Mica Computer Services » Updates

The Kiswahili Workstation

Webmaster — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:34:26 +0000

Internationalization, also referred to as i18n, is the process of translating an application into a different language. Here in East-Africa, we have of-course been eagerly awaiting the process of translating the mainly Enlish language based applications and operating systems, into Kiswahili.

With the dawn of Open Source software in East-Africa, thanks to the growing communities involved, translation has over the past few years taken a good step forward. Whereas Microsoft had been dragging its heels for years, soon after fully Kiswahili versions of OpenOffice.org and FireFox Web-browser became available (see below) Microsoft announced a Kiswahili Office. Though the latter was costly, cumbersome and badly translated, and as such failed. So what is available today?

An overview of what is available free of charge:

Jambo OpenOffice – The Kiswahili version of the OpenOffice suite of applications.
klnX -The Open Kiswahili Localization Project from the University of DSM (with, amongst others, the Swahili Firefox Web-browser and Swahili SpellChecker)
Microsoft Office Kiswahili Dictionary Language Interface Pack for registered versions of Office 2003

Kiswahili resources on the web:

The Kamusi Project – The Internet Living Swahili Dictionary (their Software page).
Google’s live translation of words, sentences or entire pages: Kiswahili > English & English > Kiswahili
Ungefanyaje? A kiswahili computer game made by the UN to stop the spread of HIV (BBC News)
Surfing in Kiswahili (article on BBC News)
Bongo Radio – Swahili Internet Radio
Swahili Centre – Sharing Swahili Culture & Experiences

News on Kiswahili Computing:

Follow Kamusi on Twitter, the latest news on Swahili Software and Sites

Email, the perfect tool for hackers

Webmaster — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:42:41 +0000

As web-masters for a growing number of companies in town, we are often asked about the validity (or dangers) of emails certain received. Especially the info@ and webmaster@ addresses are under attack from viruses and phishing, often twice or trice a week, so asking is is the right thing to do! What happens?

A legitimate looking email arrives from one of your contacts, a potential client, paypal, facebook, twitter or even from your own email server (see below). Something is wrong with your account and they need you to login and verify your password. Click here. Or one of a thousand other reasons why you would want to follow the link they provide.

This link is false. As is this one: http://www.client-x.com/cpanel

Hover over it with your mouse and see it links to an entirely different place on the internet. There, you’ll be greeted by your familiair (but fake) logon screen where you enter, or verify your name and password . These are now, of-course, in someone’s database, along with your IP address and possibly email address. The site might then send on your credentials to the real site and log you on so you will never even know the difference.

Or, you might not even fill in anything but an applet, or script, hidden on the page you were sent to has installed a virus, trojan or Adware on your PC. The possibilities are endless, take for example this example I was asked about this morning by client X.

Subject: your mailbox has been deactivated
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:52:46 +0100
From: notifications@client-x.com
To:

We are contacting you in regards to an unusual activity that was
identified in your mailbox. As a result, your mailbox has been
deactivated. To restore your mailbox, you are required to extract
and run the attached mailbox utility.

Best regards, client-x.com technical support.

Now luck has it, we are actually technical support for client X and we sure had not sent the email. When the client wanted to forward the email to us, their anti-virus solution gave a first indication of trouble, the attached ‘utility’ contained a virus.

So how can you know what emails to trust? It is impossible to be 100% sure. There are, however, a number of red flags and things you can do yourself.

Red Flags & What to Do

Read the email closely. Does it make sense? Why would a system that you own ‘lock you out’?
Look closely at the ‘from’, and possibly the ‘reply to’ addresses. On close inspection, are they real? In the above case, the notifications@client-x.com address does not even exist.
Is there a link to click? Don’t. First hover over it and see where it will take you. Is this the same location as it looks to be? You can copy and paste the link into word or notepad if you cannot see it on hovering over. Is it really a link at facebook.com ? Or if you look better, does it actually goto facebook.com.23789myserver.ru ? If the link looks legitimate, BEFORE you fill in any personal information, check the URL or location bar in your browser. Do you see a lock indicating a secure connection? Again, are you really on facebook?
Copy a bit of the email and paste it into Google. If anyone else has writen about it, anywhere in the world, you’ll know. I copied the first line of the above virus into Google and got 16,700 hits.
And do we need to say? Don’t run any attachment. And if you have to, make sure your anti virus software is up to date and running!

And if you’re worried at all, DO contact us. We probably either heard already, or can find out about it.

UPDATE 8/12/09: The ever useful on-line magazine LifeHacker just posted an article on this subject with lots of useful info and links. Find it here…

UPDATE 25/01/10: Another email in our inbox, another variety of the same scam. We’ll be adding them as comments to this post as they come in…

Mobile Access

Webmaster — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:36:55 +0000

Every day, we see a larger percentage of our site-visitors using a mobile phone as opposed to a full-blown web-browser. Just like in Tanzania mobiles phones overtook the hardly used land-line system as the preferred method of communications, now modern phones come equipped with web-browsers, making the trip to an internet cafe a thing of the past.

However, your website that looks so nice on a big screen, will be almost impossible to access from the small screen of most mobile phones. Pictures, fancy menu’s, the entire site was designed to be viewed at much higher resolution. This is where you can experience the benefits of a dynamic website, as offered through Mica’s WebSite Plus. Just like this website, using this approach completely separates your information from the presentation of it all.

Using this technology, things are no more complicated then using a different ‘look and feel’ for your site, chosen when the website determines the visitor arrives using a mobile phone. This is done automatically, as you can see when you navigate to our website from your mobile phone.

Simply open up your web/wap browser on your mobile phone and point it to: http://micacomputers.com and see. Or, if you want to see what things will look like but you have no phone at hand, simply click here for a demonstration on your pc.

Affordable computing

Webmaster — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:38:24 +0000

Mica Computer Services is proud to be able to offer quality, future proof refurbished hardware at very affordable prices! Refurbished, meaning second hand, imported and then fully cleaned, tested and inspected and ready for years of operation. Proving that second-hand does not mean second best, we are offering three combinations of a A-brand computers system with energy and space saving 15″ TFT flat screens. These P4 machines fly when using Windows XP (or better, Ubuntu Linux), with ample memory, disk space and even a CD-(re)writer + DVD combo drive.

These powerful computers come fully licensed with Microsoft Windows XP Professional and are therefore completely ready for use. A perfect combination to expand your internet cafe or the computer science lab at your school! Why not drop by our shop and convince yourself?

Option 1: HP-Compaq D220 + TFT = TSH. 470,000/=

Specifications:
Pentium 4, 2.4Ghz / 40Gb HD / 256Mb RAM / DVD-rom, CD-R/W combi drive, 15″ TFT flat-screen

Option 2: DELL GX260 TOWER + TFT = TSH. 450,000/=

Specifications:
Pentium 4, 2.2Ghz / 40Gb HD / 256Mb RAM / DVD-rom, CD-R/W combi drive, 15″ TFT flat-screen

Option 3: COMPAQ PC + TFT = TSH. 3800,000/=

Specifications:
Pentium 4, 1.5Ghz / 40Gb HD / 256Mb RAM / CD-R drive, 15″ TFT flat-screen

All three configurations give you years of problem-free operation, are built using standard components making service, repairs or upgrades very easy and thanks to the TFT display, they use very little power. Best way to get an even better idea of these machines is of-course to come to our shop where we’ve got all three configurations on display.

Karibu sana!

New location

Webmaster — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:28:17 +0000

Mica Computer Services has opened it’s own shop in the heart of Arusha! Not content with providing the bestcomputer services in town, Mica is now also a supplier of quality computers and accessoiries.

Click to enlarge

Our shop is open daily, Monday to Saturday, from 08:30 till 18:00. We hope to welcome you soon!