Its been a while, Hello Again

Vukosi Marivate — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:52:03 +0000

Its been a while since the last post. A little over a month now. What has changed. Everything!!! Okay maybe not everything but a month has gone by so you can get the meaning. Things move too fast when you have a lot to do. Work is great (yes I used the word), how can working at the CSIR not be interesting, and life just goes on. The small little things that I have been doing just to keep sane are sometimes fun, sometimes whimsy. I am working now on my last contribution to the Knockando website. Its been a labour of love but the time has finally come I guess will talk about that later. This is also my last month on the Wits Post Graduate Association. I applaud my colleagues(Especially our chair lady) who are on the committee for all they have done in the last year. It has been tough. There simply is too much to do. I appreciate the opportunity given to me and I have learnt a lot from it.

I now also work for Alumni Affairs office at the University of the Witwatersrand (Its like I dont want to leave this place, isnt it). I work on their social networking strategy. My job description is to look for new ways to increase the contact between Wits Alumni and the University. I am using this as an opportunity to work on multi social-network synchronised networks (if that makes sense). Ohh by the way wits has a new Deputy Vice Chancellor of Knowledge and Information Management. That will become important in the future, here is his blog. So back to alumni affairs. Here are a few things that I am directly thinking about or doing. We started a Flickr account(link) (moved to Pro) and now have a wits group on flickr(link). This is then connected to the Wits fan page. Now looking at LinkedIn and how we can move on from there. Maybe Twitter. The goal is to get alumni to interact but to also update their information on the main Wits Alumni website. This is gold in the business.

Now back to the Knockando website. For my final act I am putting together one big thing. That will be revealed when it goes live soon. What is new and coming before final:

Update Knockando Website

New design (it uses tables – all web developers hate me, but there is nothing I could do, wits CMS sucks)
Old website (pre 2006 will be available for download)
Website version 2 and 3 (2006 – late 2007) will be available for download
More emphasis on web 2.0 technology intergration, just check out the front page
More off CMS updating features

Again with this one its been only a pleasure. I hope to hand over the development to others who will take it to new heights. I can proudly say that on 19 March 2009 I reached the goal of making the most dynamic res website in the country given all of the limitations by the institution I think it worked out.

In tech news. Iphone 3.0 software was announced. Yay copy and paste is on the way. Maybe now I can think of buying one them smartphones. Others, Windows 7 continues to be a solid performer. I have thrown things at it that Vista has just failed to do. I am impressed. I cant wait to upgrade now. I moved to Linux Mint 6.0. Its been pleasant. I also upgraded a late 2005 Mac Mini to OS X leopard (Uggggggggggggg) thats all Ill say. The next post will be later than sooner I guess.

Beyond Today » Alumni

Its been a while, Hello Again