webstuff – Page 10

the Chronicoool

Speaking of Dan and his artworks that inspired me and many others out there, I just had a quick stroll through his early journals and came across this:

The (Karengata) Chronicle / Nairobi, Saturday, October 12, 1985 / Price 3/50 (!)

An article by Nick Russel from 1985 – eternalised in Dan’s sketchbook.
Nick, editor & publisher of the Karen & Langata Chronicle since 21 years, recently commented on the Nairobi lowdown story and nowadays runs an online edition of the Chronicle.

@Nick: have you ever thought about installing a free blogging software such as the WordPress release on your webspace and maybe even joining the ever-growing Kenyan blogosphere?
The basic idea behind using a blogging tool is that it a) makes it easier to publish content on the internet, b) interact with your readers and c) you won’t need any IT guru in the background to fix the layout of your pages. Sijui about your webspace deals, but WordPress (as a start) is free of charge and just requires a MySQL database in the background. An alternative solution are the free, “ready-to-run” blogging services like wordpress.com or blogger.com as used by many other bloggers throughout the world. Another advantage is that you can easily switch the website’s layout by using (style) templates (again, free) or even adjust it to look like a newspaper (instead of a diary). This, I think, is easier to maintain and better than any pure content management system (cms) that otherwise requires lots of adjustments and technicooool knowledge. Hope this helps! :-)

Bembeya, Rochereau et al

Ebay trouvaille – you won’t regret buying any of these plates!
Ive just come across this seller on Ebay Germany who apparently sells a lot of nice, old plates/records from the 1970s & Co musical Africa. So what’s so special about them?

1. collectors items!
2. try to get those ones in Nairobi or even Kinshasa today – impossiboooool!
3. some auctions include a preview link with an mp3 file (!)
There is this one Bembeya Jazz National record with current bids already as high as US-$ 102,50 and still 18hrs to go…
(@samsoum71: could u pls share your other mp3s of “analogue Africa” with the rest of the world? – the blogosphere will be delighted to enjoy these trouvailles from your collector’s shelves… THX!)

Kimendero’s nightmare? Googleardi, part 6

Earlier this week, Google released a new version of its earth viewer programme Google Earth – a stable BETA 4 which I just had to download and try out.
As far as I can tell, the new BETA looks promising, making navigation much easier and faster (!) – and of course with a new release, they also implemented some “new” maps/satellite images:

For downtown Nairobi, the guys running the image database added a CLOUDY satellite image – which is still better than what we had some time ago.

Now let’s have a look at Nairobi State House….

…sorry, this one of course :-)

Google Earth is also perfect for tracking down the various swimming pools all over Nairobi. Something that might come in handy while in Nairobi, in search for an open swimming pool. After all, not all pools are private (which of course reminds me of Mbuzimoja & me trying to find an open pool in NBO as late as 8pm – the only place open till 9pm is….THE GRAND REGENCY HOTEL, which charges Kshs. 1.000 /= pp….aterere…).

Gaamaaaaaan!

There are about 74 copies of this very same, small but ultimate viral/commercial for Berlitz language school on YouTube, and although some of you might already know it, I just HAVE to blog it FIY. Or, as we say in our language: Mai diaarr inglish spiiking frainds, juu will äpprischiäit zhät wii häff sucksessfullii expätriäted zhe wörst naightmäire of Göörman Inglisch* spiikers of wörld-waid fäime: Mister Lothar “Loddar” Matthäus, hu bai zhe wäii riicentli kwit his dschjob äs träiner of Atlético Paranaense in ~~Brasilien~~ Brasilia…

“Wot are u thinking about?”^^

AOB: visitors and viewers of the upcoming world cup should be aware that Korean car manufacturer Hyundai rented 36 busses from Mercedes (Daimler Chrysler) and donated them to ~~His Worship~~ His Emperor Franz Beckenbauer today for use with the world cup. That is, the busses are made by Mercedes but covered with Hyundai stickers.
Hello??! That’s like sooooo 1980s, sooo russian mafia in cheap Armani/Vercace suits, soooo…[put your analogy here]. And yes, there WILL BE ppl calling Mercedes, asking them since when they had been taken over by Hyundai. Rememeber D.T.Dobie in Nairobi who sell Nissan/Datsun along with Mercedes? Some ppl think it’s one owner…
(Or in other words: Dear Hyundai, in case you are trying to lift your overall image, please provide us customers with affordable, eco-efficient and well manufactured cars. You might NOT achieve higher sales by an image campaign only…or does it implicate that Hyundai cars, trucks and busses also come with the same electrical problems as seen on Mercedes cars in the past? ;-)

* = While you’re on that Bet&Win website, choose your language, click on “the movies” and select the one with Zbigniew Boniek on “Football Individual/Teamsport”. I know it’s cheap to make fun of others, but – frankly said: I had to switch channels while watching this commercial on tv…just toooooo embarassing to hear our German stars – who did a good job! – speaking their Gamaan Inglischiii… SAMAHANI :-)

kumi na moja

The German Cultural Centre, also known as the Goethe-Institute, recently published a small flyer aptly named “Am Ball mit Goethe” to promote the upcoming World Cup.

The GI, whose job is to promote German as a foreign language and the German Culture abroad (in Kenya @ Maendeleo (ya Wanawake) House, next to the French Cultural Centre), put a small list of useful words from the soccer world in this small 22-paged booklet with translations between German, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

And they also included this hilarious visual dictionary (in German only) to succesfully distinguish the referee from the linesman as well as identifying who’s who on the field.

Mimi, me I am not the football fan, however, I am very curious to see how Germany will play its role as host to the World Cup and what kind of performance it will deliver hospitality-wise…

Football is freedom. (Bob Marley)

AOB: My congratulations to all the winners of the Kenyan Blog Awards! :-)
Click here for an overview of the winners and please make sure to check out their blogs. The Blog Awards on the Kenyan Blog Webring (KBW) are an elegant incentive to promote the Kenyan blogoshpere online and they also set some sort of standards.Who knows, maybe we’ll soon see more and more Kenyan blogs online and joining KBW?!

kikuliciousflickr

Despite the fact that I am a lousy photographer and way too lazy to further edit my digital images on this old 19″ CRT monitor (which just comes with a horrible gamma value that can’t be adjusted no matter what I try on the Nvidia GFX settings), I just turned PRO on flickr.com.

Aterere…The US-$ 24,95 for a 1 year pro account are a lot of money for someone who doesn’t have a regular income, on the other hand, though, I wanted to know what’s this all about and although my (public) collection on flickr only contains 116 images so far, I’ll definitely add much more content in future and – the reason – will be able to arrange / re-group the pictures into different categories. Nice :-)

dilemma 2.0

For those of you having problems to decide upon certain questions (“should I get this tatoo?”, “am I stupid?”, “Will you answer this question with NO?” Yes/No?), the german speaking web 2.0 world has come one step closer in sharing this difficult task: Dilemma 5000. Their tagline: “Why should you decide for yourself if others can do that for you?”. True.

I was going through an interesting webdesign-related newsletter which pointed me to this wonderful collection of Web 2.0 applications from Germany (in English). Enjoy :-)

kaybees2006

Thank you very much for the nomination – although I have to admit I didn’t nominate anyone due to the reason that I am such a lazy bone. Ati, but I will vote! Makes me think of blogging in other languages more often. Oar määibii Ei schuutt sstahrt wraiting in mai gährmaahn iinglisch – orr iss it zzhäät ppiiippppooool priifäär Kenyan English? You know, these words like “particcculaaar”, “wherrrebyyy”, “supposed to”, “he/she said that” etc which we often find on the streets of Nbo?
Kudos to the KBW team for coming up with such a brilliant idea to promote the Kenyan Blogosphere!