hitting the wire*

what next... a virtual braai?!?

There are times when the use of IT to implement virtual reality makes me wonder if it's just me and all the other jokers are driving the wrong way down the M1, or what?!?

Checking out a suspiciously good deal on Dell laptops (not quite as good as it would have been if the blaps Henk Kleynhans and his mates spotted had paid off, but a good one nevertheless), an ad for what I can only think of as the DVD version of mood music caught my eye...

The virtual fire.  Just plug in the DVD, adjust your screen and volume, and voila, you've  all the mood that homo cavus or whatever he was called got out of a good blaze, without all the fussy, messy, time consuming stuff!

Not only that, but hey you can choose what type of fire you'd like!  Maybe you'd just like some glowing coals... or a gas fire, or ... hey, what about an electric fire!

I vaguely get the idea of a fishtank simulation... but this is just one step before some schmuck tries to tell me a pill with all the protein of a steak, with some esters for aroma and taste and a fake fire DVD can replace a braai.  If anyone ever does I'll make sure they use it as an enema!

Fake fire.  pah!

Google buys Feedburner

Don Loeb has just announced on his blog that Google have acquired Feedburner.

  Reckon they'll call it "GooFee"? ;)

Is there any record for the most acquisitive company ever?  There is something about me that is never comfortable with acquisitive growth which begins to build empires that loom large over the rest of the market. 

I'm sure the guys at Feedburner are chuffed.  Not sure I am though.

How long before we start to view Google in much the same light we do Microsoft?

The cobblers kids are poorly shod - confessions of an inept home sysadmin.

For someone involved in telecoms and IT, I sometimes think I make poor use of technology.  My home network consists of a 512k DSL link to the Net, a Linksys WAG54GS all-in-one DSL router / LAN switch / DHCP server / WiFi AP / Firewall, into which my wife's PC is plugged and a Senao PCMCIA card (SL-5354CB) which I bought at an iWeek when WiFi was still young here.  My kids are blissfully unaware I could network their PC and provide them with the joys of online gaming - right now the likes of Age of Empires and Sacred fulfil their thirst for death and destruction by design, with no threat to our traffic-cap.

I bought the Linksys from Miro about a year back and have been quite happy with it.  Until last week.

All of a sardine, the damn thing stopped issuing my laptop with an IP address.  Nothing I tried seemed to work.  I resorted to my fallback, and hauled out the HSDPA card I use when I'm out of town.  One or two automated backups later (I run Attix5 every night now after learning the hard way that dead hard drives don't talk) and my traffic limit is trashed.  Time to get the link to the DSL line sorted!

I find some other guy has had similar problems, but can't find an obvious fix anywhere.

Part of the suggested fix from Miro was to uninstall the driver for the card and reinstall.  Nice idea. Only no one told me Senao have discontinued the card and no longer supply driver files (and the ruddy install disk has eloped with my favourite pen and has not been seen in years).  Not good.  Fortunately, Miro managed to dig up the correct install file, but still no joy from the DHCP server.  Grrrr!

Decided it must be the AP - either a factory settings reset will sort it out, or it needs a brain transplant and I'll have to take it in.  Now, few things raise my wife's ire like a broken Net connection when she has a deadline to hit and is embarking on an all-nighter.  The time she caused it herself during a DSL network wobble by pressing the reset button for too long and inadvertently reverted to factory settings (while I was away from home)... she was ready to throttle her inept sysadmin!  So, with my heart in my mouth, I hit reset and went through replacing all the settings.

I can't tell what a relief it was to have connectivity back to normal.

If you need driver files for a Senao PCMCIA card (SL-5354CB) - drop me a mail.  If your Linksys AP's DHCP server goes on the fritz... start all over.  If it starts this crap again soon I'll be ditching it for a Netgear.

Now, if anyone can tell me what I can do to speed up my wife's PC that has slowed to a crawl, I'll be delighted.  So far, I've tried most of the usual tricks, so bar laser surgery to the registry file... or wiping the hard-drive, I'm stumped.

that's me.  admin'd out.

Internet radio - a fight to the death?

Seems there is a battle royal brewing in the state of NetRadio in the US. 

Internet radio in Amercia is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites.  Alledgedly the new royalty rates are more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn't pay any.

Not being US citizens, we're forced to sit on our hands and observe.  Can't help wondering if the deep pockets of the traditional media are not at work behind the scenes here, but maybe the CRB, like Ivy are unaware of the implications of their actions (or lack thereof).

VoIPTopia - when VoIP gets funky.

When it comes to VoIP, we've all got a bit fixated on the means to the end instead of the end itself, which is to make communications not just cheaper (a definite fixation here in SA), but easier and more productive. VoIP is a technology.  Actually it is a protocol, which in turn is only a predetermined method of communications between devices. 

This post is long overdue and I apologise to those who had given up hope of me ever providing a version of the animation we used at the SA Broadband Summit in Feb this year.  Truth is, I've been busy and I couldn't get the HTML right first go.  I've finally hacked it (helps to follow the programmer's instructions to the letter!)

Here it is, a maybe not so futuristic view of what (Vo)IP can enable for the knowledge worker.  There is much it can do for the consumer, but that is another story.  If it seems the narrative is a bit rushed, it is; MeshSmith, the animator, begged me to cut it as short as possible - after all I did give him an impossible deadline - which he made.  Hit the play button below and adjust the sound for optimal listening pleasure! ;)

that's me.  and no one yelled "fore!" dammit!

Storm to support the SA Blog awards

Well, we succeeded. We persuaded the Tim’s to pony up a cool prize for the SA Blog Awards, but I can’t tell you what it is yet and I can’t tell you which category it is for either. Jon from CherryFlava and the other folk organizing the competition have to sort out a few details first. Marc Forrest & I will be out of the running for that one (not aware of any other Storm staff blogging at the moment). I’m waiting impatiently for the internal blog server to be up and running so we can start using it for internal Storm projects and forums.

Not that savvy on SA Blogs and where to find them?

Forget Anna Nicole Smith and get a Real Life.

Colleen, my wife’s brother’s wife (never quite sure if that makes her my sister-in-law or not) celebrated a milestone birthday last night (can’t tell you which one or she’ll never speak to me again). We left early, just before 12, and the party was still rocking. The theme was “1967”. I managed to fool Craig, my brother-in-law by dressing as a GI and not a hippy. Thanks Col – great party!

So, the kids are at friends overnight, it is raining, and I decide to catch up on some of the blogs and news sites I’ve had no time to visit for a while.

It is then that I spot a rather curious title on The Register.

Have you got your DAVE yet, found the Nokia N97 or considered ditching Outlook?

I find I've been productised, I decide the Nokia N95 is actually the phone for me, that the N97 does not exist, consider ditching Outlook and ponder on "us and "the machine" and blocked pipes on the Net.

I fell in love lust with the iPhone.  For no more reason than it looks sexy.  OK, so if I wanted an iPod that played video's and a phone in one it would be cool  But on reflection, I've decided I want more....

Could the disruptive force of IP hit the banking sector?

I’m used to seeing the results of IP disrupting telecoms with VoIP (after all it’s the force that sustains me). I’m used to watching the effects of that same force changing the way the music and movie industry works. The way bookshops work. Just today I followed a trackback from my blog to that of Mike Stopforth who picked up on the Dick Hoyt story… and noticed that another disruption I’ve been expecting Telkom to get into on the back of their DSL offerings – Video on Demand - well, not quite, but nearly that – pushplay.co.za.  I'd hope they would be agile enough to follow  the spread of broadband with an IP delivery mechanism!

(By the way, I followed a link from Mike’s blog to another which is building a directory of South African blogs – nice idea – hopefully you’ll see me there soon! ;)

How long before Google catches on?

James Enck, keen observer, commentator and blogger of all things telco-like and chaotic, in a recent posting points to a new search engine which takes searching to a new dimension - using dynamic visual relationships to guide you on your search.  Punching in "broadband policy" took me rapidly to a few juicy items that were not initially obvious when I did the same in Google.

The concept is not that new actually -  LivePlasma has been around for a while now and useful for pointing you to music and movies you're likely to enjoy given your current tastes.

I moved to Google from a variety of search engines I frequented, among them Altavista, many moons back, preferring the clean, uncluttered approach of Google to begin with.  I see Altavista have become more Google-like by now - long time since I've visited.  Can an alternative like Quintura give Google a run for its money, or will Google bounce back rapidly with its own dynamic visual relationships option?  Once you've got to the point where your brand becomes a generic term for your product (e.g. Kleenex) or a verb (e.g. Google), you're hard to beat.

That's me.