tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-295725042011-12-04T00:01:15.521+02:00ICT, privacy, cryptography and security in Africa (well, Pretoria) and elsewherePetrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.comBlogger1161100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-33102468379695464352011-12-03T23:59:00.001+02:002011-12-04T00:01:15.530+02:00

My latest reading device is the $79 Kindle (6" no-touch screen, with ads) which is super-light and small enough to fit in a larger shirt pocket. Today I used a LaTeX template from the blog It's Forty Two (copied at paste2.org/p/1806643) to turn an existing 100 page document into a 300 page PDF that reads quite nicely on the Kindle's small screen and presumable will display well on other tablets,

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-3819023584080692842011-06-26T09:53:00.003+02:002011-06-26T21:17:49.332+02:00

Source: ITWeb Update: Vodacom called me within 90 minutes after I posted this message on HelloPeter.com and sorted out the problem, very politely and in Afrikaans. That's good service! I still believe they have issues with their systems, though –possibly related to the way the different access methods interact with their main database. I am very dissatisfied with Vodacom's prepaid accounting

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-66397376170542355702011-04-25T22:33:00.000+02:002011-04-25T22:33:26.623+02:00

2nd damaged Kindle About three weeks ago I picked up my Kindle one evening where I had left it in the afternoon, only to discover about 25% of the screen completely broken. It was a sad moment but after about a day of mourning, I called Amazon who kindly offered to replace the device for free, and pay for the return shipping of the damaged item. My relief was considerable and the replacement

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-20820446303485647272011-04-02T23:52:00.003+02:002011-04-25T22:44:20.893+02:00

Quite strange things started happening over the past few days with my mother's position on Google Maps, which she shares with me using the Latitude application on her Symbian smartphone. Her position would very regularly show up right at my house and it took 15 minutes of trying to get her to adjust the settings today (manual setting of location is an option, after all) before the penny dropped.

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-22093758219303420582010-12-28T07:12:00.000+02:002010-12-28T07:12:01.366+02:00

A few weeks ago, I tried to fine a colleague's cellphone number by search engine and found her details along with those of many South Africans and others on the website of the Celebration Cruise Line (probable trading as Imperial Majesty in the past) at www.imperialmajesty.com/Information/form_results.csv. Under the presumption that if it was indexed by search engines, it has leaked already, I

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-5914784041020525222010-12-10T22:54:00.000+02:002010-12-28T07:15:11.107+02:00

On eBay one occasionally comes across curiously high postage fees. Obviously, the seller is offering a low price but making up in the P&P department. The most egregious case I have seen is the $100 prepaid visa card depicted below, with a $130.96 shipping and handling charge for despatch inside the US. The selling price is $0.99 so you'd have to be rather gullible to select Buy It Now!

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-76148932662635701802010-11-13T09:56:00.000+02:002010-12-28T07:17:49.349+02:00

A blogger expressing anti-clerical sentiment has been tracked down by the Palestinian police force and arrested for “insulting the divine essence” using a Facebook sting. Islamic law explicitly prohibits apostacy, so going for Mo's message is a one-way street in many countries. I doubt that the Cape Town Opera's scheduled Porgy and Bess in Tel Aviv is going to have many Palestinians thrown in

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-25605229892465377652010-09-23T09:24:00.000+02:002010-09-24T13:37:16.828+02:00

Update on Friday 2010-09-24: A kind person named Milo in Vodashop Hatfield, initially also baffled by my dilemma, managed to determine that I needed to phone 100 from the Vodacom SIM card in order to “activate” it even though I was receiving SMS on it already at that point. Now, on day 5, I have two active SIM cards on the same number and seem to be receiving SMS messages and calls from all

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-21378311507588333602010-09-12T16:23:00.000+02:002010-09-12T16:23:57.690+02:00

According to the Communications Commission of Kenya, mobile number portability (MNP) was to be introduced in that country in July 2010 and I sincerely hope it is a success for consumers in that lovely country, especially after a frustrating 30 minutes spent trying to port my prepaid number at Menlyn in Pretoria today. The highlight was being informed by one of the official Vodacom outlets that

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-23711768179843712952010-08-09T19:49:00.000+02:002010-08-09T19:51:42.199+02:00

I visited www.gov.za today in order to look for forms for passport renewal and clicked on the link for citizens and was taken right to an error message. Fortunately the main website carried a cabinet statement on xenophobia and I can only assume that the bold step has been taken to finally eliminate all services to citizens in order to ensure equality of the foreign and the non-foreign born… It

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-76180274989361336812010-06-24T09:04:00.000+02:002010-06-24T09:04:09.891+02:00

Colleagues at Big U have asked me to take part in a panel discussion this morning on trends and education to present a personal perspective. Perhaps the urgency of the matter is best illustrated by the quoation “Education spending grew by 14% a year for the past three years and accounted for R140,4 million in 2008/09.”from the information website of the SA government, on education  (or the

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-84569492818317133242010-06-21T08:14:00.000+02:002010-06-21T08:14:04.872+02:00

South Africa has started the process of migrating television broadcasts from the analogue Phase Alternate Line (PAL) system introduced in 1975 to a digital system that is more efficient and made possible by technical progress, mainly in computer processing since the 1960s when PAL was introduced in Europe. PAL is the analogue television standard for most of Europe and large parts of Africa and

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-17310778131806593452010-06-06T09:28:00.000+02:002010-06-06T09:28:37.707+02:00

As part of the state-corporate criminal take-over of South Africa, otherwise known as the 2010 FIFA Sucker World Cup, police have been clamping down on “illegal” T-shirts. In Pretoria this week, five Ethiopians were reported arrested on charges of dealing in counterfeit goods. Now, in a country which is second in murder and first in rape, does the public really demand protection against

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-13199135672901477812010-04-27T11:03:00.000+02:002010-04-27T11:21:31.719+02:00

Cape Town's Die Burger reports that three police officers in the city have been suspended from duty for “improper conduct” while on duty for circulating a doctored film poster of President “Bring me my Machine Gun” Zuma and Julius “Kill-the-Boers” Malema. Now, this seems pretty innocuous (even, lame) and I have certainly received much worse at work so I think that it could become an interesting

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-3783925864309726642010-04-12T05:12:00.000+02:002010-04-12T05:27:20.592+02:00

In Meksiko, soos in Suid-Afrika met die RICA-wetgewing, moet nuwe selfoongebruikers hulle persoonlike gegewens by die regering registreer en het bestaande gebruikers tyd gekry tot 'n bepaalde datum om dít te doen. Alhoewel Meksikane dié registrasie kon doen deur net 'n SMS te stuur met hulle federal ID-nommer (die sogenaamde CURP), is 31% van die lyne in Meksiko nie geregistreer nie en die

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-24903516097670603192010-04-02T16:52:00.000+02:002010-04-05T10:48:15.466+02:00

Oor die Paasnaweek (wat saamval met Pasga hierdie jaar) maak baie mense van dié rustige tyd gebruik om met familie en vriende wat ver is te gesels. Hoe skakel 'n mens tans goedkoop binne Suid-Afrika? Aangesien dié land sowat tien keer soveel selfoonlyne as landlyne het, fokus ek op oproepe na selfone en oproepe in spitstyd sodat die inligting ook ná die langnaweek bruikbaar kan wees. Selfs die

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-66725640281182405342010-03-27T18:53:00.000+02:002010-03-27T19:10:41.122+02:00

This blog used to be published using an FTP account on the server where I host my personal homepage. I used to edit the blog at Blogger.com and Blogger would then transfer the pages to “my” server using FTP. A few months ago, Google (the owner of Blogger) announced that they would no longer be offering the FTP publication option and that all blogs had to be migrated to the Google servers. Well, I

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-32250719362867378742010-03-03T08:44:00.000+02:002010-03-21T21:52:21.349+02:00

Last night, and again this morning, I noticed the server of Virgin Mobile (South Africa) was redirecting to an error page. Things got worse, though. I couldn't leave my complex to get to the office because, according to the husky voice I reached when trying to call the gate (to open), my “prepaid service” needed recharging. But I have a contract! Unconnected events? I think not. Now, if only

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-55938776490381069712010-02-22T16:25:00.000+02:002010-02-22T16:37:49.466+02:00

I have just been perusing the published rates of Telfree, my VOIP provider, and noticed that calls to Telkom's (limited) CDMA mobile network are charged at R0,84 per minute as opposed to R1,62 per minute to other networks. Now, all of South Africa has been following a drawn-out saga that ended in an announcement that on 1 March 2010 the peak mobile interconnection rate would be cut from R1,25 to

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-42345291044182803722010-01-09T10:15:00.000+02:002010-03-27T19:04:09.912+02:00

Die klimaatstatistieke op Wikipedia bly vir my lekker vermaak. Ek het só byvoorbeeld geleer dat Bogotá (die Afrikaanse inskrywing is tans net 'n dop) baie lekkerder moet wees as wat 'n mens eintlik sou dink. Soos dit nou maar gaan, beland ek nou-die-aand op die inskrywing vir Omaha, vermoedelik via The Onion, waar 'n gruwelike omskakelingsfout op die oog val. In die bronkode word die

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-10803341143009080722010-01-03T09:52:00.000+02:002010-03-27T19:12:26.693+02:00

Aucklandse prokureur Tim McBride merk met reg op dat die Nieu-Seelandse polisie se nuut verworwe magte om, met 'n hofbevel, in te luister op alle elektroniese kommunikasie, vergelyk kan word met die installasie van afluisterapparatuur in iedere huis, kantoor, kroeg, koffiewinkel en op elke straathoek. 'n Artikel in die Sunday Star Times beweer dat wetgewing in dié verband op die aandrang van die

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-54827036959940600932010-01-02T23:15:00.000+02:002010-01-03T12:10:32.181+02:00

In Afrikaans as RICA uitoorlê deur kranige familielid op Sake24 beskikbaar.South Africa's rather draconian Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA) has been proving a thorn in the flesh of legal foreign visitors to our fair shores, who obviously have some difficulty in providing the requisite proof of address in the country (

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-33901292012436504402009-11-22T08:17:00.000+02:002009-11-22T08:36:24.643+02:00

Three weeks ago, I attended a conference at the conference and training centre of Eskom, South Africa's government-run power utility, in smart-ish Midrand, near Pretoria. This is quite a large complex, with free-ranging antelope, where Eskom has advanced training facilities and accommodation for conference delegates and trainees. The picture below, shows the pool next to the conference centre

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-70992264660297162542009-11-19T08:14:00.000+02:002009-11-19T08:52:57.435+02:00

Die gewoonte van lomp woordverwerkers uit Redmond om die Afrikaanse onbepaalde lidwoord tot die foutiewe en lelike misbaksel ‘n te omvorm, is 'n hinderlike deel van 'n mens se alledaagse leeservaring. Op Nuus24.com kan 'n mens vanoggend sommer drie variante van die lidwoord ('n, ‘n asook ’n) heel naby aan mekaar sien.Ou Afrikaanse tikmasjiene het blykbaar 'n aparte sleutel gehad vir die lidwoord

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-39732367594212791422009-11-08T17:06:00.000+02:002009-11-08T17:14:42.426+02:00

My personal archives (documents, photographs, e-mail etc.) now comprise three DL discs and I want to place a few copies with friends and family and had been wondering how to properly indemnify them and protect myself. The solution I chose was to wrap it all up in a huge file which is weakly encrypted. This means that if one of the discs is popped into a computer, you won't immediately be able to

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-12692839974309406642009-11-01T12:04:00.000+02:002009-11-01T12:20:08.439+02:00

Ek het hierdie week toeval tot by die nuttige maps.webgate.bg genavigeer. Dít is 'n webblad wat vir selfone ontwerp is en deur die webblaaier van die selfoon toeganklik is. 'n Mens kan daarop per adres soek en dan 'n mooi klein kaart van Google Maps ontvang. Die afbeelding hier onder wys die resultaat van 'n soektog vir die pseudo-adres „Benedictus Kok Street Bloemfontein” op my rekenaar. Dit lyk

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-66288844266702239672009-10-23T07:53:00.000+02:002009-10-26T07:32:46.071+02:00

I paid my Telkom bill this morning and had to reflect on the charges that I am paying to the fixed-line monopoly. The “line rental” is R693 [sic] per month, which is for a 4mbps ADSL line with no service. According to recent reports, average broadband use in the world is just over 11GB per month, so let me add the price of R719 for unshaped 10GB/month of usage from my ISP as well as R70 for an ad

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-5317208312444790212009-10-20T23:24:00.000+02:002009-10-21T00:15:45.400+02:00

A friend's frustrating attempts at correspondence with Telstra, Australia's lumbering telecoms giant, has galvanised me to reprise my occasional series about customer service. He has been finding it impossible to get any reaction from Telstra about his serious billing problem by e-mail and his calls to their “customer service” numbers are simply terminating in Tagalog or Cantonese voicemail

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-63532600634607470262009-10-16T06:33:00.000+02:002009-10-16T07:07:30.490+02:00

On Tuesday, had been invited to Cape Town to take part in hearings of the Parliamentary Committee on Communications on South Africa's mobile interconnection (or, mobile termination) rates. I deviated a bit from my written submission but I hope that I impressed three things on most members of the committee:the situation is not new, and had been unfolding under their (and the regulator's) noses for

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-7149092132479025982009-09-25T07:27:00.000+02:002009-09-25T07:59:50.499+02:00

Just to show that I don't pay several hundred rand per month in fees for absolutely nothing, Standard Bank was kind enough to send me the following spam earlier this week. How do they expect me to take an e-mail from “Standardbank” that addresses me only as “Dr,” seriously? Somehow, I do not remember where I put the Tardis.The message continues to be misleading and, generally, not helpful. The

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-77541109583348795402009-09-20T15:25:00.000+02:002009-09-21T22:30:09.090+02:00

Die parlement se portefeuljekomitee oor kommunikasie (PPKK) het verlede week vergader oor Suid-Afrika se skokkend hoë interkonneksietariewe, die gelde wat betaal word deur telefonieverskaffers aan ander netwerke vir die terminering van 'n oproep op die netwerk waaraan die geskakelde nommer behoort. In spitstyd is dié tarief R1,25 vir die selfoonnetwerke, m.a.w. die netwerk van die geskakelde

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-30570996295815202372009-09-16T09:18:00.000+02:002009-09-16T23:29:52.695+02:00

It was announced yesterday that call to South Africa's new Presidential Hotline 17737, instituted by President Zuma, would be free from all operators. This is clearly an enormous mistake as everybody (and there are more than one million citizens per operator) with time on their hands can now just call the Hotline and tie up the lines for people like me. This morning, after having navigated

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-87583745111097365492009-09-06T08:37:00.000+02:002009-10-03T11:44:17.247+02:00

Die gebruik van 0861-inbelnommers in Suid-Afrika grief my al 'n geruime tyd. Eerstens is 0861-nommers oor die algemeen nie uit die buiteland (en/of deur Skype) bereikbaar nie en indien 'n mens dus nodig het om 'n betrokke instansie van oorsee te kontak dan sit jy sonder 'n spaan. Voorts kos hierdie nommers altyd soveel as 'n binnelandse langafstandoproep - selfs al bel jy van langsaan. 0861-

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-631607851707946702009-08-31T12:45:00.000+02:002009-08-31T13:27:30.129+02:00

Ek het vandag my eerste veldervaring gehad met RICA, die Engelse afkorting vir Suid-Afrika se Wet op die reëling van onderskepping van kommunikasies en verstrekking van kommunikasie-verwante inligting, Wet nr 70 van 2002 (in Engels: Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act). Volgens dié wet moet enige gebruiker van 'n SIM-kaart sigself

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-41310129107096698952009-08-10T04:15:00.000+02:002009-08-11T05:56:44.976+02:00

While making travel bookings in Australia over the past week, I have been amused yet again by the "nations" that populate assorted drop-down lists for the Country field of many web forms. The image below shows some of the jewels garnered from the websites of Jetstar, the budget airline subsidiary of Qantas, and VroomVroomVroom, a car booking site.Have Soviet drivers ever been welcome to rent

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-28001052858779130312009-07-27T00:13:00.000+02:002009-07-27T00:23:48.475+02:00

My tax advisor just forwarded to me the reply he got when enquiring about the money that SARS (the South African tax authorities) owes me.The following recipient(s) could not be reached: eFilingAssist on 2009/07/23 03:16 PM The message could not be delivered becausethe recipient's mailbox is full. That is, for a country of 50 million people, they did not think to

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-59756726820544902492009-07-25T08:35:00.000+02:002009-07-25T08:44:10.219+02:00

LaTeX is used by most mathematical scientists, like myself, to typeset most of their writing. At a one-day workshop in economics yesterday for example, at the University of Sydney, most of the speakers had done their slides using LaTeX. The basis of LaTeX typesetting is a source file which consists of plain text which is run through the LaTeX engine to produce a PDF or other display file. This

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-64612356160377800652009-07-01T10:33:00.000+02:002009-07-01T10:54:48.097+02:00

Because television was introduced in South Africa mercifully late (1976), many of us still grew up with an excellent selection of radio dramas and serials. The most popular station was Springbok Radio, the “commercial” bilingual broadcaster (all stations were state-owned). It had fantastic radio versions of The Avengers; Father, Dear Father as well as local classics such as Test the Team and Só

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-92134907913578709742009-06-25T23:14:00.000+02:002009-06-25T23:41:47.559+02:00

In hierdie webjoernaal is al heelwat berig oor Suid-Afrika se lae landlyndigtheid of teledensity. Landlyne is natuurlik konvensionele telefoonlyne, van die tipe wat natuurlik wêreldwyd ook vir Internet-toegang van die ADSL-tipe gebruik kan word. Telkom, wat pas aangekondig het dat hulle opgeblaasde notering in New York beëindig gaan word, het steeds in praktyk 'n monopolie oor die verskaffing van

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-54653701720336038412009-06-24T06:18:00.000+02:002009-06-24T06:29:20.522+02:00

I am writing this from the airside Vodacom Connect Zone at Johannesburg's main international airport (formerly Jan Smuts Airport), while waiting for my flight to Bloemfontein. The Connect Zone is simply a communal work station with desk area and electrical outlets (for South African as well as European plugs) and several special devices for charging cellphone batteries. Kudos to Vodacom for this

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-14152913461581793522009-06-21T10:48:00.000+02:002009-06-21T11:09:06.718+02:00

DSTV is die Telkom van betaaltelevisie - 'n monopolie wat deur die Suid-Afrikaanse owerhede (in beide gevale, OKOSA/ICASA) in 'n skoon kombers toegedraai en warm gehou word terwyl die verbruiker steun en kreun. Ek het al meer as tien jaar lank aaneenlopend 'n rekening by DSTV/Multichoice maar ontvang vanoggend 'n kort SMS waarin ek ingelig word dat my rekening agterstallig is en ek 'n R50-

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-80816091452394971912009-06-18T08:39:00.000+02:002009-06-18T08:49:41.758+02:00

Die uitstekende span van www.translate.org.za het die Suid-Afrikaanse openbare vakansiedae as ICS-lêers opgestel en beskikbaar gemaak vir insluit in enige kalender-programmatuur - soos Google se Calendar, Thunderbird en (vermoedelik) Outlook - wat die ICS-formaat ondersteun. Tot nou verskaf Google ons vakansiedae (jammer, Namibiërs, ek weet nie wat julle gaan doen nie!) nie as een van die

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-69097289859683937312009-06-13T11:43:00.000+02:002009-06-16T17:51:25.089+02:00

A colleague has introduced me to Seth Godin's blog. Godin is a best-selling author and speaker and used to blog under the slogan This Is Broken about disasters in customer service and the customer experience. I have decided to collect a few examples of my own, in an occasional series.Exhibit 1 is from the website of the Watermark Hotel in Brisbane (archived version at http://backupurl.com/x3wwqm)

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-45364582611529948482009-06-08T23:26:00.000+02:002009-06-08T23:34:19.885+02:00

Daar word vandag op Fin24.com dat here van die SABS by vervaardigers van verdagte toiletpapier aan die Wesrand. 'n Fabriek vervaardig blykbaar rolle wat te min papier op het, en boonop ontbreek die perforasies. Volgens die woordvoerder van die SABS"Perforations allowed the paper to be easily torn and also helped the regulator to measure it."Is dit net ek wat die gedagte aan 'n kantoor in Pretoria

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-35223370468992362062009-06-04T08:29:00.000+02:002009-06-04T08:57:30.814+02:00

Die koerant Rapport berig afgelope naweek oor die verminderde bestuursvermoë van diegene wat SMS in die kar. Volgens dié blad erken amper 20% van bestuurders dat hulle SMSe stuur op die pad. Ek doen dit soms self alhoewel ek dit natuurlik probeer vermy. Indien die selfoon lui terwyl ek bestuur, antwoord ek - as 'n reël - ook. Die rede is eenvoudig dat Suid-Afrika 'n gevaarlike plek is en 'n mens

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-63721506312062590822009-05-11T22:51:00.000+02:002009-05-11T23:01:08.758+02:00

Most of the servers of BigU have been unreachable since this afternoon. Thank gods for Google's cache... By this evening it all got too much for me and I decided to check the WHOIS information at http://www.ac.za/ to get some information about the setup. This is what I found out.The contact e-mail addresses of the administrators are in the domain which they administer. Google is brave enough to

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-87962970732956475012009-05-09T21:46:00.000+02:002009-05-09T22:00:04.730+02:00

I am one of those backward souls still using a standalone e-mail client (Mozilla Thunderbird) for most of my e-mail reading and sending. My three main reasons are:good Afrikaans localisation in Thunderbird, which GMail still lacks;using a standard protocol for offline copies, allowing me easy offline access (which I know GMail now kind-of has); andthe range of add-ons for Thunderbird, with some

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-57365255972328843342009-04-25T22:45:00.002+02:002009-04-25T23:10:51.489+02:00

Suid-Afrika se Wysigingswetsontwerp op die wet op die reëling van onderskepping van kommunikasies en verstrekking van kommunikasie-verwante inligting (RICA, The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Amendment Bill) gaan stellig die lewe vir selfoondiensverskaffers en -gebruikers moeilik maak. Dié wetgewing vereis dat verskaffers van

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-11794943706978902552009-03-18T16:59:00.013+02:002009-03-19T11:09:57.664+02:00

I was asked to write a few notes for management at the Big University (Big U) where I have an office that I use when not extreme telecommuting from one of my favourite islands. It occurred to me to rather place my comments here, where they are not so easily lost.E-mail archiving (not)Where better to start, than the pothole on the information superhighway that I struck just today. In a somewhat

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-48898133790787107242009-03-08T23:05:00.004+02:002009-03-09T00:17:15.109+02:00

Daar word vandag op die BBC berig dat gedeeltelike privatisering van Brittanje se Royal Mail deur die Arbeidersregering voorgestel word. Volgens Lord Mandelson, is dít kwansuis die enigste manier om die posdiens se toekoms te verseker. Afgesien van die onafwendbare ontwrigting wat só 'n stap sou teweegbring, en moontlike duistere motiewe (die pensioenfonds van die Royal Mail is blykbaar in 'n

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-77580245238583045072009-03-08T22:56:00.002+02:002009-03-08T23:03:01.556+02:00

A few days ago I reported on the Telkom website that the speed on my ADSL line was reported by my modem to be half of what it should be. Within seconds, I got an e-mail from them with the following contact information.Tel: 0800 375 375International: 0272010181It is sweet that they thought of the hapless customer abroad trying to resolve the problems of the non-technical household left offline

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-65150241686151219812009-02-21T13:24:00.002+02:002009-02-21T13:53:17.960+02:00

Everyday life in South Africa is, mercifully, much less constrained by legal restrictions based on race than it was 30 years ago. However, it appears that IT has rendered our racial bureaucrats more "productive". A certain very large university has just released the following statistics.What, on earth, is this meant to convey and is it really likely that the unbelievably exact 66,74% should

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-53708217906709776692009-01-30T18:15:00.003+02:002009-01-30T18:40:22.712+02:00

During December and January I had the occasion to visit three countries in which I wanted to use my unlocked Huawei E220 UMTS dongle for prepaid UMTS ("3G") Internet. Here are my experiences, in brief.AustraliaAustralia was the only real success of my trip. Although it takes about 20 minutes to buy a SIM card in Australia, it is not expensive (around AU$10). I bought two cards for data, one of

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-88370751105481419292009-01-19T22:47:00.002+02:002009-01-19T22:58:11.884+02:00

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) reports from Windhoek that the cellphone companies of Zimbabwe have been given permission by the government to start billing customers in foreign currency, mainly US dollars. The MISA report is somewhat hysterical about the right to communicate being under threat and the people of Zimbabwe being increasingly repressed - the latter being, no doubt,

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-41266882422103625152009-01-17T16:03:00.005+02:002009-01-17T17:05:10.835+02:00

Die kaartdienste van Google en Yahoo, met hul lieflike satellietfoto's van die aarde, is natuurlik 'n plesier om te gebruik. Veral indien 'n mens in die buiteland is waar baie stede - waaronder selfs die sekondêre stede van Australië en Nieu-Seeland - nou straatvlak-beelde het. Kyk byvoorbeeld na die beeld hier onder van Madrasstraat in Christchurch. Hierdie beeld is dinamies gekoppel aan die

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-82026676684776476782008-11-10T05:42:00.003+02:002008-11-10T06:16:08.735+02:00

In South Africa, efforts to introduce summer ("daylight saving") time (DST) has and will always by stymied by the considerable east-west extent of the country. During the summer, we have the same time as Namibia - which is then on "daylight saving" time - and there is no reason for the time in Cape Town, on the same latitude as Namibia, to be different. Should the western part of the country then

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-36266795203085412092008-11-05T22:17:00.002+02:002008-11-05T22:27:43.095+02:00

Like Linux geeks all over the planet, I was excited about last Friday's release of version 8.10 of Ubuntu Linux - Intrepid Ibex. I had tried pre-release versions on my Dell laptop without any problem and was very impressed by the option Auto GSM Connection in the network manager. This feature allowed me to connect to UMTS/GPRS networks using the popular Huawei E220 3G modem. All I needed to enter

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-17372495112208622812008-11-03T22:16:00.003+02:002008-11-03T22:31:11.953+02:00

The Minister of Communications, Dr Ivy Matsepe-Cassaburri, has been denied leave to appeal (see Minister scratches back below) in the judgement in favour of Altech's right to have its value-added network service (VANS) licence converted into an individual electronic communications network service (I-ECNS) licence, allowing it to deploy a telecommunications network. It is anyone's guess what she

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-86198385291098011912008-10-27T06:06:00.003+02:002008-10-27T06:33:08.772+02:00

The matric (school-leaving exam in SA) results of Mr Julius Malema, leader of the ANC Youth League, have been circulating in the country over the past week or so. This gentelman, who is famously prepared to "kill" to support "the revolution" managed to get 4% (an H symbol) in the exam in Standard Grade Mathematics. He did manage 57% in History (also on Standard Grade) which is, presumably, more

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-27583587459423426402008-10-05T15:33:00.005+02:002008-10-14T12:52:49.061+02:00

Last week, I was interviewed on ClassicFM in the show The Internet Economy about GIMPS - the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. During the interview, I said that there was no formula for generating prime numbers, by which I meant - of course - that there is no easy formula. As Eric Weisstein writes in the authoritative MathWorld,"all such formulas require either extremely accurate knowledge of

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-22839083552314536122008-09-27T13:46:00.005+02:002008-09-27T14:54:54.205+02:00

The postings of a fellow blogger - over at WhiteAfrican.com - has alerted me to a number of upcoming ICT events in Southern Africa, some of which had escaped my attention. I am listing them here for the convenience of the casual reader, together with one or two that I happened to have come accross myself.BarCamp Madagascar Antananarivo, 4 October 2008, www.barcamp-madagascar.net2nd International

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-53542586690824946222008-09-19T22:13:00.003+02:002008-09-19T22:59:06.284+02:00

The previous posting in this blog celebrated the court victory of Altech against ICASA and the Department of Communications (DoC). The ruling was viewed as the closest thing to a big bang liberalisation of the telecommunications industry in South Africa, especially since ICASA had announced that the ruling would not be appealed. Today, however, the DoC announced that the minister intends to lodge

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-2137368850122273942008-08-31T07:25:00.007+02:002008-09-01T06:55:14.824+02:00

Die Pretoria Hooggeregshof het verlede week beslis ten gunste van Altech en teen OKOSA en die Departement Kommunikasie in 'n uitgerekte saak oor die selfverskaffing van netwerkinfrastruktuur deur houers van sogenaamde VANS-lisensie wat vroeër deur OKOSA uitgereik is. Dít beteken dat dié - volgens berigte sowat 300 maatskappye - nie gedwing gaan word om die fasiliteite van Telkom, Neotel e.d.m. te

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-64612268675734682092008-04-19T14:45:00.002+02:002008-04-19T15:26:07.245+02:00

Before reading further, please identify "[Google Mail]" and "[GMail]" in the screenshot on the right.For a week or two now, I have noticed strange behaviour when using my GMail from my desktop client, Claws Mail, using IMAP. Two things bothered me especially:The Sent folder one of my accounts had apparently stopped being updated about 10 days ago. Nevertheless, on the GMail web interface,

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-60960022634376571932008-04-04T17:50:00.002+02:002008-04-04T17:54:34.436+02:00

For those far from the fatal shores of - once sunny - South Africa: the state monopoly power utility uses "load shedding" as a euphemism for rolling blackouts.Ek het nie woorde nie.

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-11800398900195295192008-03-14T22:14:00.005+02:002008-03-15T11:52:31.747+02:00

Eskom het aangekondig dat kwotas ingestel sal word vanaf 1 Julie 2008 vir huishoudelike en industriële gebruik van elektrisiteit. Dít sal behels dat straftariewe betaal moet word vir verbruik wat hoër is as 90% van die gemiddelde verbruik oor 'n tydperk in die verlede, aangekondig as Oktober 2006 tot September 2007. Dit klink pragtig en deugdelik, amper soos 'n oefen- of verslankingsprogram. Maar

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-64355278522514044642008-03-12T21:33:00.008+02:002008-03-13T09:14:13.527+02:00

Die Duitse grondwethof in Karlsruhe het beslis dat die polisie in twee Duitse deelstate nie verder sondermeer die nommerplate van verbygaand motors mag afneem en stoor nie. Die uitspraak is ook van toepassing op ander Duitse deelstate waar dié tipe bewaking toegepas word. Dit is vanselfsprekend kommerwekkend indien die owerhede basies 'n rekord opbou van mense, of hulle motors, se bewegings.In

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-48877292566783881282008-02-29T15:05:00.008+02:002008-03-03T09:31:45.602+02:00

I could not really imagine that there is too much worth reading in the average Big U e-mail account but here is how you can easily hijack one, as well as the user account for the same person - letting you, potentially cavort around the Big U intranet as that user. All you need to know is the person's username, say ALBERTE - which Big U, contrary to all the usual advice, also uses as the e-mail

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-32445774336807001112008-02-08T00:54:00.000+02:002008-02-08T13:09:22.317+02:00

I am in Budapest at the moment, using a 3G card from Vodafone Hungary, provided with the apartment which I am renting. It occurred to me to check out the call rates and South Africans will be chagrined to find that Vodafone Hungary offers 1000 (sic) free weekend/evening minutes on a package costing R138,40 per month (at today' s exchange rate). On this package, calls to other Vodafone subscribers

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-17235838881908335932008-01-03T09:27:00.000+02:002008-01-03T21:48:39.622+02:00

ITweb reports today that Black Earth Communications (BEC) will be challenging the ICASA decision not to grant it a licence for pay-TV services in SA. Apparently represented by Cape Town ICT attorneys Michalsons, BEC was one of ten applicants not to receive a licence. Since the technology for pay-TV does not require the use of any scarce resource, one can presume that the decision to deny licences

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-73525948253041853102007-12-29T06:10:00.000+02:002007-12-31T08:53:13.494+02:00

Met die uitvinding van die verestoffer, gemaak van kalkoenvere, het die Amerikaanse Susan Hibbard 'n deurbraak gemaak. Haar storie word egter verskeie plekke op die Internet (o.a. die Amerikaanse openbare diens-uitsaaier, PBS, se webbladsye) onjuis aangehaal. Dit word vertel dat haar bose eggenoot die patent by haar wou wegneem en in sy naam registreer en dat sy in die hof sou moes veg om dit te

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-65250519350941427272007-12-19T11:44:00.000+02:002007-12-20T00:37:48.246+02:00

Een van die burgerregte wat gevestig is tydens die 17e-eeuse bewind van die Oliver Cromwell in Engeland, is (aldus Wikipedia) die reg om mensself te weerhou van self-inkriminasie tydens 'n kriminele verhoor. Dié reg is baie belangrik omdat dit die vergryp van gedwonge bekentenisse, dikwels deur marteling, bekamp het. Vandag is dié reg veral bekend uit Amerikaanse TV-reekse en films, waar die

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-8002381201880079082007-12-15T07:38:00.000+02:002007-12-15T08:06:05.159+02:00

Vodacom sal doodluiters iemand, wie se rekening ten volle betaal is, se diens opskort - selfs al het die persoon 'n dekade se goeie betalingsgeskiedenis (van seker R100 000,00 of méér). Dít is my storie.Donderdagoggend sit ek in die verleentheid dat my selfoon nie die kompleks se hek kan oopmaak nie want "your service has been suspended". Ek is reeds meer as 10 jaar lank 'n

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-20106396142771707662007-12-15T07:28:00.000+02:002007-12-15T07:33:32.847+02:00

This week I had to take the step - in spite of some previous difficulties I had had with GMail - to switch all my e-mail to GMail. For several years now I have been running my own IMAP server on a Pentium II sitting in my cupboard at home. This has been my primary e-mail access (using fetchmail to collect my e-mail from various other servers) and has worked better than any other solution that I

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-26857520451622118862007-10-14T00:04:00.000+02:002007-10-14T00:36:02.263+02:00

Ek het sopas A Country At War With Itself: South Africa’s Crisis of Crime van Antony Altbeker klaar gelees. Dit is 'n bietjie van die onderwerp af vir dié webjoernaal maar ek wil dit sterk aanbeveel vir enigiemand wat in SA woon of belangstel. Altbeker raak 'n paar onderwerpe aan wat met tegnologie te doen het:hoe eskalerende verdediging lei tot eskaleerde geweld, byvoorbeeld motordiefstal wat

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-26037134412819311742007-09-13T10:05:00.000+02:002007-09-13T11:54:15.400+02:00

Diegene wat hoop op 'n spoedige einde aan SA se peperduur Internet- en telefoniepryse is hierdie week 'n gevoelige slag toegedien. Die Eassy-konsortium (waarvan Neotel, Telkom en MTN saam 27% besit en wat ook deur die Wêreldbank befonds word) staan gereed om 'n kabel wat SA en die ooskus van Afrika, Europa en Asië sal verbind, by Mtunzini aan wal te bring. Die Ministerie (of, is dit, Misterie?)

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-73930612586082879702007-08-10T09:57:00.000+02:002007-08-10T10:46:37.757+02:00

Somalia has not had a recognised government since 1991. Not totally surprisingly, the country has a vibrant and unregulated telecommunications sector. According to a BBC report from 2004 some of the highlights of the Somali market includea three-day wait for installation of a landline;US$10/month for unlimited local calls (VAT is irrelevant, one presumes);150Mbps Internet in central Mogadishu,

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-34932042940812006802007-07-02T07:54:00.000+02:002007-07-02T08:12:04.961+02:00

A very persuasive posting by Russel Southwood of Balancing Act today points out that "universal service" agencies, who - according to the World Bank - are sitting on $4500m of unspent funds, should use this money to simply expand the power grid in rural areas, especially in Africa. According to Russel the cost of providing power generators for mobile base stations in areas where there is no or an

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-4574941607400375192007-07-01T10:56:00.000+02:002007-07-01T23:28:30.361+02:00

Enkele weke gelede het 'n Internetsoektog my toevallig attent gemaak op die bestaan van 'n plek met die naam Pylpunt. Die soektog het verband gehou met iets in die omgewing en ek het vir die snaaksigheid na http://maps.google.com/ gegaan en die naam Pylpunt ingetik. Siedaar - dis 'n plek of kruising langs die N1, net noord van Pretoria, so 15km van waar ek woon. Waarom vind ek dit snaaks? Omdat

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-72089954618602374342007-06-06T05:04:00.000+02:002007-06-06T17:37:21.110+02:00

Die meeste van ons ken die roetine wanneer die sitplekgordelligte afgeskakel word op 'n vreemde lughawe: die selfoon word aangeskakel, konnekteer aan 'n plaaslike netwerk wat dadelik 'n verwelkomingsboodskap stuur en 'n mens ontvang dadelik 'n paar SMSe van Suid-Afrika af en laat weet dat 'n mens veilig aangekom het. Dit is nou maar deesdae deel van die normale lewe - maar nie meer vir lank in

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-52792507404035692422007-06-05T06:05:00.000+02:002007-06-05T06:20:35.212+02:00

The Financial Mail reports in its issue of 4 June on the pronouncement by Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri that South Africa will have to use DVB-H standard for delivering television content to cellphone screens. One has to wonder why the government is involved at all in regulating a matter as trivial as the broadcasting of eGoli to the dinky little screen of some teenager's (who else will have the

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-76500696608708190002007-05-28T04:43:00.000+02:002007-05-28T19:35:24.415+02:00

To the average South African, the cellphone industry looks like a maelstrom of competition and innovation. After decades of having the post office run our telephone network, this is perhaps not surprising. Many are however aware that we are paying very high rates for cellphone calls and believe that these rates need stricter regulation. This posting argues that we might actually need less

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-57187515359476181522007-04-29T08:18:00.000+02:002007-04-29T08:55:34.860+02:00

The title of this posting is not an offer - it is a very clear instruction. For ten years I have been using an e-mail address in the .za top-level domain (TLD) which is now (after numerous takeovers) owned by South Africa's largest ISP, MWeb. It has all been a mistake. MWeb has apparently not been properly maintaining the DNS records for the domain name which I am using and as a result many

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1176645200909022422007-04-15T15:35:00.000+02:002007-04-15T16:11:02.690+02:00

On Friday I got quite a boring looking but nice Dell Latitude D820 laptop (Intel Core Duo processor and 2GB of RAM) with WinXP pre-installed. The most important task was getting a working Linux installation on the machine and a first attempt, with Ubuntu 6.10 ("Edgy Eft") from DVD, nicely repartitioned the hard drive and installed in under 20 minutes but somehow failed to do much with the

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1175964042410933372007-04-07T18:36:00.000+02:002007-04-07T18:40:42.420+02:00

It seems that LowRateVoip is offering 200 minutes per week of free calls to Malawi (landlines only) and Zambia (landlines and cellphones) for users of their MS-Windows client. Using the same client, calls to SA cellphones are also advertised at under R1/minute which is very reasonable. Any current users of LowRateVoip, please comment on this post!

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1175842878128904472007-04-06T08:40:00.000+02:002007-04-06T09:01:18.143+02:00

Tegnologiewaarnemers hou al geruime tyd die aandeelhouding van Naspers in Tencent QQ dop. QQ is die mees gewilde kitsboodskap-stelsel in Asië (Engels: instant messaging). Die Wall Street Journal berig verlede week dat QQ se virtuele geldeenheid, die Q-munt waarmee oorspronklik net dienste in virtuele objekte in die QQ-wêreld gekoop kon word, nou in die regte wêreld gebruik word. Q-munte kan teen

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1175662430285395622007-04-04T06:42:00.000+02:002007-04-04T06:53:50.296+02:00

In a long interview in the FT the president has a few things to say about Telkom.Take this undersea cable. They are charging I don’t know so many hundreds of percent more per unit of time than is being charged elsewhere in the world. So we say to Telkom, we can’t be saying, here is a sector of the economy which can attract a lot of people – and indeed many companies around in some instances led

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1175145855228757982007-03-29T08:00:00.000+02:002007-04-01T14:02:58.230+02:00

Suid-Afrikaners is só gewoond aan monopolieë dat die meeste mense nie twee keer dink oor die feit dat ons betaal-TV ook deur monopolie (verfrissend, in die privaatsektor dié keer) oorheers word. Ons wonder ook nie veel daaroor dat ons geen kabel-TV in hierdie land het nie - „dis mos Afrika.” Min mense weet dat DSTV eintlik al die tyd geen lisensie het om in SA uit te saai nie - hulle het hier in

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1174369126833826952007-03-20T08:11:00.000+02:002007-03-20T08:38:46.843+02:00

The Highway Africa news agency reports that Alcatel-Lucent has signed the contract to build the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy). EASSy will stretch along the east coast of Africa, from Mtunzini in Kwazulu-Natal to Port Sudan and then connect to major submarine cables running through the Red Sea. EASSy has been criticised (read Just say No to EASSy by RH Alden) for repeating the

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1173128063296522842007-03-05T22:22:00.000+02:002007-03-05T22:54:23.306+02:00

This evening I had the dubious pleasure of having to report a fault on a relative's Telkom line and was initially pleased to see the link to "online fault reporting" on Telkom's website. I completed the form twice and each time got no more than the following notice.Now, the request to report the fault is reasonable, but no correspondence address is given so I am reporting it here. Incidentally,

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1171815182985356002007-02-18T17:50:00.000+02:002007-02-19T05:55:10.140+02:00

My post about Jajah zones (below) mentioned that South Africa was in the same expensive-to-call zone as Malawi, Laos and others. Well, beautiful Malawi (currently dead last on the IMF list of 181 countries by purchasing-power GDP per capita) has moved ahead and landlines as well as cellphones (of registered users) in that country can now apparently be called for free (gratis, mahala) from your PC

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1170111489007436472007-01-30T00:40:00.000+02:002007-01-30T00:58:09.016+02:00

Volgens berigte begin die WNNR die Open Document Format (ODF) bevorder vir die berging van kantoordokumente. Dit het blykbaar 'n ontplooiing van gratis en oopbron OpenOffice op lessenaarmasjiene op die WNNR se kampus in Pretoria behels en 'n mens kan dié organisasie net gelukwens met dié keuse. In die persverklaring maak Dr Sibisi (uitvoerende hoof) dit duidelik dat die WNNR besef hoe belangrik

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1167145144766502042006-12-26T16:40:00.000+02:002007-01-09T08:43:37.106+02:00

Christmas day this year saw a notable first for South Africans - free calls, all day, on and between all networks, provided the call was initiated using the website of Jajah.com. In fact South Africans could make free phone calls using Jajah to landlines or cellphones in some 90 countries! Jajah is basically a callback service where one enters the telephone numbers of all parties to a proposed

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1165677327075622172006-12-09T17:13:00.000+02:002006-12-12T17:40:06.996+02:00

UPDATE: FPB spokesman Iyvar Chetty has been quoted as saying that "We would like to be in a position to be able to police the distribution of pictures via cellphones." And, by this he apparently does mean that naughty picture you sent your significant other on Valentine's Day. Sjoe.South Africa's dreaded Film and Publication Board (FPB, a remarkably resilient left-over from the dark days when

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1165265839812456122006-12-04T22:24:00.000+02:002006-12-04T22:57:19.823+02:00

A few days ago, I read an article on the Sunday Times website about an integrated electronic document system in a pilot phase at 36 regional courts in the Durban area. In South Africa it is a very common problem that files "get lost" when suspects are supposed to appear in court. Ours being a civilised legal system, sloppy paper work leads to findings of innocence. The expansion of the Durban

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1165139076590297842006-12-03T11:31:00.000+02:002006-12-03T11:47:47.906+02:00

Die afgelope week of twee het ek my selfoon permanent en uitsluitlik op die 3G-netwerk ingestel nadat ek besef het dat dít eweveel die batterylewe help bespaar is om 3G-modus heeltemal uit te skakel. Die rede hiervoor is dat dit oënskynlik die gedurige oorskakel tussen 3G en die ouer netwerk is wat die batterylewe van my geliefde Samsung erg verkort. In Pretoria is die 3G-netwerk orals beskikbaar

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1164776071244790252006-11-29T06:43:00.000+02:002006-11-29T07:34:58.286+02:00

As a child (this was before the Internet!), listening to shortwave radio was a fascinating way to connect to the outside world. One of the intriguing features of this world has long been the so-called numbers stations - usually automated voices simply reading out streams of digits all day long. BBC4 has just broadcast a nice documentary (RealAudio stream) on these stations. Radio Sonder Grense

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1164142856186763342006-11-21T22:51:00.000+02:002006-11-23T06:25:49.100+02:00

The number of Telkom fixed line telephone connections has declined yet again, down more that 100 000 year-on-year since September 2005, according to a MyADSL article. Since Telkom is still (effectively) the monopoly provider, regular readers of this blog (and many others) will not be suprised. SA's teledensity seems set to remain, resolutely, below 10% and the government's target of 5%

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1164085635232201452006-11-21T06:42:00.000+02:002006-11-21T07:08:20.186+02:00

Die Onafhanklike Kommunikasie-Owerheid van Suid-Afrika (ICASA), wat so besig is dat hulle in 2002 laas 'n permanente uitsaailisensie toegestaan het, het toegeslaan op RadioX - 'n laedrywing FM-sender in die noorde van Johannesburg en al RadioX se toerusting gekonfiskeer, aldus MyADSL. In 2005 het OKOSA ook Klub Radio 100, 'n radiosender op Orania (kan die spektrum dáár regtig oorbelas wees?),

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-1163704510409090282006-11-16T20:54:00.000+02:002006-11-16T21:15:10.430+02:00

VOIP service provider TelFree is marketing a broadband telephony product in South Africa with a local number and interconnectivity agreements with other local telcos. This is something of a first in South Africa but before I put down my R39/month (which is what I recall the price is for their dial-in number), let me remark thatI tried to call the TelFree VOIP customer service number +27-87-750-

Petrus Potgieterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com10