Make use of the free online website design applications

With absolutely no background in website programming you can be able to design and deloy professionally looking websites using these free website builders. Here are some of the few I have used and found to be really amazing.

WEBS.COM

Has a very good user-friendly website builder which you can use to create and deploy a website in less than one hour with no prior knowledge in web programming. This is by far my favourite solution for creating a free website or blog in the shortest time, plus the free domain name you get for your website doesn't look bad compared to other free website tools like Google Sites! infact the free domain names from webs.com are cool; here are some examples of sites i have created using webs.com (all i did was just drag and drop!):

Design a website in seconds by just doing "drag and drop"!

1. scores24
2. linktofree

WORDPRESS.COM
Yet another good place where you can set up a free website in seconds but is mainly good for creating blogs. So if you are looking for a good blogging tool, wordpress is something you should consider. Wordpress has a wide range of free applications ( "Widgets" ) which you can embed in your free website to archive many functionalities.

Wordpress is another good tool for creating free websites.

GOOGLE SITES
I like google sites because of the wide range of applications (or what Google calls "Gadgets") that you can integrate into the free website; Forms, maps, videos, picture slides, documents, etc but I hate their free url! It's long and ugly! However, there is a work around. You can buy a custom domain name and link it to your Google site. I have done this before and it's pretty cool.

BLOGGER
it would be very unfair if I didn't list blogger among the nice free website builders yet the website(my-techie-guy) where you are reading this post is actually a blog and I created it using BLOGGER. Yet again, I like blogger for the wide range of gadgets which I can embed into my website including custom html and java scripts. And the free URL format for blogger is better than that of Google Sites.

Make use of the free online storage services

Today I have officially launched my very own “Make Use Of” series of techie articles. These are going to be short articles about the cool stuff that I find handy in our techie world. I hope you get the same satisfaction!

A few days ago my portable drive got “fried”! And it was a bad day because literally all my stuff was on that device which is now as good as “Junk”. The latest backup was of three months back, so I practically lost the new data that I had gathered in 3 months.

I had a company laptop in my previous employment and I had never bothered to buy one of my own, all I did was make a monthly back of my important stuff to that portable drive. But a time came when I had to exit! So here I was with my portable disk hoping to buy a laptop soon! And considering that I was also exiting the country, I said to myself that “I will buy the laptop when I have settled in my new life” but the portable drive was not thinking about the same thing!

I knew about free online storages services before but I had never taken it seriously, I guess I was being lazy! Consider this a wakeup call for you too and you should have started yesterday to backup your important stuff online! This is actually what cloud computing is about! Not only will you be able to backup your files, but you will also be able to edit them and save your work.

So far I have landed on two good ones, and by good I mean all factors considered; Easy to use, Security, Amount of free space and much more:

1. Google Drive
   

   

   
   
   Space offered: 5GB
   Security: username & password (same for your Gmail account) plus HTTPS (a secure protocol).
   Accessibility: Desktop application (downloaded and installed on your PC) and as an online service through a web browser.
   Functions: upload files, edit documents online, download files, synchronize files.
   
   
2. Dropbox
   

   
   Space offered: 2GB for starters but you can gain another 3GB by being royal to dropbox.
   Security: username and password plus HTTPS (a secure protocol).
   Accessibility: Desktop application (downloaded and installed on your PC), Android application (downloaded and installed on your android device) and as an online service through a web browser.
   Functions: upload files, edit documents online, download files, synchronize files.
   (Click here to get dropbox now!)

These two should do for now but will update the list just in case I land on more free online storage services. And in case you want to contribute another good one, please leave a comment.

Predicting Uganda's Voting Application 2016 – Funny!

Finally the so called electronic voter's card is going to become a reality (not sure about this!) in our dear country Uganda and the electro commission has already appointed a team of programmers to design the voting application. Our snoops managed to still the algorithm and here it is. Now you know what to expect!

For those who will be voting NRM back into power:

Voting for NRM

And for those warming up to vote FDC:

Voting for FDC

Sorry for DP, UPC and Other parties!

Voting for DP (Same as for UPC and Others)

How to manually configure packet data (GPRS/EDGE/3G/4G) on your android phone?

Most of the time, your telecommunication service provider will run an application that can automatically push packet data settings (APNs, Proxy IP and Port, username, password, MCC, MNC, Authentication type, APN type) to your phone and this application is smart enough to know when you have changed your SIM card to a new phone and will send you new settings. But what if this doesn't happen? Well, configuring packet data on your android phone is not rocket science! And this is what you have to do:

1. Menu
2. Settings
   

   

   Settings

3. Wireless and Networks
4. Scroll down to “Mobile networks” (set options for roaming, networks, APNs).
   

   

   Select Mobile networks

5. Tick “Use packet data”
6. Select “Access Point Names”
   

   

   Select "Access Point Names"

7. Click the "Options"  button on your phone and Select “New APN”
   

   

   Android Options Button

   * Name: can be anything (for example your service provider's name! I will call mine “mtn internet”.)
   * APN: you need to know your service provider's APN (Access Point Names). You can search your service provider's website or call the customer care. Mine is “yellopix.mtn.co.ug” and I got it by searching the mtn website.
   * Proxy: usually smart phones don't need to send their traffic through proxies (WAP Proxies) so you can leave this blank.
   * Port: it's for the WAP proxy above, so leave this blank as well.
   * Username: leave this blank (most telecos don't implement authentication by this method)
   * Password: leave this blank.
   * Server: blank
   * MMSC: we don't need this for internet! It's necessary if you intend to use this APN for sending Multimedia Messages (Picture Messages from your phone.)
   * MMS Proxy: not required for internet!
   * MMS port: blank
   * MCC: This will already be automatically filled and the phone learns it from your SIM card.
   * MNC: This is also automatically filled and is learnt from your SIM card.
   * Authentication type: none
   * APN type: internet
   
   
8. Click the "Options"  button again and hit “Save”.
   

   

   Save your APN settings

9. Your new APN will appear in the APNs list with the name that you choose in bullet 7 (above).
10. Select your new APN using the radio button next to it.
    

    
11. That's it, navigate to your phone browse and test your connection.

Have fun and leave a comment if you have any questions!