Blog

A couple of days ago, I read a post by Louis Gray highlighting Google + search. And I just read this article on the new linking.

Inspired by +louisgray.com, here are some Google + searches to try out:

Search engine optimization
https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/Search%20engine%20optimization

Gapingvoid
https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/gapingvoid

Search for content on Malawi
https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/malawi

Blantyre, Malawi
https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/blantyre%20malawi

Chiperoni
https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/chiperoni

I have returned from a 3 week visit to Blantyre. It was a very relaxing holiday. I visted family and friends in Malawi’s biggest city.

The weather was beautiful as expected: hot and rainy. Even though the rainy season has started, temperatures soared to 36 degrees and more on several days. Blantyre is located at an altitude of over 1000 m above sea level.

Due to an ongoing fuel shortage, I didn’t travel to other parts of Malawi. We did not manage to fill the tank even once during the 3 weeks that I was there. It was very frustrating to queue for 3 and a half hours only to hear, 5 vehicles away from the pump, that diesel is finished.

The forces of demand and supply set in. Black market prices soared to 100 to 120% of the regular filling station price.

Every day you could see men walking around with yellow containers (called zigubu) in search of liquid gold. Zigubu. From a linguistic point of view, I like the word very much. From a driver’s point of view, zigubu are very frustrating, cos it’s a synonym for hoarding.

I found Fred Bvalani’s Malawi Fuel Watch group on Facebook to be a very useful source of information. Zikomo kwambiri.

Since I left the fuel situation has improved. I hope this will continue.

Internet

Throughout my visit i found TNM’s mobile data service to be reliable. I also like the fact that TNM are advertising their products and services in Chichewa, Malawi’s national language.

I noticed that several friends and contacts are using Blackberry smartphones. I am wondering if this is a RIM strategy?

Easyjet for BLZ!

Both of my flights from JNB to BLZ and back were packed to the max. Since Air Malawi’s grounding, the SAA flight is the only regular airlink. I heard there is a small jet that flies to Lusaka. But that’s about it. Passengers flying to Nairobi need to take a bus to Lilongwe, 400 km away from Blantyre, to reach the Kenya Airways connection. I wonder what the limiting factor is in the business case. Evidently it is not so easy. Once upon a time, Comair was planning to buy Air Malawi. But wouldn’t it be cool if Malawi was accessible by means of a low cost airline similar to Easyjet?

As usual I’ve posted some snapshots on Flickr.

I am back in Switzerland. To my amazement, the weather is very mild this January. So far I haven’t really felt cold, despite my tropical break.

I am making Schoggi-Weggli based on this recipe

In my inbox:

“If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google.”

http://incubator.apache.org/wave/

http://code.google.com/p/walkaround/

I am trying out a couple of new Chrome apps:

I have always been a radio junkie. Listening to news and current affairs.

Favorite radio stations include BBC World Service, NPR.

Started listening to Deutschlandfunk. I like the detailed news hour coverage.

Many social media centuries ago, 2 bloggers started collecting photos of Nutella alternatives. It was just a fun idea on the sidelines. Started, while we were talking about Nutella culture and regional variants in Italy, Israel, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany.

Well, we’re still collecting.

Many thanks to all contributors.

I saw the photography show “Photography calling” at the Sprengel Museum in Hannover yesterday.

It is really diverse showing the work of 31 different photographers. Inspiring.

Postponed my day trip to the mountains. Cos of rain. The weather is improving this afternoon….

Some free time to clean and sort and catch up with things. And unbox some of those remaining moving boxes.

I am trying very hard not to read work-related emails on my Blackberry.

I am watching the news. Following tweets. Reading lots of news articles.

Like this one:

Der Finanzsektor befindet sich in der Lage, grenzenlos bis zu jenem Punkt wachsen zu können, an welchem er schließlich die Realwirtschaft völlig ausgeblutet hat.

or this one

That’s because, unlike a political campaign designed to get some person in office and then close up shop (as in the election of Obama), this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the Internet.

I went to see Le Havre by Aki Kaurismäki last week. Enjoyed it. Every angle is carefully planned. The plot is simple. A fairy tale. But very fitting, in this day and age where our governments are discussing how to save banks rather than helping people find jobs, education, or affordable health care.

Cos my bike was in for repairs, I took the tram today. Leaving the Basel SBB tram station, there’s a taped announcement welcoming passengers to Basel in English and in German. This evening, it was different: The announcement was spoken live, in a jovial mood, and in 6 languages, including Spanish and Turkish. And the tram driver adapted the text calling Basel: the golden city. So funny. Everybody on the tram was laughing.

On Sunday I cycled all 60 km of the Slowup route. In the morning, the weather was rainy and cold. Which meant most people stayed home and drank hot cocoa. Not me.

Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter, nur schlechte Kleidung

I put on several layers of bike clothes and rain gear. And was rewarded with a dry afternoon and empty roads.

Projects

I am trying to select a few of my best photos to print as posters. Not finding it easy at all. The idea is to decorate my home with my own artwork. A la Etsy. Any tips where I can get high quality posters printed in the Basel area? I haven’t decided on the format sizes yet. I need to edit more. And upload less. But then again, my Flickr stream is a documentation project. I love everyday scenes.

I am working on a small Drupal 7 website project in my spare time. I learnt a lot. Drupal is fun. And it is good to set yourself a project to learn more about a software package.

Changes I’ve noticed in my online behaviour

Over the past months, I have started watching more TV via computer then via TV. Many German TV stations offer a so-called “Mediathek”. I enjoy viewing TV reports according to my own schedule. Video-on-demand. At last. 13 years later than when I first heard about the term at the micro-electronics company that I worked for.

In general, we’re using the technologies invented 10 years ago.

Between you and me, the brand new Facebook Subscribe function reminds me of RSS. But as described in this article, this is one of Facebook’s strengths. It doesn’t re-invent, it re-uses functions.

I haven’t been using Google+ much (yet). What is your experience? Tips?
I am suffering from social media network fatigue. My favorite sites are – by far – Flickr and Twitter. Flickr for the photos (browsing Flickr is an activity I can do half-asleep) and Twitter for the unfiltered, global news. I check Facebook regularly for work reasons.

But Dave Winer’s warning about the closed data silos is ringing in my ears. Some Twitter third party apps are unusable due to API restrictions. And many app developers are discouraged by Twitter’s recent feature additions and app acquisitions.

And at Yahoo, the new CEO may decide to sell good old Flickr.

Although, for Delicious this has been a turn for the better.

New web app I stumbled across:
http://www.hipmunk.com – to compare and book airplane tickets.

5 mins ago:

In this blog post via @Bufferapp, they’re saying you shouldn’t go into blogging “If you can’t create quality, original content”. While I agree with most of the points made, this is what the traditional journalists said 8 years ago when blogging emerged. Only journalists have the skills to write quality content. The problem isn’t quality. It’s the fact that many people just scrape content. Copy and paste. Without adding value. Including journalists. Obviously a good writing style helps. Grammar. Punctuation. Style.

The web isn’t just for the elite.

If you want to write a blog: Just start writing at regular intervals and ignore all the checklists full of advice. Most of it is SEO and advertising bait. Writing is a great way to reflect. Write about a topic that you are really interested in.

Alles wird gut.

Landmark of 8000 items on Flickr = reached.

Tonnes of snapshots on Flickr document my journey thru everyday life.

I started taking photos for this blog. Yeah… blame it on blogging.

Snapshots of

• Daily, mundane things
• Bicycles
• Urban details / photo walks
• Travel / landscape

Useful link on internationalization.

Recommended reading: France 24 on cycling as a major form of transport.

“The bicycle is very popular in Malawi, because people can’t afford a motorbike and because Malawi has a high density of population,” said Dutchman Peter Meijer who set up a bike business, Sakaramenta, in 2009.

Here is a link to Peter Meijer’s company website.

Most of the bikes in Malawi are imported from India:

Countrywide dealer Farmers World, meanwhile, sells 8,000 to 10,000 bikes a year imported from India for between 12,000 and 15,000 kwacha. A basic single gear, standard 22-inch (55-centimetre) wheel model is the most popular.

Photos of bicycle taxis in the Malawi Flickr group

I went to the Netherlands for a long weekend. An inspiring place for a passionate cyclist like me…. I flew to Amsterdam and then rented bike and cycled north in direction Hoorn, along the Ijsselmeer. Very beautiful and lots of fun.

The weather was sunny on my way up, but very rainy and windy on my way back. My conclusion: Switzerland has mountains, the Netherlands has wind to slow you down.

I collected lots of photos of Dutch bike brands. And visited museums (the Anne Frank house, FOAM, the Rijksmuseum, the Kunsthal, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen). And took pictures of Hagelslag and other Nutella alternatives.

I think it is amazing that the Ijsselmeer has fresh, non-salty water even though it is separated only by a dam from the North Sea. A huge dam.