With the launch of Amazon’s new 6″ Kindle reading device questions have once again been raised about whether or not the company ships to South Africa and where the best place is to buy a Kindle. The short answer is yes, Amazon does ship to South Africa and the new Kindle is officially supported. The only place you should buy it is directly from Amazon.

The misunderstanding surrounding Amazon’s shipping policies and availability of the Kindle are due to bad reporting in the media and grey importers who would prefer it if you bought the Kindle from them. (more…)

The problem: Your fancy new smartphone (likely an iPhone) doesn’t allow you to group callers so that you can escape unwanted phone-calls at certain times, while still allowing close friends and family to get hold of you. Nokia has offered this kind of functionality for years with the ability to customise  profiles on your phone, but apparently it’s beyond Apple. You can turn your iPhone onto silent, but then you miss out on all calls.

The solution: The SilentRingTone™ that I have created for you. Here’s the deal: download the The SilentRingTone™ (right-click to download), add it to iTunes and sync it to your iPhone. Then make sure that you set specific ringtones for each of the people who you want to always be able to reach you. Now, when you don’t want to be bothered, change your default ringtone to The SilentRingTone™ and everyone except contacts with specific ringtones will get pure, auditory silence from your phone.

I’ve made this ringtone for the iPhone, but if you want to make your own silent ringtone it’s simple – create an audio file with a few seconds of… well… nothing in it. And if there are better ways to achieve this sort of functionality then let me know – this was all I could think of =)

Twitter has become an integral part of both work and play for millions of its users. It’s insanely useful and highly addictive. So addictive, in fact, that psychologists are starting to talk about it as a legitimate problem for some, in the same way they do  World of Warcraft and other online addictions. For smart, rational people like you the chances of becoming obsessed with Twitter (or anything else) are low – but it can be a distraction and hinder productivity. Attention deficit disorder has become epidemic in the 21st century, and Twitter is yet another diversion that feeds the plague.

A colleague recently asked me how to manage Twitter so that it remained useful, but was less of a distraction. “How do I use Twitter productively” is also one of the top questions I am asked when speaking about social networking. I’ll give you the list of recommendations I usually respond with – but note that these are more aimed at personal Twitter users and do not necessarily apply to using Twitter as a business, for example; (more…)

Just when you thought Windows 7 couldn’t get any better, this week geeks unlocked a hidden feature in the operating system called ‘GodMode’. The tweak lets you configure a number of settings and access system tools in Windows 7 from one, central place. Think of it as the Control Panel on steroids.

It’s also really easy to activate. All you have to do is:

1. Create a new folder somewhere (right-click -> ‘Create folder’).
2. Name the folder “GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}” and hit enter.
3. You’re done. The folder icon will change to look like the picture in this post. Click it to open up your new, super Control Panel.

GodMode is awesome. I find the standard Control Panel somewhat counter-intuitive. Fortunately Microsoft really did think of everything with Windows 7. And thanks to my cousin Alessio Camera who gave me the heads-up =)

Oh, and apparently this will work with up to date versions of Windows Vista too…