Monthly Tourism review - Plettenberg Bay

Known as “the Jewel of the Garden Route”, The Western Cape town of Plettenberg Bay is a rapidly growing premium rated holiday destination for thousands of local and international visitors.

Apart from the most beautiful mountain range as a back drop. Plettenberg Bay is also well known for it’s excluded beaches, whale watching, the worlds first multi species free roaming monkey sanctuary, the largest “free flight” bird sanctuary on earth, and a multitude of other great attractions. This town has also got some of the friendliest town’s folk in South Africa.

When planning a holiday this year why not give Plettenberg Bay a shot. You will not be disappointed.

A few tips to remember when visiting:

1. Plett has a very good traffic department so watch your speed.
2. Although the beaches are secluded and tranquil, sunbathing alone can be dangerous.
3. Although Plett has very little crime, it does happen and don’t be caught unawares. (Like leaving your car or house unlocked while you are away.)
4. Always bring warm clothing, some days we have all four seasons in one day.
5. Early booking on accommodation is essential.
6. The most important thing to remember: Plett has good 3G coverage

Btw Hidden in and around Plett are a few great Wi-Fi Hots spots, so be sure to bring along your Wi-Fi sniffer to locate the best spot.

Stay tuned for the next review.

Goodnews! South African Fibre wars start

With the extreme mobile use in South Africa, networks are struggling to keep up. This leaves everyone fighting hard to be the best. Both MTN and Vodacom are under huge pressure to keep up, however Telkom their main supplier is struggling to meet their increasing needs. So now they are looking elsewhere. The 2nd national fixed line operator Neotel could be a good partner, however both MTN and Vodacom have opted to install their own fibre lines.

How to increase your security on the computer

With the rate of Identity theft in South Africa increasing daily, I thought it would be good to do some research into identity theft and warn fellow fringsters of some of the techniques used and what can be done to avoid identity theft.

What is Identity theft?

Criminals obtains valuable information about your personal life, key pieces of identification such as identity numbers and driver’s license numbers are usually the first followed by info like credit card details and anything else they can get their sticky little hands on. They then use this information for their own personal gain.

My first real internet search took me to Wikipedia
Where i was made aware of the following Techniques:

• “dumpster diving” They go through your trash

• “shoulder surf” personal data is obtained by eavesdropping

• “Trojan horses” data is obtained by computer Trojan viruses

• “infiltration” data is stolen by employees of large firms

• “phishing” a trusted organization is impersonated via email

• “Spam” those emails that ask you to reply for some bogus prizes

What are they going to do with my information?

The list is endless, but includes
illegal immigration, terrorism, espionage, blackmail and of coarse milking your bank account.

What can I do to be prepared?

1. Never thrash documents containing personal info. (Burn it)
2. At the ATM make sure no one can see over your shoulder (and on the computer look who is behind your screen especially in coffee shops etc.)
3. Get anti virus software installed and make sure it is working and updated regularly.
4. Do not give your passwords to anyone.
5. Never reply to any spam!
6. Never leave your credit card, wallet or cellphone unattended.
7. Do not use non electronic credit card facilities.

Please share this info with non fringster friends and family as well.

Is there a VoIP Ban in South Africa?

Doing a quick Google search revealed the following:

“According to IT Web and other news sources, communications
minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced in Parliament” (in 2005
already) “that voice communication can be legally carried by
value added network operators using any protocol.”

However doing a quick mobile provider search revealed something different.

Quote:
“In terms of the current regulatory regime in South Africa,
please note that these tariffs and the MTN GPRS, GPRS+, EDGE or
3G technologies may not be used to transfer or generate Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) traffic. Should it be found that
VoIP traffic was carried over the MTN network using these
tariffs or technologies, MTN reserves the right to cancel the
agreement that you have with MTN, with immediate effect. You
will also be charged retrospectively at R21.93 per Megabyte (VAT
excluded) for any VoIP traffic transferred by such means.”
http://www.mtn.co.za/?pid=232081&mid=232093

so in a quest to investigate this “regulatory regime” further, I
popped over to other local mobile operators websites and to my
surprise i found the following. Quote: “Unrestricted VoIP”

What does this mean to fringsters? Just make sure that you are not caught unawares by your mobile operator. Double check your contracts and fring aling along to an operator that supports VoIP.

Some questions now remain. Are only some mobile networks regulated by this “regulatory regime”? Who is the “regulatory regime”? Why does it only seem to affect some?

It’s going to be interesting following future developments?

fring brings you mVoIP!

That means fring brings you closer to your loved ones, friends and buddies at the best rates, possibly FREE. So why not show your support for fring by passing it forward and making the network of fringsters in your area grow by spreading the word.

Linking to fring is also FREE so follow this link pick your favorite banner and start linking.

Don’t forget to send me the link so I know who our linking buddies are.

Social networks and prolonged life

Ever wonder if there are benefits to your ever growing social network?
Well the good news is out, according to the journal of epidemiology and
community health, having a good social network can lead to prolonged life.
The study conducted over more than 10 years went on to show that people
with a strong network of good friends had a 22 percent lower mortality
rate than people who had fewer friends.

What this means for the average man on the street is that the more good
friends you have the longer you will live.

Just one more reason to fring a friend today.

WI-Fi sniffing can become addictive

Ever wish you had Wi-Fi Sniffing as a sixth sense, yes this may be just a dream, but luckily there is now a nifty little gadget especially useful to fringsters that turns this dream into a reality. This little gadget will help you sniff out all those free hotspots wherever you are.

The Hotspotter provides four essential pieces of information about the
Wi-Fi networks it detects: SSID, signal strength, encryption status and channel, making it a must have for fringsters who have Wi-Fi enabled phones.

However be warned that sniffing Wi-Fi may become addictive! Some of the side affects of Wi-Fi sniffing documented are FREE fring calls, FREE fring text chat and a multitude of other mVoIP effects.

Ok so here’s the bad news, although Wi-Fi may be free, sniffing Wi-Fi doesn’t come cheap the average unit costs R500.00 locally. Still a way cool gadget to get your hands on though.

Well so what are you waiting for? Got any more gadgets to tell us about.. this is the place.

3G Coverage in South Africa

As most fringsters know, good 3G coverage = good fring voice quality. Good news is that the major cities in South Africa are covered, and the coverage is growing rapidly. Although the 3G coverage in South Africa is limited at the moment, with price and fibre wars in the air this may soon mean better 3G for all.

South Africa only has 2 Networks offering 3G at the moment.
See the coverage maps on their websites.

• VODACOM 3G MAP
• MTN 3G MAP

The other two operators in South Africa, Cellc and Virgin mobile who currently share towers do not as yet support 3G coverage, however competition in the mobile field will force growth in the not to distant future.

How to make a call without a simcard?

Welcome to the South African fring Blog!

fring fans will be happy to hear that fring now has a Blog that speaks our language “South A’fring’an”

This blog will not only feature all the latest and greatest from fring but also aims to keep you up to date with the latest gadget news, geek events and any other fun things we get our hands on. It is also a place where you can express your enthusiasm for this amazing product. We wanna know the cool ways you use fring, where you use fring, the weirdest places you have called using fring, any famous people you know who use fring or anything that you feel you wanna share.

Here at the South African fring Blog we don’t make contacts we make friends. So be sure to drop us a line and tell us what you think, what changes you would like to see and anything else on your heart. My name is Simon, I will manage the smooth running of this Blog.

For those of you who are already addicted to fring add the RSS reader and stay up to date easily.

For those of you who are thinking WHAT THE fring? Have no fear we are here for you, just keep reading.

fring is a free mVoIP (mobile Voice over Internet Protocol) service that allows users to make free calls over mobile & Wi-Fi networks. fring facilitates calls and “chat” to other contacts’ PC-based VoIP applications or directly to their landline or mobile phones using fring, Skype, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger (MSN) and hundreds of SIP applications.

fring works best over mobile phone networks using 3G but also works great with GPRS, EDGE & Wi-Fi.

Head over to http://www.fringcall.com/download/ install fring in less than 2 minutes, invite your friends in less than 5 minutes and start fringing each other at vastly reduced rates.

If you have any problems installing fring head over to the forum they have all the answers in there.

Posted by Simon.