Dave's Blog

I've alway been a fan of Google from redefining search, the way they revolutionised webmail with Gmail, to Google maps and Google earth. So I was one of the people deeply exited when Google launched Gtalk based on the Jabber/XMPP protocol - rather than re-inventing the wheel used a well established open protocol, rather than a gaed community they created one that could interact with anyone th had a Jabber server. 

Now comes the disapointment - last Friday it seems Google's chat servers stoped talking to other chat server. The causes are not clear - our servers are talking to theirs theirs, but theirs are mute , refusing to talk back.  The problem has been discussed on the Gtalk-open forum, but it appears despite herding people that way on their support forums no one from Google actualy reads the list. As a system administrator I consider it a basic professional courtesey to inform other administrators that their systems appear not to be working. So after working through several pages of useless help information about the Gtalk client I finaly managed to submit a problem to Google and got the obligatory automated response [ref 240328311]. Four days later i actually got a response, problem was it completly missidentified the problem as a google apps problem, since then nothing. Well Google this is not the way to make friends and influence people!

While I'm gripping about commercial chat providers (IM/MSN/yahoo) let me vent my current peeve - most of these service will only allow you to login from one location, a policy that probably made sence in the early 90's, but in todays world just doesn't work. Microsoft why should I get errors when I switch my Xbox on because my computer is on at the same time? Get with the program - XMPPas a protocol has allowed people to log in from mulitiple locations for some time ...

The Cape Town Declaration on Open Education was officialy launched today.  The announment can be found on the OpeningScholarship blog.

The decalration itself can be found at:  http://www.capetowndeclaration.org Give it a read (and sign it if you agree!)

There have been a number of blog posts about the declaration leading up to the release including: Eve Gray, Chris Coppola & James Dalziele.   

Update: for members of UCT who want to see Mark Shutleworth's address it is available here from an on campus URL.