BZ Macs: Mac In Africa

Macs in Africa
My Africa version of the The EvangeList

This is from David Murphy davidmurphy@earthlink.net

I have a tid bit to add to you Macs in Africa page...

The International School of Kenya (ISK), in Nairobi, Kenya, uses all Macs! They have two computer labs full of Macs and Power Macs, as well as a hub in the Media Center. Heck, they even have Macworld Magazine (US version) there!

I don't believe that ISK has an offical web page, although they do provide e-mail to students. There are a number of unoffical ISK sites to be found on the net; I've listed a few below.

ISK Alumni homepage http://home.sn.no/~hallstro/isk.htm (this site designed on a Power Mac!)

Macs are in Africa!I have found that while The Dark Side has a major grip on Africa people are slowly seeing the light. Home users are the first to switch over with businesses following up. The great thing is that behind the scenes Macs are really running the show. Take the East African Standard Newspaper here in Kenya. I went in one day to drop off an ad that I had printed out so they could scan into whatever Windoze Box they had. I was ushered into a back room and there before my eyes was an assortment of Macs doing the layout for the entire newspaper. I just had to smile. Later that day I sent down a disk with the ad (which I had done on my Powerbook anyway) which they easily put into the paper. Go Mac!

This Story from Arild Eugen Johansen arild@sn.no

Jake

I have been travelling to Africa, mainly Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria for the last 26 years. It was not before we moved to Kenya in 1984 that I brought a computer, and Apricot from England. When we moved there in June, I would not be able to get a Mac until September, so I bought that Apricot instead (another fruit and the name must be related the to fact that there was already a computer company with a fruit name.) Anyway I sold that in March 1985 when I had already brought a 512K Mac (fat mac) to Nairobi and I almost revealed to the guy I sold it to that I now had a mac (hidden away in the bedroom. I did not want him to see the Mac, then he would not buy the Apricot.

I bought the Fat Mac in London on the way back from holiday in Norway. I was a member of the board of the Kenya Museums Society and did all the posters, folders etc on the 512 with an 15" ImageWriter. The following year, I passed through London on the way to Norway for the annual leave and bought a Mac Plus. This time with an extra 800K disk drive. I continued to do a lot of work on the Mac to many peoples amazement. And during the last part of '66 I met a few other people who used Macs and we decided to start a Mac User Group in Nairobi. I borrowed the LaserWriter at Comp-Rite and made issue 1 of a small newsletter. The User Group had the first meeting on March 31. Many people joined after we put an ad in the Nation.

Anyway I sold the 512 K while in Nairobi to a company.We went back to Norway in 1987 (my wife works with Development Aid and I as a computer consultant although I am an architect by profession). In Norway I worked for 3 1/2 years developing CAD software for Mac until we went back to East Africa, this time Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. There I repaired many Macs (we did not have such good facilities as in Nairobi) and met many Mac Friends, whom I am still in touch with. I promoted Macs in all situations and again amazed many people who had never seen a Mac before what a wonderful machine it was. I bought a Mac II si and later a Mac II vx while there. We went back to Norway in 1992, just before christmas.

Now I have 6 macs and use a PowerMac at home (where I work at night) and 2 in the office (where I work at daytime).

Can't Print? The people who do stray and get the wrong computer always get my pity. I was once sitting in a local office (all running on two PowerBook 145s and a Mac Classic) watching a customer print something out. I had seen her there a couple of times and asked if she had a computer at home. She did. And a printer? Yes indeedy. Were they broken? Nope. Well why was she printing out her things here if she had a computer at home? It turns out she had a brand new Windoze 95 Box and just couldn't figure out how to use the printer. Same old story. The good news is she was easily printing away on one of the 145s. I am sure her next computer purchase will be a better one.

This Nugget of Knowledge is from Mike O'Brien obrien@hevanet.com

My wife and I recently donated a Mac IIsi to a theatre company in Ethiopia where she was directing a play.

In the process, we came across a company that makes fonts (actually, keyboard software) to enable typing in Ethiopian languages, using the English keyboard. I bought the software, installed it and tried it out--worked great, no problems!! Fonts are postscript, so they printed out on my laserprinter. Also cost only $80.

The company is Ecological Linguistics, PO Box 15156, Washington DC 20003 (202) 547-7678. They can send you a catalog of the fonts.

It is OK I have a Mac... When setting up my web site (shameless plug) I needed to scan in some pictures. I called a lot of places and they all wanted from $5 to $30 a scan! When I went to ask my friend for some advice he invited me over to use his scanner (Hey... thanks!). My friend is a complete Windoze fool (try not to hold it against him) so I knew I was in for some fun when it would come to the scanning. He got it set up in just under an hour and half which was pretty quick for 95. I just sat back, smiled and had a few beers. When it came time to scan he asked how I was going to get things from his format into the Mac OS. "No problem" I said, "I have a Mac remember?" I first formatted the disks for the PC in my 540c giving them to him to scan on. The disks worked just fine in his Box (never had a doubt) and the images were saved as TIFFs. I just took the disk out of his machine, stuck it into the Mac and converted it all with Graphic Converter. Never a hassle never a worry. Try doing the same thing between a IBM and a Toshiba that run with the same OS.

If you have a story to tell about Macs in Africa please email me at macs@bwanazulia.com and I will be glad to include it here.