austraLasia #1722

Happy New Year and every blessing on readers of austraLasia.
A stock-take of austraLasia 2006:
- 348 editions, that is, except for a few short breaks due to holidays or connection unavailability, one for each day of the year.
- AUL 47, CIN 39, FIN/S 37, JAP 22, ITM 40, KOR 21, PNG/SI 33, S. ASIA 20, THA (CAM) 37, VIE (MON) 17 - the remainder were general or stories from outside the region
- Correspondents: 40 ( meaning at least one contribution in the course of the year - many contributed several, a few on a regular monthly basis).
- New features: (a) a glossary whenever unusual, colloquial or difficult terms are used - this is in recognition that for many readers English is a second, third or fourth language.
                         (b) re-upholstered Bosconet as EAO regional site, including record of each austraLasia, available for each province as well as general listing.
                         (c) introduction of Boscowiki, an interactive website.  The growth of this item has been fascinating.  Individuals from around the region contribute at will - the 'administrator' keeps an eye on things but does not add his own material - any growth is the result of work by members of the region.  Boscowiki includes an 'austraLasia' comment page immediately reachable from any emailed version (not the version stored in Bosconet, in order to minimise potential wiki-vandalism.  Boscowiki was vandalised on one occasion - 24th January. The administrator was able to restore the page and wipe out the intrusion.  There are no plans at this point to introduce security measures - common sense by recipients of austraLasia, e.g. not publishing the Boscowiki link outside of austraLasia, will suffice for now).
                         (d) RSS added - Really Simple Syndication: means that austraLasia can be received simply by adding the RSS link to latest versions of main browsers - this would enable a reeducation in email usage and helps avoid spam. 
                         (d) growing involvement by the Salesian Family other than SDB.  The first articles contributed by members of the Family. One entire FMA province subscribed.
- Problems faced: the worldwide increase in spam, and the (laudable) efforts of some major groups such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail to combat the onslaught inevitably means that austraLasia, which sends out somewhere near a thousand items a day, is easily 'labelled' and subsequently 'punished' to the detriment of its service and its aims. Without reaching a degree of technological sophistication that also costs, the austraLasia administrator simply breaks his groups down into smaller units (and adds to the transmission time by about half an hour). If anyone has THE solution to the problem, and a constructive one at that, please tell me!
    austraLasia welcomes the involvement of all members of the Salesian Family in the region.  We look forward to the continued growth of the enterprise and its contribution to a growing sense of regional community.  new ideas are welcomed - either write directly to jbfox@sdb.org or offer your comments via Boscowiki.
   ___________________
  AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com   Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world.  To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.