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. So let’s start by dispelling the nonsense:

1. “Amazon does not ship to South Africa.” – This is simply not true. Amazon will ship to South Africa from both its USA and UK stores, but it is not allowed to ship all products because some have not been licensed for the region. Books and DVDs, for example, are published via specific channels. Amazon can not send products to South Africa if they are not licensed for the country by the publishers or manufacturers. Amazon will happily ship other products that are licensed for international shipping that includes South Africa – even by normal airmail unless the seller does not allow it. Remember that Amazon is not the seller for most products in its catalogue, but rather acts as a facilitator between stores and customers. In the case of the Kindle, which is an official Amazon product, it is shipped from the USA using courier services only.
2. “Kindle is not officially available in South Africa.” – Again, not true. The Kindle was officially launched in South Africa in 2009, along with over 100 other countries. I was at the launch and I have purchased two Kindles from Amazon since then, shipping both to my office in Johannesburg. The first one arrived in three days. The second arrived after two days but was held at customs. The courier company informed me of this and then delivered the package three days later, after customs released it without additional charges.

Some grey importers do supply the Kindle but are unable to beat Amazon’s price for the device since they need to buy it from Amazon themselves before selling it to you! There is no reason to buy the product from them and you shouldn’t even consider it. The only incentive would be if they could save you money on shipping costs and since they are marking up on retail prices I doubt this would ever be the case. The other possibility is that Amazon is out of stock, which is proving to regularly be the case given the popularity of the new 6″ model.

Stock shortages aside, the best place to buy a Kindle is directly from Amazon. It will be shipped to you almost anywhere in the world, including South Africa, and if anything goes wrong with the delivery Amazon will send you a replacement.

There are some things to bear in mind when shipping a Kindle to South Africa, however:

• Be sure to tell Amazon which country you are in before placing your order. Look for the box on the right hand side of the Kindle order screen that says, ‘Live outside the US?’. Click on it and follow the directions so that Amazon knows which country they are dealing with.
• Amazon does not deliver Kindle to PO Box addresses since it uses a courier service. You must therefore provide a home or business address that it can be hand-delivered to.
• Once shipping costs, sales tax and other fees have been added the full cost of the 6″ Kindle with 3G and WiFi is currently $239.09 (±R1790).
• Amazon has begun charging a small customs deposit so that it can expedite processing of Kindles arriving in South Africa. If no customs charges are levied, Amazon refunds this deposit. I am yet to here of anyone being charged by customs for their Kindle.
• Whispernet and Whispersync are free services, even when accessing them using the Kindle’s 3G connection. However, Amazon does charge for delivering books and other content to the device using the service as part of the price of purchasing a title.
• South African Kindle owners have limited access to the Kindle store with less books available due to territorial licensing. The way to get around this is to change your country setting to ‘USA’ once you have the Kindle. This is done on the ‘Manage your Kindle’ part of the Amazon website. Be warned, however, that Amazon will ask you to prove that you are American and doing so won’t be possible for everyone.

The Kindle is classed as ‘IT’ and exempt from ad valorem taxing by South Africa’s customs authorities. It also falls under the price threshold for imported goods.

If something goes wrong with your Kindle and you need to send it in for repairs or replacement, Amazon will facilitate courier services for the return of the device. I do not know of anyone who has had to do this but I have been told by representatives of Amazon that it is a straightforward and painless procedure.

Amazon’s Whispernet and Whispersync services also work in SA thanks to Amazon’s partnership with AT&T and its international roaming agreements. This is a great feature and I have often used it to buy books directly on the Kindle while on holiday – even in the bush. I also used the service while traveling in China.

Whispernet now also allows you to tweet from the Kindle while reading and supports other social networking functions.

At $139 for the WiFi-only Kindle and $189 for the 3G and WiFi version, this is the ultimate device for reading books as far as I’m concerned. I love my Kindle and also think it makes the perfect gift – delivered to whoever you’re buying it for directly from Amazon.

So ignore the bull being spouted by grey importers and misinformed individuals who think the South African Post Office has sabotaged our chances of shopping online forever. Go get yourself a Kindle. And no, I am in no way affiliated to the company – Amazon is just pure awesome and the Kindle is a great product.

The problem:

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 =)

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;

• Get real. You’re smart. And perfectly capable of coming up with the best ways of using Twitter so that it becomes your bitch instead of just another waste of time. Some of my suggestions will work for you and others won’t – but they’re all based on treating Twitter like a tool – not just for work, but socially too. Remember that you own the tool, not the other way around. Tool.
• Schedule and automate your tweets, but only when doing so will not be annoying to your followers. Hootsuite will allow you to schedule tweets to send at a later stage and the Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress can be used to automatically tweet when you update your blog. Scheduling is good; sending tons of tweets all at the same time will bug your followers. It makes more sense to spread them out. By batching your tweets at dedicated times you’ll also be less likely to drop by Twitter during the day. That said, don’t irritate your followers – DO NOT narcissistically send a tweet out with every mundane or arbitrary blog post you make and don’t schedule pointless minutiae. Some things will make sense to schedule and automate and others won’t.
• Integrate your Twitter and other social network accounts with a service like FriendFeed that allows you to monitor multiple social networks from the same place. Then instead of wasting time visiting Twitter, Facebook and other services via separate applications and websites you can track it all from one place and save time.
• Ignore. If you use a Twitter client that activates Growl or other notifications whenever there are new tweets in your feed, disable the pings and visual clutter, or set it to only notify you when someone mentions you or sends you a direct message. If you use a Twitter client on your phone only activate push and other notifications for direct messages. Get rid of the sounds and pop-ups so you can stay focused on what you’re doing. It’s probably just John saying “OMG LMFAO – @othermoron  ur 2 awesum. LOLZ” anyway. Of course, if your job is to run a Twitter feed then this doesn’t apply to you. Condolences.
• Weberise. Consider accessing Twitter via the Web, either by using the Twitter site directly, or via a web-based client like Hootsuite, instead of with a non-web application. And, more importantly, close the website down when you aren’t actively using it. When you don’t have a dedicated application running your attention will be directed to Twitter less often. Hootsuite is probably better than anything else you’re using anyway.
• Dedicate time in the day when you will check on Twitter. Set up a schedule, this could be once an hour or twice a day – whatever works best for you, and stick to it. I know this sounds lame. I hate timetables. But it works, if you’re disciplined. And, again, if your job is to watch a Twitter stream for your company then this obviously doesn’t apply to you.
• Mobilise. If you aren’t already using Twitter on your phone then you’re probably reading this as a printout – get with the times, grandpa. There are tons of great Twitter clients available for your phone. If you’re on the iPhone then check out Twitbird Pro, Tweetie or the Hootsuite app that integrates with the website. If you’re on a BlackBerry get OpenBeak (formerly Twitterberry) or ÜberTwitter. If you use a Symbian S60 device, like many Nokia models, then try Gravity. Some of these apps will cost you money, but it’s worth it. Alternatively use the Twitter mobile website .
• Don’t mobilise. It’s bad enough that you use Twitter all day on your computer – now you’re hauling it out while having supper with your family and watching Avatar? Put that thing back in your pocket, freak. And only use Twitter on your mobile when it makes sense and is socially acceptable to do so. If you and all your friends / family are geeks, then whip it out and go crazy. Whatever.
• Unfollow. Only morons follow all their followers. It’s the quickest way to build up follower numbers and also to make sure your feed is polluted with spam about Britney Spears getting naked. Who cares how many people follow you if 80% of them are spam-bots and douchebags? The less people you follow, the less of a distraction Twitter will be. If you must follow tons of people, and I can’t imagine why, then use a Twitter client like Tweetdeck that allows you to group people, and make a group of users whose tweets are actually worth reading. Then ignore the rest. Stop complaining about how people use Twitter and just unfollow them if you don’t like it.
• Variety is good. If you follow all of the above steps you will likely end up accessing and using Twitter from a bunch of different places. This can be irksome to minimalists like me – but get over it. It’s good to integrate Twitter into the rest of your life instead of the rest of your life into Twitter. However, if you want a single Twitter client that will enable most of what I’ve recommended, check out Hootsuite. It rocks. It also integrates with Facebook, allows for scheduling, is web-based, has an iPhone app and has other powerful features. Best of all, the web application is free. And no, I don’t get commission from them. Yet.

These are just some of the ideas I have for using Twitter productively, and will probably post more in the future. I’d love to hear your tips too, so comment away.

See you on Twitter, smarty pants…

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…

And it goes a little something like this:

1. The first thing to do is enable the ‘Advanced IMAP Controls’ plugin for Gmail in Google Labs. Log in to Gmail on the Web, click on ‘Settings’ and then on ‘Labs’. Scroll down to ‘Advanced IMAP Controls’ and check the radio button for ‘Enable’. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Save Changes’. While we’re at it, let’s acknowledge Jamie N who created this plugin. Respect.

2. Next we need to prepare Gmail for IMAP access. You’ve probably done this already, but activating Advanced IMAP Controls enables extra options. Click on ‘Settings’ in Gmail and then on ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’. Check ‘Enable IMAP’, ‘Immediately expunge messages when I mark them deleted in IMAP’ and then ‘Save Changes’.

3. Next click on ‘Labels’ where the Advanced IMAP Controls plugin has added the ability to select which labels, that are really just IMAP folders, are exposed to IMAP. Ensure that the ‘All Mail’ label is not set to show in IMAP, and that your Inbox, Sent Mail and Drafts folders are selected for ‘Show in IMAP’. You can also enable Starred Mail or other labels, including those you have created. For my setup I stick to just the three necessities for Mail.app integration.

Your Gmail is now configured for rock-solid Mail.app integration and you can go ahead and configure Mail.app using Google’s recommended settings, but with one exception: Google’s recommendations say you shouldn’t explicitly use Gmail’s sent mail folder, but I prefer to do so just to minimise folder-clutter in Mail.app.

With these optimisations in place Mail.app will no longer be a bandwidth hog and your Gmail access using the Apple client should be somewhat snappier and a whole lot cleaner.

Disabling the notifications isn’t obvious either. I expected the setting to be under the ‘Notifications’ area in the Skype options or preferences window – where it intuitively should be. But it isn’t.

To turn off these notifications on a Mac, double-click on the mood messages listing to open it up as a chat window. You can do this the next time it pops up as a notification, or find it in your chat history.

Make sure the drawer is open on the chat window (⌘T if it isn’t) and then right click on ‘Mood Messages’ in the drawer.

In the drop-down menu click on ‘Chat Notification Settings…’ and select the ‘Do not notify me’ radio button.

The rest should be self-explanatory. I’m not sure how this is done on a PC, but perhaps someone who does will add it to the comments…

The following is a guide for setting up a Huawei cellular USB modem on a Mac. It will work with any cellular network, any APN and does not require any third-party connection software. Just your Mac, OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard (10.5+ or 10.6+), and a Huawei modem with an active SIM card for the network you are connecting to.

Huawei provides a range of modems allowing users to connect to cellular networks and the Internet using GPRS, EDGE, 3G and HSPA technologies. I use the Huawei E220, but this setup should work with any Huawei USB modem.

The network I use most regularly is Vodacom in South Africa that provides special software, provided by parent company Vodafone, that facilitates connecting with the modem on a Mac.

However, being a tech journalist and someone who travels a lot, I have a container full of SIM cards for international networks and other service providers I am testing out including MTN, Internet Solutions and Wireless-G’s GConnect service.

The basic settings for all the networks I have tried are the same, but they often use different access point names (APNs) which require specific software for specification. Apple OS X Leopard has drivers and all the required settings built-in. They’re just buried.

The following are the steps I have used to set up the modem with my Mac. This will only work with OS X Leopard – earlier versions, such as Tiger, will not work.

1. Remove the SIM PIN. This requires putting your SIM card in a phone and finding the setting to remove the PIN. If you are using an iPhone this setting is under Phone -> SIM PIN. This step is required as there is no way for OS X to send a PIN to your modem. If you are worried about security and don’t want to remove the PIN then stop here. You’ll need special software for your modem and this guide is not for you. Once you have removed the PIN, put the SIM card back in your Huawei.
2. Uninstall third-party software. This may not be necessary, but some software will force settings for your modem and interfere with your setup. Uninstalling it makes sure your settings will stick.
3. Install drivers for Snow Leopard. This is only necessary if you use OS X 10.6 or later – Leopard (10.5) users should ignore this step. Download these drivers from Huawei and install them.
4. Plug in your Huawei modem. It goes in the USB port
5. Open System Preferences and go to ‘Network’.
6. Your Huawei modem should be listed in the pane on the left of the window. If it isn’t, click on the + and select your modem from the ‘Interface’ drop down menu. Then click on ‘Create’.
7. Highlight the Huawei modem in the pane on the left and select ‘Advanced’.
8. Change vendor to ‘Generic’. In the drop down menu, select ‘generic’ as the vendor and set ‘Model’ to ‘GPRS (GSM/3G)’. Now ‘APN’ will appear and you can specify whatever your network needs it to be. For most this will just be ‘Internet’ but it varies, especially with network partners like Wireless-G or Internet Solutions. After entering your APN (and other network settings should they be required) click on ‘OK’.
9. Set telephone number and credentials. This step might require some experimenting. Click on ‘Apply’ and then enter the Telephone Number. This will be *99# for most cellular networks, but could also be *99***1# depending on your location. For Vodacom I find that *99***1# works in most areas. But there are other numbers available, up to 4 (*99***4#) so try them all to find the one that works best for you. Usernames and passwords are not required on Vodacom or MTN, but are required for other networks, so make sure you have the right details.
10. Show modem in status bar. This is just a preference I have, so that I can easily connect without having to go into System Preferences.

And you’re done. If all went according to plan then you should now be able to just plug in your modem, wait for it to initiate and then connect without any extra software required.

You might also want to grab an awesome little app called CheetahWatch that shows signal strength, provides usage tracking and a bunch of other useful features for Huawei modems on Mac.