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The official match ball for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup is named Kopanya, Sesotho for join together. The outer shell of the ball is decorated with typical Ndebele artwork and colours of the South African flag.

Performance characteristics put the ball in the same class as the recent Europass Gloria and other high-profile match balls. 14 panels are bonded together with a specially-developed thermal bonding technique, giving the ball excellent flight characteristics.

This is one of those applications you simply have to install to appreciate. Don’t worry: it won’t improve your productivity. On the contrary: it may actually decrease it. Uli’s Moose is a Mac OS X application and features a moose making witty comments at inappropriate times. As I’m typing this, the moose politely informs me that it’s 10:31 and time for an antler polish.

I haven’t been a Mac convert for all that long, but some research has revealed that the original talking moose saw the light of day sometime in 1986 and has been delighting users the world over since then. In 1997, Uli saw the need to update and modernize the moose for the more modern Mac OS.

The moose is a free download and requires no installation. Simply launch the moose and that’s it. As the opportunity arises, a nugget of wisdom is sure to be dispensed. If you’re annoyed with the moose, shut him down. But don’t be surprised if he protests…

A bunch of additional animations and speech files are available for the moose. Get them here.

Vista or XP user? Don’t feel left out.

Our latest DIY project is virtually completed: a timber deck that finally connects three doors to the outside with a reliable platform (so far) to walk and sit on. All that remains is for me to complete the stairs. As with the paving of the driveway, this turned into a DIY project once the incumbent BEE deck installer never supervised his staff. They were incompetent to the extreme: measuring 40cm seemed a challenge and the installation of the joists alone took more time than the entire job. In a fit of desperation I kept the Ryobi mitre saw I’d bought the installer in lieu of some payment to assist with the trimming of the individual decking boards.

Rhodesian teak is not a very hard wood. Ten cuts later, the 1200W motor of the R795 motorized saw went up in a rather impressive puff of white smoke. In that way, Makro cannot be faulted: the unit was returned and a full refund issued. I headed off to the tools section and spent five times more on a decent, German piece of equipment: the 1800W Bosch GCM10 blue line mitre saw. The difference in performance is absolutely astounding, with the Bosch reliably cutting through the wood like a knife through very soft jam, as Alexander would say.

The Ryobi biscuit joiner performed admirably. The method of fastening the decking boards we chose is rather new and results in a deck that is completely free of unsightly screws. EasyClip is a South African product, though similar fastening systems have been copied or invented in New Zealand and the USA.

A biscuit joiner is essential, as the EasyClip is effectively little more than a nylon biscuit with a single hole in the centre for a screw and two protrusions at the bottom that rest on a joist and automatically enforce a spacing of roughly 5mm between adjoining decking boards. The two major advantages of this system are the fact that no decking board is very drilled and screwed down directly and that the installer needs to take no special care to ensure consistent spacing between the boards. Our deck has an overall size of almost 42 sq. m, and it is unavoidable that a slight kink will develop after a couple of rows of the decking have been installed. This is easily remedied if periodic measurements are made and the offending row slightly adjusted by increasing the spacing ever so slightly. I had a constant 5mm shift on the right-hand side every two meters or so, but managed to adjust the difference quite easily.

The first row has to be drilled and screwed onto the frame, but after that each other row is simply inserted and held down tightly by the screw inserted into the joists. It’s a tedious, lengthy process – to progress a single meter from where I’d start each session would take me at least five hours.

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A very large audience descended on Vodaworld in Midrand for today’s My BroadBand conference. I stayed for only half the proceedings but considered the content rather interesting nonetheless. Here’s a very brief rundown of the morning’s events.

1. Q&A with Vodacom
Their projection is that bandwidth will be cheaper by a factor of seven in about 18 months based on the fact that prices in the last eight years have dropped by a factor of about eight. The construction of the Vodacom hosting environment is based on the drop in bandwidth costs which is expected to drive demand for hosted environments. That makes sense: I was involved in an ASP pilot that simply could not get off the ground due to lack of bandwidth and the associated costs. Nowadays, the same project would probably have a better chance at succeeding…

Vodacom have four POP’s, with three in London and one in Washington. One more is planned for Hong Kong. Like everyone else, they are struggling to keep up with local demand for bandwidth consumption.

After having brought the iPhone to our shores, the next big launch will be the Blackberry Storm. From a billing and customer service point of view, Vodacom is hard at work integrating a variety of backend systems to provide unified billing and eventually permit a single data bundle to be utilized seamlessly across devices and services.

2. Telkom – Bandwidth for South Africa
Telkom has returned to the My Broadband conference after being absent for a while. As the organization that suffers from the perception that it can simply never do anything right, Telkom is responsible for provision of data and voice services across the country. 2010 is a key delivery date for a number of services, among them xDSL, WiMax and WCDMA.

The roll-out of an HSUPA network with competitive pricing is only one attack Telkom has planned against rivals impinging on its territory. WiMax is being rolled out aggressively to supplement the existing ADSL footprint. The greatest challenge is the need to transform the existing network infrastructure from single purpose networks to multi-purpose networks. For this reason, a WCDMA mobile network has been made available whilst a Metro Ethernet will be deployed to provide for media intensive applications.
By 2010, ADSL2+ and MSAN deployments should be just about ready to cater for IPTV and application-aware, IP-based networks. Telkom has the same message as everyone else: cost reductions in bandwidth pricing and an increase in caps can be expected. I’m waitiing in for that one…

3. MTN – MTN BroadBand

Since the conference was held at Vodaworld, the MTN presentation focused on generic issues and the state of broadband penetration in South Africa.  Current market dynamics see MTN active in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East.

A recent survey indicated that 40% of respondents watch less TV, relying on on-demand services and downloads to get access to content. By 2012, almost 25% of the world’s population will have access to mobile broadband. Data traffic is expected to increase tenfold by 2010, making provision of adequate throughput a real headache. Already, packet-switched data has overtaken circuit-switched (voice) data. That shift greatly influences how mobile networks are deployed and forces self-provisioning. This is one of the reasons half of South Africa’s cities are being excavated by providers laying their own cable.
According to MTN, South Africa has 80% mobile penetration, but less than 10% household broadband penetration.

4. SEACOM

A brief overview of the complexities of laying thousands of meters of cable under the ocean was provided by SEACOM. Complexities often non-technical in nature: the SEACOM cable crosses through more than ten territories’ ocean expanse, necessitating a lot of politics and paperwork. Having a cable-laying vessel halted for many days due to paperwork delays is costly. Roughly USD 90000 is spent on the specialized ships that prepare and drop the cable to the seabed.

It is expected that the cable, whicc has a landing point in Neotel’s facility in Durban, will greatly influence the availability and pricing of bandwidth in South Africa.

Once again, the promise of cheaper bandwidth with increased or unlimited caps. We live in hope…

I missed the final two talks by Neotel and Dark Fibre Africa. On the whole, the My BroadBand conference was a great success and worthwhile attending. It will be interesting to see the topics of discussion at next year’s event, when certain infrastructure enhancements may already be available to the consumer.

Eventually, my two SanDisk 4GB Extreme III Compact Flash cards arrived from kalarahi. Getting them delivered took quite a while and involved a bit of frustration. Having seen that prices in the corner brick and mortar are not that much more expensive, my next purchase for such an item will not be placed online.

The SanDisk package not only contains the CF card, but also a pouch for two cards and 8cm CD with RescuePRO software. The software is for both Windows and Mac, though the 8cm platter is not at all suited to the Mac’s slot-loading SuperDrive. I was even more surprised to see that the software requires a serial number to be entered – that’s printed on the flap of the envelope holding the CD. As someone who immediately discards all manner of packaging, I was fortunate not to toss the paper envelope ASAP…

For the MacBook, I copied RescuePRO to a flash disk, after noting the serial number down in a text file. RescuePRO is designed to assist in rescuing files from corrupted or damaged media. Where was this application when I started digital photography with my trusty Fuji using SmartMedia? Overall the design is easy on the eye, though not attractive (not even on the Mac). A single screen accesses all features and the program execution is automated from that point onward.

Hopefully, I’ll never have to use RescuePRO…

I have sufficient space to store my holiday photos and about a month and a half to agonize over the decision as to which device will replace my 350D…this one…or this one?

It’s been six months since the last release from the Fedora project team which means their latest version is ready for use. In line with the releases provided by other teams, such as Mandriva and Ubuntu, there is little to suprise. This is basically an upgrade to fix issues found in the previous version and to roll out the latest software pool.

Fedora 10 features an updated, guided installation procedure that is clever enough to detect an older version and to upgrade that or to install a fresh copy of the OS. The boot up sequence is now fully graphical and leads into a default blue desktop environment. The latest GNOME 2.24 is the preferred window manager, OpenOffice 3.0 is delivered, as is the latest version of the GIMP and Pidgin for instant messaging. The updated Network Manager seen in Mandriva 2009.0 and Ubuntu 8.10 makes and appearance, of course.

A fair bit of work has gone into making peripherals work more smoothly. Better webcam support is available as is better Bluetooth device management and setup. Netbook users will be pleased to hear that LXDE is available by default – this may be a good time to install Fedora 10 on the Eee…

Even though Fedora is a great distribution, it’s really a playpen for the developers and hence stability is often a bit of an issue. Not in the sense that the packaged version won’t work, but that updates available for download afterward often break the system. I’ve been frustrated by that many times, especially with regard to the nVIDIA display drivers. If you are keen to play around, check it out. If you need a stable desktop environment, I still have to recommend Mandriva.

Local mirrors have not yet been updated with the ISO images, so check back on those a bit later if you are keen to try out Fedora 10.

This is another excellent example of papercraft at its finest. Build your own version of Hellboy’s Good Samaritan including some special bullets.

The model features moving parts and intricate detail. Download the images here, print them out and then the bits and pieces have to be cut out carefully and assembled. The end result is quite impressive!

fring is an application I’ve neglected to update and use for quite some time. As with all popular software, there’s always a new version available and I proceeded to download it to the E90. fring is essentially an application to enable voice over IP (VOIP) calls to be placed using a mobile handset and the carrier’s data connection. For calls to far away locations this is significantly cheaper than dialling a landline or mobile number. If the called party has access to fring or Skype or a similar support service, the calls are essentially free, except for the small amount of network traffic generated. If you’re in the coverage area of a wireless network, fring can connect over that too, meaning call costs are driven down even further.

But fring has evolved into much more than a simple VOIP application. It can become the central hub for all your messaging requirements, as it provides plug-ins and support for a host of services. The list is extensive and includes Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, SIP, Twitter, AIM and Yahoo. If you’ve signed up with any of these you can access them all from your handset. The fring interface provides an easy way of adding services: simply enter your credentials and all the necessary connectivity takes place.

As many services as necessary or practical can be activated. fring maintains a connection and updates as required. Though I use the Mobile GMail application on the E90, I find the GMail notifier in fring to be particularly useful. It pops up whenever a new message has appear in my inbox and displays a short preview.

For those with a special love for Facebook, a plug-in for that is available. The most salient features of the web interface are present and functional. A similar plug-in for Twitter exists, too.

The fact that one is able to activate so many services at once is a great idea. The usual problem of reacting to inputs and requests from all of them may be less novel to many. I switched off Twitter pretty quickly and followed that with a deactivation of the Facebook module. Unless you have serious ADD, you may want to be selective about which modules you really need to retain some of your sanity. Know that they are all there should you ever need them, though…

At the end of the day, fring’s primary mission is to provide telephony services. It does this very well and integrates all contacts from the phone, displaying the status of each contact with regard to the various services that have been activated. So, you would know which of your contacts are presently logged on and available via various IM clients, for example. Or you could simply call them, using a supported VOIP protocol of your choice…

The call quality over a mobile GSM network is very good, though it does rely on decent signal strength. The same can be said for using fring in a WLAN environment. For travelers who wish to phone home without being shocked by hotel phone bills or reams of cellular call logs, fring is probably one of the best alternatives. The download is free of charge and works on virtually any handset.

The match schedule for the FIFA Confederations Cup has been made available and, even better for local football fans, ticket sales opened yesterday. The tournament will take place in June 2009, starting on the 14th and ending with the final on June 28th.

The teams taking place include the host nation (South Africa) and the current World Cup champion (Italy). The other places are allocated to teams that won each of the six confederation championships. These championships, and the relevant qualifying nations, comprise:

• CAF (Confederation of African Football) – Egypt
• CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation) – Brazil
• UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) – Spain
• AFC (Asian Football Confederation) – Iraq
• OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) – New Zealand
• CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) – USA

Matches will be played in various centres, particularly Ellis Park in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Rustenburg and Pretoria.

The Confederations Cup is a very small warm-up for the main event planned for 2010 and should provide an indication as to how well planning and construction activities have progressed. South African residents are eligible for lower cost tickets. Overall, ticket prices range from R560 for category 4 tickets to about R5500 for category 1 tickets. Tickets are available online at the FIFA website and First National Bank branches.

The beautiful game is coming to town…soon

This weekend saw me struggling quite a bit with Apple’s software updates. First up, I was very keen to get the new iPod Touch firmware 2.2 installed. After booting up the MacBook, I allowed the new iTunes 8.0.2 update to download and started the firmware 2.2 download from within the existing iTunes application. Maybe that was part of the problem I experienced: with the Touch connected, the 2.2 firmware upgrade got going and ended rather promptly in a failure. A subsequent restart of the update did little to alleviate the situation. The iPod Touch required a restore, but that simply wasn’t happening…

A restart of Leopard also didn’t help. Then, I allowed iTunes 8.0.2 to be installed and attempted to restore the bricked Touch again. No go. A variety of error codes indicated that the restore and update would not be happening. I switched to plan B and fired up the Mac Mini, then set about initiating the download of iTunes 8.0.2. Once that had completed, I connected the iPod Touch and let it demand the restore and update. That worked, though I had the pleasure of synchronizing all my content and setting up mail and other applications.

The podcast feature in the Touch’s iTunes application is a fantastic addition to the device. Once iTunes is launched and the podcasting section selected, all available podcasts may be browsed.

Select whichever ones are of interest, and the files are downloaded directly to the device! Over my wireless network, the sample download of 40MB was quick and reliable and is immediately available in the iTunes library for listening.

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