What Was New Archive - links No.4
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The What Was New Archive
ARCHIVED LINKS NO.4
1 June 1997 - 23 December 1997
Compiled by the Birzeit Webmaster, webmaster@birzeit.edu.
- 23 December 1997 - Birzeit breaks up today for the Christmas holiday. We will be back on 3 January 1998 to open our mail and answer our e-mails. Merry Christmas, Ramadan Kareem and Happy Hannuka to all, and a Happy New Year!
- 18 November 1997 - Although this What's New page has not been updated for almost a month, work has been continuing on the Birzeit website. There have been four new Birzeit News items since the last update to this page. As most people enter our site via the university homepage, links to these now appear on the homepage. When you arrive at http://www.birzeit.edu/, click on the internal "Homepage Contents" text link titled "Current News at Birzeit" to skip down the page to see what new news there is. Other work that has been going on but is still invisible includes a relaunch of a vastly new improved Complete Guide to Palestine's Websites. It isn't ready yet, but the unveiling will reveal a complete new design, several new catagories, special sections on the peace process and useful Israeli websites, and over 20 newly discovered sites. The Complete Guide invites organisations to take advantage of the relaunch by supporting Birzeit's Web project through advertising. The Birzeit, Palestine and the World Wide Web section of our website is due for an update immediately after the relaunch.
- 25 September 1997 - After two weeks work by a team across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Birzeit University is proud to present a website to commemorate the martyrs of the September 1996 Clashes. The site explains itself and has a beautiful song in Arabic to listen to as you browse, a translation of which will be forthcoming.
- 20 September 1997 - Birzeit News hosts some exciting new material, concerned with how the university community is remembering the September 1996 clashes that left over 80 Palestinians dead and 1,200 injured in their wake. The coming Web Memorial Project will be launched at 4:25pm Palestinian Time on Thursday 25 September 1997, the time the first martyr fell. For more information about the project, check the Birzeit News announcement and the harrowing 15 minute interview with 'Ala Jaradat, the project coordinator, who describes witnessing the clashes and the impetus for the project, also available in Real Audio streaming or downloadable (1.76MB) formats.
- 8 September 1997 - Birzeit Public Relations Office staff member Nigel Parry argues in Birzeit News that the alternative route to nearby Birzeit, in full view of numerous Israeli troops suggests a policy of collective punishment and "safety valve" approach, and concludes by suggesting a difficult alternative. Maps and links.
- 23 August 1997 - Brief Information about Birzeit University has just been updated in English, French and German. Marvel at the new lists of key faculty and contact e-mails in "Who's Who at Birzeit?". Delight at the new brief intros to new departments such as the Media Centre and World Wide Web Project. Basically, long overdue, but very useful. Thanks to PAS student Samira Barakat for the English and German updates, and intern Lana Asfour, for the French update! Good work, people.
- 19 August 1997 - Do you want to know about the state of the Palestinian Internet community? Are you aware of the various controls Israel placed and still places on Palestinian development via the telecommunications network? Would you like an introduction to the key institutions in Palestinian IT? And do you want an idea of what problems the Palestinian IT community must overcome to really contribute to ending the occupation? A new report: THE PAST AND FUTURE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN PALESTINE: An introduction for the Palestinian NGO community - a paper for the International NGO Meeting/European NGO Symposium on the Question of Palestine at the United Nations, 25-28 August 1997, by Nigel Parry, Birzeit Webmaster.
- 12 August 1997 - It's closure frenzy at the moment, with an additional three reports since Albert Aghazarian's 31 July 1997 interview (see below), from various parts of the university, and from one new guest on our webserver. A press briefing detailing recent developments in the closure, which drags on, was sent out today by the Public Relations Office. On 6 August 1997, Birzeit News hosted a feature article by Dr. Hanna Nasir, Birzeit University President, entitled To Yossi - with kindness. Dr. Nasir relates his reactions to an encounter with an Israeli soldier that took place while he was on the way from Birzeit to Ramallah, during the current closure of the West Bank and Gaza. Finally, the recently redesigned A Personal Diary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the photodiary by Birzeit staff member Nigel Parry, has added entries, beginning with Fear and loathing on the leaflet trail [2 parts] covering the period from 30 July - 6 August 1997. Finally we welcome LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, to our webserver. Read their excellent report on the current closure, particularly the section entitled, "Discrimination against Palestinian Patients by Israeli Hospitals and Officials". Unbelievable.
- 31 July 1997 - Birzeit News hosts an interview following yesterday's bombing in Jerusalem with Mr. Albert Aghazarian, Director of Public Relations by Nigel Parry, Real Audio (681K) or *.wav (7.34 MB) formats. 5 minutes, 50 seconds. Download Real Audio Now.
- 25 July 1997 - If you applied to study at Birzeit and know your Tawjihi number, here is the list of high school students accepted by the university. Note: this information is in Arabic and has been put on the Web as a 190K gif file.
- 14 July 1997 - The Birzeit webserver now streams Real Audio files, thanks to the installation of a trial version of the RealServer. A full version will be purchased by the end of the month to enable us
- 11 July 1997 - Real Audio files are being added onto the webserver at the moment and a free Real Audio player can be downloaded via the link above. They won't stream yet, but we will be purchasing a Real Audio streaming server this coming month. The advantage of the files, even in their current unstreaming state, is that they occupy a seventh of the space of a *.wav file. We are using this sound format in Birzeit News and two interviews, with Cathi Grosso (Human Rights Action Project Coordinator) and Kim Kahlhamer (Palestine and Arabic Studies Program Coordinator), are now available.
- 23 June 1997 - We finally added a search engine to the Birzeit website. Thanks to the Computer Center's Samir Qumsieh for sorting this out. Final fixing of the site button bar was undertaken, which will spread throughout a few more parts of the website. Finally, the homepage now has easier internal navigation. The text of Noam Chomsky's lecture is also now available.
For those of you who have had problems contacting the university by e-mail over the last 10 days, the network has been up and down. The problem seems to be fixed but you might want to resend any mail that was sent during this period if you didn't get a response.
- 14 June 1997 - The site button bar (see left) has been updated to reflect the more useful and important parts of the website. What the buttons lead to has also been made clearer. Only one of the links, to Birzeit's Hope to the Future Appeal, does not lead anywhere substantial so far. This will change when the appeal is launched in July. I was in two minds as whether to remove the Events in Palestine button, now "Cultural and other events in Palestine." I decided against it as, although it is not a comprehensive guide, it periodically has some good information on it. The Birzeit News section is also coming into its own these days, with some interesting articles, good links from them and regular entries. As a result it was added to the button bar. The non-existent Campus Tour was removed. Also, Birzeit Archives was removed as it has not yet come into the level of usefulness intended. Rest assured that these two sections will be dealt with as a priority in the future, the latter as it would be very useful for researchers to have searchable access to all our past newsletters and human rights reports. The Complete Guide to Palestine's Websites did not get a feature on the button bar, as it will remain on the homepage as a central feature.
- 9 June 1997 - Information about the summer workcamps held in August by the Office of Student Affairs is now available.
- 7 June 1997 - Noam Chomsky spoke today at Birzeit University. A short report is now available in Birzeit News. The full transcript of his lecture should appear on this page by Monday.
- 6 June 1997 - We're one-year-old today! The Birzeit website celebrates its first birthday, half-a-million file requests later. A report on the first year is now available.
- 1 June 1997 - What's New? has been archived again. If you missed the recent updates, you can find the last archive here. CED is online! The acronym CED stands for the "Continuing Education Department". If you want to know more about what it does, visit CED's homepage. I will say that it is one of the best department homepages regarding information and layout, and has a 'human' staff page, which is more than can be said for some of the other departments. Whatever, it's here and the link is always available off the Birzeit homepage.
Page created: 1 March 1998.
Comments to: webmaster@birzeit.edu.
