Ghabuntu

 According to Google definitions:

Last Saturday we reposted a news item in which the US is said to have blocked access to Sourceforge and other sites to citizens of Cuba. The story got me thinking and asking lots of questions to myself. Just this evening I came across this post on Axis of Logic titled how the US and Google censor the internet. I found some points raised there quite interesting.

Is it true that a bill was tabled before congress that sought to give the US president absolute power to take over the internet? Why does the US ban access to sites, and not just any sites but open source application sites to citizens of  other countries? Why does Google do same with their code hosting service Google Code? I find it very funny and ironic when the kettle tells the pot how black it looks!

Google seems to have succeeded in all of its endeavors except for social media. Its most recent attempt was with Google Wave which in all honesty, is very crappy and not so intuitive, at least in my view. All may be about to change, thanks to Google's plan to integrate status updates-like services into Gmail.

If there is one service of which Google is jealous, then it is Facebook. It seems no matter how hard Google tried in the past, it never succeeded at beating the 25 year Zuckerberg. However, I think what has prompted Google to take a preemptive action is the fact that Facebook is actually in the process of launching a full featured webmail service.

Gmail no doubt is the most intuitive webmail service on the planet, but to have the most popular social media service make an incursion into Google's arena would very interesting. What I am wondering is how come Google with all its clout is yet to make any meaningful impact in the social media arena?

How come we've got services like Twitter and Facebook suddenly zoom past Google leaving the latter in the dust? This new service that Google is planning to implement in Gmail will be a welcome news if only it will actually like more like an aggregator for my other social media services. 

It would be interesting to see how this turns out. Orkut and Google Wave in recent past have proven that Google seems to be clueless about when it comes to social media. Is that about to change? One can only wonder and wait?

Over the past two weeks, I've been working to organize a CrisisCamp in Calgary.  It was the 1 of 4 happening in Canada this weekend.  Based on Barcamp, the focus was on solutions to aid the NGO"s and responders on the ground in Haiti. The code base is all open source and can be modified for other disasters that may occur globally.

Several CrisisCamp events have taken place globally since the quake hit Haiti on Jan 12th. Volunteers in cities across North America, Bogota in Colombia, and London, UK have coded solutions directly requested by non governmental organizations (NGOs) on the ground, all via a website submission page. Visit CrisisCommon for further insight

Yesterday, Feb 6th, we had a moderate but productive turnout for our first CrisisCamp.  Lucky for me I had 2 project managers volunteer who helped with narrowing down the scope of projects we wanted to present to the group based on their skill sets.  We presented what we felt were the most viable and active projects (5 technical & 3 non-technical) to the group during our 'All Hands on Deck' planning session.  We were able to quickly select 5 projects that resonated with individuals and which fit their skill set.

Throughout the day we liaised with other cities who were also working on the projects, to obtain access to the source code, setup permissions, basecamp accounts, check in with project leads etc.

The projects that our group chose to contribute our time and code to included:

Haiti Hospital Capacity Finder - Kapab MedNet Situational Awareness Tool  http://haiti.opensgi.net/mednet/  which required python development

Translating OpenStreet Map documentation into French

Haiti Schools Situational Awareness Tool - built a prototype webapp in groovy/grails to capture and display data

Disaster Accountability Public Database - http://www.reliefoversight.org/  - updated database info & may contribute future Drupal coding

Field Voices - requested by Plan Canada,a  team developed a java based web app to enable donors to see progess of construction projects in Haiti

An overview of all the projects submitted to CrisisCommons can be seen here: http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Projects

At the end of the day, everyone felt they had made a significant contribution and would consider coming out for another CrisicCamp.  We have planned a second camp for Feb 20th.

On a final note, it was great to collaborate on projects with people in different locations via Skype & IRC.  I feel that efforts such as these truly exemplify the spirit of open source development, and look forward to playing an ongoing role in CrisisCommon.

Cheers for now

Darlene Parker.