http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/ PC Doctors Online Technical Support en-gb This site is powered by e107, which is released under the terms of the GNU GPL License. it@nospam.com (Christo) it@nospam.com (Christo) Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:44:33 +0200 Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:44:33 +0200 http://backend.userland.com/rss e107 (http://e107.org) 60 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/e107_images/logo.png http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/ 88 31 PC Doctors Online Technical Support http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.600.4 MWEB aims to ‘free the web’ with the lowest prices ever on uncapped ADSL accounts

An online social media campaign called ‘Free The Web’ has over the past few days gained momentum, sparking speculation that one of the larger companies are planning something big.

A Facebook page was created with the message “We're frustrated by the limitations of the internet in SA. Let's celebrate the greatness of the web and call for a change! Join us and be the first to know when we succeed in our cause to Free The Web in SA!”

This Facebook page quickly grew in popularity through both word of mouth and an aggressive advertising campaign, and has to date attracted over 13,000 fans.

The company behind the initiative, which was until recently unknown, said that “Our grand plan is announced in just a few days time (today).”

MWEB unveils their plan

It has now been revealed that MWEB was behind this social media campaign, and the announcement was indeed significant: Uncapped ADSL bandwidth at affordable rates.

“On 22 March 2010, MWEB will launch a series of affordable uncapped ADSL products in the South African market targeted at both consumers and businesses,” the company said in a press statement.

The product offerings are as follows:

MWEB Connect (Consumer product; month-to-month)

1. Uncapped ADSL 384kbps: R219
2. Uncapped ADSL 512kbps: R299
3. Uncapped ADSL 4096kbps: R539

All inclusive

1. Uncapped All-inclusive 384kbps: R349
2. Uncapped All-inclusive 512kbps: R599
3. Uncapped All-inclusive 4096kbps: R899

MWEB BUSINESS (Business product; 12 month contract)

1. Uncapped ADSL 384kbps: R499
2. Uncapped ADSL 512kbps: R699
3. Uncapped ADSL 4096kbps: R1 999

All-inclusive

1. Uncapped All-inclusive 384kbps: R629
2. Uncapped All-inclusive 512kbps: R999
3. Uncapped All-inclusive 4096kbps: R2 259

Official Press Release:

South Africans are today a step closer to being able to use the internet like the rest of the world does as MWEB, South Africa’s leading ISP, today launches a full range of uncapped ADSL packages for consumers and businesses at an affordable, highly competitive price. With products priced from R219 per month and some 40% cheaper than other offerings, MWEB is the first major player in South Africa to offer uncapped ADSL on a significant scale, available 24 hours a day, with all the value-added products, technical back-up and a world-class network – at an affordable price.

Rudi Jansen, MWEB CEO, says the time has come for South Africans to experience unlimited internet access that is within their means. “Internet penetration in South Africa remains below par - in fact, South Africa has fallen behind a number of other African countries in recent times. The lack of well-priced, generously-provisioned bandwidth has been holding us all back, and as a result we are missing out on an immense economic opportunity.

“In his state of the nation address last month, President Jacob Zuma promised to increase broadband access, reduce tariffs and ensure a high standard of internet service, in line with international norms. MWEB’s latest move is supportive of the government’s objectives to increase internet take-up as part of its efforts to encourage greater economic growth and social upliftment. By lifting the usage cap and increasing competition, MWEB will greatly assist the industry change that is needed in this country.

ICT industry analyst, Arthur Goldstuck, agrees with this sentiment, saying cheap, unlimited broadband by MWEB marks a key shift in South African Internet history. “It has been proven that accessible technology builds the economy. This is the kind of catalyst we’ve all waited for; we hope it's the gambit all other providers will have to match. If it delivers what it promises, the consumer and business user and ultimately the country will be the beneficiaries.”

Vast benefits
Citing the examples of France and South Korea and pointing to various global ICT programmes aimed at overcoming the 2009 economic slump, Jansen says the direct and indirect benefits including the multiplier effect of cheap, abundant bandwidth are nothing short of remarkable.

“Broadband lifted South Korea out of the devastation of the Asian market collapse in 1997,” he says. “In 1995, 1% of their population dialed up to the Internet. In 2009, more than 95% of households had broadband. The change is deep and irreversible - everybody has high-definition video on demand. Online gaming conventions are as big as soccer matches or rock concerts. South Koreans spend twice as much per capita online as US citizens.”

South Africa’s turn
Jansen says MWEB hopes its actions are a precursor to a meaningful industry response. Since South African telecoms policy was liberalised to permit ISPs to offer services on their own networks, MWEB, a first-tier ISP with its own international bandwidth provisioned through SAT3 and Seacom, is now able to compete with telcos by providing Internet access on its own network.

“In spite of the current stranglehold that Telkom currently has on the internet market in South Africa, we felt that action of this significance was necessary to get South Africa to join the rest of the world and enjoy the social and economic benefits that broadband internet has to offer,” said Jansen. “This offer will enable South Africans to access and download content on scale never seen before. We have a real chance to lift ourselves from broadband mediocrity in South Africa, or we risk falling into broadband oblivion,” he added.

MWEB has invested significantly in its network to produce a top quality, reliable network that has been engineered to world-class standards and which will accommodate the volume of traffic expected. MWEB recently achieved Tier-1 ISP status with the migration of its customers to its own IPC network, thereby limiting its reliance on other Tier-1 providers for its bandwidth needs. With its new IPC link, MWEB will have more control over its ADSL network. Jansen said he is confident that the additional control will mean better performance and higher service levels.
“We will also be utilising bandwidth on both the SAT3 and SEACOM international cable systems in order to have full redundancy on our international bandwidth,” he said. “We signed up with SEACOM in March for a long-term agreement and we are purchasing significant bandwidth as SEACOM provides MWEB with a very attractive solution for international network capacity, at the best price currently available to the South African market.”

He added however, that for any ADSL service to be successful a close working relationship with Telkom is needed as they still control the last mile. MWEB will continue to work with Telkom to ensure MWEB subscribers receive the best possible network experience in the country.

Packages
MWEB is introducing six data-only ADSL packages for consumers and businesses. The consumer data-only products will cost R219, R299 and R539 per month for line speeds of 384Kbps, 512 Kbps and 4Mbps respectively. The MWEB Business data-only offerings will cost R499 per month for a 384Kbps line, R699 per month for a 512Kbps line, and R1 999 per month on a 4Mbps line. These services are available on any line rental package available from Telkom, even Telkom’s “Closer” subscription bundles.

In addition, MWEB will offer three consumer all-inclusive packages (ADSL line rental included) for R349, R599 and R899 per month for line speeds of 384Kbps, 512 Kbps and 4Mbps respectively. The all-inclusive offerings for businesses will cost R629 for the 384kbps option, R999 for the 512Kbps option and R2 259 for the 4Mbps package.

All business products are unshaped, and as in the rest of the world, no bandwidth caps will apply to any of these services.

Business-grade
The MWEB Business products are specifically designed to suit the needs of small and medium sized businesses, usually seen as 5 or more connected devices. Andre Joubert, GM of MWEB Business, explains that the MWEB Business packages are fully managed. “If something goes wrong, MWEB’s support engineers will remotely log on to fix a router or send an engineer on-site at no additional charge, and also liaise with Telkom, for their portion of the fault.”

Joubert says the Business packages have other advantages too.
- They are unshaped.
- The service is designed to cater for the throughput of business applications not usually associated with consumer products
- MWEB includes use of a business-grade router worth R3 999 in the 12-month contract.
- The product comes with fixed IP addresses, offering the ability to host servers and deploy a VPN connection.
- MWEB runs a dedicated call centre that offers business-specific technical skills.
- The service is fully MWEB VoIP compatible.
- The product comes with reports and proactive fault communication.

In addition, says Joubert, while MWEB Business packages are at a premium compared to consumer products, they’re still up to R1 800 less per month than comparative business products on offer. The throughput will be better than is currently available in the market.

”Now businesses can run more effectively without having to worry about their internet costs. This is set to drive growth in the SME sector in particular.”

Consolidation
MWEB will use the occasion to consolidate its numerous ADSL offerings into a simpler portfolio. On the consumer side, a number of capped packages prevail, but these will enjoy additional cost-savings. For example:
1GB R89 no frills now costs R69
2GB Data Cap Only will be migrated to 3GB at R145
1GB All-inclusive 384Kbps will be migrated to 2GB at R199

Source: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/11816.html

Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:24:43 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.600.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.593.4
The new settings are supposed to make it easier and simpler to control your information, but the changes are drawing a mix of criticism and praise from privacy watchdogs such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU), and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

The new privacy controls include some great changes, and some not-so-great changes, but here are five privacy issues you should know about as these settings roll out across Facebook.

Search Settings
When I checked my search settings this morning, the option to index my profile by public search engines had been turned on. This is despite the fact that I had explicitly turned off this setting when Facebook launched public search listings two years ago. If you don't want search engines like Google and Bing to index your profile, do yourself a favor and make sure those settings are still set the way you want them to be. To adjust your search privacy settings click on Settings>Privacy Settings>Search. If the "Allow indexing" box is checked then search engines will be able to index your information.

Password Protection Layer: Not So Good
Facebook has added a new layer of protection for changing your privacy settings. Under the new policy you will have to enter your password whenever you want to change your privacy settings. This is a smart move, and quite a common policy with other Web services.

But in my tests, this extra protection did not work very well at all. Once I had chosen to exclude my Facebook profile from public search engines, I left my privacy settings page and returned to my profile (your settings are saved automatically). But when I went back to my privacy settings, the pages were wide open with no password requirement. I tested this out on several browsers and operating systems, I also signed out and back in several times to see if that would change anything. But each time I checked my security settings were wide open. The password protection eventually came back after half an hour or so, but that was far too long. The password requirement should come back automatically or Facebook should be telling you that this setting is set to time out.

PAI Changes
Facebook is also changing what it deems to be publicly available information (PAI), with almost no recourse for the user to control this--a change that does not sit well with the EFF. Information under the PAI umbrella includes your profile picture, friends list (Facebook says the view friends link has been removed from search results), fan pages, gender, geographic region, and networks (school, work, etc.). There is almost no recourse to protect any of this information. To illustrate how important this setting could be, the EFF points out that you may belong to a fan page that supports or condemns gay marriage. Since this is such a controversial issue, that may be a position you are not willing to share with co-workers, fellow church members, or other Facebook friends.

Friends List
Although your friends list is technically under the PAI umbrella, you can still control who sees it. But controls for this information are found on your Facebook profile page -- not your privacy settings. If you want to restrict who sees your friends list within Facebook, click on the pencil icon next to your Friends widget below your profile picture, and uncheck the box that says "Show my friends on my profile."

Other information you can remove from your profile page includes your gender and current city.

Hyper Control
While Facebook is taking away some control over publicly available information, you are getting extreme control over other parts of your Facebook profile. Now you can restrict who sees your shared content on a per-post basis. Don't want certain friends to see your latest update? No problem. Need to keep those photos of you at the bar away from your co-workers? You can do that too.

Facebook's new privacy settings are a mixed bag of better and simpler controls over some information, while loosening the restrictions on others. Of course, if you don't want some of that information to appear, you can always delete it from Facebook (you cannot delete your gender, but you can make it invisible). Facebook's privacy controls may not be perfect, but they will urge users to think even harder about what they're sharing on Facebook, and ultimately that may be a good thing.

SOURCE: PCWorld



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:16:11 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.593.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.592.4
The new development, which the Californian technology giant dubs "real-time search", aims to bring users more up-to-date information as they scour the web for information. Over the next few days, anybody searching online using Google will see their traditional search results augmented by a string of constantly updating messages drawn from social networks, news sites and blogs.

The move is part of a wider push to make Google's search index even faster and more up to date, as people increasingly use services like Twitter to transmit information about events as they happen.

Google executive Amit Singhal said that with more information being put on the web every day, it was vital that the company learned how to give users the most relevant results - and as quickly as possible.

"Information is being posted at a pace I have never seen before," he said. "In this information environment, seconds matter."

As well as watching for developments on news sites, Google is working closely with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to include updates from their users - and Singhal said he would not rule out any potential source of up-to-the-second information in the future.

Though executives were keen to use the launch event - which was held near the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California - as a display of power, it was also intended to quieten growing speculation that an inability to conduct real time searches could become Google's achilles heel.

Some critics have posited that websites like Facebook and Twitter could eventually rival Google, thanks to their ability to tap into millions of public messages being sent constantly between individuals. That threat comes in addition to more traditional search engines like Microsoft's Bing.com have threatened to forge exclusive deals with some content providers as a way to claw back market share.

Instead, Google has acted to bring those services into the fold, though it would neither confirm nor deny whether there was a financial relationship behinds its links with social networking sites. Not everybody thinks the move was make or break for Google, however, even if it gives users more timely information.

"There's no doubt that it's good to have," said Danny Sullivan, a prominent observer of Google's activities, writing on his SearchEngineLand website. "It's incredibly difficult to be a leading information source and yet when there's an earthquake, people are instead turning to Twitter for confirmation faster than traditional news sources on Google can provide."

The company also used the event to unveil a number of other advances it said were significant technological advances.

These included an experimental program called Google Goggles that allows users to take a photograph of an object or product and ask Google what it is, getting a selection of information back just as if they had conducted a web search on the item in question.

Vic Gundotra, the company's vice-president of engineering, said there were already more than a billion items stored in the company's systems and that there were fierce ambitions to make this technology - which has eluded experts for generations - as widely available as possible.

"Today marks the beginning of this journey," he said. "It's our goal to be able to visually identify any image."

Gundotra also showcased a forthcoming translation product which allows users to speak any phrase into a mobile phone and then translate it, almost instantly, into any one of a number of languages. The resulting phrase could then be spoken back by Google through the phone's speaker, potentially allowing travellers to use any high-end handset as a universal translation device. The first elements of the software should be available to the public in the first quarter of 2010.

The company said such technologies were possible thanks to improvements in speed and power, but added that there were more plans coming soon - and that the ultimate goal was to make searching for information as fast as physically possible.

"It takes one 10th of a second for light to travel around the world," said Singhal. "At Google we will only be satisfied until that is the only barrier between you and information."

SOURCE: guardian.co.uk




Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:03:15 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.592.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.591.4 matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:10:26 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.591.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.590.4 matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:13:56 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.590.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.582.4
The major changes basically boil down to this: the ‘Highlights' are merged into the News Feed, and there are basically two home page views to choose from-- the News Feed and the Live Feed. The News Feed uses Facebook magic to determine the posts and updates that seem like they would be most interesting to you, and adds back in items like notifications when friends are tagged in photos, or when friends follow fan pages or join new Facebook groups, add other friends, or RSVP to events.

By contrast, the Live Feed is literally the live feed of all status updates from your entire network of friends on Facebook. While you are viewing the News Feed, a bubble next to the Live Feed link keeps a running count of the number of new updates in the Live Feed. You can also customize what shows up in the Live Feed by clicking on Edit Options at the bottom of the Live Feed page. The removal of the Highlights section from the right panel also mean that the Events box will shift up where things like friends' birthdays will be more visible.

Over the past few months Facebook has morphed through other evolutions in site design and content as well. Facebook added an option to share status updates publicly-- similar to the way Twitter tweets are available to the general public. Facebook updates are still private by default though and require you to manually change the privacy settings to allow them to be shared. It also added Twitter style ‘@' tags, and purchased FriendFeed, a popular niche social networking rival.

Social networking has been around for a while, but it is still embryonic, or at least in its infancy. While sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and others at one time seemed to provide fairly unique services, the lines continue to blur as social networking evolves. Facebook traffic has increased substantially while MySpace has plummeted, and Facebook is continuing to adapt to try and become the Google of social networking rather than turning into the next MySpace.

Facebook explained the reason for the changes on its blog. "Some of you may ask why we are changing the home page again. Like you, we know it can be disruptive when things are moved around, but we hope that these changes make Facebook a more valuable experience for you."

I have no doubt that Facebook wants to provide a valuable experience, but I think there are ulterior motives in there as well. I am sure Facebook monitors the traffic and usage patterns of users very closely to figure out what works. These changes will foster more cross-traffic and more social interaction. Facebook thrives on the viral aspects of the social network and isn't necessarily trying to be a news site.

Facebook also wants to capitalize on its potential of the status update feed with deals like the one with Microsoft unveiled last week at the Web 2.0 Summit. With over 300 million users, Facebook boasts more than 45 million status updates per day, a jackpot for real-time search indexing.

I have one piece of advice to offer Facebook for the next home page revamp (at the current rate of change on Facebook that could be as early as Thanksgiving): come up with a better term than News Feed. The Live Feed seems like it would be more appropriately called the News Feed, while the News Feed is more like the highlights or most interesting stuff. The News Feed and Live Feed names are ambiguous.

SOURCE: PC World

Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:43:17 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.582.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.577.4
The breach, likely to be the accumulation of a number of separate phishing attacks using fake sites to lure people to leave login details, is believed to be one of the biggest of its kind.

Graham Cluley, a consultant for the security company Sophos, said: "The danger is that people will be using the same password on many different sites, so the criminals will go and try them on Amazon or PayPal or wherever."

Users of those services, and of Microsoft's Hotmail service, are being urged to change their passwords and the security question they use as a precaution.

The discovery comes after 10,000 passwords belonging to Hotmail users with accounts beginning with A or B were found posted online over the weekend. That list suggests there could be about 130,000 compromised Hotmail accounts in all, from its total of 250m.

It emerged today that Yahoo, the biggest online email provider, with about 260m users, Google's Gmail, with about 100m users, and AOL, with 50m, have also been targeted. If the proportion of successful phishing attacks on those users is similar to those affected on Hotmail, more than 250,000 account details would have been captured.

Phishing uses emails with credible-looking web links which lure the reader to click on them and enter personal details. Some masquerade as coming from banks or PayPal, for example, and take the user to fake sites that use the same images as the genuine ones. There they are asked to enter personal information, which can be used to log in to the original email account, and take control of it and other services that use the same details.

Tom Warren, a writer at Neowin.net, which discovered the breaches, noted that many of the Hotmail passwords seemed to come from Europe, suggesting that British users could be substantially affected.

SOURCE: guardian.co.uk

Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:17:17 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.577.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.575.4
Google's new online tool, Wave, marries real time communications with natural language tools to let users create a "wave" and add other users to that wave, all of whom can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets and feeds from other Web sources to replace common email and other traditional communication tools.

Google has asked developers to create their own APIs for the Wave offering, and several have done so. Many of their demos can be accessed by clicking here.

SAP for instance, has shown a prototype of Gravity, which the company said provides real-time, cloud-based collaborative business process modeling within Google Wave.

Gravity, with the collaborative features of Google Wave, allows business process modeling activities to be propagated in near real-time to all other participants of the Wave, SAP said.

In its demo of Gravity, SAP showed how two merging companies could re-engineer their business processes in order to capitalize from cross-selling opportunities. Gravity color-codes each individual modeler's content, shows the history of the model, and allows both asynchronous and synchronous editing. The results could also be imported into SAP Netweaver BPM for further refinement and execution.

salesforce.com showed how Wave interacts with cloud platforms like its Force.com platform. As an example, it showed a fictitious company asking customers to register the products they purchased, and returned an e-mail address for support. That e-mail address was actually a Wave robot which gets information from the customer about a problem, identifies the customer, and tailors the interaction based on the customer's purchase and support history.

Should the customer request a live chat, Wave sends the request to the robot which then makes a request to salesforce.com to find an available representative. All the interactions between the customer and salesforce.com are included in the Wave, and can be embedded directly into a case detail page from which any support representative can carry on the conversation with the customer.

Google Wave is not only for serious business users.

LabPixies has extensions which allow multiple players to solve Sudoku puzzles together and see who is the best player in a group.

Ribbit, Mountain View, Calif., showed a beta of its Ribbit Message Gadget which allows Wave participants to connect to a Wave via a phone. The Ribbit Message Gadget displays a transcription of audio messages and attaches original audio message as MP3 files. It also includes an embedded player to let users listen to messages, with all messages and responses to requests from the Gadget automatically tracked by a Ribbit Message robot.

Other applications for which Google Wave extensions are being developed include the 6rounds live meeting point application from GixOO, an interactive itinerary application from Lonely Planet, a trip planning gadget from AccuWeather, and another trip planning application from Google Maps.

SOURCE: ChannelWeb
[Submitted by MaTiCa]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:31:49 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.575.4 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.569.4
Vendors of cloud computing services, for their part, have done little to alleviate the situation, other than to assure customers that security is a major concern. The Cloud Security Alliance has only now gotten around to refining initial guidelines it issued earlier this year.

For the time being, companies who use cloud computing believe it's secure, and those who don't, well, they're not quite so sure. For those who do take this leap of faith, their willingness to overlook little things like the lack of a service level agreement has more to do with the business they're in or the expense involved with rolling their own management systems and security apparatus.

To see what I mean, just look at the sorts of data that companies are pushing to the cloud, and the sorts of companies most willing to go that route. Archie Reed, a cloud security expert who holds the rank of distinguished technologist at HP, told me that cloud adoption is very high in certain verticals, including real estate companies, retailers and government agencies. In other words, exactly the type of entities you'd expect; entities that wouldn't mind if their listings, inventory or statistics were accidentally exposed or leaked.

Financial services companies, however -- not so much. Processing data in the cloud, sure. Storing data there -- not on your life. Small and medium sized enterprises aside (where the cost-benefit analysis comes down strongly on the side of relying on cloud services), large companies with a lot to lose from a security breach are still reluctant to store their data in the cloud.

Their reticence is more than the residue of hidebound attitudes about Internet-based services; many cloud vendors don’t include security provisions in their enterprise service level agreements (when they offer SLAs at all) -- they simply point to their so-far spotless records.

For many corporate officers, that's not only too big a risk, it's a violation of their fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders, not to mention regulatory mandates in certain cases.

Why isn't security a bigger issue for those vendors? It may well be that cloud computing is a victim of its heretofore exemplary record. Maybe it's going to take a cataclysmic event -- a huge data loss suffered by a large cloud computing company -- to upend the complacency around cloud security. "If and when we see a major breach," Reed told me, "perhaps the focus will move from being 'it's a major concern' to 'it's a major priority.'"

SOURCE: The Information Week Blog

Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:14:25 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.569.4