Category Archives: Opinion

“This seller does not ship to South Africa.”

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I’ve always been a big fan of eBay. It’s allowed me to get hold of lots of things which I otherwise wouldn’t have got, or payed a ruddy fortune for, well relatively. My first purchase, if I recall correctly, was a new lithium ion battery for my Archos Media Player. The old battery had kinda “swelled” up and no longer retained much of a charge. So for R150 or so on E-bay, I got a new battery shipped out of Hong Kong, and on my doorstep 4 weeks later.

I’ve had both good and bad experiences. Majority of my purchases have been from Hong-Kong sellers, whether it be dodgy memory cards and electronics or plain USB cables. I’ve received packages in 3 weeks and I’ve waited 8 weeks as well for a package to arrive. But I understand this, that’s what

But alas, I’m currently trying to acquire one or two products from my old Chinese friends and I look through the lists of pages, sorted by Price (including shipping to SA) and I click on a few products, find one that looks good and go on to buy it, only to be met by a page boldly proclaiming: “This seller does not ship to South Africa.” This is quite disappointing, because it happens over and over again. I’m battlign to find Honk Kong shops that will ship to SA, or practically any other country for that matter. If you check their shipping preferences, most of them look somethign like this:

Item location: HongKong, Hong Kong
Shipping to: Worldwide
Excludes: Aruba, Afghanistan, Angola, Anguilla, Albania, Andorra, Netherlands Antilles, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Armenia, Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Azerbaijan Republic, Burundi, Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Bahamas, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Barbados, Brunei Darussalam, Bhutan, Botswana, Central African Republic, Canada, Chile, China, Cote d Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Colombia, Comoros, Cape Verde Islands, Costa Rica, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Algeria, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Western Sahara, Spain, Estonia, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), France, Gabon Republic, United Kingdom, Georgia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Guinea, Guadeloupe, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Greece, Grenada, Greenland, Guatemala, French Guiana, Guam, Guyana, Hong Kong, Honduras, Croatia, Republic of, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Saint Lucia, Sri Lanka, Lesotho, Lithuania, Latvia, Macau, Morocco, Monaco, Moldova, Madagascar, Maldives, Mexico, Macedonia, Mali, Malta, Montenegro, Mozambique, Mauritania, Montserrat, Martinique, Mauritius, Malawi, Malaysia, Mayotte, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Paraguay, Qatar, Reunion, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Saint Helena, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, San Marino, Somalia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Serbia, Suriname, Slovakia, Slovenia, Swaziland, Seychelles, Turks and Caicos Islands, Chad, Togo, Thailand, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, British Virgin Islands, Virgin Islands (U.S.), Vietnam, Yemen, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Africa, Central America and Caribbean, Middle East, North America, South America

Now by looking at that page, I honestly can’t see a country it doesn’t mention, although it claims to ship worldwide, the list of exclusions is ludicrous! North America, Africa, South America as continents are all excluded. Heck they don’t even ship to Hong Kong or China, so wtf do they actually ship to?

I hope this won’t be the end of my ebaying days, because I’ve always revelled in the variety and ease with which one can purchase, and always envied the Americans and their “Daily Deals”.

Micro USB… Really?

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I got a new phone today, yay! Cellphone contract ended last month, and wanted to switch from MTN to Vodacom but was going to end up being such a mission that I just gave up and am going to stick it out with MTN for another 24months. The upside of this is my new (although it’s a relatively old phone) Nokia E63. Basically the big brother of my previous Nokia E51.

Now the point of this. USB mini is a great port, it has been used on practically everything electronic, it’s great, I love it, so why have Nokia decided to stick silly little flimsy USB-Micro ports on their new phones? A cable I do not own, and will now wait a bit before buying. I’m probably just being illogical, or not thinking this through, but I just find it annoying, and why can’t everyone just use the same cable?

Then I remembered having read a few years ago that all the big Cellphone Manufacturers had gotten together and decided to unify the chargers they use on their cellphones. According to this article, this is supposed to be done by 2012. That’s great! Then I read on to see that they have chosen the USB-Micro plug as the weapon of choice for charging all cellphones from then on. Sigh. But I guess yay for unity.

In any case, I thought great! My phone has a USB-micro port, that obviously means that Nokia have gotten over their fear of allowing their cellphones to charge via USB and I’ll be able to charge my phone via USB. Borrowing a cable from a friend proved that my faith in Nokia was unnecessary as they have once again disappointed.

I don’t have much to say, seeing as I have set it up almost exactly as a larger clone of my previous phone, based on the same Symbian OS. It may just be in my mind, but it does seem to react slightly faster. I do however feel that their ability to have more than one “Home Screen” is the biggest waste of time ever. They’ve also put the asterisk, zero and hash keys on the right hand side of the what would normally be a standard numpad, a bit frustrating, but seeing as I am starting for the first time with a QWERTY keypad on a cellphone, I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

For the moment I’m downloading new Firmware for it, so we’ll see how that goes.

’tis the Season

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Well after a rather successful examination period the holidays were upon me. I spent several weeks waiting to hear on work with the company I had worked with in July, but they were unable to take me on at the time, instead I’ve been working for Escape Gauges in Parow for the last week and a half. I’ll work up to Christmas and then do another 2 weeks in January.

Today however is a beautiful public holiday, beautiful in the sense that it’s a nice break, not in the weather, which is fairly miserable, but I will just use it as an excuse to sit all day and play on my PS3 :) and I will validate this having woken up at 6 this morning and done a nice cycle round the area.

So a few more days work, a friend’s 21st next week and then Christmas. In total I have bought 0 presents so far, but never fear, a plan will be made, to some extent. After Christmas I’m off with my siblings, girlfriend and some others for a 5 day hike in the Witelskloof which I’m looking forward to. Will post some pictures and a “review” when I get back. I’m wanting to take my GPS with to track the route, and how far, how long it takes us etc. I just need to figure out some way to keep the GPS charged each day, will probably look around for some kind of solar powered thing. The other problem is the water factor. The hike apparently requires a fair amount of getting wet, our backpacks as well, but we’ll see.

So I’ll be there till new year’s eve. Probably going to end up in Hermanus for that, then spend a day or two in Betty’s Bay with family, before coming back to work. Then it’s two weeks of work and two weeks of holiday before classes start again.
Included in those last two weeks is a trip to East London and hopefully me getting my code 14 driver’s licence, if all goes as planned. I also have to move into my new house for the year before class starts, but all in good time.

For now I’m going to enjoy my day off and the build up and festivities to Christmas.

I dislike movies in 3D

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I don’t like 3D movies, I don’t like the hype, I don’t like effect, I don’t like the way I have to wear glasses and the way it hurts my eyes.

I can often be right against popculture, sometimes it would seem just on principal. I’ve never been a fan of the iPod, I feel there are “better” products out there, but I have come to accept that it is a good product. I just don’t see the same happening with 3D, not for a while

I’ve only watched two movies in 3D, Avatar (which I’ve also watched in normal mode) and then tonight the joy of Jackass 3D. Perhaps not the best set of movies to base my opinions on, but none the less. I do still intend to give 3D one more chance in the form of an entirely animated movie, but for now these are what I base my opinion on.

It’s been tried before, and I won’t deny that every now and then the effect is pretty cool, but I don’t think it warrants the increased ticket price, or the hype. Sure when somethign comes flying towards you out the screen, and you hear someoen shriek, it’s pretty funny, entertaining (which is why we’re there) but I like being able to see a movie. Not just the main character, or what someone wanted me to see in 3D, I want to be able to see the entire picture.

It’s a huge screen they’ve given us, and to force us to focus on one small piece of the screen isn’t ideal. After having watched a 3D movie, my eyes genuinely hurt, and I’m not the only one I’ve heard complain about this.

In any case, I think it’s time that peopel stop trying to make their money by claiming 3D, shaft the concept for another 10 years until someone else has developed a new, hopefully better, system.