Upcoming Workshops

We are glad to announce two upcoming workshops:

Build a Website (Using Google Sites)

Can you surf the Internet? Then you can also build websites. No computer degree necessary. In this 2-day, hands-on workshop you will create your own free website using Google Sites. Instructed by Mr. Boaz Shmueli, the workshop will take place on Nov 14-15, 2011, and is intended for small business owners, schools, tour operators, various organizations and anyone tired of chasing a webmaster...





Risk Analysis for Project Planning (Using Excel)

How can data be used for planning, decision making, and assessment? Learn basic and advanced Excel skills for risk analysis. A two-day workshop by Professor Galit Shmueli (USA) will take place on Nov 21-22, 2011. The workshop is intended for decision makers in the government, corporate and private sectors. Fee includes the book "Practical Risk Analysis for Project Planning".

For details and registration visit www.rigsum-it.com/workshops.

Web-Based Medical Diagnosis (K2 #25)

Question of the Week
My friend is having a bad cough and is afraid to go to the doctor. She checked on the Internet and saw that it might be lung cancer. I told her that you can’t trust medical information on the Internet. Am I right?
-- Chandra M., S/J

Dear Chandra,

More and more people are looking for health information online, in order to get quick answers, to avoid going to doctors, and for other reasons. While having access to health information can be helpful, you must be careful about self-diagnosis based on online information. It is easy to get carried away and suspect a dangerous or rare disease, especially when searching online. For example, searching for "headache" might bring up online articles about brain tumors. Some people become very anxious when looking up their symptoms online and are preoccupied about having a serious disease - this sounds like what your friend is experiencing. There is even a name for this online phenomena: cyber-chondria.

Previously, we didn't have access to all this excessive medical information. We didn't worry as much! Your friend's cough is more likely caused by the seasonal flu, especially in this time of the year. However, I am not a medical doctor and therefore this is again just one more opinion. To be sure, and to rid herself of the scary thoughts, she should check with a health professional. She can even print out the information that she found on the Internet and discuss it with the doctor.

A plethora of websites provide health and medical information. Some information is useful and reliable, but much of it is misleading, wrong, or even harmful. Remember that anyone can publish anything on the Internet; the fact that it's out there does not mean that it's credible or true. So when looking at a health-related website - or any other website - it is useful to check who runs the website, who pays for it, and for what purpose. Check out the "About us" or "About this site" section of the website.

Even if a health website is very popular, it might not have genuine intentions. Some websites - such as the popular WebMD - are sponsored by giant pharmaceutical companies and have a commercial agenda, so they will often steer users towards drugs or surgery, when in fact basic lifestyle solutions (diet, exercise, rest, etc.) are healthiest.

Here are three of my favourite websites for health-related information, which are considered trust-worthy:

MedlinePlus (nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus) is run by the US National Library of Medicine and provides useful reliable, and ad-free information about hundreds of health topics, including medical drugs, for consumers.

Mayo Clinic (mayoclinic.com/health-information), one of the best hospital systems in the world, runs a useful, balanced, and reliable website. The website also features a Symptom Checker.

CDC (www.cdc.gov), the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has excellent information on disease outbreaks, child vaccinations and travelers' health.

To summarize: While some websites are useful and educational, they are meant to complement - not replace - a doctor.

---

Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

BBC's What's Your Number: A Brilliant Way to Collect Private Information

BBC's webmaster

Nobody knows the world's exact population figures, but the United Nations decided - partly to raise awareness, partly as a publicity stunt - to arbitrarily pick October 31st, 2011 as the date when the number of people on earth will cross 7 billion. There's a lot of discussion about the 7B mark all over the place, so I'll leave that to the experts. What I wanted to talk about is BBC's What's Your Number application, launched just in time to coincide with the UN's announcement.

Nu 100 Royal Wedding notes pop up on Ebay

The special Nu 100 notes sold by the Royal Monetary Authority, which were printed especially for the Royal Wedding, have unsurprisingly popped up on E-bay.

Prices start at US$24.99 - about Nu 1250 - plus shipping.

According to Kuensel, two million commemorative Nu 100 notes were printed. The local price for the notes was Nu 500, or about US$10.

B-Mobile to Increase Capacity

Changlimithang

B-Mobile subscribers are lately facing disconnects and other congestion-related issues, including complete loss of network signal. Although this is very apparent when the Bhutan-wide load is high, such as during the recent earthquake, we have noticed that these issues occur also during non-emergency times, although much less often.

But don't despair, as relief is coming: B-Mobile has announced that by the end of 2012, capacity will be doubled, which will allow more simultaneous calls. This is very good news.

I'm not sure, however, that this will solve a related issue that occurs when many users concentrate in a small area. For example, when tens of thousands of people congregate in Changlimithang stadium, the load on the local "base station" is increased dramatically. For this type of issue, increasing the total capacity is not enough.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Bhutanese version)

In the classic fairy tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", it is a little girl, Goldilocks, who enters the empty house of a family of bears ("the old papa Bear, the mamma Bear, and the little boy Bear") enjoys some porridge, breaks a chair, and finally falls asleep. But recently in a village in Laya, in an incredible reversal of roles, it was a 122-kg she-bear  (Blacklocks?) who entered into a empty house, and for a few days ate, drank, slept and generally had the time of her life:

"[The Himalayan black] bear had eaten from 20
bags of rice weighing 25kg each, three bags of 25kg wheat flour, locally known as ‘kapchi’, 50 kg of yak butter and a kilogram of salt. Rice and apchi had been scattered all over. The bear had also drunk water stored in a huge traditional brass bowl."

Bhutanese cannot access Kuensel, others can

While we have verified that users outside Bhutan are able to access the website of the national newspaper, the Kuensel, access within the country is currently not possible, and visitors are getting a "Cannot find the server at www.kuenselonline.com" error. This can be a server issue (the Kuensel server is currently located outside the country), or an Internet Service Provider (ISP) glitch.

My solution: Go and buy a copy. It's only Nu 5...

We will update you when (and if) we get more information about this bizarre technical issue.

Update: Just saw the following notification on Kuensel's FB page (via their Twitter account):

"To all our online readers who haven't been able to access our website: We are sincerely apologetic. Our tech people have been and are currently still working to fix this issue. Will update you as soon as it's fixed."

Good!