OpenTangent

eTV the only free television channel in South Africa, recently aired an interview with two would-be criminals who apparently boast about how they will target tourists during the 2010 Fifa world cup . The South African Police Service have publicly said that eTV are no different from these criminals if they refuse to give their information to the police. In South Africa the Media are our police and the SAPS are just another gang. I would go as far to say the the media actually run this county in a decentralised manner by uniting the people to force the hand of government. Needless to say government and the ANC are not happy about this and the SAPS can ill afford any more bad publicity. The media must be seen to be objective as well as free, i cannot stress this enough. If the SAPS looks bad it's due to it's own failings, as i've mentioned in a previous post we have a political culture of passing the blame along. This is just another reminder that if we are going to af...

I am constantly questioning what it means to be ethical and although it is definitely a complicated matter I've always felt it's best to hold onto some pillar of certainty. For me that pillar is honesty, if you're faced with a difficult moral dilemma it's best to choose honesty. That of course is also not always a black and white situation, in which case i turn to a lesson i was taught as a child; not telling someone something you know they would want to hear is also lying. Hence, i can say with a good degree of certainty that censorship is unethical. The Islamic search engine I'mHalal has a haram system which warns about or outright denies certain search terms depending on their haram level. If a person is not already willing to avoid certain things before arriving at the search engine then the objective has already failed, and if an individual is not aware of why certain things are classified as haram then rightly, they cannot be expected to avoid them. Goog...

Stereoscopy or 3-dimensional (3D) imaging has been around since the early 1930's  and is long over due in mainstream  entertainment . I have been a stereoscopy enthusiast since at least the age of 11 when i created my first stereoscopic image using my father's stiffy loaded Sony digital camera . Since then i have dabbled here and there but my biggest venture into stereoscopy was for my class 11 year project in 2003 which was part of my Waldorf education. The most affordable way for a student like myself to view stereoscopic images was to learn to cross my eyes with great precision. Once i started earning my own salary i immediately invested in some eDimentional glasses. At the time Nvidia were occasionally maintaining their stereoscopic drivers and certain games like Doom 3 and Dungeon Siege 2 became the most amazing experiences i have ever had in gaming. The driver support eventually petered out and the eD-Glasses started gathering dust to my greates...

I've noticed a trend in corporate marketing towards a transparent/ethical company image . Most notable is Google and their unofficial 'do no evil' motto. As i've mentioned in a previous article , gaining so much trust is potentially hazardous in the long term but for the time being, we as consumers are benefiting from their ethical attitude. Even if the companies preach openness and honesty without actually practising it, they are publicly acknowledging that it is important and other companies will start to notice. The food and beverage industry still thrives on the 'cash cow consumer' approach to marketing but the financial industry for instance, is steeped devious dealings and an image of honesty can be especially beneficial to banks, insurance companies, etcetera. On the local front, there are two financial institutions that have come to my attention, who have taken to transparent marketing with full force; Capitec Bank and MiWay Insurance . Both Capite...

The skilled and intellectual are leaving in droves to escape the deterioration of South Africa . We have moved beyond white guilt by now. The ANC has done an amazing job of supporting the argument that black people are not fit to run a country. Racists have no reason to question their beliefs anymore, and those who were never racist are now saying "look at what the blacks are doing". It's got nothing to do with genetics or pigmentation, it's to do with a culture that is not only supported by the ANC, but is the piller that holds it up. It's a culture of lying, cheating and stealing and avoiding responsibility by passing the blame on to apartheid , COPE , the DA or whoever it can be pinned on. Thanks to the ANC South Africa is now the center of the world of organised crime . The ANC is the biggest contributing factor towards racism in South Africa because they condone the idea that black people deserve more than others and it's leaders practice corruptio...

Almost every year for the past three, four, even five years we have had claims that the year to follow was going to be the year of desktop Linux. The following articles are of no particular relevance but serve as proof of how at the end of every year someone feels that the following year will be 'the' year: 2004 the year of desktop Linux 2005 the year of desktop Linux 2006 the year of desktop Linux 2007 the year of desktop Linux? - Seems like hype died down in 2007 2008 the year of desktop Linux - Going strong again in 2008 though 2009 the year of desktop Linux ..and of course, one for next year: 2010 the year of desktop Linux If we think of the year of desktop Linux as being the year in which it begins to grow in popularity then we've passed that year over a decade ago. If the year of Linux is actually the year where it takes majority share then i think we still have a few to go. But i think the year of desktop linux should rather be thought of as the point wh...

" The Cloud " is often confused with the Internet, probably because the Internet is officially portrayed as a cloud in diagrams . A cloud is in fact an application or suite that runs on a server and is served to thin clients , traditionally through a browser but not exclusively. The Internet is a great facilitator to such a deployment. Pretty much all processing and data storage is kept on the server and the user merely taps into it remotely. Obvious advantages of cloud solutions are centralised deployment and maintenance and also the ability to access applications from almost any device that can run a browser . There is also the major advantage of mobility, allowing users the freedom to work from anywhere with a connection. In recent years we have had major strides in mobile technology like netbooks and 3G as well as rapid price reduction for said hardware and services, pushing the mobility envelope even further. The desktop remains a tool for the professional but wit...