The sight of vandalized street bins is now common in the streets of Harare. Blame might be placed on City workers for not efficiently emptying these on a regular basis. But then again the vandalized bins can be blamed on citizens who are just in a bad ‘habit’ of destroying property. The picture of a burnt bin is the most baffling and one wonders what was going through the mind of the person who burnt litter or threw a burning substance in the bin? What is also surprising is someone who throws litter in an already full bin. Many times people complain about the incompetence of our government but then again who are they to lay blame if the ordinary people in the streets are not able to take care of little properties such as bins entrusted to them for the betterment of the environment they live in.

So this morning I woke up with no Internet connection on my phone – I am an Econet subscriber. When I realised my phone had no Internet at first I thought switching it off and on would do the trick. But alas this did not solve the problem. On my way to work in a kombi I decided to remove my line and battery and connect them again hoping this was the final trick to solving the Internet connection problem.

Just as I was doing that I realised the guy sitting next to me was doing the same thing. We then realised we were facing the same difficulties. Some of my friends I just spoke to say their connection is very slow and switching the phone off and on again is helping them but its still irritating. Many subscribers have taken to the Econet Facebook page to raise this issue of limited or no data connection.

It would help to get an explanation over why we have no access to the mobile Internet service!!!

Funny how Econet has a Facebook page but screws up mobile internet connectivity which is what the bulk of those who follow this page use.

What’s going on with your Data today Econet, don’t you think you should notify your subscribers somehow… Bad service!

However, Econet who update their Facebook page on a regular basis have kept mum on this issue. No explanation whatsoever has been given. We hope whatever is going on at Econet will be rectified.

Kubatana recently asked citizens what question they would ask their councillors, MPs and presidential candidates. It is sad to note that the same tendency still exists in both political parties where councillors or MPs only resurface during election time. Thus many citizens want to ask them where their political representative has been hiding. And of course the Constituency Development Fund is the next question in line: What did you do with our money?

It is important that the electorate make the right decisions when choosing their leaders in their ward, constituency and country. But due to the fact the playing ground for all political parties and independent candidates is not level, we find that some candidates fail to reach out to the people. And the voters end up making uninformed decisions when choosing the candidate to vote for.

The Media Alliance of Zimbabwe and Combined Harare Residents Association are engaging in activities under the Right to Information campaign. They have come up with a newsletter, which will ensure access to information regarding the upcoming election. One broad area the newsletter will cover is the parties, candidates and their proposals. The first issue of the Election Special publication featured the five presidential candidates. Before one votes it is important they have full knowledge of what and whom they are voting for.

As I was going through the MDC and Zanu-PF’s manifestos I tried to pick up the stories being depicted by the pictures carried out in their manifestos.

Some pictures in the MDC manifesto look like they were downloaded on Google with a few where you get to question the nationality of the people in the picture. The policemen on the horse picture is surely an oldie goldie, going by the green trees. I don’t remember seeing such green and lively trees in Harare’s CBD. Well you can’t take away that the MDC had good images depicting their open palm party symbol which now has become synonymous with the party. The image of a woman working in a small to medium enterprise is worthy to take note of, not everyone is farming on a big farm but most Zimbabweans are surviving and earning living out of their small garden structures.

Zanu-PF’s manifesto seems to have really dug out their oldest archive pictures. It’s really sad to see Zanu-PF using a de-campaigning picture of their opposition MDC party in their manifesto! Truly if I am reading your manifesto I don’t want to know what the neighbours are doing, I need you to strongly convince me that you deserve my vote and you promise a better life for my son. And Zanu-PF too has some Google images. My thumbs up go to their choice of President Mugabe’s picture, a better reflection of his old age.

Last month images from the Worldwide Developers Conference depicted that the technology industry was male dominated. Just recently a Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) event was held in Harare and the images too lamented on how males dominate the technology industry. Setting aside an absence of our sistas, I just loved the whole idea behind this RhoK event where the techies used existing platforms such as Ushahidi, biNu and FrontlineSMS to build software to help fight corruption.

TechZim has published a part 1 report from the RHoK team. In this report of the day one, the biNu challenge winning applications were:

- An app which allows you to submit to and read reports in an Ushahidi installation from within biNu and

- A ‘Neighborhood watch’ application which allow you to report crimes so that people are better able to avoid dangerous areas.

Other applications which came up were:
- Work Board – A biNu app which allows people/organisations to outsource skills. It’s going to kill the CV
- biNu Browser – An app which allows you to browse the web from within biNu. Think of it as ‘Opera Mini on steroids’
- Recipes – A cooking assistant for cultural food. Those who watched David Bhers presentation where he said that ‘the internet is currently in America but we can bring it to Zimbabwe’ know the value of this app for Zimbabwe
- Vota – A voter registration app for Zimbabweans. Don’t tell anyone but I’m kinda glad this app wasn’t launched sooner because then I’d have no excuse for not being a registered voter
- Lotto – A mobile lotto from within biNu that lets you bet with small amounts. In his presentation, the presenter mentioned something about there being a gambler in every one of us. Very true (IMHO)
- biNu WhatsApp – An app that lets you send messages to WhatsApp users from within biNu. I know what you are going to ask and the answer is: Yes! It actually worked
- Crime watch – A biNu app which lets you capture what crimes have happened in our area. And I mean capture as in ‘with the camera on your feature phone’
- COZW – A local news aggregator. They are trying to make the RSS news reader that comes with biNu look amateur
- Bonki – A dating application which lets you pick which of you Facebook friends you want to date and will only send you both notifications when you select each other

I found all these interesting. Looking forward to reading the second report on the next challenge carried out. Zimbabwe surely has some creative minds in the technology industry; more should be done to bring this major talent out and who knows in our next election we will register to vote online.

This story discusses how male dominated the technology industry is.

It looks like an alternate universe: Ridiculously long queues outside the men’s restroom while there’s not a single person waiting for the women’s. But while the image of men impatiently hopping from one foot to the other may make women across the nation giggle – it also reveals an issue that is no laughing matter. The image was taken at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday by CNET editor Dan Ackerman, who captioned it: ‘WWDC explained in one photo.’ The picture highlights how male-dominated the technology industry remains – and is just one of many similar photos taken at recent gadget conferences.

Read more and see images here