December 2009 - skunkworks - Skunkworks Site

OT:Saitek pro
by gachuhi anthony 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

Dear all, anyone knows where i can get this saitek pro kit locally . thanks Anto

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Looking for Nokia Care centers
by wesley kirinya 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

I'm looking for a Nokia Care Center in the CBD. I heard there was one at Hilton however I couldn't find it. I checked the ground floor shops and the arcade. O_O

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Study: MySQL Use to Drop Under Oracle Ownership
by aki 05 Dec '09

05 Dec '09

Chris Kanaracus, IDG News Service Chris Kanaracus, Idg News Service – Fri Dec 4, 12:50 pm ET Usage of the open-source MySQL database is set to decline if Oracle succeeds in buying the software's owner, Sun Microsystems, according to new data released by analyst firm The 451 Group on Friday. The firm polled 347 open-source software users. While 82.1 percent of respondents use MySQL today, that figure will drop to 72.3 percent by 2014, the study found. Fifteen percent said that if Oracle buys Sun, they would be less inclined to use MySQL. Only 6.3 percent indicated they would be more likely to use the database under Oracle's stewardship. Oracle announced plans to buy Sun in April, but the deal has been held up while European authorities conduct an antitrust review. Officials there have expressed particular concern over the fate of MySQL under Oracle's ownership. But some observers have argued that MySQL and Oracle's own database aren't direct competitors, meaning Oraclewould have little reason to stifle it. In addition, MySQL's code base would live on through offshoot projects like MariaDB. According to the 451 Group study, MariaDB usage is expected to rise from zero today to 3.7 percent of all users by 2014, according to the study. PostgreSQL usage will get a bump as well, growing from 27.1 percent of all users to 30.5 percent by 2014. As for MySQL, some respondents want it to be maintained outside of Oracle. 32.6 percent called for it to be given to an independent organization that would further its development. Still, only 4.3 percent said Oracle should be made to sell the database off to another software company. "We do not believe that Oracle would see any of the alternatives to divesting MySQL as any less of a last resort and we do not expect Oracle to offer any concessions," 451 Group analyst Matthew Aslett said in a statement. "However, we believe that Oracle might be more inclined to open up the development of the MySQL database under its own terms in order to encourage more widespread adoption." Meanwhile, Oracle's bid to buy Sun recently received a potential boost from prominent open-source legal expert Eben Moglen, founder and executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center. Moglen sent a letter to the European Union on Nov. 19, telling regulators the open-source license used by MySQL, General Public License Version 2, provides adequate protection for parties outside Oracle to develop and redistribute MySQL. "Without expressing any opinion on any other aspect of the Commission's ongoing merger investigation, I believe that the issues raised concerning the GPLv2 status of the MySQL codebase do not warrant a conclusion that this transaction threatens significant anti-competitive consequences," he wrote in part. Moglen issued the opinion after a request from Oracle's legal team, according to a statement.

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Innovators-global telecoms firm business linkage opportunity
by Gakuru Alex 05 Dec '09

05 Dec '09

Firstly, I am confused if this is the (dis)allowed "top posting" On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:22 AM, wesley kirinya <kiriinya2000(a)yahoo.com>wrote: > > That could be a good sign in that Skunk(ette)s are more interested in how > to make money from their tech knowledge and how to get the business angle in > the tech industry. > > O_O > or (dis)allowed "down posting" , so I will put something here also:) A team of visiting HUGE multinational telecoms officials would like to see what you have developed. I suppose they are more interested in mobile-enabled apps, top notch, please... If you have one such that you believe is worth showcasing, let me know ASAP. Scheduled demo day - Thursday next week. PS Ndemo-facilitated so if you have darn good demo app bound to make the visitors Wonder, "Why, we never need to look anywhere else in the world for the better mobile apps developers?" - Of course, if you have others you believe should catch their interest, just let us know,,, soonest..... Wesley, you're on (i-phone game)? Who else? Limited spaces so first impressive brief write-ups with screenshots get the places. Asante, Alex

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Why Open Source Phones Still Fail
by aki 05 Dec '09

05 Dec '09

Sascha Segan - PC Magazine Sascha Segan - Pc Magazine – Thu Dec 3, 7:00 pm ET The ultimate hacker phone, the Nokia N900<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/zd/tc_zd/storytext/246552/34307354/SIG=128…>is the truest expression of Linux—the OS and the philosophy—that you'll find on mobile this year. It's a great niche gadget. But the idea that free, open-source solutions will sweep the mobile world is just as doomed in the U.S. as the idea of popular, open-source desktop PCs—in this case, because mobile networks don't welcome the unexpected, and they don't welcome geeks. The joy of the open-source world is the joy of the unexpected. Nothing really goes according to plan, because there isn't one plan; there are a lot of plans. Creativity bubbles up from the grass roots. Many projects fail, but some become very disruptive. Wireless network planners hate the unexpected. They hate disruptive. They didn't expect how much iPhone users would surf the Web, and look where that's gotten them. Phone manufacturers have been toying with Linux for years, for reasons that have nothing to do with open-source philosophy or communities. Non-smartphones typically use simple operating systems, which either aren't capable of running modern applications or don't have large developer communities. For years, the use of Linux was viewed as a way to leverage a large developer base and a modern kernel for midrange phones. Most of those attempts failed. Motorola tried to replace its ancient, proprietary P2K platform with Linux, but ended up casting it off and returning to P2K. The LiMo Foundation tried to create a common Linux platform for midrange phones for a while, but none of its devices has broken through in the U.S. It seems that U.S. manufacturers and carriers just don't see enough advantage in Linux to bother putting a new system through the painful approval process here. With one exception, of course: Android. Android is a Linux-based OS, although it doesn't sign on to that namby-pamby free, open-source philosophy. Third-party apps on Android (unless you kick the phone into developer mode) are sandboxed into a little Java virtual machine and locked into a single internal memory partition. That's because while Linux the OS—the kernel, the memory manager—is attractive to phone manufacturers, Linux the philosophy—users banding together ad hoc to create new things—is anathema to wireless carriers. *Living in Fear* You can hate the wireless carriers all you want. Thing is, they're genuinely scared. They seem to consider their networks to be fragile, gossamer things, able to collapse in a strong breeze (or under the weight of a bunch of iPhone users.) I've become convinced that they don't cap your Internet connection at 5 GB out of greed. They cap it because if too many people use too much data—poof, it all goes down. This has made carriers panicky about any uses they haven't pre-approved. Thus, we have the rather restricted nature of the iPhone App Store and the Android and BlackBerry platforms. You just aren't going to get U.S. carriers signing on to the philosophical parts of the Linux platform—experimentation, collaboration, and the unexpected. Network planners wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night when faced with "the unexpected." No carrier wants geeks. Geeks use up a lot of network resources, try to find ways around rules, and create problems for tech support. Every time a carrier has flirted with geeks, it has backed away. Helio was originally conceived as a "power user's carrier," but it did an unexplained about-face and decided to go for the social-networking youth when it launched. T-Mobile did a similar thing a few years ago, changing its theme from "get more" to "stick together." And Sprint sent out messages attracting geeks from time to time, but in recent years, it has backed away too, doing things like preventing tethering on handsets. "But what about the Nokia N900?" you ask. "And for that matter, what about iPhone jailbreakers and the people who put Android phones into developer mode?" It's always been possible to fly under the radar; there are a few dozen OpenMoko<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/zd/tc_zd/storytext/246552/34307354/SIG=12s…>owners out there who can vouch for it. The networks can take a few mavericks that are willing to pay high prices, seek out obscure sales channels, or risk turning their phones into doorstops through jailbreaking. But the carriers know that as long as they subsidize phones, they'll control the phones are sold en masse. And those aren't going to be open devices. So geek phones will never be mainstream, but a fortunate confluence of events might get the N900 into more people's hands soon. Regular readers of my columns know that right now, I'm celebrating T-Mobile for offering no-contract plans that don't bake in a device subsidy. T-Mobile is also building a lot of new network capacity right now, and it doesn't seem to be as laden with heavy data users as AT&T or Verizon. It's no coincidence that the N900 comes with T-Mobile's 3G bands rather than AT&T's. T-Mobile could start stocking unsubsidized N900s to show a different way of thinking from the other major carriers. The carrier could flirt with the geeks to boost its profile, attracting developers and creative types. Maybe this would give the number four carrier a leg up. Geeks may finally find their wireless carrier after all

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Bill in Eldoret
by nick muttai 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

I find it quite amusing that a few years ago Bill's appearance in the country would elicit a a huge reaction especially from the then small techie community. Now he is walking the streets of Eldoret and....well, a lot of silence other than a mention in www.nation.co.ke. What would be the reaction if Linus or Steve Jobs came visiting? -- Mwafrika

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OT: Server wanted to buy
by Simon Mbuthia 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

Hi guys, I am looking for quotes for a server with the following specs or close to that: INTEL XEON 55520 QUAD CORE 2.26 GHz 8 MB L3 CACHE; 1066-MHz FSB, 4GB (2X2GB) DDR3 REGISTERED (RDIMM) MEMORY 2X1 146 GB SAS SFF HARD DISK DRIVE P410/512MB BBWC CONTROLLER N MOUSE, KEYBOARD, RACK (2U) These specs are for the HP RACK PROLIANT DL 380 G6 SERVER Please send me quotes offlist. Rgds, Me. -- שִׁמְעוֹן

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Zuku slashes internet prices
by Mark Mwangi 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

Anyone on zuku to give recommendations on speeds , support etc . . . coz am thinkin of gettin zukud . . . . -- Regards, Mark Mwangi http://mwangy.wordpress.com Skype : mark.mwangy

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Mikono juu ya hewa - A debut rap song from a Skunk...
by David Mugo 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

Guys, Listen to this track and give me your genuine opinion. http://davidmugo.com/press/raidars-debut-single/ David. -- ------------- http://blog.majibu.com

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VPN
by James Muendo 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

Hi, Help me on this: I want to create a VPN which in which one office is in Nairobi the other is in Mombasa. What equipment would you suggest that I use? James Muendo Leerick Office & Tech Supplies P.O Box 28016 - 00200 Nairobi,Kenya. Phone: + 254 725 567 508 gtalk: timrick Skype: tim.rick

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