Directions made simpler

As the Summer holiday begins [winter for some] there will be lots to do over the break. Finding an address can sometimes be tough. GPS coordinates are great, for devices, but perhaps not people. In neighborhoods like Karen in Nairobi, it would seem easy to figure out an address, but what you may not know is there may be several homes at the said address. Well to make things more exiting, if you were to deliver something to an informal settlement, like Kibera, now that would not be an easy task.
All this might be changing with What3Words. Mapping the entire globe in 3m  by 3m square spaces using 3 words.

This addressing means everyone has a shipping address. Help can reach those who need it faster,
shipping of goods and services can be done more efficiently, and words are easier to remember :)
Learn more on here....

If you find this address you might just be in luck for a cuppa tea! adopts.enhances.prettiest

Shop Again! | Online

VITU MOB [Kiswahili for Many Things]

Recently I came across a very interesting app. This app allows you to shop online from known brands and have your merchandise  delivered to your door. The lead time from purchase to delivery is approximately three weeks, but the amazing thing is... it is to your door. The sign up is simple. Go to the vitu mob website by clicking here Then download the vitu mob app. On the top right hand corner of your browser you will see  the vitumob shopping cart icon. This is where you check out from to have your bill tabulated in Kenyan Shillings.Once you have completed your transaction a VITU MOB agent will call you with details regarding shipping. Payment can be made using VISA, MASTER and MPESA. This will make shopping from stores in the US simple again :) Give it a go, try the service and have fun shopping.

Here are some stores you can buy from in the US.

If you prefer purchasing from the UK you can use Kesnosm freight. 
They allow you to purchase from leading UK stores, ship your merchandise to their UK warehouse and then it will be forwarded to Kenya. Typically this takes two weeks. Once your goods arrive, you will be contacted to give delivery information. A charge of Kenya shillings 3000 /= is typical for Nairobi and it's environs. With kensom you can ship anything. All you need is to have your contact person in the UK send your package to the kensom warehouse, pay, that's it. Delivery to your door.

Below stores accessible via KENSOM online shopping.

Gmail tips and tricks!

Get the most out of your Gmail account!

Google Labs provide a “sandbox” environment for apps that in the experimental stage but not yet released as fully commissioned features of Google apps. The Labs can be accessed by hitting the settings option from the configuration wheel that located on the top right hand side of your Gmail account.

In the labs you can enable some interesting features that customize your look and feel while using Google mail apps.

One cool feature is the use of preview panes. This allows you to preview your email by just click in on it once.

Your Gmail account suddenly now looks like the familiar Microsoft outlook interface.  You can have it Vertical or horizontal.

Another cool feature you can enable is undo send! You do know how frustrating it gets when you hit send and then see that TYPO! Aaaagrrr well now with undo send you can catch that and make corrections. To hit undo, you must click on the cancel link at the top of your mailbox where you see the word Sending then a message undo send appears. If you click on it your message will not be delivered to the recipient until you re-send it.

One more trick: using the operator “OR” when doing a refined search.  See example below

from:sammygatere@westnairobischool.org OR from:techsupport@nwea.org

This gives you a refined search using the parameters specified.

Enjoy customizing your Gmail experience.

More stuff:

Follow this link for more tips and tricks!

Map how you think!

More from Google

Consolidating information can sometimes be a tough call. For example if you are planing a holiday with friends and need to pick a place and activities to do as a group, that can get pretty interesting, everybody has a great idea to share, some ideas that are not so great and well those that you don't even bother about. Sometimes meetings are the same and you may want to consolidate all the information in a visual form. Mind Mapping has been around for years. In the simplest terms it can be referred to as a visual form of note taking. Taking notes this way helps capture what the main issue, give an overview or the complex matters if any and visually helps organize your information.
Google apps  has a tool that can allow you to do this and share map with other collaborators who can contribute to the conversation visually. The tool is called MindMup! you can install it from the Google market place and for our organization, just go to Drive, NEW, MINDMUP and there you go!

Read more about MindMup

A screen shot of MindMup

Trees, Paper, Energy!

Perhaps when you hit the print icon from your productivity application you hardly think about saving

energy! well the more you hit Print the more energy you consume! The going green campaign enlightens you on how best to manage paper based print work. Did you know that every ton of paper translates to 17 trees? this is huge! if you think about it when was the last time you planted a tree to offset what you printed in the last year! So as the year unfolds consider to plant one or two trees to offset this disequilibrium.

Another way of saving energy, paper and trees is through planning your printing. If you can, print double sided. If you have a choice print to a more cost effective printer please do. For example in our Kenyan context, the cost of printing a single page using a typical box laser printer  (paper included) is approximately Kes 4.18 ( $1 = Kes = 90) in comparison to about Kes

2 when using an multi-function printer copier [MFP].

Printing technology has been changing rapidly, Since Johannes Gutenberg invented a machine that revolutionized the world, things have moved up a notch. Now rapid prototyping is a reality, you can imagine how this can impact teaching science, art, mathematics practically anything, there is only one small hitch before we order one... we need to break two banks to afford it! :)[$2500 for an entry level]

More about Printing

3D printer with an F1 race car prototype

1. 3D printing and more[here.]
2. How paper use impacts your bottom line [read ...]
3. 3D Art [watch...]
4. Paper Reduction act [read...]

3D printing Math encounter!

Go Google Drive!

Go Google Drive | take your files anywhere!

Welcome back! hope you had lots of fun over the Christmas holidays! As you settle into the new year and get re-acquainted to your technology or start using new stuff Santa gave you... having all your devices talk will be a simple must. Online collaboration is becoming increasingly popular and cloud based solutions are just everywhere. Looking at  Google, one of the products they have on their offering is Google Drive. Google drive allows you to have your own personal cloud storage. Some immediate benefits are; The ability to share you documents  easily and give the restrictions for access and modification. For business grade Google Drive has 30 GB of storage that can be accessed using the the Google drive app from any device that has access to the internet. Google also has some online productivity tools such as spreadsheets and word processing. The  beauty of  working off

these online tools is, once you start typing, the document is saved. 

When working with others, Google drive allows you to see who is currently working on the document at anytime.

Please watch these videos on how to get started:[Just follow the link]

1. Meet Google DRIVE [Under 2 min]
2. Go Google DRIVE [Under 2 min]
3. This is Google DRIVE [Under 2 min]
4. Explore Google DRIVE [Under 2 min]
5. How Google Apps WORK [Under 2 min]
6. Beginner's guide - Google Drive [16 Min]
7. Google Drive  - a Complete User Guide [16 Min]

Google Drive | The new look | give it a try

Google Drive | The new look | give it a try

If you have a Gmail address, then you have Google drive! Drive is one of the many Apps available on the Google communication platform.

When you log into your Google account  (Private Gmail or Business) You will see a small box with a grid, right next to your name on the top right hand side of your screen. That grid is know as the App Launcher. When you click on it, it expands and displays all the apps in a matrix, that are readily available for you.


If you have a Google for business account (like Google apps for education) you have 30 GB worth of free cloud storage. This means you can store all types of documents online and have them accessible to you, using different types of smart devices where Internet access is available making the statement "Your documents go with you..." an actual reality.

Google drive is now about two years old, and is an excellent tool for collaborative work. You can create new documents as well as upload from your computer [or smart device]. Google drive has been recently revamped to make your online experience more fluid and intuitive.
The new look allows you to use already familiar operations such as drag and drop, multiple item selection as you would on  your computer, right clicking to get more information just to mention a few.

Google Drive is a tool [app] worth exploring...

Please click on the link watch this video  about Google Drive.

[Images and logos belong to Google Corporation]