ICTworks by Inveneo

Google is naturally excited about the voluntary formation of Google Technology User Groups across Africa - communities of software developers and Google users sharing ideas about improving their businesses with Google applications.

In a recent post, they now count ten chapters in eight countries including groups in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda and Senegal. While it might be harder to count how GTUG's impact Google's bottom line, I can count their impact on the African technology community.

Bye, bye LUG's, hello GTUG's

Do you remember going to a Linux User Group meeting and being inspired by the excitement and promise in the room? That's how I felt at the Linux Users Group of Accra meeting back in 2005. Like I was in the presence of Africa's future.

Now LUG's are dying off as their members find other passions and professions. This isn't a bad thing - often it means that Linux usage has transcended from a small club of users to the general ICT ecosystem and so LUG's succeeded. Their current incarnation? GTUG's.

Google has the buzz, the ubiquity, and most importantly, the open API's that are allowing developers and businesses to innovate with their technologies. It also helps that they have in-country presence in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. With that base, GTUG's are a natural progression and a welcomed sign of ecosystem maturity.

So what are you doing just sitting there? Join a GTUG today and do your part to continue code culture.

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In a recent Economist Article, I heard for the first time about gOS, an operating system claiming to be "the most beautiful and easiest to use Linux operating system on the market."

The author experienced gOS during volunteer work he did refurbishing computers for kids.  He praised gOS for its child-friendliness, its clean interface, and it's blazing fast 9 second startup time.  He even says he "has kept a copy of this clever Linux distribution (gOS 3.1 Gadgets is the latest version) on one of his office machines to remind him of what, with luck, the future could look like."

Strong praise, and the screenshots look pretty...has anyone spent much time with gOS?  I'm curious to hear whether others agree or disagree with this assessment.

When you're working in rural areas, electricity is often very scarce. Your only source of power may be a battery array, which may cost you $10-per-watt to install and recharge via solar power. That means a 100W system would cost you around $1,000 in solar panels, batteries, charge controller and wiring - installed. So every Watt you can save in power consumption matters a great deal.

If you're running a Linux-based computing system, you now have a new ally, courtesy of Intel. LessWatts.org is a community focused on saving power with Linux, bringing developers, users, and sysadmins together to share software, optimizations, and tips and tricks.

Here's just a few ways LessWatts can help you reduce power usage with laptops, desktops, and servers, without updating any software

1. Enable the power aware SMP scheduler
2. Use SATA link power management
3. Enable WiFi power management
4. Check for unused Bluetooth
5. Use gigabit ethernet speeds only when needed

But LessWatts offers more than just tips and tricks, they're actively developing power-saving projects to reduce your energy footprint. Energy savings that matters in both the middle of Mali and the middle of Manhattan.