Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.
Sitemap
A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there, I have an XML version available for digesting; just for you.
What I've Written
The Day My Father Died
At around midnight on 18 May 2010 my father passed away after a long battle with Cancer. I was 15 years old when he was first diagnosed w...
Since You’ve Been Gone…
I’ll never forget the 18th of May for as long as I live. Today symbolises not only the wedding anniversary of my parents, Carine and Rodn...
Digital strategy in SA simply doesn’t exist
If you know me at all then you’ll know how difficult it can be for me to make big decisions.
My Tattoo, what, where and why I did it
When I was 16 my father gave me a framed copy of the Rudyard Kipling poem titled “IF” which hung on my wall for the entire duration of my...
Social Code goes public, finally
Almost twelve months ago I had an idea, largely from on my experience with Afrigator, to provide social media services to corporate compa...
Social Media ROI… does it exist?
Yesterday I delivered a presentation at the WTF Media Conference titled Social Media ROI… does it exist?. In the ever growing world of So...
My US trip as visualised by Flipboard
If you own an iPad then you’ve probably already installed and using Flipboard for iPad and if you don’t yet own one please add Flipboard ...
My Sabbatical
On Thursday myself and Gregor Rohrig are off on a two-week trip to the United States. We’ll be in New York to attend the Web 2.0 conferen...
Aston Martin Rapide Cape Town Launch
Yesterday evening I had the opportunity to attend the Cape Town launch of the Aston Martin Rapide all thanks to Justin Stanford. Aston M...
In Loving Memory - Rodney John Hartman 25/02/1949 - 18/05/2010
At exactly midnight my father passed away after a long battle with Cancer. Today I remember my father as loving, dedicated and humble per...
A to Z of SA
In December last year I was invited by Apple to attend the launch of a new campaign called the A to Z of SA. In short, the campaign is ab...
My presentation at the Addynamo Blogging Workshop
If you missed it, here’s my presentation from the Addynamo Blogging Workshop that I did yesterday. There are some interesting Adgator ins...
Audi MVP Day
The legendary Chris Rawlinson was kind enough to invite me to the second Audi MVP day which is an opportunity for eight geeks to drive ar...
I’ve made it to the finals
I love a good competition. Nothing like the thrill of the chase to drive one nuts. If you’re reading this blankly then let me elaborate ...
ad:tech, Adgator and me - it’s the perfect fit
Jeremy Schoemaker who runs the blog Shoemoney is offering one person an all-expenses paid opportunity to attend ad:tech New York in early...
Twitter introduces lists and becomes a lot more useful
Twitter have today started rolling out a Beta feature to select users called Lists. To me this is the most useful feature that Twitter h...
England, thanks for ruining cricket for my son
First let me state that Luke, my 5 year-old, is a cricket fanatic. If we’re not watching cricket he’s bowling balls down the passage or s...
Why are Clocks so prominent in my life right now?
I’m struggling to find the meaning behind this but for some reason children’s clocks are featuring very prominently in my life right now....
Our experience of sending bulk emails to users
Let me start by saying that Mailchimp is an amazing company and their bulk email service is worth every penny. They deliver a punchy ser...
The Parlotones make a Giant Mistake
If you haven’t heard the news yet then let me tell you that The Parlotones are now wine makers and last night we were privileged to atten...
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic iSync Plugin
Last night I decided to hook up the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic which I received from Nokia. Unfortunately for me this phone is not supported ...
Nokia and their disruptive model for the music generation
On Thursday Nokia South Africa announced their new Comes with Music range of mobile phones. This new range is not just a series of sexy m...
TechEd Africa 2009 Summary
TechEd Africa 2009, Microsoft’s pinnacle conference that attracted more than 2000 delegates has ended amongst a hive of activity within ...
My thoughts on the TechEd Africa 2009 Keynote
A couple weeks back I was contacted by Eben De Wit who is the Microsoft Developer Advisor for the broad developer community in South Afr...
My presentation at the MIH Media Lab Entrepreneurship Workshop
This morning I delivered the following presentation to the students of Stellenbosch University’s Media Lab. My topic was on the start-up ...
Should companies fear Social Media?
In the last week or so there’s been a huge furore in the South African Social Media scene around the pricing of Apple products in the mar...
CAPTCHA - A sure-fire way to lose customers
A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process ...
My reponse to Moneyweb’s article on Social Media
I had the unfortunate pleasure to read an article on Moneyweb titled Social Media: Is it worth it? written by Monique Vanek. The ignoranc...
Unboxing the HTC Magic (Android G2) phone
My Mom always told me that if you don’t ask you’ll never get and this is true of the HTC Magic phone which I received from the kind team ...
GivenGain: Hidden South African Giants
Today I stumbled across an amazing initiative called GivenGain which is run by a bunch of South Africans. Here’s a quick excerpt from th...
Vodacom - please send me an HTC Magic
Vodacom, if you’re listening, I want to make it abundantly clear that I will not, under any circumstances, turn down an HTC Magic from y...
Street life in Lagos
Lagos is an adventure that I maintain any African should experience at least once in their lifetime. Lagos reminds me of one really big t...
Getting rejected, it’s never fun
While this blog has been a lot about my good news lately, today it’s a lot about my bad.
Afrigator tried to buy Twitter, we launched Gatorpeeps instead
The news is finally out that Afrigator has officially launched Gatorpeeps. Gatorpeeps is our very own micro-blogging platform that we hop...
My thoughts on BarCamp Nigeria
On Saturday I was fortunate enough to attend BarCamp Nigeria 2009 in Lagos. Despite various concerns about going to Nigeria (more on tha...
Bolton Deventer lives on
When I was formulating my presentation for the 24.com Blogging Workshop on Saturday I was struggling to find a good example of how to pro...
Grabble laid to rest
In 2006 I was fascinated with search. So much so that I learnt all that I could about search engines and SEO and this was largely driven ...
I’ve been nominated for the 2009 Men’s Health Best Man Awards
Yesterday I received a notification that I’ve been nominated for the 2009 Men’s Health Best Man Awards. To be honest I’m blown away but b...
One year old today
At 17:15 on 15 April 2008 Ben Hartman was born. It’s impossible to quantify how much Ben has changed our lives over the last 12 months ...
GeekCricket - a very serious affair
For a few weeks now I’ve been following the GeekCricket Wiki, an initiative started by Rob Stokes and fellow Geeks, hoping that I’d get p...
Please help Investec from committing Online suicide
Investec Bank, a company I’ve long admired, is about to ruin their hard earned reputation online. On the Investec homepage there is a gra...
Afrigator turns two today… somehow it feels like more!
Honestly I can’t believe it’s that time of year again. Today the team at Afrigator are celebrating our second birthday but strangely it f...
My presentation at Nomadic Marketing
On Tuesday I was invited by Dave Duarte to give a presentation at the UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB) for their Nomadic Marketing c...
Shift happens
OK, so I had all these thoughts about the video embedded below and I really wanted to go into detail to explain the context, where it cam...
The Digital Edge - Reprobates and bloggers
I’ve long been a fan of the new Digital Edge podcast series produced by Jarred Cinman and Saul Kropman. When it launched some 12 episodes...
Temperature in Cape Town
I know everyone in Cape Town is talking about the heat wave we’re experiencing but I just had to share this with people who aren’t here r...
The Afrigator / 24.com Integration - what it means
So the big news today is the announcement we made via our blog about the integration between 24.com Blogs and Afrigator. For a few months...
DA invites bloggers to Social Media unveiling
The Democratic Alliance today unveiled their new social media strategy to a small audience in Cape Town comprising journalists, party me...
Vinny Lingham raises $20 million for SynthaSite
I just received the following email from South African Entrepreneur, Vinny Lingham. I hope he doesn’t mind me republishing it but I feel ...
SA Elections website launched
The Times newspaper has today launched a new initiative - a website dedicated to the upcoming SA Elections. The SA Elections website was ...
Creating a mobile site with Yahoo! Blueprint
Yahoo! Blueprint, in theory, is an amazing and agile mobile development framework. Yahoo! describes Blueprint as… …a platform for develop...
The Parlotones Concert
I’ve been trying to remember what the defining moment was that got me to listen to The Parlotones for the first time. Initially I thought...
Coolest Guy Internet Update
So on Friday I posted a video called coolest guy on the Internet and I must apologise if it seemed somewhat random.
Coolest guy on the Internet
I’m on a search to find the coolest guy on the Internet. The reasons why I’m looking for this person will be revealed in due course but f...
Schenker Logistics - a brilliant ORM example
Last Friday I posted a video titled “What happens to fragile boxes?” in which I managed to capture some boxes being mishandled by a deliv...
Today’s Solar Eclipse
I knew an eclipse was imminent - I just didn’t know when it was. Luckily though the cloud cover around this morning’s solar eclipse allow...
What happens to Fragile boxes?
This morning Stii and I grabbed a cup of coffee from Ecco il Caffe in the BMW dealership below our offices. Over a healthy dose of java a...
My first Tilt-Shift photo
My good pal Gregor has been posting a series of Fake Tilt-Shift photographs and I’ve been dying to try it out myself.
What YouTube looked like in 2005
This particular post has been sitting in my drafts since July 2008 after the iLab guys and I started looking at the similarities between ...
Gaza: Why I think Israel is right
Writing about the middle-east is about as wise as walking into a pub filled with Harley-Davidson bikers and telling them that only babies...
ReadWriteWeb does it again
ReadWriteWeb loves us! WOW. I know the last few posts of mine have been about gloating but when ReadWriteWeb features us in their Top 10...
Taxi Protest in Cape Town
Driving to work this morning I heard that about 100 taxis were driving from the N2 into the Cape Town CBD in a protest to the introductio...
Afrigator on ReadWriteWeb and the New York Times as a Top 10 International Product for 2008
This almost went unnoticed but on Friday Afrigator was voted one of the Top 10 International Products for 2008 by ReadWriteWeb.
A small matter of R461,500 - the Quality Vacation Club farce
I’ve been following the Quality Vacation Club’s (QVC) attempt to sue local blogger Donn Edwards very closely after Donn himself left a co...
88% of SA Bloggers make no money
Alistair, the brains behind the SA Blog Survey, sent me a very interesting slide yesterday about the revenue that bloggers earn from thei...
Adgator - Africa’s First Blog Advertising Network
In December 2007 I did a presentation at 27dinner in Jo’burg where I previewed the first Beta version of Afrigator. Most people at the ti...
Thoughts on my first month in Cape Town
To be honest I have to say that I can’t believe it’s only been a month since we moved to Cape Town. So much has happened this past month...
We’re one of the 100 trendiest companies in Cape Town
According to Springleap, Afrigator has been selected as one of the 100 trendiest companies in Cape Town. What’s cool about this though is...
State of the Afrosphere - my presentation at 27dinner Cape Town
Here is my short presentation I gave last night at my first Cape Town 27dinner. I tried to have a look at the state of the African Blogos...
SAAsucks.com
What do you get when you… • …install a brand new WordPress instance on a fancy new domain name? • …steal FlySAA’s home page banner and in...
SAA - extortion at its best
It’s Luke’s birthday in November and as a special birthday gift Colette and I have decided to fly his grandfather and my sister (his aunt...
Paul Allen and his Tatoosh
Yesterday the family and I shipped off to the V&A Waterfront to pay a visit to the Two Oceans Aquarium. The aquarium in itself was aw...
This kind of thing makes me sick
Picked this up on Muti only moments ago. Read the tag highlighted in blue. To be honest I just have no time for people like this. It’s di...
Moving to the Mother City
It’s been 13 days since I shipped my entire family down to Cape Town and what an experience it has been.
This is what happens…
…when you don’t bring cake to the office on your Birthday!
The end of an era
Today is my last day at Avusa iLab. At the beginning of September we announced that MIH Print Africa had acquired a stake in Afrigator - ...
Luke Loves Afrigator
I tried to get a better pic of my son smiling however this was the best I could get.
Trevor Manuel’s Wikipedia page already updated
Picked this up on Twitter thanks to Nadia Padayachi. A group of people have already updated Trevor Manuel’s Wikipedia entry with the news...
iPhone 3G now in pre-approval phase
Just got this email from Vodacom about the imminent launch of the 3G iPhone. I spoke to Apple earlier today and it is confirmed that the ...
Zuma has the last laugh
The big news of the weekend is the resignation of Thabo Mbeki and I can’t help but feel that Zuma is sitting with a God-forsaken smile on...
Five years today
R.I.P. my friend. I still miss you.
Apple iCal / Microsoft Exchange fix version 1.2 released
I have updated the Apple iCal / Microsoft Exchange fix for Leopard with a bug fix and a few enhancements. Here are the release notes for ...
Last.fm’s Awesome New Functionality
I have a four year old. He loves music. The only problem is he loves listening to his music on my iPhone. The net result of this has been...
My presentation at the Advancing Web 2.0 conference
As you read this I am busy delivering the following Avusa case study at the Advancing Web 2.0 for traditional media conference. Hope you ...
How to change Vodacom APN settings on iPhone 2 firmware
When I upgraded my iPhone firmware from version 1.1.4 to version 2.0 I realised that I had lost the use of EDGE on the Vodacom network. J...
Rex goes down on Zoopy
I rest my case…
Vodacom seem ready for iPhone 3G
After upgrading my iPhone firmware it’s clear to me now that Vodacom’s iPhone network is alive and kicking. I upgraded Colin’s iPhone on ...
First iPhone 2.0 firmware Hack in South Africa?
On Saturday evening the iPhone-dev team release PwnageTool 2.0 for Mac (version 2.0.1 has now been released as well). This new version ja...
Rex The Lion is a Pussy Cat
I am Rex. Hear me purr. Rex The Lion surfaced at the beginning of this month and the hype around this pussy cat is something to behold. Q...
WordPress for the iPhone
This is the best news I’ve heard coming from the new iPhone Application store. WordPress made easy for iPhone users.
Regator.com update
Earlier today I posted this in which I argued that Regator may have stolen Afrigator’s brand. I have to say that while Regator has certai...
Regator.com steals our brand - coincidence?
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Regator.com went into private beta today and I picked it up via this Techcrunch article. They’ve also...
Kentucky Fried Cruelty
Over the weekend I learned about how KFC suppliers overpopulate birds in their factories, drug them and boil them alive to remove their ...
A scary look at the impact of inflation
Yesterday I happened to notice two Sunday Times newspapers lying next to each other. One was from 30 September 2007 while the other was t...
Snow in the City, what a joke!
Mary Fitzgerald Square will be turned into a white winter wonderland ...... all in the name of fun in the inner city. Yeah right! Yeste...
Which direction do you stir?
Brace yourself for one of the most random blog posts you’ll ever read from me! I drink a fair amount of coffee each day and I always stir...
SA Blook, Chapter 7: The importance of technology in SA’s global emergence
Technology and globalisation go hand-in-hand. Globalisation unleashes technology, which in turn drives companies to plan production and s...
Social Media in Plain English
Yet another classic from the guys over at Common Craft. This one explains Social Media to all the layman’s out there - me included!!!
Automattic Showcases Times Multimedia
Warwick Poole, a born and bred South African now living in New York, is the Systemologist for Automattic - the company that runs WordPress.
Afrigator’s dedicated Xenophobia page
Last night we published a brand new Xenophobia topic page on Afrigator which highlights everything that is being covered throughout Afric...
State of the nation: Fucked
I’ve just watched a disturbing Photo Story on the Times Multimedia titled Flames of Hate. As violence in Gauteng spreads so does the natu...
Unbelievable pictures from Ben’s Bris
On Tuesday we had a very small gathering for little Ben’s Bris ceremony. While no parent likes to watch their son’s penis being cut to sh...
Man from Discovery wanted to shoot my son
Yesterday morning we were minding our own business at the hospital when the Ward Nurse, Felicity, came to our room to have a discussion w...
The newest addition to our family
The wait is finally over. At 17:15 yesterday afternoon our new son was born weighing 3.61 kg and everyone is recovering nicely.
Invitation to join Google App Engine
Google App Engine launched a couple days ago and I signed up to be a beta tester but hit what seems to be a major waiting list. Initially...
I must pay Netcare so my son can visit his brother!
With only days to go to the birth of my new son I find myself waiting in anticipation for that call from Colette to tell me it’s time to ...
Afrigator Is One Year Old Today
Wow, can’t believe this thing is one year old already… check out the celebration post on the Afrigator Blog.
Lolly Jackson’s Koenigsegg CCX
Lolly Jackson, owner of Teazers, has just purchased himself a brand new Koenigsegg CCX super-car at a whopping R14 million. This makes th...
Google and Virgin start Virgle Inc.
Meet Virgle - an elaborate plan by Richard Branson (Virgin), Larry Page & Sergey Brin (Google) to colonise stars, in particular Mars,...
FireFox Add-on for TimesURL
The TimesURL FireFox Extension is my first official attempt at a FireFox Plugin and I’ve had great fun in the process, along with some n...
Apple iCal / Microsoft Exchange fix for Leopard
One of the major drawbacks to working on an Apple Mac in a large corporate company is that most IT departments still use Microsoft Exchan...
New Media Marketing Presentation
Well it’s done. My presentation on SEO and Social Media has been delivered and if you’re interested you can now view it be...
Following the New Media Marketing conference via Twitter
If you’re attending today’s New Media Marketing conference and are planning to Twitter from the event then I’d like to suggest that you a...
Impossible
Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the...
What the Internet looked like in 1995
I found this video via Common Craft which is a digital version of a VHS tape educating people about the Internet. It’s amazing to watch h...
New Media Marketing Conference
Next week I’ll be presenting at the 2nd Annual New Media Marketing conference at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg. This four-day...
Storm in a Hoek
Last night I had a great evening with both Stii and Simone at Doppio Zero in Greenside. Lots of fun was had by all but more importantly w...
The Avusa iLab and my new job
Finally I can now officially announce that I’ve left The Times and have taken up a new position as the Digital Innovation Manager at Avu...
SA Blog Awards, WTF?
I feel quite bad about doing this seeing as Mike just used me as an example in his SA Blog Awards post but I have some burning issues whi...
Twitter in Plain English
I love the Common Craft website because they simplify a lot of Web 2.0 services for the layman in an easy to understand format.
Impressive Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce application
Yesterday Scott posted a link on Twitter to a website called HelloTxt. I had seen the service before but I decided, on visiting the site ...
Interesting Email Facts
On Sunday morning I went into Gmail to check my email and I was presented with over 700 spam emails in my inbox as well as 27,000 emails ...
Afrigator optimised for the iPhone and iPod Touch
We announced on the Afrigator blog last night that our site is now optimised for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This is something I’ve wanted...
How important is money?
I read a very interesting blog post by Paul Buchheit titled Is there more to life than money? which got me thinking about whether money d...
YouTube and that horrific Eduardo tackle
Not only did I watch Arsenal drop two points to Man United on Saturday but I also bore witness to a horrific tackle on Arsenal striker Ed...
Ashley Callie
I’ve developed this strange sentimental obsession with Ashely Callie since I learned of her death last week. I have to be honest, I’ve ne...
Windows Internet Explorer for Mac - Finally!
When I was using Debian as my primary operating system I installed a very handy application called ies4linux which allowed me to install ...
South African Facebook Demographics
In November last year I did a presentation on Multimedia and Social Media to the RedCube PR agency and in it I looked at South Africa’s t...
Sociable Plugin Important Update
I normally wouldn’t blog about an update to a plugin I’m working on but I’ve just released version 1.3 of the TimesURL Sociable Plugin fo...
MacBook Air Parody
This post is going to take up one minute from your life and hopefully it’s not a wasted minute. If you haven’t seen the MacBook Air adver...
3 New Sites Go Live!
This is so unintentional but as of this morning three new sites I’m involved in went live. Afrigator Mobile This is the second Afrigator ...
The Avusa Killer Bees
Unless you work at The Times, or more specifically smoke with me outdoors at our offices, you won’t know that lately we’ve been pestered ...
8 Things
Thanks to Mike for tagging me in this silly game I now find myself writing 8 things you didn’t know about me. In principal I hate this ki...
Load shedding? Live near a politician!
ESKOM CE Jacob Maroga has urged business not to rely on the government to find solutions to power shortages likely to persist until 2013,...
Waiting at the hospital
Two weeks ago Colette slipped on some wet tiles at our home and hurt her foot really badly. We thought the foot was broken but after furt...
iPhone 1.1.2 OTB working in South Africa
After seeing Colin’s iPhone working in SA I decided to buy one myself. The only issue is that all the new iPhones shipped with version 1....
South African Sociable Plugin for WordPress
One of the first things I’ve been working on at The Times this year is a TimesURL Sociable Plugin for Wordpress.
Afrigator has arrived - finally!
7 months. That’s how long this Beta version took us to finalise and while it’s not completely finished yet we decided to move it onto th...
The South African Insult
The following picture was taken on Christmas Day on a street corner in Yeoville which is only about 1km away from where I live. You can’t...
A year in reflection
WARNING: This is my last post for 2007 and I decided I should take this time to reflect… it might get sentimental! This time last year ...
Mac vs PC - the final debate
Don’t say I never support Windows.
Facebook in 50 years time
Picked this up on Orli Yakuel’s Flickr feed. Orli is one of the innovators involved in Go2Web2.0.
Disgruntled sub-editor just refuses to let go
I’ve kept relatively quiet about the recent firing of Llewellyn Kriel but I’ve just read on MyADSL that Kriel plans to appeal the finding...
Why can’t I add Mark Zuckerberg as a friend?
I’m trying not be a troll but after reading Ray Hartley’s latest post on Facebook I decided to see how many Facebook friends Mark Zuckerb...
The Times launches Planet Apps
It’s been a busy few weeks for me but none more than this current week. It seems as if all my efforts the last month or so have all come ...
Did Pick n Pay actually listen to me?
On Friday I wrote the following post in which I criticised Pick n Pay for allegedly removing the white woman from their banner when they ...
2 million visitors to blogs
I completely missed this as a result of the Afrigator Beta launch but we’ve just passed the 2 million mark in sending traffic to blog sit...
What sort of message is this?
Earlier this month Pick n Pay spent a bucket-load of money on a new corporate identity. Groogle was perplexed as to why the R110 million ...
Afrigator makes Read/WriteWeb
I know the last few posts have been dedicated to the new Afrigator beta launch but being featured on Read/WriteWeb doesn’t happen every d...
Presentation courtesy of Nic and Zoopy
Many thanks firstly to Nic who was clever enough to film my presentation at the 27dinner and secondly to Jason at Zoopy who went out of h...
27dinner and Team Afrigator
Lots has been written about the eventful 27dinner last night but I just wanted to say that it was an awesome experience all round.
The iPod Touch Geeks
All thanks to Colin both Gregor and I have a brand-spanking new 8GB iPod Touch all the way from the USA. Didn’t take long and we’ve hacke...
27dinner and Afrigator
Tomorrow night I’m doing a presentation at the 27dinner at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg. We’ll be making an announcement for Afrigator wh...
Microsoft’s equity in Apple
On Wednesday I had a meeting with Rutger-Jan van Spaandonk who is the executive director and shareholder of the Core Group. In case you ...
What is the point of a Medical Aid?
One of my reasons for moving to The Times was the lucrative medical aid offer from Discovery Life. Having not been on a Medical Aid for m...
African Web 2.0 map
Hash (aka Erik Hersman) has done an amazing map of Web 2.0 sites through Africa. Lots of people have commented and seen it already howeve...
RedCube presentation on Multimedia and Social Media
Gregor and I have just finished delivering a presentation to RedCube, the PR agency behind Visa, on Multimedia and Social Media.
Sometimes I Hate South Africa
Last Friday morning Rian Kerkhof (53) died in hospital after being robbed earlier that Thursday evening. Rian was a good family friend an...
Government takeover at Johncom - it’s begun
Take only minutes ago in The Times offices I found conclusive evidence that the rumored Government takeover of Johncom Avusa has already ...
New Media and Technology law
A week ago I was fortunate enough to attend the New Media and Technology law workshop hosted by Paul Jacobson and Daniella Kafouris.
Time to rethink what I’m doing here
Friday evening was a particularly difficult evening for my marriage and I’ve been rethinking my existence ever since.
Move along Tiger - Leopard is here to stay
On Friday, in true Geek style, I trekked half way across Johannesburg through rain, fog and heavy traffic to the iStore in Clearwater for...
Best newspaper cover ever?
I know this is very belated but time has not been on my side however I think this cover is timeless. Originally published in The Independ...
Making a grown man cry
This morning Luke had his operation and thank God, all went well. I was dead scared about this operation but thanks to some great comment...
Anaesthesia for my 4 year-old son?
Ok I need help. A few weeks back we took Luke, my son, to the dentist. Apparently he suffers from the Hartman “weak-teeth” curse and now ...
God save the Queen
ha ha ha ha!!!!
AAARRRGGGGHHHH
Driving me mad….
MacBook Pro is hazardous to your health
This post, unfortunately, is not nearly as thought provoking as dealing with the death of Lucky Dube however I thought this info might he...
TinyLink gets a Public API
After a lengthy discussion with Charl last night I got some inspiration and created a Public API for TinyLink. The API can be used throug...
Can Bolton Deventer win us the World Cup?
Gregor and I have created this awesome game for The Times! I’m hooked. Make games Share Play free online games...
So I’m pissed. How can I stop this?
Yesterday I wrote a post called Using Social Media to track the Mondli arrest which highlighted my efforts in setting up Jaiku to aggrega...
Using Social Media to track the Mondli arrest
On Sunday the news broke that Sunday Times editor, Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker will be arrested some time th...
Is this the end of the Record label era?
This morning I purchased the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, direct from their website.
How to pack your clothes. No, seriously!
This was found on OneBag.com and I wish I had found this before packing my suit and heading off to Cape Town.
How’s this for a smoking room?
This week I was lucky enough to attend a great digital workshop in Cape Town, hosted by The Times, featuring Simon Waterfall from Poke in...
Amazon MP3 more of the same iTunes crap
When I read of the launch of Amazon MP3 I honestly thought that finally some large company was seriously going to change accessibility to...
Discipline at The Times… my bad
I’ve been reprimanded by my superior, Colin Daniels. This email just arrived moments ago. From: Colin Daniels Subject: Pull your socks up...
Career Opportunity, London SW6
Could you manage a football team with only a measly £500m budget? Have you got the stamina to sign cheques morning, noon a...
Business 2.0: The Final Cover
This just in from TechCrunch. It’s relevant to me because of these two posts.
What IPTV should look like in South Africa
This week has been a week of reviews and I figured why stop now. With the recent announcement of Pay TV operators in South Africa I thoug...
Mother’s tears for her stabbed son
This whole stabbing incident just makes me sick. I honestly hope these kids spend a long time in jail. The Times spoke to Nonhlanhla Ntsh...
Pownce will kill Twitter
Pownce is similar Twitter, only better. I’ve been using it now for a couple days and I’m far more impressed with the the user experience ...
Yahoo! Mash is a complete mesh
Over the weekend I got an invite to Yahoo!’s new social networking site called Mash.
As entertaining as it is twenty20 is flawed
Last night South Africa narrowly escaped a loss by beating England in the ICC World Twenty20. Had England fielded better or even had a be...
Parallels for Mac OS X
If you’ve owned a Mac before I’m almost positive that you’ve tried some kind of virtualisation software before. Be it Microsoft’s Virtual...
September 15 remains a sad day for me
I’ve been debating whether or not to blog about this issue as it’s a very sensitive topic for me yet despite my reluctance I’ve decided i...
What’s up with this weather?
Looking at my Dashboard Widget at around 00:00 I noticed that today’s high was 32 degrees and that the current temperature is 23 degrees...
Business 2.0 to close next week
When someone told me last night that Business 2.0 is closing their doors I simply couldn’t believe it. After being featured in the magazi...
12% of Blog traffic is sent by Afrigator
If any of you have been watching the Afrigator Trends page you will have noticed that yesterday we sent a whopping 19,951 clicks through ...
The Hidden Google Earth Flight Simulator
Hidden inside Google Earth is a secret Flight Simulator that takes full advantage of Google’s extensive satellite imagery. To access th...
Afrigator Blog Trends launched
Just launched this morning is a new Blog Trends page on Afrigator. You can read more info about it on the Afrigator blog site. Essentiall...
Is Social Media dead?
In today’s Blogumist column in The Times Paul Jacobson has written a piece titled Social Media is dead. Paul is a friend and a colleague ...
Even Mambo thinks Joomla! is the best CMS
OK well the title is not 100% accurate however the following screenshot was taken off the official Mambo website.
A new Hartman is on its way!
User unknown to parents has managed to creep its way into Mom’s tummy. Pictured above the little bugger is 7 weeks old, only 0.88cm big ...
SA and Australian Governments caught editing Wikipedia
IT Web yesterday broke a story that the South African government was attempting to censor the largest human edited encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
Newspaper survival relies on free online content
The New York Times announced an agreement yesterday to employ the services of Rapt.com across the NYTimes.com website.
Mondli Makhanya responds to the Manto controversy
Part One: The editor of the Sunday Times responds to the controversy caused by the investigative stories published about Health Minister,...
Gmail offers additional storage
A new feature to Gmail is the ability to now upgrade your disk space from the free 2GB limit. I came across this by chance really as I wa...
A fresh new look
In a sad and shallow attempt for exposure Groogle and I have decided to launch our new blog designs at the same time. That aside, I have ...
The best design application in the world
Wondering who owns the best design application? Find out below.
What kids like
My 7 year old sister, Emma, was asked by a friend of my Mom to send through a list of her favourite foods. These were the results.
Lunch with Bullard
David Bullard, acclaimed journalist and public enemy number one, recently invited me to an extended lunch with some other elite bloggers ...
Is public opinion really this naive?
I submitted my vote on The Times sports poll this morning and noticed a shocking figure in the results. Now I know I’m largely in the min...
I’ve been blocked from Facebook
I’m the only one in The Times office but for some strange reason I’ve been blocked from Facebook. Wonder if they know something about me ...
My email to SABC News
My email to the News desk at SABC sent late Saturday evening - reply still pending. Dear SABC News Team I’d like to enquire as to why SAB...
Apple - Think Different
In 2002 Apple created a new advertising campaign called Switch. It featured real people who had switched from the Microsoft Windows platf...
I think Facebook has been sold!
Look at the favicon in the images below. This screenshot was taken a couple minutes ago while accessing Facebook and I wonder if they hav...
It is a Web 2.0 world and we’re part of it!
This map taken from the Business 2.0 website shows the locations of the 31 hottest startups outside of Silicon Valley. While highly conce...
25 Web 2.0 Startup Commandments
Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that exe...
What I’ve learnt not to do on Muti
I’m a huge fan of Muti which is a superb African Social Bookmark site where users can post links to content on the web. The site, based l...
My first job at The Times
I only officially start at The Times on August 1st but I’ve already got my first responsibility. This screenshot was taken off Facebook a...
A review of Google Apps
Google Apps has been out there for some time now and when I initially looked at it I wasn’t really sold on the benefits of using the serv...
My new position at The Times
After a couple months negotiation and some pretty hairy decision making processes I’ve finally signed and sealed a new contract to begin ...
Netgear and Google hurt my ego
I consider myself somewhat of a technical person and I pride myself by the fact that I’m able to problem-solve numerous issues when it co...
Videos of the snow in Johannesburg
If you missed it then you seriously lost out. At around 12:00 on Wednesday morning the snow started to fall in Johannesburg for the first...
MTN and Jupiter Drawing Room miss the mark
I don’t think there is a person I don’t know who doesn’t like the new MTN advertising campaign. Based largely on User Generated Content (...
My Digital Life?
Found on iburst this afternoon. Anyone know what the relationship is because I don’t see any other advertising anywhere on the site…
The end of a football era
Football is a way of life for me and Thierry, over an eight year period, played a integral part in my teams success and my admiration for...
What to do with 1,300 images?
Picture the scenario: thousands of personal pictures located across three machines, a multitude of CDs and DVDs and so many duplicates on...
Afrigator at TED
The following pic was taken at TED and features Ory Okolloh from kenyanpundit.com talking about the cool things happening in Africa.
27-5 yet another success
One of the first things Nic Haralambous had to say to me on arrival at the 27dinner was - why are you not at home working? My response wa...
SA Top Sites and Blog Top Sites clarified
The time has come for me to make a public statement about the current status of SA Top Sites, Blog Top Sites and Blog247.
The big Cameroon domain conspiracy
People say that this blogosphere is boring and to an extent I agree however I must admit I am finding some serious value in reading all t...
Show me the Gatorlove
Some things just tickle my fancy but I have to admit Gatorlove is really blowing my hair back! It’s such a simple yet cool new feature to...
The new Afrigator hits the block
On a very cold and windy morning here in Johannesburg I’m comforted by the latest version we just released for Afrigator.
Bullardgate: A very interesting twist
Now I was one of the first to react to David Bullard’s rant and I still maintain rightfully so however tonight I found an intersting twis...
Shirley, Goodness and Mercy
So last night I did something I haven’t done in more than six years - I went to the theater. Zane Meas of 7de Laan and Twac fame stars in...
Bullard responds - now even a bigger wanker
So Bullard has responded via video and while bloggers all over South Africa may have asked for an apology from the Sunday Times all we go...
Is David Bullard an utter wanker?
If you haven’t read it already David Bullard, Sunday Times journalist and holier than thou author, has published an article today in the ...
KillerStartups.com thinks we’re hot
The coverage of Afrigator, it would seem, doesn’t stop within the African borders. I was notified via email on a few minutes ago that Afr...
The power of Afrigation
With Afrigator only a couple days old I’ve already noticed the power of content Afrigation.
The Cleaners Revenge
So there’s this really cool clip I came across yesterday on the Twac website which I thought I have to share with you. It lacks a little ...
I lost my virginity
Well it’s official - I’m no longer a virgin and my first introduction into the real-world geek community was fab.
Kudos to Mike Stopforth
I have personally never seen a personal recommendation in the South African community as what Mike’s just done and it is an amazing thing...
Twac.co.za - my new baby
I was hoping to hold off a little on blogging about Twac as we’re still working through a list of changes/bugs/feature requests but my ar...
Technology Thursday kicks off
Today sees the launch of my new weekly contribution I’ll be doing for SA Rocks. Technology Thursday, will focus on South African technolo...
Social Networking = hard work!
I love Web 2.0 stuff and more importantly I love community involvement but hell it’s hard work to keep up with the various subscriptions ...
How I spent my Valentines Day
As is the trend lately my current news seems to be stale news by the time I get around to blogging about it but nonetheless it’s one post...
Apple is promoting the idea of ending DRM
Apple’s Steve Jobs is encouraging the music labels to sell their digital music without any protection at all. If the labels stopped wrapp...
Of 9/11 and being pessimistic
So the new job is going great (thanks Carls for asking) but I’ve had little time to blog recently. I really wanted to share my experience...
Ja! Productions decided to hire me
A special thanks must go out to Mike Stopforth and Dave Duarte for helping me to find a new job. Mike and Dave introduced me to Johan Rey...
Seriously, Google is starting to scare me
I know I run a competing website to Google however it has to be said that I am growing very worried at some of the decisions being made a...
Words that end in gry
Yesterday I received a riddle sent to me via email without a solution and while I had seen this riddle before I had completely forgotten ...
I’m looking for a new job
It’s a little sneaky of me posting this on my blog but I am in the process of looking for new employment. Someone has to pay the bills se...
Is bad publicity good? and why i do grabble
It has been said that any publicity, good or bad, is good either way. Well I experienced my first bit of ‘bad’ publicity today with Grabb...
In Loving Memory - Kevin Sweidan
It’s that time of year again when I remember that horrible day on September 15th 2003 when my best friend and business partner, Kevin Swe...
It’s A Good May Day!
Well things are certainly looking up. I’m writing my first blog entry from a new Apple Mac which was kindly given to me.
The Up Side Of Anger
It’s been a while since I last posted something on the blog and with good reason. The last month and a bit I’ve been hectic with adding n...
I’m a Business Warrior
It’s been a while since I last posted something on the blog and with good reason. The last month and a bit I’ve been hectic with adding n...
Luke’s First Day of School!
It’s been a while since I last posted something on the blog and with good reason. The last month and a bit I’ve been hectic with adding n...
Terri Schiavo Right To Die Case
Since March 18th I’ve been following the American case about Terri Schiavo and her right to Life, or death depending on how you look at i...
What is an Entrepreneur?
This has been a very interesting question to me lately. I recently read two fantastic articles about this exact question (sorry I can’t r...
Asia Tsunami
I’m sure that most of you have all been shocked by the recent events that have taken place in Asia as have I. More importantly a close fr...
My Website
For those of you who are remotely interested you can view my companies website Hartman Productions for a brief understanding of what I do...
Pic of my 10 1/2 month old son Luke
Pic of my 10 1/2 month old son Luke (what a gorgeous little child).
My New Blog
Well after months of having the service available to me I have finally decided to go ahead and begin using blogs properly for the first t...
linux
iBook G4 now sporting Ubuntu Edgy Eft
It had to happen and today it did. I have just completed a brand new Ubuntu 6.10 (codename Edgy Eft) Linux installation on my Apple iBook...
PowerPC canned by Ubuntu
So go figure. 15 days after installing Ubuntu on my Apple iBook G4 a decision was made today to drop future support for PowerPC. For thos...
Mark Shuttleworth puts me in my place
So this Ubuntu PowerPC issue has been bugging me a lot, so much so that I left the following comment on Mark Shuttleworth’s blog site thi...
Debian etch is now my local flavour
After grappling long and hard about the whole Ubuntu dropping PowerPC support issue I have made a decision to move my Apple iBook G4 from...
Firefox not free?
I’ve been running Debian on my Apple iBook for about a week now and a recent upgrade to the unstable version of Debian made me realise th...
How to swap Control and Command keys on PowerPC
As a previous Apple OS X user I find that having to use the control key on my keyboard versus the Apple command key a real pain in the ba...
DNS Installation and Setup using BIND9
This HOWTO will assist you in getting a Domain Name Server (DNS) up and running using BIND9 on Debian Etch.
PureFTPd Installation and Setup
The following HOWTO is aimed at installing and setting up a FTP server, based on Pure-FTPd, which supports multiple Virtual Hosts.
Installing a second hard drive
Installing a second hard drive is easy if you know how. I needed to do this on my server and below is the steps I followed.
Installing a Debian Etch base system
The following is a mini HOWTO on setting up a base Debian Etch system.
Automated backup to Amazon S3 with Duplicity on Debian Etch
If you’ve tried to use Debian Etch’s version of Duplicity you’ll know there is no way to use Amazon S3 servers for remote backup as Dupli...
Setting the time using Terminal
This is really basic stuff but if you aren’t running a GUI then it isn’t as easy as opening up a Time & Date Settings control panel s...
How to change Apple Command key and CTRL key on Ubuntu 17.04
If you want to swap both the Command keys with the default Control key on Ubuntu 17.04 inverting what they do currently then this is for ...
pages
404 - Page not found
Sorry, we can’t find that page that you’re looking for. You can try again by going back to the homepage.
Comment Policy
I would love to hear your views, opinions, questions and feedback on my site however there are a few simple ground rules that come into p...
Everything I’ve created
Open Pandora’s box and you’ll find everything I’ve posted on this site. It aint Google but it’s got everything you need below dating back...
Feed
<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”utf-8”?> <?xml-stylesheet type=”text/xml” href=”https://blog-old_justinhartman.ar.io/feed.xslt.xml...
Feed.xslt
<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”utf-8”?> Atom Feed: ...
History of the Howto Guides
On the 15th of January 2007 I launched a MediaWiki website called the Debian Wiki which used to be hosted at linux.justinhartman.com. I b...
Bootstrap 4 Boilerplate Template Kit for Espresso
A Boilerplate Template Kit for Espresso that speeds up your project development by providing templates, code, CSS, fonts and scripts usin...
Humans
/* TEAM */ Chef: Justin Hartman Email: justinhartman@fire.fundersclub.com Web: https://justinhartman.co Twitter: @justinh...
Old Projects
Afrigator
Legal Notices
The following legal notices are applicable to you as part of using this website. Each agreement is there mostly for your protection and I...
Diceware Password Generator Release Notes
This is a dedicated page which documents the changes made to the Diceware Password Generator as well as all the release notes for the sof...
Cookies Policy
Cookies Policy
formspree-verify
iamjustinhartman@gmail.com
Contact Justin
Contact Me
My personal life
This is my space where I house a collection of personal blog posts which I’ve written over the years. Both current as well as older writi...
Revival of the Debian Wiki
In 2007 I launched the Debian Wiki, a collection of Linux-based HOWTOs which became very popular, but in 2014 Russian hackers took over m...
The Kitchen Sink
A simple page which houses some of the features of the theme. It’s here for my reference so if you found it, well done 
Privacy Policy
This page informs you of my policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information I receive from users of the Sit...
Projects that keep me out of trouble
It all started in a garage. Literally. These days I still find myself hacking away in my private space, looking to change the world. Here...
Robots
User-agent: * Disallow: /formspree-verify.txt Allow: /
Sitemap
A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there, I have an XML version available for digesting; just for yo...
Sitemap
<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?> <?xml-stylesheet type=”text/xsl” href=”https://blog-old_justinhartman.ar.io/sitemap.xsl”?...
Sitemap
<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?> XML Sitemap XML Sitemap URL ...
Posts by Tag
...
Technical HOWTOs
This collection of HOWTOs covers posts relating to development, technology, servers, linux, macos and anything else that falls within the...
Terms and Conditions
My Terms and Conditions apply to all visitors, users and others who access or use my website. By accessing or using the website you agree...
playground
projects
Grabble.co.za is launched
It’s the latest addition to my stable of projects and I’m extremely proud to share it with you! Grabble is a new South African search eng...
Debian Wiki Launched
The Debian Wiki was created solely because I needed something to help me keep track of what I was doing when setting up Debian servers an...
Afrigator - the history behind the project
Afrigator is our solution to a social media aggregator and directory built especially for Africa. Its leak comes only two weeks after Ama...
TinyLink - My latest clone
I’ve been a big fan of TinyURL for some time now and I’ve been quite fascinated with how the whole thing is put together so I decided to ...
Diceware Password Generator
The Dicewear Password Generator is open-source software I wrote in Python that uses a world list and “dice” to output an easy to remember...
Bootstrap 4 Boilerplate Template Kit for Espresso
A Boilerplate Template Kit for Espresso that speeds up your project development by providing templates, code, CSS, fonts and scripts usin...
technical
Hats Off To Google
I can’t help but feel inspired by Larry Page & Sergey Brin (founders of Google) and the rest of the Google team. Last night I spent m...
New Website Development
I must say I am very excited at the new development of our new website. I have been unhappy for a long time with the current website and ...
Siblings are convicted in first felony spam case
Well times are certainly changing and the first conviction in the US for spam proves this. I know that laws have gotten tougher and it is...
New Website Released
I am very excited about the release of the website… Finally!
Firefox Ignites Demand For Alternative Browser
For those of you not using the Firefox browser here is an interesting article about its development. Co-developed by a 19-year old techie...
Microsoft to Launch New Search Engine
It appears that if you have a lot of money you can be anti-competitive and illegal and get away with it by paying everyone off.
Judge Puts Microsoft Deal Under Scrutiny
It appears that if you have a lot of money you can be anti-competitive and illegal and get away with it by paying everyone off.
Google Desktop Search
If you’re like me you’ve probably accumulated close on 9000 emails this year alone and I’m sure that the amount of files lying on your co...
Microsoft’s Passport fails to travel far as Web strategy
I love to see a Microsoft failure…
Technology - Can’t live with it and can’t live without it!!!!
I’m in the IT world. I live and breath internet and IT technology yet somehow I wish I could throw it all away… Since Friday two weeks ag...
My new pet hate
Most of you wouldn’t have noticed but if you now type in www.google.com in your browser you are automatically taken to the .CO.ZA google ...
Gmail has arrived for me…
Well finally I get to test out Google’s Gmail. Gmail is Google’s answer to email and has a massive capacity of 1GB of storage space.
Get Gmail now
It took me nearly 6 months to crack an invite to get a Gmail email account and now I have found an even simpler way to get one.
My PageRank moves to 7
Imagine my suprise when I realised yesterday that my Google PageRank jumped from a minute 4 out of 10 to 7 out of 10!!!!! I have been wor...
I Got Hacked…
On entering my web site I was hit with a very nasty surprise… I had been hacked. I am so angry with these guys and even managed to log on...
Some new features to SA Top Sites
Two major enhancements have been added to the SA Top Sites system which I am very excited about. The first is a Google PageRank display a...
Grabble shopping goes into beta
Grabble Shopping is the first of many new add-ons to the Grabble portfolio. This new sub-product of grabble is an initiative between Grab...
Google Browser Sync
I think that the majority of people are aware of the Google Toolbar for Firefox but what I don’t know is if people are aware that Google ...
WordPress 2.1 Ella
So yesterday the guys over at WordPress launched the newest version 2.1 of the popular blogging software. I of course run WordPress on my...
Web Standards
I’ve been spending a few minutes this morning reading on the net and it seems that Web Standards has crept into the wood-work once again....
Back online
So it’s been almost two weeks but I’m finally back online. I’ve learnt the hard way that if you don’t have RAID configured on your server...
Game Over for Sony PlayStation 3
Let me state before I start ranting that I am was a huge supporter of Sony in that I own a PS1, PlayStation 2 and PSP. All in all I’ve be...
CSS Expert needed
OK so I’m getting really frustrated with CSS and Internet Explorer. Why Micro$oft can’t create a better standards-based browser I will ne...
Afrigator goes Mobile… and then some
It’s been just over 10 days since Afrigator hit the waters and so much has happened it’s scaring the living crap out of me.
New Firefox Security Issue
A new FireFox Security issue told through a cartoon.
iGoogle and Afrigator
It’s no secret and it’s been out for a long time but iGoogle is really starting to amount to something. Previously known as Google Person...
MyBlogLog is being re-branded
At the recent SOBcon conference in Chicago Robyn Tippins spoke about several major upcoming changes with MyBlogLog. Yahoo! recently purch...
Facebook has lost its appeal
When I heard about the launch of Facebook Apps I got a little concerned and I think, rightfully so.
Complete List Of Html Meta Tags
Ever wondered how many HTML meta tags there are? Ever wanted a complete list of all of them? Well, here you go. The most concise list of ...
Installing CakePHP on Mac OS X running XAMPP
The following Howto will install CakePHP and get you up and running using XAMPP on Mac OS X 10.7.5+.
Create a humans.txt file with a Last Updated timestamp in Jekyll
I wanted to create a humans.txt file but at the same time I did not want to manually update the Last update variable in /* SITE */ sectio...
How to Find Your Device’s MAC Address
The following HOWTO will show you how to find a device’s MAC Address on either Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows or macOS.
GitHub + Microsoft = Not a Bright Future for OSS
Really concerned to read this morning that GitHub is going to be acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion. Yes, that is billions!
Migrating Jekyll from GitHub Pages to GitLab Pages
This post will show you how to migrate a Jekyll site from GitHub Pages to GitLab Pages.