ICT4d Experiences

Ubuntu 11.10 reset user password

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:33:00 +0000

The words at the end of the video that may be hard to see.

At the command prompt below:
# passwd user (press Enter)
# (type your new password)
# (re-type password to confirm)

remember both passwords must match.
You are good to go if computer returns
"password updated successfully"

Weekend project ;)

Free Online Training Courses. Part II

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:11:00 +0000

Make your own study timetable. Signup for free online training courses.

Computer studies

UDACITY - classes begin in February 20th, 2012
CS 101: Building a Search Engine. No programming experience required. Learn programming in seven weeks. We'll teach you enough about computer science that you can build a web search engine like Google or Yahoo!

CS 373: Programming a Robotic Car. Programming experience required. In seven weeks you'll learn how to program all the major systems of a robotic car, by the leader of Google and Stanford's autonomous driving teams.

Statistics 110: Introduction to Probability
An introduction to probability as a language and set of tools for understanding statistics, science, risk, and randomness. The course is taught at Harvard University by Joe Blitzstein in Fall 2011.

Lecture videos, homework, review material, practice exams, and a large collection of practice problems with detailed solutions are provided. You need: apple itunes

Accounting and Business free online training courses

M200 Indiana University free online training videos
You need: broadband Internet connection and microsoft silverlight which you can download on site

Video lecture topics available include: Marketing overview; Developing Marketing Strategies; Marketing Ethics and the Marketing Environment; Consumer Behavior; Global Marketing; Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning; Marketing Research; Product and Branding; Product Innovation; Services; Pricing; Supply Chain Management; Retailing; Advertising & Sales Promotions; Personal Selling; Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

A186 Indiana University video titles

Video lecture topics available include: Introduction to Accounting and Business; The Accounting Cycle; Merchandising Business; Inventory Flow, Cash & Controls; Receivables; Long-Term Operational Assets; Liabilities; The Business Organization and Financing; Financial Statement Analysis; Managerial Accounting; Cost Behavior; Cost Accumulation; Budgeting Process; Capital Investments.

Law School Free Online training Video Lectures

Jurist Legal Intelligence
Topics include current Events on Iraq; Corporate Crisis and the Enron Scandal; Terrorism, Civil Liberties and 9/11; Administrative Law; Antitrust Law; Biotechnology and Bioethics; Civil Rights and Race; Commercial Law; Communications Law; Constitutional Law; Contract Law; Corporations Law; Courts and Judges; Crime and Punishment; Cyberspace Law; Disability Law; Elder Law; Election Law; Environmental Law; family law; Feminist Jurisprudence/Women and the Law; Intellectual Property and Copyright; International and Comparative Law; Islamic Law; Labor and Employment Law; Lawyers, Lawyering and the Legal Profession; Law and Legal Theory; Law School and Legal Education; Legal History; Legal Scholars and Scholarship; Psychology and Law; Tax Law; Tort Law; US Supreme Court.

Similar titles:
1. Free Online Courses with Certificates - Make 2012 a year of Learning. Part I
2. 25+ Websites That Let You make Mobile Apps Without Programming Skills

Leave us a comment below, subscribe to our feed and Like us on facebook. You can join our forums to enjoy more free online super content.

Free Online Courses with Certificates - Make 2012 a year of Learning. Part I

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:02:00 +0000

No more need to sit in boring classrooms, study online at your own pace

Lots of free online courses to improve your skills go unattended every year yet so many youth are looking for better quality education everyday. With the Internet becoming faster, affordable and more accessible around most parts in Africa, studying using the Internet is the new and cheapest trend to grow your knowledge and skills.

Here is a list of genuine free online courses from Stanford University. Sign up, watch and complete the assignments and at the end of it, gain valuable knowledge which will make you more competitive in today's job market. Our forums are have rich content on the free online courses as they become available, join the community to stay updated.

Stanford University Online Courses

Computer Science Classes (Click on course title to read more or sign up for the course.)

Design and Analysis of Algorithms I - Starts 23 January 2012 runs for 5 weeks.

Cryptography - Starts 23rd Jan 2012.
Crytography is a tool for protecting information in computer systems.
Probabilistic Graphical Models - Starts 23rd Jan 2012.

Natural Language Processing - Starts Jan 23rd 2012.

Machine Learning - Starts 23rd Jan 2012.

Human-Computer Interaction - Starts 30th Jan 2012.

Computer Security - Starts February 2012.

Game Theory - Starts end of February 2012.

Software Engineering for Software as a Service - Starts 20th Feb 2012.

Computer Science 101 - Starts February 2012. CS101 teaches the essential ideas of Computer Science for a zero-prior-experience audience.

Entrepreneurship at Stanford University

The Lean Launchpad - Starts Feb 2012.

Technology Entrepreneurship - Starts 23rd Jan 2012.

Engineering at Stanford University

Making Green Buildings - Starts January 2012.

Information Theory - Starts March 2012.

Medicine at Stanford University

Anatomy - Starts 5th March 2012.
Anatomy is the most fundamental of all medical sciences. It provides the basic framework and vocabulary used in all descriptions and communications about the body. Click on course title to read more or sign up for the course.

Complex Systems at Stanford University

Model Thinking - Starts 23rd January 2012.
Models improve our abilities to make accurate forecasts. They help us make better decisions and adopt more effective strategies.

Other Free Online study resources

Codecademy - Learn to code.

N342 Server-Side Web Development Distributed Lectures (video and powerpoint)

MIT World - Distributed Intelligence

You may also like:
1. Free Online Training Courses. Part II
2. 25+ Websites That Let You make Mobile Apps Without Programming Skills

Leave us a comment below, subscribe to our feed and Like us on facebook. You can join our forums to enjoy more free online super content.

MTN Charges Mobilephone user Abroad to Receive Local Calls

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:27:00 +0000

Make sure to 'juice up' or load a substantial amount of airtime on your MTN mobile phone before you travel away from home to Europe. A 'substantial amount' should be about Uganda shillings 5,000/= and above.

1. Receiving Local calls

MTN post call info showing how much you have been charged for receiving a call

While in Holland, I got a call from my brother in Uganda. Unlike the case in Uganda, where MTN does not charge users to receive a call, in Holland, MTN charged me 600/= for a call that lasted 41 seconds!

So mind how long you talk especially if you are only saying "yes, I have got off the plane safely blah blah.."

2. SMS

MTN partner in Holland - Vodafone NL

MTN charges for sending one sms from Holland

Sending an SMS using an MTN enabled, zte model, phone in Holland, would set you back 790/= per sms. Make sure to keep the little amount of airtime you have to communicating with whoever is to pick you up to avoid getting stranded.

In Europe, some operators charge you for receiving calls which is often not the case in Africa.

Why not buy a simcard to use in Holland? well, they are not sold on the street like tomatoes in Uganda. In some cases you may have to sign a contract with a telecom provider making the process more complicated than it is back in Uganda.

Leave us a comment below, subscribe to our feed and Like us on facebook so we can continue to serve you better.

Happy 2012 :)

Youth in Farming Blog Win the Youth in Agricultural Award

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:31:00 +0000

Thank you for being a faithful reader of our blog. We need your help before 31st December 2011.

Our sister team, Youth in Farming, has been selected for the second round of the Youth in Agriculture Awards. To make it to the next round, please help vote for them in a few easy steps.

Go to the CTA Ardyis Project page, before 31st December 2011, where the selected 36 blogs are arranged in alphabetical order.

Do a Ctrl+F in your browser and search for "John Kibuuka" (without quotes). Make sure to tick the box right after "vote for this blog". You can vote for a maximum of 2 blogs.

Youth in Farming blog listed for youth awards

Scroll or move down to the bottom of the page and fill in the required information. Your name (2), email address (3). You can fill in "very useful agricultural content" in the box (4) asking you about what you appreciate about the blogs.

Fill in name, email, text, type black letters and VOTE!

Fill in the black letters in box (5) shown in photo above. Ignore the grey letters or numbers.

Click on vote (6) and you done.

Thank you very much.

Your support will go a long way in helping our team to bring more quality farming articles and experiences to online. Join the Youth in Farming facebook page or subscribe to the blog.

35 Services Our Internet Cafe Users Were Asking For

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:32:00 +0000

Rural Wireless ICT Infrastructure (RWICTI) Internet Cafe sign

Internet Cafe services that can bring in a good income for the business, making the Internet cafe business profitable and more sustainable.

Can i get online here? Do you have Internet? Are you connected? Is there network? - Yes we are connected to the Internet. You can read and write emails using our computers here.

Take out that photo/letter for me from the computer (Printing) - Black and white and/or coloured printer to make beautiful photo prints is always asked for.

Can you put these photos in the computer for me? I need to use fax to send this document.. (photo or document scanning) - Scanning photos to be posted on photo sharing websites such as facebook, flickr or to send off to friends via email. Most places have an email address, making scanning a document much better than faxing it.

There are many benefits of scanning over faxing among which is privacy of documents scanned and sent via email remains with the intended recipient instead of faxing them to a machine where they spill out for all to read.

How can i make my computer faster? - this was the most frequently asked question from especially Microsoft windows users. Our best answer to the user was always to get off the windows bandwagon and use the more user friendly ubuntu, but installing such programs such as ccleaner often would free up a good amount of hard disk space, and making the computer faster.

Can you just teach me how to open and read my emails? (Computer training) – We conducted training lasting half an hour, an hour, or less and computer training lasting several days. Users would be interested in learning how to read, write and send an email, access their email address box, join facebook, make friends on facebook, to learn to use the Internet, post photos on facebook, learn Word, Excel...

We were able to create over 200 free yahoo and gmail email addresses plus teaching the users on how to access and read their emails.

Do you computers have word? Can you reduce my photos so I can send them on email? To resize photos we would use programs such as gimp and google picasa software which is all free to download and use.

Can you write a letter on to my son/daughter/friend? (email signup) - Often parents with a son/daughter/relatives abroad who do not know how to use a computer. Often sitting with them and typing away a few words they want to send off would turn them into eternal users of our Internet cafe.

How can I see my friends on Facebook? - Helping people to use facebook to find their friends, classmates and relatives always made most of our users to spend much more time that they initially budgeted for, in the long run earning the Internet cafe more money.

Can I use my laptop to connect online via your network? - Offering apart a table and seat for users with laptops to use their own machines when they visit. Careful with network viruses if you have a windows-based local area network.

Buy a blank CD/DVD - Our Internet cafe was selling empty CDs, 4.2GB and 8.4gb DVDs, re-writable CDs and DVDs.

Play Computer Games - Especially during the school holiday seasons, this is one of the most asked computer services by especially young people. Most requested for computer games include motor racing, spiderman, mortal combat, gta vice city, soccer (fifa).. The super cool online games are more bandwidth intensive, graphics cards, computer memory, fast local area network..

Virus scans of usb flash disks, external hard disk and computers. Updating Clamwin antivirus running on a ubuntu computer quickly helped us to get rid of the most dangerous virus spreading around.

How and where to download especially antivirus updates, free antivirus software, ebooks, music videos, movies, mp3

Torrents and how they work - you can use torrent services such as btjunkie or torrentscan as sources of torrents to download using a program installed on your computer such as deluge, utorrent or bittorrent.

Where and how to upload photos to facebook, flickr, as attachments to send via email.

How to make free calls on the computer? Skype, yahoo messenger and gmail, all provide free computer-computer online calls.

How can I send free SMS online? Do you know any websites to send free SMS? (Sending free sms or bulk sms) - a list of websites where you can send free sms and also how you can use our website to send free sms to local mobile phone users.

Does your photocopy work? How clear is your machine? (photocopy), this is one of the most profitable Internet cafe services. Almost every document today needs to have a copy made for backup or storage. Also several copies of documents to send off to different employers or to open a bank account... list is endless.

Do you have a sealing machine? Do you do binding of documents? Sealing important documents makes them easy to keep for many years without getting affected by moisture. Binding is required to keep several papers of the same report together.

Can you type this report in the computer? Do you make beautiful greetings/birthday cards? (Secretarial services) – typing out reports or proposals; designing certificates, birthday or special season cards; editing documents...

Who repairs your computers? Do you have the machine to blow dust out of my computer? Simple computer maintenance tasks such as blowing dust out of the computer system unit, keyboard and screen; assembling different parts of the computer and installing windows or ubuntu would often be a good way to earn some money.

My ipod shows this error, can you help me? (Re-setting or reformatting Apple ipod software using iTunes) Connecting an ipod onto a windows xp computer running the latest version of iTunes often solved the problems.

What do I need to connect and see my mobile phone on my computer? (Computer-to-Mobile phone software) such as Nokia PC Suite, Samsung PC Suite.. etc

Selling video, ebooks tutorials found free allover the Internet on virtually anything, an ebooks google search turns up over 71 million results!

How can i learn to type so fast? Learn Typing lessons using Klavaro, mavis, some of the students have been able to reach over 60 words per minute from initial speeds of 2 words per minute! Also learning how to use both hands to type than using only one hand.

How to make a Curriculum Vitae or resume - using openoffice word in a format prescribed in different job adverts by prospective employers.

Where can i find donors for our HIV/AIDS non-profit organization? (donors, sponsors, partners, online) - Having a website or blog where the work of the non profit is displayed is the first step to attracting potential donors and partners. But other non-profits resourceful materials and websites such as 1% club and idealist are also helpful, just to name a few.

How do we advertise or get our message out without spending money? (free websites, blogs, forums, online marketplace) - there are free free blogging and website platforms online you can use to host your content (photos and text) about your project.

Am a good writer, can I earn a living writing articles on the Internet? (writing for online audiences) - yes, click here to check out a number of options listed in our forum.

I see all these Ads, is it true that you can make money online here in Africa? (Working online) there are a lot of resources that are being posted in our forum about working online that can give one ideas to pick and work with plus also how to get paid online.

Watch Internet TV or listen to Internet radio - yes, you can watch videos on youtube and plenty of online radio but watch your Internet connection as it will probably not last until the end of month before it is out.

Can you make a copy of my CDs? (CD/DVD copy/Burning) Can I watch movies on CDs or DVDs on the computer? - user wants a computer with a working compact disk (CD) or DVD drive with a video playing programs such as vlc installed on it. Using Nero to make duplicate CD/DVDs always worked well for us.

How can I get rid of viruses? What is the best antivirus software? - New antivirus programs are coming out everyday, gaining a huge following and making a lot of money meaning the best antivirus is to get off Microsoft windows and use the more productive and virus-free open source linux operating systems such as ubuntu, which let you concentrate on getting work done than worrying about viruses.

Can I find genuine free online study courses or universities? yes, many online courses are listed inside our forums.

Entreprenuership resources I can use to develop my business? - check out our entreprenuership resources section in our forum.

18 Features an African Smartphone or Tablet Must have

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 22:15:00 +0000

There was an article circulating recently about 2 Kenyans who have "contributed" to making the first african tablet. This was great news. Problem is their contribution was not defined. Maybe they contributed money to the making of the tablet, or design knowledge or knowledge about the smartphone industry in Africa, nobody knows.

This article got me thinking though, about what a truly african smart phone or tablet should have. These are ideas from experiences with the phones that I currently have and are in no particular order.

HP iPaq next to the widely used ZTE-g s213 dual sim phone

Weight, very light or as light as it can be.

Dual sim – has been the absolute minimum, though there are some people with 3 to 4 sim card phones. Different telecom companies offer different call rates on their networks or to other telecom networks. To advantage of these reductions in call rates, a dual sim card phone reduces the hassle of slinging around several phones from different telecom operators.

String-notch, for keeping phone around the neck while working away in the fields.

Long lasting battery, both charge & battery lifetime, should not be heavy too.

bright torch light - ZTE-G phone

Torch – very important. In Uganda, less than 5% of the population enjoy electricity out of a population of 34 million!

Memory card slot – ability to store different ringtones of favourite musicians. Also the ability to have favourite music to listen to when stuck in traffic jam or when the local radio are full of unending adverts. To store videos, games, ringtones, mp3 ebooks and lessons..

Radio/audio player – this is your only solace when stuck in winding jam such as this... (photo of ugly Kampala traffic jam)

Calculator – very important and easily accessible one. Most people do business when stuck in the traffic jam or by the road side. Having to quickly calculate what you owe with the dizzying sun overhead, at the same time trying to mind not to get hitting by a spending taxi or get your bag snatched by a hungry teenager, you need to be fast with whatever you are doing.

Made of not-so-easy-to-break plastic mobile phone housing no matter how many times it falls down, forget the fancy brittle stuff that is going to break anyway even when a coin is dropped on it, and think of a phone that cannot easily break even when dropped several times. It also has few openings on it that allow moisture to seep in or when dropped in water.

Easy to understand and use keypad - Do not stuff all the letters, numbers and weird characters all together on the keypad. This appears very confusing and frightening to most people. Instead a single key on the keypad where all the special characters can be accessed is much better. Of these phones, my mother finds the ZTE phone keypad easier to use and understand than the flashy HP iPaq phone.

Above - the widely used ZTE-g phone keypad, middle square scroll button

HP iPAQ Keypad

Loudspeaker and headphone jack - Loudspeaker is especially important if everybody wants to listen in on whatever is playing, headphones would be limiting sharing in such an event.

Great signal reception - most rural remote areas have low or no telephone signal coverage. Having a mobile phone with strong signal strength is a great plus

Camera - good enough to produce a clear picture.

Mobile phone Applications - absolutely the necessary! - phonebook, call center (call history & call settings), file manager (phone and memory card manager), SMS center, Multimedia (Radio, audio player, Games), Phone settings (simcard, network, security and connectivity settings), user profiles (General, Meeting, Outdoor, Silent, Headset), Organizer (Calender, Tasks, Alarm, Calculator)

Screen Display- Must show: battery usage icon, Network strength, Date and time, user profile (General/silent), received messages & missed calls.

Should be affordable - the continued success $80 tablets in Kenya just show that tablets could be the missing link to delivering content that can change lives in many parts of Africa.

Current buzz words: Mobile, social and location - Applications such as gps make it easy to map an area considering that Africa is one of the least mapped places. Interest in mapping local areas in Africa is just about starting to take shape with many young people showing interest to participate. Many africans are very social and love passing on to the others good funny stories fast.

Add in peer-to-peer networking, so that the phones can communicate with each other finding the best and fastest route to the recipient, in some cases without the need for a telephone mast. This would greatly improve reception in low telecom coverage areas since people within same community communicate more together than they do with people outside.

An African Smartphone or table must not have:

Mobile phone Touchpad as scroll button – I currently have an HP iPAQ running windows mobile 6. I received a couple of days back as a gift from a friend. It looks very fancy, very nice gadget. But I could not figure out how to scroll and move around to select different options on the device such as selecting messages option to read and send sms.

My brother, who works with phones everyday for a living, helped me out. The scroll button is right in the centre of the phone. To scroll, you have to move your thumb over it like a you do when using a mouse touchpad to scroll on a laptop.

Middle round scroll button on HP iPaq smartphone - difficult to use

I know so many other people who would fail to figure this out or find it hard to use this sort of phone. Please do not put any more such buttons on an African smartphone. I have also witnessed first hand so hundreds of times in an Internet cafe people just getting scared of using a laptop touchpad as a mouse, leave alone getting scared to use the laptop. Most people are not comfortable at all at using a laptop touchpad as their mouse.

Do you have features you want to see on your smart phone that are not available, leave it below in the comments. You may also consider subscribing to our feed or Like us on facebook.

25+ Websites That Let You make Mobile Apps Without Programming Skills

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:44:00 +0000

build your mobile Apps: android, apple, MS windows, blackberry

There are websites that allow you to make mobile phone apps without the need to learn programming skills. You only need to click a few times and you have an app done. You can have a mobile App for your website, product or service ready in as few as 10minutes! Just sign up and start clicking away.

Free DIY App Websites

1. Google App Inventor for Android - Login with your gmail email address or create one if you don't have. After login, there alot of tutorials to help you get started. You can build apps that inform and educate or fun games. Get in there and get your hands dirty, you never know, you would haul out a million dollars!

2. AppMakr, a free Web-based tool, uses a simple, step-by-step wizard to guide you through the process. This website takes your online feeds and turns them into an app for you. The feed can be from your website, blog, twitter stream, add a photo and your app will be done. Publishing your app to the AppMakr gallery is free but costs $199 to publish in the apple store.

3. ViziApps - MobiFlex, a more advanced Web-based tool that lets you build apps that work with a phone's camera and GPS. MobiFlex charges $99 to publish an app in the Apple or Android app stores, plus a monthly fee of $10 to $199, depending on the size of the app and number of users.

4. Swebapps - charges $499 one-time development fee for the basic version developing apps for both apple and android. The easy, low-cost option for small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and anyone targeting a mobile audience!

Google App Inventor - use your Gmail email address to start

5. My App Builder - is a tool that takes your content and turns it into an app for you for a low monthly hosting fee. for $29/month, you sign up for a monthly service, builds your iPhone/iPod Touch Apps for you. Just submit your content (videos, books, etc.) and we will take care of the rest. Take advantage of Apple's wildly popular iTunes Store that you won't find anywhere else. You no longer need a technical background or a small fortune to develop your own iPhone/iPod Touch applications.

6. Snappii - Create your app without programming in minutes, customize look and feel with our WYSIWYG Editor, see your app work on your iPhone in minutes with Web2Phone Copy. Affordable: No set up fees. Only $39/mo

7. Red foundry - Build the mobile app that you want. No code, unless you insist. complete solution for building and managing mobile apps. Without coding, our unified platform enables everything from stunning content based mobile apps to powerful enterprise solutions, while reducing the mobile app development cycle from months to days.

8. Genwi - Tablet and smartphone publishing platform where you publish interactive, social and live media apps all popular mobile devices, including iPad, iPhone, Android, and HTML5. They offer a 30-day free trial while the basic package is $99.

Apps can also include various revenue generating capabilities for businesses like Ads, coupons, in-App subscriptions etc. You also get comprehensive real-time analytics that provides insights your into Apps usage.

9. TapLynx. A powerful iPhone framework. Rapidly develop iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch Apps without learning Cocoa, monetize your Apps through sponsorships, ads, and download fees and great support.

Created especially for Agencies & Designers to make beautiful, dynamic apps without writing code

The SDKs are free to download and evaluate, and once you are ready to push to production all you’ll need to do is purchase a license key. TapLynx license for iPhone is $599 and for an iPad app $1,198

10. AppBreeder - A number of options to choose from as well as creating an app that can be used on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android platforms. Creating web apps is free.

11. MobDis

everything made as easy and intuitive as possible. Drag-and-drop interface. One click publish. Intuitive animation controls. Cross-platform compatibility. Produce beautiful rich media mobile ads and sites within minutes.

Pay As you Go package - where you pay only what you need when you need to. You get charged $0.02 per microsite access. Special pricing plans available for resellers, Educational or Non-profit organizations, contact support team.

12. BigForge- LocalBeacon platform - Using LocalBeacon, you can produce custom iPhone applications that can be deployed on the app store, or published via the LocalBeacon engine.

Our platform gets used for a lot of things, including medical applications, tour guides, reference applications and many more. We love hearing about new ideas and you might be surprised how easy it is to get your idea turned into a working mobile application.

13. iPhonify - Create an iPhone version of your site. It's free and takes less than a minute.

All your site requires, is an RSS feed. After that, you can add your site to your home screen with the '+' button in the iPhone's browser. Your url: http://iphonify.net/XXXX where XXXX is username for your website. Simple and easy to use.

14. EyeMags - Its Free to build your own Apps in minutes for Android, iPhone/iPad, Nokia, Samsung and most other phones. Has support for all Java phones, iPhone, iPad and popular touch phones.Login with your facebook account, if you have one otherwise email support for access.

15. GameSalad - A game creation tool for people who don't speak code. Create games for iPhone or iPad, works on all iOS devices. Publish your games instantly to GameSalad Arcade, powered by HTML5 technologies.

16. UppSite - Get FREE native apps for your website. Push your apps to the stores - FREE Push your content to the readers

Mobile Websites and Applications

17. Shoutem, - They call themselves "The world's simplest Mobile App Maker." - turn your websites into Mobile Location Based Services overnight!

We integrate with your website, your YouTube and Flickr channels and take all that content across mobile platforms.

18. UnityMobile - Build and deliver the best. Whether you are making a mobile website or publishing a mobile application, UNITY’s integrated platform is simple enough for any user, regardless of technical skills.

Africa: Make an app today!

19. Widgetbox - Create a mobile web app that visitors can access on the iPhone and Android smart phones. Recommended browsers are Google Chrome and Safari as they closely resemble the mobile interface thus better at rendering previews. Gold plan is $25 per app per month

20. Runrev - Use RunRev's proprietary “LiveCode” – an English-like language for programming apps — and develop apps for iOS. They have a number of video tutorials on the website to get you started.

21. MotherApp - Reach millions of new customers on iPad, Android, fast and secure distribution of your content. It is also start risk free - pay only for traffic and keep all the profit.

22. Saasmob - create ready-to-deploy apps in minutes and submit to any app store.

Have no time to code your app? Submit your Mobile App ideas

23. Apps Incubator - From the guys themselves: If you have an idea for an iPhone, iPad or even Android application, you can submit it directly to the App Incubator for a shot at getting it made. If your concept passes our challenging set of criteria - from originality to functionality - we will design, develop and market your app. You don't have to pay a cent for any part of the process, and we'll share a handsome portion of the profits with you

Apps for: DJ's and Producers, Bands and Musicians, Bars and Nightclubs, Restaurants and Bistros

24. My App is the easiest, fastest and most affordable way for you to create and manage your own iPhone and Android app without any technical knowledge using our Do-It-Yourself platform. Build your App for $299.

25. MobBase - Fast and easy. Build it once and distribute it on the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Android, and Desktop. Your music, photos, videos and more wherever your fans are.

Mobibase - Apps on display

Mobile App commerce stores

26. MobiCart - a free and simple way for you to build and manage your m-commerce store as a native or web app. MobiCart works on its own, or link it up to your existing website.

27. Zubibu - internet shopping becoming mobile. It allows you to immediately set up a browser-based mobile version of your online shop on a number of mobile devices.

A mobile version of your online shop is available in the web browser of popular smartphones. In order to make purchases, mobile customers enter the familiar address of their online store and zubibu ensures that they are provided with the version suited to their devices. Try a 30-day free trial without requiring a credit card.

Depending on your budget, most of the tools listed above can help you create a mobile app for your product or service. Others will help you create a mobile app for your store where you can advertise and let customers know about new products or discounts, raising awareness about your products and services hence tapping into the ever expanding mobile devices market.

If you like this post, consider subscribing to our feed or leaving a comment below.

My Takeaway from the G-Uganda Business day Event

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:20:00 +0000

Google team members present at the G-Uganda business event

These are notes from the G-Uganda Business day event held at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel on the 8th Sept. 2011. These are my notes as the presentations took place and from some of the sessions I was able to attend.

Google is in Africa and trying to;

- make Internet relevant

- train businesses, developers understand the value of Internet

- Uganda is one of 7 countries that are being focused on, others are Egypt, Ghana, SA, Nigeria, Kenya

- products are being launched specifically for Africa, e.g. Google baraza, trader

- bring Google caches, training, competitions e.g. Developer challenge

- they are looking for people to help Google make the Internet an integral part of peoples everyday lives

Why is google in Africa? What is the value?

- to empower the market

- to improve the quality of their lives

- more than half of population in Uganda is youth (UG has youngest population on the continent)

- Google is here to partner, to get more users online, and using Internet to give access to their products

- 54 countries on continent, but Google is willing to partner & invest

- Africa has a great opportuntity to leverage technology

- there are alot of tools from Google

- they're committed to helping Africa develop

Victor Munyua, commercialization Sub Saharan Africa - A Digital Revolution

What is going to happen...

We need to begin building businesses that are going to offer services for all the people going to come online!

2 billion+ people worldwide with Internet access via a PC
5 billion people with mobile phones
4 billion+ online searches everyday
500 million+ active facebook users
48 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute

If you are a business, are you going to get involved or stand on the side?

Either you get online and engage your clients or somebody else will come online & take your clients

Projections: Internet in 2010 - 1.8billion; In 2020 - 5billion people

Nature of media revolutions

Advertising; Technology; Users; Content - Adoption cycle

Local content all over the world!!

If you are business, think of transfering whatever you are doing OFFline online

Put your info out there, figure out what they want, and how they want it,

Online media is growing up!

blogs are huge

consumers are screaming

Google Maps - can your business be found on maps? Use Google Maps and Google MapMaker

How many people watched the Royal wedding?

25mil on TV,
101 mil on Youtube, 5million page views per minute

Marketing is the new finance - Tracking & measuring ROI, tools are available

Use digital to compliment all the other things you are doing

Marketing is changing!!

the 4 B's

Be present
Be found
Be relevant - mobile friendly website
Be accountable - make sure your business does what it does

Internet Insights & Trends in Uganda & East Africa; By Ayite Gaba - Business Development, Dakar - Senegal

5 countries in East Africa; Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi
135million people (2 times France population)
swahili spoken by 40% people
4% of Africa's GDP, highest in Kenya $30B
KE, UG & TZ make up 90% of Internet users
16million users online in EAC
60mil+ devices sold annually -feature phones
Most people browse the Internet using feature phones are dominating the mobile access market, bought at less than 120,000ugx.
Mobile phones are of recent but their growth is very close to computers
60% of mobile phone users access the Internet once a day compared to those accessing the Internet via PCs
Number of internet users is increasing greatly

By 2014: 20 million Internet users will be online representing 15% of EAC population

Most searched in EAC:

1. News,

2. entertainment,

3. sports,

4. local information,

You have to optimize OFFline events, online; tailor your message to that what drives traffic to your website

Luisella Mazza - Google Webmaster Tools

How can i use that to improve my business???

Google Ads: Organic results & Sponsored results

Search results

Organic results (Natural search results) - using Google algorithm with over 200 parameters in algorithm especially how relevant info on page is (how useful)

Sponsored results - bidding system used in Adwords

Why are you taking your content online?

Increase market share
Stand out from competition
New business opportunities

Give visitors what they are looking for

What are pple searching for?? Use Google Insights for Search

top & rising queries: www.google.com/insights/search/

Modify the filters for your country

time interval, category

CONTENT IS KING - Create relevant content.

why content is king??

Google's mission - organize world's information and make it universally accessible and useful

Help Google understand your Content

What users sees Vs What Google sees

Search engine are machines but Google may see it blank

Search engines understand text only version of the image. Turn brochures into text.

Example: To run the text on how search engines views your website,

Go to your browser e.g. Chrome, firefox, IE, thunderbird;
type this in the address bar (URL bar): cache:http://URL ; for instance: cache:http://www.ruralict.com

MAKE IT PERSONAL

Make interaction easy
Allow people to leave comments
Comments create engagement, foster communities, and add valuable content
Use safe plug-ins
Watchout for SPAM

Stand out from the Crowd

Let visitors recommend your content on Google Search and share it on Google+
See what your social connection have +1'd
Put the +1 button on your pages
Visitors are reminded to pay special attention if page received +1s

More: ww.google.com/+1/button

Find your "small business" voice
Make sure of google relevant content on the page
Make sure you have relevant, nice sweet content
Make sure its fresh and updated
Get some help

How to choose a search Engine Optimiser - improve useability of your website.

choose wisely before paying for Google No.1 ranking!

Become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work,
Read Google's SEO starter guide,
Do research on the industry,
Google algorithm changes very frequently, no one can promise to make your website no.1, rank higher
No one can guarantee No.1 ranking on Google.

USE ALL OUR RESOURCES

Visit Google Webmaster Central - already 9/10 questions are already answered. Read the blog. Watch youtube. Google Webmaster Central Help forum, youtube, etc

Content-see what your competitors are offering;
Google seo guide
Make your website popular, participate in online discussions
Get recognition for incoming links
Make content relevant

Google Website Optimizer - Natalia Marmasse,

Download the Website Optimizer presentation

Website testing - process of showing different variations of your site to your visitors

Makes testing quick and easy

Consistent user experience

Give the experiment time.. at least 2 weeks to rule out seasonality - like weeks or weekends;
Depends on how much traffic your website is getting; more traffic less time to wait to take action on what works and what does not.
very small traffic, wait a bit much longer - 1month or 2 months..

Pick a Page to Test; decide page to test - which is getting a lot of traffic;

What to test?

Get ideas on what to test

headlines, Images, calls to action, forms, page layout, donation options, payment buttons and shapes...

Where to find optimizer? Go here to Google website optimizer

Stages of setting up an experiment

A/B Testing - testing different variations of a page

Give name of your experiment

fill URL of origial page

fill in the URL of convertion page - eg. "thank you for filling this page" "thank you"

Paste the control snippet on top / bottom of page

sit and wait for enough time to get data in

test 2 - 3 on a page receiving little traffic

How website optimizer was used by Obama Campaign

Obama online $500 million,
McCain $201,
Obama Offline $156ml

Always Test - don't trust your intuition - you will be surprised!

know your audience and optimize the most

Why you should be testing?

It comes down to clicks and conversions
You pay money to drive traffic to your page
Consider your traffic percentages
Wait at least 2weeks for results (bare minimum)
Iterate, iterate, iterate

start testing the big stuff, test but don't test too many

Publisher Tools: Custom Search Engine (CSE) and Adense For Search (AFS)- Chris Kiagiri; Technical lead, Google Kenya

CSE - harness power of Google for your website

use google for your own website search function

Who to use CSE?

Any website whose search is less effective than searching same site using google.

Why does the quality of search on my site matter??

Increase traffic to your website, user engagement, and ultimately increase revenue for you.

you want people to know your website as a place where they can get whatever they are looking for - this is what has made Google so rich!

Make a prominent search box on top of your website

Show me the money

Use the Google Custom search page - Make money link, just towards the bottom.

CSE features

Search entire website or specific pages
Host the search box and results on your own website
Customize the look and feel of results
Improve customer retention and converstions
Provide fast & relevant search results
Make money with Adsense for Search

Here is the link to Google Custom Search Engine

Monetize your unique Content - Overview on Google's advertising solutions for publishers - Paa Kwesi/Vignesh Anand - Partner Solutions

Users from Uganda find more relevant content, unique because it is your content

many types of content - images, music, video, websites...

users in Uganda visit global US sites; most ugandans have low incentives

In Uganda, most searched for;

Daily Monitor
Job mart
Red pepper

Social media

news

soccer

email messaging

other sports news

Example of queries

daily monitor
soccer
live scores
skype
al jazeera

Google Tools

Google webmaster tools

Google insights for search

Google for publishers suite

Google custom search

Google Adsense for search - targeted to users keywords in your search bar

Google Adsense for content - Ads on content you publish

Double click for publish

Google page speed - optimize your web performance

Youtube

DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) - hosted management solution

Software Engineer @Google - Mike Springer, - Improving your user Experience

What makes a beautiful design?

10 UX principles: product useful; fast; simple; engaging; universal; beautiful; personally, innovate

Everything you make online should strike a balance with all these 10 points, apps, websites,

1. Focus on the people, audience, user of your product

Google search, maps, docs

2. Every millisecond counts

0 - 0.6seconds; 2.5 - 8s; 5s+ they are going away

speed is very important

Chrome is fast, but more importantly - the perception of the product. The more people perceive your product, they can easily stick with it.

3. simplicity is powerful than complex

E.g Google search page

4. Engage beginners & attract experts

eg on Google people search alot "how do i google?"

Designed for the experts but great help for beginners

Eg Gmail - easy users; Google Labs - Experts

5. Dare to Innovate

Just because somebody does it 1 way doesn't mean that its the only way to do whatever they are doing!

6. Design for the world

World is a big place, with internet its becoming smaller place

products in UG can be used all over the world; more impact & end of day, more money

E.g Google Maps - more info for people allover the world

7. Plan for today's & 2moro's business

plan for today & 2moro with an eye towards 2moro making products that are expandable.

8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind

make users enjoy using your products. Visual candy without distracting people away from what they are doing eg Google+ adding users

9. Be worthy of people's trust

once you lose people's trust, you cannot get it back. Handling people's privacy is very important.

make sure you computers are uptodate with antivirus software

10. Add a human touch

let people know who is behind the product. Add some playfulness, joy & delightful & interacting with your users.

Eg. in the spam folder "Hooray there is no spam here"

Google Webmaster Tools for Business, Luisella Mazza

Search Quality team

Overview

1. discover your visitors interest

2. site popularity on the web

3. targeting right audience

4. daignostics

1. What are people looking for? And how frequently?

so you can tune your content to what people want

Tools to find out:

Google autocomplete tool (while searching in Google searchbar)
Google Trends, - best time to launch product
Google Insights for search - what are the variations in time
Google webmaster tools - free, accurate, direct point, much more accurate than data on other sites.

2. How to tell your site is popular on the web?

is the site offering what visitors are looking for? who is talking about your website? how do they refer to it?

Sign up with webmaster tools & discover top search queries

Google Webmaster central blog

3. Targeting the right audience

where are your users? if your website targets a specific region: Use Geotargeting in webmaster tools

Google Places - add info such as if you accept cash, phone number,

4. Diagnostics and resources

Do we know about your pages? Is your site indexed?

Sign up for webmaster tools
Submit sitemap

Can we access your site?

Identify & fix crawl errors

Webmaster tools: Labs > Site Performance
Identify slow pages on your site to improve their load speed
Akamai research: ecommerce acceptable speed < 2sec

Google is trying to make all websites load at less than half a second,

Visit pagespeed labs if you do not want to sign up for Google webmaster tools to test speed of your website: - analyzes performance of pages; gives specific advise to make pages load faster

Youtube for business

2 billion views everyday!

As an artist - produce video content & have an audience immediately

Youtube.com

Empowers talent faster
Much larger audience
Beatles took 3yrs to break into US market, Susan Bowles took 3 weeks using viral online youtube
Cost of production in decreasing, the hunt for Gollum - sequel for Lord of rings on youtube

In Nigeria - NollywoodLove

2nd largest movie industry in the world after bollywood
Has taken world by storm
Uploaded over 1000 movies
Earns more than 1million dollars from his business on youtube

techcrunch "welcome to the chaos, Excitement and Danger of Nollywood"

more than just cats & dogs

Youtube rentals, music concerts, etc in the US

Youtube partner program - not yet launched in Uganda but soon

-control the rights of the content produced

-youtube for research purposes

Links to the Google presentations will be added here below as they become available. If you attended the event, what did you learn? Leave your comment below.

Do not forget to Like us on facebook or follow us on twitter: @ruralict4d

Flickr stream to some of the photos of the entire G-Uganda business day at Sheraton

Enjoy Uganda's own Richard Kaweesa performing after the lunch break

Windows Trojan.Dropper Virus Eats Mobile Internet Bundles - 5ways how to Get Rid of it

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:48:00 +0000

Orange Internet Everywhere connection box

There is a not-so-easy to detect virus on windows XP that quickly uses your internet connection. It is not easy to detect because very few major antivirus programs are able to scan and uproot it from your system.

How to tell if your computer is infected with this type of virus?
The only way is if you are using the mobile Internet bundles using huawei modems, such MTN broadband, Orange Internet everywhere, Airtel Internet everywhere. You need to know how much Megabytes you use in a month.

How I found out
In february, my girlfriend was still using a windows xp computer while i had ubuntu 9.10 laptop. We were using the mtn ball broadband Internet huawei modem. 500MB was enough data for a month to use at home considering we both had access to the Internet at our workplaces.

She contracted the dropper virus and we had the 500mb bundle wiped out in 3 days. I thought maybe she had done some updates or downloaded a heavy movie. Anyway, we renewed again. 500mb was again wiped out in 3days. We suspected a virus (we updated avira & scanned entire system) but we also thought that the service provider was giving us less. We switched off any wifi connections.

Considering that we needed to use the Internet, we paid up again for another 500mb. This one ran out again in 3days with only the windows computer using it. We opted for another provider, this time, we bought a 1gb Orange Internet everywhere bundle.

The Orange Internet Everywhere software connection box after being connected used up 5MB in 3minutes without having any browser open. No, i don't think it was an antivirus update either!

The Trojan.Dropper malware attack
From the Symantec website:

A Trojan.Dropper is a type of Trojan whose purpose is to deliver an enclosed payload onto a destination host computer. A dropper is a means to an end rather than the end itself. In other words, the dropper is usually used at the start or in the early stages of a malware attack.

Once a dropper is executed, its own code is simply to load itself into memory and then extract the malware payload and write it to the file system. It may perform any installation procedures and execute the newly dropped malware. The dropper usually ceases to execute at this point as its primary function has been accomplished.

Droppers are used by malware creators to disguise their malware. They create confusion amongst users by making them look like legitimate applications or well known and trusted files.

These dropper viruses are becoming very common among windows users. They will use up much of your mobile Internet bundles without your notice leaving you to constantly pay for more megabytes of data you never use. In this day of hard economic times, this can be a headache you can very well spare yourself.

Since using a Trojan.Dropper form of attack on computers running Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows Vista, Windows NT, Windows 2000; Symantec has issued a Latest Rapid Release version June 13, 2011 revision 039

5 ways to Get rid of Trojan.Dropper

1. Get freely available ubuntu software - Ubuntu is the most locally used free operating system in Uganda. There is a great ready-to-help community, free locally available downloads of the latest ubuntu releases at the Uganda linux users group (LUG). Remember to join the mailinglist and ask all your newbie questions there.

After you install ubuntu, your Internet everywhere modem should be able to work well without giving you any headache.

2. Download Symantec Trojan.Dropper June 2011 release - Download the Symantec Trojan.Dropper latest release and follow their instructions. The trojan.dropper is not at all detected by several other antiviruses however updated they may be.

3. Backup. Format Disk and Re-install Windows - Backup your files and reinstall your windows XP, 2000, vista etc. Before re-installing your system remember to format your disk. This way, everything being installed on the computer harddisk is new.

4. Stop renewing Mobile Internet bundle - Use Internet cafe - Use Internet cafe computers to access the Internet. Otherwise, loosing your hard-earned money every 3 days buying Mobile Internet bundles that would otherwise last you a month does not make sense.

5. Use ubuntu live-CD - If you don't have power to reinstall the computer you use, you could download a ubuntu image and burn it on CD. You would then walk around with Ubuntu live-cd and use it before you plugged in your modem. Ubuntu 10.04 onwards should work fine without having to install usb-modeswitch file.

An Easy way to make Windows XP/Vista/7 Bootable USB Drive

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:04:00 +0000

Forget the PE builder and having to scrape the web for Windows server 2003 files. Making a windows XP, windows Vista or Windows 7 bootable USB drive should not be difficult anymore.

Here are all tools you need:

-USB drive, preferably 2GB+
-WinToFlash software (6.8mb) free for download
-Windows CD or .iso Image
-Daemon tools lite, (10.7mb), download here
-A pc running windows xp
- winrar / winzip

Steps on how to make a windows bootable usb pen drive

1. Download and install the software
Download a free copy of the WinToflash and extract it to a folder on the desktop. If you do have a windows CD and a working CDrom drive, then you don't need Daemon tools. Otherwise, daemon tools acts as a virtual CDrom drive to read your windows iso image, incase you have no access to a working CD/DVD drive.

2. Install your software
Daemon tools takes a little while to install & setup the virtual drives.

WinToflash is a portable app that does not need to be installed. After you have downloaded it, extract it to a folder on your desktop using Winzip and run it by clicking on the program icon WinToFlash.exe.

Click on WinToFlash.exe to start program. No need of installing

3. WinToflash welcome page. Click on Advanced mode tab to select activity and continue.

Click on Advanced Mode to select activity.

4. There are so many other tasks you could accomplish with WinToflash app. Select transfer windows XP/2003 setup to USB drive and click on Run.

Be sure to select "transfer windows XP/2003 setup to USB drive"

5. Launch Daemon tools (red icon in system tray), mount the Windows XP image stored in a folder somewhere on your computer and note its drive letter.

run Daemon tools lite to mount windows .iso image

6. Make sure the drive letters indicated in WinToflash correspond to where the Windows XP image is mounted and to the formatted usb drive as well. You can view the drive letter of both the mounted usb drive and windows image from "my computer"

Make sure drive letter of windows image & usb drive are correct

7. Go on and click run. The process does not take so long.

8. When done, remember to edit the bios settings of the computer where you are going to install windows XP. "Boot from usb drive" should be selected as 1st boot device.

Select this option to continue installing windows XP.

Open .key files - Convert .key to ppt or pdf for free

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:17:00 +0000

I downloaded a presentation which is distributed .key format which needs a Mac machine to open or read it. Just to share, there is a great free online website, zamzar.com, that uploads your file and converts it to either pdf or powerpoint format, .ppt. This file can then be read using openoffice.

Observations

The upload of the file from my laptop is faster than that than the download over a wireless link.
Attach 1 file at a time for conversion. Attaching multiple files will slow conversion process.

zamzar.com - convert .key file to pdf or ppt

Email Scams Migrate to Mobile Phone call Scams

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Personal experience

This morning while walking to pick a taxi to work, I received a phone call from a smooth talking fellow. The person on the other end of the line greets me and introduces himself as Mukasa. He goes ahead and asks about how my former colleagues in tanzania are doing.

I respond cheerfully responding that they are all doing well and also that I had left tanzania to work in Kampala. He mentions names of my tanzanian colleagues. This made me think that I had probably met him during the couple of years I had spent in tanzania.

After we have had a bit of chatter about the good times in tanzania and what am doing in Kampala, he goes ahead and calls my mind to attention. Here is how starts:

Mukasa (scammer): John, very nice to hear you are doing so well. Anyway, am also working in hoima. Have you ever been to hoima?

Me: no but i hear its very rich in oil and that there is a lot of land grabbing going on there.

Mukasa (scammer): Ooh, you ought to know your country. Anyway, am based in Hoima and am working with Tullow oil. Now, there is a deal I would like to share with you so that we can both share the huge commissions associated with it.

Me: Ooh, that is great. Tell me about the deal. (in my mind expecting a big website deal)

Mukasa (scammer): Am sorry it is a bit out of your scope of work. But here at Tullow oil, our equipment has broken down for a month now. Our boss, Mr. Brown, wanted to fly to Europe so he could purchase 7 pieces of equipment but I took the initiative to alert him that the same equipment is available here in Kampala. John, this whole deal has about $35,000 worth of commissions!

Me: Oooh my God! That's alot of money! (tagging along but in my mind already labeling it as a scam attempt)

Mukasa: $35,000 is not alot of money John. Now here is what I would like you to do. I would like you to talk to dealer in Kampala so that you can broker the deal. I want you to get a pen and paper so you can write down the details am going to give you.

Me: Man, am walking right now on the street without anywhere to sit to write anything, maybe we can talk later and i can write down the details of the deal.

Mukasa: John, the deal is serious. I want you to go meet Mr. brown when he comes to the airport....

Ooh my mind was already straying away from this conversation that had already taken alot over 10 minutes.

5 Reasons why I figured this to be a scam
1. Person mentioning large sums of US dollar currency. This is the same as the emails we all constantly delete about a huge business deal where someone wants to transfer $1million in your bank. Click here to read my earlier post on scammers.

2. Tullow oil scams in Uganda are becoming a popular catch. They include jobs to work on an oil rig in Hoima, a mzungu would has died in an accident leaving alot of money at place of accident.. etc

3. Person pretending to know me. At first, it did not occur to me, but after my mind classifying conversation as a scam attempt, I realised that it was me volunteering information about my friends and the other person actually only listening!

4. Forget about getting lots of money for free. If you don't tune your mind to turn off when a person mentions getting a lot of money (or millions of money) for free but just participating in a deal, you will always end up as food for scammers.

5. No one discusses big money business over the phone.

Places where scammer may have picked my phone number & details include:

facebook profile - so many people who you have as friends
mailing lists - where I participate in topical discussions
skype, msn, yahoo, gtalk
websites where we sign up for free softwares

This was no random call, the scammer had made some homework about me before calling. So be on your guard. Do not rush to put your hard-earned savings into a deal you not had time to think about or seek professional advice if profitable or not.

Most Affordable Website Prices at EasySites Uganda

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:09:00 +0000

Beautiful EasySites websites

Are you a budding entrepreneur running a company or non-profit organisation drumming up support for your cause in Uganda, then you need a website! Trying to run a business without a website is like trying to run a business without a telephone. These days, having a website is crucial.

At EasySites they make beautiful websites fast and quick to meet your organisational needs.

For only UGX. 400,000/= you receive a beautiful complete website for your business to increase sales or awareness about your NGO's cause.

EasySites basic website package benefits:

- A Domain name, e.g. www.yourcompany.com (.com, .net, .biz, .org, .info)
- 5 email addresses (yourname@yourcompany.com)
- 1year website hosting
- 5 page website
- beautiful complete website
- Fast local access to your website
- Registration of your website with Google & other search engines.
- Contact us page with feedback form

Claim this offer as fast as you can. It is not going to keep running for long.

Sign up with them and find more info at their facebook page here.

EasySites.UG also runs a website training class whose benefits include:

Run your own business in web design
Promote your own business (with Mountbatten's support)
Operate from any Internet cafe, office or home with internet access
Design high quality websites with online EasySites Builder
Provide excellent customer care to your own customers
Benefit from Mountbatten's large client network & marketing
Keep all the profit you make

Click here to sign up for the EasySites website training class. If you have any inquries, you may want to visit EasySites Uganda website: www.easysites.ug Or send an email to: kibuukaj@easysites.ug

UTL Kwiktok Internet is Cheapest in Uganda

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:43:00 +0000

I found this out by accident i must say. I have an Orange Internet everywhere 3g modem but today I got cut off. My 1gb connection was out with 19 days to go. After a while, I remembered that I have been getting a messages from UTL where i can get 100mb of data. I scrolled through my messages and relocated the message again, it reads:

Enjoy free surfing with 100MB of data, 20 free SMS and 10 minutes of talk with Kwiktok from utl for only ugx. 250/=. To activate, simply dial *250# now.

Thats what i wanted to see! I had ugx. 1,000/= subscribed by *250# until I had 20,4800,000 bytes of data to use. Now I wanted to use them on my computer and not the mobile phone itself.

Here is the process of using UTL mobile internet data package on my Eeepc running ubuntu 10.10:

You need:
- A web capable mobile phone
- mobile phone data cable (to connect your phone to computer)
- to subscribe to utl's kwiktok for only ugx. 250/=
- Internet settings for your mobile phone. Provided free by utl customer care number 222

1. Call UTL customer care
Am using a Nokia 6230i mobile phone. I needed the Internet settings. You need to tell the customer care person your mobile phone model, for instance, Nokia 6230i. The settings are sent you free of charge. There is a page on the uganda linux user group with Uganda's Teleco APN settings info.

2. Connect mobile phone to computer using the mobile phone cable. Ubuntu will install and notify you that there is a new mobile connection detected. Set up the new connection with these:

country: Uganda
Provider: UTL
Data plan: Mobile Internet (APN: utweb)

3. Select to connect to the UTL connection to use up your kwiktok data.
Why Kwiktok UTL data plan is cheapest?

MTN and Orange both charge ugx. 25,000/= for a 500MB but with the UTL Kwiktok data plan, you would be paying only ugx. 1,250/=! Of course the speeds on the 3g network is much better than the ones on the kwiktok plan as you can judge for yourself.

Ubuntu 10.10 USB Creator error - vesamenu.c32: not a COM32R image

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 07:00:00 +0000

I recently installed ubuntu 10.10 netbook remix on my Eeepc 1000H and it sure looks and works beautifully. Having another computer on which I wanted to install ubuntu 10.04, I used the usb startup disk creator on the Eeepc running ubuntu 10.10 to make a ubuntu 10.04 bootable usb flash drive. When i plug the now ubuntu 10.04 bootable usb into another machine to begin installing, I get this error:


SYSLINUX 4.01 debian-20100714 EDD Copyright (C) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al
Unknown keyword in configuration file: gfxboot
vesamenu.c32: not a COM32R image
boot:
vesamenu.c32: not a COM32R image

Here is how i got around it:

Press the TAB key at the boot: prompt

I got presented all the available options as:

boot:
live live-install check memtest hd mainmenu help

I now went ahead to type live-install at the boot prompt & press the Enter key.
boot: live-install

To try out using the Live-cd, just type:

boot: live

I was glad to get this working. I did not have access to any other machine running a different version of ubuntu with which i could make a bootable usb drive.

Enjoy!

Cannot receive Paypal Payments East Africa? Try these 5 Free alternatives

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:01:00 +0000

In East Africa, receiving money via paypal is not possible except Kenya which has finally joined South Africa on paypal's list of countries where sending and receiving money is possible. Because of paypal's bias, several local NGOs, companies and individuals cannot receive donations or payments for services or products via paypal's network, which is the most trusted way to pay and receive money online.

There are lots of alternatives that several people do not know about which are also trusted and some cases cheaper than paypal. They are presented below with no particular order.

1. Moneybookers.com
Opening an account with them is free. Local companies or NGOs can use the basic way to receive payments online using their moneybookers email account. They have a merchant gateway pay you immediately via credit/debit card, bank transfer, and wallet. You can also earn money by referring other people to their network.

Here is a demo on how to get paid from their website:

Step 1: A customer wants to pay for a product/service at DEMO-SHOP.COM. The merchant informs the customer on the Website about the option to send the required amount via Moneybookers to the merchant's registered email address BILLING@DEMO-SHOP.COM.
Step 2: The customer effectuates the payment via the Moneybookers Webiste. DEMO-SHOP.COM receives an instant payment notification via email.
Step 3: DEMO-SHOP.COM can now manually process the order of the customer.

2. Plimus.com
Setting up an account with them is free. Plimus supports receiving payments from so many payment methods among which is paypal, moneybookers, credit cards, money orders etc. Be sure to check out their payment options page and use their payment calculator before you sign up. Earn money with them by joining their affiliates program.

3. 2checkout.com
With 2Checkout account, you can even accept Paypal payments. They also used to charge $49 sign up fee. For receiving donations, you simply cannot give your email and accept any payment. It is difficult for you to accept varying amounts of money from various clients or donors. Often people ask for your paypal email so that they send you any amount they want to send to support your cause or project.

4. Use friend in Kenya Or open an account with Kenyan bank
Considering that Kenya is our neighbour and the only 2nd Paypal authorized country where sending and receiving paypal payments is possible, easiest way to use a friend's account in Kenya. Better still is to open up an account in a Kenyan bank that can provide paypal services. Kenyan banks available in Kampala include: KCB, Equity bank

5. USA2Me.com

"Use your U.S. mailing address to receive items anywhere in the world"

You pay about $23 for a physical address in the US that can be used to apply for an International debit or credit card from usa2me partners. With this International debit card, you would be able to receive paypal payments. You would also be able to use it locally with the growing number of local banks accepting visa, mastercard.

Send Free SMS from Gmail to Mobile Phones in East Africa

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:01:00 +0000

I often get asked by friends on the best website to use to send free SMS to Uganda, Kenya or Tanzania. Google Mail (GMail) has now made this possible.

Steps on how you can send free SMS to people in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.

1. Get a Gmail Address - Sign up for a free Google email address here.

Gmail Send SMS to phone

2. After you have signed into your Gmail email address, you should now see the Send SMS box just above the chat box, as in photo on the left.

Gmail Send SMS to phone

**If you do see the Send SMS box, just skip a few steps below. Otherwise, go through them so you can help your friends enjoy this cool feature.

If you do not see the Send SMS feature in your Gmail address, do the following:

Gmail Settings

3. Sign in to your Gmail address. Look at the top left corner of your open email address and click on settings.

4. On the Settings page, locate and click on the Labs tab.

Gmail Labs tab

Enable SMS Gmail Labs

5. On the Labs page, search for SMS and click on the circles next to Enable to activate each of those items, as shown in the photo below.

Remember to click on Save Changes at the bottom of the Gmail Labs page.

After you have done that, you should now be able to see the Send SMS box above the chat box just below the links to your inbox.

Otherwise, type in the number of person you would like to send an SMS & press ENTER key.

Gmail SMS contact details box

6. You will get a small pop dialog box in the middle of your screen.

Fill in the name of the owner of the mobile number you sending SMS to. Select their country from the country list (extremely useful feature to send SMS to friends allover East Africa).

Remember to click on Save when you done.

Gmail SMS to phone chat-box

7. A small chat box will appear at the bottom corner of your GMail page. Go ahead and type away your SMS (keep it to 160 characters like a normal SMS).

****Challenges of the Gmail SMS to mobile phone:
- As sender, please include your full name. The SMS don't display sender's name, only their email address.
- If you send the SMS in the local language (luganda, kiswahili...), the reply instructions on the mobile are still displayed in english. You may consider writing to the receiver in the same local language how to reply to your SMS.
- The number listed as the sender's name on MTN Uganda is 0902801159, which is most likely a non Ugandan network number, replying or calling it could cost more than local telecom rates.
- There is no delivery report system in Gmail that an SMS has been delivered to the phone you sent it to.

Supported East African carriers
Tanzania (+255): Vodacom
Uganda (+256): Orange (0790), MTN (0772, 0782), Uganda Telecom (0712)
Kenya (+254): Airtel, orange, Safaricom

Tips about the Gmail SMS to mobile phone:
1. Each Gmail user has 50 free SMS. Every time you send an SMS your SMS quote decreases by 1.

Every time you receive an SMS message in Chat (for example when a phone user replies to one of your messages) your quota increases by five, up to a maximum of 50.

2. To buy more GMail SMS, send an SMS to your mobile phone and reply to it several times. Each time you reply to your SMS using your mobile phone, your GMail SMS count goes up by 5 SMS.

3. To block SMS from Gmail user, just reply to the message with the word 'BLOCK'. If you change your mind about the user and would like to receive Gmail SMS from same user, reply with the phrase 'UNBLOCK' to the phone number from which the message was sent.
Get more help from Google Support

Use this free service sensibly. Please do not spam your friends with wedding meetings SMS, death of your mother SMS or that you have no money.

Animation Contest - Use animations to explain your ideas

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 05:29:00 +0000

There is an ICT4D comic contest running at the great knowledge sharing platform which am sure you would want to participate in.

All you have to do is to write a script a man and a woman (or boy and girl) walk onto the scene. He walks bent forward (as if he is burdened by something).
She says: "What's the matter?"
He says (scratching his head): "[xxxxx]"
She says: "[yyyyy]"
He jumps up and down.
They walk away

Here is the link to the comic contest. The recent entries should be a cue enough for you to be as creative as you can be.

I went a step further and created a free account at the GoAnimate website. Their help in getting you come up with your first animation is great - you do not need to be an animation designer to do this. Here is my animation out of their training.

Am going to use create animations like this in future using their platform to explain my ideas.

GoAnimate.com: John ICT cartoon by kjohnah

Huawei e1752 on eeepc running ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 03:54:00 +0000

At the beginning of this week, we got a new Orange internet everywhere modem from Orange Uganda. The company has slashed modem prices from UGX 110,000/= down to UGX 99,000/=. You are also given a choice between the huawei ball modem with 2GB valid for 4months or the the new huawei e1752 with 1GB. (both modems are same price, ugx. 99,000 though Orange website is yet to reflect the change in prices)

The huawei e1752 does not work out of the box easily with linux. The post in the ubuntu forums, especially a post by birkopf, did the trick.

Here are the steps on how i got the huawei e1752 modem working on the eeepc running ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix:

1. Install usb-modeswitch (Navigate to System > Synaptic Package Manager. Search for usb-modeswitch & mark it for installation). You can also download the usb-modeswitch .deb file here.

2. Right-click on network manager icon and click on "Edit connections". Select "Mobile Broadband" tab, if you this install guide doesn't pop up on your computer. Go through the steps as demonstrated here on the Orange website.
You don't need to add DNS server numbers manually.
3. Open the terminal & issue this command.
$ sudo nano /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf $ {enter your password}

4. When the file opens, add this info to the file:

########################################################
# Huawei E1752
#
# Contributor:

DefaultVendor= 0x12d1
DefaultProduct= 0x1446

TargetVendor= 0x12d1
TargetProdct= 0x1001

MessageEndpoint= 0x01

MessageContent= "55534243000000000000000000000011060000000000000000000000000000"

Press Ctrl+X to quit. Press "Y" and "Enter" to save your work.

5. In terminal:

$ sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/usb_modeswitch.rules $ {enter your admin password}

Add the following code to the last part of the file. Ctrl+X to exit. Press "y" to agree to the changes & press "Enter" key.

Code:

ATTRS{idVendor}==”12d1″, ATTRS{idProduct}==”1446″, RUN+=”/usr/sbin/usb_modeswitch”

Use this command in the terminal whenever you plug your modem onto your eeepc.

$ sudo usb_modeswitch
$ {enter your root password}

You should notice your network manager icon connecting to the Internet.

Goodluck।

Ubuntu 10.04 users: Use the Orange uganda linux instructions to setup a connection with the e1752 modem. It works fine.

Uganda Telecom Pursues users to buy its Kasana Phone

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:06:00 +0000

Competition in Uganda's telecom market is getting to a high like never before. Uganda enjoys an ever increasing number of telecom players, most notable is: MTN, Uganda telecom, Zain, Warid, Orange, Smile Telecom, i-telecom, Foris telecom. Each of these is trying to out-do the other in offer better phones and call rates.

For 2 weeks running, I have had a message sent to my Uganda telecom phone with this message:

Dear Customer, Buy one Kasana solar powered phone at UGX. 60,000/= and get one free! Hurry and get yours now while stocks last, at UT (Uganda Telecom) shops countrywide.

It is interesting that this phone which was retailing at UGX 81,000/=, as the Uganda telecom website notes, is now at only UGX. 30,000/=!
Another message that is often sent every now and then on this network is:

Dear customer, you can now enjoy more days on the Endobo promo. Simply text ENDOBONo of days to 200. For example text ENDOBO 7 to 200 to get 7 days on Endobo

The Endobo profile allows a subscriber to load UGX 1,000 and call for free the whole day any other Uganda telecom subscriber numbers including landlines.

Uganda National Voters Register available Online

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:05:00 +0000

Computers and the Internet are certainly changing the way we do things. For the very first time, the electoral commission is displaying the national voter's register online!! Citizens now have the ability to browse the entire register at their convenience.

The national voter's register can be accessed via the electoral commission website here: http://www.ec.or.ug or http://41.210.167.106/nvr/, considering that the website is facing a name resolution problem.

Challenges with the register

Users cannot search the register for their names, unless they know the name of the district, constituency, sub county, parish and polling station.
Website or register has no web 2.0 features. Users cannot share the resource with their friends or easily give feedback to improve this resource.
Since the register is uploaded online to allow citizens a chance to check the correctness of their names and particulars, no where is it mentioned on whom to contact when discrepancies in the register are discovered by the users.

Besides, these issues, it is worth noting that this is a great step in the right direction. With this kind of trend, elections rigging will greatly be reduced when the results of each candidate are uploaded into the system at each particular polling station. Hopefully, the 2011 election will not incidences of altered election results.

Ooh blogging days

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:57:00 +0000

My blogging days seem to be back now. Finally and for good! You want to know why? Here below I present to you seven (7) reasons why am back to blogging full time.

Reasons for blogging

7. Time is now to lead Ugandans to blogging: Following the recent riots in Uganda attributed to the government's refusal to allow the Kabaka of Buganda to freely travel in his kingdom, many people (not necessarily Baganda) took to the streets to vent their anger towards bad government policies. Several radio stations were also closed down by the government.

6. Social networking websites.. for instance facebook and twitter: Facebook is the lastest way to keep in touch with former school buddies, friends and colleagues. Each of these upload info on what they are doing and where they are. Therefore, a great resource for free topics to blog.

5. Citizen journalism: A platform where citizens report the news as it happens in their communities. An example is Uganda's current news page. On some websites, reporters are paid a commission on the news that they report. This could be an income earner for the so many youth whose otherwise have no hope of getting a decent job.

4. Making money online: Blogging is a rich platform for paying whoever does it well. Picking a niche a writer is passionate about is what is required to start reaping big monies from blogging.

3. Internet Cafe business: Offering an Internet access service in my community is a huge benefit where local users help me clear my monthly Internet bill plus turning a profit while doing it. The opportunity of spending more time online is another opportunity to blog.

2. Exploding ICT: With the advent of Internet carrying fibre optic cables, information communication technologies are just about to explode. More people are going to get online for social networking, find out about market prices, scholarships, donors, jobs... There is no better time to join the online fraternity than now.

1. Fast, cheap Internet access speeds: Internet access speeds have greatly increased since the first optical fibre cable, seacom, launched in Kampala. The speeds offered by one of the providers are really great. My connection connects at 3.6Mbps and for an entire week i have used it, very few or totally un-noticeable outages! It is bound to get much better in the year 2010!

So see you around here more often my friends for only the best... 'coz am back!

High Speed Internet Finally Switched On in Kampala

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:24:00 +0000

High data rate internet access has finally come to Kampala. Seacom, which has laid the 17,000 km optical fibre on the ocean bed linking east and southern Africa via Europe and India has concluded its work this week. High speed internet has now been delivered at the different points of presence.

The 1,28 Terabytes per second (Tb/s) link with the capability to maintain two million phone calls simultaneously is expected to reduce the cost of Internet connection by more than 80 per cent much lower than satellite connection currently used in the country.

The market price of one megabyte per second of broadband has been averaging $2500-$5,000 (about sh5m - sh10m) in East Africa. SEACOM’s initial offer to Internet service providers (ISPs) will be at $400 (Shs800, 000). It is expected that the ISPs will then provide it to the end users at least 75 per cent less.

Uganda, like its east african neighbours, has not fully enjoyed and exploited the benefits of the Internet. Much of this has been hampered by the low penetration of electricity throughout the country, fewer computers available and the low computer literacy levels. Hopefully with the advent of high speed Internet, the government will feel the urge to educate the population on the potential of this great infrastructure towards development.

KIFAD telecentre Introduce use of ICTs in its community

noreply@blogger.com (John Kibuuka) — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Kiyita Family Alliance for Development (KIFAD), a community based non-profit organization in Nansana Town Council, Wakiso District Uganda operates an offline-driven telecentre with a focus on families infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Noting a deficit of information and poverty among families in the Wakiso area, a few families came together to work to rid their community of these evils, thus the formation of KIFAD telecentre.

The telecentre is equipped with four computers with CDroms, a photocopier, digital camera and lots of paper content including books, brochures, posters, pamphlets. The telecentre is run by the programme manager who oversees all the activities undertaken and a group of volunteers who are always on hand to research for information beneficial to the families under the telecentre program.

How KIFAD telecentre Operates

The telecentre takes on an intermediary role in connecting HIV/AIDS support organizations with the people in the Wakiso community. These include;

AIDS Information Centre, specializing in HIV/AIDS counseling and testing, a service now available to the community every month free of charge.
Infectious Diseases institute, working with discordant couples care and HIV/AIDS counseling and testing.
Naphofanu, an umbrella group for people living with HIV/AIDS. These are offering training to mostly women to setup and run income generating activities, demystifying HIV/AIDS and promoting positive living.
Uganda redcross society. KIFAD telecentre being a member of this society in involved in practices like blood donation exercises to save lives. Red Cross has also offered to train members in providing first-aid treatment.
Mildmay, family Hope – are some of the organizations that are providing free HIV/AIDS care and treatment but albeit unknown to many HIV/AIDS patients.
Support to children of families affected with HIV/AIDS with education funding agencies.

Successes

KIFAD has given hope to so many people in the Wakiso community. From humble beginnings of a couple of families to a sizeable number of over 200 working together for development.
More people are getting are becoming aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS and are more willing to undergo HIV/AIDS counseling and testing.
Several children and women run families have been equipped with business skills. There are some already producing very good products, which include; fruit jam, flour, operating a retail shop
More children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS are now attending school
Stigmatization has greatly reduced. HIV/AIDS carriers can now open come out to talk about their experiences.

Future

To use information communication technologies (ICTs) including mobile phones, computers, portable devices (PDAs) in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Using the freely available web 2.0 resources (blogs, wikis, social media) to tell story of living positively with HIV/AIDS online.
Have couples freely undergoing HIV/AIDS counseling and testing sessions together. At the moment, most men shun these sessions leaving them to only the women and children

For further reading,

An idea in offing on how to use ICTs in fighting HIV/AIDS

A donor's experience supporting one of KIFAD's HIV/AIDS projects

A volunteer's experience working with KIFAD

Submitted as an entry to the telecentre.org Blog Contest.