There are an increasing number of Ubuntu Linux machines on the Mzuzu University campus network (DHCP, squid, iptables, email, web, and some desktops). As you all know, keeping both Windows and Linux machines up-to-date with security updates can be very bandwidth intensive. Because our 256 kb/s connection is used heavily during the day we are trying to schedule all security updates to run once at night and then have all of our client machines connect to the local repository during the day for their security updates so as not to use bandwidth while students and professors are trying to connect online.

If backyard landfills won't do it...

This will.

One of the joys of being married to an artist, is that my artist accentuates life in her paintings and shows me things I never would have noticed on my own. If any of you out there are not yet married, I highly recommend that you look into finding yourself an artist as well.

Last month Marissa and I took a long 24 hour train ride across the whole of Tanzania. As we watched the plains and mountains and villages of Africa pass by for hours, we were asking ourselves things like: “Why does this land seem so beautiful?” and “Why is it that I feel like I could stare at this countryside for hours on end and never become tired of it?”

I am skimming a book by David Bornstien called "How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas". Somehow I have managed to get past the incredibly modest title and short introduction yet still have no idea what a Social Entrepreneur actually is... but we can come back to that
in a later blog.

The book begins with a discussion of the explosive expansion of the Non-profit (NGO) sector in recent years. Both the number of organizations and the amount of money invested in the non-profit sector have increased greatly since 1960. This "explosion" of non-profits is something that you can't ignore living in Malawi (especially when you travel to Lilongwe, the capital city) ... non-profits are everywhere. There is an acronym and organization for every type of social cause you can imagine, even the ones you could never have imagined. The only one i havent seen is an NGO to help other struggling NGOs. But i am sure its on the way.

I think that I have found my dream job. Directly across from Mzuzu University, down a dirt road, through a corn field you will find the Ungweru Community Center. There you will find nice 4 computers, the latest news papers, sodas and cookies for sale. Ungweru Community Center is a for-profit endeavor, started by the catholic church and the university, to offer technology classes to the public at very reasonable prices. Currently there are typing and basic computing classes (Microsoft Word and Windows XP) offered at Ungweru. I have been asked to help them begin teaching basic computer networking and internet skills... without using the internet of course!!

In Malawi, like many places in the world electricity services are sporadic. The strength and the amount of the electricity fluctuate frequently and without notice throughout most every day. This is a real problem for computer equipment which needs a consistent and constant supply of electricity. For this reason, every computer in Malawi, that any one depends upon to get work done, is attached to a device called a universal power supply (UPS). A UPS is a large battery that sits between the computer and the electrical grid to both regulate the power going into the computer and to provide power to the computer for long enough to save important documents when the power goes out.

A small windup radio, tuned to the BBC Africa, on most Malawi evenings, brings Marissa and I the days news from around the world. Before moving to Africa I worried about loosing touch with Latin America and my travels there. Little did I know that the BBC Africa would provide us better coverage of Latin American news and events that I could have ever hoped for. (Yes, BBC Africa has far better coverage of Latin American news than any of the mainstream English news outlets in America – I regularly receive updates on all of Latin America... more than just the border crazies).

Last week the BBC Africa discussed Hugo Chavez, the current President of Venezuela, and his recent visit to Africa.

Just wanted to let my other Linux loving friends in Malawi know that we have successfully downloaded a copy of the newest version of Ubuntu Linux here at the University. We are installing it in a few of the computer labs.

We are happy to make copies of the disk for anyone in Northern Malawi who, for bandwidth reasons, might not be able to download this new version (700MB). Please bring (or send) us a blank CDR to Mzuzu University. If you want to send 150MK and have me buy a blank CDR that is ok too (arrange by email first).

Use the

Here is a new version of a simple script I have written to create local copies of websites suitable for browsing offline. We have been using the program successfully at the university to schedule downloads of websites during off peak hours of internet usage for reading the following day.

The program uses the *nix wget utility to do its magic. My code is simply a wrapper around wget which sets the proper command line arguments for wget to create a mirror website. The script uses conservative settings by default for fetching sites in order to be respectful to website owners and other users of the network. Once a site is downloaded the program automatically zips the file in a tar gz for you. You will need python and wget installed in order to run.

Today a friend at the university showed me Loband, a service that simplifies web pages, in order to make them download faster over slow internet connections. Loband strips out colors and images, leaving only the text and links of the original web page. Images are replaced with an “i” logo, and by clicking, you are able to load images on-demand.

Loband doesn't work well with most webmail applications, but has been working great for me for reading news websites. It filters out many of the image heavy advertisements.

To use Loband: just go to http://www.loband.org and type in the URL of the website you would like to simply in the gray bar at the top of the web page.