Metro 2033 for FREE on PC!

Go over to this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MetroVideoGame?sk=app_395840630491782 , like the page, download the file, and then grab the free key to unlock the game on Steam!

Happy gaming - it's a fantastic game!

Duke Nukem 3D for free!

Santa has come early for PC and MAC users!

Go over to this page and grab for yourself Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition for free for a limited time only (expires 14:59 GMT today).

Here's the 'blurb on YouTube:

A trick to get free delivery on TAKEALOT.COM

If you're into your online shopping as much as I am*, you'll probably do the odd purchase (or not so odd ;-)) from TAKEALOT.COM. The most frustrating part of the purchase is knowing you are going to have to pay R35 for delivery if your order is under R250; sometimes this doesn't make the purchase all that much appealing or even worthwhile (> 10% of the total purchase being added on as the delivery fee alone feels a bit steep).

The good news is if you do a frequent (or at least once every three years) shop at TAKEALOT.COM, you can spruce up your total to the required R250 minimum qualifier for free delivery by buying yourself TAKEALOT.COM vouchers!

I know this seems a bit silly to tie your money into TAKEALOT.COM, but if you are going to buy from them again in the future you may just be saving yourself that R35 delivery fee. Think about it after considering this example:

You want to buy a R150 item but will have to add on R35 for delivery (that's more than 20% of the actual product cost being added on as a delivery fee). If you buy a R100 voucher, your voucher is valid for 3 years and you don't pay for delivery now.

When you buy your next order six months later, you redeem your R100 from the voucher, and if your new order is over the R250 threshold, your delivery is free, so you won't need to buy another voucher, and in fact have spent less on the second order because of the redeemed voucher, and have realised the R35 saving from before!

I know this seems a bit like hard work for a saving but every bit counts, and if you are regularly buying under R250, you're essentially wasting R35 on each delivery.

I'm just saying, think about it. Be creative. You could end up saving yourself enough money from delivery fees (R35 per order) to pay for that R150 original order if you make four purchases a year!

* not that I do a lot of online purchases! My last order from TAKEALOT.COM was in June (that's almost six months ago)

Xbox LIVE is 10 and to celebrate here's your FREE cupcakes!

Xbox LIVE turns 10 today and to celebrate, Microsoft is giving away some freebies (well, Wreckateer for 48 hours) and some half-priced games, depending on your zone.

Check out the full list of discounted titles here:

• UK Xbox LIVE users
  Castle Crashers
  Fruit Ninja Kinect
  Full House Poker
  Geometry Wars Evolved
  Bastion
  Peggle
  
• South Africa Xbox LIVE users
  Castle Crashers
  Fruit Ninja Kinect
  Full House Poker
  
• US Xbox LIVE users
  Castle Crashers
  Fruit Ninja Kinect
  Full House Poker
  Geometry Wars Evolved
  Bastion
  Peggle
  Battlefield 1943

FREE Tribute to 80's New Wave music download

Thanks to a tip-off from my buddy Graeme, here is a link to download a bunch of covers of classic 80's New Wave songs...

coma-online.com:

It started with this idea: the goth/industrial scene was highly influenced by the 80's New Wave scene and some of the bands in our little band of misfits even started out playing New Wave. Therefore, it only seemed natural to pay tribute to the music of the 80's New Wave ...

http://coma-online.com/?p=18036

FREE games (again) - Faerie Solitaire and Battlefield 1942

When there's the word "free" in a title, it always grabs my attention. Heck, as I've probably said countless times before I even buy fat free yoghurt because I don't want to have to pay for the fat when I can get it free.

There are two free games available now - one for a limited time only, so let's begin with that one:

• Faerie Solitaire activated on STEAM - go on over and buy it before it expires (8 November 10am Pacific Time which is around 8pm South Africa time). Get it now, keep it forever.
  
• Battlefield 1942 is also free now, forever (AFAIK). Go to ORIGIN, hit the demo section and claim your free copy! Still a great game IMHO.

Telkom ADSL speed upgrades - manual prodding

Telkom has been long overdue in upgrading the entry-level DSL speeds in South Africa but thankfully, finally, the upgrades are here. Entry-level is now 1Mbps, up from a ghastly 384kbps (in 2012? You've got to be kidding me... even 1Mbps is ... well, let's just be grateful for the upgrade at all, shall we?).

 In my experience, I've had to manually request my lines to be upgraded once the exchange was upgraded, and here are the steps to follow. Note that this applies to 384kbps (up to 1Mbps) and 1Mbps (up to 2Mbps). A head-nod goes to HandyTechTipper (and in turn, Michal Mierzwa, for pointing out this strategy in the MyBroadBand forums).

Besides the obvious reason of wanting to get the higher speeds as soon as possible, you probably want to jump the queue just in case they end up oversubscribing the service and you end up without any available ports on the new exchange!

How to make sure you get your line speed upgrade

1. Run a speed test on your line:http://speedtest.mybroadband.co.za/ or http://speedtest-rba.isdsl.net/
   
2. Check that your line speed has increased at your exchange http://www.telkom.co.za/checkadsl by entering your telephone number
   
3. Depending on the results, call 10210 (toll free from a Telkom land line)
   
4. Go to the DSL technical guys
   (the prompts are as follows, in case you want to bulldoze the buttons and skip the voices and waiting)...
1. 1 for existing customer
2. Enter your 10 digit phone number
3. 2 for more options
4. 1 for DSL Technical support
5. 3 for DSL Technical support
   
5. Ask them to increase your line speed (you may have to explain to them that your exchange supports the high speed but your line is sync’ing at a lower speed)
1. I've done this remotely, without being at home, and the first technician (or should I say, call centre agent) configured my line upgrade without me being at home to reset the router. That's all you need to do anyway; they 'flip a switch' and then you reset your router. This was done while I was at the shops and when I came home it was up at 1Mbps.
2. Another incident occurred where the technician (ahem, call centre agent) insisted I need to be by the router when they do the upgrade because it can't be connected. I told them this wasn't necessary but they argued with me and eventually I had no choice but to relent (what do I know anyway, right? :)) and make sure the router was disconnected before they did the line speed upgrade. In this case they even had the audacity to check the connection was off before they ticked a checkbox. 
3. The moral of the story is: rather do it from home if you can, and prepare yourself for some uncooperative agents!
   
6. Check your speed again:http://speedtest.mybroadband.co.za/ or http://speedtest-rba.isdsl.net/
   (or go to the router console and check at what speed it is synchronising) 

I’ve gone up from 384kbps to 1Mbps ‘for free’ so I’m a happy camper.

Stop Zombie Mouth with this Halloween freebie!

You can read my full EL33TONLINE blurb here, but the basic gist of it is PopCap Games and the ADA (American Dental Association) recognise how important our teeth are during this sweet-consuming season and they've teamed up this year to redefine what a Halloween "treat" can be by deciding to give away FUN instead of candy!

As their site (www.stopzombiemouth.com) says, "[they're] giving away Plants vs. Zombies download games as a sugar-free alternative, and you can join in the fun."

Grab yourself a free coupon (attached) and while you're at it, stash up a bunch in your reception area of your home so that when you get beset upon by miniaturised zombie-wannabes you can give them the gift of gaming instead of the prognosis of halitosis.

Miffy cheese?

Usually when I refer to something as 'miffy', that's not a good thing ...

Transfer big files with Wetransfer.com

Simple solution for all those users that struggle to get big files shared with multiple recipients via email: www.wetransfer.com.

No need for 3rd-party software to be installed on any client machines, and you can send a file (up to 2GB in size) to up to twenty recipients. The nice part is, each recipient receives an individual email so they can't see whom else is included and it's pretty simple to use.

Nice for transferring big files without cluttering up e-mail queues.

Exchange 2010 Access is Denied EMC and EMS

There are plenty of reasons why an administrator could be denied access to the EMS or EMC.

One fairly unique problem that besieged me prevented me from accessing the EMC or EMS. Rebooting didn't fix it either.

After plenty of regular troubleshooting strategies I discovered that the WINHTTPS proxy had been set to something else besides the default and it was preventing me from accessing anything.

netsh winhttp show proxy revealed a proxy was configured, so I ran netsh winhttp reset proxy and then it was fixed! EMC and EMS back online!


Current WinHTTP proxy settings:

    Direct access (no proxy server).


Hope this helps someone out there...

Installing certificates on MS Forefront 2010 with Threat Management Gateway

This post is pretty much a no-brainer but in the context of the hassles I had with this site I've decided to include it here to close the chapter (and seeing that it had two other senior engineers stumped; one a network guru and the other an Exchange guru, it seems worthwhile to note).

After running all the certificates for MS Exchange 2010 and getting the Certificate Revocation status verified, all internal access to Exchange 2010 was secured via SSL. The challenge was now getting the remote users secured.

Note this is a solution pertaining specifically to a Threat Management Gateway and you don't need to do this if you aren't using Forefront.

I had dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's but the darned thing still gave a certificate error when accessing remotely. Checking the TMG's firewall properties I verified that Outlook Anywhere, ActiveSync and Exchange Web App's Listeners for HTTPS were using the correct certificates but it still wasn't working.

Then I noticed that the certificates inside MMC snap-in were showing plain old certificates without the embedded private key; so I tried this:

• On MS Exchange 2010 server, export the Exchange certificate WITH the private key
• In the TMG MMC Snap-in, import the Exchange certificate WITH the private key
• Go to the Forefront TMG dashboard, Firewall Policy...
• Select each service (Allow Outlook Anywhere; Allow Exchange Active Sync; Allow Exchange Web App) and ...
• Properties à Listener à Properties à Certificates à Select Certificate à Choose the new one à OK
•   Apply changes to TMG
• SOLVED!
  

Renew Exchange 2010 Certificate generates a binary file - conversion to base64 tips

When renewing an SSL certificate for Exchange 2010, the process is fairly straightforward and there are plenty of sites to give advice on how to do this. Two sites to consider would be Technet and Go Daddy and the steps are summarised as follow -

1. In the console tree, click Server Configuration. 
2. Select the server that contains the certificate, and then select the certificate you want to renew. 
3. In the action pane, click Renew Exchange Certificate. 
4.  On the Renew Exchange Certificate page, select the services you want to assign to the renewed certificate. The services that are checked are currently assigned to the certificate. 
5.  When you click Assign, the Progress page will confirm your selections and try to renew the certificate. 
6.  Click Yes to overwrite the existing certificate with the renewed certificate. 
7.  The Completion page will display the status of the request in addition to the syntax of the cmdlet needed to renew the certificate. 

Of course, it's never this easy and in my experience running a certificate renewal in Exchange 2010 generates a binary file (.req) that can't be easily copied and pasted into a web interface on the CA's side. In the past one would simply use Open With --> Notepad to get the certificate information but now Exchange 2010 generates the REQ file as binary and typically the file contents look like this:

Binary format:

0é♦k0é♥S☻☺ 0[1

When they should look something like this:

Base64 format:

-----BEGIN NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----

MIIEazCCA1MCAQAwWzEaMBgGA1UECgwRd2VibWFpbC5wZmsuY28uemExITAfBgNV

BAsMGERvbWFpbiBDb250cm9sIFZhbGlkYXRlZDEaMBgGA1UEAwwRd2VibWFpbC5w

ZmsuY28uemEwggEiMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4IBDwAwggEKAoIBAQDLjyTxu5Z/

<snip>

LndlYm1haWwucGZrLmNvLnphghhwZmtkYm5leGNoMDEucGZrc2EuY28uemGCGGF1

dG9kaXNjb3Zlci5wZmtzYS5jby56YYIWYXV0b2Rpc2NvdmVyLnBmay5jby56YTAM

BgNVHRMBAf8EAjAAMB0GA1UdDgQWBBSdCGqQh1ui1NbZZ2bMEZNz5Q7MujANBgkq

hkiG9w0BAQUFAAOCAQEAjyY0tEQvX3JLI0cVULQdX7lX1I9rR7R5qivVMtRoiwYS

+HVdK7odmzTuDAlCisX1qCmdUpmtIK1/ldMEF3yTgNqrvtttxofxpkqg3NGec3cr

<snip>

jhwHn51Sv3hbkUIU30swTP3T7dkhgMxj2JX2AhilqA==

-----END NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----

In order to get the binary to base64 you need to convert it. There are various methods to do this and I have used both online tools and websites and the Command Prompt to achieve this, with the Command Prompt certainly being the far easier method to accomplish this (especially since it inserts the "BEGIN CERTIFICATE" and "END CERTIFICATE" header and footer automatically... making it a much more 'pure' conversion).

---

Using Base64 Online decoder and encoder (online method).

1. Just upload the file, upload the .REQ file, click convert to source data button and grab the output. 
2. Paste contents to your favourite text editor
3. Add the header and footer (both must be on separate lines) and then you're good to go!

The header must be a line on its own at the top as so:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----

And the footer must be a line on its own at the bottom as so:

-----END CERTIFICATE-----

---

Using the Command Prompt (preferred method):

certutil -encode (req filename) (target filename)

e.g. 

You can then copy this file's contents and paste it to the appropriate CA's webform to complete the certificate request!

Sign the petition to protect Rimsha

My blog doesn't receive much traffic nowadays because I don't have much useful stuff to say (and that's the truth, isn't it :)) but occasionally something comes along that I feel I need to post on my blog. The story of Rimsha in Pakistan is just one of these things.

This little girl has Down syndrome and she is to be burned alive on blasphemy charges. On so many levels this story affects and touches me; I consider how inhumane this whole situation is, and then I try to emphathise with the family. I just can't accept oppression on grounds of religious beliefs and when it comes to a mentally handicapped person - a child! - this sort of evil reaction is totally unjust. I have often considered what I would have done had I lived in a time or place where my daughter would have been taken away from us (and possibly murdered) because of a condition she had no choice about.

Not sure how much impact this petition will have but if you don't sign it, you're just allowing it to happen without putting up a fight.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists, 
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.


SIGN THE PETITION NOW!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/pakistan_save_my_daughter/?bCiCibb&v=17431

"Invalid Argument" when trying to delete files - VMware

Recently I tried to delete some files in the VMware shell and I got an "Invalid Argument" error...

In order to resolve this, I tried chmod 755 * and it didn't work. Individual file deletions, not working. Short of a reboot (which would have been a drastic step given that this is a production host) I instead tried to overwrite the file contents with new data to see if it would somehow unlock the file locks (which seemed to be the issue here).

This is what worked for me from the working directory with the files (this command will write the "a" character into each file as a new file, so all previous data will be lost - make sure you are in the proper working directory!!):

echo "a" > *


The files were then unlocked and I could do my usual rm * and it was done. Hope this helps someone else out there!

FREE PC GAME: UFO - Aftermath

Grab this beauty from Green Man Gaming!

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/za/en/pc/games/strategy/ufo-aftermath/

Ends in 3 hours' time!

FREEBIE: Hacker Evolution for PC

Keen on another free game? Go to Green Man Gaming and grab Hacker Evolution while it's still available at 100% discount!

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/za/en/pc/games/simulation/hacker-evolution/

Chrome Remote Desktop BETA

Many people I know use remote support tools like Teamviewer to get their remote support tasks done quickly and with very little hassle. I have used Teamviewer before and I am very impressed with what it can do - the only problem is, if you have a conscience worth its salt, you won't use Teamviewer FREE for commercial use (as the usage terms forbid it). It's great to help grandma in Alaska get her printer working again but if you want to charge someone for support, you can't do it with Teamviewer FREE.

The "fairly recent" addition of Google Chrome to my PC arsenal has grown into a blossoming relationship as I find myself taking advantage of the Google Sync functionality (largely because Google decided 'not to be evil' and remove support for Firefox and not even release the Google Sync code as open source either). One of the latest add-on's that I've included in my Google Chrome toolbox is a little BETA application called "Chrome Remote Desktop BETA". This app functions almost identically to Teamviewer and best of all, it's absolutely FREE.

Since more users are slowly migrating to Chrome (and in my case, I recommend all my clients to use Chrome because of its wonderful integration with Google), Chrome Remote Desktop BETA is a must-have support tool.

MSExchangeIS service not starting in Exchange 2010 on VM

Recently we had to reboot an Exchange 2010 box to remove an agent and upon restart the MSExchangeIS service refused to start. The error message spat out in the Application Windows Log was -

Unable to initialize the Information Store service because  the clocks on the client and server are skewed.   This may be caused by a time change either in the client or the server,  and may require a reboot of that computer.   Verify that your domain is properly configured and  is currently online. 


The first thing I tried was a command line "net time \\dc-name.domain /set" to resync the times but this didn't make a difference, even though it did a resync.

After some more digging I came across this site that suggested the problem of time synchronisation is not with the VM itself but rather with the VMware host. To set up time sync in VMware it's these simple steps:

• Select the VMware host
• Configuration
• Under Software select Time Configuration
• Click on Properties (top right)
• Do the necessary
• Done!

Once we had synchronised the VMware host with the DC time everything worked again and the MSExchangeIS service would start.

Joy in the land.

FREEBIES: Worlds of Ultima

GOG.com is giving you the opportunity to be the happy owner of the Worlds of Ultima games: Savage Empire and Martian Dreams.

Just head on over to gog.com and claim your freebies!

Mymemory.com 60% off vouchers special ends midnight

If you're keen on high-quality photobooks with free international delivery then head over to mymemory.com before midnight tonight (UK time) and get yourself some vouchers at 60% off - these vouchers can be redeemed at a later stage and at this price you will be securing a phenomenal bargain.

I've used Mymemory.com several times before and their service and quality are both great!

60% off vouchers is a bargain because you are under no time pressure (or at least, a lot less time pressure) and you can give them away as gifts if needs be!

Go on! Do it! Do it now!

PS - first time buyers will also get a 5GBP discount on their first order

Free online backup service ZOVO is FREE

... for one year, in celebration of the HRH The Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

What is Zovo? Zovo is an online unlimited backup facility - here's what they have to say:

Safely backup your files online

zovo safely and securely backs up all of your files online, from multiple computers. It works automatically in the background so that you don't worry about losing your precious files. You can restore files, even deleted ones, quickly and easily. It's totally secure, easy to use, and quick to setup. Best of all, you get truly unlimited storage space, so that you can back up all of your computers. No more excuses for not being "backed up".

Added features include streaming from your backed up data to your iPad or iPhone:

Stream your music & movies to your iPhone or iPad

zovo will change the way you use your iPhone & iPad. Using our free app and you can instantly stream all of the music and videos that you have backed up. You can also access your documents, presentations and photos too. Any data you have backed up is now instantly available to you, from anywhere.

What have you got to lose?

Sign up here for your free year: http://zovo.co/jubi/?lrRef=L0ALV

Telkom upgrade due 4th of June

UPDATE: According to a MyBroadband post, the upgrades will now only start in August...

I've just phoned Telkom and confirmed that 4 June 2012 marks the day Telkom upgrades their 384kbps lines to 1Mbps. Can you dig it? Finally, after HOW MANY YEARS do we get entry-level ADSL being 1Mbps?

At least the overall cost of ADSL is dropping but still, 2012 and we finally hit 1Mbps? This is a bit ridiculous. Thankfully things seem to be improving at a more rapid pace nowadays!

Inserting Landscape and Portrait pages into the same Document

Maybe I'm alone here, and if that is the case then I am highly humbled, but I've been using MS Word and other word processing software since the late 80's or early 90's and I've never known how to insert a portrait-oriented page into a landscape-oriented document, or vice versa.

Finally plucking up the courage to find out how to do this, I found one page (no doubt of many) that tells you how to achieve this -

http://www.castlejb.com/webdesign/landscape/landscape.html

It's actually pretty easy - just define new section breaks and format those sections the way you want them! In MS Word 2010 it's a bit different to the instructions listed here;

• Select the beginning of the section to format
• Page Layout
• Breaks => Next Page
• Go to the end of the section to format
• Page Layout
• Breaks => Next Page
• Then select the section and go to Orientation => Landscape / Portrait

Voila!

Happy 35th birthday, Star Wars!

Friday, 25 May, marks the 35th birthday for Star Wars!

How will you be celebrating this auspicious occasion that marks the birth of the greatest sci-fi saga a long time ago?

Disciples II: Gold Edition FREE for a limited time

If you want a free game, or love RTS, or enjoy Disciples, then grab it now by visiting this URL!

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/za/en/pc/games/strategy/disciples-ii-gold-edition/

Free SMS in Gmail comes to South Africa

Finally, it's here! Free SMS in Gmail to South African mobile networks.

If you are a Gmail user (if not, WHY not?) you can now send SMS'es free from your web-based Gmail client to (currently, as of 2012/03/16) MTN and 8ta networks.

I am hopeful that the networks supported will grow over time, so keep an eye on this link and scroll down to South Africa to know when you can hit Cell C, Virgin and Vodacom. A useful guide is located here which has prominent logo's displayed of the currently supported South African cellular networks and also explains how to use the facility.

I already had the SMS lab application running on my Gmail client (for US and Canada numbers) so one day I noticed this pop up on the side:

New! Free SMS in Gmail Send free SMS directly from Gmail - just enter a phone number and click Enter. SMS replies are sent right to your Gmail inbox.

and realised it was letting me target South African numbers too. In order to use this feature you have to enable the SMS (text messaging) in Chat lab.

Added information on the feature is located here. The basics are as follows:

• Use the Send SMS box above the chat window and enter a number to send an SMS (or if you have Google Voice credits, to call the number) or select Send SMS from the box of options that appears to the right of your contact's name. If you already have a chat window option select Options and Send SMS.
• Sending an SMS is free and any replies you receive are treated in your standard Chat Window, and are billed at normal cellular rates.
• You start with 50 credits and even if you send an SMS to an unsupported number it bills you for one credit. When you hit 0 credits you will be entitled to one free SMS a day. If you receive SMS replies your credits will grow again by five per received SMS, so if you hit 0 credits just wait 24 hours and then send yourself an SMS and you'll be back in business with five credits! The maximum credit at any time is fifty.

For extensive information on this service go here.

Hints and Tips:

• Save the incoming Gmail SMS number associated from your account because this is linked to your unique Google Account! Any time you send an SMS to this number it appears as a Chat message in the Gmail account. 
• If you'd like a higher message credit, send yourself an SMS from Google to your phone, and then reply. Every reply earns you five SMS credits. Effectively you are paying your service provider (e.g. MTN) one SMS in return for being able to send another five. If you do this once a day you can get five SMS messages for the price of one.

Clonezilla SE stuck at loading TFTP

I've recently begun trying out Clonezilla SE on a DRBL-live CD and it works great.

The one problem I've experienced is that clients receiving the DHCP broadcast freeze while loading the TFTP menu prior to loading Clonezilla Client.

It sits at the boot screen for PXE boot menu after it's received an IP from the DHCP server and is about to load the TFTP, with the word "TFTP" and then progress dots ". . ." going on indefinitely.

The solution that works for me is to set the Clonezilla SE IP address to another subnet to the clients; for example the default IP for the clients is 192.168.100.* and I've set the Clonezilla SE IP to a static 192.168.72.44 and it works fine.

Of course, you must agree to set the local ethernet IP to an alias for both IP ranges, if you're using one ethernet card.

Hope this helps someone out there :)

Today's date is 3.14 - Happy Pi Day!!

Thanks to my good friend (and nerd) Chris for alerting me to the fact that today is Pi Day!!

Celebrate it with all your fellow nerds - get a cylinder of radius Z and height A and enjoy in the full volume of its goodness!*


* If you don't know the volume of a cylinder of radius Z and height A, let me elaborate: Pi * z * z * a = Pizza!

Register here to express an interest in Raspberry Pi

Heard of the Raspberry Pi?

If not, here's the low-down from Raspberry Pi SBC:

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer board that plugs into a TV and a keyboard. It’s a miniature ARM-based PC which can be used for many of the things that a desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays High-Definition video.

Features

Picture used without permission from MyBroadBand.co.za

• Broadcom BCM2835 700MHz ARM1176JZFS processor with FPU and Videocore 4 GPU
• GPU provides Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
• GPU is capable of 1Gpixel/s, 1.5Gtexel/s or 24GFLOPs with texture filtering and DMA infrastructure
• 256MB RAM
• Boots from SD card, running the Fedora version of Linux
• 10/100 BaseT Ethernet socket
• HDMI socket
• USB 2.0 socket
• RCA video socket
• SD card socket
• Powered from microUSB socket
• 3.5mm audio out jack
• Header footprint for camera connection
• Size: 85.6 x 53.98 x 17mm

How much will this little beauty cost you?


R260.00.


Two hundred and sixty Rand.

If you want to get your paws on one of these beautiful gadgets, you need to pre-register now and be on the waiting list - on a first-in, first-out basis.

Go here to register: http://za.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi

Student protests: how to protect your car

Camouflage!

Decisions, decisions ...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Not that I celebrate such commercialised tripe, but thanks to the protesting students on campus I've got the day off, so I guess I'll surprise my missus with some strawberries and chocolate dip. The thing is, do I get 200g of dip for R20 or 400g for R19? Decisions, decisions ...

International Rugby Calendar 2012 and onwards

Back in 2011 I posted about a Rugby World Cup calendar for you to import to your Outlook, iCal device (iPod, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, etc.), and so forth. I didn't realise that Mike Riversdale would continue this calendar past the World Cup and as it appears, it's still being updated for international rugby events through 2012. That's very exciting :)

So, if you own an Android tablet, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, or such then you can add this calendar to your device to keep track of all the international rugby events for 2012 (and hopefully beyond).

To add the calendar pick one of these links:

• The XML format
• The iCal format for most mobile devices and Google Calendar
• An HTML version for bookmarking on your browser

Super 15 Rugby Fixtures Calendar 2012

If you want the latest Super Rugby fixtures list, for 2012, then pick one of these for your desired format:

• Click this link for the iCal format (BlackBerry, iPhone, Outlook, Google Calendar, etc.)
  * you can add iCal format calendars directly into your GOOGLE CALENDAR account by loading up calendar.google.com and then at the bottom under "Other calendars" clicking Add by URL.
• Click this link for the XML format
• Click this link for the HTML format
  * you can bookmark this on any device that has an HTML browser and you'll always have the calendar directly at your fingertips.

If you want to customise the calendar yourself, then you'll need a CSV format, which you can obtain here. This CSV file was courtesy of Arthur the Grandmaster from MyBroadband.co.za forums and is the root source for all of the modified formats above.

Alternative options:

• http://www.ougrote.com/2011/09/03/2012-super-15-fixtures-for-outlook-and-ical/
  this one offers a few options but it lists each event as an "all day event" for the day it's due rather than scheduled at the correct time in an iCal calendar.

Free undercover parking for as long as you like at Westwood Shopping Centre

I don't promote nefariously abusing what I'm about to tell you but use it if you feel justified in doing so...

You know how you have to pay R5 for 1 hour's worth of undercover parking at Westwood? Well, shopping at Pick 'n' Pay gives you 90 minutes free parking but what if you end up being delayed in the queues to pay for your shopping and the 90 minutes expires? Simple: swipe your ticket again!

You see, the system at Westwood seems to work by setting your timer back 90 minutes (e.g. 12h00 arrival becomes an effective 13h30 arrival so at 12h45 the system technically sees you as 'not having arrived yet') but when the 90 minutes is up the system seems to just count up from zero again (you've arrived at 13h30 so it counts as normal from then) so if you then swipe your ticket for another 90 minutes of free parking it thinks you're resetting another 90 minutes (e.g. 13h30 'arrival' becomes an effective 15h00 arrival).

If you are already within the 90 minute cycle then swiping your ticket again has no effect. You have to wait for the 90 minute cycle to end before doing this again.

And yes, I've done it myself and have had a friend do it too so it definitely works.

Feel free to +1 me if this post is helpful.

Download YouTube to MP3 using YouTube MP3 and many others

If you've ever wanted to download a YouTube video's soundtrack to 'high-quality' MP3 there are a few sites to visit to achieve this which I've listed below. If you use Google Chrome you can also choose to install an add-on that will allow you to do the download at the click of a button while viewing the YouTube video. The add-on is called, creatively, YouTube MP3 and can be downloaded here http://www.youtube-mp3.org/addons/chrome.

If you want to use a web interface then try out these sites:

• www.youtube-mp3.org/ the parent site for the Chrome add-on
• www.listentoyoutube.com/
• www.video2mp3.net/
• www.vidtomp3.com/

There are of course plenty more that are just a quick Google search away and also a bunch of add-ons for other browsers - this is simply to point you in the right direction (and if you didn't know it was possible beforehand, now you know!).

Enjoy downloading your favorite Rebecca Black tracks this Friday!

SAOL information misleading

Dear SAOL

Your homepage announcements are not providing the correct information about comparative pricing between Telkom and SAOL and this is false advertising.

SAOL:	Telkom:
Circuit Speed	Up to 1 MB	Up to 1 MB
Extras	ADSL + 1 Gig FREE + Email	ADSL Only
Top Up per Gig	R29	NA
Price	R299	R326

The Telkom website quotes the 1Mbps line as R289 (incl. VAT) per month. Your site says Telkom charges R326 which is not correct. Will SAOL be offering a better price than Telkom or should we stick with Telkom for our 1Mbps ADSL lines? In either event, please update your website to the current pricing to avoid misleading potential clients.

Regards,

Bryan Johnston

NeoGo - 24GB mobile data + USB modem for R799 once-off

"Best prepaid deal" in South Africa at the moment, although there's no mention of the speed for the modem. Either way, 24GB of data for R799 (including the modem) is a very good price. That's R33 a GB which is equivalent (almost) to Afrihost's R29 per GB for ADSL. Just be aware that the modem is CDMA which is a lot less connected in South Africa than 3G...