Please pick-up a copy of the current issue of Drum magazine, 24 July 2008, and read the two pages 44 and 45 for the article “The Mobile Menace“, which has the following 7 tips I share with parents.

1. Don’t buy cellphones for your child below 13 years old. Electronic wireless devices like cellphones emit radiation that can impact badly on your child’s growing brain. Please read how cellphones develop impacts your child’s developing brain on International Parenting Association website.

2. Limit the amount of time your child spends talking or listening to music on their cellphone. The brain needs a rest and should not be constantly bombarded with stimuli. The same goes for TV as well. Switch them off when not in use, especially while sleeping or doing homework.

3. Lead by example. For instance, do not talk on the cellphone while driving or answer a call in the middle of conversations. You can read more cellphone etiquette tips from BulkSMS.

4. Teach your children phone manners from the moment they are given their first cellphones. Most children and adults have not been taught how to use their cellphones appropriately. Good manners include switching off your cellphone at events like church, family gatherings and if you must, excuse yourself and move into another room.

5. Use technology as a topic of conversation with your children and learn more about it. Ask your children to teach you about the hi-tech world they live in. You may be surprised at how articulate they can be about things they spend most of their time using, thinking about, dreaming about and talking about. Learn more about communicating in terms of other people’s values from Dr John Demartini.

6. Don’t let technology be a substitute for parenting or experience. Spend time with your children doing other activities so they can learn how to do them and in the process bond with you. Technology like television has been described as replacing experience i.e. you would rather watch the days of other people’s lives than live your own life.

7. Don’t be afraid that your children won’t know how to use technology if they are not exposed from the youngest age. If your child is self assured, has high self-esteem and confidence in their own abilities, they can learn anything they put their mind to.

Now if you are concerned as most parents or teachers are about the constant challenges for children in school, you may want to read the 6 Lesson Schoolteacher essay by John Taylor Gatto who will be visiting South Africa for the first time in 2009.

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I have been a user of Yahoo Groups since about 1998 when it was called eGroups. Somewhere during 1999 it was purchase by Yahoo and I have managed or moderated various groups since that time. Here’s some of the groups I have created and some stats:

• Credo Mutwa Discussion Group: 171 members since March 2002. This has been my most successful group to date because the topic is so esoteric and specialised. There are members from all over the world who have read the books of Credo Mutwa and actively discuss his philosophy.
• Suanne Braun Fan Club: 42 members since August 2000.  This is a group that lost a lot of steam because Suanne has stopped acting in tv shows that are widely available to South Africans. The one other member who used to post regular updates has either lost interest or moved on.
• Uitenhage High Alumni group: 39 members since November 2000. This is an alumni group for people from my old high school. However, the Facebook group already has 46 members. What’s wrong here? A clear purpose and also someone who can stimulate discussions not necessarily about the school but things that are important to the members post-high school. Many schools have a well organised old boys or old girls organisations that would allow such an online discussion group to florish.
• Viva Divas Music discussion group: 39 members since October 1998, started by a friend of mine who asked me to help moderate the group. The problem with this group is that there is no longer any active discussions. Most of the emails are news about new albums or singles. This group used to be much bigger a few years ago when the discussions were more stimulating.

Why should you consider Yahoo Groups?

• It has a track record of more than 10 years.
• Your email messages to the group is automatically archived
• You can assign moderators
• Your moderators can have different levels of access
• You can automatically moderate all or only new members
• The interface and the emails are highly customisable
• This is a great way to add interactivity to your website or interest group without spending a cent.

Anyway I was surprised to say the least by this email from Yahoo. Even through I am also running groups on Google Groups, which is very similar in functionality, I value the archived messages on Yahoo Groups.

Dear Yahoo! Groups owner/moderator,

You’ve been selected to be a part of the Yahoo! Groups Power User Program. This program rewards the owners and moderators of some of our top Groups. You have dedicated a lot of time to making your group great, and now we want to give you something in return.

As a first benefit, you now have free access to 24-hour online customer care chat support. To access this service, visit our Contact Us page and look for the Chat with us live now link.

If you’d like to be notified about future benefits as a Power User, please join the Yahoo! Power User Group. Click here to learn more.

Congratulations, and thanks for creating such an outstanding Group.

The Yahoo! Groups team

Popularity: 4% [?]

A reminder to the blogging community to upgrade to Wordpress 2.6, which was released 3 days ago. Today I upgraded 26 Wordpress based websites or rather blogs that I am hosting at Hostgator. It has been years since I bothered hosting websites inside South Africa. And the Fantastico script manager allows you to seamlessly install open source web-applications like Wordpress, Joomla or Moodle.

The biggest compliment I have for the Wordpress theme is how it continues to make it easier and easier for non-technical people to become masters of their own domains - no pun intended. You can read the official announcement on the Wordpress blog here or simply watch the video about the new features below:

Popularity: 4% [?]

Facebook is a social networking website dedicated to user-generated content and global connectivity. At its heart is the individual user, who creates a profile and then searches for friends already on the network. Complements to that initial concept include groups dedicated to a multitude of interests including religion, sport or even profession. Applications on Facebook created by users, and more and more by companies, allow users to add even more interactivity into their profiles. An entire software development industry has sprung up supporting these applications, which allow for greater participation and often as a ‘get to know you’ for strangers who meet on Facebook.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7% [?]

After almost 20 years of using computers I have come to appreciate the importance of computer security. That irritating obligation you may feel to run an anti virus check on your system once a day just to feel more secure. The wish to eliminate those nagging spam emails permanently from your Inbox. And more recently those unsolicited requests to update your online banking information also known as phishing.

If you are like most people and want to avoid the loss of important information on your computer or laptop, I suggest your implement the following suggestions asap:

1. Respect Your Personal Privacy: Most people register for websites left right and centre. This is encouraged by people who invite all their friends to join the latest social networking websites. And with the proliferation of niche social networking websites this trend is set to continue. However, personal privacy is being ruined by simple behaviour like forwarding jokes or chain letters. Start to protect your email address and other personal information. If you’re just exploring a new website, register a free email address, and use that one to avoid receiving spam at some later date. When you send out emails to more than one person consider using BCC.
2. Install a Personal Firewall - One of the things I did for the first 8 years of my professional career is to install and maintain network firewalls. Personal firewalls are smaller versions of this same concept that protect your persoal computer or laptop. The purpose of the firewall is to prevent unsolicited attempts to hack your information. Cellphones do not have such a facilite just yet but will require one in the near future, especially those smartphones. As broadband explodes in South Africa, more and more people simply leave their computers permantely connected to the Internet. The risk of an attact on your computer is compounded so remember to switch it off.  Even if you information is NOT valuable, your computer can potentially used as a gateway to cause problems for other people. And that will eventually come back to you causing more unecessary headaches. There are many pieces of remote scanning software and remote management software which allows you to take over a desktop seamlessly. I recommend ZoneAlarm or Sygate.
3. Anti-Virus: This is actually the most basic compontent of computer security because computer viruses have been around since the earliest days of the Internet. Once again Microsoft products are the main culprits period. So protect yourself using one of the following recommended free anti virus programs: PC Tools, ClamWin or AVG. It is important your anti-virus also checks your emails before sending and before receiving because today, this is the #1 method by which they spread.
4. Anti-Spyware: Spyware is similar to computer viruses but different. The prolifiration of spyware can directly be correlated to the rise of interactive websites, and to some extent ecommerce websites. These website primarly use files like cookies to track user behaviour across the Web. Besides being a invasion of personal privacy, sometimes small little applications are installed, with your permission, to give you certain functionality. I strongly advocate you turn your web browser settings to the highest privacy settings and it will go some way to reducing this problem. On the other hand you must run a weekly scan for spyware using one of the following software applications: Ad-Aware, Windows Defender,
5. Operating Systems updates: This is probably the most irritating part of maintaining good computer security. If you are running WindowsXP or Windows Vista you are downloading updates constantly. This not only uses bandwidth but over time adds so many layers on top of your existing installation that it reduces the time to boot your computer. Even if you are running Mac OS X or Ubuntu Linux, my favourite alternatives to Microsoft Windows, they both require weekly or at least monthly updates from the Internet. These updates fix security loopholes often discovered by white hat hackers or by ordinary users. Remember that software applications often update themselves on a regular basis as well and programs like Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Office can be your archihilles heel, so consider moving to Open Office.

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