Mambo to the Vuvuzela Online at Wits

SA is following a hands-on trend giving tertiary learners the opportunity to work with a live content management system (CMS). University of Witwatersrand online journalism students have developed and launched Vuvuzela Online hosted by Flow Communications.

The Web site was conceived and designed by students using Mambo and supports sister print publication, Vuvuzela. The open source CMS provided by Mambo, provides a learning platform for tertiary online designers and has been integrated into the honour`s and master`s level courses. The conceptual process of the site included training on CMS and editorial processes.

Mambo was chosen in preference to other free CMS systems as it provides WYSIWYG services together with a strong and contemporary Internet support system, says director of Flow Communications, Tara Turkington.

Features on the site include a story specific comment box, an interactive real-time "shoutbox" on the front page, live polls, forums, galleries, an events calendar, classifieds and games.

Xythos Software, well known developers of simple document and file management software, announced the selection of its Enterprise Document Manager 5.0 application by new medical research and financial services customers today at the Gartner Symposium reports Businesswire.

Among these customers are the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System Hospitals and Sudbury Regional Hospitals which have selected Xythos to help improve document security and collaboration and automate administrative document processes. In addition, Stone & Youngberg and Cicada Corporation join Xythos` growing list of financial services customers. Combined with Xythos` other new customers, they help push the company past the two million licensed users milestone for 2005.

Requirements for improved document security are nothing new to the medical and financial services industries, yet many organisations still struggle to provide easy to use solutions for their users to safely access, manage and share their files. Xythos` Enterprise Document Manager 5.0 was created to specifically address the problems associated with email file attachments and provide a secure alternative to traditional enterprise content management (ECM) systems. While the new Xythos Enterprise Document Manager 5.0 adds integrated workflow and automated document classification, Xythos` new customers continue to cite its ease of integration, support of open standards, and common security methods as key reasons for their selection.

The combined forces of the United States and its allies have had a difficult time scouring the Internet for al-Qaida activity. The British government`s announcement in July that it planned to clamp down on people who run Web sites that incite terrorism has had no noticeable results to date reports TechRepublic.

During the past few years, al-Qaida has embraced the Internet as a new tool for organizing, training and propagandising, according to terrorism analysts. Thousands of terrorist-affiliated sites exist on the Web, but unless you understand Arabic, good luck in identifying them they say. Al-Qaida has adopted online tactics that mirror its offline techniques for evading discovery and rely on a constantly shifting collection of Internet sites and hostile takeovers of Web servers where propaganda can be posted.

It is yet unclear as to how the U.S. government will respond to the increasing visibility of al-Qaida but two choices that have been put forward. Government will either attempt to sabotage the websites that appear to have the closest ties to al-Qaida`s leaders, or to monitor them closely to unearth who might be behind their operation.