Inkygoblin

There are only two words of consequence in the wires today: Google Chrome. No, not the web browser – the operating system. That’s right, by 2010 you should have another major alternative flavour into which you can boot your machine. Yes, it’s Linux based. Yes, it’ll be built for the cloud and the netbook. And that’s about all we really know. I mean this, anything else you hear about it has come about as a result of a evening spent with a crystal ball and a deck of cards: Sketchy at best.
There is only one question worth asking about this new direction from the auction giant: Why announce a product that does not yet exist? The answer to this is obvious – the model for …

SPORT

We have, as they say in all the best Hollywood action thrillers, “A situation.” There are more than just a few problems with the running of South African rugby which seem to be coming to a full, ugly and most un-gratifying head in the popular press. At the top of this dung heap of incompetence, greed-mongering, grab-asstic self-entitlement and media controversy sits the bewildered, and completely out-of-his-depth, Peter de Villiers who is responsible for some of the most dim-witted comments ever to grace the sports pages, if not a bewildering set of non-performances from the incumbent world champions.
The real question the media have failed to address is how best to appraise the national coach’s performance. If we judge him on what comes out of his …

TECHNOLUST

The recent release of Firefox 3.5 is a milestone not just for the good folk at parent company Mozilla, but for the development of the Internet as our modern, ubiquitous medium of communication. Mozilla, a group that rose from the ashes of Netscape, which was itself destroyed by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 4.0 is, seemingly putting the screws on the old rival from a previous incarnation and shedding light on just how hot the current browser wars are getting.
When one talks of browsers these days there are a number of assumptions already in play: Java and Ajax compatibility (and beyond mere compatibility – speed of delivery is the supreme talking point); Security, specifically, anti-phishing, anti-spyware and anti- web-marketing annoyances; Customisation, the ability – without any tech …

MIXOLOGY

It was a scene that dripped comedy. A thin, icy drizzle with no sense of direction slouched across a spacious driveway. I stood at the front door, martini in hand, a half gnawed olive sulking in the bottom of the glass; hungover, out of work, impaled and unshaven. The olive I mean, not me. A still and gloomy midnight it was, punctuated only by the quiet, rhythmic hum of the garage door sliding indignantly open as the Malawian house-boy helped himself to a Mercedes from the motorpool with plans for a large night out.
“Quelle Bon Surprise!” I muttered to no one in particular as I watched him fumbling with German engineering that is often tricky to negotiate with the benefit of light, and familiarity, …

TECHNOLUST

* Shaya wena – (Form the Zulu) To beat. To hit with force.
If Apple Inc. was a proudly South African company the “S” in iPhone 3G “S” would stand for “Shaya wena,” not the self-effacing “Speed” as our American cousins have it. Shaya wena, is a more appropriate descriptor for what the gadget of our age does compared to its predecessors. With a belly full of super-fast circuitry, a whizbang new operating system – “3.0,” and the same slick, river-pebble smooth glossy surface, the iPhone is comfortably and quietly applying some “Shaya wena” to all its competition.
Where to begin? Let’s start with size. The iPhone is now available in three prodigious sizes for a smartphone: 8 gigabytes, 16 gigabytes and now, 32 gigabytes which, as …