Category: General
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Ka-wuuuum, ka-crash!
And suddenly it’s March. Despite all my lofty plans to use Chiperoni as my tweet machine, I was feeding the corporate silo with links galore.
Until I saw this. There’s an IndieWeb plugin to install.
Need to install the indieweb plugin for wordpresssssss http://t.co/i5DZ63aqgt
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) March 9, 2014
Tweet, tweet.
Life is busy. My day job keeps me busy.
The weather has been beautiful this past week. Sunny and warm.
basel fasnacht question http://t.co/yX0oJ37e67 for bebbis: why are there 2 parades (cortèges)? on monday and on wednesday… why 2?
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) March 10, 2014
Basel is celebrating Fasnacht. The amount of confetti on Wettstein-Bridge on Monday evening was incredible. The clean-up operation at 8 pm was quite fascinating. They bring out major equipment and with all the yellow light flashing, it creates quite an atmosphere. But I didn’t stop for any photos.
Yesterday I stumbled across a very moving series of photos from Fukushima by Metroblossom.
Post-tsunami http://t.co/3qHwiINjS1
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) March 9, 2014
Sad. Especially the long term effects of the nuclear power plant. I watched a video on the ARD German TV Mediathek site called “Meine Tante aus Fukushima”. Equally sad. Let’s not forget how vulnerable life is. It doesn’t take much to destroy your livelihood.
In the film, the one thing that the family picked up from their former house were the family photo albums.
The ability to capture one moment in time. To preserve memories.
That’s one of the things that draws us to photography.
I’ve been posting some photos on FLickr. I quite like this close up:
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New hard disk added
Many thanks to ifixit and Blog IT Solutions for useful hints.
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Responsive web design and low and expensive bandwidth
Some time ago, the Malawi daily newspaper, The Nation, released a new web design. More recently Nyasa Times updated their web design. In both cases, it’s an improvement. And from my current home base here in Switzerland, both sites load promptly.
From family in Malawi I hear that the loading times for both sites have increased. It would be interesting to hear from others if they noticed the same.
Many people in Malawi access the internet via mobile devices. Only few have access to flat rates and most Malawi internet users probably use prepaid data bundles, i.e. every MB of data costs $$$.
In addition, some parts of Malawi and even parts of Blantyre don’t have a good connectivity.
IMHO opinion this is still valid today "Design your Website for Low Bandwidth" http://t.co/0fp5klcO
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) January 19, 2013
I think it’s important to find out how your target audience will access your site. And then optimize your site for low bandwidth. I’ve written about this topic before. (Click here and here).
I’m not a web developer. But I do think we need to step in and ask questions about page speed. Page speed is an important part of the overall user experience.
Responsive web designs are great. One content base serves web pages on different end devices from smartphone to large monitor screens.
But what about optimising responsive sites for lower bandwidth?
What kind of things should you adapt and change? Best practises for responsive sites?
I switched off a WordPress mobile plugin called Mobilepress ‘cos it was creating a lot of broken links which showed up in Google Webmaster Tools.
Should I reinstall a mobile plugin like Mobilepress on my WordPress site?
This got me thinking about responsive web design and bandwidth. I’ve started doing some preliminary reading and googling on this. Here are some links I’ve found:
Design your site for mobile devices first. The buzzword is mobile-first.
One important task is to optimise images. I found this Smashing Magazine article provided some helpful guidance on responsive image solutions. But minimizing the bandwidth impact of images isn’t easy.
Test your site to see what is affecting page speed. There’s Google’s Site Speed within Google Analytics, Web Page Test and Yslow to help you identify issues.
In my opinion, this list of web design guidelines for low bandwidth still holds true.
Good background article:
How and Why Responsive Design Can Go WrongConclusion: Building websites isn’t getting easier. Ask your developers to search for ways to improve your site’s performance.
Tips? Ideas and suggestions? I appreciate your comments and suggestions to improve.
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Whistling postman
Yesterday, on my first bicycle commute to work in 2014, I heard a postman whistling Wind of Change very loudly, while distributing the mail from house to house.
Made my day. So funny.
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Disruptive
Found via Ben Werdmuller’s retweet:
I can’t imagine a more disruptive act than choosing to publish on your own website.
Source: Adactio: Journal””In dependence.
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Spider web
From the archives:
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This made me smile
Oh Uganda, may God apooti. We lay awa fyucha in thy hands. United free together olwez sa. pic.twitter.com/aHlC1U83wJ
— Kansiime Anne (@Kansiime256) December 29, 2013
c.f. Wikipedia
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Best snapshot of 2013
The question is:
How do I find the best Chiperoni snapshot of 2013?My most productive month on Flickr in 2013 was May. Least productive – at least in terms of uploads – was August.
Here’s a quick review of my year on Flickr:
January 2013
February 2013
März 2013
April 2013
May 2013
June 2013
July 2013
August 2013
September 2013
October 2013
November 2013
December 2013
BTW, you’re seeing a new kind of image embed that Flickr is rolling out now.
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Looking down
Leaves, leaves, leaves.
Earlier.
Some weeks ago.
Looking up.
Leaves, leaves. leaves.
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Rapid fire trading
"rapid-fire trading involves algorithms, or bots, that can make decisions on the order of milliseconds (ms). " http://t.co/P5rGtMQwEI
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) November 30, 2013
"By contrast, it takes a human at least one full second to both recognize and react to potential danger." http://t.co/FQo0DMxNcC
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) November 30, 2013
Wow.
Compare and contrast with Kevin Slavin’s Lift 11 talk.
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WooCommerce and SEO
What are the SEO recommendations for a site using a WooCommerce theme? What are the challenges compared to a normal WordPress site?
I started searching a little bit:
Yoast offers an SEO plugin for 29$
Youtube video: How to make your site SEO friendly
WooCommerce SEO plugin review, is it worth a purchase? (This site uses a nice theme called Highwind)
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Where is Mount Chiperone?
Another Chiperoni reference: This blog is named after the drizzle rain we get in the Shire Highlands.
Where is Mount Chiperone located?
Mount Chiperone in northern Mozambique is a semi-isolated peak situated some 50 km south of the Mount Mulanje massif in southern Malawi. It lies in Milange District of Zambézia Province, 40 km SSW of the District Centre of Milange.
via THE BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION OF MOUNT CHIPERONE, MOZAMBIQUE
See also: Wikipedia
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Freiheit http://flic.kr/p/hBHe9w
Freedom.
Ufulu.
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I had pasta http://flic.kr/p/dmcJQo
on 18th October 2012.
Thank you Photojojo for reminding me.
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Recent cultural activities
Went to see Luginsland at the Swiss Architecture Museum.
I liked this architecture show http://t.co/YZzFEmDkfh
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) November 16, 2013
And yesterday I saw Metamatic Reloaded.
http://t.co/CshrXKjVs0 i liked Jon Kessler's The Web and Ranjit Bhatnagar's Singing Room for a Shy Person
— âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) November 17, 2013
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A colour gradient http://flic.kr/p/hqF2eC Made by Nature
It was very rainy today. Today’s photo walk was shorter than usual. Still, I managed to catch some snapshots I like.
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From Nairobi, @shecyclesnbi on helmet hair http://bit.ly/1fqFpeQ
Blog post from a cyclist in Nairobi on helmet hair.
Although i don’t need to cope with tropical temperatures on my bicycle commute… wearing a beanie below my helmet, to keep my ears warm, leads to all kinds of unintended and new hair-dos.
I always joke that I’ll write a bestseller on #helmet #hair.
