Tech Archives - Mugendi

Top .KE Domain Registrars 2024

February 14, 2024March 12, 2024 2 min read

If you have a website in Kenya, you probably use a .ke domain name such as .co.ke, .or.ke, .sc.ke, and others. These are the most popular domain name extensions used by Kenyans, although .com and .org are two other popular domain extensions.

There are tens of both local and international companies that offer dot KE domain registration services. Have you ever wondered which are the top ones? Here is a list of the top 50 with the number of domains they have registered

Top 40 .ke Domain Registrars

NO.	REGISTRAR	TOTAL DOMAINS
1	Truehost Cloud Limited	24507
2	EAC directory	17121
3	Kenya Website Experts	14256
4	Hostpinnacle Kenya Limited	8195
5	Global Internet Fortunes Limited	7849
6	Safaricom Limited	7377
7	Webhost Kenya Ltd	4254
8	deepAfrica Co Ltd	4050
9	Afriregister Limited	2693
10	Lexregistration Limited	1253
11	ICT Authority	734
12	SawaSawa.com Limited	677
13	Webcom Kenya Limited	583
14	Dimension Data Solutions	526
15	Kenyaweb Solutions(E.A)	485
16	Hostnali Webhost Limited	456
17	Oracom Web Solutions	443
18	AHERI BASIC INTERNET	427
19	Fun Media Limited	348
20	Gamma Solutions	319
21	Peak and Dale Solutions	316
22	HOST MASTERS	265
23	Raysco Web and Net Solutions	255
24	Web Hosting Experts Ltd	233
25	ETIQET SOLUTIONS LIMIT	226
26	HOST PRO	224
27	Aplin	209
28	Bitsimba Telecommunications	200
29	Ecobiz	185
30	IT Experts Solutions Ltd	180
31	Big Host Africa	176
32	Dotnet Africa Ltd	175
33	Ignite Africa Limited	174
34	Heartbit Computer Solution	172
35	Crystal Technologies Ltd	166
36	SAFE DOMAINS KENYA LIMITED	162
37	LIQUID TELECOM KENYA	156
38	Shine Web Technologies Lt	153
39	ALMOND CYBER SOLUTIONS	153
40	WEBKRAFT KENYA LTD	144
41	Hostraha Limited	134
42	MyISP Limited	132
43	Legibra Solutions Limited	123
44	Creative Edge Limited	121
45	Softlink Options Ltd	118
46	Digital Webframe Solutions	113
47	CIT Techno Ltd	105
48	WEB SOLUTIONS KENYA	104
49	Messaging Labs Africa Solutions	101
50	Intrepid Data Systems	91

In terms of new registrations, here are the number of domains registered by each registrar in January 2024.

Top Domain Registrars in January 2024

NO.	REGISTRAR	DOMAINS REGISTERED IN JANUARY 2024
1	Truehost Cloud Limited	1166
2	Kenya Website Experts	448
3	EAC directory	439
4	HostPinnacle Kenya Limited	400
5	Safaricom Limited	244
6	Global Internet Fortunes	144
7	Webhost Kenya Ltd	99
8	deepAfrica Co Ltd	98
9	Afriregister Limited	41
10	Lexregistration Limited	21
11	Fun Media Limited	20
12	Hostnali Webhost Limited	18
13	Kenyaweb Solutions(E.A) Lt	17
14	Hostraha Limited	16
15	WEBKRAFT KENYA LTD	12
16	Webcom Kenya Limited	11
17	Gamma Solutions	10
18	Raysco Web and Net Solutions	9
19	Crystal Technologies Ltd	9
20	Oracom Web Solutions LT	8
21	Digital Webframe Solutions	8
22	Pwani Web Hosting Solutions	8
23	HOST PRO	7
24	IT Experts Solutions Ltd	7
25	SawaSawa.com Limited	6
26	Softlink Options Ltd	6
27	AFRICA BLUE WEBS	6
28	Web Hosting Experts Ltd	5
29	Legibra Solutions Limited	5
30	ELIMUHOST SYSTEMS	5
31	AHERI BASIC INTERNET	4
32	HOST MASTERS	4
33	ETIQET SOLUTIONS LIMIT	4
34	Bitsimba Telecommunications	4
35	Shine Web Technologies	4
36	Movetech Solutions Ltd	4
37	Mbitrix technologies LTD	4
38	Alpha Savvy Logistics LTD	4
39	ELDOHUB INNOVATION	4
40	ICT Authority	3
41	Peak and Dale Solutions	3
42	Ecobiz	3
43	Heartbit Computer Solution	3
44	Blue Shine Trading Ltd	3
45	Techmate Solutions	3
46	Infrotronics Limited	3

Planning for your Website

January 18, 2024February 21, 2024 4 min read

You will likely need a website in the course of your life. If you are reading this, that time could be now.

Most people who are not familiar with websites usually start without a clear goal or look at the website as the end goal itself. This should not be the case because a website should be a tool to help you achieve a specific goal. You therefore need to plan diligently and ensure that you have a formula for success and the parameters that will define that success.

Here are the specific things to consider.

Start with an Objective

A website for the sake of a website is likely a waste of resources. One needs to clearly define the end goal so that everything will be designed to fit that end goal

The objective could be raising awareness about your brand, creating publicity about your products, selling online, sharing useful information, creating a community, or even protecting your brand online.

Once you have that information you are better placed to decide what will work for you, and it will inform the type of content that you are going to create.

Prepare your content

One of the most important steps is preparing content that can go into your website. Remember that you are the person who is best placed to provide the relevant content that you need, even before you seek external help.

What kind of content do you need to prepare?

First, think about all the information about your business or the entity that needs a website and put it into writing. Any bit of information that you think somebody should know ought to be written down. From there, go ahead and search online to see what similar businesses and competitors have put online.

The second part involves the more technical work such as identifying keywords that you want your website to rank on and organizing your content in a way that is appealing to both people and search engines. If you are not familiar with this, get an expert to help you with this. Most web designers can also help you with this.

It is important to have this content ready before you engage someone to develop your website. This is because you are the best placed to know what you need, and when you engage a third party it will be about enhancing what you already have and covering the gaps.

Get a Domain Name and Hosting Service

You definitely will need a domain name and web hosting service. This can also serve as your email service.

There are many web hosting and email service providers you can choose from, and I will leave this for you to decide. Of course, Truehost Cloud is the go-to place.

Get a good web designer

From there you need to have a web designer or a developer who will make your website become a reality.

You need someone who will help you appealingly present your content and make it presentable on the web. It is a similar thing to painting a house and working on the landscape to make a piece of real estate look attractive.

This is where you will determine what content appears on the specific location of the website, as well as get good graphics to accompany your content. A Web developer should use their expertise to present the content the way it is designed, and this is quite a hard task that takes time.

Publicize your Website

Once the website is ready, it is necessary to publicize the content and put the word out there. What is the purpose of having a website that no one knows about?

There are several ways to achieve this.

Start with listing the website in directories, and adding it to your social media pages. Let your clients know about it and put it in all your publications and branding materials.

You could also consider promoting it using online ads. This would help put the word out there but in most cases, it may not be necessary. With time, you will see your site start to show on search engines.

Keep it alive with content

A good website is alive and needs regular content and working on to keep it relevant. How can one achieve this?

For a website, you need to keep adding content that your users might need. This is because no one will keep coming back to see the old content. The best way to do that is to have regular posts, and you can consider having a blog section where you will be sharing this content.

Try to keep up with trends and any new information that could be useful for your website. If you cannot do this yourself, you can consider getting someone to do this for you.

Will AI Replace Your Job?

April 26, 2023 3 min read

Once Upon a Time…

Before writing was invented, the world was very different from what it is today. Everything that needed to be known had to be committed to memory. Humanity needed to remember stuff or else crucial knowledge would be lost. Perhaps, that is how poetry and music were born because people needed a flowery language that was easy to remember. Alliteration, rhyme, repetition – all these were helpful tools in the age when memory was the main repository of knowledge.

Having a good memory was considered a great skill, and people learned to commit a lot of information to memory. There were mnemonic tricks that could help one remember almost anything, and these today are used by a group of nerds who participate in the World Memory Championships. Just a preview of what it entails, the 2020 winner, Emma Alam, memorized 410 random words in 15 minutes (and in the correct order).

Then came writing, and the world changed a little. However, it was not until Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press that books became a household thing and no one needed to remember anything. Within a short time, the need to remember so much information became useless. The age of books had come.

Learning from History

Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. (Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.)

A long time ago there was a profession called copy typist. It still exists today, but it has seen better days, and possibly you do not know any career copy typist. When word processors came, everybody got the freedom to work on their own documents and their career came to a sudden end.

Same with Human Computers. If you have watched the movie or read the book Hidden Figures, you know there was a profession called computers, who were disrupted by the actual electronic computers that we know. These were people who performed mathematical calculations and would undertake complex and tedious calculations, and we see them in the movie Hidden Figures where Katherine Johnson’s work is crucial in the first American orbital spaceflight.

Today we do not have human computers as a day-to-day profession, and no one seems to care. Such a beautiful profession is no more, and the world has moved on.

The End of ………. (Insert Career)

Professions come to an end.

I do not know the day or the hour. But as sure as the sun rises, some careers will go the way of calculators, courtesy of Artificial Intelligence. It is a matter of when not if.

Which jobs will go away? I can speculatively name a few, but that is not important, neither is it the point.

As someone once said, “Technology will not replace people, but people who use technology will replace people who don’t.” This is the same case with ChatGPT and other forms of Artificial Intelligence. If ChatGPT will replace some lawyers, it will replace them with lawyers who use ChatGPT. That is why as a lawyer you need to keep up with the technology (AI) that can make you more efficient.

What should I do if my job is threatened by AI? While it still lasts, the best advice I have is this.

Keep riding on the available opportunities. As you do that, learn to leverage the opportunity that AI provides. Be adaptable, and use AI to your advantage.

And while you are still here, a book I am currently reading, 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity, could be a good starting point to understand what the future of AI looks like.

The Power of access to Information

September 3, 2022December 3, 2022 2 min read

One of the most astounding findings I recently came across is the study of the effects of mobile phones on the Kerala fishing market in India. The research by Robert Jensen is best summarized by the figure below which shows how mobile phones led to the stabilization of fish prices in different markets.

From the figure, it is seen that the fish prices are very volatile in the three regions, but stabilize almost as if by magic when mobile phones are introduced in the region. It seems that access to information leads to the damping of the price curve and the consistency that follows is just incredible.

Responding to Demand and Supply

Jensen offers various explanations for the impact of communication on the market. It is argued that fishermen had access to price information and thus were in a better position to know where to sell. This helps them to respond to the demand and thus normalize supply in different markets.

The same could be said about buyers who had information on where the prices are low and would flock there, leading to increased demand, hence prices. Overall, the availability of information leads to a natural form of price control as market forces are able to respond more accurately.

This is one study that shows how access to information continues to impact the world in ways that many people would not have imagined. Buyers are able to get the best value for their money, while fishermen can expect more consistent prices. The social impact of this may not be easy to quantify but I can imagine the benefit of being able to plan effectively and budget.

Information age

While the information age may have peaked, there are still opportunities that are yet to be unlocked especially in marginalized societies and communities. There are still places where people have not enjoyed the full benefits of access to information, due to skill levels or lack of resources.

It is hard to imagine what will be the real impact when this happens. Imagine a scenario where all children have equal access to education, where all people have equal access to skills necessary to thrive and produce optimally, and where farmers have access to the best available agronomic information. We could solve a number of problems that we are facing in Africa today.

Let’s make it happen.

Big Tech Still Wanting on Transparency

August 15, 2022December 3, 2022 3 min read

One of the biggest online communities we have ever built consists of 1100 subscribers who regularly read one of our websites. That is quite a big community of people from a small geographical location who are willing to keep visiting your websites and reading our content.

How does it work? Easy. It is through WhatsApp.

We created a WhatsApp broadcast list that for people who want to subscribe, and this works well because it is easy to message the 1100 people who have saved your contact. You do that through a few broadcast messages.

WhatsApp Ban

After using the service for about 6 months, I woke up one day to find that WhatsApp had blocked the number and I could no longer send messages. This was a big blow. I wrote to WhatsApp asking why the number had been banned. The response was that we violated the WhatsApp terms and Conditions.

Attempts to get them to explain the terms that we had violated were not successful. They will not give the specific details and the case is closed.

PayPal Account Suspended

I had a similar experience with PayPal seven years ago. One fine morning they asked me to provide more details about a transaction that I made on date X, else they would suspend my account. I asked them to clarify the date because on the specific date, I did not have any transactions. I shortly received an email saying that my account had been suspended and the decision was final.

When I asked them for more information, the automated response was that they would no longer respond to my emails on that matter. The account was closed.

Faceless Tech Giants

This seems to be a common trend with most of these big tech platforms where they are faceless when they deal with individuals, but really love their users when talking about them as a whole. They do not have time or resources for individuals, but they want you as the group because data is more useful in bulk.

This has also happened to many people on Twitter who have been banned and not given sufficient reasons as to why their accounts were suspended. I bet the reason why these tech giants would not want to give specific details is that they would want to avoid close scrutiny and possible legal processes that may follow.

But is it okay to just kick people out of a platform without giving a good reason for the same? Is it right especially when you consider that some of these people are doing their best to stick to the Terms and Conditions that the same firms make them as long as possible and as complicated as they can ever be?

Some people argue that tech firms can do what they want because in many cases they are giving a free platform. This is misguided because the platform is not free; I am giving them my data in exchange for the service.

Following Terms and Conditions not Good Enough

For the WhatsApp account that was banned, we had gone to great lengths to ensure that we were in good books with WhatsApp. This included not sending automated messages, ensuring subscribers request for inclusion in the list of subscribers by having them message us first via WhatsApp, and making it easy for them to unsubscribe. All these never worked.

What did we do wrong? We do not know. We may never know because Facebook (WhatsApp) will not go into details.

Transparency is not something they may be willing to fully embrace, and the (little) progress they have made in the past few years in being more transparent has come not because they wanted to, but because they have been pressured to be more transparent.

We have a long way to go.

How Covid-19 Responses Speeded the Adoption of Digital Technologies

December 10, 2021December 16, 2021 4 min read

The Covid-19 Pandemic led to accelerated uptake of different digital technologies in a way that was unforeseen. Some estimates say that the world has taken a 10-year leap in terms of digital technology adoption. Today we have seamless cloud meetings, online learning, several health monitoring tools, booming e-commerce, automated manufacturing, better supply chain systems and many more.

Some of the technologies already existed, while others are recent innovations by people responding to the pandemic. Many of these have now gained widespread acceptance. How did this happen?

The disruption caused by Covid-19 led to a turning point that promoted the adoption of new technologies. Usually, new technologies go through an adoption lifecycle that starts with innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. With a disruptive event, the time it takes for the early and late majority to onboard is short, hence a technology can gain massive acceptance within a very short time.

Background

The timing of the Covid-19 pandemic presented an opportune time for use of digital technologies. The world had become more connected with affordable broadband internet connection is available in many places. The availability of smartphones also made it easy to use digital technologies even in areas where computers are not available.

With this background, digital technologies could thrive. Developers went for digital tools to respond to various challenges such as contact tracing. The government needed ways to keep track of vaccine distribution. Shops needed to keep selling even when communities were in lockdown. Schools needed to keep teaching even when physical school attendance was limited. Solutions lay in digital technologies.

The nature of the pandemic also helped to encourage digital interventions. Covid-19 is spread majorly by close contact to an infected person. This called for limiting physical interactions and public gathering – the very things that are crucial for human existence. To compensate for these, digital technologies could be used to connect people where physical meetings were not possible. E-commerce was necessary if people were not to go to malls as before. Many technologies to make this possible existed, but had not received widespread adoption.

Digital technologies are also at the center of public health responses needed to fight Covid-19. The table below shows examples of digital technologies in public health intervention.

Some of the digital tools used in Covid-19 public health intervention

Covid-19 Responses in Kenya

In Kenya, the government implemented several responses to slow down the spread of Covid-19. Some of these include:

Requiring physical distancing in all places.
Enforcement of dawn to dusk curfew.
Restriction of movement from some geographical locations.
Closure of schools.
Requirement for people not providing essential services to work from home.
Ban on mass gatherings.
Active disease surveillance.
Economic stimulus packages to employers and employees.
Encouraging the use of non-cash transactions.

Many of these responses involved the use of digital technologies to implement, or to help cope with the new normal.

Adoption of Digital Technologies

With the closure of schools, learning was supposed to take place remotely, something that had barely been happening before (except in some Universities). This meant that teachers and students needed to get creative and find out what could work in their context. They used cloud meeting platforms to conduct classes where the Internet was available and students could afford the necessary devices. Teachers had to learn how to use the different platforms and many acquired crucial digital skills. In some cases, they had to improvise and use platforms such as WhatsApp.

This exposure to digital technologies is very useful in the sense that it makes them open to adopting other digital technologies. Running a successful online class gives the teacher the confidence to adopt other technologies, and even continue using the same after the pandemic.

With reduced income and job losses, many people tried their hand in business. This led to many people setting up their own websites and online shops to allow buyers to access their products online. Faced with a different operating environment, many businesses moved online in 2020. This is another way that people were introduced to digital technologies.

There was also an upsurge in the use of cashless payment solutions. In Kenya, the Central Bank negotiated for reduced tariffs for mobile money services, as well as free movement of money from mobile wallets to the bank and vice versa. This led to an increase in the use of cashless transactions and it become normal for small traders to accept payment via mobile money. This is likely to remain even in the post-pandemic world.

The use of digital technologies to track vaccine rollout in Kenya is also a significant step forward in managing healthcare. This could set the stage for more ehealth functions when people see the need for it. Already, there are businesses that are working to make telemedicine a possibility in Kenya.

Reduced movement of people led to a boom in eCommerce. Some people who had never ordered goods or services online found themselves with little or no option, and many are now open to shopping online and having their goods delivered without having to physically visit the stores.

The need to work remotely forced people to invest in different tools to make this a reality. This led to an increase in internet usage, and people were buying more equipment such as smartphones and computers. Home internet connections increased, and these opened possibilities for the adoption of more digital technologies.

Conclusion

The Covid-19 pandemic may have forced people to result to digital technologies to solve their most pressing needs, but the results will outlast the Covid-19. We will see a world that is more open to digital technologies and also developers focusing on more of these technologies. This is one positive outcome of the pandemic.

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