…….Yes Yes, I said it….c’mon, don’t look at me like that, you were thinking it as well?  Last time I checked we had freedom of speech in this country, it’s not like we’re living in America or something! Besides which, my mate JuJu ( that’s Julius Malema for all you apartheid lovin’ apologists J)  can get away with “ Kill the boer, Kill the farmer”….so I can say what I damn well please plus it’s my blog!

*side note* did you know that the phrase “Bad Juju” was derived from my main man Julius’s nickname…..true story .

Anyhoo….where was I? Oh yes, venting my spleen over FNB. I go to the bank the other day to chat to them about an overdraft facility, a small amount to help me through the end of each month, you know, pay salaries, rent…the kind of things that most small business need to do to keep the wheels turning while we wait for our customers to pay us. I’m sure you already know what their answer was but after 5 years of having a business cheque account with them I naively thought they might have my best interests at heart.

The conversation went something like this:

Bank: Hi Mr. Maddocks, how can we help you?

Me: I’d like an overdraft facility

Bank: Sure, just sign away your first born child and we’ll see what we can do

Okay, I exaggerate a tad but what it boils down to is that they are not interested in helping out a small business unless they can have your house, your car and your grannies will when your business eventually crashes and burns which will only be a matter of time because hey….you’re a small business who can’t even pay his staff at the end of the month….LAAHOOOSER!!! I think they should change their tag line from “How can we we help?” to “How can we help you attain massive personal debt to get you’re fledgling business off the ground and then make you bend over when times are tough so that we can have our way with you like a prison b!tch”….it’s a touch long but catchy I think?

I asked them how they fund startup businesses if you have nothing but a good idea and a business plan and they were like: “We don’t fund startup businesses. Period”.

Someone should tell there marketing department ‘coz they’re spending boatloads of cash on false advertising.

Just to add insult to injury I checked my bank statement the other day and find that they’ve deducted almost 600 bucks from my account for bank charges in one month, for a few electronic transfers and maybe 10 ATM withdrawals??? Apparently the calculations for my account are being done by a warehouse full of mathematicians armed with only a pencil and abacus?

I’m now looking around for another bank, it’s a pain in the arse to have to move all my debit orders and setup all my recipient accounts again but there’s gotta be a better alternative than these money grubbing sharks. I’m thinking of going with Capitec, I’ve only heard good things about them, anyone out there have any advice? Please feel free to leave a comment.

I Wasn’t Going To Buy This House Until I Saw The Realtor’s Headshot On The Sign

By Sam Cone
March 16, 2010 | Issue 46•11

Buying a house is one of the biggest decisions a person can make, so when I set out to purchase my first home, I didn’t take the matter lightly. Sure, the place I ended up with isn’t in the greatest shape, or even in the best part of town. And by any fair market estimate of its value, I certainly overpaid.

But as far as I was concerned, the deal was sealed the moment I saw real estate agent Mary T. Ellington looking back at me from that Re/Max sign, her face just barely visible over the rampant weeds growing in my new front lawn. For my money—$256,560 of it, to be exact—there’s nothing like a poorly lit, oversaturated photograph to let me know that I’m working with a friend and not just someone out for an easy commission.

To be honest, I had serious reservations the first time I drove through what is now my neighborhood. I have two kids, so the lack of good schools in the area and the dangerous highway mere feet from the unfenced backyard were sources of concern. But after I passed more than half a dozen of Mary’s signs in front of house after ramshackle house, I just knew that if she sold me a home I would be her No. 1 priority. And if there was any doubt left in my mind, it was immediately eradicated by the quote right below her picture: “You’re my No. 1 priority!”

But the slogan was really just the icing on the cake. Seeing Mary’s insincere, plastic smile and stiffly coiffed hair several times had already reassured me that I was making the right choice.

Still, I had a few lingering concerns, which is normal with any major life decision. So it’s a good thing I drove past that billboard bearing the selfsame image of Mary on my way home! There’s a certain level of gravitas and legitimacy that only a 30-foot-high, clumsily retouched photograph of a middle-aged woman can achieve. Text-only ads may have their flashy exclamation points, and business cards may be embossed and glossy, but I don’t think any of those things could ever convince me to plunge myself and my family into insurmountable debt the way that awkward photo did.

You know, in a way, I’m sort of glad Mary and I never met face-to-face. Touring the property with her assistant and conducting the negotiations over the phone really helped maintain the mystique of that wonderful, wonderful sign. I can only assume Mary’s heavily made-up visage conveys an even greater degree of trust in person.

I just wish every crucial choice in life could be guided by hastily produced visual aids! Sure, finding the very best attorney, bail bondsman, or elected representative is no more difficult than perusing the signs at a bus stop or the contents of one’s mailbox. But what if I need a babysitter or a qualified psychiatrist? Or—God forbid—a funeral director?

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s just such a relief when professionals take the time to demonstrate a true respect for my intelligence. By having their picture taken in front of that same sky-blue background used in all my school yearbook photos, it’s clear they’re trying to put an honest face on whatever transaction might transpire between us, and not at all employing some sleazy, calculated tactic they learned during a business seminar at a hotel by the airport.

The airport with a major flight path right over my new house.

The folks over at Geek Squad produced this helpful infographic describing a rescue method that might help save your phone if you accidentally dunk it in water.

Windows XP is the most widely used operating system in the world, but users might be given a firm reason to upgrade soon. The BBC reports that, as hard drives upgrade to a new standard, XP users could see performance hits.

Throughout this year and into 2011, hard drive makers will expand their drives’ sector sizes from 512 bytes to a new industry standard of 4 kilobytes. Given the average size of drives these days, that leaves a lot less space used up by sector markers. Whatsit now, you ask? Wikipedia provides a pretty good read on sectors and measurements.

Because XP was coded in a time before this standard switch was under consideration, the Windows OS could see compatibility problems at worst, and speed drops at a minimum. Some advanced drives will be able to emulate the older sector sizes for compatibility, but still, those building their own computers or trading up on hard drives may see notable performance problems. If you’re a devoted XP user facing down the future of storage, tell us how you plan to adapt in the comments. Photo by Ody5iu5.

……We’ve all been there, one day your PC is humming along nicely the next day you’re greeted with the Blue Screen of Death and that backup disc you’ve been meaning to make for the last 3 months is lying next to your unused gym card. Usually this happens the same day that you have some urgent online banking to do or an important report is overdue, either way, to avoid those sleepless nights and fist clenching screams at the crescent moon…..Back Your Stuff Up!

How? you ask…..well, have no fear my dear digital peasants all shall be revealed Firstly we can do things the old school way and manually copy the most important data on your computer either to a DVD Disc or to an external drive or perhaps a flash drive. The most important things you wanna save are your E-mails, Address Book, Desktop and your My Documents folder, these are the most common places Windows users store there stuff. Yes, I know, you can use a backup program to do this automatically for you but it’s always good to know where your data is actually stored on your machine.

If you use Outlook Express your e-mails are stored in following folder: C:\documents and settings\ “users profile name”\ local settings\ application data \ Identities\ Microsoft\ Outook Express

If you can’t find the local settings folder that would be because it is hidden by default on Windows XP, to unhide the folder you need to open up a folder, any folder i.e My Documents, click on the Tools menu, click on Folder Options, click the View tab and half way down the white text box you select the “Show hidden files and folders” radio button and click Apply and Ok. When you copy the Outlook Express folder to a backup location just remember to not have Outlook Express running at the same time otherwise you won’t be able to copy the folder.

The Outlook Express Address Book is kept in a separate location which you can find here: C:\documents and settings\”users profile name”\application data\ Microsoft \ Address Book.

If you use Microsoft Outlook for e-mail your e-mails will be stored in the following location: C:\documents and settings\”user profile name”\ local settings\ application data\ Microsoft\ Outlook . Outlook stores your contact information ( address book ) in the same file.

To copy your My Documents folder and all the files you keep on the Desktop you need to copy those folders from the these locations respectively: C:\documents and settings\”users profile name”\ My Documents

C:\documents and settings\”users profile name”\ Desktop

It’s always a good idea to have a printed copy of all your usernames, passwords and e-mail settings that were given to you when you first setup your e-mail account, it’ll save you the hassle of phoning your service provider when it comes time to setting up your mail account again.

Okay, so now that you know how and where to manually backup your most important information lets look at one of the ways you can backup your data automatically. These days flash drives and external harddrives are the most common form of storage media simply because they can hold so much more data than a dvd, plus they are relatively cheap. I use a little freeware program called Universal Backup Tool to automatically back my stuff up to an external drive, you can download the software for free HERE.

Once you’ve installed UBT and clicked the icon to run the program the first screen that comes up will ask you where you would like to backup your data to, click on the blue arrow and select the backup drive where you would like to copy your data to. I usually create a new folder on my external drive called Daily Backup or Weekly backup that I backup my data too, it just makes life easier when it comes to restoring a backed up file.

Just keep in mind that UBT backups up your data into a database and not as as straight copy and paste which means that if you need to restore your files you will have to use UBT to restore them back to their original form. To do that is pretty straight forward as well, just open the program, Select restore, browse to where you have your backed up data, select the most recent backup from the list, which is dated from the most recent backup to the oldest one, Tick the box, Click the button “Restore To” which allows you to select where you would like to save your restored files to and then click restore, wait for the message that says the restore is complete and you’re done.

There we go, no excuses…..now go and back your stuff up!

One thing I’ve realized being in the computer biz is that when people encounter a problem on their PC they are programmed to panic first and then call IT Support second but a lot of times the problem can be sorted out in a few seconds by simply taking a breathe and actually reading what’s on the screen.

That’s all, no Voodoo, no crystal ball gazing, no sacrificing helpless animals in the dead of night….just read what’s on the screen. Even if you can’t fix the problem yourself you’ll at least be able to give your computer guy some valuable information that will help him fix it a lot quicker.

Facebook pages have been getting lots of search engine respect lately. Learn how to create a Facebook page here, since it’s rather difficult to figure out how to do it on your own as a newbie!

It’s 2010, and I’ve completely updated this tutorial…enjoy …more

It’s no surprise that the last few days has seen a huge amount of information bubble to the surface regarding China’s recent cyber attacks on the infrastructure of more than 30 Silicon Valley companies. Much of it is coming from the security and anti-virus companies — now that the attack has been identified and halted, the world in general and the victims in particular want to know how it occurred. The latest news, however, comes from Google itself: China might have had inside help from Google employees.

The leaked info of a possible inside job came to the Reuters news agency from sources ‘familiar with the situation.’ Google, when asked, refused to comment on ‘rumor and speculation.’ But if Reuters is confident enough to run the story, and if major news outlets are picking it up, there is more than likely a grain of truth to it.

These insiders — these traitors – are reportedly employees at Google’s China offices. If that is actually the case, you can begin to imagine the extortion or coercion that might’ve been inflicted by the Chinese government to obtain the ‘pass codes,’ or whatever was necessary to break into Google HQ.

Google is scheduled to commence talks with the Chinese government in the next few days. We’ll be sure to report what happens.