Greatly Reviewed!

There’s time when you feel distressed as a university site webmaster. In my case, I feel very distressed once–so far. It happened several weeks ago. This goes the story:

Someone sent an email to the webmaster, to me, informing of a job vacancy in a company whose name he didn’t show and whose address he didn’t show. Well, because I had once received a complaint from our reader telling that there’s a fraudulent job vacancy information that we uploaded without ever knowing that it had been fraudulent, my spider sense reminded me to upload this job vacancy information from this alumnus. I replied him telling him that we could not post the vacancy due to certain reason (I told him the reason, we want our vacancy info giver to give the mailing address to show their being responsible for their vacancy information). You know what? He replied back saying: hey, we sent you the info because we don’t want our alumni become unemployed, btw, this company actually belongs to the head of alumni association of our campus.

He wrote the email in a–to me–very rude manner. Continue reading »

You might say that internet is very familiar with the whole academic society members in most of Indonesian universities. That’s right. Some of them have even been doing online admission process. However, making and maintaining website is another thing, even among academic society members! This explains why many Indonesian universities’ websites are ill-managed, ill-updated, and ill-this and ill-that…

However, this era will likely to depart from us, thanks the second biggest invention in the 20^th century: blog. Yeah, thanks to blog technology, today some institutions have “healthy” (well-updated) web presence. Just to take an example, look at this one: it uses blog-like CMS right? It’s not so difficult for any of their staffs to update their site anytime they’ve got something to offer their readers. What seems to need a rather advanced webbuilding skill is just the first process, tailoring the CMS whether from the ready-made WordPress.org or MoveableType.org CMSes or from the one you build yourself. Just that. That’s the only moment (with next rarely tailoring sessions) when you need DreamWeaver. Next, you don’t need Dreamweaver, Adobe Contribute, and all no more. Any of your staffs will just need Modzilla Firefox or IE and that’s all.

Continue reading »

I just had quite a touchy story here. See, as a webmaster, I open my webmaster email day in and day out. Even at weekends–if I happen to let my self online, :D. Last week, I received an email from this guy. He told me that he had finished his KPC (KPC is a study group organized by a school appointed by the government, this study group is dedicated to those who never graduated from high school and want to have a high school certificate, classes are usually held six days a week in the evening, upon the completion of this program attendants can obtain a senior-high-school-equivalent certificate, which they can use to apply for a job–usually as factory labors–that requires them at least to have a high-school certificate, similar programs are KPB, which is for junior-high-school-equivalent, and KPA, for elementary school equivalent). This asked me whether it was possible for him, considering his certificate, to study in my campus. I directly asked the administrative office about it. They told me that it’s impossible for someone who has such certificate to study in our campus.

It was quite hard for me to start my reply email telling him that he can’t study in my campus. However, I was just a nozzle through which the information must go. I finally managed this. I told him in millions of difficulties any sentimental webmaster might find. It was done. I did it anyhow….

But, just now, I received a re-reply email from him. Know what it read?:

“Has the academic world given such a verdict to us KPC holders?”

Oh, man!

OMG, I forgot. You know what? The very first thing I should’ve done is THANKING. Yeah, thanking. Thanks to Great_WW for making such a historical accident that this domain name now exists. Thanks for it, Bro. I can’t conceive how I should pay back. Well, let’s pray that we (this blog and yours) can get the highest PR any webmaster has ever dreamed of.

Anyway, greviewed is a cool name (thanks for you). It began (and still–at least now when I’m composin this entry) as a meaningless word. Yet, I’ll promise you by You-Know-Who, I’ll make it another entry in the vocabulary of any netter. Then, you’ll find yourself a genius in disguise. Hehehe…

Hey you know what? I’ll try to review (almost) all university websites in Indonesia, where I am now. You see, almost all universities in Indonesia have websites nowadays (although some of them are quite traditional, hehehe…). It just flashed in my mind, the idea to review them.

I’ll try to show which parts make them look cool, which make ‘em less cool, which makes it easy for people to use, and all. Well, I’m thinking of starting reviewing the site from the highest-achieving website according to webometrics. You know what? Univerisity authorities are highly affected by the ranking webometrics does in half-yearly basis. Many of them wish to get scores as high as possible.

Despite the fact that the above-linked site is actually not an official-world-acclaimed site, authorities in Indonesia consider its ranking with respect. One of the assessment in national university site award owes to webometrics scoring.

So, here you’ll see me re-assess those high-achieving sites with my own benchmark: reason. Keep alert!