photography | mac | lego | open source | sap | gadgets
Archive for July, 2008
The Dark Knight
We’ve waited many months. Now, it’s here. And, The Dark Knight has been well worth the wait.
First off, it’s a long movie. Plan on at least two and a half hours of downtime for this one. Don’t bring the kids. The movie is violent and full of impact. It’s unlikely youngsters would take too well to the visage of Two Face, for example.
With Christopher Nolan‘s previous excellent interpretation of the Batman as a starting point, The Dark Knight has little to do but improve. And it does so in leaps and bounds. Staying true to the mythos of the Batman, the story is fairly intricate, involving numerous characters and situations.
In contrast to Jack Nicholson‘s portrayal of the Joker in the 1989 kickstart to the Batman movie franchise, Heath Ledger is first rate. He’s crazy, and enjoys it!
Absolutely believable and possibly the star of the show.
Batman and James Gordon have their hands full trying to keep control of the city. Harvey Dent is the newly appointed district attorney and is successful in bring the mob to justice with their help. The Joker unleashes a crime wave that cripples the city and brings the heroes to their knees.
Christian Bale performs admirably in his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Initially, I had to get over his change in voice when in costume, though.
There’s plenty of action and mayhem, with a good dose of contemporary Batman paraphernalia thrown in to keep true fans glued to the screen. He has some wonderful toys. The Tumbler gets a full workout and his once again completely destroyed after tussling with an 18 wheeler.
The Batpod has oversized wheels and looks impossible to steer. Nonetheless, it helps our hero out of many a nasty situation.
If you’re a true Batfan and haven’t seen this yet, you better get out there now. If you’ve no clue who the Batman is, you’ll enjoy a fantastic action movie. A winner all round, and certainly deserving of a second viewing and the purchase of the DVD!
iPhone coming closer
There’s been plenty of speculation about the release date of the iPhone in South Africa. First, September seemed a likely date, then an end of July date was bandied about. Walking past a Vodacom franchise today, I picked up this flyer and requested some further information.
No pricing information, of course, though it will be available on both contract and prepaid. From what I’ve been told, the iPhone will be making an appearance on 6 August. Anyone willing to bet on this one?
Google takes on Wikipedia
Google has always been an innovator. In the recent months it seems that their entrepreneurial flair is fading, however. Lively is a Second Life clone. Knol, launched yesterday, looks like another Wikipedia.
According to Google, a Knol is a unit of knowledge. But the basic premise of the service (once again in beta) seems to be the same as Wikipedia. Contributors create and maintain entries. The entries provide an overview of a term or concept, and collaboration is the name of the game. So far, Knol has authoritative articles ranging from the dubiously useful (How to backpack) to the bizarre (Chicago hot dogs). Content, and lots of it, will be the only means of making this site successful. And of course, the quality and authenticity of that information is even more important.
Competition is good, I guess. How well Knol will stack up against Wikipedia remains to be seen. Hopefully, Google isn’t falling too deeply into the trap of copying existing concepts. Their strength has always been innovation.
Passport status by SMS
3 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
The South African Department of Home Affairs is slowy being dragged into modern times. With our planned down-under trip coming up in December, our youngest passenger is in a squeeze with a passport that expires shortly before our trip home. Since we don’t want to leave him behind, I’ve gone through the motions of applying for a new passport. The relevant forms are available online and can be printed out and filled in before one ventures to the still-crappy home affairs branch office in Randburg.
Just in case, I took along four photographs (only two are required), parent’s passports and an unabridged birth certificate. They need copies of those, but 
thankfully there are many enterprising individuals running budget SOHO Canon all-in-one units off a battery in the parking area. ZAR 5 per photocopy is not cheap, but forgetters can’t be choosers. ZAR 133 for a kid’s passport and a waiting period of roughly six weeks. The process of submitting and paying for the service took less than ten minutes, so there is no reason to complain.
A convenience factor that has been introduced is the availability of an SMS service that indicates the status of an application. Alexander‘s passport is currently being printed, it seems (SMS P followed by the identity number to 32551):
Home Affairs:Passport Application for xxxxxxxxxx:Passport being printed – 2008/07/23. More info:0800601190/www.dha.gov.za. 2003/07/23 05:29:35 PM
The online enquiries were not available when I tried.
We seem to be making progress, if only in small increments…
Nokia to open South African Music Store
Nokia is trying to steal the march on Apple‘s recent introduction of the iTunes App Store in preparation for the iPhone 3G rollout. The South African iTunes store provides only applications, with no sign of any content being prepared for our market anytime soon. Nokia has indicated that a localized Music Store will be launched at the beginning of next year.
In order for them to be able to launch their online store, Nokia will have had to make sure all the necessary paperwork is in place to permit music to be sold online. That means the larger record labels will probably be involved. A positive note, to be sure. For too long, there’s been little choice for consumers. This move may also open the door for the likes of Apple.
The biggest issue will probably be the DRM that Nokia seems intent on shipping with each downloaded file. From the early reports I’ve seen, it seems as though there is no chance the user has to copy the file to anything other than a Nokia phone. Even worse, Nokia insists on customers using Internet Explorer. That’s not good news for lovers of open source. There are always means of getting around DRM: burn to a CD and rip again, though that is also crazy if one has already paid for something.
There’s is no direct indication of price per track, though international music stores sell a track for approximately GBP 0.80 each. That’s about ZAR 11.70. (I can’t check the precise amount because I run Firefox). Too much, in my opinion. Give me a track at ZAR 6 and we have a deal: I’m saving you the cost of printing, packaging and distributing.
The Nokia Music Store could have been a revolution for South Africans starved of decent online media content options. Unfortunately, it looks like a waste of time before it’s even been launched…
The tagline for Nokia Music should read: Nokia Music: Our Music. Our Way.
Brick Beetle
I’ve just taken delivery of the Enzo, and along comes another addition to the Lego garage: a faithful reproduction of the 1960 Volkswagen Beetle.
Kit 10187 measures 41cm in length and stands over 16cm tall. The doors open, as does the hood and engine compartment. Interior detail includes a movable stick shift, opening glove compartment and seats that fold forward.
Complete with rear view mirrors and a spare wheel, this one may look out of place in a garage full of modern, red Ferraris…
Space Invaders – 30 years old
So they’ve tried for 30 years but still haven’t managed to invade 
This year marks the 30th anniversary of a perennial video game favourite that is still being played in its original and remade forms the world over. From MAME to original arcade machines and handheld conversions to the latest consoles.
Most notably, Tomohiro Nishikado‘s creation caused a temporary shortage of Yen in his native Japan upon its release and earned Taito, the game publisher, in excess of USD 500 million in revenue.
Save planet earth from the Space Invaders (Flash required – the link for the embedded code is here):
Game on!
Samsung CLP350N
3 years ago
It’s not that easy to find a printer for home use that is network-ready. For some or other reason, most printers still cater for only a USB connection. That means a single workstation is the master and has to be on all the time or have a share. It’s not the ideal solution. By the way: the printer cable is never included! Remember to buy the cheapest one you can and don’t be fooled by the salesperson bundling a cable at a special price. Computer resellers make more margin on the cable and are only too happy to get an eager customer to pay an astronomical price for a simple USB cable…
In any case, I wanted a slim colour laser printer with network connectivity. I had my eye on a particular Samsung model, but alas: Samsung is very picky when it comes to importing variants of one model. You’d think it would simplify matters if all had both USB and network instead of the xxx model having only USB and the xxxN model having USB and Ethernet ports. Obviously, my misunderstanding of this principle is one reason I’m not in the printer business! I finally settled on the CLP350N.
Again, I’ve chosen Samsung. Primarily, I settled on this unit because it seems to enjoy a lot of support on various platforms. I now run three operating systems: Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. So, I need a device that is capable of performing properly on all three. I trust I’ve done my homework diligently! Time and a few messed-up printouts will tell.
The CLP350 is a cinch to install and setup: un-paste some sticky tape that keeps the primary flaps stuck down, then pull out four orange tabs that protect the toner cartridge entry to the drum. There are four toner cartridges: cyan, magenta and yellow in smaller cases and one larger black cartridge. These easily slot into place at the front of the printer and are turned a slight bit to the right to lock them in place. The only other thing to do is load paper into the tray and connect power and Ethernet cables. The initial startup takes a few minutes during which time a page is printed to indicate that all toner cartridges have been correctly installed. The control panel is simplistic: one button and a few status LED‘s. The unit is reasonably unobtrusive and looks good.
Even though there is support for multiple operating systems, the IP address of the printer has to be set by running a Windows program. I set a static IP address for my network, then proceeded to load the driver onto G2S running Vista. The driver installation is easy: click and go. With the printer available on the network, there’s no issue in finding and selecting it. The first test page in full colour looks good: the CLP350N does roughly 5ppm when printing colour and about 19ppm when printing black and white. The maximum resolution is 2400×600 dpi.
The real test came when I installed the Linux driver for the printer on katana. Thankfully, no nasty surprises! A slight modification to the overall wizard – I had to exit and run the driver configuration tool manually. The automated installer couldn’t detect the printer. Most importantly, the printer quality and control from Mandriva is excellent from what I can see, having printed a few pages from different applications. Last installation: get the driver onto MacBook. That’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
I am pleased with my choice. I’ll give the printer a bit of a workout over the next week or so. Since it’s on the network and available wirelessly, I’m hoping that getting printed output from any device and application will be seamless and hassle-free.
South Aflican Brogdilectoly
3 years ago
by manfred
in Moblogging
Go to the URL for the South African Blog Directory to see something most decidedly not South African:
I can’t decipher whether it’s a blog directory or not, though…
The Long Way Down
Thanks to Herman’s heads-up (in this post’s comment) about the National Geographic screening of Ewan McGregor‘s adventure traveling from John O’Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa by motorcycle.
Long Way Down takes Ewan and his mate Charley through a few European countries before they plunge into the heart of Africa. Along the way they stop to visit various places of interest and meet up with a variety of people. Entertaining and full of interesting facts and visuals, Long Way Down is certainly worth viewing.
For the gadget geek, a show like this provides many additional reasons to finally get one of these…
The BMW R1200 GS. Ewan’s trusty steed.
Watch Long Way Down on National Geographic Channel.
Recent Comments