Trinbago Techie

What is e-waste? E-waste is short for electronic waste. It is unwanted electronic products. That older mobile phone with the broken screen sitting in your desk drawer ready to be thrown out is an example of e-waste. E-waste contains metals and chemicals that can be harmful to human health and the environment. Our aim should be to dispose properly and reduce, reuse and recycle. A heaping 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019. That is an increase of 21 per cent in just five years. This is according to the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2020. The report also states that only 17.4% of 2019’s e-waste was collected and recycled. 14th October each year is International E-waste Day coordinated by the WEEE Forum and its members which focuses on highlighting the profile of the e-waste issue. How are we treating with e-waste in Trinidad and Tobago? There is no specific e-waste legislation or policy but we do have a general and dated (2015) National Waste

I love the feeling on old years night. It is part accomplishment for making it to the end of another year and part hope for what is to come in the new year. It is like how I feel after completing a 10 km walk. I want 2022 to be great. I want 2022 to be better than 2021. I want good things for the world. For my country. For myself. It is that time of the year when many make resolutions. I would like to make some resolutions this year. I would like to continue eating healthy and losing weight. I would like to make more youtube videos. I would like to do more photography. I would like to clean up my laptop. I would like my body to be more active. I want to write more poems. I want to create more art. I want to write more blogs. At the core of these resolutions is wanting to be a better person. To make good use of the time we have. The new year is an opportunity to turn things around. To start fresh. To let go of the things that might be holding us back. To give ourselves purpose and direc

I didn't plan to watch the budget presentation but I did. Normally I just wait for the budget documents to hit the website afterwards. I listened from start to finish and paid attention to comments on the youtube livestream I was watching. My overall impression? I wanted to see new ideas and innovation. I wanted to see a focus on technology. The comments on the livestream let me know that there is plenty bias and persons are towing their party's line. I hold no allegiance to any political party and I am ready to criticise and commend both sides. I am ready to work with anyone that wants good for Trinidad and Tobago. Since I started voting, I have voted for 3 different political parties. The tech related things that stood out to me from the budget are digital developer hub, national e-identity platform, tax breaks for tech startups and digital wallets. The opposition has pointed out that the Ministry of Digital Transformation has no website. I am waiting patiently for their webs

It has been raining plentiful this morning. I got wet in the rain going for doubles. As the rain pounds on the roof, I am asking myself, what would I do with a million dollars? If I had a million dollars to spend my main aim would be to make good use and improve my life and the life of others. It takes money to make money so I would want to invest. Of course I would want to save for a rainy day. A portion of money will go to charities. It feels good to give back and it is the right and good thing to do. Pay it forward. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Charities that help poor families with food and shelter. Charities that take care of the environment. Charities that save animals. I would want to make the world a better place for us and future generations. A portion of money will go towards home improvement. The house needs plastering on the outside. The area under the shed needs paving. A washer and dryer on the inside. A nice cupboard area to keep the kitchen neat. T

I was chilling in my room's AC hiding from the blazing sun outside and thinking what could be my next blog post. Then it occurred to me to write something about my work life. My very first job was at Computers and Controls in Port of Spain. I had just finished secondary school and I didn't have concrete university plans. My Math teacher helped me get that job. It didn't last more than a few days. I did not fit in. I couldn't socialise. I felt like a misfit. I cried. I was a young, dumb, broke high school kid as the song goes. I was book smart but not street smart. That is lesson number one. You need street smarts to survive in this world. The education system needs to do more to prepare us for the real world. During university I worked part time conducting phone surveys. This was shift work from 6 pm to 10 pm on weekdays and 8am to 4pm on weekends. The challenge here was that I had an accent. Then the cold nights waiting for the bus to return to campus housing. This job

So I decided to purchase a .tt domain name. In the past I would have gone the way of Godaddy because it was cheaper (for 2nd level domain name), more convenient and offered DNS management. There was a time when online credit card payments was not accepted by TTNIC . TTNIC manages the .tt cctld (country code top level domain). TTNIC is a register. Read up more about the internet domain name system if you want to learn more about this. At the heart of what they do is point your domain name to your specified nameservers that manages your DNS records. They only manage nameserver records in their zone so you will have to obtain DNS management outside of them. Cloudflare seems to be popular for this and they offer a free tier. I found serverspace.io and their free tier and I chose this. For now I am hosting a landing page on my domain name and using firebase hosting. For this I am using A records pointing to firebase's hosting ip addresses. One of the main reasons I chose a .tt domain na

I was browsing youtube and came across a newsclip about the launch of the Huawei IdeaHub rollout to select schools in Trinidad and Tobago. My interest was piqued and I quickly contacted the local agency that handles Huawei's public relations. I asked for any press release they had. I was going to learn as much as I can, ask questions and write this blog post. I am a big supporter for tech in education. What is the IdeaHub? It is an interactive electronic whiteboard with video conferencing capability. According to the IdeaHub website, innovative intelligent writing recognition automatically identifies words, figures, and flowcharts. The board will allow students to connect and share their screen. There are third party software designed for interactive whiteboards where you can perform quizzes for example. The board can be used for online classes if the teacher is willing to work from school rather than home. But soon enough we would be returning to school in classrooms and these boa