VACATION IN BENIN REPUBLIC.

Enough of tech for today lets talk about travels. for me nothing is more like a good time and one best way to have such a good time is vacations. the country that comes to minds is a country with good shore line and great food and that country is the Republic of Benin. Benin for me reminds me allot of home. Being so close to Nigeria and as a visa-free country, Benin Republic is a great place to consider for a weekend getaway for many reasons.

ABOUT BENIN

The capital of Benin is in the city of Porto-Novo. The peak travel time to Benin is during the dry season, from October to February, when the rains are ending and the temperature is moderate. The other climate season in Benin is the rainy season from the months of April to September, It is best not to travel during these months because the weather is usually unstable and the sea is rough. Benin is home to about 20 ethnic groups, with the 4 largest ethnic groups being the Fon, Adja, Yoruba and the Bariba. As a culturally diverse country, the people of Benin are a diverse mix of Christians, Muslims, and Voduns (the West African traditional believers). https://timbu.com/benin

Instagram Stories now lets you reply with photo, videos

When you view your friend's’ Instagram Stories and you want to send them a comment or a message, don’t you sometimes wish you could do more than just type words?


With today’s update, a camera icon now appears right beside the text box at the bottom of each story. After tapping it, Instagram’s camera will come up and let you craft a reply just like it were any other story entry, complete with face filters, stickers, hashtags, and so on. In a neat touch, a still of the story you’re replying to will appear on top of your photo, a
With today’s update, a camera icon now appears right beside the text box at the bottom of each story. After tapping it, Instagram’s camera will come up and let you craft a reply just like it were any other story entry, complete with face filters, stickers, hashtags, and so on. In a neat touch, a still of the story you’re replying to will appear on top of your photo, and you’ll be able to reposition it just like a sticker, sizing it up and down and spinning it around.

The update doesn’t present a huge new feature on its own, but it very much sounds like something that could kick off a whole lot more engagement with Instagram Stories. As Snapchat has shown, people love to send goofy photos back and forth, and this new feature helps to enable that. The update also shows Instagram pushing ahead with the format that Snapchat pioneered: while people can send snaps back and forth to one another, Snapchat Stories can only be replied to with text right now.

Facebook 'Find Wi-Fi' goes global

Facebook is rolling out a feature that should help you stay connected when you're on the go.

The feature, dubbed Find Wi-Fi, isn't technically new, but it will be new to most people. Facebook launched it in a handful of countries last year, and now the tool is going global. As its name suggests, Find Wi-Fi helps you locate available Wi-Fi hotspots nearby by displaying hotspots that businesses have shared with Facebook from their Page.

Facebook is now rolling out Find Wi-Fi everywhere on iPhone and Android. In a blog post, Facebook Engineering Director Alex Himel said users with access to the feature have found it helpful when traveling, and especially when they're in areas where cell data is scarce.

"Wherever you are, you can easily map the closest connections when your data connection is weak," Himel wrote.

Google Gives Up Scanning Personal Gmail

 Google yesterday announced the end of its policy of scanning user emails for targeted advertising purposes -- a controversial practice that riled privacy advocates and spurred legal challenges.

Gmail is the world's most widely used email provider, with more than 1.2 billion users.

Google attributed its decision to gains it has made in the enterprise. Its G Suite business over the past year has more than doubled in size to 3 million paying corporate customers, who are not subject to the scanning process.

"G Suite's Gmail is already not used as input for ads personalization, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer email service," said Diane Greene, senior vice president at Google Cloud. "This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products."

Ads are based on user settings, and users can disable personalization, Greene noted.

G Suite will continue to be ad-free, she said.

"EPIC opposed Google scanning email from the start and won several significant battles, including the 2014 decision to end scanning of student emails," which raised problems under federal wiretap law and was the frequent target of lawsuits."

Enterprise Concerns

As Google makes further inroads into the cloud business, it recognizes that customers are going to be very wary of anything that threatens their privacy and security when compared against incumbent cloud services providers, noted Jeff Kaplan, managing director of ThinkStrategies.

"Google has always assumed that its users accept the implicit cost of using its free app," he told Afriteche, which is "that they will be targets of its ads and other search engine marketing mechanisms.

"However, as it tries to build its enterprise business, Google has recognized it must abandon this tactic to remain competitive with other enterprise and collaboration alternatives, such as Microsoft Office 365," Kaplan said.

It's not likely that the new privacy objective will harming Google's ability to generate revenue, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

Egypt Block VoIP services

Egypt has disrupted voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services this week for users who use messaging apps like Apple’s FaceTime, Viber, Skype, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
The key reason is ostensibly security concerns, but there’s also a suspicion there are economic incentives for local telcos who have complained to regulators about free calls via such apps.

The partial disruption comes on the back of a three-month nationwide state of emergency after terrorist attacks on Palm Sunday (April 9) killed 47 people in two churches. The regressive emergency law allows authorities sweeping powers including monitoring personal communications without judicial oversight and shuttering media outlets

Late last year, Egypt also blocked the highly encrypted app Signal forcing users to download a virtual private network (VPN) program as with this month’s partial block – messaging still works without a VPN.
A controversial cyber-security law has been on the books for a few months and the NTRA has signaled its tacit support for it. Earlier this month, an Alexandria lawyer was sentenced under a newly legislated counter-terrorism law to ten years in prison and a five-year ban from using the internet for Facebook posts deemed insulting to president Abdel Fattah El Sisi.

The economic argument that has been put forward by the regulator and other Egyptian telecommunications providers before maintains that customers’ calls should be charged and that users are ‘free-riding’ by using internet data.
“Our demands are simple: we want quicker and affordable internet without constant disruptions so we can be like other countries that respect freedom of expression” Abdel Naby said. “The government cannot keep on using terrorism as an excuse to disrupt apps”
The most populous Arab country has one of the slowest internet speeds worldwide ranking in the bottom five countries for broadband and 95th for mobile.
Egypt is the latest African country disrupting internet services in recent months following in the footsteps of Cameroon and Morocco.

Nigeria Ranked third in Africa for Affordable Internet Data

The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) has ranked Nigeria third in its Africa Affordability Drivers Index, out of 27 countries studied by the group.

The Africa Regional Coordinator of the group, Onica Makwakwa, made the disclosure at the unveiling of the Africa Affordability Report 2017 in Lagos on Tuesday.

The report is an annual publication of A4AI, examining the policy and regulatory framework that had allowed some countries to make internet more affordable, accessible and universal.

It suggested what other countries could do to catch up on internet affordability.

A detailed breakdown of the report showed that Mauritius topped the table with 61.70 per cent, followed by Morocco with 57.75 per cent.

Nigeria came third with 56.58 per cent, with Botswana on the fourth position with 55.37 per cent and Cote d'Ivoire scoring 53.25 per cent.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Rwanda is on the sixth position with 61.48 per cent, while South Africa scores 51.20 per cent and Ghana, 50.01 per cent.

Benin and Kenya post 48.95 per cent and 48.82 per cent, respectively.

According to the report, only five out of the 27 African countries have affordable internet- they are Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan.

"Affordable internet is one Gigabyte (1GB) of mobile pre-paid data for two per cent or less of average monthly income.

"However, 1GB of data costs an average citizen nearly 18 per cent of their monthly income.

"Overall, African countries score less than five out of 10 in all policy areas, indicating the crucial need for improvement."

The report cites the International Telecommunication Union as saying that only 25 per cent of the African population is online.

It said that the continent had 16 per cent of mobile broadband penetration and that there was 23 per cent internet use gender gap in Africa.

It's time to bid farewell to Twitter's ubiquitous default profile image -- the egg.

In the early days, new Twitter users were given an avatar that looked like a businessman walking along; later, it got changed to a bird, and since 2010 it's been an egg. Now Twitter is updating the default avatar again to something much more generic.

The social media site decided it was time for an upgrade. Now, for those people who haven't uploaded profile photos, instead of seeing a white oval inside a bright colored square, you'll see a generic silhouette of a dark gray head and shoulders against a light gray background.

"It's time for something new -- something that encourages people to upload their own photos for more personal expression," Twitter wrote in a blog post

Twitter gives three reasons for the change: to bring the default avatar into line with its recent rebranding efforts, to encourage users to actually get around to personalizing their profile, and to get away from the negative connotations that accounts with egg pictures have drawn in recent years. Originally chosen for being "playful, fun, and unique", the era of the egg avatar is over, Twitter says.

Instead of varied colorful eggs, Twitter said the new default profile image has these traits: generic, universal, serious, unbranded, temporary and inclusive.

Twitter has been tinkering with several of its features over the past few days. On Thursday it announced it was adding a little more room to its 140-character limit in reply tweets. On Wednesday Twitter said videos from Periscope could now play directly in Moments, which is the site's up-to-the-minute curated collection of tweets, videos and discussions.

TWITTER MAKE MORE ROOM FOR REPLIES

Twitter is giving its users a little more space.

The social network said Thursday that when people reply back to fellow users, usernames will no longer cut into the 140-character limit in tweets.

Usernames, such as @thecleanmachine, the Twitter handle for Sasank Reddy, a product manager at the social network, will now appear above the tweet's text, rather than within it.

"So you have more characters to have conversations," Reddy said in a blog post Thursday.

Users will now be able to tap on "Replying to..." to see and manage who's in their conversation, instead of seeing a bunch of usernames at the beginning of a tweet, Reddy added.

For example, when a user is replying to say, tweets from public figures like President Muhammadu Buhari‏ –
@MBuhari or the American president Donald Trump at either @realDonaldTrump or @POTUS, neither of Trump's Twitter handles will figure into the 140 characters. However, if you want to add or tag other people, you'll still have to type in their @username and that will factor into the character count.

Some Twitter users have pointed out the new reply feature lets you tag a seemingly unlimited number of people, raising concerns that it could be use to spam a large number users with a single tweet.

So, don't be that dude who tags 30 people in every tweet -- just don't.

The reply update comes after Twitter tweeted in September it will no longer count photos, videos, polls, quotes and GIFs toward its 140-character limit. The social network also told users and developers last spring changes were coming.

Thursday's new feature is the second Twitter-related update in as many days. On Wednesday, the social network said videos from Periscope can now play directly in Moments, Twitter's up-to-the-minute curated collection of tweets, videos and discussions.

Facebook Messenger now lets you share Live Location for an hour

Facebook Messenger wants to be an offline social gathering tool, not just an online chat app. Today it’s adding a new Live Location feature that lets you share your real-time location on a map for an hour within a private direct or group message thread. The recipients can then see an estimate of how long it would take you to reach them by car

“Live Location is super helpful when trying to coordinate with friends, telling people how close you are when you’re on your way to an appointment or even sharing where you are with your roommate when you’re on your way home at night” writes the feature’s product manager Selena Wang. It’s rolling out for all iOS and Android Messenger users today. Messenger could now challenge location apps like Foursquare Swarm and meetup apps like Down To Lunch.

Live Location is Facebook’s second big attempt at maps in Messenger after its first one blew up into a privacy scandal and was scrapped in 2015. Many users were sharing their momentary exact location with each message, which a Harvard student found could be scraped into a Marauder’s Map through a Chrome extension he built showing exactly where a friend had been. Facebook rescinded the student’s internship offer, made him take the extension down, and switched to only letting users send their one time current or future location.

That static location feature is still available, but now there’s Live Location too. This time, though, you can’t leave it on by default. Head of Messenger David Marcus posted that “Many of us make plans on Messenger that involve finding each other, or letting friends and loved ones know we’re on the way. Sharing your location will also help some of you feel safer on the way home.”

To use Live Location:

Inside a message thread, tap the Location button or find it in the More menu
On the map, tap the blue bar to start sharing your Live Location. The recipients will see your exact current location on a map for 60 minutes, and an ETA by car for you to reach them

A clock in the corner of the map counts down until your location sharing expires, and you can hit Stop Sharing at any time Of course, battery life is a big issue with location features since GPS can drain your device’s energy quickly. But Facebook seys it feels confident that Live Location uses a standard amount of battery, and Marcus writes “We put a lot of time and effort into . . . minimizing battery consumption to the point you wouldn’t even have to think about it.” Though it’s still worth keeping an eye on it.

Alongside the Active Now status indicators and Messenger Day’s “Who’s up for?” filters, Messenger is becoming a much more full-featured utility for getting together with friends. That could give it an advantage over strict chat products and dedicated visual communication apps.

Offline gathering is a still a largely unsolved problem. It’s tough to know who’s available to hang out and close enough for that to be convenient. To win in this space, a product needs social graph ubiquity, location sharing, to be a place users already check frequently, and to have a messaging component for planning. Swarm, Down To Lunch, and a graveyard of other apps have always missed a critical piece.

Messenger could succeed since it piggybacks on Facebook identity and is already where people are organizing meetups. For all our fancy apps, we still need a way to fight the loneliness and get face to face in person. Remember, though. Now if you say “on my way”, you better not be lying while still home in your pajamas.

HOW YOU CAN SHARE OR POST MULTIPLE PHOTO AND VIDEOS ON INSTAGRAM

The drudgery of uploading one photo at a time to Instagram has ended! Now you can add up to 10 photos and videos at once.

Don't worry about overwhelming your followers with a slew of photos, though. It's kind of like a Story. A bulk upload is consolidated into one post. The first image is displayed in your feed and blue dots at the bottom of the photo lets your followers know that they can swipe to see more images.

Adding multiple images and videos is super easy:

From the home screen, hit the + icon at the bottom of the screen.

1. Tap the first image you want to add.
2. Tap the Select multiple icon on the bottom right of the image.
3. Tap on the additional images you want to add and tap an image again to deselect it. If you don't like the order of your images, tap and hold on the image you want to move, then drag it to the right spot.
4. Tap Next at the top of the screen as usual to edit your photos. You have the option of editing each photo individually, or adding the same filter to all your images at once. If you want the same filter on all the images, just tap on your chosen filter without selecting a photo. If you want to edit photos individually, just tap on one, edit and tap Done. Rinse and repeat. When you're done editing, tap Next and add a caption. Unfortunately, all of your photos will just have one caption.
5. Tap Share when you're done. On your profile grid, your followers will see an icon in the upper right side of a photo to let them know it is a post with multiple images. They just need to tap and swipe on the photo to see more.

Does it work with Stories?
Uploading multiple images at once would be awesome for creating a Story, right? Unfortunately, this new trick doesn't work with the Story function, yet.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ANDROID O

Google on Tuesday unveiled a developer preview of the latest version of its mobile operating system, code named "Android O."

Google Gives Devs First Look at Android O

The new OS is designed to improve on battery life and interactive performance of devices, according to Dave Burke, vice president of engineering (Android) at Google.

The new release puts automatic limits on what applications do in the background in three areas: implicit broadcasts, background services and location updates.

Updated developer previews will become available in the coming months, and devs will get a more detailed look at the OS at Google I/O, to be held this May at the company's Mountain View, Calfornia, headquarters.

Background limits represent a significant change in how Android operates, so it's important to give developers time to get used to the new features, Burke said.

The release is still in its early stages, he cautioned, noting that there are additional features in the works, and plenty of stabilization and performance work to be completed.

"Background limits illustrates how Google is moving ahead to improve battery life on Android devices, and support for new/emerging WiFi functions and specs highlight

Another major new feature is picture-in-picture display for phones and tablets, which allows users to watch a video while they are separately engaged in a chat session or hailing a car ride, for example.

Sound Quality

The new OS includes major improvement in connectivity, with support for LDAC, which is Sony's new high-quality wireless audio via Bluetooth. Additional WiFi features include WiFi Aware, which allows WiFi access without an Internet access point, a service previously known as "Neighborhood Awareness Networking."

The new release gives developers "fine grained control" over various types of notifications, and let users individually block or change behaviors such as sound, vibration or level of importance.

Android O notification channels

Notification channels let users control an app's notification categories.
Google has seen a resurgence in keyboard navigation with the advent of Google Play apps on Chrome OS, Burke noted. The new OS therefore includes a feature that stabilizes arrow and tab navigation, both for developers and end users.

The O Developer Preview has an updated SDK with system images available so it can be previewed on the official Android Emulator and on Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel, Pixel XL and Pixel C. An emulator is also available for wearables, including Android Wear 2.0 and Android O.

 Adaptive icons display in a variety of shapes across different device models.
The initial release is not available for consumer use, and is available only via manual download and flash, Google said.

As the final release date draws closer, Google will open up consumer enrollments through Android Beta.

10 BEST GOOGLE Adsense ALTERNATIVES

Google Adsense is very difficult to get this days and even if you have it pray you don't wake up to an email with this quote “Your Google Adsense account has been disabled or temporarily banned”. Well, consider you’re not alone. Everyday, hundreds or thousands of accounts are being banned from Google’s Adsense program. Why? I can’t tell you specifically. Either there’s something wrong with the web you’re putting you ads on, or you just simply missed one rule from Google’s TOS.

Belive me you not alone; Google ads have become so hard to get or to maintain this days mostly if you are in this part of my world where you need to wait for 6 months  before you can get aproval. And you failing in adnsnse don't mean you can't monetize your content. And there are plenty of alternatives out there to try. Google was just your first one, and you failed.

Here are some of the best Google Adsense Alternatives you can try to monetize your website without using Google Adsense, and I’ll tell you how they work and why you should consider them, so let’s start:

1. Media.net

Media.net is one of the best alternatives for AdSense. It is a contextual ad network, powered by Yahoo and Bing. It enables publishers to earn money from advertising revenue.Yahoo-bing-Ad-network-Media.net_ It offers customized ad units that fit with your site look. It also shows ads to the mobile phone and tablet users. Currently, this network is not opened for public sign up. But you can request for an invitation.

2. Yllix Media

Yllix is a network I have heard a lot in the last years that has a decent CPM and many monetization options. Their homepage might look simple but their dashboard is great and it’s easy to get started. Yllix has Pop under ads, mobile redirects, sliders, layer ads and full page ads so you can get a good CTR and make money with them. Definitely a good option for starters and their approval is fast.

3. Revenue Hits

Revenue Hits is a very strong network with several years in the industry. I’ve been working with them for 3months now and so far the results have been great. Revenue Hits is a Performance Ad network, which means they pay you for results (CPA, which is great for many niches). Revenue Hits has an advanced platform that learns from your Ads so if you give them a try make sure to keep their ads running for at least 3-4 days to get the best results. Another great thing is that they have different monetization channels available. You can create banner ads, sliders, pop -unders, buttons and more. Revenue Hits pays on a NET 30 basis and they issue payments via wire, Paypal and Payoneer!

4. Chitika

The reason I put Chitika on the number 4 of this list, is because Chitika is very similar to Adsense. they allow you to customize your ads, and it only serves contextual ads. One good thing is that you can use it along with Adsense and there are no problems at all. Chitika pays via Paypal ($10 USD minimum, which is good for starters) or via check ($50 minimum). If I were to recommend an ads service as an alternative to Adsense, Chitika would be my first choice, hands down. Chitika can pay you via paypal if you need.

5. Propeller Ads

Propeller Ads is a UK based Ad network. It’s a CPM ad network which pays for every 1000 impressions. If you have traffic from U.S., Canada, U.K.,Australia, it will work great for you.Propeller Ads Advertising Network It has different types of ad products like OnClick PopUnder Ads, Mobile Ads, Banner Ads, Layer Ads, Slider Ads, Video Ads etc. It pays through Wire Transfer, Payoneer, Webmoney and Prepaid Cards.

6. PopAds

PopAds is a performance network specialized in Pop Unders. They have good rates and they can monetize all countries. Something great about PopAds is that they can pay daily as long as you earn $5 or more per day. Their quality is good, and they also have pop ups, tab ups/unders and other monetization methods. Their approvals are easy and setting your ads takes just a few minutes. Sign up as a publisher here.

7. Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser is a pay per click advertising site that could be a great AdSense alternative if you didn’t get Adsense approval or got banned. The way it works is a little bit different from Adsense. While Adsense shows ads based on context or visitor’s interest, it creates a bidding system that allows the highest bidder to advertise on your blog. Initially, you won’t be able to earn much revenue as it takes some time to get your site found by Highest bidders. So stay longer.
Bidvertiser offers Text ads, Banner ads, Mobile Ads, Slider ads etc. You can also make money by promoting your customized toolbar. Minimum payment amount is $10 for PayPal/Payza and $50 for check. Read: How to Make Money With Bidvertiser

8. Adsterea

Adsterra is a premium ad network for publishers and advertisers. It offers highest CPM rates with global coverage. It has display banners, Popunders, direct links, sliders, push up ads etc. Publishers can receive their payments on time via Paypal, Bitcoin, Payoneer, WebMoney, Wire Transfer, Paxum, and Payza.
If you are getting a good amount of traffic on your blog, you can try Adsterra to maximize your revenue.

9. Adversal

Adversal is a great alternative of Adsense. They have good banners and the CTR and revenue adapts to get the best results for your website. I’ve seen the Ads on Adversal have a good CTR and they have good image ads too. This is probably the Ad network which seems to work better for those looking for a replacement of Google Adsense. It works decently with other languages too.  You account gets approved really fast and they also have Pop under /CPM ads as an option. Note: Adversal requires a website with a minimum of 50,000 page views per month, but they have proven to work really well. I earn over $500-1000 per month. They also pay via paypal.

10. Infolinks

Infolinks is a bit different from other advertising networks. It’s a in-text advertising program. It doesn’t take too many spaces of your site to show ads. It shows in text ads or pop-up ads. You can use it with AdSense safely. Infolinks offer 4 types of ads – InFold, InText, InTag, and InFrame. All of them are designed to overcome banner blindness. Minimum payment threshold of $50 for Paypal or $100 for Bank wire.