Wednesday, December 24, 2008

How my 2008 fared

We saw a new year drive into our lives, hang on there, and would drive on into history, leaving another year in place after 365 days. Today is the 24th of December, christmas eve. In 6 days time, this year shall make way for the other.
I look back at the occurences that stood out
The localhost and open source content management system
It's been said best things in life are free. Studying some forums and other web resources I "discovered" Xampp, Joomla and Moodle. The last time I was so excited was during compilation of my first FORTRAN codes.
Awardspace
This hosting service is without doubt the greatest whereby even with a free hosting account, the user is given lots of goodies. Frankly Awardspace drove me to acquire debit card account for making online payment where I got even better goodies.
Debit Card account
Some really good stuff is available for little payment on the Web, but is inaccessible if you don't own a means of online payment. Having acquired the powerful plastic card, I am now head and shoulder above an average crowd, and I like it. I'm able to enjoy a domain name like danielmakundi.com...
Windhoek
I attended an international conference organized by Information Society Technology for Africa, an EU-FP7 project. Held in Windhoek, Namibia for three days, I met many people, built new network of professional colleagues, and, yes, had a peek of South Africa from Joburg Airport during one day wait during transit there on way to Dar-es-Salaam.
Obama
The incredible happened. America said Yes to Barak Obama. I have an earlier post taking my hat off for Michelle Obama, and am repeating here that with the two in the White house, things can only go right, and may Gof bless them!
Albino deaths: The most deplorable
Here in Tanzania we have abject poverty mixing with ignorance and plain stupidity creating automatons of unbelievable actions. Armed with deception that organs from albinos (unfortunate brothers and sisters whose skins are without pigment that's resistant to sunshine, making them vulnerable to sunburn and skin cancers) could make them rich. Many albinos have been killed, others maimed. Thanks to public reaction, some arrests have been made by now.
Obituary
Hassan Shamsi, a workmate and one of the finest electrical artisans I've ever known.
Isaac Hayes, a voice like a rumble of thunder, a phenomenon in Shaft etc