interdisciplinary

Something in the pipeline, again.

2011-04-04T11:04:00.000+02:00

A colleague is currently testing internet based data- and information collection and distribution channels regarding media development. In order to add more value for future users of his frontend, he wanted to offer some sort of news-ticker. Right away, we thought of using Yahoo Pipes. I had not used the service for quite some time and was wondering, if it withstood the currently hard times for Yahoo-services (e.g. "delicious"). It turned out to be up, running and even more advanced. Yet I tend to use the same set of features as always in order to produce automated news mashups.

I have created three new Pipes:
1. a feed mashup, collecting articles from a list of relevant media development feeds (i.e. UNESCO IPDC, ONI, IWMF, etc.)

2. a site-search mashup, searching relevant media development actors' (i.e. UNESCO, DVID, Worldbank, etc.) websites for search term "media development"

3. a meta mashup, combining Pipes 1 and 2 with other services (i.e. Google News, -Base, -Blogsearch, -Alert, Twitter search, etc.)

Compared with my old Pipes, No 1 and 2 are now far more flexible. I now make use of Google-Spreadsheets containing a list of either rss-feeds or actors' websites, making it possible to add an infinite number of new relevant sources for the mashups. When shared, G-Documents passes the spreadsheet's content as string of comma seperated values (csv), which can then be interpreted by the Pipes, using the 'Loop' and 'Fetch Feed' modules.

I recommend checking public Pipes for similar attempts first: I came up quite quickly with the idea of using spreadsheets, but encountered errors trying to implement it (maybe due to the recently introduced Pipes-Engine 2.0). Finally I made some adjustments to a public 1.0-Pipe by Adrian Short and got it working.

You are welcome to check both Pipes and Spreadsheets. You may also want to contribute to the list of sources - just let me know and I will grant permission to edit the Google-Document.

Spreadsheets:
rss-sources
actors' websites

2010-11-20T15:34:00.004+01:00

As a result of long discussions and collaborate writing, DW-AKADEMIE has just published a new policy paper on Media Development:

Helmut Osang u.a., Communication. Participation. Development. DW-AKADEMIE Policy Paper on Media Development Cooperation, Bonn 2010

Read more on dw-world.de

Download the paper (pdf)

Moebius StreetView...

2010-11-20T15:24:00.004+01:00

After almost a year of privacy discussions and technical adjustments, Google just introduced it's famous "StreetView" service in Germany - currently, there are images available of the 20 biggest cities. We can even witness StreetView "in the making".

Many people have reasonable concerns about privacy and the public visibility (potentially also private) content. As a result, Google -besides the usual blurring of faces and license plates- now also blurs houses on an opt-out-basis.

I personally don't feel like adding anything new to the discussion (if you want to learn about my opinion on Google services in general, please check this article) - but want to share a nice shot with you, allowing us to look into the making of StreetView-images. Many of you might have seen them circling the streets starting about 2 years ago: the StreetView-Cars. Well, here's one on StreetView, you can even see the driver greeting his colleague. Overestimating the relevance of the service in general, one could say "It's history in the making".

Or just the interdimensional 'reflection' of the car (as in some kind of Moebius-strip)?

Enjoy:

Größere Kartenansicht

Presenting current projects...

2009-11-11T11:11:00.007+01:00

Very recently, I got the hint to check out a service called "Prezi". It turned out to be a fantastic experience. Prezi is a new way of doing presentations. Moving away from slides and bulletpoints, it concentrates on providing a consistent "whole picture". Actually hard to explain, so you will have to see for yourself.

I embed my first two Prezis here. One is held in German language and tries to apply "Managing a Football-Club" to a theoretical project-development-outline provided by "Kellogg Foundation". The second one gives an outline of DW-AKADEMIE media-development projects in People's Republic of Laos (see also: http://training.dw-world.de/laos).

Absence

2009-08-03T18:00:00.002+02:00

Since the end of June, a lot of effort went into the realisation of a new DW-AKADEMIE Blog about the current projects in Laos. This also explains my absence here during past weeks.

Of course I will try to comment on the development of and the ideas behind the blog and everything connected as soon as possible. Until then, I'd like to refer you to "Supporting Media Development in Laos", where I just recently published Team Asia's DW-GMF09 Symposium Presentation Draft:

Supporting Media Development in Laosgreat free widgetsWidgetbox

Country Profiles on Delicious

2009-05-18T16:00:00.002+02:00

These days I am compiling data for Country-Profiles (Bhurma, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Viet Nam) for Deutsche Welle-Akademie, Team Asia.

To keep track of the online-sources I use, I registered with 'delicious' (one of the most popular social-bookmarking services) and created a public profile.
If you are interested in worldwide (plus regional - S-E-Asia - in particular) statistics on People, Geography, Economy, Culture, Politics, Development Cooperation and especially Media-Development, feel free to visit

My delicious Bookmarks

You do share bookmarks yourself? You think, I might be interested? Go ahead and write an email or comment. Thank you in advance.

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Digital revolution?

2009-04-25T15:00:00.007+02:00

On yesterday's jour fixe of "FoME" I talked to Chris about the possible opportunities of twitter and co. for "online citizenship". I now wanted to know more and therefor created a news-searching Pipe. Queries are: ALL=twitter+internet+web+change+digital+revolution

please allow scripts

view source get as rss

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Series: Web 2.0 - part 1: Browsing

2009-04-17T18:00:00.015+02:00

First of all, to surf the internet and to make use of the different services, you need a browser. But nowadays, browsers are more than just html-translators, they come together with build-in or additional features such as mail-clients, feed-readers, pop-up-blockers and so on.

Basically, there are three major browsers in use today: Microsoft Internet-Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari. There are others like Opera, Google Chrome and lots more - each with advantages and disadvantages. Rather than introducing all the different solutions, I'd like to tell you about what I use and why.

Nowadays I am using Firefox with several plugins (commented on below), but have also been using Opera for a long time. I do not make much use of IE, although Microsoft finally managed to introduce "tabbed browsing" and more. I do not use Safari as I do not use a Mac (nowadays, Safari is also available for PC).

Just one more thing about not using IE. As it still is the most popular browser in the world, it is also the most popular target of malware and hacker-attacks. That's why I recommend to use a less popular browser with at least the same features. This would lead you to Opera or Firefox, whereas Firefox's growing popularity makes it potentially less secure.

First of all, I was very happy with using Opera, as it really is a fast browser with very nice onboard-features. For example, it uses mouse-gestures, smoothly supports very intuitive drag-and-drop-features and comes together with a build-in mail-client capable of pop3, smtp, imap and more. In fact, this mail-feature is what made me switch to firefox, as I only use webmail-services and do not want to generally download emails (and potential malware). I will give information on mailing later on.

Now Firefox 3.0.3: When using Firefox for the first time, you might want to regret your decision as it doesn't look as nice and polished as other browsers. But don't turn away - there are lots of interesting plug-ins to check. Of course, each plug-in slows down the browser and your system, so only install the plugins you really want to use.

12 recommended Firefox plug-ins
(Let me stress that these are just my personal preferences. I linked the plug-in's HPs, but can not guarantee functionality. Please backup your files before using them anyhow. Some plug-ins might cause incompatibilities. All the following work together just fine on my system though.)

A. Security
1. "NoScript" - a very powerful and reliable script-blocker with easy to understand behaviour. Makes it possible to generally block all scripts; allow specific/all scripts for certain domains (using a "whitelist"). Configureable via button or context-menue. Why? Often there's no need to run all (possibly harmful) scripts to make use of a service.
2. "Cookie Whitelist with buttons" - adds two buttons to easily access cookie-permissions and firefox's own whitelist. It is also possible to temporarily allow cookies for certain domains. Why? Apart from identification and session-control (i.e. webmail, ebay, amazon), there is no reason to allow cookies.
3. "Ref-Control" - allows you to decide whether or not to send your actual "referrer", or even set up a fake referrer for all/certain sites. Why? Apart from authentication, there is no reason to give away information about your browsing-habits.

B. Comfort
4. "All-In-One-Gestures" - gives you acces to almost all functions via "mouse gestures". Why? Allows me to keep eyes focussed on content rather than looking for the right button. I only use "open new tab", "close this tab", "close all other tabs", "delete this site's cookies" and "switch to fullscreen-mode" - balancing speed and overview.
5. "Easy Drag-To-Go" - enables Opera-like "Drag-and-Drop"-support. Why? I can now grab any content (like links, images, etc.) and drop it wherever I like, i.e. a new tab or the desktop. For example, this feature makes it easy to open several search-results in seperate tabs in the backgound without leaving the actual result-page-tab.
6. "SearchBox Companion" - this adds a search-and-highlight-button right next to firefox's build-in search-bar (i very much recommend to use the searchbar and to add more engines to it!). Why? This one is really fantastic. Searching something with -let's say- Google and then switching to the page linked in your results, you might find it difficult to identify your querie there; or you might simply want to search a page for a certain term. Just enter the searchterm and hit the SearchBox Companion-button. It will highlight all results!
7. "Plain Text To Link (PTTL)" - allows you to paste any highlighted text within any website to the address-field via context-menue. Why? This makes it much easier to follow information through the web (as sometimes there are adresses without hyperlinks). You don't have to first copy, then open a new tab, paste and hit the go-button anymore. PTTL does all that for you.

C. Customization
8. "All-In-One-Sidebar" - adds a sidebar to your browser within which you can access your bookmarks, downloads, add-ons, etc. quite quickly. Why? I got used to a sidebar when using Opera and didn't want to miss it afterwards. You don't really need it...
9. "TabMix Plus" - Gives you more control over hidden customization-features of Firefox. Why? I just like to give the browser the appropriate look-and-feel.
10. Themes - there is a broad variety of themes making it possible to completely change the design of the browser. Depending on the theme, you get different colours, backgrounds and buttons. But be careful: some themes might be incompatible with certain plug-ins. I am using "Chromifox Basic" as it gives you a smooth design with accurately sized buttons and is compatible to all mentioned plug-ins.

D. Communication and Liaison
11. "E-Mail this!" - adds a button and a context-menue-entry which sends any marked text in any website to an eMail-Program or even to certain webmail-accounts (Y-Mail, G-Mail, MSN) Why? Whenever there is information I'd like to share, this one just makes it very easy.
12. "Google Gears" - gives you the possibility to synchronize some Google-Services and to use them within the browser even when not connected to the internet. Why? As I use several G-Services on a daily basis, I like to access them offline i.e. when travelling with my laptop. (I will comment on some of these features in the future. Until then you might want to check my opinion on Google)

So far for now. Hope you like my recommendations. Check out the upcoming posts and feel free to comment anytime. Up next: Part 2 - Mailing

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Web 2.0 overkill?

2009-04-17T16:00:00.007+02:00

In the past months I've been testing different free services for internet-based communication, private and professional publishing and cooperative project development. As always, when starting to get familiar with new ICT-solutions, I quickly found myself in the middle of a whole new and constantly growing universe. And, as you know, space-travel produces lots of waste, too. As our planet is surrounded by millions of tiny fragments, so was my computer after several weeks.

That's why I decided to sit back, rethink and decrease the number of applications in use to a minimum.

I'd like to comment on the decisions made, so that interested readers may avoid confusion and directly start utilizing the applications instead of spending too much time on testing them.The upcoming posts will cover different applications and services, clustered as follows:

1. Browsing
2. Mailing
3. Chatting
4. Planning
5. Blogging
6. Working together
7. Sharing

As usual, feel free to comment on any post or contact me directly.

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InWent Länderprofile mit neuem Auftritt

2009-03-29T16:00:00.005+02:00

InWent (Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung) hat den Webauftritt der Länderprofile gänzlich neu gestaltet und nun verfügbar gemacht. Als verlässliche Quelle für Länderinformationen sehr empfehlenswert. Die Autoren entwickeln den Service laufend weiter und freuen sich über Feedback.

InWent LIPortal

"Beim LIPortal handelt es sich um eine öffentlich zugängliche Wissensressource mit dem Fokus auf länderspezifische Informationen mit entwicklungspolitischer Relevanz. Die Länderbeiträge bieten einen optimalen Einstieg in ein breites Themenspektrum.

Dieses Portal hat den Anspruch allen interessierten Usern eine vertrauenswürdige und verlässliche Wissensressource auf dem Gebiet der Länderinformation zu bieten. Das LIPortal mit seinen einführenden Texten steht dem Besucher als helfende Hand zur Seite. In jeweils fünf Kapiteln bietet es jedem Nutzer verständliche Texte, um sich nach seinen individuellen Bedürfnissen ein fundiertes, länderspezifisches Wissen anzueignen. Jeder Beitrag enthält eine Vielzahl von multimedialen Elementen und weiterführenden Verweisen. Die im Fließtext integrierten Links ermöglichen es dem Nutzer sich vertiefend mit bestimmten Themenbereichen auseinanderzusetzen.

Eine weitere wertvolle Komponente sind die Landesblogs. Dort können registrierte Nutzer Beiträge schreiben, um Ihr subjektives Erleben des jeweiligen Landes mit anderen zu teilen. Im Blog können Fragen gestellt, beantwortet und Beiträge kommentiert werden. Damit wird ein Austausch der User untereinander gefördert."

Documentation

2009-02-27T18:00:00.009+01:00

As there is a lot of progress here, I'd like to adress my readers again to inform you about the latest news:

1. Layout
The first layout was nice, but not quite the way I wanted it to be. I now chose a different one, which is less colourful, but smoothly uses colors to reach the plain and coherent "look-and-feel": headlines held in red, links in blue, background white, text black.

2. Comments
You might have noticed that the original "leave-comment"-button doesn't appear in the bottom of the post when viewing the blog's main page. This is due to the implementation of third-party-scripts - a problem well known to blogger, but not yet fixed. The walk-around appears to be manually adding a link to the bottom of the post ("leave a comment"). Feel free to make use of this and contact me.

3. Recommendations
Since I started using Google-Reader in combination with my DA-News-Pipe on (almost) daily basis, I decided to make use of the "recommend article"-functionality and to add a gadget on the blog's sidebar ("Recommended articles"). Here you can now find noteworthy news and articles on topics related to development cooperation and my projects. I choose articles that might be useful if you are i.e. studying political science with focus on development cooperation and want introductions or to keep up to date (preparing your final exams?). Maybe you'll even like to subscribe to my recommendations?

4. Blogroll
One of the major features of blogging is networking. If you are familiar with this (if not, here's a short explaination), check out the newly implemented and growing "Blogroll".

5. Language-tags
Another important feature of blogging is "tagging", making it easier to search for and read through certain posts. As I provide information in both English and German (my mothertounge) language, I decided to add Language-Tags ("lang=en", "lang=de").

------------------(updated May 2009)------------------

6. Static Pages
One problem with "blogger" is the lack of what in wordpress calls "Pages": the possibility to link to static pages (like "About the blog", "Contact", etc.). But there are walk-arounds. Thanks to Blogger Buster, you now have easy access to important blog-posts from within the header.

Further adjustments will follow and be commented on when appropriate.

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DA-News

2009-02-17T18:00:00.014+01:00

As announced recently, I started building sub-pipes to my "News-Imp" and am now happy to present first results. Below you'll find a gadget with weekly news on development assistance & -cooperation: "DA-News (beta)".

To get started, I combined strict searches for queries:

- "international+development+cooperation+assistance+foreign+aid"
- "development+cooperation+agency+assistance+aid"
- "Entwicklungszusammenarbeit"
- "Entwicklungshilfe"
- "Entwicklungspolitik"

Results are then filtered for unique titles and sorted by publishing date and language in descending order.
English language only; German language only; Both German and English language

DA-News (beta):
please allow scripts

view source; get as RSS

(updated Wed, Feb. 18th 2009)

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Don't be evil.

2009-02-15T18:00:00.027+01:00

“Why ‘Google’?“ – That's a question I would expect from colleagues and friends. Not because they had anything against ‘the big G.’ nor me using it, but because they had always heard my own complaints about Google. Now what has led me to the point where I put aside old opinions and prejudices and chose to start blogging, mailing, reading and posting news with G.-related services?

For many years I regularly joined in when it came to stress concerns about “the G-phenomenon” – usually whispering the words “Big Brother” sooner or later. Believing that any kind of uncontrollable monopolism is potentially dangerous, I was sceptical about the company’s ‘illegitimate power’. Hence, speaking from the scientific point of view, there is no mutual accountability connecting users (not only customers) and company, which would appropriately correspond to the deep insight G. has into individual and possibly private concerns due to its ‘data-mining’ practices.

Google is not freeware: here the customer’s currency is individual attention and personal data.

That’s why I think it is important to ask about G. handling data with the necessary diligence and to demand maximum transparency. However, G. offers many services, useful tools and promising ideas only accompanied by privacy issues. Although there seems to be no way around G. nowadays, everybody still is free to decide against using it, to not actively give away private information or to simply chose from hundreds of different offers (of course users can not prevent G. from scanning the traces they leave surfing the internet).

For developing countries the prior question is more fundamental: “It’s the access, stupid!”

Being professionally involved in development cooperation projects (lately concerning media development) and well aware of today’s growing importance of public access to free information and the possibility to easily sort and filter it (which to me is fundamental to legitimately label internet “new media”) made me change my mind. This blog itself is one result of my reconsideration.
As always, it started with a concrete problem to be solved: to set up a barrier-free way (i.e. no editing or log-in required) of compiling data on delimited topics. Since I’ve also had some experience setting up a CMS (“Serendipity”) actually using css and php, I was very pleased with the fact, that the implementation of “Blogger” leaves it up to you to focus on content and/or design and offers fast and easy ways of compiling different kinds of content and sources without taking away too much project time by going into technical/programming details. Also, there is only one central log-in required to use all G.-services (if you only want to blog and don't need or want to implement i.e. g-mail or g-reader with full functionality, I recommend to check out "Wordpress").

It’s simple: in the digital century, easy access to and control of ICT are basic needs and G. provides just that.

To me it is a question of responsibly making use of the bare service in order to actually support the development of what could become new ways of vital civil society commitment. It is up to the users to be both trusting and reflecting.

Yet, it is Google’s responsibility to stay trustworthy.

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Development agencies and NGO around Bonn

2009-02-15T15:00:00.006+01:00

I am putting together some links to agencies and NGO in and around Bonn, hometown of my alma mater and one of Germany's hotspots for development cooperation issues.

(Note: some data may only be available in German language)

Adheri-Hilfe Bonn e.V.

BENGO (Beratungsstelle für entwicklungspolitische NGO)

BMZ (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung)

CARE Deutschland

DED (Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst)

DIE (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik)

Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission

Deutsche Welle Akademie

EED (Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst)

Germanwatch e.V.

GTZ Bonn Office (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit)

inwent (Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung)

Don Bosco Jugend Dritte Welt e.V.

Justitia et Pax e.V.

LAZ e.V. (Lateinamerika Zentrum)

SID (Society for International Development)

SEF (Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden)

SES (Senior Experten Service)

Tansfair e.V.

UN-Campus (via bonn.de)

Welthungerhilfe

VENRO (Verband entwicklungspolitischer NRO)

ZEF / ZEFConsult (Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung)

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Up next

2009-02-12T14:00:00.011+01:00

To make use of the flexibility of my news-fetching Yahoo-Pipe, I will now start preparing several news-dossiers. First of all, I will focus on German and international development aid ("DA-News").

If you are interested in using the Pipe yourself, feel free to do so or
contact me to ask about the possibility of ordering your individual dossier.

(updated Tue, Feb. 17th 2009)

Laos News Dossier

2009-02-12T13:01:00.018+01:00

First example of what I am planning to compile here can be seen below: a self-updating online-news-dossier on Laos (South-East-Asia), where DW-Academy is planning to cooperate with local radio authorities setting up new radio-content in Savannakhet province.

My job was to ensure an easy way of gathering relevant online-news and publish them as barrier-free as possible. This was reached using 'Yahoo-Pipes' and 'bloglines'. The complete documentation can be found here.

Laos News:
please allow scripts

view source; get as RSS

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Welcome...

2009-02-12T13:00:00.011+01:00

...to wherever you are.

Cologne, Febuary 2009

"Yet another piece of digital waste on the internet?", you might ask.
"Not quite!", I should answer.

Though I am just starting to set this up, beginning with more or less personal info, this blog shall also serve the purpose of compiling project-work I implemented via the internet.

To tell you just a little bit about myself: in 2008, I graduated 'Master of Arts' at the University of Bonn, Germany after 7 years of studying Political Science, Philosophy and Modern History and have additionally attended lectures in Constitutional and International Law. My master thesis discussed the influence of non-governmental-organisations (NGO) on German development aid policy in the context of intercultural communication and target-group participation.
Since then I have been working as freelancer in adult education (communication, every-day-law) and have just recently supported 'Deutsche Welle-Academy' Team Asia with some research work (see My Projects).

Look around, more to come.

Sincerely,
s.did

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Contact me

2009-02-12T06:00:00.007+01:00

"Comments, comments, comments":
Social networking and digital accountability depends on cummunication. Just like in the real world, it is one thing to just semonise. Better would be two-way-communication; best would be to collaborate with many on developing ideas. That's why it is so important to make use of comments, to give feedback, to share ideas, etc.
Of course, there's also something else to consider - overview, interest, time.
That's why I would like to invite my readers to feel free to comment just briefly if desired. There's no strict duty to elaborate arguments. You might use commenting just like chatting - the only condition is to correspond to the post rather than to just gabble around.

There are several ways to contact me:

1. Leave a comment

2. Write an eMail

3. Visit me on twitter