Archive for September, 2005

Hiya George!

Friday, September 30th, 2005

I have just returned from safari and promise to make this next week an absolute blog-fest. But I couldn’t wait to share my favorite photo from the trip.

“You know, lots of people with big ears are famous! ”
-Timothy Q. Mouse in Dumbo

Blood on our hands

Sunday, September 25th, 2005

If you have been watching this space, you have seen my buildup to the famine that is happening in Malawi. First there was an article warning of what is to come, then it George told me about his family’s village and how they are scrounging for roots in the forest to eat. Now 29 orphans [...]

Perl scripts for perl-less people

Friday, September 23rd, 2005

Today I needed to hack to together a quick perl script that was to run on another person’s computer. It would have been total overkill to install cygwin and perl on his machine just to run a 10 line script. So instead I googled and determined that I could compile my script using a program [...]

I made 12 bucks!

Thursday, September 22nd, 2005

So you may notice the google ads on the right. What caused me to lower myself to marketing?
A few months ago I created Kumbali.com for a lodge here in Lilongwe. They were disappointed that their shiny new website didn’t turn up as the number one hit on google when someone typed in Malawi. They wanted [...]

Mobile phones and a modern economy for Malawi

Sunday, September 18th, 2005

Malawi’s largest piece of currency is the 500 kwacha note. The 500 kwacha note is worth just about $4. Nobody here takes credit cards and paying by check is neither common nor easy. Practically this means that you have to carry around really fat wads of cash, and make frequent visits to the bank.
This sort [...]

Lake of the Stars Music Festival

Tuesday, September 13th, 2005

This past weekend I went with some friends to a Malawian music festival on the shores of Lake Malawi. It was my first music festival, but I think I had a pretty fair initiation. We danced all night long and most of the day too, slept 50 yards from speakers that blared music until after [...]

Malawi food crisis in the news

Tuesday, September 13th, 2005

From the Independent:

When the UN asked the world to give $88m to avert famine in Malawi, not one penny was forthcoming. How hungry does a nation have to be before help is at hand? …
“We are living off air, all our crops have gone,” said Lighton Kampira. “We planted at the right time, we [...]

What’s your theological view?

Tuesday, September 13th, 2005

Often people ask me what church do I go to? At the moment we go to a
baptist church - but I certainly don’t think of myself as a baptist.
There is just far too much baggage in the word, “baptist”. And don’t
even mix it with the word “Southern”. Before that it was Anglican. These
words don’t hold [...]

WiFi Mesh v. WiMax

Sunday, September 4th, 2005

All hail WiMax, we await you to lead us unto broadband heaven.
In case you haven’t been subjected to the hype yet, WiMax (aka 802.16), is the next generation wireless technology which is supposed to extend the range and the speed of today’s technology by orders of magnitude. People talk about being able to cover a [...]

Africa Linux Chix

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

This sounds like a really great way to celebrate Software Freedom Day.

On September 10, 2005, members of LinuxChix Africa who live in Kenya will to hold a Career Workshop for High School girls to encourage them to go for careers in Computing. We believe that computing as a whole and Free and Open Source Software(FOSS) [...]

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