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Is the Bitcoin bubble about to burst?

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When a virtual currency becomes more valuable than any other currency on the planet then many have to worry or celebrate, starting from the US congress’s meetings about the issue of Bitcoin and the coin’s ban from some countries. Was this due to its lack of Government control? Definitely, the same reason the Bitcoin has rose to a peak value of $900 on Mt Gox, Bitcoin’s largest exchange market, a day after it hit the $500 mark. We have to ask ourselves whether this is about to come to an end. The currency might not come to real life if it stays at that price

But as the coin gains value and popularity, the anonymity of its users is slowly declining and this encouraged researchers to work together to make the currency more secure. Remember the SilkRoad incident where the suspected owner and several drug dealers on the website were apprehended after the shutdown of silkroad.

The coin which was launched in 2009 has seen rapid growth and there about 12 million bitcoins which are valued at roughly $12 billion and for some has been a lucky bet as compared to forex exchange, Just In case you bought a bitcoin last month at its about $250 then you have hit a jackpot if you trade it today. But will the curve keep looking towards the sky?

No, honestly the coin will or has hit its peak and soon or later drop and the drop could take its worst hit, and the coin leaves several questions whose answers we shall soon see. Will the value keep at that price? Will the bitcoin keep the anonymity of its users? Will the coin survive the war against national currencies and governments?

Anonymity remains an issue of the wallet, because some wallets let you check out from you mobile phone mobile number (Kipochi), others let you check out using your bank, a few let you use your atm, and just in case the FBI cracks down on any wallet/check out service then the information where you cash out your bitcoin could have your personal information which kills your anonymity. Recently the FBI shut down a bitcoin exchange service for investigations on Silk Road, I can’t guarantee that the users’ information was secure.

Will there be a panic attack, that will see most users cash out their virtual wealth for fear of drops in the value? This might just be the thing that actually leads to decline in the value of the virtual currency.

Hard facts, we still need the bitcoin for what everybody else calls ‘dirty’ transactions, making donations to those charities, journalists of activists whose bank accounts have been frozen. We still need the coin, so its up to the developers and users to make sure the coins stays strong, because it might not be today, tomorrow the day after that, but sometime you might need the Bitcoin.

A new WordPress Android app with major changes that matter!

The most popular blogging engine, WordPress has made significant changes to their Mobile apps especially android. WordPress.com only powers approximately over  72,374,794 websites and the self-hosted version powers more than just blogs, which created a need to support mobile publishing, so wordpress decided to create its wordpress Android app in 2010.

Automatic didn’t stop at creating the app, they also made it open source and shared the code on GitHub, and they have slowly added features for both wordpress.com and self-hosted wordpress blog. I must say wordpress.com blogs enjoy more features with the app such as stats are now natively built into the app, Likes on posts are also available for self-hosted wordpress site. All users however enjoy services such the ability to create new posts, comment, add featured images, upload media, quick posts, quick videos edit pages and delete posts.

What are you going to love about the app?

Wordpress edit gallery

If you use wordpress, you are probably a blogger, writter or content creator and sometimes it gets tiresome to carry a laptop around all day, or you probably want to publish or edit on the go, some stories deserve immediate publicity and wordpress mobile apps give you the power to do so, because you can login into the app and edit, create or publish a post on the go. Its even better on a tablet. Just in case you worry about having your website in your pocket, they added a fix i have posted below.

Forget the missing featured image saga, the app now lets you add a featured image to your story so that your website maintains its look. You will even get notifications for comments made to your post so long as you are using the built in wordpress commenting system.

Is it Secure?

For now YES, however with wordpress you have to take the measures to guard it yourself. Luckily in the latest release a pin lock feature has been added, previously i used to logg out of the app and clear data so that my kid bro didn’t delete my post or any malicious being.

Pinlock Feature on wordpress

Now Automattic has added a 4 digit pin-lock feature for the app on top of the login details, just in case you had logged in and lost your phone you don’t have to worry if you activated the feature by going to setting and tapping Pin Lock.  More to security, the app doesn’t allow a user to change the login password using the application so you are ‘Safe’. Safe is in quotes because security is something we cannot exhaust and new exploits are developed daily and with WordPress 3.7.x wordpress security updates are applied automatically.

New Features?

You can now view your Media Gallery from your wordpress android app, you really need to sigh because adding an image into a post was really difficult before this feature was added. You can edit your photos by adding captions, descriptions, adding photos and videos to posts straight to your phone while using the app. The Gallery looks pretty to with a tile-like layout.

Besides the Media Gallery, you can also create tiled galleries using your phone by long pressing images in the media gallery.

Native Stats really look amazing, forget the old Stats feature that would redirect you to a framed webpage, now the stats are built into the app to show you visitors and views, followers & shares, clicks, referrers and search engines.  Too bad you have to have a wordpres.com account to use this feature.

Just in case you don’t like anything about the app, they have shared the source code, and WordPress has an active developer and support base.

Get the App Here

 

Screenshot Source: Google Play

Vine Launches on Windows Phone

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The twitter, video app has made its way to the windows Phone platform. The 6 second video sharing app for twitter has beaten Facebook’s Instagram to make it to Windows phone officially. Vine which has an estimated 40 million users as of August will definitely see its users grow after the move to windows phone.

Will the abscent of Instagram on windows phone help vine? Yes and No because users who migrated fro android to windows phone already have instagram accounts, however some users will prefer using native apps and hence use the Official vine app to share shot videos. Lets remember that Instagram is majorly a photo sharing application and it introduced Video sharing 4 months after Vine did.
So the question has to be answered by the user, whether 6 seconds is better than 15 seconds.

Vine has live tiles and properly intergrates with your windows phone camera so as to keep you within the app.

vine camera vine

 

Now windows phone users put their Cameras to good use by getting the Vine app here

Chrome for Windows to block installation of extensions from outside the Chrome store

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Google Chrome has announced that it will be blocking local installation of extensions, and only extensions installed through the Chrome Web Store  will work. These changes will take effect in January 2014. This move by Google follows several security threats by malicious extensions, definitely such extensions cannot be allowed on the Chrome Store, so developers have found other means to distribute them, this will improve security of the browser and its users. Totally rejecting installation of ‘external’ Chrome extensions will offer more security as compared to previous measures such as warnings, disabling extensions and preventing auto-installation of extensions. Google says that some of the extensions change the browser settings mainly security settings and hence ruining the true browser experience on Chrome. Developers will still be able to make local extension installations, however they are required to pay a fee of $5 and follow Google’s guidelines and terms & conditions so as to publish their extensions on the Chrome store. You might thinl this move is brilliant but some extensions that we love do not follow Google’s terms & conditions hence they do not exist on the chrome store e.g. YouTube & Playstore apk downloaders, and some extensions from developers who are not willing to pay $5 will definitely be missed. So ask yourself one question, what is more important than security? Then choose to frown or smile to Google’s changes

Since these malicious extensions are not hosted on the Chrome Web Store, it’s difficult to limit the damage they can cause to our users. As part of our continuing security efforts, we’re announcing a stronger measure to protect Windows users: starting in January on the Windows stable and beta channels, we’ll require all extensions to be hosted in the Chrome Web Store. We’ll continue to support local extension installs during development as well as installs via Enterprise policy, and Chrome Apps will also continue to be supported normally.

Source: GoogleChromium Blog

Helpouts by Google is a web & Android app that gets you help from experts

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Google just announced a new service they have dubbed ‘Helpouts by Google. This service has been available to online a few premium subscribers but yesterday the service was opened to the public both on the web and via an Android application.

Google-Helpoutsandroid

How does it work?

Helpouts uses Google + Hangouts and Google Wallet to get you a live video chat with an expert who gives you help on whatever topic you would like to know about. These are real-life conversations with experts over live video calls. It sounds amazing however your credit card gets billed, you get to choose whether to pay per helpout, or per minute depending on your preference, however some helpouts are free, but the majority are premuim.

What you get is a video call, from what Google calls over 1000 experts, you make a video call and get the help you need.

Is it Practical to Africa?

Honestly its a huge NO, because the idea of paying for stuff using credit cards isn’t a trend here, it in fact difficult, besides Google has several options for you to actually get help, the commonest being the search bar, . Much as i find video help the best, i have found it to have many flaws, and there are free alternatives to this service such as Youtube, yelp, Google +, hangouts where you ask someone you know for help.

Video chatting has been known to have its ups and downs, when you bandwidth and internet speed are on ‘steroids’ the call and video quality is high and you enjoy the experience, but majority of people in Africa have low bandwidth, low internet speed or their data bundles are small since several telecos are hiking internet rates.

Is the idea nice?
Google is keen to innovating and its ability to come up with new products is high, and Help outs will definitely make people Google everything and by everything i mean use their products more.

Google will accept every publisher of content to be added to the list of providers, as long as they follow terms and conditions, this will might affect the quality of the content provided within these Helpout sessions.

So just in case you need to know how to edit Html 5 or learn how to dance ‘alingo’, or how to root your phone, you can search for a Helpout by Google and you will probably find the help you were looking for.

Airtel just hiked the price of Data bundles

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Do celebrate if you are on warid, because marriage makes two things become one, in short both the traditionally known warid and airtel customers are now affected by the increment in data rates. We aren’t in the minds of Airtel to reason out why they have reduced the amount of data that particular amounts of money used offer. Could they have borrowed a leaf from MTN which earlier on hiked the rates for its data bundles.

This is how subscribers are going to surfer, Shs 500 will now get you 25mb not the previous 50mb, Shs 1000 will get you 50MB unlike the former 100MB, 2000 Shs will get you 100mb which was formerly 250MB. That’s a 50% reduction on average accept for the 2000 Ugx bundle which has surfered a 60% reduction.

“I don’t think anyone wants a 50% reduction in data volume… do you?

The manner in which telecoms are changing tariffs for data bundles isn’t the most amusing because they don’t announce the change in prices, you will basically find out the hard way, you load your airtime and get up to 60% reduction in data volume. Or your bundle will run out shortly and then you will realise you got less data after a reduction. The menu in warid that lets you but the data doesn’t show prices so you will probably not notice but the airtel menu is what helped me confirm this increment.

Airtel data bundle screenshot
The New Prices of Data bundles on airtel

These changes affect the daily bundles, so the only way will be able is to buy huge monthly volumes, a thing that majority of Ugandans are not willing or able to do. However despite the increment, MTN Uganda still remains the mobile phone telecom with the highest data bundles, seconded by Airtel, Orange then UTL.

This Internet trend in Uganda just keeps getting worse, even the argument of speed over price is now in question as most Telecoms are hiking data tarriffs.

Lets know your view in the comments, the best comments will get featured

Nexus 5, Android Kitkat & all Google updates you need to know!

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Today Google officially announced the Nexus 5, a phone we all didn’t know about. Hell no, thanks to the leaks the surprises weren’t many this time. The Nexus 5 is the first phone preloaded with Google’s Android 4.4 Kitkat in its purest form. KitKat was also launched alongside the Nexus.

Nexus 5

Nexus 5 running Android Kitkat

The Tech Specifications haven’t change much from those in the leaks. The device is 4.95 inches as earlier rumoured at 1920×1080 display (445 ppi, Full HD IPS &Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3. It carries a Snapdragon™ 800, 2.3GHz processor, 2 GB RAM, HDR+, dual band wifi, 4G/LTE, and a 2300mAh battery, bluetooth 4.0 and it ships in two sizes and colors, both 16GB and 32 GB versions at $349 and $399 respectively then you get to choose either a white or black phone.  You also get to wake the Nexus 5 by saying a command ‘Ok Google’.

The Nexus 5 wasn’t the only announcement Google made today, more announcements were made. Lets start with a wireless charger for the Nexus 5,

A wireless charger for the Nexus 5 

Nexus 5 wireless charger

Google announced a a revamp wireless charger for the Nexus 5, 7 the charger might be able to charge any Qi-compatible device, such as last year’s Nexus 4, but only devices that have the magnets built in to them (the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7) will be able to actually stick to the charger. The charger is square. I cant predict the effect of the magnets on the Nexus 5’s compass, lets hope Google planned that out well.

The Galaxy Nexus wont receive Android Kitkat 4.4

Galaxy Nexus wont recieve android kitkat

The Galaxy Nexus wont be recieving Android Kitkat, because its over 2 years old since it was launched in 2011. Which means it falls in otside the 18 month support window, the Galaxy nexus still has the hardware requirement to run Kitkat, the Galaxy Nexus has 1 GB RAM yet the minimum requirements are 512mb RAM. If Google follows this system the Nexus 4, will be out of date soon, lets hope the Developers at XDA do a good job about this.

 Google has updated Google Play Services to version 4.0.

The new Google Play Services release has the Google Mobile Ads SDK, and also makes improvements to geofencing, Google+, and Google Wallet Instant Buy APIs. Google Play Services 4.0 has dropped support for Android 2.2 (Froyo). Since most Android Devices are running Gingerbread and above, dropping support for froyo wouldn’t be a bad idea. The Google Play services SDK is available for download to developers.

A new Google Mobile Ads SDK in Google Play services now provides “seamless improvements” to end users. That means bug fixes are pushed automatically to users without developers having to do anything. We might have more relevant ads in apps. Google Wallet API has also been improved.

Android 4.4 KitKat

Android KitKat

New features of Kitkat include Improved Caller IDs, where your phone searches through Google databases & Google maps to get you the details of an unknown caller, The lock screen has full album art when playing music, you can add widgets to the homescreen and access some features without unlocking the device. Hangouts replaces the default messaging app which means you can get your SMS through hangouts. Hangouts supports wireless printing. How could i end with this? Just say ‘Ok Google Now’ to launch voice search, send a text, get directions or even play a song without touching the screen, this will work when you are in your homescreen or in Google now.

 Moto X Camera app can now be updated through Google Play

The Moto X camera app update was being slowed down by carriers and now Google has decided to update the camera app through Google Play.

There you have it, Google update for a day!

 

 

 

Nominees for Uganda’s 1st Social Media awards Released

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Its a special year for everyone who literally lives their lives on the internet.  Social Media awards is was come up with these awards to reward the all  users of social media, from bloggers like us to writers, corporate companies, websites facebook and twitter pages and more. Special thanks to Blu Flamingo who were able to plan this idea and sponsors & partners like Airtel, NTV, Ugo who have funded this venture. After the nominations a team of judges selected the top 5 nominees for each category.

What do these awards mean to Us? I  actually mean you!

It shows that social and digital trends in Uganda have grown tremendously, i mean why would their be awards if their were few people using twitter, facebook? But these awards make so much sense because the number f Ugandans using social Media has grown really fast, Today companies boost of pages with over 100k likes on Facebook. The blogosphere has grown and the amount of quality content on the web has tremendously increased. A few years ago i could almost count all blogs but today i can’t finish counting the number of blogs per category. Even our competition keeps growing. But as numbers grow more content is shared, both good and poor content is shared at faster speeds.

Its such awards that seive out the best and next year competition is likely to increase as participant will probably spend the whole year innovating and creating content so as to take home an award. The power is in the hands of the fans to vote nominees  socialmediaawards.ug  The readers and fans have a chance to choose from the folowing who will gain bragging rights to whichever catergory they are nominated in.

BEST BLOG/BLOGGERS

Guru8  –  (Yes we got nominated, now we kindly ask for your votes)

Beewol

Ernest Bazanye

Ruth Aine

Actor Odongo

 

ENTERTAINMENT WEBSITES

Big Eye Ug

Proggie

Mushroom Inc

Urban Legend

Kampala Sun

CORPORATE AWARD

New Vision

NSSF

Airtel Uganda

MTN Uganda

Pepsi

Umeme

 

ENTERTAINMENT WRITERS

Moses Serugo

Ernest Bazanye

Mr Dj

Ssegawa Salim

Ken Kimuli Pablo

 

NEWS AND INFORMATION – COMPANIES

NTV Uganda

Daily Monitor

Chimp Reports

Radio City

SMS Media

New Vision

 

NEWS AND INFORMATION – INDIVIDUALS

Maurice Mugisha

Songa Stone Samuel

Joy Doreen Biira

Raymond Qatahar

David Muwonge

 

CIVIL SERVICE AWARD

Uganda Police Force

KCCA Uganda

Barefoot Lawyers Uganda

Uganda Revenue authority

NSSF Uganda

 

BEST PHOTOGRAPHY

Echwalu Photography

Onyait Odeke

Pearl Guide Uganda

Darlyne Komukama

 

BEST CAMPAIGN

I am (Airtel Uganda)

We Believe (MTN Uganda)

40 days 40 smiles

Malaria Free Uganda

Cocacola

 

BEST INNOVATION

Matatu

Elitehive

Team UOT

Ffene.com

Pearl Guide

 

FAVOURITE CELEBRITY

Navio

Ann Kansiime

Bebe Cool

Tuff B

Maurice kirya

Dj Shiru

 

BEST MEDIA OUTLET – TV

NTV

Urban Tv

WBS

Bukedde Tv

NBS

 

BEST MEDIA OUTLET – PRINT

New Vision

Daily Mornitor

Observer

Bukedde

Red Pepper

 

BEST MEDIA OUTLET – RADIO

Radiocity

Power fm

X fm

Galaxy Fm

 

 BEST CUSTOMER CARE

MTN Uganda

Umeme

Uganda Revenue Authority

Airtel Uganda

NSSF

BEST CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Umeme

Uganda Media Center

National Water

Transparacy International Uganda

 SOCIAL JUSTICE AWARD

40 days 40 smiles

Barefoot Lawyers

Ghetto Field Project

Transparacy International Uganda

 

 There you have now visit www.socialmediaawards.co.ug and Vote and please dont forget to vote for us #GURU8

New Nexus 10 leaks in Google Play, reveals Tech Specifications!

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The search engine giant must be having problems keeping secrets about its coming gadgets. I mean after all the leaked information on the Nexus 5, Google had better start keeping its announcement more securely. Yet again the 2013 Nexus 10, a tablet that had been silenced by the leaks of her brother the Nexus 5, also made news when it accidentally appeared in Google Play.

The Nexus 10 leak, this time didn’t show the price of Google’s new flagship tablet, however Tech Specs and an image (obviously) were seen for a short period of time and now the devices section of Google Play is temporarily unavailable. One wonders, why would Google repeat the same mistake?

Could it be a plan to steal part of the show from Apple’s iPad Air with these Tech Specs?

I mean if Google showed consumers Tech specifications of its soon to be released 2013 Nexus 10, they might change their minds on buying the new iPad Air. We can’t judge them, however two leaked devices in a space of a days isn’t what we expect from Google.

The new Nexus 10 will pack aSnapdragon 800 quad-core processor, an 8MP camera at the back, 3 GB or Ram just like the Note 3, a 10-inch Gorilla glass 3 with a resolution of 2560 x 1600, and a boosted battery of 9500mAh, an upgrade from 9000mAh from the previous generation. Keep it in mind that the new model will is 7.9mm thin and its weight has been chopped down by 584g. I don’t even need to tell you that it will run on Android Kit Kat 4.4, you should already expect that.

A Leaked Image of the Nexus 10
A Leaked Image of the Nexus 10
A screenshot of the Tech Specs
A screenshot of the Tech Specs

Android fans have to wait until 1st November to see the new Nexus 5 and 10 officially announced. The Tech specs above appeared in the Google Play leak, we can’t affirm that they are the official ones that will be announced by Google.

 

Leaked White Nexus 5 & Rumoured launch on November 1st

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let’s go through the rumours associated with Google’s next device. After a leak in Google Play that placed a $340 price tag to the Nexus 5, comes yet another set of leaks which include a leaked manual that exposed the tech specs of the Nexus 5.

We expect the Nexus 5 to have a 4.95-inch display with a stunning 1080p resolution, a quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset clocked at 2.3GHz. It will also pack 2GB of RAM, LTE radio, and a 2300mAh battery.

It’ll definitely have NFC, wireless charging, and the notification light is back.

According to @evleaks, we should expect a white Nexus 5 as seen in the photo below. This is a change from the usual black color Nexus line of phones.

A rumoured launch date is 1 November. Lets prepare for a launch of a device we all know about. Almost all of it!

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