Safari Notes

As it is, very few Africans blog and make their voices heard. For Africans who take up blogging, very, very few, if any, write about wildlife and the environment. Africa, with the largest, most diverse, most wonderful and most spectacular population of wildlife, has a people who are least interested in it. Be it in: its oceans, its islands, its plains, its jungles - Africa is abundant with wildlife. Plants and animals. Of many species, of many shapes and of many sizes. One can not talk of wildlife, without thinking of the environment. The environment that all wildlife lives in and depends on. And so do we mankind. All living creatures, all life forms are very dependent on the environment they live in. So why don't African bloggers write about these most important of issues: wildlife and the environment?

Africa Internet Penetration - 2012 With about half of its people living below the poverty line; with wars, conflicts, poor infrastructure and poor institutions; and unreliable electricity supply in most urban areas or none at all for most of its people - most people in Africa have no time for thinking of the Internet let alone use it. Still, it is in Africa that the Internet is growing fastest.

Despite its many problems, Rwanda's visionary leaders have set forth an ambitious plan to establish Rwanda as a globally competitive, knowledge-based society and economy; this has resulted in the rapid expansion of phone and Internet subscribers and users. For a country that went through one of the worst horrors Africa and the world has ever known , this has not been easy. Rwanda, one of the first countries in Africa to gain full Internet connectivity, has ten licensed Internet Service Providers and 754,156 Internet subscribers as of June 2012 (according to the Rwanda Utlities Regulatory Agency ) - which is about 6.5% of its population of about twelve million people. The number of people using Internet, as in other East African countries - is growing rapidly in the country. And so is social-networking. Some of its leaders are regularly and comfortably using Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

Of its almost forty eight million citizens, about five million or about 11% of Tanzanians use the Internet and it ranks 7th in Internet usage in Africa - according to Internet World Atlas . Of these few who have Internet access, many use social media; of these, are those out of the country. A few, are blogging. With Tanzanian's superb and refined commandment of Kiswahili, most of these active blogs are in this country's national and official language. Tanzanian blogs are vibrant, too colorful and most are focused on the entertainment industry - music in particular; very few are serious and well styled.

According to Internet World Atlas , as of 2012 second-quarter, of the top ten African countries, as of population percentage, Uganda is ranked ninth in Internet usage. And as in Kenya , that number is rising fast. Considering its recent history, the many conflicts it has had and how unstable the country has been - this is an encouraging achievement. Ugandans too, as are Kenyans - are very much active in social networks. Of blogging, there are very few blogs that discuss Uganda. The problem with most Ugandan bloggers, they start one, and after a short while give up. Of the very few active ones, very few are serious or deserving of praise. Of these, most are managed by non-Ugandans living in Uganda or interested in the country; or managed by Ugandans living abroad.

In Africa, Kenya has one of the highest number of people having access to the Internet. It ranks third in the Continent on Internet usage. And the number is rising fast. Almost one-quarter of the population have access to the Internet now. According to the Communications Commission of Kenya : As at 30th June 2012, there were 7.7million Internet subscriptions up from 6.4 million subscriptions recorded in the previous quarter. This represents an increase of 19.2 percent during the quarter under review. Annual subscription rose by 81.7 percent in the FY 2011/12 recorded at 7.7million from 4.2 million subscriptions posted in the FY 2010/11. The mobile data/Internet subscriptions category contributed 98.9 percent of the total subscriptions .

Would you like to have a search box on your site? The most preferred is the Google search box, like this ; but the best and the one I prefer most is the: Google custom search box, which you can get here and customise to your liking and preference. After Google, I prefer the Clusty search ; Clusty is a favorite of mine. Or you can try Alltheweb , an excellent search engine too; or Ask.com , another superb search Engine. As for the Microsoft buffs, there is their new: Live Search Box . All of these search boxes are fast and most are customizable. And last, there is the easy to include in your website or blog: Blogbar . What I like about the Blogbar widget is that, it has search options for searching with all the major search engines and all the major blog search engines. Or: try the rather cool Technorati search box; it will allow visitors to search both your blog and other blogs. And how about adding a Translation box or button to your site? This helps those who don't understand

There are several sites that provide audio and/or video codes for adding to websites. Video Code Zone offers 'over 40000 free music video codes For MySpace, Piczo, Friendster, Xanga, Tagged, Blogger, Hi5, or any website and blog. Fast, free and easy!' Bestudiocodes is the 'source for the best music video codes and lyrics on the web!'. While Videocodesforfree 'has over 20000+ Working Music Video Codes for MySpace, Xanga, Or any Website / Blog.' Sonific provides 'soundtracks for your digital life.' This page or this have more. For more information on how to add audio or video music codes to websites, visit this page. Photo : Xanga

I can now easily make comments! I have tried; it works neatly! Thanks to the Beta Blogger Team! They just came in with this: Ahoy sailors. The infamous pirate Edward Teach once wrote in his ship’s log (or “p’slog” in 18th century slang): Such a day found one with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, damned hot; then all things went well again [ cite ] Yar. Now, had Teach written this on a blog, his crew may have wanted to comment on it (“Pass me th’ bottle,” “when can we go back to Port Royal?,” “why’s the rum gone?,” &c.). Until today, they may have had a great deal of trouble, above and beyond the significant scarcity of reliable Internet access in 1718 colonial America. A pair of issues have plagued Blogger and the Blogger beta: Blogger users unable to comment on beta blogs , and beta users unable to comment on Blogger blogs . For the benefit of time traveling pirates with hypothetical weblogs everywhere, these issues have been well and truly keelhauled. Ge

About two weeks ago, I switched to the new Blogger in Beta ! All my blogs are now on the Beta; including this one. The Beta has many more features than the original Blogger, but many issues with it, still need to be addressed and sorted out; which I understand is being done . I find the Beta, much better and easier to use than the old version - except: making 'comments' on other 'Blogger' sites has not been possible for me - unless I do so anonymously; some Bloggers do not allow that on their sites. And when one switches completely to the Beta 'Layout', one is deprived of the editing of HTML; though I have switched this site too, I am not using the complete Beta 'layout' here, but I am trying out the Beta on: Kisiwa . If any of my friends, find that I am not any more making 'comments' on their blogs, it would be due to my using the Beta; hopefully - soon, I can again, easily be able to make comments on other 'Bloggers' sites! Note: once o