Thursday, December 31, 2009

Translate to and from English for free, with Google Translate

How many times have you wanted to know what some foreign phrase or word meant? Maybe you just wanted to be able to understand a document or book written in a language that you do not read / speak? Well fret no more - this is not really new but a lot of people do not know about Google Translate. Now...

The Telkom Phonebook online - save some paper and some time :)

Do you still go the Post Office annually to pick up your new phonebook for the year? Well if you want to save some paper and some time, rather make your way to http://phonebook.yellowpages.co.za/ - the online version of South Africa's White Pages. You can search for residential subscribers by...

Need a compact yet powerful laptop...? Look no further...:

Looking for a decent laptop and wanting to try out the new Windows 7? Well here's a deal that you should seriously consider - the Dell Vostro 1320 comes pre-installed with Windows XP Pro (in case you don't want to switch to Windows 7 just yet), but it ships with the Windows 7 DVD as well, and the upgrade...

Friday, December 18, 2009

Some South African GOOD NEWS...! :)

The late Douglas Adams, in his "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, comically noted that spacecraft should be powered by bad news, because nothing travels faster :) Too true - how often in our day do we get stuck into a really juicy piece of bad news, but fail to pay any attention to the Good News? Perhaps we even fail to acknowledge the existence of Good News, in our life, our workplace, our...

Right-click, Refresh. Right-click, Refesh. Right-click, Refresh... no it doesn't make things happen any quicker!

Have you ever seen a guy / girl sitting at their PC, frantically right-clicking and refreshing their desktop repeatedly in Windows XP / Vista? I am not sure exactly what people think the point is here, but the big news is... wait for it... NOTHING HAPPENS WHEN YOU REFRESH YOUR DESKTOP A MILLION TIMES IN SUCCESSION!! Ok well that's not entirely true. Refreshing your desktop does cause Windows to...

Nybbles and Bytes gets a makeover...

Today I took the plunge and installed a brand new template to give Nybbles and Bytes a new look and feel. My old template (the default Blogger "Minimalist" template), got a bit cluttered and left me very little space to do anything with, especially down the sidebar. So thanks to btemplates.com, I now have a cool 3 column layout which allows me a lot more in terms of "screen real estate"...

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Get up close and personal with some wildlife...

Next time you head out to Harties (Hartebeespoort Dam for the non-locals :) ) or the Magaliesberg, why not stop in at the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre (formerly or otherwise known as "De Wildt"). The Cheetah Centre was established in 1971 by Ann van Dyk (who still works at the centre daily) and has...

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Sorry for the messy Christmas background...

Okay okay - so I used a really busy background for my blog these past few days... It did make the text pretty much unreadable, I must admit. And so, without further ado... I present my new background! Courtesy of www.crestock.com :) Looking for some decent Blogger / Twitter backgrounds? Check out: http://www.ekmedia.com/free-custom-twitter-backgrounds.php http://allfreecountry.blogspot.com/200...

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Time for some funky foosball...

Who doesn't love foosball? Okay that was a rhetorical question, because everybody loves foosball. Think I'm wrong? Well sorry for you, because it's true. :) One of the great companies I work with, 24 Carrots, recently organised 18 branded foosball tables for an event they were managing. Check it out...

Free Professional Blogger Templates

I have been toying with the idea of giving Nybbles and Bytes a bit of a makeover, although it is only a scant 2 - 3 months old... I think I will save it for later though, because the thought of having to rebuild all of my widgets and custom links is a rather tedious one. Surely there is a way to simply port widgets etc. into a new template? In any case, I came across these really decent sites in...

Monday, December 7, 2009

Compaq 610 Laptop on Special - nice specs at a decent price :)

So by now you have surely heard of Windows 7... Your colleagues have mentioned it, no doubt you have heard it mentioned it on TV somewhere. Maybe you read about it in Popular Mechanics... Now you can get it for yourself with this special on the Compaq 610 Notebook, and if for some reason you decide...

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Erdinger - this beer will change your life! :)

Here's something a bit different - beer has nothing to do with the usual content of my blog, nor can I claim to be any kind of authority on the subject. Even so, I must post something about my own personal favourite - Erdinger. Erdinger is a wheat beer - and true to my non-beer-authority-ness,...

Friday, December 4, 2009

Is Avast! producing false positives?

I got a bit of a shock yesterday morning when I received about 5 calls within the first hour of the day, all reporting similar PC virus infections, all diagnosed by Avast! Anti-Virus. Now Avast! is actually my current anti-virus package of choice, and the one which I recommend to all of my clients...

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Bugatti Veyron vs. McLaren F1 drag race...

Ok so this is going back a little - not sure which season exactly, but Top Gear aired an episode featuring this epic "clash of the titans" as they call it - a drag race between the technological genius of the Bugatti Veyron, and the "ultimate road car", the McLaren F1. Back in the late 90's, the...

Monday, November 30, 2009

2012... are we all gonna DIE?????!!!

Well 2010 is almost upon us (that's "twenty-ten", not "two-thousand-and-ten" ok??), and this 21st century is just rocketing away at a furious pace. Just last night I saw the trailer for the apocalyptic movie "2012", soon to hit our movie circuits (maybe it already has...?). It showed off some cool...

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Bluetooth, WLAN, 3G, GPS, DSTV, FM Radio... are we frying our brains? And why the name "Bluetooth"?

We live in a world of interference - the air around us is constantly filled with invisible signals transmitting large amounts of information to and from our radios, PC's, TV's, GPS receivers... the list just goes on and on. Is it then unreasonable to suggest that these signals can somehow interfere...

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Global Warming - is it all just a load of "hot air"...?

Ok here goes.... POP!! Did you hear that?? Yup, that was the sound of a can of worms opening as I started typing this post :) I say this because the term "Global Warming" has of late become a giant can of worms. There are so many opposing views, opinions, scientific "facts" and dire predictions on...

Another update for the Nokia N97 already?

This morning I received an email from Nokia, informing me that there is updated software available for the Nokia N97. Now I haven't been expecting anything, but I loaded up my Software Update app to find out more - turns out there is an update available - Version 20.0.027. You cannot install this update "over the air", rather you will need to use Nokia Software Updater to do so. I have no idea what...

Monday, November 9, 2009

MSI AE2220 now available...

Re my post earlier this week about the awesome new MSI AE2220 Multi-touch PC, I can confirm that stock is now available at the introductory price of R 11000. This is one serious piece of hardware which ships with Windows 7, and makes use of a multi-touch display. Need to check out the specs?...

Noisy CPU Fan? Slow it down with Speedfan!

Anybody who still runs an Intel Pentium 4 Prescott CPU (like me!) will know how hot it can run, and how insanely loud the fan sometimes becomes. At startup the CPU runs at around 35C, but it can get up to 70C+, which is cooking. That's when the fan RPM goes up to about 4500 and the PC begins to...

Friday, November 6, 2009

Wikipedia founder acknowledged by Nokia Foundation

This year's Nokia Foundation award has been granted to Jimmy Wales - the founder of the hugely popular Wikipedia. Wales was awarded for his contributions to the evolution of the World Wide Web as a participatory and truly democratic platform. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly...

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

MSI AE2220 All-in-one Windows 7 Touch PC - awesome!

MSI has launched the "Wind Top AE2220" Touch PC, shipped with Windows 7 Home Premium. This product deserves a serious look if you are in the market for a new PC - apart from the stylish packaging and multi-touch screen (which bears more than a casual resemblance to the original Apple Cinema Display...

ZX Spectrum, Amstrad... remember those good old names? Where are they now?

My first experience in computers started back in the 80's with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which packed a whopping 48Kb RAM!! Back then you needed a tape drive to load up your games or software, and it took a good few minutes to get anything loaded. I was particularly chuffed at the time because...

Monday, November 2, 2009

Relive your childhood with these gems from the past...

Remember when computers were a whole lot simpler and slower than they are now, back when the most graphics intensive game you could play was The Incredible Machine...? :) Well you can relive those days by visiting Abandonia - "dedicated to classic dos games" in their own words. Abandonia hosts a...

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

It's official! People are seriously worried about escalator handrail hygiene...!

Ok so it's not REALLY official... but I was checking on my Blog visitor stats today on Google Analytics, and it made for some interesting reading. The numbers aren't huge as my blog is still new and still gaining momentum, but nonetheless they do indicate that my post on Escalator Handrail Sanitizers is the most viewed part of Nybbles and Bytes (excluding the landing page): 1. / 153 84 2. /2009/10/no-more-dirty-escalator-handrails.html...

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

N97 Firmware 2.0 released!

It is finally here - the long-awaited new firmware for the Nokia N97 has arrived! From the Nokia Europe website: This software release improves touch screen usability, allowing you to scroll smoothly through content by flicking the screen. Ovi Maps 3.1 brings 3-D maps, more accurate positioning,...

Nokia launches its first TD-SCDMA device - the Nokia 6788

Beijing, China - Nokia today announced the Nokia 6788, its first device for TD-SCDMA - China's domestic 3G standard, at an event in Beijing. The Nokia 6788 is the result of close collaboration between Nokia and the world's largest mobile phone operator, China Mobile. From the press release: "Speaking...

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Don't you just love free software? Grab yours now!!

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, or so they say. Well now there is - go grab your free lunch at www.nch.com.au. NCH offer audio, video, business, telephony, FTP, backup, imaging and other software, all for free. There are options to purchase the "Pro" offerings, but most of the free products...

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Explore the Sky, Moon, Mars and more in Google Earth...

Google Earth took the world by storm when it first appeared, and each update has added amazing new features to what is already an incredible program. Recently Google introduced some awesome new features to the program, but I frequently come across people who have no idea that there is a whole other...

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It's gonna be a big week for Windows...

The long wait is almost over, and Windows 7 is only 2 days away. I am sure that many users will breathe a sigh of relief as Vista's replacement hits the shelves. Early in its life, Vista quickly developed an infamous reputation for the acceleration of grey hairs, in technicians and end-users alike. Personally...

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Who or what is Global Verge? Are we on the VERGE of one huge scam?

This kind of subject always strikes a certain chord with me - I suppose my scam radar is just super-sensitive! I received an email a few days ago, which made claims about what sounds like a fantastic new Internet / Voice / Telephony product, soon to be launched in South Africa and at a fantastic price to boot. It casually made mention of some big industry names, e.g. MTN and Neotel, and proceeded...

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

N97 Firmware should be here this week...

The long-awaited Firmware update 2.0 (or 20) for the Nokia N97, is due out sometime this week, according to online sources. The update has pre-emptively been hailed as a "re-launch" of the phone, and is rumoured to include a host of stability fixes, new pre-installed apps, improved keyboard usage,...

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Have you dropped IE for Opera? I know I have...

We all get stuck on using one piece of software for a certain function - for years now I have been a loyal supporter of Internet Explorer in its various forms. It just seems though that the more Microsoft update IE, the slower the damn thing gets! In an attempt to make my life easier, I tried out Google's...
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