IEC to fix website

you guys are just jelus
i am going to quote R3.957 MILL
i WILL get the work because I am already over budget.
I will get Fragtion -from above message to do it for R5K
THEN i CAN DRIVA WA BENZI AND LIVE IN PLETT.
So i need some backing so please everyone vote for me!!
 
3mil! Either they are making the best site ever known to man..or they are making figures up...or they're being taken for a ride by one soon to be very wealthy person.
 
rpm said:
IEC to fix website
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Gee this is absolutely ridiculous.
I have just had a quick look at the site with firefox. If one bypasses the home page all the rest of the pages appear to display fine in firefox without the top javascript menu.
The menu at the bottom creates links for all the pages required it seems.
So one really just needs to modify the javascript menu at the top to be firefox compliant it seems.
if anyone else can confirm this then the company who quoted 3 million to fix the website should be locked up for stealing tax payers money.
 
i bet you they spend 3 mil and their website will run on linux and joomla on international bandwidth. bwhaahahaah
 
I'm writing them another rude email about this costing three million! #%(@*#$@ and I'm supposed to file my tax return soon - can I deduct government stupidity?
 
An Open Letter to Mr Maphanga, CIO of the IEC

Dear Mr Maphanga,

Thank you for your reply to my earlier e-mail (http://blog.saturnlaboratories.co.za/2008/11/04/digital_apartheid.html). I was a bit concerned, however, with your reply, because it showed me a lack of knowledge of the situation. I would like to offer some insight on how you could address the situation, both in the short term, and in the long term.

I understand that as a CIO you are not required to understand all the technical aspects of those things you manage, but your lack of knowledge shows me that those you rely on for their technical knowledge are either lying to you, or are incompetent. Therefore I think that this lack of knowledge on your part is unfortunate ignorance, rather than lack of ability or incompetence.

Firstly, I would like to deal with a few things you mentioned in your e-mail to me.

I have noted your concerns unfortunately the website does not work on any other browser other than Internet Explorer unless you know how to fake Internet Explorer from the other browsers.
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As has been pointed out by a number of people already, your site DOES work in browsers other than Internet Explorer. To be more accurate, your site does not work that well in Internet Explorer, and fares slightly worse in other browsers.

In addition to that, it is quite easy to fake a browser's user agent string (the way the browser identifies itself to web servers), and tell a site that you are using a different browser.

We are aware of the cross-browser compatibility problem and we are working on resolving it as soon as possible.
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Yes, you are aware of the problem, but you are obviously not aware of a simple, stop-gap fix that can be applied. Simply removing the JavaScript browser check (a 5 minute job, at most) will open up all other browsers to your site. This will allow visitors to access and make use of your site, while you prepare a better site.

I can guarantee that the removal of that browser checking mechanism would reduce the number of complaints you are receiving to close to zero.

To us the website is but just one of the communication channels at our available, it is not the only one, it is complementary to number of other channels, so if you want to link it to your right to vote, though unfortunate but it remains your choice there is very little I can do about it.
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Mr Maphanga, please don't contradict yourself. In interviews in 2004 you stated how the IEC's website was important, and now here you imply that it is not that important.

To me your site is very important. We live in the technological age, and I am one of many people who finds web sites far more convenient in our busy lives than spending half an hour on the phone waiting for a consultant to attend to our call.

According to an article on news site Tectonic:

Libisi Maphanga, chief information officer at the IEC, says, however, that the organisation is "well aware" of the problems with the website and the complaints from users and has in place a project team to rectify the situation.

Maphanga told Tectonic this morning that a "project team" had be set up to fix the problem and it was expected to have the first phase of the all-access website up and running by January 2009. A second phase was expected to add more content by April 2009, just in time for the national elections.

The project to make the website available to all users will cost around R3 million, says Maphanga. He says that because of a growing "campaign" from disgruntled citizens complaining about the website and the "disruption to our regular work" this was causing, other projects have been put on hold so that budget could be allocated to fixing the website. The IEC also applied for supplemental funding from government for the website but this was denied.
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I can only say one thing: you are being taken for a ride. As a professional web developer, I can tell you for a fact that it does not cost R3 million to revamp a web site. Someone is getting rich, selling you a scam and pocketing a few million Rand.

Mr Maphanga, while you will most probably take offense at this letter, please understand that none is intended. I simply want to make you an informed CIO. That figure of R3 million is outrageous, and I cannot stand by and let my government be swindled.

Since this is an open letter, I have decided to post it to my blog, which you can access at http://blog.saturnlaboratories.co.za/2008/11/04/an_open_letter_to_mr_maphanga_cio_of_the_iec.html. I have also e-mailed some of your peers, as well as some of the local Linux User Groups who I know have an interest in this issue. I have also posted it to a thread on the MyBroadband forums where there are other discussions on this subject.

Kind regards,

Raoul Snyman
 
CryoBorg said:
Hey, let's do it for 2 mil. 1mil for the BEE partner. 100K for the guys doing the work and 900k for the rest of us.

Actually I'm sure there will probably be some infrastructure costs (load balanced servers, hosting, software, etc.)
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We can always test this theory?[1] I've got ~125Mbps of capacity readily available to me, and I'm fairly certain even just this might be enough to cripple the server if I had wanted to do so.

[1] I mean the load balancers, hosting, etc. Not that I could even see why they would use a load balancer: from what I've seen of most of our government sites one somewhat beefy server and a decent internet connection should be able to cope pretty well, since people wouldn't be likely to be staying there for long.
 
I've taken a look at their site and can easily fix their terrible mistakes and mess-ups at a cost of far less than R3 million...
 
3 million!! are they mad..what for? Are they planning to run the site on gold plated servers with 20 inch rims and a diamond reset button?? :confused:

Twisted people trying to rip off non-tech people. The company involved should be named and shamed for such rubbish..:mad:
 
bekdik said:
I'm missing something (again:))

I've just accessed the site to check whether I'm registered and i'm using FF.

What is the problem I should have encountered?
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That section works for FF, but try to access previous results, or anything else on the site.
 
mezu said:
The company involved should be named and shamed for such rubbish..:mad:
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They have been, it's accenture.

Client: Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)

Image

Client Description: The Electoral Commission of South Africa is a permanent body created by the Constitution to promote and safeguard democracy in South Africa. Although publicly funded and accountable to parliament, the Commission is independent of the government. Its immediate task is the impartial management of free and fair elections at all levels of government.
URL: [www.iec.org.za]
Industry: Government
Project: 1999 National Election Centre
Project Description: Technical Infrastructure design, implementation, testing and support for the Election Centre operations for the 1999 South African National Election.
Dates Assigned to Project: April 1999 to July 1999
Role: Technical Security Specialist
Technologies Used :-
Programming Language: ASP, Visual Basic 6
Application Server: DCOM on IIS
Database: MS SQL
Hardware: HP Intel
Operating System: Windows NT 4.0
Other: Microsoft Office, Checkpoint Firewall, Windows Load Balancer
Project Outcomes: The National Elections was succesfully concluded without any major incident.
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Edit: Sorry, that description looks like it's for the IT infrastructure for the elections themselves, not the website. Anyway, accenture were also responsible for the website.
 
chiskop said:
They have been, it's accenture.

http://www.divinityconsulting.com/content/view/30/1/

Edit: Sorry, that description looks like it's for the IT infrastructure for the elections themselves, not the website. Anyway, accenture were also responsible for the website.
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Ha! This should be a criminal offense. When dealing with clients, I always asses their needs..sometimes clients do not really need a CMS based site and it would be unethical and evil to charge them more, just because they happen to be non tech people..

thats just my view
 
For sure, although the CMS itself is not the problem. I'm sure that the IMC needs a CMS.

The problem is the MS-centred approach that has locked out other browsers - and that is unacceptable whether you have a one page site or a 2000 page CMS-driven site.

And 3 million to fix something (as simple as the HTML/javascript) that you didn't build properly in the first place - that is a problem.
 
And to think that Accenture only recruits "the crop of the cream"...a couple of guys from my IS class at Wits are actually over there..

spending too much time on systems design/use cases/class diagrams arent we?...hehehe..
 
Re: An Open Letter to Mr Maphanga, CIO of the IEC

Oh look, I got a reply to my e-mail:

Dear Raoul Snyman

The real problem is that this has turned into a campaign and not an honest concern about our difficulties, such that it is trivializing the problems we are having.

Do yourself a favour look beyond appearance, understand the problem and stop the pretence. Your 5 minutes solution is naïve to say the least.

I know what we are dealing with, while concerned what led us to this situation but I am convinced that the interim measure we have implemented and the remedial action we are developing is correct.

Regards


Libisi Maphanga
Chief Information Officer
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And this is my reply:

Dear Mr Maphanga,

The real problem is that this has turned into a campaign and not an honest concern about our difficulties, such that it is trivializing the problems we are having.
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I never tried to trivialise your problems. A site that is as broken as yours *is* a major problem. Having been in the web development business for a long time, I know and I can understand this. All I was suggesting is a small, quick fix for the moment, so that you can stop excluding all non-Microsoft systems, and make a whole lot of people happy.

If I wasn't concerned for your difficulties, I wouldn't have offered you a simple but effective solution, for FREE (yes, I'm not charging you R3 million for this).

Do yourself a favour look beyond appearance, understand the problem and stop the pretence. Your 5 minutes solution is naïve to say the least.
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Please do not insult me by saying that my solution is naïve. How long did it take to add the Google Chrome browser to the text on your page? 5 minutes? And that browser came out only a few months ago! So which is naïve, since they both take 5 minutes to do? If someone can take the time to add text to a page, they can just as well take time to remove the browser checking mechanism.

And if you doubt my knowledge (as you seem to), I will have you know that I am a seasoned web developer. I have been in development for 10 years, and I've been on the Internet for 12. I currently work for one of the busiest and most popular web sites in South Africa. I am fairly well versed in the technologies surrounding the Internet, and I can tell you for a fact that your site could be constructed for less than R100 000.

I know what we are dealing with, while concerned what led us to this situation but I am convinced that the interim measure we have implemented and the remedial action we are developing is correct.
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Your interim measure is to make a little page where someone can check if they're registered or not. I know I'm not registered, and I've moved 3 times since the last elections. I want to know where my ward is, so that I can go and register this weekend. Your "interim measure" does not help me in the slightest.

However, since you're convinced that your interim measure is fine, would you please tell me where my registration office is? I live in Capricorn beach, Muizenberg. Thanks.

I have a few more thoughts I'd like to convey to you. Let me quote a comment from one of our local news sites, Tectonic:

The main problem with the IEC is that their IT decisions are made for them by Accenture. I have known Libisi for many years and have a great deal of respect for the man, but unfortunately he isn’t the master of his own destiny... Well that part of his own destiny which impacts on IT systems at the IEC.

Most of the IT contract resources at the IEC are currently only comfortable with Dot Net. Of course these contract resources also happen, in most cases, to be Accenture resources.

I was told a few weeks ago that a team was busy working on a new IEC web site, but on deeper investigation I found out that nothing was actually happening. Someone is apparently investigating various CMS solutions, but as far as I know, nothing more is happening.

In response to the "CMS solution investigation", I have made a suggestion that Drupal, Joomla and/or Mambo be considered. Of course these solutions make the Accenture resources uncomfortable because a) They are open source and b) They are not Dot Net.

It is my very firm belief that Accenture's main interest in the IEC is to milk them (And subsequently the South African tax payer) for as much money as possible.
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Mr Maphanga, I have to say that I'm sorry to hear that you are not in a position to actually direct your own IT systems, and that you're willing to listen to a company that DEFINITELY doesn't have your or the public's best interests at heart.

Here I have another comment, from someone who has worked at Accenture, someone who is well respected in technical circles in South Africa:

Ok, I can understand the problem. The website *was* steamrollered into place by fast-talking, highly paid consultants (who actually knew little about coding and the web and non-Microsoft environments). The bits of code done in VB *are* crucial - if I remember correctly, during the last elections, a view of the site in IE yielded very different results to when viewed in Konqueror or Mozilla.

Now, when you have a 'website', and you ask for money to rewrite it, chances are you won't be popular with your boss. And the budget of R3m? Those are the figures when you get a big consulting firm to come in and make your problem go away. Of course you could get a smaller company in, but then you would need to assess them to see whether they can do the job adequately, manage them (because they don’t have the smooth partner-types with Powerpoint slides to keep your boss feeling comfortable).

It's a sick world, I know.
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So Mr Maphanga, I can see your dilemma. You have 20 e-mails a day in your inbox from people complaining about the site, and then your supposedly trusted advisors are telling you that these people who are complaining don't know what they're talking about.

Thank you for taking the time to read my e-mails and respond to me. I know you're a very busy man, and I'm really honoured to see the speed in which you are replying, as it shows me that you're making time in your busy schedule for dealing with my e-mails.

Kind regards,

Raoul Snyman
 
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