iBurst, South Africa’s favorite wireless broadband has slashed prices by up to 25%. The packages have also be refined to simplify their structure. All the info regarding the new iBurst packages is here. Call an RSAWEB consultant or complete an online application now, to get iBurst now!
RSAWEB is moving its Cape Town office today (Thursday 13 March) and Tomorrow (Friday 14 March). All office based staff and equipment will be moving to smart new offices in the Avalon Building in Hope Street, Cape Town. Our Datacenter will remain unaffected, so don’t worry no servers will be moved over this period. Unfortunately our Telkom lines will be moving tomorrow, so please bear with us as Telkom attend to this. For urgent support during this time, please continue to log support requests on MYRSAWEB, or email support at rsaweb.co.za.
Team RSAWEB has notched up another convincing win, this time in the action cricket arena.
Batting first, the challengers, Quirk eMarketing, posted 51 runs after suffering a major collapse in their middle oder. RSAWEB followed up with a clinical 119, and explosive batting performance by Russel Gordon, scoring 27 off just 11 balls.
Special thanks to Quirk for organizing the event.
Find out more about how Team RSAWEB sponsors the real heroes of sports: those who compete with the fervor of professional athletes, but still maintain a full time ‘day job’.
Google can be used for a lot more than just searching the web, and the average person only uses a fraction of its functionality. Did you know you can use Google as a currency converter too. Try type this into Google, 1 dollar in rand. Here is how it works:
You Can also get help while cooking, have you ever wondered how many teaspoons are in a half cup? type half a cup in teaspoons:
From the title of this post you were probably wondering how to use the standard calculator functionality, try typing 1*25/5+9 and you will get the answer= 14.
This week, out of the UK, Root and Master level Domain Name servers began returning address records that have the ability to map domain names to IPv6 addresses. This means that the foundation blocks are in place for all domain names to directly map to IPv6 addresses, enabling the controversial move to the new form of IP addressing .
This development means that Browsers and Email can now directly address domain names to an IPv6 IP address without the use of an intermediary device, essentially paving the way for the next form of the Internet. The shift to the longer IPv6 IP address scheme has been in the pipeline for more than 10 years, and it looks like the final piece of the puzzle is now in place.
I wonder if this will encourage the adoption of the new addresses, as IPV4 addresses become more difficult to obtain, and the internet reaches the end of its current “number of users”. ISP’s in South Africa will be watching these developments closely, although there are still a few technical challenges that need to be worked out, as well as a few South African addressing nuances.
ADSL in South Africa has been around since 2003 but uptake by consumers and business was really spurred when the download speed was increased to “up to 4Mbps”. This download speed represented a huge improvement on the 1Mbps product previously available. ADSL was more useful and more applications that required this type of bandwidth encouraged sales along with larger investment in infrastructure roll out by ISP’s and Telkom. Although the download speed was 4Mbps, the upload speed was limited to 384kbps. This is about to change with Telkom conducting trials in March were they have upgraded the upload speed of the 4Mbps product to 640Kbps.
This upload speed increase looks imminent and could be rolled out as soon as April, should the limited trial prove successful in March. This opens the door of opportunity for applications such as VOIP and VPN’s that require syncronised upload and download speeds, and effectively doubles the amount of bandwidth available for these types of services.
ADSL 1Mbps = 384Kbps upload. (Current)
to
ADSL 1Mbps = 640Kbps upload. (Future)
Recently we at RSAWEB HQ were on the receiving end of Eskom’s load shedding and noticed something interesting in the building we occupy. While we have a backup UPS and Generator, and were working happily, none of the other tenants in our Building could work! That means about 1000 people just in our immediate surroundings were twiddling their thumbs for 2 hours. This got me thinking, now that power cuts are part and parcel of doing business in South Africa, how many businesses are re-evaluating their server, data and employee power requirements?
We have been inundated with requests for customized backup solutions and power alternatives, so I thought I would share a business scenario that could help solve the problem and possibly reduce overheads and costs in the process. Lets take a small insurance company with 50 employees and 3 servers all located in one office. Traditionally they would have installed some form of connectivity to the office and built a small server room on site. Now faced with power cuts, how do they invest wisely in order to sustain their business and minimize downtime.
Firstly, they could outsourced their server hosting and management to RSAWEB. This would mean that their servers and data would always be accessible and they need not spend money on expensive generator and UPS solutions. They also now benefit from having their servers accessible at high speed from anywhere over a secure VPN. They no longer need the on site server room, and can now just focus on their employees at the office and their immediate needs. They then install good connectivity to our data center in order for people in the office to work normally, and will be able to accommodate more off site workers who could work with a laptop and a 3G card. Desktop PC’s however still are not safe from blackouts, and there is an increasing trend to systematically upgrade to laptops with longer battery life. The usefulness of a laptop in South Africa is strangely linked to its 3-5 hour battery life, whereas anywhere else in the world it is for mobility reasons that laptops are primarily used.
Increasingly the risk of on site equipment from a security and power perspective as well as the huge initial capital expenditure required needs to be evaluated, when compared to renting equipment and services from ISP’s, who have already invested in power and security infrastructure on a large scale.
Pic: Rory at back, Rich up front leading A Batch on day 2.
This past week, Team RSAWEB paddler Rory Van Zyl partnered with Rich McMartin and dominated the Hansa Powerade Dusi Canoe Marathon. 2008 was a K2 (double canoe) year and Rory set out with friend Rich to enjoy a weekend in KZN. Although Rich carried an ankle injury going into the race, they decided to do it anyway and dominated when on the water, Rory said: “We struggled on the first day with all the running, Rich could not run with his ankle so we walked all the uphills and I tried to run with the boat on the downhill myself, damn hard though with a K2. We ended up 116th after day1 and won our batch every day. We were strong on the water, and did not have one boat coming past us the whole race which was cool. We also only took one swim on day 2 at a section called Tombi, which was a bit of a beast and claimed most boats that went over including Martin Dreyer, the eventual winner.”
Day 3 was the their best day and they shot a rapid call top needle right from the top and made it. 95% of the field had to portage half way down then get in so this gave them the edge and gained a few places. Ending up 74th is a great achievement out of 933 starters and Rory felt the team could have got a top 50 if they had been more competitive in the running legs, of which the Dusi has a lot.
Well done Guys, and Look out for the team at the Argus Cycle tour in Cape Town on the 9th of March where more weekend warriors will be in action. RSAWEB will also have a supporters tent on Suikerbossie, so join us for a drink and enjoy the action with us.
Every now and then I am amazed at what people are able to market and sell. I suppose in todays internet driven society, the lines between business and pleasure are merged.
Take this Lapdome, its a tent for your laptop that alleviates glare and ensures you can see the screen while sunbathing. My first question is: Why on earth you would want to work on your laptop while sunbathing! Clearly some people do and there are enough of these people to make designing/producing/marketing this product feasible.
Almost unbelievably this product is available in four different versions, the “Planet Rambler” and “Business”, the “Collapsible” and the “Junior”. The cell pocket on the side is a deal clincher for me, I’m off to buy mine now……
For more classic images check out the product website
Its Alive! We are extremely proud to unveil our new branding and corporate image. The new RSAWEB logo and slogan “Technology meets Life” was unveiled along with the new website at our glittering end of year function, held at the BMW Pavilion in the V & A Waterfront on Friday night. The new website that we feel better promotes our hosting and broadband products includes online ordering for all products, and is far more informative than the old website. The old website that has served us well for the past 3 years has been completely replaced with a dynamic website that stays true to one of our brand values, that is “Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication”. Let us know what you think, we look forward to hearing from you, and don’t forget to enter our iPod Touch giveaway competition.
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