Mac OSX Mountain lion

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The standard user interface of Mac OS X

The standard user interface of Mac OS X (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am not known for my exemplary patience and if anything I am quit horrible at bidding my time for just about anything.

I was thus not about to not update Vivian (My Macbook Pro) from OSX Lion to OSX Mountain lion. For starters, I was not aware that there are lions that live on mountains. Doesn’t sound very liony.

Cougar / Puma / Mountain Lion / Panther (Puma ...

Cougar / Puma / Mountain Lion / Panther (Puma concolor) closeup. Philadelphia Zoo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyhoo I should have known from my previous experiences in updating a plethora of iOS based devices for pals that the hype behind the update is hot air.

Apple fanboys/loyalists/paid goons will tell me am tasteless, dont understand technology ad nauseam but notification centers and facebook integrations are not features in my book. These are stickers on a car not additional airbags for the toddler in the back seat.

All the same I try remain current and not disappoint my geek gods lest I get excommunicated. Kickass torrents quickly availed a usable copy of the mountain lion installer and I got on my way. Now before you start shouting yourself hoarse about piracy, I qualified for a free copy but due to technical issues I could not redeem it from the cupertino buggers. Its their fault.

Upgrade went on without a hickup , I think seeing as I left it happening overnight, and absolutely nothing of note changed on my desktop experience. Well that was a 4.5 GB dissapointment. Little did I know this was the beginning of my problems. After a while   the laptop started acting all slow at times even hanging and other times geting all hot and bothered.

Now I have bootcamp installed on half my harddrive because for technical folk in my field Windows applications are bread and butter. This has worked flawlwessly for the past 7 months but on one random day last week the laptop took 15 mis to boot. I forced a reboot and this chewed up another 10 mins. Here my problems began with the damn thing refusing to boot into Mac OS and only running Windows 7 when the startup disk is changed.

Long story short, the 500 GB drive developed S.M.A.R.T errors specifically a 2047 value on the Reallocated sector count. Trawling the forums turns out this is a common error upon the upgrade with the only solution being provided is replacement of the drive. I think I will do this when My warranty is close to its end or when the damn thing just dies on me but I think this is utter bullcrap. That the error is not random should be telling no?

For a system that “just works” there is a lot of tinkering to get simple things done without regularly turning you into a pauper.

 

 

 

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IBM_Blue_Gene_P_supercomputer

Progress through Processors

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Data crunching is hard and more so when you have obscene amounts of data that are produced everyday and that you need to make sense of.

Most badass data crunchers are monstrosities called supercomputers which occupy entire rooms. They are basically your laptop on crack laced with speed with all the power of one of those decommissioned space shuttles.

The data intensive operations like climate prediction, cancer research etc as well as computationally heavy operations such as image analysis and graphics rendering require a hefty amount of data crunching capacity that is terribly expensive to firms whose owners do not own yachts.

Enter BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) An initiative of the University of California Berkley on exploring distributed computing of task. It started off as a project in support of the search for extraterrestrial life (Aliens basically) but now its used in climate research, protein synthesis, malaria control and a plethora of other applications. 

Basically you get a desktop client which downloads some data to be crunched and your pc crunches the data in place of the screensaver and once done sends back the results/ a report to the server which issues more work if available. You can see how the millions of computers worldwide connected to the internet just sitting there running Microsoft Word and Outlook can be used for scientific betterment of humanity.

This is a purely volunteer affair where you specify how much of your processor is used, when to download and all manner of metrics to adhere to.

Intel has been pushing for its own brand of the same platform (seeing as they make the most processors) calling it progress thru processors.

I run this app though at minimal settings and I have done quite a sizeable amount of computing calculated in Ghrs.

Try it out.

 

 

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Age and politics

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As is usual with kenyan politics, mudslinging and dragging your opponents through the mud is considered very standard operating procedure when vying for any seat.

It is thus not unusual to hear characters aspiring to occupy the highest office in the land throwing juicy opinions on their opponents ability at conducting their daily business. This is not like the customary insulting that goes on in Mali. This is seedy, sleazy and downright childish insulting that should only be attributed to bad upbringing.

The president thinks as much too and regularly joins in the fun, only his insults are usually targeted at regular folk who enjoy their tipple more often than not and retire and rest before working. Such upsetting of capitalistic norms are what warrant insults by the commander in chief. Insults are things that are dragged out when nothing else of note can be generated by the concerned parties. How else do you explain how a man aspiring to lead 40 million kenyans in military,economic and political conquests wasting precious time at a rally insulting opponents while he could be trying to convince the populace why his policies are superior to his opponents. Taking swipes at their age and soccer skills is guaranteed to generate better response from the crowd and thus more media coverage and hence more publicity.

But I gotta admit some of the swipes are hilarious and really bring home the reality about some of our political contestants. The recent comments by Ruto about how he used to read about and sing for William ole Ntimama when he was still in class 3 were really hilarious. I dug around for old photos of Ntimama and he looked old back then like older than the members of the UhuRuto brigade. Of Course the constitution affords protection from discrimination agains age, sex etc but come on. Ancient is ancient. A 40 year old able bodied man is not expected to be living with his mother and getting a weekly allowance however rich the folks may be. Same with an octogenarian claiming he wants to revolutionise anything.  Its just common sense and little todo with hiding behind rights.

I am a proponent of the idea that time should be respected. The insistence of perpetuity in holding offices is detrimental to the entire fabric of the ecosystem. The stubborn office holders ironically also limit themselves in the opportunities they can take advantage of and the growth in stature, influence and the all to enigmatic legacy. Who doesn’t want to go down in history as being awesome? Look at what Mandela did for himself with only one term in office. Imagine if he had been rigging himself into power for the 5th time. Would he still be a global icon? Do your time and leave. If you cant find something else to do then your lack of creativity is a case in itself as to why you are unfit to hold the office.

Old guys should stick to what they are best at doing. Guiding and giving advise. Even biology thinks so.

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Sanskriti

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Just over 6 months ago, I got a shout out from one Melissa Balan a 22 year old Graduate living in New York with an interest in making a documentary.

The idea of the documentary (As I understood it anyway) is to show or explore the connections made possible by technology and how these can be used or are helping the betterment of society. We live in a society that is hyper connected now even in the so called 3rd world and it has led to the proliferation of ideas, tastes, traditions and essentially the crafting of a global culture. Thousands of miles over land,sea, mountains and a plethora of other obstacles are reduced to nothing and people are connected in an instant.

The premise of the documentary will be to follow 5 young guys/guyettes from around the globe as they show their life and embarking on a transition be it graduating, moving to a new town/city etc and showing how this affects their outlook,the influence of their culture, dreams aspirations and their world view.

Clearly I wasn’t going to say no to that and consequently dived in faster than I could say frozen yoghurt!

Over the following months copious emails were exchanged between yours truly and Melissa culminating in a terribly amateur self interview that after extensive editing and videoshopping (I hope there is such a term) wound up on the trailer for the Sanskriti Documentary below. Oh and by the way Sanskriti is a Sanskrit word for “Culture”

More info about the Documentary can be found here.

 

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Best Kenyan Ads of all time

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Advertising has got to be the best story giving medium there is what with the constrained time that they are allocated and the commercial motives behind their production.

A good advertisement does wonders for a product and leaves such a lasting impression whos value far surpasses the initial investment that went into making it.

If you manage to cram a story, humor and a message into an ad without making it look rushed then you have your lasting impression right there.

Here is a collection of Kenyan focused ads that did it for me in terms of creativity,  originality, humor and product placement.

Trust condoms have always been marketed by the most creative ads in the kenyan space as far as I can tell. The ads below are many years old but their creativity and originality have not been surpassed to date.

Jamii telekom (A local telecoms company) have been pushing their FTTH product pretty hard over the last couple of months promising glorious speeds to their users. These ads that have been running on mainstream TV have really helped the brand along and Faiba is now slang for awesome (atleast around my circles)

This is the Iconic ad by Safaricom that sought to rally the patriotism of kenyans and associate it with their brand. Worked perfectly. There are some awesome shots of rarely before seen sceney that puts the boring campaigns by Magical Kenya to shame

This is a series of ads by Kencell the predecessor of Celtel,Zain and now Airtel. This was at the height of their media battles with Safaricom when they were the only two mobile phone companies in the country.

This is part of a media campaign of the Duracoat house paint brand hyping their product. Pretty funny and communicated well.

Yu Kenya taga mayai

http://bestkenyanadverts.com/watch_video.php?v=DD8M2W7WSYH6

Yu Kenya call rate guy

http://www.yu.co.ke/tvcs/1480-yumobile-call-rate-guy-tvc

Fresh Freddy was a media campaign by Close- Up to sell toothpaste. It was funny and very entertaining.

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Nairobi Half Life

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Finally got to watch Nairobi Half Life , the single most sought after flick in Nairobi for the latter half of 2012.

The flick follows the trials of Mwas as he chases his dream in the big city and the tough life lessons he is forced to learn on the fly.

I will not bore you with a synopsis or plot spoiler as this is a flick EVERYONE seriously needs to watch from the young(over 18 though) to the ancient.

Quite frankly I was impressed by the quality of the production, the solid characters, totally believable dialogue/ language and for a good story well told. The film industry has finally come of age in Kenya and if such productions could be fully locally produced (including funding that is) then we are set for bigger things and the real life George Mwangi’s out there would have a fighting chance in their pilgrimage to the green city in the sun.

Now on to my rant.

I wanted to pay for the chance to see this movie. I didn’t.  The only avenue however was to walk to the nearest cinema, pay and sit for 2 hrs and walk out feeling nice about myself for supporting local actors/productshizzles.

For starters I do not modify my habits to conform to commercial interests (Unless good music and cheap beer happen to intersect) and thus finding 2 hrs that coincide with the movie schedule at the Westgate mall proved to be a rather complex affair. There are no other options of finding the flick anywhere else unless you are a Nairobi resident. Guess the Nairobi Half life tag extends to availability? The DvD comes out in a month or two. Who has time to wait that long ?

Now this just displays what is wrong with the local film industry and why we are unlikely to get millionaire film stars before vision 2030 is realized. The business model clearly follows the American model. Hype a movie, release to cinemas only, milk the cinema revenue for as long as possible and release the DVD just about when people are getting tired of the hype or when another release is being hyped. This works beautifully in the western world due to their consumption culture and general behaviour to do what they are told.

Africans in general and Kenyans in particular are a peculiar lot. They tend to follow the path of least resistance. This path is not necessarily always legal or for the general benefit of society but it is taken nonetheless. Fighting this is like fighting the sun. Not exactly the brightest idea. In this regard, Pirating a movie is not considered a crime. Just good economic sense. Don’t shoot the messenger. He will live, hunt you down and shoot you.

The Nigerian model is thus more applicable to the local market. Directly compete with the pirates for distribution of your productions or even use them. License select pirates for exclusive access to your merchandise. If you cant beat them join them maybe?

Oh well, I am that much more entertained and the actors,producers,etc are not richer by virtue of me.

Aluta continua.

 

 

My Top Android Apps

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Having been an android user for several years now, I can comfortable list the apps I must have installed on my phone to feel comfortable and use my gadget optimally.

So here is my definitive list and is not necessarily conclusive seeing as time has not stopped and I have less than normal loyalty to any software/platform/device.

 

  • Official Twitter App

twitter-bird-white-on-blue

Twitter is my no.1 source of news, gossip, humor and a personal realtime information source that I ave relied upon many times in the past.  This has always been my default and only twitter client. Several versions ago, the functionality was rather bogus and other clients such as Uber twitter, seesmic etc but the constant advertisements and requests to buy pro versions put me off and I stuck to the regular app. They have since greatly improved even adding Instagram like filters for its photo functionality.

  • Google Maps

 

Google Maps

If there is a favorite and must have app on any smartphone anywhere it is the maps app and by far Google has the best product. Their strategy of crowd sourcing their mapping to all and sundry has yielded the most comprehensive privately funded mapping product that is freely available to the general public. I have helped map some parts of the country that I have had the fortune of having intimate information about and thus I could say I have made my mark too.

Before any trip I make it is the first app I consult to know the estimated distance I would be driving and the general route that would get me there. Granted it is not as comprehensive as in the ‘developed’ countries with turn by turn directions and traffic info but it is good enough as it is.

SoundHound Shazam

 

Ever heard an awesome track or song in a matatu or the over the radio and would almost kill to know the name or the artiste so that you find it later on youtube or buy it or something? Then you can appreciate how convenient having an app in your phone that can do that is. I remember seeing this capability first in Sony Ericsson handsets and it was called TrackID back then.

Sometimes Sound hound doesn’t find the track and I switch to Shazam and vice versa. I prefer Shazam though due to its easy integration with social media and the faster loading. Must have apps if you are an audiophile or really into music porn.

 

  • Google Reader

 

Google reader

 

I read lotsa blogs and keeping track of  new posts is impossible. Enter google reader that neatly arranges all new posts up for you to read, laugh,gawk, sneer and get inspired by. It helps sustain my reading habit(or at-least whats left of it) because otherwise I and my bookmarks bar on my browser would be overwhelmed. This I also use everyday and is possibly the first app I download whenever I get a new android phone.

  • Opera Mini

Opera mini

 

This has been a constant on the cellie since the dumb phone era of Nokias with 32mb internal storage. Used to be (and still is) the first essential apps I download after getting a data connection on a new cell phone. Incidentally the few manufacturers that bundle it with the phone software manage to lock it in an ancient version impossible to upgrade(Am looking at you Samsung) and am forced to install another alongside that remains up-to-date.

Opera mini is seamless, reliable, data saving and generally awesome.

 

  • Ma3Route

Ma3route

This is the only Kenyan made app that I use regularly. Its directions functionality when using public transport (read chaotic Matatus) is legendary and has saved my skin several times. The traffic update thing needs some more polishing but is usable as it is. I also like that it tells you how much the fare will costs thus avoiding getting swindled by touts.

 

  • Foursquare

 

Foursquare

 

I have waited with baited breath for a local recommendation app for local spots eg restaurants, hotels, clubs, fuel stations and that sort of thing based on location but I suppose this is a problematic business model. Populating the database is costly and if  crowd-sourcing is the intended method of getting the data then the motivation for using the app or service needs to be appealing.

Google latitude tried this out but Google barely marketed it and it is a ghost town todate. Foursquare has stepped in nicely and with the growing user base, maturing platform and improving aesthetics, it has garnered some semblance of reliability in terms of local recommendations. Most recommendations however are mostly middle class joints with most people checking in to posh venues and avoid tagging when they are in river road.

Thats my list, would be interested to know what others deem their must have apps.

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