The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (https://www.ttcs.tt) will be having a online call on Thursday May 21 2020 at 8pm to discuss the possibility of refurbishing computers.
Refurbishing computers is the repairing and restoring of (usually old) computers to a ‘like new’ condition for reuse.
2020 Call for Code Global Challenge takes on climate change
RSC and Caribbean Girls Hack will be having a webinar on Thursday May 14 2020 at 7pm (local time in Trinidad and Tobago) with guest speaker Shari Chiara, COO of IBM’s Call for Code to talk about Call for Code 2020 initiative and to spur Caribbean developers/innovators to create and submit applications that impact humanitarian issues.
What is #CallforCode ? As the Call for Code website states:
Call for Code asks innovators to create practical, effective, and high-quality applications based on one or more IBM Cloud™ services (for example, web, mobile, data, analytics, AI, IoT, or weather) that can have an immediate and lasting impact on humanitarian issues. Teams of developers, data scientists, designers, business analysts, subject matter experts and more are challenged to build solutions to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and climate change. This year the competition will have two tracks. One track is for solutions that help halt and reverse the impact of climate change. The second track is for solutions to mitigate the impact of global pandemics like COVID-19 on communities around the world. Winning solutions are deployed in communities that need the most help.
The Trinidad and Tobago Government launches a dedicated #COVID19 website for all official COVID-19 News and Updates at https://www.covid19.gov.tt/
Trinidad and Tobago new COVID-19 website at https://www.covid19.gov.tt/
The web site (which looks to be built on WordPress) features all of the COVID19 updates issued by the Ministry of Health as PDF files.
Previously, updates were shared via social media as image files and there was typically a delay before such updates were posted on the Ministry of Health’s website at http://www.health.gov.tt/sitepages/default.aspx?id=292 and then only the last update as a image file.
Ministry of Health’s website section on #COVID19
The new https://www.covid19.gov.tt/ website also supports RSS feeds so persons no longer have to be on social media to keep up to date.
You can browse TTCS OSSWIN online at http://ttcsosswin.ttcs.tt/ which features the web interface to learn about Free and Open Source programs in various categories, including screenshots or videos of the programs and a link to the program’s website where you can download the program. The web based UI is responsive, meaning it should be usable on non-Windows small screen mobile phones and tablets.
Download TTCS OSSWIN
You can download the entire collection of TTCS OSSWIN as a 7GB file for extracting to your harddrive or USB storage device (or burn on a DVD). The TTCS OSSWIN collection provides a link to install the software directly and in the case of a program providing 32 bit and 64 bit versions installers, TTCS OSSWIN attempts to autodetect whether you are running 64 bit Windows and presents that installer first. The web interface and all screenshots and videos are included in the collection so that you can browse and install software on a Windows computer without internet access.
Developing a a card like UI (similiar to the current theme of the TTCS website) for the selection of programs in the various categories using best practices in HTML5 and CSS. Still some tweaks to do, but this was a key change
Updating the text descriptions of programs. The goal is to strive to describe in the simplest of terms possible what the programs does and to answer “why should I try the program”
Replacing static photos with videos of the programs in action.
Find Free and Open Source Software for Windows that is useful and easy to use. The curated list of software in TTCS OSSWIN is an attempt to list what is considered the “best” in ease of use and functionality and not to include dozens of programs that do the same thing.
If you’re interested in assisting with this work or want to give comments and feedback, then send a email to [email protected] .
Whatsapp has announced that users can only forward messages to one chat at a time. Previously, messages could only be forwarded to 5 chats at once. The change was announced on Whatsapp’s blog post “Keeping WhatsApp Personal and Private” on April 7 2019.
From the blog post :
“Last year we introduced users to the concept of messages that have been forwarded many times. These messages are labeled with double arrows to indicate they did not originate from a close contact. In effect, these messages are less personal compared to typical messages sent on WhatsApp. We are now introducing a limit so that these messages can only be forwarded to one chat at a time…..Is all forwarding bad? Certainly not. However, we’ve seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have told us can feel overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation. We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation.
This change should appear soon. In Trinidad and Tobago, there are many messages being forwarded to Whatsapp chats. And unfortunately, lots of misinformation related to #COVID19.
Filmmaker Gary Hustwit is streaming his documentaries free worldwide during the global COVID crisis. Each week we’ll be posting another film here. We hope you enjoy them, and please stay strong.
https://www.ohyouprettythings.com/free
Available at https://www.ohyouprettythings.com/free is “Helvetica” a 2007 documentary (80 minutes) “..about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.”
Cambridge University Press is making higher education textbooks on its Cambridge Core program free to access online through May 2020 due to Covid-19. You can browse the more than 700 books available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/textbooks
English Language Teaching, in partnership with colleagues at Cambridge Assessment English, are producing free, online content for teachers and learners. Our World of Better Learning blog is supporting distance learning for those whose schools have been closed. Daily blogs with text, audio and video content focus on different aspects of online teaching and we are making our content accessible to the maximum number of people possible.
There is also a Bighter Thinking Blog at https://www.cambridge.org/gs/education/blog offering tips and advice from teachers who have been affected and guidance for those facing or experiencing school closures. So this also could be a useful resource for educators and parents looking to educate their kids at home during this period.
In a tweet on March 14 2020, Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness announced that all Jamaican government websites were zero-rated (meaning that such websites can be accessed without a data plan) due to the COVID-19 situation in Jamaica.
In response to TATT’s question #5 : “Should ISPs be permitted to employ marketing strategies (such as zero-rated pricing) through partnerships with content providers?”
“No. This is a violation of net neutrality principles and provides advantages to large, well funded corporations (at the expense of smaller, innovative startups). For example, by Digicel zero rating Loop TT (http://www.looptt.com/), Digicel gives Loop TT an advantage over other local news media (newspapers, radios) as Digicel users do not pay to access Loop TT but are charged to access other news media sites.
Zero rating negatively impacts on the likelihood that future innovations can survive to grow into useful services. Imagine if Altavista has approached ISPs in the mid 1990s to zero rate their search platform ; Google would have unlikely to been able to get acceptance. Or if Myspace has approached ISPs in the mid-2000s to zero rate their Myspace social network, Facebook might not have been able to survive. Zero rating of commercial traffic should be prohibited.
However, perhaps we can have a discussion on zero rating on nonpolitical public services – such as government websites (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education for example).
Perhaps we need a zero rating tribunal where applications by ISPs to zero rate certain content are decided by a panel convened and managed by the regulator who use a clear rubric and transparent process to determine on a case by case basis what should be zero rated based on guidelines such as that from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) at https://berec.europa.eu/eng/netneutrality/zero_rating/. Such applications for zero rating should allow for public disclosure and public comment.In this model, ISPs should not be allowed to zero rate traffic unilaterally until such applications are submitted and approved.”
The video mentions that you can clean Apple iPhone with 70% isopropyl alcohol wipes – you can read more on Apple’s “Cleaning your iPhone” page at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207123
