Making a web hosting choice made easy!

One of the recent sites that I have really liked is http://www.webhostingchoice.com. As you can see, this site offers an advertisement free guide to choosing the right web host for your personal or business site. The site's focus is on a searchable directory that will let you find web hosting plans suitable for a small site or for a large e-commerce website. It also offers a learning area where the the basics of web hosting are explained. The site has a quick start guide that will have you on your way to creating a web site. An FAQ page , which carries answers to most common questions about web hosts, is also available. For those of you who have specialized in fields that are not ICT related, this presents a great opportunity to get a simple website running without parting with some $$$ in order to have it done by an ICT person.

If I had found this site much earlier, it would have been very nice because two weeks ago I registered my own domain name and I paid for web hosting services to a certain web hosting service. I had to do a lot of searching on the net and crosschecking the web host’s information before deciding to settle on this host. If I had visited web hosting choice, my work would have been much easier. But for those of you who want to register domain names and put up your own sites, web hosting choice would be an important resource to look at.

Zimbabwe's first biodiesel plant! Will it be an economic lifeline for Zim?

A recent Timesonline article carries a terrible story about Nomatter Tagarira, a spirit medium, who had fooled the Zimbabwean government by claiming that she could conjure refined diesel out of a rock by striking it with her staff just like Moses of the Bible used to do. In other words, Ms Tagarira wanted to be today's Moses (Mose walero) for Zimbabwe. After witnessing her apparently miraculous gift, ministers in President Robert Mugabe's government gave her five billion Zimbabwean dollars in cash (worth £1.7 million at at that time) in return for the fuel. Ms Tagarira was also given a farm, said to have been seized from its white owner during Mr Mugabe’s lawless land grab, as well as food and services that included a round-the-clock armed guard on the rock in the district of Chinhoyi 60 miles (100km) from Harare, the capital. But more than a year later, the officials realized they had been duped. Ms Tagarira is now in custody, awaiting trial on charges of fraud or, alternatively, of being “a criminal nuisance”.

This story is just a further confirmation of the nightmare of hyperinflation, famine and infra-structural collapse that Zimbabwe, which was once one of Africa's most prosperous countries, is undergoing. But coming hot on the heels of the "miracle" fuel saga, is an exciting development which every Zimbabwean must be proud of. Last month, President Robert Mugabe commissioned the first biodiesel production plant in the country. The new US$80 million biodiesel fuel plant, located about 15 kilometres north-west of Harare, is a joint venture between the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and a South Korean energy technology firm. This plant has the capacity to produce 100 million litres of biodiesel annually at its peak from cotton seed, soya beans, jatropha and sunflower seed. President Mugabe told guests at the plant's official opening that

As a nation we have once again demonstrated that the ill-fated sanctions against the innocent people of Zimbabwe can never subdue our resilience and inner propulsion to succeed and remain on our feet as a nation.

Soon, our economy will be paying us back the dividends of the seedlings of progression we are planting across different productive sectors. Zimbabwe was never there to collapse, is never there to collapse and will never be there to collapse.

Although I am not a fan of President Mugabe's strong speeches against the West, I am very excited with the opening of the biodiesel plant in Zimbabwe. I just hope that this plant will go a long way in solving Zimbabwe's economic problems. But I have one small question here. If the biodiesel plant revolutionizes Zimbabwe's economy as desired by most of us, will it create an African Chavez in Mugabe? Well, that aside, let me urge Malawi and other countries in the Sub Saharan Africa region to emulate Zimbabwe's example.

Ghost friends at StumbleUpon.Too bad!

A few weeks ago, Tadeusz Szewczyk stumbled and reviewed one of my posts. Immediately after that, I received a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon users. Such a thing has never happened to me before. When it comes to traffic from social networking sites, BlogCatalog has always been my main supplier of traffic because I have a number of great friends that side. But, as of now, StumbleUpon has overtaken BlogCatalog by far. As a result, these days, I like spending more of my leisure time stumbling than ever before. And every day, I make more and more StumbleUpon friends, some of whom are top stumblers. You can take a look at my StumbleUpon page, if time is on your side. If you have not yet joined StumbleUpon, I encourage you to join and install their tool bar on your PC. Add me as a friend, if you can. Start enjoying the world of social browsing.

Yesterday, I exchanged messages with caile-girl who is a top stumbler. In one of the messages, she told me that she would have loved to add me as her friend but she can’t just because she has reached the StumbleUpon limit of 200. But she went on to say that there are 24 ghost friends (people who were mutual friends who no longer have SU accounts anymore) in her network and she cannot replace them with live friends like me. She further said that this problem has been going on for a very long time such that most stumblers who have been on StumbleUpon for a long time experience it in varying degrees. This is too bad for a dynamic and addictive social browsing platform of StumbleUpon’s caliber. Can someone at StumbleUpon, please, rectify this anomaly now! It is seemingly small things like these that put off members:(. Do not get surprised when some folks start their own StumbleUpon clone. Go and ask Digg! They now have to battle for members with Mixx.

Comments are welcome. Remember that this is a Do-Follow blog. Today, I am traveling to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, for a funeral so I will be outa here. I will only come back on Monday to take a look at your wonderful comments and reply to them. God bless you all :)

Opportunities for training at Abdus Salam ICTP in 2008

The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), which was founded in 1964 and operates under a tripartite agreement among the Italian Government and two United Nations Agencies, UNESCO and IAEA, has lined up an exciting array of training programs next year. Trainers for these programs are world renowned experts in their areas of specialty. These programs are in line with ICTP's mission of fostering advanced studies and research, especially in developing countries. Therefore, I would like to call upon colleagues in the developing world to apply for these programs. This will give the developing world an opportunity to attain cutting edge expertise in different fields of theoretical physics.

I am outa here.Ciao later!

Graca Machel Scholarships up for grabs! Malawian women, where are you?

The Canon Collins Trust has announced that it is currently managing a scholarship programme on behalf of Mrs Graça Machel. The key aim of the Graça Machel Scholarship Programme is to help provide the human resources necessary for economic, social and cultural development in the Southern African region and to develop an educated and skilled workforce that can benefit the wider community. In order to achieve this aim, this programme will provide a minimum of 60 postgraduate scholarships to female students from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa in both South Africa and the UK. The majority of the scholarships will be for study in South Africa. It is hoped that by providing opportunities to study at postgraduate level, these scholarships will empower women and to equip them to take up leadership positions in order to have a direct impact in the communities, nations and region in which they live. For those who want to apply for these scholarships, get more information and the application form from the following links:

1. Application information.
2. Application form.

Malawian women, where are you? This is your chance to get postgraduate qualifications. If Malawian women can take up not less than 15 Graça Machel Scholarships, it would be so nice. I, therefore, encourage you ladies to apply in mass. If you happened to be my student at some point, I am more than ready to write a reference letter for you. If you can't apply, spread the word to others. Don't be selfish. Emulate my example!

Postgraduate studies can disrupt family life, as my big brother Victor Kaonga and others will tell you, but it is just for a time. Good things will come your way once you finish. Ask me! :)

Searchboth.com becomes Search-all-over!

Search Engine Journal reports that

Searchboth.com, a search engine that previously displayed search results for both Google and Yahoo search side by side on a split screen has expanded its reach and now includes an option to display search results from other search engines. Users of the site now have the option to choose results from other search engines which includes, Ask.com, MSN, Dogpile, Metacrawler, Altavista, Looksmart and Websearch.Aside from these major search engines, Searchboth.com also now includes the facility to display search results from two travel sites from several travel sites included in the Searchboth.com index. These travel sites include Hotels.com, Expedia, Travelocity , HotWire, CheapTickets, SideStep, Kayak among other travel sites. For online directory listings, searchboth.com has included AT&T’s Yellow.com and Verizon’s Superpages.com.

I did not know anything about searchboth.com until I read about it from Search Engine Journal. When it comes to search, Google seems to be country miles ahead of other search engines. Just like many people, I am addicted to them. But of late, I am having an impression that Yahoo search is no slouch at all. This started when Google search failed to give me good results on a certain item. Out of frustration, I resorted to searching on Yahoo using the same key words as I did on Google. I got a shock of my life when I saw the stuff that I needed popping up on the first page. Meanwhile, I regularly toggle between the two search engines. The searchboth revelation will help me to quit toggling :)

Finally, I would like to advise searchboth.com to change their name to searchallover.com now that they are displaying search results from all over.

An online termites guide

While I was growing at Mzokoto in Rumphi, Northern Malawi, our home used to be heavily infested with termites. At that time, I used to think that termites were a problem for poor people in third world countries. I could not even imagine that residents of developed countries such as USA could also be suffering from termite damage. But a look at the termite guide site indicates that this problem is universal. This online guide contains basic information about termites, types of termites, general advice, reader questions and answers, termite fumigation suggestions. Useful links to other termite sites on the web are also available.

If the guys at termite guide site, can create a social network where "termite people" can be sharing their experiences, it would be great.

EU sets aside 9.1 Billion Euros for Euro-Africa ICT Partnership!

Pambazuka reports that the European Union(EU) has set aside a total sum of 9.1 billion Euros for funding of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based research in Africa through the EuroAfrica-ICT Strategic Partnership. The partnership, which is part of the Seventh EU Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7), is a project that would last till 2010 and is driven by activities of the European Commission, Directorate General of Information Society and Media and is aimed at exploring the potential for a deeper and broader Science and Technology (S&T) cooperation on ICT between EU and the sub-Saharan Africa region.

A look at the EuroAfrica-ICT Strategic Partnership site indicates that this project is being implemented by a consortium led by Sigma Consultants, specialized - through its Orionis division - in support services devoted to S&T international cooperation in the ICT field. This consortium includes two key African institutes specializing in the ICT field, the Meraka Institute of the CSIR (South Africa) and the Panos Institute West Africa (Senegal) through its CIPACO initiative. They are now facilitating contacts between European and sub-Saharan African organizations interested in the development of cooperation projects in the ICT field. You can register online if you are interested in taking part in this program.


MY OBSERVATIONS!

1. It is good to see that the Senegalese and the South Africans are involved. But I am of the view that the implementation consortium should have included institutes from at least three more countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to ensure fairness. Sub-Saharan Africa is a huge region with diverse ICT needs. Our interests cannot be fairly represented by the two institutes. Some top ICT researchers and academicians from across the continent should also be included in the consortium in order to represent the interests of their countries and regions. My fear is that at the end of the day, the poorest countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa, which, in my view, are supposed to be the major beneficiaries of this initiative, will be left empty handed. This will create a digital divide within a digital divide (digital divide 2.0)!
2. My second observation relates to the timing of the project. Why should the project last till 2010? Are there any plans beyond 2010? Why is the life of this project coinciding with the FIFA World Cup which will be hosted by South Africa, one of the two African key players in the implementation consortium, in 2010?Unless the European Union gives us a proper explanation, the timing of the project creates an impression that the EU is interested in Africa just because of the FIFA World Cup. After that, this EuroAfrica-ICT initiative will no longer be useful because the EU will have accomplished their goal:(