All posts in Internet

Web Africa goes uncapped!

by Chris M on November 15, 2011 in Industry News, Internet with 8 Comments

It’s been a long time coming, but something like this is worth waiting for. I’ve been using Web Africa for over a year and have only had problems twice – Once was down time for a couple hours and the other was caused by a Seacom problem, so it wasn’t even really Web Africa’s issue, so that’s technically 1 problem in over a year – not shabby at all. So, my point here is that when it comes to Web Africa, I’m totally thumbs up and to hear that they now have uncapped.. BONUS!

You’ll get unlimited data, free email addresses, a customer zone to monitor everything and a secure ADSL account. Now, here’s the best part, let’s look at the prices:

  • 384kbps – R179
  • 1Mbps – R289
  • 4Mbps – R599
  • 10Mbps – R1,699

Pretty competitive prices if you ask me. I know that MWEB users have complained and complained about uncapped Internet, so knowing that Web Africa is behind this movement makes me feel that their prices are the cheapest, purely because of their service.

Alright, alright, sounds like I’m sucking up big time, I get it, but seriously, I have no reason to lie to you about my experience, so just take my word for it – Web Africa Home Uncapped – A must try!

Interested in reading more – click here.

Online learning [infographic]

by Chris M on November 14, 2011 in Internet, Jobs & Money with No comments

Studying via the Internet has been growing in popularity over the past few years. I have friends, and family, who operate in the space and thus have access to the latest pieces of information, such as this infographic that I was sent. The infographic explains how online learning came about, and importantly, why it’s beneficial.

I’ve found many courses to today online that interest me, from starting a business to interior design, so there’s definitely something for everyone, but right now I’m most interested in sharing some statistics and information with you from the Quirk Education team.

Here you go, click the image to see the whole infographic:

Continue reading →

Adobe drops mobile Flash, or are they?

by Chris M on November 14, 2011 in Code, Internet with No comments

I’m not sure about you, but I’m really not a Flash fan. Despite our Internet lines getting faster and some incredible animation being possible, I just find that Flash is slow, doesn’t always work and hardly ever renders correctly on mobile devices.

Big news last week involved Adobe informing developers that the development of mobile flash browser plugins would be stopped. In other words, Adobe is dropping mobile Flash support, which means Flash will no longer be geared towards mobile devices. If Steve Jobs were alive, may he RIP, he would be smiling from ear to ear.

Here’s a quote:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.”

Adobe seems to have changed their focus, initially it was all about stopping flash, but now they’re saying that their development will focus on applications for mobile, expressive content on the desktop and increasing their investments in HTML5 in general.

If you’re interested in reading more information about this directly on the Adobe blog, here’s the link.

Talk Show hosts with Klout

by Chris M on November 9, 2011 in Guru's, Internet, Networking with No comments

For those of you who don’t know, Klout is a service that measures your influence across the various social networks. It takes all sorts of criteria into account and gives you an influence number, which you can compare to other people basically.

Klout’s just announced the most influential talk show hosts, take a look:

Continue reading →

I’m doing some Klout experimentation

by Chris M on November 5, 2011 in Internet, Networking with 3 Comments

Klout recently announced that they had reworked their algorithms for determining their scores and since then a lot of people have seen dips and rises. This made me quite curious about their algorithm and I decided to do some experiementation by creating a fresh Twitter account (only a Twitter account, no Facebook, etc) and interact in a certain manner with some people who are in a similar niche as the one I decided on. I picked a location in Cape Town and engaged with people who were talking about this specific location.

It’s been incredibly interesting, I’ve changed tactics a few times to test what the results would be and to basically narrow down what factors work best when it comes to increase score, influence and reach.

Below are some of the results I’ve achieved through my interaction and study. The patterns are quite interesting as I’ve seen the same strategy performed early on and received very little growth and then implemented a bit later it’s created huge spikes – and this isn’t due to increasing followership as I’ve monitored that really closely too.

Here are some graphs:

Klout Score

Network Impact

Network Impact

True Reach

True Reach

I’m not quite ready to share my results and conclusions just yet as there are a few more things I want to try in order to tie up some guesses I’ve made, but the minute I have something more conclusive I will most certainly put a list of tips and tricks that have become aparent through my testing.

Is there anything you’d like me to try?

Will Facebook be hacked today?

by Chris M on November 5, 2011 in Internet with 2 Comments

For those of you who follow the hacking scene, you’ll be aware that hacking group Anonymous stated that on Saturday 5th November that they would attack Facebook at full force with the aim of knocking it over. When I read about this a couple months ago I set a reminder in my calendar for this evening and as the days got closer I saw the likes of Mashable and others talking about it and so I felt I would follow through an mention it here too just in case some of you are interested.

So yeh, if Anonymous stick to their word, we might see some interesting attacks on Facebook, the easiest way to tell if anything’s happening is if you’re on Facebook and it’s insanely slow or the page doesn’t load at all. Anonymous have a huge following, but Facebook’s obviously a power house and I’d be surprised if they didn’t have engineers and techies on hand as I type this just in case Anonymous took a crack at it.

Anonymous were operating and communicating from a Twitter account called Op_FB, but there hasn’t been action there since Oct 8th, so it looks like perhaps they’ve decided against this and are going to focus on stopping child pornography.

Breaking: New Gmail!

by Chris M on November 1, 2011 in Equipment, Internet with 1 Comment

That’s right folks, Google’s rolled out a new look and feel for GMail, and this update is an AWESOME one, wow!

Bundled with a ton of new features such as streamlined conversations, elastic density, HD themes, smarter navigation and better search, this update promises to be an exciting one. The streamlined conversations and the advanced search are two features that I, personally, am going to absolutely love!

Here’s a video:

To switch to the new look, you can do so in the bottom-right of GMail. Please note though, it’s being rolled out over the next few days, so be patient.

Burglars use Social Media to see when you’re home

by Chris M on October 31, 2011 in Internet, Networking with No comments

I don’t think this is anything new, but the idea here is to create awareness and enlighten people to the fact that your beloved social networks could be your worst nightmare and that you should be really careful about what you publish on them.

50 ex-burglars were interviewed in the UK and 80% of these ex-burglars admitted to using social media to determine when people would or wouldn’t be home so that they could plan accordingly. These social networks include Facebook, Twitter, Google Street View and FourSquare.

So keep that in mind next time you’re going to tell everyone you’re going away or if you really need to, adjust your update to rather say something like, “I’m going away for the weekend, really happy I have a house sitter for the time I’m away”.. at least mask things slightly.

Here’s an interesting infographic that is worth reading:

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Via @GinoCosme via PC Mag.

FourSquare halloween badges

by Chris M on October 30, 2011 in Events, Internet, Mobile, Networking with No comments

With halloween being tomorrow, FourSquare has decided to roll out some unique gadgets for all of us to earn. Of course, they don’t tell us exactly how to earn them, but they mention checking into ghoulish goings-on and saying Happy Halloween to your friends, so my guess is to check into some halloween party and make sure to wish your friends!

Here’s a look at two of the gadgets they’re offering: Continue reading →

Play Angry Birds on any website

by Chris M on October 30, 2011 in Gaming, Internet with No comments

Haha, with all the ongoing hype about angry birds, I wasn’t surprised to see a browser addon come out that allows you to play Angry Birds on any website on the Internet.

This experience is brought to us by Nokia, which is awesome to see as I’ve worried about Nokia not getting involved with this sort of thing – well done Nokia, because this is a great deal of fun, and the return on investment from this will be 10 fold!

Here’s an example:

Grab the addon here: http://goo.gl/9mKZ8

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