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Your views about MBC’s new web site?

4 March 2010 162 Comments

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Heard it on the news few minutes ago, MBC has a new web site since yesterday (yes, AGAIN!)

Anyway, I find it nice, much better than the previous versions
This shows once more that wordpress really rocks!

To whom it may concern, a few things which need a small fix under Firefox 3.0:

  • The drop down menu is hidden by the video player when you want to play something
  • Remove the rating indicator near the post title while viewing it. It is confusing since the user cannot actually click on it. He/She must scroll down to be able to rate the page.

A final note, it is a good thing that they have hosted it on a Mauritian server, lets hope that the server can handle all those requests n streaming… Oops, a few minutes, the database connection was lost, probably due to high traffic :-)

So, what do you think about the new site, powered by the blogging platform WordPress?

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  • Avishna

    ahem kindly put the link here.

    Zot in imper copier lor canal+ so site.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    Thanks for the heads up Yashvin! :)

    The problem with the drop down menu appearing behind the video is with the Windows Media format. There’s no wmode=”transparent” to use as in flash videos. The parameter “windowlessVideo” doesn’t seem to help either. I’ve also tried setting the menu’s z-index property to a very high value – again, no use.

    As for the rating stars, I think it’s pretty standard. You can only rate something after having gone through it, right? ;) That’s why it’s found at the bottom.

    Cheers.

    Akash

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Avishna

    Mo assure twa mo pan copier lor personne so site. Zame mo ti rentrer meme lor canal+ so site. hehe.. (Pa kwar ki mo ene ignorant aster! :P )

    Akash

  • Dvil

    mo pas ti meme kner ti ena ene avant! oh btw guet infozen zot tout demain:D:D mo pas meme kner lor ki chaine sa : / maisgueT!

  • JT

    MBC scuks…acoz sa mem mo pa get so banne program…
    aster ki fer mo bizin al get so site web..pffff pli ridicule encore!

  • ashvin

    kot ban episodes ‘balad dan villages’ la ine aller???

  • http://www.tushal.net Tushal

    MBC pa play kot moi. .

  • Magman

    so Akash you are the one who created the site? Also by seeing your family name i guess that you are somewhat related to the director of the station…who knows? well anyways, good job in giving me another reason for not visiting this site…

  • Josh

    This is my view as an experienced user and I can clearly say; this is most definitely a failed attempt to make a web2.0 site.

    1. No smooth gradient.
    2. No consistent color scheme.
    3. Typography is messy.
    4. CSS is broke, IE users would miss out the rounded corners lol, anyways.
    5. This guy does not know the existence of CDN’s like Google.
    6. The valid W3C XHTML icon makes me believe someone new to XHTML did that website.
    7. CSS is not compressed, http://www.csscompressor.com :D
    8. You should definitely take a color theory class.
    9. Complete exaggeration of jQuery plugins.

    This is a grotesque work. I know I have been a real bummer but hey, I know my stuffs, I work mostly in the UX/UI part of websites and this is a cruel world.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    In rekumans tou a zero.. Au fur et a mesure mo kwar banla pou remet ban anciens posts la dans archive..

  • http://blog.fadil.fr/ Fadil

    LMAO! It’s like a personal vlog. LOL. In other words, it’s crap!

  • http://www.chaya.fowdar.com/ Chaya

    Alala!

    Mais bon keep trying! Based on the critics, they might improve.

    I don’t watch MBC, in fact MBC does not play at my place, jamais gagne bon transmission!

  • Lightofdeath

    My 2 cents opinion:

    I’m no expert in making websites but I can surely manage despite being a lazy ass. But to make a website for a big company like MBC and using a already-made theme is just a fail.

    The theme used is Video Element. . #fail #epicfail

    http://www.press75.com/v4/the-video-elements-wordpress-theme/

  • http://www.press75.com/v4/video-elements-theme-demo/ Lam

    The Mbc theme was not designed by the guy on the site. Original theme is found at http://www.press75.com/v4/the-video-elements-wordpress-theme/ was designed by press75.com

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Josh

    Would you be kind enough to let me know where I could take HTML, CSS, color theory, JQuery, PHP, MySQL, Javascript and XML classes? Please??

    Thanks! ;)

    Akash

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Magman

    I created the website for free. I didn’t gain anything from this (if only my name appearing in the footer – mais ca c la moindre des choses).

    Why would you not visit the website because of my name? Are you a racist by any chance? Or you just don’t like names beginning with ‘A’?

    Akash

  • http://www.wordpress.com Nathan Vythilingum

    Hi All,

    This is Nathan V, I am currently in Canada working as a consultant for WordPress. I saw MBC website and I found the following problems:
    (a) It is a tweaked and pirated WordPress version.
    (b) The copyright information has also been tweaked and this will surely lead to copyright infringement issues. This is a wordpress theme and it belongs to WordPress. Why is the guy claiming that he is the one coded the site, I hope he has not re-sold the website by any chance?.
    (c) Broken CSS used in this template, definitely not a good idea as this may lead to loopholes like CSSinjections and all.
    (d) Not a good idea to use a nulled wordpress template for a MBC, this website may easily infect visitor’s computers with trojans especially esck.m type of viruses.

    I would recommend MBC to seek a valid licence for this website, and please, please don’t use nulled website templates for your websites.
    For your information.
    Regards,
    Nathan.

  • http://dhaneesha.com Dhaneesha

    Tarrrrrrr…. nice :P pa ti coner li ena site lol…thanks dou for informing us about it…

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    Lol.. This guy won’t stop harassing me… Here’s a note I’ve written on him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=366809623658

    I’ll let you be the judge.

    Akash

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    It’s funny how a search for “Nathan Vythilingum” on Google doesn’t give anything. Damn… are you sure you work for WordPress over there? Or is it the Canadian secret service?? Lol..

    Give me a break, will ya?

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Akash : I just checked the link provided by the guys named “Lightofdeath” and “Lam” : http://www.press75.com/v4/the-video-elements-wordpress-theme/

    IMHO, there are similarities between these two…
    Is your MBC theme a modified version of the one mentioned above?

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Lam, lightofdeath

    Well, what more did you expect doing it for free? Something like the BBC? No. You have to be realistic.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashvin

    Yes. It’s a heavily-modified (licensed) version of that theme, Yashvin.

    Akash

  • Magman

    @Akash

    You are completely wrong.I see nothing racist in my posts,like you’re trying to deduct..and i meant to say that i would’nt visit the MBC’s site oh and btw i really dont give a f### about yours either..since you’re copying from other sites mentionned here, that’s not very professional to me.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Magman

    You said you wouldn’t visit the website because I’m related to the MD. God knows how that even makes sense!

    I’m not copying. I bought the theme with my own money, and modified it heavily to suit MBC’s needs. There’s a huge difference.

    Akash

  • Magman

    @ Akash

    If you’re going to HTML, CSS, color theory, JQuery, PHP, MySQL, Javascript and XML classes, you should take an English class as well because you do not seem to understand the meaning of “Racist” and i hope you do find it there.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Magman

    Whatever you say Magman. ;)

  • Bhooks

    I like the new site.
    Cheers
    Bhooks

  • jeemeeos

    careful bane zene..

    tension bane mbc fer 1 emission crime watch lor nous haha

  • Josh

    1. Keep that scornful attitude for yourself, you wanna beef? OK, That’s your right to be a sped. Anyways LIKE I SAID I do mostly front-end design stuff. If you are not aware, PHP and MySQL are back-end technologies and you are completely out of bound.

    2. Judging from your front-end design skills, I doubt you did some PHP tweaks on the core itself. Even if you did that would be definitely be a hive infested with PHP RFI’s.

    3. I cant believe you actually asked this question ” Would you be kind enough to let me know where I could take HTML, CSS, color theory, JQuery, PHP, MySQL, Javascript and XML classes? Please??”

    Wow I sincerely have not seen all colors of stupidity. This is the internet dude! Here’s a site http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com

    4. A webdesigner’s job is not only to design fancy sites, its mainly User experience, User Interface, User Interactivity.. yeah USER everywhere! Because he or she will be using the site more than you. Albeit all the critics and comments, I and the other people have focused on, you still have not reached to that point.

  • http://www.geekscribes.net/blog Inf

    It’s nice to see the MBC site redesigned. The old version badly needed scrapping.

    But when I read the comments, the MBC theme does look very much like the Press75 one. Akash himself has said he bought the theme and modified it to accomodate the MBC.

    I don’t think these lines have their place in the source code though:

    [Start quote]

    MBC Theme – Version 2.2

    Designed and Built by Akash Callikan – http://www.akashcallikan.com

    [End quote]

    If you have taken a theme, you have not “designed and built” it. You have modified it. Therefore, I believe

    “Customized for MBC by Akash Callikan – http://www.akashcallikan.com” would be in order.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Josh

    Thankfully not every user’s a smart-ass like you. ;)

    Chill out. Grab a beer mate. Lol.

    Akash

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Inf

    You’re absolutely right. I will change that as soon as I can.

    Thanks.

    Akash

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    By the way someone informed me of an XSS vulnerability on MBC’s search form today. I fixed it in two minutes. I notified the plugin author, provided him the solution and he made an update.

    I was also made aware of an SQL injection vulnerability in another plugin. Again, fixed it in less than a minute and notified the plugin author.

    If you browse the forums of Press75, you will know how many contributions I made… how many bugs I eliminated from the original theme.

    I don’t mean to brag Josh. I’m just saying you shouldn’t judge people/websites/whatever just by looks.

    As for my PHP/MySQL capabilities, I’m sending you a few addresses:

    - http://www.lematinal.com/marketplace.html
    - http://www.lematinal.com/jobs.html
    - http://www.lematinal.com/messagerie.html

    All custom-built scripts by myself for Le Matinal. And that’s just 3 out of more than 50.

    Have a nice day. :)

    Akash

  • yurit0s

    ah bon MBC ena ene web site … lol (joking)

  • http://yadhav.tumblr.com Yadhav

    Nice website! Beautiful! But about the videos which is more important … Windows Media Player is obsolete now … Right? Correct me if I’m wrong but most websites use Adobe Flash to render their videos and it’s really much better if you forget the iPhone. Actually you cannot watch Windows Media Player videos on Linux OS like Ubuntu. It’s irritating! Designing the website is somehow easy but doing the complicated work of making the videos more playable is challenging.

    @akash Are you related to the director BTW? If so, can you tell him to add some more beautiful movies on MBC … Not the flops like Tasveer. Thanks. :P

  • Kaviraj

    @Akash

    Dude, the thing that doesnt make sense here is how come you did this for free?

    Please provide some explanations..

    Thanks!

  • vaiizard

    @Akash
    Me also i wanna know why you are taking all these trouble and you even mention you bought the theme with your money and just gifting it to the MBC.

    Plz can you ask the MD to play some nice cartoon like DBZ etc…thanks

  • http://www.geekscribes.net/blog Inf

    Offtopic:

    Interesting recent searches:

    “roushdat president mauritius broadcasting corporation mbc”

    was searched twice…

  • http://roushdat.wordpress.com Roushdat
  • http://www.woozeer.com Adam Woozeer

    Akash mo pas conner si mo bisin riyer ou plorer quand mo get to bannes travail. Mais selmant ene zaffaire li mari claire to pas ene developeur toi , to ene traser. Ki fer mo dire traser a cose to zis capow modifier bannes CMS , edit impe zimage et seki to fer plus bien au fait c met to nom dans footer. Ah oui peut etre met Designed by Akash Callikan demande ene notion de web en particulier.

    Nu check ene coute to palmares:

    Le Matinal
    http://lematinal.com
    Powered by : Vivo CMS
    Demo : http://www.one.myvivvo.com

    Defimedia
    http://defimedia.info
    Powered by : Interspire Website Publisher
    http://www.interspire.com/websitepublisher

    Mbc.tv
    http://www.mbc.tv
    Powered by WordPress
    Original theme ripped from : http://www.press75.com/v4/the-video-elements-wordpress-theme/

    Akash pas prend li ene attack personel lor toi et ni mo pe rode rass to boute dipain au contraire mo pe fer toi gagne nutella dans dipain. Cuma?

    Lot cout to rode ‘fer’ ene site , mandaye li bien…dimoune ena ene bon lizieu pou details surtout morisien nu expert la dans.. pas kit trace man..

    Aster pas zis change partout a cose ena copyright laws si to pas au courant , tone edit Logo WordPress dans admin MBC (http://www.mbcradio.tv/wp-login.php)

    CSS
    http://www.mbcradio.tv/wp-content/themes/mbc/style.css
    tone blier tire
    Theme Name: Video Elements
    Theme URI: http://www.press75.com/

    Baser lor bannes commentaires to paret mega arrogant et mo ena impression to pe penser to cass ene mari paker (KER) mais li ti pou bon si to ti capow fer plus ki mandaye CMS et themes et evite fer pass travail les zots pou toi.

  • Pingback: New MBC website is a major web project management failure. | WebDesign Bureau of Mauritius

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Roushdat : Ki to p rode faire do ta lol!

    @Inf :Hope to gagne reponse la, c roushdat ki p rode faire monte so nom lo stats LOL! hahaaaaaaaaaa

  • curiousEngine

    I prefer the Arras Theme with the cool flash anim on the top. http://demo.arrastheme.com/. you were also able to view the source code to download the Journal Televisé.

    another nice theme would be : http://www.woothemes.com/demo/?t=23 or http://www.elegantthemes.com/preview/eVid/

  • http://doorgesh.wordpress.com/ doorgesh

    Again i’ll post smthing which maybe most people wont like. But I just wish to rationalise things a bit. Mo dakor site la could be better, there is always room for improvement. But before stumping so rudely on the guy, who amongst you would go through all the trouble to actually make a FREE website for MBC ?

    I’m not defending anyone’s interest here, but just trying to give this debate a wider angle. It’s always easy to criticize, but criticism always has several perspectives. A more mature audience would rather give CONSTRUCTIVE ADVICE on how to improve the site. I’m sure any work anyone does always has some glitches and defects. I know my works are not perfect. But comments like that wont ever inspire me to improve.

  • http://lallmatie.com/blog bhoot

    The past MBC website really was terrible and needed to be ‘modernised.’ All the best to Akash for being to bag the project (really free?)… I have to agree with Josh’s criticisms to a certain extent, it’s so obvious that it comes from WordPress… That said, it’s not a bad thing.

    Windows Media does have much lower penetration rate that Flash player. You may have your reasons for that? Does MBC store videos in WMV?

    Also people, take note that any website depends a lot on the client’s feedback. You might do the best, most suitable appropriate website but your client might say no… this I don’t like (even if it doesn’t make sense)… Did you have such problems Akash?

  • http://doorgesh.wordpress.com/ doorgesh

    @ bhoot : so true. I’ve had some similar problems in the past. I usually design several layout proposals for a website. But the clients always seem to choose the less attractive ones. lol.

  • Tibou

    lexpress zordi:

    DEUX CALLIKAN POUR UN SITE WEB
    La MBC a dévoilé jeudi le nouvel habillage de son site web, qui fut jadis victime de hackerz friands de pornographie. Couleurs blue océan, nouvelles rubriques, tout un design exécuté pas… Akash Callikan, neveu du directeur général. D’ailleurs, le site de la MBC propose un lien vers le site du jeune homme, web developer et graphic designer.

  • http://www.jimkarterseo.com/blog Jim Karter

    It’s a nice website where you can at least catch up with some archive news whenever you missed something on the news.

    These days, even bollywood or hollywood are being copied and modified. So what’s the harm if Akash copied a theme and modified it? There’s no harm in it.

    IMHO, he’s a good lad to help MBC get at least a “blog” where you can rate some archive news/videos.

    Well, i haven’t surfed the website well but apparently it’s a nice one. Only problem is the advertising part. I clicked on it to see if we can advertise our website but it seems to be not working.

    Please advice.

    Kind regards,
    Jim

  • http://no Nit

    BBC? Ki ena difisil arsa?
    [...]
    {Part moderated by Yashvin :
    Sorry Nit, I had to remove this part since I don’t think it is related to this subject. The past remains the past and I don’t want any blame here.
    Hope u don’t mind.
    }
    Mbc pan paye toi pou sa nuvio site la? To pe couyon moricien. Retir toi depi lor la scene camouad.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yadhav

    I hate it too. But the MBC encodes & streams everything in WMV. I had no choice. I actually had to do extensive research on its object type. If anyone (Josh is an expert in UI, right?) knows how to make the menus appear above the videos, I’d be glad to hear from them.

    Yes, I’m his nephew.

    @Kaviraj

    I know it doesn’t make sense but (I think) like everyone here, I despised the old MBC website. I thought it was a disgrace for our national station to have such a website! So I just proposed to Dan to let me build one for them. He said he wouldn’t be able to pay me since that would create an uproar (hasn’t it already?). I told him I didn’t mind. I just wanted to give them a better website. Then I made a few proposals to them and finally they chose this one.

    Fair enough?

    @Roushdat

    Zame mon trouve ca mwa. Ca v dir dans plugin poll la ca. Mo pou tester li localement zordi. Merci.

    @Adam Woozeer

    Eski to kone em ki v dir “rip”? Ca v dir kokain. Si to p akiz mwa ki mon kokain ca theme la, b li ene zafer bien grave. Mo kav poursuiv twa la. (Pa kas tete, mo pa pou fer li selment.) Mais ca em problem ar zot – zot pa penser avant zot koze, zot judgemental, zot presser pou attack dimoun. Parye meme mo ti fer n website pou ene ONG ki occupe ban handicape mentaux gratuit, la aussi zot ti pou trouve kitsoz pou critiquer.. na? Mauricien li pa kontan ni kan donne li kitsoz gratuit.. ni kan fer li payer. Mo pena nanyen pou dire plis ki ca.

    @Doorgesh

    Thx buddy. I couldn’t have put it any better. :)

    @bhoot

    Thanks. Questions answered above.

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Akash : Mo d’accord r seki to p dir.
    But I think that some people do not agree on the fact that you have written the words designed n coded… Perhaps it should really be “Customized by”, you already mentioned that you will change it, if am not mistaken.

    @Others :
    Guys, let us be a bit more mature. We are not putting blames on anyone and please, do not leave childish comments. I had to moderate n delete a few of them.
    As Akash told us, he did it free and I can’t see any problem with that.

    Thanks to all of you for your comments.
    There can’t be any better platform to discuss things freely, whether they are suggestions, critics and of course, encouragements ;)

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Nit

    B fer ene site kuma BBC to montrer nous. Mo sire dans 2 zours to kav fer ca twa, na?

    MBC pan paye mwa n sou. Al fer to recherche au lieu porte jugement. Ou soi kan banla va poz question la dans l’assemblee nationale (et mo sire zot pou poser), b zot tou va gagne ene reponse officiel lerla.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashvin

    To ena raison. Mon mal ecrire ca. My bad. Mo ti ena pou sanz li hier meme mais banla in sanz password FTP. As soon as they give me access again, I’ll have it changed.

  • chege

    The website is of a very poor quality.

    There is no consideration for security, copyright and cross browsing issues and here i’m talking only about technical part, i prefer not to talk about the marketing and communication work that is necessary to produce a modern website .

    The worst is how a national company like mbc can hire an amateur ( even for free a professionnal should produce a good quality product ) to do a so important thing like a website – the most visible part of the “savoir-faire” of the company.

    It’s really a pity and unfortunately we still have to wait for a long time before having a professional broadcasting service.

  • Anonymous

    For me the website is still the same!! The looks/graphics doesnt matter! The most important thing is to deliver the content in the right way. For example when u put the video to full screen mode, u can barely see anything even if u’ve got a good internet speed!

    I think MBC should invest some more in its website, not just the new building!

    Anyways at least Akash tried to make it look “better”. well done.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @chege

    Cross-browsing issues took 50% of my time and I had to remove various features just because people still use Internet Explorer. (Yes, even today!) Care to explain about the security part? Or perhaps you’d like to email me directly?

    Calling people names is sooo Mauritian! So it doesn’t make any difference to me that you call me an amateur. I know what I’m worth. All of my work is public. Even my name and picture. Unlike some who are there just to criticise others’ work. It’s so easy to pick apart people when you’re sitting comfortably and anonymously behind a screen. Right?

    Well, carry on my friend…

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Anonymous

    I think that’s because the videos are encoded in a resolution of 320×240. If they encode it at a higher resolution, the file size would be bigger and thus the streaming would be slow. It’s a trade off. You can’t have everything in life, I guess.

    Thanks anyway.

  • Zorro

    One comment and one question for the MBC website:

    1. The quality of the uploaded videos are awful!!! Very very bad! May be compression ratio and/or engine have been wrongly selected.

    2. I can’t listen to the radio. Why?

  • http://www.tushal.net Tushal

    My 2 cents:

    1) none of the online radio works. For one particular online radio, the following error message is displayed.”Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here!”

    2)Watching a clip is a pain. I tried 4 clips and all of them after reaching the 1 min landmark had only sound. (No image)

    Best of luck with the website. I wish you all the best.

    Regards,
    Tushal

  • http://doorgesh.wordpress.com/ doorgesh

    I think everyone is just trying to prove smthing. So why dont we organise a sort of contest? Let all those who think they can do better, ACTUALLY DO IT. Why don’t they each build up a fully operational MBC website?

    It’s just an idea. :)

    P.s. mo presk sire PERSONNE pas pou fer li. Zot pou zis critiker. Ek zot pou ignore mo post.

    :D

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Zorro

    I think I’ll have to talk them into using flash videos. Everything would be a lot less complicated then. I’ll keep you guys posted.

    I don’t know. It seems like there’s a technical problem with MT’s media server at the moment.

    @Tushal

    Thanks. Questions answered above.

    Akash

  • cats

    I have one question for the webmaster

    Why is it that typing “mauritius broadcasting corporation” in http://www.google.fr or http://www.google.mu (i’m in france) shows as first result http://mbc.intnet.mu
    which is a web site mixin resources from 2 domains (mbc.intnet.mu and mcbradio.mu) and having a very bad rendering ?

    Are other people having the same problem ? Is the web site only accessible by folks in mu ?

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Doorgesh

    Pou bizin atan ek ene la bougie rouge ca mo frere. Ena ene kin dir moi li kav fer ene site kuma BBC tou. Pa difficile ditou pou li ca! Lol..

    @cats

    I’ve asked them to redirect the old website (mbc.intnet.mu) to point to the new one (mbcradio.tv). The thing is they’re a bit slow. :P

  • Zorro

    Wow!! I just went through all the comments above! Incredible! Some left some good comments, while others were completely off track! Why the HELL are you criticizing in a destructive manner the work of Akash Callikan? This guy work day and night, put his skills and knowledge to do something for FREE. Who among you would do that? If you are honest, your answer will be a big NO depending, of course, for whom you are asked to do that. Lots of you will think that the MBC has got a big budget (yes they do have) and you will try to have something for you out of it, even me ;)

    I noticed that Adam Woozeer is a very awful blogger or commentator. Your comment is nasty man!! You listed this guy’s work with the intention to disgrace him?

    I went to your website (http://www.woozeer.com/bio), I noticed you put “Pervasive Computing” as your “research interests” under the heading “I’m an internet professional”. What the HELL do you know about pervasive computing??? What research have you done yet so far?? How many papers have you published in conferences or any good journals?? Can you list any work you’ve done in Pervasive Computing? You idiot, you are like these UOM academics that just list “words” in their research areas, but when asked how many papers and what contribution they did in this area. NOTHING!!!

    I published several papers in this area, though I don’t show off like you!

    Besides, I wonder what kind of researcher you are???? Interests in Cloud technologies, Pervasive Computing, Service Oriented Architecture and Web Services, Lightweight Distributed systems, and Large Scale Distributed systems??? You are soooo good at all these things??? Stop showing off!

    I let people read and share their opinions.

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Doorgesh : Nice idea, Nice challenge.
    Who’s in to show that he/she can do better? I think I can organise some sort of competition like this, specially for this case. Do a web site for the MBC. Perhaps you can even sell it afterwards to get some money for the time u spent on it.
    For those who r interested, I can even provide temporary hosting…

  • XSS

    @ Akash
    There seems to be a XSS vulnerability on this page: http://www.lematinal.com/marketplace.html , in the search textbox. User input isn’t sanitized properly and javascript code can be executed by the user. There could be more security flaws, I didn’t bother to check.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Zorro

    Thanks for backing me up. :) I’ve stopped paying attention to people who try to bring me down for no reason. They’re just not worth it.

    @XSS

    I’ve just checked my source code. The input on the search form is properly sanitized using mysql_real_escape_string. I also tried running some javascript through the URL – didn’t work. Thanks anyway.

  • Kaviraj

    @Zorro: Akash only did this website now and also for ‘free’ because he is related to the Director General of MBC. Otherwise, why the sudden urge of finding the website disgraceful?

    I wonder if we call even the ‘new’ website as the official website. As it was built/designed by someone, supposedly, by himself and for free. So, MBC is not liable for anything that happens on the website, because MBC does not own it. (Please correct me if I am wrong)

  • Amishi

    guys… give that guy akash a break! u find it weird that he modified that website 4 free??? every1 knows how that old website was… so we should be relieved that ena kit changement.
    btw m pa tro fan mbc mw si but ena imp improvement aster :-D
    only thing is that sa pub pou toothpaste la REALLY irritates me!!!!!!! la sensitibiliT dentaire blablabla.
    anyway my point is that if ppl r trying to improve things,y stop them or add such comments that will do nothing but bad?? b mature n leave comments that will b constructive as some1 said above :-)
    im not a graphic designer or watever so i cannot comment abt sa ban points ki zot p discuss la. im just surprised abt the way some ppl r commenting…

  • http://doorgesh.wordpress.com/ doorgesh

    @ zorro : well said. :) i love it when people get pwned like that :D

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Amishi : You hate that advert? You are not the only one! I even made an article on that, check it out here : http://www.yashvinblogs.com/la-sensibilite-dentaire/

    @Kaviraj : In fact, the domain name is for MBC, Akash did the web site, which was uploaded to the official space of MBC. I think that’s right, isn’t it Akash?

    @XSS : Perhaps you can give us a demo? :P

  • Amishi

    @ yashvin: fini checker. glad to knw m pa tousel! hehe.

  • Zorro

    I do visit Yashvin’s blog once in a blue mood or when directed on Google. However, today, seeing the comments of some people, I am forced to register myself. I am not a blogger, but I like to share my views to issues within my expertise.

  • yiu

    Instead of always giving negative aspects of Akash’s work i think we mauritian should thank him first though many of us thinks that the MBC is a national shame he tried to uplift its lost honour a bit … li 1 mauricien pareil couma nous sa l’armer la et kouma 1 kikene fini dir avan moi give him constructive advice to improve zot p defoule zot lor li koumdir lin fer 1 crime :P

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    Quoting Adam Woozeer on his Twitter page (www.twitter.com/adamwoozeer) : line touye site defimedia , lematinal …MBC next lor so la liste apparamment

    Mo kwar c akoz ca em ki defimedia sorti depi neant pou vin 48eme zordi lor alexa na? C akoz ca em ki kan mon reprend le matinal, lin sorti la haut 400eme pou vin 83eme zordi ek li p continuer monter? C akoz ca em ki mbc aussi pou monter aster. Na? Dir c ki to lé. End-result ki compter. And in that respect I’ve always delivered. End of story.

    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.defimedia.info
    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.lematinal.com
    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.mbcradio.tv

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashvin

    I bought the theme with my own money but I didn’t retain any copyrights. They own the theme now. But that was the whole point of it – I was just trying to help them deliver a better website for US Mauritians.

    @Amishi

    Thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate it. :)

    @Yiu

    C exactement c ki mon essaye faire. Si mo ti kone mo pou tan ban kozer kumsa zordi, certainement mo ti pou think twice avant fer site la. Merci.

  • http://www.jimkarterseo.com/blog Jim Karter

    May be you guys forgot that no one is perfect :)

    MBC has an official website, so who cares? LOL! I’m sure you don’t even watch MBC.
    Why you guys still criticizing it? I don’t know. This debate will not end i’m sure. I think Yashvin should close commenting for this article now because it’s really rubbish now. Each and everyone is proving he’s better. Well, how much you can make out of a website (in terms of money) is what really determines the success of a website these days.
    Don’t lose time in more commenting now..get back to work and start monetizing your website and prove how much you can earn via it.
    I made over Rs 1, 000, 000 in one year on the internet. :) Just a small idea.

    Kind regards,
    Jim

  • XSS

    @ Akash:

    You don’t seem to fully grasp the meaning of XSS.

    Anyway just enter this in the search box on the le matinal marketplace page: alert(document.cookie); and press go.

    This is only a proof of concept, not a real XSS attack of course but the behaviour is there, your site shouldn’t be executing javascript entered by the user.

  • XSS

    About my comment above, the code should be between “” tags which have been filtered out when I posted the comment on here.

    Here’s a screenshot:
    http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/2066/xss.jpg

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @XSS

    I assure you, I understand XSS attacks very well. I had just mistyped the javascript earlier.

    Anyway, the vulnerability has been fixed. Please try again and confirm.

    Thanks once more.

    Akash

  • http://www.yashi-g.com/ Yashi

    A great characteristic of Mauritians is that they are prepared to settle for average quality, because it is an improvement on what was utter crap.

    The website is still crap, whichever way you look at it. Yeah, it was for free, yeah the old one was bad, I know Akash got the theme off WordPress or wherever, but I am not a web whiz, so as a user of the website, it’s very amateurish. I don’t know if this has something to do with your abilities, or MBC’s imcompetence or something else. The website is just not good enough for the sole TV station of the island. Yashvin, even though he blogs for fun and not for money has a website which is miles better than MBC’s. So, how can a big corporation settle for something so cheap? If a friend of mine wanted me to show him the website of our local station which is meant to be the pride of the nation, I would be very ashamed to show him that website.

    At the end of the day though, no-one in their right mind would want to visit MBC’s website. I would rather browse the websites of the leading Mauritian newspapers. So, why get one’s knickers in a twist over an utterly pointless online presence of our joke of a TV station.

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Yashi : Thanks for the compliment dude :-)

    @Others : Pas try hack mo blog la, to show that mone mal faire li ou koi, it is just a CUSTOMIZED theme from the net, lol!

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashi

    That’s +1 for Le Matinal. Thanks. ;)

    Akash

  • http://www.yashi-g.com/ Yashi

    @Akash: Love your enthusiasm, but Le Matinal isn’t one of the leading newspapers in Mauritius for me. And I don’t browse them because of the website, but because they have better content in terms of news reports than the MBC. So don’t get too excited :)

  • http://www.geekscribes.net/blog Inf

    @Akash: I understand your pain to support multiple browsers, specially a certain blue-icon one. If only I could do like MS once did: “This site does not work with your browser” or something like that wherever I see IE doing its stuff.

    But sir, I believe people are flaming you because your comments sound somewhat like a wise-ass Mr. Knows-it-all. You know that you can’t really gauge somebody’s emotions from comments, so do be careful about your phrasing.

    E.g.

    “I assure you, I understand XSS attacks very well.”

    “By the way someone informed me of an XSS vulnerability on MBC’s search form today. I fixed it in two minutes. I notified the plugin author, provided him the solution and he made an update.”

    “I was also made aware of an SQL injection vulnerability in another plugin. Again, fixed it in less than a minute and notified the plugin author.”

    Apart from those, I believe you did a good enough job with the websites you worked on. Modifying an existing CMS to solve a problem is a good solution IMHO. Why spend time and resources developing a system from scratch, when you could use some existing one and customize it to solve the problem?

    The MBC website is far from being as good it could be. But hey, it’s a start and it’s definitely better than the (crappy) old version. Now, if I could suggest having a forum on the website to promote discussion and suggestions? You would need to have a very good administrative/moderation team though. I dunno if MBC would want people criticizing the Govt on its forum, but it might be a good idea in the long term. Possibly a blog too, where new developments could be posted. If you based the site on WordPress, the latter shouldn’t be too difficult.

    Finally, you are still here to fight your case, even against those who flame you. For that, I congratulate you. More than one person would have just said “f*ck it!” and just go away, leaving the criticism to pile.

    Just my 2 cents. Hope you don’t mind too much. :)

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Akash : I second what Inf said and I would like to add something.
    You are fighting your case quite well, congrats for that and hats off to others for bringing forward some strong points which I think have really contributed to a constructive and enriching discussion on this post. I must admit it, even I am learning from your comments.

    Soon going to sleep, will approve your comments tomorrow. Good nite!

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashi

    You still contribute to our success. Thanks for that. :)

    @Inf

    I can see where you’re coming from but you’re taking those quoted comments of mine out of context. I was told by someone in here that I didn’t know anything about Php/MySql. Therefore my dry reply. You can only stay calm for so long, you know.

    You’re right. As they say, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel.

    There were plans to include a forum. I don’t know what happened to that though.

    I’ll always be here. ;)

    Thanks for the constructive criticism.

    Akash

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashvin

    Always nice to hear. :) Good night.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    By the way, here’s something fun for you guys to check out. It totally reflects my feelings about the Internet Explorer browser.

    http://www.akashcallikan.com/fuckie

    Have fun! ;)

    Akash

  • http://www.yashi-g.com/ Yashi

    @Akash: If success means being an average news source in a shite market and people going through an ordeal to navigate through the website but only doing it out of desperation, then I am happy to feed your happiness. You almost embody what the MBC is all about. :) ‘Success’ out of the desperation and lack of options for consumers. Defimedia and Le Matinal might as well put a webcam featuring some shit on a stick constantly on their website, it will be better content than the MBC and I will contribute even more to your ‘success’.

    Glad to help out :)

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Akash : Nice one lol.
    btw, IE6 is officially dead now :P
    We are left with its son IE7 and grand daughter IE8…

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashi

    And you completely embody the way I feel about Internet Explorer. Try the link, hopefully you’ll get my drift. ;)

  • NightOwl

    chill out ppl…something to calm things down.

  • http://www.yashi-g.com/ Yashi

    @Akash: You sound like my 3 year old cousin in an argument lol Not surprised people are castigating you since you are behaving like a spoilt brat. :)

  • krishnen

    What i see in many of the posts criticizing this guy’s work is a need to show off that they know more about web development than him (typical mauritians , still think they are at school or something pff). What they don’t realise is that the web as we know it today has been refined over the years by strong collaborative effort between very smart and talented people. Of course many of them had big egos, but they could still work together towards solving problems. If they could do it why not us? Am yet to see an open source project with many mauritian developers collaborating (correct me if am wrong). Why make it a competition when it would be more productive and fun to do it together…
    Anyway congratulations on your work akash, don’t let the haters get you down. Is your site perfect? No , Can it be improved ? Hell Yes! you probably think have so many ideas on how to do that yourself…
    Good luck!

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    Saken p penser ki so website meme pli zoli ki nouvo site MBC la. Lol. Check pli komik la: http://twitter.com/angelmandini/status/10013271014

    Li p penser so website http://www.chaya.fowdar.com/ ti pou fer pli bien comme site MBC. Ki zot penser ban camarades? Mo fer sanz li met li kuma sanla la? :P

    Il faut de tout pour faire un monde… aster ki mon al kompran meaning ca dialogue la.

  • lunatic

    Guys check out http://www.woozeer.com/portfolio
    Epic #Fail…broken links on probably the most important page of his website or even worse his (portfolio == null)!
    Dude you have zero right to criticize other people’s work then, go back to your hole troll.

  • Michael

    Guys, you should check this. Someone’s been having fun with a certain “kurt avish” and “tushal”. I’ve colored the meaningful parts in red.

    http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/1650/screenshotmbc.jpg

    Michael

  • Josh

    First, i would like to thank Yashvin for letting this interesting debate going on; even though certain comments were totally outrageously brutal including mine’s.

    1. Smart-ass? Well I am flattered, No actually i am not. :D

    2. I have seen some of the URLs you have given and meh, I am not very impressed. I would have to agree to some extent with the guy who said the BBC thing. To be the best, you got to inspire from the best. Pretty URLs, Fancy URLs or simply URL routing system heard of them? I think your news portal site must implement this system. (referring to Le Matinal,etc)

    3. ” I don’t mean to brag Josh. I’m just saying you shouldn’t judge people/websites/whatever just by looks.”

    Actually, everybody judge things by their appearance; which turns out to be always subjective. But still, coming to web sites, appearance is the only thing for a user to judge the quality of the work done. If the pages have a decent page load and if everything run smoothly, it means a good job from a user’s point of view. But hey, i am just repeating everything most of you already know.

    4. Concerning the menu glitch, there is to my knowledge no actually working fix for it.
    The ActiveX being natively Mickeysoft, and most if not all non-mickeysoft browsers have difficulties to instantiate the object with all the proper parameters. And this object is given the most highest position context in the DOM, quite a bitter nightmare.

    There exists a quick hack that works only in IE though; by putting the object in an iFrame or by adding an extra parameter as follows:

    I believe this fix is only native to IE6, I have not tested on recent versions. I asked some of my buddies about the issue, but still no luck.

    5. The most appropriate solution would be to move to flash video format. You could just convert them before uploading or simply develop an addon that once the video is uploaded, converts it to flv. This can be easily done using by using PHP functions such as exec(), system() to run ffmpeg(with flv patch) with the correct command lines parameters to convert the WMV.

    PHP functions; exec(), system() will run any executable passed whether Win32PE or Linux ELF/COFF in a console environment depending on the OS, obviously.

    Then capturing the raw output stream or string formated output to get the status about the process. Finally, you move the output flv to the correct dir.

    This might difficult at first but once you get hooked to it everything will be ok.

    6. mysql_real_escape_string ?? I can not believe why people are still using the MySQL engine. MySQLi (MySQL Improved), heard of it? It is the way to go nowadays. With prepared statements, no need to worry about nasty SQL injections and it is much much secure and really friggin’ fast! OOP PHP all the way :D

    7. I know I keep stressing on this issue, but believe me, compressing your CSS, will increase performance by a great deal. All styles should be in one Stylesheet. Many stylesheets equal many HTTP requests, one stylesheet equals.. well you got the idea by now. You could also consider a CSS framework like the 960 grid system, which is badass for making WordPress templates.

    8. Same for for JS files, here is a quick tip; you do not need to use $(function(){} or $(document).ready(function(){} if you put all JS scripts below the end tag of body. Some think it’s faster because the browser will load the body then the JS part. Whereas in the conventional way, the JS is loaded first, which check each time for document.ready status, quite a waste of resources when you can just simply run the JS at the end of body tag.

  • http://blog.fadil.fr/ Fadil
  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    NO PERSONAL ATTACKS AS FROM NOW…

    They will be deleted without any notice.
    Thanks

  • http://www.tushal.net Tushal

    @Michael—>Oh well, some people are still retarded but who cares. Life goes on. Thanks for sharing that picture. Actually, I laughed.

  • krishtika

    Hi,

    i think you could have learned the basics at w3schools.

    Thx

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashi

    And you sound arrogant. What are you trying to show? That you’re better than me? That’s not the point here dude. Grow up.

    @lunatic

    Thanks. Of course it can be improved. Actually Yashvin could set up a poll here itself about the MBC website. Like what should be modified/added/removed. I’d definitely take the poll results into consideration, knowing that many ‘experts’ would be voting here. ;)

    yeah, I saw his portfolio page too. Quite a lot of empty categories there. I’m impressed! Lol.. :P

    @Michael

    That’s very funny indeed! Thanks for sharing. :D

    @Josh

    Thanks for all the input. And sorry we got off on the wrong foot.

    @Yashvin

    Thanks.

  • http://girishmungra.me Girish

    Things I find wrong:
    1. Its was very cheap from our National TV to have a website done for free by the director’s nephew. It finally reflects the unprofessionalism of the institution. MBC is not a family business where dad gives son website contract. Oh contract! A corporate website done without any contract thats bad.

    2. @Akash shouldn’t have put ‘Designed by AC’ in the footer simply cause this is not true. And stating earlier that he started from scratch is nonsense. Seeing his experience in the web dev world he should’t be doing such mistakes. He was looking for fame, he got served!

    Things that are not so wrong
    1. There’s nothing wrong in using a WordPress theme if the guys says he paid for it (subject he is respecting the license agreement). Buying a template saves both time and money and Akash seems more a developer than a designer.

    2. @Josh’s evaluation of the website interface should be redirected to WordPress. Maybe he’s the best in the world in terms of design and user interaction. Does he mean he should be designing all the websites in the world?

    MBC TV is lame in numerous aspects we might all agree. Still, this was a attempt straighten its image and we should respect that.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Girish

    There was no contract as such. And it wasn’t just Dan Callikan who took the decision but the whole board, i.e. the DG, the DDG, the Marketing Director, HR Manager, Radio Director, etc etc.

    I know. That’s my bad. Like I’ve said before, the FTP password has been changed. Otherwise I would have changed that a long time ago. Oh and this is very important – I never said I started from scratch. Above I said “In re kumans tou a zero”. I was actually referring to the posts. We didn’t put the old posts on the new site. We’re going to add them later on in the archives. I think I’ve been very candid about this work.

  • vicks

    paraite ki site la pas bizin QA, tousa bannes dimoune la pe report bug.. ene coT li bon pou designer/developer la li gagne tou so feedback :)

    mo trouve site la ene ac bon attempt, css compatibity avec tou browser ene vrai la peine mem sa de toute facon. aussi aucun site pas vraiment fer from scratch these days, tou base lor bannes cms ki deja la.. ou sevi bannes plugin.. kifer re-invente la roue..??

    couma yashvin pe dire ene tas dimoune pe critique mais seki zotte cpave fer ene full working site for MBC free of charge??
    Mais moi mo envi rephrase sa!!

    seki kikun envi fer ene site pou MBC free of charge mais parcontre zotte pou capve link back a zotte propre personal/business site? et servi li dan zotte portfolio (gagne station national lor so cv bien zoli sa pour ene freelancer).

    Mo penC quelque part MBC ti bizin fer ene invitation pour sa avant assume ki persone pas pou postulE ek MD donne sa so nephew.

    Aussi mo penC ena bannes salariE MBC ki bannes designers et developer, mo pas connE si sa bannes poste la rempli ou pas.. si oui.. ki zote fer sa banla???

    anyway akash all the best and no harsh feelings man.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Vicks

    I actually like reading comments like yours. Thanks mate. :)

  • http://www.chaya.fowdar.com/ Chaya

    @ Akash: Just would like to point out that my tweet did not refer to MBC’s site, but instead another website. Which IMHO has no link with this post.

    And like you mentioned “Il faut de tout pour faire un monde!”

    P.S: Don’t just be biassed by only one tweet!

    Cheers

  • din3sh

    I personally think that most of the comments are off-track. The debate shouldnt be about the “Designer & coder” ‘s technical competences or ability when it comes to web designing.

    The question we must ask ourselves is why in 2010, the national tv station has chosen to get its website done for FREE?? What is reason or motive behind this??

    1. Is it because the station is in financial trouble?? (surement nepli ena assez cass acoz ban droit exhorbitant in bisin payer pou ban program “HIGH” quality passer lor station la?? soit ban million in bisin payer pou ban match Premier league ki passer sak samedi/dimanche??
    O vu batiment ki p monter reduit, pa paret ena recession pou banla!

    2. si pena assez cass, ban largent nou payer 100rs par mois/ droit publicitaire etc? kot in aller???

    3. Choisir 1 group jeune de l’université pou fer website la benevolement mo ti kav comprend. Mais choisir 1 dimoune de la mem famille ki DG la??? pena conflit d’interet kelke part??? meme si c pou “FREE”?? ki motif choisir so neveu?? fer de la publicité pou so carriere web designer??

    4. Normalment pena 1 board ki bisin decide ban zafer coumsa?? pa kapav 1 DG choisir so famille pou fer 1 website for “FREE”. Eski mbc ena 1 panel artistic ki juge sa??

    5. Si ene institution couma mbc cote nou payer sak mois choisir fer so website “FREE” par neveu directeur, be tou institution de ce genre a maurice kapav adopter mem politik….pou cut cost!!

    @ “Designer & coder” : mo pa conne toi, mo pa juge to travail non plu,
    politik adopter par mbc ki mise en cause la.

    a bon entendeur….

  • http://thegodof.net selven

    Hmm.. its kind of already horrible as it is.. a bunch of ppl arguing again over the insignificant works [or stolen material whatever], of an insignificant being … who on top on that is an insignificant coder :p…

    p.s your website is vulnerable, let’s just hope others don’t notice it….

    +selven
    //a god

  • chege

    Mo full dakord avec c ki @din3sh pe dire

    probleme la pas avec @Akash ki mo salue pou so perzerance pou defand so cause mais mo persister pou dire li pas encore ene vrai professional (li rappel moi ene tonton ki ti pe trace tracer avec ban probleme plomberie et ki apres li fine gagne 2/3 client ti declare li plombier)

    @Akash ena ene tas ambition et mo comprend kifer li fine decide faire sa pou free. Probleme c MBC. ene bel compagnie comme sa pe mardaye pou paye ene web designer et pire li prend ene en freelance ki ena 24 ans – pas conner comma sa eter partout mais ici cot mo rester ban la malheureusement ti pou rier to dans figure si toutseul to ti pe rode repond ene appel d’offre comme sa.

    @Akash mo ti a content to decrire nous comma sa projet la fine passer. Combien reunion to fine gagner avec equipe direction mbc, ki cahier des charges ti ena, comma to fine convaincre zot to ti meilleur (ki methodologie travail to utiliser….)

    c ki malheureux dans tout sa c ki quand to trouve cyberisland partout dans zournal et ki apres to trouve limportance mbc pe donner pou so site web to pose toi ena tas question

  • http://girishmungra.me Girish

    @din3sh @chege i completely agree with you both.

  • Pingback: A rainy Sunday at home | Yashvin, pages of my life

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Chaya

    Don’t worry, I’ve seen plenty of your tweets. I don’t make judgements based on one item only. Unlike some here. So you can save your explanation.

    @Dinesh

    You would have to ask them that.

    @Selven

    Just by looking at your website url (www.thegodof.net), I can see how everyone and everything apart from yourself are insignificant in your life. Don’t you get tired of loving yourself that much??

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @krishtika

    Maybe you should learn the meaning of the acronym stfu.

    Thx.

  • Josh

    ” @Josh’s evaluation of the website interface should be redirected to WordPress. Maybe he’s the best in the world in terms of design and user interaction. Does he mean he should be designing all the websites in the world? ”

    @Girish
    1. Pretentious and contentious, Wow so much for the smug. Don’t be a Bono! Saying something is one thing, knowing that something is another thing. You seem completely unfamiliar with WordPress, well if you are not aware; wordpress is at default packed with one if not a few templates. Akash has used a CUSTOM template. Do you know that word? Custom? In this context, it means another template, other than wordpress stock templates.

    I supposed you should be getting the idea by now? Custom template = custom code ( or in this case tweaked/customized codes). WordPress has no jurisdiction here, so not wordpress work to undertake the changes i have shown.

    2.Coming to the MySQL extension, WordPress still uses it to assure compatibility. Unfortunately, some lame ass hosts are still sticked with early versions of PHP4, and if i am not mistaken MySQLi was integrated with PHP5 when the team re-worked on the OOP section.

    As MBC most probably has a “decent” host, it should be easy to hack the data abstraction layer in wordpress and change it with a custom MySQLi one.

    3. I NEVER said I was the best in UI/UX stuffs. you, dolt! If i wanted to design all the websites in the world, would i be giving my advices here freely? Everything you said is just a vichyssoise of vacuous words.

  • http://www.geekscribes.net/blog Inf

    @Akash: Just a small advice. If I were you, I wouldn’t f*ck with Selven. The guy knows what he’s saying. :)

  • chege

    It seems that akash can’t explain why he has been chosen to build the new web site and how he convinced the mbc board. Is it possible to have someone from the mbc to explain why akash as been chosen and why he has not been paid ? Is there any journalist who can investigate these issues ?

  • ashvin

    Wai akash fer ene demars remet tou ban episode balad dan vilaz lor site la.
    balad dan vilaz c sel innovation mbc ine fer depi k2000. :)
    mo recommane sa emmission a tou dimoune ki contan moris.

    ek wai, eski kikaine conner pu download ban stream wmv? flash facile mais wmv mari kas tet.

  • http://www.yashi-g.com/ Yashi

    @Akash: I am trying to be arrogant?? lol My first comment was about my own user experience of the MBC website (read it again), and you couldn’t take the criticism as a man. Instead you start saying that you are profiting anyway because I browse the local newspaper websites. Who’s trying to be smart??

    Refer to my first comment. The others here might be pounding you using their technical knowledge, but I am giving you feedback based on my simple experience of the website and you are trying to be smart?? I didn’t even accuse of being the reason why the website is crap. Who’s being arrogant?? You are even telling me to grow up?? Dude, you should have a long hard look at yourself first. If you can’t take criticism, then don’t call yourself a professional.

    Are you saying that no-one can find the MBC website crap?

  • http://lallmatie.com/blog bhoot

    Why are so many people repeating that the site has this thing bad, that bad, vulnerable… We’ve been seeing that since early posts. Some constructive comments would be better…

    Seeing how bland and villain the new MBC building looks from outside, I wonder if the website would have been better had they opted to pay thousands to a big company to do their site. That company would have been so frustrated with the lack of people who know how to differentiate between a beautiful building and a bland one. I guess they really needed someone with full freedom to have something better than the old website. ‘pe gagne gratis, laisse li faire sa ki li envi… si li bon nu ava met met.’ But think if they were paying for it…

    Now that MBC can get feedback and see the difference with a good website, may be they’ll be willing to invest at least some of that advertising revenue next time.

  • axon

    Good job Akash….its better than the old website ! ! ! & JKC Rulz.

  • http://thegodof.net selven

    @akash..

    Don’t you get tired of loving yourself that much??

    :D you can’t when you are perfect :)

    :) you sure you have seen thegodof.net deeply? :p have a second glance :)

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Inf

    I’m not f*cking with him. I got my gf for that. :P

    @All the rest

    Perhaps you would have been happier if they had paid me Rs 31 million (Mauritius, c’est du plaisir rings a bell?) to build a website will all the bells & whistles that you see on other major media websites? Gratis si zot plaigner.. Fouf.. mon plein repon mwa..

    Thanks Yashvin for opening this debate up. For me personally it was very enriching. Opened my eyes on a lot of things.

    If anyone of you would like to contact me personally, email me.

    Cheers. :)

    Akash

  • Yusuf

    I’m not very savvy concerning web design. So, I think that the website is okay. I’ve tried the streaming feature and it’s fine. I was watching infozen and suddenly they showed a part which deals with nails (En plus, ti ena 1 l’homme ti p fer soigne so ban fingernails svp :p). So, I dragged the bar to another part and it still worked fine. The streaming is fast and there are no breaks for buffering or whatever. Moreover, in IE, the streams can be watched in fullscreen. I could not find the button. The tip is to right-click on the player and drag the cursor on ‘zoom’ – The fullscreen option pops up et voila. My rating : Since I’ve seen a big change in the website’s appearance, I give it a generous 7.5/10

  • http://www.ieee.org Zorro

    Why the HELL these people who are criticizing negatively the work of Akash don’t understand one thing?? Even if a “big and professional” company would have been selected among many by the MBC board, STILL, YES STILL lots of people will keep on criticizing (this is wrong, this is bad, wrong positioning, size not appropriate, wrong color selection, wrong theme, round corner not displaying well, cross-browser issues, blablabla.. the old and classical dialogues of the internet geeks! Most of them would be developers, interface designers (coders), graphic designers, testers, optimization ppl, etc.. The reason is obvious, some would like it sweet, others spicy, some salty! Everyone got their own taste!! And I agree with this!

    HOWEVER, there will always be some sharks that would completely disagree with the dish, because they would have preferred that the dish would have been cooked by them! I completely condemned such attitude, and I’ve seem some ppl here adhering to this principle. It is SAD indeed.

    What the HELL is your problem if this guy happened to be related with the DG and have been given this chance??? His luck!! Can’t you bear seeing some people making progress???

    Concerning the issue of “Designed and coded” part, he did ACKNOWLEDGED CLEARLY that he was wrong and will change it, as someone proposed “customized…”, as soon as he will have accessed to the site. Some people proposed good stuffs like blog, forum, etc…

    One last issue. TREAT THIS AS IMPORTANT IF YOU MEAN ALL U’VE SAID!!! If you are against and when clarification about how the board accepted his service, then tomorrow morning send a letter with your name below and sign it to the MBC asking for clarification!

    I didn’t plan to submit a comment, but some people here are filling my Inbox with full of stupid and unclaimed arguments!!

  • http://www.yashi-g.com/ Yashi

    I think this is very relevant to the discussion: http://xkcd.com/386/

  • http://www.girishmungra.me Girish

    @Josh Your English is so great that I had to check a few words u used in the dictionary eh.
    U sure are right about my knowledge of WordPress – never worked with it. But I do know the word ‘Custom’ more than u understand the word ‘Arrogant’.
    we don’t play in the same playground Josh, if u wanna talk show urself first.

  • din3sh

    @ zorro
    <>

    bear people making progress??? wot u think?? we all are jealous of ur guy?? lolllll

    i sense misplaced anger in ur comments. i said its not a personal attack. even the guy himself didnt have much to say abt that… cant you read??

    Its not about being lucky or making progress i was talking… according to ur reasoning, tomorrow any institution in mauritius can get their websites done for free by someone “happening to be related to the Director.”

    yeah i guess u were right…am jealous of that guy’s work…and that awesome website :)

    sorry i cant bear to see him “progress”

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Everyone

    Can we please cut the bullshit for one second and be serious? I actually need your help here.

    I’ve integrated an instant view feature that allows you to view all the videos right from the homepage just by clicking on the play button. The problem is it works fine with Firefox but not with IE. IE bizarrely (or is it really bizarre?) won’t play the video in the instant view but if you click on the post title and go to the single post page, there it will play fine. I’ve tried everything – to no avail.

    Anyway, here’s the code I’ve used to embed the wmv file: http://www.akashcallikan.com/videocode.txt. Notice the if !IE part which should really have taken care of the cross-browser issues.

    If anyone’s got a solution, I’d be glad to hear from them. If not, well feel free to criticise this initiative as well. Rien ne me surprend plus de toute facon…

    Akash

  • Josh

    @Akash

    Honestly i have no idea on this one, just try separating the two objects,
    try this http://pastebin.org/104065

    If you could upload a demo on your site, to show actual data that would be great.

    @girish
    Sarcasm and irony, what a nice combination! One question for you, If my english is so great, how would i not be able to understand the word ‘arrogant’.

    ” we don’t play in the same playground Josh, if u wanna talk show urself first.”

    I thought you were a grown up, oh my bad, i do not play, i work. Hmm and how could i show myself? You wanna be my friend or foe on Facebook maybe? Anyways I am kind enough to upload a photo of myself, here it is;

    http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/9013/69272874.jpg

    This is the Internet! And you are completely drifting away from the topic, so am I; trying to reason you.

  • http://blog.fadil.fr/ Fadil

    ROFLMAO!!!

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    Good morning to all of you.

    A bit off topic, but I need to share this.
    The blog received 200% visitors yesterday and the stats for the last 3 days were great too. Thanks to all of you for your active participation and for bringing forward constructive and meaningful comments.

    This said, be part of the blog by joining the fan page here : http://www.facebook.com/yashvinblogs

    Have a nice week everyone,
    Cheers!

  • Salim

    godofnet in bien dire to 1 insignificant toi akash callican. coment to pe kaav change configiration ban video la lor site mbc mais to pe pretan to pa kaav change design by akash callican la? aret prend dimoun pou boufon man

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Salim

    That’s simple enough. It’s because I have access to the WordPress admin but not to FTP. To change the footer, I would need to modify the footer.php file. Whereas to change the video configuration, it’s right on the ‘edit post’ page. To pa trouver vrai meme to p passe pou ene bouffon aster? Ca em mo dire penser avant zot kozer.

    @Josh

    It didn’t work. It was actually worse. Firefox didn’t load the video at all. Thanks for the effort though.

    Anyone else?

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Akash : If you have access to the wordpress admin, then it is easy to modify the template file.
    Go to “Appearance > Editor”
    Then choose footer.php.

    That’s it! :-)

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashvin

    You really think I wouldn’t know that Yashvin? ;)

    The files aren’t writable. Again, what do I need to make them writable? FTP.

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Akash : I just proposed a solution.

    To IT Department (if ever they read this) :
    Anyways, kindda strange. You have admin access to their official site, but no ftp rights.
    I would blame the IT Department here, why would they need to give administration access to one part only to someone outside the official company staff?

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    @Yashvin

    I know.

    It’s because they’re new to this system. So I was asked to keep an eye on their work for the first few weeks… just to help them run it smoothly. And for that I didn’t need access to FTP but only to WP admin.

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    Was just given FTP access. Changed the footer wording.

    Akash

  • Bhooks

    MBC TV pa passe Paris – Nice Live. Ti kapave o moins met bann stages la lor So site Web. Kumsa pou bann seki kuma moi ki content get Cyclisme. Mo ti pu happy :p

    En passant. Depi ki sa nuvo web site la on. Mo pa p rat Le Journal de 19.30 ;)

    Mo pa kone si Information ti available lor ancient website MBC. En tu ka seki mo sir, Sann site la attrayant. Li fer mwa envi visite li. Ancient la mem mo browser IE 6.0 pa ti li ouvert li ;)

  • http://www.woozeer.com Adam Woozeer

    @Akash To pe servi Alexa comme ene metric pou mesure success bannes sites , ki alright mo penser mais nous tout conne cuma li facile rente dans classement Alexa et en plus bannes CMS to rouler zot lor bannes sites ki donne contenus quotidiennement. Pas bisin ene expert pou conner ki : plis ena contenus = plis li facile ranked = contenus amene traffic. Donc to pena narien a faire avec volume traffic ki influence rang la.

    Apres mo trouver tone ignore seki mone dire net la haut concernant bannes zistoire CMS la? Seki mone dire pure mensonge sa ki?

    En resumer but la ti pas touche to ego mais fer toi comprend capow fer plis ki modifier des trucs et merite vine sans demander si to bon mo penser dans place tappe letomac dire.

    Hors Topic:
    @Zorro Dapres to logique bisin ene docteur pou conner si leker ine arrete bâter?
    Si site MBC ti kitchose de l’excellence mo pas penser dimoune ti pou exprimer ici. Change ene theme wordpress pas dire narien sa a mes yeux.
    En plus jamais mone lire ene papier signer Zorro par contre contacter moi mo capow montrer toi seki moi mon fer :) … cuma to pe trouver mo impe dans enta demars mais seki relatif a toi nu capow partager.. a cose dans partager ki ena appranne.

  • Mighty

    alalila……yashvin……wat a post!…..tout ban blogger finn coumence exciT depi to finn met sa l’article lors MBC la…..manque seulement Bijaye Madhoo so ban comments……mo esperE ki to l’article lor fam met pli nissa encore……n zats y ur No 1 blogger of Mauritius(.mu)

  • Avishna

    oh now the tone has changed, now bloggers r bringing solutions to the one who designed and created the website… comme ban vrai mauritian. so it should be designed by XxX and add ons le peuple mauricien.

    :)

  • Morisienne

    First of all , kudos for Yashvin for posting this thread. It has indeed been an eye opener for most of us. One can clearly conclude that decent web related work is and will never be based on meritocracy but rather on one’s surname or contacts as clearly demonstrated.

    Akash Callikan is without doubt a script kiddie and just a mere amateur.

    My grandma always used to say ‘voleur tout letemps quit trace mo piti et tot ou tard li gagne trapper’

    His latest work http://theindependent.mu is clearly a copy of http://www.woothemes.com/demo/?name=daily-edition

    >> LOL

    From the CSS file :
    http://theindependent.mu/wp-content/themes/dailyedition/style.css
    Description: The Independent Daily is a theme created by Akash Callikan for Le Matinal.

    I think you should sue Woothemes , they copied from you Akash Callikan :)

  • http://www.akashcallikan.com Akash Callikan

    Did you know that you can actually buy from Woothemes, Morisienne? Did you know that you can also buy footer credits?

    To grand-mere pan dir twa n lot zafer? “Dimoun zalou koz kozer nek dimoun c ki p progresser.. c ki insignifiant pena nanyen pou kozer lor zot” ;)

  • http://www.artover.com Bryan Janvier

    Oh my god… mbc website is really like all the mcb programme. It is a shame to see such a website produce in Mauritius.

    Sorry for the “designer” of MBC website, but you really need to update about websitew standard. Buy the smashingmagazine book plz : http://shop.smashingmagazine.com/smashing-book-intl.html

    THnks.

  • Darma

    Ayo mari lente sa website ….

  • Ruchpaul

    Hey Akash! Nice job man!
    Mo truV ena boukou dimune zalou tw ici ein..mais pa kass tet, kan dimune zalou twa, sa v dir to p progresser!!! ;-)

    website la seryer net! Mo ti passe dan sa premier emission infozen la, mo ti p envi re guet mw ene cou! lol..alors mone visite website la..
    Mwa j’aime..:-p

    cheers…
    p.s Continue the great work! n good luck in life!

  • Mat

    Right, where do I start?? This interested me:

    just because people still use Internet Explorer. (Yes, even today!) – as IE is the most popular browser on the planet, this comment alone smacks of unprofessionalism at worst or complete ignorrence at best.

    The template is a rip off.

    The layout is cluttered and about as user-friendly as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

    You are the nephew of the MD – whether you paid for it or not this is corruption as it is giving you an unfair advantage over other prospective webdesigners, some who might even know how to write code and design sites from the ideas in their own heads – The ICAC has been informed and I expect huge repercussions because of this, whether you were paid or not, it is still corruption and shows the true nature of MBC management.

    The user experience has not been considered at all and unfortunately, this was widespread between 1995 and 2000 when too many bedroom web designers tried to design websites for corporations. Just because you can make a flaming or a spinning Gif does not make you a webdesigner or even a web customiser!

    The website is worse than the one it replaced and MBC can only do one thing to save their professional reputation, they have to put out a tender for a new site, designed from scratch and to which they hold all legal copyright. You cannot put a public body or a private corporation for that matter, into a situation where copyright is disputed, whether you have purchased a licence or not, unless the licence was purchased by MBC and they hold the title document, it is again coroption as unfortunately, you are the legal copyright holder should you hold this licence and as such, MBC are currently indebted to you for this and this is not a good place for a public body to be in.

    Before you even think of starting, my background is in IT BUT I am not a webdesigner anymore, I gave that up in 2005, nor do I have a company which could tender for any website. I am however, a qualified and certified IT professional with over 12 years experience, I hold Microsoft, VMware and Symantec certifications as well as a degree in software engineering from a UK university. My points are valid and based on experience, facts and the law, some of which you would serve well to read up on.

    I am going to get off my soapbox now. I accept that the MBC does not need a BBC-esque website but it also, does not need anything which causes problems or is of such poor design as to induce headaches to viewers.

    I know this comment will cause a number of people to comment but this has not been a personal attack so please, if you have any professional criticism it is welcomed, personal attacks will be dealt with accordingly.

    Regards
    Mat

  • http://lallmatie.com/blog bhoot

    That’s a hard one, I can understand where Mat gets all those points, but saying that the old site was better? You need to get yourself updated…

    A really valuable website to learn about web design – Smashing Magazine – http://www.smashingmagazine.com
    That’s what I recommend to all web designers, newbie and experienced.

  • Mat

    @ BHOOT:

    Please allow me to explain further, when I said the old website was better, it was actually a website and not a blog template, it was not of questionable licencing and it was not giving rise to any nepotism or corruption which now puts the MBC in an uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. Whether the layout and content was better is up for discussion but it wasn’t the political and legal minefield the current blog is :-)

  • diya

    Mat, even the most dumb guy could tell that the previous website used a blog template. Are you being purposely blind? Or do you just like picking on others? Get a life!

  • Mat

    @diya:
    Ah but again, it seems I have a point you are destined to miss. You say it was a blog template, how long had it been online? When blogs were JUST starting, someone had created what was THEN, quite a modern website, whether you like the interface or not, it was almost ahead of its time and again I will repeat that there were no licencing issues and no nepotism or corruption. As a webdesigner, if in fact you are one, you will no doubt be happy to produce a funky website which people like, I on the other hand, having moved through the ranks to senior management have the unenviable and legal responsibilities to ensure all work is legal, infringes no copyright, is properly licensed AND I also have to ensure that people like you (people at the sharp end of development) produce what is required by the client TO the client’s specifications. That there are no platitudes, ommissions or ambiguities in the client brief and that the client is happy.

    I would like to point out that I am not talking about web projects here but enterprise implementations of CRM, ERP and other enterprise systems, web design does not form a part of my role in any way, except where it is the interface for such systems.

    As for getting a life, I have one thank you, a very nice one in fact, if you had offended me with your final words, I would probably patronise you in some shape or form but Idoubt you would know what it meant.

    Now I am going to get on with my, rather nice life, thank you for your concern over my life, it is appreciated and I already feel that we have become very close friends, I am in fact looking forward to your invitation to dinner at your house, should I bring anything? I told some friends about how close we have become and of your concern for my well being and they too are looking forward to coming round to your house for dinner, perhaps we could have a barbeque, I could bring some beef and pork steaks which we could all wash down with copious amounts of Phoenix beer and goodwill rum because I wish you nothing but goodwill.

  • http://ashfaqblog.blogspot.com ashfaq

    @akash callikan .. John john the best.. to koner twa :) lolz.. hmm pa kass tet ek bane comments la twa .. rouler em sa .. mais bon .. I am blogger since a long time, and I have seen many better blogs.. However, mo pou add ki for free and taking into account that doing a job for someone else enkore .. you cannot do it with that much pleasure as most bloggers make their websites.. so, Congrats for the job.

    @all – Kan zotte capave prove yourselves and after doing free jobs for companies and that you are OPEN to critics and furthermore you are interested in designing “to help” and for free.. then you can come back and criticize .. and in that sense .. if u do come back dear people..I would be glad that you design a nice template for my blog :) you can check my blog by clicking on my name i suppose .. do check it and do propose me with something if you have been criticizing akash :)

    Cheerz to all,
    Looking forward for your templates for my blog,
    Ashfaq :) )

    P.S thanks yashvin, grace a toi petet mo pou gagne 1 top website template for free la :) niahahaha lolzz

  • http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

    @Akash : Sorry for the swear words which has just been approved. I messed up with the comments on wordpress. Deleting it immediately. I have got in touch with the person whose email add is associated with this comment. Has his/her IP too.

  • Pingback: New tv channels as a sign for a MBC fee increase? | Yashvin, pages of my life

  • Kamlesh

    MBC server is quite good….i thing i liked about it…when i download videos from MBC’s website,i get full download speed @ 275kbps….zats gr8

  • http://kidsbookcases.wordpress.com Bookcases

    Nice layout, what theme is this? I don’t think its custom cause I know I’ve seen it (and I’v been looking for it). If you could shoot me the download link to the URL may address is normanderwill-AT-gmail.com Thanks.

  • http://twitter.com/Poushal Poushal Gopaul

    is there any way to download a particular video from the website? eg le JT of some date?

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