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 =)

I just received the following release from Vodacom. I’m in a flat spin at work today, so I’m giving it to you as is – please excuse the PR guff:

From 1 April, Vodacom’s iPhone customers no longer have to wade through a long list of voicemails messages by calling 121 to get to the really important one that confirms that new job appointment or bond approval or marriage proposal…

Vodacom’s Visual Voicemail is a South African first voicemail management service for iPhone users, which enables customers to view their voicemail messages in a list format, including the number and time a voicemail came through, the same as with SMS or email messages. (more…)

The world’s largest PC manufacturer, HP has released more information about the Slate – its answer to Apple’s iPad. The latest information confirms some of the hardware specifications of the Slate, along with some of the peripherals that will be available for it. (more…)

The competition is closed and we have a winner. Thanks to everyone who followed the competition!

If you don’t want to read this whole post I’ll make it simple: follow me on Twitter and you could win one of the first iPads to land in SA. For more info:

The Apple iPad is now officially available in the USA and I plan to pick up two when I travel to Florida at the end of April – one for me, and one for you.

So here’s the deal: follow me on Twitter, and at the end of April (irrespective of how many followers I have), I will choose one of my followers (at random) who will get an Apple iPad. This will either be a device I bring back with me from the USA or, failing that, one of the first to be made available in South Africa – whatever. The point is that the winner will get one as soon as I can get my hands on it and I’ll take them out to lunch for the hand-over. At the Wimpy.

And I guess we need some rules here:

1. My family and close friends are excluded from this compo. Sorry peeps. If you aren’t sure whether or not you qualify, send me a DM.
2. The judge’s (my) decision remains final on who gets the iPad.
3. The competition closes on April 30th and the winner will be announced on 1 May. You have to be following me by 12:00 on the 30th.
4. When the winner actually receives their iPad will depend on when I can get hold of one. I’m expecting to be able to hand it over immediately, but if I can’t do that then patience will be required.
5. If anyone asks you – yes, this is me shamelessly trying to get more followers, and I don’t rightfully give a **** what they think about that.
6. If you want the cash instead of the prize… well, then we can talk. But I’ll think less of you.
7. If the winner lives outside of South Africa I will get an iPad to them as soon as is reasonably possible – but we’ll have to skip lunch. I know, it’s unacceptable… but you don’t have Wimpy there.