oneafrikan.com

Some good news for the SA tech people out there

_ Financial Mail - Here comes Neotel

SA’s second fixed-line network operator was meant to begin operating in May 2002, when Telkom lost its statutory monopoly over fixed-line telecommunications. Six years later, the company - known now as Neotel - will finally launch its services to consumers.

All signs are that Neotel is finally gaining traction - and that it’s prepared to take the fight to Telkom. Despite warning initially that it wouldn’t start a price war with Telkom, indications are that it will compete aggressively on price. The company is still reluctant to talk prices, but some details are emerging.

Hat tip to Tim, who still does not have a blog yet.. ;-(

south africa, Telkom, SNO, bandwidth

Stephen finally gets a blog, and starts with a nice controversial blog post
_ Life is too short to dance with fat girls - Peeled Carrots by Stephen Blake

To get to the title of my first post - “Life is too short to dance with fat girls”. I heard it yesterday while watching Episode 8 of Californication, a new American mini series, where David Duchovny plays Hank Moody, a famous author with writers block. Hank’s father tells him that while the two of them are having a father to son chat at a bar - I had a good chuckle when I heard him say it

Nice one Steve - looking forward to some good content!!

stephen blake, kindo, technovated, peeledcarrots, blogging, south african

So on Wednesday, Nils and I went to Internet World at Earls Court, to do a final pitch to the judges for the “UK’s Most Promising Internet Company 2008″… and we didn’t win, which is a bummer, but we did make it to the final 3 out of 150 companies, which is pretty cool in itself.

_ Kindo one of “UK’s Most Promising Internet Company 2008″ - Kindo Family Blog

Kindo was one of three companies, who made it to the Finals at the Internetworld 2008 fair, that is going on at Earl’s Court at the moment.

Well done to the Zoopla! guys, I reckon they’re onto a winner

During “The Award Final” at the Keynote Theatre yesterday the three selected start-ups were pitching in front of the jury and – this time – to the “internetworld” as well. Though finally the property site Zoopla took home the prize, it was a great opportunity to present Kindo to a internet-savvy crowd, and all that only about 10 Minutes from our Kindo headquarters in Putney Bridge.

2 comments about internet world:
1. more people than last time overall…
2. … and, way more honeys than the last time I was there

internet world, uk, startup, entrepreneur

Kindo release Spanish last names Nice work guys!
_ Estadísticas familiares en España - Kindo

Aprende más sobre tus apellidos. Descubre cuánta gente comparte alguno de tus apellidos, y cómo son de populares comparados con otros apellidos.

kindo, spanish

Respek for Damien, he’s produced something fresh and easy on the eyes
_ Presenting v6 - blog - coda.coza

My previous design lasted for almost half of that time. Despite its shortcomings (lack of a feature-rich CMS) and obvious design flaws, and given the amount of recognition that it received, I became hesitant to change it much. Until the waves of spam attacks began.

Since my blog was running on a bespoke system, it became increasingly difficult and time-consuming to manage, which partly explains why I haven’t been posting as regularly.

So after a tricky data migration and clean-up (the volume of crap I’ve written in the past 6 years is embarrassing), a tiresome metadata capturing process (adding titles and tags to 770 posts), and a couple of design revisions later, this blog has undergone a complete overhaul and is now powered by WordPress 2.5.1 with a super collection of plugins.

code.co.za, south africa

I was walking in Wimbledon last night, and managed to get myself into a nice shower, which was cool ‘cos I had my brolly… Love walking in the rain when I’m not getting really wet.

Even cooler tho’, was the double rainbow that came out afterwards, which was totally awesome. I’ve seen a fair few rainbows in my time in Africa, but never a double one…

Here’s a photo for you:

_ Checkout the set if you wanna see more…

All shot with my trusty Nokia 6300 under the umbrella!

rainbows, london, wimbledon

Vernon makes it onto TV, crikey those arms are big!!
_ YouTube - Vernon on the soapie Isidingo

vernon koekemoer, chuck norris, jack bauer

OK, so this has become somewhat of a labour of love the last month or so, where I’ve snuck bits of time here and there to get this to a point where I’m happy it makes sense, and there’s not much more I can add to it now…

Please check it out, let me know what you think, comment on this post for feedback (or email me), and send me typos!

Once I’ve done one more pass of it and I’m happy it’s ready for consumption, I’m gonna create a page for it to live at (while other plans get rolling - thanks Ed!).

Here it is: Building a Startup You Love is Hard (BaSYLiH) - Final Draft.

Edit: If you’d rather read on Scribd, here it is - thanks to David for putting it there.

Enjoy

business, startup, entrepreneurship, skills, learning