MOSS: Your Monthly FLOSS Magazine is celebrating the release of it’s second issue. That’s right folks – the SECOND issue!!!
A Laptop for Every Teacher Initiative is a good initiative, but it lacks direction and vision! Are we trying to replace typewriters with more expensive typewriters called computers? Or are these to help the teachers make their lesson plans? How? Using more Google, they are already doing it!
I believe we need more than that, we need full utilization of IT! We need to implement school management systems, change the culture and
start living in it. A very important key to all this is Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS).
We need to make use of tools like schooltools, http://www.schooltool.org/
For colleges and higher education we need to make use of tools like moodle, http://moodle.org/
And it is said ‘cheap price’, how can it be cheap when Windows 7 Ultimate cost $319, MS Office Cost $250 and a good virus scanner cost like $60. For 500 laptops this sums up to $314,500, that is like 4 million Rufiyya wasted.
But we have proven FLOSS alternatives, completely FREE, like:
Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/
OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/
And this option do NOT get infested with virus and malware, and think of the productive a laptop can get when it is free of this headaches.
We definitely need to make better choices at a hard time like this!
Five reasons why Windows is better than Ubuntu Linux
1. Windows troubleshooting have become a way of life… (when there is no virus to clean, life become boring & many will be unemployed!)
2. Windows boot time is just the right amount of time an average user need to start the work… (any sooner, computer will be way ahead of man!)
3. Windows cost just the right amount that we need to save every month… (if it is free we will lose the joy of saving and longing!)
4. Windows experience of slowness with time is in tune with nature… (if the computer is always as fast as the first time, we can’t handle it!)
5. Windows asking us silly dialog box questions make us superior… (Without which we will start getting phobic about its intelligence)
An email shared by a friend in response to a query of e-government network of Maldives and its status!
You’re gonna be left with egg on you face in 3 weeks time, mark my words!
Speaking as someone who actually works at NCIT, I can confidently tell you that you got a lot of things wrong there. First of all, the portal is not just what you clam; just one of those travel agency-type websites which gives you a list of how-tos. No, it contains much more. You’ll get to see it when its launched in a few weeks.
And you’re right, we did moan a lot about other government agencies not co-operating with us. But we seem to have gained some momentum since the new government came to power. It’s just the fact that none of them believed that such a project could be completed (come off it, even I did at times!) but all the hard work is slowly, but surely reaping its results. I get to correspond with several ppl from many different agencies on a daily basis (they attend for several training sessions that are currently being held here) and the feedback is very positive now, stark contrast of what we’ve been hearing for the past few years.
Also, its not just a simple website we’re gonna be providing you all with. The Government Network of Maldives has already enabled some organizations to share services with each other. There’s the Department of National Registration for instance, who, with the help of NCIT, can now enable some other organisations to access their database. A very small example.
Although of course, you’re right about our humble beginnings. I’m glad I was still in school back then!
A few weeks back our new minister visited and told us the wise words, “Darn the the general public. Forget them. You’re the only ones who really know what you’re doing. Someday, when they begin to understand the conveniences, they’ll thank you.”
Come to think of it. What do the general public know about networking, portals etc?? Nothing. Although we Maldivians are slowly coming around after being simpletons for so long.
Whatever it is, I personally would love to see this so called e-government portal launched. Although I am pretty sure it will not be up to my par, the fact that they call it a portal is good enough for me to say so. Portals are old fashioned and it craze has already died in 2001!
However I guess something is better than having nothing. My main concerns are that the portal is Microsoft Sharepoint based, it is a close source software, meaning nobody but Microsoft knows what happens inside! Is this important? Dude, we are talking about our Government, I guess we need to know! On the other hand what when we need a feature that is not in Sharepoint? Pay Microsoft a healthy chunk of another loan to develop it? As if they will listen!
Next the security of Microsoft Sharepoint! More importantly how would it and the current setup stand up for a DDOS attack or what about the fact that it is not patched with known security holes wide open! As far as I can think of the only people who will benefit of the launch of this portal is Microsoft and Dhiraagu! I mean financially!
Anyways, good luck with launching of Maldives e-government portal.
On my Mac, I was testing the latest release of GIMP 2.6.7 @ http://www.gimp.org/
GIMP was a bit slow on Mac, compared to Ubuntu, mostly due to it running via Apple’s X11 environment. However, after half an hour of getting used to it’s brush and filters, this is what I ended up with – the dark awakening! 
enjoy
Ubuntu is a linux based community driven free operating system. Hence, it is all about the community and user contribution. As the default set of wallpapers, Ubuntu would like to include a beautiful set of images for the users to choose from in the next release, Karmic. In order to accomplish this they have set up a wiki page to explain things and guidelines for inclusion. In addition they have started a flickr group to attract current flickr users and encourage new contributors to step up and take the plunge. If you have amazing photos which you would like to share with the world, please add them to the list!
Why not include some breathtaking photos of Maldives in Ubuntu?
* Wiki page: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Karmic/Backgrounds
* Guidelines: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Documentation/Backgrounds
* flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ubuntu-artwork
Ubuntu Wallpaper for the Ubuntu Dhivehi Translation Project : tmp03
Was a bit frustrated so to help me hang on, just created this wallpaper! Enjoy!
And here is a screenshot of my desktop…
It has been a while since I haven’t posted anything on this blog! So here is one design work that was done last March 2009! Finished on a tight deadline of 4 days using Adobe InDesign.
The whole artwork, except for few tweaks and ideas, was done by Aflaa (http://realstiffmeister.blogspot.com/), our newest member to the Design Team.
For your viewing pleasure, find below the first few pages of the Vista Company & Travel Services Pvt Ltd, Company Profile 2009.
Enjoy!
