• on your own schedule depending on the availability of your team
• run either within your company or at our premises in Quatre-Bornes
• with customised course content to meet your own requirements

Knowledge Seven offers a wide range of MQA-approved training courses in different areas: Communication in French, Digital Marketing, Mobile Development, Web Development and Linux System Administration.

Do not hesitate to share this exciting new offer with your colleagues.

Email us at info@knowledge7.com or call us on 464-7446 if you need more information.

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 Knowledge Seven, 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, Knowledge Seven 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 Knowledge Seven?

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.

During the month of May, Knowledge Seven ran a Linux Network Infrastructure Services course, a customised Linux training for Orange Business Services staff.

Madhav Ramdin, one of the participants, whom we thank, has accepted to share his views with us.

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Madhav Ramdin, Messaging and Exchange Specialist at Orange Business Services. This particular department offers hosting and support services.

What have you gained from the Linux Network Infrastructure Services training course?

This training is a very practical one. It has given me lots ideas of how to optimise and make my work easier. It has also given me an insight of what used to be automatic routine for me and this increased understanding will help me increase my effectiveness.

How will this training benefit you?

This training combined with the other two Linux training that I had followed at Knowledge Seven, Linux System Administration and Linux Network Services and Security, will help me and the team I am in to tackle a major project which is to start very soon at Orange Business Services.

I was happy to have gone through a number of important topics: Linux and UNIX, administration tasks (such as package, user and process management, processing and shell scripting, TCP/IP networking, dynamic host configuration (using DHCP), domain name system (using Bind for DNS), security and firewalling and remote administration and remote execution of applications.

How do you see yourself in five years’ time?

I see myself more as a team leader or, better, in a management position within the company.

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 Knowledge Seven.

Fill in this online form and tell us how you can contribute to our training activities at Knowledge Seven. Send us your CV by email too (info@knowledge7.com)

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 Knowledge Seven, 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 464-7446.

2013 is the year of responsive web design according to Mashable and, at Knowledge Seven, we believe they are spot on.

Wikipedia defines responsive web design as “a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience – easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling – across a wide range of devices from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones.”

Important aspects of responsive web design include the optimal use of CSS3, fluid grids and images sized in such a way to prevent them from being shown outside the screen. This new way of building websites is a direct consequence of people browsing more and more using mobile devices likes smartphones and tablets with smaller screens than traditional desktops. It would be stupid to show them only part of the content and therefore web designers need to adapt.

Adapt or perish

At Knowledge Seven, we have been providing web design courses for the past three years. And, like everyone else, we also need to adapt. This is why, for our coming Web Design with HTML and CSS training starting on 18 April 2013, we are currently updating the content to better reflect this new design philosophy.

As a reminder, here are the topics we are going to cover: markup and styling, changing text, tables and links, color and images, multimedia, the CSS box model, enhanced navigation, flexible layouts and printing, scripting and forms.

Feel free to call us on 464-7446 to have more information.

To help you boost your business as well as increase the efficiency and productivity of your staff, we are offering a number of MQA-approved training courses in various fields in the coming months:

Techniques de Communication Ecrite pour l’Entreprise : Write reports, minutes of meetings, letters and emails in business French and master French for better communication. This training is designed for administrative and managerial staff who need to deal with French speaking partners and clients. Will be run on demand.

Search Engine Optimisation : Every business needs to be online and easily discoverable through search engines. Boost traffic to your website using white hat Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques such as streamlining the information architecture, using keywords, link building, etc. Starting on Monday 1 April 2013.

Linux Network Services and Security : Use Linux servers to deploy network services such as DNS, DHCP, Web (Apache), Email, NFS and Samba. This training is designed for system administrators who are already familiar with Linux and who need to master advanced techniques as per industry best practices. Starting on Tuesday 23 april 2013.

Web Design with HTML and CSS : Master the latest web standards such as HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript to create beautiful and responsive websites. Make sure that web designs you create are properly displayed on computers and on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Starting on Thursday 28 March 2013.

Web Application Development (using PHP and MySQL) : Create powerful and easy-to-maintain web applications using the latest advances in PHP including sanitisation, validation, templating engines, etc. Increase the performance of your web apps by benchmarking, profiling and optimising MySQL. Starting on Wednesday 20 March 2013. A second batch will start on Wednesday 24 April 2013.

Send us your bookings early to facilitate your HRDC formalities. We look forward to welcome you and your colleagues at Knowledge Seven.

Please share with your friends and colleagues.

Since I decided to quit being a lecturer at the university in 2008, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how bad our education system is, why is it so bad and what can we do about it.

When I read about uneducated Ethiopian kids learning the alphabet by themselves after having been given tablets and no instructions at all,  I immediately thought about my kids, Anya and Kyan, not having to go to school everyday (or, heaven forbid, private tuition) and, instead, spend some of their precious time under a tree with a tablet and learning things that they are passionate about by themselves.

That’s why we’re pivoting at Knowledge Seven. In the coming months, we’ll be less of a traditional training company and more of a startup creating an elearning platform which everyone will love using.

I’m doing that for my kids.

I’ll keep you posted.