Z-Factor URL'S, BLOGS & WEBSITES

Post by Bert Witkamp

Version 10 April 2013.
Updated 21 April 2013.

It is silly, perhaps, to be happy and filled with a sense of achievement by successfully redirecting the address for this blog to the domain I own. Google is a great company, and in its own way quite generous. The initial address http://zamart.blogspot.com shall continue to work; but now you can get there by a redirect from http://artblog.zamart.org. Google’s Blogger shall continue to host. 

To get such a redirect to work you open the settings of your Blogger blog where you now type the new address of your blog as a sub-domain of the domain you own, get the Blogger instructions, and from there all is simple as you only need to go to the DNS record of your domain registrar (you do all of this online, switching between tab of Blogger and your domain registrar), open the DNS record, create 2 CNAME records in it which point to Google (one for the blog and the other to verify that the domain truly is yours, and you're done. Save changes; a child can do the laundry, my physics teacher at school would say. I am sure you got my meaning. It actually took me 4 hours - I first tried it out on a test blog. The second attempt indeed was done in some 15 minutes.

Over 2 years ago I started this art blog as I could not set up a website about the Zambian Art World. Since a few months I have a website, with the help of another rather generous company called Weebly, (“It’s for free!”) and the link is http://zfactorart.weebly.com. Also here I have managed to put in one of my registered domains. You can now access the Zamfactor company website at http://zfactorart.com. It is a rather simple business, but enough to change the future of the ZamArt Blog. Its stand alone pages shall be transferred to the website, and its posts which actually are articles shall be reworked to become a series of proper Internet Publications. The blog shall continue to announce events and be a vehicle for brief publications of texts and imagery.

First attempt at Art Website Creation. Drupal failure - too complicated.

The website development is still not quite the way I like it, the Weebly thing is manageable but a bit too simple. I am still handicapped by poor transmission speed – it’s just the cost of it: we can access Zamtel genuine broadband for Kr 400/month. I have been trying to download WordPress to be hosted on the paid for provider (2 years now without any uploading!) but so far without success. I just keep trying till it works. I have given up on the Drupal software – it is too complicated. IT software developers are freaks. Many of them, for sure, have a very limited capacity to step in the shoes of a layman for whom terms like DNS, CNAME, aliases, CMC or CSS and much of the other jargon these guys are so fond of only have a mystifying and demoralising effect.

Some progress indeed, despite the IT technologists. And you'll see, finally, that the Zambia Art Site, the site this blog was started for, indeed shall go up. Not tomorrow, but I say with some confidence, "soon!"

10 Days after Launch

Click on pages, labels or archived blogs to get to other entries.

Doc initiated       : 23 Feb 2011

Doc last updated:

What is the score? 10 days after broadcasting the VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF ZAMBIAN ART project & the launching of this blog to promote the virtual museum idea, facilitate public discussion and to demonstrate some of the features a fully fledged zamart website might have.

The good news is that there has been ZamArt-Blog development by adding pages and posts. There also has been public interest with about 10 page views daily since the blog became accessible.

The not-so-good news is that the number of received IT responses (by comment or e-mail) is low. There may also be not-received responses as I know of at least 1 comment that went astray. In any case, we have some work to do to justify the notion that this blog and its projected website successor are becoming an IT platform for matters concerning Zambian art.

What Next? We need a bit of an awareness campaign resulting in some sort of artists' awakening.

How? Well, frankly, the Virtual Museum plan has been sent to only a few of the many (potentially) interested parties. That was because of difficulty in getting e-mail addresses, I mean, operating addresses. It also might be that getting into the blog from a link in the mail does not work in some cases, you click (or press control + click-on-link), but no go. (In such event: copy link and post in web browser address window, check that you got the URL right: http://zamart.blogspot.com/ ). It was, by the way, frightening to see how many e-mail addresses were not working, meaning owners had not informed their contacts of change of address.

Looking at the low response level to date, I am reminded of something William Bwalya Miko (artist and director of Zambia’s most prestigious art gallery) wrote: "....during the last four decades very few steps have been taken by artists and the powers that be in the area of visual arts development in Zambia, particularly in terms of international exposure.” (In a photocopied / computer printout paper, titled “KUNDWE” OUT HERE!, distributed in 2005). It is perhaps not all that clear to what extent this statement reflects William’s mood at the time and “objective reality.” William in the same paper acknowledges good progress in a number of areas but his statement that ...."more effort is needed.” is surely true, independent of anybody’s mood of the day.

What else?

·         A stand-alone page has been added labelled Publications. This page is to (a) have a bibliography of books and articles pertinent to Zambian art and document other forms of relevant information (including publications on Internet) and (b) facilitate publishing of and access to papers (as a post on this blog).

·         Two stand-alone pages are presently in the making:

1: Players is to list parties (artists, organisations, writers & others) acting in past and present on the Zambian art scene. Each of the entities shall/may have its own post, which can be accessed from the Players page tab and by other routes located at the sidebar.

2: Art for Sale is a stand-alone page linking to individual posts in which art work can be offered for sale (by artists, art dealers or owners wanting to sell, and where sales promotion can be placed (by artists, art dealers or galleries)). This page shall have elements of online shopping in it, and shall enable interested parties to contact artists, art owners and galleries to acquire information and purchase directly from them.

·         The Art for Sale page eventually is to be complemented by the Art Wanted page in which buyers looking for specific art can place their call.

And, most importantly: SHARE YOUR IDEAS BY POSTING A COMMENT OR SENDING AN E-MAIL! (and do save a copy for yourself in case of delivery failure).

Why this Blog?

Want to change page? Click on labels or archive in sidebar.......

doc initiated : 15 February 2011
last update  : 19 February 2011


WHAT is a Blog?

You can compare a blog to a newspaper or magazine: a blog has a publisher (often also the editor, administrator and main author) and a facility to receive and publish responses from viewers / visitors. There are at least five main differences with conventionally printed communication media:

• A conventional paper once published has its information fixed in permanent matter. Information on a blog can be edited or added on to at any time (provided the blog is activated and you are connected).
• The paper or magazine in its public form is a genuine material object, it is truly an objective embodiment of information. The blog is virtual reality - it just exists on your screen as information (information = a difference that makes a difference, as Gregory Bateson said, quite some time back, at the beginning of the cybernetic revolution. A difference, by itself, has no matter). You can "capture" the virtual reality of the blog you are plugged into - or one of its pages - as it is at a particular point in time in material form by printing it out. You can also electronically save it, for later retrieval and processing.
• It usually is easy for a blog viewer to immediately submit a response in the form of a comment meant to be published or in the form of an e-mail which may or may not be intended to be published. This feature promotes in principle a high degree of active involvement of the viewership, or, at least, opens up such possibilities. A viewer can respond to information provided by a blog any time and from any place (provided there is Internet connection) and send a response or forward information easily to any place / receiver (having Internet connection).
• Setting up a blog, in a technical sense is easy and requires very little equipment or capital. This stands in great contrast to the expense and complicated technology of conventional publishing. To do a blog you only need a computer, a working Internet connection, an account with a Internet provider (both for your Internet connection and the host of your blog), a manageable amount of technical skill, motivation and time.
• Access to the blog (to receive, disperse or submit information) is free (though getting connected to the Internet usually does have a cost).

These features combined make a blog very suited for the "broadcasting" and recording of ongoing processes and actions, their documentation, dissemination, and associated public debate and comment.

A blog is a fine example of a product of the most recent, now firmly established revolution in the development of mankind: electronic communication.



WHY a ZamArt-Blog?

The amazing thing is: to date, or better, hopefully, up to to date we do not have anything that we could call an IT platform for the (visual) arts.

It really is amazing. It is not that hard to do and once you have it you can visit the site or blog every once-in-a-while and bring up or possibly bring down something you want to bring up or down.

Talk publicly to people, fellow artists, supporters, art interested folks and organisations.

Yes, the idea beyond this blog idea is to set up a Virtual Museum of Zambian Art proper. But just a blog already is a good thing. We've got to start somewhere......keeping the site in sight.

HOW to Contribute?

You can participate passively by viewing posted entries.

You can participate actively by:

• Submitting comment(s)
• Submitting posts (entries) for publication
• E-mailing art related  suggestions, ideas or other information which may or may not be published as by your instructions (to zamfactor@gmail.com)
• Propose measures to improve ZamArt-Blog functionality
• Forwarding ZamArt-Blog posts to interested parties, spreading the viewership

RULES for External Contribution by Comments or Postings

Rules for external contributions and contributors are laid down in the policy page. In summary:

• Anyone is free to submit comments or posts on (Zambian) art related topics BUT:
• Publication is at the discretion of the Blog administrator
• The administrator may abbreviate or edit text. The administrator shall communicate with the author of the edited text and seek consent for publication before publication.
• External contributors must ensure that copyright laws and regulations are observed and are solely responsible for such adherence.
• External contributors are responsible for submitted content, the administrator for its proper publication.