Kenyan Guru

Google Adsense Western Union payment now available to Kenyans

2011-11-08T11:14:00.000+03:00

For Kenyan Adsense publishers who have been groaning about cheque payment you no longer have to frown as Kenya has been added to the list of supported countries for Western Union payment.You no longer have to wait for cheques in the mail as all you have to do is visit a Western union agent once the funds have been disbursed.To change your form of payment just login to adsense and you will find payment settings under account settings.A national ID though is required to receive payment form the agent.Here is a list of countries supported so far;

Algeria
Argentina
Bahrain
Barbados
Benin
Bolivia
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Chile
China (Mainland)
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cote d'Ivoire
Croatia
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
Ethiopia
Gambia
Georgia
Ghana
Guatemala
Iceland
Indonesia
Jamaica
Jordan
Kenya
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Libya
Lithuania
Madagascar
Malta

Malaysia
Mauritius
Mexico
Moldova
Morocco
Mozambique
Nepal
Nicaragua
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian Territories
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Reunion (FR)
Romania
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Seychelles
Slovenia
South Korea
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Tunisia
Uganda
United Arab Emirates
Uruguay
Venezuela
Vietnam
Virgin Islands (British)
Yemen
Zambia

Kenyan Webcomics

2011-08-29T11:22:00.002+03:00

With the number of people finally discovering the power of blogger,there has been a rise in the number of blogs that are getting attention from the local internet users.Todays post will be concentrating on webcomics.Webcomics are basically as the name says comics that are published online on a website or blog.Majority of the most popular ones on the internet are based on videogame humour such as PennyArcade,NerfNow and AnotherVideoGameWebcomic just to name a few.For the scientists,programmers and physicists you will definately enjoy xkdc.So today I decided to track down some local webcomics and I was lucky with the help of google to find a few.

1.Corporate Caveman

A comic that started a few months ago and has been getting better and better with every new character they introduce.From the mind of Melman is a comic about a caveman who survived the ice age and now has to survive the daily challenges of a corporate job.Here is a small snippet,visit the main site for more.

2.Emergency Webcomic

Is a miniseries written and illustrated by Chief Nyamweya. It is based on pre-independence Kenya as seen through the eyes Chege Karobia and Kim (Dedan Kimathi).You may be familiar with Chief Nyamweya's work in the Star newspaper.

3.Shikwekwes

Simple comic about everyday life with a touch of daily fustrations.Looks like it hasn't been updated in a while but the older comics are still worth a read

If you know any other webcomics that you enjoy leave a link in the comments section and I'll add them here.

3G Wars,still needs more momentum

2011-08-28T11:48:00.000+03:00

OrangeKenya launched their 3G network this week and although the public was eagerly awaiting somebody to topple Safaricom from the 3G monopoly,they still have a long way to go if they wish to even put a dent in Safaricom's data market.It looks like we will have to wait for Airtel to launch their network maybe they will have a better chance of shaking some branches.
The orange modem will retail at 6999/= compared to Safaricom's 1999/=(current offer).The orange modem will also be available for 3500/= at Orange caravans.

At the moment Orange are not offering any unlimited data bundles but here is a price list of orange and safaricom bundles.

Safaricom

Data Volume	Price (Ksh)	In Bundle Price (Ksh Per MB)	Out of Bundle Price (Ksh Per MB)	Validity Period
50MB	100	2.00	8	30 Days
200MB	250	1.25	8	30 Days
500MB	499	1.00	8	30 Days
1.5GB	999	0.65	8	30 Days
3GB	1,999	0.65	8	30 Days
4GB	2,499	0.61	8	30 Days
8GB	3,999	0.49	8	30 Days
20GB	9.999	0.49	8	90 Days
30GB	14,999	0.49	8	90 Days

Orange

Data Bundle	Price (Kshs)	Pay as You Go Offer	IEW Modem Cost
50 MB	100	Ksh 4 per MB on pay as you GO down from Kshs 7 per MB	Kshs 6,999
100 MB	150
500 MB	500
1 GB	750
5 GB	2,750
10 GB	4,990
15 GB	5,990
20 GB	7,990

The truth about unlimited broadband is that you are most likely not getting it.

2011-08-03T14:42:00.000+03:00

I remember a time when it used to take half a day just to download an mp3 from the internet,a task which these days takes seconds which is happily welcomed but another problem is that ISPs have gotten into the tendency of advertising services which rarely come to pass.These days having a broadband connection is no longer something left for the wealthy and ISPs are taking advantage of this by putting very sweet and convicncing words in their advertisements just so they can get a larger market share.

Unlimited
Like telling someone you love them this term too is being thrown around a lot by ISPs and like a pick up line they float this around a lot.Of the various ISPs and bundles I have used very few have offered a true unlimited broadband experience.A few examples of those that don't are Zuku and Safaricom who offer unlimited broadband but limit the speeds.Zuku fibre users are well aware of this in that when you download a certain amount of data within an hour or two the speeds are cut by around a fifth or sixth.Lets say you are on the Imbps service,if you download around 500 mb in an hour the download speed will reduce from around 120KBps to 30KBps,it resets in around 2 hours.This is very understandable in that they are trying to protect bandwidth wastage which makes sense but if you are going to limit speeds at least put inform people of this or put some terms and conditions in the advertisement.Safaricom also recently launched a weekly and monthly unlimited data bundle costing 1000/= and 3000/= respectively.Speeds for this bundle are capped at 256kbps but since this is from Safaricom I am not surprised.I always laugh when Safaricom advertise that they are cheapest 3G network in the country,what kind of rubbish is that and they are the only 3G network.Nice one safaricom,Kenya Power is also the cheapest and most reliable electricity supplier in the country,I am also the richest human being in my bedroom.OrangeKenya's 3G+ and Zuku,s Wimax are the only true unlimited broadband services I have ever used.The problem of 3G+ is that the availability is limited and the speed is slow in congested areas.

Speeds of upto XMbps
This is a favourite of 3G and 3G+ ISPs,they give you the speeds they attained when they were testing the network and they know very well you will never attain these speeds in the domestic setting but those figures look very nice in those full page advertisements in the newspaper so never take those figures seriously.

Connection time
This is something Zuku frustrated many new broadband subscribers with,it is not your right to be connected in moments but the ISP shouldn't lie and keep you waiting thinking that every knock on your gate is them.

A price and quality review of some of the local ISPs

2010-11-26T10:04:00.000+03:00

Last year I did a review of the best and cheapest ISPs that were available in the market but I have got many requests to post an updated version and so in this post I am going to go over some of the favourite ISPs and give a quick review on their speeds,bandwidth and price.

ZUKU
Run by the Wananchi Online company Zuku offers Wimax and fibre connection that come come bundled with cable TV.
Price
Wimax-256 kbps @1499
   512 kbps @2499
   1 Mbps    @4499
Fibre-1 Mbps @999
   -4 Mbps @1999
   -8 Mbps @3499
All connections come with a setup and installation fee of 2999
Pros
Cheap
Wimax is available in most of Nairobi and Mombasa
Reliable connection

Cons
Fibre connection coverage very small
Initial setup takes them forever to start(weeks,months)
Customer service isn't the best

ORANGE EVERYWHERE 3G+
Data service that runs on the EVDO network.Orange offers bundles that start with 150 MB and climb all the way to 4GB and if you are like me and don't like being limited you can get the unlimited 7 day connection for 990/=.The modem costs 1999/= and comes with a free week of unlimited Internet and is available at orange shops and select retailers.The speed is really good with downloads speeds of around 120 kbps and bandwidth of around 1Mbps(the orange people will tell you 3.1 Mbps but I am yet to experience such bandwidth)

Pros
Cheap modem+cheap bundles
Fast Internet connection
Mobile and easy to use

Cons
Limited network coverage

SAFARICOM 3G
The only good thing I have to say about Safaricom's 3G is that it is fast and widely available,other than that there is really nothing good about it.I used to get download speeds of around 140 kbps and bandwidth of 1.3 Mbps.They recently introduced a bundle offer that enabled people to get 100% more data but even still they cannot care to the affordability of Orange.By the way they suspended the Bamba Unlimited offer and in a particular safaricom fashion didn't even tell anyone they have to wait for you to call customer care so they can tell you.But bamba unlimited was shit anyway(even thinking of giving me 32kbps and calling it internet) .the modem costs 2999 and if you already have one am sure it is rotting in a desk drawer somewhere like mine(but on the bright side if airtel offer a good deal when there 3G comes out you can unlock the modem and is use it for something useful)

LOOPNET
Loopnet is a free ad powered internet service that was offered by KDN but I think is now run by SwiftGlobal(KDN no longer deal with retail and home solutions but now deal with corporate solutions i.e they are the ISP of your ISP).But it looks like since SwiftGlobal started running the show it has lost most of its flare as majority of the base stations were shut down in residential areas were shut down and service outages are common.When it was available I used to get download speeds of around 300-500 kbps and bandwidth of around 5 Mbps

Pros
Its free
Its very fast,when few people are using it

Cons
Shared bandwidth so it is very slow during high traffic times such as mid-day

3DTV and the Nokia N8,why Im not impressed

2010-11-14T10:42:00.000+03:00

So the Nokia N8 has finally been announced and Safaricom were quick to advertise it in their usual style of full page ads with a price tag of 40000 bundled with 300mb of data which is quite fair and am sure will be a hit for a few months until people finally realise how Nokia completely missed out one vital component crucial to calling a phone a smartphone.One of the mistakes Nokia made in the past is not pushing for app development and now they are struggling to get attention from African developers who are more interested in app development for Apple and Android and I would not blame them.Nokia never fail when it comes to producing a phone with excellent hardware but they always fail on the software.At this junction a Nokia phone never crosses my mind when am thinking of buying a phone.The symbian platform despite being one of the oldest and most used mobile platforms still doesn't bring much to the table.The Ovi Store is just filled with apps that feel clumsy and rushed like they were made just to fill the store with apps so it doesn't look empty.In all honesty Nokia should just dump the symbian platform and go with Android.Im talking from an experience stand point since I recently bought a second hand Iphone 2G and on some days I don't switch on my computer cause I handle everything from there.Another silly thing Nokia are doing is saying they are focused on the African market and yet Ovi Maps doesn't even have the Kenya map.The Iphone would have been more popular if it was being sold by a more serious network such as safaricom,you may hate them for being ridiculously expensive but they know how to do things right.Orange are just wasting the Iphone4,you cannot sell a device that is 80,000 ksh factory unlocked for 60,000 ksh with a 2 year contract of 5,000 ksh per month to then have it be used on an EDGE network.Using an orange locked Iphone is just an embarrasment.You suck Orange Kenya
In other news Sony just launched their line of 3DTV products in Kenya and I was thinking to myself,who is really going to use this,we still even haven't migrated to HDTV yet

Cheapest fibre optic broadband in Kenya

2010-11-12T11:33:00.002+03:00

The Wananchi group has been very busy for the last few months setting up their fibre optic cables so that they can officially release their Zuku fibre triple play service which is going to be a welcome site for many Kenyans.The service will consist of broadband internet,cable tv and VOIP.The service is currently available in only limited parts of Nairobi such as Hurlingham,Kileleshwa and Lavington.the most surprising thing about their service is how cheap it is.
I Mbps-999 per month
4 Mbps-1999 per month
8 Mbps-3499 per month
As usual there is the set-up fee of 2999 and no equipment charges.Another good thing is that they have finally stopped using cheap chinese network equipment and are finally using quality products from Cisco Systems.
They are also offering cable TV that will support HD channels and upto 82 english channels which should give Dstv a run for their money.
For more details and a coverage map you can check out their site here-http://www.zuku.co.ke/b/home/

Send free SMSs to your friends from Gmail

2010-09-30T10:50:00.000+03:00

Stumbled on a feature today that has been active for quite a while but never noticed it.The ability to send free SMSs from a Gmail account to any mobile phone(at the moment I can only confirm it works to safaricom lines).Here is how to get it running

1.Log in to your Gmail account
2.Google should detect which country you are from and it will automatically show a pop up menu guiding you through it but if it does not continue to step 3
3.Go to the settings menu in gmail
4.Click on the labs menu and activate two options,text messaging in chat and sms in chat gadget
5.Once you have done this when you type a number in the chat box(the one written search,add or invite) it will give you the option to send an SMS
6.Receiving the SMS is free but a reply will be charged at standard network rates,you are also limited to 50 free sms every 24 hrs

For more details or if you want to sign-up to gmail click here

You can now receive send and recieve payments in Kenya via paypal

2010-08-31T14:23:00.000+03:00

During the world cup period it was with much excitement that paypal announced they would add South Africa to the list of countries that they would enhance support for by enabling members to recieve funds to their paypal accounts.Kenya is now proudly on the same list and together with South Africa are the only two countries in Africa from which you can send and recieve funds to your paypal account.
NB:You cannot withdraw your paypal funds to a local bank account just in case you did not know(yet)
For a list of which features are supported in which country you can visit their country list page here;

Send. Receive. Withdraw to a U.S. Bank Account.

Send and receive payments in these countries. Withdraw from your PayPal account to a U.S. bank account.

Bermuda
Bulgaria
Cayman Islands
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Estonia
Gibraltar

Guatemala
Iceland
Kenya
Kuwait
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Malta
Panama

Peru
Qatar
Romania
San Marino
Slovenia
South Africa
United Arab Emirates
Venezuela

Keepin it real #2:Kenya in the year 2020

2010-07-09T17:53:00.001+03:00

In this post am going to give you detailed information about how life will be 10 years from now.
-Zain after being bought by Bharti then AT&T,then Verizon,Then most recently by Tigo will be sold to Safaricom(yes in the future safaricom also wins)
-Buying shares will become the in thing since land will have become to expensive
-The average speed on Thika road will be 150 km/h
-The government will then spend 200 million kenya shillings installing speed cameras on thika road,in 2 weeks 30% will have been stolen and 40% will have been vandalised because they contain special lenses(valuable on the black market)
-Due to succesful registration of sim cards,kidnappers will have resulted to using wire transfers to offshore bank accounts instead of m-pesa(as a result 5% of Kenyans will move to Switzerland and the Cayman Islands)
-Chris Kirubi will still be Dj CK
-Safaricom will release new sim cards that are to be placed anally,statistics will show 45% increase in reception
-YU aka Essar due to lack of income will close down in a manner similar to GTV,the helicopter will depart at 2100hrs carrying only the board of directors who will have by then successfully shredded all the evidence.Workers will report to work for the next month and stop when they realise they aren't getting paid.
-Bribes will become legalised and will be reffered to as facilitation fees.
-Members of Parliament will increase their salaries to 5 million a month,Raila will says its is unfair 3 times and then stop
-After legalisation of Chang'aa more illicit brews will pop up each more simple in ingredients than the next.The current one is basically just maize and kerosene mixed with sugar cane water,this one makes you deaf.usage by married men is up 4000%
-There will be a public outcry over people who died on the phone waiting to talk to Zuku Customer Care.Zuku could not be reached for comment,the line was busy.
-Pesapal will add one website to their list of supported websites bringing the number to 3
-KPLC will be completely privatised and then immediately bought by Safaricom,Charges will be per consumption and off- peak time will run from 6:00pm to 6.05pm.Usage of other amenities such as piped water at the same time will lead to increased cost.Also all electric posts and transformers to be painted green.
-Mombasa becomes independent of Kenya and becomes part of Uganda
-Toyota brakes become completely faulty,Toyota replaces brake pedal with another accelerator pedal that makes the car go in reverse,Toyota says problem solved.

Do not copy anything on this post,you are free to link to this page if you like.I don't know if I can copyright this post but if I can I have!!!

Keeping it Real #1:Why local internet content will likely never grow

2010-07-09T17:05:00.000+03:00

Every time I read the newspapers and watch the news I hear people complaining of how the fibre optic was supposed to change things but nothing has happened.People thought like the fibre optic cables were like huge pipes of oil straight from the Gulf or wherever oil comes from that would feed our growing need for internet but one thing you fail to understand is that it is a 2 way channel for upload and download.Even if a fibre optic cable is connected to every single house nothing is going to change,the international content still comes from those few cables that are stretching across the ocean and the only way to reduce dependence on them is to grow the local content.Local content means more Kenyan websites and more local file sharing and utilization.Sites that garner majority of the local browsing include facebook,twitter,youtube,e-mail providers and majority of bandwidth is also taken up by torrents.Now the problem with Kenyans is that;
1.Websites are never updated,a website is made in 2008 and never sees the touch of a website designer again until the owner decides to rebrand the site or money for web hosting eventually runs out an the site is taken down but still on people's business cards you will see those www.mwangibiz.com or www.kimaniprosperous.biz which are just pictures and words pasted together by an ameteur web designer out to make easy money.Corporations are the worst because many never update their websites at all which defeats the purpose of a website anyway.
2.Very few Kenyan websites are original,some fellow fresh out of Methodist Univeristy or Zetech College will decide to make a website and all he really does is just take the concept of an international website,slap on some Kenyan flag colours and add in some kiswahili words and bingo you have a website that might even show up in the Daily Nation being praised for its innovation,RUBBISH!For example pesapal.When I first saw the site I was quite excited but one year later the site has not changed one bit and still lacks purpose,I mean why would I sign up to have an online currency manager only accepted by two shopping sites which were clearly made and owned by the same person.Pespal to me is a guaranteed failure and a perfect example of my 2nd point.Another one is the various online bidding sites which are too numerous to mention and are all clearly rip offs of ebay but with usually absolutely no sellers or bids put up by the site owner.
3.Majority of the local web hosts suck or are just international web hosts who are accepting payment by m-pesa which really doesn't help the local situation at all

Okay after all the ranting you need some solutions,here is the low down.If you want to set up anything money based,forget paypal,visa and even making your own I don't know pesapal bullshit!M-pesa won when it comes to virtual money handling,deal with it.Safaricom is going to be shagging you,your children and everything else that lives for money so just deal with and maybe buy some shares and make maybe make the shagging a 3some.Also we don't want another facebook,youtube,paypal or ebay clone.Mmesikia!!!no more surachat,onavideo,patapesa!!!you get my drift!!Also if you want to make a company website and don't feel like hiring a website designer to keep it maintained just install wordpress and make it yourself,12 yr olds own wordpress blogs so it shouldn't be too difficult.The take home message is safaricom suck,and their competition suck even more,kwanza zain!

How to choose the right ISP for you

2010-06-09T19:32:00.000+03:00

I got a lot of hits with my previous post about which was the best ISP in Kenya and that post was written a year ago and most likely things have changed so consider this post an update.
1.SPEED
It is the first one because most of the times this is all you need to know.With the 3 undersea cables prices have dropped dramatically even though people don't want to accept it they have and they will continue to so if you are sitting at home with an internet connection you hate its you're fault.
Basically there are two speeds you should know,the upload speed and the download speed.Most of the time the upload speed is irrelevant but its good to know anyway especially if you are getting it for a home office or small business.The average lowest bandwidth you get is 256kbps.Now one thing I always get asked is 'My bandwidth is 256kbps yet my download speeds never go over 40KBps.You may not have noticed but the b in the bandwidth stands for bits not bytes.And 8 bits make 1 byte therefore to determine your average download speed divide your bandwidth by 8.
so for 256kbps you will get an average of 32KBps
for 512kbps you will get an average of 64KBps
for 1Mbps you will get an average of 125KBps
Yes I know I have just blown your mind but thats the reality of things.So now you can get a rough picture of the package you will be taking home.

2.PING
(The time it takes a message to be sent to a device on a network and a reply to be received)
Almost nobody cares about this and I am one of them but if you are a fan of online gaming(PS3,Xbox360,PC)(I have not put the wii beacuse it has the same graphics as my phone and I am a hater) this matters because the higher the ping the slower the gameplay online.But one workaround that is currently gaining speed is the establishment of local servers effectively reducing the ping.I don't know any but I know they are there,if you are running one you can give people directions in the comments section.

3.PRICE
Second most important consideration.For around 1000 ksh/month you can get a 256kbps connection on zuku which is enough for a basic internet user.I won't go into details with this as these prices change almost every month(hehe) so instaed I will give a link to each of the ISPs package details page
Zuku(Wananchi Offline,oh!I mean Online)
BOX(KDN)
Access@Home(AccessKenya)
Surf and Talk(Orange)
These are the main ones if you seek internet for your home
NB:If you live in an area where there are wireless hotspots and have come across loopnet you can use that for free,yes free.Its very fast but is ad sponsored

Comments
Zain internet is crap,don't even think fo it
Safaricom are thieves,everything,even if you have heard they have fast internet,it will cost you...Your life!!!hahaha!okay it won't but its expensive
Zuku is okay for the price and it gets reasonable uptime with few outages
BOX is lightning fast,but you have to pay a deposit 15000 ksh before you can start using it
If you have comments leave them in the comments section below....

How to purchase goods online from Kenya

2010-05-08T09:14:00.000+03:00

One question that always storms my comments section is users asking for ways to buy goods from online.One major myth that internet users from Kenya share is that paypal does not work here but this is very wrong.In this post I am going to show you how to sign up for Paypal from Kenya and another usable alternative called Google checkout

PAYPAL
Requirements
VISA debit or credit card
Bank statement
Steps
Go to paypal and sign up for a personal account,input all your information correctly especially contact address and credit/debit card number because this will be used as your shipping information and the card for payment
After sign-up and confirmation is complete you will be asked to verify your account,this is just to prove the account is yours and what happens is they take out around ksh 150 and this transaction will show up on your statement as
XXXXPAYPAL----------------------
Once you ask for verification you will be asked to input a code which is the XXXX on your statement(format might differ with your bank but there will always be a numerical code).You can go to an ATM and get your mini statement or for those with Mbanking you can get it from your phone.Once you input this code into paypal you are ready to go.
Note:You cannot recieve money to your paypal account(yet),the only money paypal can use is the one in your bank account
Shopping
Many online shopping sites accept paypal but you can start with the big dogs Ebay and Ioffer
When shopping online a few tip to getting a good deal is always to check the free shipping box when doing a search because products online are very cheap the only problem is the shipping cost.Once again make sure you input your address correctly as this is the information that will be on the package.On average shipping takes 1-2 weeks.

Google checkout
Google checkout is just like paypal only that you don't need to verify your account and you can start using it straight away,the only problem is fewer sites accept it as a form of payment.The goods thing about google is they have a search engine that searches for products for you,you can check it out here:http://www.google.com/checkout/deals.html

TIPS
I would not recommend doing these activities on a computer at a cyber cafe,just to be safe
Also update your antivirus to protect you from phising viruses

Free internet this christmas from KDN

2009-12-01T21:45:00.001+03:00

Don't you just love free stuff especially when there is no catch,this christmas until January 4th next year Kenyans will have the chance to enjoy free internet from KDN via their Butterfly WiFi and DSL.Im using the service as I write this and I am very shocked as it is 10 times faster than the internet I paid for from Zuku(you suck wananchi online).So put all those WiFi enabled laptops to use and get surfing cause you only have like 34 days left(approx).There are many butterfly hotspots around Nairobi so chances are high that you are near one but if not you can always go to a nearby Java and buy a soda and burn some hours.Here is a speedtest of the butterfly WiFi that I am currently enjoying and as you can see its really fast,youtube videos streaming seamlessly and 500 kbps downloads

How to make a network cable commando style

2009-11-27T19:57:00.000+03:00

Okay when I say make don't get me wrong,I don't mean fashion some cable out of foil and used up dental floss McGyver style,I was strolling through town the other day and I came to notice that some people are making money out of things that absolutely make no sense.I was at Bloomerg searching for an ethernet crossover cable because the one I had made had backfired so I quite excited when I found out that cable was like 15 bob per metre and so I quickly made the purchase and I presented the good salesman with 15 shillings cash and stood there eagerly waiting to be given a complete cable only to be given the cable and the RJ-45 connectors(you can google it if you aren't sure)[which are 3 bob where I usually buy them but bought them for 10 bob there because I didn't feel like walking far] and told to proceed to there 'workshop' upstairs where I would get the crimping done.

I reach the top quick and come across a room that looks like it was painted by a plumber and I quickly give the first 'technician' I see the cables awaiting a complete cable only to be charged an extra 100 shillings for crimping which is one of the simplest activities I have ever seen and that was my motivation to write this post.So if you want to make the ethernet cable youself here is what you will need.

1.Cat 5 cable(I don't about cat6 but cat5 is cheaper so I know you will get cat5 anyway) or you can steal one from your office IT department..muhahaha...

2.RJ-45 connectors(3-5 bob each,any more than that is pure robbery,....cough...cough...bloomerg...sneeze...

3.Time to waste(20-40 minutes preferably)

4.Wembe or knife

5.Tunes to keep you occupied

6.Beer or redbull to keep you going cos you need patience

7.Bottle opener(the swiss army knife type) or a flathead screwdriver

8.Ability to measure lengths mentally cos most likely you broke your ruler using it to generate static electricity to magically lift papers and small strings....back to the lecture at hand..

Make a straight through cable

This is the type of cable everyone is common and connects your computer to your router or to your switch/hub e.t.c

Okay the cable should have a white sleeve and the thing to do is cut like 1 inch of the white sleeve off with a wembe making sure not to cut the wires inside.Next spread the wires as shown below by gently untwisting them making sure not to twist below where you cut the white sleeve.It is not a must to peel the tips of the wires inside as the connector has picers that will dig through the individual wire sleeve's anyway

Once the wires are spread cut the of the tips of the wires so that they are almost equal like in the picture(this will make it easier to put in the connector)

Next get the connector and slide the wires in the order they are in above into the connector with the connector facing flat side up(the side that has the lever like thing is down),do it slowly so that each wire enters it own slot and continue pushing the cable until all wires are at the end of the connector.If you look at the front you should see the copper tips of each wire clearly(if you are not already drunk by this stage).Now you need to make you first crimp commando style.Get the bottle opener or screwdriver and gently press the clip on the upper side of the connector until it firmly presses on the sleeves(don't use to much force or it will break)if it does just pour some super glue in the hole and you are good to go.
The next step involves crimping the pin ontop of each individual wire until it penetrates the wire below.Do this one pin at a time until all 8 pins are in and level otherwise the connector will not make that lovable click whenever it enters the RJ-45 port on your computer(it might still work though,mine did)

Point B is the first crimp and point A is the second crimp(of which there are 8 of them)

Next,repeat the above on the opposite site and you will now have a fully functioning straight through ethernet cable(hopefully)

Make a crossover cable

This is better known as peer to peer cable or comp to comp cable.

Making this type just involves rearranging the wires a bit but the rest of the process is the same.One site will be normal like this

while the other will be like this

And with that you will have spend around 20-40 minutes to save 100 bob and that is totally worth it

KDN and FamilyBank team up to offer free WiFi internet

2009-11-20T12:53:00.001+03:00

The joint venture between Kenya Data Networks (KDN) and Family Bank Limited, will allow the bank’s customers, and the members of the public, to use the free Wi-Fi connections to the internet, within a radius of one kilometre of each of the bank’s 50 branches.Here is a list of some of the branches so you can know if there is a spot near you
in Nairobi
FourWays Towers, Ground Floor (Retail) Muindi Mbingu Street
Sonalux House, Moi Avenue
KTDA Plaza, 5th Floor (Corporate), Moi Avenue
Cargen House, Moi avenue
Pan Africa House, Kenyatta Avenue
Gikomba, Mt. Kenya Hardware Building
Githurai Branch, Muguga House
Kariobangi Branch
Donholm, Outer Ring Road
Tom Mboya Street, Opposite Fire Station
Kilimani Branch, Argwings Kodhek Road
Kayole Branch, At Kenol Service Station
Ngara Branch
Gikomba Sokoni Branch
Industrial Area

in Mombasa
Electricity house, Nkrumah Road
Mombasa II, Jomo Kenyatta Avenue

If you know of any more branches you can add them in the comment form

The soon to be paintless CocaCola can

2009-11-20T09:30:00.001+03:00

At the moment not much is known about the decision and it still appears to be in the project phase but not only does the can look good it will be more eco friendly as the process of painting the cans and removing the paint during recycling is not the there.
[Source site]

Find and advertise jobs online with Kazi360

2009-11-10T09:51:00.000+03:00

With the fast growth of the internet locally many new sites keep popping up every day and I just came across one that caught my eye called Kazi360 which is a simplified job advertisement board where you can find and post jobs online with ease.

What I really liked about the site was its simplicity and easy to navigate interface which consisted of a tabs in case you want to narrow your search by profession.The homepage has a list of the most recent and most popular jobs posted making it easy to find what you need fast.At the moment thje site has few listings because it has just started but the site has great potential and will gain popularity very soon.

Adsense payout now available in Kenya Shillings

2009-11-07T17:12:00.000+03:00

Just today I recieved exciting news that Google Adsnse was now offering cheques in Kenya shillings(Credit goes to collins over at Siku-moja for the find)
Here are the instructions on how to change the currency
-When you log in you will see a tip with a green background saying that earnings are now available in euros
-Click on the link and agree to the terms of service
-After that go to My Account then under account settings edit payment details and after selecting check you will see a drop down list from where you can select the checks to be Kenya shillings

Finally a useful wordlwide e-currency

2009-11-07T16:21:00.001+03:00

With all the buzz about the growth of internet banks have been in a rush to cope with the online craze and have started offering online banking and stuff like that but the thought of open international money exchange has been a long-time dream of many Kenyans.M-pesa has made favourable headway but it is still lacking in terms of international money exchange.This site is a great solution for people who have money that they would like to invest in online and not have to deal with the usual unscrupulous middlemen.Here is how it works.

The site is called liberty reserve and it is basically an online bank of e-currency.E-currency is very similay to paypal but like m-pesa does not require to be linked to your bank account.Therefore you can operate the account from any country in the world without restriction.The site itself does not offer deposit and withdrawal but these services are done by liberty reserve exchangers.These are sites where you can buy and sell your e-currency for real money and other forms such as alertpay or paypal.Many exchangers offers buying and selling of e-currency via moneygram and western union so the whole process can be done without even a bank account.To me this is an extremely better option as compared to paypal and alertpay which do not allow free deposits and withdrawals.They also have the lowest fees as compared to paypal in terms of transfers(free to send,1% to recieve)

Advantages
No bank info is required from you
No monthly fees
No sending fees
You will always make a profit if converting USD to Ksh
You can recieve money via moneygram or western union

Fee Comparison Chart

	Liberty Reserve	PayPal	MoneyBookers	Neteller
Location	Costa Rica	USA*	UK	UK
Balances flactuate with the price of gold?	No	No	No	No
Transaction Fee	1%	2.4%-3.4% + $0.30	1.9%-7.9% + 0.29 €	3.5%
Minimum Fee	$0.01	$0.30	0.29 €	$1.00
Maximum Fee	$2.99	$1000+	$1000+	$10.00
Monthly Fee	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Optional Privacy Fee	Yes	Not Offered	Not Offered	Not Offered
Cost of a $100 Transfer	$1.00	$3.70	$8.27	$3.50
Cost of a $1000 Transfer	$2.99	$34.30	$79.37	$10.00
Cost of a $10,000 Transfer	$2.99	$340.30	$790.37	$10.00
Notes	No chargebacks	Chargebacks	Chargebacks	Chargebacks

So for those of you interested you can check out the site here or sign up if you like.

Alertpay in Kenya

2009-11-04T12:43:00.000+03:00

Since I had previously done a post on how useless paypal is I decided to do a post on alertpay which all the Kenyans seem to be recommending so I looked into the site and here is a summary of what I came across.

What is Alertpay?
AlertPay is the rising leader in secure online payment solutions that was founded to facilitate safe instant payments between individuals and online businesses.

Is it supported in Kenya?
Yes,but you have to have a VISA enabled credit or debit card e.g from Co-op bank or any bank that offers VISA cards

What services are available to Kenyans?
1.Deposit money from your bank account in your alertpay account
2.Withdraw money from your alertpay account via a check in US dollars(direct transfer into bank account not supported)
3.Spend money and recieve money online

Is verification necessary to add, withdraw, or transfer funds?
To maintain compliance with these governmental organizations, we are required to get to know you better, and verification makes this possible. If you have a Personal Starter or Pro account, you can still add, withdraw and transfer a limited amount of funds, but you must get verified when it is requested of you. Business accounts must get verified to deposit, withdraw and send money.

Do you accept debit cards?
Yes, we accept debit cards only if they are issued by Visa or MasterCard. You can use your debit card the same way you can use a credit card. Please note that you cannot deposit or withdraw money with your debit card. You can only use it to make direct payments through the Send Money feature or a seller’s payment process.

Can you use an unverified account?
Yes,bu they can ask you to verify it anytime they like,but they usually do yhis for high risk countries such as Egypt,Morocco and Kenya isn't one of them.

Personally I have seen very few shopping sites,in fact I haven't seen any that support payment by alertpay but it is the closest to paypal that supports Kenya

Kenya's alternative to Paypal?

2009-11-04T11:28:00.002+03:00

Since paypal has totally ignored online banking in Africa people have been forced to seek alternatives,as I was doing my usual speed surfing I came across a site that has a lot of potential called pesapal

First of all back to hating on paypal,what is with paypal!!!Yes we have Mpesa and Zap and these services are very good when it comes to local money exchange but in terms of international exchange these sites are like goldfish in a bowl without the freedom of the open ocean.I always get irritated when I find something is half the price online than it is in the shops even minus the shipping costs.Go to ebay now and you will find kenyan curios being sold by chinese which makes absolutely no sense!On the paypal site they praise themselves about how they are growing everyday and increasing their international support.If you want to know where you country stands in terms of paypal functionality check this page here.For Kenya all you can do is be sent money from another paypal user arccording to the site.An angry person who tried to use paypal had this to say

'My PayPal account does not allow me to "attach" a credit card unless the credit card was issued by a bank in the US. It will not allow me to "attach" a credit card from a bank in Kenya. This makes it impossible to use the account even if I want to send money to another PayPal account. How does one PUT MONEY INTO the account ???

If I can't put money INTO the account, what good is it being able to send money ???'
----From Babo Africa-----
You can read the forum posts here

Okay back to the post at hand,pesapal is a new kenyan site that is very similar to paypal only instead of using your credit card you use your Mpesa or Zap account to buy and receive money online.Looks like a very promising site.You can find a comprehensive review here.

A few more kenyan online shopping sites

2009-09-26T17:53:00.002+03:00

Following the posts I did a while ago about some of the popular shopping sites i decided to highlight some of the sites that have gone unnoticed.

1.Rachel's bargain corner
A simple site that dwells on the sale of books and music both used and new that provides deliveries to Hurlingham, Community Area, Westlands, Upper Hill, Nairobi Cbd, Mombasa Road, Ngong Road, Murang'a Road, Ngara, Kiambu Town and Parklands.Modes of payment include zap and mpesa.They also deliver by post all over kenya,worth checking out.

2.Ravenzo Trading

A shopping site focussed on I.T equipment and accesories which also supports zap and mpesa.In terms of navigation it is a very user friendly site with fast load speeds and very advanced functions such as advanced search and item compare.

3.DukaWala

Another good site which has a wide variety of products and supports numerous forms of payment such as cheques,VISA and mastercard as well as the local mpesa and zap

4.Kenya Online Auction

Not exactly a new site but not very well known but it has been around for a few years but has never really gained the required popularity as it has rarely been updated and is still spotting a 2007 copyright which means the owners are not too serious about it.It is owned and operated by Kenya webhosting.It accepts only Mpesa.Plus the site design and logo are kind of dissapointing

No more money for your EC credits,and thats not all!

2009-09-13T11:57:00.000+03:00

I have been racking up EC credits ever since may that I could cash them out but to my shock when I transfered them to the cashout nothing happened,they just remained there for like 2 months and very unhappy about this I contacted entrecard and this was the message they sent me

Sorry we no longer offer cashout services on entrecard,thanks for your continuing support

Very annoyed I spent the 2000 EC I had been saving up on random ads that didn't bring me much traffic but I didn't care much.Later in the week entrecard later revealed that in order to stabilise the entrecard 'economy' they were going to remove the option of receiving a credit when somebody drops on your site.WTF!
Can somebody please make a better site so we can all move there!

A good looking kenyan online shopping site

2009-09-12T21:11:00.002+03:00

After my disappointment with onlineduka I came across a site that really caught my attention in that it was everything that a online shopping site required.I am not being biased and I have not been bribed to diss onlineduka and then praise this site but if you visit it you can see for yourself.These are the kind of sites I would be proud to promote
UzaNunua

Another disappointing kenyan online store

2009-09-12T11:48:00.007+03:00

I always get a feeling of joy when I see a new kenyan website thats innovative and string in concept but I always get disappointed when the idea concept is not fully carried out.Running a website I know is not an easy task but in order for a website to grow it has to provide something that the others don't.

So while I was surfing I cam across this new site called OnlineDuka Kenya.I was at first very pleased with the design and load speed of the website and so i automatically dug deeper to see what the website offered.The homepage is very well designed and easy to navigate and provides a simple navigation bar that is comprehensive.Each page has a hovering serch bar which isn't very effective in terms of advanced search as it only searches for tag words.[something the site admin should work on]
When you click on a product you get a picture of the product plus basic details about the seller and the price,below you get a tab of related items which you might be interested in but immediately i feel that something is missing,no cart or cashout option.How can it be an online duka that doesn't sell anything!then it should be called an online catalogue or online classifieds!
When you click on the seller details you get a nice page with basic info such as company products and the likes,a location map tab was available but many shops had no map.For all web developers out there who are in the dark these days Kenya is covered by GPS if you didn't know and there is always the google maps widget if you want to keep it simple.
Basically the site has so much potential that is going to waste,here is a summary of the pros and cons I came across.
Pros
Nice design
Nice concept
fast page loading
easy to navigate
CONS
Products not detailed
No cart/cash-out option
No advanced search option
Basically if you are going to set-up an online shop don't set-up an online classifieds!Website admins should take a look at the books first website,its not the prettiest website in the world but it gives you everything it promises including delivery options and payment via m-pesa,what more could you ask for(except something other than books)[that was a hahaha moment!,Im out!]

Xbox360 price change again?

2009-09-06T12:17:00.005+03:00

I know many of you were aware of the price change in august that led to a 100$ decrement in the price of the xbox360 elite system but know it has been confirmed.If you don't believe me check it out for yourself on the xbox360 page

PS3 Mod Chip?

2009-08-31T21:11:00.003+03:00

i was met with shock today when i was browsing the net and came across an apparent PS3 modchip and assuming this was a hoax I immediately dug deeper to investigate and I stumbled across something amazing

I am sure most of you are not new to the world of mod-chips and game consoles but for me this was a first,a mod-chip that can work on any console.Believe it!The chip is the
Infectus2.
InFeCtuS is the first versatile microchip ever brought out in the market, created to work with many different consoles. InFeCtuS will give you access to so many features that would be impossible to describe them all
Is the introductory paragraph on the home-page of the infectus website.
I browsed through the site that had claimed success with their chip on the Xbox360 and the Wii but had finished running beta tests on the PS3 and were ready to release it commercially in the next 4 weeks.
Here are a few features the chip offers:

The first work to be done is to allow our users to flash directly the PS3 BIOS by USB. So no more problem with firmware, you can install everything you want, when you want. All the complications due to firmware versions that cannot be downgraded will not bother you anymore.
This solution will be released in the next 4 weeks!
Another new feature that we want to add is a REAL TIME patching of the firmware part that you want to be emulated from the chip.

Here is a picture of the chip

Upload and share images for free with Sharedimages

2009-06-19T12:15:00.003+03:00

Are you an avid image uploader.Image hosting sites are very common these days with the likes of photobucket,flickr and tinypic but you may have noticed that most of these sites are very careful with their bandwidth and once your badnwidth runs out,no more image sharing.Now for people who share images on a large scale such as image gallery owners or photographers need a service that will meet to their bandwidth needs and lucky for them their happens to be such a site called sharedimages

What are the features of sharedimages?
1.Unlimited bandwidth
2.Unlimite storage
3.Files are never deleted
4.All image types are allowed even adult material
5.Various image upload methods such as via zip files,url upload and many others

If this is what you have been looking for then you can sign up here and start sharing
SharedImages

Download with ease using Jdownloader

2009-06-01T20:53:00.004+03:00

One big problem with downloading from file hosting sites is the inability to automate the download process forcing downloaders to be constantly monitoring their downloads because of the inability to queue downloads due to things such as countdown timers or captcha boxes such as that on Megaupload.Thanks to the guys over at Jdownloader they made a program that could automate the process without much hustle requiring you only to input the link

The program was built especially for file sharing sites and has various feautures to make downloading much easier,here are some of them

Platform independent. (Windows, Linux, Mac, ..)
Runs on Java 1.5 or higher
Complete Open-Source (GPL)
Completely portable-No need for installation
Download several files parellel
Download with multiple connections
JD has an own powerful OCR module (JAntiCaptcha)
Decrypt RSDF, CCF and DLC Containerfiles
Decryptplugins for many services. e.g. sj.org, UCMS, WordPress, RLSLog….
Youtube, Vimeo, clipfish video and Mp3 Download
Automatic extractor (including password list search) (Rar archives)
Theme Support
Multilingual
About 110 hoster and over 300 decrypt plug-ins
Reconnect with JDLiveHeaderScripts: (1400 router supported)
Webupdate
Integrated package manager for additional modules (eg. Webinterface, Shutdown)

For more info check out the jdownloader homepage

Play high end games without having to have a powerful computer

2009-05-04T18:19:00.003+03:00

In response to a comment I received I am going to write about a revolutionary service I cam across a few days ago refferred to as OnLive

1.What is OnLive?
This is an internet based gaming service that was though of by some bright American minds that aims at enabling people to play games over the internet without the need of having powerful computers and graphics cards which are usually a necessity with high end games.

2.How does it work?
Simple,you are in control of the game.You play the game on their servers but the images from the game are streamed to your computer or TV.Basically its like you are playing the game on their servers but you are being streamed the video of your gameplay so it looks like you are playing it right from your computer

What do I need?
1.Broadband internet(has to be fast)
2.Windows XP/Vista enabled laptop or PC
3.To play directly on the TV a micro-console is required

How do I join?
It is still in beta stage and they are only allowing beta testers to join

What kind of games are available?
The latest games from the big companies which they have partnered with such as EA,THQ,Eidos,Take 2
Some of the games they say are already available include;
Tomb Raider:Underworld
Crysis warhead
Mirrors Edge
Prince of Persia
Bioshock
H.A.W.X
and many others

When will it be available?
They promise by the end of the year but am I say probably mid next year

What are some of the things you expect to go wrong with this service?
Am glad u asked,
1.Its internet based so automatically you have to worry about your internet speed and also their servers sometimes not being available
2.Its still not as good as having the games themselves
3.Streaming will never be as good as the real deal

You can check out their website here for more details and screenshots.
OnLive homepage

How to bypass the rapidshare countdown timer

2009-04-23T09:36:00.004+03:00

UPDATED:Does not work anymore
This is just a simple method I came across for free users to bypass the waiting time which is usually about 50-30 seconds and go straight to the download link.
Here is how it is done,after going to the download page you should see 2 options one for download as a free member and the other as a premium member
-Select download as a free member
-You will be taken to a another page where you will see a countdown timer
-Go to your address bar and type the following

javascript:alert(c=-1) OR

javascript:alert(c=0) OR

javascript:var c=0; OR

javascript:var%20counta=0;var%20countb=0;var%20countc=0;var%20countd=0;
var%20counte=0;var%20countf=0;var%20countg=0;var%20counth=0;var%20counti=0;
var%20countj=0;var%20countk=0;var%20countl=0;var%20countm=0;var%20countn=0;
var%20counto=0;var%20countp=0;var%20countq=0;var%20countr=0;var%20counts=0;
var%20countt=0;var%20countu=0;var%20countv=0;var%20countw=0;var%20countx=0;
var%20county=0;var%20countz=0;

-Then press enter,a messagebox with a certain value will appear and after you close it you will see the download link

NB:I didn't find this very useful as it only saves like half a minute but you can use it if you want.This method does not bypass the waiting time which one waits after downloading a file from rapidshare.

Entrecard now accepting cash-out applications

2009-04-17T19:21:00.002+03:00

To all you entrecarders who were waiting for cashout to be released the system has been launched and members have to apply for approval before they can cashout which means that a lot of people are going to get rejected.They are also only accepting cashout via paypal.To apply for cashout just look for the Apply for cashout link on your entrecard dashboard under the my account section

Create online HTML forms with ease using Wufoo

2009-04-15T22:30:00.003+03:00

One drawback of being a blogger is the inability to integrate professionalism into our blogs.To go around this sites started offering functionalities such as widgets and plugins on their servers enabling people to access them as a 3 party functionality(one that is not embedded into the website).A few months ago I told you of kontactr which enabled you to create online contacc forms but what if you want another type of form.Then Wufoo is the site for you.

Wufoo basically takes online forms to the next level enabling you to make various forms with ease such as;
contact forms
survey forms
payment forms(can be integrated with paypal)
registration forms
online orders
tracking and much more

The generated forms are then converted into HTML code which you can embed in any compatible blogging platform.
On top of this members can fully customise their forms on basic characteristics such as colour and font and also upload compatible files to the form such as images.You can visit the site here and give it a try:Wufoo

Get useful and easy to use javascript widgets from Js-kit

2009-04-14T09:38:00.002+03:00

One thing about blogger is that it has a horrible comment from even the embedded one so I stumbled upon a site which has a variety of high quality widgets that you can add to any kind of blog

Their most popular widget is the comment widget which adds various functionalities to your blog such as user editted avatars,youtube videos,facebook integration and many more features which are fequently updated
Some of their other widgets include;
star rating widget
polls
minichat
user advisor and many more;
You can visit the site here:http://js-kit.com/

Entrecard yet to release cashout system

2009-04-14T08:58:00.002+03:00

The much awaited credit cashout system on entrecard which was set to be released last weekend is still not out

There is much speculation on how priority for cashout will be given but according to the Entrecard blog they will create an algorithm that will generate a number which will determine how active you are on entrecard on activities such as dropping,buying ads,accepting ads e.t.c
As for cashout it will be per 1000 EC but the amount is still yet to be determined

Entrecard soon to offer cash for your credits

2009-03-15T09:02:00.002+03:00

Word around entrecard is that very soon entrecard will be implementing a new ad system which will feature CPM ads

That is not all there will also be a new system where you can convert your entrecard credits into cash although the details on how this will be done are still unclear bu this has been met with a lot of excitement by entrecards members except the new rule that states all entrecard widgets will have to be placed above the fold i.e visible on your page without the user having to scroll down,which will be implemented as soon as the new ad system is released which according to entrecard will be next week.

Free Iphone and Ipod applications

2009-03-02T09:31:00.002+03:00

Since I am not a big fan of the Iphone am not very conversant with how it works but I recently came across a site that was offering free iphone apps for download
The site is called appulo.us and what it basically is is a collection of user submitted applications where viewers can read about the application and download it if they are interested in it

The site features all of the popular applications and even the ones you did not know about with detailed information about each and every application including compatibility and some screenshots also.
Visit the site here if you are interested

Can't see google ads,got Kaspersky?

2009-03-01T09:18:00.003+03:00

I recently added kaspersky 2009 to the long list of programs protecting my computers from viruses but as soon as I finished the installation when I cam to check on the blog I noticed my ads were not showing.After several failed attempts at re-adding the ad code I realized that the ad code was fine and that Kaspersky was the one blocking my ads.I usually don't notice ads that much but since I was in the process of changing my template I had to be able to see what I was editting

So here is what I did to get them back
1.Open the kaspersky window
2.Click on the content filtering sidetab
3.Under Banner Ad blocker you should see something that says 'White' and 'Black' list with a clickable button on its right
4.Click this and you will be taken to the Banner ad blocker window
5.Click on the white list tab and then add the following address mask(URL) *google*
6.Then click on OK and once you reload your page the ads will be back.

Download from rapidshare with ease

2009-02-27T19:46:00.004+03:00

Downloading from rapidshare as a free user can sometimes be a real bother and not only because of the speed but also the inconvenience of having to wait a few minutes after downloading a file
WHAT if you want to download a bunch of files and don't feel like waiting for each and every one of them to finish,there is a solution

The software is called Rapidshare Auto downloader and what it does is exactly what is in its name,you give it the rapidshare link and it does the rest.
What the software does is it accesses rapidshare under its inbuilt web browser and then downloads the file enabling multiple files to be downloaded(one at a time) without a wait time.
Here are some more features;
-Scheduled downloads function
-Auto-shutdown feature and many more

If you are interested you can download it here
Download

Free software alternative to Adobe Photoshop

2009-02-16T11:02:00.001+03:00

Adobe photoshop is one of the best image creation and editing software there is but with the price tag people are forced to seek cheaper or even better yet free alternatives which brings me to todays software of interest called Gimp(GNU image manipulation program)

Here are some of its features
1.Multiple image file format support such as:
JPEG,PNG,GIF,PSD,TIFF and many others

2.Customizable interface to enhance ease of use

3.Numerous photo enhancement features such as distortion,blur and others

4.Comes with hardware support for users of devices such as graphic tablets,pressure sensitive screens e.t.c

If you are interested in it you can check ouy more features and download it here

Get a disposable email with ease

2009-02-15T10:11:00.003+03:00

One major thing that bothers me about email is spam,and no matter how much you block them they just keep on coming and so people are forced to set up secondary emails for such things which ends up being a long process of signing up and the sorts.But recently I stumbled onto a website that changed all this.

The website is called mailinator and what it does is it gives you the ability to use any email address that comes to mind,in other words if you want your email to be lookimspamming@mailinator.com just send an email to it an it will be activated,as simple as that.
Because the site does not ask users for passwords it would be wise to use the address for non confidential purposes such as confirming offers on GPT sites and such.
So just think of an email address@mailinator and then send it an email to try it out.
Visit mailinator here

Free antiviruses you can try out

2009-02-14T10:07:00.003+03:00

Antiviruses have these days become a must have and if you don't have one you better get one fast,but usually antiviruses cost money and no one feels like paying for something which they will only use for a year so if you have the same problem I have you can check out some of these free antiviruses.

1.Avira
size:21 MB
features:
1.Inbuilt antivirus
2.Antidialer to prevent illegal premium calling
3.Fast system scan speeds
4.Good user interface
5.Anti-phishing function that prevents hackers from stealing your bandwidth
Remark:Very good for a free antivirus and also a small file to download
Visit download page for Avira here

2.Bitdefender
features:
1.Inbuilt antivirus
2.On demand and scheduled scanning
3.Skinnable user interface
4.Quarrantine for infected files
5.Detailed scan reports
Remark:Not a bad software but you have to give them an email address before you can download it.
Download it here

3.Avast home edition
size:30 MB
features:
1.Inbuilt antispyware
2.easy to use user interface
3.P2P and IM shields
4.Web scanner
5.Special quarrantine that enables use of infected files without harm to the computer
6.Automatic update
7.Shell integration
and many other just to name a few.
Remark:A more functional antivirus than the rest and therefore I would recommend this one.
Download it from here

4.Rising free antivirus
Size:60 MB
features:
1.Antivirus & Antispyware Protection
2.File Monitor: Automatically detects viruses in active files and prevents them from infecting your computer.
3.Email Monitor: Scans inbound (POP3) and outbound (SMTP) emails for malware.
4.Application Control: Monitor the operational status of applications and block suspicious activities.
5.Malicious Behavior Interceptor: Monitors programs in the system for possible malicious behavior.
6.USB/CD/DVD Monitor: Blocks malware on USB storage media, CDs/DVDs and network drives.
7.Embedded Scan: Provides integrated protection for instant messengers, download managers and other popular tools.
8.Self-Protection: Prevents malware from making changes to the Rising Antivirus software.

Remark:Quite an unknown antivirus but it is still worth a try
Download it here

Mobile phone review of the week:Nokia 5320

2009-02-09T09:34:00.001+03:00

Due to a severe case of writer's block I decided to add in some weekly articles to make your week a little better and so every week except to see a mobile phone review right here on KenyanGuru.Todays pick will be the Nokia 5320

GENERAL
Release Date:The official date was April last year but it reached the Kenyan shores around September
Size:108 x 46 x 15 mm, 67 cc and 90g weight
Display:320x240 TFT screen with 16M colours

MEMORY
140 MB shared memory
microSD slot for expandable memory(should come with 512MB or 1GB card in sales pack

MULTIMEDIA
Camera:2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels, video(QVGA@15fps), flash, secondary videocall camera (384 x 320 pixels)
Music:3.5 mm audio output jack,radio and mp3 and video player

CONNECTIVITY
Buetooth v2.0 with A2DP
Quadband GSM frequency
GPRS/EDGE and 3G
high speed microUSB port for computer connectivity

HANDS ON REVIEW
I was lucky to try out this phone and I have to say it was pretty impressive(don't ask where I tried it out just know I did)
Here are the main advantages;
1.Good keypad layout
2.Quick functioning even with multiple applications running in the background
3.Excellent music playback
4.Very sturdy design with rough sides to enhance grip
5.Very good user interface that is easy to use

Here are the main disadvantages;
1.The camera is not that good for a 2 MP phone but thats a problem for all Nokia phones
2.The battery life also tends to run out quick

All in all this is a great phone thats going at quite a low price compared to the features that it carries and I would have to say that it would be a good choice for the young due to its cool look and features
For more details you can visit the official Nokia page

Run Windows applications on MacOS or Linux

2009-02-07T14:00:00.002+03:00

This must be one of the most interesting programs that I have come across and it is a program called Wine which basically allows you to run Windows applications and games on most of the other operating systems as they would normally run therefore without performance handicaps like other emulators

The program is very unique in that it does not act as an emulator but a translator enabling the software to run as if it was running under Windows.
Many programs have been found to work on Wine such as;
Photoshop CS3
AutoCAD
Utorrent and many others

Some games confirmed to be working on it are;
Call of duty 4
Bioshock
Left for dead 4
Command and conquer just to name a few

If you are interested you can download the file here or visit there homepage
Download
Homepage

Coming soon:GDrive

2009-01-31T08:48:00.005+03:00

For quite some time people were able to use Gmail to store files online but word on the net is that Google will officially launch this feature to people dubbed GDrive.Apparently the feature has been beta for quite some time now and was once named platypus(good thing they changed it) and boasts many features that other free online storage sites do not offer

Once released the service promises to have the following features;
1.your files accessible from any device be it computer or mobile phone
2.Quick data backup
3.Sync data on different machines running different operating systems

The info on this project is still quite fuzzy as it has been going on since 2006 so is 2009 going to be the year its released.We will just have to wait and see.

Who is skullptura?and how does he do it.

2009-01-23T20:09:00.015+03:00

Yes am sure by know he/she/they are very famous by now for the happiness they have brought to millions of gamers worldwide.So for all of you in the dark skullptura is the person responsible for the highly compressed full RIP game available for download over the internet(full rip means that nothing has been removed from the game such as songs or videos).The result is games which are like 7GB are compressed to 2GB therefore decreasing download time exponentially.

How he/she does this is a mystery to many as normal compression softwares such as WinRAR cannot achieve this.The games are now easily avaiable on the internet via torrents or via file sharing sites such as rapidshare and megaupload.
For all of those wondering if the games work they work perfectly on Windows XP but an extra step has to be taken in Vista to extract the file:

once downloaded extract, if you are on vista go to Control Panel and then User Accounts, go to turn user account control on or off uncheck the box their and click ok and then your computer will reboot. Extract original.exes and then run setup and you will be done

At the moment only PC games are available(thats all I know) and just by googling the name skullptura you can get many of the games compressed by him.

Theme changes!

2009-01-17T19:54:00.002+03:00

I have changed my theme abruptly because the other theme had faulty images so I am going to change it and abruptly so give me a day to change the appearance.The posts are still viewable.

Get translations quick and fast with Google translate.

2009-01-13T20:26:00.005+03:00

Many people know about the Google translate widget that many blogs have but very few people know that their is now a Google translate website where you can enter text or webpage urls and the site will translate it into the language that you choose.

The site is pretty simple to use and comes with many tools such as text/web translation,web search translation,dictionary and downloadable tools such as toolbars.

The available langauages include English,French,Japanese,Chinese,Spanish and many more.
The website also enables users to give better translations or correct mistakes.
In the above image I decided to translate the word 'panther' to Spanish and it gave me the translation 'pantera' which is the correct one and so for a beta system it seems to be doing pretty well.

Google opens the year with Chrome v.2 beta

2009-01-10T20:57:00.004+03:00

Happy new year every one.This is the first post of 2009 with some fresh news concerning the release of Google Chrome pre-beta 2.0.Thats right it is pre beta meaning it is for those adventurous types who don't mind bugs and errors now and then.The new browser comes with some really interesting new features,

1.form auto-complete-One of the functions which the first release sadly did not have.
2.Full page zoom-You may think this is nothing special but apart from resizing the text it also resizes the images and other embedded objects.
3.Profiles-This allows you to set-up different profiles each with different settings such as homepages and bookmarks which is a very good function especially if you share a computer with other people.
4.Greasemonkey support and other minor updates such as to the javascript engine and the likes.

1. If you don't have Google Chrome, install it from google.com/chrome
2. Subscribe to the developer preview channel. This is required even if you've previously subscribed to the channel.
3. Wait until the new version is downloaded (you may force the update by opening the "About Google Chrome" dialog).

Specialised browser for African Americans called Blackbird.

2008-12-21T21:13:00.006+03:00

These days software are really starting to target individual social groups for example the recent release of a blogging platform specialised for females called Onsugar and todays article is similar to that as it is specialised for African Americans

The browser is called Blackbird and it specialised for the African American community in that enhances their surfing experience with content that they would not otherwise find and enables them to easily connect to their social networks,email and share ideas.
The browser comes with some unique features such as;
-black search
-blackbird TV
-Social network manager and many more

The browser is free to download and is powered by Mozilla so you can expect a very stable software.The software can be downloaded from their homepage.

Don't want an iphone,well just pick another touchscreen phone

2008-12-20T10:33:00.017+03:00

Many mobile phone have come up with there ownproduct to combat the Apple's Iphone 3G released ealier this year and so I decided to highlight some of the competition that the iphone is facing especially this christmas season,the main contenders are the nokia 5800,samsung i900 and the blackbery storm 9500 and so am just gonna go over some of the similarities of these phones and the iphone.

Similarities
-All are touch-screen phones although the Iphone screen is most superior
-All have accelerometers which are devices that enable the phone to detect when it is rotated
-All have built in GPS function
-All have TV out capability except the Blackberry storm

-All have wiFi/WLAN capability except the Blackberry storm.
-All are quadband phones(they can operate on 4 2G frequencies so most likely work in any country.
-All support HSDPA data transmission

okay those are the major similarities now let us go to the differences that make them special.
Differences
1.design
In terms of design I have to say the samsung i900 takes the cake due its elegant and metallic like finish,compared to the others that have the plastic look and finish.

2.screen resolution and camera
The nokia 5800 screen has an amazing resolution of 16 million colours and 360 x 640 pixels compared to iphone's 320 x 480 pixels but as for the camera the i900 outshines them all with its 5MP camera with autofocus,stabilizer and flash

3.User friendliness
Apple have been well known for their easy to use device interfaces therefore the iphone takes this one due to its easy and interactive interface where users can just flick their finger on the screen to so a certain task(this is one of the iphones collest attributes).Also the various iphone apps which increase functionality of the phone.

4.Storage
Another win for the i900 as users have the option of getting either one with 8 or 16GB internal memory and if its still not enough they have the option of adding more via a microSD card slot,as the iphone has no card slot.

Since I have just touched on the surface you can view the individual phone specifications here
Samsung i900
Apple Iphone
Nokia 5800
Blackberry storm 9500

But overall I think the Samsung Omnia i900 is way more superior that any of these phones but it has quite a hefty price tag so if you are considering it you better start saving up.

Lets end the debate:Which is the best ISP in Kenya

2008-12-16T16:31:00.007+03:00

Read update post here:http://kenyanguru.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-choose-right-isp-for-you.html
This is a debate that has been going on for a long time and for some people it has been getting more and more confusing.So I decided to open a post about it on my forum so that people can discuss about it in detail and express there thoughts.
I have also added a poll so that people can vote and in the end we can truly determine which service is the best
Here is the link to the post on the forum.Here
You are also free to leave a comment here if you wish

Here are some speedtests of the local ISPs

1.Butterfly WiFi(KDN)

2.Zuku 256KBps(Wananchi Online)

The best mobile phone browser just got better

2008-12-16T13:01:00.004+03:00

With the release of Opera Mini 4.2 a few weeks ago mobile phone users have been surfing with delight due to the efficiency of the new software.The software is made by the same people who brought you the Opera desktop browser and is one of the most portable mobile applications there is as it can work on almost any phone including even the Blackberry phones.The application is well know for its easy to use interface and rapid page loading speed.The new version which is 4.2 has also come with some very special features which the others did not have such as;

1.Users have the ability to change the skin of the browser which is a very handy feature if you got bored of the Opera Mini classic theme.
2.The ability to watch videos on your mobile phone from the youtube mobile and others which is a feature that many mobile users have been crying for.NOTE:not all phones are capable of doing this according to the Opera mini website but some new Nokia's and Sony Ericsson's can
3.New servers have been added in the US therefore faster loading speeds for users in America and Asia-Pacific regions

These above are some of the new features but some of the more common features are;
-Capability to view pages in landscape
-Upload or download files directly from Opera Mini(if your phone supports JSR-45
-Sync bookmarks from your Opera desktop browser
-Search in a page
-Create a custom search engine and many more features.
To download it visit Opera Mini on your phone or on your PC

Iphone now available in Kenya

2008-12-13T14:32:00.000+03:00

It is now official,the iphone 3G is available in Kenya under the Orange network.The phone was launched on Thursday and it was an event filled with pomp and glamour,but don't expect any people to be queuing for days on end like when it was released in other countries such as Australia or South Africa as the price is not for everyone.

The phone will be available on either prepaid(ksh 33000 for the 8GB and 42000 for the 16GB)or postpaid(ksh 50000 for the 8GB and 59000 for the 16GB).
On top of that buyers will have to sign a contract for 1 year of which for prepaid users will be ksh.60000.(I am not sure about postpaid users so I will update this post once I get that info)
Personally I think that the phone itself is cheap but the contract is just too much,according to the Apple CEO Mark Jobs when he first released it he said that the price of the phone would be subsidised by the one year contract but in the Orange Kenya arrangement I am not seeing the price difference,the phone is expensive and the contract is also expensive.
The year contract is supposed to allow full access to the Iphone 3G features but instead of 3G orange is offering users EDGE which is much more inferior.Also the GPS function will not be accessible which makes me wonder what exactly buyers will be paying for.
What's the need of releasing a phone which is too expensive to buy,especially for the young adults and teenagers at which the iphone is targeted.

Remotely access computers via internet using Gbridge

2008-12-07T10:38:00.001+03:00

Gbridge is a free software that lets you sync folders, share files, chat and VNC securely and easily. It extends Google's gtalk service to a collaboration VPN (Virtual Private Network) that connects your computers and your close friends' computers directly and securely.The software allows you to do various activities between 2 computers such as;

-Access your computer desktop remotely or share your desktop with your friend from anywhere which is referred to as Desktop Share
-Securely share files among your own computers, so you can remotely access your files, e.g. play mp3 , with ultimate privacy. Securely share files to your designated friend, so the selected friend can instantly view the auto-generated photo thumbnails and slideshow remotely. No web upload/download needed! which is called SecureShare
-Transfer big files and sync folders from/to anywhere has never been easier. Auto schedule, auto resume, incremental and no size limit! which is called AutoSync and much more....

You can view more screenshots or download the software free from the Gbridge homepage

Copy files fast with teracopy

2008-12-06T19:03:00.000+03:00

In this day and age removable storage has become the in thing and therefore copying files to these storage devices is quite easy if its a few MBs but what if we are talking about hundreds of gigabytes,it might take a little time with the Windows standard copy feature and so I found an alternative software that cuts copy time tremendously.The software is called Teracopy and here are some of its features

-Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
-Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources,this is a very handy feature if your computer always brings problems during copying.
-Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
-Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
-Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
-Full Unicode support.

You can get the software free from the teracopy homepage:Download.

New event for all you visual and 3d graphics designers

2008-11-27T20:39:00.001+03:00

Click here to enlarge image
This is a once in a lifetime event where you will get to see some of the kenyan animation works that are in the works and also get a chance to hear kenyan animators talk about local 2D animation,3D animation,3D game development and visual effects.

The event is sponsored by the Kenyan film commission and will take place at the Sarit Center on the 6th of December from 8:30am to 4:30pm and entrance will be free,also making an appearance will be some famous animators such as Gado.
To see more details visit the official site:Kenyan-Animation

Get paid to Tweet!

2008-11-24T08:45:00.011+03:00

A few months ago I told of the site called twittad which was going to enable people to make money from their twitter but at that time the service was not active but it now is.What this service does is it puts ads in your twitter profile background and every hour the ad is up you get money.

The minimum payout is 20$ and payment is via paypal.
Ad space is purchased by advertisers and so you have to make sure you are a popular on twitter and also that your profile looks good so that it can be chosen by advertisers.You also have the option to accept or deny ad proposals just like in entrecard.You can also sell ads on twitter profile pages via twittad.
Visit their homepage for more details or to sign up:Twittad

How to prevent viruses from spreading to your computer from USB drives

2008-11-17T11:34:00.007+03:00

One major way through which viruses spread these days is via USB pen drives and apparently for every 100 pen drives 10 have viruses on them.So somebody came up with an application that can prevent these viruses from spreading to your computer.

The program is called iKill and what it does is it searches for removable drives and then parses the autorun file of a virus preventing it from infecting your computer.It also has the ability to delete these viral files automatically or after prompt by user.

The application is free and can be downloaded from this website:Download

Create your own internet browser toolbar for free!

2008-11-12T20:46:00.006+03:00

I was surfing the net today and came across a website that was allowing people to easily make toolbars for their sites.Basically a toolbar enables users to access your website resources directly from their internet browsers.The website is called itoolbar and it is a free website where you can create your own custom toolbar with some of the following custom features;

1.Customized logo and links to your website.
2.Search engine which will search your website directly form the toolbar or search the web using engines such as Google,Yahoo or Ask
3.Can be integrated with the various PHP scripts on your site such as forum scripts(e.g phpBB) allowing members to go directly to new or popular posts and E-commerce scripts(e.g OS commerce,Zen Cart) allowing users to shop on your site from the toolbar.
and many more features.
If you are interested you can check out the homepage here:iToolbar

Competition over!

2008-11-12T20:08:00.003+03:00

I had recently started a competition where the prizes were free ad space on my blog but since there was only one entrant she won by default.
Congratulations to Penny,I will contact you very soon with more details.

10 ways to make your blog succeed

2008-11-05T08:48:00.002+03:00

These days everybody has a blog, some people even more than one.BUT! What people have not noticed is that with the right strategies your blog can start making money for you. Want to know how to do this? Just read the following steps.

Make your blog professional.
1. First and for-most you have quality articles which in-turn will bring in traffic.
2. Make your blog stand-out, don’t use default blogger templates as this will automatically make readers think that it is a personal blog and not a professional one.
3. Update your blog frequently, it is not a must it be daily but at least twice or thrice a week, this shows how seriously you take blogging.If you have nothing to write don’t force it as it will just dilute the quality articles you have.
4. If you have many widgets arrange them nicely in your sidebar as this will make them look organised.
5. Respond to reader feedback such as comments or questions asked via mail. This will cement the relationship between you and your readers encouraging them to come back often and comment.
6. .If possible get a TLD(top level domain) such as .com or .net as this shows readers you are willing to spend money in order to get your articles read.Now again if you don’t have the resources you will be just fine with the .blogspot or whichever sub-domain you use.

Know your readers.
When I say know them I maen know which countries they are from,the sites that reffered them to yours and such details.Now in order to get this information you are obviously not going to ask each and every reader these details but you can get analytics such as Google Analytics or Histats.This information will help you improve your blog even further as you will have a rough idea of what the reader is looking for.For example if you have many readers from countries that do not speak English it would be wise to add a language translation widget to ensure that you do not lose all those valuable readers.

How to make money
1. Sell ad space on your blog directly(which is harder but more profitable) or via services such as Google Adsense and Adbrite.Directly is where advertisers contact you and you negotiate the price and duration their ad will be up.
2. Get refferals to the GPT(get paid to) sites that you are a member of.
3. Grow a blog and then sell it,which many big time bloggers usually do.
4. Get a sponsor,this is a company or website that will pay you if you put ads and links to their respective websites.

When will the iphone 3G come to Kenya

2008-11-04T08:42:00.001+03:00

There is no event that I am looking more forward to that the coming of the iphone.For those of you who do not know it the iphone is a trendy gadget by Apple that has revolutionised the mobile phone industry due to its easy to use interface and multi-touch touch-screen. According to Mark Jobs when the Iphone 3G was released it he said that the cost of the phone would not be more than $200(ksh.14000) wherever it was being sold.

Now of course before you go celebrating how cheap it is know that it also comes with a 2 year mobile service provider contract(which simply means you have to use mobile service provider you bought the phone from for 2 years).On the Apple website they say that the Iphone will be hitting stores very soon under the Orange network but I am very pessimistic it will be soon as Orange have not even set-up their 3G network yet, but I am glad they did not choose safaricom.At the moment you can get an Iphone here in Kenya but the price will be too expensive for you to handle(40,000-60,000) so its better just to wait.

A few main features of the Iphone 3G include;
2 MP camera (no video, what a shame)
Touch screen
Easy to use interface
WiFi, Bluetooth and inbuilt GPS
Very fast internet speeds via 3G of course

These are just the main features and so if you want full specifications visit the official Iphone website here.

Adspace giveaway competition

2008-11-01T08:39:00.001+03:00

I recently added ad blocks to my sidebar and so to get things going a little faster I decided to start a competition where the winners will get to have their ads on my blog for 2 weeks.Here are the conditions of the competition

1. All you have to do is leave a comment here on this post with the address of your blog to enter,no need to write a post about this competition and no need to subscribe to my feed(but you still can if you want)
2. Competition will run from 1st November to 10th November
3. Ads will be in the form of 125x125 images(preferably PNG) hosted by the advertiser.Basically if you win you will create a 125x125 image and host it online either on photobucket,flickr or blogger and then give me the link and I will ad you advertisement.
4. The ad has to be about your blog and not a competition or a get paid to site
5. There will be 3 winners since there are 3 ad spaces who will be chosen via Randorm.org
6. NO pornographic ads

How to schedule a post on blogger.

2008-11-01T08:36:00.000+03:00

This is actually very simple and what this does is it enables you to write a post and then set the time and date you want it be published to your blog.Sometimes when I am very busy during the week I just write 5 and then schedule them to be published one on Monday, one on Tuesday and so on.

How do you do this?
1. When in the compose post page, look bellow the page and you will see post options.
2. Click on it and you will see 2 text boxes, one with date and another with time. For example if you want a post to be published on Christmas day 2008 just input the date of Christmas (12/25/08) and that is it.
3. Click publish and the post will then be published on Christmas day.

Ad space for sale!!!

2008-10-25T10:16:00.003+03:00

That's right,I am selling above the fold ad space on my blog to any one willing to advertise on it.Ads will be in the form of 125x125 images.
The forms of payment I will be accepting are via paypal or via Mpesa
The price for the space is for the meantime negotiable so just contact me here. and we can discuss the price and the time you want your ad to be put.
The ads will be located above the email subscription box

Which are the best ISPs in Kenya

2008-10-25T10:15:00.003+03:00

Of late there is has been a lot of excitement due to the soon to be arrival of the undersea cable that promises to reduce internet connectivity exponentially and so many ISP’s are laying the groundwork so that when it arrives they will be ready to provide their customers with the best.Thanks to the competition though many ISPs are reducing their prices and so internet is becoming a common commodity in especially offices,schools and homes,but if you want to choose an ISP to provide internet to your home or office there are always some factors that you should consider.

Cost-This is always the first factor considered by many and is usually the determining factor
Speed-A very important factor depending on what you plan to do with your internet connection.
Availability-Certain services like Wimax and 3G are not available outside of Nairobi and Mombasa so if you live outside these areas you can always consider VSAT(very small aperture terminal)which is basically satellite or DSL which is telephone line depenedent.
Transmission-If your telephone lines are always being vandalised and Telkom doesn’t fix them then DSL would not be a wise decision.
Time limit-Some ISPs offer prepaid and unlimited connections but personally I hate prepaid connections as you will never be comfortable browsing as you will always want to finish what you are doing before the money you have put gets finished.

So for all of you who are not sure what ISPs is best for them I have made a table of the best and cheapest ISPs services that offer unlimited broadband internet.

Is AwSurveys legit?

2008-10-19T10:21:00.009+03:00

If you are a an avid reader of blogs and forums you will always see someone write a post or comment about how to get a rapidshare account free legally and it is like they always use the same explanation of how they have made aclot of money using AwSurveys and they now have lots of money in their paypal account but I have to warn you that it is not as easy as it seems.

I am talking here from experience and I can tell you that I really think that Awsurveys is a scam but then I ask myself 'why is it still online?'.So first of all I am going to tell you what basically happens when you sign up.
First you will see many offers that are easy to do and when I say easy I mean very easy and so on your first day you will have over $20 and so you will be excited at how much easy money you made.
The next time you find another survey to do will be like a month later and it will only be one and it will pay you $1.Since the payout is $75 most people turn to refferrals and that is why you will always see people sending you referral links to Awsurveys.
For the few who have been successful to reach payout they say that if you redeem your money to paypal they deduct $25 as a payment fee which doesn't make any sense to me.
I also have an account with them and I am really wondering if I should cancel it or not.
If you have been paid or you have not been paid please leave a comment and share the experiences you have had.

Basic CSS that will help modify you template(Part 1).

2008-10-14T20:36:00.000+03:00

Almost all blog templates be it blogger or wordpress utilize CSS which stands for cascading style sheet and this what what determines how the blog will look like when loaded in a browser.If you have the basic knowledge of CSS you can modify basic templates so that they do not look so default and you will thus be able to stand out from the crowd.Today I am going to show you what the basic codes you might find in your template stand for so that you can have an idea of what you are changing while you are modifying your template.

These are the most common codes that you will find in a template;
Border
This is used as a setting for the style(e.g dashed,solid),weight(the thickness which is measured in pixels),and the color of the line that will border a certain element(elements are things like the header section,the posts section and the sidebar section.If you do not want the element to be covered by borders on all its sides(left,right,top and bottom) you can declare the side that you want covered by adding -left(change the 'left' to the side you want) after border.Here are some examples of how the code would look like.
1.border:1px solid #CCCCCC or
2.border-left:1px solid #CCCCCC

Now code 1 will add a border to all 4 sides of the element and the line will be 1px thick,it will be straight and it will be gray in color while code 2 will add all the above to only the left side.

Padding
This is used as a setting for the distance between the content and the wall of a an element.This is less complicated than the border code as all you have to adjust is the width which is most commonly in pixels but is also sometimes in percentages which can be very unpredictable.It can also be applied to all 4 sides of an element or just one side.Here are some examples of how the code would look like.
1.padding:1px or
2.padding-left:1px

Margin
This is a setting used mostly to determine the distance between elements such as space between the header and the posts section for example.Basically it is just like padding but while padding works inside the element margin works outside the element(I hope you understand the difference).The coding is also the same so there is no need for me to write it again.

These three are the most common and you can never miss them in a template.There is also another one called background but it is a bit more complicated so I will talk about that one tomorrow.If you have any suggestions or there is a certain CSS code you do not understand just drop a comment and I will see what I can do.

Get you own 24/7 internet TV station for free

2008-10-12T13:51:00.001+03:00

I am very excited to tell you that you now have the opportunity to set-up your own television station online for free which will air 24 hours a day and 7 days a week showing what you line up.This service is offered by a company called mogulus and what happens is that you put the videos or images you want to be viewed and then it puts them in a storyboard which will then be viewed by people who log-on.Here are some of its main features;

-Comes in two packages,one which is free(your channel will air 10 second advertisements every 10 minutes) and a pro version where no ads will be added to your channel but you have to pay a small fee.I think the free version is very fair and this is a very good offer these people are giving.
-You can add videos from your webcam,youtube or your own videos to be broadcast live and if you are not online you can set it to play videos from a play list.
-The website has plenty of inbuilt graphics you can add to videos such as CNN style scrolling news,your channel logo and many more features all which can be done with ease.
-Supports multiple producers where you and an associate can air one channel and yet you are miles apart(sort of like the multiple authors feature for blogger).

If you are interested click here:Mogulus sign-up
If you want to see some channels that are already on the air click here

New feminine blogger platform now available

2008-10-10T20:43:00.001+03:00

Yesterday I did an article on blogger VS wordpress so today I am going to do an article on a blogging platform that is unique in that it is specialized for women.The platform is called Onsugar and I am not quite sure when it was released but is seems fairly new and so I am going to highlight some of its features.

-First of all it is free
-It is hosted so all you have to do is sign up and you get your blog with the sub-domain .onsugar.com(I am not sure about the domain though)
-Easy to import from Blogger, wordpress or typepad
-Supports multiple sites per account and also multiple authors
-Top level domain support
-Users can create custom pages such as archives or gallery
-Completely customizable themes
-Has a wide selection of widgets to choose from such as popular posts,recent posts and others.
-Supports drafts and timed publishing like blogger
-Users can add a meta section which is like an admin panel which allows users to login, register and other functions.

If you are interested in it you can check out their homepage or a demo page running onsugar.

Blogger VS Wordpress

2008-10-09T20:09:00.002+03:00

A blog which is short for weblog is an easy way of sharing information via the internet in a website like format. Most people think that CMS (content management system) and blogs are the same thing but actually blogs are a type of CMS.Today I am going to outline some of the most popular blogging platforms that are available.

1. Blogger
This is the one I currently use and is one of the most popular and most used because of its simplicity and also that it provides free blog hosting for its users. The company was bought by Google a few years after it was started and so it is now owned by Google which gives people the impression that blogger blogs get priority in the Google search engine which is apparently not true. You can sign up for a blogger blog from their homepage here: Blogger

Features:
-Uses XML and HTML (classic) templates of which there is a wide selection of.
-Pages are written in HTML.
-Does not support plug-ins but people can add functionality such as adsense and feeds to their blog using the Google gadgets which come in form of widgets.
-Provides free content, video and image hosting on their servers. They don’t support uploading of files other than these though.
-Users have the option of taking a .blogspot sub-domain or using their own top level domains such as .com, .net and such.
-Does not come in script form and so you cannot install it on your web server.

2. Wordpress
Is the most popular stand-alone blogging platform. By stand-alone I mean that you install the script on your web host and you are good to go. In many forums I always read bloggers complaining about blogger and then having all their problems solved by moving to wordpress.I had a wordpress blog for a short time and I have to say that the quality is much better but I just wasn’t happy with it. You can download the script from the wordpress homepage.

Features:
-Pages are written in PHP which explains the better quality of content.
-Uses PHP templates that are also easily available online.
-Supports plug-ins which makes it very easy to customise
-Has the ability to create custom pages different from post pages, a feature that blogger does not have.
-You can also do many things such as password protect posts and comments, prevent comment spam by blocking IP addresses, and many other additional features(they are very many I cannot list them all)
-Easy to upgrade.

CONCLUSION
-Wordpress is better than blogger if you have the money to buy reliable web hosting and also maybe a good TLD (top level domain), trust me if it wasn’t for the horrible free web hosting I was using at the time I would be writing this article in wordpress right now.
-Blogger has to improve their services, they don’t offer trackbacks, pings, they only way to prevent comment spamming is the word verification. That is why bloggers are always moving to other platforms.

If you are not happy with blogger or wordpress here are some other platforms you can try:
Posterous-Blogging highly simplified where all you have to do is email them the content and attach anything from pictures to videos and then they make it into a nice post. No sweat!

Textpattern-Basically the same as wordpress and is a stand-alone platform

MoveableType-Famous for being the first blogging platform to implement trackbacks but it doesn’t seem to be famous anymore

Serendipity-A very flexible platform that comes with very many features and allows users to choose between various mark-ups such as HTML, Textile, Wiki and even BBcode.

Lifetype-A less common blogging platform which has very nice looking posts which is worth looking at.

Flatpress-Very simple platform like blogger with limited features.

Wheatblog-Pretty much the same as flatpress

Loudblog-A platform that is specialised for podcasters

Onsugar-A new blogging platform that is specialised for women due to its feminine look.

If you are still not happy with these you can do a google web search here for more blogging platforms

Wananchi online launches new broadband internet and cable TV service.

2008-10-08T21:52:00.043+03:00

I am very excited about this as this service is going to be the cheapest compared to all other ISPs and PayTV providers that are there.According to Wananchi Online they have already started setting up base stations in Nairobi and Mombasa and so the service is expected to be rolled out officially very soon.

Some of their broadband internet packages include an unlimited 256kbps connection for as low as kshs.2999 per month which is currently their cheapest package at the moment but it is also the cheapest package in the country,they will also be offering cable TV packages in English and Hindi for as low as KShs. 1,160 per month.Some of the areas covered in Nairobi include;
-City center
-Ngong road
-Yaya area
-Westlands
-Parklands
-Kileleshwa
-Industrial area
For more details you can check out their website:Zuku.

New easy to use blogging platform called Posterous

2008-10-08T21:52:00.042+03:00

This is a new blogging platform where no set-up or signup is required and all you have to do is send an email to post@posterous.com and then they will reply with your post url which will look something like http://yourname.posterous.com.

In other words you blog by email where you write a post in an email and attach whatever you like such as music,videos or files and send it to them and then it will be made into a blog post for you.Nice and simple,you can try it out here:Posterous
Here is a posterous page of one of the founders so you can see how it generally looks:Garry's posterous

3000 page views anniversery post

2008-10-08T21:52:00.029+03:00

Today my blog officially hit 3000 page views and to commemorate this extraordinary event I am going to write a post about the history of this blog from the very time it was at the drawing board to where it is today.

The Beginning
When I started this blog I was a complete internet newbie so I did not know anything about blogger or wordpress or free web hosting.So about a year ago someone asked to me to make a website for them using Ms Publisher since I knew the basics and I agreed and also decided to make one for myself too since I had a lot of free time to burn.From that the first layout for the Kenyan Guru website was born.
I took like a month looking for a suitable free web host because back then I didn't know that many sites.I finally found one and uploaded the HTML to it and that was on January 16th of this year(this is an estimate as I don't remember the actual date).The url was kenyanguru.kohost.0lx.net(don't visit the link now as it will just redirect back to this blog)

The take-off
For the next month I was the only one visiting the site and updating the site was a real hassle because every time I updated the posts or the layout I had to update the HTML files all over again which used to get on my nerves.Since I was using Ms Publisher the website didn't look very pleasing and so I rarely got new visitors or any significant traffic.To solve my updating problem I decided to add a blogger blog to my articles section so that I could easily update the section that needed to be updated.The traffic was still not significant enough so I did what all new blogger do by submitting the site to directories and search engines but it did not help much as the site was not interactive as it did not offer any feeds and readers could not post comments.
As time passed I started concentrating on the blog more than I did on the main site and around July I moved my site to the blog and redirected all the little traffic that was there here.
With time I got used to the blogger tools and editing the layout that I got bored with the default Rounders 3 template I was using and so I changed to another very popular template(guess?)Langit Blogger.Even though it looked good I still wasn't happy with it and so I scoured the web until I found this template called Vista84 which is the one I am currently using.From then on I increased the frequency at which I updated my blog and in months such as August I even updated my blog daily.

The present
From then on traffic and readership has been on a steady increase and I couldn't be happier.I would like to thank all the readers,commentors and subscribers for making this possible.

Adsense for games launched

2008-10-08T09:21:00.004+03:00

You have all heard of adsense for content or adsense for search but you will be shocked to find out that Google recently launched adsense for online games.Publishers will have the ability to put video,image or text ads in their online games in places such as the beginning of the game,inbetween levels and wherever else the publisher chooses.

To qualify for adsense for games you have to have had at least 500,000 game plays and 80% of your traffic has to be from U.S or U.K.
If you are interested you can view some videos or submit your application here;Inside adsense

If you don't know any popular online game sites you can search the web here

Custom Search

How to find out where your website host is located.

2008-10-07T12:36:00.002+03:00

Many people complain that their websites don't rank well in their country specific search engines such as Google's this is because Google gives priority to websites hosted in that country i.e to websites whose servers are located in that particular country.So if you want to find out where your websites' host servers are located there is a tool you can use.

The tool is by webconfs and you can find it here:webconfs website to country
All you have to do is input your url and it will tell you which country your server is located in and its IP address,for example if your are using a blogspot blog then your blog is most likely hosted in the United States.

Easy way to write code in blogger posts

2008-10-06T10:25:00.002+03:00

About a month ago I taught you how to write code in you blogger post using the centricle converter but now there is even an easier way to do it right from within blogger.

Here is what to do,
1.Login to blogger draft(This is where blogger tests certain tools before it releases them officially)
2.Go t0 create new post.
3.Click on the post options and you should see the option to interpret HTML literally in compose mode,select it.
4.Once this is done whatever you write in compose mode will not be interpreted as code and you can now write it freely without worrying.
5.If you wish to write HTML to be interpreted just write it in the edit HTML section and it will be interpreted.

I tried this and it worked very well so go ahead and try it.

Top 8 most visited Blogger template sites

2008-10-06T09:26:00.005+03:00

After making a few templates I started looking for sites to submit my blogger templates to and it took a bit of time but I eventually found some and I am going to share those sites with you.I am going to start with the new ones that have come up and then go to the more popular ones.

1.Weloveblogger
This is the newest one by Blogger Buster and was just released a few days ago and is a site where you can view and submit templates as well as catch up on the latest blogging news and tutorials.No registration is required to view or submit templates so you should have no problem navigating this site.

2.Bloggershowcase
This is another new one and also one of the most professional looking blogspot blogs I have ever seen that spots basically the same features as weloveblogger and also does not require registration.

3.Themeforest
This is another new one that is different from the others in that it is a premium theme site which means people can buy and sell templates here and I also saw that they don't have only blogger templates but many others including wordpress,joomla and flash.You have to be a member to download or submit a template.

4.Btemplates
This is a very popular site that has been around for a while and has some of the most popular blogger templates that are there.You can view,download and submit templates freely and there registration is not required.

5.Blogger templates
Probably one of the oldest template sites around this is another popular template site that offers xml templates and is usually the first place people go to when looking for templates.

6.eBlogtemplates
Another site that has a wide collection of blogger and wordpress templates and also a resource for blogger tricks and tutorials.You can view templates but you have to be a member to download or submit a template.It also features a member dashboard where you can see the statistics of your submitted templates which is very handy.

7.Template go-down
A very good resource for beautiful template designs and also has some converted wordpress templates(templates that were originally for wordpress but have been converted to work with blogger)

8.Demonthemes
This is a site that not many people know of but it has very good blogger and wordpress templates and also allows users to submit their own templates.

If you have any other sites that you feel deserve to be in this list just comment and I'll check it out and add it.

Backlink checker with page rank and 'nofollow' tag details.

2008-10-05T13:27:00.007+03:00

Backlinks are links to your blog or website from another website.Their advantage is that they increase the popularity of your blog and also help in search engine rankings hence increasing traffic to your blog,but some websites put a no follow tag on certain areas of their blog such as comments section or sidebar section.If a search engine spider finds a no follow tag it will not follow that link and therefore according to the search engines that link does not matter.

Now when finding out your backlinks it is always good to know the details of the sites that are linking to you so while I was browsing I came across this site called backlink watch that analyses all the sites that link to you and gives you their details such as the total number of backlinks,page rank,if they have added the nofollow tag to where your link is and the anchor text that your link has.With this you can know all the sites that are beneficial to your website.

How to add expandable post summaries to blogger

2008-10-03T09:52:00.006+03:00

Expandable post summaries are where a summary of the post is given or a teaser paragraph and then a link to the full post is given such as 'read more...' or 'continue reading...'
I am going to show you how to add this to your blog

The first step is the usual one of backing up your blogger template and then check the expand widget templates box.
1.Now search for the </head> tag and paste the following code BEFORE it

<style>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
span.fullpost {display:inline;}
<b:else/>
span.fullpost {display:none;}
</b:if>
</style>

2.Once that is done search for the code <data:post.body/> and then paste the following codes AFTER it

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<span>
<a expr:href='data:post.url' style='color:#0000FF; text-align:right; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none;'>Read more...</a>
</span>
</b:if>

You can customize the read more link to any text you want by changing the part of the code in blue and you can change the colour of the link by changing the hex value in green

3.Save the template and then go to the settings tab and under the formatting sub tab
go to post template and add the following code

Type your summary here.
<span class="fullpost">
Type rest of the post here
</span>

Now the purpose of this code is to differentiate the summary and the rest of the post.Replace your summary with the text in blue and then the rest of your post with the text in green.I hope you have understood how it works.If you get any problems just ask me and I will help you out.

UPDATE:For those of you using classic templates(templates written in HTML)use this code instead of the first code
<style>
<MainOrArchivePage>
span.fullpost {display:none;}
</MainOrArchivePage>

<ItemPage>
span.fullpost {display:inline;}
</ItemPage>
</style>

AND then search for <$BlogItemBody$> and add the following code after it.

<MainOrArchivePage><br />
<a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>">Read more!</a>
</MainOrArchivePage>

Get a free .biz domain valid for 1 year

2008-10-02T10:58:00.003+03:00

The offer is by 1&1 internet inc and they are offering you a one year .biz domain.This is a limited time offer so you have to hurry as they have not given the deadline of the offer so people are going to be rushing for those domains.By the way .biz domains are only for businesses and commercial use so make sure your website complies with the above before you sign up.

Here is the link to follow to get the free domain.1and1

Major changes over at entrecard

2008-09-30T10:24:00.005+03:00

(UPDATED)
Entrecard is a website that enables members to advertise their websites,blogs or products using 125x125 image links.Members do not use money to purchase ad space but instead use entrecard credits which are obtained from dropping on others widgets or selling ad space on your widget.All you entrecard members will be shocked to find out that entrecard has made major changes to the way the website operates and for some especially the heavy droppers these changes have not put a smile on their faces.The first most controversial change is that members cannot sell entrecard credits and it has been added as a violation of the terms of service.Entrecard credits can now only be bought from the entrecard website.(By the way entrecard members don't forget to drop on the widget.)

Other changes include;
1.The cost to purchase 1000 credits has been reduced to $6
2.You can only transfer a max of 1000 credits per week to other members and you can only make 14 transfers per week.
3.Blogs that are inactive for 3 months are deleted
4.Blogs that have offensive images and do not have the EC widget are also deleted
5.Addition of upgrades to the EC shop such as fast pass which lets you jump ahead on any queue for an advert request.
These are the major changes so far,if any more come up I will keep you posted.
If you have any thoughts about the changes you can drop a comment here

Green Baron template updated

2008-09-29T16:24:00.002+03:00

Most of you were complaining that there was a bug in the new template I made which is green baron which made the sidebar to appear below the post section and I would like to inform you that I have fixed the problem and added some new features.

The new features include the blogumulus label cloud and the feedjit live traffic viewer.You can view the new demo or download the new template.

How to add a floating 'top of the page icon'

2008-09-29T16:06:00.005+03:00

This is a very useful trick which adds a floating top of the page icon to your blog and the good thing is it is very easy to add and customize.If you look at the bottom right of the page you will see a grey icon with a white arrow that does not move even if you scroll up or down.

This trick was though up by Blogger Buster and there is no need for me to write it again as she wrote it perfectly and explained it well so here is the link to that article;
How to add a top of page icon link

Block spammers before they attack you

2008-09-24T09:59:00.008+03:00

This is a very useful tool for forum owners such as myself who are constantly burdened with the task of deleting spam left by spammers,but now there is a way to block the spammers before they attack your forum or comments.This done using a website called StopForumSpam.

What this website does is it gives a list of the most notorious spammers IP addresses so you can block them before they post there spam.So don't waste anymore time,get to the website by clicking here and block the spammers IPs from your forum or comments sections

Another template by me

2008-09-23T10:06:00.006+03:00

I must be on a template making frenzy as I am making blogger templates like no tomorrow.This is my second template and it is called green baron and just like the other one it is very simple and easy to customize.Here is how it looks
Demo|Download

Features of this template include inbuilt search box and two columns.It has a dark appearance but if you don't like the colors you can always change them.
As usual you are free to use this template as long as you do not remove or modify the bottom link to my site
Enjoy.
For those of you who want to know my future template projects I am working on the following blogger templates;
Abarai Renji(Bleach)
Hitsugaya Toushiro(Bleach)
Simple Blue
Sonic the Hedgehog

Rapidshare premium link generators

2008-09-22T09:24:00.004+03:00

Personally I rarely use these but it comes a time when you really need a file and you don't want to go through the many processes at the rapidshare homepage so you can use these handy websites to save you some time.Okay so here is a list of some of the generators that have worked for me.

http://www.multidl.com/
http://www.sonuhost.com/
http://www.rapidsharepremiumlinkgenerator.com/
http://www.rsfox.com/
http://rsalmighty.com/
http://www.rapiddownloader.info/
http://oregonpr.com/
http://www.rapidshare-premium.com/
http://www.rsgenerator.net/
http://www.rapitshare.info/
http://www.rapidshare.co.in/
http://www.veryrapidshare.com/PremiumDownload.aspx
http://vipdirectory.net/
http://www.kingrapid.com/
http://rhost.cz/
http://www.rapidfile.us/
http://www.rapidloader.info/
http://freerapid.org/

If there are any that are not working or there is one you want to add feel free to drop a comment.
By the way if you try to generate a link and the download is only 5KB that means that the server is busy so you just have to try another one.

Make your own rapidshare premium link generator

2008-09-20T10:30:00.002+03:00

This is a very handy script which allows you to run your own premium link generator service on your website.Ofcourse you have to have a web host and a rapidshare premium account to generate the links from.

The script does not require MySQL and is very easy to install and is available for free from this site:Rapidshot script
You have to modify it a bit though so that it can suit your liking so you have to have some basic website coding knowledge.

Have you got an idea you want to share.Then sign-up to my forum for free and share all you like.

New blogger template by me

2008-09-19T14:23:00.005+03:00

For about a week now I have been working on a template and I have finally worked out all the bugs and it is now ready for download.The template is called Red Crystal v.1.0

Demo|Download

The template is very simple and therefore easy to customise so even newbies can mod it.
If you are going to use this template make sure you do not remove the bottom link

Top free anime direct download sites.

2008-09-18T20:05:00.011+03:00

I have not published a post in a while now as I have been and still am working on a blogger template and I've got all the ideas in place but it has completely refused to come together so I have got a lot of kinks to work out.I also got 50 episodes of Bleach so that also kept me busy and that is why I wrote this post because many people get anime from torrent sites and yes they are reliable but they are much slower compared to direct download sites.So I compiled a list of the most popular anime download sites I know,here they are.

http://crunchyroll.com/
http://www.anidown.com/
http://www.da-anime.org/
http://www.anime-eden.com/
http://www.realitylapse.com/
http://www.downloadanime.org/
http://www.gofish.com/
http://www.dattebayo.com/
http://www.stoptazmo.com/

All these sites are free and offer direct downloads and few require registration.These are the major sites and you will most likely find the anime you are looking for as almost all these sites are updated daily.
If you have a know a website that is good and is not here drop a comment and I will add it to the list.

How to write code in blogger posts

2008-09-14T12:03:00.005+03:00

For those of you who have tried to write widget codes in blogger posts and noticed that the widget loads in the post will find this useful.Okay first of all you cannot write HTML or CSS code the way they are because they will be implemented as code and the browser will act accordingly so you have to change certain characters in the code like this.

The following characters in blue should be written like the ones red so that the code is interpreted as text and not code

" - "
& - &
< - <
>- >

Now if you have 30 lines of code you do not have the time to replace each of the characters so there is an easier way to do it using a converter.It can encode and decode these characters for you.Like the one at this website:centricle,it is very easy to use and fast.

Another chance to win a rapidshare account

2008-09-14T11:08:00.003+03:00

Another competition has begun where you have the chance of winning a month long rapidshare premium account.The only requirements to participate are the following;
-You have to have a blog or website
-You have to subscribe to the email alerts of orkut all the way

What you will do is first subscribe to his email feeds and then publish a post about it on your blog providing a link to his website like I have done here.
Orkut Tricks
After that you will post a comment on his blog so that you can confirm your entry into the competition and you will be in the running for a free rapidshare premium account.

How to make your own proxy site

2008-09-12T12:45:00.005+03:00

This is very easy and all you need is a web host and a proxy site script.Now for those of you who do not know a proxy site is a website that allows users to do things such as access sites blocked on their server,surf anonymously and other important features.

-For a list of some of the most common free web hosts visit this page.
-Once you have a free web host download any of these free proxy scripts.

Zelune
This is the latest one out and it promises to be the fastest proxy there is and is optimised for quick loading of pages.
Download Zelune:::Zelune Homepage

PHPProxy
One of the more common proxy scripts that is similar to CGI Proxy but does not allow logging in to websites which is quite a drawback.
Download PHPProxy

CGI Proxy
The most common proxy script and is used on most proxy sites because it allows logging in to sites.It also uses less bandwidth than PHPProxy.
Download CGI Proxy

Glype
Made as a fast alternative to other proxy scripts it has been coded with a strict emphasis on speed and performance.
Download Glype

Once you have chosen the script that you like download it and then upload it to your web host.If you do not want the hassle of customising the script code just go to proxybuilder and you can customise a CGI proxy script before you download it.I would recommend this for people who have encountered any difficulties.

All tutorials now bug free.

2008-09-11T16:35:00.007+03:00

This is just a notification that I have rewritten all my blogger tutorials that involved HTML and CSS and they are now showing the correct code.If any code gives you trouble please contact me and I will help you out.Here are some of the tutorials I have written.
How to add search form to blogger
How to add related articles after blog posts.
How to add social bookmark buttons after every post.

How to add related articles after your blog posts.

2008-09-11T08:43:00.003+03:00

You may have seen on some blogs that after a post there are links to other posts related to it according to category.I am going to show you how to add this to your own blog.

-First go the edit HTML page and then check the expand widget templates option.(You should have saved your template before doing this)
-Next search for this section of code <data:post.body></p>
-Once you find it put the following code after it

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<div class='similiar'>





<div class='widget-content'>
<h3>Related Posts by Categories</h3>
<div id='data2007'/><br/><br/>
<div id='Jigsawman'>
Widget by <u><a href='http://kenyanguru.blogspot.com'>Jigsawman</a></u>
</div>
<script type='text/javascript'>

var homeUrl3 = "<data:blog.homepageUrl/>";
var maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel = 4;
var maxNumberOfLabels = 10;

maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel = 100;
maxNumberOfLabels = 3;

function listEntries10(json) {
var ul = document.createElement('ul');
var maxPosts = (json.feed.entry.length <= maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel) ?
json.feed.entry.length : maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel;
for (var i = 0; i < maxPosts; i++) {
var entry = json.feed.entry[i];
var alturl;

for (var k = 0; k < entry.link.length; k++) {
if (entry.link[k].rel == 'alternate') {
alturl = entry.link[k].href;
break;
}
}
var li = document.createElement('li');
var a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = alturl;

if(a.href!=location.href) {
var txt = document.createTextNode(entry.title.$t);
a.appendChild(txt);
li.appendChild(a);
ul.appendChild(li);
}
}
for (var l = 0; l < json.feed.link.length; l++) {
if (json.feed.link[l].rel == 'alternate') {
var raw = json.feed.link[l].href;
var label = raw.substr(homeUrl3.length+13);
var k;
for (k=0; k<20; k++) label = label.replace("%20", " ");
var txt = document.createTextNode(label);
var h = document.createElement('b');
h.appendChild(txt);
var div1 = document.createElement('div');
div1.appendChild(h);
div1.appendChild(ul);
document.getElementById('data2007').appendChild(div1);
}
}
}
function search10(query, label) {

var script = document.createElement('script');
script.setAttribute('src', query + 'feeds/posts/default/-/'
+ label +
'?alt=json-in-script&callback=listEntries10');
script.setAttribute('type', 'text/javascript');
document.documentElement.firstChild.appendChild(script);
}

var labelArray = new Array();
var numLabel = 0;

<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
textLabel = "<data:label.name/>";

var test = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < labelArray.length; i++)
if (labelArray[i] == textLabel) test = 1;
if (test == 0) {
labelArray.push(textLabel);
var maxLabels = (labelArray.length <= maxNumberOfLabels) ?
labelArray.length : maxNumberOfLabels;
if (numLabel < maxLabels) {
search10(homeUrl3, textLabel);
numLabel++;
}
}
</b:loop>
</b:loop>
</script>
</div>

</div>
</b:if>

Then save your template and you should see that the changes immediately take effect in your posts.If you have any problems feel free to ask me.

Make money from your tweets on Twitter

2008-09-10T10:20:00.002+03:00

There are two ad networks coming up that are going to enable publishers to make money from their tweets and advertisers to advertise on them.
The two sites are not yet operational but seem to be in the process

The sites are twitad and twitads.The sites appear still to be under construction so I could not get information about details such as payment methods and such but as soon as I do I will keep you guys posted.

Seth MacFarlane's new series cavalcade of cartoon comedy premiering on the web

2008-09-10T10:04:00.005+03:00

If you like Family Guy then you are going to love Seth MacFarlane's new series Cavalcade of cartoon comedy which will be exclusive to the Internet and distributed by Google.The show will have the same satirical humour as Family Guy and is bound to be a hit on the net.

The series will premier today and will be available on websites such as Youtube and Sethcomedy.There will be a new episode every week.