MacBook for me – the power of Web!
Can social web services be used for science and research causes?
This post is for those who are surprised to see on my web site the widget (on the right sidebar) with the cause: new laptop. I work on my PhD research (I’m in the phase of collecting data, literature review parallel with other activities: writing papers, conferences) and have no back-up, support from University or any other body (Ministries, e.g.) such as scholarship, paid PhD work, or finances for the travel, research costs, books, other material, and of course the computer. In Serbia seems that education and science has always been in shade.
So, everything was working fine (well, ‘little dragon’ – dead laptop and i have had hiccups in the past 4 years many services, interventions, etc.), until it died few days ago and I am using interwebs in Internet cafes, and temporarily friends’ laptop. I was contemplating to buy laptop that will help me in my research, while moving, travelling – light, functional, reliable machine. And I decided to be the MacBook (13,3″), or Dell from recommendations).
Since ’98, I’ve been pioneering many things, projects on Web (in academia and science Serbian community), and still working on projects that I am not paid but rather volunteering. I have never monetized my blog.
I will quote/modify here a part [in the context] of David Weinberger’s (one of my fav.bloggers and IT persona) Dislosure Statement: “No one pays me to write this blog or to say particular things in it. That includes all forms of compensation, including offers to be the guest blogger, asking me for free advice or tell me that what I do is so wonderful. I don’t run ads, no one pays me under the table, and I don’t sell t-shirts or coffee mugs”.
I am no advertising wizard and have no tricks, I believe that the knowledge is the power. I also believe that the digital divide or information poor/rich society is not the lack of technology but the problem of the system in the country. I believe in open access, open knowledge and sharing. And I believe in my cause. In this case: new laptop. I want to see how this works here.
As PayPal doesn’t work in Serbia (still), a friend helped me to have my PayPal account abroad, and now I use ChipIn widget to check and monitor the power of social web.
The plan is if half of my followers and readers donate $5, $10, $50 or $100 , that would be more than enough for a new laptop. But you can still just donate $1.00 if you like. The aim is $1200, the timeline is Dec 31, but would be nice to get laptop from Santa a bit earlier.
Everyone can see my current status on ChipIn widget, so let’s just see what happens!
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I tried to donate but don’t read enough German (I assume that’s what it is) to do a foreign paypal… However, we do travel back and forth a lot, so let me know if you’d like to order a US laptop and then have us transport it. About 1/2 the price of Beograd laptops is what my friends tell me.
I tried to leave $10 but PayPal rejected my payment. i don’t know why as I regularly pay with PayPal for lots of things. Best Simon
[...] days ago I’ve announced statement about education cause (new laptop) as well as testing the power of Social Web. And I’ve hit [...]
Great idea — and, by coincidence, one I had just the other day. I too am curious about studying social media in a PhD program (likely in Communication, but possibly Management or Marketing as well). My idea is to raise money to pay for the program itself. I am still conceptualizing it, but am glad to see you are making progress towards your goal! By the way, speaking of social media, I found your blog as a result of a post you made regarding the Mumbai situation on Twitter.
[...] Today is Cyber Monday, but not in Europe. I hope you found good discounts for gadgets and nice computers. And I still need laptop! [...]
you’re gonna make so much money.
Hi Danica,
It’s your fellow Serbian from Florida. I tried to donate for the laptop but it’s in Gernan and I can’t figure out what United States is in German or to switch the language. Any help? Thanks
Slobodan Stojadinovic
Hola,
HP … so poor manufacturing.
Be careful, because they are cutting corners and they give a year warranty here, in the US, which is lower than the half-life of these computers. If you pay a warranty extension, then the price goes through the roof. I’m thinking that Lenovo is better for the PC side. Dell, i got burnt by Dell. Macbooks are still very expensive, plus the software availability . ..
On the other hand, there are new machines out there, based on Intel’s Atom chip, that are 400us and seem to be able to do a lot of stuff.
Where does the current decision stand?
Feliz Navidad.
Javier
[...] information -leave a comment, I’ll get back to you after the Holidays. Also, I am amazed by ‘The power of Social Web’ action for new laptop as I’ve reached so far 35% of donations for such a short time.Thank all of you [...]