Issue Seven - Conversations on Technology, Business and Society

First Published FEBRUARY 2010
<strong>Issue</strong>s Published SEVEN*
Circulation UGANDA, RWANDA, KENYA, GHANA, NIGERIA, USA
Frequency MONTHLY
Pages 72
Price (Local) UGX 5000, KSH. 180, FRW 1200, USD 2.
Quality BEST AVAILABLE
Reviewed By AFRICAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS (AJIS),
VOICE OF KIGEZI (UGANDA), BOB FM (UGANDA),
AUTHORS’ FORUM (UGANDA)
Other Initiatives PC Tech “Educate”, CTBuS (The Academuc Journal of PC
Tech), Digital Learning Africa (Online Resource Platform)
VERDICT PC Tech Magazine gives you value for your money.
VISION
SPECIFICATION STATUS
*As of September 15, 2010
To be the leading media organization that
promotes openness and collaboration on
sustainable innovations in Technology, Business
and Society
MISSION
To create and disseminate inprint and online
products on Technology, Business & Society that
have a global perspective but contextually relevant
to Africa
Africa’s Most Contemporary Technology Magazine
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FACT FILE
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SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH

2
2
CONTENTS
Google Africa Product Manager (LEFT), Tom Stocky interracts with a panel of Ugandan-based entrepreneurs (L-R) Solomon King Benge (NodeSix),
Simon Kaheru (SMS Media), Albert Mucunguzi (PC Tech), Badru Ntege (Payplus Uganda), Eric Kamau (True African), and Denis Ruharo (D-Mark) at
the G-Uganda Entrepreneurs day, organised Google Africa.
5 | Opinion
EDITORIAL 4
INBOX 5
5 | Letters from readers
6 | Quotes
6 | Did you know
NEWS 10
10 | Uganda faces telecom price wars
11 | Google in talks with MTN, Orange Uganda
12 | Zain Vs. Safaricom battle brings more options to Kenya
14 | Digital TV: States to fail to beat deadline
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
WHAT’S NEW 12
16 | Flying Alarm Clock
16 | Music Pillow
17 | USB wall socket
18 | Mobile Digital Scribe
INTERVIEWS 20
20 | Dr Marshall Goldsmith: Leadership
22 | Prof. Ibiyemi on Biometric Signal Processing
24 | Literacy Bridge: The Talking Book
27 | E-voting in Africa: Mr. Collin Thakur
28 | PC Tech Magazine: Albert Mucunguzi

COVER STORY 30
30 | Whose Internet is it anyway?
Learn about the principle of Net Neutrality. And what ISP’s
might want to do to manage your traffic. What measures
are considered unacceptable?
SPECIAL FEATURE 34
34 | AXXHIRA Chronicles
36 | UNDP’s Community Information Centre (CIC) Project
FEATURES 38
38 | Windows Vista Vs. Windows 7
40 | Battle Between Uganda’s 3G Internet providers
43 | The Maglev Train—The world’s fastest train
REVIEWS 44
Adobe Photoshop CS5 44
RESEARCH 48
48 | How to write a research paper
51 | Exploring channels of communicating family planning
messages in Cameroon
52 | Doing Business on the Internet
55 | Simulation of the differentiated services QoS scheme
under IP Multimedia Systems
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
LEARN 58
58 | Customise your Windows 7 Logon Screen
59 | Windows 7 tips and tricks
60 | Campus Update: LAUTECH host her first ICT WEEK.
61 | High School students build super-effecient electric cars
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS 62
62 | Ways to increase producticity at work
LEISURE 64
64 | A word from a geek to geeks
65 | Happy New Year
GAMING 66
66 | Hands-On: Microsoft Kinect a Major Let Down
CLASSIFIEDS 68
68| Computers | IT Solutions | Internet Cafes, e.t.c
PC Tech Discussion Board
http://pctechmagazine.com/discussion/forums
We bring the world
closer to you!
www.pctechinternational.com
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SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
3

EDITORIAL
4
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ALBERT MUCUNGUZI
ed@pctechmagazine.com
MANAGING EDITOR
JOSHUA TWINAMASIKO
josh@pctechmagazine.com
REGIONAL DIRECTOR, WEST AFRICA
RICHARD BOATENG, PhD
richard@pearlrichards.org
EDITORS
JOSEPH W. MUNUULO, ERIC BOYD
DESIGN & LAYOUT
ALBERT MUCUNGUZI, BRYT KAKURASI
REGIONAL COORDINATOR (Western Uganda)
EMILY TUSINGWIRE (+256 702698361)
emily@pctechmagazine.com
SALES, MARKETING & DISTRIBUTION
ADELA EKYALIKUNDA (+256 702 487525)
VICTOR KALEMERA (+256 237 112)
WYCLEF RUSHAJU (+256 703 473073)
DONNELL TWINO (+256 711 585 756)
JUNCTION SYSTEMS (+256 782 596 388)
STAFF WRITERS/JOURNALISTS
TIMOTHY RUBASHEMBUSYA, DAN B. ATUHAIRE,
CHARLES OLUPOT, MICHAEL OUMA
INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS
Rwanda:
Sangwa Emmanuel (+250 783 629198)
Kenya:
Michael Ouma (+250 7 83 629198)
Email: benomnta@yahoo.com
Ghana:
Michael Nkum, P. O. Box AF 281, Adenta-Accra
Tel: 0201877810 Email: mikey3108@hotmail.com
Nigeria:
Abdulkabeer Ishola
abdulkabeerishola@gmail.com
+234 (0) 8055729119; +234 (0) 7061362080
PUBLISHER
PC Tech Communications Ltd
P. O. Box 32180, Kampala, Uganda
+256 712 619812 / +256 774 143720
editor@pctechmagazine.com
www.pctechmagazine.com
PRINTED BY:
MPK Graphics Ltd., Kampala, Uganda
+256 772 642 777
© COPYRIGHT 2010
PC Tech Magazine is published 12 times a year by
PC Tech Communications Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in
parts without written permission is strictly prohibited. The
name PC Tech Magazine is a registered trademark and is
property of PC Tech Communications Ltd.
DISCLAIMER
While every care is taken in the preparation of this magazine,
the publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of
information herein, or any consequence arising from it.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
Editorial Notes
Welcome to the maiden edition of the
International Edition of PC Tech Magazine. PC
Tech is an international technology magazine
focused on features, reviews and research on
information and communication technologies
(ICTs) in Africa. The magazine seeks to tell the
African ICT story and its impact on people, business, health, poverty
and society.
This international edition is about giving ‘spaces’ for ideas,
concepts and projects to take a leap. At PC Tech we believe in
SPACES. A ‘space’ is an avenue for expression. Our objective is to
create and promote a ‘space’ for communicating and nurturing Dr. Richard Boateng
unique ideas and concepts into sustainable projects or business richard@pearlrichards.org
enterprises which have a positive impact on society and future
generations. As a result, this issue covers interesting and unique
ideas and concepts across the continent. Through our collaboration
with the PearlRichards Foundation, Ghana, we have feature articles
on Community Information Centre project by the United Nations
Development Program (Ghana) and Low cost information access
by Literacy Bridge. These projects examine how to increase
accessibility to relevant and appropriate information to rural areas
and communities. The lessons from these projects can be stepping
stones to projects of similar kind in other African countries.
Of major interest is our introduction or if I may say, a preview of
upcoming projects for next year. Over the last three months we have
been working on a project which explores the complicated choices
embedded in the quest of achieving sustainable development
through openness access and collaboration. The story, known as
the Axxhira Chronicles, centers on the promise of herbal medicine
amidst the politics of ownership, control and commercialization. The
story asks the question, how can resource-poor contexts ensure that
they are the prime beneficiaries of their few but unique and scarce
resources – herbal medicine-, whiles opening up for collaboration to
maximize and sustain the value?
Through this story we attempt to use artwork and multimedia
technologies to communicate pressing themes concerning
sustainable development. We are giving a voice to the efforts of
rural communities, African scientists and indigenous pharmaceutical
companies in researching and promoting herbal medicines in Africa.
We believe by giving a voice, we can develop strategies for more
appropriate and mutual beneficial collaborations between our local
medicinal knowledge keepers and international pharmaceutical
companies and medical research institutions. This international
edition presents the preview of the story told in a form of a comic.
The comic will be previewed at our Ghana Graduates Conference on
24th September 2010.
Also in this issue, we take a look at the current “price war”
between Zain and Safaricom in Kenya, and what effect the recently
reduced call rates in the country may have on neighbouring
Uganda.
There has been a lot of talk about Net Neutrality, and the
attempts by some ISPs to use ‘unconventional’ methods to manage
traffic. We analyze the whole idea of the internet, and the role of
ISPs in our cover feature.

Websites should be updated...
ALBERT MUCUNGUZI
Apart from websites of media houses, African organizations
seem to share an annoying reluctance towards
maintaining their websites: so much that a press release
gets published on a newspaper website before a copy is
on the company website.
In more developed countries, media houses monitor websites of
such corporations that make the news for latest releases.
Last month, I visited a website of one of Uganda’s leading public
offices, hoping I would find pieces of interesting information. To my
surprise, the article on the homepage was announcing, in future tense,
a workshop that had been held more than a month earlier!
If the frontpage, of all pages, can carry out-dated information,
how about sections of the website that are least likely to be seen by
visitors? The answer wasn’t too far away. The hyperlink, “Read more...”
on the same article was broken. Soon, I noticed that to the extreme
right of that article was another “More” hyperlink, which successfully
lead me to the full story.
As an experience web developer, and graphics designer, I see so
many mistakes on such websites, which, from experience, many other
people do not see. Disproportionate images, mis-aligned text and/or
images, broken links, unnecessary icons (for websites built on Content
Management Systems), and of course, unnecessary components and
plugins are just a few of such things that I notice so easily.
In my disappointment, I decided to start a new discussion about
websites of public offices on I-Network –Uganda’s leading ICT for
Development forum.
Yes, it was a public holiday, but I received tens of e-mail responses in
the minutes that followed. Constructive responses. My initial question
was on whether it was due to lack of funds, or negligence that such
websites were never updated. Most of the responses seemed to support
the idea that it was not necessarily because of budgets, but, that instead
people in such positions do not really take websites as an essential
part of the organization, which, I consider absurd, in this age where
the bigger percentage of computer users own email and Facebook
accounts. Many companies, including PC Tech run independent
websites, and at the same time, run active blog/social network pages.
There were suggestions about involving students, as interns to help
do the simple work of maintaining the websites, a move that would
not only benefit the students (through acquisition of hands-on skills),
but also the respective offices. Today’s University graduates find it
a challenge to deliver at their workplaces because of the education
systems that are more theoretical than pratical. In a well planned
setting, a programme to have I.T. students undertake tasks of website
maintenance would deal
with that challenge a great
deal.
In my first year in the
MIS Unit of Makerere
University Business School,
I realised updating websites
could be such a burden.
Knowing when to publish
a story is one thing, and
when to unpublish it is
another. I always got reminders to publish stories, but we all seemed to
forget that at a given time, a story ceases to be classified as “News”.
For very big organizations, systems need to be put in place to ensure
that information is actually prepared by the relevant smaller units, and
submitted the IT Department. The other challenge, in such cases is that
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
Budgets or not, students or trained employees,
you have to admit its extremely ridiculous
the ministry of ICT can have issues doing
something as simple as maintaining their
website.
““
This website, pctechmagazine.com, is updated everyday
often information has to be approved by the public relations office
before it can be published. That doesn’t stop the updates from being
effected; it only sets up a long chain of command. But for the start, it is
good for the organization to go through it.
There are also technical “benefits” of keeping an up-to-date
website: the most obvious one being its positive effect on the website’s
searchengine ranking — that factor that search engines, say Google,
Bing or Yahoo use to determine which website appears first when
someone searches for an article published in 10 websites, with the same
content, and description. Every owner of a website, of course, wants
their website to be number one.
Google search engine uses PageRank, a link analysis algorithm that
assigns a numeric weighting system to each element of a hyperlinked
set of documents (the World Wide Web, for example), with the purpose
of measuring the relative importance of each element within the set.
PageRank is accumulated through linking with other websites.
But what does this have to do with updating? The more stories you
add to your website, the more chances you have of attracting other
websites to link to yours. For example, if you have 10 links in your
website, it means that is the maximum number of possible links any
other website might make TO your website. Every organization ought
to make sure their website is the most “competitive” website in their
industry – easy navigation and light graphics (faster loading speeds).
Lately, internet speeds have improved,
and so have the prices. When the cost of
owning a cellphone dropped, everyone
bought one. From the time affordable
mobile internet was introduced, almost
everyone wants to have a dongle at
home. My friends find it more efficient
to write messages on some people’s
Facebook Walls than to email them, or
even call them (those who won’t answer).
Obviously it is cheaper to email someone
than to call them. My former boss often
said, “I am a busy man, I don’t have time to talk on phone... send email.”
But how can this be if—at the very least— the contacts on your
website are incorrect? The world has changed, and we must realize that,
and change with it, or else we become irrelevant!
One of the comments posted on I-Network
OPINION
Albert Mucunguzi has developed more than 70 websites in his career so far, and has done website maintenance for key government and
non-governmental organizations including Makerere University Business School. You can read more about him on his website:
www.albertmucunguzi.com, or, Facebook.com/almuc, Twitter.com/albertmuc, or his blog on http://almuc2710.spaces.live.com
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
EDITORIAL 5

INBOX
YOUR LETTERS
6
Please send your letters to:
The Editor
PC Tech Magazine
P. O. Box 32180
Kampala, Uganda
editor@pctechmagazine.com
For users of PC Tech online, you
can send us your
comments by filling the
contact us form on the
website, or by sending
e-mail to:
inbox@pctechmagazine.com
I want to be a reseller
Hello, i today i just this grt mag on the streets of
mbarara for the first time. well i do own a cyber cafe
here and i will be happy if u could get me a couple of
copies to sell at my place if possible. i can get u my
details if contacted. Thanks.
Edson
eddie.live@yahoo.com
What is Caller Tunes?
Thanks for the good work. I want to know more
about MTN caller tunes and the tech behind them.
Kudos for you.
Kansiime Taremwa
tkmtaremwa.ronrocks@gmail.com
More agents
I must say that PC Tech magazine is the best in
our ICT industry with in Eat Africa and I wish it goes
beyond since there is no limit. I know it can and it will.
Seriously on the other side of it there are people
who are still green about the magazine in some areas.
Therefore I recommend that you increase the number
of agents so as to increase the availability of the
magazine to everyone.
This is serious indeed because in some schools you
find many students scuffling to have a glance at only
one copy of the magazine borrowed from another
school nearby.
More agents are highly needed because the world
needs the latest information for development.
Ainebyoona Patrick
Ntare School
We need a market
place for used items
LETTER
OF THE
MONTH
I am currently becoming, I would
say a little bit obsessed with this
piece of work, I have each and every
copy, this magazine trust me is going
places, nice content, but I have only one suggestion,
or lets call it a request. Can you guys come up with
a pictorial space for those who want to advertise
their second hand I.T. gadgets for sale? Trust me
there are many of us who do not have deep pockets
but need this stuff. If you come up with this, you will
dig more into my pockets every month.
Mervyn Kasule
duanedarrell@yahoo.com
Editor: Congratulations Mervyn! I think this is
a brilliant idea. When you come for your phone
we shall discuss it further and a possibility of your
personal involvement in the development of the
concept.
Congratulations Mervyn. Pick your UTL
phone from our offices any time during
working hours and keep reading PC
Tech Magazine
The PC Tech Letter of the Month
Competition is sponsored by
UGANDA TELECOM.
Best Letter wins a phone!
WRITE IN AND WIN
Do you have a new product or
service that you would like to
tell your clients about?
advertising@pctechmagazine.com
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

CONTACT US
You can let us know your views and opinions through the email, inbox@pctechmagazine.com, www.
facebook.com/pctech, www.twitter.com/pctechmagazine, www.pctechmagazine.com/discussion/forums
Join the discussion on /pctech
PC Tech Magazine Down: 42.49mb/s Up: 20.16mb/s. Speedtest results in Tokyo, Japan. A 700MB movie
takes 3 minutes to download. When is such internet reaching Uganda? August 21 at 8:08pm
You, Allan Mutabazi, Almuc Emrys, Donah A. and 6 others like this.
Davis Damn! Copying or Downloading?...it will
reach LDCs in some century to come. August 21 at 8:12pm
Patrick It wl reach us whn the stake holders
realise its importance. August 21 at 8:40pm
Isaac it can reach only if our service providers
want it to and plus the government should also
interven and do something..... August 21 at 8:44pm
PC Tech Magazine Its infact easier to
download a movie than to look for a flash disk to
copy it from your friend's PC! August 21 at 8:47pm
Isaac thats impressive jst pray such internet
reaches us very fast.. August 21 at 8:51pm
Davis @PC Tech,Balas,Pat,lets hope for an
improvement with an introduction of Fibre optic
cable ...thse Service Providers r singing 3G just
in very few areas ,,upcountry villages can't pick it
..other countries r testing 4G now when even 3G
has picked in LDC..I'm an African but I hate our
sluggishness August 21 at 8:54pm
Davis I meant that even 3G hasn't picked in
LDCs at a desirable level... August 21 at 8:57pm
Ibra It will reach when Uganda builds a nuclear
reactor. August 21 at 9:33pm
Donah What is a nuclear reactor? August 21 at 9:38pm
Alex It will reach Uganda probably the time
when our country will be hosting World cup!! August
21 at 9:39pm
PC Tech Magazine LOL!! Nuclear Reactors
and World Cup in Uganda! @Donah http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_technology
August 21 at 9:41pm
PC Tech Magazine @Davis Foris Telecom
has launched 4G in Uganda. Read http://bit.ly/
a95OHd August 21 at 9:44pm
Alex Man this is so embarrassing just follow
this link to see my speed net results....http://www.
speedtest.net/result/923075210.png. it takes me a
whooping 673 min to download a 700MB movie
Am ashamed of them!! August 21 at 9:47pm
On the Free
Software
DVD
Skype is a VoIP solution that
allows you to make free
Skype-to-Skype calls & calls
to traditional phone lines.
7-Zip is an open source
file compression utility that
works with many formats.
Auslogics Disk Defrag is
one of the best disk defraggers
on the market with an endless
stream of five star reviews, and best of all
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
Easter stick 2 Zains 238 kbp/s. Yeah...faster of
all... August 21 at 10:10pm
Miriam there is even faster than that japan
results, imagine Gigabyte connections in
europe....! for UG: you change to Orange, it's
quite fast... August 21 at 10:14pm
PC Tech Magazine How about this 2.35MBps
http://speedtest.net/result/923100854.png from
MTN? And i have got higher results in the past.
August 21 at 10:19pm
PC Tech Magazine @Miriam there's an ISP in
Europe who has an average of 55Mbps. So you
can only imagine what the highest speed is. August
21 at 10:29pm
Miriam for sure this speed test is not an
adequate tool, if even Philadelphia has worse
figures than uganda. And I know, my browser can
really suck bits when I download. Do not always
blame the network, blame also your browser! August
21 at 10:35pm
Miriam Gigabit-internet: http://www.expedient.
com/products/gigabit-internet-access.php August 21
at 10:37pm
Miriam NetCologne in germany has also uptu
1Bbps lowest level connection with 155Mbps August
21 at 10:41pm
David Lets not look at jst the technology but
also the techno-economics. It's not that ISPs can't
get up those speeds, no. Bandwidth(internet
speed) is a "good" like anyother goods That's
subjected to the economic laws of demand and
supply.for in...stance are Ugandans able and
willing to have megabits/sec net at their homes at
e cost of e ISP. Do we have mega datacentres at
businesses to justify 40Mbps connectivity? Other
considerations include pc/IT literacy levels. How
much local do we have on the net...so still long
way to go but this is not to mean that ISPs shld
continue to give us backbreaking speeds. August 21
is its free.
GIMP is a fantastic photo editor for
amateurs who need to do some editing to
their photos but don’t want to shell out for
something like Photoshop.
Notepad++ is a text editor that supports
multiple tabs, multiple programming
languages and a whole lot more.
Eraser helps you make sure that files you
have deleted are truly gone forever. Great
at 10:51pm
Easter @miriam dat has sense. Browser
matters so much. August 21 at 10:55pm
Norman @David.... ur post does make lots of
sense... I thk e speed mtn/orange r providing now
r good enough at e moment considering what
people r willing to pay....because it doesn't make
sense for a provider to give ahigh yet very few r
willing to meet the cost,just wondering all u guys
who thk Ug is doin badly....how much are u willing
to spend on interest per month! August 22 at 12:46am
Miriam it is just interesting: URA for exampla
wants you (as a business) to pay your taxes
online and they refuse the papers, but there is
NOT an internet infrastructure than can ensure
access. As a german I have to register online
to the embassy'...s list. For one year I could not
manage to get to the end of that procedure: so
no registering, because paper was refused...
Does it make sense to put a roof before
foundation? So why do ministries and others
require internet, while UG cannot provide??? August
22 at 3:49pm
David Interesting discussing over there though
i don't think i understood miriam's submission
esp wen she says "UG can't provide". Also don't
get david's submission that "slow internet makes
more money" though from ure discussions one
fact is clear-UG I.T infrastructure is still premature
with even the existing market. August 22 at 7:13pm
Emmanuel these high speed networks a
very expensive, they cost billions of shillings to
buy and operate unless gov't subsidies the cost
the networks have to wait for the hardware/
operations cost to come down though Rwandatel
runs a true 3G unlimited connection at roughly
120,000/month, a youtube video of 200mb
downloads in less than 8 minutes after 11. August 22
at 8:27pm
tool for getting personal info off a hard
drive before giving away or selling your
computer.
KeePass Password Safe manages your
passwords.
Batterybar is a free meter that sits in the
taskbar and shows the battery gauge. It
also tracks lots of stats about the battery
performance, and over time is extremely
accurate.
And lots more
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
INBOX 7

“ “The only worse thing than being talked about is not
being talked about.”
ERIC JACKSON, managing member at Naples, tweetering about Yahoo! Inc.’s
apparent absence from news reports and the general downward trend of stocks at
company that rejected Microsoft’s takeover bid two years ago.
Quotes Did you know?
Where Did The Word Robot Come
From ?
This is a question we get asked a lot
so we thought we’d put people out
of their misery. Firstly the word robot
comes from the Czech word ‘robotnik‘
which means forced labour or even
slave. Watching movies and reading
various sci-fi novels of the past you’ll
quickly see that robots have mostly
always been portrayed as servents of
humanity.
“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows
a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of
yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon
to something larger than yourself that you realize your
true potential. ”
BARRACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like.
Design is how it works.”
STEVE JOBS, FOUNDER & CEO, Apple Inc. The company has made headlines
lately following the excellent “Design” of their products. “Design”, in his sense.
“Programming today is a race between software
engineers striving to build bigger and better idiotproof
programs, and the Universe trying to produce
bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is
winning.”
UNKNOWN
“Given the explosive growth in the use of the World
Wide Web for publishing, electronic commerce,
lifelong learning and the delivery of government
services, it is vital that the Web be accessible to
everyone.”
BILL CLINTON, The 42nd president of the United States of America in one of his
speeches as President.
“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than
any invention in human history – with the possible
exceptions of handguns and tequila.”
UNKNOWN
“Since when has the world of computer software
design been about what people want? This is a simple
question of evolution. The day is quickly coming
when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and
you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.”
BILL GATES Founder and former CEO of Microsoft Corporation. The Silicon Valley
is region of western California southeast of San Francisco known for its hightechnology
design and manufacturing industries.
8 PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
8
What’s The Fastest Possible Speed ?
Well imagine going 500,000 times
faster than a concorde and you have
a speed nearing 299,792,458 meters
per second. This is the speed of
light as it travels through a vaccum
which it’s so fast that if you were
able to move at this speed you could
go around the earth 7 times in just 1
second, now that’s fast!
How Heavy Is The Earth ?
Now despite science coming forward
in leaps and bounds the simple
question of how much the Earth
weighs isn’t as straightforward as you
might think. Certainly placing the earth
onto a massive set of weighing scales
isn’t an option. So how do we measure
the total weight of the earth ?
What’s A Google ?
When you hear the word Google the
first image that comes to mind has to
be the famous internet search engine
but does the word actually mean
anything ? Well the answer is a firm
yes because it comes from the term
“Googol” which represents a number
(written as a 1 followed by 100 zeros).
FACTS ABOUT THE WEB
• In 1996, Americans spent an
average of 30 minutes a month
surfing the World Wide Web.
• The average American Spends
27 hours a month online, this
according to Nielsen’s Three
Screen Report for the 4th quarter
of 2008.
• The Web was invented in 1989
by a British physicist named Tim
Berners-Lee
• It is just one of the many services
that operate on the Internet.
Other services include e-mail,
newsgroups and FTP.

NEWS
10
TOP STORIES THIS MONTH
Uganda faces telecom price war as
Kenya, Tz, Rwanda cut call rates
SOURCE: ALLAFRICA.COM
Kenya has made drastic cuts in mobile
telephone call tariffs, posing a huge
challenge to her Great Lakes regional
counterparts on how to cope with the
competitiveness in the sector following the
launch of the East African Common Market.
Kenyans have been calling at an equivalent of
UShs300 on average per minute across all networks,
with Uganda charging Ushs 340. But the price
difference has changed dramatically following the
latest decision by Kenya’s telecom regulator, the
Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), to halve
the interconnection tariffs– the rate telecom firms
charge one another for cross-network calls.
Kenyans now call for an equivalent of about Ushs75
per minute across all networks. In Rwanda, the uniform
call rate is Rwf90 (about Ushs 270) per minute, while it is
Tshs 5 (about Ushs 7.5) per second in Tanzania. This is
still lower than Ushs9 per second charged by MTN per
second in Uganda.
Uganda’s telecom regulator, Uganda
Communications Commission’s (UCC) attempts to fix
uniform interconnection tariffs at UShs131 last year
immediately attracted litigation between UCC and
telecom market leader MTN Uganda. MTN sued UCC
insisting that the Ushs131 per minute was way below
the realistic interconnection rate. According to MTN, the
realistic tariff should not go below Shs151.
The UCC’s plan to enforce the uniform
interconnection rate ceilings, which were slated to come
into force on January 1, 2010, had been halted by court
upon application by MTN Uganda.
The case was later withdrawn to allow further
consultations between UCC and the stakeholders in the
telecom sector.
Last week, UCC issued a statement indicating that the
new interconnection rate is already operational.
“Following the conclusion of the consultations, the
Commission hereby notifies the public that the above
interconnection rates shall be applied as default/
reference interconnection rates and will take effect from
July 6, 2010,” the UCC statement reads in part.It’s not
clear whether MTN consented to the tariff which they
had initially opposed. Attempts to contact MTN did not
yield much as officials were cagey about the issue.
However, even at the Shs131 interconnection rate per
minute, telephone calls on Uganda’s telecom network
would still be much higher than in Kenya.
Following the halving of the interconnection tariff
in Kenya to Kshs 2.1 (about Ushs50), Zain Kenya also
slashed its call rates by 50%, offering its customers a
competitive rate of Kshs 3 (about Ushs75) per minute to
call across all networks.
Safaricom, which controls about 80% of Kenya’s
telecom market, also swiftly responded by bringing
its call rates down from Kshs 12 (Ushs 300) across all
networks to Kshs 3 (Ushs 75), with intra-calls on the
same network costing less at Kshs2 (Ushs50) per minute,
contrary to the Kshs8 (Ushs 200) previously.
The CCK’s target was to open up the market to
competition and break up the ‘club effect’ established
WARID Telecom Headquarters in Kampala. Their
package, PAKALAST has caused almost everyone to
buy a Warid SimCard
by Safaricom. Since most of the mobile telephone
customers are on the Safaricom network, the telecom
giant has been offering preferential rates to call within
its network and higher rates for calling other networks.
The target was to discourage calls to other networks
and attract more customers from the competitors,
whose services then would look expensive.
MTN Uganda is operating a similar model. Because
it controls about 60 per cent of the market share, its
customers cannot easily switch to other networks. If they
did that, they would pay higher charges per call since
most of the people they would be calling are on MTN
network.
Therefore the uniform interconnection rate would
encourage subscribers of other networks not to
crossover to MTN since the charges would be uniform.
As the interconnection fees stayed high, the telecom
companies started promotional campaigns to enable
their respective customers call within their networks at
huge discount rates, but still charged higher rates for
calls across other competitors’ networks.
For Ushs500, for example, Zain customers in Uganda
get 25 minutes calling time over 24 hours within the
same network under the Kika promotion. If they pay
Ushs2000 to enter the Unlimited promotion, they get 83
minutes of call time between 6am and 6pm within the
same network.
Warid and Uganda Telecom also have introduced
similar arrangements for calling within their networks.
For Orange Telecom, customers can load airtime,
Continued on Page 13
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

TOP STORIES IN BRIEF
Ugandan Software Developer
Nominated for Global Awards
KAMPALA — Mr Revence Kalibwani
the proprietor of Scyfy Technoloies,
a local information and technology
start-up is set to represent Uganda
at the 2010 Annual Peer Awards in
Finland. The awards are given to the
world’s best software developers in
recognition of their innovative mobile
telecommunication applications and
products.
Kalibwani a 25-year old self-taught
software developer got the nod to
represent Uganda at the prestigious
awards after emerging the winner of
a mobile telecommunication software
competition organised by Mobile
Monday in Kampala.
The software developer’s mobile
application called Loan Call System
beat eight other entries from
companies like; Uganda Telecom,
and several by students of Makerere
University, according to Daniel Stern,
the Lead Organiser of Mobile Monday
Kampala.
Microsoft Unveils
Internet Explorer 9,
Available for Download
Microsoft unveiled the latest version
of Internet Explorer, 9 (beta) which
features full support for the new HTML5
web standard, and running HTML5
in-app websites which can be picked
directly from the task bar of Windows
7 [including - Bing, CNN, Amazon,
WSJ, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, eBay,
IMDB and many others], instead of you
having to type-in the address each
time.
In short, the new Internet Explorer
9 (beta) browser comes packed with a
new look, speed (+ GPU acceleration),
performance, and site pinning (IE style
bookmarking). IE9 beta is now available
for download, and the final release
should come by the “end of 2010 or
early 2011″
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
Google in talks with
MTN, Orange
Google looks to market its products through mobile companies
Members of the Google team, present at the G-Uganda event in Munyonyo, Kampala
Google, a United States-based online
information search company, is in
discussions with MTN and Orange
Uganda for business partnerships to vend its
products in the country. The talks could lead to
easy access and lower prices of products of the
information technology company in Uganda.
Besides software applications like; search,
mail, and chrome, Google sells company
adverts, and high end phones like Nexus
One and Android. Mr Nelson Mattos, the vice
president Google Europe, Middle East and
Africa met the Chief Executive of MTN Uganda
Mr Themba Khumalo, and Orange executives
in Kampala last
Thursday, to
discuss the deals. “I
have just met the
CEO of MTN and
tomorrow we have
a meeting coming
up to discuss the
details,” Mr Mattos
told Daily Monitor in an interview in Kampala
last week.
Google has already signed product
distribution deals with Kenya’s largest mobile
operator Safaricom and Vodacom in South
Africa. In Uganda, Google and MTN currently
offer an SMS-based service known as MTN
Google SMS. Mr Khumalo, was not immediately
available for a comment on the discussions
when contacted.
Confirmed discussions
UGANDA
However, Mr Eduard Blondeau, the chief
officer strategy, Broadband at Orange Uganda
confirmed to Daily Monitor that the two
companies are negotiating deals.
“It is natural for us to work together to see
how to sell our products and also benefit the
customers,” Mr Blondeau said. “We definitely
have plans of rolling out their products,” he
added in a phone interview on Friday.
Direct procurement of Google products from
the firm by Uganda’s telecoms is expected to
lower the cost of the products by cutting out
middle-men from the deals.
Mr Mattos said the company is now focusing
on Africa because of the
infrastructure advancement
that have been made to
facilitate the delivery of
services by the internet
and mobile phones.
“The African market is
growing very first. All
those problems that used
to hinder development in Africa are now gone
because now there are all these fibre optic
cables that can support the use of internet,” he
said.
Africa has 1 billion people and is now the
largest market after China and India. Three high
speed internet cables (fibre optics) are now
operational in the East Africa, linking the region
to the rest of the world. These conditions he
said; are a motivation for Google to move into
Africa unlike before.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
NEWS
11

NEWS
12
Zain vs. Safaricom
Price wars bring more choice to Kenya’s Subscribers
BY MICHAEL OUMA
NAIROBI
After trying to stay put and less
reactionary to Zain Kenya’s new
reduced tariffs which saw the mobile
operator attract new subscribers in droves
from rival networks, Safaricom has been on
the offensive over the last three weeks.
Safaricom’s new tariff schemes are a
response to Zain’s call and short
message service (SMS) tariff
reductions.
Zain Kenya, country’s second
largest mobile network operator
in terms of subscribers and which
was among the 15 Zain Africa
subsidiaries acquired by India’s
Bharti Airtel in June, slashed
tariffs by 50 percent last month.
Zain dropped its rates to Ksh
3 (US $ 0.04) per minute last
month, forcing Safaricom to
introduce new tariff structures,
with some as low as 2 shillings
per minute. The other mobile
service providers - Telkom
Orange and YU - also made
reductions on their voice and
SMS tariffs.
The tariff reductions followed
the telecoms industry regulator
Communication Commission
of Kenya’s (CCK) introduction
of new mobile interconnection rates in the
country in August. After a network cost study
carried out by Analyssis Mason of UK, the CCK
revised down the mobile interconnection fees
from Kshs 4.42 (US $ 0.06) per minute to Kshs
2.21 (US$0.03).
The move by the CCK to review the rates
downwards was aimed at encouraging
telecoms operators to lower call tariffs. The
CCK aims gradually to reduce the fees to Kshs
0.99 (US$0.013) by 2013.
Zain Kenya was the first to react to the
CCK’s move, slashing its call rates and SMS
costs by up to 50 per cent and 80 per cent
respectively.
The tariff reductions followed the
Communication Commission of Kenya’s (CCK)
introduction of new mobile interconnection
rates in the country in August. After a network
cost study carried out by Analyssis Mason
of UK, The CCK revised down the mobile
interconnection fees from Kshs 4.42 (US $
0.06) per minute to Kshs 2.21 (US$0.03).
The move by the CCK to review the rates
downwards was aimed at encouraging
telecoms operators to lower call tariffs. The
CCK aims gradually to reduce the fees to Kshs
0.99 (US$0.013) by 2013.
Zain Kenya was the first to react to the
CCK’s move, slashing its call rates and SMS
costs by up to 50 per cent and 80 per cent
respectively.
Even though Safaricom’s newly introduced
tariff structures focused only on voice services,
the firm recently introduced new SMS
tariff structures that are subscription based
and have to be utilized in 24-hours after
subscription.
After the elapsing of the one-day period
after subscription, the subscriber forfeits any
remaining SMS and is then eligible for a new
subscription.
Under the new tariff plan dubbed ‘Masaa
ya SMS’ and which applies to both pre- and
postpaid subscribers, the market leader’s
16 million customers are able to send text
messages for as low as 20 cents each per text.
The new SMS tariff structures, which allow
subscribers to send text messages within the
Safaricom network at various graduated rates
depending on what SMS bundle one selects,
is an improvement on the firm’s earlier service
called “GO SMS CRAZY.”
In the new plan, a bundle of 100 SMS
will be available at Ksh20 (US $ 0.25) which
denotes a unit price of 20 cents per message
sent, a huge reduction from the firm’s earlier
SMS tariff of Kshs 3.5 (US $ 0.025)per text.
Subscribers will be able to buy some 20 text
messages for Kshs 10 (US $ 0.125), translating
into 50 cents per text message. The last
SMS tariff bundle, for Kshs 5 (US $ 0.0625)
will accord a subscriber five text messages,
thereby translating into a unit price of Kshs 1
(US $ 0.0125) per text.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
The “Masaa ya SMS” tariff plan, which is a
permanent tariff and not a promotion, is an
improvement from service provider which
initially used to charge Kshs 3.5 (US $ 0.025)
for both on-net and off-net text messages.
Michael Joseph Safaricom’s outgoing chief
executive, said “Masaa ya SMS” was a way
of thanking the firm’s over 16 million Kenyan
subscribers for their loyalty, adding that the
company would continue to create “true value
for its subscribers by
deliberately listening
to them and coming
up with products and
services that best
answer their needs.”
Safaricom’s move to
reduce its SMS tariffs is
being seen by industry
analysts as meant to
pre-empt a November
deadline set by the
CCK that could compel
service providers to
reduce the average
cost of text messages to
below one shilling.
“The Commission
has confirmed glaring
distortions in the
pricing of SMS services
in the country. CCK
considers the wholesale
termination rate of two
shillings per SMS negotiated by the operators
extremely high,” said Charles Njoroge, the
CCK director general in an earlier statement,
adding that all operators must renegotiate
lower mobile and fixed SMS termination rates
and file the new rates with the Commission
within three months.
The industry regular further noted that
extending SMS services to consumers costs
just Kshs 0.01 for each SMS sent over a
network, which indicates that mobile network
service providers retain the remainder of the
funds as profits.
The country’s three other operators - Zain
Kenya, Essar Telecom YU and Telkom Orange
- are currently charging between one and two
shillings for on-net SMSes, but the CCK hopes
to lower that rate as part of a comprehensive
industry cost review exercise.
Industry statistics indicate that about 200
million SMSes are sent in Kenya on a monthly
basis, with the average number of SMS sent
per month per subscriber being about 13.
The CCK says this figure has almost doubled
in the last few months per each subscriber
on a monthly basis, further urging operators
to reduce the rates to more realistic rates by
November this year.

THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
REGIONAL
Uganda faces
telecom price wars
From on Page 10
make calls within the same network for a specific period
without any charge. Calls on other networks would be
charged at Ushs340. But upon expiry of the period, the calls
under Orange network are charged Ushs320 per minute
unless the customer recharges his/her credit balance.
In one of MTN’s packages, MTN Zone, customers call on
a percentage discount even across other networks, but the
subsidy is always higher for calling on MTN network.
However, the promotions apply only to subscribers of the
respective networks and they are temporary anyway. The flat
mobile telephone call rate in Uganda is shs 340.
To be competitive following the low call rates in the
regional telecom sector occasioned by recent changes in
Kenya, Uganda will need to review the interconnection rates
further downwards. The Shs131 is still much higher than
Kenya’s Kshs 2.1 (slightly over Ushs50).
Further, even as the UCC claims that the uniform
interconnection rates took effect on July 6, there is nothing
yet to show for it in terms of tariff reductions.
Telecom companies remained cagey on whether they have
started implementing the new interconnection tariff. Fred
Masadde, the Zain spokesperson, declined to comment. Mark
Kaheru, the marketing communications officer at Uganda
Telecom, only referred The Independent to the company’s
legal department.
The UCC Senior Communications Officer, Fred Otunnu, too
declined to comment, saying he was on leave. Questions sent
to the UCC on why the interconnection rates in Uganda have
been set much higher than in Kenya remained unanswered
despite assurances from Isaac Kalembe, the UCC media and
public relations officer, that he would forward them to the
‘right’ officers.
Many of the new changes in the Kenya’s telecoms sector
are attributed to the entry of India-based telecom giant
Bharti Airtel, which acquired Zain Africa operations last April.
On his first visit to Kampala, Bharti Airtel’s international CEO
Manoj Kohli, sounded an early warning.
He said Zain Uganda, which will soon rebrand to Bharti
Airtel, has earmarked US $100 million to expand its network
and improve its technology.
It was a clear statement of intent, especially targeting MTN
Uganda’s dominance of the market. Bharti Airtel is famous
for targeting low-income earners by offering competitive call
rates.
Zain Uganda is therefore expected to announce lower call
rates as a warning shot in a tariff battle that will be protracted
and exhausting. But most likely they would still be higher than
Kenya’s because of the disparity in the interconnection tariffs
between the two countries.
Besides the interconnection fee of Shs131 for mobile
telephone calls, government charges a 30 per cent tax on
mobile telephone calls (12% excise duty and 18% VAT). The
excise duty on airtime in Rwanda was recently increased from
5 per cent to 8 per cent.
In an affidavit sworn in support of MTN’s suit in court to
halt the implementation of the interconnection rates which
UCC had set, Tom Mbalinda Nuwagaba, a senior manager
of commercial law and litigation, had argued that upholding
the tariffs was against public policy and would hurt taxable
revenue. He did not elaborate. But basic economics shows
that lower rates would boost productivity and widen the tax
base.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
NEWS
13

NEWS
14
Digital TV analysis
African states could fail to meet ITU’s 2015
deadline for transition to digital TV
BY MICHAEL OUMA, NAIROBI
African countries face the prospect of failing to
meet the 2015 deadline set by the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) for all countries
to make the transition from analogue to digital
television broadcasting.
Speaking at African IT Exhibitions and
Conferences’ (AITEC) second Broadcast and Film
Conference in Nairobi, Russell Southwood, chief
executive of BalancingAct UK, a telecoms, internet
and broadcast technologies consultancy, said that
of the 53 states in the African continent, only five
have launched the process of switching over from
analogue to digital television broadcasting.
Among the 5 countries that have made public
launches to the switchover, said Southwood, are
two East African Community (EAC) member states
– Kenya and Tanzania – while Mauritius is set to
switch-off all its analogue television signals by the
end of 2012.
“Currently, 10 countries are at the pilot stage
of making the switchover while 29 states seem
to be doing nothing. This means that over half
of African countries may fail to meet the 2015
deadline set by the ITU for the transition from
analogue to digital television broadcasting,” said
Southwood.
He further challenged broadcasters to change
their programming models, by shifting from timebased
transmission to theme-based channels as
this introduces the concept of “give viewers what
they want, not everything in between.”
“Transition to themed transmission and channels
could lead broadcasters to concentrate and
focus on their niche audiences who demand
and are interested in specific content. This move
could also help them address the challenge of
fragmentation of audiences due to increasing
number of channels and medius,” he said.
On the broadcast regulatory front, the conference
heard that even though only 17 out of 40 African
countries had by 2008 liberalized their free-to-air
television broadcast sectors, the figure has by this
year risen to 28 out of 46 states in sub-Saharan
Africa which have liberalized both their countries’
radio and pay TV industries while another .
“The once that are yet to liberalise are relatively
small states – like Mauritius and Sao Tome – and
other authoritarian states,” said Southwood,
adding that opportunities in broadcasting sector
are currently available in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
Speaking at the conference, Kenya’s permanent
secretary in the ministry of information and
communications Dr Bitange Ndemo said that that
Africa’s broadcasting stations need to increase
their investments in capacity building of broadcast
content creators.
Dr Ndemo added that in order for Kenya’s film
industry to improve the quality of productions, the
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
industry has sought and gained valuable lessons
from other more developed film making locations
of the world.
“Kenya has got experiences and lessons from
India’s ‘Bollywood’ film industry which produces
thousands of movies per year and is currently
learning from Nigeria’s ‘Nollywood’ to develop its
film and movie sectors,” said Dr Ndemo, adding
that to further spur development of the sector, the
government has established an incubator where
local producers and broadcast content developers
would be able to work on their animations.
The PS however urged broadcasters to delink
“broadcasting houses from content producers in
order to give independence and more bargaining
power to the producers as the practice enhances
competition.”
The conference also had increased emphasis for
broadcasters to improve on their transmission of
locally relevant content in order to boost stations’
audience numbers and further attract new
advertisers to their outlets.
This is because currently, most of the
programming content transmitted by most
broadcasters is mostly foreign which is
not attractive with many audiences, with
BalancingAct’s Russell Southwood saying that
the “missing bit in African broadcast stations is
still local African content as local content always
does better in attracting audiences compared to
foreign material.”
He noted that one of the drivers of local content
could be local content quotas being imposed on
broadcasters, with an example being Kenya where
current regulations require broadcasters to have
at least 40 per cent local content. He further
challenged content producers to think about local
content not just as a single country but continentwide
focused to have a wider audience.
Suhayl Esmaijee, the WananchiOnline chief
operations officer said that current trends in
the television broadcasting scene indicate a
transformation in viewership “as content is
no longer made and targeted at a particular
geographic region but for a universal audience
” with an example being Kenya where the most
popular programmes are Mexican soaps.
However, David Campbell, Mediae Kenya chief
executive challenged the position, saying that
Mexican soaps are favoured by free-to-air
broadcasters as they are cheap to acquire than
local productions which need huge capital
investments to bring on the screen.
Industry insiders say that foreign programmes
cost between US $ 300 to 400 per hour to acquire
compared to local productions which cost about
US $ 15,000 to 20,000 per hour to produce.
TOP STORIES IN BRIEF
Microsoft celebrates
Windows Phone 7 RTM
with funeral parade for
BlackBerry and iPhone
By Vlad Savov (engadget.com)
The iPhone’s dead, long live the
Windows Phone. That must be the
genius proclamation that incited
Microsoft to celebrate Windows
Phone 7 reaching RTM status with the
incomprehensible procession you see
above. An elaborate parade, replete with
hearses and black capes, was organized
last week to denote the passing of the
BlackBerry and iPhone into the land of
unwanted gadgets. We’d say this is done
in poor taste, but we don’t enjoy stating
the obvious. We will, however, enjoy the
fallout from this poorly judged stunt. See
our favorite image after the break and
lots more at the source.
Update: Apparently the team also
engaged in a Thriller dance. Words are
failing us, so just hop on past the break
and mash play.
Facebook Making
Mobile Phone?
Facebook denied a story published
by TechCrunch that says the company
is “building a mobile phone,” but
CNET.com confirmed that the socialnetworking
giant has reached out to
hardware manufacturers and carriers
seeking input on a potential Facebookbranded
phone.
TechCrunch published a story saying
“Facebook is building a mobile phone...
or rather, they’re building the software
for the phone and working with a third
party to actually build the hardware.”
Facebook quickly tried to discredit the
story, with a spokesman telling CNET
that “Facebook is not building a phone.
Our view is that almost all experiences
would be better if they were social, so
integrating deeply into existing platforms
and operating systems is a good way to
enable this.”
Read more: http://news.cnet.
com/8301-1023_3-20016916-93.html?
tag=topStories1#ixzz103OKAQ54

THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
NEWS
15

WHAT’S NEW
GADGETS, TECHNOLOGY
16
New Tech Gadgets and
concepts.
Flying alarm clock
Do you usually need some extra help
getting out of bed? Yup, waking up sucks.
The flying Alarm Clock will do the trick!
When the alarm sounds the propeller is
launched up into the air & flies around the
room. To turn off the alarm you’ll have to
get up, find it & return it to the base.
This digital Flying alarm clock launches a
rotor into the air that flies around the room
as the alarm sounds, flying up to 9” in the
air, this flying alarm clock will not cease
ringing until the rotor is returned to the flying
alarm clock base! Gone are the days of
silencing your alarm with a tap of the button,
you’ll have to catch the rotor and put it
back on the base and by then chances are
you’ll be awake.
This unique flying alarm clock method
will be compelling for even the most stubborn
sleepers to get out of bed on time. If
you are worried about making it to work or
class in time, then this will come in handy.
The Flying Alarm Clock has a base diameter
of 14 cm, sits 10 cm tall (with propeller
attached) and features a snooze function.
It requires 4 x AA batteries to operate and
can also be used with a DC 6 Volt mains
adapter.
Music pillow
While the alarm clock’s sole mission is to mess with
your sleep, the music pillow is on your side. It is like a
‘normal’ pillow, but it has got internal speakers so that
you can listen to music or recorded nature sounds as
you drift of to sleep.
It features an audio cable that plugs into your iPod
or any other device that supports that pin. Some models
have volume and playback controls.
Sharper Image’s version of the music pillow even
has inbuilt music just incase you have no iPod, and a
vibrating alarm clock for a gentle awakening.
The sleeping pillow costs about $40 but people who
have used (I haven’t!) say its worth every penny.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

USB wall socket
There was a time when charging a device
meant plugging it into the wall socket for
a few hours. Then more and more devices
became available with USB charging as an
option or the only charging option. So sometimes
you have to leave your computer running
because you need to charge your iPod or
mobile phone.
Our Chinese friends of course came up
with plugs that have USB ports but unfortunately
they don’t last long, and sometimes go
with your device in the process. A moment of
silence for my Blackberry…
With the arrival of the USB wall power
outlet you can charge your power hungry
devices directly from Umeme even when your
friend has borrowed your laptop. It looks and
fits into the wall like any other socket, just
that it has USB ports instead of the usual 3pin
configuration. It gets better; there are some
models which have both the 3pin and USB.
Although I have not yet seen them in Kampala
shops, they are available on ebay.com for
less than $10
While we are talking about USB chargers,
Mobile Digital Scribe
The Mobile Digital Scribe is a digital pen
(or smartpen) that can capture what you have
written in plain ordinary paper and can download
it into a PC. It doesn’t need a special
notepad or ink to do this function. It includes
software that allows you to download and edit
what was captured in your notes.
The IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe works
through the following:
You take down notes like what you do
with an ordinary pen (clip the reciever on the
paper)
If it is your first time to use the pen, you
need to install the software to your PC.
Connect the pen to your PC and download
what you have written into your computer
Review, edit, or send what you have written.
While this digital pen is not very new, it
offers some featues that distinguish it from
the rest of the pack. Some of those features
include:
It can naturally capture handwriting. You
use it the same way that you use a traditional
pen. It wouldn’t feel alien to
the user. Even people who are not
updated in the newest gadget
will not have difficulty in using
the pen because of this
feature.
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
you should also look out for the USB car charger
which plugs into the cigarrete lighter and
has 2 USB ports for those times when you run
out of power on the move.
No need to continuously buy special paper
digital paper or ink. Other pens like the Lightscribe
one requires special ink and it could get
costly in the long run.
It comes with software (OCR software) that
converts your handwriting into digital text.
The software lets you cut on your typing
time of your notes. Gone are the days
when you have to rewrite your
notes on your computer. The
software allows you to edit
your notes.
So if you have some
extra bucks on you,
this is a good
way to spend
some of it!
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
WHAT’S NEW 17

WHAT’S NEW
18
Bluetooth computing devices
The Logitech kit comes with a USB dongle and a charger for the mouse. The
keyboard uses 4 AA batteries. Its best to have 4 pairs of rechargable batteries and a
battery charger so that you do not spend a fortune on batteries.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
Bluetooth printers give you the freedom
to position them anywhere with no cable
limitations, and can even be used from
another room.
This Bluetooth dongle is so small that
you will forget it even exists after
plugging it in. It is plug and play,
and is smaller than a 100 UGX coin’s
diameter.
Have you ever felt like you have too many
wires and cables in your life? Lets start with
your office desktop PC: keyboard, mouse,
monitor. printer, scanner, external drive, headphones...
They all have cables crowding your
personal space!
With Bluetooth on your computer and a
few bluetooth devices you can cut down on
the wires and cables.
Bluetooth is an open wireless technology
standard for exchanging data over short
distances, usually up to 10 metres, though
some devices of higher power class may go
up to 100 metres.
For a keyboard and mouse we recommend
Logitech’s Coreless MX Duo mouseand-keyboard
kit. The mouse is the most
exciting part! Wireless, optical, and rechargeable,
the mouse brings all of the benefits
of untethered input, and it reduces battery
juggling, one of the technology’s biggest
drawbacks. You’ll pay a bit more up front, but
you’ll make it back in what you don’t shell
out to Duracell. I have been using mine for 4
months now without having to recharge the
battery!
The mouse also includes thumb-side front
and back Web navigation buttons that feel
totally natural, and the page-scroll-lock and
task-switch buttons framing the scrollwheel
aim to reduce finger stress and help streamline
work flow. The keyboard has media buttons,
complete with a volume wheel and hot
keys for e-mail, IM, and various Web pages-not
to mention an additional scrollwheel and
back button on the left side.
The next cable to cut is the printer cable.
Though it usually plugs into the back of your
system unit and stays there, it can be a nuisance
if you are using a laptop and you have
to plug it in everytime you need to use it.
This HP Photosmart printer makes printing
so easy you may even start printing for fun. It
is one of HP’s line of wireless printers, and is
also a photo smart printer.
This particular one can connect to your
printer by Bluetooth or wireless. Both are
easy to set up and get printing in a matter of
minutes. So you have the printer in a more
out of the way place and still print your documents
at ease. You can also print photos from
your Bluetooth enabled phone or iPad or any
device directly. The printer can also be shared
with other devices and computers in your
office or home.
It also has a large touchsmart screen and a
number of ink-saving techniques.
Many laptops these days ship with internal
bluetooth radios, but if you do not have an
internal device you can get Bluetooth capability
by plugging in a USB Bluetooth dongle.
They come in different shapes and sizes, but
the best are the very small ones, especially
for a laptop.

The Rokr S9-HD has excellent sound quality. This is a must have gadget for your laptop.
When Motorola came out with the Motorola
Rokr S9 headset two years ago, stereo
Bluetooth headsets were still fairly new, and
the S9 gained popularity because of its sportscentric
design. Now that more phones have
stereo Bluetooth capability, Motorola is wise to
keep hammering away at making new headsets,
like the Motorola Rokr S9 HD. It has a
similar design to the S9, but is equipped with
higher fidelity sound for your music-listening
needs.
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
The Motorola Rokr S9 HD has a design
almost identical to the S9. The neckband
connecting the two earpieces floats slightly
behind the head, and you wear the headset
so that the ear loops hook over the top of
your ears. It’s not at all clunky or bulky, but
we did find that it does pinch the sides of our
head slightly. The S9 HD can also be a bit of a
hassle if you have longer hair. Otherwise, it’s
quite comfortable to wear and it’s easy to slip
the headset on and off because of the slightly
Rokr S9-HD
Bluetooth Stereo HD Headset
flexible ear loops. The earpieces sit just inside
the ear opening, and there are three different
size earbud coverings for a more custom fit.
The battery of the S9 HD is housed in a
long and flat base at the back of the neckband.
Underneath the base are the power
button and charger jack with an indicator light
in between. The music player controls are
located above the right earpiece and the call
button and volume controls are above the left.
These side earpiece buttons are raised above
the surface and are easy to find and press,
but the power button on the neckband is a bit
stiff. Also, the charger jack is covered up by a
rubber flap that isn’t very secure, thus reducing
the headset’s moisture resistance.
The Rokr S9 HD comes with SRS-WOW HD
sound that really amps up the overall fidelity
of the music. You can choose between two
SRS-WOW HD settings: one has fuller sound
with more clarity, and another has balanced
audio with enhanced bass.
People usually use Bluetooth headsets with
their phones but they can also work with your
PC. I personally use it more with my netbook
as it enables me to have high quality sound
wherever I go, without having to carry bulky
headset
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
WHAT’S NEW 19

INTERVIEWS
Dr Marshall Goldsmith
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world
authority in helping successful
leaders get even better – by
achieving positive, lasting change
in behavior: for themselves, their
people and their teams.
In 2009 Dr. Goldsmith was
recognized as one of the fifteen
most influential business thinkers
in the world in the bi-annual
study sponsored by The (London)
Times and Forbes. The American
Management Association named
Marshall as one of 50 great thinkers
and leaders who have influenced
the field of management over the
past 80 years. He’s written 27 books.
Marshall’s articles are available at
www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com.
By Vera Ng’oma
PC TECH: At its core what is leadership?
MG: Leadership can be defined as working with and
through OTHERS to achieve objectives. The key word
in this definition is OTHERS. One of my favorite CEO
clients noted that, “for the great achiever it is all about
me – for the great leader it is all about them”.
PC TECH: Can anybody/everybody be a leader?
MG: As long as we are working with and through
others to achieve objectives, we already are leaders!
The more important question is, “Can leaders get
better?” My partner, Howard Morgan, completed
research with over 86,000 respondents which
documented how leaders who receive feedback, then
follow-up with key stakeholders in a disciplined and
frequent manner, almost invariably become more
effective – not as perceived by themselves, but as
perceived by their key stakeholders.
PC TECH: What do you see as the biggest threat to
great leadership?
MG: The greatest problem of already successful leaders
is ego. This is manifest in ‘winning too much’ or
‘adding too much value’ – as I discuss in What Got You
Here Won’t Get You There.
PC TECH: What should managers do with people
who have peaked in their organization?
MG: I never believe in stereotyping people. Anyone
who does not have an ‘incurable genetic defect’ can
improve. Some people may not ever be promoted
again, but can still become more effective, if they
choose to work at it.
PC TECH: Leadership is more convened with
competence than character these days?
MG: I believe that the press focuses on the negative
examples of leadership and ignores the positives. I
work with many leaders who have great character.
Every organization should have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy
on integrity violations.
PC TECH: Should leaders in the workplace t a k e
a more democratic approach?
MG: Peter Drucker once said that, “The leader of the
past knew how to tell. The leader of the future will
know how to ask.” Most of the leaders that I meet
today manage knowledge workers. What is the
definition of a knowledge worker? They know more
about what they are doing than their boss. If we
manage knowledge workers, we cannot just tell them
what to do and how to do it. We have to ask, listen
and learn.
PC TECH: When employees show leadership what
sorts of things would they typically do?
MG: Employees who demonstrate leadership learn how
to influence without line authority. They are focused
on ‘making a difference’ – not ‘proving how smart they
are’. They recognize that all decisions are made by the
people who have the power to make these decisions
– and learn how to maximize their impact on these
decision makers.
PC TECH: Can someone be empowered by
another?
MG: Empowerment, unlike integrity, is not always a
good idea. Empowerment only works with employees
who are motivated, knowledgeable, skilled and
confident. With the right people empowerment is a
wonderful leadership style – with the wrong people it is
a disaster.
PC TECH: Some think inspiration is overrated. Is an
inspiring leader able to achieve more?
MG: Inspirational leaders increase the odds of engaged
employees – employees who will go the ‘extra mile’ to
help the organization. Engaged employees lead to
increased productivity.
20 PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

PC TECH: Should the leader’s
‘MOJO’(positive spirit) seek to influence
the company culture?
MG: MOJO is ‘that positive spirit – toward
what you are doing – now – that starts from
the inside – and radiates to the outside’.
Leaders who are high in MOJO consistently
communicate that they are happy to be doing
what they are doing – and that they find their
work to be meaningful. What kind of message
do leaders who have no MOJO send? I am
miserable and this work is meaningless. The
positive communication of happiness and
meaning can build a culture. The negative
message can destroy a culture.
PC TECH: How can an organization
effectively grow its people?
MG: I am very excited about peer coaching.
Several studies that have been conducted
show how it can help create better leaders at a
very low cost to the company.
PC TECH: How can a leader breed greater
trust?
MG: Lead by example – not by ‘preaching’.
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
About Vera Ng’oma
Vera Ng’oma is a communications specialist,
Leadership facilitator and Mentoring coach
passionately dedicated to seeding inspiration
and motivation to help people honour their
potential and live their strongest lives. She
leads Livexcellence Limited, a Leadership, personal
and professional development company
offering top notch programmes essential to
achieving organizational and personal growth
objectives.
Vera collaborates with PC Tech International
and PearlRichards Foundation through our
women’s project, www.ewuraba.com.
Vera is committed to working with organizations
to build greater trust and democracy
in the workplace where employees have room
to lead and to make their best contribution.
As an independent consultant, she provides
expertise in Living Leadership, personal branding
and employee engagement.
She is founder of Shedistinction an organization
that seeks to empower professional
and businesswomen to move beyond real,
artificial and self imposed obstacles onto a
new purposeful, productive and legacy building
path.
Her work experience spans front row roles
in several industries including education and
training, cultural relations, air travel, news
media, international development and at NGO
board level.
Vera writes on leadership and career development
for Malawi’s Nation Newspapers, and
for several on line publications and at her blog
www.excelliquette.blogspot.com.
Vera maybe contacted via verangoma@
gmail.com
Introducing the African Institute for
Development Informatics and Policy
The African Institute for Development Informatics and Policy (AIDIP) is a research institute which focuses on the
conduct and dissemination of research and the advocacy and establishment of projects and policies concerning the
adoption and usage of development informatics in Africa. Development informatics refers to appropriate design,
localization, development, implementation and usage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to
achieve development goals. The primary goal of AIDIP is to extend the reach of the use of ICTs to the underserved
and unreached.
To achieve this, the institute would establish research and development projects of relevance to the developmental
needs of the country and to the millennium development goals. Since the research centre would be primarily
located in Ghana, it would also become an official data source for statistics and research in Ghana and thereafter
other African countries. This would be done through the coordinating research activities and projects related to
development informatics in both private and public sector agencies in Ghana. The institute would also support the
research faculty and staff in Ghanaian universities and link them to other research institutes in other universities.
AIDIP seeks to become the foremost African forum for practitioners, managers, researchers and policy makers
to share their knowledge and experience on the technology, adoption, localization, management and policy of
development informatics in Africa.
For more information on how to volunteer and join AIDIP visit - www.aidipinstitute.org
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
PEOPLE INTERVIEWS
21

22
PEOPLEINTERVIEWS
Prof. Ibiyemi on
Biometric Signal Processing
PC TECH: Good day Sir, we thank you for
availing us an opportunity to meet albeit
your tight schedules. May we know you
(background and early education)?
Prof. Ibiyemi: I am T.S. Ibiyemi, I had my
secondary school education in Kogi State
where I hail from. I did the rest of my degrees
at University of Bradford in the United
Kingdom (U.K.), so I studied throughout in U.K.
I came back (to Nigeria) in 1982 and started
teaching at Bayero University Kano. In 1984, I
came to University of Ilorin where I have been
since then. Though, I do part-time (lecturing)
in some universities, except for the three years
I left for Covenant University and came back.
PC TECH: Sir, what motivated you to study
this course.
Prof. Ibiyemi: Nothing! During our time,
it’s just whatever comes your way; no career
guidance. There was no one to guide us,
nobody to counsel us. I think I was divinely
guided by God.
PC TECH: Sir, we quite understand that you
are very busy. Aside lecturing,what other
things do you do?
Prof. Ibiyemi: Well, I am into research. I have
a Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) grant
to work on Biometric Signal Processing for
Personal Identification. This has to do with
using biometrics in authenticating personal
identity and detecting crimes using the
forensics.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
PC TECH: Can you please shed more light
on this?
Prof. Ibiyemi: You see; a complete human
being has about 28 different patterns that
can be used to identify him. One, we have
the finger prints (10 of them). Each finger
print carries different pattern from the next.
Also, the 10 toes have distinctive patterns
too, making 20. Then your eyes, the left
iris is quite different from the right. You can
imagine these patterns different for billions
of people in existence. The retina is also part
of it. Equally, we have the face and voice. If I
am familiar with you and you walk across that
passage talking, without seeing your face,
I can quickly recognize your voice. That is
speech recognition. Your handwriting and your
signature are all parts of what we can use as
biometrics. That is what the project is about.
And why this project? You find out that the iris
of a white man is easily recognized than that
of a black man because of the contrast. I mean
that the foreground is difficult to separate
from the iris. Again, talking about the speech;
if a white man is speaking outside there, you
don’t need to be told he is a white, likewise a
black man. Hence, there is racial undertone
which we can use to make identification.
Furthermore, we found out that there is
no need any longer to offend those set of
women who have their faces covered (with
face veil-Purda) always before we recognize
them. In the process of using biometrics, all
they have to do is to walk past a camera.
The camera will pick the face and turn it to
numbers, extract the features and detect the
picture. So inside the computer, you don’t find
the face but its characteristics which do not
Some academics have made their
landmark in their chosen areas of
specialization that we can’t just stop
talking about their array of achievements.
Through their research and discoveries,
they have been able to harness local
resources, and making out solutions
to certain problems peculiar to our
immediate society. One of such legends is
Professor T.S. Ibiyemi of the Department
of Electrical Engineering, University of
Ilorin, Kwara State. Below is an excerpt
from the interview conducted by
PCTECH INT’L correspondent in Nigeria
(Abdulkabeer Ishola). Join us as we
discuss…
Abdulkabeer Ishola, PC Tech Nigeria
Representative
resemble that of anybody else. In short, these
are some of the things we are asked to look
into. Furthermore, we discovered that some
destitute in the society are always left out in
programs like electioneering. With biometrics,
their exemption may not be necessary again;
we can always bring them in. Take for example,
the lepers who would have lost their fingers
because of leprosy attack on the pointed
edges of the body. After taking data from
about 200 lepers, we found out that their
foot prints are as good as the finger prints
and we were able to use that to recognize
them. This is another part of the works we
are doing for FGN in this STEP-B program.
We are also looking into handwriting as well
as signature because of the increasing trend
of malpractices amongst our people these
days. Signature is the most popular mode
of personal identification in our society. For
almost everything, you just have to sign. But,
it is always easy to forge signatures offline.
When you put down your signature now;
anybody who is careful and smart enough
could forge it by looking at it severally and
practice. Thus, it becomes difficult to recognize
that it is forged. But that is as far as offline
signature is concerned. For online signature,
you have to sign on an electronic pad without
looking at what your signature looks like. But
the process of your signature, the speed at
which you sign, the space it takes, the pressure
you applied on the pad and the likes are
examined. These you cannot forge surely, for
they cannot be seen physically. It is what you
see that you study for forgery. You see, online
signatures are simply not forgeable (Laughs!).
And for the handwriting, automatically we can

detect students hiring other students to write
examinations for them.
PC TECH: Sir, the other time, you
mentioned STEP-B. Is there any STEP-A, or
what does the term imply?
Prof. Ibiyemi: No! There is no STEP-A.
Actually, STEP-B is an acronym for “Science
and Technology Education Post Basic Research
Program. It is just STEP-B Research Program.
PC TECH: In this your research program,
what exactly does the FGN look forward to
achieving from it?
Prof. Ibiyemi: It is a project directed towards
human capital development. You met some
students here with me (about 25 of them);
they are all doing their research works on
biometrics. You see, the FGN took a World
Bank loan of USD180m for this STEP-B
research program (not mine alone; it cuts
across the country) and they disbursed the
money to us as research grants, which we do
not need to refund back. But the FGN’s return
on this investment is how many students we
can pass the knowledge onto and that is why
you saw many of them (the students) with me.
Also, those in post graduate levels can apply
for this kind of grant and they can be given
up to N3m (three million naira) to buy their
research equipments and they become theirs,
after finishing the project. So it is primarily for
human capital development. If at the end of
the day, one can map it to products for public
usage, fine; but that is a secondary motive.
PC TECH: Sir, in a situation like this
whereby you are a lecturer in the
University of Ilorin, does it mean that only
the students of your institution benefit
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
from this program?
Prof. Ibiyemi: No! It is all over the universities
in the country. But for now, it is restricted
to public universities; I mean the Federal
Universities. But if your supervisor is from a
public university and you are from a private
one, you can still benefit from it. Initially while
we were applying (we made the first set of
applications), people did’t believe it. About 20
of us applied from University of Ilorin alone to
make the highest number from an institution.
While numerous other universities refused to
make even a single application (like University
of Lagos), for they didn’t see it as a possibility.
Two (2) of us won it from Unilorin and people
were amazed. Now, from a single university,
there are about 500 applications at any time
– I mean these were the universities that
refused to show up initially. So it is now highly
competitive.
PC TECH: What time of the year is the
application for the grant being made?
Prof. Ibiyemi: It is anytime through the
year. Just that it is being given to students
starting from the M.Sc level and specifically
in public universities. I think the reason why
the government restricted it to public schools
is that, the kind of control they would have
over the public schools is more effective than
that on private universities. And you know,
this money is being given as grant, because
we don’t see the money actually. It is just
that when you need anything, you have to
put it into writing and they’ll get it for you.
Like I said, when I needed a jeep with certain
specifications; I described it and they bought
it, put the government plate number on it and
gave me the key.
PC TECH: And how much is this grant
we’re talking about that was given to you
alone?
Prof. Ibiyemi: USD250,000 (Two hundred
and fifty thousand US dollars).
PC TECH: what is your area of
specialization?
Prof. Ibiyemi: I read Electrical/Electronic
Engineering and my area of specialization is
Digital Image Processing. I want to tell you
that Biometric Signal Processing is part of
this field. However, many believe I belong to
the Computer Science field, and I have been
teaching in both fields for many years. Even
while I was the part-time head of department
for Electrical and Electronics Engineering at
Ladoke Akintola University of Technology
Ogbomoso, I was still teaching the Computer
Science and Engineering Students there
and that is still the same up till date here in
Unilorin.
PC TECH: With the look of things today,
we can conclude that the rate at which
technology is advancing is very high and
the future of technological advancement
looks great. Do you see Africa featuring in
this big picture?
Prof. Ibiyemi: Well, the world is now a global
village; we are in a knowledge driven economy
and I think knowledge is not an exclusive right
of just one person. And if that is the case,
it means we all have equal opportunities.
However, it is what you do with yourself that
matters while destinies are not the same
with everyone. The knowledge economy I
am talking about is a kind of level ground
for us to put ourselves. I don’t believe that
poverty of wealth is our major problem here.
Although, most African Nations are developing
but we still have richer Countries (Nigeria,
South Africa,...) who can deliver too. We are
not being faced with poverty of money but
poverty of the mind.
PC TECH: How do you think the youths
(students) can contribute to the
development of technology?
Prof. Ibiyemi: You see, our emphasis here
has been so much on theory; we need to
balance up. We have to map our knowledge
into products and that is when you can be
helpful to the community. I don’t believe that
community service involves selling sachet
water and co. It is just when you turn your
knowledge into useful products and it doesn’t
matter which field you are. A typical example
is Prof. Wole Soyinka who is in Arts but has
turned his knowledge to products. All our
growing youths can do so too, I believe. The
primary aim of some students is just going to
the university and just having the certificate.
They don’t go for the knowledge and how
to use it to better the society. That is just our
problem. It is not that our Intelligent Quotient
(IQ) is low. No! No!! No!!! At least we schooled
with whites, worked with them and we know
where we belong. The governments also
Continued on Page 27
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
PEOPLE INTERVIEWS
23

24
PEOPLEINTERVIEWS
Literacy Bridge: The Talking Book
Literacy Bridge has developed the “Talking Book”—a low-cost audio
device for sharing knowledge among people challenged by illiteracy
and poverty.
For farmers whose lives depend on their harvest, learning how to
apply manure or prepare their soil can make a significant difference
on their crop yields. For expectant mothers, learning which local
beverages are unsafe to drink during pregnancy can prevent
miscarriages and birth defects.
But vital knowledge like this is not reaching hundreds of millions of
impoverished people throughout Africa. Local experts in each country
have this knowledge and want to share it, but visits to remote villages
are costly and not very effective. People often forget what they have
heard when there is a need to apply it—particularly when illiteracy
prevents them from taking notes.
Literacy Bridge helps turn this local expertise into adopted practices
by making spoken knowledge available on-demand. Their “Talking
PC TECH: Hello Mr Cliff Schmidt, you are
welcome to PC TECH International. Tell us
about yourself, your work as Executive Director
and some of the interesting projects
Literacy Bridge is currently doing.
LB: Thank you for inviting me. I’m the founder
and executive director of Literacy Bridge,
which is a small start-up NGO that is working
to improve the health and income of impoverished
rural families through knowledge. We
do this by partnering with local organizations
that understand local problems and have
developed practical solutions.
The people served by these organizations
are often challenged by illiteracy and lack of
electricity, which makes on-demand access to
knowledge nearly impossible. To address this
problem, Literacy Bridge created a low-cost
audio computer that allows people to record,
play, and copy spoken knowledge in any
language. Organizations use Talking Books
to make their expertise available to anyone,
anywhere, at any time, so that the people
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
they serve can listen to new techniques about
health, agriculture, or any other topic, as many
times as necessary to learn it and apply it to
their daily lives.
We have also started an open source
software project to develop an Audio Content
Manager (ACM), which helps organizations
manage all of their audio recordings. It’s similar
to software used to organize your music;
but instead of sorting by artist and musical
genre, one can organize their health and/or
agriculture recordings by language and topic
(e.g. “livestock diseases” or “malaria prevention”).
Since our Talking Books track which
audio recordings people are most frequently
listening to and copying to their friends, we
are able to load this information into ACM so
that each organization can learn to improve
their content by watching what content is most
popular.
PC TECH: These projects are interesting,
how was Literacy Bridge formed and how
Book” is a low-cost audio device designed for the learning needs in
oral cultures. It guides users with instructions spoken in their local
language so they can play, record, and categorize audio information.
In contrast, mobile phones are not learning devices. Listening to
one short recording can cost the caller a full day’s income in perminute
usage fees. Information delivered by radio is only available
during that broadcast.
Talking Books can be updated by mobile phone, radio, or any other
Talking Book, and can replay information anywhere, any time, and
without a dependence on grid electricity. In their Ghana pilot, farmers
using Talking Books learned to produce crops worth three times the
program investment in just the first year.
Literacy Bridge currently sells Talking Books for US$30-$50
(depending on quantity) to organizations who want their knowledge
to reach more people, more effectively. These prices will drop as more
devices are produced.
did you conceptualize the Talking Book?
Were you influenced by any of the millennium
development goals?
LB: I was definitely influenced by all eight of
the MDGs, and I hope that our work gets us
closer to achieving them. In 2006, I began
volunteering for a U.S.-based organization
called RESULTS, whose mission is “to create the
public and political will to end poverty by empowering
individuals to exercise their personal
and political power for change”. Through my
work with RESULTS, I studied projects that
made the biggest impact on the MDGs and
then convinced members of the U.S. Congress
to vote for U.S. legislation to support such
projects.
At the same time, I researched technology
projects like One Laptop Per Child. I saw a lot
of potential in these projects if local innovators
were deeply involved early on. However, I was
disappointed when I came to the realization
that few governments could afford a $200 laptop
for each student. So, I began wondering if

a much cheaper audio device could allow local
educators to help children and adults improve
their literacy in any language. With that idea,
I traveled to the most remote region of Ghana
with a few audio recorders to use to learn
from teachers, students, and administrators
to ascertain the feasibility of my idea. I found
strong interest in the potential to improve
literacy, but I also found that health care workers
and agriculture extension agents thought
the same device could help them make their
knowledge available to people who need it the
most. They explained to me that they are only
able to visit many of their villages once per
year; and when they leave, the people there
will often forget what they’ve heard because
illiteracy prevents them from taking notes. So,
I began thinking that a low-cost audio device
might have a dual use: 1) to help people improve
their literacy, but also 2) to help people
who may be illiterate get access to knowledge
to improve their lives immediately. In this way,
the project expanded its potential from MDGs
2 and 3 to MDGs 1-8.
PC TECH: Describe the Talking Book? What
are the key features and how is it produced?
Do you have a team of engineers
who work on producing the device?
LB: The Talking Book allows users to play,
record, and categorize audio recordings and
to copy those recordings directly to any other
Talking Book. When powered on, spoken
instructions lead users through the audio
user interface. The instructions are easy to
localize and each device can include multiple
system languages. To access recordings, users
are guided by audio prompts, to which they
respond with key presses. For instance, press-
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
ing the right and left arrows navigate through
categories (e.g. “health”, “agriculture”, “stories”)
and once in a category, the up and down arrows
rotate through individual messages. The
device also supports programmable interactive
applications such as multiple-choice quizzes
and messages with embedded hyperlinks.
The current version of the Talking Book is
12 cm x 12 cm x 6.5 cm deep and weighs 225
grams without batteries. Devices are typically
powered by two, zinc-carbon, size-D batteries,
which we have found in rural markets throughout
Ghana for $0.35-0.40. These batteries
supply 12-15 hours of typical use; and ongoing
engineering improvements are expected
to double energy efficiency. A built-in speaker
enables group listening, but power can be
conserved using earphones. Recordings are
stored on an internal microSD memory card,
providing between 35 and 140 hours of capacity.
To improve robustness and affordability,
the device has no display.
In 2008, we hired a few engineers to help
us develop the first version of the Talking Book,
but volunteers now do all of the software
work and most of the other engineering work.
We’re hoping to find more software developers
in African countries to help further develop
the Talking Book’s software through an open
source project that will soon be launched
through our partnership with the Ghana-India
Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT.
PC TECH: Literacy Bridge is established in
a number of communities in Africa, how
do you select these communities? What
factors inform the selection of beneficiary
communities?
LB: We are focused on serving people in
the poorest rural areas, primarily those with
little infrastructure and low literacy rates. We
started in the Upper West Region of Ghana in
2007, which is where we learned the most and
have made the most progress. To identify new
countries and regions, we look for low literacy
rates, high rural populations, lack of access to
electricity, low accessibility to the Internet, and,
most importantly, the number of volunteers
and local organizations that are enthusiastic
about finding innovative ways to make knowledge
accessible to their local communities.
PC TECH: After selecting the community,
how does a Literacy Bridge introduce
the Talking Book into the community? To
what extent do you collaborate with local
government, non-government and/or traditional
institutions in the community?
LB: We rely on existing organizations that
are already trying to share their knowledge
with local communities. Local organizations
purchase Talking Books and sometimes run
their own programs without us; in other cases,
we partner closely with an organization to help
them achieve the greatest success. These organizations
may be local government agencies
(e.g. health clinics), NGOs (e.g. microfinance
institutions), or other even academic institutions.
Depending on the scale and design of
an intervention, this program requires a per
capita investment of between US$1 and US$5
for the device and between $0.50 and $1.00 in
annual energy costs.
To help make this successful, we share our
knowledge about how to apply the Talking
Books to their programs and how to produce
the most effective audio content.
PC TECH: With reference to your projects
in Ghana and Nigeria, what has been impact
of the Talking Book in communities in
these countries?
LB: We have partners in Nigeria and a growing
network of volunteers, but we have not yet
launched a project in Nigeria. I expect that we
will do so by the end of this year.
But we have been working in Ghana since
2007. In a recent pilot program, Literacy
Bridge distributed Talking Books to a rural, remote
village named Ving Ving —a village with
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
PEOPLE INTERVIEWS
25

26
PEOPLEINTERVIEWS
no electricity and low literacy rate. The
devices were pre-loaded with messages about
more efficient agriculture techniques (e.g.
proper seed spacing and livestock care), health
practices (e.g. malaria prevention and antenatal
care), and educational stories. Literacy
Bridge collaborated with village leaders to
create a committee whose role was to allocate
the devices to residents using a check-out
system.
Residents of Ving Ving showed great interest
in the devices and were able to learn to
use them from each other. Women commonly
reported listening to the devices after dinner
with their children. However, equitable allocation
was challenging; young men were more
likely to check-out a Talking Book compared to
women or elderly residents.
We found that 91% of residents using Talking
Books in their homes had applied a new
health or agriculture practice. We collected
data to compare crop production between
farmers who had access to the devices and
those who did not. We found that farmers
who had access to the Talking Book had an
average increase in crop production of 48%
compared with non-user’s decrease of 5%. In
addition, our statistical analysis suggests that
after controlling for a variety of other factors,
farmers with access to information from the
Talking Book produced 2.75 additional bags of
crops compared to non-users, representing an
18% increase, on average.
These numbers suggest that this program
created a return of nearly three times the
current investment in just the first year. If the
same practices are applied in future years, the
return on the original investment will continue
to accrue. Lastly, 75% of farmers expected to
sell their surplus at a local market and many
of those planned to use the cash to invest
in agriculture inputs like seeds, animals, and
labor. Other plans included paying of health
insurance, improving their home, and paying
school fees.
PC TECH: What factors have contributed to
the success of these projects? Have there
been challenges and how have you addressed
them?
LB: Our biggest challenge over the last three
years has been funding this project. Most
foundations are afraid to take risks on unproven
ideas, but we were very lucky to have
found individuals in many countries who have
volunteered their time and donated their money
to make this project possible. We are now
hoping to find additional financial partners to
allow us to expand the success we’ve had in
northern Ghana into more countries.
Partnerships have been essential to nearly
every one of our successes. For instance,
through our partnership with University of
Michigan’s Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science department, we will soon have a
custom integrated circuit for the Talking Book,
which will significantly reduce the device’s cost
and the power consumption.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
PC TECH: As you mentioned, Literacy
Bridge works through a team of volunteers,
what activities are your volunteers
engaged in? How can a person sign up to
be a volunteer?
LB: Volunteers are the most important part
of this project. We have a growing network
of volunteers in 10 African countries that allows
us to learn more about the local needs
and potential partner organizations in each
country; many of them also help us with
marketing, including online marketing through
Facebook and other social networks. We have
volunteers throughout the world who help us
raised money locally or identify grants that can
support our work in each country. We have
volunteers who translate English recordings
into languages spoken by the people in their
regions. We are also excited to have software
developers to contribute to the Talking Book’s
open source firmware, its Audio Content Management
application, or new applications that
run on the Talking Book (including educational
games and quizzes).
For anyone interested in becoming part of
this project, simply go to our website at
www.literacybridge.org and click on the
Volunteer link.
PC TECH: What are the future prospects
of Literacy Bridge? What should we look
forward to?
LB: We are working with an NGO in Nigeria
named the Smallholders Foundation, which
uses community radio to tackle extreme poverty
and hunger among rural small farmers by
boosting small-scale agricultural production.
We believe that radio is very complementary
to our Talking Books. Today, people place
Talking Books near radios to record various
programs. Out next version of the Talking
Book will include a radio within it to make this
easier. This will also allow organizations to
automatically distribute new content to Talking
Books through programmed recording of a
particular radio frequency.
We are also excited to extend our partnership
with local volunteers to allow them to
become trained and certified on methods of
using Talking Books to improve adoption of
new health and agriculture practices. This includes
training on the technology, but it would
also cover content production and performance
analysis (through usage statistics) and
an understanding of the factors that influence
adoption of new practices by rural families.
This training and certification program may
take some time to fully develop, but we are
looking for partners to develop this with us.
I mentioned that this project started with
a focus on literacy, even though the fastest
results have come from using the device to
share spoken knowledge. We are still optimistic
about what can be achieved in education with
Talking Books, and over the next two years,
we will collaborate with a few local partners to
evaluate exactly how strong this impact is.
PC TECH: Cliff, Thanks for your time with us.
We wish you the best in your projects.
LB: Thank you very much for the opportunity
to share our experiences and ideas with your
readers. I hope that some of them will help
this project reach its full potential.

E-Voting in Africa: Mr. Collin Thakur
I am an academic at Durban University of Technology, who was born
in the era of mainframe computers and lived through as a practicing
ICT professional every iteration of the PC, the Mac, and Open Source.
The absolute joy to me was watching technology move closer
and closer to people, in a meaningful and tangible way. My major
personal goal is to contextualize, regionalize and localize international
technology to enhance Africa.
I have been researching electronic voting systems or e-voting systems
for about two years now. I am presently the Treasurer of the Computer
Society of South Africa, and I was fascinated to note that our fellow
Nigerian Computer Society brothers and sisters have used e-voting in
their elections earlier this year. Hurray!
PC TECH: Hello Mr. Collin Thakur, what is
electronic election?
CT: An electronic election is an electoral
process where some level of automation
occurs either in the registration process, the
actual voting itself or the counting of the
votes.
PC TECH: Is Africa ready for e-voting? Are
there any success stories?
CT: Absolutely. The landing of Seacom and
the Essay cables has just increased our
connectivity to each other and the world.
And we already have country-wide and
indeed continent-wide participatory voting,
for example, in the Idols and the Big Brother
competition where SMS and telephonic voting
are used. In political elections, we note that
Kenya is committed to e-voting and that the
referendum held recently was free of violence
primarily because of voter trust in the electoral
system.
But being first in some areas is not necessarily
a good thing. There have been several
precedents of countries adopting e-voting, of
countries that started e-voting and stopped
Prof. Ibiyemi...
Continued from Page 22
have to make sure they employ experienced
teachers to tutor in our higher institutions. For
example, the purpose of having a Graduate
Assistant is not to teach at first, but to serve
under a professor or a senior academic so
that he develops, goes for his M.Sc and Ph.D
before he can come and teach. The moment
you start letting him teach, you’ll find out that
he himself will never have time for any of his
supposed researches. So, at the end of the
day, he becomes half-baked. Our problem will
be solved when we balance things up.
PC TECH: Sir, as a father and a teacher, give
your words to upcoming students.
Prof. Ibiyemi: Yeah! What I will say is that
the sky is the limit. They should try and excel
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
and of countries that started e-voting then
changed the way of the implemented
e-voting. We are now in the useful position
of being able to analyze, to interpret and to
explore good practices and adopt what is
useful for us, Africans.
And it’s the green thing to do!!
PC TECH: In your opinion, what do you
think are the key building blocks towards
a successful e-election adoption?
CT: In my opinion it requires a lot of consensus
and a bit of technology. A good knowledge
of the electoral process is non-negotiable. If
there is a problem in a system, a computer will
automate the problem, not fix it! Participation,
by all stakeholders, is non-negotiable.
PC TECH: What has been the progress of
South Africa towards e-elections?
CT: I cannot comment on the Independent
Electoral Commissions or IEC measures but I
do know that they are keenly monitoring the
e-voting international experience to gather
intelligence as the market matures. They
have just commissioned a major study on the
international cross border study and I am one
in their chosen field or profession. Excelling
doesn’t mean having a first class or 2’1
(second class-upper division). No, these
are just yardsticks and designs which may
not even be perfect enough to measure
excellence. Again, Prof. Wole Soyinka didn’t
graduate with a first class, but today he is well
known all over the world for his achievement.
I am not saying that you deliberately go
for 3rd class or pass; ensure you do your
possible best alongside hardwork. What you
have learnt must be kept to you. I mean they
are yours and putting them into use is what
matters most because if what you are doing
doesn’t reflect in your status, then you need
to find something else doing. Therefore at
any level, let whatever you are doing reflect
in you. For instance, immediately you came
in, I knew quite well that you belong to the
I am particularly interested in the use of e-voting to enable and
entrench democracy in Africa. For example, many folk insist that the
use of e-voting is the only reason democracy is possible in India which
has a population of 1.1 billion people. And here, even with voting the
technology, the election process takes over two weeks as 1.4 million
voting machines are transported from electoral district to electoral
district.
E-voting makes democracy faster, and makes participative decision
making easier (referendums) and its allows politicians the opportunity
to defer or even abdicate a contentious decision to the electorate for
example buy food or guns, capital punishment et cetera.
of the researchers in this process.
PC TECH: What advice will you give to an
African country or electoral commission
seeking to adopt e-election?
CT: I emphasize that universal suffrage, is
a right and not a privilege. And as such for
e-voting we must do two things. One, we
must ensure that the equipment and process
adopted, has voter acceptance. This must
happen in every step of the adoption process.
Perception, after all, is reality. The Irish political
leaders decided that e-voting is a good idea
and instilled the decision on its electorate. 50
million Euros later, and 5 weeks before the
2004 elections the process was abandoned.
The second thing is that the process must
enhance democracy not build or entrench
a digital divide. The system must be usable
by the young and the old, the rural and the
urban, the physically challenged and the able
and finally the literate and the illiterate voter.
PC TECH: Mr. Collin Thakur. Thanks for
your time with us.
info-tech world, because you don’t tell me you
are doing technological publishing and you
came to have words with me while holding
an ordinary pen and sheet of paper to write
down what I am saying (chuckles!), that would
mean you are not living after your name. But
using all these avalanche of digital equipments
(i-pad, voice recorder, digital cam), I have seen
that you are really a brand of technologists
and researchers. So, whatever thing you do,
live by it in order to reflect even after it. For
people to be asking you: ‘are you sure you are
this?’ The moment they do so, then there is
something wrong.
PC TECH: Thank you very much for giving
us the audience.
Prof. Ibiyemi: You are welcome!
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
PEOPLE INTERVIEWS
27

28
PEOPLEINTERVIEWS
pc tech Magazine
PC
Tech
technologies in Africa. The magazine
PearlRichards: Hello Albert, Trust you are
doing well. Welcome to PearlRichards
Concepts and PearlRichards Foundation.
Albert: Thanks Richard, I am really excited
to join this initiative of creating spaces for
expression of ideas, concepts and dreams.
PearlRichards: There is something I have
been looking forward to learn from you:
how did you come up with the idea of PC
Tech Magazine? How
old were you?
Albert: The answer to
that is a long story…
the idea is so much
older than you are
thinking. I was 19.
When I finished High
School in 2004, the
first thing on my mind
was how/where I was
going to spend the
next 8months – before
I would join university.
Luckily, I got a job in
the first week of my
vacation. Bricolps
International Ltd was
recruited me, first as a
video librarian, before
I was moved to the
secretarial bureau
(another department of
the same company).
I was computer
literate, but I wasn’t
as good as people considered me. So I was
always on pressure to leave up to the standard
that had been set by… I don’t know who. That
was the key to my success at that company. In
the months that followed, I built a reputation
as one of the best graphics designers in the
town (er… even though I wasn’t even half as
good as I am today).
As a small unit, we engaged in massive
publicity, by designing and printing A4 size
is a monthly technology magazine
that focuses on features of personal and
enterprise technology initiatives, product
and software reviews and research
on information and communication
seeks to tell the African ICT story by documenting and presenting
the use of information technologies (ICTs) by private and public
institutions/companies in Africa.
It also details consumer interests and perspectives on
technology in the East African region, and the continent as a
whole. Beyond technology adoption and usage, the magazine
discusses how private and public businesses/institutions address
contemporary business challenges and remain innovative and
Cover of the first <strong>Issue</strong> of PC Tech
Magazine, released in February 2010
calendars, flyers among other things,
which, over the next 2months ensured that
we needed to move to a bigger office.
Building on that advertising idea, I
thought, for a small fee, we could include
more business units around the town.
When I discussed with my boss, Aggrey
Masiko, he said that was a brilliant idea,
and allowed me to go ahead and pursue
it. And that lead to a small magazine, A5size,
which lived for
only 6months. That
magazine, Business
World, opened my
eyes to the world of
publishing.
And while it
wasn’t particularly
successful, I learnt
so much from it.
And planned for a
time when I would
be able to resurrect
it, which came in
2009, and the idea
had turned into PC
Tech Magazine.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
PearlRichards:
First it was
Business
(Business World
Magazine), then
Technology: what
changed?
Albert: Everything
changed. Four years after BusinessWorld,
so many business magazines had started,
and some, of course, failed. So if I had
to win, I needed something different.
Something brand-new. Also, notice that
in 2009, I was already in the IT industry.
Meaning my thinking had also changed.
PearlRichards: How easy was it to get a
team?
competitive. In practice, the discussions are aimed at enabling
other African businesses to learn from best practices and creating
avenues for collaboration between these businesses. In research
the discussions are aimed at offering educators and students sound
case studies for learning.
So far, PC Tech is the only technology magazine from the East
African region. The launch of the International Edition means the
magazine will now go as far as West Africa.
The following interview, with Albert Mucunguzi, 24, the founder
and executive Director was first run on Pearl Richards Website,
www.pearlrichards.org in June, 2010.
In this <strong>Issue</strong> — as we showcase best business practices across
Africa—we feel it is necessary to bring to you the same interview,
and get you close to the people behind this project.
Albert Mucunguzi, PC Tech Founder &
Executive Director

Albert: It wasn’t. But in every successful business initiative, two factors
have to always be in play: Good leadership, and some element of luck. I
had literally spent a big part of the 10years leading to 2009 with Joshua
Twinamasiko. I had a pretty good idea about his competences, and
more importantly, his love for technology. I knew if I got him onboard, it
would be a start.
So when I talked to him, I felt that he saw the
vision almost the same way I saw it. At that time, two
was team enough.
PearlRichards: What is the vision and mission of
PC Tech?
Albert: Africa is at a do-or-die stage in application
of technology in day-to-day business processes. All
projects run by PC Tech Communications are geared
at making our continent move faster in that direction.
Our mission is to be the leading media organization
which promotes openness and collaboration on
sustainable innovations in Technology, Business
and society in Africa. Our vision is to create and
disseminate in-print and online products on
Technology, Business and Society that have a global
perspective but contextually relevant to Africa.
PearlRichards: The magazine is still young.
Aren’t there dangers of continuously widening
your scope? How will you make sure both East
and West Africa are satisfied with your product?
Albert: Remember, this is technology that we are talking about. We
are going to these countries because of the demand. We get a lot of
requests from all over the continent for copies.
Whether you are in Kenya, or Uganda, you still want to know when
Apple releases a new iPhone... or how to fix a problem with your
gadget... phone, PC, e.t.c That is what PC Tech is all about. So we are in
a way not restricted to one location.
PearlRichards: What is unique about PC Tech Magazine and
where do you think this initiative will be in the next five years?
Albert: PC Tech Magazine is the only international technology
magazine in the East African region. I have not come across any other
magazine that embraces ICT education and research publications in
the same way as PC Tech does. But that is just on the side of the print
publication. We have several projects running online... like Digital
Learning Africa. Overall, we are looking at a world class magazine
in Africa, and a number of out-of-the-box initiatives online. That
combination is what makes PC Tech stand out. Our magazine has to
have an impact on society. In five years time, I expect PC Tech to be a
global brand: not just as an authority in the technology media industry
but a one stop for all ICT-related consultancies.
PearlRichards: Are there any specific challenges you had to
overcome?
Albert: Obviously. First, we didn’t have any idea where we were ever
going to get the money. There are a lot of people I approached about
partnering to run a technology magazine. Because I judged that I had
the brains, what I needed was their money. (I was wrong). Today I so
glad they refused.
PearlRichards: So where did you get the money?
Albert: There is no precise answer to that. At that time, I had two jobs.
So I had a good income – on paper. In real sense, one of my employers
really liked to take his time to pay. Sometimes it would take more than
2months. So even when we made plans expecting to use that money,
the money never came, so we still needed to improvise.
PearlRichards: Specifically?
Albert: When you read my profile (go to www.albertmucunguzi.
com), you will learn that there is so much I do outside my routine
employment. Such, and of course, plus borrowing is how I got the
money.
But still talking about challenges, I think my biggest, so far, has been
team building. Especially when an organization is young, it is hard to
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
determine when someone – a teammember – outlives their usefulness.
So you are always thinking of ‘Plan B’.
What I have realised is that not all of your teammates can see the
vision the same way. Every business has its challenges. Those who don’t
see the big picture tend to consider it dead when tough times come.
PearlRichards: So based on your initial plan,
and the challenges you faced, would you say
you are happy with your progress? Would
you have liked to be in the position you are
now if you had foreseen it last year?
Albert: Absolutely. What I didn’t say was that the
entire PC Tech Plan was based on the assumption
that I would continue working for both MUBS and
American Procurement. My contract with the latter
was terminated when the first <strong>Issue</strong> was released,
in February. Naturally, PC Tech could have
died that month. My point being, we’ve been
immensely successful, considering the challenges.
PearlRichards: Any final message to the
person reading this interview?
Albert: Yes. It depends on who that person is.
If you are looking to me building a career like
mine, understand that it is totally rough. But what
determines how far you go is your attitude. I
have never thought that PC Tech Magazine may
fail. Then, if you are one of the readers of PC Tech Magazine, what I
can tell you is that we are commited to delivering the best technology
magazine on the continent. And we won’t let anything stand in the way.
Get ready…!
PearlRichards: Many thanks, Albert. We pledge to take this ride
with you!
Albert: It’s my utmost pleasure, to have you on-board.
Co-founder, Joshua Twinamasiko
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
PEOPLE INTERVIEWS
29

COVER STORY
Whose internet
BY ALBERT MUCUNGUZI
is it anyway?

Should internet Service Providers
(ISPs) be allowed to prioritize
certain types of data and
deliberately limit the speeds of
high-bandwidth services, such as
peer-to-peer file sharing, to give
performance gains to other users? Supporters
of a concept called net neutrality believe they
shouldn’t. They assert that it is not up to ISPs
to dictate which forms of internet use are
worthier than others.
However, there are plenty of people who
don’t want to pay exorbitant ISP subscriptions
– or see their connection slow to a snail’s pace
– just because of the activities of a few greedy
customers.
The debate isn’t only between different
types of internet user, though. Net neutrality
has commercial and political ramifications, too.
The behavior of ISPs is under close scrutiny
not only from consumers, but from businesses,
regulators and governments.
On I-Network, a Ugandan ICT for
Development forum, the email, “open letter
to MTN” generated more than 89 responses
in a space of over 3weeks. It started when
a frustrated customer decided to express
his frustration in an ‘open letter’ that he
posted via the forum with thousands of
members. The nature of the responses not
only exposed weaknesses in Uganda’s largest
telecommunications company, but also how
much the performance of similar organizations
is always under the microscope.
To understand the argument of the
supporters of net neutrality, think of the road
system in your country. (Mine is Uganda.
Sorry if yours has a different set up). It doesn’t
matter what make, model, size, cost or colour
of the car you drive, the purpose of your
journey or how much you’ve already used
your car that month: the laws of the road
are the same for everyone, and it’s up to the
government to expand the road network
to meet demand rather than discriminating
against certain drivers for using the roads
more. Supporters of net neutrality argue that
the same should apply to the internet.
There are some exceptions on roads,
though. Slower vehicles such as bicycles, farm
vehicles and learner drivers are prohibited
from some streets, partly to avoid accidents
but also to keep traffic moving. Meanwhile,
in some countries, cars with higher CO2
emissions pay more road tax, and those who
drive pay more in fuel tax. The detractors of
net neutrality believe that some management
of how the internet is used is essential to
provide a fair, reliable, and commercially
sustainable service for everyone.
The issue largely stems from how we use
and pay for internet. Most people choose
an ISP based on just two figures: the quoted
download speed and the price. However, it
doesn’t really cost an ISP any more to provide
its customers with a 512kbps or 2Mbps
connection if the hardware is in place. The ISP’s
running costs depend on how much data its
customers upload and download at the busiest
times of day.
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
Let’s imagine that an ISP has 100 customers
in a particular neighbourhood, all on a
10Mbps deal. The ISP would need a 1Gbps
connection from the local exchange to the rest
of the internet to guarantee every customer
10Mbps performance. However, people don’t
download data constantly. They only want fast
performance for a few moments when they
click on a link or file to download.
Let’s say that, during the busiest period,
each of the 1000 users downloads an average
of 50MB of data in an hour. That’s about
Commercial Break:
Content
Provider’s
Server
Content
Provider’s
Server
30web pages and a couple of YouTube videos.
As long as the overall load is spread evenly
across the hour, the entire demand for those
1000 customers works out at just 11.1Mbps.
This means that the 1Gbps connection could
accommodate 9,000 customers, not 100.
It would be daft for an ISP to invest in an
infrastructure that can handle 90 times more
data than is typically required, just in case
everyone decides to download at the same
time. As such, ISP’s hardware is designed
for typical demand rather than guaranteed
performance.
However, customers who use their internet
connection a lot – for video streaming or file
sharing, for example – are far more expensive
for the ISPs to accommodate that other users.
Someone who spends an hour downloading
movies using BitTorrent at 8Mbps will use the
same bandwidth as 72 people doing some
light browsing. ISPs need to make a profit,
and they don’t want some customers costing
them many times more than others. However,
opinion is divided as to what they should do
about it.
How networks interact
Content
Provider’s
Server
What we actually think of as internet is actually a mesh of
interconnected, commercial networks. Each cloud in the diagram
represents one such network, and information from content
providers may come pass through several before coming to your
computer. Campaigners worry that there is nothing to stop one
ISP blocking or degrading the traffic from another in favour of its
own, there by breaking the principle of net neutrality.
Content
Provider’s
Server
Your
Computer
Most ISPs, including our own MTN and
Orange put a cap on the monthly data
allowance for each customer. Data caps
for our local ISPs range from 500MB to
10GB, although in Europe, 10GB can be the
minimum, going to as much as 100GB as the
highest cap.
However, caps are unappealing to
customers and they don’t necessarily stop
congestion at the busiest times. That is why
many ISPs also use traffic management, which
throttles the speed of demanding activities to
maintain performance for others.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
COVER STORY 31

COVER STORY
32
AGGRESSIVE MANAGEMENT
Some form of traffic management may be
inevitable, but there are some instances when
ISPs have resorted to underhand tactics in
their bid to keep infrastructure costs down.
In 2007, an investigation by Associated Press
revealed that Comcast, America’s third largest
ISP was using a technology called Sandvine to
interfere with file-sharing traffic. File-sharing
networks have a reputation for being hives
of stolen material (Rapidshare, for example
is said to have “everything”), but they’re also
used to disseminate Linux distributions and
other open-source software. The problem is
that file sharing also creates lots of traffic.
With Sandvine in place, whenever a
Comcast customer tried to share a new file
(known as seeding), after a few seconds the
Sandvine system would pretend to be the
user accepting the upload and send a reset
message to say he no longer wanted the file,
which halted the upload.
The civil liberties group, Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) took issue with Comcast
not only for blocking the BitTorrent protocol
used by file sharing applications, but for
the way it did so. “One objective aspect
of Comcast’s conduct is that it is spoofing
packets,” says an EFF spokesperson. “Comcast
is essentially deploying against its own
customers techniques more typically used
by malicious hackers… It is true that some
broadband users send and receive a lot more
traffic than others, and that interfering with
their traffic can reduce congestion for an ISP.
This does not imply that protocol specific
packet forgery is a necessary or
legitimate means of responding to
the congestion; there are some more
reasonable mechanisms available to
ISPs to ensure that low volume users
are not crowded out by high volume
users.”
The EFF’s report on the affair
(tinyurl.com/EFFcomcast) had this to
say: “A Comcast representative told
us that while Comcast did perform
‘network management’ that might
interfere with particular subscribers
in rare circumstances, it did not block
a target any application or protocol.”
This clearly wasn’t true.
In Germany last year, T-Mobile
came under fire for blocking Skype
traffic. In some cases, it left users
without a phone service, but
according to one campaign group,
the argument that it was done to
protect available bandwidth doesn’t
hold water.
THE LIBERATED INTERNET
The issues surrounding traffic
management and net neutrality
aren’t limited to the conflicting
interests of ISPs and its customers. In
situations such as the Iranian election,
the very nature of the internet
comes into question. Is it simply
a commercial commodity that should be
Dark Matter:
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
As far back as 2005, rumors surfaced
that Google was exploring ways to create
an alternative internet using something
called dark fibre. This is a dense network
of fibre-optic links that over-ambitious
telecommunications companies laid
down across the US in the late 1990s
in preparation for the coming internet
boom.
With the dot com crash of 2000,
however, investment in new fibreoptic
network all but ceased, and the
thousands of miles of fibre that had been
laid were never used. It was left “dark”.
Google has been very busily buying up
thousands of miles of dark fibre across
the country. In February 2010, the
company’s purpose for this redundant
cabling became clear.
“We are planning to build and test
ultra high-speed broadband networks in
a small number of trial locations across
Google’s Alternative Internet
the United States,” said the company in a
statement.
Google’s plan in impressive. “We’ll
deliver more internet speeds more
than 100 times faster than what most
Americans have access to today.” It
will initially offer 1Gbit/s broadband
connections to 50,000 homes, rising to
500,000. “Our goal is to experiment with
new ways to help make internet access
better and faster for everyone.
Google’s stated aim is to free
innovators from fear that their
applications might have mandatory
bandwidth management applied or even
blocked completely. We want to see
what developers and users can do with
ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating
new bandwidth-intensive ‘killer apps’
and services, or other uses we can yet
imagine.
“Consistent with our past advocacy,
we’ll manage our network in an open,
non-discriminatory and transparent
way,” says a spokesman. It remains to
be seen whether this network will link
with the rest of the internet at similarly
fast speeds as the will cost Google
substantial fees to other ISPs.
However, if high-bandwidth web
services are its ultimate aim, it may be
willing to find the cash to back up its
support for net neutrality.
Campaigns such as SAVE THE INTERNET may increase awareness about net neutrality, but
legislation could be ultimately required to protect future innovation

allowed to develop through the demands of
the market forces? Or is it a key service that
– like the postal service – every citizen has
a legal right to access? In a recent opinion
poll commissioned by the BBC, 79% of the
respondents across 26countries considered it
to be a fundamental right.
“Some worry that an
increasingly commercial
internet, and increasingly
congested networks, will
afford no space the next time
demonstrators for democracy
in countries such as Iran try
to use digital technology to
communicate their efforts and
sacrifices to the world,” says
Neelie Kroes, vice president
of European Commission for
Digital Agenda.
Some see the increasing
use of traffic management as
a threat to the spirit of internet
and the innovation it brought
with it.
“The consequences of a world
without net neutrality would be devastating,”
said a spokesperson for pressure group Save
The Internet (www.savetheinternet.com).
“Innovation would be stifled, competition
limited and access to information restricted.
Consumer choice and the free market
would be sacrificed to the interests of a few
corporations.
“Without additional regulation, service
providers are likely to continue doing what
they are doing. They will continue to offer
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
a variety of broadband service plans at a
variety of price points to suit every type of
consumer.”
Market forces aren’t only about pleasing
customers, though. There are other ways
in which ISPs can use traffic management
Campaigners say, using the Sandvine system to obstruct
BitTorrent file sharing is playing dirty with users internet
connections
to their commercial advantage and to the
detriment of rivals – and customers.
PROTECTING FREEDOM OF ACCESS
The question, then, is whether
governments should legislate to ensure
that the internet presents a level playing
field for both businesses and customers, and
is equipped to cope with innovation. The
stakes couldn’t be higher.
“Broadband is a tipping point,” said the
former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown last
year.
“High-speed internet access will soon be
essential for everyone. Only a digital Britain
can unlock the imagination and creativity
that will secure for us and our children the
high-skilled jobs of the future global
economy.”
Understanding your power to
choose begins with understanding
what traffic management measures
your ISP already implements, and
whether this provides you with the
level of service you want.
The internet has become a global
resource, and so far it worked
under an informal assumption of
net neutrality. In the future, internet
access will be a balancing act
between the demands for bandwidth
and profit motives of the companies
able to grant or deny access. As
consumers, our most effective means
of telling ISPs what we want me is how
we spend our money.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
COVER STORY 33

COVER STORY
34
FOR ADVERTISING
ENQUIRIES, CALL:
+233 202 762 704
(WEST AFRICA)
+256 712 619812
(EAST AFRICA)
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
AXXHIRA
CREATED AND WRITTEN BY
Richard Boateng, PhD
CONSULTING MANGA
PRODUCER
Jerome Tabiri
GRAPHICS AND
ILLUSTRATION
Joshua Amenyo
BRAND MARKETING AND
PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Michael Nkum
PRINT AND WEB EDITOR
Albert Mucunguzi
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Richard Boateng and Jerome
Tabiri
www.axxhirachronicles.com

Chronicles
A Pearl Richards Concept
SUMMARY
My name is Axxhira
I come from Nertuh in the galaxy of Zinkje
My family has defective gene
13 hours ago I flew to earth, to Tehani, Ghana
In search of the Axxion Flower to save my dying mum
I found the Axxion Flower
But it is soul of people Tehani, it holds the balance of
life in Tehani
A herbal secret from the age of time
My presence has let out the secret
Now I cannot take the flower from the people of
Tehani
And my presence on earth has brought the attention
of the world
The world is coming for the Axxion Flower
The people of Tehani are defenseless
By Nertuh-earth treaty, I need to leave in 36 hours
I have only 23 hours left
If I leave, who protects the people of Tehani
If I stay I break Nertuh-Earth Treaty
If I stay my presence may start war
If I stay I may save the people of Tehani and the
Axxion Flower
If I stay leave without the flower, my mum will die and
I will also die
I am AXXHIRA, I am not afraid to take a stand!
WHICH STAND WILL IT BE?
BACKGROUND
Axxhira Chronicles explores the complicated choices
embedded in the quest of achieving sustainable
development through openness access and
collaboration. The story centers on the promise of herbal
medicine amidst the politics of ownership, control and
commercialization. The story asks the question, how can
resource-poor contexts ensure that they are the prime
beneficiaries of their few but unique and scarce resources
– herbal medicine-, whiles opening up for collaboration
to maximize and sustain the value?
The story, set in 2999, takes place in two distinct
worlds – one being, Nertuh, and the other being Earth.
Nertuh is a planet in a distant galaxy called Zinkje.
Zinkje has 18 planets and Nertuh is the 5th largest
and the hub of the galaxy’s scientific discoveries. The
people of Nertuh, Nertuhaxx, are scientists, consistently
researching on ways of sustaining resources on their
planet.
Our story begins when a ten year old female Nertuha,
AXXHIRA, begins a journey to earth to find a herbal
flower which can be used to develop medicine to save
her ailing mother, Noixxa. Axxhira and her mother, have
a defective gene which makes them die at the Nertuha
age of 20 years. Through her cyber investigation, Noixxa,
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
AXXHIRA
A Nertuha, with a defective gene, seeking the Axxion
Flower to save her mum and herself. Axxhira is a
strategist, bridges her knowledge on plant medicine
with tactical warfare. She wears belt of knives on her
right thigh.
PROF. RICHARD MUCUNGUZI
The lead research scientist at African Center for Bio
and Plant Medicine, Uganda. He consults on plant
medicine for the African union, governments and
Japanese pharmaceutical companies. Prof. Mucunguzi
is currently working with the Thai Intelligence Agency
and Japanese government on Project H.
EDOKIN
An intergalactic Nertuha traveler and anthropologist.
He has travelled through 12 of the 18 planets of the
galaxy of Zinkje and is currently travelling with Axxhira
in search of the Axxion Flower. This is his sixth trip to
earth. Edokin is literate in 26 languages including 15
languages spoken on Earth.
JOXX TWIN
The youngest general in the Nertuha Cyber Army
(NCA) and the head of security for Axxhira’ trip to
Ghana. He specialized in plasma weaponry and cofounded
a company to produce plasma guns for the
NCA.
OLD SAGE
Old Sage is the leader of the keepers of Tehani Forest
where the Axxion Flower can be found. The keepers
explore the medicinal properties of the Axxion Flower
into local herbal drugs for the people of Tehani.
WINNY BeDIANA
Winny is the research assistant of Prof. Richard
Mucunguzi. She has a PhD in Bioinformatics
& Genome Technology. She is savvy and has a
photographic memory.
who works in the Nertuha Scientific Academy for Exotic
Species (NSAES), discovers that the herbal flower, Axxion,
can be found in Tehani, a village in Eastern Ghana.
Noixxa is at the Nertuha age of 19 years and has 8
months to her death in the year 3000. Against the wishes
of her mum, AXXHIRA sells off her property to hire a
ship to earth in search of the flower Axxion. On reaching
earth, she finds the Axxion flower and but the flower
also plays a key role in the balance of life in Tehani.
Confronted with an ethical decision, she decides to
abandon the mission and return to Nertuh. However, her
presence has let out the secret about the Axxion Flower.
It draws the attention of leading plant scientists in Africa,
the African Union, the Thai-Japanese Intelligence, and
traditionalists from Tehani. By Nertuh-Earth treaty she
has only 36 hours to stay on Earth for each travel.
Now the world is coming for the Axxion Flower. The
people of Tehani are defenseless. Who will protect them
from the potential resource exploitation from the world?
Axxhira has to leave and continue the quest for a drug to
save her mum and herself. But is there anything she can
do help Tehani? Will she stay, help Tehani and risk a war
between Nertuh and Earth?
The Axxhira Chronicles Comic begins… January 2011
Keep your dial on www.axxhira.com and www.
axxhirachronicles.com
GENERAL T
The new head of
the Thai Intelligence
Agency. He does
not agree with the
Nertuh-Earth treaty
and is seeking for
an opportunity to
abrogate the treaty.
He is currently
working with
Prof. Richard on
Project H. Project
H is bio-intelligent
espionage
technology.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
COVER STORY 35
35

36
Community Information Centre (CIC) Project
ICTs
have played transformational roles in the
development of economies worldwide.
Ghana’s own effort in exploiting ICTs as
enabler of socio-economic development is demonstrated in the
development of Ghana’s ICT4AD Policy document that sets the
broad framework for all government-led ICT interventions.
The Community Information Centre (CIC) project is an ICT
intervention, under the ICT4AD programme, that is targeted
at the “Deployment and Spread of ICTs in the Community”
pillar of the ICT4AD policy document. It is a community based
project that deploys ICT infrastructure and suitable applications
to communities, and develops general and specialized
employable ICT skills; such as data entry and desktop
publishing, at the district and community levels. The project
is not only to provide citizenries with ICT skills and access to
the internet, but to also promote the exploitation of ICTs as an
alternative source of livelihood, especially for the youth, and for
economic sustainability of beneficiary communities as a whole.
The UNDP has been a partner with the Government of
Ghana in this endeavour since 2006; contributing its financial
resources, and valuable experience in capacity development
and knowledge sharing to deepen the development impact
and sustainability of the project. With UNDP’s support, over School children during an ICT training session at Nkawie CIC
80 CIC managers have been trained in the management of ICT
centres, and over 700 officers of decentralized government
institutions have also been trained nationwide in the use of
ICTs to expedite the delivery of government services at the
district and community levels. There are over 70 functional CICs
nationwide.
The inclusion of ICT in the Ghana educational curriculum
has further intensified the demand on the CICs to respond
to the needs of less privileged schools in the teaching and
learning of the ICT component of the educational curriculum.
Over the past 2 years, the CICs have played a significant role in
the implementation of the ICT component of the educational
curriculum, as schools in the beneficiary communities use the
centres as their computer labs.
In the quiet, small town of Nkawie; the district capital of the
Atwima Nkwabiagya District, about 60Km from Kumasi, the
CIC is exploited to provide access to ICT education for basic
and Junior High School (JHS) children. The Centre organizes IT
practical sessions for student from 12 beneficiary schools in and
around Nkawie. “Whilst some of the schools including Nkawie
DA Primary & JHS and Toase DA JHS are located at walking
distances away from the centre, students from other schools
including Nkwakom DA Primary, Amanchie DA Primary & JHS, Members of Saltpond CIC ICT club using the Science, Math and English
Kobeng Primary & JHS, Nkorang RC Primary School, and Nkorang educational program and games at Saltpond CIC

DA JHS travel over 20 miles to access the centre. The practical sessions
are attended by school children in upper primary (Primary 4 to 6) and
JHS levels. We centre administer a comprehensive training schedule
that permits students from 6 out of the 12 beneficiary schools to
participate in the ICT training programme each week. With an average
class size of 30 pupils per class, over 720 school children benefit from
ICT training at the Nkawie CIC per week.” Says the centre manager,
Nicholas Boampong; a university of Ghana graduate on National
Service.
In affirming the commitment of his team to building an ICT literate
and information based society, Nicholas Boampong said, “One of the
key objectives of establishing the CIC at Nkawie was to create ICT
awareness and spread computer literacy within the Atwima Nwabiagya
District. We have taken it upon ourselves to achieve this goal with the
urgency it deserves”
At Saltpond, a small fishing community along the
Atlantic Coastline, – where girl child education has been
paramount since the establishment of the Mfantseman
Girls’ SHS, formally known as the Saltpond Girls’
Secondary School, by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah,
President of the First Republic of Ghana – the story goes
a step further. At the Saltpond CIC in the Mfantseman
Municipal Assembly of the Central region of Ghana,
school children are provided the opportunity to use
online Science, Math and English educational programs
and games to improve their interest and performances
in the three core subjects. “The initiative is to augment
the teaching and learning of Science, Math and English
at school and also reverse the declining performance of
school children – especially the girl child – in the three
core subjects.” says the centre manager, Joseph Kojo
Buckman.
The centre operates an ICT club for primary and JHS
school children between the ages of 9 and 15 years.
The club is barely 1 year old and has membership of
50 children, with 52% (26) girls. Members of the club have
free access to the Science, Math and English educational
program and games. Although the club currently consists of school
children from Saltpond, parents of children from other neighbouring
communities are getting their wards registered on the team.
In addition, teachers and administrators of some deprived schools
that are beyond 30 miles from centre; including Kuntu MA JHS,
have promised to convey their students to participate in IT training
programmes at the centre, and subsequently encourage them to enroll
on the ICT club to benefit from the free complementary lessons in
Science, Math and English. The membership of the club is expected to
increase to about 200 by the end of the 2010 – 2011 academic year.
As a measure of the short term impact of the online learning
programs and games, the centre manager – Joseph Kojo Buckman –
collated the Science, Math and English results of ICT Club members
who participated in the 2010 Basic Education Certificate Exams, and
compared the results with their past performances and the average
scores of their various schools in the three subjects. The study revealed
a sturdy rise in the performances of the ICT club members in the three
subjects prior to the BECE, and also demonstrated that the BECE results
of the club members were, on the average, better than the average
scores of their respective schools in the three subjects.
Ellen Quarshie Nina, Francisca Donkor and Nathaniel Baiden;
all members of the ICT Club; expressed their appreciation to the
Government of Ghana, the UNDP, the Mfantseman Municipal Assembly
and the management of the centre for the opportunity to have access
to free self-paced complementary Science, Mathematics and English
tuition that improved their performances in the three subjects on the
BECE.
School children during an ICT training session at Nkawie CIC
For more information contact
Website: www.undp-gha.org
Tel: 0302773890-6, 0302785401
Email: fredrick.ampiah@undp.org
CIC Blogs
Nkawie: http://cicnkawie.blogspot.com/
Saltpond: http://cicsaltpond.blogspot.com/
37

FEATURES
38
REPORTS, ANALYSIS
Head-to-Head:
Vista vs. Windows 7
BY DAN ATUHAIRE
Following Microsoft’s latest innovation in a series
of operating systems-Windows 7, comparisons
have been drawn with earlier versions such as
Windows 95, 98, 2000, Windows XP and Vista.
While earlier complaints about windows vista were
mainly to do with installation specifications, windows
7 comes with slightly fewer requirements, and can
comfortably be installed on a machine running 1GB
RAM (read memory). Perhaps the biggest noticeable
change from these seemingly very similar looking OS’s
is the marked improvement in performance due to the
fewer specifications that a window 7 installation requires.
1. Peripherals are integrated in a smoother
manner:
Peripherals generally refer to all devices that can
be plugged into a machine’s USB ports-flash disks,
cameras, phones, i-pods etc. Now, you will have a
different experience every time you plug in a plug and
play device. Because this time, Windows 7 has turned its
peripheral detection and support more device central
rather than shooting just an auto-run option as it used
to do in Windows XP and windows Vista. This will be
more helpful, when you will be using different kind of
peripheral devices. By far, almost all kinds of devices will
be supported with the necessary drivers.
Furthermore, Windows 7 helps you find the website
of your peripheral device’s manufacturer, and allow you
do more than what you could have done with the autorun
interface only. For example, if you plug in a camera,
Windows 7 will take you to that manufacturer’s website,
where you will have an option of uploading your photos
to an online album or downloading the pictures onto
your computer. The Best thing is, you won’t be running
out of drivers for your peripheral devices, as Windows
7 has been included a variety of such drivers, and if
by chance the driver is not existent there, Windows 7
will find it over the net for you-if you have an internet
connection.
2. Very much Improved UAC:
In windows 7, the UAC (User Account Control)
problem has been worked on. Finally, you will no longer
get the annoying overprotective dialogue box that used
to appear every time you tried to change a particular
setting, or installed an application; as Windows 7 has
shed overprotective dialogue boxes but still maintaining
the quality protection against malicious attacks.
Windows 7 only displays messages when major settings
are changed.
3. Brand New Taskbar:
What do you have at your bottom right corner of the
screen? A set of icons which keeps popping up balloons
one after another, giving an illusion of fancy lighting in
a wedding? Well, don’t worry anymore; as in Windows
7 Microsoft has made sure that you have the complete
authority to change the settings required and allow or
disallow only the required icons and also change the
settings for notifications that might appear on screen
and probably annoy you. Even the small little triangle
that used to expand into the taskbar revealing all
programs that are running; is gotten rid of. Now at the
same place, if you move your cursor, you’ll be getting a
list of processes that are running.
4. Improved Performance & User friendliness:
Probably this is the major improvement upon
Vista, which is likely to make Windows 7 a people’s
favorite. Microsoft had promised that it would deliver
an Operating System that would be much faster than
Vista. And yes it did, when the beta version of 7 was
released and was tested. Windows 7 has very few
startups process, and hence unspoken of, loads very
fast. And in fact there are very few processes that run
in the background and eat up memory cycles. Though
performance of the final release is yet to be extensively
tested, the unofficial version in circulation already rocks!
Windows 7 tremendously reduces the time to install
an application, and is less annoying with very less UAC
prompt. For developers also, Windows 7 reduces the
time taken for developing Windows applications.
5. More Space Available during Partition Creation:
This, perhaps, is my favorite innovation in windows
vista. Both windows vista and windows 7 have a
provision for creating a new partition that does not
require use of partitioning software-The Shrink volume
option. Windows 7 avails more space for creation of a
new partition than vista would, and unlike XP, does not
require the use of partition software.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

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FEATURES 39

FEATURES
40
MTN E2010 Jabulani
VS BY
The Ugandan Internet
users are enjoying
a bandwidth bonanza
bolstered by MTN and
Orange’s introduction of the
high speed 3G Modems.
Our recent review of
the two gadgets proved
nothing short of that
statement.
We used Speedtest.
net Tests to settle the
battle between The
MTN Jabulani and
Orange e160
Series.
Speedtest.
net performs three key
measurements used to determine the overall
quality and performance of your Internet
connection.
The results were as follows:
ORANGE e160 MODEM
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
Download Speed
The speed at which data
is sent from the Internet
to your computer
Upload Speed
The speed at which
data is sent from your
computer to the Internet
Ping (Latency)
The time it takes in milliseconds for a small
piece of data to be sent from your computer
to the Internet and back
Speedtest.net is a broadband speed
analysis tool that allows anyone to test their
Internet connection. Ookla provides this
service for free to anyone curious about the
performance of their connection to and from
hundreds of locations around the world.
Whether you test just for fun or you really
need to certify and validate the true speed of
your Internet connectivity, Speedtest.net is the
place to be. You can view all of your historical
results, share them easily,
and even compare
them to others in
your immediate
area or around the
globe.
We
performed
five runs
at the same
time using two
identical laptops to
determine which
modem was doing a
better job. We set the
tests to run from Kampala
to a server in the Bermuda Island in
a city called Hamilton. Bermuda Triangle is
indeed a popular area for paranormal or extra
terrestrial activity.
ORANGE e160 Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Test 5 Average
DOWNLOAD SPEED
UPLOAD SPEED
PING LATENCY
1.17Mbps 1.31Mbps 2.38Mbps 2.39Mbps 2.20Mbps 1.89
0.05Mbps 0.08Mbps 0.06Mbps 0.10Mbps 0.09Mbps 0.07
444ms 1343ms 1849ms 1774ms 1555ms 1393
MTN JABULANI Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Test 5 Average
DOWNLOAD SPEED
UPLOAD SPEED
PING LATENCY
The results showed us that The Orange
Modem runs very good speed at
downloads, yet The MTN Jabulani is a better
Modem at uploads. The MTN Jabulani
MUSISI ROBERT SEMBAJJWE
0.74Mbps 0.76Mbps 1.29Mbps 1.29Mbps 1.27Mbps 1.07
0.10Mbps 0.13Mbps 0.07Mbps 0.10Mbps 0.11Mbps 0.10
803ms 773ms 768ms 764ms 759ms 773
also proved to be a better modem at Ping
latency. The shorter the milliseconds, the
better the connection. Some networks are
inherently more latent (laggy) than others.
AOL for example, uses several proxy servers
to make sure their networks are not hacked,
but it also makes their network very slow and
unsuitable.

What Does this all mean to an Internet User:
A high-bandwidth connection usually has lower latency. HOWEVER,
you can have LOW ping times and be on a modem, or have high
ping times and on a Cable/DSL. Ping time and connection speed are
NOT related! They USUALLY go together (i.e. good bandwidth usually
means better ping times), but they don’t have to be. Case in point is
the Orange Modem which seems to run high speeds with high ping
latency. If one is interested in running heavy downloads only, the
Orange Modem might be a perfect gadget for such a user. If a user
is expecting to spend such long hours on the internet then they might
have to consider using the MTN Jabulani modem.
These statistics show that to an average user, both modems are
ISP BEST DWNLD
MTN JABULANI
ORANGE e160
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
ISP AVRG
UG
ISP AVRG
DOWNLOAD
ISP AVRG
UPLOAD UG AVRG AFRIC AVRG
58.74Mbps 3.35Mbps 2.87Mbps 1.83Mbps 1.81Mbps 1.07
20.35Mbps 5.35Mbps 6.70Mbps 3.31Mbps 1.81Mbps 0.10
On the brighter side Uganda is not really doing bad in terms
of Internet Bandwidth availability and usage. Speedtest.net ranks
Uganda as 82 in the top countries ranked by download speeds. Our
Download speeds average 2.99 Mbps, ahead of Kenya, Rwanda and
even South Africa. South Africa runs at 2.86 and Kenya runs at 2.96
Mbps. The ranking even gets better when it comes to Upload speeds.
Uganda is ranked 42 with 1.67 Mbps. These speeds are still better
than Kenya’s (1.62 Mbps) and South Africa’s( 0.71 Mbps).
More to our surprise South Korea is ranked No.1 with 33.94
Mbps download, and 19.94 Mbps Uploads. This leaves most of us
MTN JABULANI’S BEST RUN ORANGE V6’S BEST RUN
good for the money. The price is almost the same and users might
not even notice the difference in operation as they do normal surfing.
Perhaps before guying one these modems, one needs to know the
area of coverage. The new 3G Modem Internet gadget is limited to
some areas depending on the ISP. This means that one would have
to inquire whether there is good coverage in your area of operation
before purchasing one.
One a wider perspective we also gathered information about
the two ISP’s and their performance over time. The following table
summarizes a comparison of MTN and Orange by Speedtest.net
wondering how the US and UK measure up. The US is ranked 28 with
10.51 Mbps average download speeds and 2.80 Mbps average upload
speeds. On the other hand United Kingdom is ranked 38 with 8.01
Mbps download, and 66 with 1.08 Mbps uploads.
Perhaps for a second we could sit kick back and smile for this
achievement. Uganda has not only excelled in drinking alcohol, we
are averaging better speeds and hence more connected than most
of our sister countries. I guess we should say kudos! to MTN and
Orange, for keeping the Crested Crane fly high and surfing faster on
the waves of the World Wide Web.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
FEATURES 41

FEATURES
42
MTN JABULANI SUMMARY RESULTS
ORANGE e160 ‘S SUMMARY RESULTS
Global System for Mobile
communications or GSM is the
current and most widely used
standard for mobile phones
today while 3G is the next
generation mobile technology that has begun
to replace GSM. 3G is still in its infancy and
only has a very small area covered when
compared to GSM.
GSM technology has been the most
prominent mobile phone technology in the
world. Although there are other technologies
that are competing with GSM, it has not
budged in its dominance. GSM offered a lot of
possibilities to the world of mobile phones like
text messaging and even low speed internet
access. Further improvements were made
with the introduction of GPRS and EDGE that
extended the capabilities of GSM networks.
Multimedia messaging was added to its list of
features allowing subscribers to send pictures,
audio clips, and even short video clips to
Difference between 3G & GSM
SEND FREE SMS From the Internet
www.pctechmagazine.com
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
each other. EDGE also increased the speed of
mobile internet browsing to Dial-up speeds.
3G is a whole new technology that
was introduced as a replacement to the
aging GSM technology. It offers substantial
improvements over its predecessor in almost
all aspects imaginable. For starters, mobile
internet speeds for 3G networks starts out
at 384kbps which is already within the range
of DSL speeds. At the higher end of the 3G
spectrum is HSDPA which can achieve speeds
of up to 7.2mbps, way faster than what GSM
can offer. Theses faster speeds also made
it possible to add new features that were
unavailable for GSM. One of which is video
calling, that allows people to see each other
while talking.
The only drawback behind 3G technology
is the fact that it is not backward compatible
to the older GSM technology. This means that
your 3G mobile phones cannot communicate
with GSM towers and 2G phones cannot
communicate with 3G towers. To preserve
backwards compatibility, most telecoms install
newer 3G radios while still maintaining the
older GSM radios. Mobile phone makers
also include 3G support into their phones
without removing 2G technologies. This would
gradually fade as more and more 3G radios
are put up and more 3G mobile phones are
built.
It would only be a matter of time until
3G technologies fully supersede the GSM
network, this not a competition but a natural
transition from an older technology to a
new one. Therefore, it would make sense
to consider this when you are purchasing a
new mobile phone and get one that already
supports 3G technology.
SOURCE: http://www.differencebetween.net/
technology/difference-between-gsm-and-
3g/#ixzz0zstds1fz

The Maglev Train—The world’s fastest train
BY JORAN BUZAABO
Today, we believe that mobility is the
engine of revolution. Every country eyes
transport with a kind eye. The need for
flexible transport system for people and goods
remain paramount. Needless to say, our very
own Rift valley Railways has taken less interest
in the passenger trains. The railway transport
is what most countries have seen as a solution
to their mobility problems.
China operates the world’s fastest train.
The Gazimondo train which operates by
Magnetic Levitation (maglev) makes record as
the fastest train ever developed in the world.
With this sophisticated technology behind its
operation, the Maglev train shoots to a super
speed of 217mph an equivalent 350km/hr. This
means not even any car can safely be as fast
as this train. This speed surpasses any other
technology developed in the railway history.
Operating on the principle of magnetic
levitation, the super-speed train has no wheels,
axles, pantographs, not even the engine. The
train does not roll, may be it flies- one can say.
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
The train travels by the attractive magnetic
force between linear arrays of electromagnetic
coils; one side being the train itself,
the other side being the guide way. The
operation of the maglev train reflects straight
to that of the electric motor. Designed like a
motor cut open and stretched along the guide
way, alternating current passing through the
coils generates a strong magnetic field which
levitates the bus a few inches off the guide
way. This causes the train to propel without
contact on the guide way. The speed of the
train is monitored by varying the frequency
of alternating current. When the direction of
the alternating current is reversed, a reverse
magnetic field is formed which means the train
is able to brake safely.
This kind of unique system allows the
train to shoot to the unprecedented ground
breaking speed of more than 310mph. The
aerodynamic design helps it reduce air
resistance, and since it does not touch the
guide way, there is no friction. The maglev
train floats on a suspension of Air. It’s amazing
these kinds of trains are suitable for cargo
as well as human beings (passengers).
The propulsion system is in the guide way,
therefore neither the length nor the load
affects the acceleration power. The train will
carry a few containers of cargo, as well many
buses (wagons) and still sweep at its speeds
uninterrupted.
The first commercial line that operates this
kind of system runs between Shanghai and
Pudong international airport. Inaugurated in
2002, the regular daily trips started in 2004.
The train maintains the speed of 430km/hr for
50 seconds, thereafter it starts breaking.
As technology is taking a different
dimension, Uganda and all African countries
need to embrace these developments as they
are travel solutions. The superseding costs
vested on the roads, some can be diverted
to this very sector. The defunct lines need a
revival touch, so that in future we can have
people working as far as 100km commuting.
Congestion, reduced and high cost housing in
the major city can get an absolute solution.
2010 Africa Telehealth Conference
THEME: “Telehealth Conference for Africa, Middle East, Asia and
Europe: Bridging the Gap in Medicine.”
October 23-25, 2010, Cairo Egypt
www.texastelehealthtech.com
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
FEATURES 43

44
REVIEWS
Reviews is the
section where you
find professional
assessment of
products/software.
It was introduced to
guide individuals/
organizations in
making IT decisions in
choosing among the
various options in the
market.
To submit your
feedback, please use
the email: reviews@
pctecmagazine.com
ADOBE
Photoshop CS5
BY ALBERT MUCUNGUZI
CS5
is the twelfth version of
Photoshop. After 20 years of
development and this many
versions, most programmers would have run out
of ideas, and updates would just be minor patches.
Not so for Adobe though; this latest version of
Photoshop contains many new features and major
improvements, certainly enough to make users of
CS4 seriously consider an upgrade. The new feature
everyone is talking about is of course the amazing
Content-Aware Fill, but other equally significant
improvements include sophisticated new selection
tools, improved HDR image creation, new painting
tools, automatic lens correction, the novel Puppet
Warp feature, and perhaps most importantly
for photographers, vastly improved Camera
Raw processing, including new noise reduction
algorithms.
In the weeks leading up to the launch of CS5
there were several videos available on YouTube
showing the new Content-Aware Fill feature in
operation, being used to seamlessly remove
unwanted objects from photos or fill in missing
background areas. There’s no question that
1
Adobe Photoshop has been the industrystandard
image editing software for
two decades now, and is used by
professional photographers, artists and
designers all over the world. Despite
the best efforts of competitors such as
Corel Paint Shop Pro, Apple’siPhoto, and
the open source GIMP, there really isn’t
anything that comes close to Adobe’s
flagship product in terms of features,
performance or quality.
There isn’t much that comes close
to the price either; the full version
of Photoshop CS5 for Windows PCs
costs over £600, while Photoshop
CS5 Extended (which adds video and
3D handling functions) costs close to
£900, and the whole Creative Suite 5
package, which includes Photoshop,
Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver,
Acrobat, Fireworks and more, can
cost over £1,600 depending on which
version you choose.
Content-Aware Fill is an amazing
feature, and playing with it is a lot
of fun, but in actual use it’s not as
useful as you might imagine. Those
demonstration videos were very
carefully contrived to show the feature
at its best, but in the real world the
results are often disappointing. It’s very
good at the easy stuff like removing a small blemish
from a plain or random-textured background,
in other words things that are easy enough
to do manually using the clone stamp or spot
healing brush, but larger objects or more detailed
backgrounds cause problems. If you look closely
at the example below you’ll see that there is still a
visible outline where the texture of the sea doesn’t
quite match up. On the plus side though it is a lot
quicker than painstakingly cloning out unwanted
details.
Another impressive looking feature is the Puppet
Warp function, which was also previewed
in demo videos. It allows 2D objects to be
manipulated and re-shaped, and even overlapped.
For all its technical cleverness this too is only likely
2
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

to be useful under very specific circumstances,
1
because the object to be warped first has
to be
carefully
selected
and cut 3 out into a
separate
layer,
and the
background
filled in. It
might be
more useful
for graphic
designers
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
than for photographers. It’s very clumsy
and awkward to use, and causes all sorts
of unwanted distortions, so it’s really not
2
suitable for anything that has fixed
proportions, such as human figures.
The Intelligent Selection
technology on the other hand
is a massively useful feature, and
arguably the highlight of the new
version. The Refine Edge dialogue
window allows you to customise
the edge selection parameters,
but more importantly it can
3
automatically select around fuzzy edges,
something that is almost impossible using
conventional selection tools. This makes it
incredibly easy to select around the edges
of a model’s hair, something that has
always been a major problem. The Smart
Radius function accomplishes in seconds
what would have taken hours in previous
versions, and does a much better job
of it. There is a special tool included in
the Refine Edge dialogue to manually
apply the effect to specific areas, useful
for shots with a mixture of hard and
fuzzy edges. Anyone who regularly
photographs models will love this feature.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
REVIEWS

REVIEWS 46

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In the Most Contemporary
Technology Magazine
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REVIEWS 47

RESEARCH
<strong>Conversations</strong> on Technology, Business & Society
<strong>Conversations</strong> on Technology,
Business and Society is
a journal which explores
ways in which organizations
and society is affected by
technology. It is published
as the academic research
journal of PC TECH Magazine.
Articles for the journal are
publicly accessible online
through this website. This
journal features contributions
of summaries of thesis and
essays of undergraduate and
graduate students and young
practitioners. Submit paper/
essay/viewpoint: email:
editor@pctechmagazine.com
A quick checklist for a
Research Paper
BY RICHARD BOATEND, PhD
What are the elements of a good
research paper? Most of often
than not we face the dilemma in
seeking answers for this question.
Challenge is becomes pronounced when you
begin to evaluate the different requirements of
the diverse academic journals in information
systems. So what really makes a good research
paper?
So why do we do research?
We do research to when we CREATE, EXPLAIN and/
or PREDICT social or scientific phenomena. Through this
process we may create and develop new knowledge or
products, explain or attempt to make-sense-of what is
happening in and or identify patterns which enable us to
predict a particular social or scientific phenomenon.
Who needs to research?
Research feeds into future research, practice and
ABSTRACT
How do we write a good abstract? Emerald, the
academic journal database (www.emeraldinsight.
com), offers a set of guidelines for authors on
how to write a good abstract. The guidelines advise that
an abstract should summarize these key elements of the
research paper or study.
• Purpose What are the reason(s) for writing the
paper or the aims of the research? What concept
do you want to present?
• Design/methodology/approach How were the
objectives achieved? Include the main method(s)
used for the research. What is the approach to
the topic and what are the theoretical or key
arguments of your presentation?
• Findings/Results/Observations What was found in
the course of the work? This will refer to analysis,
ABSTRACT - EXAMPLE 1
Getting Started
Research paper outline
In this paper I attempt provide a general
outline which may be considered as being
essential for good research paper. Though this
is not exhaustive, it will be of help, especially
to young authors to reduce review cycles that
submitted papers have to go through. The
purpose is not to create a ‘one best format’, but
to offer guidelines in the preparation of articles
for submission to academic journals.
policy. Thus, research is needed by researchers,
practitioners and policy makers. In these broad
categories, there are a number of stakeholders including
organizations, communities’ government and nongovernmental
institutions and society in general.
Research has feed into a body of knowledge or practice
or policy. Without a connection to any of these, the
readers and reviewers will ask “And so what?” meaning
what can we do with your findings and what are its
implications.
discussion, or results.
• Research implications (if applicable) What are
the contributions to research? Which aspect of
your work changes current research? What can
researcher do with your research? What is new and
how will that shape future research?
• Practical and Policy implications What outcomes
and implications for practice, policy, applications
and consequences are identified? How will the
research impact upon the business or enterprise?
How is it influence policy? What changes to
practice/policy should be made as a result of this
research? What is the commercial or economic
impact? Not all papers will have practical
implications.
• Originality/value What is new in the paper? State
the value of the paper and to whom.
Advancing E-commerce Beyond Readiness in a Developing Country: Experiences of Ghanaian Firms
This paper identifies factors affecting the assimilation of electronic commerce in Ghana and the solutions that Ghanaian
firms have developed. Drawing from the elements of two electronic commerce readiness frameworks, the study analyzes
the readiness of Ghana to support the conduct of electronic commerce at the firm-level.
The study covers the government, technology, market and culture readiness factors. Findings suggest that social
networks, managerial capabilities and government commitment have an attendant effect on adoption and use of tangible
resources like electronic commerce applications. The findings imply that future research and practitioner efforts should
focus on developing a broader perspective to address electronic commerce challenges encompassing issues such as how
firms can advance to more complex forms of e-commerce after initial e-commerce adoption.
Article Citation
Boateng, R. Molla, A., Heeks, R. (2010). Advancing E-commerce Beyond Readiness in a Developing Economy: Experiences of Ghanaian
Firms, Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organisations (Accepted April 2009).
48 PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

ABSTRACT - EXAMPLE 2
E-Commerce and Socio-Economic Development: Conceptualizing the Link
Purpose: E-commerce is diffusing into developing countries, and is
assumed to help deliver the international development agenda. But
how can we conceptualise the connection between e-commerce
and socio-economic development? Our aim in this paper is to
analyse that connection by drawing from the development studies
discipline to take a broader perspective on e-commerce than that
so far provided by firm-level research.
Methodology/Approach: We adopt a literature survey approach,
drawing our conceptual foundations from development studies, and
supplementing this from the e-commerce literature.
Findings: We develop a new, integrated model that explains
the way in which e-commerce can contribute to socio-economic
development. The model conceptualizes the link between existing
Article Citation
Boateng, R., Heeks, R., Molla, A. and Hinson, R. (2008). E-commerce and Socio-Economic Development: Conceptualizing the Link. Internet Research,
18(5), 562–592.
INTRODUCTION
What is an introduction? In my
research teaching seminars, I
usually relate the introduction
to “marriage introduction” done as part of
marriage in African cultures. In essence, the
family of the bride needs to learn about the
groom and the groom or the man being
introduced has to be able to convince the
family of the bride on why he is best option for
their daughter. Similarly, in the research paper,
the introduction sets the tone for the whole
research paper? Why should the reader read
the research paper? What are theoretical and/
or practical and policy motivations behind the
research paper? The author has to:
1. Introduce the topic/theme
2. Highlight some of the research that has
been done in the area of study (this
should not be limited only to the country
of study)
3. Identify the gaps in previous research—
areas that have not yet been addressed.
4. Point out where your work is taking off
from…, why your study is still important
and what new knowledge it will add to
the existing knowledge (see point 2).
5. In the last paragraph state out: the main
question or purpose of your paper and
outline the structure of the paper.
LITERATURE REVIEW
You may use a relevant title instead of
literature review
The literature review usually provides a
detailed analysis of the research theme from
the perspective of existing literature, and,
further, critique and propose perspectives or
ways of addressing the research problem. The
author is required to:
1. Explain the concepts and issues
+ Discuss the main relevant arguments
concerning the issues
+ Draw on existing and current research
on the issues
+ Discuss their findings and how they
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
help us better understand the issues
+ Review research in developing
countries & Africa to highlight what
has been done
2. Understand how previous research
was conducted: which frameworks and
methods were used
3. WHAT, WHY, HOW of the issue and
WHERE you are going…Which gaps you
need to cover
RESEARCH FRAMEWORK (If Applicable)
The research framework provides theoretical
lens through which the author seeks to
address the research problem. It may provide
a process or factor model which guides
the investigative process of collecting data
to answer the research questions. In some
research papers, the research framework
is developed or presented in the literature
review. Others present it as an independent
section or a sub-section of the research
methodology. There is no wrong or right
answer. The structure of the research paper
and writing style of the author (logic and
coherence of arguments) may determine the
approach.
The author is required to:
1. How do we solve the problem
2. How do we address the issue – which
theory or conceptual framework do we
use?
3. Develop hypothesis (Quantitative) or
propositions (Qualitative) (if applicable)
+ A Concept or set of factors
+ A model of casual factors or
interrelated factors
+ A set of propositions/hypotheses
NB. Authors may consider reading Heeks,
R. (2007) “Theorizing ICT4D Research”,
Information Technologies and International
Development Volume 3, Number 3, Spring
2006, 1–4.
development theories and e-commerce in DCs.
Research Implications: This new model can help provide a
foundation for future research on ecommerce in developing
countries; research on e-commerce policy as well as impact
assessment research.
Practical Implications: The discussion and model provide
development agencies, governments, consultants and business
people working in developing countries with a clearer sense of the
contribution e-commerce can make; assisting them in prioritization,
planning, and evaluation of ecommerce projects.
Originality/Value: Provides the first integrated perspective
on the broader contribution of e-commerce to the growth and
development of developing countries.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this section the author explains the scientific
methods used to collect data to answer the
research questions. The author is required to:
1. Identify and state Research Paradigm
(optional, rarely stated but may be
deduced from the data collection
process)
2. What methods were used to conduct
the study and why were those methods
selected?
3. In systematic fashion you need to explain
how data was collected (which you have
began excellently already – just arrange
it well)
+ Context – where are study subjects
located?
+ Unit of Analysis – What level of
Analysis – Meta, Marco, Meso, Micro
or individual
+ Data Collection Methods –
Quantitative, Qualitative or Mixed
Methods
4. You need to explain in brief how you
analyzed the data and dag out themes
or answers or key lessons from your
findings.
RESULTS OR FINDINGS
In this section the author presents the findings
or results of the study. The author is required
to:
1. Use appropriate data analysis methods
consistent to the data collection method.
For example, in using a case study
approach, quotes from your interviews
should be evident and data should be
triangulated from multiple respondents/
interviewees.
2. In a quantitative study, the appropriate
statistical method has to be used and the
choice of method should be justified.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
RESEARCH
49

RESEARCH
50
Advancing E-commerce Beyond Readiness in a Developing Country: Experiences of Ghanaian Firms
This study intends to understand the
dynamics of the readiness factors in the
Ghanaian firms’ adoption and conduct of
e-commerce. There was therefore a strong case
for using an exploratory case study method
since this supports the research objective set
out at the beginning (Yin 2003). In order to
get richness of experiences and undertake an
in-depth investigation, multiple-case study
method was followed (Yin, 2003). In a case study
research, there is no universally acceptable
number of cases and a case study research
could be based on a single case or many cases
(Walsham, 1993; Yin, 2003). This is because
the validity of the case study has more to do
with the “plausibility and cogency of the logical
reasoning” (Walsham, 1993:15) and less with
the number of cases. In addition, the validity of
case studies can be enhanced by the strategic
selection of cases rather than their number (De
Vaus, 2001). Therefore, this study is based on
evidence collected from 10 major cases and
other 15 organizations.
The data collected consisted of personal
interviews with 28 individuals, across 25
different Ghanaian companies, educational
institutions and industrial associations involved
in e-commerce development in Ghana. This was
done in the interest of triangulating data sources.
Triangulation provides a unique opportunity to
identify inconsistent and contradictory evidences
which researchers should analyse and interpret
DISCUSSION OR ANALYSIS
In this section the author analyzes the
findings or results from the study. The
analysis may require the triangulation of
data from various research methods to create,
explain or predict social phenomena. The
author is required to:
1. What do the findings tell you about
your research?
2. How do the findings compare with
previous studies highlighted in your
literature review?
3. Are there any contradictions with
previous research?
4. Why do these contradictions exist?
5. What are the key and new lessons?
6. How do the new lessons relate to the
theoretical framework?
NB. Use this exercise to identify part of
the literature review which is irrelevant to
the study and thus need to be removed.
Generally, literature that is not related to the
discussion becomes irrelevant.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion covers three key sub- sections:
summary of the paper, research implications
and future research directions. Some authors
prefer to addresses these sub-sections as main
sections. The author is required to:
carefully (Mathison, 1988).
Concerning the interviews, organisations
selected were obtained from The Ghana Club
100 and referrals from Internet Service Providers
(ISPs), academics and ICT graduates from the
Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence
in ICT. The Ghana Club 100 is an annual
compilation of the top 100 companies in Ghana
to give recognition to successful enterprise
building (GC100, 2004). 35 Ghana Club 100
organisations, covering manufacturing, trading
services, and financial sectors, were selected.
Only 10 of the 35 organisations responded when
contacted. A total of 13 interviews were done
across the 10 firms.
15 other organisations, who were not listed in
the Ghana Club 100, contributed our remaining
15 interviews. They include 4 Internet Service
Providers (ISPs); 4 ICT consultancies; the Ghana
Export Promotion Council; 3 non-traditional
export firms; the National Communication
Authority (NCA) (the regulator of the
telecommunication sector); and two academics
from two Ghanaian tertiary institutions with
expert knowledge on the Ghanaian ICT sector.
The representative from NCA and the two
academics were interviewed to verify and obtain
other perspectives on data obtained from
selected firms and ISPs.
The interviews were recorded and
transcribed, with copies of transcribed
interviews returned to interviewees to check
1. What is the ‘takeaway’
• Summarize in few words what the
study did and what has achieved.
2. Then discuss the following each in a
paragraph:
• Implications to Practice (managers,
practitioners, employees, organizations
etc)
• Implications to Policy (if applicable)—
what do your findings tell government,
international community, development
agencies etc.
• Implications to research: how does it
inform research area?
3. In relation to your findings, what
should future research do?
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
and resolve discrepancies. The interviews were
also collaborated with data from documentary
materials including past e-commerce project
documentation in the selected firms industry
reports, verified media accounts and statistical
databases. The interview transcription and
analysis was done with the aid of ATLAS.
ti®software, a qualitative analysis software. The
software was used as a data administration
and archiving tool for the thematic analysis of
the transcribed interviews. Themes from our
research framework guided the codification
of the text in the transcribed interviewed. The
interviews consisted of open-ended questions
about the government, technology, market
and cultural readiness factors which affect the
implementation of electronic commerce in
Ghana. Interviews were modified to be relevant
to the industry in which the interviewee worked
in. Interviewees identified the challenges
relevant to their firms and experiences in
e-commerce adoption and the ICT sector. Other
questions inquired about how they addressed
the challenges and suggestions to sustain
e-commerce benefits.
Article Citation
Boateng, R. Molla, A., Heeks, R. (2010). Advancing
E-commerce Beyond Readiness in a Developing
Economy: Experiences of Ghanaian Firms, Journal of
Electronic Commerce in Organisations (Accepted April
2009).
• Acknowledge the limitations of your
research
• Highlight what new or future research
should do
• Suggestions could be using new
methods or new unit of analysis.
• Suggestions should be relevant to
your topic
REFERENCES
Reference citations should follow the
style recommended by the journal.
• For APA style. Please refer to:
http://library.ubc.ca/home/about/instruct/
apastyle.html
• Read through your work -
Presentation and Structure Counts
IN SUMMARY
Your work is going to be challenged,
hence do not let the fear of other
academics control your academic and
professional career.
Though not exhaustive, the attempt by this
paper to offer elements of a good research
paper has outlined guidelines that can
guide authors in future research.

Exploring the channels for
Communicating Family
Planning Messages
African traditional communities are
known for their keenness to preserve
their traditional values and cultures.
Key amongst them is the priority place of
child-bearing. In recent years, the preservation
of this core value has been facing enormous
challenges from advocates of modern family
planning methods who use acute poverty,
escalating sexually transmissible diseases,
over-population, amongst others, as reasons
or arguments for African societies to adopt
contraceptives for birth control and healthy
living. This has led to the development of
behavior change communication through
health education campaign. Messages are
packaged and delivered through different
communication channels to reach target
groups. These channels are often powered by
information and communication technologies.
In this study, we assess the effectiveness of
channels for communicating family planning
messages and how adopting modern family
planning methods are changing traditional
African societies.
This research was conducted in ten (10)
different rural communities in Cameroon. A
total of 471 respondents were interviewed
using a questionnaire with thirty variables
divided into three sections: awareness of
family planning messages, effects of the
messages and demographics. The findings
suggest that 92.8% of respondents are aware
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
of family planning messages through radio,
newspapers, TV, internet, outdoor sensitization
campaigns, health workers, parents, churches
and clinical orientations. Radio is the main
source of such messages (46.7%) and internet
the least (1.1%). This is a reflection of the
accessible nature of radio with the presence
of a community radio, as well as private and
public radio stations to serve the sampled
population. Of the 437 respondents aware
of family planning, 61.7% actually practice it
using methods such as condoms (as the main
method), pills, abstinence and withdrawal
(coitus interruptus). This is gradually reducing
reported accounts of unplanned pregnancies,
sexual transmitted diseases or infections.
This study provides a unique opportunity
for public health policy makers in Cameroon
to understand the effectiveness of their health
care strategies in rural communities: which
areas of their strategies should be reinforced
and which should be revised. For example,
the Internet is currently not the appropriate
means of community health care information,
especially at the rural community-level. This
is not far from what was expected, since the
number of Internet users per 100 inhabitants
is less than 4. The study recommends that
advocates of behavior change communication
should invest more in radio broadcasting
since it is the primary channel that rural
communities rely on for information. Health
in Cameroon
care education programs carried out by health
care professionals and health care nongovernmental
institutions on rural community
radio stations tend to cross language barriers
and reach the target audience in manner in
which they can actively participate and learn.
Listeners to these radio programs are able
to participate – ‘anonymously’ call or text –
through mobile phones to ask questions for
which some are a sensitive or ‘private’.
On the other hand, while information and
communication technologies like radio and
mobile phones enhance participation and
accessibility to health care information, there
are concerns on who delivers the content or
the information. Respondents emphasized the
need for opinion leaders (traditional rulers)
to be more involved in the communication
process because rural communities equally
depend on interpersonal communication and
trust the authority of their rulers. Thus, the
patterns of communication within the culture
of these rural communities’ influences the
value associated to information received. It
is recommended that health care education
strategies should be concerned about the
information bearer/deliverer as much as the
content of the information and the channel
in which the information is delivered. These
findings are suggestive that, first, in rich
interpersonal contexts, the credibility of the
bearer/deliverer of health care information
influences the value associated to the
information by recipients. Second, in resourcepoor
contexts, low cost-technologies, like
radio and mobile phones, play a critical role in
enhancing diffusing health care information.
This research touches on a core issue which
families, and by extension societies, today
across the world are grappling with—how
to improve family healthcare education.
Unfortunately, most research efforts have
geared towards other aspects of healthcare
with focus on urban areas, ignoring the fact
that most of the people found in urban areas
today originate from rural communities. How
do policy makers address healthcare issues
in rural areas, through which methods and
with what effects? This study takes one of the
rare initial steps to assess the impact of family
planning messages on rural communities, by
providing answers to some of these questions.
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52
Doing Business
On the internet
The article presents an overview of e-commerce and seeks to explain how
firms integrate the Internet into their business to develop different e-commerce
capabilities. The learning outcome is to understand the different e-commerce
capabilities and the potential benefits of doing business online. The article is an
extract from an upcoming book to be published by The PearlRichards Foundation
and PC Tech International.
Is your business online? Do you have an
email address? Do you read news on the
Internet? Do you have a Facebook account?
Do you watch videos on Youtube? If you do
any of these, you are interacting with online
businesses. There is growing
increase in number of Internet
users globally (see Figure 1).
Each and every day,
consumers are finding ways
to connect with each other
or to access information.
These connections are
being made available via
electronic communication
media. By large, firms with a
basic telephone connection
and computer in today’s
information company have or
are seeking ways to extend
their business online or
conduct some part of their
business through an electronic communication
medium. Any firm involved in such an activity
may be considered as doing business online
E-commerce has often been discussed as
either being broadly equivalent to or a subset
of electronic business or e-business.
These conceptual inconsistencies are a result
of the limited understanding of the rapidly
evolving e-phenomenon. Li (2007: 9) explains
that, “E-commerce is commonly defined as
electronic transactions conducted by business
partners, which can be both organisations
and individuals. In contrast, e-business is
much broader, referring not only to buying
and selling, but also to servicing customers,
collaborating with business partners, and
conducting electronic transactions within
an organisation”. Thus, e-business tends
to embrace e-commerce as one of the
applications of ICTs to share business
information, maintain business relationships
and conduct business transactions.
or engaged in electronic commerce activities.
Electronic commerce (hereafter e-commerce)
conceptualizes the use of information
and communication technologies (ICTs),
particularly telecommunication networks,
to share business information, to maintain
business relationships and to conduct business
transactions involving both businesses and
individuals (Zwass 1996).
As the nature of market operations and
resource strengths differ, it is likely that
firms would take different paths in
adopting and integrating internet
in their business operations. Firms
may be differentiated by the type
of technology involved, the extent
of integration and the nature of
transactions and participants involved.
Concerning the nature of transactions,
two key categories can be identified:
• Marketplace trade with
business trading partners (Business to
Business (B2B)), and
• Direct trade with business
customers (B2B), consumers (Business
to Consumers (B2C)) and government
(Business to Government (B2G)).
Marketplace-based trade takes
place at public or private Internetbased
environments such as Internetbased
exchange websites and online
auctions, which may serve a specific
industry or wide-ranging industries.
On the other hand, direct trade occurs either
through public Internet-based platforms
like an organisation’s website which has
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
BY RICHARD BOATENG
an online marketing and/or purchasing
function or proprietary computer networks
such as an electronic data interchange
network. Depending on the firm’s Internet or
e-commerce strategy, the firm may seek to
get involved in both
direct and marketplace
trade and use them
to inform, facilitate
transactions and
maintain relationships
with customers,
suppliers and other
trading partners.
Research denotes six
hierarchical phases of
Internet integration into
firms: no e-commerce,
connected e-commerce,
static e-commerce,
interactive e-commerce,
transactive
e-commerce, and integrated e-commerce
(Molla & Licker, 2005, pp. 881). The
phases enable the firms with the following
e-commerce capabilities:
With connected e-commerce, the intended
e-commerce capability is communication
– using email alongside traditional ICT
technologies, like fax and telephone, to
support information and transactional
processes. However, the reach of connected
e-commerce is limited to the existing and
potential trading partners, suppliers and
customers who know the firm’s email address
and others the firm decides to contact.
Static e-commerce builds on connected
e-commerce and extends the communication
capability to an informational capability;
where firms can inform potential and existing
trading partners, customers and suppliers of
their products and services through an online
presence on its website. Creating an online
presence gives the firm the opportunity of
increasing their market ‘reach’ and access
to potential trading partners, suppliers and
customers.
Interactive e-commerce creates an
interactional capability which adds the
capability of online interactions between

the firm’s customers and the firm to the
informational capability. Interactional
capability may include the functionality of
accepting and responding to queries, e-mail,
and form entry from users. Depending on
the nature of the firm’s products and services,
interactional capability may also offer the
customers the opportunity to customise
products according to their personal
preferences, make recommendations to
others, register for news and updates from
firm, and obtain real-time online support. The
firm gains the opportunity of becoming more
visible, deepening their business relationships
and forming closer ties with trading partners
Table 1 E-commerce Capability Indicators
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
and customers.
Transactive e-commerce creates a
transactional capability which goes beyond
interactional capability to offer transactional
services such as an online purchasing
capability for potential and existing customers
to purchase products, track orders, manage
their account information, and obtain
information on product returns.
Integrated e-commerce creates a
transformational capability, where the
firm’s website is integrated with suppliers,
customers, and other back-office systems
allowing most business transactions and
processes to be conducted electronically.
Phase E-capability E-functionality E-technologies
Connected
Static
Interactive
Transactive
Integrated
Communicative
Informational
Interactional
Transactional
Transformational
Email communication
Online messaging
Product information online
Search capability
Product review
Product update
Firm information
Online enquiries
Configuration or
Customisation capability
Content personalisation
Online recommendations
Customer registration
Real-time support
Buy capability
Online order tracking
Account management
Return
Security
Potential Benefits of Doing Business
Online
Firms which use ICTs to share business
information, maintain business relationships
and conduct business and commercial
transactions may achieve three interrelated
types of benefits, namely, operational,
informational and strategic benefits (see
Boateng et al. 2008).
Strategic benefits are associated
with benefits which improve the market
performance of the firm – extending its
Online procurement
Inventory data sharing
Integration to backend
information systems (BIS)
Supplier virtual community
Email clients
Online messaging clients
Product catalogue
Product/website search functionality
Customer and third-party reviews
Updates, FAQs, mailing list and emailbased
support
Profile, contact, management, trading
partners, and publications (newsletter,
reports, press releases, events, financial
and performance)
Enquiry, feedback/suggestion forms
Product customisation information or
functionality
‘Email to others’
Recently viewed and real-time
recommended or related items
Multimedia presentations
Registration to access favourites, wish lists
and restricted content
Live chat, online ticket system
Purchase and payment facility
Order tracking facility (firm-owned or
third-party service)
Customer transactional information
Return information, procedure and
mechanism
Security information and facility for
transaction and customer data
Order and tracking of raw materials
Supplier access to inventory data
Online integration of databases and BIS
with suppliers
Discussion forms, chat rooms, and FAQs
focused on suppliers
reach, product differentiation, improving
revenue and the loyalty of trading partners
and customers. Informational benefits are
associated with benefits which improve
communication, relationships and enhance
access to information about the firm and its
products. Operational benefits are associated
with reducing the costs of transactions and
achieving efficiency of operations through
e-commerce. Though all the three benefits
tend to be interrelated (an organisation
can achieve one set of benefits while trying
Additionally, the firm may add an online
procurement and logistics facility for placing,
and managing orders on raw materials and
create a virtual community for its suppliers,
distributors and other trading partners for
data or information sharing.
As firms develop a higher level of
e-commerce capability, they gain the
opportunity of becoming more visible,
deepening their business relationships and
forming closer ties with trading partners
and customers. Table 1 summarises these
e-commerce capabilities and related
technologies.
Exercise
1. Identify the phase
of e-commerce and type
of capabilities, electronic
functionalities and technologies
for the following websites:
a) www.facebook.com
b) www.yahoo.com
c) www.cnn.com
d) www.autotrader.com
e) www.funeralsinghana.com
f) www.newvision.co.ug
g) www.sap.com
h) www.zdnet.com
i) www.devex.com
j) www.bmwusa.com
to achieve another), operational benefits,
particularly reduction of transactional
costs, become the foundation from which
informational and strategic benefits can
be built and realised. A firm can achieve
market access or the means to an electronic
marketplace, but without adequate
operational efficiencies and the timely
provision of the right product information,
very few or no benefits may be ...
TURN OVER
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
RESEARCH 53

RESEARCH
54
realised and neither can the firm utilise the
opportunities in the marketplace effectively.
Thus a firm can start from operational benefits
and orient its strategies and streamline its
processes to achieve informational
and strategic benefits. The type of
technology and the extent of integration
of the technology into the business
processes determine the ability of firms
to achieve benefits of higher value.
However, resource-poor contexts
differ in the readiness of their institutional
infrastructure – economic, cultural,
legal and technological framework to
support the uptake of e-commerce at
the firm-level and national-level and
achieve these benefits. These benefits
and development outcomes MAY
only be realised when institutional
foundations exist such as affordable
telecommunication infrastructure,
efficient transport systems, legal and
regulatory policies, and local credit
management infrastructure. This said, I
also observe that despite the existence of these
institutional constraints there exists evidence
of some firms in resource-poor contexts and
entrepreneurs are achieving e-commerce
Figure 2 Homepage of www.funeralsinghana.com
References
benefits. Firms making efforts in achieving
some benefits demonstrate a set of resources
which are deployed and managed in manner
to circumvent or address the challenges. The
E-commerce Benefits
Strategic
1. Extending the firm’s market reach
2. Product differentiation
3. Loyalty and retention of trading partners
4. Improved revenue
initial e-commerce efforts of a large number
of firms in Africa are characterised by their use
of web hosting services abroad to bypass local
web service weaknesses. Other online firms
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
Informational
5. Improved marketplace information
6. Improved communication and relationships
Operational
7. Reduced transactional costs
8. Time efficiency
like Ethiogift.com (Ethiopia) and Munshigi.com
(Bangladesh) detail the marketing of ‘cultural
capital’ products – national cultural resources
– like art, flowers and sheep online to nonresident
inhabitants who purchase
them to be delivered to relatives or
friends living at home. Further, some
firms have developed their services
around making local social events
and news accessible to people who
are separated by distance to enjoy
or participate in such events. An
example is www.funeralsinghana.
com which is a FREE consumer
information and education resource
on funeral planning, financing
funerals, and funeral products and
services. At a price the firms does
the video coverage of the funeral
and make it accessible online and
also in print in its newspaper (see
Figure 2).
This presupposes there are
some strategic options these
firms take to develop and deploy resources
which address the contextual challenges and
help achieve e-commerce benefits. While
several advancements in web development
technologies [see wordpress.com and wix.
com] are making it easier for individuals
to develop and deploy an online website,
the challenge is developing a business
model which is profitable and sustaining
its revenue creation potential.
This write up is an extract from an
upcoming book by Richard Boateng on
technology, business and society. The
book will explore examples of firms which
have created and sustained benefits
through an online presence to outline
these strategies and also learn how to
apply them to our firms. The need for
these strategic options becomes more
pronounced when we examine the
potential impact of successful online
companies in resource-poor contexts
on socio-economic development in their
contexts. The book will be launched in
September 2010 and published by PC
Tech International and The PearlRichards
Foundation. Reserve a copy now !.
1. Boateng, R., Heeks, R., Molla, A. and Hinson, R. (2008). E-commerce and Socio-Economic Development: Conceptualizing the
Link. Internet Research, 18(5), 562–592.
2. Molla, A. & Licker, P. S. (2005). e-Commerce Adoption in Developing Countries: A Model and Instrument. Information and
Management, 42(6), 877-899.
3. Zwass, V. (1996). Electronic Commerce: Structure and <strong>Issue</strong>s. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1(1), 3-23.

Simulation of the differentiated services
QoS scheme under IP Multimedia Systems
David K Osei-Aboagye1 and Peter S Excell2
1802 Global Ltd., Aldermaston, United Kingdom
2Centre for Applied Internet Research, Glyndŵr University, Wrexham, United Kingdom
Corresponding email: david.osei@802global.com
Previously published at Osei-Aboagye, D. & Excell, P. (2009) “Simulation of the Differentiated Services QoS Scheme under IMS”, Proceedings of the 3rd
International Conference on Internet Technologies and Applications (ITA 09), Glyndwr University, Wrexham, Wales, UK, 8-11 September 2009.
ABSTRACT
The evolving standards of mobile
communications, the wide variety of
services they offer and the rapid growth
of the Internet have made a merger of the
two network technologies inevitable. One
of the most prominent platforms that has
been developed to facilitate this and take
mobile communication networks to the next
generation (4G) is IP Multimedia Subsystems
(IMS). Even though the standards for 4G
have not yet been defined, many proposed
standards integrate IMS as the main core
network architecture and Quality of Service
(QoS) is the main concern for customer
satisfaction. A significant approach to this
is the ‘Differentiated Services’ scheme,
and a simulation study of this is presented.
The study covered an IMS core network
architecture modelled with Network Simulator
2 (NS-2), with a Differentiated Services QoS
scheme run over it. Implications for core
network architectures are discussed.
ABBREVIATIONS
CBS Committed Burst Size
CIR Committed Information Rate
EBS Excess Burst Size
FTP File Transfer Protocol
IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem
MN Mobile Node
NAM Network Animator
NS-2 Network Simulator-2
PBS Peak Burst Size
PIR Peak Information Rate
QoS Quality of Service
SIP Session Initiation Protocol
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
UDP User Datagram Protocol
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The next generation of mobile
communications is gradually evolving
towards an IP (Internet Protocol) core
network. This has led to much research into
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which is an
IP-based network that allows integration of
voice and multimedia as well as permitting
new environments with new purposes [1].
Quoting [1]: “IMS carries signalling and
bearer traffic over the IP layer, functioning
as an intelligent ‘routing engine’ that
matches a user profile with an appropriate
call handling server and switches the call
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
control over to the designated handler.”
Most of these applications expected under
IMS have different Quality of Service (QoS)
requirements: to handle these with the same
QoS preferences as all other packet data
routed through the Internet would result in
unsatisfactory performance and customer
dissatisfaction.
Most of the services offered by IMS are
already being offered by existing circuit
and packet-switched mobile networks, but
IMS aims at providing these services with
a guaranteed QoS as well as guaranteed
bandwidth efficiency. Thus certain services
like real-time multimedia applications are
given preference in terms of bandwidth since
they require more bandwidth than non-realtime
services. Circuit and packet-switched
multimedia services give no preference to
real-time or non-real-time sessions.
As a tool to investigate IMS performance
under QoS constraints, a simulation of the
IMS core network architecture was developed
using Network Simulator 2 (NS-2) software,
the network architecture being designed
to carry both session signalling traffic as
well as bearer traffic. The model was then
used to implement a Differentiated Services
QoS scheme on top of the designed IMS
architecture and a performance evaluation
was made for different bearer traffic scenarios.
2.0 SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION FOR
SIMULATION
The IMS core network is managed
mainly by SIP signalling for session setup
and tear down. Due to this, the first
objective is to create a SIP signalling
architecture for the network topology. The
next objective after creating the signalling
architecture would be to create IP traffic
to run over the Signalling architecture to
help facilitate the implementation of the
Differentiated Services (DiffServ) Quality of
Service scheme.
Network Simulator allinone version 2.27
(NS allinone-2.27) is the only NS-2 version
that has a SIP functionality built into its
modules but does not support multi-interface
architecture. NS allinone-2.31, the latest
version of NS-2, has an extension for multiinterface
layers called NSmiracle which can be
integrated into its modules. However it has no
SIP support.
The first objective is to patch the NS
miracle multi-interface layer’s patch onto NS
allinone-2.31 and then patch NS allinone-
2.27’s SIP signalling module functionality onto
NS allinone-2.31. It was observed after the
SIP module patch installation that, due to the
fact that the SIP signalling module was built
on NS allinone-2.27, version issues as well as
backward compatibility issues inherent in NS-2
arose. This led to a failure of the patching
procedure.
There are two possible ways to resolve
the problem. Since the first objective of the
project is to develop an IP Multimedia System
architecture which involves the need for a
multi-interface layer, NS miracle is essential.
The NS allinone-2.27 SIP signalling module’s
patch was manually altered in order to make it
function in NS allinone-2.31.
3.0 NETWORK DESIGN & SIMULATION
The network topology to be simulated
for the IMS core network’s SIP signalling
consists of five routers, two proxies and four
Mobile Nodes (MN). The traffic over the air
interface to the Mobile Node is ignored,
hence its propagation delays are not taken
into account.
P 1
MN 3
R 1
R 3
MN 1
R 0
MN 2
Figure 1 shows the network architecture
to be simulated. P1 represents proxy server
1 which is the proxy for David.com and
P2 represents proxy server 2 which is the
proxy for Demola.com. R0 represents the
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
R 2
R 4
MN 4
Fig. 1. Diagram of the network architecture to be simulated.
9 2
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core router while R1, R2, R3 and R4 are
the other outer routers within the network.
MN1 represents Mobile Node 1 “Peter”. MN
2 represents Mobile Node 2 “John”. MN 3
represents Mobile Node 3 “Victoria” and MN 4
represents Mobile Node 4 “Wendy”.
In the design, “Peter” would connect
to proxy David.com by sending a SIP
signalling registration request and an ACK
(acknowledgement) response would be sent
back, confirming registration procedure. “John”
would also do a similar SIP registration request
with proxy Demola.com. After the registration
procedure, “Peter” would then send a SIP
signalling invitation request to “John” which
accepts the invitation to initiate the session.
“Victoria” and “Wendy” would also go through
a similar registration and invitation procedure.
3.1 First Design
The design was simulated with NS-2, by
first creating an instance for the simulator
object. This is achieved in NS-2 by executing
the command “set ns_ [new Simulator]” [8,9].
The next objective was setting the addressing
format, chosen as hierarchical and set at a
domain number of 3. This was achieved by
executing the command “ns set-addressformat
hierarchical” [7]. The addressing
parameters were set at the domain number
of 3 with the NS command “set domain_num_
3”. In order to have output files with data on
the simulation (trace files) and visualisation
files (NAM files), a trace file and NAM file
was created [8,9] The commands were “set tf
[open_sip_test.tr w]” and “set nf [open out_sip_
senario.nam w].”
After the trace file and NAM file were
created, the routers were set and the
addressing parameters and domain
numbers were set. The proxies were also
given addressing parameters and domain
numbering. The positions of all the Mobile
Nodes, proxies and routers were defined and
set. The signalling links between the routers
and the proxy were also set: to define a bidirectional
link a “duplex-link” command is
used. The signalling links between the Mobile
Nodes were also defined and set at 1MB
capacity and 10ms of propagation delay, as for
the routers and proxies.
The next design goal was labelling the
proxies and mobile nodes, setting the server
addresses as well as attaching agents to
them. The procedure of attaching agents is
used to define a signalling flow between two
points in the topology. A finish procedure
was defined and configuration of “John” and
“Wendy’s” terminals were done for complex
response. Finally, the scheduler for the events
of the simulation was set up, used to set the
beginning and end of a session or application
being run on the simulation platform.
3.2 Second Design
The second design goal of the project
was to design an IP traffic flow over the SIP
signalling architecture. A Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP) connection was set up between
Mobile Node “Peter” and Mobile Node “John”.
This was achieved by setting up a TCP agent
as well as defining the Class of Service to be
implemented for the traffic flow. A sink agent
was also set up to indicate where the TCP
connection was to terminate. After the TCP
connection was set up, a File Transfer Protocol
(FTP) application was set up to run over the
TCP connection. This was done because
“Peter” would be sending a file over TCP
to “John”. A User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
connection was then set up between Mobile
Node “Victoria” and Mobile Node “Wendy”.
Again a Null agent was set up to show the
termination point for the UDP connection.
Since “Victoria” would be making a Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call to “Wendy”,
a UDP connection was used to avoid TCP
acknowledgments and a constant bit rate was
run over the UDP connection.
3.3 Third Design
The final design goal is an implementation
of a Quality of Service scheme on the IMS
architecture. The Differentiated Services
module, originally implemented by the
Advance IP Network group in Nortel Networks
[8,10], was chosen as the Quality of Service
scheme for implementation. The Differentiated
Services architecture design uses different
Random Early Detection (RED) parameter
configurations for virtual queues, causing
packets from one virtual queue to be dropped
more frequently than packets from another [8];
thus code points are given to different classes
of traffic.
The Network Simulator module developed
by Nortel has three major components [8]:
• Policy: specified by the network
administrator defining the level of service a
class of traffic should receive in the network
• Edge router: marking the packets with a
code point according to the policy specified.
• Core router: examines the packets’ code
point marking and forwards them accordingly.
A policy defines how traffic is aggregated
within the network. The Network Simulator has
six different policy models [8]:
• Time Sliding Window with 2 Colour
Marking (TSW2CM) Policer: uses a CIR and
two drop precedence. The lower precedence
is used probabilistically when the CIR is
exceeded.
• Time Sliding Window with 3 Colour
Marking (TSW3CM) Policer: uses a CIR, PIR,
and three drop precedence. The medium
drop precedence is used probabilistically
when the CIR is exceeded and the lowest drop
precedence is used probabilistically when the
PIR is exceeded. Token Bucket Policer: uses
a CIR and a CBS and two drop precedence.
An arriving packet is marked with the lower
precedence if and only if it is larger than the
token bucket.
• Single Rate Three Colour Marker
(srTCM) Policer: uses a CIR, CBS, and
an EBS to choose from three drop
precedence.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
• Two Rate Three Colour Marker (trTCM)
Policer: uses a CIR, CBS, PIR, and
a PBS to choose from three drop
precedence.
• Null Policer: does not downgrade any
packets
CIR: Committed Information Rate; PIR: Peak
Information Rate; CBS: Committed Burst Size;
EBS: Excess Burst Size; PBS: Peak Burst Size
[8,9].
The Nortel Differentiated Services network
topology design for NS-2 uses a bottleneck
architecture (Fig. 2).
In the bottleneck topology each source
node is connected to a corresponding edge
Fig. 2, Bottleneck network topology. [8]
router and then to the core router and via
another edge router to the destination. The
bottleneck architecture implements a multiple
source to single destination routing. Since the
IMS architecture core network design has a
multiple source and multiple destination, a
double bottleneck network topology would
be used to achieve the design goal. The
Differentiated Services policy chosen for the
design was a token bucket policy. Figure
3 shows the edge and core routers within
the IMS core network architecture, with two
possible paths for classes of traffic.
The token policy design was achieved by
setting and defining the CIR1, CBS1, CIR0,
CBS0, rate0 and rate1. The rate0 and rate1
P
1 P
1
MN 3
MN 3
Edge Router 1
R 1
R
3 R
3
MN 1
MN 1
Core Router
R
4 R
4
MN 2
MN 2
9
2 9
2
command is used to define the rate of packet
flow within the defined class of traffic. The
link between the edge routers and the core
router were re-defined with the Random Early
Detection queuing policy. The link between
the proxies and the Mobile Nodes (terminals)
remained the same except for a change in the
data capacity.
The maximum packet size was set to
1Mb. The queuing parameters were also
set for all routes between edge routers and
R 0
Edge Router 2
R 2
MN 4
MN 4
Fig. 3. Differentiated Services implementation.

the core router. A double policy entry was
introduced for the routing path thus double
source – double destination as compared to
the original multiple source – single destination
implementation of the bottleneck architecture
designed by Nortel Networks.
The Per-Hop Behaviour (PHB) entries
were defined and the queues configured for
the physical and virtual queues. After the
configuration was done for the different classes
of traffic, the scheduler was again reconfigured
to enforce the events introduced due to the
Differentiated Services implementation.
4.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
4.1 First Design
After running the code for the SIP signalling
architecture on NS-2, the results and Network
AniMator generated visualisation files showing
that registration and session connection
performed reliably (Fig. 4). After the SIP
signal design was run, the results obtained
showed a successful registration of the Mobile
Nodes and initiation as well as termination of
sessions: this indicates that the SIP signalling
architecture designed was successful.
4.2 Second Design
The second design goal involved the
implementation of IP traffic on top of the SIP
signalling architecture. After the SIP signalling
code was edited to introduce IP traffic and
run, the following results were obtained.
Figures 5, 6, 7 and 8 show IP traffic
Fig. 4 Mobile Node positions in NAM
(Network AniMator)
Fig. 5. Diagram showing UDP traffic
initiation and termination after the SIP
signalling between Mobile Nodes and Proxies.
When IP traffic was introduced into the SIP
signalling architecture the results obtained
showed a successful SIP signalling registration.
The IP traffic architecture introduced into the
network ran concurrently without any errors
or conflicts. The IP traffic session set for both
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
Fig. 6 Initial FTP transfer.
communication paths were observed to flow
from end to end successfully.
4.3 Design Three
The Differentiated Services QoS scheme
was implemented after the successful
implementation of different classes of IP
traffic over the IP Multimedia Subsystem
core network. However, the results obtained
Fig. 7. Diagram showing FTP over TCP
with acknowledgement.
Fig. 8. Voice (UDP) session running concurrently
with FTP in the topology.
after the final code was run displayed an
error: “The policy object does not exist”. This
was because the introduction of a double
policy for a single edge router – core router –
edge router path caused a conflict.
The six different categories of policies
developed by Nortel for Differentiated
Services were separately implemented
on the designed architecture but they all
gave the same conflict error. The results
obtained from the introduction of the
six different categories indicates that the
conflict observed was due to the fact
that the bottleneck architecture works on a
multiple sources – single destination node
routing policy. In the Differentiated Services
design implemented, a double bottleneck
architecture was improvised to avoid any
possible conflicts but the desired result was not
obtained.
5.0 CONCLUSIONS
The development of an all-IP mobile
communications network is a major
requirement for the next generation of mobile
networks (4G). This means that the circuitswitched
functionality of present networks
would be replaced with a packet-switched
functionality which works as efficiently for
voice data as the existing circuit-switched
network. This need has driven the research
and development of the IP Multimedia
Subsystem (IMS).
The goal of the present work was to
develop a model of the core network of IMS
on Network Simulator 2 (NS-2), implementing
a suitable Quality of Service scheme, and then
to evaluate performance of the scheme in its
handling of different classes of IP traffic. In
coming up with the design, bearer traffic over
the air interface was ignored: the core network
considered was the wired network consisting of
SIP proxy servers and routers.
The design also presented the
implementation of differentiated classes
of service of IP traffic within the network,
focussed on different IP traffic classes routed
through one edge router – core router –
edge router path. The simulation techniques
were used to perform an evaluation of Nortel
Networks’ Differentiated Services Architecture
on the designed IMS core network. The
simulation results demonstrated a fully
functional IMS core network and investigated
performance of the Differentiated Services
design for IP traffic from single or multiple
sources to multiple destinations when using
one routing path: this constituted a bottleneck.
The implementation of a double
Differentiated Services policy on the first
edge router of a bottleneck topology
architecture resulted in a failure of traffic
flow due to a lack of a defined policy on
packet distribution for the second edge
router. As a more appropriate architecture,
a “butterfly” architecture can be designed
by editing the NS-2 source code for
differentiated services such that policies
can be defined for both edge router 1 and
edge router 2. A successful implementation
of this would facilitate the design of multiple
source – multiple destination routing. This
implies that the butterfly Differentiated Services
design could handle multiple sources –
multiple destinations, single source – multiple
destinations, single source – single destination
and multiple sources – single destination
bearer traffic paths reliably.
P 1
s1
Edge Router 1
R 1
S 1
Core Router
Desk 1
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
R 0
Edge Router 2
R 2
Desk 2
Fig. 9: Proposed butterfly network topology
for Differentiated Services. S1 = Source 1; S2
= Source 2; Dest 1 = Destination 1; Dest 2 =
Destination 2. The paths with arrowheads
show key traffic flow paths.
p 2
RESEARCH 57

LEARN
HOW TO...
58
Apps4Africa
contest for East
African developers
has been in the
news lately.
Albert Mucunguzi
(AM) interviewed
one of the
organisers, Josh
Goldstein.
Customise your Windows 7 Logon Screen
You can change the logon screen to anything you want
Did you know you can customize your logon
screen? Windows 7 has the ability to change the
logon screen built into it to make it easy for Original
Equipment Manufacturers to brand the machines as
they ship them but you can also use it.
Lets show you how to get rid of that background
image and replace it with one of your photos.
First we shall look at how to do it manually then I
will point you towards a tool that can help you do it
faster. The first part is for people who like to know what
happens behind the scenes in a computer.
Manually
To change the logon screen manually follow these
steps:
1. Fire up registry editor (Win Key + R and then
type regedit, hit enter)
2. Browse to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\
LogonUI\Background , double click on key named
OEMBackground and change its value to 1 (If you
cannot find the path or the key go ahead and create it,
remember OEMBackground is a Dword)
3. • You just enabled the OEM Background
functionality. Now browse to the folder %windir%\
system32\oobe\info\backgrounds within Windows
explorer. %windir% refers to your Windows install
directory C:\Windows in most systems. Again the
folder path may not exist already, so you can go ahead
Tips for cut down printing costs
Here’s a quick trick to cut down on printer
consumables: downsize your output so that two pages
fit on single sheet of paper. It’s easy to do, and it can
save you up to 50 percent on your printing costs.
The “2-on-1” approach works like this: Each page
gets reduced in size and rotated 90 degrees, so that
two pages can fit side-by-side on one sheet (think:
booklet). Programs like Word and Adobe Reader give
you this option right in the Print menu. In programs
that don’t (like Firefox), you can venture into the
Properties menu for the selected printer and look for a
“page layout” or “page scaling” option.
and create required folders (info and backgrounds are
generally not present)
4. Now put in any JPG file with size
less than 256 kb in this folder and rename it to
backgroundDefault.jpg. This file will be stretched
to fit the screen, so you would want it to match the
resolution of your screen so that image doesn’t look
bad. Adobe Photoshop, or even Microsoft Photo Editor
can help you crop and resize an image to fit your
screen size.
5. Now check whether it has worked by
pressing Win key + L. If you have followed the
instructions you should now see your photo as the
background on the logon screen. If you cant see your
photo check to make sure it is in the right directory
and is not bigger than 256kb. If it is bigger Windows
will use the Windows 7 default image.
Tweak tool
For those of you who do not want to get your hands
dirty, just go to www.pctechmagazine.com/downloads
and download a free Logon changer application that
will help you with the change. This application from
tweaks.com will take care of the resizing, file size and
even has an option to set the background to keep
scrolling through a set of images. It will also help
restore the original settings incase you decide to revert.
Adapted from www.makeuseof.com
Obviously this won’t always be practical; there are
times when you need full-size, full-page prints. But for
situations when you just need to review a document
layout or keep printed materials on hand for reference,
the shrunken pages work just fine.
Also, you can save paper further by printing on
both sides of the paper. The option for printing on
both sides is in the print options dialogue box.
Then the best way to save paper is by not printing
at all unless you must. So before you print ask yourself
a simple question: “Do I really need to print this?”

Windows 7 tips and tricks
Inbuilt Windows features that will enhance your Windows 7 experience
Jumplists
One of the most useful features of Windows 7
are Windows 7 jumplists, which may seem like
a small feature. But Windows 7 Jumplists can
really make you save a lot of time browsing
for your favorite documents.
To see Windows 7 Jumplists in action, just
right click one of the icons on your taskbar or
your Windows 7 Start Menu.
The Windows Media player jumplist
You will now see a list of the most used
files, bookmarks, videos for the particular
program you are hovering.
By using Windows 7 jumplists on Windows
Media Player you will see your most frequently
viewed videos and or listened music.
So with jumplists we get super easy to use
shortcuts for our most frequently used files in
a specific program.
Search Indexing Service
If you know where your files are stored and
never really use the search function, stop
this service and you will gain a significant
performance boost in Windows 7.
Click on the Start button and type in
“services.msc”
Find and right click the “Windows Search”
and click properties
In the startup type field choose “Disabled”
Reboot your computer and you are done.
PC Safeguard
I rarely let anyone use my PC because
I’m afraid he will mess it up, but it seems
Microsoft has been thinking at me and came
with a solution. The PC Safeguard doesn’t let
anyone mess your PC settings, because after
the user logs off, the configurations are reset
back to normal. Of course it will not restore
the configurations changed by you, but only
the ones done by other users you define.
[ad#social]
To use PC Safeguard, go to Control Panel
-> User Accounts and create a new account,
then select “Set Up Pc Safeguard” and switch
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
it on. Then you can stay relaxed when others
use your computer, because you won’t find
anything changed, including configurations,
downloaded software, installed programs.
Background Photo Slideshow
If you are like me, lazy and bored, then you
will want to change the background from
time to time, wasting a lot of time. Now you
don’t have to do this anymore, because you
can set up a slideshow. Right click on the
desktop then go to Personalize -> Desktop
Background and hold the CTRL key while
choosing the images. Then you can choose
the time intervals between images and opt to
display them randomly or in a row.
TroubleShoot Power Management
Windows 7 can tell you how much power your
system uses or provide detailed information
about the power usage and issues caused by
each application and device. This way you can
optimize the way your battery is used, making
It last longer. Press the Windows Key and type
“POWERCFG –ENERGY –OUTPUT ”,
and it will create a file called energyreport.html
in the folder specified by you,
after observing your PC for 60 seconds.
Make Internet Explorer 8 Load Faster
If you want Internet Explorer 8 to load faster,
you need to disable the add-ons that slow
it down, so go to Tools -> Manage Add-ons
and check the load time for each one. You
can choose for yourself the ones you can live
without and ones that would increase the load
speed.
Lock The Screen
There is no Lock Screen button in the Start
Menu anymore, so you have to press the Windows
Key + L to lock it, now. It seems easier, in
case you don’t forget the shortkey.
Improve Desktop Window Manager For
Nvidia Graphics
Sometimes the animations for Desktop Window
Manager don’t look very well and aren’t
smooth enough and this is cause because
Desktop Window Manager renders effects
with no transparency and blurring, but you
can turn off animations for more pleasant
graphics. Press the Windows Key, right-click
on Computer, go to Properties -> Advanced
System Settings -> Performance -> Settings
and clear “Animate windows when minimizing
and maximizing”. Click OK to finnish.
Change Default Save Location For Files
Windows 7 is a bit different from Vista,
because it saves Documents, Pictures, Videos
and Music under the Public folder inside C:\
Users. You might not want to save your docu-
ments, pictures, videos or music to this location,
but create your own locations and you
can do it quite easy. Press the Windows Key,
Click your username and double-click on the
folder you wish to change. Then you will see
Includes: 2 library locations. Click on that text,
right-click on the folder you wish to set like
default and click “Set as default file location”,
then click Ok.
Make The System Tray Clock Show The
AM / PM Symbols
By default Windows 7 does show the time in
24 hour format, so if you want to get the AM
/ PM symbols, press the Windows Key, type
intl.cpl to open Regional and Language Options,
go to Addition Settings -> Time where
Long Time is set to HH:mm and change it to
HH:mm tt, for example, where tt is the AM or
PM symbol ( 21:12 PM ). To change it to the
12 hour format, you need to type it like this
hh::mm tt ( 9:12 PM ).
Custom Power Button
There is an option to replace the “Shut Down”
button with another action, if you rarely shut
down the computer, but you more often
restart it or put it on sleep. Right click the
Start Button, go to Properties and choose the
‘Power Boot Action” to do whatever you want,
from the given options.
My computer has Sleep instead of Shut down because
I use it more than Shut down
Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility Mode
If your websites don’t render correctly, you
might need to enable Internet Explorer 8
display them in compatibility view. This issue
is because of the updated rendering engine,
which causes a lot of trouble. To do it, open
Internet Explorer, go to Tools -> Compatibility
View Settings and check “Display all websites
in compatibility view”, then click Ok.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
LEARN

LEARN
60
60
Campus Update: NIGERIA
LAUTECH host her first ICT WEEK.
The Nigeria Association of Computer
Science Students (NACOSS), Ladoke
Akintola University of Technology
(LAUTECH) Ogbomoso, had her first ever ICT
week in grand style. The theme of the four
days program was "ICT 4 NAIJA" meaning
Information and Communication Technology
for Nation building, Application development,
Innovative creation, Job reliability and
Accountable governance. NAIJA which stands
as an acronym for the above listed equally
means Nigeria in local dialect.
The event had other features such as
orientation for fresh students, inter-level
debate competition, software exhibition and
a public lecture on ICT awareness and need
for early start up. Presentation of awards and
unveiling of the association's magazine (VON-
NEUMANN) were high points of the formal
opening event. The program was attended
by top dignitaries of the institution and also
representatives from Omatek Computers and
Etisalat Nigeria whom were co-sponsors of the
event.
The institution is well known for numerous
achievement and recognition in areas of
mobile computing and Telemedicine and
has equally been the best state University in
Nigeria for three consecutive years since 2005.
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
Members attending one of the sessions of the ICT week

Student Corner
High School students build
super-effecient electric cars
For a group of very unassuming Kansas
teenagers the year had a rather
interesting twist to it. They took on a
daunting challengeuncommon to peers of
their age group. With the help and directive
of seasoned professionals, these youngsters
worked long and hard on this
seemingly too lofty a project.
Well luck stroke, and needless
to say the pay off was quite
astounding – a 307-mpg(miles
per gallon) electric car for
which they are now petitioning
a position in the highly coveted
Guinness Book of Records. The
most intriguing question is just
how exactly they were able to
pull off such a gargantuan yet
intricate task.
It all started with the introduction
of a new course at
DeLasalle High school in Kansas
MI. Thanks to this AUTO-
MOTIVE DESIGN STUDIO class,
DeLasalle has rapidly become a household
name among young automotive enthusiasts.
The objective of the class: “ to give the
students the tools to process creative thinking,
see the potential for realizing dreams
for a successful future and instill a greater
desire to learn in the students” explained
their leading instructor and mentor, Steve
Reese.
There was no better person to handle the
admirable task of mentoring the next generation
of visionary automotive engineers
than Steve Reese. As a retired architect
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
and car racer, his unique combination of
architectural techniques, engineering savvy
and years of experience proved invaluable
in mentoring the young people. As every
potent leader would have it he brought in
other capable professionals who mentored
the young men one-on-one. This helped
with providing attention in particular areas
of need but also instilled the much needed
sense of professionalism in the budding
engineers.
The move from blue print to building
was where the real test stood. The team
was able to salvage the chassis of a crashed
2000 Lolaracecar, which they used as the
foundation of their design. With quite some
work, they were able to mount on up to 5
gears and an engine powered by 20 batteries,
which provided a solid 120 Volt of
John Shu
power. Intriguingly the bodywork proved to
be their hardest stage of the design. In the
interest of fuel efficiency it was paramount
that they used as lightweight a material
as they could lay hands on. They liberally
tried several materials to the point of
experimenting with spandex. Spandex didn’t
really do much for them, as they continually
had to fix rips and tears. At the end of
the day carbon fiber stood out both for its
featherweight and outstanding resilience.
Regal plastics produced a very appealing
transparent aerodynamic cage under which
their structure sat. The transparent cage
made things more interesting during testing
as one could see all the mechanics in action.
As you would expect, such feats of engineering
by relatively tender minds did not
go unnoticed. Support and funding started
to accrue from impressed organizations
such as Dodge, Ford, Wilwood engineering
and many others. Bridgestone Tires Company
apparently was the most impressed
as they not only donated patterned tires
for this aerodynamic, electronic propulsion
driveline system. They also generously
opened up their famed 7.7-mile
lap Bridge Stone Proving Grounds
in Texas for the testing stage. Not
only did the car achieve beyond
expectation but from empirical
results the team is finding new
ways to improve its performance
and step it up from a modest 42
mph (mile per hour) top speed.
Recollecting everything you
have to wonder if these talents
are particular to only the now
esteemed students of DeLasalle.
If not, then the question of how
projects like this can be integrated
in school curriculums arises. As
with the case of DeLasalle, this
project clearly was a resounding
success and consequentially encouraged
most of the team members to enroll in the
university and pursue a career in engineering;
which University wouldn’t want them?
All it takes is a heart for the next generation
and a drive to give back. A project like
this may fulfill its targeted goal, but could
ultimately lead to companies taking interest
in the educational milieu and thus invest
towards their recruits and visionaries of
tomorrow.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
61
LEARN

BUSINESS
SOLUTIONS
62
9
BY JOSEPH MUNUULO
Ways to increase
productivity at work
With the credit crunch biting hard and
affecting revenue earnings of many
organizations around the globe, organizations
have decided to down size
and go lean of staff. This has left fewer
employees with a lot to clear at their table. Employees
often have to juggle between multiple roles or work
for longer hours to beat the strict deadlines and keep
business processes on track and in sync with organizational
ethos. Though not mentioned often, improving
personal productivity can go a long way toward getting
you out of the office on time and achieving a better
work-life balance.
Avoid wasting a lot of time reading email.
Time is one factor that keeps on moving no matter
the circumstance. Most employees spend a lot of time
clearing emails only to realize by the end of the day
that they have not done any work for that day yet.
One way to go about email at work would be to read
your emails in sections Instead of clearing your mails
all at once. Prioritize which emails to Start with and
important to note here is to begin with time-sensitive
and critical messages then focus on the less critical
e-mails in smaller bits throughout the day. You can limit
distractions by using e-mail filtering features to sort out
important messages.
Limit the amount of time spent on surfing.
Most people are not aware of how much time is
wasted on non productive and non-work related Web
or social media sites. Sites such as face book and others
in that fall in that category occupy us at the expense of
our routine business processes. One way to avoid this
kind of distraction is by restricting access to such sites.
There are other tools and services that can track and report
on your online usage. This can help monitor online
behavior and activities of the employees.
Use visual Communication
We’ve all heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand
words.” Visuals let you condense information into a
form that is both quickly digestible and shows connections
and relationships. In a fast-changing world, using
visuals helps solve the information overload problem.
Make a to-do list for the day
The first task to be accomplished when you get at
your desk is to create a list of specific activities you want
to accomplish for that day. This is what we call a to do
list. While there may be urgent matters that pre-empt
your plan from time to time, overall, you’ll find yourself
accomplishing more with a clearly defined path ahead
of you.
Programme your activities
Segment specific time to accomplish each task. For
instance set a side time to make, receive and return
phone calls. Desktop handsets should be left on voice
mail the rest of the time. Allocate similar slots for
drafting, sending and replying to e-mails. Exercising
discipline with phone, e-mail and other communications
will prevent priority tasks from being interrupted.
Place a time limit on meetings
Meetings are elastic in nature and tend to fill the time
slot allotted them. Schedule a shorter time period to
conduct the meeting and stick to the agenda as closely
as possible. Avoid creeping in issues that were not part
of the original agenda for the meeting.
Clear your desk of clutter
Documents on your desk that have not been used
for a month can be considered clutter. Clear them
off the desk and recycle them - they are clearly not
needed. Stored electronically, the miscellaneous reports,
presentations and memos that often clutter a desk are
easier to file, quicker to locate, take up less space and
require less time when searching for them.
Use the right equipment
Faulty keyboards, slow computers or other malfunctioning
peripherals create a huge drain on productivity,
as well as a great deal of frustration. Replace broken or
malfunctioning equipment.
Limit work hours and take vacation
We talk a lot about finding the right work-life balance,
but hardly anyone seems to be doing it. Research
has shown that employees who limit the number of
hours they work each day, and take regular vacations,
are actually more efficient and more effective than their
workaholic coworkers.
WATCH YOUR BUSINESS GROW
advertising@pctechmagazine.com
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
Despite tensions, U.S.
governors flock to China
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger waves during his visit to
the Zhenhua Port Machinery Company in Shanghai on September 13.
Beijing, China (CNN) -- In the midst of tense U.S. Congressional
hearings on China’s currency last week, four U.S. state governors --
including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Minnesota
Governor Tim Pawlenty -- were in China hoping to cement business
relations.
More U.S. governors are looking to China for an international solution
to local economic problems and unemployment, despite heightened
trade and currency tensions between Beijing and Washington.
“[China] represents massive economic opportunity and massive
economic benefit...in a way that’s going to translate in job growth for
our citizens,” Minnesota Governor Pawlenty said in Beijing last week.
“It is absolutely amplified by the downturn in the recession and this
heightened thirst to do anything and everything we can to create
jobs.”
Even California, considered the 8th largest economy in the world, is
looking across the Pacific for a long-term economic boost.
“California jobs, business vitality, and our cultural identity all are
deeply tied to the Asia-Pacific region,” said Schwarzenegger in a statement
during his trip to China last week.
Besides Pawlenty and Schwarzenegger, Governor Chris Gregoire of
Washington was in Beijing last week meeting with high-level officials.
Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia was also visiting China, its secondlargest
trading partner.
The steady stream of U.S. state leaders to China shows that despite
tense trade issues on the national level, many governors are bullish on
the Middle Kingdom’s economic potential, hoping to tap into its massive
consumer population.
In August, the Southern Governors’ Association featured former
Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Zhou Wenzhong, seven U.S. governors,
and CEOs of major Chinese companies in a seminar focused on
strengthening trade and business relations between China and U.S.
southern states.
In their first trip to China, the Minnesota Corn Growers Association
joined Pawlenty’s trade delegation hoping to dovetail the growing demand
of corn in China -- 1.3 million tons of U.S. corn were exported
to China last year, the most in 14 years. Analysts say China’s increased
demand for corn could represent a longer term structural shift as agribusinesses
consolidate in China and rely more on raising livestock.
In addition, U.S. businesses are trying to insert themselves into critical
but less developed parts of Chinese industry. The cycle that feeds
the U.S. trade deficit isexports of American-made machinery and raw
materials to China and higher-value finished products in return. U.S.
exporters hope to reverse that trend by establishing new markets in
China, such as logistics and food safety know-how.
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
63

LEISURE
OTHER THAN I.C.T...
64
BY TIMOTHY
RUBASHEMBUSYA
A word from a
geek to geeks
COMPILED BY RICHARD BOATENG
Adobe — from the name of the river Adobe Creek
that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock
and Chuck Geschke.
Apple — for the favourite fruit of co-founder
Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple
orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for
the business, and he threatened to call the company
Apple Computer if his colleagues didn’t suggest a
better name by 5 p.m. Apple wanted to distance itself
from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery
created by other computer companies at the time —
which had names such as IBM, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom,
Syncsort and Tesseract — in order to get people to
use them at home. They looked for a name that supported
a brand positioning strategy that was to be
perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and
different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the
Beatle’s Apple Corps to use the name ‘Apple’ and paid
a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory,
Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the
derivative name ‘Macintosh’ (‘Mac’).
Bang & Olufsen — from the names of its founders,
Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, who met at a School of
Engineering in Denmark.
Casio — from the name of its founder, Kashio
Tadao, who had set up the company Kashio Seisakujo
as a subcontractor factory.
Cisco — short for San Francisco. It has also been
suggested that it was “CIS-co”: Computer Information
Services was the department at Stanford University
where the founders worked.
Coca-Cola — Coca-Cola’s name is derived from the
coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola
creator John S. Pemberton changed the ‘K’ of kola to
‘C’ for the name to look better.
EA Games — EA is from Electronic Arts. The company
was founded in May 1982 as Amazin’ Software
and changed its name to Electronic Arts in October the
same year.
eBay — Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction
Web trading website, had formed a web consulting
concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. “Echo
Bay” didn’t refer to the town in Nevada, the nature
area close to Lake Mead, or to any real place. “It just
sounded cool,” Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried
to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo
Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first.
So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought
was the second best name: eBay.com.
H&M — In 1947, a Swedish businessman named
Erling Persson established Hennes, a ladies’ clothing
store, in Västerås, Sweden. “Hennes” is Swedish for
“hers.” In 1968, Persson acquired premises in Stockholm
for his chain by buying the premises and inventory of
a hunting equipment store named Mauritz Widforss.
Included in the inventory was a collection of men’s
clothing, prompting Persson to expand into menswear.
Accordingly, he renamed the company Hennes & Mauritz,
which was later abbreviated to H&M.
HP — Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin
to decide whether the company they founded would
be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Hotmail — Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing
e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere
in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the
business plan for the mail service he tried all kinds of
names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for Hotmail as
it included the letters “HTML” — the markup language
used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as
HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on
Hotmail’s ‘mail’ tab, you will still find “HoTMaiL” in the
URL.)
JVC — from Japan Victor Company
Intel — Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore initially
incorporated their company as N M Electronics. Someone
suggested Moore Noyce Electronics but it sounded
too close to “more noise” — not a good choice for
an electronics company! Later, Integrated Electronics
was proposed but it had been taken by somebody else
so they used the initial syllables (INTegrated ELectronics).
To avoid potential conflicts with other companies
of similar names, Intel purchased the name rights for
$15,000 from a company called Intelco. (Source: Intel
15 Years Corporate Anniversary Brochure)
Kodak — Both the Kodak camera and the name
were the invention of founder George Eastman. The
letter “K” was a favourite with Eastman; he felt it a
strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations
of words starting and ending with “K”. He saw
three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a
trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and
the name did not resemble anything in the art. There
is a misconception that the name was chosen because
of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of
the camera.
Microsoft — coined by Bill Gates to represent
the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer
SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-’ was
removed later.
Motorola — Founder Paul Galvin came up with this
name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing
Company) started manufacturing radios for
cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used
the “ola” ending for their products, most famously
the “Victrola” phonograph made by the Victor Talking
Machine Company. The name was meant to convey
the idea of “sound” and “motion”. The name became
so recognized that the company later adopted it as the
company name.
To be continued...
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
TIMOTHY RUBASHEMBUSYA
This New Year... No kidding, it is a new year.
It is already the middle of the year. At such
a time as this, new things happen. The budget
is read – and for Uganda it is always red! New
taxes are introduced, old ones are scrapped.
Companies carry out evaluations and some
just restructure last year’s restructures. This
is ideally the economic New Year. It is even
more special here in East Africa as we try out
something new - the customs union. You don’t
have to understand much about it, all you need
to do is wake up to the fact that it is here and
get just enough info to let you take part in the
conversation. How good or bad it will be is not
mine to say; all I am saying is happy New Year!
It’s time to create this feel around me – the
feel of a new beginning. I decide to do away with
some clutter. I remember hearing someone say
that the accumulation of clutter follows the 80-
20 rule. Of all the things we keep; we only get
to use a scrappy 20%! It’s time to restructure!
I tried this recently and it is one of the scariest
but most fulfilling things I have done in a long
time. Here is how it went.
The Phone: For some of us who still own
our Nokia 3310s or sim-cards which saw the
age of MTN service fee, this will be daring.
For me even an entire Sunday afternoon was
not enough. I scrolled through some of the
messages in my inbox and I was shocked out of
my socks. Christmas messages reused over and
over again for the past 5 or so Christmases. Let
6
1
8 9
12
15 16 17
20
24
them go. O.K that was easy. Now scroll through
your phone book and delete every local phone
number that has less than 10 digits – why do I
still have numbers like 077-123456? As I scroll
through, a lot of memories come flooding back!
This chic’s mother’s number – well it was never
meant to be; the broker who disappeared with
my money; the friend who passed on….; and
Oh I can’t remember who the hell this is? After
you have gone through the emotions… Let
them go.
The email: For how long have you had
your current yahoo or hotmail email address?
This will be the hard part. You don’t have to
delete these since yahoo now gives you a lot
of storage space – well an excuse because
I could not master the courage to delete my
old emails. However, you can control the clutter
going forward. Delete all the emails that you
do not need to keep as soon as you read them.
These might include facebook notices, spam
that finds your way into your inbox and those
lucky emails asking you to send to so many
people – they are so for the last decade.
The school notes: No matter what your
teacher or mother told you – you do not need
to keep notes of courses you studied 5 years
ago. Here is why. Going through my campus
notes the other day, I wondered whether it
was me who had attended those lectures,
done the course works and even written those
summaries just before the exams. Most of them
are gibberish now. All I could remember was
my registration number… what the heck. Let
them go.
The PC: This one came after a warning.
“Low disc space!” In denial, I moan … ‘…already?
I thought I had 500GB space.’ Perusing thru my
documents; Prison Break, 24 and Family Guy,
all seasons! – ‘Wait I don’t remember watching
some of these!’ And why do I have all these
setups of Firefox from 1.0.0.2 – more than 10
of them; I don’t remember downloading – let
alone buying or listening to any of this music.
Then why do I still have the setup of Windows
98? This is getting harder than I thought. So I
decide to procrastinate on this – till later and
then…
The bedroom: Socks, cables that don’t
work, my high school Clarks shoe – I can only
see a single one! By this time am so tired I
cannot go on any further. A few minutes later
my bedroom looks almost empty.
This is really exciting – I muse to myself. But
then I remember that a month later I know all
these will be full again – of things I do not need!
I guess I’ll have to do this more often and be
more strict the next time!
Have you tried doing away with any of your
clutter? Tell us about what your experience and
what you found at
leisure@pctechmagazine.com
PC TECH CROSSWORD 104.
2 3 4
10
19
21 22 23
25
13
7
18
14
5
11
Across
6. Ray of sunlight (7)
7. Tropical eel (5)
8. Indian of Mexico (5)
10. Weirdest (7)
12. Flowering shrubs (6)
13. Tree-like grass Nest – a hangout place in Kampala (6)
15. Scolding (6)
17. Make hard (6)
20. State of being stiff and formal (7)
22. Class of Indian society (5)
24. Burdened head of a terrorist group! (5)
25. In the place of (7)
Down
1. Informal test (4)
2. Swordsman (6)
3. Street Lights. Red, Green, ____ (5)
4. Element naturally abundant in common salt (6)
5. Ventilates (4)
8. Eternal (7)
9. English royal house (5)
11. Thrash (7)
14. Waits (5)
16. Person who operates a farm (6)
18. Right to enter or Login (6)
19. Sarcastic doubter of sincerity and merit (5)
21. Small dabbling duck (4)
23. Conjunction (4)
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
LEISURE
65

PC GAMING
REVIEWS, ANALYSIS
66
Hands-On: Microsoft
Kinect a Major Let Down
Kinect is a “controller-free gaming and entertainment experience” by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game
platform. Based around a webcam-style add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 console, it enables users to
control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a controller through a natural user interface
using gestures, spoken commands. Above is the peripheral. Some think it promises more than it delivers...
While promising in theory, our less-than-stellar experiences
with Kinect left us itching for our controller
back.
First there were Atari’s paddles. Then D-pads, analog
sticks, and rumble packs. While most innovations in
controller design have incrementally boosted the number
of buttons, triggers and other inputs crammed into
a two-handed brick, Microsoft’s Kinect promises to do
away with them forever.
The unprecedented hands-free control device that
Microsoft introduced last year as Project Natal has finally
gotten a real name (Kinect), a price ($150) and
a launch date (November 4). More importantly, it also
has real games. After jumping, ducking and flailing
along with many of the new titles for Kinect, including
Ubisoft’s Motion Sports and Warner Bros.’ Game Party,
it’s easy to see the appeal, but the execution remains a
troubling question mark.
Put Down the Plastic
Gaming journalists seldom like to admit it, but stepping
up to an E3 demo with even the most familiar
controller carries with it a certain sense of anxiety. What
does square do? Is left trigger brake or accelerate? Do
I need to invert the Y axis? It’s the same sense of confusion
and uncertainty that turns your parents, grandparents
and skeptical friends away from video games. And
though vets only feel it for a second with new games,
it still exists.
Kinect bulldozes that sense of intimidation. Without
a piece of plastic to pick up, hold properly, or otherwise
fumble with, stepping into the game isn’t even a choice
anymore. By the time you’re watching a game, you’re
controlling it.
Ubisoft Motion Sports Test
In Motion Sports, the menus are dead simple. Every
activity has been sorted into a grid on the main screen,
which players can select from by merely holding their
hand up and leaving it on the right one for a few seconds.
A glowing profile of the player in the back of the
screen makes it obvious which game you’re reaching
for.
A few claps through the instruction screens, and
you’re into the action.
Football
We started out with football, which would seem like an
awfully complex sport to distill down into just movement.
Ubisoft did it by reducing the game to merely
dodging incoming defenders as you race for a touchdown.
You don’t run in place, steer your character, or
cradle a virtual ball. Just perform the right movement
– dodge, jump, duck – at the right moment, and you’ll
make it to the end zone.
It’s like Dance Dance Revolution without the music
– and surprisingly difficult to master. We found our-
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com

selves crunching into the turf over and over, either
from performing the wrong moves, or just
doing them too late. The delay of the Kinect
system makes itself most obvious when jumping,
which feels like it happens on screen a full
second after you’ve done it in real life. Your feet
are already planted firmly back on the carpet by
the time it registers.
Even if we had a little more luck with it, we
can’t see this type of gameplay keeping anyone
– even a casual gamer lured in by the Kinect
– occupied for very long. Besides a few extra
points for exceptionally clean maneuvers, its
sheer monotony.
Skiing
Unlike football, Ubisoft’s skiing game actually
lets you steer. The motion itself is mostly in the
shoulders, while crouching controls speed (lower
is faster) and clawing away at virtual ski poles
lets you push off from a standstill.
Out of the gate, steering feels awkward.
Although heeding the game’s instructions not
to oversteer allows us not to run off the track
immediately, it the character’s on-screen mo-
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com
tions steel feel choppy and disconnected from
our own. He almost seems to move in notches.
Hardly the graceful carving motion you imagine
with skiing.
The pacekeeping avatar that picks all the
perfect lines passed us in an instant and disappeared
over the next hill. Even if you can manage
to stay between the gates, picking those
same razor-thin lines using your shoulders to
steer feels like using a butterknife to perform
surgery.
Root Beer Tapper, Quarterback Challenge
and more
Other titles followed a similar pattern. Warner
Bros.’ Game Party offered the same dismal sense
of control with graphics and kiddie themes
more suited for the Wii. The only trolls we hit
in the Whack a Troll game were by accident,
we sloshed soda everywhere and made quite a
few digital customers angry in Root Beer Tapper,
and Quarterback Challenge proved to be
nearly impossible.
Lots of Sizzle, Where’s the Steak?
One year ago, the sloppy and generally imprecise
experiences we had with Kinect could have
been passed off as pre-alpha buginess. But this
is the state of Kinect in 2010, just months away
from launch. With a full extra year of development
under its belt, we’re not impressed with
what we’ve seen.
The Kinect is not easy to use, it’s not accurate,
and it’s not fun. The only worse waste of
$150 we can imagine spending on the Kinect
at this point is the ensuing trickle of dollars that
would go into buying the present selection of
godawful titles for it.
If there’s any potential for Kinect, it probably
lies in its use as a tool for controlling menus.
The few opportunities we had to interact with
it on this level – rather than in games – it actually
offered enough precision to not only work,
but work well. If it can maintain that feel from a
couch, reaching for the remote could become a
thing of the past. www.digitaltrends.com
SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH
GAMING
67

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PROVIDERS, JOBS, TENDERS
68
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