Paul Scott on 2009-11-25 07:53:27 Comments (6) Tweet this

I see that both http://www.brandminus.co.za and http://www.brandplus.co.za have been registered by two different people! I like to take this as an indication of great success of the original site at http://www.brandmonday.biz

To the two folks that have done this, why not focus on creating and bolstering awareness of the original site so that it becomes a truly great resource for consumers?

Thanks and congratulations to @metameerkat (http://twitter.com/metameerkat), @cazpi (http://twitter.com/cazpi) and the rest of the Brandmonday team for this great initiative, and carry on the great work!

Paul Scott on 2010-06-04 10:25:57 Comments (2) Tweet this

Instead of doing a follow Friday tweet (or 6), I have used @anywhere to enable folks to follow people from my site. Hover over the Twitter usernames to get the hypercard that allows you to follow these great people:

@cazpi
@dkeats
@charlvn
@jdtangney
@wesleynitsckie
@thebrianmanley
@capetown
@brandmonday
@karitz
@hennokruger
@smikobus
@corrie206
@alastairotter
@kmf
@janbraai
@nnenna

Much easier and cleaner yes?

Paul Scott on 2010-10-15 06:55:21 Comments (2) Tweet this

Follow Friday post

I don't often do a Follow Friday post, and when I do, I prefer to use the built in Chisimba @anywhere functionality to give myself a little more breathing room than the standard 140 chars, so here it is:

@hennokruger - good chats, good geek
@charlvn - one of the biggest geeks I know
@diekloon - WordPress and blogging geek
@dkeats - Chisimba geek and one of the most intelligent people I know
@cazpi - Photo geek and mom
@byronrode - photo and design geek. Also a genuinely awesome dude
@thebrianmanley - Semweb geek, thinker, great fun
@sznq - SEM and SEO, becoming geekier
@rubygold - all round geek, news geek.
@wesleylynch - head geek at RealmDigital
@weblearning - eLearning geek
@corrie206 - super geek
@HilzFuld - marketing geek, fanboi
@sbestbier - beer drinking geek and undergeek to @wesleylynch
@exmi - Blogging geek that helped test MXitPress on WordPress
@jdtangney - Old school uber geek (greybeard and legend)
@arcainus - BOFH geek
@ramereth - BOFH uber geek
@sheltren - OSUOSL geek
@gchaix - eLearning geek

Paul Scott on 2010-10-15 12:39:32 Comments (3) Tweet this

Exclusives and the DRM Windows Fail

So @cazpi ordered a book from @exclus1ves (Exclusive Books) online through their web site. She happened to choose the PDF version of the book due to the easier (it seemed at the time) way to get reading as soon as possible, as well as the convenience of just being able to download the book.

That was a mistake.

She eventually managed to download the "book" which turned out to be an .acsm document (which on opening, turns out to be a bit of metadata including some DC information about the actual book). This was after paying for the book via an EFT (she doesn't use a credit card). We managed to download the actual PDF by grabbing the URL referred to in the metadata file, but on attempting to open the file, were confronted with a password request. This I understand to cut down on piracy etc, but that is where the real fun started.

She then phoned their support folks, who were extremely helpful in telling us that we need Microsoft Windows and Adobe Digital Edition reader. We gently tried to explain that we use Ubuntu GNU/Linux and do not use any proprietary software. This was not very well understood. We then asked if there was just a password that we could use to unlock the document. Answer was no, that is how they get them from the supplier, and an additional request was made for us to buy Microsoft Windows. We then (now slightly irritated) explained that we do not have R6000 odd to spend on Windows, and that we use Ubuntu.

At the end of a somewhat tedious conversation and me having to explain that they need to put a giant banner on their web site that says that they require their customers to use Windows and that their books actually cost the price of the book PLUS the cost of Windows, they said that they were in the process of putting up such a banner.

That is just so broken and wrong, I am actually dumbfounded, flabbergasted and completely stymied.

Maybe it is just me? Does this seem right to you?

Paul Scott on 2011-04-29 09:12:53 Comments (2) Tweet this

Upgrading Ubuntu to Natty Narwhal

So @cazpi decided to upgrade to Natty last night. Everything went smoothly until the restart where the whole system crashed on startup. This seemed to me like a graphics driver issue, so it was relatively simple to fix.

1. Restart the machine, holding down the shift key to get the GRUB menu.
2. Choose the failsafe kernel and select "Low graphics mode"
3. Boot into Ubuntu with no graphics acceleration.
4. Go to the "System" menu, administration -> additional drivers and select the NVidia proprietary driver. It will say that it is not in use.
5. Remove the driver, then add it again. It will download and install a newer version.
6. Reboot into a prettier, faster and easier to use Ubuntu Unity desktop!

No other issues so far. Graphics card is a NVidia 4GB card.

Hope this helps someone else!