Wesley's Blog

Birthday Party

2010-08-30T01:58:00.000-07:00

I did my first birthday party shoot over the weekend for my 1 year niece. Needless to say this is a tiring affair. I have been at a number these parties but this is the first time I was *told* that I was the official photographer. So my mindset had to changed from sitting and eating all the food and laughing at everyone else to have to be more involved having to interact more with the kids. I also had to quickly learn how to anticipate what these kids are about to do and prepare for it. I was a good experience in the end though and would surely do it again. Here are some of my pics. [No photos of kids as I did not get permission to put them online]

Portrait Session

2010-08-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

I was playing with trying to get some decent portrait shots. I used by beautiful wife Sue as a model. I used my Nikon D90 with a 18-105mm lens and SB600 off camera flash gun. I was trying to get a low key portrait shot. So I put the camera on a tripod and setup the flash to work with its wireless settings and this was the result. This was the 2nd shot I took.

Wanna be Photographer

2010-08-25T03:01:00.000-07:00

I was always interested in photography from a young age but with with so much going on in ones life things like these then to be put on side line. I was your normal point-and-shoot (PAS) photographer using [you guessed it] a PAS camera and my mobile phone's camera as my equipment about a year and a bit ago.

When a buddy of mine purchased his first DSLR, albeit an entry level one, I was amazed at the kinds of things one can do having some decent equipment and some photographic skills. So I convince the government(wife) that this is something that we cant live without :) . When she saw the kinds of photos that can be taken with these things, it didn't take much convincing. I managed to purchase my first DSLR as well as some accessories and lenses and was ready to play.

After a few months I am at a point where I am being asked to take photos for weddings and other event. As I am still on a steep learning curve, I am making this a journey and see what it would bring. I have included my Flickr widget somewhere on this page which shows some recent photos. Here are some of the favorites:

Check out my Flickr photo stream

Instant Messaging Robots

2009-12-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

I have been playing around with instant messaging for some time now. The use cases for which I do these things are normally closely related to impact social change. In previous post I have used IM as a tool for counseling drug addicts. Because of the overwhelming response to the server, I have to take this to a another level. The counselors conducting the service cannot cope with the numbers when it reaches a certain level. Therefore, I have explored using robots or bots as a means for 'chatting' to victims while they wait to speak to a human. So here is what I am planning to do:

I going to use Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) as the brain behind the language. But this needs to handle Mxit type language therefore I have integrate Bayes learning as well to 'guess' what the user is saying. Then I have to have the engine learn. This is quite easy as the python library PyAIML does this quite well. I also want to have a command type interpreter similar to the way GrokItBot does as soon in the pic.

From an Elearning Developer

2009-11-11T22:43:00.000-08:00

For past 6 years I have to been been developing with Elearning systems. I had the privilege of working with some awesome people as well some good software. I do most of my work for one of our local universities but because the software is FOSS based many other universities mainly in Africa has adopted it as well. So I would like to mention some of the things I learnt while developing these kinds of technologies.

Firstly, elearning platforms are there to for one purpose, to encourage learning via the internet. The way in which software is created is to simunlate the old class room environment. This paradigm is shifting a bit with the introduction of software media lends itself to having consumers of the information is now also becoming producers of the information. There now become prosumers (Parker, 2009).

Secondly, the way with learning is taking is place has changed somewhat. The devices and the way learners are accessing information needs to be catered for. In Africa especially where the ratio of internet access with a mobile devices is at 60% versus that of pc based access at 40%. We cannot ignore the mobile users. Gone are the days way we have content overload. The idea of going back to having just enough information for a learner for reasons not only of cost of bandwidth but also filtering out unnessary data.

Lastly, the focus needs to be on both the teachers/lecturers from whom there firstly need to be buy in and on the student who forms a bottom of the pirimad for the technology. Therefore, a more bottoms up approach needs to be taking when designing these systems. Other work that I have down using the community engagement approach for developing software has proven to be successful. Having all stakeholders involved in the design and ownership of the technology has soon that software to be of a better quality than working individually. The drivers of this technology is also not the developer rather the users. One cannot force technologies down people's throats. If there is a need for the technology, the developer merely plays a supporting role.

BetaVine Interview

2009-09-17T00:42:00.000-07:00

This is interview that I did with Stephen Wolak from Vodafone UK

Spring Cycle Season

2009-09-14T02:59:00.001-07:00

So winter is still hanging around as we still experiencing some cold and rainy conditions in the Cape. But this has not kept us off our bikes. The spring cycle season starts with a bang with the Tour De Worcester in the Boland region and with races almost every weekend we can be assured that everyone will be participating in some of them.

The main goal for me for this season is firstly to get fit then get myself into a better racing category. At the moment I am seeded in group E which is where the average cyclist rides. I must admit I did not concentrate much on my riding the previous season and its showing now. Although I did the Kynsna Cycle Tour in July which is our mid winter classic, I had some mechanical problems which hampered my overall time and position. So I havent really laid off the bike during winter.

I still need to lose some weight and increase my fitness to a point where I can race comfortably. I am riding about 4 days out of the week which I will soon be increasing it further into the season so that I dont burn myself out. The 2 main ride are the Burger Tour and the Double Century.

OSCON 2009

2009-07-21T04:33:00.000-07:00

So we eventually made it to San Jose after an epic 43 hours of travelling. Some of our colleagues were lost in customs which added an extra 7 hours to the journey but eventually met up and made it to our hotel.

Day 1 of OSCON provided some good tutorials from people that are either the founders of the technology or who specializes in them. With all the different tutorials on offer I selected to go the Google App Engine and XMPP 101 tutorials. I must admit I have learnt quite a bit with both these tuts. It was very intensive training. I knowledge that I have gained thus far well definately help me with my day job as well as my studies and of course DAS/ASN.

2009-05-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

The latest statics extracted from DAS:

Advisors have the capacity to help more people (n=27) in a 2 hour session than that of help-lines (n=4). Since its inception and at the end of April 2009 DAS served approximately 87,624 messages amongst its 6,377 subscribers. A total

of 16,609 conversations between persons in need and advisors took place over a period of 186 hours of being online and available.

During a DAS session, 2 hours duration, the average number of conversations is 178 which equates to an average of 943 messages. This is normally managed on average by 5 advisors using the DAS system. The maximum number of conversations achieved was 471 and this was the week after the appearance on national television. The least number of conversations was 21 and this was due to running the service on a public holiday. The most messages exchanged in a DAS session were 3678 with a minimum of 234 messages.

Advisors would normally have 27 conversations to manage on average with the maximum being 56 and minimum 4 conversations. Average messages per conversation are 29 with the minimum being 1 message and the maximum 202. According to reports by Mobile Industry Review the number of SMS-type MXit messages that can be sent in 1 Meg data is 3938 messages. At the standard cost of R2 per megabyte of data via GPRS a MXit message will cost the user an estimated 0.03c. With the average number of messages being 29 per conversation, a user seeking advice in terms of this service would pay 0.88c (zaR0.008) per counselling session compared to R185 for face-to-face counselling .

Majority of the conversations (62.3%) was related to substance abuse issues. The following graph shows the distribution related to substance types with the most popular drug query being “Tik” or “Crystal Meth”. General drug queries were where subscribers just needed generic information about the services and general substance abuse queries.

2009-04-15T01:56:00.000-07:00

This was a presentation I gave at Nelson Mandela University about the Advice Support Network (ASN).

Technology for Community Empowerment

View more presentations from Marlon Parker.

Advice Support Network (ASN)

2009-04-02T02:34:00.000-07:00

Today should be an interesting day as we are testing our Drug Advice Support (DAS) on a new server. We are hoping to see if the performance will be improved as we've been experiencing problems with our old server lately. We've also seen an influx of requests to the service over the past few weeks and looking forward to see the expansion plans being executed over the next few weeks.

We have been running this service between 3 and 5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays since its inception due to restricted resources. We currently have 19 advisors registered on the Advice Support Network and are hoping to achieve the following expansion plans:

1. Increase hours by 100% (New Proposed hours of 4pm to 8pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays)- Implementation Date [14 April 2009]

2. Increase number of Advisors online in session by 50% (We've acquired the equipment needed to implement this) - [May 2009]

3. Advisors Hub Model Completed - [May 2009]

4. Increase days by 50% (Start offering service on a Saturday as well) - [May 2009]

What is DAS?

2009-04-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

The increase of gang and drug activity on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape is causing tension within communities . These activities have a negative impact on citizens in these communities and contribute to a sense of helplessness. A community with tension can be described as “a community where the well being of its citizens is threatened”. Reconstruction or rehabilitation of ex-drug addicts are challenging due to communities with tension not being able to empower these citizens or not willing to be rehabilitated. This presents the opportunity for the use of technology as part of the reconstructing of these citizens.

Research has found that there is an increase in mobile instant messaging (MIM) amongst teenagers in South Africa . Many of whom are using MXit, a popular South African (MIM), as their primary tool for messaging . Collaborating with a local NPO, Impact Direct (041-188-NPO), we started a project to provide a platform on a mobile platform to offer advice, support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) for people impacted by drug and substance abuse. The main objective was to meet the youth on a platform that they are comfortable with as a first point of contact where they can express themselves, receive support and advice on the issue of drug and substance abuse.

We decided to equip ex-drug addicts with technology skills and under the supervision of Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and Impact Direct these reconstructed ex-drug addicts are in a position to communicate with the contacts using mobile technology giving them real answers from their own personal life experiences. This was the birth of Drug Advice Support (DAS). Not only will support be offered to substance abusers but also families, people affected by the problem. The Drug Advice Support (DAS) service also connects the contact with personal support organisations, other drug rehabilitation facilities in the local area where the contact is located when the person is ready for face to face counselling and support. To access the DAS service the user has to add our contact to their mobile MIM profile.

DAS Stats

2009-04-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

The success of DAS has not only open doors to many new opportunities using mobile technologies but also granted us the joy of seeing the lives of many people being reconstructed as we were able to be that lifeline to many. To give an indication how effective DAS has been some of the statistics (over a period of 102 hours / 5 months) are found below:

Total conversations: 12,255
Number of Drug conversations: 6921 (56.5%)
• Tik: 1913
• Dagga: 634
• Heroin: 846
• Smoking: 147
• Mandrax: 69
• Alcohol: 588
• Rocks: 30
• Ecstasy: 23
• General Drug queries: 2671

Other conversations:
Pregnancy: 101
Relationship: 297
Sex related: 99
HIV/AIDS: 38
School/Education: 175
Depression: 120
Sickness: 19
Death/Suicide: 106
Employment: 362
Rape: 23
Physical/Emotional Abuse: 236
Religious: 761
General: 2896

Total Messages – 64 921

Average number of conversations per session: 12 255 / 102 hours = 240.3 per session (Max 473, Min 21)
Average number of Messages = 1273 per session (Max 3678, Min 234)
Average number of conversations per Advisor in a session = 37 (Min 4, Maximum 56)

This is the year where DAS along with the other Advice Support services (PAS and CAS) will be expanded into schools, colleges, universities and various communities across the Western Cape, South Africa.

Education 3.0: Why should Africa Care?

2009-03-22T04:40:00.000-07:00

Education 3.0: Why should Africa Care?

View more presentations from dkeats.

Web 2.0 Tools For Project Management

2009-03-22T04:38:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 Tools For Project Management

View more presentations from Douglas Tokuno.

Google Latitude & IM

2009-03-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

The latest release from Google known as Latitude has added a different spin on social networking. The idea of now having the ability of finding people in the same geographical area opens up a new ways of communicating.

The technology is not new. Something similar is being done with TheGrid but with Google's Latitude one gets all Google Apps included with the package. What this means is that one can now integrate geolocation with GTalk with Picasa etc.

Some inspiration

2008-12-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

Today I witnessed something remarkable happen in the lives of a few younger people. I attended a graduation function like no other. A first of its kind some are saying. The graduates attended a year long course in Social Media. This might sound like just another course but if one takes a closer look at the graduates and see what they had to endure to make it thus far it is something to be inspired by.

The guys and girls that attended the course were all ex drug addicts and ex gangsters. Their stories range from suicide to organised crime to being drug merchants. Most of them never finished school but this did not deter them from the way they adapted to technology. From not knowing much about IT and computers one of the guys named Brent quoted "The only thing I knew about computers was how to steal them", gives one some idea of the challenges. From blogging to social networking to micro blogging to podcasting and video, this group is now proficient in using tools to tell their stories. They are now positive role models in their communities.

I had the privilege of working with these people on the DAS@Mxit project where most of them are now using what they have learnt in a positive fashion. Instead of being a burden to society this group have now taken it upon themselves to help the communities that they were a part of breaking down. They are now the counselors for other people that are in situations that they were in not too long ago and can now share their stories and experiences with other people in need.

When I joined this project my enthusiasm was already lifted but after this graduation ceremony I was even more inspired to contribute what I know back to the same communities that has giving me the life experiences and footing in life. The DAS@Mxit project is the first one but I am already thinking of other ways in which I can make a positive difference in our communities in tension.

A few questions needs to be asked

2008-11-25T22:46:00.000-08:00

Are you living up to your full potential?
Did you try hard enough?
What could I have changed?
How do I use what I have/know that will make a difference?
How can I be better?
Where do I want to be in the next 1/3/5 years?
What is my next goal?
How am I effecting the one close to me?
What standards have I set for myself?
How do I benchmark my life?

An epic race

2008-11-24T19:26:00.000-08:00

The Double Century (DC) has come and gone. For the past 6 months me and a couple of friends set out prepare for this gruiling race which takes place the Swellendam area which is about 2 hours outside of Cape Town, SA. It was everything that I expected it to be and more. No matter how muh training one puts in, a 200+km race is always going to be tough.

The first half of the ride went very well. We managed to get to the half mark inside the time that we aiming for. The second half of the race was where everything went wrong. We started having major mechanical break downs. One breaking his handle bars, the other having his seat come lose and a whole of blown tires and punctures. We wasted almost an hour with all of these issues. This meant that we were longer on the road that our bodies were use to. This meant that almost all of bodies started cramping in the final few kilometers of the race.

We still managed to come in at under 8 hours....

One big thing completed

2008-11-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

I have finally completed my 2 year degree in IT. I have just completed my final examination and submitted all my assignments and research work. This was one of my goals that I have set out to do a while and it finally came to fruition. It wasnt all that easy but thanks to help and support from my wife and life partner, Sue, we managed to pull this one off.

I will now have a bit more time to concentrate on other things in my life. As we get closer to the festive season you cannot ignore the sense of family around this time of the year. My son is almost 2 and in a time of his life we he needs constant guidance as to make sense of things. As me and the wife are planning to take time of work together it would be obvious that we would also be spending more time together as well.

As far as work is concerned, I have some interesting projects that I am working on as well some new ideas that I would like to implement. Things that would probably keep me busy for the next 6 months. I managed to integrate one of projects that I be basing my Master's research on. Yes, I know, I have just completed my Honours and already busy with the Masters.

DAS update

2008-11-03T03:10:00.000-08:00

We are trying to built while flying it! That is the case with trying to built this system while still having people using it. We went live with this system last week but it only lasted about 10 minutes. The load on the server was way to much for us to handle. This time round we are going to separate some components that are taking up too much resources and moving them to a different server. I will also trying and streamline the source code and the database calls. Hopefully this will work for the next session.

I will keep you posted!

The next big thing

2008-10-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

Now that I am at a point where I can take of time to contribute back to the community that I grew up in. I will be a working a project that will help with drug addiction problems we have in the Western Cape and the rest of SA. The project is based on addicts using the Mxit application to get advice from drug councillors on the other side. The application the I will be writing will used by the councellors to manage all of these conversations. This project is already set in motion and with the a live TV report last week the amoung users has reached unmanagable numbers. The programme ,called Drug Advice and Support (DAS), is the unbrella programme that I will be working with

2008-10-06T01:08:00.000-07:00

The day started off well with the guys putting on much need pace down the M5. We had a bit of tail wind which helped a bit. The turn out was okay-ish with seven pitching having had to drop 2 of them off an hour into the ride. We were left with 5 guys to complete the route. We planned to a circular route from Steenberg towards Tygerberg hills over Tikkie Draai hill then on towards Stellenbosch and back home via Baden Powell. The first hill over Tikkie Draai was okay for some guys but again showed who had had some legs on the day. 3 out of the 5 managed to finish together. The infamous Cape Doctor made an entrance at this time. We headed through Durbanville and onto Bottelary Road where we chatting for most of the way until we got into Stellenbosch. We filled up our water bottles at one of the petrol stations and decided today was a good to tackle Ou Helshoogte. This is one of the oldest roads in the area which has been closed for a number of years. It was recently opened for cyclist which meant we had the entire road for ourselves. We decided to tackle the climb together as it was new for most of us. It was breath taking though, both because of the scenery and because the climb was very touch. I winds its way up through the forest of Stellenbosch and finishes on top where the new road meets up with a concrete gate.

I was not feeling well the whole day. My body took a pounding from the week’s squash and some work I had to do at home and some more cycling during the week. I was at the point of turning back home but as I was chatting to the guys I forgot about the pain and just carried on riding. I ended at the point of know return where did not have a choice but to finish what set out to do.
The team is progressing but not the pace that I am satisfied. The guys that I need to be on the training rides are not there. We are now at a point where the gap between the fit and not so fit is becoming bigger.

Using the web to help communties in tension

2008-10-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Let me give you bit of background as to why this topic is of such importance to me. I grew up in one of the poorer, gangster ridden areas in Cape Town called Mitchell's Plain. Drugs and gangerism was the order of the day and school was but a mere after thought. I consider myself one of the lucky ones to have taken the bad and used as a positive step to going through the education system and through college. Now that I am at a point where I can contribute back to the community that I grew up in, I want to use the expertise as a software developer/web guru over the past few years.

Although I have moved out of the area I still have friends and family that is still stuck in the cycle of poverty and drug, which often the results in crime. Some questions needs to be asked:

what is the difference between people who make it out and those who dont?
what is the support structures that was in place to help the youngsters to make it?
is there any help available?
is there any mentors?

The last question is very important for me. One has to know what was 'out there' or what was on the other side of the fence. The people in these communities often don't often see the benefits in the completing school. There is always this sense of survival. The idea of having to go to school for a few years is often overridden by the need to have an income, albeit from work, crime or selling drugs. The idea of going to college is then become a laughable after thought. With mentoring these communities have something or someone to look up to or to be encourage to them. What these communities need is proper mentors, people you went through similar circumstances and beat it. People who had the will and the vision to persevere.

My focus therefore is how can we mentor these communities using technology? The idea I have is to help these communities using some technologies that is cheap, convenient and which is already being used by most of them.

There is still a very big gap in the digital divide. Most of our people haven't even had access to a computer let alone the internet. For reason still unbeknown to us at this time the cost of bandwidth is still a big issue in Africa. This is no different in the South Africa. The lack of computer literacy skills as a big role to play as well but the this has a direct relation to the literacy level in general.

Even though the litercy level are low and we have bandwidth issues, our people are still communicating. There are no stats yet, but it seems these people communicate more than people that have computers are the mean communicate via email, internet, chat, forum etc. The preferred tools that this people are using are mobile phones. The reasons for this is that cell phones are relatively cheap and convenient and very easy to use. Almost everyone has a cellphone, even unemployed persons.

Some of the struggles that these communities face are drug addiction, gangster ism, poverty, unemployment but to name a few. The focus of my master's thesis will be to focus on one of the areas that the communities are struggling with and apply a technology solution that is cheap and that the users are already familiar with

There are three components to that needs to be focused on:

The communities base: the people that needs counseling
The tools: this includes mobile phones, software and the web
The mentors/counselors: the people who will provide the counseling to the communities using the tools

My Poster

2008-10-02T02:50:00.001-07:00

This is the poster that I submitted to the SAICSIT 2008 Conference together with the article for which this poster was created for.

Atlantis

2008-09-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

A perfect day to do some mile said one of the guys. This was echoed by some of the others. We set out from the southern suburbs up towards the West Coast and Atlantis. Once we reach Atlantis we then swung east towards Philadelphia and the into the farm lands. This is a testing part of the world for cyclist because the roads are very undulating and you are almost always exposed to the elements with in the middle of no where. When we crossed the N7 one of riders to decided to join after putting in an extra hour of sleep. As we approached the N1 the guys started tiring and the hunger started creeping in. I deliberately set the route so that the pit stop is very late in the ride so to see who can keep out till then. It was evident the the guys are not eating properly before and during the ride. The drinking of their energy drinks was also brought into question. This was just over 100km into the ride when some of the guys where asking about the stop. This worries me a bit as it seems that not only is the stop compulsory but that is actually plan their riding style around it. We eventually stopped 130km into the ride which ended up to be 160km.

What I was very happy about was the fact that we made a concerted effort to cut down on the time wasting. Nature calls was not a official stop, those who did not need it cycled on with the rest having to catch up. The pace was also nicely managed. We rode for most of the day against the wind so that in itself slowed us down. But we almost always riding at a manageable pace. If the paced dropped someone (normally me) would just shout or go to the front to lift it some what. At the end of the day we managed to cut about a whole hour out of the ride just by doing some small changes

2008-09-18T02:54:00.000-07:00

The saying goes: when you are young, you have lots of time, lots of energy but no money. When you are older you have lots(some) money, lots of energy but no time. When you are old, you have lots of money, lots of time but no energy. Even though we might think we have it all we always lacking in some aspect of life. I think the point try and egknowledge what we lack and do well in and try and find a balance.

With everything happing at one it is sometimes difficult to juggle ones life around. Its a matter of "everyone wants a piece of me" that doesnt seem to fare well with everyone. I guess when has to be broken up into a thousand piece you become a fraction of what you want to be for a particular area. How does one avoid being the Jack of all trades yet master of none?

Cycling around the Peninsula

2008-09-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

So me and a few friends set out to cycle around the probably one THE most beautiful place on earth, The Cape Peninsula. In early hours of the morning about an hour before the sun came out starting out from the Cape Flats side down the Main Road. I guess its not often that cities have their own main road that stretches practically from one end of the city to the other.

The weather was perfect for cycling, 25 degrees predicted and no wind. So off we went through Muizenberg heading towards Simon's Town. This section is an absolute stunner, I have riding this section of road for more than

15 years but it always takes my breathe away. Its a good section for getting the legs warmed up before we start hitting the hilly section in the Cape Point area.

Although this is quite a tough route, doing it with a couple friends coupled with the scenery makes the ride that much easier. The chatter takes your attention away from the pain of the ride as well as get in some good laughs.

By now the guys are bit more serious as we get closer to the first climb of the day. It went well and we did wait long of everyone to regroup are the top. Down towards Misty Cliffs where we had to attacks and some fast pacing. I must say that we past quite a number of cyclist around this section. Over Ocean View drive as we headed to the killer Oukaapseweg. Most of the guys were climbing well on this 7.2km climb but is where a guys called it a day as the sun started beating down on us. This was a bit of a detour as the normal route was around Chapman's Peak but unfortunately it was closed for maintenance. As we dipped down into Blue Route the guys had to make some toilet stops. It seems this worked because the pace was up on the next climb and over Suikerbossie. By now the heat was really playing a role in dishing out pain. We stopped in Camp's Bay for lunch where we did some 'bird watching' while eating some food.

From then on it was about 30km to home for me. The wife starting calling already because we over stayed our time in Camp's Bay. But never-the-less, I got home in time to do some stuff around the house. I all, the this was one of the hard rides, I guess it will just get harder from here on out. I cant wait for the next weeks group ride, but it will probably be a short one because we racing the Sunday.

First timer

2008-09-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

So this is my first time using this blogger. Let me start by saying that I am not a man of much words so dont expect me to write books here. I am just a simple guy with simple life style trying to make a difference.

Just a bit about myself. I am a dad, a husband, have 2 Jack Russel dogs, a house, a car, 2 bicycles and a scooter. So there you have it. I am the average Joe living next door (the other next door -- not the one that wants to kill his family) trying to get buy. I am a bit of a computer nerd that is interested in the web especially Elearning 3.0 , Web 2.0 and mash ups.