I have spent the last week in Kenya and will be back here next month as part of some work for my company. While I have been here  only for a week I have seen what a supportive government policy can do to foster economic growth, especially when I compare it to South Africa.

Price War!

In Kenya call rates have dropped to 30c (ZAR) per minute and an sms can be sent at a mere 10c (ZAR) per message. Comparing that to the rates in South Africa, were we get charged 120c (ZAR) for calls and 75c (ZAR) for an sms, it is obvious that we are being robbed. 

Well software freedom day is behind us and was another great day! Besides all the great interactions we also did a show with the guys from Let's Talk Geek. These guys have an intimidating setup.

 As part of its FLOSS capacity building programme in Africa the ict@innovation project  is holding some sponsored training session for people who desire to become Linux Professional Institute (LPI) trainers.  Currently it is planned to run the course in Nairobi, Kenya and Johannesburg, South Africa. Other countries will be planned early next year.

Interviewing Dwayne from translate.org.za in our latest podcast was a real inspiration. Despite his quiet manner, Dwayne's passion for language, his desire to help protect indigenous languages and provide greater accessibility to the benefits of information technology for affected communities comes through forcibly.

Well this weekend I linked up to the local Jozi WUG (Wireless User Group). Now Google doesn't know absolutely everything I do online :) Take that marketers! Anyway it was a great project. A lot of fun. What a great weekend, WUG, soccer world cup finals and beer!

Episode 21 - Interview with ThePenguinTrail.org Organisers Veera Uusoksa and Armi Korhonen -

Episode 21 - Interview with ThePenguinTrail.org Organisers Veera Uusoksa and Armi Korhonen

 Well episode 20 is out! We had a great interview with intrepid Alastair Otter, editor and founder of Tectonic, the online news source for the open source community in South Africa.

 Just a quick blog post to let people know episode 18 is out. There is more info in the show notes. As per usual I opine on the evils of the world and wonder why we can't live together as one happy penguin colony?

 Well some of you may be wondering why there has been a month or more delay in getting the latest episode (17) of OTE out. It is totally my fault that it has taken this long as I got side tracked in a "side" project I started.

Project Calamari ,a front-end to squid log files, currently in beta, is the result of a month or so of effort. It is essentially designed to allow the user to easily interrogate squid access log files by starting at an aggregate level and drilling-down into the detailed log records.

 Some independent game companies got together to try and experiment with selling a DRM free, game bundle direct to the public with the need for a middle man. The humble indie bundle is an awesome social experiment in new ways of distributing games and self-regulation. As part of the experiment they allow consumers to pay as much as they want, and in addition to select how the money is to be distributed.