The Nooby Book Writer

I was given a gift of TT$3 worth of Bitcoin (1000 Satoshis or 0.00001 bitcoin) and I used the Wallet of Satoshi to receive my gift. This is my first experience with bitcoin. I am in the process of learning more and I decided to share my experience and understanding in this blog post. A wallet gives you access to your bitcoin and you can send and receive bitcoin. There are different types of wallets. Wallets have a public key (this is like your bank account number) and private key (this is like your online banking password). The Wallet of Satoshi app is a zero-configuration custodial wallet. A custodial wallet means that they have control over the private keys. The Wallet of Satoshi uses the lightning network. The bitcoin network can only process a limited amount of transactions per second. The lightning network was created to overcome this. The lightning network has lower fees and allows micro-payments. A bunch of transactions can take place and then at a later time a net transaction i

As I was waiting for the rain to done so I could make my way to the doubles shop for two doubles with slight pepper and everything, this is the question I asked myself. What would it take for a technology revolution to happen in Trinidad and Tobago? As I started to think about this I asked some other questions. What is a technology revolution? How is this related to digital transformation? Is that going to be a digital revolution? According to wikipedia, "A technological revolution is a period in which one or more technologies is replaced by another, novel technology in a short amount of time. It is an era of accelerated technological progress characterized by new innovations whose rapid application and diffusion typically cause an abrupt change in society." What would it take in Trinidad and Tobago to have a technological revolution? Well, we started to see major changes in mindset and action because of the pandemic. Technology was being respected. Technology was seen as our

I was day dreaming today and I came up with this idea for a 'Domain Engine'. Like a search engine but more specific to domains. An entry in the domain engine would look as follows Website domain - hassan.pro.tt Category - Personal website Tags (max 5) - blogger, techie, trini, caribbean, photographer Description - I am a tech blogger based in Trinidad and Tobago. I have been blogging and creating content for more than 10 years. Verified - true Claimed - true This info last updated - 27 Mar 2022 Location - Trinidad and Tobago No. of times viewed - 1923 [ claim ] [ report broken link ] [ submit domain ] Examples of searches I would make with such a tool. List of banking websites in Trinidad List of university websites in the Caribbean List of bloggers in the Caribbean

In the past I would have blogged about my experience coding on my mobile with tech like Termux, NodeJS, MariaDB, Hugo, and Firebase. I am always looking for ways to code on my android mobile. This time I am experimenting with Stackblitz. Stackblitz is an online code editor for web apps and powered by Visual Studio Code. Below has been my experience getting started. I chose the free tier and signed in to stackblitz.com using my GitHub account. I created a typescript project. Stackblitz website is very user friendly. Next I looked for a good tutorial on youtube. You can debug using chrome dev tools but looks like this is not available on chrome mobile. I have seen stackblitz being compared to glitch.com and codesandbox.io and I am guessing that there are others out there. There is an option to deploy to Firebase from within stackblitz but I don't want to trust stackblitz with my firebase just yet. I downloaded my typescript project and headed over to termux. I then had the following

Why should someone in Trinidad and Tobago buy a Tesla? Our goal is to help drive the adoption of emission free transportation in Trinidad and I think we have done that. When Smart Energy brought in the first Tesla into T&T, we created excitement in the market and proved to car owners that it is possible to go electric in Trinidad and Tobago. People don’t have to buy a Tesla, but Tesla’s are cool. The driving performance is exceptional, and the acceleration is like being launched on a rollercoaster. We are happy with any EV that is sold in Trinidad that means there is one less fossil car on the road. One thing I want to clearly state is that our prices for evs are the most competative at this point. Are there any charging stations in the country? Yes, but more fast charging stations in key destinations would aid adoption. These stations would support lower range EVs such as the Nissan Leaf. The range in Teslas is more than the average Trinbagonian would drive in any one day. A char

Update 23 March 2022 - Survey is now live at link below. Please share to get more responses. https://forms.gle/QwWJ88PfxqHeVZxv7 I want to conduct a Caribbean Developers survey to get an idea and one view of the state of the Caribbean Developer space. The results will be shared here on my blog. These are the questions that I would like to be asked. What questions would you want to be included? Share in the comments below. Once I have a final list of questions I would create a survey in survey monkey or some similar service and share that and update this blog post with a link. Age? Country? Position? Industry? Education Level? Certifications? Technologies used? Languages used? Developer websites you visit? What can be done to improve the developer space in the Caribbean? What developer trends are you following? Do you think developers should be paid more in your country? How would you rate yourself as a developer? Is there a brain drain or brain surplus in your country? Do you have a m

According to StatCounter, Google search market share is 92.01% as of February 2022. That is pretty impressive. Before now I have used Google search only but I started using Bing search in parallel. As a tech blogger and techie, I do a lot of research and I especially go deep into results and sometimes to the end of the results. Competition is good and the more persons that use a search engine makes it better. I never gave Bing a proper try before and so I wanted to do that this time around. Some have joked that Bing stands for Because It's Not Google. I changed the default search engine in my Chrome mobile browser to Bing from Chrome settings, as a reminder to also use Bing in my searches. I find that I am getting some useful results that I am not getting with Google. I noticed that the Youtube thumbnail is linked to what I am searching. I get a clean link when I copy link from search results and this is especially useful for attachments. I see less ads on Bing although I have no p

Update 6 Apr 2022 - A full website has replaced the landing page. My main gripe so far is no RSS feed especially for media and resources. A newsletter subscription could work. Original blog post - I have been checking every morning for a few weeks now as I anticipated the website going live and I figure the url would be mdt.gov.tt following how other ministry websites are named. I just checked and the website is live. I am trying my best to keep up with all of the ministry. I have been following on facebook, twitter and youtube. I am a bit disappointed that it took so long to just be a landing page. Hopefully this is just a short time and that the full website comes in the next few days. Also disappointed that it did not go live with https. Even static websites are supposed to be https as Google search uses this in their algorithm and Chrome browser flags all http websites as insecure. Builtwith.com is listing cloudflare, apache and ubuntu for this website. The website is not indexe

The following is a question and answer segment with the Basel Convention Regional Centre for Training and Technology Transfer for the Caribbean following my blog post on the topic . How do you define e-waste? https://www.bcrc-caribbean.org/our-projects/waste-electrical-and-electronic-equipment/ Reference is made to our website for questions 1 and 2. Describe the work that BCRC-Caribbean is doing for e-waste? To add to question 2, currently, the BCRC-Caribbean is executing a project entitled Management of E-Waste in Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago, which includes the following components: - The updated report on the current e-waste management practices in the three  project countries - Proposal on a sub-regional approach to the management of e-waste and the development of training materials - Development of a business plan for the proposed management solutions - Dissemination of project results and knowledge dissemination Tell us about the e-waste survey? There are two e-wast

The global hype around net neutrality has lessened but it remains an important consideration. I like this definition from the EFF website - net neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without improper discrimination in favor of particular apps, sites or services. Net neutrality is mentioned in our National ICT plan and was assigned to public administration and TATT. In todays papers TATT put out an ad requesting feedback on their Framework on Net Neutrality in Trinidad and Tobago document as part of their consultation process. According to the document, the topic of net neutrality has been prominent in global policy discussions for decades. It says that at the heart of these discussions lies the importance of the open internet, which has unequivocally driven innovation, commerce, individual expression and competition. On the one hand we have the need for an open internet and on the other hand we have

Talk about a CARICOM Single ICT Space has been around for some years now. I did a question and answer with CARICOM for my blog for this back in March 2017. The CARICOM Single ICT Space is an ecosystem of regionally harmonised ICT policies, legislation, regulations, technical standards, best practices, networks and services. It is needed for the betterment and development of Caribbean citizens through technology and integration. The region is stronger together. We have similar needs and we understand each other. The single ICT space will advance the CARICOM digital agenda. The Grenada PM, Dr Keith Mitchell, thinks that without this single ICT space we will be replicating efforts and wasting valuable resources. We have to be agile, lean and collaborative to get ahead with digital transformation. Some of the benefits include providing digital support for the CSME and support for the realisation of the CARICOM digital economy; Facilitating collaboration and sharing of resources; Enhancing

Update 14 December 2023  : Domain name for the service established. It is mycashtt.com . The logo there is the same logo that can be seen on the app store for My Cash that is available in Jamaica. We can probably get an idea of what we might get in Trinidad by looking at what is available in Jamaica. According to a Google inurl search, the indexed date of the landing page was October 20 2023. Update 11 October 2023 : Central bank authorises Digicel My Cash to issue e-money in Trinidad and Tobago https://www.central-bank.org.tt/sites/default/files/latest-news/central-bank-authorises-mycash-to%20issue-electronic-money-in-tt-20230210.pdf Original blog post : I made a connection on LinkedIn today and the person's job title is Head of Wallet at Digicel in the Jamaica office. At first I thought nothing of this but later on in the night I started to ask questions. Looks like Digicel is developing a mobile wallet app for our markets in Trinidad and Jamaica. When I do a Google search for

The Microsoft Innovation Center in Trinidad and Tobago was opened on October 6 2014. It was the first in the English speaking Caribbean. It was a partnership between Cariri and Microsoft aimed at providing technology training. It was hoped that it would play a role in our diversification efforts. From March 2016 to July 2017 they maintained a facebook page. That facebook page has since been abandoned and their website is empty.  I woke up this morning and set out to find out what happened. I posted the question to my LinkedIn connections and on the Caribbean Developers facebook group. It always bothers me that the Microsoft Trinidad and Tobago office does not have an online presence. No email address, social media or website, no nothing. I sent some emails to email contacts I had. I sent a LinkedIn connection request to the territory manager. I even sent a message to the abandoned facebook page. Is the Microsoft Innovation Center coming back? Could that play a role in the Developer Hub

Waiting on lunch to be delivered at 1 pm and decided I should tune in to the Apple event today. I don't think I have ever watched an Apple event. There was a time when the Apple event streams were only available to watch from Apple devices. I went to youtube and searched for "apple event" and saw an upcoming stream for 2 pm. I clicked set reminder and that was that. Earlier in the day I remember responding to a tweet about what it would take to make me switch from Android to iPhone and my answer was, a budget iphone model. I need the cheapest iphone ever. Can they make an iphone model for TT$800 ( that is roughly US$120)? I think they can but they wouldn't want to. I think that would greatly improve their market share and bring more customers who could eventually upgrade to pricier models. I am now browsing the #AppleEvent hashtag on twitter to get what the buzz surrounding the event is about. Lots of leaks and speculation. One tweet suggested a green iPhone will be a

I was prompted to write this blog because of a question on Caribbean Developers. The gist of the question was I want to start a tech startup, I have ideas and can see the big picture but I have little coding experience. My response was - Start small. Keep learning. Register your business. Build your company website. Many big tech companies started from humble beginnings. Google for example started in a dorm room in Stanford University. The important thing is to just start. Don't think about failure. Don't think about the destination too much, enjoy the journey. I like this quote by Jacqueline Novogratz that I found on the internet, "Just start. Don’t wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you." We never stop learning. Keep learning. Technology is constantly changing. Technology evolves quickly. There are tons of resources online. For example, coursera has a course called Creating and Developing a Tech Startup. Seek out a mentor. Ask your circles for ad