Owen abroad

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Bizarrely, the BBC online magazine has an excellent article on “The problem with PowerPoint” with some tips for giving presentations that many people in the development business and in government would do well to heed.  Here is the main point, as far as I am concerned:

… all too often the slides are verbal crutches for the speaker, not visual aids for the audience.

The BBC reports Gordon Brown’s speech at the TED conference today:

The power of technology – such as blogs – meant that the world could no longer be run by “elites”, Mr Brown said.

Policies must instead be formed by listening to the opinions of people “who are blogging and communicating with people around the world”, he said.

Mr Brown’s comments came during a surprise appearance at TED Global.

“That in my view gives us the first opportunity as a community to fundamentally change the world,” he told the TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference.

“Foreign Policy can never be the same again.”

I agree with that.  I’m very proud of my team’s work to develop and promote open data standards for aid and other resources for poverty reduction, to enable everyone in the world to engage on how resources for poverty reduction are used.   It ensures that the world is not run by elites, whether in developing countries or donors.

If you are a geek who is into development, and you are somewhere near Washington DC, you are going to want to come to the International Development Data Barcamp.  In fact, even if you are not near DC you may want to come – I’m flying all the way from Ethiopia for it. Here’s the blurb:

There are a number of emerging activities focusing on improving the transparency of aid and allowing organizations, projects, researchers, practitioners, and clients in developing countries to have improved access to aid information, data on outcomes, knowledge, and tools. We are getting closer to the day when anyone can easily determine who is doing what, where they are doing it, what they have learned, and who is funding them. Come join a group of interested organizations to brainstorm about how to advance the conversation about making aid more transparent, improving access to data, and making knowledge and tools related to development easier to find on the internet.

Sign up here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/366214357

Forgive the puff for my day job – aidinfo works to make aid more transparent and accountable.

Our web guy has done a great job on our website: http://www.aidinfo.org.

Also you can subscribe to our RSS feed.

My day job is leading the aidinfo team working to improve the transparency of international aid. Why? Because we think that when aid is more transparent it will be more effectively used and it will help people in developing countries to hold their governments to account. We also believe that if taxpayers can see where aid is really going, and see what a difference it makes, they will support more of it.

So I was dead pleased to see this by David Cameron in today’s Guardian

Transparency tears down the hiding places for sleaze, overspending and corruption. Soon enough all MPs’ expenses are going to be published online for ­everyone to see: I and the rest of the shadow cabinet are already doing it. And if we win the next election, we’re going to do the same for all other public servants earning over £150,000. Just imagine the effect that an army of armchair auditors is going to have on those expense claims.

Indeed, the promise of public scrutiny is going to have a powerful effect on over-spending of any variety. A Conservative government will put all national spending over £25,000 online for everyone to see, so citizens can hold the government to account for how their tax money is being spent. And we will extend this principle of transparency to every nook and cranny of politics and public life, because it’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to transfer power to the powerless and prevent waste, exploitation and abuse.

Yes, yes, and thrice yes, as Mark Kermode would say.

What’s more, with current technologies, we can do this quite easily, and unleash the creative power not only of armchair auditors, but of millions of people who are not in armchairs but are directly experiencing the effects of that spending and who can help us to understand what is working and how it can be made to work better.

A friend visiting from the UK brought a CD-ROM with the new version of Ubuntu Linux.  Those of you with better bandwidth than we have got in Ethiopia (which would be pretty much everyone) can download it here. And another friend brought over a 1TB hard disk (that is 1,000 Gb) for my Shuttle XPC computer.

So I fitted the hard disk (which took about 30 seconds), stuck the Ubuntu CD in the drive, and the install was going nicely until about 54% of the way through, when I got this error message :

[Errno 5] Input/output error

This particular error is often due to a faulty CD/DVD disk or drive, or a faulty hard disk. It may help to clean the CD/DVD, to burn the CD/DVD at a lower speed, to clean the CD/DVD drive lens (cleaning kits are often available from electronics suppliers), to check whether the hard disk is old and in need of replacement, or to move the system to a cooler environment.

I tried again; tried a different copy of the install CD (my friend had helpfully brought two copies); and tried installing from the Live CD.  Nothing worked.   So, on a hunch, I tried removing all but one of the RAM sticks in my PC (I have 4GB of RAM).  With only one RAM stick, the install worked perfectly.  I then reinstalled the RAM and rebooted.

I then followed these instructions to install additional software that I wanted.

First impressions: I much prefer the look and feel of Ubuntu to Windows.  I enjoy the combination of simplicity and ease of use, with the knowledge that there is power under the hood to do what I want.   I am in complete control, with no digital rights management restrictions trying to stop me from doing what I want.

Ubuntu is normally very easy to install and use. It is disappointing that there seems to be a problem with the installation programme for Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 – I guess a lot of people would be put off by having to remove the memory chips from their PC, so I hope it is fixed soon.

Because I now have two hard disks, I’ve kept the old version (Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn) on the old disk for now.   Ubuntu is smart enough to configure my PC to give me an option at boot time to decide which version I want to use.  So I can easily go back if there is something I don’t like in the new version.

Awesome awkward photos.

Here is a job I might have applied for if I were in London: Director of Digital Engagement:

Develop a strategy and implementation plan for extending digital engagement across Government

But I’m quite glad not to be eligible. Here are some phrases from the job description that should give pause for thought to anyone with experience of Government:

… You will manage a small team, directly, but will have to manage relationships with a wide group of senior officials across Government. This will require developing working arrangements in which departmental officials feel they are accountable to the Head of Digital Engagement without the benefit of a formal line management arrangement…..

… you will have to develop these relationships from scratch in a pressured environment in which Ministerial expectations of delivery are high.

… You will have a small budget

… Within two years the use of world class digital engagement techniques should be embedded in the normal work of Government

Or, in plain English, the post will have no staff, no budget, no power, and yet Ministers expect you to see to it that within two years the UK Government will make world class use of digital engagement.

Good luck to whoever gets this job!

• Ngaire Woods on what Africa needs from the G20
• Bill Easterly’s new AidWatch blog
• The Global Crisis Debate in the run up to the G20 (moderated by Dani Rodrik)
• Simon Maxwell’s reflections on Davos

The Economist has a stupid article, Managing the Facebookers which claims that the net generation will suffer int he recession:

Once again, the touchy-feely management fads that always spring up in years of plenty (remember the guff about “the search for meaning” and “the importance of brand me”) are being ditched in favour of more brutal command-and-control methods. Having grown up in good times, Net Geners have laboured under the illusion that the world owed them a living. But hopping between jobs to find one that meets your inner spiritual needs is not so easy when there are no jobs to hop to. And as for that sabbatical: here’s a permanent one, sunshine.

The article is unencumbered by evidence: it reads more like wishful thinking by some curmudgeonly old hack who resents the rise of younger, smarter, better connected and more self-confident rivals.

It is quite plausible that the exact opposite might happen and that the economic upheaval will accelerate trends in the workplace towards the tools and attitudes of the Net Generation.  It seems to be the industry dinosaurs that are going bust (think General Motors and Woolworths) not the new economy (Amazon is doing well).  At a time of belt-tightening and rapid change, there will be a premium for people who can collaborate effectively, are comfortable working in teams and multi-tasking, and able to adapt rapidly to new ways of working. 

Maybe the cosh is actually hovering over the gnarly old bosses who have resisted change for the last decade, not the facebook generation?

Spare a thought for those of us trying to use the internet in Ethiopia.

It isn’t great at the best of times.  When it went down during the rainy season I rang technical support and was told that “the firewall has flooded”.  Apparently there is a single computer through which the entire nation’s traffic passes (or, that day, doesn’t pass).  The authorities block some websites (including blogspot.com, nazret.com, and skype.com) though they say they don’t, and they block Skype.  The bandwidth is always limited, but it is also frustrtingly unpredictable. Some days it will be OK, others terrible.  

According to internet world statistics, there are just 300 broadband internet users (as of March 2008) in Ethiopia; and fewer than 300,000 internet subscribers in total.

And now this:

Internet and telephone traffic between the Middle East and Europe will continue to be disrupted until Jan. 4 after a repaired submarine cable in the Mediterranean Sea suffered more damage, France Telecom SA said.

We’ve had very limited internet since December 19th, when the three underwater cables linking Egypt to Europe were cut by an ship’s anchor.  Apparently it was working on December 24th and 25th (I was away from Addis) when it was damaged again by an underwater earthquake.  

Let’s hope that things get better from January 4th.

Jeremy Gould, one of the few civil servants who “gets” the internet, is leaving to spend more time with his family.

I’ve been scouting around for a new challenge in Whitehall for a long time now but the truth is that beyond building and managing corporate websites, those roles don’t exist. There’s been a lot of talk over the last four years of how more senior strategic web roles are inevitable, but in that time its been just talk. So there was no next move for me.

It isn’t a good sign that people leave the civil service partly because it is so frustrating to be an advocate of change.  On the positive side, things are starting to change – mainly in local government rather than central government – but the UK Government is miles behind where we could be.  Jeremy also describes the way that he was discouraged from blogging, which is worrying.

Dave and Simon both highlight the significance of Jeremy’s departure.

The internet has been running very slowly in Ethiopia for most of the past week. This may be caused by congestion, or possibly by the cable that was severed near Egypt on Thursday.

But I’ve been able to get online this morning, so I took the opportunity to upgrade my website. I’m now using WordPress 2.7 for all the pages (instead of using PHP pages for static pages and WordPress for this blog).  That means, for example, that it is possible to add comments to almost any page on the website, and that site-wide search works.

I’ve also changed the design of the site in the hope that it looks more modern.  (I see now that the graphics which look good in Firefox look pretty ropey in Internet Explorer, so I’ll try to fix that later).

I encountered one technical problem during the updated.  When I tried to log in to the upgraded site, I got this message:

You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.

If you get this problem, the solution is below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

Serious flaw in Internet Explorer not fixed yet (according to AP):

Users of all current versions of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked because of a serious security hole in the software that had yet to be fixed Monday.

Seriously, people: if you are still using internet explorer, please take a moment right now to install firefox instead, for your sake as well as all of ours.

One key problem with Microsoft Internet Explorer is that it is “closed” – only Microsoft employees can see the code.  Firefox is open source – so any mistakes like these can be identified and fixed long before they do any harm.

Update (Tuesday afternoon): Microsoft, to its credit, is going to issue a patch tomorrow.

If you have Google Alerts for your own name, or your company or website, you can now get your alert by RSS not just email:

Until now, alerts have been delivered via email only, but those days are over. Now your News, Web, Blog, Video, and Groups alerts are more easily accessible than ever.

A deceptively small, but rather important, announcement.

I know a few people who would benefit from reading: David Pogue’s Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User.

As usual, don’t neglect the comments which include some other top tips.

Sadly, most of the people who would benefit from these tips don’t read blogs, so they won’t be reading this.

Dan Kimmerling on Techcrunch says that Facebook is the new Outlook for the younger generation

for young people, who really only care about functionality, Facebook succeeds because it is the killer web application for communications and personal information management. Facebook Mail is not without its problems, but the combination of Facebook Mail, Facebook Chat, and what is functionally an auto updating address book, makes Facebook into the new Outlook not only for those who are inside of Silicon Valley, but for anyone of the millions of people who use Facebook as either their sole or their primary digital identity.

What I find interesting is that I know plenty of older people (ie of my generation and older) who have never used Facebook or Myspace, and plenty of younger people (ie younger than me) who never use email.

For people leaving university today, email is like carbon paper – it was used by their parents, and perhaps it is still used in a quaint way by their bank or tax office.

Meanwhile the people who run government departments in the UK, and who run private firms, reckon they are hip and down with the kids if they answer their own emails.

The Cabinet Office has now published guidance for civil servants for blogging and participation in online sites.

How the Civil Service Code applies to online participation

The Civil Service Code applies to your participation online as a civil servant or when discussing government business. You should participate in the same way as you would with other media or public forums such as speaking at conferences.

Disclose your position as a representative of your department or agency unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as a potential threat to personal security. Never give out personal details like home address and phone numbers.

Always remember that participation online results in your comments being permanently available and open to being republished in other media. Stay within the legal framework and be aware that libel, defamation, copyright and data protection laws apply. This means that you should not disclose information, make commitments or engage in activities on behalf of Government unless you are authorised to do so. This authority may already be delegated or may be explicitly granted depending on your organisation.

Also be aware that this may attract media interest in you as an individual, so proceed with care whether you are participating in an official or a personal capacity. If you have any doubts, take advice from your line manager.

Good luck to civil servants as they try to implement this. I had rather a torrid time when the Mail on Sunday chose to attack me for my previous blog.

Simon Dickson has more.

G and I both ran the London Marathon yesterday, on a beautiful warm day.  G had a good run – starting at a sensible pace, running even splits, and finishing in 3:28:01.  I ran like an idiot – going off way too fast at the start, and (inevitably) hobbling home after my wheels came off at about 18 miles, for a total time of 3:04:09.

I learned some lessons again that I should have learned before:

• You can’t run a marathon well without training for it.   G and I both relied on our background fitness. But really we needed a tailored combination of long runs, speedwork, aerobic fitness, and strength.  Getting the right mixture is much more important than running in the park every day.
• If you go off too fast at the start, you will pay for it later.  It is much better to go off slowly and then speed up.  It is claimed that every 10 seconds a mile you run too fast in the first half will cost you a minute a mile in the second half.  And it is much more fun to be overtaking people in the last ten miles than to be overtaken.
• You can’t run as fast when it is hot.
• You’ll go through some rough patches in any marathon.  Don’t quit: they will pass.  I had a stitch twice, and several segments when I had to walk, and I still ran fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

The head of evaluation at the World Bank writing in the Guardian blog about the effectiveness of aid:

For donors, this means going beyond the push for free-standing projects and the tracking of individual project successes, to supporting better coordination and linkages. For developing countries, it means being in the driver’s seat in recognizing and capitalizing on the most important synergies that additional financing from multiple donors can bring.