The Okwera Blog

Being South African and American – I couldn’t possibly turn down the opportunity to come to the world Cup. So we got ourselves together and headed down to Cape Town to enjoy the first World Cup in Africa. This time we flew through Europe – as opposed to our usual direct Atlanta – Johannesburg route. The flight out of the US was nothing to really shake a stick at – but the flight into South Africa was quite something else!

We were situated in our seats when 6 senior-citizen European men came onto the plane. They were clearly tipsy and jovial (to say the least). They were giggling, laughing obnoxiously and staggering as they made their way to their seats. Once they figured out where they were sitting – they started telling jokes, laughing out loud and telling stories so loud – we could all hear it. Several other passengers muttered, “11 more hours….. this is going to be horrible”. I should start by saying – I’ve never quite understood hooligan culture. I have sometimes contemplated what motivates the passionate European fans that wreak havoc with their sports-inspired revelry. These men were clearly itching to get up to some mischief – and it hit me – these probably aren’t hooligans – but they are either retired hooligans or perhaps the parents of some hooligans. The remainder of the flight was a flurry of requests for cocktails, wine, and beers.  The flight attendants came back countless times asking them to be quiet. Not only were they chanting and singing, but they kept congregating together. At any given time 2 – 3 of them were standing in the aisles with a glass of wine or beer, laughing out loud about something.

At some point, one of the men actually pulled out a light-weight European version of a Vuvuzela and started blowing it on the flight. I could only think that if this flight was bound into the US – an air marshal would have detained them and probably diverted our flight out of the US!  At one point, after about 20 minutes of constant horn blowing, the flight attendant walked by calmly and snatched the horn. She was met with cheers and clapping once she finally did it.

Then there was the singing. I heard a few national anthems and then lots of “Oooooolaaaaaaay-Olay-o-Laaaaaaaaaaay! Oooo-Laaaaay-Oooooo-Laaaaaay!” I couldn’t help but think that – these men were old enough to be someone’s parent. Imagine if your parents were this passionate about their teams, I can only imagine what their children were like. I felt sorry for anyone who was trying to sleep on the flight because there was no chance with all of the singing. Ultimately the flight ended without incident, but it made me realize how serious this soccer business is.

MS Office Live Workpaces - free online collaboration

Peter and I take a very methodical approach to our common goals. I was toying with the idea of finding a free SharePoint service out there – when I ran into a free Microsoft service called Microsoft Office Live Workspaces. It was free and all I needed was a windows live account and I could have a space. Well I should add one caveat – you also need to have Internet Explorer to use it! Oh and there was the requirement of having the Silverlight plug-in installed. OK – so after I got through all of the hooplah– I’m still thinking that this is pretty cool.

Here are some useful specs (the good stuff ):

• Task lists
• Shared calendars
• MS Office ( Word, PowerPoint, and Excel)
• MS Office integration
• Contact lists
• Multiple workspaces
• Permissions (only site level – not item level)
• Desktop sharing
• Folders
• Lists
• Notes
• Version control on documents
• Allows comments on documents / etc
• Allows sharing of documents
• 5 gb of storage space
• Light-weight email notifications
• Does allow for customization of lists

Here are some limitations

• No item level permissions
• Not a strong task management solution
• No workflows
• Requires internet explorer
• Works best when you own Microsoft office
• Requires several plugins
• Content Management is very light-weight

All in all – for a free solution – this is a good tool to use. I’ll definitely be using it for small personal projects. It’s a place to dump your files, share task lists, share calendars, etc. It’s god because it allows you to create unlimited numbers of workspaces and to apply permissions accordingly. The interface is also much cleaner with a Web 2.0’ish feel. Microsoft might be onto something with this freebie SharePoint-like wannabe.

If you want to try it out – http://workspace.officelive.com

Fieldrunner is possibly the most popular tower game available for phones. I think it’s played mostly on iPhones and iPod Touches. I’ve been playing it on my iPod Touch for the last few months. Once i beat the main 3 levels, I bought the other two levels. I was absolutely frustrated with the Frostbite level because for some reason those helicopters simply wouldn’t stop running over my towers. I finally beat the level and was able to push it to level 135.

Field Runner Frost Bite Level 100

The secret to this map is to use the ice towers heavily. You should use them between every 5 – 6 towers and upgrade them fully. Although rockets are great for helicopters, in this case, the lightning towers are your friends. I basically wrapped the center of the map in electric towers and ice towers. You can use the gun towers to build the longest possible route to the entrance. I’ve also had a lot of success with making sure that the only entrance to the goals was on the left. The screenshot below is my configuration and what level 100 looked like:

I did try to do some upgrades to see how far I could keep this going but I lost at level 135. The screenshot below is a screenshot of my configuration for the final levels. I should have taken a screenshot at 135, but here’s the one I did at 131. I still had the same configuration at 135. I did try to use the fire towers, but frankly speaking – I don’t think they are effective on this map.

Fieldrunners Frostbite Level 131