SA Rocks

This year saw the third annual Amazing Race in Joburg take place. More than 80 teams took part in the event in 2008.

The event is basically a clue hunt to raise money for charity. This year the event supported The Princess Alice adoption home and a Primary School called Paradise Bend in Lanseria.

I think this is a great initiative that was started by the same gentlemen who created the hugely successful Facebook group for the International Monopoly board voting for Cape Town.

The Times were there in full force and not only covered the event but participated in it too.

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Chris Cornell was one of the featured international bands at My Coke Fest 2008. The Cru master sent me an email directing me towards this:

Message From Chris

Hello everyone.

I am on a plane from Cape Town to Johannesburg, then back home to Paris. Just played South Africa for the first time ever and as I leave I again feel very lucky to be able to do what I do as my life’s work.

The country is beautiful. The weather, the water, the mountains, but as usual, for me what really matters is the people. The fans and the South Africans that we met have all been amazingly warm and friendly. Getting this kind of reception so far away from home always moves me. This has been another on a long list of firsts for me in the last year.

As a solo artist I can finally move unencumbered; making my world as big as possible and playing music for as many people around the world who will show up to listen.

I have been working on a lot of new stuff that I will tell you about later.

Peace. CC

To see the comments on the above post from Chris Cornell visit his site now!

Great words from a great artist.

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I’ve ranted before on this blog about community responsibility and people owning the problems of the country.

Along this train of thought I read a great post on the roadsafety blog that basically says, instead of moaning about potholes, report them. Call in and tell the proper authorities exactly where the potholes are. Great idea.

Now there are critics out there who will read this and immediately revert to: “But no one will follow up”. That’s absolute rubbish because I have always been extremely impressed with the time period between me running in to a pothole and it being repaired. Usually less than 4 or 5 days.

I believe that with the guiding hand that the roadsafety blog is providing and people starting to take some responsibility for their property (cars) and community (roads) that things can only get even better on our roads.

Here’s a little snippet, but I wont give too much away, go and read the post for yourself.

Should you come across potholes on the SANRAL managed sections of road (see the web site for details of road conditions – www.nra.co.za_ please report them to the appropriate authority whose details appear on large boards at the start of each section, together with the marker identification – the small blue boards at the side of the road, and they will be repaired within a short period, usually 24 hours.

Alternatively you can let me know about pot holes on this e-mail or info@nra.co.za and I will see that they get reported. Unfortunately many of the roads on which one travels fall outside the responsibility of SANRAL, and belong either to the provincial or to local authorities. [ The details of the appropriate authorities are available and can be provided to you.]

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UPDATE: A very kind reader guided me towards THIS WEBSITE. Million Man March is the official website for the march started by Desmond Dube.

The site says that apparently there isn’t any official date set yet so I’ll keep checking in there for more information as it appears. Also, visit the site to register and count as a number towards the million.

I am still not exactly sure where we are going to be walking from. But I know that we are walking to the Union Buildings in Pretoria and I am sure that the march is now on the 24th April.

The more people that attend the more affect the march will have. Media coverage has sort of died out which is dissapointing. Hopefully closer to the time things will hot up again and the coverage will become more expansive and in-depth.

For now you can do your part by joining the Facebook group that I set up and spreading the news about the march to as many people as you know!

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Natalie du Toit swam her way into the South African paralympic team tonight by breaking two world records and missing a third by three tenths of a second.

200m Freestyle – Natalie’s time was 2.08.15 against the old record of 2.11

50m Butterfly – she clocked 31.81 beating the old time of 33.16.

100m Freestyle – Natalie’s time 1.01.41 just missing the record of 1.01.08

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In-Cha is a young, talented South African. She is 11 years old. I kid you not. In-Cha (not sure about the origin or background of her name) is still a child and let me not forget, prodigy.

I imagine that you aren’t really sure what I am going on about, see for yourself:

From her website:

From the moment that she can remember “Art” has always played a role in shaping who little In-Cha is.But it is the art of music which has had the most impact on who she is and what she stands for.In-Cha started playing the piano at the age of 4, but fell in love with the violin after going to a concert with her mom at the age of 6.This resulted in her Mom securing private tuition lessons for her with the renowned Professor Vincenzo Lo Castro.

Not easy to impress he instantly recognised her talent and potential as a violin soloist and thus In-Cha’s career in music began in earnest.Committed and practising a minimum of three hours a day In-Cha’s career as a classical violin soloist boasts a number of achievements.

She is the songstress behind the violin in Danny K’s newest single playing on local radio stations right now. Do yourself a favour, visit In-Cha’s website and check out the videos in this post. There is also a MySpace page you can visit for more information and details about In-Cha. You can also hear her latest addition to the music world with Danny K and HHP.

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Amaradio is making waves, radio waves, apparently. I think the concept is fantastic and would love to know more about the legalities of sharing and recording radio stations on the Internet. I wonder.

Nevertheless the programme exists, it’s available for download and ready to link you up to every radio station imaginable. But not if you have a Mac. Hopefully this is something that will be worked on and according to Twitter discussions it seems so.

Hopefully SaulK isn’t going to listen to 5FM via Amaradio and he can maybe find something a bit more up his musical street.

This is what Gary James (the creator) had to say about his creation:

Twelve days ago I blogged about how I had built a little program to play a radio feed from Sydney.  I’m a software developer in Somerset West, and I built this tool one evening, mostly for the fun of it.

Within 48 hours of blogging, AmaRadio had been downloaded over 100 times!  I then realised how much potential it had, and spent a bit more time working on it.  I added the ability to record radio stations to MP3 files, and I increased the number of supported radio stations to 38.

AmaRadio was then mentioned on several popular websites, including Tectonic, Muti, SouthAfrica.info and MyBroadBand, as well as on several blogs including The Outlet and Eish.  Within 140 hours of releasing AmaRadio we had 500 users!  Today, 12 days after releasing AmaRadio, we have over 2,200!

Most of our users seem to be within South Africa, but we also have a significant number of users in Canada, Australia, and the UK.  These are mostly South Africans who are living abroad.  AmaRadio has even been downloaded by the owner of a South African pub in London, who is now using it in his pub!

AmaRadio is a free download (hence it’s rapid growth rate), and is only 4 MB in size!  So it’s less than 1/10th of the size of Windows Media Player or iTunes!  It can download future updates automatically, and it can record streaming radio to MP3.  I’m planning on adding the ability to schedule AmaRadio so that it records your favourite shows automatically, which you can then listen to on your iPod!

A large corporate is currently considering sponsoring the AmaRadio project.  This will cover my costs, and ensure that AmaRadio remains a free product.

You can download AmaRadio from www.amaradio.co.za, please try it out and tell your friends about it!

I’m loving it because now I can listen to Joburg stations even though I live in the Cape!  This makes for a nice change, and makes the world feel like a smaller place.

Gary James
Founder
AmaRadio.co.za

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I am hoping in the next week or two to dedicate my SA Rocks blogging efforts to funky, innovative, hip-happening, rocking, brilliant local endeavours.

Basically what I am looking for is a simple email from you telling me what the product is, where it’s available and why you think it’s rocking!

The products can literally be anything. As long as it’s local. A website, T-shirt, design company, invention, innovation, hybrid fruit (I’ve eaten a Grapple – Grape/Apple – before so don’t laugh) or anything else that you think deserves to be recognised and I will consider it as a potential post on SA Rocks Product Week.

I will wait till I have a variety of products before announcing when the actual product week will be but for now start emailing through products you want to promote!

So get cracking, get exposure and get local, ‘Cause it’s lekker – Bru!

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Single emergency number by 2009 – Plans to introduce a single emergency number which South Africans can use to call for help from anywhere in the country are at an advanced stage, the Department of Communications says.

SA translation project selected by Google – Translate.org.za has had two of its projects included in the Google Summer of Code.

South Africa-based Translate.org.za is a localisation organisation working to translate free software into all South African languages. As part of its work the organisation produces a range of tools to aid in language translation and it is two of these that have been selected as part of the Summer of Code.

1 Million South Africans marching against crime – show your support for the March taking place in Mid-April against crime in SA.

South Africa Middle Class Youth Views on Politics – The middle class youth of SA need a voice!

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Thanks must go out to Andy for this beaut!

Hope he doesn’t mind that I’ve taken some of his brilliant words;

Brilliant. Just noticed this while channel flipping. M-Net are going to start showing repeats of popular shows… based on load shedding schedules. So, Eskom takes you down – fear not, because the latest episode of the late 30s hormonal housewives or whiny promiscuous doctors is just a channel-click away.

I think this is a sterling idea if you are a TV loving obsessive surfing type of person. Mnet hasn’t really been at the forefront of pushing the envelope in technological developments and different sorts of viewing (in my opinion). But this is a refreshing move for them that I can recognise is necessary.

However you know its coming, I think that people seriously need to let the TV thing go. Maybe we should be using this load shedding to recover our innate need to communicate with people we don’t usually communicate with. So my thoughts? Get over it, have a cup of Rooibos tea, light up a candle and talk to your family.

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