Gerhard Potgieter

For everyone who works in computers, this Tuesday, 9 December, is a significant date. It’s the 40th anniversary of the day when Douglas Engelbart, one of the industry’s great visionaries, gave an audience of geeks at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco their first glimpse of the technological future that we all now inhabit.

The computer mouse was a key element in the icon-based interface that we now take for granted, and it was a great success in its day (though Engelbart did not make a cent from it). Last week, for example, Logitech, a leading computer accessories manufacturer, announced that it had shipped its billionth mouse. ‘It’s rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company.

Original story from Guardian

Wikipedia has been blacklisted by a British online child pornography watchdog, causing almost every internet user in Britain to be blocked from contributing to the site anonymously.

The British Government-backed Internet Watch Foundation blacklisted Wikipedia over an article on the 1976 album Virgin Killer by German heavy metal band Scorpions.

At issue was a screen shot of the album cover, published with the article, that featured a naked, young girl with her genitals obscured by a simulated tear in the photograph.

After hearing of the blacklisting, Britain’s six main internet service providers blocked their users from accessing the article.

But the method they used means users of each provider now access Wikipedia as a whole through the same IP address.

Usually all internet users have a unique IP address, allowing Wikipedia to block users who vandalise the site or otherwise break its rules.

Wikipedia dubs itself the “free encyclopedia anyone can edit”.

As a result, Wikipedia, which contains 2.6 million articles all written by its users, has instituted a blanket ban on anonymous edits from the six ISPs, which account for 95 per cent of British residential internet users.

Sarah Robertson, spokeswoman for the Internet Watch Foundation, told the Associated Press that the picture was flagged by an internet user late last week. The foundation concluded, after consulting British police, that the picture could break child abuse laws.

Wikipedia administrators have refused to remove the album cover on the site, saying they do not censor articles.

This from http://www.smh.com.au

Moontlik een van die snaakste boeke nog ooit gepubliseer in afrikaans is die boek “Is dit net ek of is als tos?” deur Chopper Charlie en Griffen, stigters van die website WatKykJy.

Die boek is gebasseer op die engelse top verkoper, Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Kak? So waaroor gaan die boek nou eintlik? Wel dit handel oor als Suid-Afrikaans en wat ons beinvloed van A tot Z - met als wat ons irriteer, frustreer, warm onder die kraag maak, verveel of sommer net ons dag opneuk.

Meer as 150 aspekte van vandag se lewe loop kwaai onder die skrywers deur insluitende die AWB, Blou Bul ondersteuners, call centres, Eskom, gholf op TV, lapswaaiers, Oppikoppi boneheads, Saffas, Star Wars junkies, Telkom, Joost van der Westhuizen, Vereenigning, witmense met dreadlocks en talle ander.

Ek beveel die boek aan vir enige iemand wat lekker wil lag oor als wat in ons lewens aangaan op ‘n daaglikse basis.

Die boek is beskikbaar teen R95 by Kalahari.net

Been on Google lately and wondered what that icons next to you results are? Well its part of Google’s all new SearchWiki functionality.

Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you’re an avid sports enthusiast and the site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it’s not there at all and you’d like to add it. Or maybe you’d like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. From now on you can do just that.

SearchWiki enables you to customize your search results by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on it. With one simple click you can easily move the results you like to the top and next time it will be there. You can even write a little not about the site to help you remember why you must visit it again.

The changes you make to the results will only affect your search result, but the SearchWiki is also a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.

A few ways to use the SearchWiki.

It is finally here, AsecoStats v1.0.0 for you to use. You will find the download link under the software section. If there is any queries feel free to post them here and I’ll try respond as soon as possible. Alternate you can find me in irc on the #ctwug channel at fire.ctwug.co.za

Added a software section to the site where I will be adding all my projects when I think it is stable enough for a release.

First project added to the section is my Mikrotik SysLogServer, it enables users to do remote logging to it from Mikrotik devices and then stores the logs inside a MySQL or MSSQL database.

Ill soon be adding the AsecoStats project to the pages aswell, as I got allot of requests for it. Just need to package it nicely and write some how to’s.

Thanks for all the support.

Multichoice yet again screwed up with their new HD PVR decoder and HD subscriptions.

According to majority of HD subscribers they woke up this morning with no HD PVR functionality.

Users have posted complaints on the DSTV forum but still awaits response from a multichoice representative, in meanwhile a list have been drawn up to help multichoice troubleshoot.

(5) Error message on screen on top of playlist screen is “Your subscription is not valid for PVR functions”

If you experience any other errors please go post it on the DSTV Forum

Gee, a network admin on a power trip. Who would have thought?

So what do you get when you have a bunch of network admins each having their own plan for running a community network? CHAOS!

This is suppose to be a community network guys, you have been chosen by the members to make sure things run smooth on all the highsites, not to use it as a testing ground for all your scripts and methods you think could work. I personaly think if you think you need to run or test anything on a highsite it should be voted in by the users. You may think you have the power that be, but be warned a simple majority vote by members and you’ll have no power at all.

Perhaps all admins should have a read through the code of conduct and constitution again just to be reminded what they may and may not do. And if you feel something is degrading service heavy run your sollution by all the members not just a certain PRO group. Every member is part of this community not just a certain group.

Heck, this network is heading in the way the majority of game servers on the internet is ran; all ran by power-tripping morally-lacking morons, and that is not what we want.

So to put it simple, step up and start doing things the right way or just step down.

For those wanting to try out the beta version of Google’s all new browser Google Chrome, it can be downloaded here. Currently the download is only available to windows users for beta testing, so the linux guys will have to wait a bit longer for this one.

Google will today launch it beta version of Google Chrome, a open source browser to go head to head with Firefox and the likes.

So why are they launching Chrome? Because they believe they can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

Google’s aim is to provide a fresh new browser built from scratch, in fact the first multi threaded browser. Under the hood, they were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, they were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. They improved speed and responsiveness across the board. They also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

Apparently this is just the beginning, Google Chrome is far from done, this beta is only being released to Windows clients to start a broader discussion and to get input from the public as soon as possible.

For a comic explaining Google Chrome go here

As soon as the donwload is available I will post a link and info here.