This Sunday I went to the countryside somewhere in Kisarawe district in a small village called Kibwemwenda for my personal activities, in my time there I got a chance to spend time with people from the village. It was outstanding observing people with passion in technology in the tough life circumstances they have. In that small village they were no electric supply cables since the national electric grid didn’t reach their villages but still you could find people using their phones and even listening to the music and texting messages and so on.
The mobile phones was part and parcel of their life, it was something important and valuable to their daily activities they could contact their customers who are coming to buy  the local source of energy  burned charcoal in native language ‘mkaa’ in which mostly used by people in small town and cities as the major source of energy. The villagers also used their mobile phones to contact people who provide them with the transport to carry their products to their local markets, most of the time they used motorcycles locally known as ‘bodaboda’, so they use their phones to contact the drivers to transfer their products to small close by towns.

At the same time with the digital money transaction through their phones they were able to receive money in terms of cash from the local shop which made it easier from them they no longer have to cover huge distance to towns to visits their clients or go to banks hence wasting money to get money.
That is the power of the handheld devices even in places were there is know power still people could afford to have mobile phones and use them in their day to day activities. I got a chance to meet a friend of my host Mr. Mwelea they called the village engineer since he has done something astonishing the guy was the solution of the Village lack of energy problem. When he came to town he purchased a solar power system with solar battery which he used for charging villagers phones and other gadgets like small radios and touches.  He is making satisfactory amount of money out of this business, according to him he can charge up to 20 phones per day with 300 Tanzania shillings hardly he can make up to 5000 Tanzania shillings per day in his business of charging Mobile phones. Most of his client are village youth who like to use their phones for listening to music, browsing for internet and chatting. Actually he even took me to his house to show me the way he set the charging system using the solar energy source at the roof of his house. Really it was amazing, i even thought in my mind why shouldn't the government implement this since they don't have to put or install several line of grid wires and utilizes a lot of money in creating complex systems.

What i learnt from my trip to the village is that still we have the power to reach people through technology, i met some challenges there people are complaining they are not getting enough information fro the weather authorities its difficult for them to cultivate depending on seasonal rains which they are not sure when they are  going to rain. As a programmer you can take this as challenge and see how you can help them by creating a system either a mobile app or USSD applications through SMS for them to get the details on time. Actually this is what we need. We need people to impact and serve the society directly through technology. Over 35 million Tanzanians are using mobile phones known make easy apps or small featured applications which is compatible with more number of phones, boom you are in just like that.

Other wise innovation does not stop and it is all about commitment and discipline in whatever you are doing wither is an application you are developing or research you are doing be good at it and be ready to share TanzICT is there KINU is there and SAVANNAH fund is waiting for you, guys let us exploit these great opportunities to do great things. Better tomorrow of our country i believe can come through technology enthusiasts who exist in our local communities and ready to impact those communities



By Jumanne Mtambalike

It was a marvelous blogging Saturday with a great turnover of the audience and technology enthusiasts made the session to be even more interesting. One great thing was the participation of the beautiful ladies in the events made me to realize things are getting better and gender is no longer an issue to draw back female technology enthusiasts to join the industry.
The event started 3:00P.M sharp with my co-host Tony Severine giving the introduction of the events and what we were going to do that afternoon. People were interested to learn and exploit features of blogger they were not having knowledge about them. We set our goals that we will start from a simple testing blog with a basic blogger template and turn into a professional blogging site that would look exactly like greentech360 the only difference could be the type of the template used.
Initially we were worried with the time provided that most of the attendees asked us for a favor of starting from the basics and then get into beyond the basics tricks of blogging. It was a marvelous work we turned this basic blogger template into something astonishing into blog with massive features like share button, image sliders, interactive pages, badges for social networking sites and so on. Myself I couldn’t believe the way I was speaking about technology with people who share the same passion in technology like me. It was feeling like I was in my own little IT palace with all tools I need to achieve my tasks.
The audience was interactive, a lot of questions come from them especially when we were doing the event practically, were by people in groups of two were sharing the ideas and their resources to make the event more effective. Most of the people were curious to know about the paging concept, SEO and putting ads into your sites. We hope all their doubts were cleared. The event was funny with Tony preaching about World-press and I preaching about blogger you can understand but finally I bet he agrees that Google rule the world role and blogger was the best blogging options due to several tools and support provided by Google themselves.

TechGeeks is looking forward to prepare some other events like this as part of our community service and giving back to the community the knowledge we have. We are so thankful to TanzICT especially Jukka Siltanen and the whole team for providing us with the support and resources needed for us to achieve our tasks as coordinators. May the almighty bless them and their families and provides them with enough knowledge, love and energy to drive the ICT industry of Tanzania forward love you guys viva TanzICT………

You can choose to differ with me but it is the harsh reality that our Universities is the main reason most of the Tanzania ICT professionals eliminate programming as their career option. Most of the students with interest in programming and developing applications have been witnessing their dreams cut short. You might say what is the reason behind and why are you blaming the syllabus that describe clearly that the students is practicing all the basic languages that a computer science student, IT student or Computer engineering student should study whither is Java, C-language, C++, Data Structures, Visual Basic and others. But believe me displaying in the syllabus and practicing the syllabus to reach to the student’s requirement and be able to prepare the students as a programmer these are two different things.

When I was in second year Computer Science students at my college I got a chance to admit two guys from University of Dar es Salaam who just now appear to be my best friends. The first one was college dropout of engineering background and the other one college dropout of Computer Science first year. With other challenges they face the main reason for the computer science dropout to quit University of Dar es Salaam, his father who just appear to be a civil engineer realizes his son was not having lab sessions in whatever is practicing and if he had the opportunity it was just for the purpose of passing the exams meaning that, clamming few lines of codes ready to answer the exams then that’s it. He was not ready to face the challenges that are coming outside there for programmers .The guy was even surprised to see that it is compulsory to attend lab and have the lab record book and submit project report for almost every language you are practicing at the college when he was admitted to our college. I remember him asking me that if during the exams the lab results counts, I told him without passing the lab exams you are not going to get your degree and it means you have to pay another ticket fees to come and clear your mess in the fourth year after finishing your course if you didn’t attend third year’s lab. 

This is what  makes people to develop interest in coding in most of the universities overseas and reputed universities in Africa coding is taken seriously since it is what distinguish a Computer science student (software engineering student) from other people in the industry. It is so disturbing to see someone graduated with clean and sensational GPA but he cannot even declare variables in C-Language or explains to you the concept of function overloading in Java and do it practically. In universities like Harvard and other reputed universities they consider coding as the measurement of students creativity and involvement in the study while to us is just another exam you have to pass. I wonder that’s why each college graduate you ask in Dar es Salaam want to be a network professional. Am not saying this is not good but for a country like ours were by we have few resources and most of the people are poor and cannot even afford to buy a router to practice at home how do you expect them to be good network administrators or engineers. I say programming is the get way for people who are coming in the tough background all you do is to download Borland C, NetBeans, Eclipse or whatever and up you go start to develop your applications don’t wait for the college to teach you or the college to accomplish whatever is mentioned in the syllabus course that will never happen.

Final advice programming is an art; you have to develop passion on it in order to understand it. Don’t create a state of mind that told you it is hard to code believe me it is easier hundreds time compared to networking and system administration if you decide to practice and be frequent on it. They are a lot of resource available online W3Schools is there waiting for you to go and practice. Youtube videos for beginners training for each and every possibly known computer language go and try out because the University will never give you that. You can even go for the bigger projects and download them; there is a lot of open source projects waiting for people to exploit them for example PHP project OpenCMS, Orange HRM, Open Source Commerceand others. For Java students you can always Google for free projects available online download them and edit the codes and start developing the interfaces. If you want to for Visual Basic or C# am there for you with a lot of projects contact me I will give them to you personally. By the way it is my way of giving back to the community. For although who have read this article and they are PHP and MySQL developers am giving this gift to them OPENCART . Have fun with coding guys ……….

By Jumanne Mtambalike

Using the online free CSS template available for you:

This is amazing and the one I like to use most. Sometimes a client demand to have a site accomplished within a very short period of time. Things get worse when the client also demand the site to be at the highest quality meaning that the browser compatibility should be checked, the colour psychology should be checked, SEO must be checked and the contents download speed should be checked. If you are a professional web designer you will already know that it is almost next to impossible to accomplish that within a short period of time. Especially in Tanzania clients will be so demanding without realizing the task they are giving to you. Here comes the solution templatemo.com, I have been using this site for the past two years now and it has never let me down. Here you will find hundreds of templates designed and developed by professional following the W3C standards of web development meaning that all your customer requirements will be included. All you have to do is to download the template and another amazing thing most of the recently templates they include readymade pages you don’t need even to know PHP to link the pages or other server languages to run the site. The basic requirement is to have the basic knowledge of HTML and knowing how to use NOTEPAD. The site also gives you attractive JavaScript Photo galleries embed to your sites all you have to do is to replace the photos with your photos by adjusting the size of the photo to fit the sites flames and manipulating the codes a bit. For those who have passion with Flash CS4 sites they can visit flashmo.com for free flash templates. The best thing of all there are no watermarks as long as you have the ability to edit, the site is yours. Remember these sites follows the W3C standards you will never have browser compatibility issues, SEO problems provided that you put your meta tag correctly and the site download speed will be marvelous.

Using the pages available in the blogger templates to create a site

I have received a lot of compliments from technology enthusiasts and my geek friends about greentech360 most of them asking me how on earth were you able to turn your blog into a website. I told them it is not a website yet I have to purchase a domain name lol. But yes believe it is easy provided that you have a background of being a blogger all you have to do is to know how to create pages in blog and that is the first thing and the other thing is to know a bit of XML. The reason you must have a bit knowledge of XML is that if you want to exceed the ten pages which are provided by blogger or you want to have a template of your own not blogger’s template you have to know how to download a template and upload it to your site before starting manipulating it to fit your requirement. It’s easy you can download your template from btemplates.com, blogger-templates.blogspot.com, deluxetemplates.net and so many other blogger templates site out there. Now all you have to do is to go to templates – Edit Html – Upload the XML file- Locate on your PC were you have downloaded-Select it. Then you are good to go you crick preview you can see your blog with your new template. The next stage you will want to edit the link in your templates by changing the default links on it and directing the links to your blogger pages for example if this is the original link for DOWLOADS – [http//:www.btemplates/whitetemp/downloads ] inside the (‘’) replace the link with your page link [http://greentech360.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html] the /p/ on the link shows that it is a blogger page. Hence you can link up to ten pages which now make your blog to appear like a site. In the future you can just by a domain and link it with your blog. Detailed information about this you are invited to the event Blogging BeyondBasics which will be held at COSTECH this weekend.

Using Google sites available for free online

Google sites are another amazing way of creating a site available online. I prefer using Google sites since you can easily utilize all the tools provided by Google to enhance the quality of your site. Tools like Google map, Google docs, Google translate Google analytics and all other tool which you can interact with your site. The Google sites do not require you to have a background of playing with HTML the only thing you can do is to fill the forms, drag and drop off you go. For more information and detailed explanation on how to starting design and manage Google site watch this beautiful videofrom YouTube.

Using Joomla content management system

For me it is still the best content management system available out there. The only challenge you will have is during the installation of the Joomla Files in the server. I will advise you to download WAMP server since it has been a greater relief for developers providing MySql database, Apache server with PHP integration at the same place. Ask the geeks what was the life of PHP developer before introduction of WAMP server they will tell you only those who have the guts to touch PHP and have passion with MySQL we ready to be programmers lol. After installation of WAMP server and putting your Joomla files in it then you are good to go, if you have a background of editing any CMS wither is a blog or a site you can easily manipulate this one. For more about Joomla Installation watch out these videos here and be ready to share the knowledge lol.

Downloading a free PSD template available online

For people who just can afford to develop a site without designing it first this is your place. I learnt this from a very bad experience. When I was starting to develop websites I started designing them in Photoshop first then slice them putting layers on the link and putting them in the browser to test browser compatibility believe it is the pain you don’t want to experience because most of the time when you finish designing it and testing in the browser it will work in one of the browsers but it will tear apart in all other browsers. The solution is easy download a pre designed template with layers just play with the colours and other thing but don’t try to put the layers yourself and slice it yourself unless you want to experience what I have experience I give it to you as a challenge go and try to do it by yourself. Another problem which you will definitely suffer is the SEO search engine optimization since your site will be filled with a lot of images by the concept behind how the search engine works the spiders and crawlers won’t be able to check the words corresponding to the users request on your sites and lastly the site will be heavy and take a lot of time to load hence only patient visitors of your site will stay on it and I don’t need to tell you that it is bad for business. So definitely you want to start downloading the ready made PSD files. You can download them from here.

By Jumanne Mtambalike

Once a former US president Jimmy Carter said once said “You are talking about the internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers,” Carter said “This doesn’t affect two-third of the people in the world” to me that is the power of the handheld devices whether is a PDA, basic cell phone, a smart phone or amazing weird gadget on your palm as long as it connect you to the outside world through the giant networks called internet then you are in.

In recent days the government have been speaking about a lot of plans in e-learning from the primary school level to higher learning institution and there have been a lot of challenges and politics about these plans some people criticizing them as being a failure for example the local T.V ad about the teacher teaching ICT without having the computer itself in front of the student. The ad was produced by the NGO “hakielimu”, I don’t want to go deeper into those things but I believe technological advancement in our communities start with the individual effort before going to the national level.

Let’s get back into our topic I went to “SabaSaba” last year during the trade fair season I got a chance to visit the space allocated for University of Dar es Salaam to portray their works and projects. Then I saw something very interesting there was a project about e-learning but it was just a model of the real project were by students and teachers can interact with a certain software teaching basic subjects being taught in Tanzania local schools. The software was amazing I got a chance to try it. It was user friendly and the interface was cool. I looked at the software and I asked myself a lot of questions. Some of them were: how would a student or a teacher without knowledge in computers at all be able to operate this software, what will be the cost of implementation, but the biggest question was, will it be able to cover the largest part of the community and give them the information and detail they need to attain the knowledge in time. In my head the answer was next to impossible a big capital “NO”.

Recently a study of young people from Ghana, Morocco, Uganda and Maharashtra was done aiming at improving education through mobile technology. The study looks at these countries and the Maharashtra state of India identifying youth aspirations and priorities, exploring education and employment challenges they face and scrutinizing their mobile phone usage. Elsie Kanza of the Word Economic Forum mentioned mobile phones are increasingly tremendously in poor countries, which now account for four in every five connections worldwide. Realizing that Professor Traxler of Wolverhampton in United Kingdom consolidated the issues by adding that when they hear its profitable it will encourage youth to go out there and do something.

This something is what we call innovation, we need people with skills and credibility to work with the government and advise them to move to mobile learning since it is the easiest way to reach 36 million people who are mobile subscribers living in Tanzania by the year 2015 and to be able to provide them with any kind of knowledge or awareness they need to preach to them. When I was in India it was a normal thing to receive a lot of SMS talking about different stuffs whether is about social, political or economic matters since it was the easiest way for the local authorities and companies to reach so many people

Am very glad to see the emerging of companies like HudumaFasta and having around the giants like Push Mobile in our country and several others out there who are doing the same stuffs it is a massive task although they make profit but it is something we should be proud of. I like to see Tanzania dwelling into technology and see the power of technology and the ways it can be used to simplify life. Few years back people were moving here and there on the load sweating in the hot conditions of Dar es Salaam looking for jobs these days we have Zoom Tanzania and others simplifying the task for us that is the power of technology.

Putting the challenge on the table I would like companies using or making USSD applications to sit down with mobile services providers and the government to come up with the strategy to take us to the new level of mobile innovation “m-learning” I can’t wait for that thing to occur. Just remember 36 million Tanzanians who are mobile subscribers would have the chance to receive the information you give or service you provide whether it’s a HIV awareness program or a certain topic in geography. Just remember technology can make a significant difference if given a chance.



By Jumanne Mtambalike

Growth in Africa’s Internet and broadband sector has accelerated in recent years. While being the world’s most rapidly growing market for mobile telephony. Africa is also the home to some of the fastest growing fixed-line market in the world. Believe it or not until mid-2010 mobile users constituted around 90% of all African telephone subscribers due to problem in penetration of the physical network into vast lands of the continent. The most targeted group is the lower income group since they are sensitive to the market the telecommunication companies have been struggling to lower their tariffs and come up with packages which will attract more customers.

Tanzania ranking 6^th position in Africa in terms of the number of internet users with around 4.9 million users as per December 2011 internet world stats you might say yes we are doing it we are above almost 40 African countries in terms of internet access but the questions that pop into our mind should be what is the proportion of 4.9million compared to the total population of Tanzania which is approximately 40 million people you will find out only 12 percent of our total population are subscribed to the internet which is the main source of technology advancement and communication.

The challenge that comes up is that the remaining eighty something percent remain unreached with the internet access. Internet is becoming the basic need of the human being that why this is called the information age. People needing access to the internet becoming inevitable but how are the government and the ICT community of Tanzania coping up with the situation.

Having limited people who can access the internet is among the major challenges in the advancement of the technology industry. People are coming up with creative and massive ideas everyday but the problem is how we can reach the audience using technology if only 12 percent of the total population have access to the internet and sometimes is not even proper internet access.

The dreams of e- learning and knowledge sharing through technology are becoming almost next to impossible due to the limited access of the internet. Thanks God the emergency of m-learning (mobile learning) which is proposed to be practiced in some other African country such as Ghana.

It is our responsibility has individuals to come up with ideas which will enhance the accessibility of the internet everywhere in our country from rural areas to urban areas. The accessibility of the internet will increase the market for our products and innovative ideas online.  Consider having an application which is able to anticipate the different seasons of the year which is very useful to farmers but it is available online although the idea is great and impacts the community directly but only few with internet access will be able to buy or utilize the application and most of the population of the people who are located in cities and towns are not farmers hence your goal will fail due to the limited access of Internet.

We should set a goal by 2015 the number of internet users in Tanzania should double the current number so that we can chase our neighbors Kenya. This is possible if every one of us local ICT communities and the government in general we will be ready to invest in technology and challenge the speed of growth of the          Industry. The increase in number of internet users will help Tanzania government to reach people easily and in time and deal with their problems effectively.

By Jumanne Mtambalike

Have something more than Just your Graduation Certificate

Don’t expect to be competitive in the ICT industry these days by just being a graduate from a reputable University and that is the biggest mistake most of us we are falling into. Always remember people they don’t care on what you have people they only care of you can deliver to them. Practice few things and add on some certificates if possible that’s make you to be competent enough in a specific area in the ICT industry for example: we expect someone competing for a job for management information systems to have at least CISA (certified information system auditor) in his back pack before stepping in and competing for a particular position in reputed organization the same thing for network professionals you can opt for networking courses such as CCNA or security courses such as Ethical Hacking or CCNA security and so on.

Join ICT communities, groups and association in your local town, college or institution

Get Up we have several ICT communities in town what are you waiting for G-Tanzania the Tanzania Google group, we have TanzICT Tanzania ICT based association based at COSTECH and several hubs waiting for you to portray your creativity and show up your skills. Believe me if you are a great coder but you stay inside there doing your projects, hiding yourself it is not helping at all. Learn to share the ideas and invite challenges allow people to criticize your work and others to appreciate only then you will be able to produce quality products and get a chance to know people of your own kind geeks!!! But the most importance thing is to be recognized and get benefited from your work.

You’re Ideas and Project should impact the community directly

Be realistic if it’s a mobile app or PC software should meet the demand and the requirements of the community and the environments surrounding them we don’t expect you to develop applications for smart phones only while almost half of the population they are using the basic mobile phone. I will understand if you develop a USSD application were people receive information about a particular topic through SMS rather than making a very good app with astonishing interface but its working only in the most expensive phone. When I say impacting I mean it should touch the society direct for example giving details about HIV (AIDS) and ways to overcome or challenges facing them in their daily agriculture activities.

 

Get connected with professionals

There is nothing wrong following someone on twitter or adding someone in your circle or adding someone as a friend in Facebook if you share the same interest. It increases your chances of getting known and become a professional. Utilize the social networking sites to meets people who share the same missions and goals like you. If there already more successful then it becomes even more important to mingle with them since you can learn the challenges faced them during their route to success.  Don’t say am wasting my time trying to talk or chart with this guy or how would he think about me. Know that people who have the guts to bring themselves down and get what they want they are the most successful people in this world. Take your shoot talk to them if the despise you don’t die at least you release its expensive to be in top position lol

Attend seminars and events

A lot of events are being prepared daily with ICT communities to teach you different kinds of stuffs in technology. Even if you know the topic to be discussed just attend and get a chance to interact with people in these kind of gatherings people they would usually speak about new technologies, job opportunities or projects to be released you can always have a chance to participate in these activities which would give you the chance to enhance your skills and increase your knowledge without forgetting getting a chance to get new deals and make money, by the way we all need to make money at the end of the day.

Think about the community

Be ready to give back to the community and serve the community first forget your personal interest although not completely but it should not be your main goal. Serve the community, my slogan is “Do something for free get known then you will have thousands with a good price tag”. Utilize every weakness the system shows by implementing the solution through the knowledge you have through technology to tackle the problems facing your community.

It’s obvious most of the ICT professionals and beginners these days are enthusiasts to know hacking tricks and creating malicious attacks or software. Hacking is illegal and punishable by law that’s why the technologist and computer pioneers come up with the terminology “ethical hacking” it means simply you are hacking with ethics and principles.

First time I heard about BackTrack Linux it was the time of the release of BackTrack 4.0, the reason I come across the operating system I was practicing network security and I wanted to know the meaning of the term “offensive security” basically it is just security but instead of being defensive you are going offensive meaning that you are practicing the same methods and ways the hacker or invader will use to attack your system or network. By knowing the methodologies and the route that the hacker will take to attack your system you will be ready to close all the loopholes and overcome all the weak points of your network security simply “to catch a wolf you need a wolf not a sheep”.  I don’t need to go in detail about hackers and their behaviors you can just Google for type of hackers and get information about them, the grey hat hacker, the white hat hacker and the black hacker.

BackTrack Linux has come up just to do that to help people who want to practice offensive security to learn the skills in the easiest and most efficient ways. BackTrack Linux realizes that not every individual knows Linux coding. It provides tools with user friendly interfaces to help you just to do that. With several number of YouTube tutorials on how to install and use most of its tools you can easily brought up into speed and join the crew of hackers and penetration testers in town. Please put in mind these are not just games these are professional careers and people are paid lot of money to check security vulnerability and these guys are the rulers of the industry since the future of Information Technology depend in security since the world wide web is no longer safe yard to play unprotected.

 BackTrack is a Linux distribution that is security focused and contains over 300 security tools integrated with a highly polished user interface. By the time you must a one –third of the tools you will be a professional when you reach half you will be an expert and all of them damn!!! You are a geek. BackTrack's tools are organized into 12 categories:

• Information Gathering
• Vulnerability Assessment
• Exploitation Tools
• Privilege Escalation
• Maintaining Access
• Reverse Engineering
• RFID Tools
• Stress testing
• Forensics
• Reporting Tools
• Services
• Miscellaneous

Some of the tools include:

 Nmap (Network Mapper) - Nmap is a sophisticated scanning tool used to discover ports, services and hosts on a network. It can be used to determine what type of operating system is running on a target machine as well as what version of a service is running on a specific port which may assist hackers in determining what vulnerabilities a target may be susceptible to.

Wireshark - Wireshark is a open-source packet analyzer (sniffer) which can be used to troubleshoot network problems or eavesdrop on both wired and wireless network traffic. Wireshark can assist hackers in performing man-in-the-middle attacks and is a key component for many other attacks.

Metasploit - The Metasploit Framework is a tool for the development of vulnerability exploits and assists both hackers and security analysts with testing these exploits against remote targets to determine if they are susceptible. You can develop you own exploit or choose from a large library of pre-developed exploits that target specific vulnerabilities such as unpatched operating systems.

Ophcrack - Ophcrack is a powerful password cracking tool that can be used in conjunction with Rainbow Tables and password dictionaries to crack passwords. It can also be used in brute-force mode where it attempts to iteratively guess every possible combination of a password.

There are hundreds more tools that are part of Backtrack. Many of them can be powerful and harmful if used incorrectly. Even if you are a security professional with the best of intentions you can really do a lot of damage if you're not careful.

If you want to learn how to use Backtrack in a safe environment, I recommend that you setup an isolated test network using an old wireless router / switch and some old PCs that you likely have laying around your garage. In addition to the on-line course offered by Offensive Security, there are several books available for learning to use BackTrack on your own.

Just remember that with powerful security tools comes great responsibility. While it is tempting to show off your new found hacking skills to your friends, it's best to use these tools for their intended purpose which is to help improve a system's or network's security posture.

BackTrack is available from The BackTrack Linux website. The latest release of BackTrack is BackTrack 5 R2 which was released in 1^st March 2012. Have fun enjoy hacking.

By Jumanne Mtambalike

Have you ever imagine someone making a complete database application in 10 minutes or less, believe me it is possible to do that and there is hundreds of videos posted in YouTube showing people do such thing. For a geek or computer pioneer YouTube can be the biggest source of knowledge and alternative to solutions for the problems you are facing during development and deployment of applications.

                   The major difference between YouTube and the video tutorials we purchase or download for free online is that you tube is time saving and you can go directly to the problem that you are facing at that exact time. You don’t have to scroll through directories or forward and rewinding videos to find a particular solution for your problems.

                For example consider I want to develop database application using Derby database which available in NetBeans and I have no knowledge at all in linking database to the front end interface of java all I have to do is to type in you tube search engine ‘database applications in Netbeans using Derby’ .Several video will pop up showing  minimum two to three ways to approach the problem that I have mentioned and some videos will elaborate more in details and when you look at the comments bellow the videos you will see people explaining about their experience and the challenge they face trying to achieve the task you have mentioned. This will help you to realize your mistake and to rectify them quickly and it will give you the most effective and easiest ways to tackle the challenge you are facing.

                Believe all most every beautiful trick I do in most of the software and applications I develop whether is inserting alarm or creating advanced login system I learnt in YouTube from may be a small time developer in Jamaica who have decided to portray his skills online. The solution provided by these particular video they are time saving and go directly to the problem that you are facing at that exact time.

                For example one time I wanted to create advanced system management tool. A tool that will help a user to display ‘calculator’, ‘notepad’, ‘disk management’ and shutdown graphical user interface I knew one thing to manage those tools in windows in the easiest way was by using windows command prompt keywords such as [calc], [write], [diskpart] and others but I didn’t know how would I be able to link the Visual Basic statement with these command prompt keywords for more efficient output which is free from errors. After days of suffering to link the two believe me the solution was simple and I was about to cry for being a fool all this time, a five letters keyword ‘shell’ was the only thing I need to do that. For more details on what am talking about watch this video and experience yourself the power of you tube for developers and people who want to attain solutions for their problems fast.

Challenge: Try To test these codes in Visual studio by developing a small System management Application:

 Private Sub Command1_Click()
Shell ("taskmgr")
End Sub
Private Sub Command2_Click()
Shell ("shutdown/i")
End Sub
Private Sub Command3_Click()
Shell ("write")
End Sub
Private Sub Command4_Click()
Shell ("shutown/r")
End Sub

Results: It should be able to display Task Manager, Shutdown interface, writepad and restart the system best of luck!!!

By Jumanne Mtambalike

In East Africa most of the colleges and Universities prefers to take students for internship in some companies as part of their knowledge enhancement and developing experience in the industry to me there is nothing wrong with that. The questions that pop up in minds is that do really this field works help them effectively and practically in real life scenarios.

When I was in my first year college I did my first project entitled “Generating day of a week from date using Gregorian calendars” it was like a simple game of coding involving mathematical operations and logical reasoning. From this project is where I developed the interest in programming languages at this time is where I learn C-language in details, it was the time I heard about switch case statements, looping statements and some additional header files like math.h and others. Doing a project effectively is the only way a student can master the subject and not the other way around since when the logic stucks someone has to reason again and again and finding alternatives to solve the problems until he overcome the situation.

Most of the students in Tanzania hate programming since they don’t want to dedicate their time in developing real time applications even simple applications for example “java login system”. Behavior of developing small applications will give you passion on coding and prepares you to work in real word. I remember telling my teacher I want to develop software with user-friendly interface because I use to hate the black screen output of the c-language. She told me take your time and practice Visual Basic and Java. I learned visual basic and Java but still I couldn’t be able to develop applications then she told me to go online and search for project and see what others are doing. I searched and come up with the solution that I need to understand the IDE’s from there I practiced Visual Studio interface by watching Youtube tutorials and practicing developing small applications using the Visual Studio interface at the same time I worked with Netbeans and Eclipse to develop small time Java applications like ‘login systems’ and others. After doing several projects I was the master in the field knowing to debug each and every error popping up, I became creative and start to develop database applications. I was able to link from end and back end of several IDE’s to several databases. I was able to link visual studio to Sun-microsystems oracle, SQL server, MySQL and other databases and do the same thing with Netbeans linking to Derby, JDB, Oracle and MySQL.

            My advice to you today, start practicing developing projects by yourself at home, start developing small time applications as soon as you master those applications give yourself a title and go for the bigger one using a language of your choice, your own IDE and database of your own. You can look for example online and use YouTube to troubleshoot your problems whenever you stuck.

            Finally you have to realize working practically yourself is the only way to master and develop your skills but remember if the chance come and you have to do a field research don’t hesitate to do.

Try To do this task:

Develop system called “Crime management System” using VB.net as the interfacing language connects to MS-Access database the application should be able to:

-         Display prisoner’s details like name, age, cell number, reason of arrest, case number and so on.

-         Display Officer’s Details

-         Advanced login system using small database or conditional statements

-         Alarm system

-         Writing Pad

-         Software Map

-         Update link

-         Help

-         And build executable file with extension .exe so that the system can be distributed to your friends.

Note: You can do the same thing using Java and Netbeans as your IDE and connect to any database you want in case you stuck you can consult me directly through my email or phone number.

By Jumanne Mtambalike