ICT defined

• (IT) Initiatives in Community Transformation

There are many ways of defining ICT: (1) Information and Communications Technologies; (2) Information for the Common Tao; and (3) Initiatives in Community Transformation.

Telecommunications and the Internet have been here for ten years already. By this time, the grassroots should be able to use these tools for their own empowerment.

Empowerment can be as simple as enabling people's access to information. But of course, information is a special commodity - you often hear the expression, information is power.

We share a common fondness for initiating change in our communities. Allow me to share what I have initiated at www.littlecandle.net.

Internet tools for everyone

• Server and client on mini-CD => total desktop and network solution
• Scripts for Easy Web Publishing



• Online home and support center at www.littlecandle.net

More than a year of searching yielded E-Minima (or EM) software that enables the use of practically any personal computer for desktop and Internet solutions at little or no cost.

EM is a set of minimalist software for interaction between a change agent and her clients using a PC or a number of PCs in a network. A software is included in EM if it satisfies the following criteria:

The Slax and Puppy live mini-CDs, plus the EM scripts meant to deliver easy Web interactivity, all meet these criteria.

Pop and go!

• Use any Pentium PC (64 MB memory)
• Use FAT-formatted Hard disk (not NTFS)
• Press DEL at boot-time to enter Setup

Note: FAT is used by Windows 95 and 98. In Windows XP, FAT or NTFS may be used.

Any Pentium PC may be used for information exchange.

For graphical desktop, 64 MB memory is required. Slax can be used with less memory, but only with a virtual terminal (black) screen. It has the Links browser for this low-memory situation.

When the PC starts, press the DEL key to enter Setup (shown at left). Then find the item where you can change the boot sequence, usually the second item in the menu. Change the boot order so that CDROM becomes the first boot device. Then Save and Exit (answer Y for Yes).

Open the CDROM drive and insert the mini-CD while the computer is restarting.

Note: To use Puppy when your hard disk uses NTFS (in Windows XP), make sure to first unzip pup001.zip to the hard disk (local disk).

Why move to E-Minima?

• Free, powerful, easily maintained
• Developed by and for the community
• Always cutting-edge

Many people - even IT personnel - are not yet aware of live CDs like Puppy.

Early on, community-sourced software allowed freedom to use and modify programs. This is still the biggest reason for its success. The license is generally known as General Public License (see www.gnu.org). Copyleft is used instead of copyright.

Server software for the PC is one of the strengths of community-sourced software (this explains why they always feature a server). Linux + Apache means the Linux operating system plus the server Apache. PHP or PERL is also added for scripting. The Slax mini-CD contains Linux, Apache and PHP, plus many other software and scripts (refer to the index.html file of the mini-CD).

PCs become powerful servers with these software. And with the entry of Puppy, unprecedented speed became possible in desktop computing. Maintenance is also simplified as the whole Puppy suite is stored in memory while being used.

The community will always be cutting-edge when using software such as these, which are also free and easily downloadable.

Simple means less effort

• To exchange information, use only an operating system and a browser
• To exchange rich information, add image composing/editing
• This presentation was done the minimum way

The Puppy desktop

Users who sit on so-called client computers use a browser to access information. In turn, the browser needs an operating system to begin functioning.

Is it possible, then, that these same tools used by clients be used by those who publish information? Yes, that is the idea of minima!

However, because pictures enrich and simplify exchange of information, some use of image composing and editing is necessary. Operating systems usually have image editing software (Paint in Windows and Xpaint in Linux), so the use of images by authors is always possible. Moreover, digital photos bring about the easy use of pictures in the Web.

This page uses minima in delivering information to you. I guess that if you use a software suite to deliver the same presentation, the file size will be 10 or 20 times larger.

Starting online collaboration

• Internet Server - start httpd from uxplor
• Information Manager - start DidiWiki

Online exchange is exciting as it widens our reach for thoughtful exchange. Guess why Friendster became so popular!

In our localities, we can achieve this even if there is only one PC. But the best environment is a network setting, either online or local network (LAN).

With Puppy, use the file manager uxplor  to get the httpd server started (when httpd is already highlighted, right-click to open). Then find DidiWiki and start it.

Finally, give your server PC an address, like 192.168.0.100 by opening one rxvt  terminal and issuing the command shown below. (The ethzero  is for the first network card, so you should do this only if you have at least one LAN card in your PC.)

You can now use DidiWiki for writing and use httpd for serving pictures that you place in the htdocs folder. You write addresses of pictures like this: http://192.168.0.100/picture_name. For more tips in using images, browse DidiWiki.

While allowing sharing, the Wiki also collects documentation using a very simple format.

It will not take long for you to learn how to Wiki, as it is really meant to simplify and quicken Web publishing. You can begin writing after 10 minutes of orientation. By the way, WikiWiki is a Hawaiian term for quick.

If you are using the server PC, the Wiki's browser address is its local name localhost  plus its port number 8000, like this: http://localhost:8000. If you are using one of the clients in the local network, the Wiki's address is: http://192.168.0.100:8000.

The Wiki can pull images from servers, that is why we used httpd  to serve images from htdocs at http://192.168.0.100 or when using its images subdirectory, http://192.168.0.100/images.

Each working group in your community can build its own page in the Wiki and submit pictures/images for loading into htdocs. Then every member of the community will have access to the thoughtful insights of all other members.