February WordPress released its WordPress for Android application which allows you to manage your blog on the go. Now WordPress for Android 1.1 is available with some nice new features.

The latest release boasts several improvements to the user interface, and my favourite addition is that you can now take a picture with your Android phone and add it to posts directly from the phone. Other updates include moderation options for comments and the option to select multiple categories at once when adding or editing a post.

I normally just use the WordPress for Android application to moderate comments due to the lack it had of not being able to add photos to posts, but now I will sure play around when on the go to do some posts from my Android phone.

Just a few month after Twitter unveiled a new homepage to the world they have now gone and do it again, but this time I must say it looks better with some more information.

The new Twitter homepage now features a scrolling list of top tweets just to give non-members a look into what they are missing exactly.

The new design is still a test and work in progress according to the official Twitter blog. The trending topics have now moved to a bar just beneath the Twitter logo and upon hovering over the words you are shown an explanation as to why these words are trending topics at the moment.

“With the new design, we’re intentionally featuring more dynamic content on the front page, revealing a sample of who’s here, what folks are tweeting about, and the big topics that they’re discussing,” Twitter said in its blog post.

The new homepage also features a block of suggested users to follow and hovering over their profile pictures reveals their latest tweet.

As with all Twitter rollouts, the new changes has not been enabled for everybody yet.

iBurst is to launch a 3 month trial where wireless customers will get free Internet between midnight and 8 am.

The free Internet access trial will be open to all iBurst contract and month-to-month wireless subscribers. The subscribers will be able to access the Internet for free during midnight and 8 am in the mornings, with no traffic being counted towards their monthly cap.

This announcement comes just weeks after numerous ISP’s introduced cheap affordable uncapped solutions, iBurst will be the first ISP to do something about their wireless products since the announcement of the uncapped accounts.

The service will first be launched as a free trial starting from July and if successful will become a value added service to iBurst products.

According to iBurst this is only the first of a number of initiatives which consumers can expect from them over the next three months.

“We are launching even more services to provide wireless Internet services at wireline-like pricing,” said Van Zyl.  “In addition, exciting new wire-line services are on the cards.”

ADSL ISP Axxess has joined the uncapped price war by introducing the cheapest offering for uncapped ADSL.

Axxess has joined the hordes of ADSL ISP’s in response to MWEB’s uncapped announcement last week by offering uncapped ADSL at the most affordable rate at the moment just undercutting Afrihost with a few rands.

Axxess’ uncapped offering is a Internet Solutions based uncapped account first introduced this week by Afrihost, Axxess is selling 2 types of uncapped ADSL accounts.

1. 384Kbps [192Kbps upload] @ R196.00
2. 4096kbps [512Kbps upload] @ R496.00

This is currently the cheapest uncapped offering on the market undercutting Afrihost by just R1 on both packages.

I will still be holding on to my 10GB Afrihost capped account for a while as I believe there is still a few ISP’s that needs to respond to these new uncapped ADSL offerings like WebAfrica for example that made a pathetic attempt at price reductions earlier this year.

If you have jumped ship tell us how your experience has been so far with these new uncapped ADSL accounts.

[UPDATE]
Current Axxess clients will need to cancel their account via email before 31st of March and sign up for uncapped account on the 1st of April to avoid being double billed.

For long now the fact that FNB is bringing PayPal to South Africa has been on everybody’s lips with even some leaked screenshots surfacing on the integration, and today FNB officially launched PayPal in South Africa.

The PayPal South Africa launch comes after South Africans has been without the functionality to receive funds through PayPal, we could only use it to send funds. The news of FNB launching PayPal in South Africa has been welcomed by all entrepreneurs in South Africa as this now allows us to move into a more international market without the hassle of receiving funds through wire transfers from international customers.

First National Bank (FNB) customers in South Africa can now sell to PayPal’s global customer base of more than 81 million active accounts in 190 markets around the world and move the proceeds to their FNB accounts. This new service allows customers to top up and withdraw funds to their qualifying FNB accounts from their PayPal accounts.

“We are especially pleased to make this announcement on the eve of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, as South Africans will be able to join the global eCommerce marketplace. Our agreement with PayPal also enables international businesses and individuals to transact with South African service providers via a secure and convenient payment gateway”, says Michael Jordaan, FNB’s Chief Executive Officer.

“The exclusive top up and withdraw service with PayPal allows South Africans to make payments and receive money internationally without sharing their financial or personal information,” adds Jordaan.

FNB Customers can simply open a PayPal account and link it to a qualified FNB account and receive PayPal payments in 21 different currencies. FNB will convert the currency to South African Rand, when the money is transferred into their accounts.

This solution enables customers to top up their PayPal accounts anytime they want to send money or shop online with PayPal’s global base of merchants.

“FNB and PayPal have a similar focus on innovation, so it makes sense that we would work with FNB to make online payments even easier for merchants and consumers in South Africa,” said Oded Zehavi, head of PayPal’s business in Israel and South Africa.

“With South Africa’s solid financial infrastructure and its status as the continent’s largest economy, we’re optimistic about the future of eCommerce in this market and look forward to working with FNB on the opportunities ahead,” says Zehayi.

“The launch of PayPal sees FNB take another step forward as South Africa’s most innovative financial institution. It responds directly to our ‘how can we help you?’ brand promise,” concludes Jordaan.

The PayPal service will be offered in partnership with FNB and has received approval from the Exchange Control Department of the South African Reserve Bank.

Director: Michael Lembeck Screenplay: Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Randi Mayem Singer, Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Ashley Judd, Julie Andrews, Stephen Merchant Time: 102min Age Restriction: PG

Genre:
Comedy

Summary Review:
The Tooth Fairy is a side-splitting family comedy about believing in yourself and holding onto your dreams.

Synopsis:
Derek Thompson (Dwayne Johnson), a minor league ice hockey player, has no imagination and no patience with people who dream big. He used to be a major star, until a shoulder injury prevented him from scoring goals.

A cynic who would rather lower his expectations than face disappointment again, Derek thinks he is doing everyone a favour by “disillusioning” them and crushing their hopes.

Until the Fairy Godmother (Julie Andrews) has finally had enough, that is, and sentences him to two weeks of tooth fairy duty.

These run-of-the-mill slapstick movies are usually not my thing. But The Tooth Fairy had me crying with laughter until my stomach hurt! Dwayne Johnson is a charismatic performer, which more than makes up for his limited acting abilities, and he is deftly supported by gifted actors like Ashley Judd and Julie Andrews (for whom I have a soft spot – I’ll never forget that Mary Poppins was my first crush).

The Tooth Fairy‘s simple, clean humour and an inspiring, well-communicated message turn just another old comedy into a fantastic feel-good film.

Late last year Twitter said that it was testing out a new feature called Contributors. Twitter Contributors allows multiple people to tweet from one Twitter account and shows the contributor’s name below the tweet.

When Twitter told the public about the new feature back in December they also noted that it was not quite ready to be rolled out and instead they started using it on the official @twitter account.

Now certain users are reporting seeing the Contribution feature being turned on on numerous other twitter accounts like the salesforce account and already they are using it.

Contributors are thought to be part of Twitter’s plan to start introduce premium services to businesses, but apparently Twitter is not charging for this feature yet.

The South African ADSL market has seen significant change the last couple of days, but what is all this capped and uncapped ADSL all about and what should you get?

First MWEB stunned the local ADSL market with their introduction of really cheap uncapped Internet, and then just days later Afrihost followed suit by undercutting MWEB and introducing even cheaper uncapped ADSL. But what is the difference between this uncapped and capped ADSL and what should you use?

To put it simple uncapped ADSL allows for unlimited browsing, email, videos etc whereas capped ADSL only allows for a certain amount of data to be used. Typically uncapped ADSL will be used if you are a heavy downloader or like to watch YouTube allot or stream Internet radio whereas capped is ideal for more critical applications like browsing, Skype, gaming, remote desktop, VPN’s or Emails.

Uncapped ADSL makes use of high content ratios that allow ISP’s to give it to the users at cheaper costs, although capped ADSL also makes use of this content ratios the uncapped ratios is significantly higher than that of capped. What is content ratios you ask? Think of it like this, say the ISP has 10mbps bandwidth available to them, a content ratio of 10:1 will then see that 10mbps being shared amongst 10 users. If all 10 users start using high bandwidth applications at the same time theoretically they will only have 1mbps available to them even if they all have 4mbps lines.

As you can see the higher the content ratio the slower your Internet can become, and this is where capped ADSL beats uncapped ADSL for critical applications.

Conclusion is if you only use the Internet for browsing, email and gaming I would suggest sticking to capped ADSL at around R29 per GB it is still a steal, but if you are more into downloading large amounts of data or streaming YouTube constantly then I would urge to you go for one of these new uncapped accounts. I am in no way saying that services like gaming, Skype etc wont work on uncapped, I’m just saying that it works better on a capped account.

Afrihost launches SA cheapest uncapped ADSL from R197/month

Afrihost, the broadband Internet service provider (ISP) that sparked South Africa’s ADSL price war with its R29 per GB offer, has announced pricing for its first uncapped ADSL products.

Users will be able to source uncapped ADSL from Afrihost from as little as R197 a month for a 384kbps line. For uncapped data on a 512kbps you’ll pay R297 per month, and for uncapped data on a 4096 kbps line you’ll pay R497 per month. Prices are for bandwidth only and exclude line rental costs through Telkom.

“When we launched our R29 per GB offer almost six months ago, we knew that South African users craved more affordable ADSL. At the time, most ISPs charged around R70 per GB (and many still do) so our move really shook up the ISP industry,” said Gian Visser, CEO at Afrihost. “But we knew that many users wanted more. Over the past few months, we have been testing an uncapped product, which we are now ready to introduce to the market.”

Afrihost is surprised that another ISP has beaten it to the punch with an affordable uncapped ADSL offering, but is now ready to respond with a set of products that are now the cheapest on the market, added Visser. “Our intention when we introduce our R29 offer was to put pressure on the incumbents to lower their prices, and I think we can safely say that we have achieved that goal,” said Visser.

The Uncapped 4096 kbps product is available for purchase through the Afrihost website or Client Zone with immediate effect. Sign-ups will be limited for now, with accounts granted to users on a first-come, first-served basis.

Users who signup for the uncapped package in the initial beta testing stage will lock-in this package and price in for as long as they are Afrihost customers (although the company is not planning on increasing prices). The other uncapped offerings will be made available once the company has comprehensively tested the performance of its uncapped service and the impact on the Afrihost network.

Visser said that the uncapped service does have some restrictions and disadvantages that the capped packages from Afrihost does not have. The uncapped packages allow only one connection for each account while the capped packages allow many simultaneous connections from different locations for each account.

If you are accessing your ADSL account from several different locations (e.g. from home AND work), you will need to opt for a capped account or buy uncapped accounts for each location. The uncapped ADSL service will run off a higher ‘contention ratio’ than the capped ADSL service – which will be true of all ISPs in South Africa that offer uncapped services. This means more users are allocated to a certain chunk of bandwidth in uncapped than is the case with capped services. If many users are simultaneously making use of the network, then uncapped will be slightly slower than capped. “What that means is that people who value network speed and performance – especially during office hours – over cost may still find a capped package to be the best option for them,” said Visser.

According to Visser, with bandwidth priced at R29 per GB on a capped package it makes sense to move over to an uncapped offering if:

• You’re on a 384 kbps line and use more than 7 GBs a month
• You’re on a 512 kbps line and use more than 11 GBs a month
• You’re on a 4096 kbps line and use more than 17 GBs a month

“Unless you literally move hundreds of GBs per month this service will be uncapped for you with no catches at all,” said Visser. “However, we will take action on the minority who through their usage start affecting all of our other clients’ internet experience.”
The uncapped service is designed for humans who want to use the internet as much as they want – for some downloading, streaming media, browsing, and more. It is not designed for computer programs that are setup to continuously download 24/7, 30 days a month.

Great news is Afrihost is catering for those that has been bumped to the 8mbps trial, you can also obtain a 8mbps uncapped account from Afrihost. You can register your uncapped ADSL account from Afrihost here.

While the rest of the world has been enjoying cheap uncapped Internet for long now, South African has been milked for every cent they have just to use a couple of gigs a month. This all has changed drastically the past week.

The past week the South African Internet market has been shaken up again and this time it is huge. It all started out as a campaign I have been following for a few weeks called “Free The Web” on Facebook and that is just what MWeb did, they set the Web free.

MWeb introduced uncapped Internet accounts the past week for as little as R219 per month for 384kbps and R539 per month for 4mbps data only options. MWeb also launched all in one packages starting from R349 per month for 384kbps to R899 for 4mbps.

The service is shaped but good news is that there is also an unshaped option available for businesses ranging from R499 to R1999, this service includes a Cisco router and 5 static IP addresses.

Just a day after MWeb announced the new standard for uncapped internet in South Africa other ISPs started following with OpenWeb partnering up with MWeb to offer their customers the same special, another entrant is @lantic/vox which beat the price of the all in one uncapped packages.

Good news is that Afrihost who previously shook up the Internet market with the introduction of their R29 per GB ADSL announced that they will also be introducing uncapped packages any day now, they have been looking into it for a while now and MWeb just beat them to it said Gian Visser CEO at Afrihost.

I like what I am seeing happening in the local Internet market, and just like Afrihost has set the standard of sub R30 per GB prices, MWeb has now set a new standard for uncapped Internet and other ISPs will just have to follow to stay ahead in the local Internet market.