Tuesday, March 18, 2025
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MTN Zukuka is waking you up with free minutes

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MTN Zukuka reminds us of the discontinued MTN promotion that gave customers a free minute in the morning. Well MTN revised the promotion and sort of re-branded the promotion to MTN Zukuka.

MTN Zukuka gives users 3 free minutes worth of free calls between the hours of 5am and 8am during weekdays. Sorry you won’t have the promotion running over the weekend but the weekend Cha ChaCha will be an alternative. Whether you are the kind who makes wake up calls to your friends or that guy whose credit is always low in the morning then this is the promo for you.

Joining the promotion is as simple dialing *188# to join and dailing *188*2# to check for the balance of free minutes.

Let us know about your experience with MTN Zukuka.

#SwitchOn by Airtel will give you free Data and Prizes for sharing

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Airtel Uganda launched amazing Internet products for its customers under the umbrella brand ‘Switch ON,’ and now want to reward fans for sharing the good news!

By logging on to www.switchon.ug users can register themselves to activate 20MBs of FREE DATA!!! Valid for 30 days, which will be renewed monthly.

Users will be able to enter the name and number of a friend and ‘switch them on.’ Immediately, that friend will receive a free SMS notification with the name of the Airtel user who has switched them on, along with instructions on how to switch other people on.

Airtel Switch ON

Every time a user switches someone else on they automatically enter a draw to win daily, weekly and monthly prizes. The more people that one switches on, the higher one’s chances of winning become.

The promotion runs for 8 weeks from 6 am – 6pm, and the daily winners will be announced on the Airtel Facebook, twitter and Google plus pages everyday between 8am – 9am.

Prizes are as follows:

Prizes (Per Winner) Count Total Winners Criteria
10K Airtime 5 winners per day for 8 weeks 280
  • Top 5 on the switch on leader-board with the most number of people switched on
  • Repeat winners allowed
1GB Data 3 winners per Week for 8 weeks 21
  • 2 most active participants on Airtel FB Page
  • No Repeat Winners
  • 1 most active participant on Twitter using #SwitchON (No Repeat Winners)
Alcatel Tab 1 winner per 2 weeks for 8 weeks 4
  • Top switcher of over 1000 additions per week.
  • No Repeat Winners
Samsung S5 1 Grand Prize 1 Random draw for participants with a of minimum 2,000 people switched on and above.

There are no additional charges for participating in the competition, but standard data costs, as per the user’s service provider, apply for data browsing and downloading.

The ‘Switch ON’ campaign has not stopped there – to take the virtual into the physical –we’ve put NFC technology behind several standees that we’ve placed in several Airtel outlets. When these standees are tapped with an NFC enabled phone, the user will automatically be taken directly to the switchon.ug microsite.

 

Drone crashes in an attempt to smuggle weed into a prison

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An unmanned drone in South Carolina crashed after a failed attempted to smuggle marijuana, phones and tobacco into the Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina, USA. According to Reuters the drone remains were found outside the correction facility.

The sight of Drone remains spiked an  investigation that might lead to the arrest of Brenton Lee Doyle  of this incident could find Brento Lee Doylee who is a key suspect. However The Spokeswoman for the State Department of Corrections Stephanie Givens was quoted saying ” officials believe it was the first time an unmanned aircraft had been used in an effort to breach prison walls in the state.”

Well drones strike enemies and terrorists but privacy advocates have so many reasons to fight against these advanced pieces of technology. Drones are becoming more available to the public which might increase security threats just like this prison incident and besides its not the first time that a drone has crashed

Ugandan website BIGEYE.ug crashes

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Crashing happens to Twitter, Facebook even WhatsApp. Today, Bigeye.ug one of Uganda’s websites went down and showed a really embarrassing message on its website probably because they didn’t restore their backup. Apparently visiting the website shows the default wordpress homepage, and the title showing Bigeye | Just Another wordpress site, and earlier on during the day a screenshot showed that they had just switched a new server.

Bigeye screenshot

These are common web hosting mistakes that every other developer should avoid. These include using shared web hosting because it exposes you hackers and slow speeds and possibility of a lot of downtime.

We were not able to get an official statement from the website on details on why the website crushed.

Note: As of Today 8 am The website was fully restored

Cortana integrates with Foursquare and recommends a place for lunch

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Its been a while since Microsoft released its new digital assistant Cortana. Well Microsoft hasn’t been sleeping, the developers are utilizing the partnership with foursquare after Microsoft invested $15 in Foursquare. Cortana is now tapping into Foursquare data to give users recommendations on nearby places.

cortanareddit

According to a Reddit User, Cortana is able to pull in data according to places near you and offer recommendations using Foursquare. According to users the service now uses the Location details from Foursquare rather than Microsoft servers.

With such an enormous amount of data from Foursquare, Cortan will definately become better, the unfortunate bit is 50% of Foursquare users are from the US which means it might not be the best option Internationally considering that Foursquare doesn’t make it into Top 30 apps in Uganda for example

MTN MuKintu gives you unlimited Twitter & Facebook, Yahoo & Google Talk access for 200/- a day

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Social Media lovers on the MTN network just got a big reason to smile. MTN has started a promo dubbed MTN MuKintu that enables subscribers pay a mere 200 Uganda shillings for unlimited access to Facebook, Twitter, Google Talk and Yahoo. Unfortunately you can only activate one service at a time and you are prompted for an email address.

“Where is WhatsApp?

Much as MTN has delayed considering that Airtel has had a social pack which gives access to Whatsapp besides the Facebook and Twitter. Users are probably going to take advantage due to a ridiculously low rate, besides MTN subscribers additionally  get access to Google Hangouts, and Yahoo.  All you have to do is dail *177#

mukintu
An ad showing details to the promo – Image Courtesy Mtn.co.ug

Its not all jokes since you might want more access to other websites or apps like Whatsapp, Viber, you will need to load a data bundle from the most expensive mobile data network currently (MTN).

Kindly share your  MTN MuKintu experience in the comments below

Kaymu Uganda Review: Shopping just became awesome!

Kaymu is an online marketplace which hails from over 20 emerging markets. It launched its services in Uganda launched to make our online shopping experience more awesome by tackling all the challenges previous markets had failed to understand or manage.

Kaymu can be accessed by logging into www.kaymu.co.ug for the dedicated Ugandan portal and Kaymu.com for the other global markets. Am going to share my experience using Kaymu Uganda.

Beyond buying

Buying is as simple as visiting the website and finding an assortment of items you need, logging in or signing up with a pretty simple form, then the magic begins. Items are properly organized into simple and precise categories, and search works and there is great detail compared to their competition. You will realize images by most of the sellers are clear enough, which mean you will receive what you actually see.

For those who love bargaining, Kaymu Uganda,  lets you bid on a product until the seller agrees to you amount.

Simplified Selling

Whether you are the seller who wants to get rid of your old stuff, or a professional merchant, Kaymu has space for you. The website lets you sign up and sell your items and for those who want to take things seriously, Kaymu has a “Verified Seller” program which gives ‘verified seller’ badges to sellers who they have been vetted and have physically verified their location and telephone contacts. This has been done to prevent scams.

Kaymu Uganda is your online shopping saviour!

Legitmate sales

Kaymu knows the pain buyers get when they buy an imitation instead of the original product. Trust me this is common in our emerging markets, so Kaymu has an option in the product description catalog where you state whether a product is original or an imitation. Sellers must specifiy whether a product is Original or a Replica so as to prevent customer complaints.

Delivery and Payment

Kaymu Uganda will deliver to you Home or office depending on the physical address you give them, we got a call on delivery of our order and a delivery agent dressed in a blue, Kaymu branded t-shirt  asked for my ID and gave me my package after a paid in Cash.

Kaymu Uganda supports payment on delivery so you needn’t worry about credit card details. Shout outs to Kaymu Uganda for understanding a Ugandan market that isn’t so VISA payment savvy.

You can also contact the seller and agree on a time and location where to pick up an item if you want to cut delivery costs which some sellers might charge.

Fast and human Support

I have not seen many Ugandan based websites with real time support like Kaymu, and hell no its not a BOT because i tricked it with all kinds of jargon so as to get a response on an inquiry and i got my inquiry answered to alongside a followup email. This support can be accessed from a ‘We Are Here’ popup box on the bottom right of the website.

On your Phone and Tablet

image  Kaymu Uganda on Mobile

I loved their mobile website which gives you the option to switch back to the desktop site so that you never lose your shopping experience. Lets hope an app is in the making!

Some buyers might have trust issues, which brings me to experience these guys have, i asked a guest blogger in Tanzania who assured me their services are exceptional, they even have a well detailed FAQs page to guide users.

Verdict…….

When I contacted these guys they shared the future with me, more payment options with partners, and faster delivery and more that i will share when its public.

When a saviour comes after several prophets have failed, you have all reasons to to sing praises.

Kaymu is Uganda’s eBay!

Kaymu is that service that won’t disappoint you any time you try it. Feel free to let me know about you experience with Kaymu Online marketplace.

What went down at the Solve for X Kampala Event!

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Outbox was treated to a prestigious visit from the Megan Smith Google VP of Google X. Google X is a collection of Google moonshot projects that seem quite futuristic to the common eye. Google [X] which was started 3 years ago, is responsible for projects like Google Glass, Project Loon and several moonshots.

“At Google X, we focus on the product and then the business model later ” – Megan Smith – VP Google X

Megan Smith shared a few introduction videos of the on the Google [X] project, and she actually emphasized the point that one of the famous “Google search visualization” that shows real-time Google searches, actually shows bright beams from America and Europe but Africa appears dark. She said Africa appears like that because it doesn’t have fiber which means that 98 million talented people are cut off from the globe.

solveforxPanorama

It was an interactive evening with people in Tech circles in Uganda discussing moonshots such as a feature that would stop you from driving your car if you were drunk. An issue raised by one of the proprietors for Kiira EV and Megan Smith supplementing that it would be nice if  your phone could tell that you were drunk, I mean it has an accelerometer.

Megan Smith was joined by Puneet Program Manager at Google [X] to answer a few questions in the Q & A session at the event. Puneet said there is a website solveforx.com where you can share your moonshots.

puneet

Its only time that will actually tell if Ugandans will actually bring their moonshots to life, I guess their biggest inspiration was this afternoon. Let us know about what you feel about Google’s moonshots and moonshots in general. And just in case you have an X to solve, drop the guys at Google X a message at solveforx@google.com

Reasons why you must Embrace online shopping

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Its time to kill your hectic trip downtown to buy a new pair of shoes, new phone or wedding gift because you can buy almost the whole world online. Picking up your smartphone or internet enabled device, hit a few clicks select what you want and your loot is at your doorstep.

Which brings me to the point of convenience, Online Shopping won’t make you queue up at a shop, or squeeze yourself in congested streets to get to your favorite designer shop whose costs are low, and hey it doesn’t make you pay for fuel. The best about online shopping is i never have to leave my office, bed, or home to the market because what i buy comes straight to my home or office after shipping at a very slight cost.

Trust me, online shopping has the biggest offers because the seller knows few people use this service so you can actually get up to 50% off your bought item and auctions exist so in case bidders are few you will get your product at a very low cost on sites like kaymu, eBay, amazon, shop247 etc.

There is more detail, you get to see reviews from fellow buyers and rating make your experience even better because you get a chance to make a decision without being pressured by a nagging salesman.

Online shopping also lets users pre-order goods and services before they are released to the market, you will be among the first 100 people to get the latest phone because to took a decision to embrace online shopping.

After sales maintenance, offers and services are done for example if you have come across an iPad, iPhone with engraved words at the back? Then learn today that the engraving is free when you shop online so such offers, services and support are offered to all those who shop online. Sometimes company promotional items come with the bought item.

Feel free to embrace online shopping because its the future and you shouldn’t be left behind.

 

Social Media Day Kampala highlights

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The Social Media community in Uganda came together to celebrate social media day with the rest of the world. Inspired by meet ups by Mashable. Virtual Trends organized a highly attended event at Hive Colab alongside other sponsors pulled off one of the biggest events for social media junkies.

The event had intense discussions on whether Ugandans understand the internet, and whether social media makes us more anti-social. The panel and audience had a heated debate airing their views offline this time, an off course the hash tag #smdayKla had to trends. Its what you would expect when you put social media lovers in the same room with free internet and promise the tweep with most tweets a tablet and smartphones.

More issues were raised when the question, ‘Do Ugandans understand the internet?’ was paused and Albert Mucunguzi, the founder of Pc Tech, shared his views on how Ugandans have embraced the internet today which wasn’t the case a few years back.

Then Patricia Kahil, a technology editor at Ugo, shared her views alongside Daniel Mumbere of Urban Tv on the issue of, social media being anti social. Patricia said, “If you are seated in the bar and you are on your phone then social media becomes anti-social..” she added that ” Don’t spend a lot of time on your phone because you will miss out alot.” Daniel Mumbere said that “social media amplifies who you are if you are social in reallife, if you are social you will become more social, if you are anti social you might become more anti-social.

The evening ended with a few speeches, gadget giveaways by Smile Telecom and Airtel and a really tasty cake, and yeah i was lucky enough to eat the part that had a blogger logo.

smdaycake

 

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