Monthly Archives: March 2009

Earth Hour 2009: An awesome hour of darkness

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Earth Hour 2009 has come and gone. And what an experience.

I was following the Earth Hour proceedings via Twitter on my mobile for the hour. So many people participating and having an awesome relaxing hour with candles, friends or just in the dark having an awesome time. I did read, unfortunately, that a few people noticed lots not participating in their area. Was this a lack of awareness of the Earth Hour, or was it apathy?

I found the hour to be very relaxing. I may just make it a regular feature. It can also be a great time to bond with friends and family. Maybe light some candles and play a few rounds of “30 Seconds”?

All in all, the efforts to participate in the Earth Hour were made well by South Africans, in my opinion. I mean, even Table Mountain turned off it’s lights for the occasion.

Here’s to many more Earth Hours in the future and to the creation of awareness of our global environmental situation at the moment.

What did you do for Earth Hour 2009?

Choosing your ideal Twitter client

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Updating your Twitter stream should be the simplest task possible. It should be a constant flow from brain to finger tips. In addition, viewing other’s tweets, replying to and interacting with tweets should be just as easy. Many of us Twitter users choose to use the web interface when at our desktop or laptop. Others, however, choose to use a desktop client to update our Twitter stream. This is where the selection process begins. Continue reading →

What do you look for in a “premium grade” WordPress theme?

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… Is it an advanced feature set? Is it a cutting edge design? Is it a combination of both with a sprinkling of pixie dust for extra magic? What do you look for in a “premium grade” WordPress theme? I use the term “premium grade” as I’m not refering specifically to paid-for or “premium” WordPress themes, but rather to themes of a high standard.

With such a vast array of free (and paid-for) WordPress themes on the market today, it’s easy to get lost, wading through the thousands of themes available. As many of the themes are user created, and not everyone has experience or training as a web designer or developer, users get presented with many sub-par WordPress themes. In contrast to this, the themes market is becoming more and more advanced on a daily basis, opening doors for users to experiment with more advanced, theme specific, functionality, enhancing their themes and making them unique and personalised.

With this advancement in the “premium grade” themes market, users are also becoming more expectant, and critical, of the themes which they are presented. It is becoming more common and expected for a theme to have a clever design hook of sorts, some nifty Javascript or an additional “unique” custom feature, if not all three.

So my question is; “What makes a theme ‘premium grade’ in your eyes?”

Win a signature series WordPress theme

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So, the good fellows at Obox Design are delving into the WordPress themes zone. Over the past few months, there has been much discussion, and a few sneak peaks, of “Hash One”, the first in the Obox Signature Series of WordPress themes.

“Hash One” has had an awesome amount of work put into it and is set to include several theme specific features, courtesy of the Obox development department (aka. Mr. Marc). The dudes (and lady) at Obox are running a competition to get a chance to own 1 or approximately 40 unique versions of the “Hash One” theme. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Find the tweet on Twitter sent out by @obox (or @MarcPerel or @NatPerel) discussing the Obox Signature Series theme, “Hash One”.
2. Retweet the above-mentioned tweet.
3. Visit your profile page and get the direct link to the tweet you just made.
4. Paste this URL  into a comment on From-the-Couch with a message.

That’s it. An easy 4 step process to get yourself in the running for this really cool theme. For screenshots of the theme and a bit more about the features and whatnot, visit From-the-Couch.

My first Nerdicle is online

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This Monday past, my first “Nerdicle” went online at NerdMag. In this nerdicle, I discuss chi.mp, a new social profile aggregation service, currently in its beta phase.

NerdMag is an awesome online magazine discussing various topics of interest to nerdy types (and possibly to other life forms)… some serious and others not so serious.

Click here to read my first Nerdicle. 

Many thanks to the awesome @Sheebee for NerdMag and for the publication. I look forward to writing further “Nerdicles” (nerd articles) in future. :)

South African bands arrive on Twitter

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Recently, I’ve noticed an explosion of South African bands and artists signing up on Twitter to promote themselves. It’s taken a while for bands to cotton on, and they’re now chomping at the bit to get going.

The question here is, really, “will these bands use Twitter for it’s intended purpose, or purely as a follower-gaining tool?”

So often, I’ve heard bands showing off how many friends they have on Myspace or fans on Facebook. There seems to be a definite perception that the more friends/fans you have on your online profile, the more “popular” your band is. I believe this to be incorrect. So what if you have 30000 friends on Myspace? If you don’t interact with them, they mearly serve the purpose of making your band potentially look attractive to a record label, promoter or other music industry tycoon. This is that classic “one chance” that every band seeks out. That one chance to “break out” and “make it big”. What good will that do your band though?
Continue reading →

HOW TO: Use your mobile phone as a modem for your Mac

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I’ve wanted to try this out for a while now, and it works surprisingly well. In fact, I’m using it to type this post. Anyways, onto the ‘how-to’.

What you’ll need is a laptop or desktop Mac (I’m on a Macbook) and a mobile phone that supports bluetooth and a 3G connection of sorts (any kind of data transfer connection should work fine). Let me first lay out what we’re aiming to do here, step by step. We want to connect our laptop or desktop to the phone via bluetooth, and to use the phone’s data connection as a means of accessing the web. Here’s how we do this:
Continue reading →

HOW TO: Relax and unwind

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OK, so this is kind of a tutorial… well, not really a ‘tutorial’ per say. Lets call it more of a guide.

Relaxing is so important. Working or studying all day can be tiring and stressful… and in many cases, definitely is. Therefore, to create balance, relaxation is required. In preparation for the relaxing weekend ahead, I thought I’d share a few ways that I like to relax.

RNR – Read Nap Read

This is great. It hasn’t really been formalised until now, but here it is. It’s actually really easy. All you need is a good book and a comfortable place to read (for example, a bed or a couch). When I read, I find that I relax and become tired (this could be due to lying down on a bed while doing so). When I feel that I can’t keep my eyes open any longer, I place my bookmark neatly between the pages, put the book down and go to sleep. I read mostly at night, so haven’t yet had the opportunity to fully test this theory. The idea is to wake up after the nap, get ones eys fully open again and carry on reading for a bit, maintaining a relaxed state. A page-turner would do wonders with this. Continue reading →