1. Subscribe to your original shared feed
2. Pray to God you had created a public tag prior to the switch-over to the new reader and despite whatever you named it, use it! Newly created tags are by default private and there is no means of making them public at the moment.
3. Using the old tag, create a bundle. There should be drop-down to the right of the tag name in the left pane.
4. Also add/drag the subscribed shared feed into the bundle.
5. Change all your blog widgets using the original Shared feed RSS to the RSS feed for this new bundle.

I tried using Chrome extensions to display the original shared icon but that has a number of issues:
- The extensions stopped working for me soon after
- My email got hacked into around the time I got the extensions. It could have been because of insecure scripts
- Google is going to eventually remove the original sharing from its API so might as well stick with something they’re not going to scrap soon. Or one would hope so.

Hope this helps some fellow frustrated soul.

Task: Combine data from XML files and display in an Excel File

Challenges:

• Nested loop within survey which required questions to be repeated so survey and questions were not one-to-one
• Number of fields for survey exceeded 255
• Each survey was in a separate file
• >350 submission files so need mass combination and conversion

Data Provided:

• Survey in XML format for ODK Collect
• Submissions in XML format using ODK Collect. Naming of submission files based on survey name, data and time collected.

The following methods were attempted in extracting data. Some successful, some not, with clear reasons as to why not.

Method 1: Use Excel

Excel’s XML to CSV or XLS function is very easy to use but issues were:

• Each XML file is saved to a separate CSV file so does not aggregate data.
• Does not take into account nested XML and will only add in columns for the primary level in XML

Method 2: Use MS Access

The idea was to first import into Access and then to CSV. Importing to Access worked exceptionally well. It automatically creates related tables for nested XML tags. However issues were:

• The size of the survey itself was too big to store in an Access table. It would have taken far too long to change data types one by one. In addition if the table was broken up, the automatic feature for import would not work. There is probably a way to do all this in Visual Basic but again time constraints.

Method 3: Install ODK Aggregate and use inbuilt stable version of ODK Briefcase:

ODK Briefcase is the companion tool for ODK Aggregate to import and export data from ODK generated files. However the inbuilt version could only:

• Import one file at a time
• ODK Aggregate is a little complicated to install. You can either install it on Google App Engine or locally but the installation procedure is a tad confusing.

Method 4: KoBo Post Processor

KoBo Post Processor is a third party tool to aggregate data from XML files. However the issues with this were:

• Could not read the nested XML data
• Had it’s own algorithm for displaying columns and did not follow the survey format

Method 5: Stand Alone Beta Version of ODK Briefcase

Using ODK Briefcase v1.0 Beta 2.jar is the method which worked but since there wasn’t much documentation on this, it took awhile to figure out and find. There are only a couple of threads on the ODK Developers Google Group which mention this. There were obviously a ton of issues considering it’s in Beta mode but after a number of tweaks and re-positioning data it worked. Issues faced during this process and remedies:

• ODK Briefcase requires it reads the data from a very specific directory structure. It needs to be the exact same as that created by ODK Aggregate for forms. Example of the directory structure in the ODK Briefcase folder:

  Forms

  Tanzanian Survey

  Instances

  TanzanianSurvey-11032011-1203

  submission.xml

• It is important that the XML data file be named submission.xml which is only possible if each submission is in a different folder. Unfortunately our data was not named submission.xml so I used Bulk Rename Utility. There are other ways to bulk rename in Windows but the search and replace using F2 method adds a number in parenthesis which would not work.
• Regarding the nested XML, since there were only 37 files where this was the case, we went through each file and flattened it to one level. However Windows doesn’t let you search within XML files so you’d probably need to download some software like XML Search

Ideally all of this could have been done by writing a simple script and writing to the same CSV file. However I was aiming to find something which could have been replicable by a non-tech individual. Looking forward to the next version of ODK Briefcase.

The Kindle Chronicles:

First week into Tanzania, Kindle dies. Or well freezes. All I could make out is half an advertisement of some exotic beach locale with a drink with an umbrella in it. I don’t want a drink with an umbrella in it! I want to be able to read about the epic adventures of Sigma Force in some totally ridiculous escapade in the heart of the Arctic! (*rant partially over*). Amazon gets called. They’re quite willing to send a replacement yet considering there are quite a few shipments to the UNDP which have been in transit for months, I decide to be safe and am now having it shipped to another chap who is coming to Tabora at the end of the month. The fact that the customer representative thought I lived in a country called Tetnus did not help alleviate my fears. The icing on the cake is the email I received last night which informed me that I must sent them the damaged kindle within 30 days to not incur charges for the replacement. No clue yet how I will achieve this but am being cheerfully optimistic today. I was not cheerfully optimistic when I received the email yesterday. (In case you were wondering)

Bus Mayhem at Ubungu Bus Station:

We, being the starving college students that we are, decided to take a bus to Tabora. Our taxi driver graciously offered to take us to the station to buy tickets since we would be ripped off otherwise. Lo and behold we got ripped off irrespective. Got sold tickets for a bus which doesn’t even go to Tabora AND got overcharged to boot. Miraculously our Swaheli teacher managed to get our money back after threatening police involvement and we managed to get the correct NBS tickets. Other than the leaking fuel tank, the drivers misconception that he was on an ATV and the five hour moonlit (which was possibly the most beautiful sky I have ever seen) drive on a dirt road, the trip was fairly uneventful.

Escape from the Dar Town Centre with a Exotic Driver to Paradise VER 2.0:

I can’t come up with a word to describe the driver. Just one word. Exotic was the closest I could manage. He was a native of Zanzibar, late 50s I think, wearing tinted pince-nez and according to Hannah, probably couldn’t see out of one eye. I got to be the lucky passenger seat driver and witnessed firsthand how it would feel to sit in the Knight bus from Harry Potter. Laura has a much more detailed post on this over at Teksi! We ended up at Hotel Meditteraneo which was … as mentioned…. paradise version 2 in the middle of nowhere.

Jan Rambo Snake Killa! (this will be completely lost on anyone who did not grow up in Pakistan):

Of late, we do a lot of zooming along dirt tracks in SUVs complete with punctured tires, dust and rattled bones. Recently the driver suddenly stopped and proceeded to attempt to reverse over a silver, lightening fast snake. When that did not work, all men in vehicle exited and proceeded to take turns tossing massive rocks at the snake until they were fairly sure it had been annihilated to the point that even reincarnation seemed doubtful. Plenty of fatal snake bite stories in this part of the world so every time I get off my bed, that’s the first thing I check for. Awesome way to wake up no?

A Day Sniffing Tobacco. Literally:

http://racooncode.com/2011/06/21/the-tobacco-industry-in-tabora

What the Hell Am I Doing Here?

Work-wise overloaded with eHealth, mapping, internet connectivity and electricity issues and will attempt to update the blog as much as I can to give you an idea of what’s happening on the ground.

¹ Amazonian monopoly of epic proportions on the world of ebook readers and all consequent associated monopolistic disadvantages. No page numbers. I’m serious. You can’t navigate to a page number. I’m guessing the programmer working on this doesn’t read much. Or get out much. Or have a girlfriend, who reads.
² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pince-nez
³ http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Ernie_Prang

Tobacco Leaves

[All images via Hannah Ayers]

Smoke and dust seem to be unavoidable in this city. On Sunday I woke up to the distinct smell of someone burning something outside my window. While the dust won’t wipe off my skin. I’ve taken to using baby wipes. At least I feel clean for all of twenty seconds.

Voluntarily inhaling smoke is something only the expats indulge in yet this region happens to be one of the most prominent tobacco growing regions in Tanzania. Tabora is full of tobacco farmers and company representatives who all happen to be incredibly nice people with the most interesting stories to share. One of the tobacco gentleman very graciously offered to take us with him to a tobacco market in a village last Thursday and gave us the lowdown on the process and industry. Considering all my experience in Africa up till this point has been in the NGO sector, it was quite enlightening seeing a functioning industry despite it’s controversial nature. The government takes an active role in encouraging the industry and the system of grading and loaning inputs is quite efficient. In the Tabora region farmers grow the tobacco plant and keep removing leaves as they ripen. Then they burn them in specially built tobacco burning huts to remove all the moisture from them. These are then sorted by the farmer according to grades and then sold at a very organized tobacco market where officials check the merchandise and buyers make bids.

The Millennium Villages Project does not encourage the production of tobacco which is quite understandable considering the nature of the organization and the worldwide condemnation of the tobacco industry. There have been attempts to encourage cotton growing within the region as a cash crop (see Jeff Sachs in TIME July 2007) but the farmers did not take well to this scheme and the initiative was abandoned. From what I remember in Pakistan, cotton is very susceptible to pests but it would be interesting to look into other reasons why this may have failed. It makes one wonder what other cash crops could be grown in Tabora which would not carry the negative connotations of tobacco, yet be able to function within a successful business model. What high return crops/industry would encourage private investment?

When I first landed in Tanzania, it seemed like they had a decent supply of sugar cane and I couldn’t help considering potential sugar mills like those in Punjab which have made their owners quite rich. Also in Tabora itself lowland rice paddies can be seen everywhere and must have decent rice production in the wet season. Yet the dry season completely cripples the system and the wet season merely serves to keep it on life support. Random thought which is probably quite naive: What if we pooled all aid money and concentrated it entirely on water access? Would all other sectors sort themselves out?

Additional Links:

CropWatch: The Tobacco Industry Impacts on Tanzania by Ross Hammond (1997)

Tobacco.org: Article Listing for Tanzania

Tobacco Barn

Tobacco Grades

Tobacco Market

*frantic knocking*
Saira: *ignores first bout of frantic knocking*
*MUCH LOUDER frantic knocking*
Saira: Who is it? *one eye refusing to unstick*
Knocker: Wade
Saira: Wade who?
Wade: I just wanted to make sure you guys have woken up for the safari. So psyched!
Saira: I think you have the wrong room (followed by quite a few choice expletives in the reccesses of her brain)

So… lets see… usual headings:

Turkish Delight and ze Awesome Nibbling Party of 6 (well 5 ) which consumed it:

I will live in Istanbul some day. Seriously. Some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Did a two day stopover with five awesome friends of mine, which included regular yelps of surprise when timed lights in the dorm bathroom went off, the 100+ pictures of the sunset we took from the Asian side, the Monica kidnapping (pseudo) by locals for a photography session in the Blue Mosque and so forth. We also happened to be there when one of the local teams won a football game and the whole town went ballistic. Streams of people literally flowed towards Taxim square where we happened to be staying and despite it being a Sunday the streets were jammed at 2 a.m. As for the Turkish delight, I’m not much of a fan but my fellow travellers partook with relish.

Bongoyo: Hannah Quickeye, Laura Babblefish, Saira uh…(I’ll come with something) and Vinay as the mysterious Charlie:

Quickeye due to her being able to pick up on things Laura and I seem to be completely missing; from returning keys when exiting the hostel to God knows what. Google babblefish. Bongoyo is an island off the coast of Dar. Involves getting on one boat and then another boat and then yet another boat and stepping onto my version of paradise. Oh and not forgetting the pre- and post- gelato.

Rat Brawl on the Rooftop of the New Africa Hotel complete with Heart Jarring Dare Devil Act:

So… we went to dinner at New Africa Hotel. Some swanky Thai place on the 9th floor. Decided to have desert after and somehow managed to get seated at a deserted poolside table. Did I mention swanky? Now generally when one uses a word such as “swanky” one does not expect New York size rats trudging along on terraces. But there it was. Trudging along. Until… it met another equally massive member of it’s species and before one could say “Whatthecrap”, both rats gave high pitched squeaks, stood on their hind legs, grabbed each other by the arms in true wrestling fashion and toppled off the ledge. Out of sheer concern for their safety (Im sure) one of our party gave quite the exclamation after which yet another topple took place with the rat landing at ground level barely 5 feet from us and scurrying away into the undergrowth. Lets just say… we will not be staying at this “swanky” hotel in the future.

I distinctly remember promising someone a poem on some obscure topic yet can’t for the life of me remember who I made the promise to and what the topic was so… maybe next time.

Miss you all!

The myth of scale is seductive because it is easier to spread technology than to effect extensive change in social attitudes and human capacity. In other words, it is much less painful to purchase a hundred thousand PCs than to provide a real education for a hundred thousand children; it is easier to run a text-messaging health hotline than to convince people to boil water before ingesting it; it is easier to write an app that helps people find out where they can buy medicine than it is to persuade them that medicine is good for their health.

– Kentaro Toyama

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/02697373737674703637

Mobile Takeover: How cell phones are leading to economic and democratic progress
Professor Iqbal Z. Quadir (Founder, GrameenPhone)

• Professor Quadir works at the Legatum Centre for MIT which encourages entrepreneurship in developing countries as a means of economic growth.
• “For-profit is a healthy thing”
• “Concentration of resources is related to economic degradation” For example concentration of power.
• “Governments managing people” versus “People managing governments”. Democratization usually leads from the former to the latter.
• England’s move towards a more egalitarian state started from tax collection
• “The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.” – Woodrow Wilson
• Commented on the title for The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics by William Easterly. He was referring to the fact that economists can get away with being deemed adventurous where as other professions, such as say doctors, couldn’t possibly refer to their forays in health as adventures. Showing a stark difference in how we perceive health and poverty. Not much of a feedback loop when it comes to economic endeavors in the developing regions.
• “Connectivity is productivity”
• Myth debunking: “Poor people are resources” NOT “Poor people are recipients”
• Recommended reading: “Global Heroes”, The Economist; “The world turned upside down”, The Economist; “The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization” by Victor Davis Hanson

Katrin Verclas, MobileActive.org: Mobiles and Non-Profits

• Planning to read her report Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use
• Interesting point: Phones are far more intimate than computers and this should be kept in mind when designing mobile campaigns.
• Case studies for mobile usage in advocacy:
  • Greenpeace Argentina – Text Messaging to Save Trees
  • It’s OUR Healthcare! (IOH) – How to Run a Text-to-Screen Campaign
  • Pathways to Housing: Interactive Texts Involve You in Public Spaces
• Reference to YouTube DIRECT which allows you to embed the upload functionality of YouTube directly into your own site.
• TXTual Healing: Projecting messages onto interactive SMS displays across urban areas.
• Requesting and receiving information via text message:
  • Climate Counts – Get climate related information for a company by using the keyword cc plus the company name to short code 30644 in the United States
  • The Blue Ocean Institute | Fishphone – “To find out about your seafood choice, text 30644 with the message FISH and the name of the fish in question. We’ll text you back with our assessment and better alternatives to fish with significant environmental concerns.”
• Mobile possibilities:
  • Blue-tooth advertising
  • Blackberry Messaging (BBM)
  • Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD): Short session based messaging e.g. for getting minutes for pre-paid phone plans.
  • Interactive SMS (iSMS)
  • FrontlineSMS
  • Mobile websites
• Preventing abuse: Mobile Marketing Association Code of Conduct
• Cost: India and South East Asia have the cheapest vendors as of now. Looking to see how Bharti buying Zain will affect markets elsewhere. PINK!. Sorry just had to. Every time I think of Zain I think of pink. Deep, vibrant, shocking pink!

Lisa Campbell Salazar, TakingITMobile

This was a remote presentation via Skype. Was a little difficult to follow but I got a better idea of what the aim was when I visited the project website. Mostly gathering data from a number of developing countries regarding how youth use mobile technology.

Michelle Hamilton Page Toronto Public Health, Proximity Marketing

• Hyper Tag: A wearable device which can broadcast / transfer information via blue-tooth. Michelle spoke about past and future campaigns utilizing this device. The phones receiving the information have to be set to discoverable and the user has the capability to accept or reject a transmission request.
• inspot.org: STD notification / encouragement for testing e-cards. This was a service one of the Toronto Public Health campaigns was promoting. The conversion rate (in this case the number of phones observed versus phones reached) was fairly high. However there seemed to be more of a focus on dissemination and less on the final goal. Michelle mentioned though that they are planning to improve their analysis methods.
• UrbanDNA: The company Toronto Public Health chose to partner with for this particular kind of campaign.
• Observation: Mass distribution did not work well for them and they found one-on-one got a lot more people involved.
• Short Code woes: Need to make sure you own them. Could end up in a situation where you lose them after they’ve been established as branding or marketing contact points.

Kelisha Peart, Black CAP

• Case Study: Focus groups in targeted regions within the Greater Toronto Area
• Interesting results. See website for more details

Hima Bhatavia for Jim Monis, Mobile Giving Foundation:

Company started in the United States and from what I gathered they proceeded to form partnerships with mobile carriers which allow users to use short codes to donate money to charities. The donation shows up on their cellphone bill at the end of the month. The Mobile Giving Foundation charges each charity around $350 to sign up and sends out checks every 60-90 days. Currently there seem to be a number of partner organizations which facilitate the process such as ZipGive.

Andrew D’Amico, ZipGive

• Currently running the Young Artists for Haiti campaign
• Maximum donation cap: Set to $30 since if a user chooses not to pay their bill, the carrier gets saddled with the cost.
• However there is the potential to activate monthly donations or a multi-layered pledge option for larger donations.
• Does not have GEO tagging capability (Important consideration pointed out by Dale Zak)
• Currently all text outs are handled by ZipGive. They have their own databases of users which can be populated by data you provide. I believe the software has the capability to allow companies to send out their own text outs, but for the moment it’s centralized to prevent abuse. But I think down the road there should be more control within the individual companies. It would probably cost less and save time spent communicating with the middle man.
• Feedback loops need strengthening i.e. a means of co-relating texts sent out with number of users who followed up on them
• Premium text messages: One of the audience members wondered why those are not being used instead of the short codes. Apparently there isn’t a cap on the donation amount in those cases. According to the presenters, the charities do not get a 100% of the proceeds of premium text messages and some carriers have chosen to disable this option since it has been known for abuse.
• SMS vs QR Codes: Unfortunately I don’t know much about QR codes but according to the presenters these tend to be restricted to applications within smart phones. If any of you have any addition information, feel free to use the comments sections of this post.

Measuring Success on Mobile, Katrin Verclas (mobilebenchmarks.org)

Kartrin recently launched a website which is related to collecting, analyzing and disseminating information about metrics related to using mobile technology for advocacy, fund raising etc. MobileActive partnered with M+R Strategic Services for this project. Some interesting things which came up during this conversation:

• Keyword opt-in is really low
• Even though you may have blocked your cellphone number so that people can’t see it when you call, it will still be displayed in you text message them.
• Important to consider churn rate (rate at which mobile numbers go bad)
• A re-opt in is required if you switch carriers even if there is number portability
• Incentive to participate can be good e.g. free airtime.
• Emphasis on the FailFast concept i.e. by all means try but know when to quit.

Mobile Volunteerism Dale Zak Apps4Good.ca

I could not make it for this one since it was at the same time as Katrin’s but be sure to check out the website and I’ll try and post up any related presentation material as soon as I can get hold of it.

Workshop: Building Mobile into My Communication Strategy, HJC

By this point I was a little wiped out. There were some interesting projects people were working on but all in all I don’t think many people had come with a specific project in mind. Most seemed to be considering the potential.

Random Observations at the Conference:

• Everyone had a Mac with the exception of one Thinkpad and my Dell.
• Majority had iPhones and Blackberrys. Katrin and I seemed to be the only ones with Android based smart phones.
• The digital installation was AWESOME. It was called SEED and the idea was that you could call in a local number and a seed would appear on the screen which was attributed to you. You could then use phone keys to grow and spread your tree. After you were finished, your virtual tree would be added to the virtual forest and Evergreen would plant a real tree in lieu of the one you created virtually.
• Marigolds & Onions: I really liked lunch so here’s a shout out to the caterers.
• Twitter tag for the conference: #ncwk
• Last but not least shout out to the organizers for a great event!
• And yes I know there are not enough pictures primarily because I forgot to take along my SLR.

One of a websites I worked on a couple of months ago is now on TTC streetcars and other vehicles!