Firstly, all these devices are purely touchscreen based devices and if there is one thing I can’t stand for real work it’s a touchscreen. As such (at least for me) a tablet will purely be a device to consume the Internet with. At the most I’ll be typing URL’s into the device and even then you’ll have to use one finger rather than two like the iPhone as the size is prohibitive to use both hands. The argument about us consuming more and more media on our phone’s and thus a tablet making sense as it can really give you a “web” like experience and I think a tablet would be a great device if it can overcome the following issues:

The first problem is that of connectivity. Obviously as a base connectivity option there needs to be wi-fi to connect to home networks and coffee shops but the next logical connection is that of a sim slot to connect to a 3G network. This unfortunately costs a fair amount of money and means that you’ll probably end up buying another contract either to subsidise the price of the device or just to get online. Now if you’re an iPhone Acolyte chances are you’re selling your first born child into slavery to afford an iPhone. This means for you to afford the data for an Apple tablet, you’ll have to sell your house and live in your car. I’m struggling to see a reason for a tablet and without a 3G connection I literally see no reason for the device.

The second issue is that it’s another device to carry. I’ve got a phone, a laptop and a Kindle (which I’ll use as a reference for a tablet) and quite frankly the Kindle stays in my bag when I take it out with me. Having an extra device isn’t necessarily going to make the web experience better and most importantly, I have a laptop for when I want to do something more than just check my mail or Twitter on my phone. A tablet would be another device I’d shove into my bag while running out the house that I wouldn’t really have a chance to use. Sure, if I was travelling on a bus or subway everyday then being able to use a tablet might come in handy but sadly I drive everywhere myself and can’t multitask well enough to do both. I check my mail and twitter on my phone while I’m in bed in the morning as it’s simple and I don’t have to find some ten inch device and fight through two menu’s to read my mail.

The third and probably most important point is the price point. It’s fairly likely that most tablets will use either an ARM processor or an Intel Atom chip for less power drain while still providing enough power for their stripped down operating systems. What this means is an inevitable comparison to Netbooks. In 2010 we’re seeing Netbooks reaching below the three hundred dollar mark. Yes, a tablet screen will cost more to build than a junky Netbook keyboard but you’ve also got to remember that it’ll be difficult to justify a tablet that costs more than six hundred dollars if you consider that for this price point you can buy a Netbook and a Kindle to perform any potential computing and reading requirements. If an Apple (or any other manufacturer) goes for the subsidised model which requires you to buy a twenty-four month data contract then you’re looking at thousands of dollars over and above the initial cost of the tablet.

I can’t help but wonder if the move towards a tablet PC is an aim to get “one device that does everything” and I’m fairly sure that this is a terrible approach to computing. The Kindle works so well as it’s a highly focussed device while the average smartphone tries to be a mobile computer and always has some sort of niggle that prevents it from excelling in all it’s attempted fields.

Of course this is all based on supposition and my vague opinions on a device (and category) that basically doesn’t exist yet. It will be interesting to see what happens at the end of the month when the Apple tablet is inevitably announced but I won’t be that guy camping outside a Vodacom store to spend even more money on a subsidised Apple tablet.

Now I knew this was a rubbish story as it was found on BBSpot, a tech satire website but what really fascinates me is how this sort of thing spreads like wildfire. Within moments people were re-tweeting the story as if it was the most amazing item of news in the world ever.

Now what boggles my mind is how people fall for such obviously unrealistic information. What happens makes sense though: Twitter people read the little piece of information attached to the link and then don’t actually read what the link contains. For many it’s the fact that they would be able to break the news before anyone else, hardly a good reason but a reason to avoid fact checking.

This brings me to an interesting thought: we’re so connected via Twitter, Facebook and every other social network available but they’re actually so dull and pointless that all we use them for is to desperately get some form of information that we can find scandal somewhere.

So here’s the moral of the story: question what you read and don’t make a big deal about it if you don’t know the source. Quite simply you will look like an idiot.

I’ve realised that South Africa is clearly not being affected by the global recession and it’s all a big ploy by western agents to make people not vote for the ANC in the elections next year. Jokes aside can South Africa as a country afford to spend so much money looking after our neighbours when we could solve a couple of poverty and education issues locally? It’s a sad commentary when a handful of African leaders will speak out against a tyrant like Mugabe while the others sit back and send money to stem their guilt due to betraying their fellow Africans.

The people in Zimbabwe are struggling but clearly the situation isn’t bad enough there. People are hungry but apparently aren’t starving. Hungry people are complacent, starving people cause revolutions. The people of Zimbabwe themselves need to rise up and solve their own issues. South Africa sending food aid is great from a humanitarian point of view but realistically it’s not going to solve any problems. Clearly the South African government is madly in love with Mugabe as they keep propping him up no matter how many world leaders denounce him. Frankly it makes us South African’s look like idiots in the eyes of the rest of the world.

The old adage applies here: rather than giving the Zimbabwean populace a fish that will feed them once, rather give them a few fishing lessons so that they can feed themselves. Surely the South African government can follow the lead that other Western governments have taken and cut Zimbabwe off completely. Mugabe can only exist with his South African allies keeping his people fed.

You’re shaking your head and thinking, “But Saul, people are hungry there. Have some Christmas spirit and be okay with them sending your hard earned tax money to Zimbabwe”. I say that’s rubbish and we should stop sending money out of guilt. This is no gift but a bribe so that the South African governments concious is absolved.

I just read an article (available here) that has an American business owner offering a free $1000 to his employees as long as they buy a new American (read Ford, Chrysler and General Motors) car. His logic is that he knows lots of people drawing pensions and other health insurance benefits from the companies so it’s in his best interest to promote purchases in his company.

With the big 3 American car firms being denied their massive government funded bailout, the pressure is on for the big three to survive the next few months. The question is though, would you buy an American car just to protect jobs and possibly the world economy? The job fallout from the loss of these three giants as well as their suppliers and subsidiaries is estimated at 3 million people. Considering that’s one percent of the American population you’re looking at a substantial economic downturn. In the past few months over five-hundred thousand jobs have been lost and there has been a huge knock on effect to the American economy.

The facts about American cars are irrefutable. They can’t go round a corner faster than ten kilometers an hour and the they use a few liters of petrol per kilometer. If you go round a corner faster than the above mentioned speed you’ll most likely end up upside down with flames surrounding you. In short, they generally produce rubbish cars with major defects although they’ll tell you it’s just a “Lemon”.

I’m torn though. Is the thought of protecting millions of jobs, not only in America but with their overseas subsidiaries, worth it? I’m actually struggling to take a stance on this matter, an unusual thing for me. The main problem for the Big 3 is that they spend most of their money on pensions and health insurance for their employees. Their employees are not willing to back down from their desired increases and frankly here is the problem.

So in an effort to solve this problem I will give my only slightly educated opinion on how to make the Big 3 profitable again.

Step one, sort things out with the Unions. For some reason these Unions are exceptionally powerful and the auto manufacturers have no ability to stand up to them. Sure, it’s understandable they want better pensions but there isn’t going to be any pensions if the companies fold. Step two, cut out the bloat. A large problem for these auto manufacturers is that they are propped up by a few successful brands while their other brands flop. If a brand isn’t making a profit then it has to go. Rather loose a couple of thousand jobs on one brand than loose everyone’s job when the companies fold. Step three, build decent cars. The simple fact is that people want smaller cars these days. Companies like Chrysler who continue to build rubbish cars such as the Voyager, a roughly 65000 seater, bus need to catch a wake up call and produce smaller, more fuel efficient cars. The Big 3 haven’t made smaller, more fuel efficient cars as it’s never been regulated by government. Now is the time to make these types of cars even if it’s not required.

So in the answer to my topic question, no I would not buy an American car just to save jobs. I think it’s abysmal that they cannot sort themselves out when they have billions to work with. There’s no denying it will be difficult and painful for the auto makers to save themselves but it is possible with a little bit of common sense and tightening of the purse strings.

Microsoft has gone and allowed many, many AAA games and this is going to ruin the entire industry.

Let’s do some name dropping: There’s Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Fable 2, Mirrors Edge, Endwar, Red Alert 3, Left 4 Dead and finally the new Guitar Hero. By my count that’s eight top games being released this holiday period. Now considering that games have gone up to a massive seven hundred bucks per game, you’re looking at forking out R4200 for all those games (excluding the price of instruments for Guitar Hero, a mere R3200).

Now most people are thinking that all these top quality games are great. The consumer is spoilt for choice! Now the problem is that most people will buy maybe one or two of these games at the most. What this means is that someone is going to be the loser here.

Here lies the problem though, the gaming industry is in a fair amount of trouble at the moment. Massive companies such as Electronic Arts are laying off staff at an alarming rate and other companies are being delisted from various stock exchanges. Bearing this in mind Microsoft has single handedly destroyed the world!

Games cost millions and millions of dollars to create with very few actually turning a profit. By Microsoft allowing these games to be published now, they’ve doomed certain gaming studios. This is quite unfortunate as the above mentioned games are excellent and really should be given a look.

Either way, enjoy it while it lasts. I fear many gaming publishers are going out of business these holidays.

Butana Khompela, Sports Committe Chairperson wants to get rid of the Springbok emblem in South African Rugby. I can imagine his thoughts while driving to work every day past an informal settlement:

“Wow, these people look so miserable! I bet it’s the legacy of apartheid is what’s making them look so unhappy and it has nothing to do with their lack of running water or food. You know, we should get rid of that racist Springbok that represents the Rugby team”.

Khompela is clearly one of the more incompetent members of the ANC. His call for the removal of the Springbok emblem is absolutely ridiculous especially considering the work done in transforming Rugby. The South African rugby team is one of the few sports teams we can be proud of and I mean everyone can be proud of; black, white or purple.

There’s no denying that rugby has had some incidents related to racism. The latest Luke Watson anti-Afrikaner tirade as well as the beating of a black supporter at a rugby game certainly resonates strongly but this is certainly not the way to deal with things. Possibly not selling alcohol to members of the public with single digit IQ’s would help?

I remember around this time last year when it was the Rugby World Cup. When we won people in Sandton were partying in the streets in the same way that people in Alexandra celebrated. Rugby is probably more integrated than Soccer.

Fortunately the response from other ANC members has been that Khompela is a reject and his ideas irrelevant. What does bother me is that someone has a well paying job to complain about national emblems. Fact of the matter, people are starving in our country but more importantly our government feels that spending thousands of millions of rands on name changes of airports and roads is their priority.

While this incident didn’t happen to me personally, my father was a victim of useless BMW service. This post serves as something of an experiment to see whether anyone from BMW will respond and make amends for arguably the worst service ever.

My father is an owner of an E46, 318i BMW. It’s certainly not the flashiest or most expensive BMW but a client is a client and everything should be done to retain that client surely?

Needless to say, my father drove into a pavement, popped his front tyre and came home with a good part of his undercarriage on his backseat. Needless to say, repairs were needed since he was going away today (11th of October). The accident happened roughly a week and a half ago. The car was picked up yesterday from BMW after repairs were completed. Not only did we have to pay for the car and claim from insurance (rather than BMW claiming from insurance) but had to wait an hour at BMW Bedfordview for the car to be prepared despite them saying the car was waiting.

This morning, when packing the car my father noticed a minor, yet relevant detail; no spare wheel. Now this would have been a hapless error had he not specifically asked for them to make sure there was a spare wheel as he was going to be driving to Durban today. I’m more than happy to admit that mistakes can happen and that things can be forgotten if handled correctly.

When my father phoned BMW he was informed that there was no tyre available and that the manager was not available to talk. Ultimately he was met with indifference and derision by the lady at the call centre. Amazingly in the whole of BMW Bedfordview there was not a single 16-inch tyre and no one was willing to make the effort to go find out. This is arguably the worst customer service I’ve heard of in a while.

At the end of the day we all make mistakes and as long as one admits that mistake and at least attempts to rectify them customers are willing to forgive and forget. BMW Bedfordview has shown they don’t care about their customers despite the mistakes being purely theirs. I have a feeling this is the last BMW my family will ever buy. Negative product evangelism is never a good idea and frankly something that should be avoided like the plague, something BMW does not understand.

I’ve noticed a terrible epidemic lately which is possibly limited to South Africa but is terrible none the less. Ever since Isabel Jones started doing infomercials (and thus lost her integrity) there has been no one defending the rights of the consumer. It simply seems to me that the average South African is complacent and accepts mediocrity.

Let me give you a semi-fictional example. It’s lunch hour during the break. You’ve popped out of your un-fulfilling job so that you can fix the banks latest mistake on your account (issue number 1) only to be greeted with a massive queue (issue number 2). You look at the counters and realise the reason for these queues, that specifically being the lack of tellers. Apparently someone at the bank decided that the tellers should go on lunch at the busiest time of the day. Now the third issue for me is the kicker: no one seems to care! No one complains to the manager or kicks up a fuss, they simply stand wasting their time and fidgeting. This is totally unacceptable but no one bothers to make a noise on the matter.

While I’ve dramatised this encounter somewhat this has happened to me before and it’s frankly an unacceptable situation. What usually occurs is that the bank messes up and the client has to go fix the issue. No institution bothers to work on customer service these days.

Let me give you another example! I want a new cellphone but the contract they offer on their website is never available. This has happened twice to me and will result in me having to take out a more expensive contract to get the phone I want despite it being advertised at a lower price. I am met with indifference and the new favourite term in South Africa which is “Sorry”. No one really cares since at the end of the day I’m basically obliged to use their products.

I seem to remember reading in every single common sense textbook out there that “the customer is king” and that companies should bend over backwards to service the customer. This is clearly a concept that has gone the way of the Dodo.

So here’s the question of this post: “Why does no one try to make a change?”. I want to know why mediocrity is accepted? Is it sad that when I get decent service I am surprised? I think it’s unacceptable and something we all need to strive for.

Next time you get bad service report it to a manager, pop that complaint online and make the rest of the world aware of how poor that company is. It’s not only your right but your duty as a consumer. Can I get a “HELL YEAH”!

I popped the disc in my car, I loved the album even more in decent CD quality than I did on my computer. It was this fact that made me thing I should possibly re-rip the disc so I could have higher quality MP3’s on my computer. I also knew it would make me feel slightly less dirty if I used the original to make MP3’s.

In my Macbook I popped my disc (right now you’re thinking what a prat I am for loving Mac’s and Coldplay) and was greeted with absolutely nothing. I eventually got an error message saying that my computer could not read the disc. This is upsetting for many reasons, the first being the fact that I couldn’t make nice copies of my Coldplay disc but more importantly the potential repercussions this has on using computers to play music.

Imagine if I didn’t have a CD player anywhere else besides my computer? How would I be able to enjoy my Coldplay CD? Quite simply I would have no choice but to download the album to listen to it. At this point owning the disc is slightly immaterial and I might as well have downloaded the disc anyway.

So here’s the rub I guess: I’m not going to buy anymore CD’s if this is the way the music industry wants to treat us music owners. First we had Sony installing Rootkit software (which as far as I understand allowed them to log in to your computer) and now it just doesn’t work on a computer at all.

You know what, this is truly a case of the music industry being petrified and taking it out on the consumer. I find it highly ironic that an industry can be so callous to its consumers and still get away with it. While I’m not advocating piracy I’m totally boycotting the CD stores of our country until the music industry behind it gets real.

Below is a picture of the car from the front:

As you can see they took styling cues from the front of the new Scirocco (which you can view here) and plonked it onto the current Golf 5 platform. Frankly this car looks a lot like the Golf 5 except we live in a parallel universe where the Golf pigged out on excessive amounts of chocolate and got a little bit wider….

The Golf 5 was only released in 2004 so it comes as a surprise that the sixth generation of the car is already being launched. The reason for this launch is due to the fact that production of the fifth generation was very costly and this cut into the profit margin back at VW headquarters. The sixth generation is supposedly more efficient to build and therefore cheaper. I mean it makes sense in the current economic climate except for one tiiiiny issue: the fact that the base model costs 200 Euros more than it did with the fifth generation model. So basically VW is making more money and not translating those savings to the customer. The simple fact is even the interior is the same as the Golf 5, there is nothing revolutionary here.

Frankly though, I find the new design so bland and dowdy looking that I’m dubbing this the Golf 5.5. It’s more of a model refresh than an entirely new range. They fattened up the Golf to appeal to slightly tubbier middle class buyers who have been driving some form of the Golf since their twenties. VW is bound to launch GTI, convertible and countless Diesel versions of this car but I can’t help but not get excited.

If consistency to the point of boredom appeals to you then the Golf is going to be a winner but if you like a little bit of difference in your morning commute then look elsewhere.