Unveiling ICT secrets—Red Alert

I have stumbled on another ICT secret that I thought could not wait. This article serves as a red alert for the vulnerable ICT mortals and a warning to the ICT wizards who take advantage of our ignorance. The other day I happily bought a flash disc gadget on what I thought was bargain price. No sooner did I reach home than I connected it to my computer and alas, you should have seen my face! My treasured asset turned out to be a dummy. At first I thought that my computer had a technical problem or that I might be connecting the gadget wrongly. After numerous vain attempts I parked my laptop and went back to the dealer who had sold me the piece to asked for a replacement or help me figure out my dilemma. As it turned out the only thing the dealer knew about the gadget was its price. He resorted to the natural defence of the ignorant (aggressiveness), using the usual flimsy argument of “things once bought are not returnable.” After a few hot exchanges and interventions from onlookers, the dealer agreed to give me a replacement on condition that if it worked I would pay for both of them. I painstakingly accepted the deal and was given another piece only to find that it was also a dummy. What a relief! This time it was his turn to swallow the shock. All his stock was turning into dust and that was nothing to call home about. I then asked him to let me check other samples and this time he was very co-operative. He hopped that he would probably salvage a few and indeed he did. On closer scrutiny I noticed that different samples had different shadings somewhere in the top right-hand corner of the wrapping that indicate “System requirements”. Some were shaded light- grey while others were shaded dark- grey. Using my rudimental ICT knowledge I figured that the light- shade would stand for “disabled” while the dark-grey stood for “enabled”. Armed with this new knowledge I confidently picked a piece, inserted it in my computer and there I had 16 GB of memory! We then sifted through the entire stock and realised that all the 2GB discs were dummy, a few of 16 GB pieces were configured for not so common operating systems like LINUX and all 32 GB discs were configured for Windows. The guy was happy that I had unveiled the secret and had saved him at least a bit of his money. I, on the hand, was happy that the ICT wizards had not taken me for a ride. I wonder how many have fallen prey to such wizardry that seems to be quite rampant, especially in Kigali. Next Friday we shall resume our network congestion challenges. This time I promise to keep my word. The writer is the Managing Director of Cornerstone Africa Ltd www.cornerstone-africa.cominfo@cornerstone-africa.com