Activ Spaces and the Tech World in Buea (Cameroon, West Africa)

I paid a visit to ActivSpaces and had quite an experience. ActivSpaces located in Buea is a tech start-up incubator. If you have ever been there then this article isn't for you, unless you got so much time to burn, etc. 

My visit to ActivSpaces.

If you have been to other tech incubators but not ActivSpaces, you need to get there now, and for those who (like me before this article) have never been to a tech incubator, well ... You Need Help !

I got to meet a great deal of guys who are behind some trend changing  products. 

First you got Al Banda, the community manager of activ spaces. I will like to say he is the man who keeps the amazing guys amazing.

There is also Mohamed Felata who is behind King Maker, an internet cafe Ad Network which helps cyber cafe owners make more money by effectively serving ads to their customers. It can also be used by school I.T centers to serve ads to the student population and other.

Otto Paul, who is behind Makonjoh.com, an e-commerce site which enables users to buy without using a credit card and has other functions which make it specially tailored for the Cameroonian market. 

Otto Paul (right) of makonjoh.com and I (left).

I also got to meet  Quincy, Nara and Absalom the developers of Wasahostel.com, Ryan Yoder who has worked on a couple of projects at ActivSpaces and a lot of other guys all gearing up to change the face of technology in Cameroon. 

Its a place to be and I plan to visit more often or better, be a member.

Cheap Energy Vs Safe Energy : Analysing the Various Energy Sources in Terms of Cost

Many people always ask the question which is the most cost effective energy source or which is the safest; coal, gas, hydro, or nuclear?. 

Many people wonder why solar or wind which are green ( environmentally safe ) are not widely used relative to hydro and other forms and nuclear which poses a great threat ( weapons and meltdowns ) is still growing in use. Well, after reading you will have an idea.

Comparing Per Kilowatt-Hour Cost Estimates for Multiple Types of Energy Production

Most Cost Effective Form of Energy Production

Hydroelectric is the most cost effective at $0.03 per kWh. Hydroelectric production is naturally limited by the number of feasible geographic locations and the huge environmental infringement caused by the construction of a dam. Nuclear and coal are tied at $0.04 per kWh. This comes as a bit of a surprise because coal is typically regarded as the cheapest form of energy production. Another surprise is that wind power ($0.08 per kWh) came in slightly cheaper than natural gas ($0.10 per kWh). Solar power was by far the most expensive at $0.22 per kWh—and that only represents construction costs because I could not find reliable data on production costs. Also, there is a higher degree of uncertainty in cost with wind and solar energy due to poor and varying data regarding the useful life of the facilities and their capacity factors. For this analysis the average of the data points are used in the calculations.

Three coal plant projects were used ranging from 300 to 960 MW. The construction costs of these coal plants ranged from $1.2 to $4 billion, which are less in total dollars than new nuclear ranging from $5 to $9 billion. However, due to nuclear’s higher capacity factor and larger MW rating, the per kWh construction cost of the coal plants ($0.016 to $0.019) is similar to new nuclear plants ($0.014 to $0.024).

For more info on how this results were gotten, click here

Research Made Easier with Google Docs

I’ve been a fan of Google Docs for a while and the improvements they’ve 

made 

over the last couple of months with Google Drive have had an impact on my

 overall document collaboration experience. I like having the ability to work on 

the go and knowing my documents are accessible when I need them.

One of the more recent changes to Docs was the addition of the research

pane.

The research pane taps into Google Search and allows you to add content 

directly from the web. You enable it under the Tools menu and it opens on the 

right side of the page, allowing you to search for website links, images, 

Google Scholar and quotes. When you find something you like, you can add it 

by clicking the insert button or dragging the content directly into your 

document. For websites, you can insert links, preview or automatically add 

footnote citations, when able, so you won’t forget your source.

The major downer for me about this new feature, is that it hasn’t migrated 

over to Google Apps. I jump between my main account and my Apps account a

 lot, so having it in both places would be nice. Google seems to be working to

 integrate all of the services they offer, so I’m sure more Docs functionality 

will be added.