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...

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...

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...

Grameen Foundation Statistics – Microfinance

On Blog Action Day I blogged about how the Grameen Foundation is using open source software to assist there needs to rid the world of poverty. I just finished Jeff Howe's book Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business and he provides further statistics about the Grameen Bank: The concept of micro-lending started 1976 with a loan of  $27 to 42 villagers The Grameen Bank was started 7 years later The Grameen Bank became self-sustainable by 1995 67% of...

Linux History- Where it all started

In 1991, Linus Torvalds decided to share code that he had created for an operating system which would later become known as Linux, in the hope of getting feedback from others on how he could improve it. I came across the original email that Linus sent and was amazed by the modesty : Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to...

Charter For Compassion – Collaborating to Highlight What Religions Share

Since I started this blog I have focused on a few mass collaboration projects happening with the aid of technology. A new project called the Charter for Compassion is a collaboration project recently started with religion being the central theme. It is the TED prize wish of Karen Armstrong. The aim of the  Charter for Compassion is 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...

Wikipedia For Schools

Wikipedia Selection is a free version of Wikipedia that consists of hand-checked articles from Wikipedia applicable to the UK National Curriculum but also useful to many others. The project is run by SOS Children UK in conjunction with the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia Selection has been distributed to schools in South Africa by the Shuttleworth Foundation and by the Hole in the Wall project to rural Indian children. It is the same size as a 20 volume encyclopedia and articles were ranked by...

An Internet Censorship Solution – psiphon

Internet censorship is denying people with access to valuable information. A human rights software project known as psiphon, run by the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, allows people in countries where the Internet is censored unrestricted access to the Internet. If you are in a country that censors the Internet, all you have to do is find somebody in a uncensored country to setup a server for you to access and you will have uncensored access. The server setup...