Open Warrior

Nokia Maps is a great application for any phone user who spends any time on the road. However, anyone who has used it before knows that it comes with it’s own set of problems, with the most annoying being the bad GPS signal. It often takes more than 10-20 minutes to get a satellite lock if it even gets one at all. A bit of Googling showed that many people are having the same problem and in my messing around I found a workaround which works quite well and which I’ll share here.

It seems like the main problem is a bug in the Nokia Maps software which makes it hard for Nokia Maps to pick up a GPS signal and lock onto it, so the solution is to find another means of picking up the GPS signal and once you’re locked onto that signal, to then open Nokia Maps.

(I tested this on my Nokia E71 and it works flawlessly, so I would expect the same for other Nokia handsets)

The way that I pick up the GPS signal is by using Google Maps, which should be downloaded and installed by going to http://maps.google.com via the Nokia Browser. The reason you use the Nokia Broswer and not some other browser such as Opera Mini or Skyfire is that the Nokia Browser is able to provide the Google Maps website with your phone details and then the Google Maps website will make the correct download for your handset available to you.

Once you’ve downloaded Google Maps onto your handset, open it and you’ll see it start searching for GPS satelites. With mine it took about 30 seconds before I got the “GPS active status message which allowed me to see my current location on the map. Once you’ve got a GPS signal in Google Maps then open Nokia Maps (while keeping Google Maps open) and you should find that you have a GPS signal immediately! You can then close Google Maps and enjoy your strong GPS signal.

If this solution worked for you then please let me know

When I first got news of the Nokia Music Store in South Africa I was really excited – finally an online music store which would allow me to buy local content without needing to have iTunes, because as a Linux user iTunes just isn’t an option. One day I was walking on campus and people were handing out pamphlets with information about the Nokia Music Store and how one can use it to buy music. I read the pamphlet and my excitement about the Nokia Music Store dropped to complete disappointment. There were two main reasons for this:

1. The music is in WMA format and makes use of DRM – this effectively means that I can’t play it on any operating system other than Microsoft Windows and that I can’t put it on my iPod. This alone renders the service completely unuseable to me.
2. The Nokia Music Store website only works with Internet Explorer. According to Net Applications, Internet Explorer accounts for about 66% of browser use on the Internet. By only supporting Internet Explorer, Nokia effectively prevents about 34% of their potential market from accesing their site.

The two issues mentioned above basically render the Nokia Music Store useless to computer users like me who don’t use Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer. I’m a big fan of Nokia and the work that they do, though I really believe they got it wrong with their online music store. Either way, I can only hope that they’re aware of this and are working towards improving the service so that all computer users can make use of it without the restrictions.

Ever wondered just how much money artists actually actually get from the record companies? Well, that’s a question I’ve always wondered about and I found an answer last night which I would like to share.

I was watching the story of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes on MTV Base Africa. Left Eye was part of the Grammy winning American girl group TLC, who, despite selling over 10 million albums, filed for bankruptcy in July 1995.

Left Eye was known to be outspoken and when she was asked how a group who had sold over 10 million albums came to declare bankruptcy, she came right out an explained exactly how the music business works when it comes to album sales.

This is a summary of what she said…

For every track on an album there are 100 points, each point represening a shareholder’s interest. At the time that the interview took place, each point equated to about 0.01 USD. TLC had seven points for each track on their album, so, for their album which contained 8 tracks they had 56 (7×8) points or, in other words, TLC made 0.56 USD for each album sold.

If TLC sold 10 000 000 million albums and made 0.56 USD for each album sale, then they made a total of 5.6 million USD…not a bad amount. However, the way the industry works is that the artists have to pay the record companies back for all expenses, including, but not limited to, those incurred during the recording of albums and shooting of music videos. Left Eye estimated that these expenses amounted to around 3 million USD, leaving TLC with 2.6 million USD.

That amount takes another huge cut in the form of taxes which fall into a bracket which is very close to 50%. Thus, total income is around 1.3 million USD. Now, when that is split between the 3 members in the group, each member goes home with just over R400 000 USD.

During the time the interview was conducted, albums probably sold for around 8 USD a copy, resulting in a total revenue of 80 million USD from album sales. From this the artists each take home 400 000 USD.

Does that sound fair to you?

Wow, what a productive day!
We got off to a rather late start since we were all rather tired from yesterday, but in the end we got an amazingly large amount of work done.

We started off by heading to Waheeb’s house. Waheeb’s parents are busy renovating their house so there’s load of wood and metal lying around, which they said we were free to take.

We spent some time separating the useful wood and metal from the messy stuff. It didn’t take us too long, but since we were working in the sun, we were all pretty tired once we were done.

Once we had everything we thought we were going to use stacked up, we made our way back to our main place of work – Colin’s driveway.

Our plan for the day was to complete ‘The Four Pillars’ – these pillars are going to be the four corners of our main structure and thus need to be really strong, and sturdy. So, after spending some time planning exactly what we were going to do, we got to work.

Once again, Bradley outshone everyone, with his ability to use the tools we had available, and coming up with solutions to the general problems we were having. I don’t know how we’d be able to get anything done without him.

Waheeb had a try at putting some paper mache together for the sculptures which are planned to litter our campsite. It was still drying by the time we were finished so I don’t know how well it’s worked out yet, but I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

We finished building the four pillars at about 9pm, and sat down for a bit to relax and celebrate. All in all, it was a great day. We got lots done and had loads of fun doing it! Tomorrow we’re going to start working on the decorations for our camp site. Hopefully it will be less intense than today…I’m exhausted!

Yesterday, after weeks of exams and much discussion on what we were going to do, we started our work on building our themed campsite for Afrika Burns – The Location.

Afrika Burns is an art festival which according to the website is,

Participant created…
An experiment in temporary community building…
Radical self-expression, self reliance and non-commercialism…
Encouraging a culture of environmental mindfulness

This is the first time that Afrika Burns is taking place, so exactly what it will be, no one really knows.

Because of it’s nature however, we really felt like we should get involved. So, Batandwa came up the idea of ‘The Location.’

The location is an insight into the disadvantaged communities in South Africa, with the goal of encouraging awareness about the large divides which still exist in South Africa

We spend the day yesterday gathering resources. It started off in the morning with me and Bradley rummaging around my house looking for anything and everything we thought might contribute to building the location.

From there we headed off to Colin’s house where, headed by Bradley, we started to remove the old beams from Colin’s roof. This took a large level of planning and care as these beams are going to be used as the foundation for the main structure at our campsite. See the pictures of everyone hard at work below!

After taking down the roof beams, removing any protruding nails, and stacking them we were pretty tired. So we called it a day for the hard labour and went into discussion over exactly how ‘The Location’ will function. All in all, it was a great start to the work we’re doing.

Today, we’re off to Waheeb’s house to see the resources which he has available, and to get started on building the main parts of our structure and doing some paper mache! It should be a great one!

I’ve been teaching marimbas to high school students for about 4 years now, and it’s lead me to believe something which I feel is largely important when it comes to teaching – first impressions of a new subject set the way for how students will perceive and perform in that subject.

Students view teachers as people who are largely informed on the subjects they teach, and thus have no problem accepting what teachers say. If a teacher says something is complex, then it’s complex. If a teacher says something is easy, then it’s easy.

In marimba music and in fact any music in general,  it’s generally accepted that the ability to improvise comes with being well trained at playing an instrument. That’s how I was always taught music, and that’s how I’ve always taught music. The strategy is to keep it simple and well structured during the first few lessons, then add complexity to the music, and once the players are good, encourage improvisation. The problem is that once the players are (what is normally considered)  good enough to improvise, they view improvisation as a mystical goal, which only really good players can do, and thus most students lack the confidence to take a chance and give it a try.

I always thought this was normal until I witnessed a band who had been playing for just over a week improvising while playing, whereas some bands who have been playing for more than 2 years refuse to improvise. The reason the new band improvised was because that was what they had been exposed to. The new players had observed and learned from their peers, who were all experienced marimba players who did a large amount of improvisation.

So where does this leave us as teachers if we have the ability to influence students’ perceptions of new subject matters, and thus affect their performance in the relevant subjects. We can continue to do what is usually done at school level which is to set the level rather low, so that most people can do it and only the few with enough confidence to take a chance exceed beyond the low level. Or, we could take a chance and set the level high, making the high the new low. Will it work? Only trying it out will tell…

We’re always presented with statistics about crime and all the other negative aspects of South African society. Today I picked up some positive statistics in the newspaper which I thought I’d share

Percentage of people living in poverty:
- 1970: 57%
- 2000: 47%
- 2007: 41%

Social Grants:
- 1996: 2.4 million people received social grants amounting to R10bn
- 2007: 11.2 million people received social grants amounting to R80bn

Education:
- 1996: 542 398 university graduates
- 2007: 1 460 000 university graduates

Electricity:
- 1996: 51% of houses have electricity
- 2007: 80% of houses have electricity

Source: Cape Argus, 13 November 2007

I’ve moved my blog over to my own host with a brand new domain

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to export my old content from iblog.co.za so I just copied and pasted my posts.

I found that it doesn’t work too well to have highly technical posts and general reflective posts side by side, so I’ve separated my posts into two blogs. Non-technical posts are available here, and technical posts are available at http://tech.kylewilliams.co.za

Many thanks to iblog.co.za for hosting me up to now!

After reading this post on Apple customers taking Apple to court for their hacked iPhones no longer working after the latest update, I started thinking about just how large corporations are trying to dictate our lives.The iPhone case is the classic example. When the iPhone was released in the USA it was set only to work on mobile phone carrier AT&T, and only able to run official software. Effectively Apple was trying to dictate how and where customers could use their iPhones.

Another example is the iTunes store (apologies for the apparent Apple bashing). Music bought from the iTunes online store can only be played on compatible devices due to something called Digital Rights Management, or DRM for short. The implications are that if you buy music legally from the iTunes store you won’t be able to play it on your computer unless you’re using compatible software, or you wont be able to play the music on a non-compatible mp3 player (ie. anything which isn’t an Apple product).

I don’t know how you feel about this, but the implications of actions like this rather scare me – we’re in effect being controlled by major corporations. They’re telling us what we can and can’t do. I applaud those Apple customers who realise that they in fact have the right to decide what they can and can’t do with their iPhones, not any major corporation.

Say goodbye to iTunes music which is DRM protected and only plays on Apple devices! Amazon.com has recently opened their online MP3 store which offers DRM free MP3s. The great thing about the Amazon.com store is that Amazon.com is known to provide for niche markets, and hopefully through this process thay’ll make that music “which you just can’t get anywhere else” available.

I love paying for music wherever possible, but I don’t like cds because I always lose them or damage them, and I refuse to pay for DRM enabled MP3s for obvious reasons.

Amazon.com just might be the solution.