Open Workbench is touted as the "Open-Source Project Scheduling for Windows"

Open Workbench is an open source desktop application that provides robust project scheduling and management functionality. Already the scheduling standard for more than 100,000 project managers worldwide, Open Workbench is a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Project.

Released in December 2005, Open Workbench 1.1.4 provides significant new enhancements and bug fixes. For more information on version 1.1.4, please review the Open Workbench 1.1.4 Release Notes. The source code for Open Workbench 1.1.4 is also available on SourceForge.

Open Workbench provides all the functionality and benefits that project managers expect in a world-class scheduling application:

• Open Workbench can be used and distributed free of charge throughout an enterprise.
• Open Workbench is a stand-alone desktop application that provides robust project scheduling functionality.
• Open Workbench provides the unique ability to generate project schedules based on resource constraints.
• Open source developers will find a ready-made community of business users interested in their enhancements and extensions. The source code and other developer information are available on SourceForge.
• The open source distribution and community development model will now bring quality, innovation and cost advantages to the project management world.
• Open Workbench can also be used in a fully integrated fashion with CA's Clarity solution. Please visit www.niku.com/go/owb for more details.

The only difficulty with the above project is it seems that since it differs in some philosophical approaches to Microsoft's Project Management software, a full use of the system kind of indicates a choice of philosophy. One either chooses the OW way or the MS way.

It also seems that the software was released in 2005, and no clear indication on the website whether it has been updated. Sourceforge file release is December 19, 2005. Documentation files are dated 2005.

Nonetheless, if you want no money software, and you don't want to go the piracy way, then this could be an alternative.

Too bad I don't have any major downloads at the moment.

I'm still having problems with DNS and Tonfon.

This time, instead of just failing for a few websites (like commbank.com.au) it is now failing to let me browse any website by using their name (e.g. google.com.) I can only see a website, if I use their IP Address (e.g. www.nomoa.com's is currently: 72.215.205.147)

Simple Windows solutions? (phase 1) reboot (if that fails) reinstall (if that fails) install new hardware (if that fails - blame it on the customer)

Being as this problem continues for me, I of course am not overly enthusiastic about our Internet service at Tonfon.

Oh, I can of course go to Tonfon's website. Like, now that everyone else's website fails, I really have a keen interest in reading my ISPs pages that says they are beautiful and not the cause of world hunger. 8<

Why is this an issue?

E-mail.

Well, not only is my web browsing effected, but now I can't get my email and I am not sure whether email destined for me is coming to Tonga or is in limbo, or worse, just eaten up by the cyber-sphere.

Transactions.

If you use the Internet for anything other than just browsing (i.e. you might be a big BEBO player) then you really need to have these foundations things working at the ISP.

Prayer is a conversation? When's the last time you listened while you were praying?

Finding the freedom within; A prison prayer program strives to give inmates a new outlook on what it means to be free.

"We've been taught that prayer involves talking to God," White said. "It's also important to pay attention to the other side of the conversation, which is listening to God. There are a number of passages in the Bible in which Jesus pulled away from the busyness of the day to go commune in silence."

Maybe Sister Mary White's message needs a little preaching, ooops, listening to here in Tonga?

The devils in the details.

We finished last-weeks yap rounds with an evening of drinks at the Dupinisia Restaurant and Bar. As I recall, I was soo late that the entrees were already finished, and there wasn't anything after that except liquids.

It's a good thing we had a BBQ going at the house, even if I missed out on that one as well. This isn't looking so good.

Briefing

Subject: National ICT Strategy Development to Augment National Development

The National ICT Strategic Planning workshop brought together stakeholders from Government, Civil Society and the Private Sector. Workshop delegates assessed and initiated various policies, programmes, project proposals which they have committed to refining over the next four months. Likewise, Government is ensuring a minimal number of these projects are fully functional, at the launch of the National ICT direction scheduled for mid 2008.

Government having finalised our National Strategic Plan in 2006, have embedded significant ICT within capacity development, service development, and provisioning. In recognition of the interdependency between ICT and National Development, the Government of Tonga has long sought and accepted assistance for various ICT initiatives including the recent SOPAC sponsored e-Readiness Assessment, and the National ICT Strategic Planning workshops held with the assistance of the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Commitments from the Prime Minister and senior Government officials to workshop delegates have strengthened their resolve to pursue refinements of ICT Strategies for National Development. Although various Ministers continue pushing ICT as a significant enabler of National Development, the statements from the Prime Minister at the workshop was the first public direction to stakeholders

Participants have clearly identified human capacity retention and development as a core requirement for engaging the benefits of ICT. Several options are being investigated within the working groups targeting both long-term policies and short-term projects.

Augmenting the National Strategic Plan through ICT, six Working Groups have been formed from the workshop to refine ICT plans for: Education, e-Government, Homes and Communities, Industry, Legislation, Technology and Infrastructure.

“To ensure greater involvement of Civil Society and the Private Sector, Government must be a catalyst in the ICT arena.” says Alfred Soakai of the Department of Communications. “Government recognises and promotes long term economic growth must be led by Civil Society and the Private Sector, this Workshop is one of the initiatives of Government in the ICT field to move us all forward. We can do more, and bringing together all stake holders is an important beginning.”

The Department of Communications, again with assistance from the Commonwealth Secretariat continue to support and direct discourse.

Where to Now ?

Interested individuals and organisations are invited to participate in online discourse at the following addresses:

http://groups.google.com/group/tg-educ/ Education Working Group
http://groups.google.com/group/tg-egov/ e-Government Working Group
http://groups.google.com/group/tg-home/ Homes and Communities Working Group
http://groups.google.com/group/tg-indus/ Industry Working Group
http://groups.google.com/group/tg-legis/ Legislation Working Group
http://groups.google.com/group/tg-tech/ Technology and Infrastructure Working Group
The discussions are public, including various documents, directions related to each group.

Endnotes:

The Tonga Strategic Development Plan is available online at http://www.tonga-now.to/Article.aspx?ID=600

The Working Groups currently meet online using GoogleGroups.

Walked into one of the local mobile phone vendors to get an update (my youngest daughter killed my phone.)

I picked up a cheap TOP$150 Nokia unit although they had a batch of cheap refurbished units. Geez those refurbished units looked real bad.

Who knows how many phones i've bought in the past couple of years, but I think I know the value I get out of the phones and at the moment I don't need a smart phone just so long as it has good reception (it's raining badly at the moment so I don't know whether the bad reception is the phone or the network.)

A little edged black box was in the glass cage so I asked the 'Initia, "do you sell any?" and was I not ready for the answer.

"Ohhh, you wouldn't BELIEVE how well it sells. I bought 65 and there's only a few left. At one time it was the only thing people wanted to see. Now, I sell about two or three a week."

Me: "Wow, that's good for you."

'Initia: "Arghhh, the margin's pretty bad"

Me: "But what good is it without the Internet access?"

'Initia: "I can do that for you. And on all these phones here " (waving his hand over a Nokia N95, iPhone, and other TOP$1500+ phones) "I can get you on the Internet."

Me: flabbergasted and feeling I must have slept when Tonga's mobile phone providers started offering 3G or Data.

Me: confused "but how ...?"

'Initia: "Simple, you just need to have broadband at your house, and you get this little thing ..."

Me: (mind lights up) "Oh wifi, no thanks" [WIFI is setting up a wireless network.]

No thanks, if I'm stuck at home or in the office to use the Internet I might as well jump onto a computer with a large screen.

Anyhow, you can buy your iPhone at Lord's Mobile or Narrottam's and be with the latest hippest people in Tonga. Or, you can be a has-been dork like myself and just get a friggin phone with good reception.

Met up with someone who got a phone that can activate 2 SIM Cards at the same time. Now, that would be a practical telephone for Tonga.

We're meeting this week at the Basilica to try and thrash out some concerted direction for ICT in Tonga.

Knowing in the back of my mind/back, that we went through something like this before, it was only a matter of time for Google to reveal our previous effort "Facilitating National Information and Communication Technology Development Strategies - Tonga National Workshop Report. (PDF report)" Back in 2002.

As with all things relegated to the organic membranes for storage, things got fuzzy over time so it was good to finally see the actual document and to reconcile some of the things we thought we remembered. No, we didn't specify a strategy, yes we specified a number of directions for the approach and YES the whole process bogged down on the one area of conflict highlighted in the report.

Nonetheless, looking back at that 2002 report (seems aeons ago though) some significant progress has been achieved independently of a directed national strategy. The private sector services for ICT has not only grown/expanded, but it has also shown resilience and significant viability. Likewise, the second carrier (data/voice) Tonfon, has also shown viability.

Six working groups came out of that 2002 workshop.

• Public Awareness Task Group did quite a lot of work but floundered after about 12 ~ 18 months.
• Legislation Task Group didn't seem to ever find themselves.
• Upgrade qualifications and skills Task Group followed the Legislation Task Group
• Public Infrastructure Group performed their reporting efforts admirably, but then splintered greatly with some of  the other tasks.
• Government Infrastructure Task Group pursued most of their action items
• Telecentres Task Group (today's Community Centers?) didn't seem to do anything
• ICT Co-ordination Task Force don't seem to have recovered from that final heated break-up of the workshop.

Weird to look back and find that the most effective of the work-groups happened to be the most controversial (at the meeting) of the groups, but coincidentally also the only group that did not have communications costs with external entities.

One thing is clear, the high level bodies within a workshop is not indicative of that workshop being a success. One of the sectors with most senior attendance was education, and they were the worst performing of all the working groups (from my revisionist history.) The most one-sided was Government Infrastructure, and whether the results were successes, seemed to be most effective at pursuing tasks.

I believe the most difficult of the groups was Public Awareness as it required significant communications costs  as well as a broader(?) skillset ?

Quickly lessons from the results of 2002 ?

• Senior leadership (not your average champions) required.
• Motivation factors need to be maintained
• We may do better with smaller or fewer working groups but they definitely need sponsorship
• Communications costs are high for outsourcing, and their high in disparate working groups too.
• National reviews (possibly tied to motivation?)

Weird things happen in the Pacific, consider that Tonga was appointed chair of the regional ICT Taskforce (and I don't think anyone from that leadership group is actually active during these deliberations.)

 

Tonga Leads Regional ICT Taskforce

Tonga was appointed Chair of a regional ICT Taskforce at the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat (PIFS) ICT Policy and Ministerial Meeting held in Wellington NZ last week. The meeting was attended by Pacific Island Communication Ministers’, senior government officials and regional non-government organisations.

The taskforce consists of Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea and Tonga. It was established as part of the meeting to investigate and report on pertinent ICT matters within the region and implement the Digital Strategy formulated by PIFS.

What do you think ?

Someone was foolish enough to ask me to come over to Vava'u for today and tomorrow and I am supposed to be brain dumping for some people from the Commonwealth Secretariat, yadda yadda yadda.

I must be losing my touch if people still invite me to these things.

Man, I was really surprised at how good the hosting facilities are. The place isn't five star, but it is functioning well in key areas such as clean rooms, clean bathrooms, good taste decor (which isn't really saying anything since 'Ofa thinks/knows I have horrible taste in too many things, it's a man thing.)

Anyhow, I thought when I walked in. Geez 'Ofa, you should have come along for the week-end and asked your sister to look after the kids.

Anyhow, back to the Conference. There's some cool people to meet here, like me??? ha ha ha.

I'm meeting up with the real people (who can make a difference) and the real people as in the bodies trying hard to not get in the way in Ha'apai and Vava'u as we trample over them with our policy making in Tongatapu.

Oh yeah, we're here for the Commonwealth Secretariat program Commonwealth Connects (url) (I still am not too keyed up on all these meta organisations sprouting from various government todo lists.)

The blogosphere seems awash with forwarded discussions that Gmail is offering IMAP for some of its/their clients.

Wow!!

I just checked and I'm one of the fortunates who have IMAP enabled for their accounts.

IMAP - Problems for Tonga

Unfortunately, for "remote" locations  like Tonga where Internet connectivity is relatively slow, Gmail connectivity through POP3/SMTP is already precarious. I know IMAP is not going to solve that particular problem. Here in Tonga, you get disconnections and timeouts from various overseas sites, including Google's GMAIL, Microsoft's MSN/Live services (Hotmail, messaging.) Using IMAP in this environment increases your communications requirements, increasing failures and poor service.

IMAP from the US is not a good solution in Tonga, (for now.)

Over the past couple of months as 'broadband' users have increased in Tonga, most people I have talked to are beginning to meet with more and more disconnection errors (such as not being able to log into your Instant Messaging whether it is with Yahoo Talk or GTalk or Windows/Live Messenger. More people are having problems even connecting to Web Mail services such as GMail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail.

IMAP - Promised benefits

The benefits of Gmail's IMAP (or setting up your own IMAP enabled mail-server) is when you want to deal with email on multiple machines. ('Ofa's already into that situation.) In our situation, we have too many people in our household who want to use computers, have email accounts compared to the available machines. And, this is only going to get worse as the kids grow up and want to spend more time doing 'stuff' on the computer(s).

The solution for 'Ofa's problems for checking her email, is to install our IMAP Client (Thunderbird) on multiple machines connected to her GMail account. This means that which ever machine is available, she can whomp down on that chair and have access to the current state of her email activities.

IMAP let's her see all her email from any machine, but at a faster pace than using a web e-mail (Internet browser) interface. One clear example of how mail is faster using Thunderbird than Internet Explorer is when you want to send pictures. Being the gloating/doting parents, we are always sending photos through email. Using Thunderbird to send and view photos is A LOT FASTER and A LOT SIMPLER than using an Internet browser.

A related scenario of the advantages of IMAP enabled mail servers is why we have it installed IMAP by default at various school sites in Tonga:

1. allows the whole school to have email, even if you have few machines
2. much faster access than having local users accessing email through the slow Internet connection
3. allows the use of web mail front ends
4. everyone can check their email on any of the connected machines
5. no hassle with configuring clients (everyone uses an Internet browser)
6. no hassle with upgrades when clients upgrade or when the server needs to upgrade

For the techno-dweeb, you can either read Comparing Two Approaches to Remote Mailbox Access: IMAP vs. POP or just install your own server.

POP was designed to support "offline" mail processing...

IMAP can also do offline processing, but its special strength is in online and disconnected operation...

The essential point is that with the online paradigm, one's incoming and archive message folders are stored on a server and may be accessed uniformly from different computers at different times, ... This is not an important goal for those who always use the same computer to access their email, but it is a very important one for those who use multiple computers.

For schools/workspaces where few computers exist, but multiple people need email IMAP is an important email tool.

For you with the laptop to take around, and a desktop machine (whether at work or at home) IMAP gives you the option to compose/read email on your laptop or your desktop. You can now continue correspondence/work related to email on any of the machines you have connected.

An aside question, since mostly we're all standardised on Times New Roman, Arial but what happens if someone on our various desktops decides to install something other than Microsoft Windows ? Egads, do not say .... Or, worse again, they publish things on the Internet or send email without coming through some translator between Desktop X and Windows?

http://unifont.org hosts a guide to a number of high quality UNICODE fonts that are freely available for use by you and yours. If this were the days of Windows 95, I would demand that we all move to this site and standardise on better fonts.

http://unifont.org  This web site provides information about Unicode fonts, Unicode-enabled software, internationalization, and Unicode usability issues on free/libre/open source (FLOSS) operating systems.

(Un)Fortunately, Windows 2000+ standardised on Unicode fonts and so those funny looking "tolois" are actually available on your Windows box, it's just not that simple getting it up. One major advantage of everyone standardising on UNICODE fonts is so we all have at least the "smart" double quotes in the same place.

Curly Quotes

But on the Mac, the opening curved-double-quote character is represented internally by the decimal number 210. And on Windows, at least in some applications, it’s represented by the number 147.

So if you create a document in Windows that uses curved quotation marks, and you send me that document, and I view it on my Mac, the Mac translates the number 147 into a different character altogether. It doesn’t look like a quotation mark at all. (See illustrations below.) And vice versa; if I create a document that uses double quotes on the Mac and you view it on a Windows machine, you’ll see some other non-quotation-mark character.

...

At any rate, the point is that if you’ve written a story with smart quotes turned on, then all your quotation marks and apostrophes are curved, and if you want to submit your story to us, we’d like you to change that before submitting.

A good example of this problem is when you come across websites and things look weird, and you get square blocks instead of text. Double Quotes, or smart quotes are a leading contender for font differences that do not translate well on the HTML. The above and below links have further information.

Other references:

On the use of some Microsoft Windows characters in HTML. 

Dan's Web Tips | Character Sets - ASCII and ye shall receive...

Visited with Uilivea Taufatofua yesterday afternoon and we went talking as usual and got around to a trip they had sometime last year with the children to the motherland. Sometime later this year or next the family hopes to make a trip to Kotu so the kids can see another part of their heritage.

Uili's mum Funaki Kainga, hails from the island Lofanga whereas his dad's (Kongaika Taufatofua) dad's (Hame Taufatofua who married Siu) dad (Pita Taufatofua who married 'Olivia Vea) hails from Kotu. Both Lofanga and Kotu are part of the island group of Ha'apai. The family home in Hihifo, Ha'apai (named Fuiono) has over the years become a home for the clan and people of Kotu who venture to do some business or other on Ha'apai's main island, Lifuka.

Many of the smaller islands use family property on Lifuka as a place to stay while children are at school on the 'main' island, and for places to stay for those members of the family who may have a job or some similar vocation. Children attending school on the main island usually have a parent or island adult caring for their domestic needs while the family bring produce from the islands. The Lofanga mob visit the house, but they already had land dedicated to their use nearby.

Uili is in the construction business and I think his company constructed the recently opened FWC church or something on the island of Lofanga. For the opening ceremonies/festivities it was expected that Lofanga residents, former residents would contribute funds as well as other matters. This obviously required Uili and his sisters to attend to some of the food preparations, so the family took this as an opportunity for the kids to visit what it is like on the islands, and what it was like "back when."

A few of the great stories that came from their trip was the children adapting to "the way things are in motu."

The fale Tonga

To keep with the spirit of adventure, Uili built the family a little fale-Tonga for the duration of the stay.

Carpeting: The kids found the flooring soft and not too bad, but then they raised the mat covering of the floor to find:

Mum, why are they hiding all this rubbish under the floor ?

That's not rubbish, that's what is making the floor soft.

Walls: The walls were not woven all the way to meet the roof, and after a couple of days, mum and dad found that the kids found it a great adventure to fly into the house through the gap between the roof and the wall. Suffice it to say, soon enough the wall started creeping further and further down.

The Swing: Mum was out of the house one day when looking back she saw the house making dramatic swaying motions from one side to the other. She stood looking at the house very confused about what could be making the house sway so dramatically, there was no serious wind, there was no earth-quake.

Mum rushes to the house to discover:

The two young kids had taken down the curtains and had tied it to the roof beams, remember that this Tongan-fale is a thatched house. They were on opposite sides of the small one-room fale and having a great time swinging on their ad-hoc swings. Consequently, the small fale was barely staying up and groaning under the weight of their enjoyment.

Toilet Training.

As most will know, quite a few of the motus/ outer-islands have sanitary facilities that are merely a covered hole in the ground. Well you can expect the children's first impressions.

Being in the construction business, Uili originally planned to build a proper palangi type toilet with toilet bowl etc. The more modern toilet bowl wouldn't have a flushing mechanism, but would require manually towing water over the bowl. This system would however fully cover the dirt pit and quench the stench etc. Then he decided that it would be good for the children's education about what life was like in Tonga to use the same facilities people had been using previously.

The toilet was the standard, age-old, pit in the ground with a toilet-bowl on top that gave direct access to the pit, but allowed the visitor to sit with some comfort(?) housed similar to other 'outhouses.'

Well, the children were not too excited about this direction. They couldn't believe the stench of .... (we'll leave that part out.) At first they refused to use the facilities, and then they had to take towels to cover their noises when forced by nature to use the facilities.

At the end of the visit, the children agreed no-one died from using the out-house and all was well with the world.

I wonder what new things they'll enjoy on their trip to Kotu? 'Ofa's told some great tales about what it was like for them on their regular visits to 'Uiha (her mum's island of origin) but that's another story.

Ha'apai Tu'u ho'o kaimu'a.

Government has announced, and published through their website http://www.tonga-now.to the following:

Lao fakaangaanga - Procurement Bill 
 
Policy Decision for the Draft Public Procurement Bill
Purpose: The purpose of this Bill: - legislation and regulation governing the Government Procurement process 

A BILL FOR AN ACT TO PROVIDE A LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC PROCUREMENT IN TONGA AND TO PROVIDE FOR OTHER RELATED MATTERS

Interestingly enough, this has a partial IT solution (or at least the mechanisms of IT assist in providing efficient solutions.) Obviously. Which brings me to some other IT news I'd read through the ether.

There's a new company in town (or at least I hadn't really noticed them until they started putting out this advertising about some real cheap pricing.)

A friend of mine, mostly living in New Zealand, asked me about this company a couple of weeks ago and I said I thought they were running some sort of scam. And here's why.

Note that their advertising is really unbeatable pricing, how many places can you go to get a NEW Computer for $989.00 ? Even DELL and WalMart can't beat what these guys are saying their going to provide with their new PC (let's just say for example that the TOP$989.00 is going to be something like USD$500.00)

A few things that they don't mention or clarify in this scam advertising.

* new PCs on the right column, doesn't really apply to the advertised PC on the left column. This deal isn't for a new PC, it's for a REFURBISHED PC.

* Pentium III - 800Mhz, 256MB Ram, 10GB HDD, CD-ROM is what you're going to get at this great price. This may have been a premium machine 7 or 8 years ago (circa 1999/2000) but it is not available brand-new anywhere in the world today.

* Preloaded Software: Win XP SP2, Office 2003 is probably illegally installed pirated software. This means that you will be like most everyone else in town, but it shouldn't really be a feature if it's illegal?.

* The above preloaded software is probably going to run like a dogggg. Last time I had a Pentium III 800Mhz, I was using better specs with 512MB Ram, 20GB HDD and I thought the performance on that machine was horrible using XP.

* FREE 512MB Flash Drive value TOP$100. I don't know where they're buying their flash drives, because the 2GB I'm using (i.e. 4 times the capacity they're promoting) only cost me AUD$69.00 12 months ago.

Just another reminder that (a) we need some consumer protection in Tonga, and (b) let the buyer beware.

If you've been like me and drooling over having an Asterisk VOIP box to experiment and 'do-stuff' with, now Windows chaired people can also dive into the VOIP experience by running their own servers within their Windows box.

Freeswitch and YATE are both VOIP Servers (soft-switches) that can do for most of us what Asterisks tries to do for everyone.

The main thing I love about these guys is they have designed their projects to be cross-platform between *NIX and Windows, so you can literally do testing on your Windows workstation without having to build a box (which you may not have) for it.

FreeSWITCH is an open source telephony platform designed to facilitate the creation of voice and chat driven products scaling from a soft-phone up to a soft-switch.  It can be used as a simple switching engine, a media gateway or a media server to host IVR applications using simple scripts or XML to control the callflow.

We support various communication technologies such as SIP, H.323, IAX2 and GoogleTalk making it easy to interface with other open source PBX systems such as sipX, OpenPBX, Bayonne, YATE or Asterisk.

We also support both wide and narrow band codecs making it an ideal solution to bridge legacy devices to the future. The voice channels and the conference bridge module all can operate at 8, 16 or 32 kilohertz and can bridge channels of different rates.

FreeSWITCH runs on several operating systems including Windows, Max OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris on both 32 and 64 bit platforms.

Our developers are heavily involved in open source and have donated code and other resources to other telephony projects including sipX, Asterisk and OpenPBX.

Visit bTonga

I remember circa 2002/2003 Pulu and I experimented and put together a system whereby you can have all print jobs in a networked environment go to a PDF file (for archival reasons) before going out on the printers.

CUPS-PDF

This software is designed to produce PDF files in a heterogeneous network by providing a PDF printer on the central fileserver. It is available under the GPL and is packaged for many different distributions or can be built directly out of the source files.

Apparently someone else thought of a better automated solution and created a program for it @ CUPS-PDF.

At the time, we thought that it was cool and infinitely most practical for archives that all networked print jobs should be archived as proper/certifiable copies of print documents sent out from an organisation. Now, with larger / cheaper disk space it should be seriously considered?

Visit bTonga

Came across some news through http://www.tongausatoday.com so I thought it was a good time for a reminder of the Major news sites focused on Tonga, as well as other possible Tonga related news feeds.

Matangi Tonga: http://www.matangitonga.to

Planet Tonga: http://www.planet-tonga.com

Tonga Broadcasting Commission: http://www.tonga-broadcasting.com

Taimi 'o Tonga: http://www.timesoftonga.com

Tonga USA Today: http://www.tongausatoday.com

News Feeds

In general, I follow the news on Tonga using the RSS Feeds I've put together on the frontpage of Nomoa.com as well as a slashed together feeds.

Google News: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=tonga&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&output=rss  

Matangi Tonga (via Google): http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&resnum=1&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=site:www.matangitonga.to&scoring=d&output=rss

Yahoo News:  http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?ei=UTF-8&p=tonga&c=&eo=UTF-8 

Tasilisili: http://groups.google.com/group/tasilisili/feed/rss_v2_0_msgs.xml

Times of Tonga: http://timesoftonga.com//component/option,com_rss/feed,RSS2.0/no_html,1/

Tonga-Now.to:  http://www.tonga-now.to/Media/podcast/rssFeed.aspx?ID=2243&mode=2 

With the above 'feeds' I get the latest news on Tonga delivered to my desktop, by using a program that 'aggregates' collects the feeds. When I want to check the above 6 websites to see whether there are any news updates on Tonga, I don't have to look at all those websites separately (taking a lot of time.) Instead, I just open my News Aggregator (RSSOwl) and it checks the websites for me, and gives me the latest updates.

Coool!!!

www.Tonga-Broadcasting.com has the broadest news information, and unfortunately they've not got themselves indexed by Google's News service so I can't build an RSS feed from it (yet) but if you really must keep in touch with the pulse in Tonga, it wouldn't hurt you to visit this site at least once a day.

If you get around town a little, you're bound to come across girls prepping for one of their big events of the calendar year, "Tau Pasiketipolo."

Girls all over Tonga (including the islands) join local teams, get into new spanking colour uniforms, create ad-hoc fields in the neighbourhood and "play ball."

It seems to have always been a thing to do in December with school out. Tournaments between teams seem to have some rhyme and reason and other times just seem to be pick-up games where one team challenges another and they just "get-it-on."

The girls have a great time hanging with friends as well as running the trips between towns and the inevitable trips to the ice-cream shops as far away from home as possible.

As I understand it, the rules are not the world/well known 7-a-side netball, but a 9-a-side using some very old rules.

Kisione's really rocking with his blogging from Tonga.

Other links of Interest, that aren't showing up too well on TimesOfTonga.com's indexing include:

•  My thoughts on what happened on Thursday 1611 - 'Ofa Guttenbeil Likiliki
•  Malo mu'a Temo e tamate fonua he kuo mou tutu e "Mafu Tefua" 'o e "'Otua mo Tonga ko hoku Tofi'a'"  - Siosaia Moimoiangaha
•  'Oku 'ikai ko 'Akilisi na'a ne fakatupu e moveuveu - Manumanu Melie
•  Is it Time for "Rule by the Barrel of a Gun?" - Sione Ake-mei-hakau Mokofisi
•  The Price of Democracy to Tongan people; “Lord, what have they done?”  - Tongan Youths in Waikato, NZ
•  A cure not a remedy: - Mele Payne Lynch
•  Ko e feinga liliu ‘o e founga pule - Mele'ana Puloka

Kisione recently posted a photo tour and commentary of the active business's and queues.

Si'i Kae Ola Wholesale

Ko e taha 'eni 'o e Falekoloa " Wholesales" 'oku kei fakahoko fatongia ma'ae kakai 'o e Fonuá 'a ia ko e Si'i Kae Ola Store.  Ka kuo kamata ke hikihiki 'a e totongi 'o e ngaahi koloa " Wholesales" 'oku fu'u fiema'u 'e he kakaí, hangee ko e puha sipi mei he $80 tupu ki he $100 tupu,  puha moa mei he $40 tupu ki he $60 tupu, mo e ngaahi koloa kehekehe pee.

Not two weeks after the riots, prices are moving on doubling, as well as rationing already in force for controlled items such as fuel.

Considering how long the people are going to have to live with this 'disruption' I'm sure hopefull that the people can cope with the recession we had to have being promoted by the Pro Democracy Movement. Of course, in a full democracy (such as they propose, and such as in Australia) we can rightly vote them out of government and let them live off their wonderful parliamentary pensions.

Here in Oz, we've finished putting together one small box of necessities, bath soap, tooth paste, diapers, and after talking with the shipping agency, we've got until Saturday to pack another similar box (takes us to the minimum order size.) So, tomorrow we're off to get some toilet paper and other basic essentials.

If New Zealand were doing a rip-roaring business in previous festive seasons on meat and fruits, I wonder how bigger it's going to be this unfestive season?

In previous years, Tongans were beginning to realise that depending on the quantity they could get a better price and higher quality meat products by buying them in New Zealand and having the meat air-cargoed to Tonga. Witness the rise in the number of freight companies from New Zealand and the queues on the large plane days from New Zealand at the cargo stores.

If you're planning on sending money to your relatives in Tonga, take another look to whether you can send them goods instead. The prices are sky-rocketing in Tonga, and they aren't even out of stock yet.

Of course, of the business's still intact, Si'i Kae Ola is likely to be the only one with significant funds to dent the needs of the Tongan people over the next months/years? Or, are we needing a multinational with cash to come back into the country. Looks a good time for a multinational to come in, but hopefully they will help keep prices affordable.

I hope Feleti Sevele's daughter has recovered from the attacks and is doing her best shopping for goods to sell in Tonga.

There is a dilemma hitting the streets of Tonga on the personal freedoms of our youth, and the concerted efforted of the community to assist each other in refocussing the energies of the youth.

The XBox is only one part of the overall discussion issues about youth as a generic issue and one of the key problems encountering the neighbourhood.

One advancement that has slowly been creaping into Tonga is the importation of video arcade parlors and the similar disconnect it causes between the youth and the general populace. Of course the microcosm of Tonga has some interesting twists on the issue, such as extreme poverty and the attraction (addictiveness) of games requiring coin.

Visit bTonga

It only takes a little longer than long, but now you can get your news updates from shuggySface through RSS.

IF you have an RSS Aggregator, then link to http://www.nomoa.com/forum/rss.php and you will be delivered your fill of the forums directly to your desktop. Of course you can use the email solution to 'watch' a topic, but I hate having more stuff in the mailbox than I already have. So, hopefully this solution will be of use to some of us.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_Feed

RSS is used to provide items containing short descriptions of web content together with a link to the full version of the content. This information is delivered as an XML file called RSS feed, RSS stream, or RSS channel. An orange rectangle with the letters XML () or RSS is often used as a link to a site's RSS feed.

A program known as a feed reader or aggregator can check RSS-enabled webpages on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds. RSS saves users from having to repeatedly visit favorite websites to check for new content or be notified of updates via email.

For more 'English' information about RSS and how to get your own Aggregator, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_Feed or