Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook, Erin Egan, posted a blog on Friday 23 March, 2012, that highlighted Facebook’s concern at people abusing their authority by requesting user details and passwords. It seems a number of employers have been requesting both current and prospective employees to hand over their Facebook account passwords. Facebook is outraged that employers would even think of doing such a thing as this totally contravenes the privacy policies set out by Facebook.

Egan wrote: “If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends.  We have worked really hard at Facebook to give you the tools to control who sees your information.

As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job.  And as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job.”

Egan also made a convincing argument as to why employers are at risk when they ask for employee passwords: “We don’t think employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their passwords because we don’t think it’s the right thing to do.  But it also may cause problems for the employers that they are not anticipating.  For example, if an employer sees on Facebook that someone is a member of a protected group (e.g. over a certain age, etc.) that employer may open themselves up to claims of discrimination if they don’t hire that person.”

Facebook has “made it a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share or solicit a Facebook password.” They also state that if need be, they would take legal action should the need arise, against anyone infringing on their Privacy Policy.

While I appreciate Facebook’s sincere concern at these privacy violations, and Egan has written a convincing blog addressing the issues, I can’t help but feel that this blog was not the best place to address the issue. I am quite sure that those already infringing on the privacy policies of Facebook, probably don’t know what the policies are, or even care what they are. This leads me to believe that they probably will not even read Egan’s blog, but maybe that’s just the pessimist in me and Egan’s blog will in fact change the actions of these employers who, in infringing the Facebook privacy policies, clearly have no respect for the privacy of their employees or potential employees.

One of our long-standing clients,  My Gas Gas Solutions, has gone from strength to strength over the years.

In keeping with their ever expanding business and service offering, it is fitting, as well as necessary, that their website & database evolve in the same way.

We would like to introduce My Gas’ newly revamped website.  We have given it a fresh, new look, as well as showcased services & products which were not previously catered for on the previous site.

Below are some screenshots which will give you a taste of what we have been working on the last few months. For more, please visit the website itself at www.mygas.co.za .

My Gas entry page design

My Gas sub-page design

Website Design by Afridesign

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!

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!

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” — Steve Jobs, at a Stanford University commencement ceremony in 2005.
Steve Jobs died yesterday, at the age of 56. After fighting a long & hard battle with Pancreatic Cancer, he has finally said his last farewell and gone to rest. His statement at the Stanford University is a testament to his personal awareness & knowledge that life is too short.

Steve Jobs will always be remembered for his profound input & innovation in technology. For the most part, each of our lives has somehow been changed by his work – whether it is the way you listen to music, communicate with others or even the way you work – he has influenced it by the way he made technology so personal & accessible.

His work ethic & constant striving for excellence & innovation is an example to all. Our children will be taught about him, and how it is possible for one person with perseverance to make a difference to the world.

Our thoughts and prayers go to the loved ones left behind. Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower” – this was not just a statement made by Steve Jobs, but rather a lifestyle he lives by. Steve Jobs recently resigned as Apple’s CEO.  His resignation letter read as follows:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

Steve Jobs co-founded both Apple and Pixar Animation Studios. While he was CEO of Pixar, some much-loved films like Toy Story, A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille were created. Since Pixar merged with Disney on 2006,  Jobs has been serving on Disney’s board of directors.

During Jobs’ reign as Apple’s CEO, some incredible technical innovations were introduced to us, including: the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad 1 and the iPad 2.  Thanks to him, our lives will never be the same and most of our children will not know what a CD or DVD is.

When Steve Jobs’ resignation hit the news, there was enough concern to drop the Apple shares slightly, but Apple has promised that things will not change for the employees, and under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple will continue to develop and innovate new technologies. I believe the next year will be critical for Apple and set the standard for things to come.

As I sit here typing this on my MacBook, listening to my iPod, wishing I had an iPad, I marvel at the innovation, drive, passion and commitment that Jobs has for the industry. He certainly has left his mark on the world. Steve Jobs, we wish you well as you battle poor health and hope for a quick recovery.