hertenberger.co.za

The South African SNO has a name: Neotel. Officially launched today, Neotel is the official rival to longtime monopolist Telkom. Though it will be some time until Neotel will be able to compete in all areas of telecommunication, it’s a relief that the launch has taken place. The SNO selection took so long that many in ZA must have considered its actual existence a myth.

Hopefully Neotel will be a real competitor and not just a company that will adjust its pricing to be on par with Telkom. As far as cheap, accessible broadband goes, it’s my opinion that we will be waiting for quite a while yet…

Interestingly, Neotel’s Internet provision strategy is based on a wireless infrastructure: CDMA2000 is the technology preferred by Neotel for delivering these voice and internet solutions for consumers. CDMA2000 is one of the two dominant third generation (3G) wireless technologies globally, and one that is increasingly used to provide affordable basic services in many countries. More information is available on their website.

I’ve a dual-boot setup – Windows XP is still the primary environment for things I need to do during working hours, but I am trying to make Ubuntu the primary operating platform. So, it often happens that I’ve worked on something in Ubuntu that I require access to in XP. If I haven’t copied it to an external device, there’s little chance of getting at it without a lengthy boot and re-boot procedure.

Today, I found this utility:

explore2fs is a small executable that runs in Windows and allows me to browse the Ubuntu partition. Directory structures and file details are displayed, and the export function copies selected files to a Windows directory for immediate access. explore2fs has a tiny footprint and requires no installation. Though the user interface is really simple, it delivers exactly what I require from it.

In addition to providing this great utility, John Newbigin has also developed a file system driver and a variety of other useful tools.

The Porsche Cayenne S Titanium Edition is a special edition of the Porsche Cayenne. The 4.5-liter V8 engine propels it from a standstill to about 100 km/h in just under 7 seconds. Not bad for a car that weighs in excess of 2 tons!

Caveat emptor: the name Cayenne S Titanium refers exclusively to the external parts that are painted in Titanium Metallic. The vehicle does not have any parts made from titanium. With the additional weight of some titanium, there’d be little chance of this Cayenne reaching its claimed top speed as quickly as it does

Google has released its special search engine for literary works here. Google Book Search indexes thousands of scanned versions of books, most of them in PDF format.

They’ve implemented a nice layout allowing the user to browse through the pages. Of course, certain content is restricted – if Google has its way, all books will one day be available this way…

You’d think that Lego, as a European company, would support the efforts of their local industry. Airbus, for example. Instead, they’ve released a scale model of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The model is approximately 65cm long with a 65cm wingspan. It may be assembled and displayed on a stand…or modified, sans stickers, to resemble the Airbus A350

You can take the long road or make headway in no time at all by using the right tools and resources! I started installing codecs, fonts and applications one at a time by hand. That lets you get some practice at typing and selecting options but doesn’t get the job done quickly.

Enter a real superhero for Debian-based systems such as Ubuntu: Automatix.

In the developers’ own words: Automatix is a graphical interface for automating the installation of the most commonly requested applications in Debian based linux operating systems. Automatix combines numerous scripts to provide a list of essential Ubuntu add-ons, applications and tweaks. Download Automatix, then follow the easy instructions to install it. Once that’s done, Automatix is installed in the Applications menu, under System Tools. When run, Automatix collects data concerning the list of content it is aware of and presents the items in a comprehensive list – simply browse and select.

Then, Automatix goes and downloads, installs and configures all the applications. I’d suggest this to be the very first application you install and run after a new Ubuntu install! Why not just select them all – you’ll probably want to play around to see which applications you’ll want to use. This beats doing it manually or using the Synaptic Package Manager…

A PhD requires certain effort and dedication, but it’s not rocket science. This successful candidate had it easy, though: Djoymi Baker watched 700 episodes – 624 hours without ads – of Star Trek and its spin-offs, dating from 1966 to 2005, in the name of research. She received a PhD for her thesis titled Broadcast Space: TV Culture, Myth and Star Trek.

Only in Australia…

via The Age

I’m no big fan of self-improvement books, and I tend to have somewhat of a mental block when it comes to tomes that purport to have answers to questions that I consider impossible to answer without making too many assumptions.

Thankfully, Jim Collins’ Good to great is a book with answers based on solid research. I enjoyed reading this for the same reason I enjoy reading Fortune magazine: it’s fascinating to gain an insight into companies and how they operate. Collins provides a huge amount of information and real-world case studies. Having selected 1435 companies in an initial sample, his research team applied a variety of rules to whittle that selection down to 11 companies. Various criteria were applied that left companies such as Boeing, Coca Cola and Walt Disney out of the research, yet included Walgreens, Wells Fargo and Philip Morris, amongst others.

The book is structured according to a framework Collins and his team have devised. The framework seeks to identify key areas that great companies have perfected or seem to be good at. There are three stages to the framework, namely disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action. Without going into too much detail, each stage consists of two key concepts. Each concept has a chapter dedicated to it, in which Collins provides background information, some real-world examples and comparisons to companies similar to those chosen, but that simply could not sustain their growth or revenue.

It is a good to great book. Little anecdotal information is provided, making one trust the research put into creating the framework and ideas presented. This is an ideal read for anyone in the corporate world or those wanting to discover what is required to elevate their business to the next level.

Massa’s first victory, having led the race from start to finish for Ferrari. Schumacher was unable to retrieve his second place from Alonso after a pit stop during the safety car phase. Though Alonso was not necessarily faster, he maintained his position. Fisichella maintained a steady pace to maintain his fourth position in the overall championship table.

That means Alonso’s lead over Schumacher increases again, if only by a small margin. The number of races is shrinking, leaving little opportunity for error on Schumacher’s part. Rumours have it that Schumacher may announce his retirement at the race in Italy in two weeks time

Current championship standings:

Position	Driver	Country	Team	Points
1	Fernando Alonso		Renault	108
2	Michael Schumacher		Ferrari	96
3	Felipe Massa		Ferrari	62
4	Giancarlo Fisichella		Renault	52
4	Kimi Räikkönen		McLaren-Mercedes	49
6	Jenson Button		Honda	36
7	Juan Pablo Montoya		McLaren-Mercedes	26
8	Rubens Barrichello		Honda	22

One year online! This blog started as something of an experiment, after I constantly wanted to get going with a website but always found an excuse not to. Granted, the domain name is hardly that marketable and memorable, but that was never the point

Technology
Running on WordPress, I started out with the standard look and feel and have attempted to add some informational items along the way. My hosting is provided by Circular Systems. For the past year, I’ve had no issues with their service provision, which I consider to be priced very reasonably. There are tons of plug-ins available, though I try to include only those that I feel add something to the site. The best place to find WordPress plug-ins is the WordPress PlugIns Database. My favourites are the GetWeather PHP script to provide current weather information and the CountDown timer. The Flickr badge provides visitors with a quick view to photographs.

Purpose
The aim of the site has always been to provide news snippets and information, hopefully not plucked from the current in-topic. Wherever possible, content is kept original. I remember having spent hours trying to find solutions to certain problems, Googling for help. Many times, personal blogs were the source of solutions. I try to give something back by providing workarounds and solutions to problems I’ve managed to solve. The other aim is to provide family overseas the oppot

Marketing and visibility
I never promoted the site in any way – relying strictly on a Google crawl to bring visibility to the site. Only recently have I added the site to SA Top Sites. It is fascinating to watch the number of visits grow month by month. In August 2005, there was a combined total of 17 unique visitors. Though the figures relating to visits, unique visitors and hits should be taken with a grain of salt, the trend indicates a steady stream of new visitors, the peak having been reached in July 2006 with 1231 unique visits for that month.

I’m pleased that the majority of traffic to the site seems to be from within South Africa, though there is a worldwide audience.

How people find the site is interesting. I have had a number of emails and comments regarding handhelds and PDA’s, an obvious interest of mine. Some of the searches leading visitors to the site are more obtuse: Mr. Angry has a huge following it seems, as do stick men and phobia. These are terms for searches resulting in hits almost every month…and here I thought technology, gadgets and maybe Formula 1 might do the trick

In conclusion: thanks for visiting! Even one visitor makes this a worthwhile endeavour – please post comments to indicate what’s good and what’s bad. Here’s to the next year