How I get 24-Hours of power in Nigeria without a gen or "NEPA"

First of all, this is not a marketing post. I am just excited to share my experience with anyone who is willing to benefit from the joys of uninterrupted clean energy.

Power outages in Nigeria have been the norm for several decades but Nigerians have never gotten used to it and I don't think we will. From ECN (Electricity Corporation of Nigeria) to NEPA (Nigerian Electric Power Authority) to PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria) to the present day privatization, sadly, the power situation hasn't changed. We have given the government fifty-odd years to prove themselves and I think it's high-time we take matters into our own hands.

Fortunately, Nigeria is blessed with  a lot of sunlight all year round due to it's geographical location and since December 2015, when I decided to tap into mother natures blessings, I have had uninterrupted power supply.

In this blog post, I am going to show you how to run on 24-hour of power by leveraging solar panels and energy efficient appliances. I am a big advocate of renewable energy(as you'll see from my blog posts) and I just had to put my money where my mouth was... as they say.

Okay, let's get right into it.

2 Cool Augmented Reality Windows 8 Apps

The two apps I'll show you today are from Corinth

1. Corinth Micro Engines Augmented (Download Here): 

Have you ever been interested in types of engines and how do they work? This ground-breaking 3D interactive educational app offers all the facts you are looking for - in a visually outstanding, easy-to-understand and fun package. 

Watch a video of how it works below:

Making of John Lewis The Bear & The Hare Advert

Just amazing!

List of the tools & services used to build GOV.UK

I've always thought the GOV.UK site was well built aesthetically and even in it's robustness. After visiting a couple of other government sites I decided to find out what was used to build the site and what makes GOV.UK so amazing compared to the others.

I was well pleased to find out that there was a blog post on their website dedicated to the tools and services used to develop the site.

I've listed some of them here:

Frontend:

• HTML/CSS/JS - using HTML5 where appropriate, with a heavy focus on accessibility, and validating where we can
•  Jquery
• SCSS
• A2-Type for font production 

The core of the servers:

• Infrastructure As A Service (basically, they don't host in-house servers. This will ease scaling and mitigate maintenance costs) from Skyscape
• Akamai as the Content Delivery Network 
• Servers run on Ubuntu GNU/Linux 10.04

Redirection:

• nginx used for redirection
• perl used to manage redirections  
• node.js was used to build a side-by-side browser for reviewing redirections

Yahoo! mail's new alternative to multiple tabs (Recent)

Like most people, I always thought Yahoo! mail's 'multi tab' feature was really cool and helpful. But since it's recent update, that feature seemed to have disappeared.

I stumbled on a new feautre that pretty much does the same thing.

Watch the 16seconds video below to see how:

Your recent activity in Yahoo Mail is there when you want it, but not in the way when you don't. Quickly get to your recent emails, search results, and drafts with a single click.

Simple Opencart tutorial - shipping rate based on percentage of order

I was looking all over the internet for a free module to allow me set the shipping cost by a percentage if the order total was within a certain range; but to no avail :(
So I decided to do it myself.

Here's what I needed...

So for example:

• If we set the shipping cost to be 10% of the order total, for an order total of £158.00, the shipping cost will be £15.80.

This is how I did it:

First of all,

1. You have to download this free module -> Total Based Shipping (http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension/info&extension_id=4029 )
2. Follow the instructions on how to install the module (it's really easy)
3. When you are done with that, navigate to catalog\model\shipping\standard_cost.php
• NB: the standard_cost.php file will be a file from the module you just downloaded.
4. Scroll to where you see, it should be around line 38 - 50
• if ($cart_subtotal <= $data[0]) {
if (isset($data[1])) {
$cost = $data[1];}
break;
}
5. Then insert this
• elseif ($cart_subtotal <= 200.00 ){
$cost = $cart_subtotal*0.1;
break; }

Simple! You just needed to add 3 lines of code.

The Module you downloaded in step 1 allows you to set specific shipping cost based on the order total. So we just included that code to calculate shipping cost based on a set percentage (in the above example, it's 10%. To calculate for a different percentage, just change the '0.1' in the code to whatever you want).

This was a quick fix and unfortunately, it's hard-coded. I'll try and improve on it so it can be modified from Opencart's back-end and update this post.

Please feel free to make suggestions or comments below. Thanks

Exoskeleton helps paralysed walk - Ekso

After decades of development, Ekso's bionics technology has now been taken out of the lab and into the commercial market.

It's really nice to see the joy on peoples faces after taking their first steps in years and in some cases, forever.

Charge your phone while riding your bike - Siva Cycle

After the Urine Powered Generator, Solar Cooker, Solar hand-bag and the shoe charger, SolePower, this has to be my favourite gadget yet. It's very simple and practical. Might just start riding again :-D

I'm sure most of us have had our smartphones run out of battery at least once... Siva Cycle has created a gadget to stop that from happening again.

Best part is, Siva Cycle have pledged to donate one of the devices to those in need for every 10 purchases... cool!

Watch the video below to see how it works; pretty sweet.

Fascinating Nigeria

I have to say, the minister of Tourism, Culture & National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, did a great job on launching this platform. It's an official guide to all Nigeria has to offer; It's pretty detailed and enjoyable.

Nigerian Food

Carnivals

The web developers also did a fantastic job on the mobile and desktop sites.
Have a look at the site here

Ceremonies

How do you answer 3 billion questions a day?

Ben Gomes  (Illustration: Sumit Kumar)

GOOGLE SEARCH FACTS

• Google handles more than 100 billion searches each month or more than three billion per day.
• Google has to crawl more than 20 billion pages a day to keep up with the ever-changing web.
• Google has found 60 trillion web addresses so far, up from one trillion in 2008.
• Google has indexed pages from over 230 million domains.
• A query on Google travels 750 miles each way, to and from the data centre.- BBC

What do you do if you get more than three billion queries a day?

If you are Ben Gomes, Google's Tanzania-born, India-bred, US-educated vice-president of search, you are responsible for helping to answer all of them - in the shortest time possible, on all devices: desktops, tablets, phones. And now, in the spoken word too.

Continue reading the main story

Search is Google's raison d'etre and cash cow, bringing in a bulk of its $50bn (£33bn) revenues last year. It is also, says Mr Gomes, "about having a continuous conversation with the user to find out what he wants". 

Read the rest of the interview he had with the BBC here.

Follow me on Instagram @gadgetboy_naija

instagram.com/gadgetboy_naija 

How We Lost Our Capacity to Innovate in Nigeria #TEDx #Ofili

It's amazing how we Nigerians hardly innovate. The speaker in the video below, Okechukwu Ofili, stated something quite profound and apparent about Nigeria, which is the fact that we Nigerians suffer from something he calls, "the foreign comparison issue". This is were we tend to compare our status and accomplishments with developed countries which somehow, mentally dampens our capacity; which shouldn't be. Seeing other countries constantly innovating and developing should instinctively cajole us to aim higher but unfortunately, that isn't the case.

Ofili also gave some statistics which I found embarrassing (being a Nigerian) but enlightening at the same time.
Between 2000 and 2011:

• 450,000 patents were registered in Japan (population 120 Million)
• 15,000 patents registered in Israel (population 10 million)
• 1500 patents registered in South Africa (40 Million)
• 17 patents registered in Nigeria (population 150 million) 

X_X

Ofili, is an engineer, author, artist and public speaker (he probably has more up his sleeves) who is well known for his books and well-entertaining blog.
I found this talk uplifting, inspiring and I will definitely start innovating more... hope you will too.

SolePower - Charge your smartphone by walking

Watch the video of how it works

"SolePower is another contraption that lets you charge your smartphone through a very basic action that everyone does at some point during the day: walk. Similar concepts have been proposed before, but a group is finally taking action and their proposed device is called SolePower. It’s dubbed as a “power-generating shoe” that allows the wearer to charge portable electronics like smartphones, MP3 players, and tablets as they walk.

Get free Nigerian books on your mobile phone - Okadabooks

Okadabooks allows anyone in Nigeria(for now), pay for books with mobile credit(most of the books are free anyway) instead of using credit cards which have not been widely adopted in the country yet. They have been able to get more that 7500 downloads in the first 2 months and are still only on the Android mobile platform! 
Nice.

Saying I am Impressed would be an understatement. I get very excited at the slightest sense of progress in my beloved country, Nigeria. This is a very good app that will revolutionize the way we read and study, not only in Africa but world-wide. The user interface is very good and it's easy to use.

• 90% of the books on the app are free
• Secondary school students can get access to past WAEC and JAMB questions (I would've died for this during my time... *sigh). 
• You can become an author and publish your own books.

Anyway, enough ranting from my ends. You can get the app on Google Play here

Watch an interview with the founder of Okadabooks, Mr. Ofili, below..

Nigeria's rejuvenating train services

Nigeria's train services have been abandoned for more than 20 years. The economy focused its resources on other sectors of the country neglecting the promising and once admired rail services. Nigeria has constantly been battered for the lack of good roads in the country causing accidents and loss of valuable lives that occur ever so often. There has never been a better time for the government to restore the Nigerian railway services.

I am an avid train-traveller and I love the serenity and safety train travel provides. Watching these videos below gave me a big sense of hope and optimism for Nigeria as this is the well-needed progress required for economic, cultural and infrastructural growth. Even though the services are not perfect yet, this was still a joy to watch.
Enjoy!

Clip 1

Watch more videos below

Video: Nigerian girls power generator with waste

This is an update to a post I made earlier about the girls who used urine to power a generator. Inspiring :')
Watch the video below

Opengovernment Nigeria. Promising Initiative

As a Nigerian, I have no idea who is responisble for what in my state, talk more of the country. This means that I don't know who to blame or who to complain to. This is due to the fact that the political system in Nigeria is a bit blurry and probably congested.
Although Opengovernment Nigeria is still in its testing phase, I believe it has the potential to change Nigeria in a positive way.

Adewale Yusuf gives a nice description of the Opengovernemt online platform.

"Open Government is a web community built to enable the Nigerian public know which representatives are in power and what their responsibilities are to citizens. It shows what resources are allocated to various government levels and helps to monitor how these resources are spent.
Being a community based service, Open Government puts users in contact with their representatives so they can share their views on project policies being implemented. Users can also discuss among the community, challenges and issues relating to governance.
The platform provides all the information needed about the government – from the president to a local government chairman – immediately the required information about a user is supplied. It also gives a place to supervise all past and present projects in a local government.

“The people in Nigeria currently need a platform to help them understand what the responsibilities of different government representatives are to them, as well as monitor the projects that they are implementing, thereby holding them accountable.
Over the last few years, people in the country have gotten tired of a government that is not responsible to the people; the people are not involved in activities, processes and laws that their representatives are making on their behalf. There is a high level of abuse of funds and resources allocated towards the development of infrastructure for the benefit of society.” – Ogochukwu Francis Osifo, lead programmer at Open Government
Open Government aims to drive a change by engaging individuals to first know about the people that represent them in government and their responsibilities, monitor what they are doing in office, rate them based on key infrastructures needed in the communities, contact them directly from the platform, and share this information with their friends.
Open Government is charting a new terrain towards accountability and transparency in government in Nigeria. Now you can know your local government chairman and even get in touch with him if you want. Visit Open "

Hello food - Nigerian food delivery Service

Hello Food - Order food in Nigeria from 170 RESTAURANTS

Staying in the office for lunch? Tired of the same takeaways? Want to share a meal with your family at home? Do not hesitate anymore, it has never been so easy to order take-out food. At Hellofood we want to simplify your life. No more cooking or cleaning-up: with Hellofood, get your food delivered wherever you want, and enjoy a variety of cuisines and prices with just a few simple clicks.

On Hellofood type your city and your living area, and choose the meals and beverages you prefer on our online menus (local food, Chinese food, pizzas…). Checkout your order and enjoy different payment methods. We take care of everything else! We contact the restaurant, and make sure your order is delivered where you asked. Receive your sms of confirmation, sit back, relax and wait for piping hot food to be conveniently delivered to you!

Thanks to Hellofood discover great food every day, and enjoy steaming home food conveniently delivered to your home or office.   Visit Hello Food here>> http://www.hellofood.com.ng/index.htm

Konga and Jumia, Nigeria's largest online stores

"Online Shopping in Nigeria is still a relatively new idea gently taking root. Several online shopping malls and eShopping sites have established themselves with their customers of recent, and some are already becoming household names. Jumia (which was of recent known as Kasuwa) and Konga are some of them. With the current CBN-led awareness campaign to integrate the cash-less policy in Nigeria, online shopping has been identified as the presumed biggest gainers should the scheme gain a foothold.

These two notable online stores (Jumia and Konga) have become prominent above all other players in this new segment. Their advertising campaigns on Facebook and other social media is literally off-the-hook. They have even taken a step further by using conventional media (radio and print) to gain more visibility.

They have new deals and packages almost everyday, and they have products in almost all relevant categories.  Now, while it might be easy to get lost in the sheer awesomeness of Jumia and Konga, sometimes, it is good to review both and determine which of them is actually better." - Techbrandreview

I have personally used Jumia, and I have to the say, the service was pretty good. The "payment on delivery service" has to be one of the most convenient services on the Nigerian market; in my opinion anyway. These online platforms have given Nigerians access to a lot of products that were somewhat far-fetched earlier on . I believe there is a strong future for these companies as long as the maintain their world-class services.

Just felt like giving a brief overview of the services. I think you should give them a try next time you go shopping ;-)

'Fundawear' offers long-distance foreplay

                                   

Would you use this in your relationship?

Read the full review here