Monthly Archives: May 2014

You are here: Home . Archive

Alternative ways to hand out sacks of money

It recently came to light that women groups in Busoga were clashing over some money handed over by our beloved head of state. Each of the groups claimed that the money was supposed to be channelled through them. Not too long ago, money was handed over to youth in a sack; they too, according to reports, clashed over who gets what. With this in mind, one keen on identifying problems and providing solutions would quickly see that as citizens, we can’t handle our beloved leader’s benevolence; it only throws us into confusion-the kind similar to what you’d go through when you first attend a church service in Jamaica. In a heavily-worded book I will write one day, I’ll unravel how to address that particular problem. Today however, given that the smell of elections is heavy in the air, we address a more pressing issue; how do you give money to us ordinary citizens without using sacks? Naturally, seeing as you the reader never give out sacks of money, these tips are by and large for our beloved leader.

Helicopter

Many of us, dear beloved leader, still look up whenever aeroplanes or helicopters fly by and run after them shouting “Bye bye Museveni”. It would be great if you took advantage of this attention and made it rain money. Have the money thrown out of the moving chopper in crisp bills. The advantages here are obvious; if the Shs. 250 million that was given to the youth had been distributed this way, in crisp Shs. 1,000 denominations, many more youths would have benefited. The results are instant too

Make it rain

Make it rain 50Ks

Also, since we are already in the process of acquiring choppers for the Police, this would be a good way to make use of them since we are spending a colossal sum on them-Shs. 5 billion in just scouting how good they are.

Mobile app

We are all slaves to our phones these days. Give us a mobile application in which we struggle through NRM trivia. It should be a very challenging and interactive game. We can even do a face-off where we play against ‘the computer’ or against you. It could also be one in which we battle to see who has the smartest retort to things politicians in the opposition say. It could be challenges on how best way to muffle a politician in the opposition-our options in the game could be house arrest, pink tear gas, money, a court case, the works. Those who score the most points in this game can get to win huge cash prizes.

How to quell a riot with Shs2.5b

A few days ago, it came to light that the police, on average, need Shs2.5b(about $1m) to handle a riot in Kampala. The closest an average individual has come to quelling a riot is the times he/she has had to use reasonable force to hurl food down their throats to quiet rioting stomach enzymes reacting to long spells of food deprivation.

With the knowledge that, that endeavour never costs anywhere in the vicinity of Shs2.5b, it is no surprise that the mind of such an individual fails to understand how the police spend such an amount of money on one riot.

Do the riots involve performances from international artistes? Are special agents flown in from the US to help calm the crowds? Is the tear gas made from tears of a unicorn? Is a three-course meal given to each of the rioters? Is each protestor given a bottle of wine to carry off? Are the handcuffs used made of gold? Are the policemen we see battling the crowds actually a specially-trained force flown in from the future? These are some of the questions asked by ordinary individuals who don’t know about the complexity of modern-day policing in a developing nation. If only they knew just how taxing (pun? Here? No) police work is, there would never ask such mundane questions. These same ordinary individuals have gone as far as sharing what they feel would be better ways to use the money while quelling riots. They suggested that police should:
Do research on what musicians the rioters like and invite them to perform.

When the incensed crowd starts to reach for stones, use a crane to lower the musician from a chopper onto a flashy stage set between the crowd and the police. The musician should then usher the irate crowd and the police into several hours of vigorous dance. The police of course should not dance too hard since they would need to round-up the ringleaders.

Put the money in neat sacks and invite the rioters to queue and pick it one at a time. The nation has already embraced the money-in-a-sack culture so asking people to line-up for it won’t be a big leap. Each one would have to sign for the money before it is handed over to them.

Making the most of your holidays

School holidays are here. Spontaneous celebrations all around. Shouts of joy ring out from every mountain-top. If boda bodas could ride on one wheel, they would do it to show you just how happy they are for you. Now you can rest.
Also, school holidays bring you one step closer to your position of leadership in this nation. As a young leader, here are a few tips from this columnist, a world-renown individual devoted to researching on what makes good leaders.

Holiday work

Were you given holiday work? Now would be a good time to do it. Not back at school using Yusuf’s book as a reference.

Chores

Do those things called chores. They may not seem like fun but that is probably because you are not doing them right. Dear young leader, today we show you how to do chores right. Have you tried making the dishes talk to each other as you wash them? What about talking to the soap into beating-up the dirt as you do laundry? What about singing to the food as you prepare the family meal?
Research shows that meals taste better if they are sung to during preparation.
Chores may also not seem beneficial but think about it-when you eventually become one of the highly sought-after leaders in this nation and then aliens takeover, we would all have to go to the electronic bush (because bushes will be electronic in that day) and fend for ourselves. As you organise a revolt, you want to be that leader that knows how to cook, clean and do the dishes don’t you? You don’t want to be that individual who cannot fend for themselves.

Read widely

Child Reading

In the event that you get a minute or two to tear yourself away from your electronic device, do take time off and read a bit outside the things UNEB requires you to. Being informed solely by WhatsApp messages and Facebook updates like us means you’ll make the same mistakes we are making. Do not you watch the news? Do you think we make some dumb decisions? You won’t be any better if you are Facebook-read. Knowing select quotes from Nelson Mandela and Steve Jobs doesn’t make you well-read.

Jaguza | Free Responsive WordPress theme

If you are looking for a free, responsive WordPress theme for your blog, Jaguza is a great choice. It is clean, fast and very easy-to-use. The theme comes loaded with quite a number of features  that are usually a reserve for premium themes.

Free Responsive WordPress theme | Jaguza

Features

Check out the list:

  1. Unlimited theme colour options with over 10 pre-built theme colours. This allows you to easily customize the theme to suit your look
  2. Heavily-customizable homepage
  3. Amazing easily-customizable slider(that can be disabled)
  4. A stylish social bar to allow users connect with you on a host of  social media platforms
  5. In-built theme help
  6. Very detailed documentation
  7. Front page template with its own widgets and
  8. An optional no-sidebar page template in the event that you don’t get-along with sidebars

Where

The theme is hosted in the WordPress theme repository. Check it out

Demo

Jaguza Demo

I deleted my site. Boohoo

Whyyyyyyyyy ohhh whyyyyyyyy???

Whyyyyyyyyy ohhh whyyyyyyyy???

This is me starting over. I didn’t delete the site actually…I changed web host a few days ago and one of the movers dropped my database. That’s over a year’s work gone. Why didn’t I have backups upon backups of my work? I honestly just never got round to it; I coded the site and made several iterations whenever creative dissatisfaction kicked-in but backing-up didn’t seem like a big deal. The irony is that at work, we ensure that we have stacks of backups so high, we can sit on them and strum the proverbial code guitar as we sing in unison.

Doing automatic backups going forward is my best bet. In as much as I have a no-plugin policy:

Thou shan’t use a plugin for anything that can be done in a few lines of code in functions.php

I’ll use WP Backup for a while and see if it can be an exception to the rule. For you who’s deleted your blog, I relate with you. The loss is so big. If you have found a  clever way to get your stuff back, do share.

Update 23-05-2014: I salvaged some of my work using The WayBack Machine. Very neat tool

WordPress Must-Have plugins

In as much as I have a no plugin law here, I do believe there are exceptions to the rule based on the kind of site you run.

All sites

  1. Akismet Spam protection. It comes pre-bundled with your WordPress installation
  2. WordPress SEO by Yoast For Search-Engine Optimization (SEO)

Blog

  1. Disqus For comments
  2. Autochimp To send out emails to everyone subscribed to your blog whenever you post new content

This list is updated from time-to-time whenever a new gem is discovered. If you do have a plugin you feel ought to feature here, do share

WordPress No Plugin Policy

I generally ensure that a site runs as few plugins as possible. Generally:

No. of plugins       Rating
0-5                           5-star
5-10                         4-star
10-15                       3-star
>15                          Seriously?

This might seem to overly-simplify what is in essence a complex topic; so many other factors impact site performance. Granted. My No Plugin law though is merely a guideline to get you to deeply question whether you need to plug everything.

Almost all functionality required by an average site can be done in a few efficient lines of code in a theme’s functions.php. The kakoma.ug WordPress law of No Plugin states that:

Thou shan’t use a plugin for anything that can be done in a few lines of code in functions.php

wordpress_no_plugins
It is imperative that I add that this law goes against the WordPress community guidelines. The community (of which I’m a part) says that presentation and functionality should be separate; themes are for presentation. I agree BUT I believe that:

  • Some plugins have code that is of no use to your site. This code is run every time your site is accessed
  • Some plugins don’t have good support and go obsolete when WordPress is updated
  • Some are poorly coded
  • Because a plugin is built to be one-size-fits-all, there are variables that are stored in the database that would give your site some relief if they were hard-coded
  • Some plugins don’t play well together

All this is very subjective; if you feel a plugin will do for you then by all means, indulge. If, however, you are the kind that prefers to code things yourself and get low-hanging fruit out of the way, then this is where we explore your alternatives.

Related posts, breadcrumbs,Google Analytics code-you don’t need plugins for those. I cover how to implement each easily

All said, I do have a must-have plugin list you can check out.