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Archive for June, 2009
Wired all the way from the UK
As long-time readers know, I’m a huge fan of Wired Magazine. I’ve dealt with the frustration of waiting a month to receive an outdated issue of the American magazine by subscribing. At least now I’m no longer at the mercy of the local EB or CNA, but rather the South African Post Office. Wonderful…
Quietly, it seems, Conde Nast, publisher of Wired has started up some additional franchises to counter the global slowdown in magazine sales. The launch issue of the UK version of Wired Magazine is in-store now and is certainly worth a look if you’ve never bought Wired or balked at the rather high cost of each issue: the launch issue runs almost 200 pages in length and is full of what Wired readers enjoy: popular culture, technology, toys and gadgets.
At ZAR 50, this is a worthwhile purchase – I doubt follow-on issues will be selling at the same price.
It is the May 2009 issue – seems we are destined to always receive overseas publications more than a month later that their actual release date…
Confed Cup semi final: USA vs Spain
The team from the USA meets the European champion Spain in tonight’s first Confederations Cup 2009 semi final match. The Spanish team currently holds the record for being undefeated in 35 games in a row, a rather huge burden weighing on the shoulders of the US.
As in any game of football, anything can happen: the US has shown great skill and determination in the tournament so far and may be able to pull off a tremendous upset. The next 90 minutes will deliver the name of the finalist to meet either Brazil or South Africa.
The US played solidly against Spain who seemed to be unable to break through their opponent’s defense. 30 minutes into the first half, Altidore gingerly sidestepped the Spanish defense and whacked the ball into their net to give the US a lead in this very important match. That setback didn’t help Spain, who up until then seemed but a shadow of their former self – unable to penetrate the American defense and constantly on the back foot due to sudden attacks it seemed more and more certain that the US could pull off the tournament’s biggest upset. Dempsey put the team even further into the lead very late in the second half making a comeback highly unlikely for Spain.
Three minutes from full time, Bradley was red-carded after a questionable foul leaving the US team with only ten men on the field. That couldn’t dampen their spirits in the slightest: the US has beaten the world’s number one team and has progressed to the final on Sunday. This was, without doubt, one of the most entertaining and gripping matches of the 2009 Confederations Cup.
USA 2 : 
Spain 0
iPhone 3.0 and tethering
2 years ago
by manfred
in iPod/iPhone
My iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade experience turned into something of a disaster: I had been waiting patiently the entire day of the 17th of June for the download to become available. Early on in the day, it seemed as though a download link to the update had been found, but that file turned out to be the 3.0 update file for the iPhone 3GS. Finally, later that evening the update file was made available by Apple. In true herd fashion, I connected my MacBook to the home wireless network, docked the iPhone and rapidly clicked through the prompts as iTunes requested permission to download the new OS and to update the device. The best part of the evening was spent watching the file trickle down the Interwebs, finally finishing off after fifty minutes or so. That should have been the worst of it. Sadly, it wasn’t. Just a few, brief minutes into the device update and I was shown an error message: the update had terminated due to an unknown error. Would I be interested in trying again? Twice more I retried the 3.0 update, each time seeing nothing more than the message that an unknown error had occurred. A reboot and another retry without success.
I managed to restore from a 2.2.1 file I had on my hard drive, forcing iTunes to use that file to rebuild the iPhone and restore my settings. After a long waiting period, the iPhone was at last usable again, though unable to provide copy and paste…
I had a similar experience with the iPod Touch whilst on holiday in December when trying to update the OS of that device. Again, the issue occurred whilst using iTunes on the MacBook. I can’t see the MacBook being the problem. Rather, I’m rather certain that TuneUp may be at fault – though that is unconfirmed. I can only comment on how unreliably TuneUp starts up at times, hides itself behind other windows and sometimes seems not to start up properly at all.
I fixed the iPhone update issue the same way I fixed the iPod Touch update issue: by connecting the device to my Windows PC and running the update from its iTunes software install. No hassle – everything worked seamlessly.
I’ll be quite honest: the 3.0 software update is hardly revolutionary. In fact, I doubt that I have even noticed any difference over the past few days. Copy and paste is something I still need to perform. Odd, that. One would think that such a feature is indispensable, but I seem not to require it too often. Most annoyingly, I’ve found that the iPhone is no longer very good at picking up my wireless network at home. Connecting to that network takes much longer and often, the connection is simply not picked up. For the rest, everything works and the inclusion of a Finder is a godsend. Better than copy and paste any day, I’d say.
And then, there’s tethering. That’s interesting for the way Apple has made it work: seamlessly and elegantly. In fact, tethering is so simple that I found myself trying to figure out what else to configure by the time it was already working. I’m on the MTN network, but the following should work just as well for Vodacom. Open Safari on the iPhone and navigate to the following URL http://wan.to/iphone.
Simply follow the instructions and install the appropriate configuration file for your operator.
Navigate to the Network options under Settings, then General. The Internet Tethering item should be available now.
Tethering works by Bluetooth or USB cable.
I tried it with the USB cable on my Windows 7 system.
Simply enabling the Internet Tethering option establishes the connection: no worrying about modem settings or anything else. The first time this feature is used on a Windows system, the appropriate driver is installed. That’s all there’s to it.
Start browsing on the attached system, then simply turn tethering off when finished.
Photo and Film Expo 2009
2 years ago
by manfred
in Photography
The Dome in Northgate, Johannesburg will host the first Photo and Film Expo in July. This is the first time that South Africans will get to experience a dedicated film and photography exposition in one location.
An extensive program featuring local photographers has been planned and visitors are encouraged to bring their cameras. The latest hardware and software promises to be on show and exciting competitions and give-aways have been planned.
The Photo and Film Expo 2009 runs from 10 to 12 July 2009. Adults pay an ZAR 80 entry fee per day and children under 16 ZAR 40.
Photogene for iPhone
The more I’m using the iPhone‘s built-in camera, the more I find myself wanting to perform basic image manipulations. The iTunes App Store contains many image manipulation applications, but my favourite one so far is Photogene.
Photogene is very easy to use. The starting point is either a new photo that can be taken with the built-in camera or an existing photo found in the camera roll.
There are many tools to manipulate and enhance the photograph, including cropping and rotating functions. The entry point to each category of image manipulation tool is found by icon in the left-hand margin. The icons are not necessarily a clear description of what function they lead to, so it takes a bit of getting used to and playing around to get to the feature one is looking for.
Photogene also excels at providing filters and colour correction, as well as colour level and exposure corrections. In all cases, the required setting is made by dragging a slider an appropriate distance and previewing the results.
Multiple levels of undo are provided and it is rather easy to revert the image to a previous setting. Slightly whimsical, but still useful is the provision of a number of border and background styles that may be applied to the photograph.
Once manipulated and changed, the image may be saved to the camera roll as a new image.
Photogene is highly useful and entertaining. Being able to crop and rotate images on the iPhone was the primary reason I hunted it out, but I find myself using many of the other features it provides. For USD 2.99, this is an excellent choice in the category of image manipulation on the iPhone.
Confed Cup Round 1: Italy vs Brazil and Egypt vs USA
As was the case yesterday, the final games in Group B required an extra effort by certain teams if they wished to progress. Specifically Italy as the reigning world champion had a tough time coming to grips with Egypt in a previous game. Facing Brazil is no easy tasks. In the other match, the USA took on Egypt.
Italy could not muster any of their special flair to compete with Brazil. Fabiano scored twice, putting Brazil in the lead by 2 goals. Those goals came within five minutes of each other in the first half, at 37 minutes and then at 42. An own goal by Italian Dossena on the stroke of half time sealed their fate: Italy are out of the tournament and Brazil meet South Africa on Thursday evening at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
At the same time, the USA played against Egypt. Though Egypt had managed to beat Italy some days before, they could not capitalize on the form they had shown in that game: their encounter with the US in Rustenburg ended 3:0 in favour of the hard-working US team who get to play European champions Spain on Wednesday.
Here’s the updated table for Group B
| Group B |
Team | Points |
 Brazil |
9 | |
| USA |
3 | |
 Italy |
3 | |
 Egypt |
3 |
Show me your shoes, Luke
2 years ago
The Yankee marketing machine is unstoppable. The Star Wars franchise is still incredibily popular and anything bearing a Star Wars character is sure to sell. We’ve had video games, towels, mugs and T-shirts, so why no shoes?
Adidas comes to the rescue with their 2010 range of Super Star footwear.
Obviously available only in very limited quantities and at an apparent USD 275 per pair these may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The packaging is certainly not worthy of such an expensive product.
Initially, it seems as though a Darth Vader and Yoda model will be available.
May your shoes be with you…
Confed Cup Round 1: South Africa vs Spain and Iraq vs New Zealand
The final games of the initial round of the Confederations Cup 2009 take place tonight. As goal differences and points matter, both games are being played at 20:30. Spain takes on South Africa in Bloemfontein and New Zealand take on Iraq at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
With New Zealand without any chance of making it through, South Africa require at least a single point in their encounter with Spain, though they may still rely on a loss by Iraq to New Zealand. The obvious favourite in the group is Spain. South Africa has a good chance and it would be great to see the host nation attempting a meetup with another big name next week. Sadly, I think there’s little hope that South Africa will progress beyond the next round…
In the first half, we got to see a different South African team: hardly intimidated by the favourites Spain, South Africa initially started with a defensive line-up, then rather quickly took the initiative and pushed forward, attacking the Spanish goal again and again. On 34 minutes, Spain had a great opportunity to go into the lead but a save by Booth after the goalkeeper had been beaten maintained the status quo. South Africa seemed to be creating far more opportunities – maybe Spain were holding back, assured of a semi-final berth? In the game between New Zealand and Iraq, it seemed as though New Zealand had come out fighting fit and Iraq were not afforded too many opportunities. At halftime, both games stood at 0:0.
A foul on Fabregas by Mokoena after 52 minutes resulted in a penalty for Spain…and that penalty was saved by the South African goalkeeper. Seconds later, Villa made sure and popped the ball into the net. He had failed to convert the penalty. Still, South Africa played very well and kept the pressure on. Llorente scored in the 72nd minute putting Spain into a commanding lead. Though South Africa kept the pressure on, there was little they could do to equalize. Slowly but surely, their game turned into a gamble based on the outcome of the paralllel game. At 72 minutes, the score in that game was still 0:0.
This has been one of the better matches of the tournament so far. South Africa played better than they have in quite some time…
South Africa 0 : Spain 2
Iraq 0 : 
New Zealand 0
Based on the outcome of the Iraq – New Zealand game, South Africa manages to scrape through into the next round to probably meet Brazil. The world’s number one, Spain, progresses too. New Zealand and Iraq are out of the tournament.
Here’s the updated table for Group A
| Group A |
Team | Points |
| Spain |
9 | |
| South Africa |
4 | |
| Iraq |
2 | |
| New Zealand |
1 |
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