Death and Rebirth of my laptop

Yesterday afternoon I came back home, sat at my desk and like always pressed the power button to turn on my laptop, but this time instead of a black screen and starting windows text, my laptop emitted two short beeps and the following message was displayed "non system disk or disk error". I am not ashamed to admit that I spent the next few minutes panicking. I just sat and stared blankly at the error message; all I could think of was everything that was not backed up: my work, my music, my books and my videos. After I calmed down a bit I did what one should always do in this situation; I restarted my machine and crossed my fingers. Sadly my hopes were dashed and the error message appeared once again. Next I restarted my machine and went into the BIOS to run a hard drive test. Unfortunately my laptop, a HP 2230s requires a BIOS password and I just couldn't remember it. I tried unsuccessfully for the next 30 minutes to remember the password. It was now around 2 pm and I realized that my only option was to go to a professional.
I went to my local tech store, Smart Cents Limited at Adams Arcade, my usual source for blank DVDs among other computing goods. The staff there confirmed my suspicions, that my hard drive was toast. It was not the first time I had encountered issues with my laptop; my battery had actually stopped functioning around 1 month ago but I thought a replacement battery would be too expensive and as long as the laptop still worked, it was only a minor inconvenience. To my surprise the staff at Smart Cents informed me that a new battery would only cost Kshs. 5,300 and a new hard drive Kshs. 6,400. Before hearing this I was actually contemplating purchasing a new laptop, preferably a basic, low priced one for the short term. They didn't have any basic laptops in the store at the time but the staff told me they could order one for Kshs. 35,000 to arrive by Monday. This was a bit out of my price range so I decided to look around and see if I could find a cheaper laptop to purchase. I visited BJ's Store; it has been branded "East Africa's First Electronic Superstore" on the upper floors of Adams Arcade to see if I could find a cheaper alternative. Alas, the cheapest laptop I could find was a Lenovo for Kshs. 38,000. I now began to seriously consider replacing the battery and hard drive instead of spending more money on a new laptop.
Whenever I need to make a serious computing purchase I always go to Starcom System Solutions Ltd. on the 1st floor of Norwich Union House in the CBD. In my opinion they are the cheapest and most reliable computing parts supplier in Kenya. This time they really lived up to my expectations, they sold me a battery at Kshs. 4,500 and a Toshiba hard drive at Kshs. 5,500. To my delight I managed to replace my faulty 6 cell battery with a 9 cell one at no extra cost. This meant that my laptop's previous battery life would be extended by a few more hours. The staff at Starcom provided warranties for both products and free installation of the hard drive.
Anyone who has had to reformat or replace their hard drive knows that the most tedious part of my ordeal was about to begin. When I got home the first thing I did was to install my operating system which was Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. For the rest of the day and night I was occupied with updating Windows, installing drivers and installing software. As of the time of writing this post I have just finished installing Office 2010 and Skype. Windows is still updating. I have yet to reacquire all the data I lost but that is a problem for the future.
Availability of technology in Kenya has really come a long way. A few years ago replacing my laptop battery would have been amazingly complicated not to mention costly and the price of a laptop hard drive would have been ridiculously expensive. I actually saw a basic laptop at Starcom for Kshs. 22,500 a price that would have been simply unimaginable a few years ago. We still have a long way to go especially when it comes to the price of original software and games. However, this experience has left me with the hope that Kenya is on the path to making computing technology more affordable for all.

Hope for proper lighting on the streets of Nairobi.

One of the things I miss about living in the US and Germany is the lighting on the streets at night. You could walk around most places at night because they were well lit. Of course the lights were a deterrent  to any possible criminals so you felt quite safe.
In Nairobi on the other hand only some major streets, the CBD(Central Business District) and shopping centers are well lit at night. The lighting situation is so bad that on some streets drivers are forced to drive using high beams just to see. Of course using high beams are a hazard to other drivers but often there is no choice. As a pedestrian it is so much worse; any time I'm walking on a dark street at night I feel like I'm just inviting a mugger to make me his next victim.
Therefore the announcement yesterday that the county government of Nairobi will be rehabilitating old street lights and even installing new ones is welcome news to me and many others. Hopefully they are planning for widespread application of this plan. Every Kenyan should be able to walk around their neighborhood without fear of crime. Good street lighting would also go a long way to encouraging a 24-hour economy in the city of Nairobi.

Surprising state of Korean Animation

I read the latest issue of the South Korean comic (mahnwa) The Breaker: New Waves last night and as usual it was amazing. Not for the first time I wish that someone would make it into an anime as has been done for so many other comics.
South Korea has the third largest animation industry worldwide behind the US and Japan. Surprisingly most animation produced in South Korea is for others and not locally sourced. Many Japanese anime are produced in South Korea as well as US shows like Family Guy, Legend of Korra and The Simpsons to name a few. South Korea produces a few animated films each year and some are critically acclaimed but the most well know serialized animation is the cartoon Pororo.
Perhaps there is not enough of a local audience to tempt South Korean animators but I would suggest they should turn some of the popular mahnwas into animation at least for the international audience like me. Its not just mahnwas that would do well as animation, South Korean online comics(webtoons) like Noblesse and The Gamer in my opinion deserve to be animated as well.
A lot of talented Korean animators go into the popular gaming industry but I hope over time some would turn to converting local comics into animation.