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meebo meets twitter

To Tweet or not to Tweet, that is the question;
Whether 'tis better for Meebo to offer
Tips and hints for our users’ benefit,
Or to give warning of network troubles,
And after fixing, end them. To IM, to Tweet;
Ever more; and by Tweet we mean
The broadcast of a mere 140 characters
That spread Meebo joy — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To IM, to Tweet;
To Tweet, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in our Meebo, where all IMs may come,
Having unshackled ourselves from walled gardens,
We can be free. Happiness is in that
Which gives abilities like IM to anyone.
For Meebo sends the message in real time,
The content private, from one to another,
Safe for messages of love, of jest or play,
To message from the office, or to turn
At any moment to your most worthy trusted friend.
Whence shall we ourselves turn should any announcement make
For all to see? Who would follow us there,
To check our feed whenever need may be,
But those that have great time upon their hands,
Would check our blog o’er time and time again?
Some travelers return, read the blog,
And await each update we make of our message,
But how to reach the others that we know not of?
Thus Twitter is a newsreel for us all,
And with the easy manner now to reach you,
We will not Tweet without giving it great thought,
And only when it seems the perfect moment.
With this in mind please follow us on Twitter,
Account name Meebo: now take action.

copyright with Greg, Meebo

WASH Sector learning | Google Groups

WASH Sector learning

Visit this group

Flickr: Web Trend Map 4 Final Beta

attribution: www.informationarchitects.jp

Flickr Photo Download: Web Trend Map 4 Final Beta

Amazing map!

Overcoming low bandwidth - Maneno - About > Spread the Words

An interesting initiative to make the web more accessible to people (in Africa) with a low bandwidth internet access.

Maneno - About > Spread the Words

NYT - Yellow Is the New Green - on waste water

divert it you stupid!
Op-Ed Contributor - Yellow Is the New Green - NYTimes.com

Development funding & global crisis

It takes just a minute or two of googling "will development aid suffer from crisis?" to find a deluge of high quality hits on the topic from very well placed sources ranging from OECD and Worldbank to UN and other funding and NGO pages.
Will the development crowd be as blind as most were early autumn last year about the global financial crisis and the effect it would have only a few months later on the so called "real economy" and now rapidly on thousands and thousands of people's jobs and pension payments ?

Explore the tags on Delicious and please contribute relevant bookmarks

I'm not scared and not a pessimist, but lets not play the ostrich and at least listen, think, talk and strategize... Peter

WASH: and monitoring the so-called "impact"?

I keep wondering how reliable the often horrendously expensive monitoring PROJECTS are. I don't know about you, but I have rarely, if ever, come about a truely non-project funded and affordable and effective monitoring system in the many countries I have worked in the WASH sector.

Curious to see if PROJECTS like WASHcost will be able to convince us about more affordable and lasting approaches to monitor for action in the WASH sector and other innovation that truely leads to lasting impact of investments in hardware and 'software'.

RWSN Newsletter - February 2009 - profbury@gmail.com - Gmail: "Update on Sustainable Rural Water Supplies

It has been estimated that 30% of handpumps in sub-Saharan are not working. However, data from a number of sources suggests that in many countries the situation is much worse. It is becoming more apparent that financing new rural water supply infrastructure without proper attention to ensuring that it works for many years is a waste of money. In order to stimulate your thinking, we are providing you with perspectives on operation and maintenance from three rural water supply professionals, and encouraging experiences from an NGO in Malawi.

* May-day! May-Day! Our handpumps are not working! By Erich Baumann: http://www.rwsn.ch/documentation/skatdocumentation.2009-02-27.5294372959

* Operation and Maintenance of Rural Water Supplies by Richard Carter http://www.rwsn.ch/documentation/skatdocumentation.2009-02-27.0720442659

* Sustainable Operation and Maintenance of Rural Water Supplies: Are we moving in the right direction? By Peter Harvey http://www.rwsn.ch/documentation/skatdocumentation.2009-02-27.4704277730

* InterAide Support to Operation and Maintenance of rural Water Supplies in Malawi in 2008 by Bertrand de Saint Méloir http://www.rwsn.ch/documentation/skatdocumentation.2009-02-27.9651985043

RWSN is currently undertaking a mapping exercise of the handpump market in sub-Saharan Africa in order to obtain a realistic estimate of the number of handpumps procured from outside the continent. It will estimate the number of handpumps installed in sub-Saharan African countries each year; identify existing in-country retailers; estimate price differences between internationally and locally procured handpumps; assess current in-country quality assurance mechanisms and recommend how these can be strengthened; and review prospects for improved supply chains for handpump spares as a result of changing policies and practice in the use of the private sector for rural water supply operation and maintenance.

For more information on sustainable rural water supplies contact: pharvey@unicef.org"

WASH: who really cares? Are MDG a joke?

An impression I unfortunately got some years ago reviewing danish supported WASH programmes in Benin and Burkina Faso. Will we really ever change our priorities? What use is it to spend a lot (really it's only relative peanuts anyway, isn't it?).

The most recent RWSN newsletter seems to endorse my long time fear that MDG is little or nothing different from earlier water years and decades: construct construct construct and don't worry about post project management and certainly not 5 years on when systems start to collapse again :-(

RWSN Newsletter - February 2009 - profbury@gmail.com - Gmail: "Who cares about operation & maintenance?

This edition of the Rural Water Supply (RWSN) newsletter focuses attention on the operation and maintenance of rural water supplies. Much is talked about targets for new construction, but very little attention is given to operation and maintenance. Numerous organisations will pay to improve service delivery but the responsibility for maintenance is passed on under-resourced local Governments or unsupported communities. As a consequence improved rural water supplies are in danger of going out of service just as fast as new supplies are being constructed. The result is obvious, and if we continue like this the future is bleak. As part of the Sustainable Rural Water Supplies Flagship of RWSN, we highlight this issue. As ever, we also provide you with the latest updates from the four RWSN flagships. Happy reading!"