace and Facebook are used for product promotion. It will be interesting to see the evolution of social media through 2009.

Browsers

The browser war has cooled down a bit since the early days of Web development, but updates and the struggle for consistency continues. The announcement that the yet-to-be-released Internet Explorer 8 passed the Acid2 test excited many developers; however, it remains to be seen if the final release of the browser truly embraces standards.

On the flip side, the much anticipated Firefox 3 was finally released providing faster page rendering as well as other improvements. Google entered the fray with its Chrome browser. Other developments included the Opera browser dropping licensing fees, thus making it freely available, and the Safari browser becoming available for the Windows platform.

Development platforms and tools

As usual, Microsoft introduced a variety of new products and version upgrades; this includes Visual Studio 2008, along with version 3.5 of the .NET Framework. The size of the Framework has grown to the point where it is beyond the capabilities of one person to know it all. On the backend, SQL Server 2008 is now available, and the SharePoint platform has been one of Microsoft’s biggest money makers.

For Web developers, Microsoft is working hard on its Flash killer called Silverlight with version 3 coming this year. Also, the Expression line of developer tools allows you to work on every aspect of a Web project. The rise in popularity of the .NET platform has been surprising considering the level of frustration with Microsoft over the years within the IT community.

For those averse to Microsoft technologies, Java’s evolution continued with the release of Java EE 6. Other ancillary languages like JRuby and Jython experienced rapid growth.

For me, one of the more surprising developments of 2008 was the rise of the Python language. This rise was greatly aided by Google and the shift of its focus from Java to Python. Google’s infrastructure relies heavily on Python. To drive home the point, the Google App Engine includes a development environment that does not include Java. With the backing of an industry giant, it makes me wonder how far Python will go in 2009.

On the go

Cell phones have evolved from phones to handheld application platforms that support everything from playing music to browsing the Web. With that said, most Web applications are now available via mobile devices.

A couple of good examples include Twitter for communications and Google Maps for getting directions as you need them. Now, developing applications for these small devices still poses many challenges, but the market for mobile development tools continues to grow with platforms such as J2ME and Windows Mobile still having large shares.

Google takes over the world

Google has exploded from the de facto search site for the Web to a global company that continues to introduce products that we didn’t know we needed but now have to use. Google Maps is a great example; it is hands down the best site for direction or location information.

In addition, Google now offers its own mail client, RSS reader, and an array of applications that rival Microsoft Office in terms of functionality. The Google Analytics and Trends applications provide sites with excellent tools for working with site statistics. The product list is much too long to include, and it continues to grow. It makes me wonder what Google Labs is working on now.

What does the future hold?

When it comes to the Web, I have never been very good at predicting the future. I often spend too much time working closely with Web applications, so I lose sight of the bigger picture. However, I do envision the growth of social media sites to continue, and SOA is here to stay. Also, the market for mobile applications and tools is huge, as usage continues to rise. I still wonder if the death of the landline will be realized within my lifetime.

What are your highlights from 2008? What trends do you see for 2009? Share your thoughts with the Web developer community.

Tony Patton

Satellite systems

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:28:00 +0000

Satellite Systems

Satellite systems provide a unique way to connect communications networks using space vehicle(s) in orbit over the Earth. Satellites simply act as transport for communications much like cables, fiber optics or microwave systems that are the path between two communicators. Similar to cables that provide long distance communications, a satellite acts like a repeater to assure that the signal, video or voice communications that it is transporting remains as near to the original as possible. Repeaters in satellites take the weak signal it receives and restores it before passing back to the recipient.

Satellites are unique for communications for many reasons. The start up costs for satellite communications is very high, however the benefits are extremely good. For example, if a satellite is placed in orbit over the earth, it is capable of providing a communication connection between any two points within it’s view by simply having a transmitter and receiver at each of the two points (in the form of a satellite dish). The view of a typical satellite in orbit over the earth is 1/3 of the planet. As well, the multiple connections can be established. Depending on the capability of the satellite, thousands of paired connections can be established at one time between two points. The advantage of this over established point-to-point cable connections is a significant benefit of a satellite.

A satellite in space is limited by its design as to how many signals it can receive and retransmit based on the number of “transponders” it holds. However, one of the biggest communications advantages of a satellite is that the number of communication devices on the ground that can receive the signal and use it is not limited. This makes satellites an ideal system for broadcast uses. Even a small satellite with only a few transponders can provide a significant service. Satellite radio systems are simple. A signal is transmitted to a satellite and the satellite, acting as a simple repeater re-transmits the signal. If listeners on the earth have a receiver, there is no limit to the number of customers that can receive the signal. For more than 30 years, satellites have been providing voice and data communication service around the globe; however, the cost for equipment and services has been very high.

In 1997, the high cost of satellite equipment and services began to reduce dramatically. New high capacity satellites and digital technology allow for lower cost service and advanced messaging services. Early satellites used analog transmission. After the development of digital satellites, which offer more capacity, several more satellites were put into orbit, followed by the next-generation of low orbiting satellites. These new developments are rapidly bringing the cost of equipment down by over 75%.

This diagram shows the different types of satellite communication systems. The GEO satellite system is primarily used for television broadcast services, as their satellites appear stationary above the Earth. MEO and LEO systems are used for mobile communications as they are located much closer to the Earth. However, these satellites continuously move relative to the surface of the Earth.

WLAN

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:26:00 +0000

Wireless LAN (WLAN)

A Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) allows computers and workstations to communicate with each other using radio propagation as the transmission medium. The wireless LAN can be connected to an existing wired LAN as an extension, or can form the basis of a new network. While adaptable to both indoor and outdoor environments, wireless LANs are especially suited to indoor locations such as office buildings, manufacturing floors, hospitals and universities.

This figure shows the frequency band and radio channel size that is used in the 802.11b system. This example shows that the basic radio channel in the 802.11b system is 25 MHz wide and that the center frequency of the radio channel can be assigned to different points (channels) in the 83 MHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) unlicensed frequency band. This example shows that there can be up to 3 non-interfering (non-overlapping) 802.11b radio channels operating in the same ISM frequency band.

WAP

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:25:00 +0000

Wireless Access Protocol (WAP)

Wireless access protocol (WAP) is an industry specification that allows advanced messaging and information services to be delivered to wireless devices independent of which wireless technology they use. A WAP server is a computer that can receive, process, and respond to an end user's (client's) request for information or information processing.

This figure shows how pull notification works with a WAP server. This example shows a WAP push proxy gateway that receives email messages that are addressed to the WAP client. The push proxy gateway stores these messages until it receives a request from the WAP client for the delivery of messages. The WAP client will then download (pull) the messages from the push proxy gateway so the messages can be displayed on the users phone.

Blue tooth

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:22:00 +0000

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a wireless personal area network (WPAN) communication system standard that allows for wireless data connections to be dynamically added and removed between nearby devices. Each Bluetooth wireless network can contain up to 8 active devices and is called a Piconet. Piconets can be linked to form Scatternets. Information about Bluetooth technology and wireless data can be found at www.Bluetooth.com.

The system control for Bluetooth requires one device to operate as the coordinating device (a master) and all the other devices are slaves. This is very similar to the structure of a universal serial bus (USB) system that is commonly used in personal computers and devices such as digital cameras. However, unlike USB connections, most Bluetooth devices can operate as either a master (coordinator) or slave and Bluetooth devices can reverse their roles if necessary.

welcome to ICT with us

noreply@blogger.com (Higenyi Phillip Kakuru) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 09:24:00 +0000

Welcome to this blog that i created after i fully knew and analyzed the postive impact that Web 2.0 technologies are bound to have on all of us, especially those in small business, organisations that did not otherwise have a chance of featuring on the web.

Since the Rome conference on Web 2.0 for D, which unfortunately i did not get to attend, i have been on the move in several parts of East Africa, creating blogs for those i felt needed them and to most of them the experience has been rewarding as they can now tell the whole world what they are doing leave alone the interest that has been in them towards the benefits of ICT's.

For the next six months i intend to mobilise bloggers from across EastAfrica in what is to be termed as The bloggers movement. The bloggers movement will strive a given mark of webblogs to be created across Kenya Tanzania Uganda Rwanda and Burundi. If you feel you can help in any way kindly contact me.

Please note that participation in the task will be on voluntary basis and funding will be by way of sponsorship from mainly ICT related firms.

Kindly visit some of the webblogs i have created for people especially in the rural areas for the last 3 months have been on the road.

http://www.maumaucaves.blogspot.com/
http://www.maasaiinternationaltrust.blogspot.com/
http://www.tawheedgroup.blogspot.com/
http://www.hancarversden.blogspot.com/
http://www.paradisegallery.blogspot.com/
http://www.mombasatourguides.blogspot.com/

Lets collaborate to make this a success