This is a continuation in my series on low bandwidth development.

When it comes to the low bandwidth market of web development, you're bound to encounter old browsers, or more to the point, "non-modern" browsers. Typically, "modern" browsers are Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari. You may be asking, "What about Internet Explorer?" That one gets tricky. While version 6 is often lumped in to the group, most people don't consider Explorer a modern browser until version 7 or even 8. Some don't even consider 8 to be "modern" either as its HTML 5 support is sketchy. Of course, the newest browsers aren't the truly impossible issue for those of us developing in the low bandwidth environs.

What is difficult is supporting older browsers. There is a lot of Explorer 6 running around still (about 25% of the browsers out there actually). There is even some Explorer 5.5, Explorer for Mac OS 9 (the infamous 5.23), as well as Mozilla, and Netscape. Most of these browsers have been discontinued. It's hard to even get copies of the old versions let alone an actual system to run them on. Most of the time, you can usually just let this be, but sometimes it's more of a worry.

One day, when testing out Maneno with IETester (one of the finest things a web developer could ever download), I found that in Explorer 5.5, part of the site would keep refreshing out of control. It was unusable and pretty much unstable. While the site was also ugly to view in 5.5 (because 5.5 is a heap of junk for CSS support), this posed more of a problem and there was definitely no way I was going to bother hunting down the issue for the tiny bit of traffic that arrived on that browser. I realized that this browser would have to be blocked somehow.

A pet project of mine is End6. It's a simple JavaScript widget that appears only if someone is using Explorer 6 (also a heap of junk for those who don't know). It's a simple prompt to get people to upgrade. A bit more than passive and a bit less than aggressive. I'd suggest taking a look if you want to try to get people off Explorer 6, which benefits all of us from end user to developer. Unfortunately this widget isn't enough. People can still access the site once they click through the warning. No, completely blocking some of these troublesome browsers that could cause the user problems is the only real way to go, as it is for many websites.

So enters browscap.ini. This is a browser definitions system that generally stays up to date with whatever browsers come out. The current version doesn't yet recognize Firefox 3.5 beta 4, but I wrote that in. It's available in PHP, ASP, and can be downloaded in a raw form as well to meld to your specific needs. All told, it's mighty cool.

Maneno is built in PHP, so it's rather easy to implement. You just edit your php.ini file to point at this ini file and then program as you want for implementation. I check to first make sure that $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] isn't empty as it will often be for search engine spiders or others. Then I call get_browser() and it gives you a lovely, associative array of such things as "browser" and "version". Run some simple logic to check against them and then kick out users to a warning page (see below) if they have too old of a browser. Post some links to more "modern browsers" so there is a call to upgrade as well. We're currently blocking anything older than Explorer 6, Firefox 2, all of Mozilla, and all of Netscape. I would have loved to block Explorer 6 as well, but given the high percentage of deployment in our user base, it's just not possible currently.

All told, these blocked browsers make up about less than 0.75% of Maneno's traffic. Why care about such a small amount? Well, for starters, upgrading is good for these folks if they do it, since these browsers aren't generally supported, and in the case of old Explorer version, extremely insecure to use. For another reason, it's to make sure that people are using browsers that I can test. Otherwise, I don't want something unforeseen to happen to their system because I couldn't anticipate it.

But what about if they can't download a new browser due to super low bandwidth issues? For this, I am currently working on sending small flash drives to selected folks that have Firefox on them in French and English, so that they can install them anywhere that is needed. I encourage others to do the same or bring a burned installation CD with them to do the same thing. And why is there no problem torrent for Firefox? That would make all this a lot easier as it could be downloaded gradually! Maybe Maneno should host this?

Over this last Tuesday and Wednesday was the Netsquared N2Y4 conference. It was a two day event that focused on mobile technology innovations, as well as having the winners of several contests announced at the end of it.

Overall, it was a good meeting. As is natural with any conference, some sessions were better than others and some keynotes were more engaging than others. But, they pulled it off well in the end and more than anything it was a great venue to learn more about projects that I hadn't heard of as well as meet new people in a variety of fields. Oh, Maneno also gave a talk about what we're doing as well which was great as we did this in more of a discussion setting which allowed us to interact with people who had some new ideas on what we're doing which we are now looking in to. I liked this format a lot since having an information exchange is so much more useful than being lectured to.

In brief though, I just wanted to call out a couple of projects that I liked and caught my eye. The reasons for liking them vary, but it's generally because they are sensible, technologically-minded approaches to solving everyday problems.

AMIS Project

They are working to set up what is in essence a call center for SMS. Using the almighty Frontline SMS, they are creating a gateway to connect farmers, markets, and suppliers in Cameroon. I like it because it's simple and extremely cost-effective. It is also easy to maintain with few pieces to break in it. They managed to get a $1,000 award from the Microsoft challenge, which will help their efforts. They should have gotten more, but so it goes. We'll have an interview with Valery Colong in the near future who heads up technology efforts. Read more about them

SeeClickFix

This project requires a bit more implementation, but I like it because it sprung out of the founders' annoyances with how things weren't getting fixed in their neighborhood. As a person often annoyed by a great many things, I can appreciate this. I love the fact that they were presenting a system that is already up and running, although this may be a reason why they didn't win any of the awards in that it seems like it's all there. Another reason is that they're actually a for-profit enterprise that already has some decent contracts with municipal governments. Still, it's a good project worth checking out a bit more despite not having crystalline altruism nor being based in Africa. Read more about them

Equobility

These guys got really overlooked and I hope they're able to stick with what they're doing as it's solving a common problem in regards to mobile phones in countries where power is a real commodity. I didn't manage to see their full presentation so I don't know where they are getting the mobile solar chargers for the mobiles and most that I've seen can't keep a phone running all day unless gigantic in size. I think that their approach may need to get a bit tighter and more focused (which is one of the reasons they probably got passed by voters), but they're talking about something no one really wants to address right now as basic electricity needs aren't "sexy". Sure, it's great to get Frontline SMS running for a project, but how on earth do you keep the mobile phones running that report back to it? More people need to think this through. Read more about them

Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short is basically making your website look better for search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and that other one Microsoft keeps trying to shove at us that we don't really want. When working on building SEO, there are two main methodologies: white hat SEO and black hat SEO. White hat is essentially legitimately making your website more appealing through content, good coding, and getting linked to from other relevant websites. Black hat is generally buying referring links on a website with a high ranking that point towards your website. White hat is an organic process that takes longer, but is cheaper over the long run and is actually sustainable. Black hat is an artificial process that is actually quite looked down upon, costs a great deal, and is typically not sustainable without a lot of money. Black hat is in fact so bad that if you get caught, a search engine like Google will de-list you from their index.

So, why do I bring this up? It's not to bore you, but to explain something interesting that is happening right now when you search for 'Kenya' on Google. At the very top of a list of about 128 million results is a rather average-looking tourism website for a company that operates in Kenya. This is interesting as according to this search, it outranks the Wikipedia page, Kenya Government page, Kenya News Results, the CIA "Factbook", and a whole bunch of other results. How is this possible? Surely those other results it sits on top of are more relevant?

I would warrant a guess that yes, the other results are indeed more relevant and that this company is buying referral links for black hat SEO purposes. Sure, I have no proof of this as I can't see what this company is doing nor what Google is doing as performing a backlink search on Google is indeterminate. But, check out a similar search for neighboring 'Uganda' on Google. It pulls up Uganda's Official Tourism website, Wikipedia, and again, the almighty CIA "Factbook" as the top three results. This is much more what one would expect on this type of search. Hell, it doesn't even have to be Africa. A search for 'Germany' on Google yields a similar result to this Uganda one.

The reason that I don't link to this Kenya site in question is because I don't want to throw any traffic their way. I would just like to see them go back to some minor listing on Google and leave us with the more relevant sites that we actually want.

Reading about the vision for Christian higher education at the comparatively young "Trinity" university in Kerala, India and "Torch" university in Seoul, South Korea is causing mere excitement. What is said about the Evangelical missions' paradigm shift since the mid-Eighties is also applicable to education. Fresh and vital Christian innovations mainly come from Asia and Africa. We Western believers are invited to leave our 1000-year-old Eurocentric educational ghetto. It's time to step out into a truly global 21st century and let hidden 19th century thinking behind.

The internet enables almost everyone to get foundational knowledge for free and instantly at any place world-wide, multi-dimensional distance mentoring included. Cellphone networks cover even remote areas of the globe and provide relatively inexpensive access. Recent African and Asian low-speed projects (Sub-Saharan corporate online content management and Bangla-Desh's "GSM Against Poverty Program") show us how to do it.

When Moody about 120 years ago started his program he had young people in mind who would probably never get a chance to visit a university of their time and society. We need courageous Moodies who use new ways to provide higher education to young believers and potential believers who can't afford and don't appreciate Western tuition fees and lifestyle.

The tools are all there. Who will join forces to make it happen today?

Also published here. The pic is CC.

Today We are on 25th of May 2009, the anniversary of the Feast of the AU so we are happy because it is a day of joy and honour for all Africa, but it is not only a day of joy, it must be for all Africans, a retreat to find great ways of development and post-crisis. Yes, without doubt, we have a long way to walk so that Africa can be as we think, and for that, we all must be united, to walk in the same direction and with the same ambitions. This is possible only if each of us, with his small company, his spirit of initiative, creativity, courage, patience and love of others, started to work for his own satisfaction, the satisfaction of the others and for the development of Africa and the world.

I can not conclude without paying a warm tribute to the great men of fighting for the progress of Africa and the world, and tell them that even if they do not find our voices, we are at heart with them in their tasks of every day.

Good feast for all Africans and for the entire world.

Thanks to Afripopmag I just discovered Zap Mama, which I can't believe I hadn't heard before because she's been around for 20 years. Zap Mama was founded in 1989 as an all-woman a cappella quintet by Marie Daulne, but in 1996 she emerged as Zap Mama the solo artist. Since then she has incorporated instruments and her style has evolved into a musical blend of African and American vocal styles, including hip hop influences, Afrobeat, pop, soul, funk and a touch of jazz into a musical blend. Zap Mama has released 8 albums to date and has been featured in the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack.

Marie Daulne's fascinating personal history in a way explains her music an her self-description as a nomad. She was born in Isiro, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to mixed parents: her father was Belgian and her mother was from Kisangani. Being a civil servant of the colonizing power, her father was killed the same year Marie was born by Simba rebels during the independence turmoil, and her mother then fled to the forest with her and her sisters where local Pygmies saved them from being murdered. They spent 8 months living with the Pygmies, until they were airlifted out to Kinshasa in an emergency evacuation by Belgian paratroopers and flown to Belgium because their father had been a Belgian citizen. Daulne was raised in Belgium but considers herself a citizen of the world.

As it turns out, since Zap Mama's latest album titled ReCreation is coming out next week (on May 26th), she's going to be playing in San Francisco at Bimbo’s 365 Club on June 18th and at the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival in Boonville (near Santa Rosa). Below is the lead single that has been released in partnership with itunes and CARE to honor mothers around the world. And you can listen to more Zap Mama's music in her MySpace page.