If you are an IT professional providing customers with Internet connectivity solutions you know that the internet is a scary place. Back in the dark ages (before 1993) when things started out everyone using the internet trusted each other. Unfortunately things changed drastically and trust is a thing of the past on the internet.
When you set up an internet connection for a customer you do everything you can to protect them, you set up a restrictive firewall, you have a proxy that enforces policy for web surfing as far as possible. You also use all possible means to block spam and viruses in e-mail before they reach the lusers that still believe Bill Gates will give them free Nokia cellphones.
After you did all the technical stuff, you tell everyone (you know it falls on deaf ears, but you have to try) that they must not visit those porn sites, that they must copy links in e-mail and paste them into their browser rather than simply clicking on them etc. So what happens when one of the lusers that actually listened goes to a legitimate website and still have his windows computer exploited? Or if they are lucky the lusers get a warning from their anti-virus software and the site gets blocked.
Continue reading ‘The internet is a scary place!’
The big media companies and their cronies are getting more and more desperate to try save their totally outdated business model. Modern computers make it ridiculously easy and cheap to copy and distribute any media. The media companies are however trying very hard to overcharge people for what they can do very easily themselves. Most people know that it is illegal to make unauthorised copies of copyrighted materials, but if the holders of the copyright charge way too much and chances are that you will not get caught people will simply copy the material illegally.
Continue reading ‘Will they ever learn?’
About 6 years ago I started installing advertisement monitoring systems in Africa for a small media company. A media company of course has good relationships with their customers i.e. television and radio stations.
Kampala
The first installations I did was in East Africa, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Kampala. My first trip was kind of hectic, the logistics was screwed up totally and we had a lot to learn.
Our first mistake was thinking that renting a car and self driving is a good idea. The roads in these cities are atrocious, and the drivers worse. And the irony is that for the same money you can get a full time driver with a car of the same quality. Anyway on this first trip I was driving around in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi dodging potholes and Kamikazes in cars.
Continue reading ‘Africa from the rooftops - East Africa Trip 1′
About two weeks ago I googled for info on “Saturday Voices” (Saterdagstemme) at “Die Boekehuis” in Johannesburg. “Saturday Voices” is a regular event at “Die Boekehuis” where well known (and not so well known) authors, poets, critics or academics launch and discuss their work.
Continue reading ‘Do you need the web to sell 4000 year old technology?’
I guess everyone that has an interest in matters internet related already know that there is a new kid on the block in the search engine market. Go have a look at http://www.cuil.com if you haven’t done it yet. more....
If you have a look at the page “Where I’ve been” you will see that I have traveled in most of Sub Saharan Africa. I travel in Africa for work, which is installing advertisement monitoring systems for one of my customers. more....
Wordpress, the software I use for this blog is great and has a wonderful plugin system that allows people to add functionality that is not originally included in wordpress. Unfortunately many of the available plugins are not so wonderful and often do not work as expected (advertised). more....
