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20:25
Tough Times
» For Love and Money Tough Times
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11:22 Brokers Going Broke? I don’t Think so….
» Kenyanentrepreneur.com Bankelele has an interesting post on brokers dwindling fortunes in light of this market slump. The main thrust of the article is that those brokerage companies that have not been able to obtain investment banking licenses are the one’s who are going to suffer the most — mainly because all their commissions depend upon people buying [...] -
11:22
[nt]
» Kenyanentrepreneur.com
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9:52
The Kenyan Way: External Locus of Control
» What An African Woman Thinks It’s that time of the year again-exam time.
So, of course I've been busy distracting myself from reading by thinking about all sorts of things.
One of those things is that if there’s one trait that the majority of Kenyans share, it is an external locus of control. Whatever happens is always someone else’s fault. Some Other is always the cause of my problem.
I came to this realisation the day after I’d blogged about our MPs passing the buck.
It was World AIDS day. I was watching Sunrise news on KTN. They were interviewing Kenyans intermittently about the fact that AIDS prevalence is up.
Kenyan after Kenyan came up with a host of Other-centred excuses.
One guy said that although there were some NGOs distributing condoms door to door, those condoms weren’t the best quality. That was the problem.
Another guy said the problem was that some NGOs that had received funds for grassroots work had squandered the funds.
On and on it went. Festival of finger pointing.
It got so bad I wanted to join in the fun and point a finger down my throat.
I got so tired of it I started to yell at the people of the tube all by my lonesome.
(Never mind the neighbours, they already think I’m some kind of odd.)
That thing they say about us getting the leaders we deserve: they’re onto something.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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5:31
Join in the civic action against greedy Kenyan MPs
» Kenyan Pundit Click here for all the details of how you can participate - from buying a t-shirt to marching in protest on Dec 12th. As the community in Kibera demonstrated, the politicians only respond when you make your voices heard clearly so please make your voices heard.
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4:07
Quick Links
» Black Looks *** Two blogs by Nigerian women I have recently begun to read regularlyWaffarian on confused Christian morality and child pornography. Waffy’s post was a response to a post on a another great blog, “It was so much easier when I only had one” (a sentiment I can very much relate to - raising 3 [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Quick Links", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/12/quick_links-17.html" });
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1:58
Missing In Action..........
» My part of the world....... Yes it's been a while since I last blogged. Thanksgiving passed last week, it was good to have a 4 day weekend. I did the early shopping trip to the mall, got some nice clothes at very low prices. Plus I did not trample anyone to death like happened elsewhere. I also went to one of the Kenyan clubs and there was nothing that went on really worth mentioning but I may blog about it next week.
Also World AIDS day just passed us by. In true Kenyan style I am 2 days late. Out here if the media is anything to go by, HIV/AIDS is the sole preserve of gays and minorities. So there was not too much in the mainstream media marking the day. I am sure much more was done in Kenya since it's a far larger issue but even so whenever infection statistics go down people tend to go back to the same destructive behaviour that got them where they were in the past. I am a strong advocate for transparent conversation about the issue, not talking about it will not make it go away.
I was watching this video by Attitude, Mercy Myra and some other loose kubaff. I recall the last video by this dude and Bamboo that critiqued had someone tell me, "if you don't like it, don't watch/listen." Easy to say but people forget that unless you are independantly wealthy and doing it for the sake of art, music is a business. Unless you plan to sit at home with all the cds you pressed you have to make music people want to listen to. Pride has never sold any records as far as I know, so I think that musicians and their fans need to listen at times to so called "haters." Like in the case of that video, I'll be honest; there is little that sets it apart from any other single you can find on myspace made with someone's camcorder. I think someone like Mercy Myra would have been doing so much better had she stayed in Kenya on the afro fusion scene because to be honest, there are one thousand and one girls out here singing hooks on rap singles and they haven't gone to far. Anyway I'm about to be accused of hating so I'll let that topic rest for now.
I have always found it amazing about how people choose to let their impressions of a place overcome reality. What am I talking about? The American economy. I have been chatting to more than one person who isn't Stateside and when I mention that the American economy is in the gutter they give me a reaction like I told them that pigs do indeed fly. For the longest time people have held the impression that the States is the land of milk and honey, it's not all chaos here right now but let's just say the milk is flowing at the speed of sour cream and the honey is crystalizing. Case in point, the city I live in has recently closed a Fire Station, put employees on 35 hour work weeks instead of the usual 40 so as to save money/jobs and also just closed 22 recreation centers. I'm not even going to start with the big companies/corporations because anyone who can lay off employees is doing it. I do plan on doing a more in depth post about how the recession, credit crunch and housing crisis here is really affecting people. So I do think that life in the States is not as rosy as people make it out to be, but you are welcome to disagree.
Another example of the bad reporting Kenyans have to put up with.
"Raila Junior and Mr Joseph Muhoho were travelling in a sleek Mercedes Benz when it rammed a BMW belonging to one of their friends on Valley Road at dawn."
Unless it was a feature story, according to journalism 101 you report only the neccesary facts. It doesn't matter if the Merc was sleek, dirty or ramshackle unless it had something to do with the accident. Anyway the less said about it the better.
Ah speaking of laying off. A boss walks into his company, business has been exteremely poor and he has bad news for his 2 employees.
Boss: Janet, I'm going to have to lay you or Jack off.
Janet: I have a headache, can you Jack off instead?
Stale I know. Viva la weekend!
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0:57
Lets talk about phones baby! …
» Afromusing Lets talk about you and me! Got your attention you Salt and Pepa loving peeps?O.k. Its been awhile since I mused on mobiles, but this is as good a time as any to get back to my ‘wag of the finger’ ‘tip of the hat’ thing…Indulge me.
First, I have been accused of hating on the Iphone a bit too much and being a Nokia fan girl. Those accusing me of this may be on to something. Here is why. I have previously wagged my finger at Apple for tying their beautiful device to a crappy provider like AT&T and ranted about my misgivings with the 1st gen Iphone.You see, i have had first hand experience with this monstrosity of a telco named AT&T. When I became blinded by the 3G speeds and the GPS on the new Iphone, i succumbed to the hype, the hipster call of duty and got the 16GB model of Iphone. First, the process of activating the phone at the Apple store did not go well, plus the ‘genius’ who was assigned to me was saying rather daft things like ‘i am required by Apple and AT & T to ask you whether you will be traveling out of the continental US’ and some other drivel all culminating in her telling me that I would have to get my phone activated by AT&T. After this that and the other, i finally got the phone activated and after even more drama that i shall save you the pain of reading and weeping, i was able to port my old phone number from T-Mobile. Let me just warn anyone reading this. Learn from my ginormous error people, do NOT for a moment think of switching from T-mobile to AT&T not even for the Jesus phone, Buddha phone or ‘There-is-no-deity’ phone. T-mobile is a far better company to deal with than AT&T, so save yourself the headache. I am glad to be back in the T-mobile fold thank you very much. Lets not even talk about unlocking your phone so you can use it when you travel, that would just be rehashing my old rant on this very point. Again, i learned first hand why I have unkind words for AT&T. In order for you to get decent rates when roaming, you have to sign up for a monthly roaming service where you pay an addition $5.99 so you can save a few cents on a pre-existing exorbitant roaming charge. So if you were to receive calls in say…Finland, if you had the roaming service it would cost you $1.19 per minute, if not, it would be $1.99 per minute or something close to that. Same applies if someone leaves you voicemail. You would still get charged at the roaming rate. T-mobile does not charge you a ‘roaming service’ fee. Data roaming is also very expensive. Do not dare get lost and use your Iphone maps for directions. You will flail, cry and quite likely faint when you receive your bill.
This pairing of a beautiful device with a crap company had me all worried when Apple announced that they would be making inroads into various parts of the world including Kenya. In the case of Kenya, Orange Telcom is the carrier of choice. Rebecca wrote about this in Network world August’08. Please be warned the following quote is plain and simple self promotion…But do I say?
Telkom Kenya will start selling the iPhone in Kenya next month after launching the Orange mobile phone service.
Orange entered into a contract with Apple that gave it the right to sell the iPhone in Kenya and the sale will commence once the service rolls out, said Njeri Rionge, chief commercial and marketing officer at Telkom.”My concern with the iPhone is the return to the old telecom hegemony where you are tied to one carrier because of a contract (since the telecom subsidizes the hardware), this system can be very annoying especially with the freedom that Kenyans have enjoyed in terms of their ability to switch carriers easily,” said Juliana Rotich, a Kenyan technologist.Did you buy an Iphone in Kenya? What was your experience with Telkom like? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Ahem. moving along..Second, the authoritarianism of the walled garden approach taken by Apple, particularly with DRMed songs on Itunes irks me to no end. I try to buy songs from Amazon MP3 store and would encourage all who believe in freedom, truth and chocolate to do the same. Yes hyperbolical of me, but dude, i wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when you use up your ‘authorizations’ from Apple because you switched between one too many computers/iphones. Lets not even talk about Apple yanking useful apps like Tether that would help you make the most out of that 3G data speed you are paying an arm, leg and pancreas on your Iphone data plan. Yes you can jailbreak it using Pawnage and get apps on cydia, but I digress.
All this brings me to my new device of choice.The Nokia E71, and my new device of drool and gadget lust, the N97
*cc licensed pic by JKE on flickr
Just so you know I am seriously getting rid of my Iphone. Yes, i will miss the nice lines and one touch ease of interfacing with the web, the sleek simplicity of apps like Twinkle, Brightkite and even FB for Iphone. I will be content with Twibble and locr. I never got comfortable typing on the Iphone, sometimes I still pine for my old Q with the wide QWERTY keyboard, so E71 with its slimmer frame is a good compromise. The E71 is a phone that truly gives you wings…(sorry Redbull) You can travel with it, stick a local sim card and get talking, emailing, fringing, tagging photos with locr, mapping your way with the super fast GPS all the while having the freedom of having whatever blinking ringtone you want on it. I know you do not care, but I am indulging today aren’t I? My current ringtone is the song Gongo Aso by 9ice. I have the freedom to change it Moloko’s ‘Fun for me’ or Morcheeba’s Enjoy The Ride (Silver Saver Mix). Try doing that on the Iphone…you would have to pay Apple to create a simple ringtone?!! When Wired’s gadget lab proclaimed this phone ‘Best of Test’ I wholeheartedly agreed then and still do. On the podcast I think the guy said ‘This phone is not for everyone. It is for people who want a higher level engagement with their phone’ I haven’t even touched on the barcode reader! You know what, just head on over to Juergen’s for a complete rundown of E71 awesomeness if you haven’t already.
The Nokia N97
CC licensed pic by Inky on flickr
From the looks of it, this could be THE phone that combines the best of ALL worlds, at least while the Morph concept phone remains just that. A concept.The N97 has a full QWERTY keyboard, touch screen, Micro SD slot and generous memory - 32GB onboard memory, you can add 16GB on the Micro SD card slot. For more spec-goodies see the Data_Sheet_Nokia N97.pdf. I care about the 32GB memory because if you truly want an Ipod replacement such that you would have one device to rule them all, and have access to your substantial collection of music, space matters. If for some odd reason you’d want to listen to Longomba’s ‘Vuta Pumzi’ while you recall the good times circa 2005-’06, or early 2000s Kenyan rap that sounds rather bad right now, yet at the time you were bobbing your head going…’oh this is nice’ well you’d have the freedom to. Wings from Nokia i tell ya. Wiiings! Caveat: The N97 does not have a flashlight. Readers of this blog know that i have this thing for Nokia phones with flashlights, and believe that it is The.Best.Feature.Ever! so on this one point, i am going to ding the N97 just a peg. If someone can hack the Dual LED camera flash to act like a flashlight when i type a combination of keys…well it is quite possible that I would sign over an IOU stating my infinite adoration to the person who hacks this. Yes oh yes, BET ON NOKIA.
I am looking forward to being in a country where i can switch mobile companies vuka/unvuka as I darn well please. Kenya, see you in a bit.