Looking for a MiFi

In November, I made a couple one-day trips to Nairobi for meetings. For each trip, I hauled my laptop because I needed to access to email and to be able to work on some documents. I also carried along my iPad because it contains all my reading materials (books, magazines, PDF documents, newspapers).  Ensuring Internet access comes in the form of a small 3G USB modem.*

* Not all hotels and guest houses have Internet access. On the first trip, I forgot the modem and was lucky that the guest house had high-speed Internet access. Lucked out that time. On the second trip, I made sure to pack the modem and sure enough the other guest house provided no Internet service. 

During the second trip, I started wondering if I could get by with just my iPad. Though the iPad is not a replacement for a laptop, I wondered if I could make do with it for short trips. For this to work, the iPad should allow me to accomplish two things; edit documents in a word processor and access the Internet.

Getting a word processor is not a problem, there are text editors and word processors available for the iPad and given my needs I opted to purchase Pages for the iPad. It is a good basic word processor that does pretty much what I need.*

* Well, I hope it does, I'll follow up with a full review of Pages as a basic travel word processor.

Internet access is another matter. Unfortunately I don't have a 3G iPad, I have the WiFi version. When I bought my iPad, I opted against buying the 3G version. I did this because I did not know if I would have the iPad in my hands before leaving for Kenya and I wasn't sure of the 3G support here.*

* As it happened, 3G iPads were arriving about the time I was leaving and 3G coverage in Kenya via Safaricom is pretty good. 


The 3G modem will not work here because the iPad does not have a USB port (even if it did, I doubt that it would support a 3G modem).  My iPhone does have support for WiFi tethering, but for what ever reason, Apple does not enable this feature.*  Bluetooth tethering doesn't work either, Apple doesn't allow the iPhone to connect to the iPad via Bluetooth.  I could jailbreak my iPhone and install MyWi ( non-approved iPhone application) and then I could tether my iPad to the iPhone. However, I really don't want to jailbreak the phone right now.**


* Evidently Android phones can do this, but until the Android is as classy, neat and as easy to use as the iPhone, I'll pass.


** Hats off to the iPhone Dev Team for the great work they do to allow folks to jailbreak their iPhones. With their work, I was able to jailbreak and unlock my previous iPhone (a 3GS) when I first came to Kenya. The only reason why I jailbroke my 3GS was to unlock it.  I now have a factory unlocked iPhone 4, so the only reason to jail break the phone is to install MyWi.


What I really need to solve my connectivity problems is a MiFi device.* The MiFi is a portable HotSpot that uses an Edge or 3G "cellular" network to give users access to the Internet. It is a pretty neat device; small, battery operated and would allow the iPad to access the Internet.** So, I'm on a quest to find a MiFi in Kenya. Who knows if they have arrived in Kenya.

* I suppose I could just buy a new iPad with 3G support and I plan to as soon as the 2nd generation iPads are released. 


** I had access to one in New York and we let our faculty use them when there were on the road. Most everyone liked them.

Upcoming Blog Ideas

So, there has been a backlog in my mind of things I would like to blog about. So in the next few weeks, I look forward to sharing some things that have been going on here in Kenya. For example....

Thanksgiving in Kenya
Traveling light
Capturing household level data
Inventory and stock management
Update on the clavicle (I can throw)
Project Management Software
Network problems
Multi-tasking on the iPad
(A late) 4 month review
The Holiday Season
Holiday Calendars
The Mets Front Office

I'm sure there are more topics that I'll come up, but right now I am enjoying a few minutes on our balcony and I'm not too keen on the idea of thinking. I just want to enjoy my cookie and cold ginger ale.

Circling Back

It has been way too long since I have posted here. If anyone is left reading or following, thank you. I can't guarantee that I'll be more diligent in posting, but I promise to do better.

Over the last couple of months things have really exploded here, the level of work here has gone into the stratosphere. I find myself constantly moving from project to project, meeting to meeting. I rotate through things and then it will be a number weeks before getting back to the beginning.

This week I was tasked with creating a proposal for a new project.* It was critical to get the proposal out by then end of the week so the funder could act on it before their fiscal year ended. This meant that I had to put all other work on hold to get things done. We did get the proposal finished and I was pleased with the results.

* It actually started last week and ran through most of this week. The project is securing and implementing a Pharmacy Information Management System (PIMS). Common sense told me some basic feature of a PIMS, but it took some research to really identify the key features and functions of a PIMS. We have a basic system at AMPATH, but as we move in to primary health care, we need something more robust. The proposal was a request for funding to help us identify and plan the optimal solution for our environment.

With this out of the way, I can return to another project next week and when I catch up with work on that, I'll move to the next and then the next. Eventually, I'll return to back the beginning and start over again, two months later.  

Always circling back.  The cycle approach is I think unavoidable, life and work are rarely linear. The troubling aspect is the two months it takes to get back.* We need to really reduce this time period.  I would argue that this is not a good way to run things. So how to manage this situation.**

* I haven't actually measured the cycle, but I think two months is not an exaggeration, if anything it maybe a bit optimistic.

** I am a manager after all, I need to "manage". 

One of the first things to address is increasing our staffing in strategic ways. The staffing should address current and future needs. We are understaffed in about every area in ISC, so additional staff will certainly help.* 

* We also need more admin staff (sys-admin, network admin, etc), developers, and helpdesk support. All must be addressed and will be in 2011.

I am keen to hire a project manager (PM) or two to help us manage the growing list of projects. Bringing on a PM means more time away from running projects, potentially putting us farther behind schedule or increasing everyone's stress level. But at a certain point, we need to address the problem, make time to fix things, even if this means adding on more stress.* A little pain now is worth it if the results are better delivery. 

* A critical management task is to keep everyone informed during this process and manage expectations. Our colleagues are pretty forgiving if they know what we are up to. They will accept a bit of delay if that means their needs are better address in the near future. We need to manage expectations, this won't fix things overnight.

In addition to hiring more staff, we will look into other ways to better operate and manage our projects. More as that happens.  Thanks for being patient with the slow output.