FIFA World Cup 2010 Experience

Written by Matrich on 11th July, 2010

Sanibona…!!! After a long time without posting, I am back with my greatest adventure tour experience ever. I think you can surely guess what it’s about. Definitely, it’s about the FIFA World Cup 2010, the first World Cup on African soil.

Matrich at Soccer City StadiumWith just a few hours to the finals of this biggest sports event, I was among those who were so privileged, and indeed blessed, to be part of this event. I am now part of those who witnessed live the first world cup hosted on African soil in Sausi (South Africa). For my entire life, it was also my first time to watch a football match live in a stadium. Luckily enough, this wasn’t just a stadium but it was in one of the most artistic and awe-inspiring football venues on the African continent i.e. Soccer City Stadium which hosted the opening ceremony and will host the finals. Woow!! What a blessing!!!

Being sponsored by MTN itself, I and the team had an incredible, fantastic time and this World Cup will remain part of our memory lanes. It was surely a lifetime experience which is priceless and will remain to be remembered in our lives.

Having been to SA before, I couldn’t imagine what I would expect during the world cup. However, it was so cool to feel the World Cup environment live. I must commend the organizers and South Africa for the great work done over there.

We had a number of tours around the city and the hospitality in Sausi (SA) and around the stadium was so great and fabulous. In the stadium, I was seated a few rows away from the pitch and we enjoyed the match. The support in the stadium was very phenomena and it is worthy an experience for any football fan out there. Together as Africa United fans, we blew the vuvuzelas and cheered the players to the maximum we could though there was so much pressure. Seeing penalty shoot-outs was also great though we lost out.

Matrich blowing a vuvuzela at Soccer City Stadium

I must say that this World Cup surely leaves a big legacy behind and we (Africans) are so much proud of hosting it. It was also full of surprises as winners of each game weren’t very obvious. Great thanks to the organizers of our trip especially MTN Uganda and MTN Group for the incredible work well done. It was so fantastic (ayoba) that words above are kind of understatement of the whole experience. Most importantly, I give thanks to God, The Almighty, for his continuous blessing as I was among the few who watched this historical World Cup live.

Ayoba, Ayoba…!!!

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Celebrating CSS Naked Day 2010

Written by Matrich on 9th April, 2010

CSS NAKED DAY 2010 Goosh!! I completely forgot about the CSS Naked Day and when I checked on my website, I realized that there was something wrong. I automatically remembered about being CSS naked and automatically googled to check if it was the day. Thankfully it was the D-day and thanks to the function I added to my site to automatically make my website css naked every year.

So for the second year in a row, I am joining the entire web community to celebrate this big day as a way of demonstrating my compliance to web standards i.e. proper semantic markup and a good hierarchy structure.

For more details, visit http://naked.dustindiaz.com/ and in case you got any running websites, you can join the celebration.

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Plotting Graphs on Python for Series 60 (PyS60)

Written by Matrich on 21st March, 2010

While developing an application for one of my projects, I had a need to plot several graphs showing the trends of the inputted data. In the course of finding a solution for this, I came across a great PyS60 API called PySchart by Marcel Pinheiro Caraciolo which provides a standard to construct graphs on PyS60 platform.

Line Chart using PySchart on PyS60However, PySchart couldn’t plot several line graphs on the same canvas yet this was very important in my application as I wanted the user to easily make comparison for the different item’s trends. Luckily, the project had been released under the GNU General Public License v2. I talked to the Caraciolo who was very kind enough to give me the necessary support to improve the line chart portion of the project.

Today, I have uploaded an improved version of the line chart API/library which allows support for different line graphs on the same canvas.

Below is a simple code snippet on how you can implement the graph in the image above.

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from appuifw import *
import e32
from linechart import LineChart
 
def quit():
    print "Exit key pressed"
    app_lock.signal()
 
canvas = Canvas()
app.body = canvas
 
dataset = [[(0, 32.5),(1, 45.0), (2, 90.0)],[(0,32.7),(1,67.5),(2.0,67.3),(3,100),(4,65)]]
chart = LineChart(app.body.size,[0,5,1,0,125,25], dataset, [(255,140,0),(51,96,161),(114,171,242),(16,77,140),(250,210,125),(206,125,49)], legend=["Revenues", "Profits"], colorBack = (237,246,253), xaxislabels=["Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","June"]) 
 
app.exit_key_handler = quit
app_lock = e32.Ao_lock()
app_lock.wait()

Download The Line Graph Example Here and Download The Full PySchart API Here

Hope it will be useful to someone out there and feel free to contact me in case of help or anything.

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PyS60 Presentation at the Mobile Applications Programming Workshop

Written by Matrich on 13th March, 2010

Yesterday, I was privileged to give a presentation about Python for Series 60 in the Mobile Applications Programming Workshop. The workshop was attended by several third year Computer Science and Information Technology students of Faculty of Computing and Information Technology.

In my session, I talked about:

  • Operating Systems and Programming Languages used on Smart Phones
  • So why then Python?
  • Simple comparison between PyS60 and JavaME
  • Which PyS60 works for you?
  • How to test your PyS60 Scripts
  • A General quick look at Python
  • Some PyS60 Modules and their usage

Download the presentation and code samples at the following links:

Otherwise, it was very exciting to see such enthusiastic interesting students ready to take mobile applications to another level. Thanks a lot for the incredible compliments and feedback. Feel free to drop me an email.

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Merry Christmas 2009

Written by Matrich on 24th December, 2009

Again it is that exciting time of the year when we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord. To some, it is just normal KB and a holiday while to many of us, it is not just a child who is born BUT it is The Son of The Living God who is born.

Merry Christmas 2009While I moving in town and shopping malls, I couldn’t believe the incredible number of people moving up and down oba upside down, doing lots of shopping, etc. to prepare for this day. Of course, this is a testimony that it’s not just a normal holiday BUT it is really the coming of special child, Jesus.

This festive season, our very own, Watoto Church, put together the Christmas message in the most simplistic way for many to understand. I must say that it was a great performance and I am certainly sure that it yielded so much fruit to the Kingdom of God and blessed a lot of us. For those who missed, you can hook yourself up with a DVD. A trailer and more details available at “The Journey“. Thanks a lot to my church leader for the great year well done and we continue to pray for more blessings and healing of the city.

As always, just like in 2007 and 2006, I pray that this Christmas brings a new aspect to your life and may Christ’s Birth make more meaning to you as He becomes or continues to be your personal Savior.

WISHING YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

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Matrich’s Experience at the MTN Marathon 2009

Written by Matrich on 20th December, 2009

As the clock kept ticking towards this year’s MTN Marathon, my friends at work challenged me to do my thing (i.e. winning the Marathon or at least winning most of them). Of course, to me, a person who has never run in my entire life, this seems much more than the challenges I face daily. At least in my life, whenever I tried running, after 1 or 2 laps of running the pitch, I would start heavily panting and I could eventually just give up or stop. The only time I could do some sorts of running was when I would be playing soccer, in that case, I would run since I would be active chasing a player, the ball or something but still my limitation was the persistence to maintain my breath.

Matrich finishing the MTN Marathon 2009

Matrich finishing the MTN Marathon 2009

This year right a few weeks before the marathon, I decided to take on this BIG challenge or nightmare. I started by asking a friend of mine if I could run and finish the 10 km. This friend of mine advised me that I could actually make it and gave me a few tips.

Eventually, I decided to set a realistic target of being able to complete the 10 km in whatever time possible. So I laid a strategy of beginning small until when I realize my target. One Saturday, I decided to run near my neighborhood at home which I managed to complete. After a week or so, I decided to run half of the official marathon track, then after another week, I took three quarters of the route and the last time I finished off the whole route.

This was a great achievement to me and I encouraged other workmates of mine to take up the challenge. Despite the many hurdles I faced on the official day of the marathon, I still made my way through the route and finished off the Marathon.

The main lesson I learnt from this whole experience was that DETERMINATION is a very key to success.

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