March 2011 - skunkworks - Skunkworks Site

Learn about ATM card thefts at ATM terminals and how it is done
by Dennis Kioko 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1NKXWDEQjw… -- with Regards: The Chinese are known to be entrepreneurs, and coupled with some imagination, are now playing the role of nature in food and beverage production. http://gramware.blogspot.com/2011/01/chinese-way-to-become-imaginative.html

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Safaricom LTE (4G)
by Odhiambo Washington 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

Now that Safaricom upgraded _ALL_ their services and equipment (perhaps), any folks out there enjoying the holy shit speeds? :-) If that major upgrade was not for LTE, then I am curious on what it was all about. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Damn!!

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Presario c700 Motherboard
by Terry Mwirichia 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

Hi, I have been looking for Compaq Presario c700notebook motherboard with zero progress. Any help is highly appreciated. -- Thank you. Terry.

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Configurations for Kannel & Wavecom (Fusion 220) Modem
by Peter Muchemi 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

Dear All, Anyone who has a working config of a fusion 220 modem kindly assist. Mine is not connecting and the error logs start at AT+IFC=2,C^M ERROR Generic error : ERROR cannot enable hardware handshake Rgds

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checking KCSE results on www.knec.ac.ke
by Bogi Benga 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

hi guys, has anyone been successful here.. upon entering the 9 digits index number it takes you to a blank page

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<OT> SONY VIAO LAPTOPS COMING SOON !!
by Alvin Jason Ochieng 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

Part No. Description Avblty Status Stand-Out Style - 14" EA Series VPCEA42EG/B + VAIOCASENEW1 Intel Core i3-380M Processor 2.53GHz; Memory 2GB DDR3; Hard drive 320GB; Intel HD Graphics; DVDRW; Built-in MOTION EYE camera; 802.11a/b/g/n; A2DP Bluetooth; 14"LED Backlit VAIO Display; Win 7 Home Basic 64-bit; Microsoft Office 2010 Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel; Battery up to 3.0 hours of use; 2.35 kg; 1 year limited warranty; (Color Gunmetal Black) + Sony VAIO Carry Case Expected VPCEA45FG/B + VAIOCASENEW1 Intel Core i3-380M Processor 2.53 Memory 4GB DDR3; Hard drive 320GB; ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 Graphics w/512 MB DDR3; DVDRW; Built-in MOTION EYE camera; 802.11a/b/g/n; A2DP Bluetooth; 14"LED Backlit VAIO Display; Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit; Microsoft Office 2010 Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel; Battery up to 3.0 hours of use; 2.35 kg; 1 year limited warranty; (Color Gunmetal Black) + Sony VAIO Carry Case Expected VPCEA36FG/L + VAIOCASENEW1 Intel Core i5-560M Processor 2.66GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz; Memory 4GB DDR3; Hard drive 500GB; ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Graphics w/1GB DDR3; DVDRW; Built-in MOTION EYE camera; 802.11a/b/g/n; A2DP Bluetooth; 14"LED Backlit VAIO Display; Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit; Microsoft Office 2010 Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel; Battery up to 3.0 hours of use; 2.35 kg; 1 year limited warranty; (Color Iridescent Blue) + Sony VAIO Carry Case Expected VPCEA36FG/P + VAIOCASENEW1 Intel Core i5-560M Processor 2.66GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz; Memory 4GB DDR3; Hard drive 500GB; ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Graphics w/1GB DDR3; DVDRW; Built-in MOTION EYE camera; 802.11a/b/g/n; A2DP Bluetooth; 14"LED Backlit VAIO Display; Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit; Microsoft Office 2010 Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel; Battery up to 3.0 hours of use; 2.35 kg; 1 year limited warranty; (Color Hibiscus Pink) + Sony VAIO Carry Case Expected Stand-Out Style - 15.5" EB Series VPCEB46FG/B + VAIOCASENEW1 Intel Core i5-480M Processor 2.66GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz; Memory 4GB DDR3; Hard drive 500GB; ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Graphics w/1GB DDR3; DVDRW; Built-in MOTION EYE camera; 802.11a/b/g/n; A2DP Bluetooth; 15.5" LED Backlit Full-HD Display; Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit; Microsoft Office Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel; Battery up to 2.0 hours of use; 2.7kg; 1 year limited warranty; (Color Gunmetal Black) + Sony VAIO Carry Case Expected Perfect balance - 13.3" S Series VPCS137GG/B + VAIOCASENEW1 Intel Core i5-560M Processor 2.66GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz; Memory 4GB DDR3; Hard drive 500GB; NVIDIA GeForce 310M GPU Graphics w/512MB DDR3; DVDRW; Built-in MOTION EYE camera; 802.11a/b/g/n; A2DP Bluetooth; 13.3" Widescreen VAIO Display with LED backlight; Win 7 Professional 64-bit; Microsoft Office 2010 Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel; Battery up to 3.0 hours of use; 2.0kg; 1 year limited warranty; (Color Gunmetal Black) + Sony VAIO Carry Case Expected CONTACT OFFLIST !! Thanks & Kind Regards, Alvin Ochola Corporate Account Manager Greenline Technology Limited Personal Cell: +254 733 313923 / +254 722 313923 Office Tel : 020-651755/552086 Office Wireless - Office Cel:0722-219938 / 0733-610758 FAX : 020-559841 Skype: alvinochola | MSN : a_ochola | Yahoo : alvin.ochola(a)yahoo.co.uk | Googletalk : ajochola Email: info(a)greenline.co.ke

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Offline Windows XP updates
by Chege 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

Hii All, I need Windows XP updates offline ..hv a project in remote area with net problem...any one has any idea where i can get this updates or where i can copy them from .. Thank you. rgds Chege

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How to setup knec.ac.ke in 2012
by Peter Karunyu 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

Good people, Instead of blaming the poor techie over at KNEC for the slow app, lets give him/her some practical tips... *High Performance Website/Webapplication 101 *1. Server - Get the fastest server you can with the budget you have, fastest processor, as many cores as you can get - Make sure the hard disk RPM is the highest you can get, let 7200 be the minimum - Get bucketloads of RAM, we talking about 8GB minimum here. - Separate the web server from the database server, let each be on its own superfast, kick ass server (see first three points above) - Connect the database server directly to the webserver via a factory made cross over cable; this will save you a few micro seconds per request - If possible, rent several extra servers; maybe three for Apache (yes, I know you use Apache with ServerSignature On<http://www.knec.ac.ke/indexr5.php>) and three for the database, then use appropriate load balancing apps to distribute load over the other servers - If more servers are not an option, then when the time for releasing results comes, give 98% of the staff at KNEC compulsory leave and take their PCs, then make all of them act like one big nasty swarm. - Optimize the CentOS for speed - ... 2. Webserver - Let Apache sit on its own server, maybe two servers, maybe three. If more than one, use a load balancer. - Deactivate modules you dont need, like support for perl, python and etc - Oh yeah, you might want to change ServerSignature to something less "revealing" to the casual browser - ... 3. Database - I am guessing you are using MySQL, if not, ignore this section. - IMHO, MySQL is happiest when swimming in an ocean of RAM on a superfast HDD. - Make sure to test the options in my.cnf coz the defaults may not always be the best. - Let EXPLAIN query_here be your close friend. Explain each and every query and make the necessary changes. There is a ka-column called "rows scanned" or sth like that, let this be as low as possible, 1 being the magical number - Explain will reveal unused indices or missing indices. The philosophy is use is that most columns used in WHERE clauses should have indices - Make sure you have enabled the slow query log, set it to something low like 5 seconds, then monitor it like a baby. Any query which shows up in the slow query log is your enemy and you need to fix it ASAP. - If you have the skill, setup replication across several servers and modify your application to take advantage of your replication. I am guessing since you dont have much writes to the database after the results have been released, setup one server as the Master, then several servers as the slaves and direct all your reads to the slaves. - Head over to quest software and download Spotlight on MySQL<http://www.quest.com/spotlight-on-mysql/>/SQL Server/Linux and use it to watch your database and the underlying OS. Not only does it make the data easy to ingest, but it also looks amazingly cool! - ... 4. PHP - Be frugal, dont create variables unless you really need to, it might save you a bit of RAM - Profile your code, remove dead sections. - Run PageSpeen against each page, and fix the issues it points out. - Test test test! - ... 5. Others - Now, as skunk Phares will tell you, you dont really need many servers, you can get like 2 behemoths and virtualize the hell out of them! - The skunk Odhiambo will tell you, FreeBSD has the fastest TCP/IP stack this side of the Universe, so you might want to run your Apache off that - Some other better placed skunks will also tell you how to make your network super fast - And most def some other skunk will tell you how to make your non-mysql database even faster. - .... 6. ....

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Helb
by Robert Muema 01 Mar '11

01 Mar '11

Is this site (www.helb.co.ke) up en running? can't connect to it all........!

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Re: [Skunkworks] How to setup knec.ac.ke in 2012 - how about the applications
by m mugo 01 Mar '11

01 Mar '11

@ Okechukwu, we do not have the same discussion only when KCSE results are released but any time KNEC tries to put anything online or a government institution tries to put up a distributed system (e.g. KRA and tax returns) And it seems that most of us think about the systems part. How about the applications themselves, do the designers of such systems go through a honest-to-God systems analysis especially as far as DB queries are concerned. Well constructed queries can improve the performance of a system 10s of times. I'm certain that the KNEC systems are purely client-server query applications; Index NO, Province, district, etc, etc On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo(a)gmail.com>wrote: > > > On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 11:54, [Brainiac] <arebacollins(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> I think this is the meaningful dialogue some skunkers were asking for... >> We need like 43 replies for this... so here's mine: >> >> Yet some other skunker will agree that on demand services from soneone >> like amazon or rackspace cloud will give you something to fit the budget and >> give a boost at this time when kenyas peculiar results accessing habits are >> on the peak. >> >> >> > So you guys surmise that hosting the service outside Kenya is better?? > I still support the "all Kenyan, all the time" principle. I hate having to > rely on some other people, denying the Kenyans employment! > KNEC can generate enough money to setup the systems propose by Karunyu. > Sometime back (I think it was during KCPE results) I suggested a small > server running on SSD. That was a starting point, for such a setup. > > But anyway, who cares? KNEC does not listen, because they could already > have done something. KNEC doesn't read this forum and there is no one in > this forum who knows anyone in KNEC who knows anyone who is in authority who > can take this issue to the KNEC board (or whatever shit it is called) to > take some action. Nkt!! > > If KNEC was listening, skunkers could solve their problem within a month - > at most, and probably for free. > > Sometimes back while I was at Wananchi, we run this KNEC stuff on a > dedicated workstation (running FreeBSD+Apache+MySQL..) and I don't ever > recall any complaints then. > > -- > Best regards, > Odhiambo WASHINGTON, > Nairobi,KE > +254733744121/+254722743223 > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > Damn!! > > > _______________________________________________ > Skunkworks mailing list > Skunkworks(a)lists.my.co.ke > http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks > ------------ > Skunkworks Rules > http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 > ------------ > Other services @ http://my.co.ke >

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