A consortium of Garden Route based companies is ready to launch an IT technology hub in George which will create jobs and train up new skills.

George’s IT company owner Imel Rautenbach is currently drumming up support for the initiative at provincial and national level.  The consortium aims to use the Western Cape Province’s business arm to market and develop in order to get launched nationally and internationally. IT technology and electronic centred businesses will be the engine that will drive this local initiative. “The idea behind pooling resources and skills is to keep all our software and hardware developmental work in the Garden Route. We already have around 30 businesses on our data base that have all the necessary skills and technology to form the nucleus. “

“We plan to link up our efforts with that of the Province. By collectively marketing and taking on projects jointly we can land contracts which may otherwise have been outsourced to companies outside the region. With the skills data base we now have we can take on big contracts, and the risk of one small company folding, is eliminated because collectively we can pool our skills to ensure continuity” says Rautenbach who was recently elected the Vice President of the George Chamber of Business.

On www.gardenrouteconsortium.co.za you can read more about their quest to “Provide project management and quality control services during the full lifecycle of large and complex projects. To define, enable, and manage key technology growth areas in the region.”

Provincial government support

Rautenbach has just returned from a very successful round of meetings with Western Cape Government on how the IT Consortium can link in to and benefit from the Western Cape’s own IT strategy and marketing initiatives. Alan Winde, MEC for Finance and Tourism is very excited about the potential the consortium holds for the Garden Route region. He has committed to bringing a high powered delegation of provincial officials to the region to further explore this potential.

”This initiative fits perfectly with our own plans for the growing of the Technology industry within province”, said Jo-Anne Johnston, Western Cape’s Chief Director of Trade and Industry Development.  She has committed her department’s full support for the initiative and is exploring ways of bringing other government departments onboard as well.

Jenny McKinnel, Executive Director of the Cape IT Initiative (CITI), is equally excited. Citi is a non-profit organisation established in 1998 to develop and support the information and communications technology (ICT) cluster in the Western Cape. “CITI is keen to support the Garden Route IT Consortium as their goals are directly in line with our own”, said McKinnel.  CITI are going to be working together with the Garden Route IT Consortium to unlock government funding and help promote the region as an IT destination, especially focussing on the impressive line-up of currently supplied services and R&D projects the various consortium members are working on.

Research and Development

The Consortium also has a strong focus on Research and Development (R&D), with several innovations currently in the works. These includes projects like fridge magnets that will show the current water level in your rain tank, a stock theft project that tracks animal and vehicle movements on farms in real time and alerts the farmers the moment the animal’s movements indicates distress, as well as a project to track hikers in remote mountain hiking trails.

CITI’s McKinnel is putting her full support behind the formation of a new R&D Lab in the Garden Route, which will help accelerate these R&D ventures. The Western Cape Agriculture department has also been tasked to get involved in some of these projects. DTI and other government funding for R&D spending will be applied for to cover the lab setup and initial phases of some of these projects. Talks with the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) on how it can assist the consortium in its R&D and marketing initiatives is ongoing.

Wireless technology is ready to be unfolded

As part of the R&D venture a state of the art wireless network is being set up. This network will eventually cover the entire Garden Route but is currently being rolled out in the George area. The network uses the latest wireless technology which promises much faster speed than traditional networks.

The network will be non-commercial and completely free to join. The network will not supply internet access but rather will be a backbone for R&D projects and educational programs.  Through wireless technology business can monitor activities through CCTV camera link-ups and WEBCAMs. Regional weather and water consumption monitoring can be done for instance through wireless technology.  “The potential of the new network is limitless. With remote monitors farmers can even check-up on where their cattle is grazing, or see what vehicles are accessing their farms.” said an excited Rautenbach.

Western Province Government is busy drafting a policy on City based networks and will be liaising with the consortium to learn from the initiatives taken in the Garden Route.

Training
On of the consortium’s major aims is to boost education in the Southern Cape. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT University) in the USA, has made available to the consortium around 2000 online programs focussing on science and technology. These programs will be made available to local schools completely free of charge, once they have connected to the new network.  ”The beauty of this is that it is all so achievable. Video conferencing can be set up so that children in a small rural school can also listen to and view someone in the USA giving a lecture and so be brought into the world of science and technology.” Students can do courses as well through internet. Ms Johnston from Western Cape Government is currently exploring ways of unlocking government funding to get all the region’s schools connected to this initiative.

Virtual hub

“By creating a virtual hub, we want to create a momentum which will bring about enough technology based work here in George which will mean that those people who are currently commuting to bigger centres, and living in George, can in future work here as well.
“We are having a road show to launch the roll-out and we are pleased that Western Cape Finance and Tourism Minister Allan Winde’s revitalization programme happens to coincide and slot in with our initiatives, and we hope to tap into those being rolled out.”

For more info contact Imel Rautenbach on 044 802 0402 or visit the consortium website at www.gardenrouteconsortium.co.za or send an email to info@gardenrouteconsortium.co.za

During the last few months the average ADSL bandwidth usage has grown to over 50 GB per month.  As bandwidth is still relatively expensive in SA (I use Afrihost’s excellent value for money ADSL at R29/GB) I needed to see where this actually goes.

The solution is a ubuntu based linux server with a collection of different open source products installed, plugged into the network just before the traffic enters the internet.

The ideal place for this server is between the network switch and the default gateway.  All traffic from devices on the inside of the bridge will now have to pass through the bridge server before entering the internet.

The server contains two network interfaces and is configured in bridge mode, allowing network traffic to pass through the server transparently, without even being aware of being scanned.

The key to this working is by bridging both ethernet interfaces together, using the ubuntu bridge-utils package and brctl command. Also make sure that http traffic  destined for the web gets redirected to dansguardian for filtering before leaving the network.

Using bridge mode has the added advantagew that it is not only completely invisible, it also require no changes on the existing netork pc’s. As long as it is placed just before the external gateway / firewall then all traffic will pass through it, including hardware devices like wifi routers, etc.

Once the server is installed, configured and switched into bridge mode the necessary monitoring software is installed. I use squid as a proxy server, dansguardian for traffic filtering and ntop for bandwith monitoring.

Dansguardian is great for rule based filtering, but comes with a static set of rules. I expanded my configuration by adding blacklists from shalla. The shalla lists are broken down by category and contains over 1.3 million entries.  As the lists are updated frequently I configured a cron job to download the lists nightly and copy it to the appropriate folders.

In dansguardian I then enable the specific categories that needs to be blocked, like porn, gambling, etc. Dansguard also contains exception lists for blocking or unblocking specific sites, keywords or ip addresses.

Another handy feature of dansguardian is that is uses clamav to automatically scan all downloaded files for virusses before letting it through.

Squid is configured as a transparent proxy server, allowing traffic caching and reporting. Squid is a caching proxy for the Web supporting HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and more. It reduces bandwidth and improves response times by caching and reusing frequently-requested web pages.

Ntop is used to monitor and report on all network traffic passing through the server. When configuring ntop make sure to set it to watch the external interface only, so you do not pick up traffic not destined for the internet.

Iptables is used as a firewall for blocking specific protocols or destinations, and also for forwarding all HTTP traffic destined for the internet to dansguardian, which applies its rule based filters and then pass the traffic on to squid, which in turn passes it on to the internet if not served from the local cache.

Some outstanding issues is dealing effectively with bittorrent and peer to peer traffic, without having to create countless manual rules. For now the ntop reports give clear usage by source, target, protocol, etc. It is relatively easy to identify bandwith hogs and deal with them, but it takes time and is a re-active process rather than being pro-active.

Next step is to automate the creation of iptable firewall rules on the fly to filter traffic as it is identified as inappropriate. Another todo is to add is to scan mail for spam and virusses.

Thanks to the huge surge in online applications and cloud computing, combined with more affordable and faster  broadband connections it is now possible to make full use of online apps in South Africa.

These days I rotate between a office Laptop with a big screen, a desktop at home, an ultra portable netbook and an iphone. Each device has its time and place, but it has always been a nightmare keeping everything in sync, from contacts to emails to passwords to documents.  This was even more of a pain every time I had to re-install any of these devices.

Well, now it is a different story, and those about to re-install as part of their Windows 7 upgrade should take note.

I can have a newly installed PC ready with all my files, emails, bookmarks, passwords, etc in less than 15 minutes. All I do is install a set of apps that (securely) shares my digital life between dives. The list includes the following:

Application		Description	Windows	Linux	iPhone
	RoboForm	Syncs web links, passwords, identities and form data amongst PCs and the iphone
	GoodSync	Syncs folders and remote locations, ideal for backing up remote ftp sites, etc
	Google Bookmarks	Syncs bookmarks across multiple browsers and PCs. All you need to do is install the Google Toolbar, authenticate, and voila!, your bookmarks appear in your browser.
	DropBox	Syncs documents  across PCs and the iphone. I also use dropbox to sync settings for apps that do not natively allow this ,for example ftp clients, etc.
	Google Docs	Google Docs are ideal for viewing or editing MS office docs without having MS Office installed. It is also great for accessing your docs when on someone else’s PC.
	Gmail	I use Gmail as my main mail, calendar and contact store, accessing it online and via Thunderbird and the iphone.  Searching for emails in your desktop mail client can take forever, with gmail you find it virtually instantly.
	Thunderbird	Thunderbird does email, calendaring and contacts. I use IMAP to connect it to my gmail account and it does the rest. Email signatures are synced across PCs by storing it in a dropbox subfolder.
	eWallet	Store and synchronize passwords and sensitive information across PCs and the iphone. Good security and auto sync feature makes this a great tool for storing all sorts of information.
	Tweetdeck	Access Twitter from PCs and iphone. Tweetdeck also syncs your search and notification settings amongst all your devices.

Now obviously when storing your life online security is a major consideration. There are some things I will never store online, like pin numbers ,etc. As to the rest, I make sure I use strong passwords and never re-use the same password for different applications and sites. Both RoboForm and eWallet contain good password generators that can be used.

As I do use Linux (Ubuntu) on a regular basis I have indicated which of these apps have Linux versions available.

There are other apps I use frequently like MS Office, VirtualBox, Photoshop, Pastel, etc, but as these are not online or synchronize their data between PCs I do not include them in the list.

One important piece of the puzzle that is still missing is an online billing, time and attendance and project management app. Although there are many out there I am still to find one with the feature set and price that I am happy with.

I know that online or cloud apps are purely web based, but in this context I am including apps that share their data across the cloud, as for me the true definition of the cloud is being free from any single PC to perform one’s work.

Install of the unit was fairly straight forward, you configure the networking, set up the extensions, and you are done. Some additional time was spent on setting up the incoming routes, voice mail, etc.

The only tricky part was setting up the SIP extensions. I used a combination of SNOM, Budgetone and Planet handsets. The Planet VIP cordless phones appeared great on paper, but are rather disappointing in real life. They are tiny, the screens are hard to read and the background wallpapers cannot be switched off.

To make matters worse, the Planet cordless extensions appears rather sluggish, taking up to 5 seconds to initiate an inter extension call, and these handsets keeps ringing for at least 3 seconds once another extension in the ring group picks up the call. To add further insult to injury, they do not seem able to display the caller id.

Overall the MyPBX is a great PBX, packed with all the features a small business would need, including call logging, intelligent least cost routing, supports analogue and sip extensions, sip trunks, etc.  The web based admin interface is easy to use, and the interface is very similar to proper asterisk implementations like FreePBX.

From a infrastructure perspective the unit is compact, low power and has a low heat signature. It can easily be run of a small UPS and be locked away in a rack. Great advantage over larger PC based installations using asterisk on Linux.

Performance and general usability is great, with no loss in call quality. The MyPBX can be upgraded to 8 FXO and 8 FXS ports, and can support up to 50 SIP extensions. Out of the box it comes with 4 FXO ports, making it ideal for small businesses.  At only R 3,200 from Scoop it is also a bargain!

I will definitely be using this product again, but will make sure not to use the Planet VIP handsets next time.

Update: I have since the initial installation managed to configure a SIP trunk between the MyPBX unit and a remote Asterisk server, allowing for pure IP based inter-branch calls.  Again the setup was fairly painless, with the MyPBX unit allowing the incoming and outgoing routing via any of its trunks to be as flexible as you need it to be.

Initial indications are that it is remarkedly zippier than the dated Windows XP that was on their previously. Note that I am not going to comment on any new windows 7 features, as this post is about the netbook install itself.

The install was done using an external USB CDROM drive, from the official 2GB DVD image. The total install time was less than 30 minutes, taking far less time than expected.  The only issue encountered during the install was that I could not re-format the origina lWindows XP partition. This resulted in the final result containing some of the old non windows directories on the C: drive.

As far as drivers go, Windows 7 detected and installed all the drivers except for the built in 3g module. I found the link for the Option Globe Trotter HSxPA drivers and Acer 3G Connection Manager utility relatively easily on this link.

Boot time since running Windows 7 is now down to around 20 seconds, compared to around 1 minute on XP. Note however that is “clean” boot time without any additional programs installed that needs to start services on startup.

I intend to keep the netbook relatively clean form clutter, rather depending on web based applications like Gmail and Google Docs. I do however use Dropbox and Goodsync to syncronise passwords, files and other stuff between my multiple computers. On my laptops I use RoboForm and Google bookmarks to keep favourites and their associated login details at hand.

Next step is to do a dual boot install of Ubuntu 9.10. I originally had 9.04 on the netbook under a second partition, but will wait for the official 9.10 release later this month before reloading ubuntu.

Overall impression is that Windows 7 is fast and solid on the Aspire One, but only time will tell.  Once I have used it for a month or so I will post an update.

What follows is a simply breakdown of the many hats worn day to day:

The audience listens to the client, sometimes the message is clear, concise and to the point, other times it is passionate but vague, other times it is simply dreary. Everyone needs to have there say, as truly great clients can come out of small beginnings.

The assessor then needs to read the viability of the task at hand, and decide the way forward.  Knowing what it takes to please the customer is a skill the assessor cannot do without.  Sometimes it is better to walk away from a seemingly lucrative deal when the client needs are simply above what is practical or realistic. Trying to please everyone never works.

The negotiator cuts to the chase, turning a need into a price. These days costing web design is a black art, as the price seems to be more based around the desire than the effort.  For me at least it makes no sense trying ot compete on price, as webdesign should not be judged on cost but on result. Having said that, it would be stupid not be be price realistic.

The manager takes over, breaking the process into chunks and dishing out the work. This is not only a case of breaking the effort apart, there are the issues of timeline, complexity, etc. Knowing when to do it yourself and when to outsource is a critical component.

Then there is the heavy lifter, the person that makes the mechanics of the websites work. They put the framework together, install the CMS, set up the shopping cart, the payment gateway and the user registration system.

The designer steps into the ring, bringing light to a otherwise dreary looking result. Common sense needs to be kept in check though, as often budgets and time-lines can be blown by trying to constantly improve a design. Its a bit like gambling, nowing when to draw the line is key in walking away with the planned profit.

The showman has the job of selling the final result back to the client. The better the result math the expectation the smaller the costly tweaking will be, so getting it right in the delivery is as important as getting the execution spot on.

The tutor needs to be patient as the client is shown how to do what needs doing. Being prepared for the typical questions not only puts the client at ease, it results in real synergy.  I often find that it is the service that wins gold referrals, not the design.

When it comes to delivering truly solid work, thinking with different hats certainly helps put things in perspective. 

Being the best or the fastest or the cheapest does not work for me, and probably not for you either; rather, being consitent makes life a lot simpler, for me as well as my customers.

End user experience is a key decider when it comes to making a hosting or bandwith choice, but this is the most elusive measurable of all.

With the increased innovation taking place in the ISP hosting and ADSL offerings area it is becoming more difficult for users to make an informed choice.  It is often the extreme points of view, both good and bad, that surface on the web, distorting the real user experience.

I am proposing the creation of an impartial dashboard where everyone can view and compare the real life performance of the product offerings from the various ISPs.

What I propose is a dashboard that measures connectivity in a South African perspective, i.e. the typical experience a local user will have when using the adsl from a particular ISP. Various scenarious would be monitored, from various locations, incuding ping times, route analysis, etc.

Another key aspect when choosing an ISP is hosting performance.  Many local hosting providers offers very appealing packages, but how do a typical end user know which are worth the risk in migrating to a new offering. Things that would be measured and displayed in a visual dashboard would be hosting server performance (CPU, Load, memory, numer of sites hosted, etc).

For both adsl and hosting it is also key to measure availability as well as effective usability. From a technical perspective only opensource tools like Nagios, Smokeping, MRTG, RRD, SNMP, etc will be used to perform the monitoring and graphing.

For this to be a viable proposition I will need the co-operation of the local players, including Afrihost, Hetzner, IS, MWeb, Telkom, Web Africa, etc.  Let’s see if the new age ISPs will come to the party.

The site will not be a platform for those with a grunt to bear, but rather an informative portal where ISPs can be judged on what they deliver, not on what they promise, allowing the end user to make an informed choice.

As I use lots of bandwith every month (40 – 50 GB) I sat up and took notice when the offer surfaced. It would save a lot of money each month, but then performance is also an important factor. I use and supply lots of local services, so local bandwith performance is as important to me as international performance.

There is thus good news and bad news with the ADSL bandwith that comes from Afrihost (via the IS network). Local traffic is noticibly slower (Click the orange graph) whereas international traffic is noticibly faster (Click the green graph).

Tracerouting local sites hosted on Webafrica and Telkom ADSL show a significant increase in route hops, from typically 5 to over 10, and an increase of between 40ms to 70ms in ping times.  International ping times on the other hand is roughly 100ms quicker. This has been confirmed with multiple sites, using Nagios, Smokeping and PingPlotter.

For now I am willing to live with the slower local speeds, considering the cost saving, but will keep a WebAfrica account going for a dedicated VOIP link, as the performance of VOIP over Afrihost ADSL is simply not acceptable, due to the increased latency.

Some concerns remain, like the “there is nothing I can do about it” comment from the support guy when I asked him to amend my original order from 20GB/month to 50GB/month.  I guess I will really find out what their support is like when I get to need support.

Gian Visser, CEO of Afrihost has taken a bold step by introducing the below cost offer, and so far it seems to have paid off. Let’s hope it is sustainable without affecting the quality, else I suspect many new customers will reconsider the value for money attraction.

I also make extensive use of the template addons, like the lightbox effects, sliders, accordians and other tools that are available from these template masters.

My one frustration has always been the limited choice, as both only brings out one template a month, and editing these into unique variations does make life a bore.

It seems there is now a new and credible alternative, in the form of Morph, brought to us by prothemer. Morph is not a template, more a “template engine on steriods”.  When installed it replaces your current theme with a theme configurator, which allows you to refine virtually every element of your site design.  (Read their blog post here for the real explanation)

To make things a bit simpler they have created pre-defined style combinations called theme-lets.  Currently we have two choices but I am eagerly looking forward to seeing more from them in the coming weeks.

I have taken the plunge and have bought a subscription to morph, and will be using it in upcoming site designs.  My experience so far has been that though there is a steep learning curve,  the interface is intuitive and you can figure everything out yourself in almost no time at all.

There are lots I still need to learn, like how to use the ModuleFX and other cool customization tools, but that’s what documentation is there for.  The examples and tutorials available really gives you no excuse not to succeed.

The configurator even tells you when updates are available, which you can apply with relative ease.

Gone is the pain in manually coding sidebar and module overrides for individual pages or components. Gone is the pain in easy menu manipulations. Gone is the pain in having truly flexible page variations, and I have only been using it for one day!

As someone whom regularly runs Joomla training courses, I now have a new must-have item to add to my training content.

Here’s hoping the new flexibility will give me the creative freedom that the other template subscription services are lacking.

eBox Platform is a unified network server that offers easy and efficient computer network administration for SMBs. It can act as a Gateway, an Infrastructure Manager, a Unified Threat Manager, an Office Server, a Unified Communication Server or a combination of them. These functionalities are tightly integrated, automating most tasks, avoiding mistakes and saving time for system administrators.

I have a fairly complicated home network, which includes several desktops , a linux server, laptops, media centre, x-box, nintendo, wifi access point, wifi phones, etc. All of these gadgets connect to the internet for email and other connectivity based stuff.

To make matters worse, we also run a B&B on the same property, so have guest access into our home network via the Wifi access point (via WPA2 encryption).

Bandwith costs have been spiralling out of control, and it has become impossible to keep track of where it all goes. At the same time the growth in desktops / laptops meant that files and pictures were being duplicated all over the place, with no clear network sharing or backup structures. As we use a combination of windows, mac and linux it is real hard to share stuff reliably.

Then came eBox. I installed it from the ISO image onto a fairly old desktop pc with dual network cards. It essentially becomes the new gateway, sitting between the internal home network and the internet.  It comes with a transparent proxy so caches all thoses sites, images and files accessed from multiple computers.  It gives me clear reporting of what traffic is used where, and it keeps the Wifi users fro mthe B&B out of the private network.

I have now defined SMB based file shares for the various desktops to use, automated backups and print shares. Finally it is possible to print form the Mac to the printer on the windows.

Ebox comes with a easy to use GUI but I have dived into the linux side to set up some custom apps.  For one I have installed ntop for extra reporting. I have also added some custom rules to allow incoming traffic from outside into the network.

The next project is to connect the asterisk module in the ebox into my asterisk server in the office, allowing for integrated comms between the two.

Overall ebox is a great solution, coming with a comprehensive list of modules, and allows inexperienced admins to configure all these options. It also allows experts to log into the linux side and make manual configuration changes.