Site stuff

Due to the sporadic nature of my internet connection these past few weeks I have not had much time, to read and engage with those of you who are leaving comments. Making sure my pictures and posts are uploaded correctly usually takes more time than Safaricom/Celtel GPRS gives me before it gives up on me. I would like to thank the vast majority of you again for coming out and engaging with me and with each other in a respectful yet passionate manner.

However, it is sad to note that some of you are using the space I provide for your comments to spread hate and violent tribalism. I WILL NOT STAND FOR THAT. No doubt many of you were unaware of this blogs existence before this election and thus may not be aware of where I stand on this so let me some things clear.

I do not blog as part of a popularity contest. I do not really care if I get no comments on my posts (search my archives, I have said this before) as I believe there are other ways to measure a blogs impact. I would rather have one sensible comment that 20 comments shouting nonsense.

Secondly, I am not here to spoon feed you or even debate with you what does or does not make valid commentary. My younger cousins who are just out of their teens and about to join high school know the difference between intellectual and valid commentary and hate speech. So do you. I will not enter into a lengthy debate on whether your comment, that we should “finish” this or that tribe is valid because of some socio-economic-political-historical injustice you quote. For crying out loud our country is burning. You fuel the flames here and I will burn your comment, i.e. I will delete it.

Thirdly, if you do engage in the nonsense highlighted above, not only will I delete your comment but I will probably ban your IP address as well. There is too much at stake here for me to spend time fighting hate here and if you spread hate I really do not care if you feel aggrieved at being locked out of my blog. I will not engage with you and more importantly I will not give you a platform from which to spread that hate. If you really must, then start your own blog and spread your nonsense there. I have banned people from commenting before and I have banned IP address from this domain before and I can tell you for sure that it works as, surprisingly, each and every person I have banned from this blog returns a few months later with a cleaner mouth (and new IP address). Some are even taking part in this debate about the aftermath of the elections, perhaps they will be brave enough to share why they are back after being banned. This shows to me that many of irresponsible people only leave hate comments because they feel they can get away with it. So I will not let you get away with it here.

Now to the vast majority of my visitors, who have left comments, thank you i appreciate you and I urge you, please, please start your own blogs and add to the voices from Kenya. Ignore the rant above it was not directed at you.

Upgrading WordPress

Having come to WordPress via MovableType I had no problem manually setting up the WordPress database and files. The famous 5 minute install really does take only 5 minutes. When it comes to upgrading however, there was the tedious process of downloading tarballs, extracting them and re-applying modifications to WordPress every time a new version was released to perform an upgrade. A process which gets complicated when the internet connection drops or there is a power outage or some connectivity issue that stops the FTP process in its tracks.

Luckily there are couple of solutions to this problem which work by automating the process of upgrading WordPress. One was upgrading WP using SVN. This was going to be my preferred option until I saw the very real potential of getting tangled up in command line interfaces and blowing up the whole server. Then I considered doing a backup of my blog database, deleting my blog, reinstalling it via Fantastico, and then reloading the backup. That way whenever I wanted to upgrade I would just wait for Fantastico to upgrade its version of WP and then use the simple upgrade option to upgrade.

But this morning I found a much easier solution that did not required me to delete everything and start from scratch. Ladies and Gentlemen the WordPress InstantUpgrade plugin. Download it, put in your WordPress plugins directory, chmod a few files, press upgrade and 2 seconds later, heck 1 second later, everything is upgraded and working like a charm. I am shocked at how simple and quick that was. My WordPress upgrade problems are solved. Be sure to read the instructions and this post first though.

Sidebar clean up

Previously I had a link to every single KBW member on my sidebar. Now that KBW has 400+ members this is no longer practical. In anticipation of a site redesign coming soon (Mentalacrobatics 5.0) I have removed all the blog links from my sidebar. Don’t worry I still love you all. (Well apart from the ones running around bullying other KBW members in a misguided attempt to deflect blame on their own bad blog administration practices. Don’t you get it? Your blog, your responsibility. No point running around blaming everyone apart from yourself.) There are two places where you can get the complete KBW members list; on the sidebar of the KenyaUnlimited Voices blog and on the RingSurf KBW members page.

RSS Feed
For a few posts my RSS feed was like nyama choma that had been roasted on an electric fire = flavourless. Something was stripping all formatting from my RSS feed leaving the post displayed as one big lump of text with no formatting or pictures in your RSS readers and aggregators.

To cut a long story short if you are using WordPress version 2.x with PodPress versions 7.5, 7.6 or 7.7, PodPress will strip all non formatting from your feed. To get around this downgrade your PodPress installation back to 7.4 and you’ll be good to go.

Mentalacrobatics.com may go down in the next few hours (yeah I know – you’re all devastated).

But then again, Mentalacrobatics.com may not go down at all. It all depends on how your DNS Server gods handle a server move.

If Mentalacrobatics does go down, it should be back up by early next week.

If Mentalacrobatics doesn’t go down, then it should be up now.

(I’ve just realised how rude this post will sound to some people. Get ya heads out of the gutter you kids!)

I do not like those, “I am going away now” and the “I am back now” posts. To me they sound a little too self important. Like those people with 3 mobile phones and a pager. I mean honestly. As Frasier at Blogjam puts it:

I never like to apologise for any absences between posting, as doing so would be an assumption that a) anyone cares and that b) those who do are feverishly awaiting whatever it is I have to say. This is a touch arrogant for my liking, so I don’t bother.

I have to acknowledge though that, for various reasons, since the big move blogging has been at the best sporadic and at worst non existent. Some of these reasons are brilliant. For example for a couple of weeks I was busy having way too much fun watching my brother getting married to blog. Other reasons were not as happy. Overtaken by life’s twists and turns etc.

However the main reason for my absence from my blog was I did not know how to blog. I had no idea how to blog. Blank. This, after years of running a blog, came as a bit of a shock to me. I finally figured it out today while sitting in my barber’s chair. It all has to do with my blogging nature. I am an impulse blogger. I see something bloggable, I find a computer I blog it. I read something bloggable I find a computer I blog it. I hear something interesting in the middle of the night on radio I get up and blog it. When you have 15MB broadband internet at your finger tips impulse blogging is easy. But as I swapped broadband in Manchester for my sanity in Nairobi something had to change. I knew it and I was prepared for it.

I had a three 512MB USB sticks. One holds Portable Firefox so I could take my browser + bookmarks + plugins with me to any internet café in Kenya or the world (my browser and its settings are fine tuned to blogging). The second USB stick had Portable Thunderbird, so I could take my email accounts with me to any internet café in Kenya or the world. The third USB stick had GreatNews, the best RSS reader out there, so I could take all of you (bloggers) with me to any internet café in Kenya or the world.

Technologically I was ready, mentally I was ready, however, my blogging mojo was completely out of sync. My mojo would whisper to me, “Typing something in MS Word to insert links later, that’s not blogging, man that’s called writing an assessed essay for class. Not being able to blog something cool immediately but waiting till morning, that’s not blogging man, that’s just writing.” Waiting, having to wait, that sucks. Well it did. But I’m over it and on top of that I’m enjoying it. I have this mental blog in my head that is far far ruder than Mentalacrobatics and it is fun filling it with entries. Maybe one day I’ll let them out, hehe.

But this blog right here this Mentalacrobatics, well it’s grown and changed a little bit but it will continue to do what it does best (if anyone knows what that is please let me know). You would think that having to type something in MS Word first and having to re read before posting would increase the quality of blogging, well pole. It’s still going to be THE Deepest Pothole on the Information Superhighway, beware.

For all of you who having been blogging all this time from places where the internet access is slower than an episode of a Latin America soap opera, you have my respect.

To all the new KBW members, Karibu, it is brilliant that ya’ll have joined us.

To all old KBW members, ati Best Blog Community nominee? Man I told ya’ll that we were special, now you know! I hope ya’ll voted! (Where are those muppets who always accuse us of rigging every election and nomination process we are involved in like we’re that nutcase in Uzbekistan?) Anyway to all KBW members, thank you for building the community. Not all who joined us had the spirit to stay with us. Thank you current members for sticking around and making KBW what it is.

To my blogging friends friends who happen to blog, KBW and Non KBW, new and old … here we go again.

To their Supreme Majesties Members and Supporters known as Koppites – You never walk alone. First game of the season, one trophy. Forward to Premiership and Athens (let’s hope we meet Chelski in the knockout stages).

To the Chelski fans – hehehe. Ati Middlesboro? You know Charity Shield Winners do not go around losing like muppets, no actually you don’t know.

To Arsenal fans – hehehe. Man City? This sucks I am actually starting to feel sorry for these gooners.

To Man U fans – do not get too excited. I don’t know how you managed to rig the fixture list so that you started with three London teams. Come back to the North West and you’ll see what football is all about.

“Thank you for taking part in the Kaybees” Podcast
Please let me know what you think in the comments or via email.

 

 Standard Podcast [3:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Background music

Song: Kenyan Gal, Kenyan Boy
Artist: Necessary Noize
Album: NECESSARY NOIZE II - Kenyan Gal, Kenyan Boy

Necessary Noize are, in my opinion, the leading Kenyan music group out there. In this post on the Kaybees it was only natural I would choose a Kenyan group.

The new picture in the masthead of this blog shows the scenic view of the endless green tea fields rolling over gentle hill slopes in Kericho, Kenya. I took it this past December. It is actually made up of four photos taken in sequence and then merged together. You can see the four photos separately in all their glory in my “Beautiful Kenya” Flickr photo set. I’ll be adding more pictures to the set as I sort through them.

Kenya is very beautiful and its beauty is very diverse. My father once told me that when he was in secondary school a popular and frequent question in geography exams asked the pupils to describe what they would see on a journey from Mombasa to Kakamega focusing on the change in terrain, climate, industry etc. You could write a whole thesis on that!

I know I am showing bias here because it is a journey I take many many times but if you really want to appreciate the beauty of Kenya and the different terrains you should head west from Nairobi. The dry plains around Longonot, the dip into the rift valley, the climb up towards the rolling tea fields of Kericho, the humidity and lake community of Kisumu, the sugar plantations of Kakamega/Mumias, the rolling maize of Kitale etc etc (simply too many places to point out!!). I know many people automatically think east and head towards the coast as Bankelele points out, I always feel sad when I meet other Kenyans who have only been as far west as Nakuru or some only up to Naivasha. Come west, explore Kenya!

Update 1: Bankelele is also in the money. Proving the point that you can make money from your blogger blog! Any other KBW members out there cashing google cheques?

I set up Google AdSense on my blog to see how much money this site could generate. For the first three days or so I would log into my AdSense account to see how my earnings were growing only to find I had earned around 50 cents.

Google does not reveal exactly how they calculate how much money your website generates. Some ads pay 1 cent a click others 2 cents etc. But even if no one clicks on the ads on your site you can still make money as some advertisers may pay you, through google, to have the ads on your site. I soon forgot about it. It sounded impossible to make money from the AdSense programme. Especially as google do not send out AdSense cheques for less than 100 dollars. In fact the main reason I kept AdSense was because AdSense has a twisted sense of humour and I read somewhere having the ads on your site makes the google bots spider your site immediately, which means your posts are indexed by the google search engine immediately. I’m not sure if it is true but hey it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Then I got home one day to an ordinary letter and opened it to see this:

100 dollars sixty eight cents! Brilliant. I pay USD 95.40 a year for this site and now it is paying for itself.

Now for the painful part. When I switched servers and blogging software I forgot to put the AdSense ads up on this my new WordPress blog. In the busiest two weeks for Mentalacrobatics ever, when I was linked by Boing Boing, The Daily Nation and The Financial Times amongst others I had no ads on my blog. I made no money!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

As you can see once I saw the cheque I put the ads back up quickly. This however highlights an important point. You do not need your blog linked by big media outlets to make money from AdSense. Joining a community like the Kenyan Blogs Webring of regular blog readers and writers who link each other and highlight each others posts goes a long long way. So here is another reason to join KBW if you still need one, it will help you make money from your blog*! You do not need any complicated blogging software to take advantage of and make money from the scheme. Blogger has a help page with information on how to get AdSense ads on your blogger blog. Put it up and you never know. In a few months time you may get a cheque in the post as well. Your blog content is what will make you money, no matter where it is hosted.

My new aim is to get one of those Google Christmas presents that are out of this world!

*maybe!

I am still in the process of developing my own original WordPress theme. The current look is based on the Blix Theme by Sebastian Schmieg with Icons by Kevin Potts.

some people like you:

Some people don’t like you so much:

whoever said, “All publicity is good publicity!” did not have to deal with mad Kenyans I tell you!

Happy BlogDay2005!

Find out more about Blog Day at the BlogDay Website.
Read the original post from the man who started it all.

The idea is to link blogs that are not from the same country or area of interest which puts all you KBW and African blogs out, woiyee!

Here are my five BlogDay2005 recommendations:

Blogjam
This is guy is crazy in a interesting way. The kind of guy you always want to visit but are to chicken to live with. The kind of guy who fattens up garden snails and then shows us how to cook them, the kind of guy who recreates Carni in his London flat. The guy behind KittenWar and Despot or Sexpot. Check him out.

Death’s Door, the view from the Spanish announcers table
The man is funny in a should-I-be-laughing-at-this way. The kind of person you’d be lucky to kill some time with at a bar.

Erotica Lee 2 [NSFW]
A photoblog that is Not Safe For Work (i.e. if you are at work or school do not click on the link. Seriously!) I like it because am just that kind of guy. The images are different and help pass the time when you’re waiting for a parcel to be delivered.

Gadgetopia
All about gadgets and technology on and offline. Interesting stuff. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

MsMind
You know the kind of blog you are not sure why you bookmarked it in the first place but keep dropping in to read. Well this is one of mine. So this is for the voyeur in me. I don’t even think she knows I read, well until today anyway.

Big up to maitha who did the Kiswahili translation for the BlogDay website. (Phew! At least I managed to mention one KBW member in this post!)

Phew!
The upgrade to Movabletype 3.2 seemed harmless enough.
If you notice anything broken (apart from my writing!) please let me know.
(People with jokes about broken hearts, ka kando!)

Giving credit where credit is due. I have to big up the people at allAfrica.com. The site is a fantastic news resource for Africa. In addition they also generate rss/rdf modules for the public to use. That means clowns like me can have the latest African headlines on our sites. The Kenyan headlines on the right hand side of my main page are a good example. For all the webmasters out there that do not have the facilities to run RSS/RDF modules there is a perfect safe JavaScript cut-and-paste option that you can use.

It is not just me who thinks they are great by the way. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Science has nominated them for a Webby award. The Webby Awards are the leading international honour for the worlds best web sites. I would strongly encourage you to vote for them in the People’s Voice section. (You need to register to vote. This is not just another Internet vote.) Let us flex some African web muscle here.

(No I am not connected to allafrica in anyway. I do not work for them, in fact I have never even broken bread with them, don’t be such a cynic!)

(yes this entry has to many brackets in it)

After reading Why we won’t help you written by Mark Pilgrim I was inspired to sit down and validate this site. It took me bloody ages but it was worth it as it cleaned up my code big time. I even get a nice big icon to put on my webpage! Keeping it valid is another story. We’ll see how long it lasts.

update:Well that’s that then, the damn thing won’t cooperate.

Somebody keeps searching my site for “Coventry bash”, “Coventry bash 2003″ and “bash in Coventry” unsurprisingly they do not get any results as:I have never been to Coventry except when driving through it; I certainly did not attend any bash in Coventry; Even if I had I would have probably been so scandalous that I would not have written about it!
However there are people out there a lot braver than me so check out the new from the Coventry bash on kiss-wahili

Looks like my software is about to get a major upgrade . At least I will be able to say I installed moveable and I got it purring like a Ferrari on the motorway!