Karibuni wakufunzi wote!

"nakukabidhi mwenge"

Welcome TTC Tutors to the new Blog for ICT Departments at Teachers Colleges’ around Tanzania. I am a USA Peace Corps volunteer who has been working at Mpwapwa TTC since 2007. Over the next two months I would like to share many things we use at Mpwapwa TTC to make our lives easier at our ICT department. I always enjoy visiting wakufunzi wa taifa to share these tips. I have already visited 6 of the 33 colleges from Butimba to Vikindu, but I think it is difficult to visit more. I want to be free to focus on new projects in Mpwapwa before I finish my contract at the end of the year. Instead of visiting you, I’ll be offering the tips here. For the first month, every three days I will post a new entry, some of the topics I will be talking about are in the list below.

I will assume that your college is working with the Solaris system the Wakute Project put together in December 2008 with a new user management website (if that link doesn’t give an error, you are ready!). I’m also pretty sure that you have many Windows XP computers around your ICT center so I will have tips for those too. More resources are available at the Wakufunzi Google Group but these will be openly available for easy access and better organization.

I will try to include good instructions so that you can use the tips to improve your work at your TTCs. If you ever have questions I’m always happy to answer via email or text. I am on Zain at 0782516598, yahoo IM at thadk, and skype at thadknull.

Some things that I already plan to cover:

• Ideas on viruses and how they’re spread in East Africa, how you can control them.
• Three ways to show the hidden files on your USB flash and why viruses hide them. Even when viruses delete the files instead of hiding them there are good programs to try to recover your files (if you haven’t used the flash again)!
• How to access free video Solaris training materials at your TTC.
• Why is the internet slow today?
• How to set up a proxy server with Ubuntu to filter
• How to enable printing and the difficulties
• What should you include in a resources folder for your students?
• My bookmarks keep getting erased! How can I have my bookmarks anywhere duniani?
• Using Windows & WinSCP to download files like a flash from Solaris: tips and tricks with screenshots
• How to add sections to word processing documents so that roman numeral page numbering (i,ii,iii) and normal numbering can be in the same document in OpenOffice and Word.
• “Cloning” a lab of Windows or Ubuntu desktops with CloneZilla so you can install Windows once and refresh dirty computers in 20 minutes to an “image” that is saved on your Solaris Server or flash drive.
• What is fiber, when is it coming to my TTC and why does it matter for TZ?
• The importance of power protection in Tanzania, problems already seen at TTCs (save your comments!) and what to buy for your computer to prevent it from dying.

Nashukuru sana, urudi tena tafadhali!
thadk