Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Home Blog Page 102

Microsoft tells parents “Google is corrupting your kids!”

0

Microsoft is back to its ways of trashing its competition while marketing a new service. After the launch of Bing for schools, this is an Ad free service for children under the age of 12 who live in the USA. Microsoft in a new campaign it calls ‘Scroogled’ has released an ad about how dangerous Google’s advertising is to kids and that parents shouldn’t take send their kids to school before they sign them up for Bing for schools because their children might become obsessed with diet supplements or want a mortgage because the Google ads they see on a school computer are just like the ads their see on any public computer. Hmm! we all know or at least most of us know that Google Adsense uses keywords and Microsoft could be playing dirty!

In this new ad, Microsoft is quoted to say, “This is a message to Parents, Please don’t let your children resume school. At least, not until those venal principals have stopped allowing your children’s minds to be warped like plastic in the Sahara.

Did you know that your children are being pushed to get a mortgage? Did you know they’re being encouraged to get a free credit report? Those sweet innocent minds are even being teased into buying supplements.”

In the Ad the adults are wondering what this child might become because the child is being forced to use Google search in school and therefore seeing ridiculous ads.

 Microsoft goes ahead to say, “The corruption is palpable, she’s studying the history of Mesopotamia, where civilization reigned, before it was corrupted by ignorant from the west. Now here is Google corrupting young minds with issues far beyond their scope.”

Then Microsoft goes ahead to talk about their product in just like they always do in their commercials,

“How can any corporation justify peddling these ads to the impressionable who will soon be the guinea pigs of the robot era? Help is at hand. There is Bing for Schools. Its ad free!. And it knows lots about Mesopotamia too.”  

Microsoft then does the math on one of its Scroogled websites to tell us that Parents need to address this issue before children become ‘obsessed mortgage rates, credit reports and ingesting vitamins.

Now the questions remains, Do you find Microsoft justifiable for such a type of ad, Well Yes and No, if you follow what you always see on TV especially commercials you are most likely to side with Microsoft however when you realize you don’t live in the USA you just can use Bing for schools, For those who enjoy the re-known Google knowledge, and have information about how they use keywords you might ignore the Microsoft Talk.

Feel free to leave you view in the comments, No need to sign up, Use your social networks.

Windows 8.1 quietly gets released to manufacturers!

2

Microsoft’s new Os Windows 8.1 which we had previously reviewed is said to have rolled out to manufacturers following a tweet from Paul Thurrott the windows supersite editor on 23 August saying that the final RTM build number is 9600.16384.130821-1623.

This defers from Microsoft’s original plan to roll out at least after August, and this also explains why new Lenovo computers rolled out with a start button on their windows 8 PCs. Could Microsoft have not announced that Windows 8.1 had RTM’d because of fear that the news could have been overshadowed by CEO Steve Ballmer’s retirement.

However it is not guaranteed whether the final bits of RTM would be rolled out to everyone yet, we have to wait Microsoft’s decision. However it’s most likely that everyone would be able to get the official released Windows 8.1 only after 18th October which is the official release date.

Source: CNET

How to stop/Reduce Spam SMS on Ugandan telecoms!

4

We all or at least most of us get messages from advertisers, spammers and telecoms themselves advertising lots of thing from promotions to love tips, deals and outrageously unreal offers. Some of you even get phone calls from such companies, telling you to go for a music concert or find love.  VoIP (Voice Over Companies) got cleverer they now use flash messages that we might call pop-ups on your phone screen every after 5 minutes asking you to press OK for 220Ugx, these flash messages make some curse because they are unavoidable.

Those who really hate adverts on their mobile phones will at least reduce their messages because some messages just can’t stop coming such as the 2 messages you get for every time you load airtime on some telecoms. However the other messages from other senders and spammers can be stopped through following the following steps.

Just in case you love filling up you inbox with messages you don’t need & cell phone vibrate all the time you  have no problem with such messages just do the opposite of what am about to say.

Thanks to Warid and MTN who had fully functional features to stop SMS spam by using a feature they call “Do Not Disturb” This feature lets you stop SMS for particular SMS short codes e.g. 406, 167 and MobiAds on warid (the pop up type of sms) on Warid you can actually add a short code to block in case you get so many messages asking you to subscribe for features you don’t like. Yeah this feature is free and here is how you activate it.

On warid dial *100#, then select Option 9, then select Option 6 (Do not disturb), then select option 1 (Stop Messages) or dial *100*9*6*1# for the whole process to end. To add another short code or number to block dial *100*9*6# Select option 1 then scroll down to option 8 to block a particular short code. Or quick dial *100*9*6*1# then enter the code to block. Just in case you want to block these messages with ease just dial *100*9*6*1#.

For those on MTN, *175# then enter/reply with option1about four times OR *175*1*1*1*1# MTN also has a “Report Abusive Sms” program on their website where you can report abusive messages and have them blocked.

The above methods are offered and controlled by telecoms, and definitely some messages will go through their filter, especially messages whose sender ID is a text e.g. LOVE or DFCU, and those other messages with slightly longer codes e.g. 080012341234 (just an example) or you might realize the SMS provider you signed up with 5  years ago to send you soccer updates might still have your in their address book and yet you do not want to receive these messages so the universal way to end such messages is by sending STOP to the sender’s short code number. Remember some providers tend to have a different keyword to stop their messages.

Lastly when all this fails, we have to call in the mighty authority of Apps that block spam sms, some phones have inbuilt call and sms blacklist options where you are not notified when such a message is received and your phone wont vibrate or show an sms notification, This comes in handy to ignore more than spam messages but also those nagging friends or stalkers. And Before I forget you can also use this feature to hide messages from telecoms notifying you that you have loaded airtime since you can’t block these messages. However the messages might remain on your phone but deleting them as a whole is easy. Make sure to put the tone and vibration off for such messages, on iPhone it’s a bit tricky because you have to add the SMS sender’s number to your contact list and remove vibration and tone.

Some apps however block your phone from receiving SMS with specific sender IDs and are deleted on spot in the background without your notice; such include SMS Spam blocker–Postman , SMS Blocker by Optinno, on Android. These tools will come in handy. However be careful using them otherwise you might miss that wedding meeting sms.

Lastly, always avoid registering for SMS notification services you do not need, for example replying a spam message with a keyword might add you to the sender’s database so you will receive these messages. Since not all notifications will be unnecessary, make sure to find out the sms opt out option before you register for any sms service because it might be relevant today and may not be a burden tomorrow.

Lastly  the UCC should enforce it regulations and standards to crack down on bulk sms misuse, and you can help by submitting numbers of companies and individuals that have misused sms especially by creating spam.

Otherwise enjoy a spam free inbox and share this to all your friends with spam, Share your views or queries in the comments.

Facebook embedded posts are now open to everyone!

0

After letting media outlets try the service for a couple of weeks, facebook has rolled out the update to me and you, and by you i mean everybody. You can now embedd a facebook post inside a website, however the post has to be public for you to be able to embedd it. This caters for privacy issuses.

This might come in handy for media organisations, bloggers, journalists to be able to embedd posts, images, links, hash tags onto their websites as they cover their story, No more need for taking screenshots. And people can actually like, or follow the owner of the postIn case your website is down, facebook might come in handy for you to share your story.

We have even attached an example of an embedded post right here.

Twitter Channel returns to IFTTT with Official support

0

Its been nearly a year since internet service IFTTT (If This Then That) stopped support for twitter due to changes and complications in twitter’s API which limited the way to display tweets, Now the service has been revived and fully supports twitter.

IFTTT is an internet service that literates puts the internet in your pocket by letting you manage about 40 social networks including twitter, with IFTTT you can store your tweets to cloud services such as dropbox, Google drive spreadsheets, it even lets you save favourite links to you Pocket, evernote app and alot more recipes as it calls them. You can connect you social networks, i like a recipe that lets me change my twitter profile photo everytime I change my profile picture on twitter.

The IFTTT also has actions it refers to as Triggers and these can be controlled by tweets for example you can change your twitter profile picture by sending a tweet with an action hashtag.  The developers find this very useful and they claim people might be able to “turn off the lights with IFTTT” through triggers with Belkin’s WeMo devices.

IFTTT’s Head of Business Development Leor Stern says, “it took a while for the company to get the bandwidth to revisit the triggers. Stern, who joined IFTTT earlier this year, says that they’ve been busy building out the platform and soliciting companies for newer, more robust triggers.

IFTTT has relaunched the twitter channel with few triggers and promises to increase as the trigger actions as it continues to work with twitter and listen to feedback from users. IFTTT is trying its level best to revive its twitter channel.

Zuckeberg and others form internet.org to enable global internet usage.

0

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other companies like Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Samsung and Qualcomm made a partnership to form internet.org that has an initiative to make the internet accessible to over 2 billion people about third’s of the world’s population without internet access to be able to get access and utilize the internet. Much as we haven’t been given the clearest of how they plan to do this. The organization announced several goals.

Some of the goals of internet.org include making internet accessible to all, more efficient use of the internet and lending businesses a hand to make internet accessible to all. This will involve working with service providers to make the internet accessible to all at subsidized costs. Facebook says they will reduce data usage on their android app from estimated 12Mb daily to 1Mb to make the internet more efficient as it states in one of the goals of internet.org

Lastly the partnerships also aims at supporting business models by offering incentives to mobile operators, device manufacturers, developers, and other businesses to make internet access cheaper and easier to access.

We think this initiative will help Facebook, grow more users because if the internet is cheaper and more accessible, more people would use the internet and thus use more social networks with Facebook  as number one, remember free Facebook zero on Mtn Uganda and free m.facebook on Orange, this led to increased use of Facebook.

The initiative’s main aim is increased internet access and efficiency and all is clearly explained in the Mark Zuckerberg’s “Is Connectivity A Human Right?” plan

YouTube app for android gets new User Interface and features!

0

Despite the recent saga of the official Windows Phone YouTube app, being pulled from the store. Google has made improvements to its Android version of the YouTube app. YouTube started rolling out updates to its users with features such as multitasking.

Multitasking, in the sense that you can pause and minimize a playing video as you search for other YouTube videos. The minimized videos are shrunk to thumbnail size with a single tap and the thumbnail shifts to the bottom right corner of the screen. You can close the video by swiping it left or right and to just have to tap the video or swipe it upward to bring it back to life.

This feature gets handy when you are creating a music playlist as the audio stays playing in the background as you search for other videos, we must note that the shrunken video is usually too small to view especially on a phone however the audio plays at a good quality.

You can also search for playlists and chromecast and the chromecast experience has been greatly improved. When you tap the cast button in the app to play a video a pop up with a video thumbnail and description shows up with option for you to add it to a playlist or play the video.

The look has been smoothened up with Card UI that resembles the Google Now app, and as the update rolls out to some Android users and other platforms will receive updates soon.

Twitter now turns your tweets into News and shows Related Headlines!

0

Twitter has rolled out a feature that it has been previously been testing that tells you when your tweet becomes news and then displays related headlines below the tweet. The feature is supposed to add color to news like tweets that are embedded in news articles on websites. The headline will then be shown on the tweet’s permalink page alongside a list of links to sources where users can actually find more information about the tweet.

Twitter engineer Brian Wallerstein posted in a blog saying, “This section, which you can view from the tweet’s permalink page, lists and links to websites where the tweet was embedded, making it easier to discover stories that provide more content,”

This feature of Related headlines will be quite helpful to journalists when it comes reporting stories live in 140 character tweets including photos for their stories all collected together even from different sources.

To bloggers and online media companies this might bring in heavy traffic because twitter users get see links on content relevant to them.

An example of the new feature
embed-twitter-with-related-headlines

 

Hacker posts on Mark Zuckerberg’s timeline a bug report!

0

Khalil Shreateh, a Palestine IT expert posted a bug report on the facebook timeline of Facebook’s Founder Mark Zuckerberg after his security bug report was ignored by the facebook security team. The vulnerability he reported posted allows anyone to post anything to anyone’s timeline whether or not there are facebook friends.

Despite reporting this bug to the “white hat” security  bug reporting feature which offers a minimum bounty of $500 if the bug is genuine by demonstrating on a timeline of Mark Zuckerberg’s  friend ‘Sarah Goodwin,’ was told by a facebook security engineer that it wasn’t a bug.

Shreateh then went on to “let” Zuckerberg know by posting a note to the facebook founder’s page. He managed to post this “I appreciate your time reading this and getting someone from your company team to contact me”

He was shortly contacted by the Facebook security team seeking for details of the bug. However Shreateh’s account disabled as a precaution by the security engineer. And later a Facebook security engineer who identified himself as Joshua told Shreateh that “When we discovered your activity we did not fully know what was happening,”

Joshua also informed Shreateh that he wouldn’t be receiving a bug reward because he violated Facebook’s terms of service. And added that “We do hope, however, that you continue to work with us to find vulnerabilities in the site”

Below is a Video showing how Sheatreh did it.

http://youtu.be/F9J8U9ZpEnw

Source: Mashable

Street parking machines: Tech Ugandans have ignored but shouldn’t!

1

A few years ago, Multiplex the company in charge of running Uganda’s street parking management and collections of street parking dues, launched an innovation where its customers would be able to pay for their street parking tickets by use of a machine, instead of the parking attendants in a faster and more convenient way. Later on the machines were installed in mostly upscale Kampala with the most in Nakasero, Dewinton road areas.

However, a few years later, all these machines do is get solar energy from their solar panels, get by passed, and very few people use them. In fact it seems so bad, that parking attendants are actually seated right besides them with some streets having about 2 street parking ticket vendors on the same street that has two machines. I took Dewinton road, as an example with more 2 machines in less than 100metres.

In some areas the machines appeared to be off, well before we start blaming, if people actually used them a lot Multiplex would realize the fault, however most of them work and I tried using them and was successful.

Why do few people don’t use them?

Some might have preferred old fashion and traditional ways of paying for tickets where they wait for the parking ticket attendant to place a ticket on the windscreen and they pay or drive off. In the same spirit, airtime vending machines have also had this same problem however they seem to be much more than parking machines. Another category is the worried kind who claims that confirmation of payments cannot be guaranteed since it’s a machine. However it 2013, soon everything is going electronic, and these might adapt by force.

Some people actually don’t want to pay their street parking tickets, and definitely don’t use the machines.

Some of the machines use a card system and quite a few people have Street parking cards, another culture Ugandans haven’t embraced so much but the few elite have realized the benefits of such cards such as saving and good financial management.

The parking machines are still few in number and are the not the commonest sights and sees of the streets of Kampala, hopefully when they increase in number people might actually use them, however I believe we need to show a great need to use them first.

What needs to be done?

Awareness campaigns should be done to make more people aware of how to use these machines!

To sum this up, these are wonderful pieces of technology we should embrace to make our lives simple. . We also have to actually use them because there are no queues, you don’t have to search for the ticket vendor on the next block, you can use them to pay for all your parking bills and for the tech lovers you get to do things the modern way.

 

 

+

LATEST POSTS

Follow GURU8

3,734FansLike
15FollowersFollow
1,046FollowersFollow
19SubscribersSubscribe