Category: webstuff

node-hopping

Just a side note: while reading Christian’s latest post on knowledge sharing within companies, I just came to realize that I had instinctively used the blogosphere for gathering useful informations on my new Nokia N95 telephone.

Interesting applications, utilities and widsets? User experiences, shortcuts on the menu or tips on how to optimize battery runtime? The international blogosphere +? multimedia platforms such as the popular poparchive? youtube or flickr deliver all you need – without even a single search through Google.

Hopping from one blogging “node” to the next, the need for simple googleing becomes almost obsolete, as others have already compiled interesting articles such as? a “TOP 10 must have N95 utilities” list.?
So instead of doing a Web 1.0 search through Google on keywords such as “Nokia N95 appz”, I instantly consulted del.icio.us for anything on “N95” and received a list of quality links that would give me quick results. Whereas I always needed to check out various Yahoo!Groups in the past for an interesting file here or there (those small java applets that run on Nokia’s S40 OS-platform)? or -? even worse – forums that only sometimes come with a? “sticky thread” where all interesting and important things? are gathered in? an FAQ-collection, the blogosphere? delivers much more useful info on a topic. Selected, tested, rated and – most importantly – communicated to others.

And here I am now, happily runing a few selected and tested (!) applications on? my new phone. This whole process of gathering informations on how to personalize my phone to my needs just took me a few hours of reading different blogs. Sweet :-)

m.uhuru.de & co

Earlier this year in March, I discovered that the WP-ShorStat plugin I had been using for a long time actually congested my database, so I cleaned up the database by simply deleting all WP-SS values on my db.

I had to do the same today, as – just in a time span of 4 months – WP-ShortStat again bloated my db to an extent I just didn’t like. Mzeecedric already suggested the other day to use external statistic tools only – which is a very smart idea to keep your WP-database clean.

While visiting Christian at his desk on friday afternoon, we talked about using Google Analytics, and I really have to admit that I am a bit slow when it comes to implementing new stuff on my site. ‘Nways, I consequently switched all my statistics to Google Analytics and currently looking for a plugin that implements some important stats (= whatever you like to appear on your GoogleAnalytics dashboard) to the WP dashboard – just what WP-ShortStat did, but much better.

Oh, and in case you’re using WP on your site + are tired of implementing the code into you site, pls try this awesome GoogleAnalytics plugin that does a bit more than simply adding the GA code.

Also, I took this opportunity to activate the WordPress Mobile Plugin by Andy Moore, who is an active member of the dotMobi group.
Considering that mobile phones are rapidly becoming the IT platform / interface for those who don’t use a desktop pc / notebook, it does make sense to prepare websites so that they run on the tiny screens of most mobile phones. Oh, and Andy also blogged on the upcoming Mobile Web 2.0 conference… :-)

You know these ppl want you to register another domain ending on the top level .mobi – which I think is a bit absurd, as subdomains actually do the job:

m.uhuru.de ==> kikuyumoja.com, optimized* for mobile phones

Using the “m” subdomain makes much more sense to me (and others), unless of course you’re Mzeecedric who is already using the m. subdomain to extend his zung.us domain into m.zung.us :-)

*[at the moment, m.uhuru.de is just a redirector to my blog, which has the above mentioned WP Mobile Plugin installed – so the optimized content is only visible through mobile phones or emulators…]

@doofus who uses my name to comment on thinkersroom

“I’d believe a tarot card reader than any Kenya government official.Kenya is going down the toilet while its citizens have their heads stuck in the cistern.

The US embassy bombers also tried to flee the scene so anyone trying to spin this is either a terrorist sympathiser or has his head up Ali’s arse.”

Whoever put this as a comment on thinkersroom – I never wrote that!

Now what? First they copy my words and publish them 1:1 in a Kenya Times article, and then some fake KOL, rbowen – forumers who don’t have the guts to publish something under their own name?

Or is it because this blog is called “Kikuyumoja‘s Realm”?

(“arse” isn’t even on my vocabulary…)

why Web2.0 is important to me

[Disclaimer: I am currently reading David Weinberger’s latest book “Everything is Miscellaneous”, which seems to be just as exciting as “The Cluetrain Manifesto” from 1999 (which I back then forwarded to my boss @ work) or my prof‘s “Cradle to Cradle” bible – books that inspired me and have a long-lasting effect…]

The organization I am currently working for (as an intern) has a relatively huge repository of technical datasheets with lots of interesting articles and archived knowledge. Most of these datasheets are saved as PDFs and published online, searchable through a site-internal search interface and only identifiable through their title. Obviously, a smart headline leads to proper search results.

The other system they are maintaining is a document management system (DMS) which is a nice step forward into the right direction. Only, what it lacks is a quality search.

Most of you have already started to appreciate the advantages of social bookmarking – where humans work as filters and often only save interesting pages, thus raising the quality of any obtained information. I prefer del.icio.us to most Google search results, unless I am e.g. looking for an image where I need to have the wider choice of search results.

Now with this above mentioned organization in mind that has in the past tried to backup its digital data into a file repository, what seems to be lacking is a tagging-mashup. Something like an add-on for the DMS (=> yeah, there goes the API question) that consists of another database which only stores a) quality keywords and b) the links to each document. So instead of doing an ordinary search on the DMS, which will return Google-alike search results (displaying all results on a certain keyword), the add-on would only deliver those results that have been declared as “quality content” by its users.

So you see, the basic idea behind this blog post was that while I know a lot of ppl are already fed up with Web2.0 terminologies and the hype around it, others have only just started to realize what this is actually all about. And while some private individuals are already power users of Flickr, Technorati & Delicious tagging-worlds, most companies still need to start realizing this huge potential. Just as many of them have never even heard of the Cluetrain Manifesto… *sigh*

(this is SUCH a huge market?!?!…)

professionaaaal titooools

So I caught myself updating my profiles on xing.com and linkedin.com (isn’t that enough already? facebook, twitter & co for private stuff, xing & linkedin for the pro section?) and realized that I actually can’t think of any professional title, something like an instant keyword that describes my job.

Well, which job? My rummaging here, here, here, here and here?

And what do I put there?

a) what I learned? (~industrial manager, oil business)

b) what I studied? (~ environmental & civil engineering, with an emphasis on sustainable waste (water) management & eco-efficient product design)

c) what I’ve been employed for in the past? (~ list too long)

d) what I actually did ? (~ office “best boy”)

e) what I consider myself? (~ imagineering dude)

f) my current job description? (~ intern)

g) what I am currently doing? (~ editing technical datasheets & setting up a CMS)

h) ……?

As for those social network platforms online, I’ve started? mentioning my own (imaginary) company called Kikuyumoja Inc.. Job description: “optimizing idle time”. The dude abides…

AOB: thx GoogleAdSense for adsensing my blog with “composting toilets” and “biological dry toilets”!

msie & work

A company’s seriousness about the implementation of web technologies clearly shows when it comes to the browser question: what kind of? browser are we using today? MSIE 6.0?? Are we going to give our? users the rights to install any add-ons or extensions to a browser? etc.

Chris, a? knowledge management and communications specialist and a? really nice fellow I met through? Mzeecedric? (of Zungu.net) &? a recent barcamp in Frankfurt/M, compiled an introduction to knowledge sharing within Enterprise2.0 earlier last week. And although it’s just an introduction that symbolizes the tip of the iceberg -? an iceberg which stands for? the much awaited change within companies and their pre-cluetrain / web 1.0 world – there are still so many basic things that just have to be explained over and over again.

Social bookmarking, for instance. Although the installation of any add-ons is strictly forbidden within this institution, I took the liberty to install a del.icio.us add-on for MSIE 6.0 anyways (ooops? :-). I’d of course prefer using a better browser and already tried runing Mozilla Firefox from a USB stick (as mentioned earlier), but then: MSIE 6.0 actually is ok for the time being. I don’t want to change the system, all I want to do is getting things done. And with a social bookmarking tool like del.ico.us, I can actually share my trouvailles with others and contribute to that pre-selected pool of interesting websites – the bonus which makes social bookmarking so interesting and advantageous.

These web worlds of course aren’t everything, but I just can’t drop that crazy idea of informing my colleagues @ work about the wonderful advantages of using Web 2.0 technologies for many office jobs. We have to start somewhere, really.

Oh, and maybe I should start by convincing my boss of using a service like twitter – which would make it much easier for us to track her down and/or? forwarding calls.

Africa!

Pan-Africanism is… when you save & share your bookmarks via del.icio.us and come across recommended tags by other users who have already saved that page, tagging it with the word “Africa” when it comes to describing websites from e.g. Kenya.

Africa, nothing else but Africa.

(to be continued…)