Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from January, 2011

Correcting Standard Training Zone rather that 220 minus age usage

First it is an estimate So we have all had some expose to this training zone thingy I always wondered what it meant, and how it was calculated when looking at the results of a medical or at a gym. Recently I had the fortune of being given a Polar watch to monitor my exercise, and this got me digging about these zones, since I never seemed to be it the correct one. After a few searches and forum reads I found these articles below: Ten reasons why “220 Minus Age” gets a failing grade: . Which stated that: "The equation was created in the early 1970’s by scientists Fox, Naughton, and Haskell who intended it to be a rough formulation and not meant to be representative of the entire population. All subject in the studies referenced were under 55 years of age and male. Although the equation has become accepted and the standard in the literature and is used widely in clinical and fitness settings, its validity is uncertain." The Myth Of "Maximum Heart Rate = 220-Age , and h

Telkom is the most expensive way to communicate

We all think that a Telkom call is cheaper, but what is always left out of the calculation is the line rent. What is this line rent? Paying rent for a line that was laid years ago, to a place near your place of business or house. Okay so there is some maintenance. Do a little maths an you see why Telkom have been in the the top 5 highest dividend yield companies for the last few years. Next look at the number of calls you actually made, for this exercise add them all together including the cell calls as well. I run a small business and because I have to, I have a ISDN line, so we can have two lines. On average over the last 3 months I have made about 100 calls a month on this line (including redirect to some of my agents cell phones). We make more cell phone calls than telkom calls. I have taken the last three bills added them together and divided by the number of calls made (rounded up to the nearest 10. Guess what it is costing PER call R5.296. OMG as any good American would

SMTP servers of South Africa

SMTP Settings Below is a list of SMTP sites in South Africa, using this and the ISP Map you can try and find which one works best for you. Telkom smtp.saix.net (ADSL) smtp.telkomsa.co.za (56k dial up) smtp.telkomsa.net Internet Solutions smtp.isdsl.net (ADSL) smtp.dial-up.net (56k dial up on IS) smtp.layerone.net (3g backbone) Vodacom smtp.vodacom.co.za smtp.vodamail.co.za MTN smtp.mtn.co.za Cell C smtp.cellc.co.za (GPRS) mail.cmobile.co.za (also used by Virgin) ABSA mail.absa.co.za iBurst smtp.wbs.co.za smtp.iburst.co.za @lantic smtp.lantic.net (ADSL,Dialup, ISDN) Sentech smtp.sentech.co.za MWEB smtp.mweb.net (ADSL) - this is to be retired End June 2012, use below instead smtp.mweb.co.za (56k dial-up & ADSL & business) iAfrica smtp.uunet.co.za smtp.iafrica.com Neotel smtp.neotel.co.za Tiscali NOW MWeb smtp.tiscali.co.za Netactive NOW MWeb smtp.netactive.co.za Global smtp.global.co.za Hertzner Use y

How to get Win Word blog publisher to use Picasa web for images

I sometimes use word to publish to my blog, it allows me to do the writing offline and then publish it when I have grammar and spell checked the post. (Believe it or not I sometimes do this J ). So this is how I did it. Firstly I got the picasaweb link that I have my images (if you are logged in to your gmail account click settings, then go to Picasa web albums, click settings) Then find the image that you want to include in the blog. Right click on it and get the image URL. I my case I used a coffee cup Then in word go to insert -> Picture. And paste the URL in the file name box, then click the drop down arrow next to insert and select "Link to File" This does mean that you have to have the image on Picasa Web though. After posting you will probably have to go and re-format the image, in the case above I went to edit the post and then changed the width to 150px. If you publish a picture of the correct size that is a different story.

ASP.net sites to spend more time looking at

I found a few sites that look like they may need a little more investigation Open Source .Net ASP.Net examples (example source code) Organized by topic DotNet collective asp.net community projects And believe it or not there is a Microsoft sponsored community  Codeplex , which has sample applications, projects to get involved with and more. Looking for ASP.NET examples an samples.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 - review

Since the last movie, i have restarted reading the Harry Potter series, and can say it is still great. The difference is that now I am reading it to my six year old, we flew through the first book (half a chapter a night does that, and a few during the day since we were on holiday) and the seconds (never really my favourite) is going well too. So after missing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince  on the big screen, and having been away I was reduced to seeing the movie at the Nu-Metro on the V&A. Now I am trying not to post negative stuff, but really are the joking! The cinema was as long as a train couch, and in front there was a tiny screen, I felt I could have done better watching the pirated DVD at home (not that I have one, but I have heard you can get them). the sound was so not 5.1 never mind 7.1 so I will endeavour top never return to the NuMetro (I would email them my opinion, but they would ignore it anyway, like they did when I complained about the fiddling with s

Feeling a little depressed?

What makes you feel down, the scientist say it is a chemical that is released that makes us feel that there is little hope. Server depression is when you think there is no hope. Now this can be a debilitating disease for those misfiring chemicals, but the person in everyday life has times of depression too. What is that caused by. How have we evolved to have such a strange almost crippling emotion? Is depression there to make you want to better yourself, that sounds a bit strange since it can be so detrimental to believing that things can get better. I suppose we have evolved to feel depressed, but it is how we deal with it that is what makes us unique. When I am feeling a little down I start thinking about how I can improve my lot in life. I remind myself that I have felt better, and this may just be a passing mood. The problem is that sometimes you think at the same time “hell yes, we believe you”. Depending what the cause is I slowly work round to how to sort it out. There are

The future are we as South Africans doomed?

As a South African (and a proud one at that) my biggest bug bear with the country is its Internet bandwidth problem. In 1994 when I first started using internet, we were one of the early adopters and had the leg up to do our best in a new industry, and many companies took the opportunity to it provided. However since then the world caught up and over took, and left us so far behind we cannot even see their dust. And all because of our national communications company Telkom or Helkom, which has done nothing for the man in the street and recently nothing for their share holders either. The government of the day was new, so it cannot be blamed. There are now two new upstarts, both financed by the government namely Neotel, and the Nation service provider. The problem is they are just not getting going. the throttled by Telkom at every corner, and their silent partner ICASA. Recently I have been looking at what is coming in the future, and if South Africa cannot get access to proper bro