July 2009 - skunkworks - Skunkworks Site

ZAP --> M-Pesa
by Odhiambo ワシントン 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Hello Skunks, I have just received my daily dose of spam from the mobile networks, but this particular one failed to make it to /dev/null: "Dear subscriber, you can now send money from Zap to a Safaricon number for only Ksh 10. Go to Zap-Money-To phone number then follow the instructions. Zap Pesa Mkononi" Does anyone know how this is supposed to work? I get a notice of funds and then walk to a Zap shop to withdraw or does it go into my M-Pesa? I'd love the later:-) Okechukwu, could you please try this out for me to see? My Safaricon number is below. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "If you have nothing good to say about someone, just shut up!." -- Lucky Dube

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Writing Professional Engagement Contracts
by Thomas Kibui 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Hello People, 2 cents ... For quite some time now I have come across technical proposal contracts, consultancy engagement contracts, Service level agreements and Statement of Works documents that are very poorly written. They normally leave the the provider or consultant or consultancy firm in a massive material and/or financial exposure because of the unlimited liability that is created in the agreement on the document. Badly written contracts can also result in one having his or her professional indemnity insurance policy getting nullified. First, let me talk about some of the legal buzz words that appear on contract documents ... “Damages” – are compensation for loss suffered owing to a breach of contract, a tort (civil wrong as opposed to a criminal wrong), or breach of some duty or responsibility that is mandated by a statute or act of parliament (e.g. product liability to a consumer) committed by some person or company. Different points of view may arise as to how much damages for a certain case can be but generally the principle is to put the innocent party, to the extent that money can achieve it, in the position as if it had not been subjected to the loss. Damages can also be general, nominal, special or exemplary (as a punishment) depending on jurisdiction.. (geographical , functional etc etc) “Warranties, conditions, obligations, liabilities and covenants” are simply provisions which when breached give rise to a claim for damages or compensation. These are normally subject to legal rules relating to damages such as mitigating (reducing) your losses “Indemnities and guarantees” – are promises to do something (usually pay money) on the happening of a specified event.These are meant to hold a party harmless from all risk associated with the specified event. Indemnities are therefore much wider and involve more risk for the consultant. "Direct v/s Indirect losses" - We often hear talk about direct and indirect or consequential losses or damages. These are widely misunderstood (even among our learned friends - the lawyers cum politicians) and have different meanings in different jurisdictions. Commonly (but incorrectly), there is a tendency to differentiate the two types in terms of the cost of re-instatement or fixing the part that has failed as against purely financial losses such as lost revenues or profits that the customer could have earned had, if for example, the defective software continued to work properly. However, this is often not the correct distinction legally. Under Common law, which was adapted in Kenya, for example, purely financial losses (such as lost profits) can still be classed as “direct” losses so long as they result or “flow” directly from the breach”. Having said that ... a professional should try to limit his /her liability as much as possible. Many jurisdictions prohibit the total exclusion of certain types of liability on the grounds of public policy (e.g. liability for death or personal injury which is as a result of the professional's negligence). It is usual to acknowledge liability for these injuries ... BUT liability for loss of profits, revenue, business and data (“indirect”) should be excluded in the contracts at all times. This is because large claims/losses are very possible here. The customer can always mitigate against such losses by for example paying for redundancy or backing -up or seeking alternative services.Including indirect liability is almost like underwriting/insuring the customer’s business. All remaining liability (“direct”) should be capped. eg.. capping the losses to the value of the consultancy fees or a % of it.The amount of the cap is normally a variable for negotiation. I am not a lawyer but I believe that a professionally written agreement document should follow the below basic principles.. - Cover Page .. with a clear title that indicates what the document is all about, customer name, provider's name , logos are optional, Date is optional, one could include a professional picture to make it colorful.. - General Information .. Here put in customer details, the customer SPOC contact details, the provider's SPOC contact details, date, document version, contract reference number or code - Financial Proposal .. here include the prices, clearly indicating the currency, the assumed exchange rate and the payment model, eg One time payment, recurring payment, payment by milestone, or whatever mode u want. Always separate the professional fees from the other charges that are incurred in the engagement. EG "Security consultancy fees = 200,000 ,, Internet access fees = 12,000, travel and accommodation = 30,000. Consultants who incur travel and accommodation expenses should always include a clause indicating that any unforeseen extra expenses that may be incurred in the cause of engagement will be charged to the customer .. something like The foregoing travel and accommodation fees reflects an estimate of activities required to perform the work under this contract, which may vary from the actual time spent, and travel expenses incurred . Unless expressly agreed otherwise, charges shall be incurred on the basis of actual time spent and travel and will be charged to the customer at cost. - Description of Product / Service.. Here start with an executive summary of what the deal is all about then describe the product or service as you normally do. - Contractual Terms and Conditions .. this is where most of us get a D minus ... This section is the "legal" part of the document if you could call it so .. This section should have the following... - A general section with clauses that talk about how payment will be done, the effective date of the contract (eg this contact is effective upon signature), change management and its impact on charges, , assumptions and references to other binding documents if they exist... a previous contract - A section on limited liability that completely absolves the provider from liability from in-direct losses and capping liability from direct losses. - A confidentiality clause that protects both parties from disclosure of confidential information to third parties .. this is self explanatory .. - A clause stating the governing law, the language to be used and the place of arbitration that will be used in case of a dispute This becomes important when u are doing a deal in a foreign country ..eg lets say you were contracted to inspect the UN firewalls in Addis Ababa .. and somehow y'all disagreed .. you will be in more trouble if you had not on the onset argued that you would sign the agreement in Kenya, use Kenya laws, use the English language in a Kenyan court to resolve the dispute ... Can you imagine a Kenyan trying to describe an exploit in Amharic .... :-) (no offense to the Ethiopians) - Lastly a signature section saying something like "by signing below, Customer confirms that Provider may commence the work detailed in this agreement and that all its internal requirements for authorizations have been complied with" __________ (customer name, date etc) ___________________ (provider name, date). Thats my 2 cents .. i hope it helps .. feel free to add your thoughts too ..

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Re: [Skunkworks] Acer aspire One and Safcom Modem
by charles mtawali 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Thanx a lot guys it worked perfectly --- On Thu, 9/7/09, Jacob Odada <jacob.odada(a)gmail.com> wrote: From: Jacob Odada <jacob.odada(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] Acer aspire One and Safcom Modem To: "Skunkworks forum" <skunkworks(a)lists.my.co.ke> Date: Thursday, 9 July, 2009, 8:29 AM get the huawei.sh script and you will get a gui just like the one that comes with the modems. You can even send sms and monitor your connections On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Crystal Watley Kigoni <crystal(a)voicesofafrica.org> wrote: Change the OS to the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix... Works like a charm... Crystal On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 8:01 PM, Job Njogu <jnjogu(a)gmail.com> wrote: FIrst what distro are you using? If its gnome the NetworkManager 0.7.0.100 works great upgrade to that. If all that fails download Vodafone Mobile Connect from https://forge.betavine.net or google for it. Install usb_modeswitch first for it to work. If that doesnt work try umtsmon, it works out of the box with a wide range of usb dongles and pci cards. Hope that helps. On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 5:42 PM, charles mtawali <cmtawali(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: Hey guys I have tried installing the safaricom modem e160 on a acer aspire on a linux machine. I installed the drivers and it worked the first time but apparently after that the connection seemed to disappear. Is there anyone who has encountered something similar. Or is there someone who succeeded in making them work them work together _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks(a)lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Skunkworks announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general -- Regards, Job Njogu Muriuki, Phone: +254736333075, +254202360107 Address: 42665 00100 Nrb _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks(a)lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Skunkworks announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general -- Crystal "Naliaka" Watley Kigoni Voices of Africa for Sustainable Development crystal(a)voicesofafrica.org http://www.voicesofafrica.org/ "You must be the change you wish to see" - Gandhi _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks(a)lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Skunkworks announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks(a)lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Skunkworks announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general

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songs - Please note this is about backup, so not off topic
by David Mugo 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Hi all, Am a 90s fanatic and collector of music from the 90s. I have at least 7k songs that were nice from the 90s, different genres from hip hop, RnB, jam ( we used to call it slow jam) and any nice songs that were hits then. Am looking for specific songs that were hits but not so popular. If you have any of the songs, let me know. 1. My love wont fade away - zakiya 2. Finally - Blackstreet & Hezekiah Walker 3. A Dream - Mary J. Blige 4. The Bohemian Rhapsody - The Braids 5. Walk you through - A few good men 6. Waiting on you - Donell Jones If you have any music that is rare, please let me have a copy... David. -- Got any life problems? visit www.dearkenya.com

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Acer aspire One and Safcom Modem
by charles mtawali 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Hey guys I have tried installing the safaricom modem e160 on a acer aspire on a linux machine. I installed the drivers and it worked the first time but apparently after that the connection seemed to disappear. Is there anyone who has encountered something similar. Or is there someone who succeeded in making them work them work together

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The fault in high level programming languages
by wesley kiriinya 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Just sharing another thought from the programming world. Lattely I've been forced to look into assembly programming. And with awe and surprise I was struck! I came to appreciate the processor and what it goes through. More importantly I came to appreciate the connection of what happens in the processor and what is stored in memory. I was especially struck with the hoops the processor has to go through in order to fetch data from data structures in memory which are as a result of high level programming language features. I will take a simple case of data alignment. Those in the Java world are probably in a worse of case because they cannot choose the alignment for data allocated in memory (or may be Java does it for simple cases). The processor loves when the memory address of the data it fetches is aligned to a memory address value that is a multiple of the size of the data type. For example an integer is 4 bytes in size therefore an interger data should be in a memory address value that's a multiple of 4. For data structures then the alignment is according to the size of the data structure and this is where a high level programming language might screw up. Due to inheritance and polymophism a virtual table for function mapping is created in memory and the programmer has no control of that therefore the class data structure might not be aligned. High level languages seem to be created for the purpose of making modelling of real world concepts easier for the programmer, thus OOP. They seem to ignore the other world, the processor world. However compilers attempt to optimize the code for the processor but not always archieving the optimizations. Above is just a simple case. It's not completely explained but it introduces the idea. It probably won't make sense to someone who doesn't know C++ and processor stuff but atleast it's information for those willing to go under the hood! This doesn't matter for applications that are not concerned about performance. O_O.

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Best Gadgets Shops in Town
by Edward Obiko 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Hello Skunk(ette)s, Since this is the forum with the best Techies in town, I would like suggestions on your favourite shops/stores which stock the latest and fanciest 'big boys toys' around. These can range from phones to cameras to laptops etc. I would greatly appreciate your help since I am doing some reviews for a local magazine. Feel free to self promote. I would also insist on 'genuine'/original gadgets... :) Regards, -- OO Omingo Obiko

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Mail Hosting Service Provider
by Odhiambo ワシントン 08 Jul '09

08 Jul '09

Hello Again, I've spent the whole day trying to find a simple solution provider. There seems to be none these days, or is there? I have a domain which already has MX pointed to some provider and mail is working. Because of budgetary constraints, my "client" is using ADSL connection. The mail server is a laptop. Works quite well for the setup, I must say, except spam is an issue, but that is not what I need to address. Now, there are some staff who are located elsewhere and for things to look "official", they need to be using the domain name in their e-mail addresses. I have decided that for now, creating a subdomain and hosting the associated MX with some other provider will do. So I am gonna have subdomain.foo.bar created. The problem is that all the service providers I am talking to have staff who believe that this is NOT possible unless the parent domain is hosted with them. Some service providers are simply drowning in bureaucratic red tape. So now I have to ask: Does anyone know a service provider who can offer mailboxes based on a subdomain without putting me through an interview process? I just need a SP who will say "Yes, we can. 10 mailboxes, NNN Kenya Shillings annually, point your MX records to these two hosts and come with the money. You will be done in 10 minutes". If you know such a provider, please let me know. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "If you have nothing good to say about someone, just shut up!." -- Lucky Dube

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Orange modem, Zain Modem and PSP for SALE
by mike oketch 08 Jul '09

08 Jul '09

skunkers I have 1 Orange Internet Everywhere Modem with 1800 credit - Ksh 2500 (Selling coz its just not my thing) 2 Zain E220 Modem - Ksh 5,000 (selling coz am past that stage) 3 PSP 2004 chipped, 4 games, 4 gb mem card - Ksh 11,500 (too busy with Iphone games to play) Contact me Offlist -- Sent from my mobile device

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Re: [Skunkworks] CLOSE THE CHAPTER: OUT-OF-TOPIC: Kenya a Failed State...?
by Solomon Mburu 08 Jul '09

08 Jul '09

Dear All, Can we please stop here and get back to the objectives of Skunkworks? Enough has been said, action is needed! Good Day :D -- Solomon Mburu P.O. Box 19343 - 00202 Nairobi Cell: (+254-0) 735 431041 Man is a gregarious animal and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way to the side of a hill! AND It is better to die in dignity than in the ignomity of ambiguous generosity!

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