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  • Who is Wii in South Africa

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    The Wii has hit all time record sales in the US & UK, with retailers smiling from ear to ear, with queues and queues of people lining up outside stores, to get their hands on what has been the best selling console for the last 2 christmas’s running.


    (source: Techcrunch)

    The Wii is an awesome console, and anyone has given the tennis or golf a run, will know what I am talking about. I bought myself one last month, and literally can’t keep my hands off it. Except 1 small problem. The Core group. The same people who bring us Macs in South Africa, have been chosen as the official distributor for the Wii console in South Africa. Why the problem. The Wii was launched towards the end of September nationally, and launched with 3 games.

    • Wii Sports (included in every console pack)
    • Wii Play (A collection of 9 mini-games, and comes packaged with a second remote)
    • Legend of Zelda:Twilight Princess (GROSSLY overpriced at R599)

    Today, 1 week before Christmas, there are STILL only 3 Official games available. Yea, there are loads more on the shelves at the Toys-R-Us, but these have been imported by Ster Kinekor to try and stimulate interest in the console. The core group, have not marketed the console at all. They have put a few boxes in stores, and left it to the retailers to set up a few demo models for people to test. I went into a store this weekend, and one of the sales assistants told me that they weren’t allowed to set up one. How crazy is this ? The worlds best selling console and people are not allowed to try it out ?

    Recently a game called “Super Mario Galaxy” was launched in the US & UK. It was recorded as one of the fastest selling games of all times, and has achieved an average of 97% on gaming review sites. Yet, you won’t be able to find it on any South African store shelves.

    Have Nintendo & The Core group missed the boat in South Africa ?

  • Book Review: In Black and White – The Jake White Story

    After having placed my order through Kalahari.net for my Jake White book, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. And what a read it was. I honestly couldn’t put the book down for 2 weeks (ok, so I did to sleep).

    The book covers everything from Jake’s days at Jeppe right through to winning the world cup. It even goes on to include his reasons behind his recent resignation. What was interesting is the bonds he built with specific players in the team. What many of us don’t realise is that a large majority of the world cup squad was made up of Jake Whites 2002 U-21 World Cup winning squad. He built personal relationships with the players, which as we have seen, has benefited the team, and players.

    I got a pingback from Henre’s blog this morning, questioning the timing of the release of the book. Its perfect. Who wouldn’t want to read the stories from the inner sanctums of SA rugby, while finding out about a world cup winning squad. The story may have been a whole lot more different if we didn’t win the world cup, but the whole story before the World Cup win is just as intriguing. All just before Christmas. The publishers have already sold out of the first print of 60,000 160,000 (thanks Henre) copies, and more are being printed. If you would like a stocking filler, that will keep you occupied on the beach, get this book.

  • 27 Dinner Durbs – Round 3

     

    And yet again 2 months flies right past our eyes, and 27 Dinner is back in Durbs for round 3.

    The venue will be the usual Ciao Itallia, and we should be kicking off thing at about 7:30

    Eran Eyal from mobile-qanda.com will be chatting to us, about thier site, and some exciting developments coming up in the near future.

    Craig Adams will also be giving us a open source talk, on everything open source at the moment. Craig is South Africa & Africa’s representative for OpenOffice, so it should be a great talk.

    Don’t forget to sign up on the wiki if you would like to join us -> http://27dinner.pbwiki.com/Durban

  • In Black and White: The Jake White story

    The new Jake White Autobiography is being launched today, and I have just finished placing my order on Kalahari.net. The book covers all of Jake Whites rugby coaching career from the Days at Jeppe Boys right through to the win at the Rugby World Cup earlier this year.

    Synopsis:

    “In Black and White traces the life story of Springbok rugby coach Jake White, right up to and including the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The first man to coach the Springboks for four successive seasons, White’s rise to the top job in SA Rugby is a journey of intense determination to succeed against all odds: a troubled childhood, coming to terms with the fact that he would never wear a provincial or Springbok blazer, starting out as a school coach, to his eventual elevation to arguably the toughest job in world sport. White takes readers into rugby’s inner sanctum, where politicking and hidden agendas sometimes supersede the best interests of the sport, and relates the incredible highs and desperate lows of being part of the Springbok set-up. Riveting, controversial, sometimes amusing and often unbelievable, White’s story will both absorb and astound. “

    The book is priced at a reasonable R151, which seems to be cheaper than most book stores, and the great thing is they deliver within 24 Hours. I am sure that this book is going to be an awesome read, and check back next week for my review.

    Get it now from Kalahari here

  • Garmin Nuvi 200 Track Hack

    After having the Garmin Nuvi 200 for just over a week, I have come across a really handy feature. The feature allows you track your routes on your Garmin Nuvi 200. This is a hidden feature, so it is still relatively unknown.

    YOU NEED TO ENSURE YOU HAVE FIRMWARE VERSION 3.40 OTHERWISE THIS WON’T WORK

    UPDATE (20/11/07): Garmin have released a new firmware version which disables the hidden tracking feature. To check what version you have, go to: Menu->Settings->System->About. Here it will show you the version number. If the version number is not 3.40 it will not work. If you would like to roll back to version 3.40 to enable track logs, download the firmware HERE

    To get to the track feature on the Garmin Nuvi 200, do the following:

    1. Select a destination you want to drive to.
    2. On your view map screen, press the Arrival time button in the bottom left corner
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    3. This will bring you to the Speedometer Screen. Once in this scree, press and hold the screen for 8-10 seconds over the speedometer.
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    4. This will bring you into the Garmin Diagnostic Menu. DO NOT change anything here. Click the Next button at the bottom.
    5. At the next screen, you will see the “Logging Control” screen. Press “START RECORDING” to start recording your track
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    6. Once you have completed the trip, press the STOP button on the main map screen.
    7. Connect your Garmin Nuvi 200 up to your computer via a USB cable.
    8. Go to the Garmin Nuvi 200 drive, and browse to the X:\Garmin\Logs (Where X:\ is the disk drive of the Garmin)
    9. Go into the latest created folder, and download the gps.bin file.
    10. Download Nutrak from this site. Extract the contents of the zip file to a folder on your Computer
    11. Go to the command prompt (Start-> Run-> “cmd”) and go to the folder where you extraced Nutrak.
    12. In the command prompt type “nutrak.exe gps.bin”. This will create a .gpx file.
    13. Open Google Earth
    14. In Google Earth, click File, Open and browse to the .gpx file that was created.
    15. You will now be able to see where you have driven in the track you have created.
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      This is an example of a track I created.

    If you would like anymore info go to this GpsPasSionForums post, and there is some more info on this great feature

    If you enjoyed reading this post, and found the above info helpful, please consider helping me, by donating something towards server hosting and upkeep



    UPDATE: I have also posted about how to view location coordinates on your Garmin Nuvi GPS – https://www.marcforrest.com/2008/01/08/garmin-nuvi-200-view-favorite-location-coordinates/