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 downloaded here.

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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 censorship solution which is a bit more difficult to implement.

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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 browser URL to twitter. It includes a URL shortener. It can be downloaded here. The add-on does the following:

• Gets the URL from the browser/tab window
• Uses bit.ly to shorten the URL
• Opens up www.twitter.com in a new browser window and populates the twitter status box with the web page’s title and shortned URL

Once installed click on “Tools” and then “Post to Twitter”. This is the first version and does not mimic the exact functionality of safari140 as it allows the user to post to their twitter account without opening up www.twitter.com. This functionality will be added in a later release. Follow me on twitter: @sdhansay.

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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 version does have limitations including:

• Transferring files between users
• Clickable links (when talking to services)
• Registering
• MultiMX
• HTTP protocol support

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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 information have a look at the Board of Innovation website for further details.

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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 savings deposits comes from people who utilize the low interest loans
• 58% of the 7.4 million borrows are no longer suffering from poverty

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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 get ready. I’d like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and
I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them

Linus (torva…@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have .

Note the modesty “just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu“. Not even he new how big it would turn out. The full transcript of the responses are available here.

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 compassion. The website will run over the next couple of months and anybody can contribute to the charter making use of group-decision software. The Council of Sages made up of a group of religious leaders and thinkers from different religions will then craft a final version. Once this is complete the  Charter for Compassion will be publicized and promoted around the world.

The idea is to spread the word to others by inviting them to visit the website and offer their words in different languages to focus on what religions share and not what divides them.  The video below explores the subject.

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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 importance by project members. Wikipedia does suffer from vandalism and SOS Children volunteers checked and tidied vandalized contents.

Wikipedia Selection comes in two forms:

• Online
• DVD

The online version can be viewed at  http://schools-wikipedia.org/ . The DVD is 3.5GB and can be downloaded via BitTorrent. You can download the torrent file and SOS Children UK are asking people to seed the encyclopedia to help keep their bandwidth costs down.

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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 solution is software based and can be installed by anybody with an Internet connection. Once the software is installed the server administrator known as a psiphonode, sends a unique web address to somebody in the censored country that they know and trust. The user known as a psiphonite, logs in using a username and password via a secure and encrypted link. As a result of tight control it becomes difficult to find and block the server.

If the IP address is detected the software will play a shell game whereby as soon as an address is blocked the software assigns it to another region and puts in a new one. This is an ongoing process until the censor gives up.

While psiphon is intended to provide unlimited access to the Internet in censored countries this could possibly become a solution to staff of a company that blocks certain websites. Since there is a network of trust involved with psiphon as opposed to publicly available proxies that can be easily intercepted, corporate system administrators are going to find it increasingly difficult to stop psiphonodes. Have a look at the psiphon website for an overview of how it works.

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