- skunkworks - Skunkworks Site

New Vsat services for Africa --
by Space Engineering NOC 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

We are pleased to announce our new offering on Ku-band using the new iDirect Evolution X3 modem. The T11N satellite sits at 37.5° West - with powerful spots over Western and Southern Africa. In Sudan its working well on 1.8 M Hardware required: - iDirect Evolution X3 modem - 1.2m Ku-band Tx/Rx cross pol antenna or 1.8 M Tx/RX - 4 Watt Ku-band BUC or 3 Buc - PLL Ku-band LNB For more informtion please feel free to contact us at the following email: signal(a)space.co.ke or space.noc(a)gmail.com

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endimpunityinkenya.org
by Mworia Wilfred Mutua 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

What do you guys think about this? http://www.endimpunityinkenya.org -- Regards, Mworia Wilfred Mutua http://www.afrinnovator.com/ Resume: http://www.visualcv.com/wmworia LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wmworia Facebook: http://facebook.com/wmworia Twitter: http://twitter.com/wmworia googletalk: wmworia Yahoo IM: wilfred.mworia ----

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Re: [Skunkworks] PS Ndemo misled skunkers
by fyodor 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

I think a greater majority agree there needs to be moderation and hence the rules. Ofcourse, in real life, not everyone accepts control and will try and challenge it by whatever means necessary. So to me its a no- brainer why there are sharp reactions to this move. Seems this came as a curve ball to you Mike. Reminds me of Fox News which in my opinion is the biggest trolling experiment ever :) -tyrus _IEEE Member.

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Question On Quality of Service - 3G/EDGE
by ndungu stephen 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

Hi people, I have a question on the word and actual meaning of quality of service.. This is the scenario: == The customer here bought a 3.6 mbps link from the ISP to provide 3G and EDGE services for mobile users. And we have an online tool : http://www.speedtest.net/ Which tests your active internet link - in this case we put the 3G/HSDPA cards [from Huawei] that are so popular in Kenya at the moment - and the dial on the webpage moves to a certain high. However, we cannot get more than 2.7-2.9 mbps for some sites linked with an STM-1 link [ a site here refers to a base station or radio base station for WCDMA] And cannot get more than 1.6 mbps for a radio base station linked with 2 E1s. On the GPRS/WCDMA equipment - I have set quality of service [QOS] for HSDPA to be 2048kbps [2mpbs] Uplink ---- and 4096kbps [4mbps] downlink which will cater nicely for their 3.6 mbps dedicated link to the ISP. === Now the customer is convinced that the customers with 3G cards should get more than 2mbps for the sites with 2 E1 links --- but we cannot get higher than 1.6 mbps. Mind you we cannot even get more than 2.8 mpbs for the sites with an STM-1 link... but customer thinks we should get the same as what the ISP sends here [3.6 mbps] per mobile or 3G/HSDPA card user. Now I cannot pin-point the exact theory and calculations so that I can offer the explanation as to why customers cannot get the full 3.6mbps from ISP.... I am also not sure of the mathematics to explain why the 2E1s sites are getting lower than the sites with a full STM-1 link - : but I do know that 1E1 with 31 [timeslots or channels] = 64kbps X 31 ---> one for upload and the other download - Giving you a maximum of 1.98 mbps - but we are getting a high 1.6 mbps in a 3G/HSDPA card for these sites with no STM-1 links. ==== Anybody care to shed some light on these calculations from ISP to end users ? And what an end user will get ? I am having alot of grey areas and assumptions which are not very satisfactory.

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Butterfly susceptible to SQL injection
by Dennis Kioko 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

Well, I was supposed to be reading for my Simulation and Modelling exam tomorrow, but I got bored and ventured into KDNs Butterfly. I then used one of the log in methods offered at their paid services, and voila, I was able to log in to their service via simple SQL injection. KDN please sanitize your queries before someone drops your tables. This also leaves me wondering how many coders sanitize their queries.(I don't remember doing it too in my pre-drupal era) with Regards: Kazi kwa vijana and other idiots, all at my blog: http://gramware.blogspot.com

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Fwd: Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple
by Rahim Kara 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

> > > CLOSE WINDOW > > PRINT THIS PAGE > Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple > Chief executive of Apple Inc and owner of Jackling House changed the > world and cheated death. So why the paranoia? > > Bryan Appleyard > For five years the owner of the Jackling House in Woodside, > California, has been trying to knock it down. He hates the place, > calling it “one of the biggest abominations of a house I’ve ever > seen”. He hates it so much, he has abandoned it to live a few miles > away in Palo Alto. Pictures of the interior show a ghostly, decaying > mansion. The owner can’t knock it down because of protests from > conservationists. But a deal has been done. He will spend $600,000 > to have it taken down and will have it rebuilt elsewhere — not a > big victory by his standards, but a satisfying one. He has been > having a hard time lately. > > In June, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Steve Jobs, chief > executive of Apple Inc and the owner of the Jackling House, had had > a liver transplant at the Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, > Tennessee, in April. He’d taken a house in Memphis to be nearby if > a liver became available. He had chosen Tennessee because of its > short transplant waiting list. But, even there, to get to the top of > the list means you have to be close to death. He was, the hospital > confirmed, “the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time”. > > Philip Elmer-DeWitt, author of the Apple 2.0 blog at CNNmoney.com, e- > mails me the grim details of his operation: “He’s lost his gall- > bladder, part of his stomach, part of his pancreas, the upper end of > his small intestine and now has someone else’s liver, which > probably means he’ll be on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of > his life. That can’t be fun.” > > On January 5, Jobs had written to the “Apple Community” > explaining that he was ill and taking six months off work. > “Fortunately, after further testing,” he wrote, “my doctors > think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been > ‘robbing’ me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. > Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.” > > Apple Inc is worth around $140 billion. But is it worth anything > without Jobs? It is a company formed around his personality and > inspiration. It is also the most watched, envied, admired and adored > company in the world. So how, you may wonder, was it possible for > Jobs to put out such a statement four months before a liver > transplant? And how was it possible for consumer capitalism’s > greatest hero to pull off the Memphis Liver Caper in absolute secrecy? > > The answer is that, along with computers, iPhones and iPods, secrecy > is one of Apple’s signature products. A cult of corporate omerta > — the mafia code of silence — is ruthlessly enforced, with > employees sacked for leaks and careless talk. Executives feed > deliberate misinformation into one part of the company so that any > leak can be traced back to its source. Workers on sensitive projects > have to pass through many layers of security. Once at their desks or > benches, they are monitored by cameras and they must cover up > devices with black cloaks and turn on red warning lights when they > are uncovered. “The secrecy is beyond fastidious and is in fact > insultingly petty and political,” says one employee on the > anonymous corporate reporting site Glassdoor.com, “and often is an > impediment to actually getting one’s work done.” > > But employees are one thing; shareholders are another. Should Jobs > (who, as far as the world is concerned, is Apple) have been allowed > to conceal the seriousness of his illness? Warren Buffett, the > greatest investor alive, doesn’t think so. “Whether [Steve Jobs] > is facing serious surgery or not is a material fact.” > > Some say another sign that Apple omerta has gone too far was the > death of Sun Danyong, a 25-year-old employee of Foxconn, a Chinese > manufacturer of Apple machines. He was given 16 prototypes of new > iPhones. One disappeared. Facts beyond that get hazy, but it is > clear that Sun committed suicide by jumping from a 12th-storey > apartment. Internet babble says he killed himself because of the > vanished prototype and, therefore, because of Apple’s obsessive > secrecy. > > Then there is the recent case of the exploding iPod in Liverpool. > Ellie Stanborough’s iPod touch went up in a puff of smoke. Her > father, Ken, complained, but Apple said he could only have a refund > if he promised not to talk. He refused. “They’re putting a > restriction on myself, my daughter and Ellie’s mum not to say > anything to anyone,” said Ken. “If we inadvertently did say > anything? they could take litigation against us. I thought that was > absolutely appalling.” This isn’t the freewheeling, good-times > California lifestyle image the company likes to project. It is, > rather, that of a much tougher and paranoid operation. > > Yet secrecy is Apple’s core marketing tool. Jobs’s specialities > are 90-minute to two-hour-long presentations to prayer meetings of > the faithful. These always end with the words “and one last > thing”, at which point he unveils the latest gizmo to geek > hallelujahs. Rumours suggest he is, in spite of the transplant, > about to do it again in the next few weeks. It will be a dual > sensation: the sight of a walking, talking Jobs and of a new tablet > computer, a sort of giant iPhone, which, some say, will yet again > change the world. Excitement intensified early this month when an > unnamed “analyst” was reported as having actually held the > tablet. He said it was “better than your average movie > experience”. > > The secrecy is all about preserving the magic of each new product. > Apple hates personality stuff and press intrusion. “We want to > discourage profiles,” an Apple PR tells me stiffly, apparently > unaware she is waving a sackful of red rags at a herd of bulls. > Another PR rings the editor of this magazine to try to halt > publication of this piece. > > Jobs doesn’t like being questioned. Despite his attempts to find > serenity through Zen Buddhism, the agony of interviews can get to > him. “Imagine what he’d be like,” said a reporter after > emerging from a Jobs drubbing, “if he hadn’t studied Zen.” > > “He’s a tough, prickly interview,” says Elmer-DeWitt, “and > he’s always selling. Hard.” In fact, any interview situation with > Jobs can turn nasty. One excessively strait-laced candidate for a > job at Apple bored him so much, he sprang questions like “How old > were you when you lost your virginity?” and “How many times have > you taken LSD?” on the poor sap. (Jobs has said that taking LSD was > one of the most important things in his own life.) Then he lapsed > into a chant of “Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble”. “I guess > I’m not the right guy for this job,” said the candidate finally. > > The transplant was not Jobs’s first near-death experience. In 2004 > he was found to have pancreatic cancer. This usually means certain > death. He was told to go home and put his affairs in order. Then he > got a call. His tumour was rare and operable. He returned to work, > and in 2007 launched the iPhone, the latest of what he calls > Apple’s “insanely great” products. The iPhone joined the Mac > computer, the iPod and the films of Pixar Animation Studios, all > vastly successful, influential products brought to market by Jobs. > Well, “products” is perhaps a bit weak: “agents of global > transformation” might be better. “My God!” says Andrea > Cunningham, a PR hired and fired four times by Jobs. “He’s single- > handedly changed the world, like, at least three times!” > > But, even as the faithful queued overnight to get their hands on the > first iPhones, new rumours were circulating about his health. These > were given almost comical credence when his obituary was > accidentally published by the Bloomberg news service last August. > Then, in January this year, Jobs made his announcement. Then came > news of the transplant. This indicated the cancer had spread to his > liver. The signs are not good. On the other hand, he seems to be up > and about. He has gone back to work, and Elmer-DeWitt has reported > that he’s been seen at a Coldplay concert. Cunningham has seen him > going into the Fraiche yoghurt cafe in Palo Alto near her office. > “He walks by occasionally. He looks pretty good, actually, and they > do make great yoghurt.” > > The drama of it all is intense, important — not least for Apple > shareholders — and strangely thrilling. Jobs, in business, has died > before and risen from the grave. For the past 12 years he has been > the risen God of Silicon Valley, the Sun King of Palo Alto. Yet it > won’t be until squadrons of pigs are flying over the frozen wastes > of hell that he will appear on Oprah Winfrey or Larry King to tell > the world how he feels about all this. > > Jobs can be a cold, hard boss. In fact, judged simply as an office > politician, he can seem pretty hopeless. He blew it in 1985. Having > launched the Macintosh, he was driven out of Apple by John Sculley, > the CEO he had lured from Pepsi-Cola with the hubristic and diet- > conscious words “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling > sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?” Many > at Apple were happy to see Jobs go. They would be sad soon afterwards. > > That’s Bad Steve. But then there’s Good Steve. Abused employees, > if they survive, often find themselves praised to the heavens. They > ride on what is know as the “hero-asshole rollercoaster” and they > live inside the “reality distortion field”, Jobs’s uncanny > ability to convince people that the utterly impossible is, in fact, > entirely possible. > > Good Steve is the only businessman to be accorded rock-god status by > millions. Apple nuts queue overnight to hear him speak. They buy > Macs, iPods and iPhones not just because they want them, but also > because they want to support this company as if it were some kind of > charity or cult. The nuts aren’t wrong for one crucial reason. > Though personally worth $3.4 billion, Jobs is one of them, the great > consumer of his own products. > > “Jobs is not an engineer,” says the writer Dan Lyons, “he > can’t really design anything and he doesn’t know anything about > circuits. But he is the ultimate end-user, the guy who is on our > side.” Lyons created the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog with a > motto that captures the strange Jobs mix of geek fantasy and power: > “I will restore your sense of childlike wonder. There is nothing > you can do to stop me.” And so, amid the secrecy and geekery, Good > and Bad Steves blend to form one, gigantic, mesmerising personality. > “He would have made,” said Jef Raskin, the brain behind the first > Mac, “an excellent king of France.” > > To call Jobs a control freak is to call rain wet. When building the > first Mac, engineers wanted to include “expansion slots” into > which people could slide kit to customise their machines. > > Jobs resisted. The machine was his and it had to be closed and > perfect. And he’s still at it: he has made it impossible for buyers > even to change the batteries on his latest laptops. > > But he has eased off on this with the iPhone. He has allowed outside > companies to develop applications — “apps” — that can be > downloaded to the phone. These range from Grindr — a gay cruising > tool that helps you find nearby gays — to Shakespeare, which stores > all the plays on your phone. The success of apps has stunned Apple. > By the end of the year there will be 100,000 apps available. There > have already been 1.5 billion downloads. Some have speculated that > the app cult will supplant the internet. Certainly the new tablet > Mac will be based on this phenomenon. Jobs also has a bizarre > obsession with the insides of his machines. He drives his engineers > mad by insisting that insides look beautiful, even though his > customers won’t see this. This code of impenetrable perfection even > extends to Jobs’s view of his own body. He has always been a fussy > eater, and health problems have intensified this. His favourite dish > was once said to be shredded raw carrots without dressing. > > Jobs is, in the words of the psychiatrist and scholar of leadership > Michael Maccoby, “a productive narcissist”. To Jobs, the world is > an epiphenomenon, a side effect of the existence of Steve. Or > rather, it is a pyramid with Jobs at the top, a few bright people > just beneath him, and then the rest of us — the “bozos”. The > customer bozo is not, to him, always right. In the early days it was > said the Apple marketing department consisted of Jobs looking in his > mirror and asking himself what he wanted. His customer-relations > motto is from Henry Ford: “If I’d asked my customers what they > wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” In a world driven by > technology, only the technocrats know what we want and need. > > Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco, was once simply the Santa > Clara Valley, a land of orchards. Now it’s a land of smart, rich > people who eat breakfast daily suffused with the conviction that > today is the day they will make billions and change the world. It > was in here, in the town of Mountain View, that Jobs spent his > childhood. He was born to Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali in > San Francisco. They were young and unmarried and, as a result, he > was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. They seem to have provided a > good home, but everybody is convinced that the mere fact of the > adoption did much to form Jobs’s character. Michael Maccoby thinks > the key might be the idea of the absent or lost father. > > “The very striking thing about productive narcissists, particularly > men, is that they grow up in families where there is an absent or > weak father figure. You can see this in narcissistic presidents like > Obama, Clinton, Reagan and Nixon. They struggle with their identity > and view of the world. So they tend to come up with a very original > view of things and are then driven to find followers.” > > Later, Jobs dropped out of college. Again, this seems to have been > crucial. Alan Deutschman, author of The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, > says his lack of a proper education in a world of highly educated > people left him permanently insecure, especially in matters of > taste. “I think his choice of a minimalist aesthetic comes from his > fear of making the wrong aesthetic choice. He was someone who had > great wealth from his early twenties. He was worried about not being > seen as a brilliant sophisticate, so he had gurus to help him. There > was this anxiety about being judged, combined with a natural > instinct about the tremendous importance of design.” > > There was another sense in which Jobs seemed to miss out. Deutschman > says he “lagged the zeitgeist”. He was too young — 12 in 1967 > — to enjoy the full hippie, summer-of-love experience. Yet he > seemed to want to catch up, travelling, like the Beatles, to India > to find enlightenment, and returning, unlike the Beatles, a Buddhist. > > His first business persona was that of counter-cultural guerrilla, a > silicon Che Guevara. The Mac was launched with the most famous TV ad > ever made, a tour de force of ad-art directed by Ridley Scott. It > portrayed IBM as George Orwell’s Big Brother and Apple as a blonde, > athletic Californian-type freedom fighter, smashing Big Brother’s > screen with a sledgehammer. > > Finally, he even dated Joan Baez, the folk-singing goddess of the > counterculture. Some said it was because she had been the lover of > Bob Dylan, and Jobs is crazy about Bob. According to Deutschman’s > book, he later said gracelessly: > > “I would have married Joan Baez but she was too old to have my > children.” > > Which brings me to the matter of Jobs and women. This has been a > rocky road. When his first serious girlfriend, Chris-Ann, became > pregnant, he refused to accept it was anything to do with him. Lisa, > his daughter, was born in a commune in Oregon in 1978. They have > since been reconciled. That would be that but for the fact that, in > the early 1980s, Jobs rediscovered his biological parents. They had > married and had a daughter, Mona Simpson, his sister. She was a > highly regarded novelist, who in 1996 published A Regular Guy, about > a driven, narcissistic superstar business man and his relations with > the daughter he had abandoned. At every turn, Jobs’s story seems to > grow into fiction and then myth. > > Jobs seems to go for the blonde, athletic Californian look of the > girl in the Mac ad. It may be one more aspect of his pursuit of > belonging in the pampered groves of the Valley. In 1991, at a Zen > Buddhist ceremony, he married a woman — Laurene Powell — with > precisely that look. They are still together and have three children. > > His eviction from Apple in 1985 was a death and he did not go gently > into that good night. One day he called Andrea Cunningham to the > Jackling House to talk about his new company. She found him in the > almost entirely unfurnished house haranguing journalists about the > iniquities of his usurper, John Sculley. “He was pretty much > ranting. I was quite shocked that someone of his abilities and > intelligence and all of that would attempt what he was trying to > attempt. It was just amazing.” > > Then came the wilderness years. Apple lost its way, and by the > mid-1990s it was on the verge of collapse. Its computers were dull > and the Apple operating system was buggy and awful. I reluctantly > abandoned them at this point. Jobs’s new company, NeXT, meanwhile, > went nowhere. It made beautiful-looking computers for education. But > they were expensive and impossible to sell. > > In 1986 he bought — from the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas — > a strange commune of brilliant men who were convinced that movies > could be made on computers. It was called Pixar. They were inventing > the technology as they went along. That, too, seemed to be going > nowhere. > > Saddled with these increasingly implausible projects, Jobs saw his > own massive wealth begin to dwindle. His press coverage, adoring at > the time of the Mac, became sceptical. But vengeance is his and he > will repay. Pixar went into partnership with Disney to produce Toy > Story, and Apple, crippled and loss-making, took over NeXT and > brought Jobs back into the fold. Within months he was God again. > Pixar grossed millions, then billions, and Apple brushed the dirt > off its face and leapt out of the grave. First came the iMac, a toy- > like, one-box desktop computer that can still be seen in groovy > offices. Then in 2002 came the real payoff for the grim NeXT years. > Mac OS X, the new operating system, was based on NeXT software. It > was superb, infinitely better than Microsoft Windows and infinitely > more beautiful. I, and millions of others, returned to Apple. > > Jobs couldn’t hope to conquer Microsoft’s dominance in the > market, but he could easily make it look desperately clunky. Silicon > Che Guevara, having defeated IBM, returned to outcool Microsoft. But > world domination was still to be had. He took it with the iPod in > 2001 and the iPhone in 2007. The first stole almost the whole of the > MP3-player market, and the second is doing the same to the mobile- > phone market. Apple is now the consumer-electronics company by which > all others are judged and found wanting. > > Inevitably, with his health hanging by a thread, this raises the > question: can they do without him? Of course they can, says Andy > Hertzfeld, one of the original Mac-makers, who is now at Google. > “It’s ludicrous,” he e-mails, “to think that Apple is a one- > man company; there are hundreds if not thousands of exceptionally > talented individuals who work there. Much of their post-Steve fate > will depend on the leadership that eventually replaces him. The > company disintegrated after Steve left in the mid-1980s; hopefully, > they can do much better this time around.” > > Others are not so sure Apple can do without his burning product > perfectionism. “A lot of companies can do without that,” says > Cunningham. “There’s probably a lot of business they can do with > long-term incremental improvements to their products. But are they > ever going to have another breakthrough product? I don’t know.” > > “Apple will keep executing its current business plan,” says > Philip Elmer-DeWitt, “which could go on for years. But it will be > different in one key respect: with Jobs there was a guy at the > beginning and end of every project who had the authority to say, > ‘This sucks. Start over.’ Whoever replaces him may share his > vision and job title, but he or she will not be the co-founder of > Apple and won’t have the same authority.” > > My own view is that a Jobsless Apple will seek a merger with Google. > The two companies are rapidly converging, a fact that recently led > to the resignation of the Apple director Eric Schmidt, the chairman > and chief executive of Google. He had been on the Apple board for > three years, and was forced out because of suspicions that links > between the two companies could endanger competition. One other > director of both companies remains: Arthur Levinson, former chief > executive of Genentech. The key areas of convergence are, first, > mobile phones. There is Apple’s iPhone and there is Google’s > Android, not a phone in itself, but an operating system that can be > used by other companies. Google also produce a web browser called > Chrome, which competes with Apple’s Safari. And, most importantly, > Google is working on a computer operating system, also called > Chrome, which may well be a very serious competitor for Mac OS X. > Apple’s iPhone “apps” also compete with many free Google > applications. The point is that both companies are aiming to seize > dominance of the world market from Microsoft. Microsoft’s Windows > still dominates world computing in spite of its failure to innovate. > The loss of Jobs’s genius for products would mean Google’s > innovation and Apple’s design and market sense would be a very good > fit, although antitrust regulators might disagree. > > Then there is the mighty, epic question of Jobs himself. Can the > Valley do without him? Can we? Opinions of his career swing between > the Bad Steve/Good Steve poles. Those who focus on the former think > he could have done it all without the tantrums and brutality. Gifted > people have been damaged horribly by his behaviour. Jobs took > against Alvy Ray Smith at Pixar and cut him out of the company > history. “He has failed many times,” says Smith, “but the press > and the public overlook that in their rush to glorify him? Steve and > I don’t like one another.” Deutschman’s book is a cool look at > Bad Steve and asks the very good question once asked by a college > friend of Jobs: “How much of an asshole do you have to be to be > highly successful?” One Hollywood boss compared Jobs to Citizen > Kane, adding: “I hope there’s a sled called Rosebud.” > > “Rosebud” was Kane’s mysterious last word. It turns out to be > the sledge he lost when a banker took him from his childhood home. > The implication is that Jobs nurses a wound that cannot be healed. > Such ambivalence infuriates those who focus on Good Steve. “I think > Deutschman’s book was a hatchet job,” says Hertzfeld. “Steve is > a complicated individual. Like many of us, the good and the bad > aspects of his personality are inextricably linked.” > > “I think we need productive narcissists like Jobs,” says Maccoby, > “but there are always quirks. You may get an Abraham Lincoln or you > may get an Adolf Hitler; you may get a Winston Churchill or you may > get a Joseph Stalin.” > > The strength and relative stability of the company make it clear > that Jobs learnt something from his first fall and his second > coming. He learnt, says Maccoby, that a narcissistic personality > like his, with extremely dodgy people skills, needs a more > consensual character to keep him in check. He found one in Tim Cook, > Apple’s comparatively serene chief operating officer, who is the > likeliest successor. He’s not Jobs but he’s a rarity in the > Valley — a “safe pair of hands”. > > All agree that Jobs made Apple into more than a company. To the > believers it is a great cause; to the sceptics it is more sinister. > “Apple is less of a company and more like a cult,” says Dan > Lyons. “If the Church of Scientology went into consumer electronics > it would be Apple.” The status of the company is beyond argument. > It is watched by bloggers who trawl through its patent applications > and analyse its every move. “I swim through Apple newsfeeds like a > whale swims through krill,” says Elmer-DeWitt. Yet the company > continues to surprise and amaze. I don’t want Jobs to die because > my computers and iPhone are, indeed, “insanely great” compared > with the dismal competition but, more importantly, because he is an > extraordinary figure. I don’t use the word “genius” about > businesspeople, but in Steve Jobs’s case I’m prepared to make an > exception. > > Geniuses tend to see their own lives as universally significant, > embodying the great currents of their age. They may not know they > are doing this, but it is evident in their work. Everything about > Jobs tells me this is how he sees his life, as the distillation of > the high-tech revolution and of affluent, aspirational consumerism. > He is, as Dan Lyons says, “the ultimate end-user”, both consumer > and maker. He is one with the bozos and their gizmos. That’s who he > is. > > Surviving his health crisis may require more than a transplant in > Memphis. Perhaps he will need a free download or upgrade from the > other god that watches over Silicon Valley. If he gets it, then he > can knock down that ghostly house in Woodside and build the > minimalist mansion that will set his consuming mind to rest. He just > wants a home really, like the rest of us bozos, because home is > everybody’s Rosebud. > > Contact our advertising team for advertising and sponsorship in > Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times, or place your > advertisement. > > Times Online Services: Dating | Jobs | Property Search | Used Cars | > Holidays | Births, Marriages, Deaths | Subscriptions | E-paper > News International associated websites: Globrix Property Search | > Milkround > > Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd. > This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and > Conditions. Please read our Privacy Policy.To inquire about a > licence to reproduce material from Times Online, The Times or The > Sunday Times, click here.This website is published by a member of > the News International Group. News International Limited, 1 Virginia > St, London E98 1XY, is the holding company for the News > International group and is registered in England No 81701. VAT > number GB 243 8054 69. > > > > > > Rahim Kara, Pro App's Specialist, Elite Digital Solutions Ltd.  Apple Premium Reseller Sarit Centre P.O.Box 75289, Nairobi – 00200 KENYA +254 (20) 374 5550 PHONE +254 (20) 375 3509 FAX +254 721 875 042 Safaricom MOBILE +254 734 334 074 Zain MOBILE +254 773 104 250 Orange MOBILE iChat rahim.kara(a)me.com Mailing List Subscription http://mail.wananchi.com/mailman/listinfo/elitedigitalsolutions

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Re: [Skunkworks] Sales / Advertising
by fyodor 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

Better yet, why not drive all that sales traffic to the forum found here http://my.co.ke/phpbb/index.php -tyrus _IEEE Member.

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Re: [Skunkworks] Summary of Meeting with Dr.Ndemo on Tueday at 6 pm
by ndungu stephen 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

Thanks Clement, We can add a few summaries [pls pardon any misquotation, there was alot of info passed and im drawing this frm memory] : -There was a promise by Alex Gakuru/ICT board for support of IT community through a 3 stage funding by the World Bank 1) training for a 1000 software managers - to be determined by a criteria 2) provision for 1,000,000 laptops to kenyans - to be determined by criteria 3) i cannot remember the third point - but it has to do with support of IT/ICT/Development projects [which I would assume includes the support for content generation for local use] *DR. Ndemo* -The digital villages did not take off as expected. The youth despite the urgency to create jobs did not respond to calls for training and taking up ownership/running of the digital villages [the northern part of kenya (that claims to be marginalised) - only 8 participants showed up --- 8 participants !!] -One of the reasons for digital villages was to make available "content" for kenyans through gathering of grassroots statistics like population, facts, economic dynamics - etc - In turn, due to support for electric self sufficiency of these digital villages [solar, wind, etc] - the owners can garner income thru: mobile charging, photocopying, printing government documents [like P3s, job applications for government], hosting workshops, folks can call thru Voip to distant relatives, cyber cafe services - and etc etc (thru such services, the digital village provides justice, reduces corruption, collects information, makes business, creates youth employment) -The current events for building infrastructure like the fibre is inline with the vision 2030 for Kenya. The government cannot help you set up an enterprise - it can only enable you to do so thru such projects as fibre, and creation of friendly policies that protect your intellectual property, enables your work [eg software] to have value, etc etc -The vision 2030 covers 3 main pillars - aside from the popular 'economic' renaissance ->economic pillar ->social pillar - equity [not the 'members' bank] but equal opportunity for all ->political pillar-politics to be issue based, politicians to take risks and not fear lack of re-elections -example - politics based on popularisms e.g passing the "maternity leave for men" bill make politicians popular but affect our economy... *CONTENT* -Dr Ndemo talked about preachers appearing on our own version of 'youtube' so that those of us in diaspora can catch up with home sermons. This also includes those who pretend to work in the office and love the gospel - they can catch up with more constructive episodes online. -The provision of local and accurate videos online for example traditional dances that can be sold to those studying culture. This can be sold ! I know of a Kenyan studying in Japan a few months ago who was hired by a kindergarten school to show the kids an 'african dance'. [pics on facebook] He found a kikoi in a crafts shop that had maasai patterns. Then he and a friend performed an 'isikuti' dance in maasai attire. But how could they ever know the difference ? The kids were quite happy to see an 'African dance'. -We can also throw Kamaru and Mike Rua, Sukuma Bin Ongwaro etc on our own version of youtube and charge subscription for those in 'diaspora' - think USD. 5 dollars for 1000 kenyans for a period = USD 5000 dollars. -In summary the world needs our content - and we need our content -Digitising of government information and putting it online for easy availability. This alone can create numerous jobs and revenue. Dr. Ndemo talked of trying to do a research one day to find out the number of Internet users. He was directed to a mountain of files [am sure you have a picture,,, the dust, the makonge strings, the musky odour] and he was told to look through those. Now imagine if this was searchable through a computer database after categorising and serialising the documents [jobs]. -Registration of phone numbers - to identify a user to a number -Product information online and pricing, aside from availability - eg for pharmacies, electronics etc.. this can save one alot of driving around. -Exams, pass papers, research papers provision online, online assignments - you can charge per download [or per click :) ] thru deals with institutions like the university. Students globally are always repeating the same things we did 15 years ago... why not charge for content provision. -However, Dr Ndemo warned on pricing - charge cheaply and the masses can afford. ksh 2 X 1 million = 2 million. -The problem with some content/services pricing is someone trying to pay their rent/car loan with a few big sales - this discourages buyers, and encourages piracy -Digital TVs - provision of over 1000 channels . This provides a huge market for advertising. I was also thinking - what about building the database ? -The AGOA issue is well covered by Josiah on his blog http://blog.josiahmugambi.com/2009/08/dr-ndemo-skunkworks.html -And yes its true - there is no native word for 'enterpreneur' or 'breaking even' or 'positive productivity' in our languages -Example of some of our decisions : Policies such as land division are flawed. The farmers have subdivided their land so-o much that they are no longer viable to support food for the normal 1 year of crop production -It took some of us 40 years to realize that coffee and tea are no longer profitable [think small scale farming] - we stick to various businesses that barely break - when in reality, their time has passed. [google "the 5 stages of small business" - the last stage is not very good news for those of use with small businesses, but changes do happen and will happen - we need to change too] * **Bret Bullington* Bret is from silicon valley and is on kenya for a while. Joe Mucheru called him a capital venturelist [who could actually fund/promote your ideas]. Bret's short speech advised us not to re-invent the wheel because most of the opportunities we are looking at now have been tried and tested in the USA since the advent of computers in the 70s, the internet bubble in the 80s and now the age of the portability. We should look at what is working else where and try it here. [This reminds me that Japan began as copiers, now they are the leaders.] He advised to borrow ideas and sell them in our own country. For example, he quoted two German brothers whose keeness [is there such a word?] is to 'borrow' new ideas and adapt them in Germany. They took 'facebook' and tried to introduce it in Germany. A television company bought 'their' idea - and they moved on to fetch and adapt another,, and another,,,

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Wifi Accessories
by Job Njogu 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

I will be looking for wifi antennas and access point. Am looking for ubiquiti products preferably the nanostation2, nanostation loco, bullet and antennas to go with the bullets. I need a quote for the products. Thanks i advance -- Regards, Job Njogu Muriuki, Phone: (Orange) +254772333075 (Zain) +254736333075, (Orange fixed plus) +254202360107 Address: 42665 00100 Nrb

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before this gets banned from skunkslist : Toyota Runx Aero :-)
by aki 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

I don't have one but been researching into one for next year, it uses the 2ZZ engine 1800cc that develops 180bhp with either a 6 speed close ratio manual gearbox or 174 bhp with 4 speed auto. The engine is designed by toyota and yamaha. Some weeks ago, I managed to test an toyota altezza beams, whaaa! I think the Runx is nice compared to Toyota IST V V Ti though IST has a better interior and designed for economy. IST uses the 1NZE engine so 1500cc = 105bhp. Anyone with a RunX Aero with 2 ZZ engine, share some thots.... :-) -- Sign on my car is " L " plates : c#.net

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