Schulmahlzeiten für Kenia!

Grosse Spendenaktion bei Penny
(vergrößern)

“Sie kaufen, wir spenden!”

Der kenianische Präsident Mwai Kibaki hat ein höheres Jahresgehalt als z.B. Barack Obama, Angela Merkel oder auch Jacob Zuma.

Vom Premierminister und den vielen (nutzlosen, da inaktiven) Parlamentsabgeordneten und ihren Jahresgehältern ganz zu schweigen.

Deswegen brauchen wir Spenden (“Eine Schulmahzeit hat einen Wet von 20 Cent”) für die Schüler. Weil korrupte Politiker lieber Grundnahrungsmittel & Anbaufläche für einen Gewinn ins Ausland verkaufen und nachhaltige Landwirtschaft (mit allem was dazugehört) auch in Kenia immer noch ein Fremdwort ist.

“Also to be discussed will be the effect on food security of existing land tenure systems and lease/sale of agricultural land to foreign investors “It is hoped that the conference will lead to more informed discussions on food security concerns among important stakeholders, including national and regional parliaments, so that sustainable agricultural development is placed at the centre of investment decision making,” she said.” (Quelle)

GROSSE SPENDENAKTION! !!!1!11! (5 Tage lang)

Ich halte von dieser Aktion überhaupt nichts. Und: wieso gibt es so etwas nicht mal für die Kinderarmut in Deutschland?


(filed under: poverty porn, misguided & embarrassing activism, wrong dev aid policies, disgusting corporate social responsibility)

Lost in blogs.

The worst part about maintaing more than one or two blogs at the same time is that you get to neglect your primary blog and end up posting relevant stuff to another blog were most content falls into the one and only category of “…na kadhallika” (etc.).

Talking about content – this is what I’d like to share with you today. Enjoy!

Nokia 2700 Classic

It’s about time for another blog post, and since I do seem to have a slight affection for mobile phones, I thought about blogging on my latest acquisition: a Nokia 2700 Classic mobile phone I managed to buy in mint condition as a used device from eBay for a very small amount.

P1020041

I’ve used quite a few phones lately and have gotten used to enhanced services like Dropbox, Evernote, ReadItLater, E-Mail, Browsing on the iPhone, and also thought that I wouldn’t want to buy another Nokia phone since my disappointment with the restrictions set by a Nokia N95 and E72 (= great hardware but not that much software support), but for this price and for my use (as a 2nd line just for calling & music), this Nokia 2700 Classic is a fantastic phone.

Sure, the plastic cover isn’t great, the keypad is a bit narrow, there’s no UMTS/3G, no WLAN, a very grainy 2Mpx cmos cam on board, no flashlight and flash for the cam (which is a real pity) and the internal RAM is also only limited to about 10 MB.

P1020043

This phone, however, is the first Nokia since maybe the 6230 or even the 6310i where everything important works out-of-the-box . It just works and does what it’s supposed to do. Also, anything that isn’t on board can’t break. I think I like (Nokia’s operating system) S40 much more than S60. For instance, one of the things I hated with my N95 and the E72 is when you terminate a call the display/operating system would still take about 1-2 seconds to respond. That’s pretty annoying, actually. There’s no such thing on my S40 devices (6230, 6230i and this 2700 Classic). I like!

Another interesting software detail is that users are directly forwarded to the Opera Mini browser which is just so much better than Nokia’s own crippled browser solutions.

P1020047

The best part about this phone is the 3.5mm headphone socket that works well with my Sony MDR-818 headphones (headset, actually). This, along with the removable 1GB microSD card, promises a really good music pleasure. I don’t know about you, but syncing my iPhone via iTunes just sucks big times (could this also be done via SSH, btw?), and here I just connect the phone via a data cable or directly load multimedia files onto the microSD card. Yes, I also already had this on the N95 and the E72, but to be honest: this is more fun to me with a relatively simple phone like the 2700. I prefer this phone to both the N95 and the E72, albeit their other capabilities.

Also, it has the right size (long enough, slim) and a good weight (~ 85gr), SAR-value is also ok with about 0.84 W/kg (iPhone 1.3; E72 1.4; N95 0,59 W/kg). I think the product engineers who created the pcb and the external phone design did a very good job on this phone. As mentioned, the keypad isn’t top notch, but it is ok and does what it’s supposed to do. I somehow also like that it is a closed keypad with no gaps in between the keys (even though I still like the keypad on the 6230/i best). You know, when you open up phones and look inside at how they are designed and what kind of materials are used and where water/moisture could enter (water damage!), there are worlds between Nokia + SonyEriccson phones and the likes of an iPhone or the HTC Desire. The latter are indeed much more fragile, with complicated thin & flexible pcbs, not designed for rough use and African Asian road side repairs.

P1020042

You’ll notice the old-fashioned BL-5C battery we’re already familiar with since the 6230 (from 2003?), the antenna positioned in the bottom, the thin but sufficient plastic back cover (I’ve added some layers of transparent adhesive tape to limit play) and the overall simple “a few components only” design by Nokia. This, ladies and gentleman, is what I consider a good design!

Verdict: the Nokia 2700 Classic may be an average phone with some flaws like the grainy camera or the limitations set by the operating system and its resources, but it does quite well what it was designed for and is the perfect device for anyone who just wants to use it for telephoning, sms and music. The internal speaker is very loud and the music player responds quicker than any player on S60. Going by the installed ringtones on this phone, the target market seems to be the youth / 13-30yr olds.

Despite all the mistakes Nokia did lately (too many phones on the market, no emphasis on software, sticking to the wrong OS, horrible app store etc.), this phone is a good buy – which is also evident by the good sales stats this 2700 Classic already had (this phone was recently offered at ALDI Germany, btw) and the adaption of the design for other popular phones like the Nokia 6700 range. Contrary to the otherwise much more interesting 6700 with it’s metal cover, 5mpx cam and UMTS/3G support, the 2700 has this 3.5mm headphone socket. The 6700 is like the 6500 in this regard – everything is done via a micro (or mini?) USB port, which may be ok for political reasons but isn’t my first choice.

I think the overall truth is that a) Nokia’s S40 phones are less frustrating than their S60 phones (with the given competition in form of high-end touch phones based on iOS and Android) and b) these modular phones with their sandwich design (front cover – keypad – pcb – middleframe – battery – back cover) are the way to go for the future when it comes to sustainable product design.


Oh, and one more thing:

I am tired of repeating myself, really tired, but! – Nokia – seriously, I mean, SERIOUSLY!!!! we’re in 2010 now and you still haven’t managed to provide a reliable service that updates all phone address books via one click. The many, many users of S40 devices in the dev world and elsewhere – the ones with webmail accounts provided by Yahoo!, MSN, Gmail – how are they supposed to sync their address books via their online accounts? Not everyone has an instance of Outlook installed on his computer, and – this may be news to you – but: Ovi.com xux so much in so many different ways, like deleting all contacts in one go, or that it doesn’t sync itself with an external service like Gmail, Yahoo! or MSN or the app itself installed on the phones (for downloading apps and Ovi contacts).

There’s only a few things you’ll have to do: build good phones (done), sell them (done), give ppl a way to sync their data with online accounts other than this Ovi failure (not yet done).

And there you go wondering, dear Nokia, why we felt free enough to give you a lecture on what it takes to succeed in Africa?

Hej Nokia engineers, just imagine the following scenario: you’re somewhere in Kenya, have an account with Yahoo! with about 100 e-mail addresses, two SIM cards from two different operators, a simple Nokia phone (ok, let’s say an S40 device to make things a bit better, so we’re not talking about the 1xxx range here) and would like to have all these contacts from your Yahoo! e-mail account inside your phone. How will you go about that? With a limited inet connection? Yes?

That’s the issue here. Make it simple. Make it work. Not just for geeks like me who can easily google for the solution via their broadband connection.

Wot iz zis?

Mimi, me I am not an expert on mapping – and a lot has happened in this field since when I first blogged about Google Earth/Maps in 2005.

Just a few minutes ago I found the following images within Google Maps and took some screenshots because I just can’t figure out why there are these detailed shots of the scenery (south of Embu in Kenya). Maybe you know? Is this some sort of highway to-be-built?

FireShot capture #072 - 'Embu, Eastern, Kenia - Google Maps' - maps google de

FireShot capture #073 - 'Embu, Eastern, Kenia - Google Maps' - maps google de

FireShot capture #074 - 'Embu, Eastern, Kenia - Google Maps' - maps google de

Heck, you can even count the plants. This is an amazingly detailed view, imo (2m vs. 5m in e.g. Frankfurt).

Manheru Changamire

Music is my life, even though I dislike live concerts for various reasons (~ too many ppl, music out of tune, etc.).  Just a few years ago, I converted my entire collection of audio CDs into mp3 and kept them on an external hard disk – but about 2 years ago, I stopped downloading (legal) music because I figured that if I already *own* them, I’d also need to listen to them.  This is also why I’ve switched to online compilations / remixes. As a music lover, the rule of thumb shd  be: 1 album / month. Otherwise it’s too much information. Similar to eating too many sweets.

Unless of course we are talking about music from the continent, which is always welcome. I rejoice when I see the number of (really good) music blogs focussing on this very subject, and there’s nothing much I can add other than consuming various unearthed tracks with a huge appetite – and occasionally falling in love with a track. Like this one:

Manheru Chagamire” by (the) Hallelujah Chicken Run Band.

Chicken Run Band! Hallelujah!!  !!1!11!

To my ears, this track and it’s flow is pure gold. Am waiting for the creative moment when someone turns this into a remix that emphasises the beat and singing by Thomas Mapfumo.

my blogs

…so if I am already using Posterous to publish more private stuff that somehow doesn’t belong here and would otherwise get lost on Twitter; and other blogs to publish my professional interest – what will I post to Kikuyumoja.com then?

Another explanation could be:

  • Posterous = pictures, as e-mails from the phone or computer, with a short caption, need for post editing
  • WordPress = full blog posts with longer text, using offline editor to compile posts, published on this domain
  • Twitter = status updates, mood, great chance for direct communication with other individuals, good Tweets aren’t archieved (maybe bookmarked as “Favorites”, but that’s about it)
  • Facebook = private communication with friends & internet folks I met / wd like to meet on a drink or two; my Twitter feed = 90% of my FB status updates

(there are of course more services than these four, but they are the ones I use the most)

On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to have everything in one stream. I’ve also unregistered all my feeds from Google Buzz & Friendfeed. Small pieces, loosely joined. Loosely.

favicon1Thought about a redesign on Kikuyumoja.com last night – the WordPress template here is from 2006 – and ended up changing the Favicon only. I’d like to upgrade this and a few other WP blogs I administer to a really cool, minimalistic, bigger font WordPress 3.0 template that supports all those fancy WP 3.0 gimmicks.

Oh, and the new Favicon – because of this. The “Kikuyumoja logo”. :-)