iT Kenya Daily Paper

Friday, May 28, 2010

CrossLoop's 10 Millionth Session ...


iTkenya today is sharing CrossLoop information to those(like me) who have ventured into online business of solving I.T related problems and also to others whom want to provide this service remotely( sitting on their home/office computer and be able to connect to their client globally and get paid solving software related problems, be it Data recovery, Desktop support, training, software repair..e.t.c)
 
Lets explore..What is CrossLopp?
Is a software that you install in your computer and to your clients at different locations(  they can install it themselves by u sending them the crossloop software link). This will enable you to live take control of this machine when connected over internet at your work point and you get to work on the client machine remotley. It gives you the screen shot of the client  machine and you can use your keyboard, mouse, installed application, diagonis discs on your computer to solve the client issue.

Whats the best Part?
The best part is, you get paid doing it. As you register with CrossLoop Company( its free unless u want to be platinum....am free registered and its working for me tho offline at the moment) you fill in forms and ways you want to be paid. 

The Challenge?
Internet here in Kenya is still expensive, hence working remotely especially solving issues that chew time over network( like server issues) with a client on WAN is costly. Good news is fiber optic entrance in Kenya, will reduce cost on this.The increase of internet speed will make remote solving of I.T Issues done faster hence increas of the service demand.

CrossLoop Promotion- Good offer read on
The company has reached its 10 million session target since it was launched and users( even u if u register now you can win) are being rewarded( a winner will be randomly picked) and win a trip to Montrey USA.
He/She will:
  • Round-trip Airfare to Monterey
  • Take a flight around Monterey with CrossLoop’s founder Tom Rolander
  • Two nights stay at the Monterey Plaza Hotel (located in Cannery Row)
  • Apple’s new iPad 
For More on the Promotion go here

Conclusion


I believe in working remotely, this saves time and energy that can be directed elsewhere,  reduction on traveling cost and the beauty in it is that you are able to reach different people at different location and help them without moving an inch from your office.. I seriously encourage kenyans to venture into this kind of stuffs and take advantage of fiber optic speeds and its already wide spread installation in Kenya. Remember Kenya is growing BIG, we should not remain behind and just cheer when M.J Safcom succeed with his moon dancing !!, he has found his Niche, where is yours? well... itkenya it.

For more on this topic go below

Its Friday, Be Good

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Computer/Laptop/ Smart phone... Data Security.....Do iT Yourself


Today i woke up feeling happy and repeatedly told myself.." i need to get a Range( not just a range, something powered by microcomputers, driven by remote and protected by Steel...i have worked so hard, smart and keeping it simple....what should stop me from getting one?"..nothing is going to but my pockets will, heck, i need to have a house( not just a house..something white house Bill Gates type with Richard Bronson island, combined) of my own, before i drive home from my company( not just a company, but a cooperate that helps the poor and succeeds my plans)....and for this, i got to work even harder, smarter..and keeping it simple. Plus..every decision and steps taken must be worked out with the love of my life, my Angel. Such a beauty, supportive Lady, i am glad to have her.

iTkenya is on personal computer safety today.

How safe is you data: in your home laptops, computers/ flash disk,. Smart phone.How safe is that well drafted business plan/proposal protected ?, those pictures, architectural designs/sketches and yes that coded software design in the making? Not forgetting money making ideas / Business formula saved on your smart phone. still wondering? well ask yourself, why did Obama's Phone and now David Cameron, has to be taken by the Government intelligent security personals and be redesigned with inclusion of high tech security features before giving them back.

Well here is DO IT YOU SELF and protect your information
  • To protect from computer/Laptop being stolen at your home office, buy computer/laptop locks that will physically safe guard this machines.
  • Always password protect your document on save
  • Always change your computer/document password within three months ( this one makes hacking tools unworkable as tracing the password becomes a hustle)
  • Remember there are windows password reset tools free on line that can override you log-in windows password so to be safe install Folder Lock to protect your important folders on flash disk and on machines.
  • Always have two log-in identities on your machines for all users and yours ,for purpose of privacy and data security. Make your user account private.
  • Buy an external hard drive (pocket size) that you can easily keep it on your safe, for data security reason and backup.
  • Remember to weekly unplug your computers off the internet, Local Area Network and do a virus scan on your computer.
  • For Smart phone users, well simply don't store formulas in there unless its obamarated. (remember the Sean Paul case,,where he lost his phone with composed lyrics in them ...).if you do..immediately transfer it to your secure laptop when you have access to it . Remember those network providers can access your phone just like that and yes..hackers are on the loose and blue tooth does the remote control trick and steals your phone information..keep it safe..itkenya it.

For more information

Computer/ Laptop Locks
User privacy
Folder lock


Thank you.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Best Part..Reduce IT Cost in your organisation- Hiring an IT Man


It’s challenging to write especially with this light headache, but it’s been long. so i have to pen it down and give you the best medicine in IT cost cutting in terms of hiring IT Stuff, Here it is

· Get a qualified IT with a one year experience on the same field
· During the interview make sure u have IT Experts/Personnel to carry out most of the interview questions
· Once you narrowed to the one you need, sign them on a contract of like 3 years
· Take him/her to training to be able to meet the needs of the organization
· Acquire Macintosh computers instead of Windows based computer

iTkenya, whats the advantage?
The advantage is, 1 year IT person experience makes these person hungry for IT Experiences in-terms of software development, troubleshooting and installation. This is the best time to get this talent at its metamorphosis stage and turn him into you butterfly. Advantage? Easy to convince him to accept the salary package being given provided he knows what he is getting into will nature and explore his career and that’s when you need an IT Expert ( 5 + more years experience)to carry the interview. He will ask him/her factitious questions that will keep the interviewee in check hence in the end the organization gets a qualified person. After you get your IT Man, put him on contract, this bound him to you and that’s when you train him/her and own him/her. When you train him/her, you not only empower him with knowledge you are also meeting the organization needs by skilling these person to come up with effective results on areas being assigned.
Acquiring Mac or Linux pc is the best options in terms of cost cutting- they get less in virus infection, IT support on in it in-terms of hardware repair, software repair/installation is minimal…things like data corruption will be unheard of..the whole scenario may look expensive as a start, but in the long run you will have saved much on money that could have been spent on out sourcing IT to which is expensive and sometimes they never finish the job. Like I always say itkenyait, and the job gets done.

Cheers




Tuesday, May 11, 2010

How to reduce IT Cost in your Company..Part 1


In the market today there is a thin line between cheap and expensive...Quality and fake IT gadgets/systems being sold out here and this has lead to companies/persons spending much in finding replacements or getting new equipments and in the end still getting frustrated from the performance of this things and its durability is sometimes questionable. Hiring IT Experts has also become expensive as they want to be paid highly, also, most of them have opted to start there own business because of the increase of the IT Demand in Kenya hence getting a trust qualified one becomes tricky..what if there is a way to by pass this? what if you are sure of what you are buying is what you want and original? what if you can spend little and output it with the best results.

iTkenya is going to give you a little secret, the example today i will use is a printer cartridge/ Tonner/ Ribbon.

HP Printers are in mass here in Kenya therefore automatically its ink replacement becomes in demand, i don’t understand why some hp laser jet printer goes for 8,000/- and its Genuine toner going for 6,000 to 7,000/-( if you are lucky getting a genuine one)..At this point i get people whispering “Riffling the toner saves the day". i disagree...you see when you refill your toner, you make the printer use more energy in printing than it was designed to by the manufacture, hence in the long run, the printer will start to wear off and finally malfunction and that’s when you start to spend on repair and machine parts replacement. What most also people don’t know is that once a tonner has been used, refilling it to use it causes some ink spillage within the printer while printing resulting to spoiling printer parts and dirtying the printer, example of this is when you print a document and you see some lining on the output paper, continuous use of this spoils the printer.

To reduce cost on Printer/parts Replacement, printer service and repair, iTkenyait by;
Buy a genuine cartridge from known IT Certified Shops in town.
Never whatsoever use a refill ink toner/cartridge on a printer.
Always email, Avoid printing unnecessary, you are endangering the environment and also buying Rim Papers is costly.
If it’s a large organization that must print large number of documents ( L.P.Os, invoices, reports e.t.c) buy an Epson Dot-matrix printer( very cost effective there ribbon goes for 800/- and can print quit numbers of document before you replace it), only use HP Laser Jets printers for important reports and HP Photo printers for design work.
Centralize the printers in an area where there are easily accessible by all, this will make users keen on what they are printing and monitoring printer performance by IT Administrators can be easily achieved.

Tomorrow iTkenya will show you how to reduce cost on Hiring IT Experts, don’t miss



Quote of the day:

Don’t wait, make it happen


Monday, May 10, 2010

Magic of a Diagnostic Boot CD


At one time many of you have come across, a hard drive crash, Operating System corruption or systems failures. The scenarios is

You need to access your data to be able to back it up to a storage media be it a flash disk or external hard drive and the hard disk is unreadable hence computer cannot boot, you need to boot your PC and timely secure your data before system changes and the OS wont let you pass the booting screen.
You have a pain in the ass virus infection on your computer and you cannot install any anti-virus to remove the virus, even the best anti-virus( Kaspeskey, Norton/ Semantic, Avast) have failed because each time you launch the program something prevents it to install or scan the hard drive...and your only option is to format the computer or buy another hard drive and reinstall everything(it is a hustle and expensive to acquire all that programs and hard drives).

You may base on recovery software like GET NTFS/FAT tools or Power Data Recovery tool to restore data after a fresh installation but chances are getting that important file, document, mails, are minimal..in fact some recovery comes out with a different file formats to which accessing them takes another long process and eats up on your time.

To professionally achieve the best results, use a Boot-able Recovery CD. Hp and compac companies have there own CD that they use to boot with a returned failed HP PC to monitor hardware and software failures on it. The CD will pin points the failed areas and hence they get fixed. the client if the machine was not on warranty will get a hefty charge upon fixing this, especially if it was a server Machine.

To reduce cost and time spent on this, IT Administrators get a Hirens Boot CD and make things happen.

Some of the Functions of the Hirens Boot CD
  • You can boot with the CD and get to view your desktop/ hard drive to copy that very important file to your external Backup
  • On this Boot CD, there are menu Options that will allow you to run a virus scan and removal on your machine and kill that pain in the ass virus.
  • This Boot CD can regenerate that crushed hard drive, fix bad sectors on it and make that Hard drive perfectly functional again.
  • Within menus, you can repair hard drive partitions, create new hard drive portions and many many other things.
  • You can backup computer drivers for latter use.

Quote of the day
The Strong Survive, the Wise Excel



Friday, May 7, 2010

Social Networks and IT Control


Young and Old, working and hustles, jobless corners and sweet mamas at home..all meet at one point, at the social network i.e face book or twitter.
Here is what everything goes down, from face book fungas to mpango wa kando..you don’t need to know big words to do a kalifonication on anyone you just need a pimped user name, and cocky states updates, the rest, just follow the lead and in no time you will get what you wanted or feared what you can’t get...if you are business man..well here it’s your chance, make pages and advertise on this networks, choose your products wisely and also keep in mind you targeted customers and use this advertising tool well....for Churches, well preach on Brother. Preach on sister, you never know while you are spreading the good news you have prevented someone who almost spread their legs to a stranger......for quote mongers well, come up with you own, but big thanks to you, you get to inspire people and give them hope..and lastly people who are in a committed Relationship, well don’t what’s so ever make judgment or a decision basing on face booking or twittering comments on your partners wall, remember anybody can say anything. So Trust and always be patient

What does iTkenya have to do with social networks?

Well, he is the one that blocks this social networks websites in school, at work area or by request by a parent.
Parents, Employers, teachers are complaining performance output on some particular students, workers, kids effectiveness drops after and during time spent on this social network, with being monitored or not, at a point it is realized time was wasted during the access of this, and we all know, time is money..On the other hands i have seen friends moods change suddenly into a bolo young state and get pissed off after reading a comment or an update while others get a monalisa smile after a sweet pokes, what follows is decrease in customer service, attitude change and poor work input and in the case of monalisa, addiction..Hence less or no input to given assignment and loss of creativity.

To block this social websites you can download available soft-wares like anitporn just by doing a quick search on Google but the effective one that i have tested and use to come to give it a 5 star is Cyberoam Router. IT Administrators, Pissed off Manages,, you can go for this one. This can be acquired from certified IT Shops in town, get IT Guyz/ISP to install it and configured it for you. There you can block unwanted sites or set timers for internet access in your office..I know hackers have done a well job trying to pass this futures but i tell you, with you as the administrators and doing a monitoring check up on reports you will know this and make a timely decision

And those that browse using their phones, well, hard to control this but i tell you once they get there idea what is happening around them, it will decrease unless they want to spend money buying credits

Enjoy your weekend

Software piracy,,,,IT Hustlers


Where you are viewing this, weather in Cybercafes or at home or work area, computer application installed in that machine, 90% is pirated. The Music you are listening to, in your car, as you read this, well, all of them probably most of them you downloaded from a pirated site or got it from a friend who got from a pirate. Question is, how long should this continue, Who is to Blame..

Internet has become the mother of everything where by hackers and IT Hustles have found a sweet home to carry their activites, and this are the culprits,

But what trigers this, i say Clients,,Most of our computer clients do not want to spend heavy on buying softwares for their companies or individual use,reason atiii they are expensive, i ask them why don't they go Linux...Ubuntu..The Open Source Softwares, they pretty work the same, only interest to it its what is needed..so stop the crap of OOOOOO Microsoft is Expensive, Software Companies are Expensive. Here is the truth, when you get not geniune softwares that's when shit happens, first, your computer and systems will be failing periodically, second you will not be knowing this but the maintenance cost in long term is expensive...with time you will be needing the IT Hustles to come and repair it, reinstall them, knowingly or unknowingly..you accept again the pirated software to be installed...and if the Hustler is not doing it professional, data loss occurs and you wonder what went wrong, you wonder you bought a new HP Laptop and after a year BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH occurs, or..i like this one..suddenly your computer goes into unclean shutdowns and on boot up, start up errors and system failure messages pops up the screen and you start experiencing program failures.

My Advice, give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar and hustlers what belong to hustlers...by doing this you will help the IT GUY to become innovative and develop softwares to which he will get well paid and you will be relaxing and enjoying working on you machines without getting software or systems headaches

Quote of the Day:

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not.
" Bill Gates

Enjoy your friday and story ya HAPA KULE....WACHAAAA

Monday, May 3, 2010

CentOS Linux 5.4. amavis Issue


I am having an issue with that mail server OS, for some reasons, each time the server restarts, maybe from power failures, mails don't get delivered to emails accounts, they queued up and that's when phone calls starts screaming on my desk, Arthur Simiyu a software developer sort out this.

This is what happened, may help you IT Administrator at one time: ( Error was Connection failed)
  • Download putty from here
  • Open putty and fill in the server IP Address
  • On the Terminal login with your account details
  • Then with your root password




what follows should be this
[root@mail ~]# /etc/init.d/amavisd restart
you will get Shutting down mail Virus Scanner ( amavisd): [FAILED]
Starting mail virus Scanner ( amavisd): [OK]

[root@mail ~]# telnet 127.0.0.1 10024
when it tells you are connected and gives you ESMTP amavisd-new service ready,
Then you are ok, check your mail queue, you will see it delivering

back to putty, hold Ctrl and this key (..]..)
then
telnet> Close

close putty

If you still got problems and gives you connection fail, then type

[root@mail ~]# /usr/sbin/amavisd press enter

[root@mail ~]# /etc/init.d/amavisd restart
you will get Shutting down mail Virus Scanner ( amavisd): [OK]
Starting mail virus Scanner ( amavisd): [OK]




Smile,

This will sort out the issue temporally at-least till the next restart. Meaning there is something which is making amavis fail, either a hardware issue or the Perl package Net::Server.

Let me dig dipper. monitor the server, research and tell you more

***Amavisd is the module responsible to scan mail for prostfix to deliver it.

Enjoy the rest of the day