Dendrobium Kingianum

My poor little dendrobium. I've not had much luck with orchids and just before winter this litlle guy looked like it was on the way out. After doing some research into it's growing conditions I discovered it's an Eastern Australia native and grows on rocky outcrops. It also needs cold weather if flowers are to form.

As we share the same seasons as Australia, I chucked it outside to ensure the wet, wind and cold of a Cape Town winter. The new cane shoots came up nice and strong and then 4 or so flower spikes formed. The trick is not to leave the plant to suffer our wind once the flower spikes are out. This lonely flower is the only one that made it past the winter storms and into the house. As it's been 2 or 3 years since it last flowered I'd forgotten how fragrant the flowers are. I'm sorry I didn't bring this plant inside fast enough!

At least I know what to do next year!

Hurrah for duiwe!!

Came across this comment worthy article in which a carrier pigeon beats Telkom's ADSL service. While a bit of harmless fun, this 'race' does highlight a couple of important issues.

The first is Telkom's inability to admit it's service is lacking somewhat. They are very quick to place the blame on the customer and say they are not the primary provider. I do not use Telkom Internet as my ISP but regardless of who your ISP is, if you have a fixed line ADSL account billed by Telkom, they provide the bandwidth from your home or office.

At home we have a measly 384K line - the lowest package Telkom offers. At my mom's home, she has the 4096K line from Telkom and without doing proper speed tests, I swear I only see a minor browsing improvement when using the Internet at her house. Who would Telkom 'blame' for poor ADSL speed in this case?

The second is that we should respect pigeons more!

Poor old Lady Doreen

I'm am so touched to have been contacted directly by the infirm Lady Doreen. Apparently her illness has affected her ability to proof read and write a sentence that makes sense but I guess this is what makes her heart felt plea all the more compelling.

I did take the time to write back to old Lady Doreen and she replied back with a one liner. Not quite the embossed stationery of the nobility response I was expecting from her Ladyship.

Beloved ,

My name is Lady Doreen Ashford , my address; 27, Lynton Avenue, Boston Spa, Wetherby, LS23 6BL, England. I am writing to you from my hospital bed, I have been hospitalized for very long time although am too old but I have been suffering from cancer and old age decease.

Indeed I contacted you for the purpose of handing over to you my heritage bank account one in London and the other in Africa, because recently my doctor confirmed to me that my sickness cancer which I have been treating for about 2years now is risking to take my life .

However, I wanted to confine this important project to you which is very important to me, that means to help the orphans, underprivileged children and then to provide sufficient fund that will enable you establish a small scale industry. To submit to the act which I expressed this desire as I'd like to donate what I inherited from our family WILL. I want to assure you as I will like you to understand all the steps about the project the amount involve is (£2M) Two Million British Pounds, and this sum is in both account I inherited it when our family properties and fund was shared to all the family members. I am a British woman.

I have given some people whom I want to give some but I want you to use some part of the money in your country to be able to help the poor, I don't want my money to be managed by greedy person, because unfortunately, as you may know that our leaders are not good morally also my money can be find in their accounts or used to buy luxury houses or to satisfy any desire of their kind.

Regarding that I had no family I have decided to bequeath my entire heritage I know you will be a person of good morality that could use this money to good purposes as I have specified all in the beginning of my message. I know it does not open the doors of paradise for me but at least I may have peace of mind knowing that

I contribute a little to make this world a better place to live right.

I expect to read from you.

Yours Sincerely.

Lady Doreen Ashford.

Keep left, pass right

It's easy to spot the South Africans that have lived overseas for a period of time, because they're the ones that understand the (unwritten) rules of stairs and escalators.

Google Money Master. If it seems too good to be true...

I was forwarded an innocuous looking link to look at. The link opens a review by a 'journalist' and skimming through the article down to the comments from many satisfied customers. Ah, the promise of being able to make money at home all seemingly 'backed' by the familiar Google logo and 'reported' on by what appears to be the web site of a newspaper, The Manchester News Gazette. There were links to the supplier's website. A mild fishy aroma was seeping from my screen.

A quick search for Google Money Master returns consumer complaint forums and blogs before the link to the product website. A quick scan through the complaints and it becomes clear that this product and it's associated costs are not really communicated that well to the unsuspecting punter. There also seem to be issues with trial days and the speed and frequency with which debits are made to credit card accounts.

There is a sign up cost of around US$2 and a monthly fee around US$70 but may be more (double). Small change if you can really make as much money as some of their happy customers are claiming to make.

Further digging reveals that this product has several names, is possibly being investigated by people that investigate things and may be in breach of Google's Adsense program (which is free to anyone anyway).

Is Google Money Master a scam or a sure fire way to make extra cash albeit a bit misleading? I'd prefer not find out the hard way.

References:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense/thread?tid=7c423ee5978f7bf2&hl=en

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/google-money-master-kit-c206399.html

http://www.manchesternewsgazette.co.uk/

http://googlemoneymaster.org/

No such thing as a free SMS?

A couple of weeks ago I received an SMS that needed me to reply to it in order the retrieve the SMS intended for me. Had I done so, I would have been billed R30. Initially I thought the R30 was some sort of promotional code or something. There was no way one SMS was going to cost that much. At least there is a warning that you will be charged and the cost is given. I bet they bank on people not reading the SMS thoroughly and just hitting reply.

If you don't believe me, see for yourself.

Rip off merchants

Cape of Storms

There has been a humungous storm over the past couple of days. The Cape has been blown from all directions, rained on till there's no-where left that's dry and thousands of people have had to be evacuated from their homes.

The storm surge has been an issue all over the place and driving home from Blouberg today one can see that the beach car parks are full of foam from the waves - that's how high the water has come. I took a drive to the block of flats on the beach here in Melkbos and see that Mother Nature has completely washed away the sandbank they put in front of the flats after a storm last year. Given that sea levels are supposed to be rising, I'd be selling right now if I lived in that block!

If you're reading this and in the Cape, stay warm, dry and safe!