Do some more good

Do some more good

Last week I wrote about how you can donate some of your computer’s time to help fight cancer. 

This week I would like to point you at some other sites where you can do some good.

A company called the GreaterGood Network has a collection of sites, each dedicated to a certain charity.

Some of them are:

World Hunger site

Breast Cancer

Child Health

Rainforest

Animal Rescue

Basically all you have to do is go to the website and click a button. Once you have clicked on the button, money will be given to a charity.

Now the first thing that comes to mind is – this is too good to be true. It is too easy.

 I poked around the internet to find out if this GreaterGood Network is a legitimate company. It turns out that they are owned by CharityUSA a registered charity in America and that the money they make for the sites they operate does go to charity.

 However there is a dispute as to how much of it is going to charity. CharityUSA says a lot goes to charity, other people say they don’t give as much as they claim to give.

 So even if you have a problem with how they have been giving, a percentage of your clicks will go to charity.

 Also – by clicking on this article 10c gets donated to a good cause! When it comes to deciding how many times to click on this article there is no right or wrong answer, but I would like to suggest six thousand and forty three times.

Out source your good deed of the day

Out source your good deed of the day

 

Does your computer stand idle sometimes? Want to give something to the community?

There is an easy way to help - http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org 

 

World Community Grid is a grid computing project. What that means is, it is a worldwide network of computers working together to solve a problem. You download a small application from their website and install it on your computer. When your computer is idle it will request data from WCG servers and do some computations on the data and send the results back to them.

Millions of people worldwide have joined and are working together. To give you an idea how powerful this project is – the research they have done so far would have taken one computer 40 000 years to complete.

Currently they are working on Muscular Dystrophy, Cancer, Aids and Influenza research. There are also research into human DNA and a project that analyze proteins strains to enable farmers to grow more nutritious rice.

 
It is really a worthwhile cause to join. Think about it. Your computer is doing your good deed of the day; you are free to be your bad self.

I envy cavemen, I really do

I envy cavemen, really I do

The cavemen had such nice lives. They lived in caves, ate fungus they scraped of walls, they got eaten by tigers and dinosaurs and they never had to deal with ABSA. 

 

Last year I got life insurance from ABSA but then cancelled it during the cool off period. They said cool but they can only refund the money next year – fair enough.

 

Now, this is next year and the time has come to refund my money. Last week a representative for ABSA called and confirmed I want to cancel the insurance and I confirmed. This week instead of refunding my money they took another year's worth of life insurance off my account. I called ABSA and explained my situation and they said they will investigate. ~ A moment ago an ABSA rep called me – he has heard I am interested in getting life insurance from ABSA.

Review:Resident Evil 5

Review:Resident Evil 5

[Eds Note: Recently a very controversial demo for Resident Evil 5 has been released. Some people got a bit pissed off about the demo, saying that it was racist because the game is set in Africa and some of the zombies are – black. Black zombies in Africa. The makers of the game, Capcom says that the original Resident Evil featured a virus that originated in Africa. So this game just brings the series full circle, with a team going to Africa to investigate the virus. Regardless some people think that this is another example of the Western world exploiting Africa.]


To review the game we got an expert on the subject of the West exploiting Africa, paranoid President Robert Mugabe of the nation Zimbabwe.


Review: Resident Evil 5 by Bob Mugabe.
I am not amused. This entire thing runs like a training video. Training people to take me out. Its Tony Blair. Well its not gonna work Tony. Do hear me Tony! Its not working. I am on too you.

[Robert seems to be under the impression Tony Blair is still prime minister of Britain. –Ed][Whatever. –Bob]

As for the game itself. The game is stupid.
Graphics – stupid.
Sound – stupid.
Game play – stupid. Not that I played the game, I refuse to play something this stupid.

Fuck you very much.
Bob.

Since we are on the subject of ID theft...

Since we are on the subject of ID theft...

 

Normally when I watch Carte Blanch, I am emotionally detached from the stories they show. It is stuff that happens to other people. However Sunday evening’s Carte Blanch episode struck a cord with me – identity theft. It happened to a friend of mine and it destroyed his business and he nearly faced criminal charges. 

While on holiday this friend of mine received a phone call from the police – he is under investigation for fraud. As you can guess, that phone called ruined his holiday. 

In his spare time he traded on the Bid or Buy website, making a nice income on the side. It takes time and a lot of dedication to build a solid reputation as a good trader online and it all of it was destroyed with one single phone call. 

The police officer informed him that he has received several complaints about him. All of the complaints where basically the same, they bought merchandise from him but then never received it. 

Trying to log on to Bid or Buy he found that his password has been changed and so has the password to his email account. How and when it happened he does not know. All he knows is he has some very angry customers and that Sergeant-Police-Officer-man is looking intensely at all business deals he has done in the past. 

He went through a long and painful process to prove his innocence and his name was finally cleared but his online reputation has been destroyed and all credibility he had on Bid or Buy. In short he was very lucky not to face criminal charges and he has lost his business. 

The moral of the story is identity theft can happen to all of us and we must act to protect ourselves! I will not pretend to be an expert on the subject but I do know that it is important to get the basics right if you want to defend yourself against id theft online.

Make sure that your operating system, anti-virus and anti-spyware is updated with the latest patches and security updates. This will help prevent most (but not all) Trojans / Viruses and Spyware from getting on to your computer.  

Passwords – choose good passwords. In other words, choose a password that is eight characters or longer. Use lower and uppercase letters, numbers and punctuation in your password. This protects against dictionary and brute force attacks against your account. 

There are lots more do’s and don’ts, for more information on how you can protect yourself:

• South African anti-fraud website: http://www.safps.org.za
• This website contains a lot of information, although most of it is aimed at US citizens: http://www.identitytheft.org/protect.htm
  
  

Audio Visual month - NVidia 3D Vision

In the spirit of Audio Visual month - NVidia 3D Vision

 

In the spirit of Audio / Visual month I will take a look at a new development in Visual technology:

NVidia recently announced their new 3D technology. I could not personally test because it is not available in S-A yet (you can import it for a lot of $$$ but I do not have a lot of $$$). However people that have tested it say it is – well, um, ok-ish.

All it is, is a pair of 3D glasses that work together with a NVidia graphic card to produce very life like 3D images while you are playing games.

People that have personally experienced games with this new tech say that the 3D is really good. It is a lot better than previous attempts where the 3D were just red and green shadows that looked more 2D that 3D. If you have recently seen the movie Coraline in 3D you would know what I mean. Objects appear to float in front of the screen and sometimes seem to come right at you.

Setting up the whole system is very easy. A wizard guides you through most of the installation and technical stuff. After the installation is done, the user can tweak a few of the settings on their own.

If the 3D is so good and it is so easy to use, why would they just give it a so-so rating? It is the fact that the overall experience is not very good.

First of all, prolonged used could give you headaches. Second it will only work with Windows Vista. The third reason, there is only a very limited amount of games that really work with this technology and than there is the price tag.

You need to buy –

• the glasses;
• a graphic card that can support the glasses;
• a screen that can support the card and the glasses.
• (and of course a game that will work with all of the above)

It is by far the best attempt yet to bring 3D to computer games and although there are a few snags, it is definitely a technology to keep your eye on.

A small review - Sims 3

A small review - Sims 3

Sims 3

The Sims 2 was the best selling game ever with more expansion packs than I have fingers and toes. Sims 3 was released recently and is topping sales charts everywhere. All over the internet you can see there is a lot of hype and excitement about the new Sims 3. I have never played Sims and was curious to see what the fuzz was all about. Boldly I ventured where I never ventured before and got the new Sims 3.

 

Almost immediately you get an idea why this series is so successful. Starting the game you are filled with a sense of wonder… There are so many things to see and do, you want your Sim to experience it all. Like a good parent you just want what is best for your Sim.

A few hours into the game I realize I am not a very good parent.

 

While my Sim was sitting and watching television I had some time to take stock. My Sim watch too much tv, hardly ever exercise, the kitchen is stacked with dirty dishes and he is always late for work. Long story short, the little Sim is living my life.

 

I was stunned to realize that I created my own version of the real world in the virtual world of the Sims. It’s like looking into a mirror.

 

So if you want a glimpse into your own life, play Sims for a while.

 

---------------

If you have a mad scientist inside you, go check out how much fun you can have experimenting on these poor Sims - Exploring the Mysteries of the Mind with Sims 3.