Open Technologist

MXit PC – Download EVO Instant Messenger

MXit Lifestyle have released a new instant messenger client for the PC. This is in addition to its existing plugin for Pidgin. MXit explains thats it has been specifically designed for the Windows environment making it faster and more efficient. Some of the features include: Finding contacts in a search bar Saving of chats (already a feature in Pidgin) Emoticon support Drag and drop file sharing Facebook status integration multiMX support Audible alerts MXit for PC can be...

Facebook’s Crowdsourcing Translation Reward System

Last year Facebook turned to crowdsourcing to translate Facebook into other languages with great success. Latest statistics provided by Facebook show that over 300,000 people have since participated in the translation process making Facebook available in more than 70 languages. Facebook have now launched a system that rewards translators who will receive special icons when they reach certain milestones in the Translation application in order to highlight recognition. The awards are grouped...

Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion

Last year I blogged about the Charter for Compassion, the TED prize wish of Karen Armstrong. The aim of the Charter for Compassion was to build a peaceful and congruent world by bringing together the voices of people from all religions and highlight that all faiths share the principle of compassion. An open call was made for people from different faiths to contribute to the charter. This open call and collaborative effort drew upon  thousands of people from over 100 countries in a six...

Twitter Blocked – Access Twitter from Work or School

If twitter is blocked from your work or school, there are various ways to circumnavigate the problem. However, clever system administrators always stay ahead and try and play catchup to these workarounds. The latest method I have found makes use of iGoogle and adding a widget called TwitterGadget. It even has integration for Gmail and works perfectly.  As long as the TwitterGadget website is not blocked this method should work. If all else fails try out psiphon which is an Internet...

Post URL to Twitter – Firefox Add-on

Having been a long time Firefox user (and sick of it crashing) I decided to try out Safari out of curiosity.  While I was not that impressed by Safari I was by a extension called safari140. This extension allows the user to post the current article been rendered by the Safari directly to twitter to share with your followers. After switching back to Firefox I could not find a plugin with this functionality. So I decided to write my own Firefox add-on. The add-on allows the user to post the...

Download MXit for Mac and PC – Adium and Pidgin

MXit users can now make use of its services on a Mac and PC. A vast majority of its users make use of the service via mobile phones. MXit Lifestyle have released Adium and Pidgin plugins and can be downloaded. Adium and Pidgin are both multi-platform instant messenger clients. This means that you can chat using other instant messenger services while using MXit at the same time. I have been using the Adium version for the past week and am happy to say it has been working great. The Adium...

Crowdsourcing Example – People Participation in Crowdsourcing Platforms

Crowdsourcing is a topic that has gained popularity in the last few years with companies such as InnoCentive, CrowdSpring and Amazon Mechanical Turk providing platforms for companies to engage with community members to provide innovative solutions which is why I have decided that crowdsourcing will be my topic for “My half time pep talk for 2009". Crowdsourcing as defined by Jeff Howe is “the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it...

MXit Releases App for iPhone – Download

MXit Lifestyle have released an iPhone version of its popular instant messenger application. MXit had previously only been available on Java enabled phones while a PC client is also available. iPhone users who would like to download the app can click here. MXit claims to have a community of over 12 million users, about 17 million log-ons per day and over 250 million messages sent and receive per day. It was recenty revealed that MXit is teaming up with Nokia and the South African...

Innovation – My Half Time Pep Talk for 2009

The Board of Innovation are inviting bloggers to partake in the “My half time pep talk for 2009″ blog action. This will take part during the 24 hours of Innovation event. The idea is for bloggers to share their views about what has happened so far during 2009 about innovation. Bloggers that take part will be allocated a time slot to publish a blog post within a 24 hour time frame. I will be publishing a blog post sharing my views about a topic regarding innovation. For further...

5 Crowdsourcing Websites

Crowdsourcing is a business practice that has become popular in the last few years. Since the term was coined by Jeff Howe author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business a number of valuable resources have appeared on the net. Below is a list of websites that provide valuable information about crowdsourcing that I regularly scan: Crowdsourcing - Jeff Howe - Jeff Howe coined the term "crowdsourcing" and published a book about the topic. The blog covers...