September 10, 2006
About
About me:
A 20-something web designer from Joburg. In the real world you really have to push me to talk about tech; mostly I avoid it as a result of spending too much time at varsity with people who created AVI codecs which showed movies as a changing sea of monochrome characters in base 8 – just because they could.
My [tech] interests:
Html and CSS, web design, presentations, graphics software, open source, linux (esp. Ubuntu), Apple Macs, anything Apple, web-based LAMP content management systems (esp. Drupal), Flock, blogging (and Wordpress), flash, the SMTP protocol, programming (php, actionscript), web security, applied cryptography, steganography, Quartz Composer, Arkaos and VJing, multimedia event production (on zero budget, usually), Reason, sound engineering, white hat hacking. Tech support doesn’t rank here, for the following reason:
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My [other] interests
Music (play guitar (well), piano (badly), drums (better) and am learning cello), writing songs (::mental note – put more time towards this::), martial arts (loving tai chi, been doing kung fu for 3 years now and wish I could do a flip-up (see big impossible fight scene in Kill Bill 1)), emerging/post-evangelical/post-church/missional christian (whatever all THAT means…I think it’s a fancy way of saying I don’t go to church any more…), amateur photographer (yes, folks, I understand depth of field and how aperture and shutter speed change exposure – plus I own a gen-you-ine single lens reflex film camera), SA cricket supporter (I still like Graeme Smith and hope he stays captain at least till 2012), an excited interest in monasticism. I wish I had a t-shirt which says:
This is my tech blog – anything to do with Apple, open source, programming, CMS’s and other TLA’s goes here. I write elsewhere about myself, the future of the church in South Africa and emerging forms of Christianity.
I wish I could…
- Do more than 30 push-ups before getting tired.
- Play that freaking cello already!
- Understand the box model and CSS2.
- Visit China for 3 months or more.
- Understand Telkom’s pricing structure for ADSL and why they think ISDN is a valid product offering.
- Read faster.
- Understand why Microsoft thinks they support web standards.
- Get people to understand that just because I “get” TCP/IP networking doesn’t mean I know where would be a great place to buy a new computer.
- Understand why Microsoft hasn’t hired any designers for their Powerpoint templates.
- Stop smash-and-grabs and petty theft.
- Abduct all of the world’s spammers, duck tape them to a bed so they can’t move and lock them in a room with 1 000 000 mosquitos. Hungry mosquitos. Who’ve all responded to the ads convinced their probiscus is too small.
- Do something nice for a Telkom technician, because that job has to be the worst in South Africa.
Comments(59)
Roger Saner is a web platform developer (using 
Hi,
There is no contact details… or I didn’t found them.
I just wanted to get in touch to present our Mac OSX software, PulpMotion.
Maybe you can get in touch me.
Best regards,
Claudia
Yeah was also looking for your contact details, just to report that the “More…” link in your sidebar isn’t working (rather link to ‘/about’ instead of ‘about’ – otherwise the link won’t work on any page other than your front page).
Love your blog, keep it up!
Thanks Charl – have changed that
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Hello
Here’s a interesting video I created to show off the dervishs dance from the Guild-Wars nightfall party.
The dance the dervish does is the same one that Christoper Walken did in the video for Fatboy Slims’ – Weapon of choice music video (hence the music used)
Post your comments please
Mine
youtube.com/watch?v=j_aONMdkzxU
Original for those that may not have seen it
youtube.com/watch?v=0WW8flwpH-Q
Hi Roger,
My G5 is dead… Only kernel panics at startup. I’m new here in SA and I wonder if you know a reliable repair centre preferably in Durban?
Regards,
Pim
Hluhluwe KZN
Hi Pim
Sorry to hear about the G5 panic – not cool! I don’t know of an Apple Repair centre in Durban – only one in Joburg – but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. Here’s the number for the Apple guys in SA who’ll be able to direct you further: 08600 27753
Hi Roger,
Awesome read as usual. With regard to your bandwidth management, I work at a company that has just launched a couple new products, one being a free hotspot solution, and the other is our development of the bandwidth usage. Our website may give you a few more ideas and more info…
Cheers,
Neal
http://www.redbutton.co.za
0861 BUTTON
-
MacBook 2.2/2/120
Thanks Neil, that’s helpful – I’ll check it out
Good day
Im looking for 5 laptops for applemac can you please send me the quotation
Hi Roger
please help ….
I’ve blocked my DVD player to region 1.
I have windows and leopard on my laptop. Currently really only using windows.
I know there is an application called VLC , that can play all region DVD’s, but if I have to copy / backup a Region 2 (South Africa ) then I cant.
Please HELP. What can I do to fix my DVD player ?
I need my player to be SA region or all if posible , as I rent region 1 & 2 from Mr Video , and now can only watch reg 1
Thanks a million.
Mark
Tel 021 4123696
083 327 3797
Hi Mark
Looks like you’ll need to reset the firmware on your Mac. This *will* void your warranty, as Apple don’t support you doing that, but is (as far as I know) the only way you can get around your DVD being locked to region 1.
I’ve not done this myself, so you’re going to have to ask Google.
Here’s something from Boing Boing which was posted over 2 years ago, but might be helpful to you:
Be careful before doing this – you’ll lose some of your settings!
The Boing Boing article also says that you get 5 free region switch resets, but an Apple store has to do them:
“What’s more, once the region-switches have run out, computer companies can reset your counter at a service depot a further five times.”
Hi MacGeek
You have nothing to click on to REGISTER, to post, on your site- so I hope it’s this simple…
We have finally got DSL at home with the dreaded Telkom and surprisingly I’ve got it all set up (self-installation nogal!) Our next mission is to get our Macbooks setup to connect to the wireless feature on the Telkom Mega 105WR router. All I know is that I need to set up my Airport settings but I am clueless when I get as far as System Preferences – Airport and then it asks me for a Network name and a wireless security?
Please advise me on what steps to take so we can access the net via Airport while watching TV or sitting elsewhere in the house, away from the ethernet cables.
Many thanks!
@Lukemart: congrats on getting DSL working – welcome to the 1st world! (or, at least, Telkom’s capped version…*sigh*).
Ok, to get your laptops set up to connect to your wireless network, you first need to set up your wireless network. To do that, follow the same process you used to get your modem connected to the internet: plug in your network cable into your laptop and into the modem.
If you’re on Windows, you can then use the setup cd which Telkom provides with the modem. If you’re on a Mac, you need to log in to the modem directly, using your web browser, at your modem’s address, which is probably one of these 2 links:
http://10.0.0.2/
http://192.168.1.254/
Your username is probably “admin” and so is your password (probably change that sometime!).
Once you’ve logged in to your modem, you can then figure out the way to set up your wireless network. If your interface is the same as mine, click on “LAN” and then “wireless”. Follow the steps to set up your wireless network: I usually choose WEP encryption and set my phone number as the password.
Once you’ve done that, you can then connect to the wireless network from your Mac. To do that, open System Preferences, then click on “Network” then “Airport.” Then tick the “Show AirPort status in menu bar” box and close System Prefs. A new wireless icon should appear on your menu bar at the top of the screen – if you click on it you’ll see a list of the available wireless networks – if all has gone well, you’ll see your network which you have just set up.
Good luck!
Shot Roger! I appreciate you help.
I will have to wait till I get home from work later on today to get this sorted.
Sounds easy enough. I’ll give it a go after I’ve put the kids to bed and post a reply on whether I cracked it or not… as for 1st world Roger – not sure about that. We were ‘developing’ – now with load-shedding, blood-shedding etc it looks like we’re going backwards in SA.
I’ll be back!
OK Roger. I’m home and confused… I get your directions up till “LAN” and “Wireless” then I get rather overwhelmed with what comes up on the screen… Setup, Configuration, Multiple SSID, Security, Management, WDS, Simple Config… all these pages containing a serious amount of check boxes and places for me to enter all sorts of info. I managed to find the WEP check box on the “Security” page and upon entering an encryption key like you suggest – my phone number… I got told that it is reverting back to saved settings… err – I’m lost.
You made it sound rather simple but on going in there it seems rather complex.
Perhaps you could add lib on your directions – I would seriously appreciate it. Thanks again for you input – I am on a Mac and hence the reason for ending up MacGeek… at least I seem to have stumbled upon the right place for help.
@Lukemart: at least you’re in the right place! Ja, those options are rather overwhelming – I think it took me 20 minutes of playing around before I got it right. I don’t have the interface in front of me so I’m doing this from memory. Basically, ignore all of the fancy options – all you need to do is to choose a network name, a password and an encryption method (like WEP). Maybe at first just ignore the password options and set up the wireless network so that anyone can connect to it. Once you’ve done that you can go back and add a password.
So give your network a name, click “apply” and then there’s a button there which lets you save your settings to the router. Try that and see if you’ve created a network you can connect to…
OK, I’m going in again… I hope my Jedi skills come in handy this time!
heck Roger – where do I put in a network name – under Multiple SSID? – as a secondary SSID?
Give me any Adobe product and I’m wired but this stuff is complicated. Maybe the stomach bug that I am sitting here with is not helping in the process…
OK, I really don’t think I have done the right thing here but I seem to have created a network name by adding multiple SSID’s – two of them (1 for me and one for my wife) – I have punched in a password under Security (selecting one of the 2 added SSID’s, clicking ‘WEP’ and ‘enable WEP Wireless Security’ and putting in a 10 digit encryption key) and voila! I have a network name – if I click on the Airport icon in my menu bar I can see the name/network I made up BUT if I pull the network cable out I have no wireless connection still… looks like this is going to be a tedious exercise…
@Lukemart: stick with it – you’re pretty much there! You don’t necessarily need multiple SSID’s – that just sets up multiple wireless networks.
Pulling out your network cable should have nothing to do with losing your wireless connection – they’re two different things. That’s weird! Something odd is going on – do you lose the wireless network on the other computer too when you do that?
Thanks Roger.
Yeup. Surely if I pull out the network cable then, if it’s connecting via Wireless (and I have put in all the nec. settings), and setup in my network prefs to use Airport – it should connect? Hence why it should be wireless…
Arrghh!
On another note – you mention being a Christian elsewhere on your site? Good stuff. Hope you are following some good sound doctrine. There is so much heresy and disception in the modern church.
Perhaps you’d like to visit a local website that a mate and I have – we design and sell Christian t-shirts.
@Lukemart: ja, your network cable is completely independent of your wireless connection. Just make sure you’ll still connected to the wireless network – if you are but can’t connect to the internet, then there are some other settings you need to compare between your cable and your airport.
Yip, I’m a Christian – one of the “religion-is-so-embarrassing-a-lot-of-the-time-so-please-don’t-call-me-religious” type. I blog about all that stuff at FutureChurch – no guarantee you’ll like it though! What’s your site address?
http://www.celestialstudios.co.za – check it out.
I’ve given up on the wireless settings for now – I’ll ask a mate who is very conveniently a Mac Guru and an electrician. He has helped me on many an occasion… and at least he can be here to do it for me which is the main bonus.
___________
(should I be switching over to your other blogspots for this conversation so as not to scare away any Macfanatic who came here to read about Apples and not about ‘the Apple of my eye’…hehe.)
I’m also not one to call myself the ‘religious’ sort. Jesus hated religion. Even calling yourself a Christian these days doesn’t mean much does it! Pretty blurred definition.
I am not a Baptist, a Pentecostal, … a Catholic (definitely religious!), a Calvinist, a believer in Dominion Theology or the Restoration Movement, a supporter of Rick Warren or Nicky Gumble and any of their profit making mates…
I suppose I’m also not a big fan of seeker-friendly churches, megachurches, New Covenant Churches… most ‘Churches’. A lot of them seem to have ‘lost the plot’.
I’m just living (by faith and by grace) to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ (which can be flippen hard most times!), to live the simple Gospel as did the early church. It’s by faith and not by works and if it ain’t in God’s (why do you write that as G-d?) Word then it ain’t for me.
No new revelation; apostolic and prophetic (pathetic!); name it, claim it and frame it rubbish… no ‘The Message’, ‘Prayer of Jabez’ ‘WWJD’ stuff – just the simple Gospel – PUT INTO PRACTICE. Faith without works is very dead.
As for emerging church… as long as it’s Christ-centred and folks are into both a soul-saving as well as a social-saving Gospel… then way to go!
err. OK. Well thanks for the help anyway Roger.
Keep Mac’ing!
@Lukemart: glad you’re into a way of being alive which involves *doing* something, which is the correct way belief works out.
I explain why I write “G-d” in the comments on this post.
Your t-shirt thing looks interesting – looks like you’re mates with Theron too – tell him I said hi!
I’ll look into that post…
Regarding Theron… who the heck is he? Where did you see a ‘Theron’ mentioned on the site?
Theron isn’t mentioned on your site – but there’s a picture of him on the home page, underneath Steve from MIC (Theron was also in MIC) – he’s wearing the NYC shirt in the front row, standing next to Marlon.
ahah!
Not sure of the chap. Have chatted with John Ellis… , Gunter and Steve from MIC… Hayes (my partner) took that photo at the Just Jesus New Year Bash up in the hills while I was chilling in the Berg with my wee family.
Keep the Faith Roger. Nice chatting with you!
Still looking for contact details ?
Thanks
Contact details for who?
For me? roger [at] macgeek.co.za
Hi Roger,
II want to change the web address of my iweb site to a personal domain name. I know I saw something about this a while back on the mac site but can’t seem to find now. Can you help please?
Regards,
Thinus.
Hallo
Have a quick look at this site:
http://www.wirelessg.co.za
They are the biggest Wi-Fi provider in Africa and are very clued up when it comes to convergenced technologies.
I’m upgrading my laptop & would just like to know that in a world Microsoft windows would one be able to convert to a MAC with relative ease.I’m not that clued up on technology so i need to know if sticking with the usual would be safer than going a diff route i.e. buying a MAC for my next laptop.
Also which would you suggest is best – i run my own business so my laptop is used for business & pleasure. I currenly use a Dell Latitude D620 & its really slowed down over the past year (memory wise).
Many thanks
Humeira
@Humeira: converting to Mac is usually not a problem, but some people find it really frustrating to have to learn how do familiar things slightly differently. Luckily Apple have a whole lot of information on switching – even if you haven’t bought a Mac yet, take a look here: http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/
By the way, you can run Windows off your Mac too, either as a dual-booted operating system, or as an application under Parallels Desktop or VM Ware, or a combination of dual-boot and application-accessed.
Microsoft Office for Mac is available: I personally use Pages, the Mac document editor. OpenOffice is a free alternative to both of these.
Hi Roger
I bought a MacBook yesterday and I am so excited to start using it..only problem is connecting to the Internet. I use Telkom Broadband and a Mega 105 WR modem which is connected to a desktop. I also have a Dell laptop which works perfectly through the wireless access via the Telkom modem. I am trying to also accessing the internet via my Macbook and it connects via Airport and shows green light “connected” but when I click on “safari” it is not connecting me to internet “can’t find the server”. What am I doing wrong? Please help.
@Zee: So your Dell connects fine through your modem, but your MacBook doesn’t? Hmmm…it might be that your Dell is connecting via PPPoE and your MacBook isn’t yet configured to do that. To check if that’s the case, google PPPoE and see how to check that on your Dell. And if so, then give Telkom a call and ask them to walk you through configuring your Mac to use PPPoE (or google it).
If your Dell isn’t using PPPoE to connect, then there’s some weird configuration issue on your modem and/or your Dell. It might be a good idea to walk through this by giving Telkom a call, unless you’d like to enter the wonderful world of IP addresses, DHCP, DNS, traceroute and ping -> which you can always learn about by googling them.
Step 1: Open System Preferences and then Network. Click on your Airport card and configure it and take a look at your TCP/IP settings. Make sure that you have an IP address, a subnet mask and a router ip address. If there aren’t values in all 3 of these, your laptop isn’t playing nicely with your modem.
If there *are* settings in all of these, the next step is to open Terminal (a program on your Mac) and type “ping [router ip address]” – something like “ping 10.0.0.2″
You should then get lines of code jumping back at you, something like:
You can press CTRL C to stop this. If you *don’t* get this happening, then even though your Macbook is connected to your wifi network, it can’t see the router. Solution: log into your modem and set up the wifi network again.
Good luck!
Thanks a mill!! Will try your suggestions. Z
Hi Roger
I am the proud owner of a mac and a pretty fast learner. Studied graphic design years ago and going to go into it full time now, on my own. I am pretty good at navigating my way around a PC and Mac in terms of mail and networking setup.
My question is ( and it has already been answered by one of the technical support guys at the store where I purchased the mac – second opinions always put one’s mind at ease); Do I stand a good chance of viruses on parallels or fusion when only running windows and using my web design programmes therein.
No mail or internet in “Windows”!! I will continue to run email and internet but only on the mac software.
I unfortunately do not have 20k for the design premium package, as I have just bought my 15″ mac book pro with pennies I have scrapped together for a few months.
Is there perhaps something else you can suggest for me?
Thank you
Hi Roger. I’m considering importing a MacBook Pro from Beijing through a friend who is traveling there. I’m not entirely sure this is a good idea. Is this possible? Are there duties to be paid? Any risks you can think of or people who would know about this kind of thing?
Thanks.
Jacques
@Donna:
>Do I stand a good chance of viruses on parallels or fusion when only running windows and using my web design programmes therein.
You stand as much chance of getting a virus running Windows using Parallels or VMWare Fusion or Crossover as you stand when running Windows on its own. Those programs don’t do anything magical to fix the security holes in Windows, they just provide the environment for Windows to run at the same time as Mac OS X (btw, take a look at Boot Camp – it’s lets you run Windows and Mac OS X as dual boots – especially worth a look if you’re into gaming!).
So you’ll need to do the usual stuff for securing Windows: use Firefox, install all patches from Microsoft, use an antivirus, and backup often!
I run Windows XP on Parallels and can access the internet fine when doing that (setup was a bit hard, though).
In terms of design software – that’s the hard thing about starting out as a freelancer. Finding a place you can intern or work part-time at could help that. Otherwise take a look at the open source options. The GIMP isn’t too bad, although can be a bit frustrating (I ended up using it instead of Photoshop CS 4 the other day, because CS 4 was screwing up the colour profiles from an emailed psd, but the GIMP respected it quite nicely).
Also look at Inkscape for vector-based stuff.
@Donna: btw, almost everything you need to run on Windows will run on a Mac, so perhaps you don’t even need to invest in Parallels/VMWare/etc.
@Jacques: my wife bought her Mac in Canada last December and we bought it into South Africa without a problem. The trick is to not bring it in the box all shiny and new – get your friend to open it and set the laptop up and then bring it in as if it was his.
There is a risk that customs will make him pay an electronics fee when he comes back into SA, although I’ve only heard of one person who that’s happened to (and it was a new digital camera). So especially if the friend isn’t traveling with two laptops, I’d say go for it. Core, our local Apple distributors, don’t give a stuff about charging higher prices, so people are looking elsewhere to see how they can get the same stuff cheaper.
Core will tell you that they don’t support grey imports (they even have a website about that, full of FUD), but the truth is that an item is only grey if it’s imported into the country through non-official channels and only then sold.
You’re buying your laptop in another country, which means you have a worldwide warranty for one year – and I highly recommend buying the Apple Care Protection Plan, extending the warranty to three years.
Hi Roger have a Mac mini and been battleing for 2 days.
It boots up fine starts I-cal etc then screen goes dim and mouse arrow is stuck in top lh corner, keyboard dead. Then block appears “Web clip not available” + “yellow pges/ block,” usually i use mouse to get rid of it and move on. After time goes to screen saver and then to log in and then stand by off mouse & Keyboard wont work in any lcation.
Tried boot upwith Shift,D,alt same result in all cases, Hold wndows,alt & press esc nothing? Unfortunatly have leapord disc in and wont eject even booting with mouse held down HELP Please Getting Desperate
Hi Roget tried again holding windows & Alt and booting same,
ment to mention also get a white ring 100mm diam with white cross in it in lower lh corner
Hi Roger another thought
I was connectint to an external drive to move pictures and problem seem to arise after changing a hard disk in holder ?
could this have caused the problem??
@Milford: when you start up, hold down just the alt key. That will then give you the option to start up from your Leopard CD – you might be able to eject it like that.
And yes, something is definitely wrong! There are a few things you’ve mentioned, and it’s unclear what could be causing the problem.
Worst case scenario: boot up off your Leopard CD and run an “upgrade” (NOT a clean install) on your system – it will preserve your data and hopefully fix whatever is wrong.
Hi Roger
thanks for all the help but nothing seemed to help
I took it to C3 near Cresta and they put it down to a problem with the Logic controller costs more to fix than a new machineI have recovered all my data and photos and uploade to windows I cant read e mails and wondered if there is some converter for windows. I did have to down load Mac Drive to read the data on the externa hard drive.
My co ins wont pay out as the Mac was not specified so not sure if I can afford a new one
Thanks again
Milford
@Milford: if there’s a problem with the Logic controller (your motherboard) then those are quite expensive to fix. I don’t know what to use on Windows to read Mac mails – Mac emails (if you’re using Mac Mail to read your mails) are saved in .emlx format, so I’d imagine you’d have to google to see if there is some convertor/reader out there. Otherwise try Thunderbird – it’s got some handy converters in it
Hi,
Great blog. Having recently moved to Lesotho and having broken my 2006/2007 MacBook Pro’s screen, I’d hugely appreciate any help/assistance you could give me about getting it fixed. It seems the screen still works but there’s no backlight.
Thanks.
The screen still works, but no backlight? Does that mean you can still see things on your screen but it isn’t bright? If so, I’d guess one of the cables to your screen has been broken. If you’re hardware-repair inclined, you can open it up and take a look.
If you prefer pain, you can take it in to an authorised Apple repair centre and wait a few weeks.
That’s correct. The screen seems to work but no backlight. Perhaps it’s a loose connection. Or perhaps it’s something else? I was worried about the ‘inverter’ in the past.
Ja, could be one of a few things – you need more information! This link will give you a few options:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10892655
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Hi — I’ve recently taken the plunge into Apple with an iMac 21″ 1TB and today I set up Skype. Unfortunately, during calls there is serious intermittent interference. Loud noise coming over the speakers. This comes and goes for no obvious reason.
I have a wireless router (although the iMac is connected to it by cable). Could it be that the wireless keyboard or wireless mouse are creating some kind of interference? Or is there some other reason for this noise? And any suggestions to resolve it? Otherwise Skype will be useless for audio and video connections.
Thanks
Michael
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