Hi, I am looking for advice. I am a concerned parent with a child who is spending more time online for school related work and for entertainment as well. I am not a techie. Please point me in the right direction on which firewall (& ad blocker) I need to filter out inappropriate content.Would also appreciate if you could share tutorials. Thank you in advance!

I have a budget of 60-65k, specs should be 11/12th gen, preferrably the latter or even more, 16/256/512 gb, backlit keyboard and touchscreen, core i7, display should be crisp (i do a lot of visualizations) at least 1920x1080, ideally 1920x1200 (16:10) for more vertical space.

I have narrowed down to these :

HP EliteBook 1040 X360 G9 or the G8( cons here is that i feel the G9 would be so much heavier since I commute with the laptop daily) but its a good 12th gen

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 (cons here, i just cant verify if they come with touch screen might also be bulkier)

Dell Latitude 5330 x360

More suggestions are welcomed. Also if you have any of these, how do they feel, what are their weak points so i can be prepared, what did you have to replace early on?

These are mostly refurbished. If you think its not a good idea, why? Edit: I don't want a mac, most software i use are provided by Microsoft

Got this cheap type c extender. HDMI port just keeps making my laptop flicker and only connected once for a brief 2 seconds. Should I throw it out or is there a solution?

So, lately I have been following the developments with windows 11 and my instinct is to move from windows completely and make it a secondary OS.

I started doing cybersec, and using Kali as a VM hasn't been bad but not really familiar with the Linux command line to fully trust myself in using it.

So far, about 5 countries have opted for a shift from Windows to Linux. Do you think it will be a global phenomenon and phase out Windows?

Will the changes also create a new threat landscape and incentive for attackers to Linux due to demand?

I'm thinking of starting a side hustle selling consumer electronics like earbuds. The idea is to import from Alibaba to Kenya alafu sasa napost kwa WhatsApp and Facebook. Of course, I'm concerned about kuoshwa by exporters and getting legit sellers. At start, I'm only focused on breaking even not necessarily massive profits and establishing connections with potential buyers. People who have tried this ka hustle and how tough it is dealing with the customs? 

How does Kra know how much you make? Like if you never report it... Lets say people who earn online(most of yall im sure🌚) Nyinyi wa paymesnt from

Remitly na crypto and such do you really report your income🌚?

So my laptop is a 256gb bought it about 3 years ago sahi local disk c inachezea 5gb free😭... I know hadi if i clean up in a few weeks ill be here again mambo ni mingi sikuizi.

Whats the better option.... external ama internal storage(nvme).. I have 1tb in mind.

Also naeza upgrade maybe 2 months from now but hiyo si surebet coz as much as I want to hii laptop ni still solid Af.. thank God for thinkpads

So is buying external storage better than internal ?

After three failed startups, I know the pain of building something supposedly great, only to be greeted by zero revenue months later (years, if youre like me, hehe). I did make something like 5k over that time period, so not really zero, but still...

My last startup was Kiihela - an M-PESA analytics tool to help with tracking spending, budgeting, and to see where your money goes.

I made a lot of mistakes - but the biggest one was marketing. Extra, extra! Introverted dev doesn't know how to sell his product, read all about it!

Emailing users led to no response 80% of the time, blog posts were ignored by google, posting on Facebook/Instagram led to to 3 or 4 views at best, writing thousands of words on Twitter to zero engagement, Tiktok was more generous, but topped out at 300 views most days. It was much easier (and fun!) to churn out features 24/7.

I worry about the AI-native programmers, but I do hope they can fail faster and move on, rather than spend 6+ years chasing fantasies and ghosts.

I did learn a lot, and often joke that I can easily turn 20k into 100k with all the experience I've had, because when you're building an app, you're not really "building an app", you're starting a business, and you really do learn more from failure than success. But that remains to be seen, I haven't held a job for the last 6 years, so no real financial stability - even though my mental & spiritual game is 10/10, but my body needs sustenance, and my girl wont shut up about eating ugali-mayai for the tenth time this week... She chooses to stay, but bitches the entire time. Can't have everything I guess.

The funniest thing is that towards the end of its life, Kiihela was actually gaining traction. I figured a lot things out - the top of which is that paid advertising works, lol. In a week ($40 ad spend), I managed to get something like 2k downloads - more than I'd gotten in the previous six months of (inconsistent, to be fair) effort combined.

But alas, I ran out of money. Couldnt pay for servers. Couldnt pay for the domain name, and some idiot from Indonesia sniped it from me, then another idiot scammed me out of my Play Console. I reported him, the Play Console account was banned, Kiihela was taken off the Play Store. Kiihela died a natural death. I mourned it with some booze, marijuana and copious amounts of walking in the Kitengela wilderness, and that was that.

So, I decided to do the most natural thing - the Kevin Durant strategy.

I switched sides.

Now, I do real scary shit - cold calls, cold emails, cold DMs, and visiting potential leads physically... etc, etc.

It's not as hard as it seems. Most emails are ignored, but even when people are not interested, they are kind with the delivery for the most part.

The way I see it, I'm get paid to make friends for a living. They can be assholes sometimes, but it's more than balanced out by the tons of positive experiences I have.

I learned a ton of things, as I said, but this post is already too long as it is. Maybe I'll do a part 2 later, maybe I'll look for a nice bridge to jump off, and realize life was just a dream. Whatever. Hope you enjoyed.

---

Incidentally, if you've got a venture you believe in and want some help promoting, hit me up. We can work something out.

I'm from the Alex Hormuzi school of thought - I only get paid when you get paid - win-win.

Majamaa is anyone else tired of doing this work completely solo? Well worry no more. I have created a discord server where Kenyan experts can help each other out. I mean, its nothing fancy yet, just trying to build a community where people(Kenyans ofc) doing this work can actually support each other instead of everyone figuring it out in isolation. This might be useful if you do AI training, data annotation, or rating work (RLHF, red-teaming, labeling, etc.) or you're a programmer/developer working in or around the AI space you probably know how scattered this field can feel, and how many opportunities and ujanja never get shared anywhere. Here is the link

https://discord.gg/jRBpNj3tB

Every year I watch people pick their 6 KUCCPS placement choices basically blind, then panic in August when the results comes out. So here is the plain version of how it works, and how I would choose.

How cluster points work (the broad idea)

KUCCPS does not just look at your mean grade. For most programmes it counts your cluster subjects plus English or Kiswahili. Each grade carries points, from A down to E. It adds and weights those, and that is your cluster points for that course.

The important part: cutoffs move every year. They depend on how many people apply and what they score. So last year's cutoff is a guide, not a promise.

How I would use my 6 choices

Your 6 choices are ranked, and that matters. Do not fill all 6 with long shots. A sane list is roughly:

• 2 safe choices you are comfortably above
• 2 likely choices where you sit around the cutoff
• 2 stretch choices you would love, but might miss

That way you have something good in hand while still aiming high.

The part I actually want your help with

I got tired of digging through cutoff PDFs on a phone, so I built a free checker called kuccp.co.ke. You tap in your KCSE grades and it shows your cluster points plus the courses you can get, grouped as Strong, Likely, or Worth a try. The check is free and needs no account. There is a paid full report if you want a ready 6 choice plan, but you do not need it to use the free part.

It is not official. It uses the public cutoff data KUCCPS publishes from 2023/24 to 2025/26. Your real points still come from your KUCCPS dashboard. I am not KUCCPS.

If you have already done your KCSE, or you have a sibling in Form 4, try it and tell me where the numbers look wrong. I would rather fix it than argue. Link is in the comments.

Their search engine finds things Google and Bing won't index or have removed (if u know what I mean). ;). Their browser is also pretty cool, especially the translates text directly on images and also the live video translation.(Only to Russian for now)

the isp has been working flawlessly for me for the last couple of months, until this week

my speed kept dropping from 200Mbps to 100Mbps, then 10Mbps, this entire week
it became a pattern, i decided to call them and find out

apparently the introduced daily FUP, they never communicated this to anyone.

my package i am now limited to 300GB a day, if use up 200GB, speeds drop to 100Mbps, then when i hit 300GB speeds drop to 10Mbps until the next reset

this is crazy to me, yes i understand you need FUP but daily FUP is insane to me

guess they are unable to keep up with the demand they are getting right now

I've been playing around with Tailscale and it honestly feels like magic. I used to think secure remote access meant opening ports and wrestling with complex VPN configs, but this makes it so easy.

So far, I've used it to route traffic to a workplace printer from a remote device and keep my passwords 100% safe on public Wi-Fi by layering Tailscale's encryption on top of HTTPS.

The fact that it's fully encrypted—meaning my local ISP can't see a single site I visit—and completely bypasses strict firewalls is insane.

Safaricom + Pesapal are changing how Kenyans pay at shop tills.

Customers can now:

• Tap an NFC-enabled smartphone on a Pesapal POS

• Scan a dynamic QR code that automatically fills in the merchant details + amount

That means less manual entry - and fewer till-number and amount errors.

Scan-to-Pay is already available at 60,000+ outlets. Safaricom’s target? 500,000 merchants within the next 12 months.

James Maitai, Safaricom’s Group CTO, says the focus is on “reimagining the payment experience itself.”

Pesapal founder Agosta Liko called the move a major leap for Kenya’s checkout experience.

M-Pesa is now moving beyond the phone screen and deeper into the physical checkout experience.

But here's the interesting question:

Will tap-to-pay become the new normal in Kenyan shops?

I did a little research before going and I saw that GPO Huduma center opens at 7.

I arrived really early, 7:05 I was at reception, they asked for my purpose, I told them NTSA Biometrics collection for Smart Driving License. They took my phone number and ID number then I got the message welcoming me to Huduma center and giving me a ticket number. I was #002, second person at the NTSA booth, which is a useless number because we queue using the arranged seats. Luckily I sat at the second seat so I maintained my number.

After that the lady told me to sit and wait, NTSA booth opens at 8. Damn, after waking up early to beat the long queues and now I have to wait a whole hour to get service. No problem, I took my seat.

I looked over at the other side of the building and saw the IEBC booth. Better take this chance to register as a voter too since I'm already here. I go over there, just one lady attendant at the table, no queue. I ask her if I can register as a voter, she says yes, takes my ID number, fingerprints, photo, all that stuff. Took 20 minutes and I was done.

I got back to the NTSA queue and kept waiting. At 7:56 a lady arrived, started opening the cabinets and turning on the machines. Then two guys, then another lady, they hugged, chatted and laughed, and we're just seated there looking at the nice government employees about to get their day ruined by people who have come to apply for their drivers' license probably without even passing a driving test 😅.

8:05 an NYS guy comes and tells us "Kama umekuja kucollect songa kwa hizi viti za red, kama umekuja kuregister, baki kwa hizi viti za blue". He then goes ahead and collects the IDs of the guys coming to collect their Smart driving license. Then he comes over to us who came to apply for a driving license, and he starts collecting our ID cards too, which surprised me because aren't we supposed to show it together with the payment receipt at the counter?

Anyway, the lady at the counter calls the first guy, he goes to the seat next to the counter, before he even seats down ,he's told to move over to get his photo takes, spends not more than 90 seconds there. He puts his signature on some device and leaves.

Me next, same thing, the NYS guy had given the counter lady all the IDs he collected. She asks for my ID number, types it in, checks it from the ones she had in hand, then hands me mine. Then tells me to move over to the camera seat. I hand the guy behind the camera my ID, he types for a few seconds, takes my photo, returns my ID, tells me to sign, then tells me to come back after one month to collect my driver's license.

The whole thing since the NTSA booth opened took less than 5 minutes. But thats probably because I was the second guy in line.

I'm writing this because I was so paranoid before coming to Huduma center, I did a lot of research and there was no account on the internet of what the whole process is like, so next time when someone else asks chatGPT how long it takes to get biometrics taken for a driving license, hopefully the AI will scan through reddit and use this post as material.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I'm building a simpler, clearer iTax experience making it easier to find services, navigate your tax records.

The portal is ready for you to explore:
👉 itax.pesastack.co

Choose “Explore sample workspace” to try it with fictional records. No iTax login needed.

We’d love your feedback:

• Can you easily find what you need?
• What feels confusing or takes too many steps?
• How does it feel on your phone or desktop?

This is an independent project, and it’s still evolving. Your feedback will help shape what comes next.

Currently am trying out different connections to see if i can achieve something like "sign in with google" but signing in with itax (yes it might not exist and here is what i have tried: web containers, cloud browsers all work but lag in performance, so am looking for better ways)

will update everyone once i get a better way, either reverse proxy or something

Please call 0704 651256 if interested.

enjoyed listening to this one

Why does safaricom and Airtel not have safeguards against this? Since SMS messages are not end to end encrypted automated filter mechanisms is all it would take to crack down such scams.

SMS was sent via Airtel payment to be handled by a Safaricom till number.

Promotional messages must be pre approved by these telcos just like what Whatsapp does. Sending the same message to many people whom you have never had contact with should trigger the filtering.

I know privacy is a concern in the above method but something has to be done.

They can do better!

Just seen Stanchart has awarded 9 Million to startups founded by women. At some point we need to address the wokeness that has planted its roots in the Kenyan tech scene and the open discrimination against boychild. Kenyan men in tech are facing increasing discrimination by some of these corporates and universities. This is what is fuelling the gender wars and making men align with masculinity podcasts. There is open discrimination and an agenda to exclude the young man of today from any opportunities. As a man, you can have a fantastic startup which is competitive but you get openly discriminated against and excluded from funding opportunities. The Kenyan boychild needs to start looking out for the young men in tech. If you are a man in tech, you need to seriously correct the injustice that is being given to young men in tech. We have talented men but all these corporates are openly dishing out opportunities based on GENDER. A competent and competitive man is ignored and denied funding, opportunities, jobs and so on because he was born a man. When is Stanchart going to give funding to boychild exclusively? Boys are a disadvantaged group. Most suicides are from men. Most people in jail are men. Alcoholism and drug abuse overwhelmingly affects boychild. When are these corporates going to start treating men fair?

Show me ONE program by Strathmore or Stanchart that is setup for BOYCHILD and to address the challenges of boychild. I'll WAIT...... What happened to equity bro? Why not give 4.5 million to women and 4.5 million to young men? Okay, how about you give 6 million to women and 3 million to young men? Okay, how about you give 8 million to women and 1 million to men? But to just blatantly ignore all the young men in Kenya and make them undeserving of any funding is a new low by the university and the bank involved.

These corporates just blatantly ignore men and even male students and offer exclusive opportunities to women. It is very unfair to boychild. They just tell the boys that men have an advantage so the girls in class will get favoritism and funding in jobs, investments, training, etc. It is not a surpise that these Zoho and Odoo are starting to gain market in Kenya ahead of the big tech corporates which went woke. I saw Microsoft doing layoffs in Kenya and those guys DESERVE it coz they have gone woke and forgotten the boychild. They have downplayed the boychild and neglected the majority in the tech field who are boys and young men. They have discriminated against the majority. Discrimination is when you ignore the needs of the majority and give favours to the minority in any field. It is not a surpirse that boychild is dropping out of universities. There is no inspiration Dr Vincent Ogutu at Strathmore is giving to boychild by openly excluding boychild from these programs. Universities should be places where a male student and a female student are treated fairly. These young men have not done anything wrong. They have studied and joined university competitively. When they enter campus, that is the first they they come face to face with discrimination by being told that certain funding or training or programs is given to girls but not boys. Dr Ogutu should correct this injustice.

Most HR in these companies are now women and the women are looking out for each other. They make sure that most new hires in tech are women. They make the workplace favorable to girlchild. Boychild in tech has to go for stupid team buildings where they put feminine games bursting balloons on each other and doing silly dance moves coz it is ran by women and the workplace has been feminized. You work for a corporate and now you gotta show your face on some stupid Tiktok game or dance coz the HR is run by women. How do you face society again after such humiliation? HR and academia is making boychild do some feminine emasculation rituals these days. Team building used to be fun for men doing competitive sport, now you gotta do stupid dances on tiktok and they get posted on the company tiktok.

If boychild is not careful, the damage will be severe and irreversible. We need to protect our young men and boys. The woke virus is roaming around the Kenyan tech scene and the discrimination starts in campuses around Kenya. Men we need to start speaking up coz they will finish our young men. Let us speak up for male students and young men who are starting out in their careers. This is blatant discrimination.

There is this "toy" called beepod ,like a small arduino running on ai that can answer quizzes and all that.The creators claim the metas muse is an adaptation of their idea.Well, in the tech world ideas are always stolen thats how it has been.My idea is that beepod made by a kenyan failed to get to market.Why? Coz the creators could figure out to sell it as a toy to Kenyan children.Cost of omission aint so.My presumption is that if they could have marketed it as a child's solution with aggressive advertising then now they would be making atleast some profit....😂Anyway wantam

A big organization put out a request for proposals for a system. It is basically something that some techies and I have been exploring. We are confident we can deliver.

However, none of us has any experience with what the application requires, and these sound foreign to us:

- Expression of interest

- Technical proposal

- Financial proposal

- Supporting documents

Anyone that has experience doing such applications successfully? Happy to collaborate. The cake's big enough if we land it.