Learning experiences in the real world: Open-Platform, mLearning & ICT4D

Writing for Publication: My Experience So Far

2011-12-21T05:21:00.001-08:00

PhD is about doing a good research and getting recognition in the research community and it is desirable to have a list of recognized ‘publications’ at the completion. I'm a second year full-time PhD student from the school of computing and technology and the nature of my research is more amenable to progressive publication. So far, I have published two journal papers; eleven papers and posters in conferences, workshops and a doctor consortium; and co-authored three papers with supervisors and a colleague. I have also participated in various events, students’ conferences and a summer school abroad.

Publishing is rewarding and intellectually satisfying experience. During this period, I have travelled to eight different countries and met with researchers around the world from engineering and the social sciences. It has provided a great opportunity to share my research experience, received valuable feedback and suggestions which will immensely help to improve the quality of my PhD thesis. But, due to limited available funding from the University, it has been an expensive experience of attending conferences and travelling.

The supervisor’s encouragement and support has played an important role but to manage resources and support necessary to facilitate publication have been challenging. Publishing is a time consuming process and writing coherent chapters for a thesis simultaneously and in time will not be easy. Because of this I have limited my academic and social activities within the school and outside.

However, by publishing in stages, it has exposed me to a process of continual review and criticism from a wider community within my research domain. I am also learning to deal with rejections constructively. I find it an efficient strategy for researching in rapidly evolving technological context as it avoids a risk of publishing outdated information and data at the conclusion of a study. But publishing early is also risky as it is difficult to have a clearly developed idea to start with and changing the direction at the later stage can be problematic. However, my publication experience has been positive so far and the advantages outweigh the difficulties that I encountered during the process.

Mobile Computing Key Conferences, Periodicals and Journals

2011-12-14T00:44:00.000-08:00

KEY CONFERENCES

MobiSys: MobiCom: MobiHoc: SenSys: UbiComp: Pervasive: HotMobile: Mobile HCI: PerCom: ACM SIGCHI: ACM UIST .

PERIODICALS AND JOURNALS

(Sigmobile) ACM Mobile Computing and Communication Review (MC2R).

IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC).
IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine.
IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine.
Ubiquitous and Personal Communications Journal, Springer, London.
Pervasive and Mobile Computing, Elsevler, Amsterdam.

Gnome Classic Desktop in Ubuntu 11.10

2011-12-11T10:38:00.001-08:00

I think Gnome Classic Shell is more flexible and easy to use and I prefer this over Ubuntu Unity. I'm not sure if Unity is up to the standards that we expect from a Linux desktop. Of course Gnome 3.0 looks professional and is very cool but I prefer simple and flexible workspace. After using all the possible UIs, I found myself comfortable using the classic. Not a big concern or issue, I also prefer to have the missing ubuntu logo in Applications menu. I also prefer to use the old style unified applet containing all of the indicators.

Install the Classic Desktop in Ubuntu 11.10 by just clicking this link or use the following command:

     sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

Log out , select Gnome Classic and log in.
You can customise the panel by using Alt + right-mouse-button sequence. If you use compiz, use Alt+Windows-logo-key+ right-mouse-button.
To replace standard notifications area and use the old style “A unified applet containing all of the indicators”, you can update your system with unsupported packages by adding ppa:jconti/gnome3 to your system's Software Sources. This is from this untrusted PPA.

     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jconti/gnome3
     sudo apt-get update
     sudo apt-get install indicator-applet-complete

Then, remove clock, notification area and user switch applet, and add a unified applet containing all of the indicators to the panel.

(source) If you want Ubuntu logo to be displayed in ‘Applications’ menu, open /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/apps/gnome-panel.css file and change this block of code:

PanelMenuBar.menubar.menuitem {
    background-image: -gtk-gradient (linear, left top, left bottom,
                                     from (shade (@dark_bg_color, 1.5)),
                                     to (shade (@dark_bg_color, 1.05)));
}
to this:
PanelMenuBar.menubar.menuitem {
    background-image: -gtk-gradient (linear, left top, left bottom,
                                     from (shade (@dark_bg_color, 1.5)),
                                     to (shade (@dark_bg_color, 1.05)));
    -PanelMenuBar-icon-visible: true;
}

Nepal: Education and technology related papers

2011-11-22T15:36:00.001-08:00

The following list is by no means exhaustive. I'll keep updating the list of useful publications related to education and technology in the context of Nepal.

Shields, Robin(2011) 'ICT or I see tea? Modernity, technology and education in Nepal', Globalisation, Societies and Education', Volume 9 Issue 1, Pages 85-97.

Shields, Robin (2008) Uneven terrain: educational policy and equity in Nepal, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Volume 28, Issue 3,pages 265-276.

Pherali, T. J.(2011) Education and conflict in Nepal: Possibilities for reconstruction, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(1), 135 – 154.

Hall, P., Ghimire, G., & Newton, M. (2009). Why Don’t People Use Nepali Language Software?. Information Technologies & International Development, 5(1). Retrieved November 30, 2011,

Brinkerhoff, J. (2008). What does a Goat Have to Do with Development? Diasporas, IT, and the Case of Thamel.com. Information Technologies & International Development, 4(4). Retrieved November 30, 2011.

Devinder Thapa (2011). The role of ICT Actors and Networks in Development: The case study of a mountain region in Nepal, EJISDC journal special issue. (ISSN: 1681-4835)

Devinder Thapa, Maung K. Sein, and Øystein Sæbø (2011). Building Collective Capabilities through ICT in a Mountain Region of Nepal: Where Social Capital leads to Collective Action,Submitted to Journal of Information Technology for Development, (forthcoming).(ISSN: 1554-0170)

Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. (2011) Poster: "Open-source Platform: Exploring the Opportunities for Offline Mobile Learning", Mobile HCI 2011, Stockholm

Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. (2011)"The English Language Teaching and Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal: Teacher's Diary Study", IFIP WG 9.4 Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal (Conference proceedings available here)

Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. (2011) "Mobile learning and low-cost hardware for ICT4D: what's right and what's copyleft?", Special Issue - IEEE Multidisciplinary Engineering Education Magazine (MEEM)

Frank Rennie, Robin Mason, The Development of Distributed Learning Techniques in Bhutan and Nepal

C. P. S. Chauhan, Aligarh Muslim Higher Education: Current Status and Future Possibilities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka , University, Aligarh, India

User Experience of Mobile internet – Analysis and Recommendations

2011-11-22T06:54:00.001-08:00

Mobile access to the Internet with handheld devices has been technically possible for quite a while and consumers are aware of the services but not so ready to use them. A central reason for the low usage is that user experience of the mobile Internet is not yet sufficiently good. This paper analyses the mobile Internet from the end-user perspective, identifying factors and solutions that would make Internet usage on a mobile device an enjoyable experience. User experience can be improved by a better understanding of users and usage contexts, by developing mobile services that better serve the needs of mobile users, easing service discovery and by developing the infrastructure needed for the mobile Internet. The paper 'User Experience of Mobile internet – Analysis and Recommendations' discusses all these aspects and gives development recommendations. Multidisciplinary and multicultural cooperation between the various actors in the field is needed to improve user experience.
Below is a section on Mobile Browsers and Proxies. The review was done early 2007, so it's outdated and needs further review.

Browsers and Proxies
The number of different mobile browsers may decrease via standardization efforts but on the other hand the number of browsers may increase as the number of Internet-capable devices increases. The variety of browsers is a challenge for service providers who should provide content accessible by all the different browsers.
Quite a few mobile web browsers can access standard web content that was originally designed for large-screen viewing. The browsers adapt the content to make it more suitable for handheld access (Jones & Marsden, 2006).
Adaptation can be implemented as server-side, client-side or intermediate adaptation (Laakko & Hiltunen, 2005). Algorithms used to transform the content of web pages into smaller units making it suitable for viewing on small-screen mobile devices typically fall into four categories (Schilit et al., 2002): Scaling, Manual Authoring, Transducing and Transforming.
Web page transformation, whether at the site or at the browser level, can be grouped into three broad transformation categories: Direct Migration, Linear and Overview (MacKay et al., 2004) (Figure 4).
These technologies face challenges due to increasing website complexity, use of JavaScript, browser differences, lack of useful device data and failing compliance with standards (Moore, 2007).
Each transformation technique has navigational advantages and constraints (MacKay & Watters, 2003) as well. Many current automated transformation options do not consider features such as user task, familiarly with information, web-page layout and mobility of the user, and their impact on the usability of the resultant transformed page (MacKay et al., 2004). Further research to improve these solutions and user experience will be required.

Mobile Adaptation Techniques

Kaasinen, E., Roto, V., Roloff, K., Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, K., Vainio, T., Maehr, W., Joshi, D., Shestra, S. User Experience of Mobile internet – Analysis and Recommendations, Accepted to International Journal of Mobile HCI, Special issue on Mobile Internet User eXperience, IGI Global, 2009. (PDF)

Flexible learning with flexible devices: opening up opportunities

2011-10-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

I am going to mLearn2011 conference to present my research study of students’ exploration and use of previouslyunexplored low-spec sub US$100 open-source mobile devices forlearning programming. The study was conducted over a period offourteen weeks in University of West London, UK with the postgraduatestudents studying Mobile Application Development (MAD) module whichis a part of the MSc Network and Mobile Computing course.

Students used the Wikireader, a handheld reading device and Nanonote, alightweight pocket computer, developed using a copyleft approach. Inthis study, mixed methods research methodology was used and data analysiswas guided by the Framework for the Rational Analysis of MobileEducation (FRAME) model. From the results of our evaluations, we werenot able to ascertain whether or not these devices improved learningprogramming. However, the findings indicate these open-source deviceshave potential to enhance motivation to learn programming withoutbeing restricted to the limited practical sessions in the universitylab and also facilitate offline reading.

The aim of this studywas not to identify and measure the impact on learning embeddedprogramming and also not meant for generalising our findings to alarger population due to small number of students participation in ashort period of the study. Therefore, the findings of this studyshould be used with caution to inform other programming educationrelated studies. As this study mainly focused on the device usage,the results provide indications on students’ perceptions towardsthe effectiveness of open-source platforms for student support andthe findings could also be useful to support the adoption of offlinemobile learning model to provide an access to resources and supportlearning.

Mobile Learning Model (Shrestha, et al, 2010, p.341)

Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. Poster: "Flexible learning with flexible devices: opening up opportunities", mLearn 2011, October 2011, Beijing The Conference Proceedings

The English Language Teaching & Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal

2011-10-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

In the context of developing regions, despite the decreasing cost of ICT infrastructure, supporting education with conventional e-learning technologies using standard paradigms is often regarded as short-sighted approach. Thus, researchers are increasing the focus on relatively cheaper and sustainable mobile technologies to support education. However, before implementing the technology enhanced learning solution, it is crucial to take account of the existing teaching and learning practices and design solution based on the distinct understandings of local context to fully incorporate technology in the existing educational process. Recently, an exploratory study was carried out to identify the challenges of teaching and learning English in the government schools that use traditional teaching practices in Nepal. A teacher's diary study method was used to understand the background and the paper highlights existing pedagogical, technological, social, cultural and political issues that might be useful for guiding the technological intervention in public schools where one of the current and the urgent requirements is to provide an access to digital contents.

(Published) Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "The English Language Teaching and Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal: Teacher's Diary Study", IFIP WG 9.4 Conference, May 2011, Kathmandu, Nepal

Download the conference proceedings to read the full paper.

Picture & summary of the 2011 IFIP WG9.4 Conference.

Exploring Open Platforms for Mobile Learning

2011-10-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

The mobile technologyfield is rapidly expanding and the focus on how it can beincorporated to support learning is also growing. However, thebarriers to inclusion of information communication technologies inthe public schools of Nepal are still significant and the widespreadaccess to digital content remains a key obstacle. Nepalhas a poor communication infrastructure and where available,telecommunication and electricity are poorly maintained or too costlyto use.
The aim of my exploratory research study is tohighlight how an offline mobile learning solution may address some ofthe technical challenges to support one of thecurrent and most urgent requirements toprovide an access to digital content. The study investigated thedeployment of previously unexplored low-spec sub US $100 open-sourcemobile devices (Nanonote and Wikireader) to facilitate English language learning and addressthe knowledge requirements of teachers in government funded publicschools of Nepal.

Ben Nanonote 3.0” color TFT display, 336 MHz processor &2GB of flash memory; an ultra small form factor Copyleftdevice by Qi Hardware http://sharism.cc/

Wikireader - Handheld offline reading device by Openmoko. Runs up to 12months on two AAA batteries.http://www.thewikireader.com/

Consideringthe context and culture of Nepal, my research aim was to develop asocio-technical– an offline mobile learning solution using alow-spec open source mobile technology. The study was carried outin four stages.

I)Before implementing the technology enhanced learning solution, it iscrucial to take account of the existing teaching and learningpractices and design solution based on the distinct understandings oflocal context to fully incorporate technology in the existingeducational process. Recently, an exploratory study was conductedusing teachers’ diary study method, which helped to understand thebackground and highlight the existing pedagogical, technological,social and cultural issues – that are useful for guiding thetechnological intervention in public schools of Nepal where one ofthe current and the urgent requirements is to provide an access todigital contents. Thequalitative study was conducted in eight public schools using apre-questionnaire and 2 weeks long English teachers’ diary.

English teaching in a public school of Nepal for year 10.

II)A pilot study was conducted to explore the use of open-sourceplatforms, customisation of graphical user interface, its usabilityand how it may be used for supporting teaching and learning. Eventhough this exploratory study aimed at supporting teaching andlearning programming in Higher Education, it focused on betterunderstanding the use offline mobile technologies, and on the deviceusability. The results provided indications on users’ perceptionstowards the effectiveness of open-source platforms for supportingteaching and learning and the findings could be useful to support theadoption of offline mobile learning model to provide an access toresources and support learning. The findings indicate theseopen-source devices have potential to facilitate offline reading andit can enhance motivation to learning.

III)With the overall deeper understanding of ways of teaching andlearning, needs and concerns in public schools of Nepal, furtherstudies were conducted in Nepal. As privateschools are generally believed to be better than public schools, anexploratory study was recently completed which involved 20 Englishteachers from 10 private schools within the same district. A furtherstudy was conducted in 8 public schools from 4 differentdistricts that use XO laptops and supported by Open Learning ExchangeNepal (http://www.olenepal.org/).The study identified the benefits and challenges of using ICT in poorschools and investigated how the use of ICT may behelping to solve some of the concerns identified from the earlierstudy. These studies also helped to identify the type of digitalresources needed to support English learning in public schools ofNepal.

A computer lab in a private school.

A public school that uses XO laptop supported by OLE Nepal.

IV)Then, based on the findings from these studies, the use of low-specand sub US $100 open-source Nanonote and Wikireader devices wereexplored to deliver learning resources in five schools. Theevaluation adopted an approach recommended by Sharples,which is to address usability (will it work?), effectiveness (is itenhancing learning?) and satisfaction (is it liked?). For theevaluation purpose, selection of the research methods for this study was adapted from the earlier studies of adoption of mobiletechnology for learning by Corlett et al. and Waycott.

All ready to be used in schools of Nepal by English teachers.

I'm still in the process of analysing, writing and publishing the data that I've collected so far. Due to exploratory natureof this research, data analysis has been an iterative and reflectiveprocess throughout the project and the data is being examined inrelation to the Framework for the Rational Analysis of MobileEducation (FRAME) model.

The Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model describes mobile learning as a process resulting from the convergence of mobile technologies, human learning capacities, and social interaction.

This study will alsohighlight the development challenges faced working with a sub US$100device including usability issues and the lack of a standardgraphical user interface. Overall this study will showcasealternative open hardware solutions to more restrictive proprietarysolutions which are currently dominating the mobile landscape.

Some of the related publications so far:

Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. Poster: "Open-source Platform: Exploring the Opportunities for Offline Mobile Learning", Mobile HCI 2011, August 2011, Stockholm.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "The English Language Teaching and Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal: Teacher's Diary Study", IFIP WG 9.4 Conference, May 2011, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Mobile learning and low-cost hardware for ICT4D: what's right and what's copyleft?", Special Issue - IEEE Multidisciplinary Engineering Education Magazine (MEEM), 2011.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. Poster: "Flexible learning with flexible devices: opening up opportunities", mLearn 2011, October 2011, Beijing.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning With Copyleft Hardware: A Pilot Study", Mobile Learning: Crossing Boundaries in Convergent Environments Conference, Bremen, Germany.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Sustainable Mobile Learning: Open & Offline",mLearn 2010, 9th World Conference Mobile & Contextual Learning, October 2010, Malta.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning: Open Platform, Wikireader & ICTD", Mobile HCI 2010 Workshop, Mobile HCI and Technical ICTD: A Methodological Perspective. September 2010, Lisboa, Portugal.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning: Open Platforms for ICT4D", Doctoral Consortium, The 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 5-7, 2010, Sousse, Tunisia.
Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning for ICT4D", IADIS International Conference Mobile Learning 2010, March 2010, Porto, Portugal.

Nepal: the great digital divide

2011-10-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Mobile cellular growth is slowing worldwide. In developed countries, the mobile market is reaching saturation levels with an average 116 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants at the end of 2010 and a marginal growth of 1.6% from 2009-2010. But the mobile penetration in developing countries is huge. The developing world is increasing its share of mobile subscriptions from 53% of total mobile subscriptions at the end of 2005 to 73% at the end of 2010.

In the context of Nepal, compared to fixed telephone subscriptions (2.81), mobile subscriptions (30.69) is relatively very high and expected to grow rapidly. But Internet users are still very low, due to lack of access to computers and the Internet. Where they do have the Internet (mostly in urban areas), it is expensive, unreliable and has a low bandwidth.

Nepal is a mountainous country where most of the countryside is remote and about 86 percent of population lives in rural areas and dependent on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood and availability of electricity is limited to about 18 percent of the total population, while the rural population has just about 5 percent. In Africa, an estimated 90% of the rural population remain without electricity.

The disparity in access to ICTs between the world's richest and poorest countries, the difference in people's chance of getting training and skills that will enable them to use ICTs effectively - the Digital Divide is evident. While more than 94% of people in Norway can access the web, a mere 0.5% in Ethopia do. Even though number of countries, including Estonia, Finland and Spain have declared access to the Internet as a legal right for citizens and 71% of the population in developed countries are online while only 21% of the population in developing countries are connected.

The access to technology is crucial. 'A global explosion in the use of mobile phones with over 5 billion subscriptions', 'double Internet users since 2005..': these are definitely some of many encouraging facts. The technology however needs to be affordable, sustainable and scalable. In Nepal, the financial, social, geographical, political and infrastructural challenges are greater and even though there are opportunities to implement technological interventions, impact is hard to achieve.

Internet Users per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
   % 0.20 0.24   0.31   0.38    0.45     0.80 1.14   1.41    1.73   1.97   6.78

Fixed Internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
    %      0.05     0.06     0.08     0.10      0.11     0.16     0.22     0.28        -              -          -

Fixed Broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
    %   -         0.00    0.00   0.00 0.00    0.00   0.00   0.04   0.03 0.05    0.38

Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
     % 1.09   1.19     1.28 1.42   1.56   1.78 2.20   2.47 2.79 2.76 2.81

Mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
   % 0.04     0.07     0.09 0.31   0.44    0.83    4.16 11.52 14.53   19.02   30.69

(Source: ITU and Upgrading Development: Can technology alleviate poverty?)

Mobile Learning: lots of 'Now' and the glimpse of the 'Future' 2011

2011-10-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

"A Practitioner Symposium presented by The West London Lifelong Learning Network & The College of North West London, 28th September 2011." This FREE event focused on Mobile Learning in Further and Higher Education and most of the attendees were from London colleges. (#MobileLearn2011) This event took place at the College of North West London, Dudden Hill Lane, London, NW10 2XD.John Cook (@johnnigelcook) from London Met discussed the challenges of promoting active and deep learning with mobiles. Slides found here. The focus of this talk was on the reuse of the context of one subject (urban education) in another (language learning) through a reconfiguration of the required scripts/information within the mobile device mediated augmented space for learning. Later, Carl Smith showed some example videos of augmented reality, work done by his colleagues and others.
Steve Boneham from JISC Netskills and Doug Belshaw (JISC infoNet) presented on 'Implementing Mobile Learning in Your Institution' (slides found here) and explained the rationale for institutional mobile learning and share some examples of good practice from the infoKit.
One of the holy grails for mobile learning researchers is to come up with models and categorisations that enable widespread acceptance and uptake of mobile learning; models that can be contextualised but serve as an accepted framework. These range from the very general - for example, “‘permanently online’, ‘frequently online’ and offline’” (Shrestha, et al, 2010, p.341), conceiving of the mobile phone as a ‘terminal’ (Ford & Leinonen, 2010, p.196-7), or the detailed: (source found here)

The most engaging and interesting talk by John Traxler (@johntraxler) explored the looming crisis of identity and direction for the mobile learning research community. The mobile learning research community is about ten years old. According Traxler, the community is now at a tipping point, a vindication, a culmination, when the work of researchers, practitioners and activists will bear fruit, when we will bring in the harvest, when we will finally address scale, sustainability, equity, blending and embedding. The community has however worked largely within institutional contexts, positioned at the vanguard of technology enhanced learning, buying into the rhetoric of 'innovation' and working from the top down, working mainly in small-scale, fixed-term subsidised projects staffed by enthusiasts. These developments took place when technology was scarce, difficult and expensive; now technology is ubiquitous, cheap and reliable and what we will see in the next ten years will not be a continuation of the trajectory defined by the previous ten years.
Later, I (@sunnysujan) went out for a Turkish meal in Baker Street with John Moore (@jptmoore), Dough (@dajbelshaw), Julie Usher, Nick Dennis and Shirley. After the meal, John and I went out for a few beers.

Mobile Technology for Education in Nepal

2011-09-04T03:43:00.000-07:00

Introduction
Mobile device is a powerful and ubiquitous technology. Mobile phone users’ growth rates are fastest in the poorest regions of the world [8], where the affordability of computing has remained a primary barrier [20]. Potential of mobile technologies is also increasingly being explored as a new range of hardware platforms on which innovative systems may be built to help bring services and new opportunities in the developing countries [1]. Mobile is playing an increasing role in addressing development issues – such as access to banking, to health education, to agricultural services reaching rural farmers and to aid formal and informal education [6].
In Nepal, even though mobile telephony is only 12 years old, mobile penetration is increasing due to availability of affordable handsets, reduced tariff and introduction of new value added services attributed by stiff competition between major players in the market [11]. Even though the Internet segment of the market remains sluggish (below 2 percent in early 2009), the number of mobile phone subscribers has reached 10.7 million – a massive increase of 57 percent over the last year (mid-April 2010 to mid-April 2011). With the exponential growth of mobile subscribers, 37 percent of the country’s population are using mobile phones today. This explosive growth of readily (anytime/anywhere) available and accessible technology provides us great opportunities to bring transformation in our society by opening up new avenues in all the sectors.
This article mainly focuses on the potential of mobile technologies for supporting education and the challenges it faces in the context of Nepal. It explains what mobile learning is, how it can complement teaching and learning and provides some examples of mobile learning initiatives from developing regions. It discusses the need for technology research to identify the best-fit solutions for developing regions and concludes by highlighting the need to explore the growth of mobile technology to provide the much needed access to teaching and learning resources.

Background: Nepal
Nepal is a mountainous country where most of the countryside is remote and about 42 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. Nepal's topography makes it extremely difficult to develop the much needed telecommunications infrastructure and the country is still struggling under an adverse economic situation caused largely by current political instability. According to the United Nations Development Program, poverty in Nepal has increased over the past three decades, especially in rural areas [14]. According to Asian development Bank, “Nepal remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with per capita income of $447 per annum, wide income disparities, and poor access by a large section of the population to basic social services” [2]. About 86 percent of population lives in rural areas and dependent on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood and availability of electricity is limited to about 18 percent of the total population, while the rural population has just about 5 percent [15]. Today, people are still suffering through crippling electricity cuts.
In a recent special general meeting of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), the business community has stressed the need to move ahead by giving priority to agriculture and tourism for the country’s economic development with the industrial sector facing multiple challenges amid the political instability, liquidity crunch in the banking sector and intense load-shedding [7]. However, education is also a key investment in human capital [6]. Therefore, non-profit organizations such as Open Learning Exchange (OLE) and Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) are working towards improving quality and access in Nepal's public education system. But to support Nepal’s education faces numerous pedagogical, technological, social, cultural and political challenges, where one of the current and the urgent requirements is to provide an access to teaching and learning resources [9].
In Nepal, a large proportion of the rural population is illiterate and approximately half of the population lacks the basic skills of functional literacy and numeracy [21]. The literacy is around 55 percent in which, Nepali (national language) is 82 percent and English is approximately 18 percent and overall female literacy is less than the half of the literacy of males [4].

Mobile Learning (mLearning)
Mobile learning (mlearning) is a relatively new research area and it uses mobile technology to facilitate learning. ‘Mobile learning’ as the term increasingly being applied to the use of small, portable, handheld and lightweight electronic devices used for educational activities in classrooms, in fieldwork, at home, at work and when travelling [13]. It unlocks user from a fixed infrastructure and limited distribution. There are many mLearning projects currently taking place globally, although the vast majority are on a small scale and is assumed an even greater number are not documented. It is more widespread in the US and the UK, where mobile technology is more prevalent and advanced, and where funding does not present as a barrier [6]. However, with 98% of the world’s illiterate or semi-literate population residing in developing countries, where access to schools and resource material is at a minimum, such regions present the greatest areas of opportunities for mLearning programmes and products [6].
Rapid mobile communication technology developments have given opportunities for economic and social development in developing countries. Mobile phones are increasingly becoming pervasive and for a large group of people mobile phones are the first and only interactive digital media they directly operate and experience. Mobile access to digital content is improving and it is already playing a central role in bridging the digital divide. There are examples of how simple handsets and networks are beginning to produce indispensable services such as M-PESA in Kenya and Healthline in Bangladesh.
Even though, serious education challenges cannot be solved by simply introducing computer and internet technologies in low-income schools [18], there are evidences of the use of ICT in education within developing countries that demonstrated its potential to have a positive impact when an appropriate technology was combined with quality curriculum-based content. Even though the education is traditionally text-book and teacher oriented in Nepal, the exploration of the use of mobile technology to support teaching and learning may facilitate transition from teacher-centered approaches towards more student-centered ones, such as Communicative Language Teaching for an example.

mLearning: Some Examples
Below are some of the examples of the mLearning initiatives from developing countries [6], and hope that we can also explore the challenges to introduce technology in education and the use of mobile technologies to enhance teaching and learning in Nepal.
Ayala Foundation – Text2Teach (BridgeIT): Complementary classroom based learning and teacher support in Philippines that allows teachers to download short videos to a mobile device and screen them in their classroom.
Mobilink – SMS for Literacy: SMS used to help improve young women’s literacy in Pakistan. Low-cost phones were selected which can send and receive messages in Urdu, the local language. The girls received up to six messages a day on a variety of topics including religion, health and nutrition, and were expected to practice reading and writing down the messages and responding to their teachers via SMS.
Mobitel – mLearning Platform: Mobile solutions for remote vocational qualifications in Sri Lanka, now extended to the Maldives. It provides an extensible collaborative learning environment where tailor-made educational environments can be built to provide wide-ranging learning management solutions.
Nokia – MoMaths: Mobile learning used to help boost mathematics skills for Grade 10 students in South Africa. The materials are aligned to the current South African curriculum for mathematics. Learners can work through short theory sections, or answers questions from a database of approximately 10,000 questions, which are categorised by topic and degree of difficulty.
BBC World Service Trust – Janala: English lessons delivered via voice and SMS in Bangladesh. With a tariff of just 1 Taka (1 pence) per minute, customers need to dial 3000 to access hundreds of three minute audio lessons, which range from ‘Essential English’ to ‘English for Work’. Learners can then assess their progress with interactive audio quizzes, or even record their own stories in English.
Ericsson – Education Programme: Using ICT based solutions to improve education across the developing world. In the Millennium Villages across Sub Saharan Africa, Community Health Workers are using the mobile phone as a learning tool. They have co-founded Connect To learn, an education initiative supporting secondary education especially for girls through scholarships and the use of ICT in classrooms. In China, Ericsson is working with the Ministry of Education to support students in rural communities.
Carnegie Mellon University and University of California, Berkeley – MILLEE: Mobile games for children in rural India. MILLEE, stands for Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economics. It aims to improve “power language” literacy among low-income children in developing countries through mLearning.
Shuttleworth Foundation – M4Lit: Exploring the viability of using mobile phones to support reading and writing by youth in South Africa. The goal is to get young people reading and writing, and in the ‘book-poor’ but ‘mobile phone-rich’ context of South Africa, the phone is a viable complement and sometimes alternative to a printed book.

Mobile Technology
The ‘learning’ component of mLearning, focuses not only on providing an access to general ‘information’ but also on ‘content’ that is educational and has been developed to teach the end user a skill or to provide new knowledge [6]. However, the delivery method and the medium used also require equal focus as they influence the learning format, learning and educational resources.
So far, the technologies developed for the first world have often been a poor fit in developing regions, due to issues of cost, infrastructure, physical environment, and social factors, and there is a need for technology research specially aimed at this area [12]. It is therefore crucial for technology research to identify the best-fit solutions for developing regions that integrate with the social and cultural practices of the locality to make sure it is a sustainable solution and for long-term use and benefits [3]. It is still a huge challenge to develop lower-cost, education-oriented PCs, and there are ongoing efforts focused on developing the type of low-cost device targeted for developing countries. The use of mobile based solutions are yet to improve as the lack of infrastructure and limited purchasing power demand not just to develop low-cost approaches and the replicable hardware that can be appropriated and adopted by community-based organizations with minimal requirements for external support but also serve the unique needs of developing regions and populations [10].
Ben Nanonote by Qi Hardware is one of the promising sub US$100 open copyleft hardware device– an ultra small form factor computing device with 3.0” color TFT display. The open hardware approach taken by this company is expected to allow the community to influence its future hardware revisions and devices. At the moment, even though it is not the latest or best hardware available, it can still be customised to fit the purpose in developing countries. Open platforms are relatively new and their quality is expected to improve through community effort. The sub US$100 WikiReader, by Openmoko, offers an interesting alternative to the phone. It is a text only offline reading device that can run on a pair of AAA batteries for a whole year and has been designed to be viewable in sunlight.
Today, 1.6 billion people live off the electricity grid and a further 1 billion live where the grid is inconsistent. Mobile phones require regular charging and hence this is a significant impediment to those interested in mLearning [6]. It is therefore important to develop low-spec/low-cost and intuitive devices. Talking Book by Literacy Bridge is an excellent example of an audio device designed specifically for people who cannot read and who live without electricity. The device supports device-to-device content sharing without needing to access computer and Internet and runs with two zinc-carbon, size-D batteries which supply 12-15 hours of typical use. Recently, the impact of giving rural, illiterate people on-demand access to guidance created by local experts was studied in northern Ghana. The evaluation suggested that Talking Books can make a significant impact on learning and behaviour change in villages with low literacy rates and no electricity.

Conclusion
A mobile technology has a potential to deliver education without dependence on an extensive communications infrastructure that suits the context of developing countries such as Nepal. There are opportunities to explore the role of portable technologies to further expand the scope of e-learning environment thereby enhancing the learning process and also increasing students’ learning interest and motivation.
However, regardless of rapid development of mobile technologies and increasing penetration in Nepal, the costs to implement advanced mobile telephony systems can be prohibitive, denying an access to modern opportunities for the majority. Even though GPRS/3G networks and handsets are coming down in cost, common use of expensive Smartphone and access to mobile Internet is not yet possible in Nepal. In developing countries, the Smartphone penetration is only expected to reach around 17 percent by 2014. Smartphone prices are predicted to fall considerably over the next few years but it is still unclear when they will become commonplace [6].
Without an understanding of how the mobile internet is used in resource-constrained environments in the developing world, it will also remain difficult to identify its ―impacts or how to best promote its utility in the context of Nepal [19]. Even though an affordable next generation mobile broadband technologies and advanced terminals are not widely available and used, the basic capabilities (such as voice and SMS features) of prevalent lower-end mobile devices can still be explored to develop simple but effective mobile services. It is practical to develop such solutions which will have wider applicability.
As the applications of permanently online mobile education rely on the wireless network, to most learners permanently online is hard to achieve, costly and may not be necessary as well. Considering the challenges of introducing ICT for Education in Nepal, providing mobile education offline may has broad application scope as it can minimise the complexities of providing learning by not having to deal with networking issues, malleability of design and content, simplicity and no steep learning curve. As mobile devices are often banned in classrooms, possibly the best way to introduce mobile learning in the classroom is also offline.
It may take many years before we will have all the necessary infrastructure to provide power and connectivity. With the rapidly advancing mobile technologies and reducing cost, we may also have an access to affordable smart devices in future. It will also be important to build our ICT capacity corresponding to the skills and competencies necessary to maintain and use the technology. However, in today’s context, before trying to change or improve pedagogy of learning, we can aim at providing the much needed digital access to resources for teaching and learning using the available resources adapted to our local context. Therefore, a clear need is to assess new research areas in Nepal to understand the potential benefits of mobile technologies in helping foster innovation and growth within the industry supported by sustainable business models.

References:
1. A. Dearden, A. Light, R. Heeks, and G. Marsden, “Innovation everywhere: computing for 9 billion people,” Grand Challenges in Computing Research 2010 - The IET, UKCRC, 2010.
2. ADB. (2009). Nepal - Fact Sheets - ADB.org. Asian Development Bank. Retrieved November 25, 2010, from http://www.adb.org/Documents/Fact_Sheets/
3. Brewer et al. (2005), “The case for technology in developing regions,” Computer, vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 25-38, 2005.
4. ENRD. (2009). About us. E-Network Research and Development (ENRD). Retrieved October 14, 2010, from http://www.enrd.org/aboutenrd.php
5. Evans, M.A., Johri, A., Glasson, G.E., Cagiltay, K., Pal, J., and Sorcar, P., (2008) “ICT4D and the learning sciences,” Proc. ICLS 2008, Vol 3, pp. 229-236.
6. GSMA Development Fund. (2010), mLearning: A Platform for Educational Opportunities at the Base of the Pyramid.
7. Kantipur.com (2011) Entrepreneurs want agriculture, tourism prioritised. Retrieved July 15, 2011, from http://www.ekantipur.com/2011/06/14/business/entrepreneurs-want-agriculture-tourism-prioritised/335674.html
8. R. Heeks, “ICT4D 2.0: The Next Phase of Applying ICT for International Development,” Computer, vol. 41, 2008, pp. 26-33.
9. Shrestha, S., J. Moore, and J. Abdelnour-Nocera, “The English Language Teaching and Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal: Teacher’s Diary Study,” Proc. IfIP WG9.4 Conference: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, 2011.
10. Shrestha, S., Moore, J., & Adbelnour-Nocera, J. (2011). Low-cost hardware for ICT4D: what's right and what's left? Special Issue - IEEE Multidisciplinary Engineering Education Magazine (MEEM)
11. The Kathmandu Post (2011). Mobile telephony market’s explosive growth continues. Retrieved July 14, 2011, from http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2011/06/12/money/mobile-telephony-markets-explosive-growth-continues/222813.html
12. Toyama, K. and Ali, M. (2009),“Computing for global development: is it computer science research?,” SIGCOMM CCR, vol. 39, no. 5, pp. 40-43.
13. Traxler, J., Kukulska-Hulme, A., (2005) Mobile Learning in Developing Countries. Commonwealth of Learning.
14. UNDP. (2010). Poverty Reduction – Programme — UNDP in Nepal. United Nations Development Programme. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from http://www.undp.org.np/poverty/
15. Vaidya, B., & Nath Shrestha, J. (2010). Rural Digital Library: Connecting Rural Communities in Nepal. In Digital Libraries: People, Knowledge, and Technology (pp. 354-365).
16. Vihavainen, S., Kuula, T., and Federley, M., (2010) “Cross-use of smart phones and printed books in primary
17. school education,” Proc. MobileHCI 2010, pp. 279-282.
18. Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., and Stone, L., (2004) “Technology and equity in schooling: Deconstructing the digital divide,” Educational Policy, vol. 18, no. 4, p. 562–588.
19. Donner, J. and Gitau, S. (2009) “New paths: exploring mobile-centric internet use in South Africa,” Maputo, Mozambique: W3C Mobile Web Initiative.
20. M. R. Ho, T.N. Smyth, M. Kam, and A. Dearden, (2009)“Human-Computer Interaction for Development: The Past, Present, and Future,” Information Technologies & International Development, vol. 5.
21. MOE. (2009). School Sector Reform Plan 2009-2015. Ministry of Education. Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://moe.gov.np/new/index.php?option=news&id=59

Some Useful Links:
Nanonote https://sharism.cc/
Wikireader http://www.thewikireader.com/
Talking Book http://www.literacybridge.org/talking-book/
OLE Nepal http://www.olenepal.org/
Nepal Wireless Project http://www.nepalwireless.net/
HealthLine, Bangladesh http://healthmarketinnovations.org/program/healthline-bangladesh/
M-PESA http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/itgg.2007.2.1-2.63/

ELT needs to get a grip on smartphones: really?

2011-05-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

ELT needs to get a grip on smartphones

Caroline Moore, Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 8 March 2011 14.00 GMT

The article by Caroline Moore in Guardian Weekly highlighted the ELT needs to get a grip on smartphones. She says:

"There has been an explosion in the use of smartphones. Around 270m handsets were sold in 2010, while CNN Fortune has forecast that sales could exceed 500m in 2011. With the price of entry-level handsets expected to fall to $100 or below, growth is likely to accelerate and smartphones will become more accessible to consumers in developing countries."

Therefore, she thinks the ELT sector needs to explore these technologies more closely.

iPhone type smartphones are powerful, usability is great and good apps can be written, that's obvious. "smartphones will become more accessible to consumers in developing countries" When? no idea yet.

I'm studying ELT situation in the context of Nepal, exploring the potential of open-source software/hardware platform to provide the much needed access to resources in the public schools' classroom.

Mobile penetration is increasing rapidly and that's true. But developing countries face huge challenges of infrastructure which require sizeable investment and also faces social, cultural and political issues.

Even the wider implementation of simple 'sms' based learning solution is almost impossible, common use of mobile internet for education is beyond imagination.

Before we start dreaming and think about the future, we should wake up and see the present. Do the reality check, and develop affordable solutions that don't heavily rely on smart technologies and constant availability of internet.

Audio, Video Editing, Converting, Batch Processing

2011-04-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Recently I had to process lots of audio/video files. These multimedia files will be put on Nanonote, which Enlgish teachers will be using in public schools of Nepal.
First of all, I converted usual audio tapes to mp3. I used a simple stero cable to convert and transfer to my computer. Then, using Audacity softwere, I processed the audio files.

With videos, first I changed the names at once using KRename software. The software is also good to change names if you have hundreds of pictures and you can give your files sensible names in a minute.

Then I converted these mp4 videos to mpg by using software ffmpeg.

ffmpeg -i your_video_file -ac 1 -ar 22050 -s 320x240 output.mpg

To batch process all the videos at once, I used the following script.

#!/bin/sh
for f in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -ac 1 -ar 22050 -s 320x240 "${f%.mp4}.mpg"; done

Save it as a script and give permission on the file:
sudo chmod +x

That's it!

For processing videos, Pitivi Video Editor is a great free software.

Nepal, Electricity: The Power Crisis

2011-02-04T03:07:00.000-08:00

I just wonder when and if we ever be able to cope with the power crisis that has plagued the country. Our country's politics is very unappealing as it is just focused on feeding the politicians for the huger for the power but not providing the basic needs to the people. It's sad how people are still suffering through crippling electricity cuts. As I read before, availability of electricity is limited to about 18% of the total population, while the rural population has just about 5%. Probably the reality of the situation is even worst.

One of the Nepal's top television networks, Kantipur Television has used only a kerosene (paraffin) lantern to light its 30-minute-long 7pm news bulletin. (source: BBC)

River-driven, hydro stations around Nepal are not overhauled in time. Due to insufficient rain, Kulekhani reservoir is running out of water and both of turbines there are not in a working order. The destruction of import lines from India because of last August's flooding in southern Nepal also added to the problem. Most of all, it seems there is lack of planning to tackle this major problem.

I also read before that the NEA was preparing to hike the electricity tariff by 30 percent and also said that the country will continue to reel under power cuts for six to seven more years and in this dry season, the duration of load-shedding will be up to 14 hours a day.However, to my surprise, Uttar Kumar Shrestha, MD, Nepal Electricity Authority recently said, " After five years, Nepal will not have any power cuts." I hope what he says is true and Nepal won't become a land of the blackout permanently.

Jlime for Nanonote

2010-11-12T03:46:00.000-08:00

Jlime in Nanonote

(source: www.jlime.com) The current image brings a X Environment, Matchbox window and desktop manager, and several useful applications (video player, music player, image viewer, text editor, terminal, pdf viewer, dictionary, games….)

Desktop DOCUMENTATION

root password : root

Shortcuts to control the Desktop

ALT+F1 : Hide all windows and focus desktop ALT+F2 : Move backwards between windows immediately ALT+F3 : Move between windows immediately ALT+F4 : Close a window

KEEP THIS LIST OF SHORTCUTS ON HAND! :) or you will have to reboot your system when some application runs fullscreen and you don't know what to press.

Number keys: fn key + number.

Vol keys react as Page up/down on X. But for video player and music player these work as Volume.

NETWORKING

Your muffinman system have already configured its usb0 network interface (IP 192.168.1.202).

Example to set your usb0 on your Linux PC:

ifconfig usb0 192.168.1.200 // set pc usb0 ip, to give your host an IP address which is in the same subnet as your NanoNote.

To review that, you can use ifconfig as well

$ ifconfig usb0

and should get the following:

usb0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 71:BF:F1:B2:8A:E8
        inet addr:192.168.1.200  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
        UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
        RX packets:5998 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
        TX packets:7357 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
        collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
        RX bytes:357275 (348.9 Kb)  TX bytes:9340199 (8.9 Mb)

Modify /etc/network/interfaces as below:

$ sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback

auto usb0

iface usb0 inet static

address 192.168.1.200

netmask 255.255.255.0

network 192.168.254.0

up iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE -s 192.168.254.0/24 &

up echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward &

up iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT &

down iptables -D POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE -s 192.168.254.0/24 &

$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Do the following to enable internet on the Nanonote

You will most likely need to replace the /etc/resolv.conf nameservers on your nanonote with the proper ones (just use the ones inside your pc's /etc/resolv.conf).

In Nanonote, do following:

Jlime$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 10.48.49.25

nameserver 10.32.52.21

Jlime$ route add default gw 192.168.1.200

Now, your Jlime system has internet connection.

After this configuration, next time you boot your Nanonote, you can ssh to Nanonote directly.

PACKAGE MANAGEMENT

NEW!. Now there is a new tool to install packages. It is a script to avoid the swap problems with opkg. The name is jlime-pkg

opkg is already configured to use Jlime repositories.

After you have gotten your internet connection going, its time to grab an list of available packages.

opkg update <-- syncs package database

Examples of actions:

jlime-pkg search  <-- will search some package. Example: jlime-pkg search game jlime-pkg install bash  <--will download and install bash opkg remove bash <--will remove bash from your nanonote

So use jlime-pkg to search and install packages. Use opkg to update and remove packages.

SET DATE and TIME

Use date and hwclock commands.

For example (we are setting 31th of August 2010, at 20:00pm):

date -s 20100831
date -s 20:00 hwclock -w

SHUTDOWN - REBOOT

Use the power ON/OFF button to shutdown the device, always..

APPLICATIONS USAGE

If you want to see/play your files easily:

Copy the video files under ~/videos/
Copy the music files under ~/music/
Copy the image files under ~/image/
For text files and other kind of formats use ~/documents/

To transfer file:

Password is 'root'.

Jlime$ ls

documents images music videos

To transfer PC_FILE to documents folder:

$ scp PC_FILE root@192.168.254.101:~/documents 
To copy NANONOTE_FILE FROM documents folder to you computer: 
$ scp root@192.168.254.101:~/documents/NANONOTE_FILE ./

VIDEO PLAYER

Video player is MPlayer.

Keys:
    q : quit
    o : OSD ON/OFF
  0,9 : Volume ( +  + )
arrows : backward/forward
space : pause

HOW TO ENCODE : In order to watch 320×240 videos encode your videos on PC with :

 ffmpeg -i your_video_file -ac 1 -ar 22050 -s 320x240 output.mpg
scp output.mpg root@192.168.1.202:
(And then use the video player.)

MUSIC PLAYER

Music player is GMU. Their usage is pretty easy because there is a help at bottom. Main keys :

Keys:
ALT+ENTER : quit
TAB : move between playlist/file selector/etc

IMAGE VIEWER

Image Viewer shows the image files under ~/images/ folder. You can browse them using arrows. “Q key” quits.

DESKTOP LOOK AND FEEL

Muffinman is fully theme-able, because it uses both, Matchbox Window Manager and Matchbox Desktop.

If you want to replace the WALLPAPER, just replace the /etc/muffinman-extras/wallpaper.png file with your wallpaper.png file.

To modify the theme, icons and folders just read the Matchbox Desktop and Window Manager documentation

It is easy, because Matchbox, like others Linux Desktop/Window Managers, uses freedesktop.org specifications.

How to RECORD and PLAY sound files (using mic/speaker)

You can use the “Audio Recorder” application on Desktop. But, if you need manual settings or work done follow the below instructions.

In order to record, the device's “capture” switch must be set. To do so, run alsamixer (Audio Settings), select your microphone (maybe you need to press TAB) and press space. Something like…

 CAPTUR  L    R

should appear. Set the level of the Mic there with arrow keys :33% is okey for good quality.

Then we record a while using the mic with (CD quality, 8 seconds, wav) :

 arecord -d 8 -f cd -t wav test.wav

Then listen your file with :

 aplay test.wav

Installing LAMP, Mediawiki in Ubuntu

2010-10-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

Install LAMP
sudo apt-get install tasksel

sudo tasksel

And select LAMP Server

During the installation you will be asked to insert the mysql root password. Make sure you record your MySQL root superuser name and superuser password that you will create at installation. You will need it later.
(Each of the components (Apache2, MySQL5, and PHP) can also be installed individually, if you wish.)

To full manage your lamp Server database, install phpmyadmin
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Please choose the web server that should be automatically configured to run phpMyAdmin.
Web server to reconfigure automatically: [ ] apache2

To login to phpmyadmin, open browser and type :
http://ip/phpmyadmin or http://localhost/phpmyadmin

Install MediaWiki
Install the package:
sudo apt-get install mediawiki

Optionally install add-ons:
sudo apt-get install imagemagick mediawiki-math php5-gd

Enable MediaWiki by editing the following file and remove the '#' from the third line so that it reads 'Alias /mediawiki /var/lib/mediawiki':
sudo nano /etc/mediawiki/apache.conf

Then restart apache:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Start your MediaWiki
http://localhost/mediawiki
Follow the setup instructions.

Cisco VPN in Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-22T18:44:00.001-07:00

Since I upgraded to ubuntu 10.10, my Cisco VPN stopped working. I needed to find a way to convert .pcf file so that I could work with vpnc.

1. Install vpnc.
sudo apt-get install vpnc

# Get the cisco decrypt program

wget http://www.debuntu.org/files/cisco-decrypt.c

# Get the dependencies needed for it

sudo apt-get install libgcrypt11-dev

# Compile it into a binary

gcc -Wall -o cisco-decrypt cisco-decrypt.c $(libgcrypt-config –libs –cflags)

chmod +x cisco-decrypt

# Move it to a place in our path

sudo cp cisco-decrypt /usr/bin

2. Download the pcf2vpnc perl script.
wget http://svn.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/vpnc/trunk/
or, wget http://svn.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/vpnc/trunk/pcf2vpnc
or, wherever you can find it!

3. Make the script executable.
chmod +x pcf2vpnc
sudo cp pcf2vpnc /usr/bin

4. Convert your .pcf files to work with vpnc.

# Run the converter, which will call the decrypt program

./pcf2vpnc cisco.pcf > cisco.conf

5. Copy your new .conf files to /etc/vpnc.
sudo cp cisco.conf /etc/vpnc/

6. Connect using vpnc.
sudo vpnc-connect cisco

Then I got this error:
vpnc-connect: Error binding to source port. Try '--local-port 0'
Failed to bind to 0.0.0.0:500: Address already in use.

So, I tried:
sudo vpnc-connect cicso --local-port 0

And, it worked.

7. To disconnect your vpn tunnel.
sudo vpnc-disconnect

TestDisk, Data Recovery

2010-10-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my USB pen drive became corrupted. Linux, Windows couldn't recognise the filesystem. Thanks to TestDisk software, I fixed the issues and now it's working again.

TestDisk is OpenSource software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

TestDisk is powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

TestDisk can

Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
Fix FAT tables
Rebuild NTFS boot sector
Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
Fix MFT using MFT mirror
Locate ext2/ext3/ext4 Backup SuperBlock
Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions.

TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.

Host Ubuntu 10.10, Guest Windows XP - sharing folders.

2010-10-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

In virtualbox 3.2.10, I first installed guest additions.
Then, I setup sharing folder from Devices menu of virtualbox.
For example I shared \home\mysharingfolder. (the folder exists in \home of my ubuntu system).
In Folder Path navigate to the folder you created in step one and select it.Check “Make Permanent”.

In commandline of windows:
net use x: \\vboxsrv\mysharingfolder

Now, I can access the 'mysharingfolder' in windows.
Open My computer,you will see the shared folder:

Windows Host and Ubuntu guest:
1.Create a folder in windows,assuming it is:

c:/mysharingfolder

2.Same to the step 2 above.
3.In ubuntu guest,open terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal).Using following command mount the folder:

sudo mkdir /media/mysharingfolder sudo mount -t vboxsf vbshare /media/mysharingfolder

HCI4D: Infrastructure

2010-10-12T07:20:00.001-07:00

As one of the important thrusts of ICT4D is developing infrastructure to provide power, connectivity, and devices appropriate for the prevailing conditions in a sustainable manner, the focus on infrastructure is absolutely relevant.
To highlight its importance, I would like to briefly mention the 'low-cost computer for poor' as an example. Following the success/failure stories of OLPC, simputer and many other technologies including existing attempts to develop cheaper computers for poor, it clearly highlightsaffordability of computing as a still remained primary barrier. As we know that the idea of leapfrogging technology (off-the-shelf solutions) that could be replicated - doesn't work and low-cost terminals is definitely a central part of ICT4D. But, even though the quest for the low-cost computer has been one of the most significant pursuits of ICT4D, most projects have fared poorly in markets, despite the apparent enthusiasm for many such initiatives. Demand is therefore to develop low-cost approaches and replicable hardware, and also serve the unique needs of developing regions and populations.
The need to support open standards to encourage interoperability of emerging technical solutions is highlighted as one of the grand challenges. My personal interest is to introduce and explore the use of an open platform (open-source software and open-source copyleft hardware) in the context of ICT4D.
The restricted license of a proprietary devices do not allow using hardware designs freely. But, the copyleft approach ensures the design is always open for a complete customization, enhancement or extension, allowing the community to influence its future hardware revisions and there is no end of life for devices as in a proprietary system. If coplyleft approach used, even if the device fails, it can at least ensure that the design can continue to live and be improved in future. But, as it has happened with open source software, though, it may take some years and test cases for legal clarity to emerge in open source hardware. Therefore, while benefits of an open-source software are well established, hardware based on an open-source copyleft designs to support specific need in the developing regions are yet to be seen. Also, as Weiss highlighted, open source hardware also faces several challenging questions such as how would business benefit from open sourcing hardware and who is really going to make their own device?

Ubuntu Upgrade from 10.04 LTS to 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

2010-10-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

Upgrade from 10.04 LTS to 10.10

Network Upgrade for Ubuntu Desktops (Recommended)

You can easily upgrade over the network with the following procedure.

Open the Software Sources application from the System -> Administration menu
Select the sub menu Updates from the Software Sources application
Change the Release Upgrade drop down to "Normal Releases" and close the application
Press Alt-F2 and type update-manager
Click the Check button to check for new updates.
If there are any updates to install, use the Install Updates button to install them, and press Check again after that is complete.
A message will appear informing you of the availability of the new release.
Click Upgrade.
Follow the on-screen instructions.

Using git in Ubuntu

2010-09-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

1. Open Terminal.

2. Make HelloWorld folder in your Desktop.

3. cd HelloWorld

4. Create hello.c file.
---------------------------------
#include studio.h

main()
{
printf();
}
---------------------------------

5. Initialise git.
git init

6. Check the git status.
git status

7. Add hello.c to your git.
git add hello.c

8. Commit your file to git.
git commit -m "hello.c created"

9. Check the log.
git log

10. Make some changes to your hello.c.

---------------------------------
#include studio.h

main()
{
printf("Learning to use git.");
}
---------------------------------

11. Commit your file.
git commit -m "printf argument added"

12. Check the difference in different revisions.
git diff

13. To check the difference between latest and the last revision.
git diff HEAD^...HEAD

14. Delete current hello.c file from your HelloWorld folder and retrieve the last commited file.

git checkout hello.c

Mediawiki

2010-09-27T00:30:00.000-07:00

Follow these instructions to install Mediawiki in Ubuntu system.

To important folders where you will be updating certain files are:

\var\lib\mediawiki
\etc\mediawiki

Including many other useful scripts, to export and import XML dump, there are scripts (dumpBackup.php, importDump.php) available in the (\var\lib\mediawiki\maintenance) folder.

To export my own mediawiki, I used following command, which creates dump.xml file in temp folder that contains only current pages of the wiki. To backup everything, you can use --full instead. More detail instruction are available here.

php dumpBackup.php --current >/tmp/dump.xml

Free eBook: Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training

2010-09-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Free e-Book "Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training" is available here. Amazon is selling it for £30.88. The book is edited by Mohamed Ally. March 2009. Paperback $39.95. 978-1-897425-43-5 (SC)

Limor Fried leads off at Open Source Hardware Summit

2010-09-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Limor talks about her own development of electronics projects, starting with MP3 players and a cellphone jammer at MIT. Then she reverse engineered a synthesizer. She wanted to share the work so that "others didn't have to go through the same frustrating process to build something that had already been built."

One reason for doing Open Source Hardware is to share the work you've done with others. Then there are haters, who are frustrating to deal with. Being good at Open Source hardware and being good at business are two different things. Turn your fear of getting ripped off into a sense of pride that your design was chosen to be ripped off. Biggest reason for doing open source software is the awesome community. We are giving to the community. We are letting go of our Art so that it can grow up. What we make will outlast us. She does open source hardware to make herself a better engineer.

Source: dalepd | Dale Dougherty

ICT4D: Mountain Regions of Nepal

2010-09-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share the recent interesting paper that I read titled, “Demystifying the Possibilities of ICT4D in the Mountain Regions of Nepal” by Devinder Thapa and Øystein Sæbø. (Accepted for presentation in Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)-44, Jan 4-7, 2011, Hawaii.)
This paper focuses on an interpretive case study in Nepal to widen the understanding of how locally-initiated ICT4D projects may help to narrow educational, healthcare, information, and communication gaps between urban and remote communities. The study utilises the Assets Pentagon Model to identify the strengths and challenges of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) in the mountain areas, and to identify implications for research and practice based on insights from the case.

References:

Devinder Thapa, The Impact of ICT Availability on Remote Communities: A Case Study in Nepal, in Molka-Danielsen, J. (Ed.): Proceedings of the 32nd Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia, IRIS 32, Inclusive Design, Molde University College, Molde, Norway, August 9-12, 2009, ISBN 978-82-7962-120-1.
Devinder Thapa's Blog
Richard Heeks, ICTs in Mountain Regions: Impact Assessment

Development 2.0

2010-09-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

Heeks suggested three potentially-transformative, ICT-enabled development models.

1) Direct Development: delivers resources and services without the intervention of traditional development actors; where those resources and services can be digitized.

2) Networked Development: occurs neither solely through the state and similar agencies nor through the market, but through a mesh of actors and institutions that are connected and can act together through ICTs.

3) Grassroots Development: occurs from within poor communities, as a result of ICT-enabled empowerment.

These models could only be judged transformative if they are having real and significant new development impacts. Evidence is only just emerging, but five types of impact are starting to be seen:

1) Connecting the excluded: providing information and other livelihood assets including social capital that were previously unavailable.

2) Disintermediation: cutting out the gatekeepers who prevent access to resources and services, or who charge rents for such access.

3) Digital production: enabling those in low-income communities to become producers of digital content, and to develop ICT-based productive livelihoods.

4) Digital innovation: enabling those in low-income communities to appropriate technology to such an extent that they start to do new things with it.

5) Collective power: enabling communities to bring the power of the group to bear in the service of economic or socio-political agendas.

Source:

Richard Heeks Blog

Development 2.0: the IT-enabled transformation of international development

IDPM Working papers

2010-09-20T09:08:00.001-07:00

Screenshot of a Mediawiki website running on a locahost. The wiki site is being developed to provide Mobile Application Development related course content for MSc students.

MW4D Impact Analysis

2010-09-20T02:52:00.000-07:00

There are several mobile impact assessment working papers on this site from the University of Manchester

Rich v. Poor Country ICT Statistics and Charts Online

2010-09-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Very interesting statistics...

Worldwide mobile, Internet and broadband data for 1998-2009 is now available online at: http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/tag/ict4d-statistics/

Based on ITU data, this provides a compiled and cleaned-up spreadsheet of data; charts comparing technology penetration levels in countries grouped by income; 'digital gap' charts comparing richest vs. poorest countries; and 'digital lag' data showing how many years behind the richest countries are the poorest countries.

Other items available at - http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/tag/ict4d-statistics/ - include Google motion chart visualisations of mobile and broadband data over time, and data on worldwide ICT4D expenditure and the Indian IT sector.

To subscribe to the blog, visit: http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/feed/

For source data, visit: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ICTEYE/Indicators/Indicators.aspx

Richard Heeks
Director, Centre for Development Informatics
University of Manchester, UK
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/cdi

Wikireader: compiling Wikibooks

2010-09-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

Download the latest copy of Wikireader source from github and extract it to your home directory. Download the XML backup dump from the mediawiki website. In this example I've used wikibooks as below:

2010-09-08 22:36:40 done Articles, templates, image descriptions, and primary meta-pages.

2010-09-08 22:36:40: enwikibooks 85591 pages (497.926/sec), 85591 revs (497.926/sec), 98.2% prefetched, ETA 2010-09-08 22:41:50 [max 239932]

This contains current versions of article content, and is the archive most mirror sites will probably want.
pages-articles.xml.bz2 78.9 MB

The below procedure is based on github and the doc/Quickstart from the downloaded Wikireader package.

Install these packages for building:

apt-get install python-gd gawk gforth flex bison m4
apt-get install netpbm qt4-qmake libqt4-dev wget
apt-get install python-serial sqlite3 php5-cli python-dev

sudo apt-get install mecab-ipadic-utf8
sudo apt-get install python-mecab mecab-ipadic-utf8

Make sure samo-lib/include/config.h is setup. copy default configuration

cp samo-lib/include/config.h-default samo-lib/include/config.h

Edit samo-lib/include/config.h to remove // from the line:

//#define BOARD_SAMO_V1 1

so it looks like:

#define BOARD_SAMO_V1 1

Display the possible make targets with this command:

make help

Compiling WikiReader program and QT4 simulator

=====================================

make clean

There maybe errors because of missing programs, these will be indicated by an apt-get install message to show the Ubuntu 9.10 package(s) to install.

make

Compiling a test database (multiple language version - latest kernel.elf)

============================

1) mkdir -p image work

make DESTDIR=image WORKDIR=work WIKI_LANGUAGE=en \

XML_FILES="XML-Licenses/en/license.xml XML-Licenses/en/terms.xml xml-file-samples/enwikibooks-20100908-pages-articles.xml" \

cleandirs createdirs iprc

#Note: iprc => index parse render combine

2) Optionally: simulate using qt4-simulator:

make DESTDIR=image fonts-install nls-install sim4

4) Install fonts and programs

make DESTDIR=image install

5) Format a microSD card as FAT32 and copy the contents on image to it. You can use gparted to format your microSD.

e.g. mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n wikird /dev/sd

mount /dev/sd /mnt

cp -r image/* /mnt/

I tried this few months before and I couldn't even compile at that time. I did manage to compile the source with Wikiversity back then. This time around, while it did compile Wikibooks successfully, once loaded in Wikireader, it didn't function as expected. The search for only certain words worked. When I searched for some random words, it usually froze and I had to restart the device every time.

Therefore, I decided to setup my own Mediawiki website in a localhost and loaded with custom content. I exported C programming material from Wikibooks and imported to my Mediawiki website.

I also used Packedobjects reference material. First, using Html 2 Wiki tool, I converted it to Wiki format and imported to my Mediawiki running on my localhost.

From my Mediawiki, I exported XML dump and compiled with Wikireader source. It is also possible to export content using special:dump page in the Mediawiki that allows a list of articles to be output and usually has an option to include templates, but sometimes templates deeply nested inside other templates are often missed. To export XML dump using script, please follow these instructions.

With the imported content, there were some issues of loosing formatting and not displaying correctly. Mostly, the internal page links didn't display as it was which I had to correct manually. Also, the examples of programming codes (for example Packedobjects Real type) lost it's formatting such as indent and the text appear all wrapped up as in a paragraph.

Wikireader does have a potential to be used as an offline reading device in a different way then intended. Because of the freely available software, it allows to import custom content or even modify the software.

Wikireader currently supports 15 different languages but doesn't support 'Devanagari' yet. My attempt to compile Nepali Wikipedia failed. Wikireader screen may not be good enough to show such detailed letters, but I've requested the team to look into this.
Hopefully, it will be possible soon.

OLPC Nepal Presentation w/ script

2010-06-04T23:51:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

OLPC Nepal Presentation w/ script

View more presentations from One Laptop per Child.

Technology as a Cultural Practice

2010-06-04T23:46:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Technology as a Cultural Practice

View more presentations from Rachel Hinman.

Wikireader: don't take it apart!

2010-03-01T06:12:00.000-08:00

Someone tried to take it apart ....
Below is the post from the mail archive from openmoko community.

As you know (or will know) I took apart my Wikireader to view what lives
inside, and try to add some backlight.
This idea, as great as it can be, revealed to be a REALLY bad idea. The
WR's motherboard is link to the screen by two 'ribbons' conenctors (I
don't know the english name) which are REALLY thin and FRAGILE. I
removed them really carefully, though, the touch screen don't respond
anymore. :-(

I tried to resolder point by point this -really- thin ribbon, but
nothing did the trick....

I'm in relation with the support team at Openmoko, who told me this
device is not designed to be hard-tweaked as the freerunner is. So this
kind of mistake is not covered by the warranty !
So, I just can ask you to avoid opening your WR. (the soft tweak is not
dangerous for the device, as all the system remains on the SD card)

For those who wants, I took some pictures, so if you want to see take a
look  at http://freerunner.daily.free.fr

Installing Windows in Linux

2010-01-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

Uninstalling Wine / Windows Applications from Ubuntu.

2010-01-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

Note that Wine does not fully implement everything required to cleanly uninstall all applications. Some uninstallers might not function at all. To remove all programs installed under Wine, remove the ~/.wine directory:

Please note that in the following commands there should be no spaces in the path, particularly between $HOME/ and .whatever.

rm -rf $HOME/.wine

Also the uninstaller does not remove menu and desktop entries. To remove all Wine-created menu entries run the following commands

rm -f $HOME/.config/menus/applications-merged/wine*
rm -rf $HOME/.local/share/applications/wine
rm -f $HOME/.local/share/desktop-directories/wine*
rm -f $HOME/.local/share/icons/????_*.xpm

Restart panel:
killall gnome-panel

User Experience of Mobile Internet: Analysis and Recommendations

2010-01-12T02:52:00.000-08:00

State of the Mobile Web, November 2009

2010-01-12T02:50:00.000-08:00

Very interesting report about opera mini growth in africa (issues december 2009)
http://www.opera.com/smw/2009/11/

"... The number of Opera Mini users more than doubled — from about 16.4 million in November 2008 to 41.7 million in November 2009. This increase shows that our prediction of accelerated growth of the mobile Web has come true. Rapid growth is evident, not only in developed countries, but also (and especially) in developing parts of the world such as Africa, which is the focus of this month’s geographic spotlight..."

Setting JAVA_HOME in ubuntu

2010-01-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-(your-version)

You can find your JAVA_HOME using the locate command for a file belonging to the JDK.

locate /rt.jar

Installing Tomcat in Ubuntu

2010-01-10T03:01:00.000-08:00

sudo apt-get install tomcat6 tomcat6-admin tomcat6-common tomcat6-user tomcat6-docs tomcat6-examples
This command downloads and install the following packages: -
tomcat6 : Servlet and JSP engine
tomcat6-admin : Admin web applications
tomcat6-common : Common files
tomcat6-user : Tools to create user instances
tomcat6-docs : Example web applications
tomcat6-examples : Example web applications

To start, stop, restart and get the server status: -
Start tomcat server:
sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 start

Stop tomcat server:
sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 stop

Restart tomcat server:
sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

Get tomcat server status:
sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 status

After installation type http://localhost:8080 or http://serverip:8080/examples/servlets/ in your browser.Now you should see tomcat welcome page:

* To enable admin web based features add the following lines to your /etc/tomcat6/tomcat-user.xml

* you should be able to see your manage page here http://your_ip_goes_here:8080/manager/html
* log in with the name and password you just set in /etc/tomcat6/tomcat-users.xml
* ls /var/lib/tomcat6 directory.
* you should see these directories conf, logs, webapps, work
* webapps is where your servlets will go ( or at least a xml file that points to them )
* as a test download this war file http://simple.souther.us/SimpleServlet.war
* then use the tomcat management page and select war file to deploy ( in teh deploy section) to upload this file to your server
* optionally just wget http://simple.souther.us/SimpleServlet.war directly to the webapps folder
* tomcat should recognize the war file and expand it with everything you need
* browse to http://serverip:8080/SimpleServlet/

Change tomcat server to run on port 80
If you want to Change tomcat server to run on port 80 follow this procedure
You need to edit the /etc/tomcat6/server.xml file

nano /etc/tomcat6/server.xml

Now replace the part that says Connector port=”8080? with Connector port=”80?
Save and exit the file

Restart tomcat server with the following command
sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

Ubuntu: Can't locate the file you are looking for?

2010-01-10T02:53:00.000-08:00

Very easy!

Open the terminal and then issue the command as below:

sudo updatedb
locate filename

Offline: Google Gears, Mozilla Prism

2010-01-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

Gears is a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. For example, webmasters can use Gears on their websites to let users access information offline or provide you with content based on your geographical location.

A number of web applications currently make use of Gears, including: Google Reader, Google Docs, Zoho and Remember the Milk.

But to use Gears, you'll need one of the following:

* Microsoft Windows XP or Vista with Firefox 1.5+ or Internet Explorer 6+
* Apple Mac OS X 10.4+ with Firefox 1.5+
* Apple Mac OS X 10.4.11 (or higher) or 10.5.3 (or higher) with Safari 3.1.1
* Linux with Firefox 1.5+
* Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 or higher, with Internet Explorer 4.01+

Prism: - Split web applications out of the browser and run them directly on the desktop.
Prism, previously called WebRunner, is a simple XULRunner based browser that hosts web applications without the normal web browser user interface. It is based on a concept called Site Specific Browsers (SSB).

XULRunner is a single "gecko runtime" that can be used to bootstrap multiple XUL + XPCOM applications that are as rich as Firefox and Thunderbird.

You can easily install both in Ubuntu by running sudo apt-get install command or by using synaptic package manager.

I installed both in my Ubuntu. There was an incompatibility issue....
"Google Gears" could not be installed because it is not compatible with your Prism build type (Linux_x86-gcc3). Please contact the author of this item about the problem.

VPN in Ubuntu.

2009-12-21T09:04:00.000-08:00

If you don’t want to undergo the manual installation and configuration of Cisco VPN or VPNC, then there is a good GUI solution in the form of KVPNC. It’s primarily developed for KDE, but it works well with Ubuntu.

Twitter in Ubuntu

2009-12-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

There are so many to mention:

I use a GTK+ Twitter client - twitux. It display messages in notification, not count of tweets.

gTwitter is another simple GTK+ based application for Linux, designed to interact with Twitter web service.

Gwibber is a microblogging client for GNOME. It supports Twitter, Jaiku, Identi.ca, Facebook, Flickr, Digg and RSS.

Windows in Linux

2009-12-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

PlayOnLinux is a piece of sofware which allows you to easily install and use numerous games and softwares designed to run with Microsoft®'s Windows®.
Few games are compatible with GNU/Linux at the moment and it certainly is a factor preventing the migration to this system. PlayOnLinux brings an accessible and efficient solution to this problem, cost-free and rescpetful of the free softwares.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the interesting points to know:

* You don't have to own a Windows® license to use PlayOnLinux.
* PlayOnLinux is based on Wine, and so profits from all its possibilities yet it keeps the user away from its complexity while exploiting some of its advanced functions.
* PlayOnLinux is a free software.
* PlayOnLinux uses Bash and Python

Nevertheless, PlayOnLinux has some defects, as every piece of software:

* Occasional performances decrease (image may be less fluid and graphics less detailed).
* Not all games are supported. Nevertheless, you can use our manual installation module.

Referencing

2009-12-21T04:07:00.001-08:00

While there are few commercial software, there are also plenty of free referencing software available. Some of the software that I'm aware of are:

Bibus is a bibliographic and reference management software that works well with OpenOffice and Word.

JabRef is an open source bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format. JabRef runs on the Java VM (version 1.5 or newer), and should work equally well on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

KBibTeX is a BibTeX editor for KDE to edit bibliographies used with LaTeX. Features include comfortable input masks, starting web queries (e. g. Google or PubMed) and exporting to PDF, PostScript, RTF and XML/HTML. As KBibTeX is using KDE's KParts technology, KBibTeX can be embedded into Kile or Konqueror.

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.