Lagos is where I live
And some other 15 million souls
I'll tell you a little tale
I once had a neighbour  
Who profits from death
Selling hand made coffins
From woods that rot fast
So this faith-ful day
Having prayerfully secured a customer
He was suddenly given the delivery job
The coffin must be delivered that night
He rented a ghost of a car
That wasted half its fuel on unnecessary sounds
And vibrates a little less than my grandpa's alarm clock
After three hours on a 6km road
With more work done in getting ready that moving
He came close to the delivery venue
Just 200m away from the Police station
And behind the station lies the cemetery
With the deadman's relatives already gathered
And the newest undertakers in town
Just recently hired and trained at the cemetery
And not forgeting the man of the day
Who was brought in the same ambulance 
That was headed to the nearest morgue
But on his brother's suggestion
Was made to pick some family members
And finally halted at the cemetery
Suddenly the car stopped and wouldn't bulge
My neighbour had to carry the coffin on his head
On getting to the station beside the cemetery 
A policewoman stopped him for questioning
Knowing how troublesome the police can be
He told her he was relocating
That the placed he had been buried was too noisy
And so he decided to relocate to this cemetery
The next week he had to furnish another coffin
For the family of the police woman
The words she heard had stopped her heart 

Life here never ceases to amaze me
We are all like moths
Forever drawn to this fire
Our daily lives are a miracle
We live in a mine field
Yearly deaths here will halve Gaza 
From the air we breathe to the roads we ply
Everything pulls us on to a sure death
And at a record breaking rate
The rich is no better than the poor
We all live in this expensive slum
Only that the rich is happier
He bothers more about his car-ffin
Leaves on a desert beside a stinking lagoon
And the poor only bothers about the police
Our most innovative comrades 
We are all like my neighbour
Profiting from death
The death of the law 
The death of humanity
And the death of our sanity 

I am of most men most fortunate
An object of numerous affections
A source of ceaseless infatuations
A point of innumerable considerations 
A recipient of unmerited accolades
A focal point of several love
A store of overflowing delights
A castle of spoken beauty
A channel of hidden charm
A mist of eternal swoon 
Extremely dear to many
Constantly reminded by few
Never made to see my flaws
Believed in beyond reason
Trusted way too much
And not a little loved 

The capacity to change is beyond man
That a monkey learns to walk like man
Never makes it any less a monkey 
No matter the brightness of the moon 
No one will ever dry his clothes in it
Even if the night be made brighter than day 
The period of sleep will hardly notice
Though man's dreams ceaselessly change
And his desires are no less change freaks
Yet his self and needs have not altered once
All that embodies a man remain the same
Ingenuity, social interaction and survival
It isn't man that changes but the time
The time dictates our dreams and desires
The time keeps revealing his creativity
The time emboldens his social needs
The time leaves unchanged his need for survival
It is time that changes and not man
If an early man be fetched and installed amongst us
Once he's accustomed to the time now here
He'll be no bit different from the rest of us

Have you ever wanted to make a quick snapshot of just a portion of your screen, specifically an application's window and you thought the only solution was to take the screenshot of the whole computer screen and crop the image? Well in this unusually short post, I will show you how to make a screenshot of only the particular window you need an image of.

Just to set things straight, the easiest way to take a computer screenshot is to press the PRTSC button on your laptop/computer. Some laptops have dedicated key for it, others will require an additional press on the FN key. Whichever the case, you will end up with the screenshot of your entire computer screen. So, what if you only want the screen capture of internet explorer or just the skype conversation you are having or just the error prompt an application is giving? How will you do this without having to run a special application?
Now, that is what I'm going to show you.

I won't bore you with any intro.

1. Brand
When I say brand I do not mean manufacturer. There are only four brands worth mentioning in the world of smartphones, namely

• Android
• iPhone
• Blackberry
• Windows Phone

I know a lot of you guys will ask, "What the heck is Audible?!"

Before I got to meet Audible, I thought my life was just a luck away from great. I thought I knew enough to live a great life and believed that if I keep heading the path I'm on, it is just a matter of time.
But after my encounter with Audible, my live changed dramatically (and forever too). I began to realize that I was living more in a self delusion and my focused life built on social isolation spells more of an ill than good. I came in contact with the right principles for my life, and now live a more organized life.

Now to the question, "What the heck is Audible?!"

I remember when Etisalat just launched its mobile network in Nigeria (2008, right?), I believed no one will ditch his MTN, Celtel or Glo line for it. In a way I was right, nowadays everyone simply adds to the SIMs he already has and not swap them out.

The new dilemma now is to make the best of each mobile network you have its SIM and believe me, it can be a full-time job if you don't want the awkward feeling that comes with getting to know that you could spend half of your current daily call cost to make the same calls using your idle Etisalat (or any other) line. All the numerous plans and packages the mobile networks have are too confusing to fully grasp. 

But in this post I will give you tips that will help you max out your numerous SIMs, with focus primarily on call cost, BIS and Internet Data bundle.

Now all you need to update your iPhone (iPod too) from iOS5 to iOS5.0.1 is just your iPhone (iPod). No longer do you require iTunes on a laptop, and one already synced with your iPhone.

Now you get a notification on your iPhone telling you that there is an update and as long as your data access can take you through, you are as good as done with the update.

But make sure you don't do the update at your peak period, when you can't afford to be unreachable. And don't be in a hurry to uninstall your iTunes, you might need to do a restore if something goes wrong (even your cloud backup won't be able to do the restore). Not forgetting that if you have over 10GB of data and can't afford to wait out a cloud backup (or maybe due to data caps), your iTunes will be extremely useful to make the recommended backup before you update/upgrade to the new iOS5.0.1.

Finally, if you are using a WiFi iPad or iPod Touch, don't bother babysitting your device through the update. Just ignore the update till a more useful version comes out, the iOS5.0.1 is majorly a fix for the battery drain issue for the iPhone.

Since I hardly talk much about happenings in my life except in my poems, you probably won't know I have changed jobs like three times this year. The first one was the one I carried over from last year as a secondary school teacher till the end of my National Service in February this year. Then, I took up a graduate trainee (Radio Access Engineer) 6 months contract job with Nokia Siemens Networks. After the expiration of the six months, I + the other trainees were told to go cool off till the company start getting more projects. And I am on my third job for the year, with Comviva Technologies Limited and now also does a part time job, special thanks to LinkedIn!
In case you don't know what LinkedIn is, it is the specialized Facebook for the business community. Just as you spend time on Facebook hunting old college mates and future friends, business-minded folks too spend time on LinkedIn hunting old colleagues and future jobs.

So, how did I get a job via LinkedIn within just one month of leaving my former job? And also got a part-time job within another month of landing a full-time job?

Just read on...

Are you new to the world of Unix/Linux and hitherto have been impressed by the flexibility of the operating system?
Have you been considering scripting as a very cryptic task reserved for those that earn a living making them?
Well, it's time you hear the truth! Linux scripting is extremely easy and you too can start exploiting the benefits they offer.
Without much ado, let's see an example of a script.

#!/bin/bash
echo "Hello World"

I am struggling to breathe steady
My feet have never felt this heavy
My head feels incredibly light
My eyes are about to pop out
I can't seem to change my gaze
Oh my! I can't even feel my arms
Even my mind is gone blank
There is this tickling in my stomach
Geez! My ears are twitching
I can see only one thing
And then she said, "Hello!"

If there was ever a man
Too gentle to hurt a fly
Too shy to think an evil
Too kind to keep a grudge
Too caring to neglect his shadow
He must have been me

If there was ever a dream
Too pure to be stained
Too big to be packed
To great to be neglected
Too beautiful to live without
It must have been my dream

Everyday I work extremely hard
Building up a life to match that dream
Having for the mortar, impeccable integrity
For which I make unending payments
And for the bricks, hard sacrifices
Baked in the kiln of determination

But it is never enough
I am often forced to pay more
I keep facing evils beyond me
Troubles in proportion no longer fair
Leaving me with but one consolation
Bad things do happen to good people

We all know when it comes to text chatting, Yahoo! messenger leads the pack. The timely notification of friends online status change, individual (independent) window for each chat session, no Skype-link downtime and it's the good old Yahoo messenger!

Now imagine chatting via Yahoo! messenger with your Facebook friends. The chat looks less intrusive (as it is on the Facebook site) and you get to focus easily on your other activities (but should be done outside work hours). Best enjoyed during the weekends, when you'll like to keep in touch with friends and not have to dedicate a whole webpage to it, let alone the back and forth navigation to that page. That is what the latest version of Yahoo! messenger just made possible.

So in this post I am going to show you how to use this new feature of Yahoo! Messenger.

Finally, Apple approves Google+ app! The only issue is, iPod (regardless of the generation) and iPad are not supported, in fact, I couldn't search out the app on my iPod 4G. 

That aside, in this post I am going to share with you what the Google+ looks like on web via a computer and on android via the android app.

J'ai peine couvert 2 Km en deux heures
L'embouteillage est fidèle comme d'habitude
Bienvenue à ma ville
Tous les jours, je me lève à 4h20
Quand le coq est encore ronfler
Je sors avant le soleil se réveille
Je passe plus de temps sur la route que dans le bureau
Ma ville est située dans le sud-ouest du Nigeria
Elle est petite géographiquement, mais énorme démographiquement
Nous avons tout: les trains, les routes, les bateaux, les pauvres et les riches
Mais nous essayons garder notre santé mentale
Chaque jour, nous marchons à nos tombes
Poussé par les embouteillages, le stress et nos voisins
Pouvez-vous deviner ma ville?

In one of my earlier post I went through the steps of recharging your phone line online via Quickteller . Well, for some like me, who use a Naira Mastercard (GTBank's ATM cards), you won't be able to complete the recharge card purchase. So in this new post, Your GTBank Naira mastercard now works on Quickteller

In fact, I have been using my GTB Naira Mastercard on Quickteller to pay my Airtel postpaid line bill for over a year now.

But, I will still give you the list of other websites you can buy recharge cards or top-up to recharge your phone lines on and as usual, with relevant snapshots.


So, here we go!

Last year I made a post on making your newly rooted phone speedier. Well, I have just discovered an equally novel way of getting the best out of a new ROM, be it you are upgrading or installing the ROM for the first time.

Since this post will have lots of images, I will go straight to the crust. The whole idea behind this post is hinged on the fact that preserving data and system settings across ROMs makes the phone oftentimes perform less speedy than on the former ROM, even though you just did an upgrade. And that is what I discovered when I upgraded from CyanogenMod 6.0 to CyanogenMod 6.1, when I preserved the system settings the phone was annoyingly sluggish, but when I wiped the system settings (a factory reset) the phone was amazingly speedy. In (near) fact, the homescreen scrolls before I actually swipe! But in this post I will teach you how to factory reset your phone to get the best out of the new ROM and yet not lose a single system/user data, not even a last call record!

As is my usual (self-inconvenienting) habit, I will start from the basics.

All my castles are built in the air
Which is quite a great accomplishment
In the reality of the age now here
Where it is no little achievement
To become a full time motivational speaker
Selling overpriced well furnished airborne castles
To multitudes who keep buying the same thing over
Possessing more of an illusion than the parcels
So to have built mine from the scratch
And taking me about half my lifetime
To furnish several with no match
Is in my heart a source of joyous chime
A chime that resonates through my whole being
Making me feel as important as the pope
Leaving my intercession with reality thin
And my head pumped big with balloons of hope
Hope built on knowledge of a coming future
A future that will start with a relocation
An occupation of my castle, a lifelong treasure
The heralding of my most glorious earthly transition
But today I moved closer to reality, and could not
But ask, "Why is the future this far?"

One thing I avoid in my tech-life is redundancy. I know it sounds foolish (at least from a corporate view point). One thing all the tech books I've read recently have hard coded into my running configuration (I  mean my conscious mind) is to always mitigate network/device/application failure via redundancy.
To make this less techy, all redundancy means  is - Always have more than one road connect two cities! So now you will better understand my second sentence in the first paragraph.

Why do I avoid redundancy? Ok, to make it less wordy I'll list all I have in my tech cabinet -
1. Sony Vaio laptop
2. Android phone
3. iPod touch 64GB
4. HSPA/EDGE/GPRS USB modem, and
5. Nokia 6021 dumb phone.

Implementing redundancy means a ready alternative for failure of any of the laptop, phones and modem. So in practical terms, I'll have to own two of each (at least have access to two). Now you might say, "You've got two phones, your android phone can function as a modem too, and there are cloud apps that can ameliorate failure of your laptop. So you already have some redundancy." Uh.., well, maybe yes. But I still avoid redundancy, I don't fancy owning two laptops, two phones (actually my android phone is mean't for everything besides phone call, I hate receiving calls on it) or even a bigger screen iPod (iPad).

Now you might be wondering, "Why all this yarn?" Simple! I don't like having separate internet access on my devices (except the dumb phone, which I care little about than its green and red button). So the essence of this post is to show you how to share internet access (be it broadband or dial-up) on your laptop with all your other wifi capable devices (especially the mobile ones).

So, allons-y!

People bottle me in a first impression
And clone me out of my first expression
They know most of me after a first encounter
Claiming intimacy with my very character
But after the encounters are a few more
And their impressions gone on a number tour
They run out of suitable bottles
And the initial clone crumbles
Still they work hard like I carry a bet
To fix me somewhere in their mind's cabinet
And to my great disappointment
I end up in a file tagged "different"
The harder I try to change the file
The more I get stuck like a tile
Though I'm getting used to the label
I still consider it an unpublished libel
I limit my activities to what is common
And try hard to be like everyone
But no one seems to notice my progress
They all have me laid like a game of chess
So I gave up and told myself
Since I get to shock no one but myself
I am quitting being like everyone
I am moving on to the uncommon
And fulfilling this new resolution
Is my newly found obsession

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to make an urgent long duration call and the nearest spot to get an Airtel or MTN or Etisalat or Glo recharge card will make the call unurgent. Or do you live/work in an area where 4-digits card denomination (NGN1000, NGN1500 & NGN5000) are non-existing. Or maybe you like doing everything from your desk/bed -- sleeping, eating, calling, shopping and working.
Well, I have come across the perfect solution for your phone recharge needs (and some of your shopping and utility bill payment needs). And I'll share it with you in a most kindergarten way, even a computer illiterate that managed to find this post will find this a cupcake.

I remember the first time I installed Linux, I had never seen Linux on a system before, didn't want to use a virtual machine and I was going to install it on my new laptop. On top of all these, I downloaded Ubuntu 8.04 Alternate CD image, which has no live-booting feature or even a graphic user interface for the installation, everything was console configuration. I spent hours doing the installation, there were over 10 steps (I strongly think) and I knew less than nothing about ext, ext2, ext3, swap space, grub and root. I got terribly stuck at the mount point, swap file and home partition configuration, I wasn't allowed to get to the next step until I had tried nearly all the options. I was sweating inside and couldn't wait to finish and see if the laptop will recognize its power button. Fortunately, God answered my Jonah modelled prayer, the laptop responded when I pressed the power button. It spent so much time on the VAIO logo display, my heart did a short sprint.

I am one of those people that believe that there is more to a thing than most people know, and also live in the reality of that belief. And from my childhood experiences it seems obvious that I have always been like that. Take for instance, the metal (most probably aluminium) cloth hanger commonly used some 20 years back, I knew it could also double as a steering rod (for driving single wheel vehicles). And over the years I have considerably moved up in this sect, my phone, laptop and shoes can testify to that. When I was through with my phone, it became awesome at everything besides making phone calls, and my laptop - my initial pity for it has now metamorphosed into a feeling of indebtedness. As for my shoes, I only feel sorry for the dead animals that donated their skins, they gave up every hope of making the resurrection.

So it was obvious (to me) the day I arranged for the installation of a HiTV (DVB-S pay TV service) that its just matter of days before I showed it who's boss. And believe me though I ain't through, the number of TV stations have gone up to over 300 from the original meagre 31 and the radio stations are now over 80 compared to the original 6. Next on my to do list is to get a DSTV smartcard in order to watch the stations encrypted by it.

I recently stepped up my photography from amateur to semi-professional, I bought a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera and decided to put to active use my knowledge of shutter speed, aperture, ISO and exposure settings. Due to my cash at hand I had to make do with a Pentax *ist D, Pentax's oldest DSLR camera. But it is just perfect for my need, it has sufficient megapixels of 6.3 which is just what I need since I only plan to post my pictures online ( http://olafusimichael.shutterchance.com ) and print some on a 5" x 7" photo paper. Also the picture quality is awesome, in fact it has excellent picture quality ratings from all the reviews I read. And best of all, it is very compact, so light-weight that I often hold it in one hand and I find it relatively easy to take with me everywhere.

In order to create a collection, I began snapping all the wonderful scenes around me: the bridges, sunset, busy highways and so on. But on a number of times I needed to adjust the image properties like contrast and temperature in order to better convey the message in the picture. To do this in the world of professional photography, Photoshop has been so recommended that you would believe it's the only option. But for an opensource freak like me, there most be another equally good alternative, and my search for this alternative led me to Google's Picasa. Though Picasa can't do multipoint cropping, background design and many other creative design stunts, but to make a picture eyepopping and adjust the exposure Picasa is the perfect tool.

Just recently I noticed there was a flaky 3G service (MTN of course) in my room, but my phone seems too comfortable restricting me to the near useless EDGE service. I decided I was going to force my phone to use the 3G service, so armed with my computer, internet access and Google, I searched for a way to do this and I was so resolute I won't mind porting a code meant for a USB modem. But to my utmost surprise, I ended up discovering a code (like those IMEI checking code *#06# or Nokia warranty code *#92702689#). This code is definetely android's best kept secret, the code takes you to a sort of troubleshooting settings screen. It is *#*#4636#*#* enter it on the dial screen and as you enter the last character * the phone will switch to a new screen, the Testing screen. The image below is a screen shot of what you'll see.