February 2007

Another wifi node up & running, 6km away! posted on February 24, 2007 - 10:20pm
Mavuno, a development non-profit, 12km away by road from fadeco, base station, has now been connected to the Internet via wireless.
Observations posted on February 20, 2007 - 6:11pm

The story below is based on my days in high school. It's about how we thought we were on top of the world, until reality forced us back to earth. Although it's a work of fiction, my former schoolmates from Namasagali will find it a very familiar story.
Sheraton Kampala Hotel, Kampala

Fool's Paradise posted on February 20, 2007 - 5:53pm

Chapter OneThere were days when he felt that life just wasn’t fair. This was a cruel, hard world. Why couldn’t he be like his friends, all carefree and easy? Of course, he knew that they had their own problems but it seemed they mostly concerned transportation or rather the lack of it when a parent withheld the car keys, and the lack of a venue for a little fun with the flavour of the month or week or day. The girls were always buzzing around his friends, but to them he was just part of the furniture, albeit a comfortable and favourite sofa or armchair. What was wrong with him? He was good looking, witty, relatively knowledgeable and dressed well. So why was he alone?Kaye Morrison stared moodily at his friends. César Kamani, Alex Dramadri and Theo Kamali were involved in an animated conversation about cars.

A fun filled week on using "dead" computers posted on February 17, 2007 - 12:33pm
Ooh, its taken my quite sometime to update you on how we spent the past week on using "dead" computers. The participants on the very first day, were interested in changing the theme of the workshop, especially on substituting "dead" with "computers without hard disks" The argument was that, the computer was not completely dead - the rest of the other parts are working (or must be) for it to be used as a client anyway! But according to Joseph, "dead" is used as a "catch word", makes the listener think a little more about the subject. Delegates from Uganda, Tanzania, holland came in to have first hand info on setting up and using dead computers. We missed the company of colleagues who had promised to attend from both Rwanda and Burundi. Among the participants was Ahmed Ndaula of Ugabytes Initiative, based in Kampala - Uganda; Kisembo & Steven from Kasese, Uganda; staff from Kibengwe telecentre, bukoba - tanzania and representing IICD, Bernadette Huizinga.
Our History is Back posted on February 9, 2007 - 9:40pm

Our history has come back to Haunt us. As always.Forrest Whittaker just played, to much critical acclaim, Idi Amin in the movie 'The Last King Of Scotland' and to be honest I have decided not to watch it because I feel it it will just bring back all the painful memories that many of us carry.The trauma of the years 1971-79 have left few families unscarred. We all have an unle Fred that nobody can quite tell you what happened to him., just that he died during 'Amin's time'. The wounds have not quite healed, but like the truly stoic people we are, we quietly brush it under the carpet and act like nothing ever happened. The onus is on the inquisitive to let sleeping dogs lie.I remember the famous travel writer, Paul Theroux, comment that when he visited Makerere after many years he found all the students he met always asked him what stories they should write about in order to be successful.

Announces an ICT workshop on thin clients posted on February 9, 2007 - 12:58pm
FADECO telecentre announces an Information Communication Technology workshop for telecentre technicians, manager, computer geeks to run from the 12th until 16th feb, 2007 in Karagwe. Everybody is invited, registration is required though!Objective:Develop a model for rural tele-centres to deploy low-cost hardware; how to implement a thin-client network using Open source software.Target:The course is intended for those running/ managing information resource centres, computer labs and IT technicians.Modus operandi:The training will offer a hands-on experience and training on how to make the best use of your networks. The training will run from 8.30 a.m - 6.30 P.M every day for 5 days. It will cover every thing from building a computer, installing software, configuring servers, etc.Background:The Linux Terminal Server Project adds thin-client support to Linux servers.