Month: July 2023

Categories
Apps eCommerce Websites

E-creator shuts down all thanks to Jiatong

 

The sudden shut down of the prominent e-commerce platform E-creator takes the whole of Zimbabwe by storm as many people lose hundreds of United States dollars through the Ponzi scheme. E-creator Zimbabwe rose to fame in March this year as the company was believed to be an easy way to earn money. 

On some point of view, it was but all this was too good to be true. As you might have heard, E-creator had multiple tiers for its employees and each tier had it’s minimum amount of money to be kept in the employees account for them to remain in that tier. In other words, one had to deposit $100 – $500 into their account for them to be in the VIP2 tier and this means that if you withdrew some of your money and was left with $99 you would go back to the VIP1 tier with less commission. So it meant that the more money you have in your account, the more you will earn through commissions. This was E-creator’s best move as people didn’t want to withdraw their investments for their money to grow even more and this led to vast loses for many. I for one wasn’t an E-creator employee and honestly speaking, even though I doubted E-creator’s legitimacy since day one, I almost joined the platform one day but stumbled upon an article by Techzim titled ‘E-creator – this criminal enterprise is running a scam, stay away‘ and so I stayed away.

The Zhao Jiatong story

Everyone in Zimbabwe has probably heard this name by now. Yes, Zhao Jiatong is the E-creator ‘founder’ who allegedly took all of E-creators’ employees’ money. Personally I don’t believe this Jiatong story. As of now, his name was never mentioned by the E-creator team and no-one knew anything about his existence until the point when E-creator issued the following statement.

How can a person deposit 1 million USD into his EcoCash account? This was the first question that came into my mind. I also received answers that my doubts were correct when I read the following article by Techzim:

If we consider the EcoCash story they are spinning, we are left scratching our heads. See, there are transaction limits when using EcoCash USD wallets. One can only send or withdraw a maximum of $500 per transaction and one can only have four such transactions per month. So, you cannot withdraw more than $2,000 per month.
The statement above says Zhao sent ‘company funds’ to his personal EcoCash account and then proceeded to withdraw it. Well, he could not withdraw more than $2,000 a month and so he would have needed over 41 years to withdraw a million dollars.
The statement says he also sent money to EcoCash agents so that they could withdraw on his behalf. The EcoCash transaction limits we talked about affect transfers too. You cannot send more than $2,000 a month.
You know what’s even crazier, you cannot hold more than $20,000 in your EcoCash wallet. This may change in the future but currently, you cannot. So, how could Zhao embezzle a million using EcoCash when it can’t? It’s all a web of lies coming from E-creator.

As it was clearly stated, you need over 41 years to withdraw 1 million dollars. So how did Zhao manage to do it in a few days. E-creator is yet to answer.  

Categories
Education eLearning WhatsApp

Can EduZone be the one that fills in the gap left by other ELearning softwares?

Source: EduZone

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 era in 2019 eLearning has boosted it’s outreach worldwide promoting more learning opportunities for students. Many softwares have sort of ‘replaced’ our traditional ways of learning and with the introduction of ChatGPT this has gotten better. Yes, it’s good for learners as it provides a wide range of information but this learning method doesn’t cover all the necessities particularly in our country. Those online learning platforms, bots and ChatGPT handles only provide the learning material which is good. But particularly for Zimbabwe, there are no past exam papers available on the internet. If you’ve looked for them you’ll understand where I’m coming from. This is where EduZone chips in. Eduzone is a WhatsApp bot specially made for online education for both primary and secondary education and it is 100% free, that too being available for all stages within the grade 1 – form 6 levels.

EduZone offers notes, question papers and marking schemes for Grade 7, O Level and A level students which are part of all these stages’ syllabuses. The bot also has a smart interaction system as users have to make their entries using links to their categories. This is where EduZone beats all the other eLearning platforms in Zimbabwe. As stated above, it has past exam papers and also their marking schemes and that’s basically every exam class student wants. And as we all know nothing is good completely, EduZone has got one flaw. The bot doesn’t have learning material for some levels. In my trial I discovered that there is no learning material for grades below grade 7 and also no learning material for O Level Computer Science and Biology.

Bot link

Conclusion

EduZone is a really useful tool particularly for the exam classes. All they need to do is to add content to the subjects that have no learning materials.

Categories
Blogger Websites WordPress

Creating a fully functional website with a custom domain name

Image Credit: iStock

Creating a full website with a custom domain name and taking it online is not a simple task but today I’m going to show you 2 different ways of creating a website which are quite simple. For starters, some words that are going to be mentioned in this article might be new to you or might be confusing but I assure you that after you’ve finished the process, you’ll understandthe jargon. First of all, there are 2 methods as I mentioned earlier are:

  • Blogger
  • WordPress

My personal favourite is WordPress and if you have guessed it right, it’s the CMS (Content Management System) I use for blog. Now before we talk about the CMS first we need to talk about the domain name.

Acquiring a domain name

This is the first step of the process and I’m going to walk you through it all. Since it’s about creating a website for free we’re going to be working with free domain names ( .tk .ga .gq .ml .cf ) but for those who are serious you can consider buying yourself a domain ( .co.zw .com .org .net .xyz .org.zw .ac.zw) and if you want to buy any one of these, I recommend Webzim and NivaCity for their cheap services.

Creating a Freenom account

The only free TLD (Top Level Domain) provider so far is Freenom. With Freenom getting a domain name is very easy but the hardest part is your account being able to get a domain. Now, I’ve seen some articles and YouTube videos that claim that if you use a United States address and zip code when registering your account it will work (haven’t tested it though). To create a Freenom account, follow this link to go to a US address generator and use the provided details to register your account on Freenom.

Acquiring a free TLD

Now that you have your Freenom account, go to this page to create your custom domain name. The trick there now is that if you want to use a .gq domain name, in the text box enter your desired custom domain name with it’s extension e.g sqeel.gq and it will automatically have a .gq domain placed in your cart cart. Continue with the checkout till you reach the point where you have finished making your domain name. And now that you now have your domain name, let’s get to the next step, choosing a hosting provider.

Choosing a hosting provider

There are tons of free hosting providers but I recommend InfinityFree and Freehosting. You might be wondering why I chose these two out of many hosting providers across the web. The two are some of the best free hosting providers on the market since they have flexible specs. They offer a reasonable amount of bandwidth and disk space and also have a softalicious app installer. Now you get it. Right?

Freehosting.com

I’m not going to talk about the plan’s overall specs, I’m just going to get straight to the point. Freehosting.com offers you 1GB of storage space and 10GB of bandwidth. The biggest disadvantage of using free hosting providers is that they don’t give you full DNS settings, and so does Freehosting.com. Freehosting.com also gives you the softalicious app installer which is used to install apps like WordPress. However freehosting.com doesn’t let you use a free domain with their service hence the only choice is InfinityFree.

InfinityFree

InfinityFree has a much more flexible UI compared to Freehosting.com and it also has better specs than Freehosting.com. InfinityFree gives you unlimited storage and bandwidth, however they have a few terms and conditions. They also have the softalicious app installer and a few DNS zones just like Freehosting.com. The best part about InfinityFree is that you can create an SSL certificate for your site which makes your site more secure and reliable by your audience (the one which shows a secure icon before the domain name in the address bar).

Had your choice?

If you’ve made up your mind, and you’ve made a choice on which hosting provider to choose, create an account for that provider (click here for InfinityFree and click here for Freehosting.com). To add your domain in either one of the providers, select the custom domain option during registration instead of the sub-domain option. Now to add your domain name to the hosting provider you’re going to receive 2 nameservers which are going to look like this (only for InfinityFree):
ns1.epizy.com
ns2.epizy.com

Now to insert these nameservers, login to your Freenom account and click ‘My domains’ and then ‘Manage domain’ for your custom domain name. Click ‘edit nameservers’ and click on ‘use custom nameservers’ and add the two nameservers with the first one on top and the second one at the bottom and click Save. You’re now done with adding the nameservers so go back to the registration page for your hosting provider and now add your domain. It might take up to 20 minutes for your domain name to be online and functioning. Hooray, your site is now online and running. Now to add the content we need the CMS I once mentioned earlier.

Blogger CMS

Being the simplest of all, blogger doesn’t have much settings and customisations to do like other Content Management Systems. To create a blogger account, go to blogger.com and create your blog. At this point you’ll have to use a subdomain that ends with .blogspot.com, which you will later change to your custom domain name. To add your custom domain name go to settings in your blogger dashboard and go to ‘custom domain’ now add your custom domain with the www prefix and you’ll get 2 CNAME records which consist of a name and a description. The first CNAME record always has the name www and the destination ghs.google.com but the second one is unique for your domain name. Copy these two CNAME records and login to your hosting account and navigate to the CNAME section and add these two CNAME records. This change can take up to 72 hours so please be patient. After you’ve added your domain, you’ve now successfully integrated your domain with blogger CMS. After integrating your domain name you now have to add a theme to your blog and there are dozens of them acrossthe internet. Now if you’ve chosen your desired template, go to the themes section and click on edit template and then restore and select your theme then it will be automatically uploaded. If the theme fails to install, open the theme in your notepad and copy the whole template by clicking CTRL + C and then click edit HTML in the blogger page and clear the HTML there by clicking CTRL + A then backspace then CTRL + V to paste. And you’re done, your site is now online with a beautiful theme and you can now start writing articles on your blog. Happy Blogging!

WordPress CMS

As I mentioned earlier, WordPress is my favourite CMS and also the one I use for this blog. Now to setup your WordPress account login to your CPanel and go to softalicious app installer. WordPress is always at the top of the list so click on install and select your desired installation parameters and then install your app. When your installation is done, you can go to your website admin dashboard by using the link yourdomainname.domain/wp-admin. Login with your admin details. Now to add a theme to your site go to the themes section then select your desired theme and activate it. You can also customize it depending on your preferences. And you’re done, your site is now online with a beautiful theme and you can now start writing articles on your blog. Happy Blogging!

Categories
Blogger Blogging Websites WordPress

Tips to starting a successful blog

Image Credit: Main Street Marketing

Many people fancy blogging as a really hard task and also demotivate those with the potential of starting blogs. Sometimes this is because they see most people trying out blogging and then end up failing in a month or two. Failure to run a blog is mostly due to lack of information as beginners and also lack of commitment. Many bloggers give up after receiving a small amount of views or when their site is rejected by Google AdSense. This should not be a reason for one to stop running their site though. Personally when I came into this industry, that’s how it was for me. No views, AdSense denial and stuff but this never brought me down. So to those who want to start new blogs and also those who once failed and want to give it another try, I’ve got an article for ya’ll.

Steps to starting a successful blog:

  • Use a real domain name with a known TLD( e.g example.com or example.co.zw) instead of using a free subdomain (e.g example.wordpress.com or example.blogspot.com) and a free domain (e.g example.tk)
  • Optimise your site’s speed. For WordPress users you can do this by using cache plugins and optimisation plugins and also link your blog with CloudFlare CDN.
  • Create a social media handle for people to know you. I recommend Instagram as it is the fastest to grow on and also the most used locally.
  • Improve your google search appearance ( you can do this by adding your site to google search console)Share every new post on various social media platforms to market your content. I recommend having many WhatsApp and Facebook groups to have a large audience. 
  • Avoid plagiarism when writing your articles. This is one of the biggest factors that’s stopping many bloggers in their way as most copy and paste other people’s articles on their sites and apart from copyright infringement this has many consequences including losing views.
  • Don’t rush to get your site on AdSense or Google News, you’ll only be rejected. For AdSense you need at least 60 articles of the same niche to get accepted. Avoid using pop-up ads and those annoying ads where some of them even have NSFW content.
  • Don’t use slang language when writing your articles, this makes the readers have no zeal when reading your articles and you end up losing audience.
  • Collaborate with other content creators on social media and produce something great.
Categories
Web hosting Websites

The cheapest web hosting service in the country

Image Credit: Kinsta blog

Web hosting is an online service that makes your website’s content accessible on the internet. When you purchase a hosting plan, you are renting space on a physical server to store all the website’s files and data.

Web hosts provide the hosting technology and resources required for the effective and secure operation of your website. They are responsible for keeping the server up and running, implementing security measures, and ensuring that data such as texts, photos, and other files are transferred successfully to the visitors’ browsers.

In this article, you will learn what web hosting is, how it works, and what are the different types of web hosting available.

Hostinger

Types of web hosting services

We hosting is grouped into 5 categories namely:

  • Shared Hosting
  • Dedicated Hosting
  • WordPress Hosting
  • VPS Hosting
  • Cloud Hosting

Explaining these types of web hosting services is a story for another day. Now after ths background on what web hosting is, let’s go onto the cheapest web hosting service in Zimbabwe.

NivaCity

NivaCity is a popular web hosting company which offers Cloud Hosting and VPS Hosting services. They are a South Africa based company who extended their outreach to Zimbabwe and made it possible for Zimbabweans to purchase their services using Paynow. Here in Zimbabwe the average price for the cheapest hosting plan for most web hosting providers is $3 which is quite cheap and affordable. However NivaCity managed to surpass that with their Direct Admin hosting plan going for $1.50. Now if you wanted to run a personal website or a project website which one would you choose? If my guess was right you would choose NivaCity. But let’s take a look at all of the plans they offer.

NivaCity’s shared hosting is divided into two groups. The first is cPanel web hosting and the second is Direct Admin web hosting.

cPanel web hosting

All of NivaCity’s sites are hosted on LiteSpeed servers hence speed is not a speciality for this hosting plan only. The cPanel hosting has 3 plans which are pretty much ideal for businesses and small websites. The plans are listed below.

Starter Plan

  • 1 Domain
  • 5GB disk space
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • 10 mySQL databases
  • 10 secure emails
  • MailChannels guaranteed email delivery
  • Free SSL certificate

The starter plan is going for $2.50/mo

Intermediate Plan

  • 5 Domains
  • 20GB Disk Space
  • Unmetered Bandwidth
  • Unlimited MySQL Databases
  • Unlimited Secure Email Accounts
  • MailChannels Guaranteed Email Delivery
  • Free SSL Certificate

The intermediate plan is going for $4.50/mo

Deluxe Plan

  • Unlimited Domains
  •  Unlimited Disk Space
  •  Unmetered Bandwidth
  •  Unlimited MySQL Databases
  •  Unlimited Secure Email Accounts
  •  MailChannels Guaranteed Email Delivery
  •  Free SSL Certificate

The Deluxe Plan is going for $6.50/mo

Direct Admin web hosting

Now let’s get into their cheapest plans, the direct admin plans.

Starter Plan

  • 1 Domain
  • 5GB Disk Space
  • Unmetered Bandwidth
  • 10 MySQL Databases
  • 10 Secure Email Accounts
  • MailChannels Guaranteed Email Delivery
  • Free SSL Certificate

The starter plan is going for $1.50/mo

Intermediate Plan

  • 5 Domains
  • 20GB Disk Space
  • Unmetered Bandwidth
  • Unlimited MySQL Databases
  • Unlimited Secure Email Accounts
  • MailChannels Guaranteed Email Delivery
  • Free SSL Certificate

The intermediate plan is going for $3.50/mo

Deluxe Plan

  • Unlimited Domains
  • Unlimited Disk Space
  • Unmetered Bandwidth
  • Unlimited MySQL Databases
  • Unlimited Secure Email Accounts
  • MailChannels Guaranteed Email Delivery
  • Free SSL Certificate

The deluxe plan is going for $5.50/mo

Conclusion

If you’re someone who knows about the hosting services here in Zimbabwe, you would have noticed that their Direct Admin Deluxe Plan is almost the same price as other hosting providers’ Starter plans. So according to what I’ve come across lately, NivaCity has the cheapest hosting in Zimbabwe.

Categories
Chrome Websites

Taking screenshots in incognito mode – Chrome

Private browsing is a privacy feature in some web browsers. When operating in such a mode, the browser creates a temporary session that is isolated from the browser’s main session and user data. Well it doesn’t matter what you’re doing in the private tab or incognito mode but there might come a scenario where you would want to take a screenshot. That’s absolutely fine, let’s take me as a good example. I run the Sqeel Blog using my admin account right, but on the other hand I wanna see what the fronded looks like or when I add certain changes I want to see them in the fronded so I create an incognito tab then login with my forum user account. Someone else would just open a different browser but for full time chrome lovers like me I know you understand the feeling of using a different browser. Now to take a screenshot in incognito mode, follow the steps below:

Alert

THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL FEATURE SO THERE’S NO GUARANTEE THAT IT COULD WORK ON YOUR DEVICE BUT IT ALREADY WORKED ON TWO OF MY ANDROID DEVICES. 

  1. Go to chrome://flags
  2. Search for Incognito screenshot
  3. Click the button labeled ‘Default’
  4. Click ‘enable’
  5. Click ‘relaunch’

And you’re done, you’ve successfully enabled the Incognito screenshot option. To test this just open an incognito tab and attempt to take a screenshot.

Categories
Dark Web Domain The Internet Websites

Popular websites found in the darkweb

So recently I wrote an article on accessing the darkweb but I never listed the majorly known darkweb sites for you to try. So here they are but as I mentioned earlier ‘open on your own risk’

  • The Hidden Wiki – http://zqktlwiuavvvqqt4ybvgvi7tyo4hjl5xgfuvpdf6otjiycgwqbym2qad.onion/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
  • Facebook – https://www.facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion/
  • Keybase (darkweb social network) – http://keybase5wmilwokqirssclfnsqrjdsi7jdir5wy7y7iu3tanwmtp6oid.onion/
  • OnionLinks – http://s4k4ceiapwwgcm3mkb6e4diqecpo7kvdnfr5gg7sph7jjppqkvwwqtyd.onion/
  • Soylent News – http://7rmath4ro2of2a42.onion/Torlinks – http://torlinksd6pdnihy.onion/
  • The dark lair – http://vrimutd6so6a565x.onion/index.php/
  • BoardGalaxy3 – http://galaxy3m2mn5iqtn.onion/
  • DuckDuckGo – http://duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion
  • Ahmia (s search engine) – http://juhanurmihxlp77nkq76byazcldy2hlmovfu2epvl5ankdibsot4csyd.onion/
  • Bitcoin generator – http://6gyyimlj7p4s3b6nslusx3xxzqeculbvd3ikbbezaw6p2bv4tazldgid.onion/
  • Deeplink onion directory – http://deeeepv4bfndyatwkdzeciebqcwwlvgqa6mofdtsvwpon4elfut7lfqd.onion/
  • Virgin Bitcoins, – http://ovai7wvp4yj6jl3wbzihypbq657vpape7lggrlah4pl34utwjrpetwid.onion/
Categories
Chrome Tutorials Websites

Using automatic dark mode for every website – Chrome

Once again another Chrome experimental feature which I think everybody is gonna love. According to different surveys and studies, it has been concluded that most people prefer using dark themes compare to light themes. Personally I’m also a true fan of dark themes. Dark themes come with many pros compared to light themes. Many websites now have a ‘switch to dark mode option’ but some don’t. We’re going to discuss on how to enable ‘auto dark mode for every website’. This option works on every site regardless if it supports dark mode or not.

What to do: Step 1

Firstly go to chrome://flags

NB:This only works with Google Chrome

Step 2

Copy the following text ‘Darken websites checkbox in themes setting’ and paste it in the search box and click enter

Step 3

Click enable and your browser will automatically restart and you’re done.

Categories
Domain Websites

Guide to creating a free domain name

So I wrote this article on creating websites with custom domain names, mentioning stuff about free domains but I’ve never wrote one on getting a free domain name.

First of all, What is a domain name?

A unique, case-insensitive, name, consisting of a string made up of alphanumeric characters and dashes separated by periods, that the Domain Name System maps to IP numbers and other information. 

Wiktionary

A domain name is one of the primary keys for running a website. Top Level Domains (TLDs) are mostly for sale but today I bring you a list of free TLDs and how to get them. Before we continue I need to clarify on what a domain name is, with the use of examples.

Example 1: sqeel.co.zw

Example 2: sqeel.ga

Example 3: google.com

Example 4: google.co.uk

Example 5: wikipedia.org

If you’ve noticed something on this list, all domain names have different domain extensions i.e wikipedia.org, google.com, google.co.uk and also all of these domain names are TLDs. On this list, I also included a free TLD which is the one marked in red and the .ga domain name is one of the free TLDs I’m going to list.

List of free TLDs

.ga

.gq

.tk

.cf

.ml

The above are all the free TLDs you can get online. Now let’s get started.

How to get a free domain name

There’s only one free domain registrar and that is Freenom, which I once spoke about in my other post, Creating a fully functional website with a custom domain name. Freenom provides all these domain names for free and that is free forever. However it’s quite hard to actually get the domain as this is a free service.

Before beginning the following steps, go to the US address generator site and generate a new US address and name information.

Step 1: Go to my.freenom.com

Step 2: Sign in using the information provided by the US address generator and only use your own email address and custom password

Step 3: Sign up

Step 4: Go back to the homepage, freenom.com

Step 5: Type in your desired domain name with the domain’s extension i.e if you want a .tk domain you’ll type in – example.tk instead of just example. This will automatically enter your domain name into the shopping cart when you click ‘Check Availability’

Step 6: Continue with the process and when a prompt to enter the period, enter 12 months. (you’ll be able to renew this domain name the next year for free). Go on with the process till you reach the end. If there’s no error shown on the screen, this means that your domain name has been successfully created, you can now go to the my domains center to manage your domain name.

Categories
Android

Useful Android codes you might want to know

Image Credit: NextPit

Android is the most popular smartphone OS ever. Developers create various kinds of backdoor within the applications and operating systems. Through these backdoors, any user who has sufficient knowledge can get into the much deeper system as compare to other users.

As we all know, Android is an open-source operating system based on Linux Kernel and developed by Google. The android operating system is being widely used in the world. Android developers also create many backdoors through which you can enter into the system, and you can change settings.
It is not meant to use these backdoors for malicious intent because developers block some modes and these backdoor are the way or allow the users to enter into the system and let them become familiar to the system. 

In smartphones, these backdoor are called “secret codes.” Please note that some of these secret codes won’t work on Samsung devices. 

Common Android Secret Codes

Secret Codes Functions

*#*#7780#*#* Factory restore setting

*#*#7780#*#* Clear all applications and data.

*#*#7780#*#* Remove Google account setting.

*#*#7780#*#* Remove System, application data, and settings.

*2767*3855# Reinstall the phone’s firmware.

*2767*3855# Used for factory format.

*2767*3855# Remove all files and settings including the internal storage.

*2767*3855# Reinstall the firmware.

*#*#197328640#*#* Enabling test mode for service activity.

*#*#197328640#*#* Used to enter into Service mode.

*#*#197328640#*#* You can run and change various tests and settings in the service mode.

*#*#4636#*#* Phone basic information.

*#*#4636#*#* Phone usage detail.

*#*#4636#*#* Battery information.

*#*#34971539#*#* Information about mobile camera.

*#*#34971539#*#* Get camera information.

*#*#34971539#*#* Note:-Please avoid updating the camera firmware option

*#*#7594#*#* Changing the power button behavior.

*#*#7594#*#* Enables the direct power off without asking for selecting any option (silent mode, Aeroplane, and power off).

*#*#273283*255*663282*#*#* Create backup to all your media files.

*#*#273283*255*663282*#*#* Opens a file copy screen where you can backup your media files like (images, videos and audio).

*#*#8255#*#* For Google Talk service monitoring.

*#*#8255#*#* Used to launch G Talk Service Monitor.

*2767*4387264636* Used to display product code.

*#0228# Used to know Battery Status.

*#12580*369* Software and Hardware Info.

*#32489# Let you know Ciphering Info.

*#273283*255*3282*# Data create menu.

*#3282*727336*# Data usage status.

*#8736364# OTA update menu

WLAN, GPS, And Bluetooth Test Android Secret Codes

Codes Functioning

*#*#526#*#*

*#*#528#*#*

*#*#232339#*#* WLAN Test.

*#*#1472365#*#* For a quick GPS test.

*#*#232338#*#* Displays/Shows WiFi MAC address.

*#*#232337#*# Displays Bluetooth device address.

*#*#1575#*#* Different types of GPS tests.

*#*#232331#*#* Bluetooth test.