reinvention

from blogger:reinvention

Again, after so long, another post. Since the last post, I have been working as a geek (mainly as system administrator) and have not had much “creative” or “artistic” stuff to write about. I have also been very busy with two new young children — Andres and Alejandrina — which has not left me much time to do anything else outside of work and parenting.

I could have written about geek things, or about parentig things, but as I said in my last post, blogging is a bit hard for me.

from bramilo.weblogs.com

After the ouster of Joseph Estrada as President by another People Power Revolution (aka EDSA 2) in January 2001, one of the comments that circulated was that he was the first President to be overthrown by text messaging.

Text messaging, or simply “text” as it is referred to in the Philippines, is SMS (Short Message Service) that is available on digital cellular (mobile) telephones. With SMS, you can send messages of up to 160 characters to other SMS-enabled mobile telephones. Messages are input using the phone’s key pad then sent through a message centre number (allocated by the service provider) to the specified phone number. Depending on the load of message centres and cellular phone networks, the message can arrive almost instantly or the next day (although messages usually arrive within a few seconds). The technology has been around for a number of years along with the GSM digital cellular telephone service.

SMS is very popular in the Philippines — reputedly “the text capital of the world” — to the extent that it has been credited with an important role in the EDSA 2 revolution. I had a taste of the power of text while I was in Manila observing the events of EDSA unfold. I brought my mobile telephone along and, with a SIM card borrowed from my brother-in-law, was initiated into text. I got messages from my sister (and others) about what has happening at EDSA (my sister and her family were on site), and we were coordinating possible meetings at EDSA through text. From reports in the local media, the build-up of protestors at EDSA and other places in Metro Manila (and other cities) was facilitated by messages indicating actions (e.g. noise barrages, motorcades, demonstrations) as well as time and place for events.

Texting (and voice calls) on mobile phones were so popular in fact during the EDSA revolution that the cellular network failed to cope at the height of the actions at EDSA. At a talk show shortly after the EDSA events, executives of the two largest cellular telephone services (Smart and Globe) admitted that the networks were so congested that calls and SMS messages simply could not get through. A friend who was trying to use his phone at the EDSA Shrine (the main venue for the protests) confirmed that his phone was useless a lot of the time as the networks were unavailable.

After the EDSA revolution, I got to use “text” a lot more through the remainder of my stay in the Philippines. I used SMS to organise appointments and to keep in touch with family and friends while I was in Manila and in Cebu. I even managed to get help (from my sister) in rebooking flights from Cebu to Manila using text. I also used it to liaise with my lawyer who was attending to some legal stuff (hearing dates, etc.) for me.

I also learned a bit more about texting in the local media; one ad that grabbed me was for a service that allowed mobile phone users to pay for and receive goods from a vending machine using SMS: you send a message to the company that operates the vending machine that places your request for the goods and confirms your payment then the good (e.g. soft drink can) is dispensed. I’m not sure if you need to have an account with the vending machine operators or if the phone company acts as go-between and charges you for the goods on your bill as I didn’t manage to check up on the ad. The point is that SMS is being used in many ways in the Philippines.

By the end of my stay (third week of February), I was a text convert and a bit more competent with punching in characters (you get 160 maximum with SMS) using the phone’s key pad. Even my wife expressed a desire to use SMS when we got back to Darwin — it turns out she rarely used her mobile in Darwin because of the brain cancer scare associated with using mobiles, and she reckoned using SMS would be better as the handset is sway from your head when you input and read SMS messages.

Why the popularity of Texting in the Philippines?

SMS is a technology that is about 5 years old but SMS usage exploded in the Philippines only the last two years. One explanation is that it is a relatively accessible and cheap medium for mobile communications.

Mobile phones are everywhere in the Philippines and, supposedly, people from all walks of life use them (including janitors and taxi drivers and other working class people, I have been told). I’ve seen people in shopping malls, restaurants, public transport, on the street even staring at their phones and punching away everywhere. I’ve grown accustomed to the telltale beeps of incoming messages in all places, including churches during Mass. Jokes circulate about people sitting at the same table in restaurants texting away, sending text messages to each other.

Mobiles are very popular because for many people who want a telephone service, it is much easier to get a mobile than a landline service — land line telephones are notoriously difficult to get in the Philippines, with some potential subscribers having to wait for months or years to have a line installed. With mobiles, you get connected in minutes. While mobile telephone itself and the service charges are more expensive than for landline equivalents, the ease of connection has expedited the huge adoption of mobile telephones everywhere.

Most mobile phones in the Philippines are digital (specifically GSM) and are thus SMS-capable. When SMS was first promoted by the telcos, it was free. The boom in usage and popularity of this free service surprised even the telcos, so much so that they eventually charged one peso a message to regulate usage (that is, to discourage abuse of the service). But even with the one peso charge per message, it was reported that as at January 2001, there were about 14 million messages being processed everyday in the Philippines. A peso a message is much cheaper than the 8 pesos a minute that some telcos charge for voice calls; hence the tendency for mobile telephone users to use SMS rather than voice.

SMS is Good (and Bad)

There are of course critics of this texting revolution and some criticism is legitimate, especially in relation to the sending of jokes and useless information, not unlike the abuse of email to send useless messages or to spam. But as I said, I am now a texting convert after some weeks of seeing the possibilities of using SMS for a wide range of purposes (including the sending of jokes, although I will not do that I think as I have yet to send a joke via email). I was so hooked by this text thing that one of the first things I did on my return to Darwin in February was to upgrade my crappy Alcatel One Touch (which displayed only two lines of text) to a Nokia 6210 (with SMS, WAP, Infrared, etc.) as well as upgrading my wife’s phone to a Nokia 3310 so we could text our love for each other (as well as organise our daily movements and other things).

I write more about texting, SMS, and other intersections between the net and mobile telephony in “SMS, WAP, and the IT&T convergence”.

from bramilo.weblogs.com
Posted by Christian Ramilo, 4/1/01 at 1:18:16 AM.

Web logging is also known as “blogging.” It has been described as “push button publishing” (http://www.blogger.com) because of the simplicity and directness with which web sites can be created and maintained through web browsers and web logging facilities provided by such sites as blogger.com. Blogging can indeed be as simple as “push button publishing” as blogging sites offer templates, WYSIWYG input and editing, linking through shortcuts, easy to set up discussion groups, and other automated publishing mechanisms which dn’t require users to know HTML and other technical web things.

The simplest blogging operation involves setting up the web log (blog) using push-button and menu-driven mechanisms, typing in a posting/message/story, clicking on the publish button, and your material is uploaded to your own blog site. In its simplest form, it is an online log book or journal accessed through any web browser, which allows bloggers to write and publish on the web when the urge hits them (as some of the promotional copy says).

Blogging has also been described as “content management for the rest of us” (http://manila.userland.com). Content management systems allow users to focus on the creation of content (ideas, text, image, etc.) individually or collaboratively, and to publish content directly, with the “content management system” taking care of the technical aspects of page and site design, uploading, maintenance, etc. Users then would not need to know HTML or any other web application other than a browser as web-based content management systems — which include Blogger and Manila — handles the other background technical stuff.

While the ability to create sites using templates, to edit pages, and update content through web browsers has been offered by several services (e.g. Geocities, Tripod, Angelfire) before “content management systems,” the difference lies in the utter simplicity and directness of publishing through blogs. With other systems, users will still need to know some HTML and be familiar with some technical aspects of the web and the net (e.g. ftp, hyperlink syntax) to sort out design, formatting, editing, uploading, downloading, and other usual web maintenance tasks.

Also, collaborative aspects such as discussion lists (with email lists) and collaborative page editing were add-ons (or complicated operations) rather than built-in features; these discussion and collaborative facilities are part and parcel of blogs (if blog owners wish to use them, that is).

Content management systems can be more complicated and much more expensive than what Blogger and Manila offer, although both these applications are extensible if users wish to customise their blogs through scripting and interfacing with databases. The main idea behind content management systems is, however, captured by bloggers, albeit at the lower end of things (hence the claim that it is “for the rest of us.”).

Blogger

Blogger is one of the original and probably the most popular blogging facilities on the web.

To create blogs with Blogger, you must register at their site. After registration you can create blogs — as you are not limited to one blog, you can create various ones on various themes or topics. On logging into Blogger, you will be presented with a menu of your own blogs as well as other blogs linked to Blogger.

Blogger provides browser-based editing, thus there’s no need for dedicated web page or web site development packages. You can also have “Team” members, or other registered users whom you allow to comment on your pages or co-edit your site. Blogger also provides templates for simple blogs but offers strong customisation capabilities through scripting and linking to applications such as Cold Fusion (a powerful online database application).

Blogs can be hosted on Blogger’s own servers; there is no charge for hosting but your blog will feature advertising from Blogger and its partners/advertisers. Alternatively, blogs can be hosted on users’ own web sites; Blogger will publish to your own site through ftp (so you must know your ftp details such as ftp address, user name, and password).

Manila

Manila, as described by its creators Userland, “is an Internet server application that allows groups of writers, designers and graphics people to manage full-featured, high performance Web sites through an easy-to-use browser interface.”

Manila is included as part of the UserLand Frontier content management system, a commercial product for Windows and Macintosh. Frontier is itself apowerful scripting and web development application that is used by many ISPs. You can run your own Manila server (if you purchase Frontier), or you can set up a Manila site hosted by Manila service providers such as Weblogs, Weblogger, and Manilasites.

Manila’s key features include: browser-based editing, with “Edit this Page buttons” that allow you to instantly edit your web/blog pages; site membership; a simple publishing model, managing editor, contributing editors, members; discussion group facilities; link management through shortcuts; email notification of new stories or edits; and customization thru templates, navigation, CSS, JavaScript.

Manila maintains that in its system, “content is separated from form, designers edit templates, while writers independently create stories, photographers and artists place pictures. The site template can change without updating any content.”