Eish!!: May 2007

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Google goes offline

Google is moving into the offline desktop space with the launch of Google Gears.
While it currently only supports Google Reader (the RSS reader you should be using to subscribe to Eish!! so you don't miss out on a single posting) word on the street is that it will eventually be able to support Gmail and Google Docs in the not too distant future.
What does this mean for us users in South Africa?
Currently vanilla Google offerings required a browser and an active internet connection. They have spreadsheet, word processor, email, calendar, notebook applications available to all for free. The fact that you have to be online to utilise them is a major hindrance to those who wish to use them on the go. Remembering, how can we forget, the high cost of telecom.s here in South Africa this become more than just a hindrance. Been able to store the files on the computer you will be working on will begin to make these offering compete head on with MSOffice and OpenOffice. The big difference being the cross pc synchronisation opportunity this offers.
If I have to be honest, I am still partial to OpenOffice. I think their offering offers a while load more features than Google Apps, however competition is good. Long may it last.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Top SA Blogs bandwidth survey results

At the end of last month I wrote a post complaining about the month end bandwidth overusage. At the time of writing, I couldn't help but wonder what effect this would have on the general surfing habits of the SA's internet users and obviously blog reads.
So I sent a survey to a couple of SA's top blogs asking a few questions around this phenomenon. While not earthbreaking the results were interesting and brought up a seperate rather depressing trend.

My survey was short and sweet, we don't want to keep them bloggers from blogging now do we? Just three questions. From these three I would be able to spot the trends.
Let's start at the last question first.
  1. What effect, if any, does the month-end congestion have on your site's response time, down time & hit rate? All respondents bar one replied that they do not see any noticeable effect. Eric Edelstein (ericedelstein.com/incuBeta.com/TrafficSynergy.com amongst others) also didn't "see much difference - although I do see differences on the different hosting company's I use - regardless of where they are based." So the slow response experienced by some users is not preventing them from reading their favourite blogs. That's good news. It could also mean that because critical mass has yet to be reached in SA we are still at the stage where it's the hardcore users that are viewing blogs in a regular basis. These guys and gals are not going to logoff and wait for tomorrow. They will rather open a few Firefox tabs, go make a cup of coffee and come back once their favourite, favourites are loaded and ready to be viewed.
Knowing the slow response inevitably effects those trying to surf sites hosted internationally more than those hosted locally, my first question was actually
  1. Is your site hosted locally or internationally? Just short of 80% of all those polled use international hosting companies. If you consider that Rouvanne van den Berg's websites currently hosted locally are soon to be moved overseas and the Eric uses both local and international hosts, this percentage could actually be even higher.
Of course, I had to ask the important follow-up question :
  1. What was your prime motivator for hosting decision? This was where the stark reality of our current internet costs become evident. The overriding reason was cost or, as Rafiq Phillips of Your Group of Web AddiCT(s); puts it "cost, cost, cost." Vincent Maher of My Digital Life and, of course Amatomu, fame goes one step further, "Its a blanket policy of mine because I feel that local ISPs are overcharging and their service is poor." Neville Newey, www.muti.co.za, lists support for python, a "cumbersome sign up process",bandwidth speed, reliability and the lack of cap as his reasons for using international hosting services. Vaughn of Ninjamonkeys.co.za illustrates how "for the same price you get 2gb bandwidth here, or 20gb in Germany."

So to summarise it seems that the month-end congestion is becoming less and less of an issue. The big issue is the cost of bandwidth & hosting fees.

Uno deWaal proposed bloggers should be taking action in his post "How to fight for Local Bandwidth." This proposal did not get much traction. Why not? The answer is simple and is illustrated by the results above. It's way simpler to use an overseas hosting company. Better, service, cheaper costs, easier sign up procedures. Who can argue with that? Nic @ nicharalambous.com emphasises the point in yesterdays post titled : "Locally Hosted SA Site Will Not Succeed." His very success with SA Rocks is what caused the site to go down. Sure this happens worldwide, as is evident by the common "Digg Effect" complaints, but that is as a result of many multiples more bandwidth usage and usually on those sites hosted on free services .The fact that his hosting company had to be "gracious" doesn't sit well with me.

Let me end by thanking all those bloggers who responded to my mail. The SA blogosphere is a fantastic community to be part of, however small that part may be. Everyone is so willinug to cross promote, give advice and contribute to the greater good, blogging. Let's hope it stays that way. Sure, it would have been nice if those bloggers affiliated to commercial entities could also have responded but, hey, can't expect too much now can we?

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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

It's time to take responsibility

It's been a little while since I ranted, and expressed my opinion. So I reckoned it was time to have my say.
Having started a new job this month (working for a boss for the first time in six or so years) I have struggled a bit in keeping up my blog reading. So I decided this morning to have a quick glance at my blogrolled blogs.
Mixed Messages a post @ Craniacs Place a fellow blogger from the Cape caught me attention, mainly as a result of the clever photo(his blog is worth a regular visit for the photographs alone). The post was about the way two sister magazine's front page headline differed for the same story. The related story, MxIt/Smses destroying a marriage.
Now let me say from the outset, I have not read the story and doubt I ever will as I, as a rule, do not read "You", "Huisgenoot" or like magazines. (If they had a couple of pages of scantily clad women then things would change, but that's another story)
So now for the meat. The premise that smses, internet messaging, emails or any other form of technology can be the cause of a marriage really, as Craniac put's it, "winds me up."
Why, in this day and age, do we need to look for excuses for our actions. It's starts from our very birth. Those of you who are parents or have spent any extended time around toddlers, have you heard "shame poor Johnny must be tired" (just after he has thrown a massive temper tantrum in PnP because mom would not buy the R300-00 truck-trailer set we saw passing by the toy section.) And the excuses keep coming, interestingly usually not from the person themselves. Video games, tv, school curriculae (is that spelt correctly, I'm confused), corporal punishment, lack of corporal punishment, overly involved parents, parents not involved enough, poverty, being spoilt as a child ... the list goes on ... the internet, movies, race, communism, capitalism .... okay you get the point I will stop now. I could pick each one of those listed excuses and expand but perhaps that would be labouring the point. This is a blog post, not a psychology paper. After all, as Mr Bullard continues to drone, I am no expert.

Here's my suggestion, let's take responsibility for our actions and demand that others do to.

Eish! Now that's a rant!!

Survey results tomorrow. (How's your bandwidth doing?)

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Monday, May 28, 2007

Let them sing it for you

Here's something to make your Monday pass just a little quicker.

Let them sing it for you is a little website that allows you to get your message sung. You type in your text and the within seconds you have it sung back to you. There is a catch, but it is rather cool. The words are cut out of a multitude of songs. The very craziness of the result is it's beauty.

Have I explained this coherently? Click the link below and you will see what I mean.

http://www.sr.se/P1/src/sing/index.htm#

btw. Month-end is coming. Last month I complained about the bandwidth glut experienced when South African ADSL users ensure they utilise their full bandwidth allocation for the month. As a result I polled the top SA blogsites for their experiences. I have purposefully left the publishing of the results for month-end. So pop back soon.

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Saturday, May 26, 2007

How useful is Gmail's new attachment limit?

Gmail, Google's free (and fantastic) email service has just upped its attachment size limit to 20mb.

Firstly, what does this mean for gmail users? Well, in my opinion, not a hell of a lot. The problem is that there are not many other email services that will accept this attachment or send an attachment of that size. Yahoo!'s Mail Plus will besides the odd small email service. Obviously Gmail to Gmail would me no problem.
Perhaps, this will be the start of something though and other providers will also up their limits. This will open up the Senator Ted Steven's full tubes debate again.

So what does this mean to us here in South Africa? For one be careful downloading those massive attachments though, they could seriously dent the monthly cap.

Here's a tip. You can use Gmail as a repository or mini-backup service. Get your self a copy of the Firefox Gspace add-on. This turns your Gmail account into a virtual FTP site.

We always appreciate free stuff here in South Africa.









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Friday, May 25, 2007

Dont p-off your clients



One of the benefits of the age of Web 2.0 is the ease with which you can get your message heard. It's not necessary to find yourself a sympathetic journalist on a slow news day or take out an expensive print ad when you feel you have been abused, ignored or extorted by corporations.


Hey, simply log on to a consumer website like HelloPeter.com or better still start your own blog or website. Seriaas!!According to GottoQuirk (10 May Uninspired, Unmotivated, Uninvolved), that's what Gideon Galloway did. He felt that StandardBank had messed around enough to motivate him to not only create http://www.mystandardbankstory.co.za/ but nogal pay for GoogleAds to get his story extra traction.


I read his story, and while he's got a point and I hope he succeeds in his quest to get his money back, I think the bigger picture here is the potential for this type of consumer action.Companies take note, look after your clients, the bush telegraph just got fertilised.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Wowturf - Parents take note

Wowturf has been around for a good couple of months. It's surprised me how little traction that it's got, so Eish!! is going to see if we can help them out.

What is Wowturf? Perhaps half the problem is in the name. I don't see the link between what it is and the name it's been given, perhaps it's just me. Nevertheless, I digress.
Wowturf is a resource for anyone who has ever needed to try and entertain children for anything longer than five minutes. In their own words " WowTurf is a virtual reality, educational locus where adults can explore exciting things to do with kids of all ages."
The idea is to help parents find activities they can do with their children. They have crafts(projects), restaurants that are kid-centric, birthday party venues and my favourite, but oddly named "To Do" category. The latter being venues and activities the whole family can enjoy, not things the webmaster still wants to add to the website.

While it is obviously focussed on South African venues (in fact seems to be dominated by Cape Town based activities, but Eish!! readers are going to change that right?!) the projects can be useful to any parent anywhere in the world, especially on those cold, wintery days when the children start getting irritated with being couped up inside. It could also be a great resource to those overseas visitors w to check out before coming to South Africa.

Anyone can add ideas and venues, so do your fellow parents, and the website hosts, a favour and add your foolproof ideas.

This could grow into a fantastic resource.

Link : http://www.wowturf.org

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

All the software you need ... for free

The main reason for me starting this blog was to have an avenue to share things I have found on the internet that can be useful to others.
One of the websites I have been using for a couple of years now is FreewareFiles.com. This is a fantastic site that has thousands of genuinely free applications, drivers & codecs. There is not much you will not find here.
I case in point was this past weekend. I have been using iTunes to rip my cds but for some reason iTunes would not open. I really wasn't in the mood to spend time troubleshooting, so I went to FreewareFiles.com and did a quick search for a cd ripper, downloaded Free Cd Ripper v1.4 and began ripping all withing a couple of minutes.
From games to accounting software, Audio players to web development tools, I am not aware of a utility you will not be able to find here, and it's free.
Sure propriety software will often (but not always) contain a whole load features that these app.s won't but the beauty of the applications you will find here is that they are usually lightweight. That way you don't need to spend hours downloading and installing something that may or may not fulfill your requirements, and then still have to pay to use it.
I especially enjoy checking in every now and then to see what the most popular downloads are and if there is anything interesting in the new files listing.
Another nice feature that each download is rated.
Next time there is something you need some software do yourself a favour and pop into FreewareFiles.com.

btw, no Eish does not get paid to post.

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Monday, May 21, 2007

A bit of comedy to warm you from inside

It was just 6 degrees traveling into work today! For Cape Town, that's bloody cold, especially when it's combined with rain. There have even been reports of snow on some of our surrounding peaks. Winter is well and truly here.
Of course this meant exaggerated morning peak traffic. However, Radio 2000 (if you appreciate good rock and roll you should be listening to this station btw) made the journey a whole lot more enjoyable by replaying this great piece of comedy by request. Suddenly the traffic didn't seem to bother me, and I found myself laughing out loud.

Enjoy!!

Jim Beuer Comedy Sketch

[Update : Please post a comment if you are able/unable to play the mp3 via the player below ]

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Saturday, May 19, 2007

Calculate your age by Eish!! reads - Explained

Here's how yesterday's puzzle works, thanks to WikiHow.com for the method.
  • This really does work for anybody from 1 to 99 years old, although the Eish!! reads part is just for fun (an added distraction). Here's how the mathematics work.
  • Select a number between 1 and 10. Multiply by 2, add 5, multiply by 50. These steps are just a fancy way to push your random number out into the hundreds place. Here is what you'll get for all possible selections:
  1. 350
  2. 450
  3. 550
  4. 650
  5. 750
  6. 850
  7. 950
  8. 1050
  9. 1150
  10. 10 1250
  • Add 1757 or 1756, if your birthday hasn't happened yet this year. This yields the year of your last birthday (2006 or 2007) plus 100 times your chosen number:
  1. 2106
  2. 2206
  3. 2306
  4. 2406
  5. 2506
  6. 2606
  7. 2706
  8. 2806
  9. 2906
  10. 3006
  • Subtract the year of your birth and get your age plus 100 times your chosen number. Put another way:
(Year of your last birthday + (100 x your chosen number)) - Year of your birth = Your age + (100 x your chosen number)

Warnings
  • This will only work in 2007! For 2008, in Step 5, add 1758 if your birthday went by and 1757 if it didn't yet.
  • Your friends may think you are strange for playing this game as it requires inputting information from their date of birth into the equation ;-).

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Friday, May 18, 2007

Calculate your age by Eish!! reads

Follow these steps and your age will be magically revealed!

  1. Determine how many Eish!! posts have you read this week?
  2. Multiply that number by 2.
  3. Add 5 to the previous result.
  4. Multiply that by 50.
  5. Add 1757 if you've had a birthday this year. If you haven't had a birthday this year, add 1756.
  6. Subtract your birth year.
  7. You'll end up with a 3 digit number, the first digit (in the hundreds place) is how many times you read Eish!! this week (the number you specified in the first step). The next two digits are your age!

Come back tomorrow for a full explanation as to how this wo

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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Welcome to Cape Town!

Submitted (but not composed) by guest blogger JustMe
Cape Town is a city on the coast of South Africa so called because the wearing of capes or cloaks is compulsory within the city limits. Founded by Batman on his way to Melbourne from Holland in 1652. Cape Town is also called "The mother city", believed to be due to the highly expressive vocabulary of the local dialect (in which the words "your mother" feature regularly) and the cheap and nasty (but potent) local wine A different school of thought believes the origin of the name lies in the fact that it takes 9 months to do anything in this sleepy hollow.

Cape Town is situated on a sandbar under Table Mountain (so called because unlike most mountains, it is flat) at the bottom end of Africa.

Cape Town became famous for petty crime such as rape,high jacking murder etc as well as the first successful heart transplant operation at its "Great Skewer" Hospital by Christian Barnyard.

Cape Town is neither as wealthy or as large as Johannesburg , so the inhabitants compensate with a superior attitude based on the claim that they were there first. Which none of them personally were, unless they are over 300 years old.

It is socially unacceptable for a Capetonian to talk to people that they have not previously talked to, which severely limits social interactions. If the opportunity should somehow present itself, a traditional Cape Town greeting is "Jou ma se xxxx", often abbreviated to "Jou ma", which means, roughly "Good day and good health to you and your good mother, sir!"

"Robin Island", in the bay, was named after Batman 's faithful sidekick. Later it was renamed "Robbin' Island" and used as a jail, like Alcatraz but with colder water around it and more sharks in it.

In spite of the revolution in 1994 severe social inequality still persists. Efforts to redress this historical imbalance are progressing well, particularly the "muggem" initiative.

Popular sports are, pretentiousness, drunk driving , pole-vaulting, homosexuality, French dressing and Mexican standoffs. The summer sport of setting fire to the mountainside is more popular with tourists than with locals, though all enjoy the cheerful spectacle of the flames and smoke.

Industries are growing the cash crops of wine and marijuana , making mousetraps, drug abuse, watching paint dry, crime and mugging tourists (not generally considered to be a crime). Cape Town holds the record as the site of the largest car park in Cape Town.

Since 2006, the town council of Cape Town has embraced an "Amishisation " policy, and has turned it's back on the use of electricity, declaring it a decadent bourgeous luxury. Electricity is slowly being phased out in a series of "power cuts", and it is to be replaced by the use of candles, paraffin lamps and fires for illumination and sing-alongs for entertainment.


Cape Town is the first place to boast an Invisible Bridge . However, the bridge is currently not in use as the city council refused to believe the claims of the construction company when they informed the council that they had developed a new building material which was stronger than steel but could not be seen by the human eye. The city council is said to have likened the bridge fiasco to "the Emporers New clothes".


Roads Memorial celebrates the fact that Cape Town is where roads were invented. This delightfully done by means of a momument which includes important tools to road-making such as lions, a man with a horse and some dude's head.

Bergies are Cape Town's world famous mountaineers who live on table mountain and often come down into the city to welcome foreigners with the traditional Capetonian greeting of "Jou maaaa se xxxx!"

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Helping readers Schmaak Eish

I decided to take a day off from posting. Just to give you a little insight as to how Eish works, I usually collate and type my content at night. I then post later the next morning, from work.
The lack of sleep was catching up on me, so I decided that a night off was a good idea. So you were not supposed to be getting your Eish!! fix today.

However when I arrived in the office this morning and did my usual morning Amatomu browse through I noticed that one of the top searches was for 'schmaak.php.' It immediately struck a cord, because I had done a similar search a few weeks ago. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to add a little script to your posts that would make it easy for the readers to click-and-schmaak? I not capable of coming up with such a thing, but did come up with a rather ugly tedious work-around, but I am sure that there are some very bright okes & okesses that could zap up and simple solution rather quickly.
Any takers?

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Surfing the web under the boss' nose

You're holding onto your internet privileges at the office by a very thin thread. But you need your fix every now and then. Things are happening out their on the 'interweb' (as Corne would say).

Where's a way to surf the web from the confines of your cubicle without the skulking supervisor noticing. In fact, he/she/it, will even think you are pondering over that report that is due by tomorrow.

www.workfriendly.net
reformats a url to look like a MSWord document, with a mock menu bar, the works.

Check out Eish!!











Oh and if you are the supervisor ...
... take a look at this pic, and whisper "Surfing the internet is good, surfing the internet is good, reading blogs boosts productivity ...











Link : www.workfriendly.net/

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Monday, May 14, 2007

How SA Rugby stuffed up SA's great day!

South Africa has two teams in the Super 14 final! We are guaranteed our first Super 14/12/10 winner. Headline making stuff, you would think ... Nope, one man, Luke Watson dominates the newspaper headlines, website discussions and radio talk shows. What did he do? Ironically nothing!

Surely, the rugby administrators could have figured what the repercussions of their actions would be? Clearly not. The inclusion of the poor oke, will achieve nothing, except a massive backlash, against all concerned. They have made Jake White look stupid, the selectors appear impotent, Watson seem rogueish and themselves like the big bad all-powerful giant. Sure legally they have the power to include people they feel the coach has overlooked, but it's just bad PR. They should learn from George Bush's mistakes. After all, who will have to take the wrath of the public when the team does not perform? Me thinks, Jake.

At the end of the day Watson is not going to be picked for the final squad. His exclusion from the Springbok setup would have been mentioned in passing, but the press exhausted that debate last year. Instead we have a childish Robbie/Hoskins debate on Radio 702!

Good luck two the two teams in the final. Here's to hoping it's a great game, one that inspires the Boks to a great international season.

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Amatomu, Muti, Afrigator match Sharks, Bulls

Being interested to find Australasian comment on the Super 14 results this weekend, I set out to find the New Zealand equivalent of Amatomu, Muti and Afrigator. Ie. a blog aggregator specifically meant for New Zealand-centric content.
Seems like while our rugby teams managed to overpower the Blues & Crusaders, our blog gurus have totally annihilated their New Zealand counterparts. The best I could find was a stuff.co.nz , not even an aggregator.
So I moved on. Why not see what the Australians are saying about the rugby. Could be interesting. My list of Aussie publications I scan were way to 'factual.' I watched the games, I know what happened. I wanted some opinions. Again the search for a blog aggregator! This is what I found (Aussies reading this please feel free to correct me and send me links, but a Google search from "Australian Blog Aggregator" should suffice.) www.news2.com.au, www.buggerall.com.au & www.gnoos.com.au.

News2.com.au - besides an extremely nauseating frontpage ad for BuggerAll, it's uninspiring look and feel really did not prompt me to want to delve into what it had to offer. It really didn't seem like there was much anyways. A tag cloud exactly like the one found in this blog on the right highlights 'YOUR' as being the most used 'tag' and they advertise that they update every 30 minutes!

BuggerAll.com.au - The Australianblog's craiglist. Just a whole load of tags. Otherwise the name is extremely apt!




Gnoos.com.au - Probably the nicest looking of the three, even so the only feature I like is the nice prominent search box. Otherwise we are treated to the top 5 searches, 5 'hot tags' and three little boxes for the latest posts "Aussie Posts", "Aussie Media" & "Global Blogs". That's it.

So in the end, I gave up. Kudos (and Kudus) to the SA aggregators, you guys rock!!

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Eish in lights with Funny Cats!

Some fun for the weekend.

Click on the links and you to could generate your own name in lights or around some cats in rather odd positions.



I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk




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Would you respond to this front page Argus ad?

I know there are some marketing and business fundies that pop in here @ Eish from time to time. Please guys help me out here! How does an advert like the one below get onto the front page a major newspaper, The Argus? The front page !!! Or maybe I should ask how it makes it into the paper at all.

There is no company name, no contact telephone numbers, no physical address and not even a price or product. Just a promise to better a price someone else has given AND a freaking Hotmail (.co.uk) email address! I kid you not! So much for Mr Bullard's "I have no objection to reading my Sunday Times on the Internet because I know the content has been through the same process as the print edition." What about the advertisements?
This is like something you would find on a rotating banner on ...... a ...... blog!!!!

This was printed in the same week the sister newspaper the Cape Times printed a story on how a Nigerian syndicate infiltrated the SAA call centre and defrauded thousands of credit card holders to net R14m. How did they that do it? Wait for it... by buying plane tickets using unsuspecting cardholders credit card details and reselling them at seriously discounted prices! The Nigerian's are apparently operating out of the UK. Go figure!

Surely the Argus cannot be so desperate for money that they can allow something like this? Or am I just being naive?

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

KFC - A passionate response

res[This is a wastershed post! I am very excited to announce that this post is the first by a guest 'blogger'. And a reader at that!
I am very appreciative of the time given by Justme, to write the article that follows. Please feel free to add your 2c worth, for or against. Maybe we can coax Justme and others send me further submissions in the future.
If you need ot contextualise click here : Kentucky Fried Chicken Cape Times article
Eishman]

Dear Eishman

As you know, I am not a blogfan, but I respect you and your blog immensely. I recently wrote about passion. There are many types of passion. One rises like bile in your throat when you realise the cruelty that man is capable of. Take the Kentucky Fried Chicken article in the morning's paper[Cape Times]. I personally don't eat Kentucky, for the very reasons that have now been confirmed. Animals are used as 'utilities,' on the assumption that they feel no pain or suffering. One only has to study animals in nature to realise that we as humans are really at the bottom of the food chain, and while we feel superior, we are really appalling.

Yes, animals have always been used for food and clothing, but our distant ancestors would thank the animal for giving it's life to provide them food and clothing. And, like the animals they killed, they only took enough for their needs. We have really become an appalling race.
Do you have feelings for animals? Do you not think that you could use some blog-space to bring our callous treatment of not only animals, but the environment in general to the fore, and perhaps persuade people to get passionate about it rather than seeing themselves as the 'alpha males/females' of the world?

Now do you understand why Meat[loaf] is a vegetarian?

JustMe

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Wednesday, May 9, 2007

A great spoof on America's priorities (Video)

There are serious challenges facing the United States!!

Enjoy!!

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The sum total of Eish's take on BullardGate

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Tuesday, May 8, 2007

The Future of Firefox

I came across an awesome interview with the CEO of the Mozilla Organisation, Mitchell Baker. She talks about where Firefox come from, how it earns $55 mill-a-year and the future of Firefox (cellphone version et al).

Click here for the full interview : Mozilla CEO speaks out on the future of Firefox

Not sure what Firefox is? That's cool, click here : www.firefoxtutor.com/

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The ZA Show on Podcast411

Podcast411, a podcast I have been listening to since early 1995, aims to help podcasters podcast. Rob uses the experiences of his guests to educate those either podcasting or thinking of podcasting, as well as motivating them to keep going, market themselves and, most importantly raise the standard of their show.
I use the podcast more as a listener. It's a great way to find those little gems that you would otherwise not be able to find in the massive podcast directories.
As a side note, he always starts out his interviews with the question, "So what was your first computer?" The answers bring back memories of BBC's, ZX Sinclairs & Commodores.
Anyways, I digress...

His focus is usually US-centric, but the last show featured none other than Cape Town's Glen Verran from "The ZA Show." It was really cool ,and a bit weird, hearing a SA accent for a change.

The ZA Show is hosted by Glen & his wife Bridgitte. I have to admit to being only an extremely infrequent listener. With our limited bandwidth I tend to listen to podcasts to get international perspectives, but if that were not a factor I would most definitely be a subscriber. The format is loose, and consists of banter between the two, occasional interviews and outside broadcast. I also like the fact that they encourage SA bands to register their music on the Podsafe Music Network, so as to help them get international exposure. It does of course allow them to play the music on their podcast as well. And as an added bonus, they podcast out of Cape Town, and are proudly South African.

Check out the interview. It was fun hearing Glen explaining things like the origin of Afrikaans and the state of telecoms in SA.

Links : Podcast411 - Direct link to mp3 here
The ZA Show

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Monday, May 7, 2007

Digg the Code in Song

Geoff Smith of podcast jingle fame, has written a song about the Digg HD code phenomenon. Titled "Digg the Code" it;s fun, catchy ditty that captures essence of the "movement" that formed around the attempt at Digg.com to censor the publishing of an encryption key for HD DVD's.

If you haven't read the story hears two local blogs that have summarised it nicely :


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Keep your email address private

Bloggers and web masters have a difficult task of getting readers to interact via email.
What do I mean? Why can't you simply put your email address somewhere prominent? Well, it's because those evil spammer dudes (sorry Den & Ash) can grab it and then your inbox will become an unusable mess.

I made the decision to leave mine on the blog as, been a start-up, I did not want to prevent any form of feedback. You will notice that the address is displayed as a image however. Still, it's possible for the spammers to still pull your address from the html code sitting 'below.' At the time thought it was a price I was willing to pay, and gmail is pretty darn good detected spam. You should see the masses of spam caught in my spam folder.

But now there is a quick & easy service to circumvent the need for placing you email address or html reference on your site.
Contactify lets your readers send messages to your email address without them ever actually necessarily knowing the address they are sending it to. It provides you with an url to use instead of an email address, which links to a form the sender can use. Signup is quick & easy, always important!
(Try clicking on my email address image on the left sidebar and check out how it works)

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Saturday, May 5, 2007

Eish the Weatherman

Hey Eish Readers,
Looking at the ClustrMap in the left-hand column it's plain to see that my readers come from all over the planet.
Eish!! is unashamedly South African and it's therefore my assumption that the large majority of my readers are either South African, ex-pats or people interested in what South Africans think & experience.
I have therefore decided add the weather to the right-hand sidebar. If you live in Eishland (Cape Town) it will be nice and useful. If not, it's a cool way to see what Eishman is experiencing when he goes outside or looks out the window. For the expats, it's a way of reminiscing of what it was like to stay in good ol' RSA.

Enjoy your weekend. If you check the weather, you will see that I will.

The weather widget is courtesy of notKewl.com & Google.

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Friday, May 4, 2007

Uncensoring the Internet with Firefox

Eish, you guys are getting a mixed bag this week!!

I found the following link in my web travels the other day and really liked the twist. David @ Ironic Sans has written a Greasemonkey Firefox plugin that will take the !^%@# written in place of expletives on webpages, blogs etc and replace it with the closest it can get to what the writer was trying to mask.

Link : http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/04/idea_uncensor_the_internet.html

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Thursday, May 3, 2007

How many of you are there?

Unfortunately, this will only hold true for the United States, but it's fun to check out how may namesakes you have there anyways.
There are 45 of me, how about you?

Links : http://howmanyofme.com/

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StudentSale launches

Tyler Reed has just launched his latest project.
StudentSale is a simple classified-type service aimed at students. (funnily enough) The target market is brilliant. There are always students needing to save money, who would be more than willing to buy something second hand and save some bucks, but there are even more who have something, like textbooks, that have a value and selling them could really help finance that end-of-year/term/month/week party!!
On a serious note, you can see this site, really coming into it's own at the end a semester or year as the textbook requirements change. Although textbooks is the focus sales are not limited to textbooks alone.
The interface is simple and easy to use, and allows for a quick varsity campus filter, so you are able to keep your searches local. Payment is arranged between the buyer and seller, so the buyer is free to negotiate the price.
The site has literally just launched, so the inventory is a little sparse, but if you have something to sell, now would probably be a good time to list!

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Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Some Meatloaf for Jenny

I take the needs and wants of my readers really seriously.
So to ensure I retain at least one, and hopefully gain a few others, heres some little known facts about Meatloaf.

Meat Loaf
born: 27-09-1951
birth place: Dallas, Texas, USA

Meat Loaf played 300 sellout concerts between 1987-91.

He fell off the stage and broke his leg during a concert at Toronto in 1978 - he finished the tour in a wheelchair!

His 1970s album, 'Bat out of Hell', is the third highest selling album of all time, with an estimated 30,000,000 copies sold worldwide. It spent over 470 weeks in the UK charts - an all-time record.

He is a vegetarian, thus despite his famous moniker, Marvin doesn't like to eat meatloaf!

Meatloaf walked out of the theater during rehersal of the Rocky Horror Show when he first saw Tim Curry in fishnets and high heels. While walking out, being followed by Gram Jarvis, Meatloaf crosses Hollywood Blvd. He got a ticket for jaywalking.

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Eish!! April Visitors with Amatomu Chicks!!

Wondering who else is visiting Eish!!? Where are they coming from? How are they getting here?

If you are as much as a stat.s whore as I am, you will enjoy what follows. But before you browse through some of the graphs I have pasted below (I grabbed them using Screengrab , see my post "2 must have Firefox add-ons") here are some points I found interesting.
  • I began blogging just as the SA blog aggregators were launching, so Amatomu & Muti are high on the referrers listing.
  • 1 Eishman comment on 1 Keo.co.za article brought in enough traffic to get the blog as a Top 10 referrer
  • Eish!! been SA focussed, I would have thought that visitors from th UK as a percentage would have been more than the US.
  • Considering the bulk of Eish!! readers are in SA, the Firefox usage is a bit suprising but extremely encouraging
  • There are a whole lot more blog readers still having to connect via dialup than I expected, you guys deserve a freaking medal. May the force be with you.
  • Putting "chicks" & "Amatomu" in your posts subject line assures you of a whole load of new readers! Now the title makes sense, doesn't it ..... he he!!
The following graphs all refer to visitors to Eish!! during the month of April.







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