Idiot of the Week

I started doing a regular post called 'Mate of the Week' a while back. I never thought I'd spend (waste) time doing an 'Idiot of the Week' column, and hopefully this won't become a regular feature.

But sometimes people are so moronic you've got to give them credit. This week's Darwin Award winning idea comes from a bunch calling themselves the 'Free Bandwidth Campaign'.

Being unhappy with South Africans being charged for local bandwidth, they decided to do something about it: USE MORE BANDWIDTH!

Sheesh, I wish SA schools and universities would spend a little bit more time on teaching the principles of logic.

Anyways, they propose to do this by getting people from around the world to install a little virus that will download random content at a steady rate from South African hosted websites, so as to put an immense amount of strain on Telkom's network.

I suppose this idea for slowing down the South African internet to a crawl wouldn't be as bad if it weren't for the fact that the people footing the bill won't be Telkom, but rather any South African who hosts a website locally, and is already paying exorbitant fees for every megabyte uploaded. (typically 10c a MB)

To the kids behind this: Wake up, smell the roses, and start using your programming skills to do something good. This is the worst idea the three of you have ever had and is hopefully the worst idea you will ever have. Congratulations on receiving the inaugural Yeah!Fi "Idiot of the Week" award.

Read/Write Culture

We auctioned off a few more routers at the 27 Dinner last night. All proceeds are going to iCommons, a non-profit that promotes free culture, free speech, free software and do cool things like bringing Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and the 'out of control innovator' Larry Lessig to South Africa.

The lucky new owners of Skyrove Hotspots-to-Go are:

Angus Robinson (R800)
Derek Abdinor (R1000)
Thea Burger (R900, which she actually offered after the auction was finished!)

I love what iCommons is doing to promote 'out of control' innovation through their clear understanding of how social networks affect Read/Write culture.

Lingham Capital Invests in Skyrove

This post has been moved to GeekRebel.com

I'm delighted to announce that Skyrove has acquired its first round of Venture Capital from 'VC 2.0' firm, Lingham Capital.

Vinny Lingham has the magic ingredients to become a successful Venture Capitalist. He's an entrepreneur who's been there, done that. He's investing his own money and, more importatly, his own time/bandwidth into the handful of startups he's funding! (For now Skyrove and Synthasite) He's not managing other people's money nor is he having someone else manage his. He's made a commitment not to invest in more companies than in which he could play an active role.

I asked Vinny to do Guy Kawasaki's VCAT (Venture Capital Aptitude Test), and he scored more than 40 points.

If Vinny keeps following the no bullshiitake approach to investing in other startups that he did in dealing with Skyrove, I foresee Lingham Capital as the first VC fund in South Africa to even come close to their Silicon Valley counterparts.

Yeah!Fi Mate of the Week - Mobile Tracking

This week I had iTrackLive installed in my new motorbike. (My last bike was stolen 6 weeks ago).

Cape Town based iTrackLive provides a small portable, rechargeable, GPS tracking device that you can install in your car or simply drop in your child's backpack and then track using your cellphone or iTrackLive's brilliant web interface.


iTrackLive being installed. This is still the 'large' prototype version.


iTrackLive founders Tristan Phillips, Jean-Claude Malengret and Richard Parry


This is my trip back from the video store. (Click to enlarge) If I mouse-over any one of the arrows, it shows me the speed I was going. The maps are useful for visualizing the info, but iTrackLive also has a very decent reporting tool for fleet management and asset tracking.

iTrackLive is only just starting to provide their service publicly. What's unique about iTrackLive is that it's not yet another satellite tracking & recovery service, but rather that you can track your assets yourself (and see how fast your 18-year old is going when your lend him your car).

Because they use GPS, they are also not limited to providing their service in South Africa, but anywhere where there are cellphone networks available.

At R2400, you'd struggle to find a cheaper solution for tracking your car or your kids!

Yeah!Fi Quote of the Week

Always do what you want, and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind - Dr Seuss

Dell Robbing Africa Blind

In the USA a Dell Inspiron 6400 notebook computer will set you back $699 (default features), while in South Africa the same model will cost $1380. That's almost twice as much! And even though we're looking at the same model, the South African version also uses a slower, older processor.

Similarly, an entry-level Apple Macbook costs more than $1500 in South Africa, and that's the OLD model with slower processor, smaller harddrive and no iSight camera. The latest model being sold overseas will only set you back $1099. That's a full 36% difference!

Misters Dell & Jobs, please realise that we are NOT wealthier in Africa than in the US. Please stop ripping us off! Instead of trying to do something phenomenal like a $100 laptop for Africa, how about just knocking off a few hundred, instead of a few features, so that at least we pay similar prices to the US & Europe?

Letter from iCommons

I got this fancy letterhead from Heather at iCommons today that says:

Many, many thanks for the generous donation from Skyrove and the 27 dinner supporters who raised money for iCommons.

It is much appreciated!

Best wishes,

Heather Ford
Executive Director, iCommons

Well done 27 dinner supporters!

Yeah!Fi Mate of the Week - Vo3G

Think Skype. Ever tried it on your mobile phone? Those of you who did probably know that it doesn't work too great. Skype was written in the Delphi programming language, for fast computers running Windows. I'm one of the first 100,000 or so people who started using Skype, so I'm huge fan, but today we need a VoIP service that actually works on our internet-enabled mobile phones.

Enter Yeigo. Yeigo was built from the ground by 3 UCT graduates to be run on internet-ready mobile phones, whether they use 3G or Wi-Fi. Yeigo to Yeigo calls are free. If you call a friend who doesn't have Yeigo, you'll save about 80% on your calls. Even SMSs cost a 10th of the usual price.

Normally, a 1-hour call to my wife would cost me R150. With Yeigo, it should cost about R10, according to their co-founder, the vivacious Rapelang Rabana!

This means that Yeigo uses about 5MB of bandwidth in an hour. Compare this with Skype's 30MB!

Rapelang and her team are onto something phenomenal with Yeigo. She did a live interview for SaFM on Friday and the phones were ringing off the hook.

For MASSIVELY bringing down the costs of mobile phone calls in SA, Yeigo definitely gets this week's 'Yeah!Fi Mate of the Week' award!

Yeah!Fi Quote of the Week

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels.
The troublemakers. The round
pegs in the square holes - the
ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules and
they have no respect for
the status quo. You can praise
them, disagree with them,
quote them, disbelieve them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you
can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

-Apple Computer Ad, 1997

Liar Liar

Today I test-drove a few motorcycles from different dealers. The last place I stopped at was Linex Yamaha in Cape Town. I asked the salesperson about the benefits of buying a Yamaha scooter, instead of a cheaper import such as Jonway. He started telling me how the Jonway scooter across the road has been standing in one spot because it uses a special sparkplug that can't be found anywhere (nonsense). I then asked him how the Yamaha XT660 compares to a BMW 650GS. He told me that it wildly outperforms the BMW 650GS and that the BMW will only go 140 km/h "flat-out". I don't know if it really does go as fast as the listed 176 km/h, but I did drive one last year and got it to 140 with plenty of revs to spare...

Now, I've met a few liars in my life. One of the things about compulsive liars is that they'll happily lie in front of you, to other people, gladly exposing their fickle art. What's even more bizarre is that the lies they tell are often insignificant and simply telling the truth would have had no bad consequences for them.

I think the reason why liars continue lying is that they're seldom confronted with it. I mean, I know when I'm being lied to, but often feel that I'd rather 'move forward' than accuse a liar of lying. Who wants to hear "You calling me a LIAR!?!?!?" being shouted at them? Or the less aggressive version: "I thought you trusted me?". No-one starts throwing their toys out the cot quicker than a liar being called a liar.

I think my message to compulsive liars here is this: We know you are lying. We might not say anything now, but we ain't gonna trust you much in the future.

Trust is probably the most important aspect of a successful business. Tell a few small lies to a handful of clients and you and your company will very quickly see your profits dwindling.

The Sky's the Limit

Check out this article on Skyrove in last week's Financial Mail Campus.

I had a great interview with Alita Byrd, FM Campus' editor, and I think she did a great job of explaining the Skyrove concept. (Maybe my dad will finally understand what we do)

Alita sent me the article before it was published to double-check all the facts. We normally call our end-users 'Skyrovers' and we don't have a specific name for our 'Hotspot Providers'. Alita actually called our Hotspot Providers 'Skyrovers' in the article, and it sounded so darn good that we decided to start doing it too, instead of correcting the mistake!

Henceforth, anyone who starts a Skyrove hotspot will be called a 'Skyrover'!

I hope to get some 'I'm a Skyrover!' bumper stickers out soon! Cut of the last part if you drive a Rover, Range Rover or Land Rover...

Everyday Greatness

My friend Shana gave me Steven Covey's 'Everyday Greatness' for my birthday yesterday.

Covey relates the old story of the ship captain who asked another vessel to divert course. (See the modern day video remake below)



The lighthouse is permanent, fixed. The size of the vessel nor the rank of the helmsman mattered. In this way the lighthouse is like a principle. "Principles are immovable; they are timeless and universal. They do not change".

He mentions principles such as vision, innovation, humility, quality, empathy, magnanimity, perseverance and balance. Principle that will make us more effective and more satisfied with life.

"If you doubt this, consider living life based on their opposites, such as lack of vision, laziness, vanity, sloppiness, closed mindedness, revenge, lack of determination or imbalance. Hardly the ingredients for success.

"Everyday Greatness is a way of living, not a one-time event. It says more about who a person is than what a person has. It speaks more about people's motives than about their talents."

Google Search Box Test

Did you know you could put a Google Search Box on your site and earn money when people use it? (I suspect you did)

Thanks to Vinny Lingham for providing me with a brilliant yet very simple idea related to this and Skyrove.

For now just testing it here on Yeah!Fi to see how it all works!