F.O.S.S. @

MindaNewswww.mindanews.com

By Bobby Tim oneraEditor

MindaNews

" Is the news agency arm of the M indanao N ews

and Information Cooperative Center (M N ICC)

" Formed in 2001

" M N ICC is a cooperative of M indanao-based

journalists

" Journalists who, truth be told, do not know how

to make money the way businessmen do

We formed MindaNews coz ..." W e got tired how national newspapers and other

news agencies handled M indanao stories

" W hich often portrayed M indanao as a place where

violence happens everyday and everywhere

" W hen in reality we’re generally living in peace in this

beautiful island, which I’d say is a much more livable

place than M etro M anila

" W ith a few occasional disturbances in a few areas, as

the case in N ew York, London, Bali and M anila

"Set up a daily news service in M ay 2001, and

sent out our first news dispatch on the 25th

"Relying solely on our journalistic skills, som e

technical know-how of the Internet,

dedication and love for M indanao

W ith almost ZERO money, we dared to...

The Internet was key to our operations coz ...

" W ith no money, it would have been so difficult

to distribute stories and photos to our

subscribers

" Again, with no money, it was impossible to bring

in the editors, who live in separate cities across

M indanao, together in our office in Davao

W e were using YAHO O GRO UPS when we first sent out stories in 2001

W e’re still using YAHO O GRO UPS now

It’s simple, low-tech, and it works

O n M ay 25, 2002, we first went online with a webpage updated on

a weekly basis

Using a very simple W YSIW YG HTM L editor, M S FrontPage

O ur web updates went daily on M arch 2003

Still using the primitive FrontPage, a software I learned to use while in hiding after covering a dangerous

assignment in 1997

Being the only pseudo-techie in the group, I did all the uploads initially

So when I was out of town, I had to bring the CD installer with me, pleading with Internet cafe adminstrators to let me install the software

It was not easy teaching my colleagues to help me out in uploading our articles to the webpage

It was a relief when younger folks with some computer skills joined us later

O ver a year ago, SEACEM helped us m ove into CM S with Joomla a FO SS – –

training one of our staff in Kuala Lum pur

Joomla is well suited for small organizations like M indaN ews

Aside from being free, it is easy to maintain on the front-end side

Finally, it freed me from doing web work almost all by my lonesome as our colleagues with less than average computer skills could now help out in the daily updating

But Joomla is not without its disadvantages

It's still difficult to setup on the back-end as you need a more geeky webmaster compared to setting up an html-based webpage

In fact, I was completely not involved in setting up our webpage since we went Joomla mid-2006, and again when we did a facelift a few months ago

W hile it's easy to update the webpage for the front-end user, it's difficult for him to troubleshoot if something goes wrong

Some add-ons or extensions are still not free. M indaN ews bought a news portal extension for about $80

THANK YOU