Technology

Blogging is the next big technology trend, and I fully expect that almost everyone will have one in the next few years. Ten years ago nobody thought that every business would have a website and now you struggle to find one that doesn't.

If you haven't blogged before now, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. But take a moment to think of how much easier it is to keep in touch when you have instant messaging, email, and sms on your mobile phone.

The big advantage of blogging is that you don't have to send anything to friends and family, they can simply subscribe to your feed and read what you write whenever they want to.

Already it is becoming common to record verbal blog messages, and I imagine it won't be long until video messages gain in popularity, especially given the pace of broadband uptake.

So with that said, who are the bloggers of tomorrow, why will they be the driving force of blogging in 2006? Read More

Picture this, a woman with a camera is walking purposely through a city park, heading towards a formal rose garden. She's an enthusiatic amateur photographer and the anticipation is becoming evident.

She reaches the garden, attaches her close-up lenses, pulls out her notebook, and starts setting up her shots. Watching her move from flower to flower is painful.

She starts by taking her photo, then toggling the viewfinder for the image number, then she puts down the camera, picks up her notebook and writes down the number along with the flower name. She doesn't need to write down her camera settings because the exif information is saved automatically.

Now this is where it starts to get exciting, the clouds start to roll in. Thinking rain is imminent, she hurriedly moves from flower to flower neglecting to write down the pertinent info.

At home later that day she copies her new photos to her computer, and diligently starts to rename the pictures according to their flower name. Alas, she isn't able to complete the project. Imagine if she was on holiday and could never return to get those details.

Unfortunately this story is probably all too common, and perhaps the designers of camera's should invent some quick and easy way of captioning photo's in realtime. Maybe the designers of our image formats should work together with camera designers to incorporate a short soundbyte into each photo. That way I could press a button after taking my picture and record a name or location.

Think of the potential, and corporations should love the idea because overnight we introduce obsolescence into all existng cameras.

A few years ago when mobile phones had just started to incorporate little organisers and text messaging was becoming popular, I remember being told by an excitable gadget savvy mobile phone salesperson that this was the future.

With much waving of hands and bright-eyed eagerness she proceeded to tell me they would soon have camera's, video, the Internet and so much more built directly into them. I remember she used the expression convergence to describe this merging of technology.

At the time I think I was slightly sceptical yet today mobile phones do all of these things. That experience taught me something about predicting the future which has served me well. My partner and I use the secret to predict property values, economic activity and so much more. Read More

So you wanna build your own solar hot water system, perhaps you've been thinking the cost of buying solar panels is too much, think again. I've found a tutorial on a South African company's website, Agama Energy, that shows you how to build your own, and best of all, the parts needed aren't all that expensive, and you could use a lot of recycled materials. This is a really cheap way to start converting your home to cleaner renewable energy.

You still need to purchase the solar/electric geyser, which in my part of the world we call the hot water cylinder, and is the tank that stores and heats your hot water. The article mentions a price in Namibian dollars but for the vast majority of readers you will need to check out the pricing in your local plumbing store. Readers in the US or Europe will probably find they can even obtain a second hand geyser in reasonable condition. If you're interested in making one of these, Agama have also provided a .pdf of the tutorial, and please, let me know how you go, I'd love to post pictures of a reader's system being constructed.

With a little imagination I believe a system like this could easily save any home on water heating costs. Project forward a few years when every third world house or village has one of these and you start to see a different world emerging. Frankly I think the major charities should be funding these systems in every disconnected village, I mean food parcels are great, but reliable hot water in poverty stricken regions could go a long way to improving the health of our brothers and sisters in the third world.