Road Trips

Just out of university, we always envied the guys who would take a weekend off, or even a day off, get into the car and just drive, where to, no particular destination in mind.

Last weekend I got to enjoy this, and boy it was a trip to remember. Kenya is beautiful and no one should try and convince you otherwise. The green hills which turn blue as you look further into the horizon, the flora and fauna, the people, the food damn.

So we drove down to Masinga dam made some new friends with some jamaaz in the armed forces, took some hilarious photos




On our way to Nai, it was a night that we would like to forget as soon as possible. First somebody hit our right side mirror, and damn we were cruising at almost 120-130Km/h. That was a fucking close shave. Then after celebrating that we reached allsops ok, we rammed into a mat after it hit emergency brakes, thanks I was awake to hit the brakes early enuff only to 'dara' the mat kidogo. Just as expected a small tussle started on who was on the wrong and who should pay who, despite the damage being so minimal on both cars that it was hardly noticeable. At the end we parted ways and agreed kila mtu to take care of his own mess.

We fikad Emba, well dropped mama watoto na mtoto and then went out to pick Hawks mama from a bridal shower, which turned out that the bridal shower was turned to a sex lesson!!!! Dont gals nu that we think with our lower head most of the time and when we are not we are thinking on its behalf, hehehe.

A stopover at Carnival for the rock concert turned out to be a waste of money as we didnt spend even 30mins inside bt parted with 1200/= for the 4 of us as entrance fees...and then went back to Emba after dropping the 4th one and substituting the driver as he was dozing off.

All in all it turned out to be a fab weekend n looking forward to the next road trip.

let the shows begin

Is Africa(or South Africa to be precise) coming out of the shadow of its "bigger brothers" when it comes to tv?

This is a question that ran thru my mind, after realising that every Tuesday and Wednesday between 7.30pm and 8.30pm I am usually at home glued to the screen following two must see SA's tv shows, the lab and jacob's cross respectively.

These are two shows I wont miss for the world, and if ma chick is at home wanting to watch her who knows what, or wants some action, it will have to wait, or we just get a spare telly, though I am not so sure about the action bit. The point is these are two shows that keeps me glued to the screen the way Alexandro keeps a gal glued to the screen.

The fact that they are South African has little to do with me loving them, but am an ardent fan because they are mature, well shot, well thought out and captivating, just like CSI or NCSI or Jack Bauer or The Unit will interest me any time. This clearly shows that Africa, or South Africa is coming out to exploit its unique stories and make some doo while at it.

For once we have something African to watch. There is quite a growing list of SA shows worth looking out for. Watch this space!

Its quite sad that in Kenya, its only Dr Alfred Mutua who is ruling the waves with his jua kali productionz.

The intrigues of the banking sector in Kenya

A bank is a sensitive place. Its where some of us tend to keep our money and money being a sensitive, emotive and personal issue the way we know it we are usually careful when choosing which bank to keep our money etc

Me being this "smart ass" I am decided to take a loan with CBA. CBA is a respectable bank from its looks, the kind of customers who bank there and even its services all which come at a fee.



All this time I bore in mind, that since I am dealing with a big bank with big charges, the least I can get is good service, but alas, mediocrity knows no boundaries. I went to Wabera branch and after speaking with the advances department I get the requirements, which I fulfill obediently as you dont play with banks since they can screw you inside out. After which all is deemed ok and the application is forwarded to the next branch, Westlands, apparently because "my employer is bound to the Westlands branch", and the Westlands branch comes up with its own requirements, half of which I cant fulfil and had I known earlier about this 'hidden' half, I would not even had handed in my application, yet its the same bank that I am talking about. Talk about hidden charges and hidden requirements, totally blows!!! To cover for this they gave a very long explanation of how their interest is on a reducing balance, hallo, which bank isn't.

My 2 sense to you:

• Avoid CBA like a leper. I have heard so many guys complain about this bank until it happened to me!
• Take your money to the cheaper guys, such that when their service sucks, you ain't paying a leg and an arm for it.

Dear Blog

Dear blog,

I have been a bad boy and have forsaken you. I have been unfaithful to you and have been seeing someone else my wap blog She is good, at least, she gives me my freedom. I can see her anywhere I am and we do it wherever I might be. She is light, as you know me am obsessed by small. She fits in my pocket and no way is she demanding when it comes to her maintenance.

I am no way divorcing with you. You are my first love and you know as they say, '..the first cut is the deepest..'. You are stable and you will always support me, something I cant have with my number 2. You are strong, can multi-task and damn you can know how to dress up, especially when I facilitate it. You are my first love.

This is no way a divorce, its just alerting you that in case you will be looking for me, most likely you will find me in my second home, but always remember you are my first.

Yours lovingly

iHub

Nairobi skyline got a new addition not long ago, the new Bishop Magua Centre on Ngong Road (directly opposite the Uchumi Hyper and was opened a few days ago. Although the buzz about new business parks are not so big, the buzz about the iHub needs all the attention it deserves.



The iHub is meant to be an innovation center for techies, developers and innovators. The aim of the organisers was a place that any developer could walk in with nothing on him and get provided with a workstation and internet, and all they got to do was develop or come up with stuff, all this absolutely free of charge, hey no surfers allowed.



This is the way to go, as there are a lot of smart guys out there with no means of putting ideas into action. This is just amazing. I attended the launch of iHub jana and it was good to see who is who in the IT field was there. The amazing thing was that almost all of the guys there were of age 40 and below, or 90% of the guys were 40 and below.

This is just what us developers need.

Jaw dropping inventions

This Prnav Mistry guy demos in simple language that sci-fi is no longer sci-fi but the inevitable reality.

Integrating MySQL with R, the statistical package

For the better part this morning I have been trying to get MySQL working with R. I was able to download and install RMySQL but getting it to load was a nightmare. Every time I ran library(RMySQL) it always gave me the error:

Loading required package: DBI
Error in if (utils::file_test("-d", MySQLhome)) break :
argument is of length zero
Error : .onLoad failed in 'loadNamespace' for 'RMySQL'
Error: package/namespace load failed for 'RMySQL'

I am running R on a WinXP SP2, MySQL v5.0.51 and R v2.10. The problem that I came to figure out was that R was trying to connect to the wrong version of MySQL. Typing

readRegistry("SOFTWARE\\MySQL AB", hive="HLM", maxdepth=2)

to see the versions of MySQL's in the registry gave:

QL Connector/ODBC 3.51`
$`MySQL Connector/ODBC 3.51`$Version
[1] "3.51.27"


$`MySQL Server 5.0`
$`MySQL Server 5.0`$Location
[1] "C:\\Program Files\\MySQL\\MySQL Server 5.0\\"

$`MySQL Server 5.0`$Version
[1] "5.0.51a"

This basically means that there are 2 instances of MySQL in the registry, ie MySQL v3.51 and v.5.0.51. Gotcha, this is the problem:

When connecting to MySQL R usually uses the first instance of MySQL found in the registry. In my case it was trying to connect to MySQL v3.51.

The problem is solved by removing this instance from the registry.
Go to

Start->Run

Type in regedit

Navigate to HKLM(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE)->Software->MySQL Server 5.0.

Click on the folder with the unwanted MySQL and delete it.

Now try again to load RMySQL and BINGO you are done, or so I hope!!!

MoFaya, They call it slum, we call it home

So finally the musical, MoFaya landed in Kenya, after its huge debut in LA, wonder why they thought of taking it to NY first yet it is Kenyan. Anyway that aside it was long since I attended a play and when I heard about MoFaya, I thought maybe I should check it out despite thinking that it would be a flop, but again I thought its Eric Wainaina!



MoFaya Rocks!! Actually thats an understatement, it blows all thats to be blown away! Its a masterpiece. The combination of Eric Wainaina, John Sibi Okumu, Valerie Kimani, Atemi Oyungu aka Chizi, Mumbi Kaigwa who are among the who is who in Kenya arts scene brings some of the best of what Kenya has to offer in terms of plays.

So much has been said about the post election violence and the poor being taken for a ride, but nothing has been put on stage as musical, as satirical, as funny and as sobering as MoFaya. Right from the intro by Chizi, the music led by Eric Wainaina and Valerie Kimani and the prowess of the actors, the musical grips the viewer by the balls and keeps him glued to his seat. It takes the viewer through the Kenyan experience in a short 2 hours, from the common man trying to make a living by exploiting the water shortage situation, to the waheshimiwas with their grand corruption plans, from the ambitious young man with a college degree and a hot gal, to the home thug who's always contended with being the "kanda ya moko" of the mheshimiwa. In its own satirical, funny and sobering message one cant help but just realise how we are all like each other, trying to make living, only others are straight while others will bend and break all laws to man just to get the extra shilling.

One constant thought at the back of my mind that I cant shrug off is why this masterpiece cant be taken to the slums, where people cant clearly see through the lines, yet it is based on the life in the slum. After all these successful runs, it would hurt a bit to at least enlighten the slum dwellers who need this information the most.

An album in my archives: Come away with me - Norah Jones

Its rare to find an album that you will listen to without choosing some songs that you really like, and when you find it, it is a keeper. Such is Norah Jones's Come away with me.


With her sweet melodies, soothing voice and careful arrangement of songs, the album will rocks you to sleep though it may be 10 in the morning. Songs like 'Come away with me', 'Dont know why', 'Nightingale', 'Seven years' and others are just a sneak preview why Norah amassed six grammy awards in 2002.

Track listing:

1. Don't Know Why


2. Seven Years


3. Cold, Cold Heart


4. Feelin' the Same Way


5. Come Away with Me


6. Shoot the Moon


7. Turn Me On


8. Lonestar


9. I've Got to See You Again


10. Painter Song


11. One Flight Down


12. Nightingale


13. The Long Day Is Over


14. The Nearness of You

And thats why I call it a classic.

Nipo Natambulika

The 5th national census is here with. will you stand up and be counted? will you answer the most controversial question - which is your tribe? do you believe that the tribe statistics will be put in proper use or will it be used to divide us and be used as a bargaining chip?

Bewary of Google

In law there are clauses against mono policies, in real life we tend to feel exploited when buying something from a company with monopoly as we dont have the opportunity of knowing what other companies/people will ask for the same goods or services. In web, we have another coming up monopoly.

How many google products do you use? gmail, blogger, google maps, adsense, Google News, you tube, picasa, etc. The list is endless. The fact that google tends to give priority to items on its shelf when searching using google kinds of highlights the biased results of google's search engines.

Should we be worried about this? Most of us use this services for free hence answer will be no, but when you think about your search results being biased based on what is on google's shelves instead of what is on the whole world wide web you wont be so sure of your answer. When you add the monetary value that google receives on each search and on each time you are directed to a website or a product by google, matters get complicated. Since most of us are addicted to google and googling has become an everyday practice, we close one eye to this fact and enjoy the services while it lasts.

Fast forward to year 2030..... Will google be still standing, or will it be like Microsoft, being faced by numerous scandals while its products slowly becoming irrelevant??

The fact that I am blogging about this on one of the google services just shows how integrated we are with google.

We are a failed state

For all those leaders who worry that Kenya will be labelled as a failed state, worry no more. We are officially a failed state. The only honorable thing that you un-honorable waheshimiwas is either to provide some god-damned leadership or just step down.

If some of you have the audacity of saying that people living in the forest should not be evicted, or start giving conditions for leaving the forest, you just cant stoop lower than that. There is massive water and electricity rationing, people are dying of hunger, rivers are drying up and some of your just cant seem to get it.

Its just a pity that we are an educated nation being led by blind leaders.

Hawayu

It sucks!!

For those who dont know what I am talking about, Hawayu is the "comedy" show that KTN launched to take on NTV's Churchill Live, but unlike the news time documentaries by Namu and Mohammed Juma, Hawayu sucks.

First the name itself was the opening trade mark for Churchill Live, the decor ah what a pity. The stage itself is unimpressive and where guys are sitting is even worse. Imagine you are sitting in a theater, they bring out guest artistes and expect you to enjoy the music and yet you cant move a limb!!! Halloooo wats the use if I cant dance??

No offence to Erick Omondi, he's young, he was just introduced the other day to this business and in no way does he have the capacity to do a full show. Snippets of him in Churchill Live were fun to watch coz he excels in only one area, mimicking Esther Arunga period! Even NTV were wise to realize the mistake they did by giving him a show of his own to host and they pulled the plug early enough before much damage was done.

The other day, he went full circle and worn a full lady's attire on show and went ahead to play sexy with Nameless and he's a dude!!! You cant stoop lower than that!!

Erick, go audition for Churchill's Top Comic, I bet you will walk away with Isuzu DMax.

Funny dialog boxes to crank you up

When you get dialog boxes like this, I bet you will be smiling the whole day.

Another side of Janet Mbugua

Watching Janet on the telly, reading the news, presenting Sunrise Live, her smile filling the studio, giving us one more reason to smile or laugh or criticize her joke or just to love her, one would never have thought of the real Janet Mbugua. The Janet Mbugua outside the telly, the Janet Mbugua without the make up, Janet Mbugua the "life of the party" as she would put it.

After her leaving KTN, wonder why they say "we never fully appreciate the things we have", I googled a bit about her and got some very interesting stories. "Tender, She calls" is a story by Janet Mbugua which kind of reflects her other side. Maybe not each and every other sentence, but the whole story does bring to light some bits of her that we dont know. The story kinds of smoothens the blurry picture that one might have of her, its a kind of glue that glues the different pieces together.

Anywayz, long story short. With the personality of Janet Mbugua that you know, read this interview from the standard. Any pictures forming, or different pieces of puzzle? Then read Tender, She Calls by her and tell me if that story might not be mixed with bits and pieces of her real life experience if not all of it is about her, although that might be far fetched.

Wat do you think?

kenyan men we are at it again

A funny look at kenyan men.

http://www.eastandard.net/mag/InsidePage.php?id=1144017336&cid=303&

the whip has been cracked, or is it will be cracked

Life for Nairobi's residents has just got a little bit more interesting. Woe unto you who dont follow the street lights, have nuiscance dogs and depend on mikokoteni (hand carts) to go about your businesses Phillip Kisia, the new Nairobi Town Clerk wants to do some whip cracking.

More on this in http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144017316&cid=4

Uhuru's Budget

After reading this years budget I was convinced that Kenyans we dont lack people who think straight. UK is one of them and the technocrats who were involved in the budget making process. Though there were no tax reductions on some of the common items for you, me and Wanjiku, we will definetly reap from it in some few years should it be implemented.

The huge allocations to be channeled through CDF is quite encouraging and the only final thing that UK should do is pass a motion making our greedy MPs mere patrons with no or very little say on the day to day running of the CDF committees. This would be where the rubber meets the road. Imagine that we can have 210 Alliance High Schools, or Mangu or Starehe!! My brother would not have to rot in a sub-standard school just because he missed the cutoff by a few marks. What about the opportunities people will enjoy in each constituency.

So hold your breath and lets hope that we will be able to navigate the murky waters ahead.

[MapServer Error]: msLoadMap(): First token must be MAP, this doesn't look like a mapfile.

In my development machine, I managed to set up mapserver to run on both windows and PUbuntu OS without much problem. On pushing the files to the host, I kept getting this as a first warning followed by another warning PHP Warning: Failed to open map file mapfile.map and then the killer PHP Fatal error: Call to a member function setextent() on a non-object . This was so disturbing since I was using the exact same copy of files both in the development machine and the server, although the sever was running on fedora.

Basically it boils down to this. Depending on the version of mapserver that you are running the map file might not be used on both versions. Some versions of mapsever requires a directive MAP at the beginning and an END at the end of the map file and a SYMBOLSET directive at the begining of a symbol file and a END directive at the end.

These two directives have made my life a living hell for 3 days, so I am posting this to help anybody who might be in the same pool.

Internet Everywhere Follow Up

In last post, I hailed Internet Everywhere from Orange as the internet solution of choice for people like us, who are on the move and internet is a must everywhere you go.

Now this is a quick follow up or just a big complain.. infact this post should be Orange your customer service SUCK!! What about that?

So this ka Internet Everywhere(IE from now on) works fine until 3wks, on a sato, into using it when it dies on me. Am like iz how? So on monday I take it to the orange guys and they start acting dumb, ati everything is fine on their side its the system fault. Since am a developer I kind of understand and I am like hey, do your thing I will wait. There is a guy there by the name Korir? Please Korir if you reading this, go into a PR class, your customer skills SUCK? First, not everybody is a kid in terms of technology, we kinda understand some things so treat us like "grown ups" and am sure there are guys out there who can teach you a thing or two. So basically this guy tells me that he will sort me, it was at 5pm, and i should wait. He keeps me waiting only at the end he tells me that the person who should sort me out is out and he cant do anything. That is after keeping me there for close to an hour. HALLO then why didnt u tell me that at the beginning? So I go home cursing like... but since the ka IE wont work I vow to show up at their offices the next day.

So the next day I show up at 8am and meet the supposed "saviour" Koros, another guy good PR aint part of his vocubulary. The guy takes me round in circles, circles, circles instead of just telling that there is a problem with the all IEs on post paid. One thing, if that guy tells u leave your number he will call you, dont even dare! That will never happen. He started telling me that right when I was buying the ka IE till "my one week of crisis", when I discovered my mistake. Its like he has a hobby of collecting customer numbers.

All in all when I discovered that its a kind of a "universal problem", I just chilled till when it would start working, which was a week later.

Now this is another funny part, when I went to pay my bill, nobody knew how much I should pay. Yea some of you would say that since I am on post-paid should it should be a flat rate, I was paying late and had either overused my bundle or my month was up. They checked their systems and did all they could, they just couldnt figure out my consumption.

So am just waiting with abated breath. Anywayz at least its working.

Will keep you posted!