Use Google Calendar to receive SMS reminders before classes

Google Calendar has a pretty neat feat feature that allows uses to have SMS notifications sent to their mobile phones before an event happens, for example you may have say you have a meeting at 10 o'clock, you can have Google Calendar to send you an SMS to remind you about the meeting 10 minutes before the meeting starts. Since I don't have a time table, I've created a calendar on Google Calendar that sends me SMSes 20 minutes before each class begins.
The beauty of it is that its absolutely free - even the SMSes. To set up your calendar go to Google Calendar

Google Instant - Search takes a quantam leap

This past week Google rolled out a major improvement to its search engine - they call it Google Instant! I took a couple of minutes to try it out and I must say Google really is king of the hill when it comes to search. It used to be the case that you would have to type your query in the search box and press enter or click on the "Google Search" button on the right side of the query box whenever you used Google, things have dramatically changed coz of these features

• Dynamic Results - Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
• Predictions - One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
• Scroll to search - Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

The primary advantage of Google Instant is that it is a mega time saver.

Standard Bank IT Challenge

Every year Standard Bank runs a programming contest for varsity students in South Africa(sad part is, our school cannot enter the competition at this time but hopefully next year we will be able to compete. Here's an extract from the Standard Bank website .

Are you and your friends IT wizards? Do you have what it takes to try your hand at Standard Bank’s annual IT Challenge?

Every year we run the Standard Bank IT Challenge for students in South African varsities. This year’s challenge kicks off with heats on 13 March at several campuses around South Africa. The finals will take place at our head office in Johannesburg on 15 April 2010.

We use the latest technologies to develop and maintain systems that support Standard Bank Group’s (SBG) global business. So do you have what it takes?

If you are gifted in the problem-solving department and work well in a team, then the IT Challenge is tailor made for you. Who knows, your team might be crowned the IT boffins for 2010.

Working in a team of four, students will need to tackle a series of hypothetical problems within four hours, this time will be extended to six hours during the finals.

It is tough going. So tough that over the years no team has ever completed all the questions correctly within the allotted time. So be prepared for a challenge, it’s going to be intense.

Developing a mobile application - Tricle

Last month I started working on a project where I wanted to develop a mobile app that could allows users to send SMSs for less than 10 cents on the web through the three mobile operators' websites in
South Africa(Cell C, MTN-SA, and Vodacom-SA) from their cell phones. This app is built using the J2ME(Java 2 Micro Edition) SDK.THe app will send SMSs via the internet. This will only be possible the users' mobile phones heve WAP connectivity as the app will have to connect to the internet to send the SMSs. I will publish the release date here and where it will be found once its done/once its approaching completion coz at this stage I'm struggling one tiny itsy-bitsy thing related to connecting the app to the websites but its nothing I can't sort, just needs huge amounts of concerntration.