Wednesday, November 21, 2012

#Gaza, We Will Never Abandon You

The 8-day Israeli "Pillar of Defense" offensive has officially ended this evening (21 November 2012) at 19:00 GMT. There's been many an article written during the past week analyzing, and dissecting this Netanyahu election-war. The end result - 161 Palestinians dead, and 5 Israelis. A very high percentage of the Palestinian victims, were children, mothers, and elderly.

Thanks to social media, and Twitter in particular, the world could counter Israel's hasbara machine with our own version of crowdsourced PR, rallying together, to expose the horrible images, sounds, and footage of the carnage taking place in Gaza. I wished to capture some of those tweets, images here, as a reminder to myself and the readers of what took place - and to ensure we never let crimes like this be swept under the carpet any longer. I cried when seeing some of these images. Heart-breaking. This is the least I could do, to honour those that sacrificed with their blood, and lives. Long live Palestine!




































































And that's the result of 8 days of mayhem and madness. When is this going to end - only Almighty knows. We really need to sit down as humanity and think hard about where we are headed to. #PrayForGaza #PrayForHumanity.
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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Please Leave My Presidents Spear Alone

Is it just me, or are we South African's just suckers for some violent hate-filled controversy?  It really does seem that every few months we run bang into another huuuuuge issue, that totally consumes the airwaves, cyberwaves, blogospheres, and just about every facet of our lives.
Let's rewind a bit here ... Zapiro's cartoon, The Dalai Lama saga, impulsive racist rants by a model to name a few. Now this. The world famous Spear. What makes it worse is that people are given access to airwaves and suddenly they have all the answers to the countries problems. You hear it all the time... "if Zuma ran this country properly or led a decent life, nobody would draw him with his genitals on show for all and sundry". I even heard one half-wit lady on radio say that "we just don't get the broader message of the spear. Zuma is the head of the country, and we as a country are bleeding from rape, violence - so that's what its all about". Luckily I was driving, else I'd probably try to wring her neck through the radio.
I'm not even going to bother mentioning some of the other educated theories. My point is this, dear White friends.
You guys had charge of this country for 46 years. Mighty good job you made of it. Heck, now we scream of censorship and freedom of expression, what were South African's offered under your governance? Sjamboks and cussing that's what.
So please get off your high pedestals. Governing the country is not a social media popularity contest. There are people out there that twitter means bugerall for. All they are concerned about, is eeking out enough so that they can get that next 25kg bag of mielie meal. And guess what. There's not a chance in hell they're going to vote our twitter queen, Zille into power. Not in this lifetime at least. I'm sorry. You had your chance, you blew it. Now let the people of the land have their chance.

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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Windows 8 - It's all about the Metro


The now famous Metro home screen

Not long after I booted my laptop into the newly upgraded Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I tweeted : " Not impressed - too haphazard ..."  Well, this was like no other windows you had ever seen before, so I deserve to be forgiven if I may have over-reacted just a wee bit. I mean, this was as much out of your comfort zone as it gets. There was no familiar "X" to close off your application, no taskbar to switch between open apps, and the mystery of the missing "Start" button. So yah, I didn't feel so bad the next day when I actually started enjoying this Metro thing.

One get's the feeling Microsoft auditioned for the development team of Windows 8 at the local gaming hangouts. Gone are the drib drab grey windows, familiar menus, controls - and in comes funky coloured tiles that come to life, bold pastel coloured flat action buttons, and a host of touch optimized swipe functions.  But if you prefer your old fashioned desktop with your standard Windows apps - not to worry, as you can switch between the Metro Interface, and traditional Windows Explorer environment. I have a feeling many of the old school will be spending much of their time here. But if you are the adventurous type, the best way is to just dive into Metro and navigate your way around this new colourful world.


The beautiful Metro Internet Explorer


Here are some quirky issues I stumbled upon in my 2 days so far …

 My 1st boot into Windows 8, was somewhat late in the afternoon, I had a quick look around the new Metro UI, and then I needed to shut this thing down as it was time to go home. Hmmm - No shutdown option anywhere. I tried the usual Alt+F4. No joy here. Windows button. Nope. I'm not ashamed to admit, I turned to Google on more than one occasion for answers. Turns out - if you hover your mouse over  the bottom right of the screen, you get what's referred to as "Charms" appearing, Here you go to settings, and Voila - a Power icon. There are other easier ways to get this done, like "Windows key"+ I - or just CTRL+ALT+DEL - the three finger bogey.


Hitting your "Windows" Key by itself - will switch you between Metro, and Old Explorer interface.

 Killing open applications, has not been given much importance in Windows 8. Very similar to the iPad. You open an app and when you done, hit the Windows Key to take you back to the main Metro screen where you can open your next app. Windows 8 apparently suspends any app not in focus, and uses up its resources as needed, so there's no need to actually close it. But if you really want to satisfy yourself - hitting  ALT+TAB will toggle between apps. If there's an app that's not pinned to a tile on the Home screen, just start typing the 1st few letters of the app name, and this will activate a search feature which will give you access to the rest of your apps.


You can still run your old Windows apps, together with Metro Apps
There are various cool Metro Apps bundled, like the Video App, and Photos App, but my pick so far has to be the Metro Internet Explorer. This is what browsing should be. No added toolbars, links to half of the known sites on the web, or wasted screen real estate. Just you and the browser. You type your address and off you go. Everything else fades in the background. Of course the Metro IE is optimized for touch, but it works just as well with a traditional mouse & keyboard. It took me a while to figure out how to open new tabs in the Metro IE ( right click does the trick ). It works fast, efficient and looks beautiful. Below is a link to the Metro IE blog, showcasing some of its features. 
Metro IE Development blog - some really nice info here.
All things considered, I think I will eventually like this new Windows. It's fast, and Metro will be wonderful on a touch interface. It's definitely a move away from the old bulky, slow windows applications, and as more developers take to creating Metro applications, the eco-system will take off. Of course Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do with Apple still the undisputed King of touch, but I like that Microsoft has taken a bold fresh approach to the new Touch form factor, and not just ripped off Apple ( Like Android has). It will certainly be very interesting to see how the new Windows takes off, and with Nokia making waves with their new Windows phones, the future is looking a bit brighter for Microsoft.  If you'll excuse me now, I have some playing to get back to.


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Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Guantanamo Tragedy






The above video is a shortened version of a documentary aired on Al-Jazeera, based on CCTV footage captured while interrogators quizzed Canadian Guantanamo child inmate Omar Khadr. Omar was just 15 when captured in Afghanistan by US troops, before being shipped off to the infamous post-911 Guantanamo Bay prison. 


Much has already been written on Guantanamo Bay, and the stain it continues to leave on the USA's human rights record - but something about this short film, struck me. I guess the innocent pleas of Omar, the utter despondency in his voice, once he realises that his fellow Canadian secret agents were not the original saviors he thought them to be. I tried to put myself in his shoes and imagine what it must have been like being tortured by US agents the likes of Joshua Claus, who was later convicted of torturing an Afghan Taxi driver to death. And then I remembered our Dear sister, Aafia Siddiquie, still incarcerated in a US prison for a crime that not even the sentencing judge was sure she had committed. It struck me that these two unfortunate people's only crime, was being on the wrong end of an angry post-911 USA. A USA that was hell bent on wreaking revenge for the September 11 attacks, at any cost whatsoever. 


This was the country that popularized the "Bill of Rights". This was the country that advertised itself as the "Land of the Free". And has spawned many success stories of people achieving the "American Dream". 


But something has gone awry somewhere along the way. Even before 9-11, USA was already involved in numerous wars across the globe. And now we have this blemish called Guantanamo Bay. I'm sure many people see it as a necessary evil to combat the "terrorists". But what about when the line between terrorist and the average kid on the block gets so out of focus, like it has with Omar, that all sensibility and compassion goes out the window. Where are we headed to as humanity, when we see no wrong in locking up a 15 year old kid, in a dark solitary confinement cell, for months on end? Where are we as people of the world, when a female detainee, is not safe from being stripped naked, repeatedly raped by her captives, made to stand on their holy scripture, as in Dr Aafia Siddiquie's case? 


Is this the kind of legacy every American wants to leave behind? Is this what you want to be remembered for? I don't imagine anyone with half a brain would. Let's hope we all get to see a better world... soon. It's up to each one of us, in our own little way, to make a difference. Maybe by just writing a blog, or sending a message of peace and love, or just helping the little homeless child on the street. But it's up to us, to try and get back our humanity, so that we can close this chapter of history, like any good novel would, with a happy ending.
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