Stichting Pearl of Africa

Uganda Community    in The Netherlands

PROFILE

Stichting Pearl of Africa was established in November 2003 to cater for the Uganda community in the Netherlands and to promote Uganda in Europe and the rest of the world.

Vision

To see a well educated, disciplined and better informed Ugandan community in the Netherlands and a better-known poverty-free, peaceful and democratic Uganda in the eyes of the world in general, and the Dutch society in particular.

Mission Statement

To encourage Ugandan immigrants to integrate into society within the framework of the Dutch government policy and  to work towards the promotion and development of human  rights, democracy and gender justice in Uganda.

Core values (P.E.A.R.L)

People-centred partnerships – we believe in working in partnership with communities whose interests we serve and in alliance with like-minded organisations

Excellence – we seek to excel

Accountability Transparency  – accountable to our membership, the communities we work with and to our financing partners.

Regionalism - value and foster the spirit of regionalism as a strategic alliance harnessing the strengths residing in countries of the region.

Looking out for Gender justice and diversity – we respect diversity and promote equity in our organisation and work.

Membership

Membership is free and now stands at over 1000 and is continuously growing. More than 50% of the members are women. Its membership is drawn from Ugandan immigrants; Ugandan students; friends of Uganda; and other nationalities of Ugandan origin; Rwandans, Sudanese, Congolese, Kenyans, Tanzanians, Burundians etc. Pearl of Africa has also started accepting Ugandans living in Uganda as members. The membership includes human rights and gender advocates.

  Core Achievements

1. Mobilizing over 1000 members
2. Social Networking: Yahoo Groups, Facebook
3. www.pearlofafrica.nl website
4. Annual General meetings since 2005
5. Education, Integration, Employment and Remittances workshops
6. Kwakoe participation 2005 and 2007
7. Support of Uganda Kobs football team 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010
8. Advised on legal procedures of several asylum seekers
9. Promote Uganda Musicians and artists in Netherlands
10. Networking:

       African organisations; 

UKEA, GLARO, Sudanese Forum,  Nedas, Budnet, Mama Watoto, Mambo Entertains

       Dutch organisationss; Oxfam-NOVIB, VON,  SVO, Kerkinactie, NCDO, ICCO,   Cordaid, SMS, SNV,  BBO, DFD 

11. Engaging the Dutch Parliament
12. Participating in the Derde Kamer (Third chamber of Parliament)
13. Ugandan Diaspora Organisations.; US, UK, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Germany
14. Hosting prominent Ugandans; Vice president, ministers, MPs, RDCs, Business people,

musicians, artists, etc

15. KIT; guest speaker on Uganda for KLM and Police consultants
16. Organising the Gulu Walks in Amsterdam 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009
17. Establishing a Nursery and Day Care Centre in Gulu
18.  Establishing an ICT4Peace Centre  for formerly abducted child mothers in Gulu
19. Received a monetary award from DFD as one of the 5 Diaspora organizations with BEST PRACTICES
20. Uganda Community Leadership recognised as  one of the 10 most inspiring Diaspora organizations in the Netherlands (2009) by  a platform of Dutch NGOs

Supported by;

Ø  Oxfam Novib

Ø  Uganda Mission in Brussels

Ø  Gulu District Leadership

            Contacts

WM Dudokstraat 43, 1333 LS, Almere

Telelephone +31641468125/+31617048236  The Netherlands

P.O. Box 3725, Tel: +256754601118   Kampala Uganda

Email: info@pearlofafrica.nl Website: www.pearlofafrica.nl

KvK registration Number: 30191934

NGO Board Registration No. S.5914/9626

Bank A/C Numbers:  ING: 4501447; ABN AMRO: 5687628; STANBIC:  0140027081701

Camera Plus Takes Your iPhoneography A Step Further

by Tim Brookes

This newsletter is brought to you by Camera Plus. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of MakeUseOf.

The App Store is saturated with camera apps, so why would you need another one? Despite the many, many photo and filter apps out there,Camera Plus (currently discounted at $0.99) still manages to bring a few fresh features to the table. A long-standing App Store favourite, the app now looks slicker than ever after an update to version 3.0 which melds beautifully with iOS 7?s svelte aesthetic.

In the same way a photographer can never have too many cameras, a smartphone photographer can never have too many apps – right? Let’s find out.

Power to the iPhoneographer

If there’s one thing a surplus of photography apps has created, it’s the need to be different. With so many apps out there, Apple’s surprisingly powerful camera API and the popularity of the iPhone as a shoot and share device, there are a huge number of developers out there trying to be different. Sometimes this leads to innovation, and often it leads to imitation.

Camera Plus 3.0 does indeed try to be different, and some of those differences take the form of genuinely useful features – the most notable of which is the way in which you focus your shots. In addition to the usual touch-to-focus mechanisms seen in the stock camera app, Camera Plus allows you to touch and drag your finger to select one of three focus modes: macro, normal and far.

This essentially locks the plane of focus, forcing the app to focus on either a close-up (macro) object, a standard roughly portrait (normal) subject and distant objects (far). While it seems like a bit of a gimmick, it reduces the requirement to be quite so accurate with your taps, something a number of competing apps struggle with. My main criticism of the feature is when I forget it exists or I’ve left macro on and nothing will focus, but you do get used to it.

Predictably, touch-to-focus also acts as touch-to-expose. The area you choose will prompt the app to compensate for proper exposure wherever you touch, and unlike other apps like taptaptap’s (very similarly named) Camera+, you can’t use multitouch to set focus and exposure separately.

Instead, Camera Plus uses a sliding dial labelled Lumy which is presumably short for luminosity. It allows you to alter the exposure value to let in more or less light, allowing you to fine-tune a shot even after you’ve told the app where to focus and expose for. Whether or not it makes up for the lack of separate exposure controls will be down to personal opinion and it’s a nice idea for sure, though things tend to get a bit murky and flat at the low end.

Photo Tools & Video Mode

Camera Plus does of course come with the usual array of bells and whistles most have come to expect from iOS photography apps. Flash options include a burst mode which fires the flash continually, ideal for close-up macro shots where over-exposure is a problem and there are grid lines and a level for gauging how straight your shot is. Rather frustratingly, it’s not possible to use both the grid and level at the same time in this current version.

Next to the inviting white trigger button is a smaller settings button, which reveals a couple of extra tools for taking better-than-average photos. Big Button turns the whole screen into a shutter. Stabilize uses the old trick of waiting till your phone is still to take the shot, while burst and timer modes are fairly self-explanatory but not taken for granted.

It is here where you can also choose whether or not to geotag your photos (by default this setting is off, so remember to enable it if you want it), choose between three sizes and enable Volume Snap which lets you take pictures using the volume controls. It’s possible to switch between front and rear-facing cameras, and all of these controls (aside from the flash) are accessible in either.

Unlike many camera apps Camera Plus lets you shoot video too, in your choice of full-HD and 480p resolutions. If you opt to shoot in 480p, you’ll be able to use Lumy to modify exposure (or brightness, depending on what’s really going on there) while you shoot.

The After-Touch

Like most iPhone camera apps, there are a couple of useful editing features to be found here too. Camera Plus actually saves all images to the Camera Roll directly, rather than using a lightbox (or even the option of one). Tapping on the thumbnail of your last shot image takes you to this list of memories, and allows you to apply an auto-enhance algorithm via the Pix’d button quickly.

If you prefer to do it manually, you can hit Edit to reveal Tweak, Cropand Rotate options. Tweaks include the usual brightness, contrast and saturation controls as well as an option for altering the temperature of the image. Once done, it’s possible to share your photo to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Instagram as well as via email or message.

One additional feature is Locked Roll, accessible by swiping right-to-left on your list of Camera Roll shots. This isn’t included with Camera Plus, and instead requires an in-app purchase of $0.99. The Locked Roll allows you to take private moments and hide them in the app by tapping and holding an image before choosing Lock.

The Bottom Line

Camera Plus is a capable camera app that’s packed with the usual array of features we’ve come to expect from phones that do everything. The ability to restrict focus is handy, and Lumy does make it easy to fine-tune your shots. The included editing features are basic but always welcome, and it’s nice to be able to quickly switch to video with a tap, rather than switching apps like so many other iPhone cameras.

I’m really not sure whether it’s going to replace my go-to camera app, but it definitely introduces some improvements over the stock Apple offering.

www.makeuseof.com

iPad Air Review: Apple Makes Big Tablets Beautiful All Over Again | TechCrunch

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7 Tech Wonders of the World

7 Tech Wonders of the World You Should See Before You Die

Jackson Chung

On 29th October, 2013

In the current age, wonders of the world are no longer limited to ancient monuments such as Stonehenge or the Great Wall of China. Tech marvels such as the Google’s headquarters and Apple’s new “spaceship” campus are such brilliant feats of architecture and engineering, they’re also considered some of the must-see places in the world.

Which high tech wonder would you like to visit before you die?

Do More With Siri Using The New iOS 7 Siri Commands

by Bakari Chavanu

If you find yourself fumbling with your iPhone to make a simple phone call, locate and launch an app, set a reminder or wake-up alarm then you’re probably not using Siri enough. If you still don’t know about Siri or you’re new to the iPhone or iPad, Siri allows you to issue voice commands on your device, saving you the trouble of all the tapping, typing, and searching by hand.

Siri was first introduced with iOS 5, back in 2010. We have covered what you can do with Siri, from calling people and making restaurant reservations to dictating messages and notes using the voice to text feature. In this article I highlight some of the new commands in the iOS 7 version of Siri, as well as suggest some tips for getting the most out of the feature.

Your First Siri Command

Your first Siri command couldn’t be easier. Whether your iPhone or iPad is in lock mode or not, simply press down on the Home button until you here the two-tone prompt and the new Siri screen comes up. If you don’t know what to say, you can tap on question at bottom-left of the screen to get a list of commands, or if you don’t speak for a few seconds a list of commands will appear on the screen.

The list of Siri commands you see are related to all of the default iOS apps. Tapping on a listed app gets you additional commands and questions you can use. But if you’re just getting your feet wet with Siri you might feel a little overwhelmed with the long list. I will highlight a few of the new and most practical commands you might should know about.

Phone Calls and Messages

Instead tapping and opening the Phone app you can simply tell Siri to call someone on your Contacts list, (for example “Call Brian”, “Call 911?, or “Redial the last number”). Since the iOS 7 update, you can now ask Siri to play your latest voicemail message which, believe me, is a lot faster than finding the Phone app and tapping on the message in order to hear messages. Simply say, “Play voice mail messages,” or “Play voicemail from [name].”

After you use Siri for a while you’ll realize that you don’t have to issue commands verbatim as they are written in the instructions. You might say something like, “Play last voicemail message,” or “Play voicemail messages from last week.”

Voice Command Control Center

Turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when you’re traveling away from home or your office can be a significant battery safer. You can manually turn off these and other Settings features using the new Control Center in iOS 7 (swipe up from the bottom of the home screen of your device). Or even better, you can tell Siri to “Turn off Wi-Fi”, or “Make screen brighter/dimmer” without having to swipe at all. Naturally you can also send a command to turn the features back on.

A few Control Center features Siri can’t handle is turn on the flashlight or change the screen orientation. It can though lower or increase the volume on your device.

Launch Applications

If you have lots of apps on your device, you no longer have to search for them in folders. Just tell Siri to “Open Evernote,” for example. If you send a generic command like “Launch camera”, Siri might ask you to specify which app you want to open, if two or more similar apps are installed on your device.

Play iTunes Radio Station

As you might know, radio stations are a new feature added to iTunes, and fortunately instead of opening the iTunes app on your device, you can simply tell Siri to play “iTunes Radio” or “Play [genre] station.”

Speaking of iTunes, you can also use Siri to play songs in the music library of your device, (for example “Play jazz playlist,” “Play songs by Miles Davis,” “Pause,” “Play”, “Skip”). These commands are very useful if you’re using your iPhone or iPod touch to play music in you car.

Twitter Searches

You can send Twitter updates using Siri (“Tweet: I’m reading MakeUseOf articles”), and now in iOS 7 you can search Twitter for tweets by a specified user or about a specific topic (“Search tweets by MakeUseof”).

Questions & Answers

Siri can now provide better answers to mathematical and factual questions such as “What’s the square root of 128?” or “How far away is the sun?”

Siri Settings

Now that you have some ideas about what Siri can do, you might want to open Settings > General > Siri and change the Voice Gender from the default female to male, or change to another language. Also notice where it says My Info. If you want Siri to be of more assistance to you personally, make sure the information about you in your Contacts card is up-to-date, including your all your home address and family relations. See this Siri article for setting up family connections.

Siri Does It Faster

I get the most out of Siri when I’m using my Apple earphones with the attached mic (or any iPhone-friendly earphones for that matter), which means I can send commands while at a stop light, or while I’m taking my afternoon walk. While there are other ways to automate your iPhone, Siri provides the best solutions for executing tasks with simple verbal commands.

Let us know how well Siri is working for you, and what features you would still like to see added.

www.makeuseof.com

Late-2013 15-Inch Retina MacBook Pro Review: Apple’s High-Performance Notebook Tops The Field | TechCrunch

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7 Types Of People Who Deserve An Immediate Facebook Unfriending

by Dave Parrack Despite its many flaws Facebook is still an essential website for most people. Everybody uses it in different ways, but Facebook’s raison d’etre (reason for existence) is for friends and family to keep in touch with each other online. And it manages this exquisitely. Unfortunately, Facebook has no power over who you choose to befriend on the site, or what those friends post on their wall. I say “unfortunately” because a lot of people post nonsense on Facebook. Nonsense that really should get them unfriended, by you, immediately. Do your friends do these things? It might be time. Like This Or The Puppy Gets It The Facebook Like has become a simple shorthand for registering approval of something without needing to take the time out to comment or explain any further. It’s a genius idea, and one which Google has since replicated with the +1 on Google+. However, it’s open to abuse, with people openly asking for Likes for statuses, pages, or even sweeping statements they assume everyone on their friends’ list will agree with. Don’t be taken in by this, and don’t click the Like button just because someone asked you to do so. Just unfriend them instead. Annoying Automaton I like reading intelligent and well thought out status updates from my friends on Facebook. These can often spark lengthy and informative conversations that I, they, and a host of other people get involved in. Unfortunately, not everyone seems capable of writing a few sentences out for themselves. Their Facebook feed instead consists of nothing but automated status updates. Perhaps telling the world the location they’re currently in, what games they have just played, songs they have just listened to, or TV shows they have just watched. I don’t care about that stuff, Mr. Roboto, so why are you telling me?! Ignorance Isn’t Bliss Ignorance is never good, but it’s somehow even more galling than usual when it’s the main thrust of a Facebook status update. If someone posts something on Facebook then they should insure they know what they’re talking about before they do so. Otherwise their ignorance will be discovered and ridiculed. By me, or pedants like me. Having a strong opinion about something is what social networks are all about, but basing that opinion on one version of events or a biased source, especially when you’re hurting half the people on your friends list with it, is only going to rile people up and lead to an unpleasant unfriending. Unless, of course, everyone else on your friends’ list is ignorant too. In which case, keep on keeping on. This Is Real, I Swear The Web is an amazing resource for news, whether it’s short updates on breaking stories or in-depth reporting on serious issues. Unfortunately not every piece of news you see online is legitimate, either because it originated on one of the many spoof news websites or because it’s someone’s idea of a joke. The vast majority of us (I’m sure) make sure to check the validity of a news story before spreading it around social networks. But that minority that remains seems more than willing to post any old rubbish to Facebook, whether it has any basis in fact or not. Which isn’t good for the reputation of the Internet as a source for real news. Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home Flouncing has been around as long as the Internet has, with chatrooms and forums being the early tools in the flouncer’s arsenal. Now, it’s Facebook, with attention seekers the world over able to make a dramatic exit only to return a few hours (or at most, days) later. There is nothing wrong with leaving Facebook for good, declaring that you’ve had enough of the bickering and BS and are deleting your account. But don’t tell everyone you’re leaving the site only to come back after a few people persuaded you to do so. That’s flouncing, it’s childish, and it deserves an immediate unfriending. I Rant So You Don’t Have To Enjoying the occasional rant in life isn’t all that bad, especially if it’s a focused rant about something you’re interested in. But ranting all day every day, and on Facebook in particular, is behavior not becoming of an adult, no matter how immature that adult may be. When every status update is a rant then that person has lost all sense of reality and is just pumping bile out into the ether. And who is on the receiving end of that stream of vitriol? Why, friends and family of course. Unfriend this ranter and don’t feel guilty about it for even a second. Have Camera, Will Use It Many people like taking photos, considering themselves to be competent amateurs. The emergence of smartphones has aided this revolution, as everyone with a smartphone now also has a capable camera in their pockets just begging to be used. But that doesn’t mean it should be used. For everything. All of the time. It also doesn’t mean those photos, and I mean each and every one of them, should be posted online. Parents who post endless photos of their genetic offspring, foodies who post endless photos of the meals that will end up looking a lot less appetizing after digestion, vain nobodies who post endless selfies complete with duck face expressions. Enough already. Conclusions These seven archetypes don’t deserve your friendship, at least on Facebook. In real life they may be the most genuine people on the planet, but they then head online and turn into idiots. Idiots that should form part of any frenzy of unfriending you embark upon. I suspect you’ll recognize at least a few of these people from your own Facebook friends’ list. If so, are you annoyed by the way they act or do you refuse to let them get to you? Is there any other annoying behavior on Facebook you think deserves an unfriending? Vaguebooking is a given, and I’ve previously covered annoying Facebook updates guaranteed to annoy, but there surely must be others to out. Feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. www.makeuseof.com

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Apple Introduces The iPad Air | TechCrunch

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Who’s Eating Your Bandwidth

Find Out Who’s Eating Your Bandwidth With These Tips

by Ryan Dube

Click….wait. Click….wait. Click….ARG! Sound familiar? That’s the sound of someone running out of Internet bandwidth.

A lot of things can drain away the capacity of that pipe that connects your computer to the Internet. It could be other people or devices on your network, or it could even be malicious applications or services running on the PC itself. The problem can get so bad that some people will toss out their computer and buy a new one.

It doesn’t have to be that way. While the problem could be coming from anywhere, it isn’t impossible to troubleshoot if you know where to look, what tools to use, and what to do when you find the culprit. In this article, I’m going to give you a hand and walk you through the process of tracking down that bandwidth hog and shutting him down.

Track Down The Bandwidth Bandit Via Your Router

You could start just about anywhere when it comes to isolating the bandwidth hog on your network or inside your computer, but in order to grab at the low-hanging fruit, it’s best to start with your network. A few of the solutions below can focus in on a culprit quickly and resolve your problems immediately. So why waste time troubleshooting your own computer before canceling out the external issues as a possibility?

The first and quickest way to check what’s connected to your Internet through your router is the DHCP Client table. Each router is a little different, so you may need to search for which menu the table comes under. For Linksys, it’s typically under the “Status” Tab, and then the “Local Network” menu item.

Next, just click the “DHCP Client Table” button, and that’ll take you to a list of all clients that are currently logged into your network. Are there any there that you don’t recognize? If so, there could potentially be a neighbor that’s drawing out much of your bandwidth.

All you have to do to put an end to it is click on the “Delete” button to the right of that client. Just be careful not to inadvertently delete one of your own clients, because to reconnect to the network with that device, you may need to re-enter your security password again. Not a big deal, just a hassle.

Use Third Party Utilities To Unravel Bandwidth Problems

Another option is to turn to software tools that can reach out and monitor devices on your network. One of those utilities is a free app called Capsa, which Matt actually mentioned in his Guide to Home Networking.

Capsa is really impressive, and it’s hard to believe that it’s free software. Running Capsa, you can see traffic on your network and associated data transfer rates to and from the various hosts, which you can find under the “Protocol” tab once you press “Start” on the main welcome screen.

This is even better organized on the IP Endpoint tab, which lines up all of the hosts in one area and then in the lower pane, shows you all of the remote IP connections of the host you selected in the top pane. By the way, this is a great way to check out what your kids are up to on your network without actually installing monitoring software on their computer.

Capsa is by far my favorite. This is similar to using another bandwidth monitoring app I covered recently called NetworkMiner, except that Capsa is less about network hacking and packet sniffing, and more about monitoring your network for activities and different traffic protocols. Either application would serve you well, though.

Find Malware Or Software That Is Dogging Down Your Internet

The other possibility is that it isn’t anything on your network at all that’s causing the bandwidth crunch, but instead something running right inside of your PC itself. Old computers are notorious for getting infected with little applications called “bots” that quietly run in the background, connect to some remote server, and silently send out spam emails to hundreds or thousands of email addresses a day. That’s just one example. Malicious software can consume your bandwidth in many different ways.

The way to identify those issues is by reviewing all of your network connections and identifying any that look unusual. You can do this by clicking Start -> Run and typing “CMD” and pressing Enter. When you get the command window up, type “netstat -o”.

This shows all open network connections on your computer. Depending on what you have open, this list can take a while to finish, and could scroll off the screen, so you might even append a “>>network.log” to the end of the command to log it to a text file.

Keep an eye on any strange http or IP addresses in the third column, and note the PID for those from the list. To identify that application, open up Task Manager (start->run->”TaskMgr”) and go to the services tab.

Locate the PID on the list to find the problem child. If you see any PID value that has lots of open network connections and it’s related to a service you don’t recognize or that you didn’t realize was running on your computer, stop the service and see what happens to your Internet performance. This is a good way to stumble upon a bandwidth hog with just a little bit of work.

By the way, if you didn’t know, you can also see the PID values of each process running on your computer by going into the Processes tab, clicking the “View” menu item, select columns, and check off the box for PID.

You’re bound to find the culprit between services and processes that have open network connections!

Hone In On The Culprit With The Windows Resource Monitor

In fact, while you’re in the Task Manager, to get to another bandwidth troubleshooting tool, click on the “Performance” tab, and then click on the “Resource Monitor” button at the bottom.

The resource monitor is one of the most powerful tools available in your network troubleshooting arsenal, in my opinion.

Just one quick glance at the send/receive bandwidth values under the Network panel shows me that Kaspersky is really the biggest bandwidth consumer at the moment, followed closely by Chrome. This could indicate that the antivirus software is performing a database update. What you shouldn’t see at the top of the list is some executable file that you’ve never heard of.

Reclaim Your Bandwidth By Removing Malware

Stopping benign software from clogging up your bandwidth is one thing, but removing malware from your computer is a whole different story. That’s why we dedicated an entire guide to malware removal and published a detailed article on the steps to take after discovering malware. Once you managed to rid yourself of the nasty hijackers, you might struggle with the malware leftovers, like changed Internet or browser settings. All this can be fixed, but if you don’t ever want to go through this experience again, read up on our common sense tips toavoid catching malware in the first place.

Take Your Bandwith Into Your Own Hands

As you can see, there are plenty of tools and tricks to track down the offender and recover that precious bandwidth. You don’t need to suffer silently. You can fight back.

Have you ever used any of the tips or tools above to identify a bandwidth thief on your network or computer? Share your own experiences and advice in the comments section below!

www.makeuseof.com