Apply 2015 pitchFest to better Africa's Education.

Your idea is the treasure being chased after in this festival. Challenge your creativity by coming up with an idea to better the Africa's Education System.

The innovative competition Welcomes Your

• Cutting edge ideas,
• Tools,
• Information and 
• Technologies that will absolutely address Africa's most urgent educational issues.

Date, Application Deadline and the perfect Venue this season

• Date: September 2^nd, 2015
• Deadline: Monday May 4^th, 2015 - Tuesday June 30^th, 2015
• Venue: InterContinental Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria.

Application Procedure

• Applicants submit their applications (Not more than 2 pages) within the stated deadline.
• Five individuals or Companies will then be selected to participate in the Conference.
• Finalists present their innovative ideas for three minutes to the panel of judges.

Prizes

• $ 2500 : The first place winners.
• $ 1000 : The Second place winner.
• $ 500   : The third place runner-ups.

Links

Africa-America Institute Homepage PitchFest.

InterContinental Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria.

Being Your External Hard Drive's Doctor when it demands Formatting.

This is a common hard drive fault that I think most of us have run into at one time or another . This problem seems to be even more prevalent with the popularity of portable external hard drives like the Transcend. 

I attribute the need for Data Recovery Help to not safely removing the USB drive from the operating system before unplugging the drive. The reason this causes a problem is that Windows is always caching to the hard drive temporary files needed for operation, when you just pull the USB cord of these drives that data has no where to go and inevitably writes somewhere that is inconvenient.

 

How to fix the external hard disk drive using Command Prompt

CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]] [/B]

• volume     Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), mount point, or volume name.

• filename     FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation.

• /F     Fixes errors on the disk.

• /V     On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file on the disk.

• On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.

• /R     Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information (implies /F).

• /L:size     NTFS only: Changes the log file size to the specified number of kilobytes. If size is not specified, displays current size.

• /X     Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid (implies /F).

• /I     NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.

• /C     NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder structure.

• /B     NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume (implies /R) 

  The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by skipping certain checks of the volume. 

   

  Help with CMD on how to fix the external hard disk 

  chkdsk E: /? will guide you on how to navigate through the CMD

  

  Help Link

   

Come Run with Stanley, Safaricom & Lewi Wildlife Conservation

Sponsered by:  Safaricom 
Date:                27th June 2015 
Venue:              Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in northern Kenya

History

Begun in 2000 has now grown from 180 runners in 2000 raising $50,000 to 1,200 runners in 2014 raising $725,000. In addition to this, since the inaugural marathon in 2000, US$4.9m has been raised. The unique marathon is exceptional in many ways. It combines an unusual fundraising initiative with one of Kenya’s greatest sporting passions - running.

Registration

Open from 2pm on 25th February 2015
Full Marathon
    Individual Event
    Entry fee - Ksh 15,000* per runner
Half marathon
    Must be entered in teams of 5-10 runners
    Entry fee - Ksh 150,000* per team
5km Children's Race
    Two race categories for ages 10-13 and 14-17
    Entry fee - Ksh 3,000* per child
* Entry fee inclusive of AMREF Maisha coverage
Applications will only be accepted with full entry fee payment, completed entry form and signed disclaimer. Don't miss out on this chance.

Inspire Your Future Now With Imagine Cup.

Imagine Cup has the following for you:

•    New projects to make
•    Stories about students like you
•    The latest software to code and create
•    How-to videos    and more!

Microsoft Imagine has the right game-making tools for your skill level:

• Create with simple tools for beginners.
• Code for those ready to take the next step.
• Develop like the pros do and publish your game in the app stores.
• video game with Kodu Game Lab
• mobile game with TouchDevelop
• Learn to code a magical world with Project Spark
• Learn to code a game with SmallBasic
• Develop your own game with free professional tools
• Develop games like the pros

Create an app

• Create with simple tools for beginners.
• Code for those ready to take the next step.
• Develop like the pros do and publish your app in app stores.
• Custom app with TouchDevelop.
• App with Windows App Studio.
• Code all kinds of apps with SmallBasic.
• Learn to code a website with WebMatrix.

Read more and register HERE.

Microsoft has suddenly become a red-hot mobile app developer

Among the most amazing apps, wearables are becoming the new type of device that all major companies are developing for consumers, and with new hardware comes new applications.

Microsoft has unveiled a new “analog keyboard” for Android Wear that lets you enter text on a smart watch by drawing letters and numbers with your fingers. It has also developed:

• highly acclaimed Outlook email app
• buying up popular calendar app Sunrise.
• Android apps, Torque allow voice command in Google
• Next Lock Screen forshortcuts to your lock screen
• Journeys & Notes app for location bassed notes

Microsoft really started to embrace mobile app development when it released mobile versions of its popular Office productivity suite and it hasn’t looked back since and it’s not just that Microsoft is making good apps of its own but that it’s wisely decided to offer more integration with established apps that are already popular, such as its decision to integrate cloud storage service Dropbox with its own Office software instead of forcing users to only use the company’s own OneDrive.

The bottom line is even if Windows Phone never closes its app gap, Microsoft’s position in the mobile app realm looks pretty strong.

Browse a list of popular websites for free with a SIM card from a qualifying carrier. 

• Search for jobs
• Get health information
• Keep in touch with friends and family without data charges 

All thanks to Facebook's newly launched free mobile net app for RCom users.
Facebook is set to launch internet.org, an initiative to provide internet access to those who don't have it, in India through a tie-up with Reliance Communications, two people familiar with the development said.
The social media giant and India's fourth largest mobile operator have called a joint press conference in Mumbai and the app released into the Google play on February 9, 2015.
The invite says, "one launch that will make a billion dreams take off". Read More.

Top mistakes to avoid when developing mobile apps

Mobile application development companies mostly follow rigid processes governed by SDLC life cycle. 

 This approach to some extent is perfect as it gives desired results. But many times the approach fails by making some minor mistakes during the process.

The development firms needs to pay high prices for these mistakes as a result of which app fails on the app store. Such mistakes are:

Resource allocation according to roadmap.The most important thing to look after during the start of mobile application development is preparing a fortified roadmap considering all the aspects. These aspects include development, design, testing, marketing and many ins and outs associated with app development. It has been often seen that mismanagement in this process can give hindrance not only for the development of app but also to the future considerations involved in making application. Also allocating resources is a big challenged faced by most of the mobile apps development companies and this is where their calculation goes wrong to plan delivery within stipulated time frame.

Selection of platform for app development.Mobile applications in today’s world are developed using one or the other tools and likely to get platform incompatibility because of various reasons. Cross platform tools can help to implement mobile applications fast and easily but has some drawbacks as well. So the selection of the platform becomes important and thus needs to be taken care while making a mobile application. On the other hand conventional app making can also prove out to be a mistake by not giving desired results. Android and iOS systems need to be worked on carefully in order to make sure that the app gets expected results in the market.

Latter part of app implementation.The latter and the most important part of application are the testing as well as the marketing which more often than not gets failed while implementation. Before these things are done, the mobile application developed by developers is just a black-box. Thus utmost care needs to be taken while marketing the application so as to get successful penetration of the app in the market. Most of the mobile apps development companies fail here and so they cannot get the app going the right way on the app store. Read more.