‘African’ – Usage and Abusage or Kony is not an African Warlord!

I find it very distasteful to read articles like the latest one on an Ugandan called Kony, who until yesterday I didn’t know existed [anymore]. You can wonder how up to date I am on current affairs all you want but an MBA schedule doesn’t allow me the time to read about people like the Konys of this world.

My rant is simply this.

Don’t refer to Kony as an ‘African Warlord’, and yes I am talking about The Christian Science Monitor’s latest headline on Kony.

Kony is an African but not an African Warlord. He probably qualifies as a Ugandan Warlord being the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and all.

To understand what I mean, Christian Science Monitor, go back to the dictionary to find the definition of ‘warlord‘. A warlord only applies in the context of a country and AFRICA IS NOT A COUNTRY.

There!

I did a presentation in class yesterday about Ghana and why investors should come invest there and you use your widely read website to plant another seed about why people shouldn’t invest in Ghana and other Africa just because of Kony 2012?

If you made the editorial decision of not headline “Kony 2012: Campaign against Ugandan Warlord..” because it wouldn’t drive as much traffic as “Kony 2012: Campaign against African Warlord..”  then you have to start examining your ethics as a Christian? media outlet.

In conclusion, I say learn to use [the word] ‘African’ appropriately and in the right context.

Kony 2012 is a campaign I support! Please Pledge!!

PS: Kony 2012: Is a good case study/ lesson in marketing communications and I applaud Invisible Children for pulling it off.

Ghana @ 55 – Ready for business

I am currently working with a couple of colleagues on a project about the business environment of Ghana to pitch to potential investors, well, classmates.

It is one of the highlights of my semester so far and as the date for presentation approaches I feel extra proud that my colleagues are genuinely sold on the huge opportunities for business in Ghana.

So I put up the draft presentation in celebration of Ghana’s 55th independence.

For students or business persons who do a lot of presentation, you will find that Prezi.com is a great presentation tool.

Please comment if you are not able to access my presentation. http://prezi.com/f0wwgnfza2ej/my-ghana/

Happy Independence Day! Happy Holiday!! I am proud to be a Ghanaian!!!

Bibliophilia or Bibliomania – Hoarding of a different kind

Cover via Amazon

My love for my Kindle is quite known amongst my friends. Well, I don’t love the Amazon Kindle for its sake. I love my books. I love the fantasy and sci-fi, horror and mystery genres. But then again I think I love the Kindle for how it makes it easy for me to carry my books.

But ever since I got my Kindle, I’ve been in the habit of loading up e-books on it. Many e-books. Too many e-books that sometimes I just page through my collection and never manage to settle on one to read. There are always so many books I want to read and so little time and so many books read to different percentages and shelved.

Blaming Project Gutenberg for having so many English classics on the web in many formats free to download is what I’ve been doing and by extension it is the reason I’ve only read bit and pieces of the books that I’ve read.

CLASSIC CASE OF HOARDING

Stepping back, I realized I have been obsessively and unhealthily ‘collecting’ e-books that I might not read and blaming the availability of free/ cheap e-books for this new habit I have formed. I just caught myself right on the borderline of becoming an e-book hoarder.

So my plan to stop myself from hoarding is to:

1. Only keep on my Kindle e-books I can finish reading within a 2/3 months time frame

2. At any time I should have read more than 50% of the e-books on my Kindle and

3. Archive e-books after I have read them or

4. Only read paperbacks and hardcovers

Will one be called a bibliophile or bibliomaniac for hoarding e-books?

Do you have more than 50 e-books on  your e-reader with about 75% of them unread?

Can one love e-books?

A life so good it had to be short, eternally

I prayed for you before I met you. I prayed with passion for you because of love. Now you are no more, my love.

I sought news of your recovery. I always prayed more after every news. Sometime because things had gotten worse. Sometimes because things were getting better.

I was impatient for my love. I was impatient to see your smile. I was impatient to see that pose. They talked about your picture poses and your smile. One combination always stood out. Your trademark pose. Left leg out, arms akimbo and smile engaged.They showed me all of them. I loved them.

I prayed with passion for you. I prayed with love. I even drew a fish for you. I had to color it pink in some places because of Hello Kitty. I came to love Hello Kitty too. My Hello Kitty lover, you always smiled.

I finally met you and you smiled at me. Like Jesus to a child.

Even when you couldn’t move you put food on the table for all of us. You had goodies around you. You attracted good things. Yes, like Hello Kitty. And that manicure and pedicure big sister did for you. You always had the best things.

You had a special love for Jesus. You wanted to be a teacher, just like Him. You had mum, dad, big brother and big sisters and their love.

Who did you give that beautiful coat of many colors to? Who can wear it? Who did you bequeath that smile to? Who will win all the many friends with your smile? Who will we love like we did you, with passion? Who will love us like you did us, with passion?

We couldn’t let you go. We felt too torn to let you go. Everybody cried. I cried too. People brought their friends to come see you my love. It was beautiful. Your life was beautiful. It is all the more beautiful because they made you an example. They made you an angel here and in eternity.

Please no ringback music….just give me a ringback tone

Ring back music or caller tunez by MTN were all the rave when they were introduced to the Ghanaian mobile telecommunication market. For a brief while I was hooked (never activated any on my phone); eager to listen to what nice song will be played whiles I wait for the person to pick the call.

Recently however, my reaction towards ringback music has changed drastically. I usually grimace or involuntarily pull the phone from my ear when some song or the other starts blaring through my phone’s speaker. When I think about it, I suspect it is because I am getting more impatient and don’t want to mix business calls with some party music like the one in the Vodafone advert featuring EAZZY.

Ironically, my reaction is the exact opposite of that of the young man in the Vodafone advert; I actually heave a sigh of relief when my calls are picked up, escaping further auditory attack from the harsh tunes that hit my eardrum when my calls connect.

I fear I consider someone unprofessional and inconsiderate when they have caller tunes playing simply because most of the songs are too loud and inappropriate for any kind of business and most caller tunes users do not know what songs play when people call them.

Please just give me a standard ringback tone…..nothing fanciful for me, no sire! no ma’am!

 

Warranty void by location – Why Amazon might not replace my broken Kindle

I am thinking about the current state of my Amazon Kindle and I am broken hearted. Well, I never anticipated that my Kindle would be dead set on /at ‘The Fishes’ e-ink screensaver. My Kindle simply won’t budge; not even to 10 minutes [of holding the power slide] hard reset. So I’ve not been reading much lately, at least not on the bus to work or back.

For some time now however, I was taking solace in the fact that a new Kindle could soon be coming my way thanks to Amazon’s flexible (and international?) replacement program for broken Kindle e-readers.

But after a few weeks of e-mails going back and forth with Amazon representatives, I am totally frustrated and want to reach out to other Kindle users in Africa if they have successfully got replacements for their broken Kindles.

“Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” I am beginning to wonder if Amazon plans on rolling out their vision statement to the letter; you know to all the earth?

After discovering my Kindle was broken, I called my friend, who walked me through the hard booting/resetting process, recharging battery fully process and we both agreed my Kindle was broken. Luckily enough my Kindle 3 was within warranty period and it was agreed I was going to explore that option.

After about 20mins of international call to the helpdesk to report my broken Kindle, I finally got an officially confirmation/ acknowledgement that my Kindle was broken and was going to be replaced for free. [Make a call to friend to share the good news]. I was promised $20 online credit for the airtime I spent to report problem. *Good customer service*

Fast track to 2 weeks later, I was getting mails requiring me to ship the broken Kindle to a US address to get a gift [shopping] voucher when all I wanted was my replacement Kindle back.

After many e-mails, I was finally told in plain English that Amazon doesn’t ship to Ghana or most part of Africa for that matter and that I should provide an address in the USA for them to ship the replacement Kindle to it. [Calling favours and friends who might be coming to Ghana for summer]

After getting an address and a friend willing to bring my Kindle home, I was informed I had to insert credit/ debit card details (which no charge will be billed against). A few days later I got a mail that the (Ghana) debit card I provided didn’t work (was refused) for some reason I cannot tell so my Kindle will not be shipped.

I am back to square one now and I am still holding my broken Kindle and my account at Amazon still stands at $0.00.

A few questions remain on my mind;

1. If I can ship my broken Kindle to the USA, why can’t Amazon ship my replacement Kindle to Ghana?
2. If Amazon failed to credit me with $20 for calling their helpdesk like they promised, why should I trust them to credit my account with the price of a Kindle 3 and cost of courier-shipping my broken one to their address?
3. What if I don’t know anyone in the USA, does it mean I don’t get a replacement Kindle? Does that mean my warranty is void?
4. What if I was never a prospective customer in Amazon’s marketing plan? This reminds me of the statement alleged to have been made by Tommy Hilfiger about not having Africans in mind when making his designer clothing.
5. What good will it do for me to ship my broken Kindle to Amazon only to get a gift voucher that I can only use to shop on Amazon.com but cannot ship to Ghana? Catch 22

I am now convinced I will not get a new Kindle anytime soon, thanks to an Amazon system which is set up with the average American/European in mind. You know; a credit card wielding person whose home address can be searched on Google Earth and can ‘afford’ a Kindle.

Am I in this rut because I have a taste for things made for people in 1st world countries? Is my warranty void just because I find myself in a 3^rd world country?

I am not happy with Amazon but I still will want my Kindle back. Someone please share a success story.

Calibre E-book Management 0.8.8 review

Calibre just keeps getting better.

‘Welcome to Calibre, the one stop solution to all your e-book needs’ is the first thing you read when you starts the Calibre E-book Management Welcome Wizard. Now that is a mission statement that the latest iteration of Calibre (0.8.8) has managed to achieve impressively.
The Welcome Wizard takes you through setting up your e-book reader and just about caters for every e-book reader currently on the market. The Kobo, Barnes & Nobles’ Nook, Apple and Android devices, my favourite; Amazon Kindle are all listed and to complete the party Sony, PocketBook and your ‘Generic’ ebook reader are all catered for.

The selection of one’s e-reader at the welcome wizard ensures that a default e-book format device is set up for future e-book conversions. For Kindle users, one can enter Kindle email for delivery of (converted/ downloaded) e-books by whispernet / wi-fi to the Kindle.
Calibre e-book viewer/library/browser/format converter are all names you can call the software and rightfully so. I first discovered Calibre when I needed to convert some Microsoft Reader (.LIT) e-books to .EPUB and I was impressed then and for avid readers with multiple e-readers you definitely need this piece of software. It can convert from all popular e-book formats to about 25 formats and has an editor that allows for tweaking font, font size, spacing before converting. The practical benefits are obvious here; one can purchase an e-book for cheap from a rival publisher/seller and convert and read on one’s preferred e-reader or e-readers.

LIBRARY
The library is at the heart of the software and lot of care has been taken to make it look good and functional. From the iTunes-esque display of e-books in the library to the side bar, you can tell that the developers have taken pains to make using the software a pleasant experience; intuitive and aesthetic.
E-books can be searched by Author, Series, Format, Publisher, Ratings and Tags. I’ve been using the Author and Format more to narrow down my searches and for e-book transfers to my Kindle.
One thing users have to be aware of is that by default, all e-books are copied into a Calibre folder, without deleting the original e-books. Just another 2 or 3 GB of space to plan for shouldn’t be a problem with a 500GB HDD laptop.

E-BOOK VIEWER
The new e-book viewer that comes with Calibre is adding more arsenal to e-book management software. The e-book viewer is a stand-alone that works with the Calibre library or can use explorer to navigate to any location on your pc to open an e-book.
The interface is simple, with all icons to the left of the reading pane. The page turners are centered and the other icons are quite intuitive. There is no learning curve here.

The interesting addition is the Reference Mode which displays an index/reference number for every paragraph. Now that is something you don’t get with the Kindle for PC but is it enough to satisfy e-reader owners? What use is referencing if you can’t synchronize it between your pc and e-reader and vice-versa?
The dictionary function works only with dict.org and internet access which is restrictive in many ways. I think Calibre should come with a standard dictionary as default and a selectable number of online dictionaries.
I am still wondering why there is a Print function. Is it redundant for an e-book viewer to have a print option? Let’s agree for sustainability sake and to reduce our carbon footprint, not to print any e-books on papers.

OTHER FUNCTIONS
RSS Reader
Calibre can fetch news (in full with pictures) and can be read in the e-book viewer or transferred to one’s e-reader in any format.
Connect/Share
This allows for connection to content servers online, iTunes and management of e-mails to one’s Kindle account.

GETTING E-BOOKS / ONLINE STORES
One can access an array of online stores by using the ‘Get books’ icon. Some websites are rendered in Calibre and displayed in a pop-up screen and others like Amazon Kindle open in a browser. All categories are deployed; free e-book websites, popular premium websites and independent e-book publishers as well. Affiliate programs that make contribution to Calibre developers have Red Hearts next to them.
If you want to make any donations to the project, just hit the Red Heart icon. To show the Calibre developers love, donate some money. Money = Red Heart.

Is Calibre going to remain an Open Source e-book management software project or will soon release an ubiquitous e-book reader capable of reading all formats?

For now, I am a satisfied customer and looking forward to see how much further Calibre can raise the bar in e-book management.

The business of looking for business [literally]

I always thought the trotro transportation industry (if I can call it that) was mainly made up of the car-owners, drivers, drivers-mates and passengers.
But now that I think about it, I think the trotro transportation industry [to an extent] created the ‘kayayei’ and ‘kayahee’ – female and male porters [sub-industry].
It might be only me but I have observed that there is a need breed of male porters in town. They are more aggressive and carry good without using any wheeled contraption or aluminum container; the local porter’s tools of trade.
These porters risk limb and life to get business and they do beat competition to business always. Their competitive advantage in this trade is their ability and willingness to jump on the fender of buses and peek in the back of the bus where load is stowed; literally looking for business.

AbraErica Hospitalities – not your usual get-away location

This blog post is about a beautiful get-away location I discovered during the easter holidays and I figured it would be to the public good to share the discovery [and maybe give my friend’s hotel some free publicity].

I hope the pictures below will give you a glimpse of the coziness and adventure AbraErica Hospitalities has to offer and appeal to your sense of adventure to go enjoy the experience.

The first thing that hits you when you walk from the reception area to the balcony/ bar is the breathtaking view of the rest of the Volta Region; hills, rivers, villages and islands. You will want to carry a telescope just so you can fully enjoy the view below.

All this while you will be enjoying the best weather there is to enjoy at such a high altitude; AbraErica is located on the face of a hill and almost at eye-level with the highest habitable ground in Ghana – Mt. Gemi.

Hiking to the summit of Mt. Gemi is a must-do as well as visiting other natural landmarks and interesting tour locations like the Wli Falls, Tafi Monkey sanctuary, and a (former) slave market. Taking ones time to visit these locations adds to the total experience of lodging at AbraErica, an opportunity one should explore fully.

Besides a great location, wonderful weather [with a high tendency to experience some 30mins of relief rainfall every other day], you can be assured of a dedicated staff, great customer service and a serene atmosphere.

There is a generator that serves as backup when power is cut. There is an in-house chef who makes great dishes and does vegetarian as well.

The deal clincher is that a single-bed room and breakfast is Thirty-five Ghana cedis and a double-bed room and breakfast will set you back Forty Ghana cedis. But if you have plans of going with a number of friends or work mates, you will want to get on the phone and get a discount because you just might get a deal!

Now, that is a get-away location suitable for adventurers, writers looking for inspiration and some quiet and workers who want get away from the stress of city life.

PS. If you’re traveling in large numbers, you can get a free ride from Ho to AbraErica. Just visit their website and make your reservations already!

Running a trotro business as a car-owner

This blog post is in response to a comment posted by a reader who wants to know how the private transportation business is run in Ghana. I hope my research was exhaustive enough and satisfies other readers who might be interested in running their own trotro businesses as car-owners.

The trotro business is a tough game; it tries the owner’s patience, negotiation skills and street-smartness as he tries to get the best financial benefit and road-life out of the bus. The search for a trustworthy and experienced driver is one huge hurdle one has to surmount in this business. Identifying which route to ply one’s trade often lies in the hands of the owner but can also directly impacts the search for a driver, where the bus will ‘sleep’ after a day on the road among other things.

During a good stretch of time, daily sales (the money the trotro driver brings back after every day of work) comes in with no excuses of vehicular breakdowns. Sometimes the driver makes close to half of what they have to pay to their car-owners and is responsible for paying his mate and providing for his lunch.

Typically, when a car-owner is giving a ‘new’ car to a trotro driver, he fills the tank of the bus in order to give the driver a head start. It is normal that the trotro driver fills up the tank when quitting. But to avoid any disputes over how much fuel cost at the time the driver started working with the bus and when he finally quit, some car-owners expect that the trotro driver brings the bus back to their premises with fuel tank filled every evening.

A car-owner can and should institute a time for the bus to be brought back home for parking; 8pm is the usual set time. However, one should be highly tolerant of early morning calls, usually between 5am and 6am to hand over the car keys to the trotro driver to start the day. The early morning trips are good [money making hours] for the trotro drivers because the roads are much freer; please don’t mess with your trotro driver when it comes to releasing the keys.

For trotros in all cases but only in few cases for taxis, they are registered at a bus-station where the bus will be stationed, plying a specific route. It is often at the station that the owner is informed of the fixed market sales that that type of bus makes a day. The factors range from number of seats, whether the bus has air-conditioning, the [distance of the] route it plies and other on-board services like on-bus entertainment. The station is run by a union (under the umbrella of Ghana Private Road Transport Union GPRTU) and as such car-owners meet periodically.

Sundays are often the only days that most trotro drivers take some rest, other than those expect them to work on holidays (except Christmas) and weekends. At the end of the month, the car-owner pays the trotro driver a salary equivalent to 2 days sales and the cycle goes on.

But no, something’s got to give whenever things are going smoothly and that is often the genesis and root of most of the problems that car-owners have with trotro drivers and vice versa.

Out of the blue, the car-owner gets a call that the car is broken down at Kaneshie. Same call could have come from your driver at an accident scene; one he might be responsible for causing or not. And definitely it is normal in this line of business to have to go see one’s driver behind police cells/ counter-back or stand by him in a law court for some violation of traffic rules. It is all in the day of a trotro driver and the car-owner.

For relatively new buses, car-owner hardly anticipate a break in the sales until they get a call one day that the bus is broken down. But for old buses, a typical car-owner prays that whatever breaks down on the bus is nothing [major] that cannot be fixed in a day.

Usually after a rapid succession of break downs followed by massive spending eating into the trotro’s savings accounts, trotros begin to break down often. It is at this point that trotro drivers get the room to swindle their car-owners.

One trick is that the trotro driver works to about noon and then calls the car-owner that the bus is broken down or that since morning the car has been over-floating (an old excuse from back in the carburetor days) or overheating, torn exhaust pipe or some other mechanical fault as such business hasn’t been good so the trotro is undergoing repairs at the shop. What this implies is that the little money the trotro driver made till then will be used to pay for repairs and therefore there will be no sales for the day.

Some car-owners have been known to ask their drivers to repair buses with their own money and often do not pay the money back. Others have been accused of bullying the drivers by accusing them of being the cause of a mechanical problem or used the fact that the trotro driver would soon be poor if the bus is not on the road to coerce them to repair any faults.

What is hard for most car-owners is when they get calls of arrest of their trotro drivers after they are caught overloaded, jumping the red light or not observing some other road/ traffic rule in a zone where they don’t ply and not expected to be.

The trotro driver doesn’t mind overloading the bus to the point where the exhaust pipe scrapes the road. If given the chance to take the bus to their homes, they will [somehow manage to] work late into the night to make money for themselves whiles stressing the trotro’s engine. And don’t think it is beyond a trotro driver to give the bus to a colleague (spare driver) who probably has no valid license when they get tired during the day.

It takes more than money to run this business; it takes a hard-nosed business man with lots of understanding of how trotro drivers think and ever ready to bark instructions or threaten termination to run this business successfully.

But whiles the trotro driver tries to swindle his car-owner, the trotro mate also tries to pilfer from the fares that should go to the driver. There’s some justice in this trotro business after all.