Powerful and moving. www.dayswithmyfather.com is a moving annotated photo essay by Phillip Toledano. The photos are moving and beautiful and the stories sad at times. Being a dad myself, it grips me around the heart. Its an incredible thing Phillip did for his dad… pity his dad probably don’t even realise it. Do yourself the favor and go check it out.
While in Cape Town Dave showed me this video. (Thanks Dave!) I’ve now watched it over and over. It is simply brilliant. If there is one video you should watch (specially if you have or are going to have kids) it is this one!
It is a scary thought how way behind our school curriculum still is and at what pace our world is changing at the moment. I agree with Ken that conventional schools should seriously learn to adapt.
Another statement I simply LOVE is “If you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with anything original.” So often we are guilty by pressuring our kids not to fail. Whether in sport or academic, we live in a society where failure and mistakes bare a very low tolerance , which is so wrong! Even ourselves. We’re too scared to do something new as we’re scared we would fail. It is sad actually!
Its a long video (almost 20 minutes), but well worth watching.
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Micro$oft might be buying a smallish stake in Facebook, if you want to call $300 to $500 million a smallish stake! Already geeks are up in arms and have started a Facebook group called “If Facebook sells to Microsoft, we’re leaving”.
Now I dislike Microsoft as much as the next geek, but then again I don’t have not much love for Facebook either! I’d much rather use Orkut. The funny thing about this is that Facebook (ironically) is built using non-Microsoft technology (PHP) while Orkut on the other hand IS using ASP.NET.
The Facebook group gives this reason for aborting Facebook if Microsoft buys:
However, given Microsoft’s dismal record in protecting the privacy of users, most clearly demonstrated when Hotmail became an overloaded hotbed for spam and security breaches in which Microsoft itself was both negligent and complicit, you can bet that Facebook’s signon will be replaced with a Live ID (Passport Network) signon. Savvy internet users have long vowed never to use any service that requires a Microsoft Passport or Live ID, so here’s hoping Google beats Microsoft to the deal. At least Google hasn’t (yet) proven that we can’t trust it with our private data.
Thats all good and well, accept (and excuse my ignorance) what privacy? If you want privacy, stop using Social Networking sites! Baddies can only steal from Facebook what you gave to Facebook! Nah, not so sure that reason flies well with me. You should definitely NOT store sensitive data on ANY Social Networking site, let alone Microsoft sites. Its what they call S-I-L-L-Y. You should also not use Windoze, but people don’t listen…
That aside, although I do despise the whole Windoze LiveID thing, security is not the main reason why I’d leave Facebook. I took a particular dislike in Microsoft and SCO’s efforts in beating down on Linux. It left more than a bad taste in my mouth and was terribly lame bullying tactics from two mean giants. At least SCO is getting whats been coming to them and are being de-listed from NASDAQ on the 27th of September. Thats what you get for trying to screw someone for a buck! Karma, baby!
The thing is though that Microsoft will only have a smallish stake in Facebook which is 5%. I doubt they will be able to call the shots and force their LiveID onto the Facebook community. That being said, I’m sure there will be no lack of trying! It is valuable to have all those numbers using your technology!
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ABSA is still offering connectivity to their clients. I remember in the past they had a free dial-up connectivity deal going (that was before broadband) and are still trying to add value to their services. Only problem is, there is NOTHING good about their offering! Why do it if offered as a value added service? I’m sure their aim is not making a lot of money from it. Its not their core business anyway!
Compare ABSA’s offering for 6 GB bandwidth @ R448.00 to Web Africa’s 10 GB bandwidth @ R490.00. For R42.00 more you get 4 GB more bandwidth if you go with Web Africa! I’d say ABSA is giving a raw deal… It would be interesting to know how many people fall for their deal just because they do not know of any better? Shape up or get lost ABSA!
Absa’s pricing matrix:
Web Africa’s deal
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“Open Source” is not the right term to use here, I know, but what I’m getting at is the same kind of philosophy applies. A cracker cracks software. He then either make the cracked software available for free over P2P (see the analogy?) or he tell others how he did it on some devious crack site… Almost like a Freshmeat for piracy, but with tons of pr0n pop-ups and malicious code… The cracker himself does not always benefit hugely from it other than having commercial software for free…
This article got some valid points! http://tlug.jp/articles/Windows_Is_Free The impact of piracy is far more damaging to the FSF and the Open Source community than what is realised! (Thanks Capdog on muti!)
If you start scrutinizing Microsoft Windows licences, you’ll see that there is ACTUALLY very, VERY little legal copies out in the market! I remeber a couple of years ago when I was working as a sys-admin, they nailed one of our customers due to the fact that some hardware components was replaced and Windows re-installed without re-purchasing a new licence. The fact that Microsoft does not cannot control it, actually is to their advantage! Talk about “guerilla marketing”… Hows that for a strategy!
Don’t know why this has not yet been announced, but at last I’m one of the first for a change! Tyler Reed has joined the Cerebra boys! Congrats Tyler. By the looks of things, you are in for an exciting ride!
And more so, congrats Dave, Mike and Carl for getting Tyler!
Is Telkom joing the 2.0 scene? At first I thought so… I think they might be trying, but is busy failing dismally… They should really stop and maybe talk to the Cerebra boys before they consider doing so. Anyway, I came across this new “portal” Telom launched. (Thank you Digital Pilgrim!) Its a nice looking huge bandwidth munching flash animation. It is Telkom telling us how lucky we are having broadband and being able to do all sorts of stuff to generate them more money. Lets face it, everytime you watch a Youtube video, Telkom makes money. Every song you download from iTunes or wherever, Telkom makes money. They now went as far as actually encouraging you to do so, so they can make more money…
As much as I hate giving them any sort of publicity, I hate it more to keep quiet! So here goes:
Telkom launched its “do” portal. Its a portal mainly promoting Telkom products and how good they are and what all you can do with them. It totally sucks! Apparently you can register and download music and movies and what-not. I’m not even going to bother registering…
I feel like a conspiracy theorist saying this, but it all seems like they are now promoting that you should “kill your cap” so they can benefit a bit more…
Then another thing that bothers the crap out of me is those ads down the right-hand side. Is it paid for ads? If so, then I would appeal that we boicot iTunes, Youtube, Computicket, EA Gaming, Aardvark (not that I think boicotting aardvark is worth abything since nobody prolly uses them!), and a few others. How the hell can these companies support this evil monopoly?! Dissappointed I am… If it is not paid for advertising, I would like to urge these companies to sue the crap out of Telkom for the bad association they have caused!
Max, my friend, I’m with you on whatever you want to do to Telkom.
I feel sorry for our local ISP’s. How can they compete with their international counterparts when it comes to hosting of sites? It simply does not make sense! SA web sites are jumping ship (and we are following soon!) and moving to international hosts, and who can blame them? It makes zero business sense to host locally for R4000.00 when you can do so for more features and bandwidth internationally at R400.00! That is: You get more for 10% of the price. Either my maths sucks or ISP’s are being ripped off / is ripping us off.
Lets face it, ISP’s HAVE to charge what they do in order to simply SURVIVE.Hellkom makes it damn difficult for these guys to stay competitive! Bulk of our huge hosting fees goes for bandwidth and that they have to pay over to Hellkom again.
Paul over at Wired Gecko and Max is talking action against the monopoly that is Hellkom… I guess the best starting point is to rally up all the local ISP’s since they are the ones that is getting the smallest of the hind tits (at least when you talk hosting!). They are being forced to offer completely uncompetitive hosting fees, while you can get 10 x of what they offer for 10% of the prices they charge!
For connectivity we all pay dearly. We do not have many choices. For hosting we do have choices, and most of us do choose to exercise our freedom of choice by hosting on overseas servers. All-in-all, we are all getting screwed one way or another! I hate feeling screwed…
Is hellopeter.com a fair service? Some guy on reporter.co.za wrote a complaint that he was listed on hellopeter.com for delivering bad service. Although he had the opportunity to set things straight there and then, he did not.
Hellopeter allows users to lay complaints against companies giving unsatisfactory service. BRILLIANT!!! Two huge problems though:
If your company was listed there, in order for you to respond and explain your side of the story, you need to pay from R13 500 up to R60 000 to do so! That seems a bit unfair if you ask me.
Claims of bad service do not get investigated. Also not so fair.
As the guy on reporter.co.za stated:
“Just imagine: you just started out with
your own company. Now everyone who has ever attempted starting his own
company will quickly point out to you how you need to stretch your
pennies when you are still establishing yourself. Then along comes your jealous neighbour
or even a competitor, sucks something out of his thumb and posts it on
hellopeter.com. Immediately you are set back at least R13 500 and
that’s excluding all the negative marketing you will have to put up
with.“
Now, we do NOT need something we cannot trust. If Peter Cheales would like to run a fair service “searching for service excellence” he need to either make it free altogether or he needs to fully and properly investigate claims before publishing them on the web site!
What bugs me is why did this Creationist guy that wrote on reporter.co.za not set the records straight? He had a brilliant opportunity to do so. Now he rather complains about Hellopeter instead of referencing the complain together with his reply. Simple and free!
Tim says the phrase “Web 2.0″ first arose in “a brainstormingsession between O’Reilly and Medialive International.” What is Medialive International? “Producers of technology tradeshows and conferences,” according to their site. So presumably that’s what this brainstorming session was about. O’Reilly wanted to organize aconference about the web, and they were wondering what to call it.
I don’t think there was any deliberate plan to suggest there was a new version of the web. They just wanted to make the point that the web mattered again. It was a kind of semantic deficit spending: they knew new things were coming, and the “2.0″ referred to whatever those might turn out to be.
And they were right. New things were coming. But the new version number led to some awkwardness in the short term. In the process of developing the pitch for the first conference, someone must have decided they’d better take a stab at explaining what that “2.0″referred to. Whatever it meant, “the web as a platform” was at least not too constricting.
The story about “Web 2.0″ meaning the web as a platform didn’t live much past the first conference. By the second conference, what “Web 2.0″ seemed to mean was something about democracy. At least, it did when people wrote about it online. The conference itself didn’t seem very grassroots. It cost $2800, so the only people who could afford to go were VCs and people from big companies.
And yet, oddly enough, Ryan Singel’s article about the conference in Wired News spoke of “throngs of geeks.” When a friend of mine asked Ryan about this, it was news to him. He said he’d originally written something like “throngs of VCs and biz dev guys” but had later shortened it just to “throngs,” and that this must have in turn been expanded by the editors into “throngs of geeks.” After all, a Web 2.0 conference would presumably be full of geeks, right?
Well, no. There were about 7. Even Tim O’Reilly was wearing a suit, a sight so alien I couldn’t parse it at first. I saw him walk by and said to one of the O’Reilly people “that guy looks just like Tim.”
“Oh, that’s Tim. He bought a suit.” I ran after him, and sure enough, it was. He explained that he’d just bought it in Thailand.
The 2005 Web 2.0 conference reminded me of Internet trade shows during the Bubble, full of prowling VCs looking for the next hot startup. There was that same odd atmosphere created by a large number of people determined not to miss out. Miss out on what? They didn’t know. Whatever was going to happen—whatever Web 2.0 turned out to be.
I read another interesting thing Tim O’Reilly said a while ago when he was asked to give advice for 2007. The heading reads “Put yourself at the center of the action” It is taken out of Intelligence Magazine - the February 2007 edition. I’m not re-typing the entire article. Only the first two of his six points.
1. Be first
This is one of the immutable laws of marketing. Who was the first person to fly across the Atlantic? Lindbergh. Who was the second? No Idea.
2. If you cannot be first, create a new category so you can be first.
Who was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic? Amelia Earhart. New category. We did not have the first Web conference out there, but when we applied “Web2.0″ to the category, we created something new.
Although I’m pretty sure it was not the only reason why the term Web2.0 was created, it sure is a major reason! Interesting…
