For most of yesterday, besides meeting a couple of really interesting people, I was flirting around with my new found love - my new Apple MacBook. So far things have been surprisingly easy-going between the two of us.

The biggest issue I’m grappling with now is how to quickly UN-LEARN my PC habits accumulated over the years. And I think I’m doing such a great job at that, being being the nerd I am. Here are some of the surprises I’ve been dealing with:

Unboxing and Plugging: After I unboxed the baby and inspected everything inside the box, I took the beautiful power adapter and looked all round the computer searching for where to plug it in. Before I could think “this must be it”, I felt this pull, and BAM! - the thing plugged itself in! No kidding, the damn connector plugged itself into the computer! At this point I started thinking: this Apple thing must be damn good — I’ve never been treated like an idiot like this before (get the gist?).

Anyway, I pushed the power button to start the baby. After a few clicks I was up and running with my user account, and the baby politely asked for my permission to connect to the WiFi in the room.

But it seemed like something was missing. Where is the right mouse button? Actually Macs have “right-click” functionality … except there’s no right mouse button — there’s just one mouse button! The “right-click” menu is, you go CTRL+Click. Apple must have a design philosophy behind this, but I’ve not had made time to read on this yet. Trouble is, I keep clicking on the right side of the single button and waiting for something to happen.

The Control (Win) / Command (Mac) thingy: Back in the PC environment, many keyboard commands and shortcuts are done with the control key plus some other characters (eg. CTRL+A - for select all, CTRL+C - to copy, CTRL+P - to Print, etc). There’s something similar in the world of Macs too, except this is the COMMAND key. But here’s the thing: There’s CONTROL key in addition to this COMMAND key, and the Command key is in the wrong position :-). So as you’ll expect, I keep hitting FUNCTION+something, and always getting the wrong results.

Installing & Uninstalling Applications: I’m yet to read on the RIGHT way to install applications. Sure, I’ve installed a bunch of applications already, but it seemed so easy that… I’m left thinking… there has to be something else I’m not doing. How can Apple take me to be such an idiot that they’d make things so easy to do round here?

It’s already Sunday morning, and I’ve not had any sleep within the past 48 hours. So I’m off to catch some sleep now. More love stories tomorrow.

I’m so full of life now, thanks to a brand new love I’ve found. I now have a spanky yanky pretty little brand new girl in my life: pretty and prim — but not too slim; with heavenly eyes — and just the right size; very smart … and she just can’t ever be bothered by any of those silly things I do.

She’s from the city of Appleland, the tribe of MacBooks. Vital stats: white, Intel breed 2.2GHz processor, 1G RAM, 120GB storage… and all the usual excellente goodies of the Apple MacBook tribe. But I’ve not been able to find a cool enough name for her yet. So why don’t you suggest a name for my new Apple MacBook?

If you visited this website more than once last week, you would have met a completely different website on each visit.

Life, indeed, has been twisting me in all directions over the past two years — and this website, my principal medium of expression, has loyally been following along in each new direction I turn.

I’d like to thank all of you my regular and long time readers and friends who have stood by me all through it all. Here are a couple of updates:

For some really long term plans (long term = few weeks down the line!)… I’ve moved the blog (which will henceforth be called the journal ) away from the homepage into a sub-directory — http://GeorgeAppiah.com/journal/. But no sweat … everything is tightly integrated, and there are links on both the top horizontal menu and on the left sidebar to take you there.

I’ve also drastically reduced the “blogging load” on me. I’ve sold off most of the blogs I’ve been authoring for some sweet little bucks, and I’ve given away others as gifts. Over the past 3 years, I’ve authored and sold (or abandoned) blogs spanning such vast topics as renewable energy, nude art, wifi, lucid dreaming, web development, country music, digital photography, computer history, fairy tales, oh my!

Anyway, I’m currently focused on two primary websites, which I’m going to turn into a real business to support my intended nomadic life. Here they are:

1. http://www.Ghana-Travel-Guide.com: I don’t need to explain what this is about. Do I?
2. http://www.GeorgeAppiah.com: In addition to this blog (which is going to get a lot more attention from this point on), I’m building lots of practical, how-to tech guides to help you wonderful folks out there. More about that later.

If you visit these two websites, you’ll observe they both spot the same basic layout and design. That’s by choice. I’m in the process of registering an LLC in Delaware, US. Why am I registering a business in US and not in Ghana where I live? Let’s reserve that for a series of posts later on

And it seems I still love hacking cellular networks, and I’m likely going to take a second Masters degree in wireless communication engineering this autumn at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. Yes… tuition is completely free, but sorry… deadline for admission into Swedish public universities was the first of February.

More updates later. Love you all.

Why the silence since I announced my 30-day exercise plan four days ago? I promised to do daily updates but I’ve not had the chance to post even a single update yet!

Since last Thursday, my Internet connection has been all but dead. My ISP seem to have some major DNS issues across their entire network. I’ve also not had power most of this time. And my long time “apartment mate” Cyril packed to strike out on his own last Sunday… so I had to help him with the packing and all that.

I’ll do a batch post of my progress on the exercise plan shortly.

You must have also seen some new changes here on this website, especially the new top menu links — and it shouldn’t be too difficult to guess where my life is heading now. A comment on that is also coming shortly.

From the very beginning we knew our little baby was NOT going to be a household name. Rather we wanted her to be the unknown giant upon whose shoulders many Smart Ghanaians would stand and lead our nation and the rest of the continent towards a safe, just, and prosperous future. And while things have been moving quite uneasily slow for us, we’re moving forward nonetheless.

A major initiative currently underway is a center to be run in conjunction with the Institute of Mathematical sciences, an institution founded and headed by our very own Prof. Allottey.

Yesterday, accompanied by my two partners in crime - Christopher Bennett and Remy Edmundson - I went to inspect the status of work on a facility at McCarthy Hill, Accra, which is likely going to be our new home. This facility currently houses the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and is being expanded to temporarily accommodate the yet-to-be-launched Allottey Andam University College.

We couldn’t have access to indoor facilities, but here are some photos we took from the compound. Enjoy.

Just looking spying around…

On top of the world ….

… with Christopher Bennett

Another shot with Christopher Bennett up the roof

Christopher Bennett and Remy Edmundson

Starting the journey back to ground zero…

Almost down now…

This beast will give us Internet access… for the time being

Man… George Appiah loves to squat!

It’s been a good day… we’re ready to return home now!