Tired of adverts getting in your way? Ad breaks in your favourite series, ads in the middle of the magazine article you’re reading, ads popping up in the middle of your favourite freeware game and even ads on signposts blocking your view of the road? Well, it seems that Google agrees.

Technology today allows us to fast-forward through the ads on TV, so why should we still have to scroll through them to get to the info we are looking for on a website. Google has decided to change their algorithm that is used to rank websites. Websites with too many adverts on the top of the page, thus causing users to scroll down in order to get to actual content, will be penalised in their rankings.

Google states:

“We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally.”  Read the post here.

This has resulted in many people questioning whether or not Google will penalise themselves as their results pages have so many ads. Seriously?! Google’s ads are not really ads in the traditional sense. When you use Google, you are looking for links to sites with relevant information; Google’s ads are mostly links to relevant information. People are so worried about what is fair; wonder if while they sit writing or reading these blogs on their iPad or laptop they consider the children in underdeveloped countries who can’t even get a book to read. Such a fuss made over a possible 1% of searches that may be affected. I say go for it Google!

Today,  the 18th January 2012, marks the beginning of a widespread internet protest against the SOPA & PIPA. U.S Bills which threaten the internet as we know it.

At first glance, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act),  and PIPA, (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) , appear to be pieces of legislation that have noble intentions.

However, these two bills have received criticism that is widespread and fierce. Today we see the likes of Google, Mozilla, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Reddit and WordPress taking a stand against the proposed bills in various ways, all in a combined effort to urge their users to “stop internet censorship”.

Google has provided a petition, End Piracy, Not Liberty, that anyone can sign in protest of the Bills.

English Wikipedia has been blacked out; no information being available except for information on SOPA & PIPA, and about why Wikipedia is protesting.

Reddit has posted a notice & countdown on their homepage alerting their users that for 12 hours, the site will be down in protest of SOPA & PIPA.

WordPress has come out with a number of “protest plugins” which other bloggers can install on their blogs in support of the protest.

And there is news that it is not just the big boys that are unhappy – many internet users are concerned. In fact 1000′s of smaller sites have joined the protest and Twitter has just about gone mad with tweets against the bills.

So why the outcry?

According to Wikipedia, “..these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet.”

Many allege that these acts will do very little to actually stop online infringements. And that in fact the acts, if passed, would pose many adverse affects such as online security risks, hampered online speech as well as a slowing down of technological growth, innovation and investment of course.

According to www.eff.org, SOPA and PIPA even violates White House principles regarding free speech and innovation. Read the full article here.

So this begs a few questions:

Will the “blackout” initiative be successful enough to compel the US Senate to re-think their course of action?

Will SOPA & PIPA be re-written if the protests are successful?

And how else can legislation protect the internet & it’s users from very real problems such as online piracy, without causing ruin elsewhere?

Any Apple Mac user who knows a bit about hardware will tell you that “Apple computers are so good because all the hardware is made from the same manufacturer”, and you know what, to a point they are right! So what happens if you don’t want a Mac but want something where the entire machine is made from the same manufacturer? Well Bring in AMD…

AMD have been around for a long time and are known mostly for their graphics cards which give nVidia a run if not beat them when it comes to performance. They have now decided to move into the arena of RAM cards and with this move you can almost build an entire PC using AMD parts (bar a few parts). So, what would the ultimate AMD machine look like?

The place to start is with a motherboard to enable all components to chat with each other; my choice would be an ASUS Crosshair V Formula which runs the 990FX chipset (yes I know not made by AMD, but a beast in its own right). My choice of CPU would be the massive AMD FX8150 running 8-cores at 3.6 GHz with a boost to 4.2 and running on a 32nm cmos technology. Chuck in 4 8GB RAM cards made by AMD all running at 1866 MHz giving a total of 32GB’s (maxing out the motherboard). Add to that an AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics card, with 11 GPU’s and 4GB of GDDR5 RAM, multiple video outputs and up to and beyond HD, and running HDMI 1.4a through the HDMI port as well as HD audio built-in.

For some extra speed add an SSD disk and the a HDD for space and we looking at a serious gamers rig that will run anything you want without the smallest flinch (well that is for the next little bit until an upgrade is needed).

At Afridesign we have a good mix of geeks and nerds. Some are nerds with some geek tendencies, while most are geeks with maybe one or two nerd-like qualities.

The infograhic below, by mastersinit.org, cleverly and very humourously explains the difference between and geek and a nerd – and quite accurately I must say!

So, which one are you??

CES, an annual week-long Consumer Electronic Show, held in North America.

The Ultrabook: Just got flexible

The ultrabook aka an ultra thin notebook, is a relatively new sub category, formed after the inception of the tablet era. The Lenovo Yoga is a super slim ultrabook that bends all the way backwards to become a 10 fingered multi-touch tablet.

Android: Sony strikes the pretty chords

Sony has always demonstrated a unique design language throughout all its handsets, the new Xperia is no exception to this tradition. The new Xperia handset comes loaded with Android’s most recent Ice Cream Sandwich version, a 12 megapixel camera, a whopping 1280 x 720 BRAVIA reality display.

Ubuntu TV: Linux in the living room

Leading up to CES Canonical had mentioned a surprise product to be launched. As it turned out, the company released a TV optimized version of their popular Ubuntu linux operating system. Ubuntu TV features Ubuntu’s flagship user interface, Unity.

Samsung Smart TV Series

Samsung are out to connect all your devices, as one of the few global companies who produce almost the full spectrum of consumer gadgets, its seems as though they are in a unique position to do just that. Samsung unveiled what they think is the future in TV. The UNES8000 LED (left) and PNE8000 Plasma (right) are smart TVs that come with built-in Internet access as well as integrated HD cameras that will recognize a viewers gestures as well as voice control capabilities.

Get in the shower, with your gadget

Liquipell, a Californian based company have developed a nanotech coating that will protect your devices from liquid submergence. The is unfortunately no word if this company will start offering its services international.

USB pocket knife

Pocket knives have entered the future, Victorinox, a manufacturer of pocket knives, has showcased a usb pocket knife, packing an amazing 1TB of storage capacity. Pricing is not yet available, however it can be reasonably assumed, with a solid state memory amounting to 1TB, its sure to be a nail biter!

What do you get when you take a 4.5” screen, add a quad-core CPU and a gig of RAM? Well HTC will tell you that’s their new smartphone, all rumoured of course!

A closer look will tell you that if this device’s, named the “Zeta”, is really released, I think we will have something of a beast on our hands. The 4.5” screen is capable of HD ready resolution – 720p, while the quad-core CPU will run a fairly brisk 2.5 GHz. The device will obviously run the latest version of Android: Ice Cream Sandwich and will have 32GB of internal storage – enough to manage all those images, videos and audio that you may want to keep. It also has a battery that will be comfortably managed at least once a day (what you would expect from any smartphone – but not too much more if you use it to its potential). The 8MB camera is capable of 1080p resolution video capture and the 1.3MP front facing camera will comfortably manage video conferencing.

At 146g, it is by no means the lightest of phones, but when it comes to HTC they usually seem to rest on the side of strength rather than weight, or lack thereof.

The big question with these smarthphones, which seem to break all concepts of reality, is; “Will it actually ever make it into not only a local store, or any store. Is it a great idea or a real potential?”.

We will have to wait and see!

Just recently we launched a small website for a company specialising in tailor-made African travel itineraries, named Perfect Travels.

We started off with the logo design, which then set the tone for the design for the website.

Logo Design by Afridesign

Web Design by Afridesign

“Facebook has always been committed to being transparent about the information you have stored with us – and we have led the internet in building tools to give people the ability to see and control what they share.
But we can also always do better. I’m committed to making Facebook the leader in transparency and control around privacy.”

This quote comes from a blog written by Mark Zuckerberg on 29 November 2011. The blog was written in response to the announcement made by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) that Facebook has agreed to settle the charges made by the FTC that Facebook has deceived their users. The FTC was particularly concerned with the fact the Facebook has made promises about the security and privacy of their users information but has failed to live up to these promises.

In Mark Zuckergerg’s blog, he agrees that Facebook has had some problems in the past and has not always notified users about changes that would change their privacy settings and more. He also states that they are doing everything they can to ensure that this does not happen again; including undertaking to do biannual independent audits of their privacy practices to confirm that they are indeed living up to the commitments they make.

Some of the other requirements of the settlement as laid out by the FTC state that Facebook is:

– barred from making misrepresentations about the privacy or security of consumers’ personal information;

– required to obtain consumers’ affirmative express consent before enacting changes that override their privacy preferences;

– required to prevent anyone from accessing a user’s material more than 30 days after the user has deleted his or her account;

I find it quite refreshing that not only has Facebook agreed to the settlement but also seems to be taking this all very seriously. Whether it is a brilliant PR strategy or an earnest desire to be better and keep their users feeling safe, Facebook has played its cards right.

Zuckerberg starts his blog by saying:

“I founded Facebook on the idea that people want to share and connect with people in their lives, but to do this everyone needs complete control over who they share with at all times.

This idea has been the core of Facebook since day one. When I built the first version of Facebook, almost nobody I knew wanted a public page on the internet. That seemed scary. But as long as they could make their page private, they felt safe sharing with their friends online. Control was key. With Facebook, for the first time, people had the tools they needed to do this. That’s how Facebook became the world’s biggest community online.  We made it easy for people to feel comfortable sharing things about their real lives.”

I’m quite sure this settlement agreed to by Facebook will not deter any users or potential users from using Facebook, but rather encourage people to do more and say more. Rather clever, don’t you think?

Some of the PC makers are trying to push their brand by offering free earphones when you buy a product, not something new by any means (something I got four years ago with my Dell XPS).
HP has started to offer Beats Audio by Dr Dre (and HTC integrate the system into their devices) with certain top end devices, so the real question is, does this make the device more appealing? Is it worth buying simply because I get a free set of earphones? Well I guess it depends on the phone…

At first glance it seems that getting any pair of Beats headphones is worth the extra money since they range from R1300 to R5600. They come with all the usual: either in-ear, on-ear or over-ear design, all with noise cancelling ethnology to remove all the external unwanted noise while you enjoy those “beats”.

The human ear can hear frequencies between 20Hz (low bass frequencies) and 20000Hz (high frequencies). The Beats earphones can deliver all these frequencies at an even volume (so they say). Impedance is measured in Ohms and is a show of how much resistance there is in a speaker. The idea is the higher the ohms the better quality the sound. With 45 ohms for a set of earphones you are guaranteed to have a great quality sound.
Compare this to another giant in the industry to give you an idea: the Sennheiser PXC 450 cost in the same price range (just under) but they don’t have the low-end that you would expect from this level of earphone. They also don’t look nearly as good!

So the verdict, well if you are looking at two computers, of which you have no preference, a set of Beats earphones will certainly improve anyone’s street cred.

Look back a few years and you will see that if you wanted to buy a computer your choice started at what type of PC you wanted, no different from today, but you could choose between a desktop and a notebook and that was it. A few years on and you got a new option – the netbook; a small (under 10” laptop with low performance figures. Then came the latest craze: the tablets and now there’s a new kid on the block: the Ultrabook.

We first saw ultrabooks in the MacBook Air, and what it is, is a notebook (usually around 13”) which is very light weight and has performance to match full on notebooks. They come with solid state discs for high-speed data transfer and extended battery life, while running the latest in CPU’s for a specific maker.

Acer has released a great version of this in their latest Aspire S3. It has either an Intel i5 or i7 for some serious performance readings a 240 GB SSD to give it a little extra boost, all the while weighing in at a meagre 3 pounds. When starting from sleep mode it is ready to use in about 2 seconds. The downside is that since it weighs so little, they have not put in any serious battery which means you will not be working for very long before looking for a plug point. The other small issue is that with a price tag of over R10 000 in the US, this will set you back a few.

So will Ultrabooks take off? Only time will tell, but I do think that prices will have to drop somewhat drastically in order to make this an affordable option, especially when you think of the battery life: my opinion, if all the extra performance is just to show off, get a tablet!