One of our clients wants to build a membership-based site, with several different membership levels and options. And of course, both Joomla and WordPress options for fine control of who-sees-what are relatively limited.

Both systems have very basic authentication protocols, where you can hide posts from users who aren’t logged in, but neither have any sort of system allowing several levels of privileges (WordPress’s role system is geared towards posting rights, not reading rights).

Enter the Role Scoper plugin, by Kevin Behrens. It’s still in development, but it offers the level of control my client is looking for. And, after spending an afternoon playing, it’s relatively easy to set-up.

How to set WordPress categories to different members only groups

1. Create your categories and populate them with articles (even if they’re filed with nothing but random characters). This is helpful. Really.
2. Go to the “Groups” tab, and create your groups (e.g. a group for each class or membership level). Don’t worry about populating the groups with members just yet.
3. Go to the “Roles” tab, then the “Exclusive Sections” sub-tab. For each category where you want to limit who can read, check the box next to “Post Reader”. When you’re done, scroll back up to the top of the page, and make sure “ignored – equivalent section/object role required” is selected in the drop-down list. Click “Update.”
4. Go to back to the “Groups” tab, and click the “Section Roles” sub-tab. Check off one group in the “eligible groups” box (Membership level 1, for example). Now scroll down to the appropriate category, and check the box next to “Private Post Reader”. Scroll back up to the top and click “Update.” Do the same thing for each group.
5. Go back to the “Groups” tab and add/manage your members!

While there are other plugins out there that do similar things, Role Scoper offers the most granular control over who can see what on a WordPress site.

I’ll be even more excited when I get the French translation done.

Subversion, you are my new best friend.

Twitter recently stopped sending tweets out via SMS to Africa. To be fair, they stopped service in a lot of other parts of the world too, but it’s disenchanting to discover that we West Africans are not on their list of future locations (i.e. places where they plan to negotiate with cellular providers).

Hash, of whom I’m a great admirer, recently wrote about a vision for a Twitter competitor here in Sub-Saharan Africa. Any service that would allow instant cheap communication, free from web interface, paid from SMS, could gain a huge following. Look how popular services like hi5 and facebook are here in Cotonou.

There are a million challenges to web development here in West Africa, not the least of which are poor and/ or expensive internet connections, a general ignorance of what the web can do (this is actually true all over the world, including the States), and computer illiteracy.

What do you do when someone who’s never sat down in front of a computer wants a website? And what do you do when they’re standard for professionalism is yahoo.fr? “Lots of zoom,” they tell us. Zoom = “moving flashing things like on yahoo.” And how do we teach these people how to update their websites?

I’m starting this blog taking this blog in a new direction so that I can explore some of these questions. People Online has a French-language blog, but it’s hard to write in French, and I’m lazy. And that blog doesn’t really have a direction yet. That is, we’re busy publishing articles, but we haven’t quite figured out what we want. This blog will be more focused. And hopefully, as I find my voice in English, I’ll find it that much easier to reproduce the effort in French.

So who am I?

I’m an American, working with a small NGO here in Cotonou, Benin. Our goal is to make technology more accessible to small and medium sized businesses. We set out to change the way the IT services sector, and specifically web development, works here. People Online’s motto is “Getting Benin Online” (La mise en ligne du Bénin), and so far, it’s working.

I do make websites. I also do a lot of book keeping, managing freelancers, and keeping the business side of the non-profit running correctly. Mostly, I work with Wordpress. I’m a fan girl, which is embarrassing (for a web application? who falls in love with a web application?!?!). And I like to play.

Anyway. We’ll see where this goes. Professional blogging is probably harder than it looks.

Wish me luck!

I’m live blogging an NTIC conference at ENEAM! Just kidding. I do, however, have free wireless at a salon at ENEAM, which is cool.

All of the majors at the technical school got together and planned a huge festival with conferences, lectures, and of course, a trade show (and by trade show, I mean about two dozen booths set-up outside for anyone to pass by and buy stuff).

We (ONG People Online), don’t actually have a booth. We have a table in a corner at the end of a long row of booths, mostly because we’re too cheap to cough up the $300 participation fee. However, we’re offering free websites (blogs) to students, which is exciting, so we get a fair amount of traffic anyway.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. It was exhausting presenting in French all day against a backdrop of painfully loud music, but we generated a lot of interest in our blogging platform. I’m pretty sure that we’re the only people representing ourselves at the trade show. Most booths seem to be manned by students, who are ready to take your money, but less able to answer questions.

Bertrand and I aren’t aiming to make any money this week. We just want to build a critical mass of bloggers so we can stop doing so much damn publicity and start concentrating on what we do well: making websites.

Today, I hope to attend a presentation by some of my former students and a few lectures. I’m also going to take advantage of the free wireless (free wireless! in Benin!) to get some work done. We’ll see how it goes.

A few hours before the rain hits, the sky starts to darken as clouds gather and thicken. An hour before the rain hits, the clouds turn black and menacing, casting an eerie yellow shadow across the city. Twenty minutes before the rain hits, you can feel cool breezes on your face as currents of air swoop down streets and through alleys. Ten minutes before the rain hits, the refreshing breeze turns into gusts of powerful wind that kick up dust and grit into your eyes. Five minutes before the rain hits, a few stray drops fall, a sort of “this is your last warning,” sign for the few fools still outdoors. When then rain finally comes, it’s a huge sheet of pounding wet, soaking everything in its path.

The wonderful thing about the rainy season is that the brutal rainstorms cool everything down. It’s strange to me, but the non-rainy days during the rainy season are far more unpleasant than almost the entire so-called “hot” season. When it’s not raining, the sky is blue and cloudless. The sun pounds down with equatorial strength onto the cement parking lot that is Cotonou. There is no shade. During the less-rainy (aka “hot”) season, the sky is often overcast, and while the humidity can be killer, at least the clouds block the intensity of the sun’s rays.

Growing up, we always said, “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” After three years in West Africa, I disagree. It’s not the heat. It’s the insane strength of the sunshine six degrees north of the equator.

A few weeks ago, ONG People Online (my NGO) held its first press conference. To be more precise, one of the newspapers with whom we work held the press conference to launch their new site.

First, realize that despite Benin’s high ranking on scales that measure the freedom of their press, the press in Benin is neither free as in libre nor free as in beer. A few days before the conference, the newspaper sent out letters of invitation to the other major press organs of Cotonou, including the national TV and radio stations.

The day of the conference arrived, and we set-up in a conference room in my old work partner’s building, where the newspaper rents its offices. After several disasters, including no space, a filthy room, no power, and no internet connection, Bertrand and I were able to set-up the room, plug in our laptops, and test our video projector. The video projector didn’t work either. We were, however, finally able to get our Internet connection working. An hour after we were supposed to start, the television crew finally showed up.

Bertrand gave a speech. I presented the site. The paper’s editor gave a speech. There were three questions, only one of which was relevant. We thanked everyone, then gave out Cokes and sandwiches (food is obligatory at these sorts of things, apparently).

Turns out, before the reporters left, they had to collect their “per diem”. Their what?!?!?. That’s right. “To cover the costs of transportation.” Later, we learned that if you don’t pay the journalists, they won’t copy and paste your press materials into an article for their newspaper. In fact, for *any* news event, journalists receive a hefty “honoraria” just to do their jobs.

We were in all the newspapers, on several radio stations, and on TV. Only the paper hosting the event will be able to tell if it was worth it or not.