The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Hopefully, you know this already, but Google is doing stuff in Ghana. Last year, they organized their first conference there called G-Ghana . If you missed it, not to worry, I blogged about it. Click here . I wasn't even there, but with Twitter and hashtags like #gghana , who said I needed to be? 2011's G-Ghana is coming up soon. Before I give you details, let me give you a few reasons why you should attend it. At least you know that there is www.google.com.gh . Yeap, Google's Ghana version. Tired of Ghanaweb? Try out http://news.google.com.gh . Google's Ghana homepage also offers search in Twi , Ewe , Ga and Hausa . And on March 6th, it celebrated Ghana's 54th by adorning the google.com doodle in Kente Looking for directions from Auntie Muni Waakye in Labone to Katawodieso in Osu because the former run out of waakye ? Map it in Google . I be fienipa like that, I dey love nududu . For those in Ghana who use GMAIL , you can use it to text messages to local phone ...

I received some invites from a couple of people to test out Google's Baraza earlier. Just recently, Google Baraza was launched in different places in Africa. Baraza, which means ‘taskforce’ or ‘council’ in Swahili, is a newly launched question and answer service that will also be integrated into search results on Google Search. From the earlier notice One of Google’s goals in Africa is to make the internet more locally relevant and bring more people online. One of the challenges of the internet in Africa is that there is a lack of local content online. At Google, we find that users search for information about local businesses, entertainment, health, etc but often don’t find it because the information is not yet available online. In order to help bring more local content online, Google engineers have created Baraza to allow people in countries across Africa to ask questions and post answers to questions from others. If you have any questions about Africa, go and ask it through Bara...

My favorite African re-engineer/inventor/ingenious maker/technologist Apostle Kwadwo Safo has a website. Kantanka DOT COM ! Check it out today. Sorry, I was too excited that I wouldn't even bother telling you more. Everything is on the website anyway. This information is too much for a tweet so we blogged it. Yes, me, myself and I. Well, maybe' we'll update this post later. Thanks to Esi Ansah, Barcamp Accra for the link. She is planning to go visit Apostle's site with her Ashesi students. #VIM!

I love food. Literally. The other time I was having a discussion with some friends and I concluded I love food more than sleep. Yes. I love cooking too. I can't cook many different types of dishes but I love the idea of eating food I have prepared myself. I feel cooking is soothing and quite the fun activity. Especially, when I am alone and I can sing along to loud African music in addition. Hey, maybe we should make a cooking playlist too. I think I should learn to cook a few new dishes, or maybe not so new. Some African dishes. Like all those listed on nuɖuɖu! Nududu is the Ewe word for food (Ewe is a popular language in Ghana and Togo). Nududu.com aka food.fienipa.com is a website for African food recipes and places to eat. It's an African food lover's dream and paradise. The website is the brainchild of Esi Cleland and it's being worked on by the lovely people at Fienipa.com . (abinci - eduane - riziki - food - nourriture : Eat well) Their little blurb prov...

I've had quite the South African day. I wore a South African t-shirt, I skyped with my Ghanaian friend who lives in South Africa, watched Tsotsi again, blogged about South Africa, reached out to Terry Pheto, sang South African songs in the shower and have listened to South African music all day. (Sure, I didn't eat pap, shout a Vuvuzela and tell a friend about Tshabalala, but still) . The best way to round it up is to tell you something about my favorite South African website. Sagoodnews.co.za . They "highlight South Africa's progress and positive developments and concentrate on solutions not problems." That's my kind of site. Hey, they even have africagoodnews.com too . AfricaGoodNews is sponsored by MTN (hehe) and SaGoodNews by FNB. They're proudly South African. They've started a legacy campaign and I want to help spread the word about that. It wasn't one week after the end of the World Cup that media headlines turned our attention to the loom...

(Photo - Kobby & Justin at BarCamp Ghana 08 ) Today was the birthday of a very good friend of mine, Nana Kwabena Owusu. I had been meaning to do a post on him and his work on 233Tech, and this seems like an opportune time to do it. Kobby, as we know him, works on 233Tech with Justin Dakorah, another good friend of mine and we all grew up in the same KNUST campus neighbourhood. 233tech is primed to become the premier Ghanaian technology oriented content website for news, feature articles and blogs. Recently, I was having a discussion with a friend who was battling getting Tech news related and relevant for Ghana, and when I decided to check out the work of Kobby and Justin at 233Tech, I was pleasantly surprised. The twosome set out to build a technology company. Their main desire was to prove web solutions tech start ups can suceed in Ghana. Suceed here is defined not as barely surviving but flourishing. There are many web startups in Ghana but not many of them have flourished and...

Got an email from a friend recently which prompted me to look at the top rated sites on Alexa.com for Ghana. There were a few interesting discoveries so wanted to share. Top sites 1-10 1. Facebook.com : Pretty easy to decipher. Facebook has seen phenomenal growth over the last few years, making hi5 extinct and leaving myspace in its wake. Hey, they have Facebook parites in Ghana now. Facebook was probably the number one for advertising and marketing BarCamp Ghana last year. 2. Yahoo.com : People still use Yahoo regularly? For what? Email? I stopped using yahoo in 2006. I check my yahoo address once every 3 weeks. I probably use the Flickr service more than Yahoo Mail. Did I hear YahooMail has unlimited storage? 3. Google.com.gh : Maybe the only reason Google.com isn't top in Ghana is the fact that it shares 'time' with Google.com.gh. The Ghana google site has only been around maybe 4 years but it's sweet to have a country-specific google site for GH. Does Yahoo or MSN ...

I have blogged about Kasahorow & Fienipa creating a home for African languages on the web and the former's project for translating between some African languages and English . Through a recent Gmail conversation that I was privy too, I discovered a few great things my friend at Kasahorow have been up to. A few apps here and there are in the works and I'll broadcast them once they're 'ready for primetime', in the words of Paa Kwesi Imbeah. One recent feature I found very exciting was the opportunity to use my favorite web browser, Mozilla Firefox, in Twi. Yes, the file menus, download windows, everything. In Akan Twi! Isn't that just awesome? I am using it right now and you can too, just read on. * Download and install language pack for Firefox 3.5 or 3.6 * Navigate to about:config from your address bar and promise to be good. :-D Look for the variable called general.useragent.locale. Change the en-US value to ak-GH * Restart Firefox and ...

Content in African languages is very dear to my heart. I love seeing websites in African languages. Tanzania is the leader in this category, there are many major Bongo websites that are in Kiswahili. These include blogs, news sites and entertainment sites too. My friends at Kasahorow.com have been a leader in enabling African languages on the web. They have been designing various greeting cards in African languages. You can send graduation cards to congratulate your graduating friends , as well as birthday and those for other milestones. Send one today by going to greetings.fienipa.com . Fienipa.com is a Cooperative provides technology services for its member businesses to run some of their operations on the Internet. Other than greetings, it has lyrics to African songs, African language dictionaries , information about African food and restaurants amongst others. Julius Nyerere championed the use of Swahili as a national and official language and it has worked in uniting the country...

I don't remember when exactly I got my first computer game. I was young and it was a Nintendo. It was the thing to have as a young boy. After school (from about class 4/4th grade till about the end of JSS/middle school), setting up shop in front of the TV playing Mario, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat was the 'joie de vivre'. The funniest part was how we'll simulate jumping if the game character was jumping; kicking, screaming, punching, you name it. Around the same time, when most of us youngsters were looking out for the thrills of puberty,focusing on passing exams, getting the newest gadgets and attending all the birthday parties, Eyram Akofa Tawia was busy learning computer programming. Visual Basic to be precise. This is 1997 and 1998 in a pre-internet cafe Ghana. There's only one way this story could end. Today, Eyram (or Wuzu as his close friends know him), has started his own computer game company called Leti Games with backing capital. Wuzu meant the ...