Mambo Jumbo... Jai or By

Most of AIDIndia.org subdomains have moved/are in the process of moving to the Open Source Mambo Server which uses the Php an open source web scripting language and RDBMS databases. Aid India uses MySql as backend database, which has an open source flavor.

AidIndia.org's subdomains such as the conference site and Tsunami Relief are based on Mambo and do provide a slick highly-customizable interface.

With Mambo, much of the boiler plate code is built by the Open Source project and all users have to know is to do some web-based editing of content and without having to get into the nitty-gritty of Php programming, CSS, HTML and any of the zillion techy acronym-based programs and tools.

Aidindia.org also supports cron so that activities like database backups and other timed activities can be implemented removing the need for human intervention (and thus eliminating the need of making a site the victim of human laxities).

In this session, Harsha and Priya (a bearded deep-voiced male, not a female!) showed off the customizability of Mambo and how features can be added, removed and en(dis)abled with a click of the mouse. The participants, though numbering a handful, asked several questions regarding general concepts and specific chapter site/Mambo-related ideas. One interesting question was about running Mambo server on the OS-that-shall-not-be-named, Windoze, which was ensued by a moment of hush from the audience and the presenters alike ;-). The answer is Mambo can be run on Windoze, though it is designed for the LAMP architecture. My suggestion was to run the Cygwin unix emulation layer for this OS.

The idea is great, works well for AidIndia and its utility is proven by the above sited sites. But I feel (and I am sure I am not alone when I say this) the session was not organized in an optimal and logical manner. We have sat through it for almost 40 mins and the common question was "How do I create a site for my chapter?". This question is left unanswered as I type; instead what is showing is the idea that has been beaten to death ever since the Great K & R introduced in the 1960's - creating a new page with "Hello World". Now I seriously doubt how a chapter representative is going to create a site for his chapter using this demo.

The session, though well-intended, fell far short of the audience's expectations of getting their site "up and running".

This has been the bane of much technological concepts with non-techy folks balking at techy folks for always trying to talk at a different level. The pet title of Mambo Jumbo seems to revert to the original mumbo-jumbo. (Well... let me sush, I do want to keep my job, so keep the covens going folks!)

Okay we are an hour into the presentation and there is so still no sight of a coherent how-to. And people are asking questions, lots of questions so that is good - AIDers are thinking as always.

Now we are talking about user levels and workflow - this is really cool. The author is a pee-on level, which is what I am on the Aidindia site, and my work will be approved by a Publisher level and then published. This is a great feature, really. A random user can not log into my backend. But don't despair, we each have user-ids and password that we can log into the front-end and do your thang. ;-) (Thanks for a good laugh Priya).

Another cool thing - Mambo also supports RSS and Atom feels. Chapter sites can aggregate news items from other sites.

Here are the Bytometer ratings:
1. Presenters' Enthusiasm - 7 bytes : out of 5 :-)
2. Audience Enthusiasm - 5 bytes
3. Presentation - 3 bytes and 1 nibble
4. Content - 2 bytes
5. Audience Understanding - hmmm, tough call...may be 1 bytes.

Good job with Mambo Harsha, Priya and Krishna. I think it is Mambo Jumbo Jai for Aidindia.

--
Closing update - a demo is offline and not part of this presentation

A Photo is worth a thousand words!

Conference photos available at Conference Gallery Page

Keynote by Dr. Ganesh Devy

Dr. Ganesh Devy delivered a very light-hearted but candid speech with mentions about the state of tribals in India.

What touched me about this gentleman is his simplicity and honesty...not just about what he knows, but of the fact that he also knows what he does not know. Very few people of his stature have the elegance to accept that.

One thing that Dr. Devy mentioned during his speech really moved me not for just the content of what he said but also due to the fact the he actually felt what he had to say - a kind word about us as a group of people, a body of enthusiastic volunteers and not a funding body. This one statement exuded feeling when he said that he did not accept funding from us because he wanted to deliver to us the kind words without compromising what he really feels - that we are a great group - by accepting funding. His words where honest, his gesture that he has not come to the conference with open palms but with folded palms as a tribute to our work.

I felt good, felt much appreciated, nay elated, and after many a such maudlin remark, I did not see any substance to the talk. I was interested in knowing, during the keynote about the current work as well as prospects between AID and Bhasha Tribal Academy - can we exchange organizational knowledge? have we a roadmap to achieve common ends in the long term? how can AID as an organization contribute more to the betterment of adivasis? From a keynote, I expected something of value other than a feeling of (over) achievement or extremely enthusiatic approval of our work. Yes, there was a smattering of other ideas and suggestions but not sufficient to hold one's interest or evoke people to think further about the subject being delivered.

Like Ravi mentioned in his closing remarks, we as organizations have a long way to go; I really wish Dr. Devy had elucidated a plausible path it in front of the packed auditorium.

And we finally made it here....

We reached Minneapolis at around 4;30 am CST (5:30 am EST), almost 14 hours after we started from Columbus, Ohio.

Immune to external disturbances - the endless miles of cars and trucks - and internal disturbances - Chitra, Ramki, Komudi, Leena, Sivaguru, Jeeth and Kartic compounded by different tastes in music and food - we made it finally here in one piece, exhausted to the core but filled with enthusiasm. [Ooops missed this..The external disturbances also included Nigamanth, Divya and Chandra (Anil) in their Jetta.]

After barely 3 hours of sleep, we made it to the first day of the conference, which started at 8:30 am with a sumptuous breakfast, with fruits, different breads, including the Kosher Challah and organic milk ;-)

We attended some "break-out sessions" following an introductory welcome speech by Srinath Chidambaram, a really senior AID Volunteer.

Kiran Vissa talks as I type this, giving an update on projects and admin groups. Lots of achievements discussed, even more questions being thrown at Kiran...an example of the instatiable inquisitiveness of AIDers.