I remember having attended a reading by Thesiger at the British Council in Nairobi in 1994? and would certainly like to go back in time and ask this old man a few questions that I didn’t come up with 19 years ago.

Still, what I really appreciate about these explorers is their ability to share their experiences in written form. I wonder if this quality would still be possible today.

Ich war etwas beschämt, denn als meine Meinung hatte ich aufgeschrieben: “Wenn Euer Ladenpersonal so kompetent wäre wie Eure Website, wären wir als Kunden schon ein großes Stück weiter….”. Damals hatte Eure Website auch irgendwie so einen SAP-bezogenen Preis bekommen, also irgendwas mit Markenauftritt und Warenwirtschaftssystem. Im Jahr 2000 war das schon cool. Euer Ladenpersonal bestand aber meistens nur aus ahnungslosen, desinteressierten, unfreundlichen oder gestressten Mitarbeitern. Wenn ich mir so einige Kunden anschaue, wäre ich wahrscheinlich auch so drauf.

Richtig gut waren eigentlich immer nur die Leute hinter dem Tresen für die elektr. Bauteile. Die waren fast immer top und richtig beratungskompetent. Das sind Verkäufer, die einem auch mal vom Kauf abraten oder Alternativen raussuchen. Das sind die Verkäufer, die den alten Katalog in Schutzhüllen im Ordner herauskramen, weil im neuen Katalog so viel weichgespültes Zeug drin steht. Das sind die Verkäufer, bei denen ich mir denke: yo, lohnt sich.

Jetzt haben wir das Jahr 2013 und in meiner Frankfurter Filiale (aber auch in den mir bekannten Filialen in Hamburg-Altona und Bremen) muss man meistens immer eine halbe Ewigkeit anstehen, bis man von einem Verkäufer bedient wird. Das ist super ärgerlich, weil wir als Freiberufler den Tag auch nach produktiven Phasen einteilen wollen und es daher rein rechnerisch eigentlich mehr Sinn machen würde, wenn man die Kleinteile stattdessen bestellt.

Und während sich einige Dinge im Ablauf schon verbessert haben (z.B. die Regale mit den Topseller Artikeln) , so ist der manuelle Einkauf doch immer wieder sehr zeitintensiv und macht alle positiven Einkaufserlebnisse zunichte. Kurz: so geht das nicht weiter. Irgendwann ist wirklich der Punkt erreicht, an dem ich lieber online bestelle, als mir die Beine in den Bauch zu stehen, weil bei der wirklich wichtigen Abteilung nur ein Verkäufer am Start ist und bei den anderen – anscheinend margenreicheren – Abteilungen viele dieser “Ich-sach-mal-so”-Pseudoverkäufer abhängen. Seriously, ich komme mir da total dämlich vor und frage mich und Euch daher in dieser öffentlichen Form, ob das wirklich alles Absicht ist, oder nur ein unglücklicher Zustand?

an unrelated image to illustrate the state of affairs

Operating systems

Windows, OSX, Linux distros – is there any desktop operating system that will work like S40 on basic Nokia feature phones? One that doesn’t try to cover up a shitty energy management with stupid gfx effects and other gimmicks probably no one ever needs? What happened to the good-guy-computer approach from back in the days? It feels like we’ve evolved from complicated (CP/M, MS-DOS) to buggy and ponderous operating systems that really don’t add much difference to the basic functionality, but will at the same time require more resources and create more problems.

E-mail

Electronic mail has been around since the 1970s, yet in 2013, we’re still talking about formatting options and have to come up with an emailcharter to define this basic communication method. PGP? Where the f*** is PGP? Why isn’t it part of Gmail already? How come we’re measuring our workflow by the amount of unanswered e-mails in our inboxes, yet e-mail itself still is a very vague product that also currently competes with other private or public messages on social networks?

This friend of mine with this Outlook 2003 problem: we sat there for four hours, trying to figure out a sustainable solution that will automatically sync his PIM client on the desktop PC (e-mails, contacts, calendar) with the phone. Unless you pick a manual solution or one that will only work within it’s own framework (i.e. iCloud), you’re easily lost or have to invest some more money in a working solution.

Acceptance

I am using Gmail as my common denominator for all this user data, but many people also don’t want to rely on Google products (for various reasons). At the moment, the only working strategy seems to be to accept the data chaos and to live with different data on different devices where the quality of your search parameters defines the success. Maybe similar to what David Weinberger once described in his ‘Everything is Miscellaneous’ book where information isn’t sorted in a linear fashion any more. But where are we heading to with this missing data discipline?

1.  the use of sign language

The simultaneous translation into sign language is a really great step forward. Many mentioned on Twitter how much they appreciate this special service. In Germany, we are not that advanced yet. Only some selected news are being translated this way. In fact, it should be included on every important tv programme, all over the world. Sub titles are also ok.

I have indicated the translater window with an arrow – because some of you may mistake Mohammed Abduba “Mwalimu” Diba Dida’s preaching teaching style for – what? – yes, for the mentioned sign language.

Btw, I am sure there is a whole book to be written on rhetorics by African preachers, headmasters and politicians. Especially this “what?” (e.g. “..and we need this…the what? yessss, the thermometer to measure temperature.”) requires special mention in the literature universe. What’s the name of this style?

Dida, my man. Srsly. Even though Peter Kenneth mentioned water and sanitation in his introductory speech which is a big plus in my books.

2. social media sentiment tracker

The social media sentiment tracker on the website of The Daily Nation. A friend at Webmontag Frankfurt approached me while I was checking my timeline for #KEdebate13 and #debate254 hashtags and asked about the news from Kenya. Told him that there are more tweeps in Kenya than in Germany. Many people in Germany don’t know that Twitter has a totally different value in other societies around the world. Ah well, the ignorants.

As a result of that and obviously under the influence of the US media, it still (!) surprises me how much social media feedback is used as an indicator for the performance of the candidates. To my mind, this is just another development where old Europe has to take a closer look at Kenya.

Kahenya, we seriously need to rethink this Pirate Party Kenya idea. Kenyans love to be entertained!

Ich war heute Abend beim Webmontag Frankfurt, der jetzt in 2013 endlich mit einer richtigen Website daherkommt und dieses Mal ca. 250 Besucher hatte. So voll war es beim Webmontag bisher noch nie (auch nicht bei den ebenfalls empfehlenswerten Ignite Abenden, die es in 2013 gleich zwei Mal geben wird)! Das Thema des Abends war “girl power”, was so viel bedeutet wie: nur weibliche Vortragende und eine Frauenquote, deren Erwähnung bei der Piratenpartei wohl unter strafende Blicke gestellt werden würde. Die Mädels dürfen gerne öfter zum #wmfra kommen. Hach, ja.

Tschüss Webmontag! Ich bin froh dass du wieder da bist. Bis nächsten Monat! #rheinmainrocks #wmfra

— Anna Groos (@AnnaMelitta) Januar 14, 2013

Beim Webmontag unterhielt ich mich auch wieder mit meinen Bastlerkollegen vom Hackerspace Frankfurt. Der Karsten, ITler aus der Region, bastelt nämlich auch sehr gerne (und vielseitig) und gab mir einen sehr guten Tipp, den ich zu Hause sogleich umgesetzt habe und der dann auch der Auslöser für diesen Blogpost hier war. Aber der Reihe nach:

Schlüsselanhängertaugliche USB-Sticks

Wir haben das Jahr 2013, unsere Daten liegen in der Cloud, speicherintensive Medien werden eher gestreamt als lokal gebunkert und so eine richtige Verschlüsselungssoftware für USB-Datenspeicher (“USB Stick”) – die auch ohne Adminstatus läuft – gibt es wohl noch immer nicht (SecurStick & TrueCrypt).

Kurz: den Zenit hat der USB Stick wohl schon überschritten, und so scheinen die meisten Sticks als Speicher für das Autoradio oder als Aufnahmemedium für PVR-taugliche Fernseher Verwendung zu finden. So klassisch am Schlüsselbund dagegen, den Datenstick immer dabei, als Sardu-Rettungsstick wie bei mir – dieses Szenario gibt es irgendwie gar nicht mehr so oft. Oder aber die Hersteller/Anbieter von USB Sticks produzieren seit einigen Jahren am Markt vorbei.

Mir fehlt nämlich die Schlüsselanhänger-Tauglichkeit moderner USB-Sticks. Mein Schlüsselbund steckt in der rechten Hosentasche, ist immer dabei und dementsprechend einer mechanischen Belastung ausgesetzt. Die meisten USB-Sticks am Markt haben oft nur eine kleine Öse aus Kunststoff, durch die man einen kleinen Faden ziehen kann, um dieses Gebamsel dann weiter zu befestigen. Der Faden besteht zwar erfahrungsgemäß aus einer Nylonseele, ist aber sonst auch eher von kurzer Lebensdauer. Und ich habe mittlerweile diverse Modelle getestet – vor allem diverse Kartenleser für das microSD Kartenformat, das mich anfangs noch sehr begeistert hatte:

Das Problem: die meisten microSD-Karten sind anfällig oder relativ langsam. Und leider scheinen die microSD-Karten bei Smartphones und tablets wieder zu verschwinden. Letztens schrieb ich ja schon (auf Englisch) über microSD-Karten, und wieso sie aus meiner Sicht aufgewertet werden sollten. MicroSD-Karten müssten eigentlich eine goldene Zukunft haben, wurden aber wohl seinerzeit nur deswegen in den Telefonen angeboten, weil interner Flash-Speicher kostenintensiv war und das Problem der Speicherlösung daher an den Nutzer ausgelagert werden konnte. Von den oben verlinkten microSD-Kartenlesern aus China ist eigentlich nur der Kingston SD-Kartenleser gut (Nr. 7). Die Qualität bzw. Leistung der Karten steht und fällt wohl auch sehr mit den verbauten Controllerchips. In zwei Jahren habe ich zwei 16 GB microSD-Karten entsorgen müssen, die nach relativ kurzer Benutzung schon defekt waren. Von thermischen Problemen im Betrieb ganz zu schweigen.

Heißt: weg von den kleinen microSD-Karten und ihren Lesegeräten, hin zu normalen USB-Sticks in traditioneller Bauform. Aber mit guten Geschwindigkeiten und möglichst sinnvoller Bauweise (d.h. keine zu großen Gehäuse, die bei zu eng platzierten USB-Steckplätzen blockieren). Und eben mit einer stabilen Öse für den Schlüsselring. Die meisten der von mir getesteten Sticks haben leider genau dort ihren Schwachpunkt.

Bastlerkollege Jan hält seinen USB-Stick daher vom Schlüsselbund getrennt. Das wäre dann wohl Plan A. Aber was wäre das Leben ohne Bastelzwang?

Plan B: den vom Gehäuse befreiten, nackten Stick mit der wunderbaren Knetmasse Sugru verkneten. Am oberen Ende noch einen Schlüsselring einarbeiten und fertig ist der wohl stabilste USB-Stick seit der Vermarktung dieser gummierten Corsair Flash Voyager Sticks (zwei ganz wunderbare Seiten zu aktuellen USB-Sticks, inklusive real getesteter Geschwindigkeiten fand ich übrigens bei stick-test.de und usbstick-charts.de). Wenn man beim Formen des Sugrus aufpasst und Silikon-Handschuhe trägt, kann man das Ergebnis dann auch noch mit Seifenlauge abwischen, so dass keine Fingerabdrücke hinterlassen werden. Nächstes Mal, nich? 

Sugru ist diese Knetmasse, die Silikonartig abtrocknet und an feinen Salzteig oder Fimo erinnert. Sugru gibt es seit mittlerweile 2-3 Jahren, seit Dezember 2012 wohl auch offiziell in Deutschland zu kaufen (aber: teuer – 8 Beutelchen ca. 15 EUR, ohne Versandkosten). Ich beziehe meinen Vorrat derzeit noch via eBay aus den USA oder UK. Sugru ist einfach nur genial. Alleine schon aufgrund des Spaßfaktors lohnen sich Basteleien mit Sugru. Das Marketing für Sugru läuft auch primär über solche Communities, d.h., die Bastelideen können auf der Sugru Website mit anderen geteilt werden. Toll!

Plan C: der super Tipp vom @byteborg – einfach einen Schrumpfschlauch drüber ziehen, heiß machen, am oberen Ende etwas überstehen lassen und dann bei Bedarf noch eine Niete als Verstärkung für den Schlüsselring durchziehen. Kaum nach Hause gekommen, habe ich das natürlich umgehend an einem 8GB Stick getestet, und siehe da: funktioniert bestens! Sogar die Metallöse kann man sich sparen, so stabil ist das doppel-lagige, heiß-verklebte Gummi an der Stelle.

Natürlich sind beide Lösungen ohne Schutzkappe, aber irgendwo muss man wohl Abstriche machen. Und der einzige ernst zu nehmende Favorit beim Thema Schlüsseltauglichkeit – der Kingston DTSE9H – ist leider noch nicht in einer USB 3.0 Variante erhältlich und als USB 2.0 Version nicht der Schnellste. Meine Sticks schreiben aber alle nur mit ca. 4 MB/s, so dass jeder schnellere Stick ein Upgrade bedeuten würde. In Zeiten von erschwinglichen USB 3.0 Sticks (die auch schneller an USB 2.0 Ports arbeiten) muss man sich aber ernsthaft die Frage stellen, ob noch weiterhin in USB 2.0 Lösungen investiert werden sollte.

Der Nachteil: die praktischen Adressaufkleber halten nicht auf Gummi und Silikon. Außerdem sind die selbstgebastelten Speicherstickgehäuse eher häßlich. Aber es ging ja auch primär um die Machbarkeit.

Fazit: it works, it’s cheap, it wins! Wenn es unbedingt ein Schlüsselbund-tauglicher USB 3.0 Stick sein muss, kann man also auch getrost die Bauformen vernachlässigen und sich bei entsprechendem Bedarf eigene Anhänger zurechtbasteln. Schöner wären natürlich noch mehr Speichersticks am Markt, die wie der Kingston DTSE9H eine große Ösen hätten, so dass sich diese ganze Herumbastelei erübrigen würde. Ein gedrucktes 3D-Gehäuse erscheint mir nicht so sinnvoll, müsste man aber auch mal ausprobieren (evtl. nicht elastisch genug?).

Die Speichersticks in Schlüsselform halte ich übrigens für eine nette Spielerei, da sie leistungstechnisch eher auf dem Niveau von microSD-Karten liegen und intern auch nicht anders aufgebaut sind. Die Kingston-Alternative von Extrememory – der USB Xtasy 32GB – ist mit 6 MB/s leider auch kein solcher Burner.

USB Sticks gibt es jetzt seit ca. 10 Jahren und auch wenn die Geschwindigkeit zugenommen hat, so hat sich doch außer den microSD-Karten und den damit verbundenen Möglichkeiten als Werbegeschenke nicht viel getan. Die meisten USB Sticks sehen in 2013 leider auch immer noch so aus, als wenn sie ohne Rücksicht auf den Benutzer hergestellt wurden. Selbst der aktuelle Testsieger Sandisk Cruzer Extreme mit seiner USB 3.0-bedingten Bauart ist eher ein häßlicher Bolzen als eine mobile Speicherhilfe, die man gerne herum trägt. Schade eigentlich – Design-technisch ist bei den meisten USB-Sticks noch sehr viel Luft nach oben. Bleibt also zu hoffen, dass die Hersteller diesen Bedarf irgendwann noch erkennen und – so wie beim Kingston DTSE9H – entsprechend fördern.

Wo wir gerade beim Thema sind: die Cloud wird leider nie solche Möglichkeiten zur Individualisierung anbieten, wie ich es dieser Tage bei einem älteren 2.5″ SATAII-USB-Gehäuse umgesetzt habe. Muss man jetzt nicht unbedingt mögen, ist aber super hilfreich, wenn die restlichen 2.5″ Backup HDDs alle gleich aussehen:
(der Brokat-Stoff ist von eBay und kommt aus Vietnam, ca. 7 EUR, 40+ Tage Lieferzeit)

Edit: mein Sugru Hack hat es jetzt sogar auf die Sugru Website geschafft, aber die ganze Konstruktion war mir noch zu wulstig und auch der Ring irgendwie zu instabil. Einmal den Ring um 45° gedreht und aus der Traum vom Sugru Stick. Aber Sugru ist trotzdem brauchbar, denn es ist ein ganz exzellentes Füllmaterial für die Lücken auf der Platine. Bündig mit nem Teppichmesser abgeschnitten und auch diesen Stick in einen Schrumpfschlauch gesteckt, sieht es schon viel brauchbarer aus. Als Kappe dient ein Stück vom Schrumpfschlauch, was leider gar nicht so einfach herzustellen ist (klebt wie bolle) und deswegen etwas verzogen ausschaut:

Yes – that’s a heat shrink tube which covers my ex-sugrufied usb flash drive. Sugru is an excellent filler for the pcb, but it couldn’t really hold the ring as tight as I wanted it to be. A piece of the tube is used as a cap. This way, the stick is almost waterproof and also much lighter in the pocket. But the most important part is that it comes with a durable keyring.

VW Beetle 1300, Siku 1022 (stripped colour)

There’s a German manufacturer of these toys by the name of SIKU who used to make brilliant toy cars in the 1960s and 1970s at the 1:50 to 1:55 scale (among others). I guess that almost every kid in Germany used to play with these cars during this period. What makes these Siku cars different from the competition is that they come with richer details and also doors that would open – something you would also find with Matchbox (UK), Majorette (FR) or Corgi (UK) toy cars, but not to that extent. Other reasons for the success of Siku cars may be that they were the predominant manufacturer on the German market back then, or that Siku cars were often given to children on longer Lufthansa flights. Ah well, the good old times when luxury was still an act of generosity. 

Siku cars have meanwhile become collector items. There’s a publication – a thick book – that lists every single car (ever produced, until 2006) and provides an estimate on the collector’s value of these cars. The good part is that I stopped collecting stuff some years ago and as such I am glad not to spend more money or other resources on such a hobby. If there is anything I would collect, though, it would probably be these cars. And going by my smaller collection alone, I think I already am some sort of collector albeit the denial (I still have a box full of Siku cars at my mum’s place and used to be much more into this 10 years ago). So owning vs. using something – even music: I don’t want to physically own it on CD, but instead just want to listen to it. Owning stuff is a responsibility, so the process of collecting things as a hobby should not be exaggerated or limited to books only (which are hard to sell anyways).

Tool time!

Quality screwdrivers -the black ones with the green grip (by Wera) are the best, imo.

I’ve only recently come to appreciate buying better tools. Enough of all those cheap Chinese tools – mainly screwdrivers - back to quality products that are also made out of better materials (I used to work for a French oil company some years ago and I know how we used to sell them lower quality grades of Polyethylene & Polypropylene). There IS a difference between products that were made for profit only, and those that would be made to last a few years. And yes, quality has its price, but it takes a few failed projects or torn screws to realize that life is too short for bad tools. Tool time, b*tch!

Proxxon Micromot 50/E – a true gadgetimoja

This Proxxon Micromot 50/E, for instance. I used to have a cheap, really cheap mini drill that would only rotate at maximum speed and was of such a low quality that it would a) be very loud and b) unbalanced that you could also only hold it tight in your hands for a few seconds only. So I invested some money into this Proxxon gadget and boy, the moment I turned the Proxxon one, my life changed. Seriously. This mini drill is just pure gold. I ran it for three hours straight, working on this and that, just because it works so well. If you are still undecided on what to get for Xmas, this is it. Also, I prefer it to Dremel drills. Good tools are a very sexy luxury that I really appreciate.

Coming back to Siku cars, there’s this one range of cars produced during 1963 and 1974, the V-Series. It includes 146 different cars and trucks – check out this wonderful site on all cars from the V-series. The V-series is what I like, they are the older cars when the world was still very Mad-Men-esque. It also was the time when Siku produced the Siku V253 – a Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullmann:

Siku V253 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullmann (the rim covers are removable – how sweet is that?!)

It’s not my first limousine – long time readers may remember this blog post ex April 2006, where I talked about a Matchbox limo that I took to Rocky driving school. Crazy stuff. And very impractical for kids. But great as a collector’s item (there are photos of this on a closed forum where someone collected these Siku V253 ONLY and had about 100 pieces of them – all sold for 550 EUR in one go to another collector).

Now, collectors probably don’t alter anything and would also only sell it once they have a better version of a model. Preferably also with the original packaging. The other day on eBay – just a week ago – I saw such a paper box (empty paperbox container!) for sale at above 70 EUR. With 20+ bids on it. So if you still own the original boxes, better keep them. What a crazy world. This is also why I stopped collecting stuff. But collectors are a crazy bunch anyways, where the light at the end of the tunnel probably just represents another flea market or cheap offer somewhere online. Yes, I keep on bitchin’ on collectors because I should probably spend my free time learning Python or Ruby or something. And would I still be able to do such things with kids around (Dave? Steve?)?

But I digress. The initial motivation for this blog post was a hack I came up with today after realizing a need for a turntable-alike platform. Something that would enable me to paint my toy cars without touching them. So I quickly remembered the HDD step motors that have been idling here since some time ago. Add a stupid CD and you are ready to rock ‘n’ roll:

A Siku V267 Oldsmobile Toronado that is waiting for its final colour and just moments before I also spray painted the other side.

The CD-platform – it’s cheap, it works, it wins!

As a final note, and I may have mentioned it before: these tweezers are the best tools I’ve ever bought. They are cheap (from China, btw!) and just do the job. Whether I am fixing parts on a smartphone, scratching paint from a toy car or glueing something back in place – the tweezers just work extremely well.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I do when I am not trying to save the world.

Have a blessed festive season!

Update – the finished result:

Dave keeps on pushing me back to my blog(s) for a good reason, because my blogging mojo is still around and has maybe only been diverted to other microblogging sites like FB, G+, Twitter & Co.. Avid readers may even remember The Nonist’s “What everyone should know about blog depression” publication (PDF). I like to refer to this publication once in a while because blogging is an up and down affair. And with today’s competition from the microblogging side as well as the decreased attention span of many readers (I, for one, often save interesting stuff via Pocket because of tl;dr), it seriously needs to be asked if your readers still want to go through longer texts. Maybe not. Maybe if you are publishing interesting stuff. Maybe only if you are one of those SEO maniacs who construct their (equally boring) content around SEO structures.

So are (traditional) blogs dead? I don’t think so. They are needed more than ever, and will be especially successful when they provide (hyper)local content. Local content imo also is the kind of content that will save all newspapers from a complete downfall. Local content, curated as an app for your preferred mobile device. Would this work? I think so.

I have some German friends who complain to me about me blogging in English instead of German. I will need to find a solution to this one day. Could this blog also work in bilingual mode, as advertised on the sidebar and the way I keep it on Twitter since 2007? I know the language issue alone is a sin and that most readers actually prefer themed blogs. The diversity probably is a tribute to the way I work.

Talking about work: I have been busy lately, focussing on an important project, but of course also killed some time with the moving of my micro-/tumble blog from Posterous to a sub-domain on this site:

 http://jke.kikuyumoja.com

For the lack of an appropriate title, I just called it “jke’s” and imported all previous content from jke.posterous.com to jke.kikuyumoja.com (as explained here). It’s an attempt to keep control over my own content and because Posterous has been acting up since Twitter’s acquisition of Posterous in early 2012. The mail-to-blog publishing is done via Jetpack, even though Jetpack still has some bugs as it currently resizes all images to maximum width. Autoposts to Twitter are done via the wonderful IFTTT. And since I am also publishing all my Instagrams on my jke.kikuyumoja.com microblogging site, they also end up on Twitter. Eat this, Twitter! :-D

And then there’s the recently relaunched AfriGadget site which received a new and responsive, mobile-first theme (which is based on the same Waipoua theme as this blog, by the fabulous Elmastudio):

So even though not much happened on this blog, a lot has been going on in the background. Blogs are still very much 2012 and will also prevail in 2013. They are user-generated content that will be linked to from social networks. I would also like to publish more interesting content in 2013 and maybe also some of that in German, if you don’t mind.

Oh, and for those of you still waiting for something glorious to happen on December 12th, 2012 (12/12/12), here’s a special message from my friend SpongeBob:

Cheers!

Nokia Maps

Google Maps

OpenStreet Map

Apple Maps with iOS6

Maps are important. You may have a choice of what is to run in a native map app or within the browser, but many apps actually make use of the map system. So chances are that your favourite app will also be forced to use Apple maps.

I also just couldn’t update all apps at once on my iPad2 16GB – because there’s ONLY 2.6GB left. With GarageBand taking up 1.1GB alone, iOS6 refused to update. Now, after manually updating GarageBand, it’s reduced from 1.1 GB to 734 MB. I hope that Apple removed Retina graphics for those devices that don’t come with Retina displays (like my iPad2). In any case, many Apple apps are horrible memory hogs – and it seems that no one really cares about it, which imo is the worst part.

Atm, I don’t really see a benefit in updating iOS 5.1.1 to iOS6 on the iPhone4 (not4S) except for some minor improvements. I may change my mind on this, but would only do it if it really improves performance of the phone. And you?

* Mchimba kisima hungia mwenyewe = He who digs a pit will fall into it himself.

AOB: the first iFixit teardown

iPhone 5 teardown, via iFixit.com

The first iFixit teardown of the iPhone5 comes with a least two good messages: a) the iPhone5 is opened front-to-back and b) the home button appears to be easily replacable. That’s extremely good news, imo. Not so nice is the excessive amount of glue underneath the lightning connector cable – which also tells me that it may be prone to damage. Huh, “Scuff Gate“? Apple fanboyz and their luxury problems.

ALL user data = everything I enter into the phone. The address book, multimedia files, user defined settings.

microSD-card next to 1€ coin

Buy an iPhone, install everything, have it drop to the floor or into the toilet, resulting in a water damage and the phone won’t be recognized by iTunes – well, even your most recent backup on the cloud will only be as good as when you last made a backup. No microSD cards on iPhones.

Most (not all) Android phones come with microSD cards. Plug it in, roll out your backup via the internal backup routine, via Titanium or Google, and you’re done. It’s not 100% the way I want it, but it’s getting much closer than what you have on an iPhone.

Sure, there’s the cloud, some will argue. But a lot of users out there still are on a slow internet connection (if any) and many also don’t want to have their data saved in the cloud.

“Without a microSD card”, I was once told, “there’s less to worry about. And from a business perspective, it’s also more secure”. Well, is this a valid argument?

There’s an older essay on microSD cards in phones by (mobile phone expert and analyst) Eldar Murtazin, where he argues that microSD cards aren’t the better option – but I couldn’t disagree more. Of course, as an analyst he also looks at why phone manufacturers have used memory cards on phones instead of internal memory and the cheaper price may be a reason for their introduction on phones some years ago. He also looks at figures from the actual use and says that many don’t actually use the microSD card or what it is capable of.

Well, for a reason, I’d say. It’s because the current setup where I can only use it for storing multimedia files and apps is really insufficient. My ideal phone is a dumb phone with strong CPU power, some connectivity extras and a smart OS – and where ALL user data is stored on a microSD card on different levels (i.e.):

• Level 1: apps
• Level 2: app settings, address book, desktop settings, bookmarks
• Level 3: static multimedia files (e.g. photos, videos, audio files, documents, etc.)
• Level 4: swap / cache memory

The phone is dead? Just pull out the microSD card, plug it into a new phone and you are ready to go. So, obviously, there would need to be a standard on this to provide an interaction between different phones that come with the same OS (the requirements already sound a lot like the Titanium backup suite on Android). And the beautiful part about this setup would be that all stored user data is up to date – and not as of three days ago when the phone did a backup of some static data to the cloud.

How many of you have actually lost some important numbers with broken phones? How many have only recently realized that the numbers stored on a mobile device are also backed up online? How many are using SyncML services like Everdroid?

Phones die or “walk away”. Hardware can be bought, software in terms of your own user data can’t and is the most precious asset of the 21st century in IT. So how come there are microSD cards on phones that are only used in a very restricted way?

(I also love my iPhone, but the current version of iCloud is some crippled piece of shit, just like iTunes).

There’s certainly much more to a society than one picture could ever express, but this one here – a snapshop of a shoe shop in Hamburg – already says a lot to me and it is also somehow typical of the business-to-customers relationship in Germany.

Most shops close at 8pm, and this snapshot was taken a few minutes before 8pm. Sales people are tired, they want to go home – there a lot of valid reasons for closing in time. Others, however, do not really understand this business attitude. “Why do your shops close at 8pm?”, the Chinese Taiwanese intern asked me the other day. “Because of a strong labour union”, I replied. - “You know, shops in Taiwan are open for 24h”.

Now, the interesting part is that they indicate their punctual closure by narrowing the entrance to a tight channel where customers can get out, but won’t get in that easily. It’s a typical sign of non-verbal communication.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is what Germany is all about: living in a society which is based on perfectionism and abstract levels of communication where such non-verbal procedures are accepted as the norm – instead of e.g. giving in and closing the shop only when the last customer has left the building.

It’s their sign of saying “Dear customers, please get out. Now!”. It’s a closed door that tells me how people apparently prefer to communicate – with rules and guidelines that every observant visitor will need to notice. It’s a non-verbal sign instead of a rude sales person who will ask you in a non-friendly tone to leave the shop asap. Which leaves me with the question: is this – the half-closed door – an improvement to the unfriendly sales staff we were used to?

(there are so many examples for non-verbal communication in Germany where I often think: “Ha! I understand this, but what about everyone else? And are these non-verbal methods really reliable enough in getting the point across, especially when you are dealing with foreigners who are used to verbal communication? Or who don’t know what you and the rest of society expect from an unknowing individual, who doesn’t notice these signals?”)