In terms of sheer numbers, it has to be my Q&A Monday interview of Martha Karua on Wamathai.com. However, thats Wamathai's site so I won't count it here
The most hits I've ever gotten on a post were for my guide on how to use Twitter SMS on E63Club, that post still gets quite a number of hits to date.
Post that Didn’t Get The Attention It Deserved : Bad Day
By far, my favorite post!! I wrote it as I experienced the worst case of Monday blues EVER, its on my first blog, this one!! Its titled simply "Bad Day"
My Most Controversial Post : Bidii Africa This marked the first time I got into the middle of what is now commonly referred to as "Tweef". A long time ago, back when Twitter was Twitter, Robert Alai and Kahenya had a falling out on the timeline.
The post I am most proud of, is Lets Map Nairobis ATMs!! Power to the people!! Shouted in public gatherings its cool and all, but actually seeing the power of the people in action is quite another thing, one again I thank everyone who contributed!
Now, as per Evans instructions, I have to pass this on to 5 people, so TAG! Your It!!
Below is the powerpoint presentation that backed up my short (but sweet) presentation on my Motogari App on the Nokia Ovi Store at yesterdays Mobile MondayMotogari
Don’t get it either? Well, neither do I. Which is really sad considering I run this website, so I ask you to join me in a journey of discovery into the world of... (Oops! I was on Nat Geo for a while there, time to switch to SuperSport)
Over the next few months I’m going to chronicle my first attempt to watch an entire F1 season. I'll post all the technical car stuff on my other blog
I’m off to a bad start, I’ve already missed the first race!
Well, F1 is a sport and all serious spectator sports have a table, so here’s the table after the first race.
1
Sebastian Vettel
25
2
Lewis Hamilton
18
3
Vitaly Petrov
15
4
Fernando Alonso
12
5
Mark Webber
10
6
Jenson Button
8
7
Felipe Massa
6
8
Sebastien Buemi
4
9
Adrian Sutil
2
10
Paul di Resta
1
11
Jaime Alguersuari
0
12
Nick Heidfeld
0
13
Jarno Trulli
0
14
Jerome d'Ambrosio
0
15
Timo Glock
0
16
Sergio Perez
0
17
Kamui Kobayashi
0
18
Rubens Barrichello
0
19
Nico Rosberg
0
20
Heikki Kovalainen
0
21
Michael Schumacher
0
22
Pastor Maldonado
0
23
Narain Karthikeyan
0
24
Vitantonio Liuzzi
0
A gentleman who goes by the name “Sebatian Vettel” currently leads the standings after his win in Australia.
Since this is the first race, that up there is the points structure, i.e Winning a race gets you 25 points, 2 place gets you 18 etc
The constructors also gain points at every race, here’s their standings
1 RBR-Renault 35
2 McLaren-Mercedes 26
3 Ferrari 18
4 Renault 15
5 STR-Ferrari 4
6 Force India-Mercedes 3
7 Lotus-Renault 0
8 Virgin-Cosworth 0
9 Sauber-Ferrari 0
10 Williams-Cosworth 0
11 Mercedes GP 0
12 HRT-Cosworth 0
Again, the same applies, these are the points the constructors get after every race.
The next race is in Malaysia on 10th April. I’ll try not to miss that one!
Nokia today outlined its new strategic direction, including changes in leadership and operational structure to accelerate the company’s speed of execution in a dynamic competitive environment.
Major elements of the new strategy include:
·Plans for a broad strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a new global mobile ecosystem; Windows Phone would serve as Nokia’s primary smartphone platform.
·A renewed approach to capture volume and value growth to connect ”the next billion” to the Internet in developing growth markets
·Focused investments in next-generation disruptive technologies
·A new leadership team and organizational structure with a clear focus on speed, results and accountability
“Nokia is at a critical juncture, where significant change is necessary and inevitable in our journey forward,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO. “Today, we are accelerating that change through a new path, aimed at regaining our smartphone leadership, reinforcing our mobile device platform and realizing our investments in the future.”
Nokia plans to form a strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a global mobile ecosystem based on highly complementary assets. The Nokia-Microsoft ecosystem targets to deliver differentiated and innovative products and have unrivalled scale, product breadth, geographical reach, and brand identity. With Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform, Nokia would help drive the future of the platform by leveraging its expertise on hardware optimization, software customization, language support and scale. Nokia and Microsoft would also combine services assets to drive innovation. Nokia Maps, for example, would be at the heart of key Microsoft assets like Bing and AdCenter, and Nokia’s application and content store would be integrated into Microsoft Marketplace. Under the proposed partnership, Microsoft would provide developer tools, making it easier for application developers to leverage Nokia’s global scale.
With Nokia’s planned move to Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform, Symbian becomes a franchise platform, leveraging previous investments to harvest additional value. This strategy recognizes the opportunity to retain and transition the installed base of 200 million Symbian owners. Nokia expects to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come.
Under the new strategy, MeeGo becomes an open-source, mobile operating system project. MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year.
In feature phones, Nokia unveiled a renewed strategy to leverage its innovation and strength in growth markets to connect the next billion people to their first Internet and application experience.
New leadership team, operational structure
This new strategy is supported by significant changes in Nokia’s leadership, operational structure and approach. Effective today, Nokia has a new leadership team with the commitment, competencies and innovative thinking needed in today’s dynamic environment.
The Nokia Leadership Team, previously the Group Executive Board, will consist of the following members: Stephen Elop, Esko Aho, Juha Akras, Jerri DeVard, Colin Giles, Rich Green, Jo Harlow, Timo Ihamuotila, Mary McDowell, Kai Oistamo, Tero Ojanpera, Louise Pentland and Niklas Savander.
Alberto Torres has stepped down from the management team, effective February 10 to pursue other interests outside the company.
The renewed governance will expedite decision-making and improve time-to-market of products and innovations, placing a heavy focus on results, speed and accountability. The new strategy and operational structure are expected to have significant impact to Nokia operations and personnel.
New company structure
As of April 1, Nokia will have a new company structure, which features two distinct business units: Smart Devices and Mobile Phones. Theywill focus on Nokia’s key business areas: high-end smartphones and mass-market mobile phones. Each unit will have profit-and-loss responsibility and end-to-end accountability for the full consumer experience, including product development, product management and product marketing.
Smart Devices will be responsible for building Nokia’s leadership in smartphones and will be led by Jo Harlow. The following sub-units now in Mobile Solutions will move under Smart Devices:
·Symbian Smartphones
·MeeGo Computers
·Strategic Business Operations
To support the planned new partnership with Microsoft, Smart Devices will be responsible for creating a winning Windows Phone portfolio.
Mobile Phones will drive Nokia’s ”web for the next billion” strategy. Mobile Phones will leverage its innovation and strength in growth markets to connect the next billion people and bring them affordable access to the Internet and applications. The Mobile Phones unit will be led by Mary McDowell.
Markets will be responsible for selling products, executing compelling marketing and communications, creating a competitive local ecosystem, sourcing, customer care, manufacturing, IT and logistics across all Nokia products. It will be headed by Niklas Savander.
Services and Developer Experience will be responsible for Nokia’s global services portfolio, developer offering, developer relations and integration of partner service offerings. Tero Ojanpera will lead the Services and Developer Experience unit in an acting capacity.
NAVTEQ, an integral part of Nokia’s location and advertising business, will be headed by Larry Kaplan, and continue as a separate reporting entity.
TheCTO Office will be responsible for Nokia’s technology strategy and forward-looking technology activities, including Nokia Research Center. It will be headed by Rich Green.
Design, responsible for Nokia product and user experience design, will be led by Marko Ahtisaari.
The CFO Office, responsible for all financial activity, will be headed by Timo Ihamuotila.
Corporate Development, responsible for driving implementation of Nokia’s ecosystem strategy and strategic partnerships, will be headed by Kai Oistamo.
Corporate Relations & Responsibility, responsible for Nokia's government and public affairs, sustainable development and social responsibility, will be led by Esko Aho.
Human Resources will be led by Juha Akras.
Legal and Intellectual Property will be led by Louise Pentland.
Nokia Siemens Networks continues in the Nokia Group as a separate reporting entity.
That’s how long, combined, me and a few of my friends have been driving.
However, in the last 6 months each and every one of us has had a serious traffic incident. By serious I mean any incident that resulted in the car being written off or having to be in the garage for more than a month.
By my count, 4 of us have written off our cars, and there have been a total of 15 separate incidents in the 6 month period between June and December 2010. No fatalities but one serious injury.
What could be behind this?
Well, in my case and one of other the three other write offs, Alcohol was involved.
I had a few beers the night I wrote off my car, no happy-hour , shot downing binge drinking, just a couple of cold ones during the live performance I was watching that night, 2 beers in a period of about 4½ hours. I remember exactly how many I had because they were Shs. 275/= each.
One beer is enough to impair your reflexes just a tiny little bit, when shit hits the fan, every little bit counts.
Had I come round that bend and found that stationary vehicle while I was completely sober then maybe I would have turned the steering wheel a few inches less, or hit the brakes with a little more force, or turned to the right instead of the left, or used the handbrake, or...
The possibilities are endless. All I can do is thank the Lord that my passenger and I escaped unhurt.
I will not speak for the other chap who had his impromptu evening nap rudely interrupted by the Nyayo Stadium Roundabout and wrote off his car.
People, don’t drink and drive, it’s never worth it.
With the exception of a tyre burst, the rest of the accidents were caused by my friend’s reactions to the actions of another motorist.
One guy was on Ngong Road, the car ahead indicated right, slowed down and turned to the right, my pal accelerated to pass on the left, the dude then changes his mind and turns back onto the road straight into my pal.
One three car pile-up with my pal sandwiched in the middle on Waiyaki Way caused by a guy who suddenly stopped to buy a newspaper.
One write-off caused by rolling twice after swerving off the road to avoid a couple of guys racing down the Bomas drift.
One guy who was sandwiched between the Lorry he was overtaking and the guy who was trying to overtake him as he overtook the Lorry. The overlapping idiot suddenly realised there was no more road and swerved back, into my pal, who then hit the lorry.
One head on collision on the Nairobi-Naivasha highway, details of which are hazy because the guy can’t (or won’t) remember. Eyewitness accounts, however, state that he was overtaking someone who decided to accelerate, leaving him no option but to face the business end of an 18-Wheeler.
With the exception of me and my pal Mr. Nyayo Roundabout, the accidents were caused purely by third parties who quite frankly, based on their actions, should not have been on the road.
The problem is that our system doesn’t teach people how to drive, it teaches them to pass the driving test, a test which was designed for an older generation of vehicles on a different set of roads.
With the cost of credit going down and the public transport sector in a mess, more and more people are buying cars, but with the driving test as it is, we are actually putting these new drivers and the people around them in danger by allowing them to drive without proper knowledge of how to operate a motor vehicle.
All the experience in the world will not stop you from having an accident with some chap on the road who has no idea what he’s doing.
Insurance premiums are at an all time high and with superhighways popping up all over, I think it’s time we took a serious look at how we train people who drive.
I must go through a certain number of hours of training each year to do what I do for a living, “Continuous Professional Development” they call it, it should be the same for drivers of all PSVs.
In fact, everyone who drives should get trained and tested on a regular basis, perhaps every 3 years, drunk-driving campaigns should be stepped up, done all year round not just around the holidays, even the licence itself, that piece of cardboard in our paperless world should be changed.
Too many people die or get maimed for life on our roads every day, they don’t need to. Something needs to change.
We just love to hate them don’t we? I am in actual fact a founding member of the MAWE* coalition. A think-tank dedicated to rid the world of the weave. (*Men Against Weaves Everywhere)
A “weave”, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, is defined as :-
Weave : verb \ˈwēv\
to form (cloth) by interlacing strands (as of yarn);specifically : to make (cloth) on a loom by interlacing warp and filling threads
to interlace (as threads) into cloth : to make (as a basket) by intertwining
Hmm, it isn’t even in the dictionary (10 points to MAWE)
I had to look elsewhere for a more definitive definition, “weave” is defined by the world renowned UrbanDictionary.com as :-
A form of hair extension often used by black women and celebrities. It's woven, or glued, into the hair from the track. If done right, it comes out cute. It may even look real, if it’s done real good.
Now, women do all sorts of things to look good. A weave is just one of them so why all the hate?
I come from accounting background, so for me, as a professional, as long as you have the receipt, it’s your hair.
I don’t even have a problem with the concept that its “fake”, I’m routinely bewitched by girls wearing contacts all the time, even when I know that there’s no way in hell an African chick has gray eyes.
In fact, millions of women and girls in Kenya routinely add thin strands of black, brown, occasionally red and sometimes luminous green plastic to their hair all the time (they call them braids), but you never hear anyone hate on a chicks braids, that is of course, when they are freshly done, occasionally, some women will keep braids in longer that they should, THEN we have a problem.
Therein lies the root of the problem I have with weaves,
I M P L E M E N T A T I O N
Most weaves are just done badly, from Day 1 it just looks off.
There’s a noticeable bump, or the thing is a different colour from the rest of the chicks hair, or the hair moves independently from the head it’s on, I really could go on for ages.
I choose to look at any enhancement a chick does to look hot as being similar to special effects in a movie.
The movie industry depends on a phenomenon they call “willing suspension of disbelief” to introduce special effects into movies, your mind on some level has to accept the special effects as being real for you to enjoy the movie.
Weaves, when they are done as badly as they are done in Kenya are like bad special effects, they ruin the movie.
So ladies, if you’re not willing or able to spend the thousands of shillings needed to get a weave like Tyra’s…
