The change of mobile phone numbers from 7 to 8 digits as part of the National Numbering Plan for Mobile Networks which will start as from 1st September 2013 is not being eagerly awaited. Sifting through all the numbers in your contact list, identifying whether the numbers belong to a mobile phone and prefixing them with a 5 can prove to be a real headache. Fortunately, we now have a solution and it’s called Fiver!

Privacy Policy

Fiver changes your mobile phone number and, consequently, needs read and write access to your contact list. The contact information that the app accesses is not collected by us in any way.

Fiver is an Android app developed by Vannen Caremben, a developer at Knowledge7. The app basically allows you to convert all your mobile numbers to eight digits. It works for all operators, including Orange, Emtel and MTML. In case you change your mind, Fiver also allows you to revert back.

Fiver is a free and open source application released under the GPLv2 license. Vannen greatly encourages all those who wish to contribute to the source code and add new features to the application to fork it on Github.

Fiver can be downloaded right now on Google Play.

Mentions in the local press

• L’Express: Numéros à huit chiffres : les applications pour faciliter la transition se multiplient
• Le Défi: Passage à huit chiffres cette nuit – Des perturbations sur les réseaux pendant plusieurs heures
• Le Défi: Passage à huit chiffres – Les applications qui mettent à jour les contacts
• Le Mauricien: PASSAGE À 8 CHIFFRES—JOUR J-1: Des perturbations techniques à prévoir
• Le Mauricien: TÉLÉPHONIE : Knowledge7 présente « Fiver »
• Week-End: RENUMÉROTATION DE VOTRE TÉLÉPHONE MOBILE : Jour J pour les 8 chiffres

We have come a long way from static websites to modern and engaging web applications that look and feel like desktop applications. Better known as Rich Internet Applications (RIA), these web applications offer a slick and highly interactive user experience.

Javascript, the “glue of client-side web page programming”, has been the most popular web development language all throughout. Its capacity to deliver and meet the development demands while providing a simple and quick learning curve makes it stand out as a dominant language.

jQuery, a Javascript library, is a popular choice amongst web developers given its ease of use and ability to perform. Apart from being used for DOM manipulation, jQuery helps to bring “richness” into web applications through events, animations and effects. It also provides a cleaner way to perform AJAX calls which contribute to the “dynamics” of RIAs.

AngularJS is a Javascript framework brought to us by Google for building complex client-side applications. Why AngularJS from the plentiful stack of available frameworks and plugins?

• Angular is built and maintained by highly talented Google engineers which guarantees efficient and reliable code.
• There is also a large open community to seek help or learn from. Widespread adoption of AngularJS by the web community also projects it as a viable option.
• Angular also provides a range of features that ease data-driven web application development. These include extension of HTML vocabulary, modular approaches, RESTful interfaces, data-first architectures, rich set of library functions, unit testing amongst others.
• Last but not least, getting up and running with AngularJS is easy and quick! Check out apps built using Angular here.

Knowledge7 offers a quality Rich Internet Application Development training course to all those who want to discover and harness the true potential of RIAs. Our training will run over five consecutive Tuesdays from 9:00 to 16:00 in our training center in Quatre-Bornes as from 15 October 2013.

We provide participants with all required training material as well as all the software which are going to be used free of charge.

Contact Liliane on 5834-9001 now for expert advice! Places are limited! Feel free to share.

I’ll be jury during the coming Code Challenge 2013, to be held this week-end, 6-7 July 2013, in the premises of the Ebène Accelerator.

Team of participants  will need to create a mobile application during a 24-hour time span (a prototype). The theme will be communicated on the day of the competition. Participants will develop for iOS, Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry. At the end of the competition, participants will need to present a demo of their app in front of a panel and members of the panel, which includes yours truly, will choose one of the teams as the winner!

Good luck to everyone. Have a lot of fun. And, most importantly, surprise us!!!

During the month of May, we ran our MQA-approved training course Linux Network Infrastructure Services on-demand for Orange Business Services.

Belall Neemuth, one of the participants, shared his views with us.

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Belall Neemuth, Messaging & Exchange Specialist, working most particularly with Microsoft Exchange, Blackberry servers and SMTP relays at Orange Business Services for multinationals.

What have you gained from the Linux Network Infrastructure training at Knowledge7?

Avinash provided a first-class training course for us at Knowledge 7. We really appreciated the effort he made in advance to tailor the course to suit our needs and he demonstrated in-depth knowledge of the subject matter in delivering the course. Just as important, we are now making good use of our learning’s to better use Linux in our work environment and perimeter.
Avinash Meetoo has a way to entertain the participants while still conveying the information. Very in-depth and broad at the same time. Brilliant.

How do you think this training will benefit you?

It has given me new skills and I have also developed my existing ones. I understand now what I had been doing automatically and the reasons behind. I have a better understanding of Linux. It will help me in tackling several key projects which are coming over to OBS Mauritius. It has improved my ability to implement and realize specific goals outlined in a company’s business plan.

How do you see yourself in five years’ time?

I will most definitely be a Team Leader or in a Managerial position.

L’Association des Utilisateurs de Linux de Maurice (LUGM) organise un meetup technologique au KMC Hall à l’Escalier le samedi 15 juin à 10:30. Cette rencontre, ouverte à tous, a pour objectif de faire decouvrir les logiciels libres tels que Linux et Android aux habitants de la région.

Durant le meetup, Avinash Meetoo, Directeur de Knowledge7, fera un exposé sur l’importance des logiciels libres à Maurice, en particulier Linux et Android. Logan Velvindron et Selven Cheenaramen, pour leur part, présenteront d’autres aspects du monde des logiciels libres. Ces présentations interactives seront suivies de démonstrations de smartphones, de tablettes et autres gadgets.

Ce meetup à l’Escalier est le premier organisé par LUGM dans cette région de l’île. Les membres de l’association espèrent organiser des meetups dans d’autres endroits de l’île dans les mois à venir. Selon les responsables, il est important d’inclure tous les Mauriciens dans le processus de développement technologique.

Les membres du public sont cordialement invités. L’entrée est gratuite.

During the months of March, April and May, Knowledge7 conducted two sessions of Web Application Development with PHP & MySQL training, an MQA-approved course, for RT Knits staff.

Christine Wan, one of the participants, accepted to share her experience with us.

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Christine Wan, IT Manager at RT Knits, a fast expanding textile manufacturing company with its Head Office based at La Tour Koenig, Mauritius.

At RT Knits, one of my role is to advise on technology and implement solutions which can help all departments to perform better.

What have you gained from your Web Application Development using PHP and MySQL training at Knowledge7?

Initially, my objective was to explore the possibilities of PHP as a development tool for web applications and this course, by far, exceeded my expectations.

All topics were properly covered and supported by hands-on exercises where we had the opportunity to use the latest tools. Also, in addition to those, we were provided links to additional resources if ever we wanted to investigate further on a particular subject.

What set this course apart from others was the quality of teaching. Avinash Meetoo has a particular talent to entertain the participants while still conveying the information.

How do you think this training will benefit you?

Personally, during the training sessions, I learned a lot from Avinash. He not only shared his knowledge with us but also his experience and best practices as an IT professional, trainer, and business owner.

During the training, we developed semantic W3C compliant web pages, learned how to use a CSS framework (Twitter Bootstrap), use templates (Smarty) and filters (for sanitisation and validation), properly access MySQL with PHP using PDO, use sessions and cookies to build stateful applications with shopping carts and checkout processes, parse XML and JSON documents obtained from web services, learned about file and directory access for uploading files and images. We also covered performance monitoring and tuning in MySQL. As you can see, quite a lot of things were covered!

How do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?

I see myself as a consultant, helping SMEs improve their performance.

I have just released Agathe, an open source software written in Python which, when given a list of Amazon books, produces detailed statistics about them (sales rank, price, average rating and number of ratings on Amazon).

I use Agathe to decide what to read next on my Kindle when I finish a book. The name obviously refers to the gem as the software find the gems in my extensive collection of Kindle books.

Agathe is on Github at https://github.com/avinash/agathe and is released under the Apache license.

Are you a Linux and open source software expert?

Are you an expert in latest mobile technologies such as HTML5 and Android?

Are you an expert in latest web technologies such as Javascript frameworks, REST and AJAX?

Are you an expert in digital marketing, communications and/or project management?

If your answer is yes to any of the above and you are passionate about sharing your knowledge with others like we do, we need you as a part-time trainer at Knowledge7.

Fill in this online form and tell us how you can contribute to our training activities at Knowledge7. Send us your CV by email too ()

There are billions of pages online and the numbers are growing everyday. For companies and brands, the issue is how to stand out in this crowded and competitive place. How to ensure that your content gets seen?

More than 90% people use search engines

Today, search engines like Google and Bing play a key role in bringing people to websites. Internet users have increasingly recourse to search engines whose results are deemed to be trustworthy and unbiased in general.

It is thus vital that your website is well constructed so that it can be effectively found, read and indexed by search engines. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) refers to such techniques which help enhance a website’s visibility with the ultimate goal of ensuring the site is as close as possible to top relevant search results.

Using white hat SEO

The focus is on creating relevant content. A good SEO strategy involves defining an optimal information architecture which will help boost search rankings. Another technique is to determine what keywords people use when searching for information related to your business. Then, when creating your content, you ensure that these keywords are present.

In this way, visibility, credibility and authoritativeness are enhanced for the company and brand, thus increasing the potential for business.

At Knowledge7, we can help you optimise your website for search engines.

We can also train your personnel or yourself in Search Engine Optimisation, a course which is scheduled to start on Monday 1st April 2013.

Contact us for more information by email or telephone on 5834-9001.