Project Petaling Street

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What is Project Petaling Street?

Project Petaling Street (henceforth known as PPS) is a "blogtal": a blog portal. In itself, it isn't a blog, but it acts as a portal that aggregates (i.e. mengumpulkan or brings together) the freshest and latest content from a cross-section of Malaysian made, Malaysian maintained blogs.

For one definition (there are many others) of what a blog is, please refer to the following:

• http://www.aizuddindanian.com/voi/archives/000479.html - there are a host of links in this posting that will lead you to more information about blogs and blogging

Project Petaling Street Development History

Project Petaling Street went BETA on 7 June 2003. It went RELEASE CANDIDATE 1 on 9 June 2003. It went RELEASE CANDIDATE 2 on 11 June 2003. It was LAUNCHED and is LIVE as of 12 June 2003. It is currently version 1.0.

PPS v1.5 will begin BETA testing 30 June 2003. Write to pps@petalingstreet.org for more details. Applications to be a BETA tester closes 28 June 2003.

BETA Testing for PPS v1.5 are underway. A complete change log will be provided during launch.

How was PPS conceived?

The PPS was conceived during a meeting of a few Malaysian bloggers at Rare Earth Cafe, Phileo Damansara, 6 June 2003. The core group members of PPS comprise mainly of the bloggers who attended that meet.

Read about the first meeting here: http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/000474.php

More such meetings are planned and EVERYONE who's interested about blogging (or if you're just looking for some company on a Friday night) is invited. Please check out http://www.timyang.com and http://www.mycen.com.my/duasen/ regularly for notices for subsequent meetings.

Why was PPS created?

The PPS seeks to fulfill the following objectives:

1. Create and sustain an interest and awareness in blogging among Malaysians of all ages and races. If you're old enough, you're young enough. Seriously: blogging isn't difficult, if you are so inclined.
2. Create and sustain a community of Malaysian bloggers - while the PPS community is currently very small (i.e. limited to the founding core group members), this won't be the case for very long. Plans are underway (check out the "Current Tasks" below) to allow the PPS to accept public submissions. Other community tools such as a "Malaysian blogosphere" search engine is also being developed.
3. Aggregate and congregate content from across the Malaysian blogosphere (what is a blogosphere?)

The technology behind PPS

PPS is powered by Movabletype. It is hosted on the excellent Lunarpages.com web servers. The domain name, Petalingstreet.org was purchased through Namecheap.com (.com .net .org domains for RM33.74).

PPS works through the specific use of four technical components:

• Movabletype's TrackBack

Everytime a core member's site is updated, it will send a "ping" to the "LATEST UPDATE" category. When PPS receives the ping, it automatically updates the main page. Therefore, content on PPS exists in real-time.

Plans are in the works to expand the site in the coming months to allow for PPS to accept public pings (i.e. pings from anyone, hopefully mostly from Malaysian bloggers)

• RSS/XML Feeds

Generally speaking, an RSS/XML feed is real-time generated data streams that allows for said to be transfered between different applications. This means that blogs may exist on different platforms (PHPNuke, Movabletype, Blogger, etc.), but will still be able to communicate with PPS via RSS/XML.

The right-hand bar sections, "From the Street" + "Jalan-jalan cari photo", receive their updates via feeds from the core-members of PPS.

More about RSS/XML:

• Introduction to RSS - WebReference.com
• XML.com: What is RSS?
• How to manage your site with Blogger, PHP, and XML

• The PPS Wiki

Project Petaling Street is a living project. This means that we expect it to undergo changes in the near future in an effort to make it ever better. The document that will track this evolution is the very same one you are reading RIGHT NOW. It is intended to be a dynamic document that will be updated as PPS evolves.

This document is built using PHPWiki and is hosted by the ever-helpful people at technoLAHgy.

• The Kota Raya Mailing List (Join the list)

The mailing list exists on Yahoo! Groups. Join the list to get connected with other Malaysian bloggers and to receive invitations to any future events related to blogging or PPS

Thanks to TV Smith for taking the initiative to set it up.

• The Kota Raya Wiki

This is where events involving the Kota Raya group are organized. Also holds reports of the events.

This document is built using PHPWiki and is hosted by the ever-helpful people at technoLAHgy.

Contacting PPS

Project Petaling Street belongs to the Malaysian blogging community. The core group members are simply facilitators and custodians. If you wish to contact us, you can reach us by writing to the address below. We welcome with grateful thanks any suggestions, comments, feedback or pointers that you may have. While we can't promise to incorporate each suggestion into the PPS, we can guarantee a prompt reply.

Email us : pps@petalingstreet.org

The PPS Core Group (in alphabetical order)

• Aizuddin Danian (http://www.aizuddindanian.com/)
• Dinesh Nair (http://www.alphaque.com/)
• Ditesh Kumar (http://gathani.org/)
• Jeff Ooi (http://www.jeffooi.com/)
• Mohan Raj (http://codeworks.blogspot.com/)
• NSalleh (http://nsalleh.canggih.net/photoblog/)
• Najah Nasseri (http://www.najahnasseri.org/)
• Poh Huai Bin (http://www.sixthseal.com/)
• TechnoLAHgy (http://www.yat.ch/lah/)
• TV Smith (http://www.mycen.com.my/duasen/)

Final Words

Project Petaling Street is a work in progress. It doesn't claim to be perfect, nor does it claim to be all-encompassing or comprehensive or complete. Its the brainchild of a few Malaysian bloggers, worked on by those same few with the hope that PPS can in some small way bring blogging to the Malaysian masses. This is our contribution to you, the Malaysian public in general and the Malaysian blogging public in particular.

Our objective is never to exclude, never to offend - though we realize that in the course of achieving some of our goals, those are the exact things that we may inadvertently do. Please accept our apologies in advance if the unwanted were to happen.

PPS exists for the Malaysian blogging community. It is hoped that all who use it and/or appreciate it or hate it will use PPS faithfully and honestly.

If you share our goals and ambitions, please get in touch with us at pps@petalingstreet.org - let's find a way to work together.

Project publicity

14 June 2003

• http://www.pheeshball.com/main/archives/000067.php

13 June 2003

• http://www.aisehman.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_aisehman_archive.html#105543579278015132

12 June 2003

• http://www.aizuddindanian.com/voi/archives/000538.html
• http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/000494.php
• http://www.alphaque.com/article.php?sid=331
• http://www.najahnasseri.org/archives/000642.html
• http://www.yat.ch/lah/archives/000046.html
• http://www.najahnasseri.org/archives/000644.html

6-8 June 2003

• http://www.alphaque.com/article.php?sid=328
• http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/000474.php
• http://www.najahnasseri.org/archives/000627.html
• http://www.aizuddindanian.com/voi/archives/000521.html