YouTube added a new long grey bar at the bottom of videos that form part of a playlist. Although some find it useful, a lot of people see it as a distraction. You can minimise it but you cannot close it.
Solution for Firefox users
If you're a Firefox user, there is a way to permanently hide the YouTube grey bar. For it to work, you must have the the AdBlock Plus Firefox add-on installed (this is a brilliant add-on anyway since it hides all ads on sites).
Visit youtube.com, then click on the small AdBlock Plus (ABP) icon top-right or bottom-right in the browser.
The Preferences dialog box will appear. Click on Filters > Add filter.
Enter the following: youtube.com##DIV#quicklist-tray
Repeat the step and add another filter containing: youtube.com##DIV#quicklist-bar-container
Repeat the step and add another filter containing: youtube.com##DIV#quicklist-bar
Click OK.
They grey bar will disappear permanently!
Similar bars on other websites
You can also use the method explained above to hide similar bars on other websites. It would be easier to hide them by installing the Element Hiding Helper Firefox add-on as well.
Then browse to an applicable site (e.g. news24.com which also recently added a social bar at the bottom of their site), right-click on the AdBlock Plus (ABP) icon in the browser and select "Element to hide". Hover over the bar you want removed and click on it. A dialog box will appear, click on "Add filter rule" and that bar will permanently be removed from view!
The 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off tomorrow when the host nation, South Africa, plays the opening match against Mexico. Football fever has gripped the nation, especially these last few days during the build-up to tomorrow's match.
"Gees"
Most teams and their fans have arrived in South Africa and the "gees" (spirit) in the streets have been uplifting, to put it mildly! Vuvuzelas are blaring everywhere; its distinct sound will undoubtedly be heard throughout the tournament. Some love it, some hate it. (Want to hear it?)
Yesterday Bafana Bafana (South Africa's national team) were cheered on by a huge crowd of around 185 000 in Sandton when they appeared in an open-top bus. Some serious nation building going on! It reminded me of the 1995 Rugby World Cup where I experienced a similar feeling of euphoria. The fact that I had a ticket to the final probably had something to do with it.
There are people who allege that FIFA strong-armed the government and local businesses, resulting in severe loss of income for the local tourism industry. The big question always remains whether a country can get a return on investment after hosting such a huge tournament and whether the use of the new stadiums can be sustained afterwards.
Injuries
A number of star players have unfortunately been injured during the last few days, either during practice or friendly warm-up games which could affect those teams' chances of winning the tournament.
Didier Drogba (fractured forearm), prolific striker for Chelsea will be missed by the Ivory Coast; German captain Michael Ballack is out (ankle), Portugal - Nani (shoulder); Netherlands - Arjen Robben (hamstring); Spain - Iniesta (thigh); England - Captain Rio Ferdinand (knee); Ghana - Michael Essien (knee).
Predictions
There will be 32 teams at the 2010 FIFA World Cup and a total of 48 preliminary matches that are divided into 8 groups. Two teams go through to the second round in each group.
Group A - France and Mexico.
France is the most talented team in this group and Mexico showed good form the last few weeks, easily beating Italy in a friendly match a few days ago. South Africa automatically qualified for the tournament since we're the hosts(ranked 83rd in world at time of writing), will enjoy the local support but unfortunately the gap may be too big. Bafana Bafana is looking fit and had a good run going into the tournament, never losing under coach Parreira and also beating Denmark (ranked 36th) in a friendly a few days ago.
If we can somehow beat Mexico in the opener... who knows! Reaching the second round would be a phenominal achievement.
Group B - Argentina and Nigeria.
Argentina have Messi but struggled to qualify for the tournament. South Korea have Park Ji-Sing but Nigeria will have a lot of home support.
Group C - England and USA.
This is the weakest group and therefore England got an easy draw. They're favourites to end on top.
Group D - Germany and Ghana.
Germany have a good record at world cups and are ranked 6th in the world. Ghana is missing their star player, Essien, but could still edge Australia.
Group E - Netherlands and Cameroon.
Netherlands showed good form and were undefeated during the qualifying rounds. Cameroon has Samuel Eto'o.
Group F - Italy and Slovakia.
Italy are the reigning champions and should be the strongest in this group. Slovakia scored a lot of goals during qualifying but Paraguay could edge them for the 2nd spot.
Group G - Brazil and Portugal.
This is the Group of Death with three strong teams making it the most difficult to qualify. Brazil have a brilliant record at world cups, winning it five times. Portugal have Ronaldo and Ivory Coast lost their star player, Drogba.
Group H - Spain and Chile.
Spain should easily top the group. Chile ended second in South America's qualifying round.
Who will win it?
In my opinion the realistic favourites are Spain, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands and England. Brazil are ranked no.1 in the world, have the experience and have won it a record five times. Germany are always strong; England are a dark horse, have an easy draw and an astute coach, Capello, although I think they're sometimes overrated.
I want the Netherlands to win but without their talisman, Robben, it is less likely. I think Spain have the best chance of taking the Cup home. They've been in brilliant form the last two years and I believe they're the most talented, balanced team at the tournament.
Opening ceremony and first match
Tonight the FIFA World Cup celebration concert will start at 8pm (GMT+2) and will last for three hours. Headline performers are Shakira, John Legend, Angelique Kidjo, Alicia Keys and the Black Eyed Peas. Location: Orlando Stadium, Soweto, Johannesburg.
The official opening ceremony is tomorrow at 2pm (GMT+2) and will last 30 minutes with 1581 performers, at Soccer City, Soweto.
Waka Waka - The Official 2010 FIFA Song (performed by Shakira and Freshlyground)
The opening match is on Friday, 11 June at 4pm (GMT+2) at Soccer City between hosts South Africa (Bafana Bafana) and Mexico. Good luck Bafana Bafana!
Google Street View has finally launched in South Africa, enabling internet users to view images of streets and surrounding buildings at street level. All faces and car number plates are blurred to protect your privacy. Considering that the FIFA World Cup tournament starts on Friday, this will undoubtedly assist tourists since they'll be able to view sights and stadiums before they arrive.
Of course, the first thing I did was to see if a Google Street View Car captured me in front of my home. Luckily not, but you can see my car in the driveway. I'm a fan of Google and use a lot of their online services; Google Maps with Street View is fantastic.
A view of Chapman's Peak Drive in Cape Town
Google Street View in South Africa is currently available in the major cities and a few other towns. I assume the rest of the country will be mapped during the rest of the year. All the major soccer stadiums are available in 3D with a 360 degree view inside.
3D model of Cape Town Stadium
Video: Street View on Google Maps
A lot of websites are dedicated to displaying funny images that have been captured on Google Street View. Here's a few interesting images.
The only downside to Google Maps and Street View is that it tends to use quite a lot of bandwidth so if you have a slow connection, good luck.
Facebook announced new privacy settings to address some of the negative public backlash they received these last few weeks. Your name, profile picture and gender will remain publicly available but you can set privacy controls for the rest. The new privacy features will be rolled out during the next few weeks.
Video: How to take advantage of Facebook's new privacy settings
They've definitely made it easier for the end-user to change the privacy levels by adding global settings and the fact that you can now opt-out of applications altogether will be good news to those who demand absolute control over their privacy. Just a pity you don't have the option (when applying the setting to disable all applications) to exclude applications you actually want to use. Maybe that will come in future.
Step in right direction
A lot of people will be pleased with the new privacy settings but some privacy advocates will still have a problem with Facebook's general lacklustre approach to Privacy. Instead of thinking it through and respecting the user's privacy from the start, Facebook tend to expose their users by decreasing their privacy and then they simply fix it later, if the public outcry warrants it.
Sharing your personal info with 3rd party applications should be OPT-IN, not opt-out! As long as I have the choice to decide beforehand to share information or not, everything is fine. Just don't share it without my permission.
When I joined Facebook I felt comfortable sharing personal information because Facebook's privacy settings were very good, allowing the user to fully control every bit of information you publish to Facebook. But times have changed! Facebook has changed direction and privacy seems to be a mere afterthought now.
Facebook started off with an attitude of respecting the user's privacy, which was great. Unfortunately they have changed their privacy settings over time to make it increasingly difficult to protect everything you publish on Facebook.
Facebook's privacy changes in April - frowned upon
Their latest privacy changes (announced at Facebook's F8 conference in April) were frowned upon by most analysts. It's almost as if Facebook does not listen to their users at all, ignoring any backlash after a major privacy update.
Facebook's new Instant Personalization Pilot Program lets you share your information with third party websites... I'm not comfortable with that at all. Facebook always seem to make the changes regardless of whether their users like it or not and users only find out afterwards, once it's already been done. Then those who are concerned about their privacy have to quickly jump around and "fix" the privacy settings (again) but it's getting more and more difficult to do that.
Opting out
Case in point, I was logged into my Facebook account and then visited another website Engadget (or it could have been Mashable, can't remember), then Facebook granted access to apps from those sites automatically. I then visited my Facebook Applications Settings page and that website was already listed there! At no point did I give explicit permission to share information with external sites. Facebook gladly did that "on my behalf". I had to manually visit the Facebook application page for that site and block the application explicitly. So they're making it tougher to 'opt-out' as time goes by.
Facebook is feature-rich but please respect my privacy
Facebook makes sharing info with friends a pleasure and there's a multitude of other fantastic features that the social networking site offers. But a lot of users are uninformed about Facebook's persistent drive to open everything up for all to see, since that will obviously have financial benefit for Facebook due to marketers having access to your info/preferences for better advertising revenue.
The flip side of the coin is that it's perhaps convenient for the user to visit different websites and always be recognised on those websites since you're already logged in to your Facebook account. The part that I have a problem with... is the fact that I'm having less and less of a CHOICE in the matter. I'd prefer to opt-out beforehand instead of trying to solve a privacy issue afterwards.
Instructions on how to protect your privacy after Facebook's latest privacy changes in April
With Twitter the situation is different because you know from the start that everything is public, so you (should) only make statements you are willing to make in public anyway. But with Facebook there's a trust that was initially established between Facebook and the user, based on the initial strict privacy settings that was available. That trust is now being tampered with.
If Facebook loosen up their privacy settings to such a degree where I'm left without any control over the (access to) information I publish on Facebook, I'll have no choice but to consider closing my account.
Facebook plans privacy summit
It was announced today that Facebook will be holding a privacy summit after a large group of users, critics and lawmakers showed their dissatisfaction about the growing Facebook privacy issues. I hope something positive comes out of this because Facebook is a great social networking platform, if the privacy issues are addressed.
Video: Funny look at what Facebook would be like if played out in real life
Norman Surplus, departed on 22 March from Larne, Northern Ireland, to attempt to circumnavigate the globe in an autogyro called "Gyrox". It has never been attempted before. An autogyro (or gyrocopter) uses an unpowered rotor in auto-rotation to develop lift and an engine-powered propeller, to provide thrust.
Challenges
The trip is expected to take approximately four months and cover over 43000km, stopping over in 26 countries along the way. Considering the nature of the adventure and proposed travel route, some severe weather conditions should be expected along the way. It's quite a brave attempt considering that an autogyro has an open cockpit! Not to mention the long stretches of open water that need to be covered. To make this possible, Norman's gyro was fitted with extra fuel tanks which will extend the normal 300 mile range to 800 miles. Then there's the challenge of relying solely on the pilot's own visuals since he's not allowed to use instruments to navigate (gyro rules). Finding fuel in remote parts of the world may also present to be a problem.
Video - Gyrox autogyro circumnavigation of the globe
MWeb significantly cut broadband prices today with a new full range of uncapped packages. This is truly fantastic news to South Africans since these sort of prices have been long overdue. South Africa is now slowly but surely getting in line with the rest of the world as far as broadband prices go.
South Africans are used to data caps where you have to constantly monitor your bandwidth usage every month to ensure you don't go over your data limit. When you do go over the monthly limit you are either cut off completely or you have to top-up your data (Gb's) at additional costs. Usually an expensive exercise.
However, with MWeb's new uncapped ADSL packages, those days are over. Now you can download as much as you want for a fixed price, the way it should be! There were other uncapped products in the market before this but they were quite expensive. MWeb's new packages are quite affordable.
MWeb's new uncapped packages (Can sign up from 22 March, available from 1 April)
CONSUMER products: Shaped, month-to-month)
Data only (therefore excluding line rental from Telkom)
Uncapped ADSL 384Kbps: R219
Uncapped ADSL 512Kbps: R299
Uncapped ADSL 4096Kbps: R539
All inclusive (data and line rental)
Uncapped All-inclusive 384Kbps: R349
Uncapped All-inclusive 512Kbps: R599
Uncapped All-inclusive 4096Kbps: R899
BUSINESS products: Unshaped, 12 month contract)
Data only (therefore excluding line rental from Telkom)
Uncapped ADSL 384Kbps: R499
Uncapped ADSL 512Kbps: R699
Uncapped ADSL 4096Kbps: R1 999
All inclusive (data and line rental)
Uncapped All-inclusive 384Kbps: R629
Uncapped All-inclusive 512Kbps: R999
Uncapped All-inclusive 4096Kbps: R2 259
Shaped - Web browsing and emails get priority on the network Unshaped - All protocols on the network have the same priority, so whether you're browsing the web or downloading on a peer-to-network, you should get similar download speeds
Cheap, cheaper, cheapest
These are the cheapest uncapped broadband packages currently available in South Africa and will surely start a real price war amongst Internet Service Providers. MWeb is a big player and they have the ability to shake up the market. They're getting their international bandwidth from both the SAT-3 and SEACOM undersea cables. With the arrival of more undersea cables to South Africa, like WACS and EASSy during the next two years, wholesale prices for international bandwidth are expected to fall dramatically which in turn will lead to even cheaper packages for consumers of broadband in this country.
Terms and Conditions strongly worded - could put of power users!
MWeb's ADSL Terms and Conditions page (as on 18 March 2010) made me frown, especially paragraph 5.6 and 5.10:
5.6 You may not restrict, inhibit or interfere with the ability of any person to access, use or enjoy the Internet or the ADSL Services, or create an unusually large burden on our network, including, without limitation, continuously uploading or downloading streaming video or audio; continuous FTP uploading or downloading
Well, with an uncapped product I definitely expect to be allowed to listen to online radio streaming all day long if I wanted to, same goes for video streaming! Also, no continuous downloads allowed? That would effectively eliminate all power users. It will therefore be interesting to see how seriously MWeb enforces these conditions because if they do, I for one can't sign up with MWeb.
5.10 You may not use the ADSL Service for unattended automated operation, unless otherwise agreed. You may stay connected as long as you are actively using that connection. You further agree not to use Internet applications for the purpose of simulating network activity to avoid session inactivity disconnection.
Par 5.10 is simply ridiculous and hails from the days of dialup connections. The whole point of using ADSL is to be connected 24/7 in the first place.
Proof is in the pudding
One concern is that MWeb is not exactly renowned for their support levels if compared to other medium-sized ISP's and considering that they will get an influx of people signing up for these new packages, they will have to up their service levels considerably.
Network stability and contention ratios are also very important factors. Cheap broadband means nothing if your online experience suffers due to constant irregular browsing/download speeds. Hopefully MWeb won't have these issues because with these low prices MWeb is clearly vying for the position as market leader in the consumer broadband space in South Africa. It will be interesting to see what the rival ISP's come up with during the next few months!
The only other drawback is that Telkom owns the 'local loop' (lines from exchanges to your residence) and they charge a hefty line rental fee for it. It would be great if Telkom could lower (or drop!) the line rental in future because then South Africans will end up paying broadband prices that are truly in line with first world countries.
YouTube added a new long grey bar at the bottom of videos that form part of a playlist. Although some find it useful, a lot of people see it as a distraction. You can minimise it but you cannot close it.
MWeb significantly cut broadband prices today with a new full range of uncapped packages. This is truly fantastic news to South Africans since these sort of prices have been long overdue. South Africa is now slowly but surely getting in line with the rest of the world as far as broadband prices go. 
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