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Strong piece on Uni of Wisconsin role in Nazarbayev Uni, hits back at recent criticism huffingtonpost.com/howard-schwebe… via @cjcmichel & @david_osborn

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Aug 23 2013

Catching up with a friend at Cafe “Real”…

Category: Eating Out,Pictures,Tweets — ChrisM @ 11:02 pm

Catching up with a friend at Cafe “Real” 4sq.com/14pwgQp

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Aug 11 2013

So,2day=good day-Mum’s been over here(Astana)since…

Category: Tweets — ChrisM @ 8:33 pm

So,2day=good day-Mum’s been over here(Astana)since Tues,yesterday was 12th wedding anniversaries Ira&me,all of us in Baravoya4Ira’s Mum bday

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Jul 25 2013

Automatic Fix For RoK (Kz) facebook Problems

Category: Internet Connections,Kazakhstan,Personal — ChrisM @ 7:18 pm

Well, automatic if you use Firefox or Chrome at least. As detailed in a recent post, there are continuing problems with accessing facebook, if you use a desktop PC/laptop in Kazakhstan. Whilst there are multiple ways of fixing this issue (Opera’s Turbo mode (effectively a proxy server), adding m. or touch. instead of www., or changing http:// to https:// at the beginning of the URL), I discovered an extension/plugin that automates the switching from http to https. This is especially useful if you click links in an e-mail from facebook, as these links start with http.

Anyway, either visit the Chrome extension page, or download the Firefox Add-On.
If you discover that some websites no longer display correctly, you can create exceptions, so that https everywhere allows the (normal, but not secure) http protocol to be used instead.

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Jul 24 2013

Mum Arriving Soon & I Can Drive In A Straight Line

Category: Kazakh Driving,Personal — ChrisM @ 4:06 pm

As you probably guessed from the title to this post, Mum is coming to visit us here in Astana, in just under two weeks. We’re all really looking forward to seeing her, and Anna is now asking several times a day just how long she has to wait. Last time Mum was here (~~2007~~2010, 2007 was the visit before that; I somehow combined the two visits in one… in my head, Anna was present the evening John proposed to Mum, which would have made Anna -2 years old!), we didn’t have a car, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to show Mum a bit more of Astana. Having said that, there is a lot more of Astana to be shown now, I’m trying to remember which buildings existed six years ago!
I wanted to do a dry run for Mum’s arrival, so drove to the airport for the first time ever an hour ago.
I’ve only ever been a passenger for the journey in the past, and wanted to note where speed cameras, narrow lanes, dodgy junctions etc were. The speed limit, even away from people and buildings is 45mph, so you need to keep an eye on the GPS readout for your speed, especially around the horrid little yellow boxes.
It was a good thing I went all the way (rather pulling a U-turn once I could see the airport), as it looks like they have introduced charges for parking there! Or… you can park an extra 3/400m away for free 🙂
This meant my route back home started from a slightly different point, so I had to wait for another car – to follow them “out”, as the way I know to return to Astana involved driving through the (then free) car park. I couldn’t initially tell if the road I came in on was one-way or not, but someone else drove up it without horns sounding, so I assumed it was two way and followed close behind. You get to the end of the little stretch of lane, and there is a turn one-way only sign (luckily in the right direction), but the dual carriageway has unbroken lines on it, and you’re joining straight into the fast lane. Anyway, no problems, just glad I scoped it out first!

The Long And Winding Road

Now yes, I admit that the route is just about as simple as it could possibly be, but I wanted to ensure that when driving to the airport in earnest, that no WTF moments occurred with sudden new roads, roundabouts, or indeed new barriers and a list of charges for the car park. I could be wrong, perhaps it is a security thing, or you get a certain amount of time free, but I now feel prepared.

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Jul 24 2013

All sites I host were down4a bit.Apologies. Compan…

Category: Tweets — ChrisM @ 2:05 am

All sites I host were down4a bit.Apologies. Company I use had little hiccup.All but1 now up& running. Enough MySQL&phpMyAdmin 4 2nite.Sleep!

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Jul 16 2013

Facebook Problems in Kazakhstan

Category: Internet Connections,Kazakhstan,Personal — ChrisM @ 11:15 am

I am still waiting for my renewed pink card (residency permit) to be granted, so I’ll word this carefully.

If you are having problems accessing facebook right now, and live in Astana (I’ve not checked other areas), you are not alone (apparently some people can still load the facebook site, despite being on the same network as those who have issues). You may have noticed that the facebook app on your phone still works. At first, I couldn’t work out how this occurred. I thought maybe the “technical difficulties” that will most likely be attributed to this blackout (five days and counting now) only occurred with HTTP data transfers, and that perhaps the mobile app used a funky way of transferring data.

However, if you visit http://m.facebook.com or http://touch.facebook.com on your desktop computer, you will find you can still access facebook. Because it isn’t designed for higher resolution monitors, the interface is a bit basic, and some of the photos will look jaggedy, but you if you could access something on your phone – be it a group, event or game, you will find you can still access it on your PC.

Until the fault is fixed, this will at least allow you some sort of facebook access on your computer. Either that, or we have to wait until objectionable materials/accounts are removed from fb, and then perhaps the IT glitch will astonishingly fix itself!

Oh, also, should you really need the default fb interface, download the Opera browser. Turn on the TURBO mode, which is pretty much a proxy server, based in another country. This will bypass the current issues in Kazakhstan.

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