Short Course on Advanced Computer Skills for Scientists in Malawi

I thought I should share the following information with fellow scientists in Malawi:


The Department of Mathematics & Statistics at Malawi Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi is pleased to announce a short course under the theme "Advanced Computer Skills for Scientists in Malawi". The course has been designed to equip Malawian scientists with necessary skills in this modern world of computer technology. The course runs for five days from 23rd February 2009 to 27th February, 2009.

Some of the content for the course include:

• Scientific information in the Digital Age
  
• An African scientist in a dynamic scientific world
  
• Scientific document preparation using LaTex and BibTex tools
  
• Advanced internet search skills for scientific research work
  
• Utilizing digital libraries for scientific research work
  
• Collaborative networking techniques with fellow scientists around the world
  
• Scientific Talk presentation: Microsoft PowerPoint vs. the Latex Beamer class
  
• Using weblogs to disseminate scientific information and improve scientist profile
  
• An overview of scientific computer packages
  

Course fees: MK40000.00 including lunch and snacks. However the fee does not include accommodation.

For more information email maths (at) poly.ac.mw or phone 04188893/09771807/08747059

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Announcing a Secondary School Mathematics Software Package for Malawi ...

Alinune Musopole, an undergraduate student in the Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematical Sciences Education programme at the Malawi Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi, has developed a mathematics software package for secondary schools in Malawi as his final year project. As with the localized word processor project by Edmond Kachale, I also share with you esteemed blog readers a synopsis of this project. Also watch out this blog for more featured projects!



Project Title: A Secondary School Mathematics Software Package for Malawi
Project Author: Alinune Musopole (nune_musopole (at) yahoo.co.uk)
Project Supervisor: Bennett Kankuzi (bfkankuzi (at) gmail.com)
Project Location: Dept of Mathematics & Statistics, Polytechnic, University of Malawi

Abstract:

There are many challenges that secondary school students in Malawi are facing in the learning of Mathematics in Malawi. Examples of these problems are lack of confidence, lack of practice and lack of motivation by students.

One of the ways through which problems faced by secondary school students in the learning of Mathematics can be alleviated is the use of the computer. Computer software, particularly Mathematics software packages, can help reduce problems faced by students in the learning of Mathematics in Malawi as practicing tools, hence we developed a software package that shall be used by secondary school students in the practicing of Mathematics. The software package is based on the Malawi Senior Secondary School Mathematics curriculum and the package is called a Computer Package for Secondary School Mathematics (CPSSM) for Malawi.

The algorithms and user interface for the program have been implemented using a Turbo C++ compiler and the Object Windows Library (OWL).

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An executable of the project can be requested via the given emails. Full LaTex and pdf reports of the project can also be requested via the same.
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Software testing services in Malawi

Are you an individual or an organization in Malawi?

Has someone developed a software system for your organization or business?

If the answer is YES! Then we have very good news for you. We are pleased to inform you that we can professionally test your software system to check if it conforms to software engineering standards. In particular, we will test if the software meets your business requirements. And of course, we will also test its usability, its reliability and other software engineering parameters...

Be it database systems, web-based applications, accounting information systems, health information systems, statistical software systems, e-learning systems, etc.......

We are based right in the heart of Blantyre in southern Malawi. Call us on 04188893 or drop us an email at bfkankuzi (at) gmail.com

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Different page formats in Microsoft Word 2007

I normally use LaTex in preparation of my documents. I don't use Microsoft Word because it is very "crude" in many simple features for document preparation like bibliography generation, page renumbering etc.

This other time a colleague wanted me to help with the problem of numbering a Word 2007 document with different page formats. It took us a lot of hours of googling to find the solution. In our googling, we noted there are also a lot of people out there who spent their time to accomplish such a trivial task and we could not find a clear answer to the problem. However, we managed to come up with a solution after several trial and error attempts. Hence we hereby share the solution for this trivial but time wasting task.

1. Place cursor at a point in your document that would separate two sections of your document.
   
2. Go to Page Layout menu then click on breaks
   
3. Then choose section break (not page breaks). You will then have your document separated into two sections at the point you put your cursor.
   
4. You can now apply appropriate page numbering formats for each of the sections. You can modify the page number formats through the footer or header.
   

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