Comments on: 27 – Post Analysis

By: Bug-E

Bug-E — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:22:10 +0000

Dave Duarte said he’s waiting for a menu from the current venue, but the company that I work had our end-of-year xmas do there last year, and I heard mutterings of along the lines of R150-odd per head for the (really excellent!) buffet we had there…
I’ll wait for Dave to update the site on the menu and a price and make a decision then, but for now I’ll have to leave my name off…

One would think, mind you, that due to the mass-booking that we’re wanting to make, that we’ll get a nice bulk discount?
*shrug*

By: Tania

Tania — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:15:58 +0000

I was lucky with the last one because they got my order wrong, so I got two meals for the price of one. (And I usually drink only water with meals, so I score there too.) But I agree, it was still a lot of money for the amount of food, and the same can be said of the Real Geek Dinner which we had at Barbarella\’s. I saw you removed your name from the recent list. How expensive is that place then? Even worse than the previous ones? I know some students and broke musician bloggers who will be removing their names from the list if it\’s going to be another yuppie-jetsetter things for the Exclusive Few Ueberbloggers who can afford to regularly commute between Cape Town and Gauteng.

By: Bug-E

Bug-E — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:09:01 +0000

Thanks! I am now! I thought I did sign up to it before, but it turns out I only signed up to the 27dinner thing for April.

All these dinners are going to make a dent in my wallet.

By: Tania

Tania — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:50:03 +0000

Are you coming to this one? http://wiki.geekdinner.org.za/wiki/Main_Page

By: Bug-E

Bug-E — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:31:21 +0000

Hi Angus, thanks for the feedback.
I think you got the short end of the stick on Tuesday by being the last person to speak, people were getting a bit rowdy and were not paying attention. I heard some of what you said though.

If you compare the latest iBurst rates to the current cell data rates, the cell rates are rather out of proportion. Even so, I use my cellphone to check my gmail and use mxit, etc. However, the cell networks are greedy, and they still charge extra for such things as Push-To-Talk, etc. And with MTN specifically forbidding carrying voice of data on their network, running an app like skype on your smartphone ends up being against the rules of your contract. It’s a sad state of affairs where the big corporates so closely hold what they feel is theirs, instead of letting loose onto their users what their users want. I see this in many aspects of today’s online lives. Rather sad.

The fact that there is a crude WAP browser on millions of phones is a moot point if you have to cater for the lowest (or most common) denominator. The fact that some newer phones can download Opera Mini is also a moot point if your website is not standards compliant for Opera’s proxy to take care of. (Google’s mobile search has a similar proxy for normal WAP browsers…).

And, regarding .mobi New TLD are a moneymaking scheme that opens up the way for people to extort money out of other companies. New companies that want to register their own domain must now not only register their .co.za domain, but also .com, .net, .org, .mobi, and in fact, any other domain that could possibly be used to squat on due to spelling mistakes, etc. It’s crazy stupid.

And besides, .mobi takes longer to type on a cellphone than .com
And, just to add some more 2c onto this, if your website is intelligent enough and standards compliant, you can create a CSS stylesheet that caters for mobile devices etc all on your normal domain, no need to create a new domain just for cellphones. Mobile (not just cellphones, think Sony PSP and Nintendo DS with Opera) browsers have UserAgents too, if you need to go down to that kind of detail and give different stylesheets for different devices…

By: Angus Robinson

Angus Robinson — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:43:28 +0000

By way of intro, as you missed my name the first time around, its Angus. I’m the ‘gentleman that chatted about what roll the Mobile internet will play’

On the cost thing – our data rates are (for standard packages), between R1.50 and R2 per MB. I know that we all want them to be a lot lower – but at these rates, mobile data is a viable option for many apps. Think MXit et al where fairly small amounts of data are being transmitted.

Using mobile data as a connectivity option is different. It is expensive and it has caps. Both annoying.

Regarding your comment about WAP. What I am saying that it is here, now. So for the next year while the Windows Mobiles of the world trickle into the market – you can make use of the WAP browser that is in millions of phones, today. Why wait when the market is adopting it.

Anyway, you don’t have to wait for Windows Mobile and IE to have a fuller browsing experience. Anyone that has a fairly new phone should download Opera Mini (mini.opera.com). They have and amazing proxy and rendering engine that allows normal browsing from non-smartphones.

On the .mobi – its worth securing your (or your client’s) TLD for $10, regardless if you use it or not.

By: Bug-E

Bug-E — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 06:15:21 +0000

True, I did leave out where the proceeds are going, you’re right. This is the Lucky Packet idea hey? To empower other artists to be able to realise their dreams through this foundation? Worthy cause. So yes, the proceeds of the t-shirts went to a good cause, that has to be said, thanks for correcting.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 05:59:44 +0000

Just as a note, all proceeds that the poor sods paid for the ugly t-shirts went to Verity’s charity. Minute detail you left out.