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So after going live @ Lafayette College once, and seeing we had some major flaws, we took CampuSMS off the Lafayette homepage. Now, after a couple of months of working on the back-end and a little bit of front-end tweaking, Lafayette's gone live again with our service! For folks who don't know what CampuSMS is, it's a project to help stimulate the use of text messages on college campus communities. We're trying to help student and faculty groups get the word out faster, through a medium everyone seems to be using on an individual-to-indvidual basis already: SMS. We're also hoping that businesses surrounding campuses - in Lafayette's case, places like Cosmic Cup, Campus Pizza, Milo's, Wawa, etc. - will want to use CampuSMS to communicate any special offers, promos and events to the college studnets/faculty. Anyhow, screenshot above shows our service being linked on the left-hand side menu of the Lafayette homepage . You can also just swing by www.campusms.c...

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon will be in Tanzania today, addressing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha. This will be the first time the South Korean UN Secretary General will visit the Tribunal since he took up his post in October 2006, and the Tribunal itself is the first body to interpret the definition of Genocide set forth by the Geneva Conventions in 1948. More about the issues anticipated to be discussed on this Daily News Tanzania article . Above photo from this website .

What a glorious sunny day in New York! Made some quick changes to my blog... you'll see that I took off the navbar links that used to be at the top and put 'em to the right-hand side. Also added two news feeds to the right panel, both from BBC: One is the BBC world news front-page, and the other is Africa-specific. I'm hoping to make this blog and my twitter page places of frequent updates, and revamp my homepage to reflect ongoing, bigger projects such as Vijana FM, CampuSMS, music and web development. More updates will ensue in coming months. Ciao for now!

Just found out from an imeem exclusive interview with Deadmau5 about the JazzMutant Lemur, which is a touch-screen control surface for creating sounds using programmable dials and buttons! Sounds like a neat concept. Links? Homepage here , Wiki here . Price? Round about 2 grand here <grunt>.

HTC and Google have partnered up again to release the Android phone to Vodaphone in Europe! I've been waiting for the second official release, and this phone seems to be much more of a breath of fresh air compared to the first release. Check out the BBC article here, and the Gizmodo article there.

More neat wallpapers @ Interfacelift .

(Image from this website ) (Image from this website ) According to this article , China has been investing in Tanzania for a few decades now, and Tanzania plans on working more with China in the near future given recent concerns of global economic slowdown. Some excerpts: "Tanzania is looking to China for help to spur economic growth amid the global crisis. Central Bank Governor Benno Ndulu has said spending cuts may be needed because of pressure on foreign aid, which covered 34 percent of the 7.22 trillion shilling ($5.5 billion) budget this year. China's trade with Tanzania rose 30 percent in 2007 to $688 million. ... Economic cooperation with Tanzania dates back to the early 1970s when China built the $500 million Tazara railroad that runs 1,860 kilometers (1,162 miles) from Zambia's northern copper-belt region to the port of Dar es Salaam. Chinese aid also supported a textile factory that helped start a once-thriving industry now under pressure to compete with cheap g...

I'd been reading up for a little while now on the Somali pirates that first seized MV Faina, the Ukrainian cargo ship carrying arms to Kenya. I just saw that the vessel had been released a few days ago, and has finally docked in Kenya . There is now some discussion/controversy about where the arms on board were actually going. Some say it was meant for Kenya, others say it was Sudan-bound. Whatever the case, it is ironic how it took a group of bandits to seize a ship that would otherwise have gone unnoticed, and possibly affected serious international relations in the long-run (given Sudan's political crisis). Some excerpts from the BBC article : " BBC East Africa correspondent Karen Allen says if the allegations about Sudan are true, it would be a huge embarrassment for the Kenyan government, which helped broker a peace deal between the north and south of Sudan four years ago. ... This is in sharp contrast to the secrecy that has surrounded the ship and its cargo since...

8.45am in the morning, I've just walked into work, and Seba calls me from Dubai. Me: Eiii baba what is up? Seba: Eiii baba. Me: Where are you? Seba: I'm in Dubai, and I need your help. Me: What's up? Seba: I'm DJ'ing tonight, and I have my iPod and CDs. Me: Eiii DJ Seba... yeah, ok, and? Seba: I'm looking at the <blah blah blah> controller... Me: I don't know it man, I need to see what you're looking at. Seba: OK, but it's the <blah blah blah> thing. How do I connect my iPod to this thing? Me: Well... you'll probably need an RCA-to-Mini cable. Seba: What is that? <woman giggling in the background> Me: It's got two RCA plugs on one end, and one Mini jack to plug into your iPod on the other <assuming he's in a store> Seba: So how do I mix between tracks? Me: Well you would need 2 iPods and 2 of those cables, unless you have an iPod mixing console. Seba: <more giggling in the background> We have 2 iPods. Me:...

A shoe was recently flung at an Israeli ambassador in Sweden... Apparently, " another person threw two books at the envoy but missed ". Seems like we have a euphemism emerging here.

Hmm... as new head of the African Union, Gaddafi is saying some interesting - and perhaps even controversial - things about how African politics should work. An excerpt from the above-linked BBC article: "We don't have any political structures [in Africa], our structures are social," Reuters news agency quotes him as saying. "Our parties are tribal parties - that is what has led to bloodshed." The Libyan leader's remarks could prove controversial in a continent where people have struggled for decades to have more open systems of government, says our correspondent.

Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, has signed a constitutional amendment that will allow his opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, to become prime minister after months of talks and persuasion by neighboring African state leaders. I hope the the man holds this up. Here is Robert Mugabe's Wiki Page .

Woosah. Thanks, Interfacelift .

General Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has taken the seat of Chairman of the African Union from Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete. This comes at a crucial time for the African Union, right when Ethopia (and the AU) has been accused of reentering Somailia after a peace treaty, and during Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe's continued dictatorial-like reign on Zimbabe amidst a Cholera crisis . Madagascar, however, is seeing some order being restored in the streets of Antananarivo (the President is being called to step down though). More about Africa, including President Obama's Kenyan half brother's mishaps , @ BBC's Africa homepage.

It's been some time since I divulged what's been going on with various projects, so here's a quick update! Vijana FM: Working on preparing round 2 proposal documents for Echoing Green's grant application. I passed round 1, but that means there are 300 projects out there competing to be one of the 20 Echoing Green Fellowship recipients! Given that this is my second year applying, I'm trying to give the Vijana FM proposal my best. Getting the budget reviewed by some folks at work, which is a big help. Little feedback from you (the public) has started trickling in through my website's contact page , so that is an immense encouragement - thank you! I also promise to divulge a whole lot more information about the Vijana FM when there is more time to build Vijana FM's presence on the internet. Right now, I am focussing most of my time on refining the concept, business model and social benefit. I am also happy to answer questions via e-mail, so feel free to use my...