I recently reviewed my favourite Twitter client on iOS for My Digital Life - Tweetbot. Last year when Twitter introduced a major web revamp, I didn’t expect them to carry it over to their apps across all platforms.

They did and it was awful, so much so, that I stopped using Twitter for iPhone and started looking for a new client. I wasn’t happy initially when Twitter acquired Tweetie, it was the best client and worked a lot better as a 3rd party client (like most apps; and no, I’m not a fan of Facebook buying Instagram, but I welcome the new Droidographers – more people to follow). Tweetie was then rebranded to Twitter for iPhone, and worked well until the major update last year.

After searching the app store and reading a fair amount of user reviews, I was happy for pay $2.99 for Tweetbot. In fact, so happy, that I purchased it for iPad too (it’s just a pity you have to pay for it twice). You can read my complete review of Tweetbot for iOS here to see why I love it.

All that’s left is for the developers to carry it over to Mac. 

The Samsung Africa Forum 2012, held in Cape Town this year, is an annual event where new products are announced and showcased for the year ahead. 

Samsung said it will be focusing on the African continent by building products for Africa, by Africa in Africa. An example of this is its SurgeSafe+ LED TVs and free satellite TV initially for 6 countries in Africa (South Africa isn’t one of them). 

Samsung also announced it will bringing three new concepts to its smart TVs: smart interaction, smart content and smart evolution. Smart interaction will let consumers interact with their TVs with gestures, voice and facial recognition commands – very much like Xbox’s Kinect. You can read more on this here.

Other interesting product announcements were the Galaxy Tab 2 (7-inch) – it’s the first Samsung tablet to run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and will be on our shores in the second quarter of this year (more on that here). The new range of smart cameras, all with WiFi capabilities, Beauty Shot, Dual View, and option to autopost to Facebook. One particular model caught my eye, the WB850F, with 21x optical zoom. A product I’d love to get my hands on is the second generation Samsung Series 9 laptop; it’s 13-inches, weighs 1.13kgs and 13mm thick AND boots up in 9.8 seconds! 

We also got to see and demo the Galaxy Beam, a smartphone with a built-in projector (you can read more about it here). ITWeb’s digital media editor and myself interviewed and shot video (respectively) with Samsung’s country manager, Deon Liebenberg (you can watch it here).

There were 2 artists at the exhibition who were sketching people on a Galaxy Note (above pic of me and Kath being sketched credit to Charlie Fripp).

That’s the round-up of the Samsung Africa Forum 2012. Products announced and not mentioned here were mostly home appliances or stuff that didn’t interest me.

FNB and Visa have teamed up to highlight the importance of card security though their annual Visa FNB Card Security Week running from 13-16 March 2012.

Check out some tips here:

Visa surveyed the South African public and results revealed that ATM fraud, identity theft and point of sale fraud are the most common types of fraud that consumers were aware of.

FNB’s credit card fraud specialist Henk Vermeulen says, “Following the promotion of Verified by Visa in late 2011 we have already seen a decrease in online card fraud and have over 100,000 active users.”

Personally, when I was prompted to sign up for Verified by Visa, I thought, what a schlep but in the bigger picture, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I’ve been using internet banking since FNB launched, been shopping online, paying at restaurants with my cards and luckily, have not been a victim of fraud. I usually am careful when withdrawing – and make sure that nobody is standing too close to me and if I’m paying for my meal, I ask for the machine to be brought to my table. I never let the waiters disappear in the back with my card if there’s a “problem” with the machine.

I also prefer paying for stuff with my cheque card and very rarely carry cash around. Both my credit and cheque cards are chip-based cards, which is reassuring.

Visa has issued more than 30 million chip-based cards across central and eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa and the company says that fraud rates within the Visa system are at the lowest they’ve ever been.

So if you want to take precautions, you can start by getting chip-based cards.

If you think you’re a victim of fraud, contact:
Online Fraud Team on 087 575 0011 / risk.online@fnb.co.za

Earlier today I was given a demonstration of Waze - a traffic app that crowd-sources information. Sort of like a social network for traffic, which works better if more people use it. And more people should, because it’s free.

It’s a GPS navigation app for smartphones available on the following platforms: iOS, Android, Symbian and BlackBerry and has been brought to South Africa by MiX Telematics.

I was chatting to Evangelos Gikas from MiX Telematics earlier as I was being driven from my offices to 24 Central for a cup of coffee and he said that there are already more than 30,000 users in South Africa, with majority based in Johannesburg.

If you experience a lot of traffic in your daily commute, Waze will help you by redirecting you to the fastest route. You can see where congestion is, highlighted on the map, with heavy congestion appearing darker.

The app gets its live traffic updates by the user actively or passively sending information. If for example I’m driving to work and I have the app fired up (sign-up required) and I’m doing 20km/h in a 60km/h zone, the app automatically uses this information to let others know that there’s traffic (passive). I could also actively send out an alert, and even upload a picture of an accident, letting others know they should avoid a certain road. By doing this, other Waze users can see it, and can ping me for more information if they want. (If you want to stalk people like this, you are a sorry excuse for a human being )

Another interesting feature is the gamification aspect of the app. Users gain points for reporting traffic information, validating roads and collecting drive-through “candies”. The point of all this? If a user wants to become “area manager”, points count in their favour, and their status is elevated, which also allows them to update requests, delete irrelevant information, etc.

Currently there are more than 12 million users worldwide, from 45 countries. So if you’re someone who sits in traffic everyday, you should try the app, and because it’s free, you have nothing to lose. Win win. Right?

Waze is available for download on the Apple AppStore, the Android Market Place, the Nokia Ovi Store and BlackBerry’s App World.

On Monday, 27th February, I appeared for the second time on the ZA Tech Show (episode 200). The other two guests were Arthur Goldstuck (Gadget.co.za) and Ben Kelly (Mail & Guardian), hosted by Simon Dingle. Topics discussed: Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia’s 41-megapixel camera phone and its significance, BlackBerry’s PlayBook 2.0, the launch and our initial impressions of the Sony PS Vita, the Standard Bank versus FNB Twitter spat, Arthur’s 7″ tablet roundup, and more. So if you have an hour and ten minutes to spare, you can catch it here:

On Thursday (23rd Feb) TomTom South Africa launched its newest personal navigation device (PND), the Go Live 1005 World edition. 

It features a 5-inch screen, maps from 66 of its most popular destinations worldwide (North America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia, Southern Africa and Europe) and live traffic from select countries. It costs R3799 and comes with a 1 year subscription to live traffic information, updated every 2 minutes (a standard feature found on all PNDs in the ‘live’ range).  

As part of the launch, we were taken to locations “around the world”, in Johannesburg, using the 1005 World to navigate from one location to the next. Our stops included France (Vovo Telo bakery, where we learnt how to make croissants), Thailand (Puri Thai Massage) and America (Gourmet Garage at Montecasino).

At each of these destinations, we learnt more about what TomTom is doing within these regions. One of which you might have already read about is TomTom’s partnership with Samsung to offer maps on the Wave III.

More information about the TomTom Go Live 1005 World here.

If you’re using OS X Lion, you can now download Messages Beta, which was made available yesterday afternoon. You have to have the latest version of Lion – 10.7.3 and yes, it includes the last massive 1.34GB update. So if you haven’t done that, or if you’re on Snow Leopard, you won’t be able to try it.

Messages will replace iChat, and have full support for iMessage (so you will be able to send messages between iPhone, iPad and iPod touch running iOS 5). I used to use iChat as my IM client, and it takes some time adjusting to the new look. I prefer the list of contacts on the left hand pane to be a bit narrow in height. Your contacts will appear in reverse chronological order, unlike in iChat were you could choose the order.

All chats from your Mac and iDevice are synced, unless you don’t have an email address attached to iMessage. I didn’t, and then last night added it, but felt it was too much to have chats from my Mac syncing immediately on my phone. And ultimately, waste of battery on my phone. So I removed it. I also don’t use iMessage on my iPad.

You can download it here.

The Nokia Lumia 800, which has been dubbed the ‘first real Windows Phone’, is finally available in South Africa. The handset comes with two exclusive Nokia applications: Nokia Drive and Nokia Music.

Design

The Lumia 800 is similar in design to the Meego-based N9. It contains the same polycarbonate unibody dyed all the way through, with the addition of a camera button. It boasts a curved 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen with rounded edges which fit comfortably in the hand. To the right, four buttons provide access to volume up & down, power, and camera. On the top, next to the 3.5mm audio jack, is the charging port and micro SIM slot; and at the bottom, the speaker and microphone. The camera is cleverly placed at the centre of the back, so your fingers are less likely to sneak into your shot. The touchscreen itself has three buttons: back; home and search.

Contacts

Inserting the micro SIM is easy, thanks to the instructions ‘push’ and ‘slide’ appearing on the top cover. The power button, however, is not marked, so I had to push a few random buttons before finding it. (It’s the individual button in the centre.)

The start-up process was simple. You have the option to login with your Windows Live account. I recommended doing this if you want to start downloading apps immediately.

While transferring contacts to a new device can be a pain, but with the Lumia 800′s preloaded Contacts Transfer app via Bluetooth, my contacts had been copied over within minutes. When I set up my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail accounts on the Lumia, all my contacts from those accounts were also added it to the address book. Naturally, I ended up with duplications, but that can be fixed easily by merging duplicates. Also, you need to decide if you want every single person you’re connected to online to appear in your address book. (I recommend giving LinkedIn a skip.)

Windows Phone

What makes a Windows Phone unique is its live tiles on the homescreen. It displays dynamic content and you can also customise your layout to include third party apps, or add multiple tiles from the same app, such as Facebook and Facebook Places. Scrolling through tiles was smooth. I actually expected some lag, but there was none. The interface looks pretty, is slick and I found it impressive.

Once you’ve linked up all your favourite social networks, you will notice a “Me” tile, displaying your profile picture from Facebook. This tile allows you to post status updates across all or select social networks, pulls your notifications, and displays all activity posted by you. Oddly, you cannot use this feed to access your Facebook or Twitter profile. For that, you will need to download each individual app. I still found it handy for checking my mentions and replies on Twitter and Facebook.

Notifications

If you are used to the dedicated notifications screen of Android and iOS, you will be slightly disappointed with how notifications work on Windows Phone. It varies per app, and while the Twitter app doesn’t display any notifications, the “Me” tile does. When you receive a text message, you will get notified at the top of the screen, but tapping the notification does not give you access to the message, like I assumed it would.

Messaging

Typing messages can be tricky at first, especially if you have large fingers, because the keyboard in portrait mode is very narrow. I never switch to landscape mode when messaging, so I ended up hitting the wrong keys for quite some time. The first time I sent out text messages, I didn’t receive any replies. It was only after I put my SIM card back into my iPhone, turned off iMessage and swapped back, that it started working properly. Messaging is threaded.

Camera and video

The Lumia 800 has an 8-megapixel rear camera with Carl Zeiss optics and, while picture quality is very good, the 3x digital zoom is not. This is immediately noticeable on-screen. Since there is no front-facing camera, you cannot make video calls. Video is recorded in HD (720p) at 30 frames per second, but during one video recording, the quality sometimes went from being clear to unfocused and blurry. Hopefully an update will fix that.

Mix Radio

Mix Radio, which is found under Nokia Music, is new to the Lumia range. It lets you stream music from the cloud, providing access to an extensive collection of music and genres, including pop, rock, local, Bollywood, classical, jazz, dance, etc. Best of all, it’s free and no subscription is required. There are preselected mixes you can choose from, with an option to listen while you’re offline. If you stream music, you are only allowed to skip six tracks within a period of one hour. Of course, to stream, it helps to have a decent internet connection. You can also create a profile of your favourite artists and receive recommendations based on that, or buy music (Nokia Music Store login required).

Apps

The Windows Phone Marketplace is limited. Sure, you will find your favourite social networks and games like Angry Birds, but you won’t find a wide variety. I would have preferred a Twitter app with more functionality, but unfortunately there aren’t many options. Preloaded apps include: Nokia Drive (turn by turn, voice navigation), Nokia Music, Xbox LIVE, Office and ESPN. Nokia Drive works well, and requires you to download a voice in a language of your choice before you start using it. I found myself using apps more than I browsed the web with Internet Explorer 9 (full HTML5 support).

Battery life

The one thing I didn’t have to worry about was battery life. Compared to most smartphones on the market, battery life on the Lumia 800 is quite good. After a day’s usage, with WiFi switched on, the phone still had enough power to last until the next morning. I’m not a heavy or business user and didn’t push my work mail to the handset.

Conclusion

Despite a few initial hiccups, I really enjoyed using the Lumia 800’s smooth scrolling and beautifully designed interface. One of my favourite features on previous Nokia handsets – USB mass storage mode, unfortunately isn’t an option on Windows Phone. There is also no option to expand the 16GB built-in memory, but when compared it to the iPhone, it’s not an issue. The Lumia 800 is Nokia’s first Windows Phone, so remember there is room for improvement.

The Lumia 800 is packaged with a matching soft phone cover (available in black, cyan and magenta); a charger, a USB/plug point; earphones and an instruction manual.

IN SUMMARY

Pros: Slick, easy to use interface; integration of contacts into address book; Mix Radio.
Cons: No option to take screenshots; maximum call volume still felt too soft; limited apps on Marketplace.
Rating: 8.5/10

Originally published on My Digital Life.

I downloaded Frametastic a few weeks ago and it is listed (currently) as “free for a limited time” in its description on iTunes. If you are reading this and own any compatible device – iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (running iOS 4.0 or later), I suggest you download it – you won’t regret it.

What I like about the app is that you can share lots of photos in a single frame. If you use other apps like Instagram or Path, it’s just easier to share a collage than to upload 5 individual photos.

The app offers 18 (okay 17 – one is duplicated) free frames and another 18 pack of frames for 99c.

The free frames are good enough and you don’t have to purchase more unless you want something fancier/different from the rest.

Once you choose a frame, you can customize it in different ways like making it square or postcard (3:2), adjusting the frame width and color, and making the corners rounded. You can also select themes (wood, sports, wedding, beach & museum) and choose effects for your pics (b&w, sepia, cold, warm, etc).

It’s very simple and quite fun to use. You may spend time creating masterpieces, but the end result is worth it.

The app supports sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram, or sending via email.

I also own a similar app called Diptic, which is 99c. But if you want to play around and make your own collages without paying, download Frametastic. 

Coffee picture credit: Tumblr via Google Images.

I’ve been doing this post for the last couple of years. It’s my summary for the year.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Lived in a country that doesn’t speak English as a first language for 2 weeks – Taiwan. Dressed up as a zombie ballerina for a professional photoshoot for Aasia‘s birthday – it was loads of fun. 

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t make resolutions.

3. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?
Currently, I don’t have any plans.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother

5. What countries did you visit?
Kenya, Taiwan, China & Zambia.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
More challenges.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
9th July – the day my grandmother passed away, which is also my wedding anniversary.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
My Digital Life making it through the financial year.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not growing My Digital Life’s traffic enough.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I always pull a neck muscle around winter, which is so bad that I can’t check my blind spot, so I can’t drive.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Macbook Air.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Macbook Air and cost of living for 2 weeks in Taiwan, hence no New York trip. 

13. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Someone Like You – Adele.

14. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Spending time away from my laptop.

15. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Spending time in front of my laptop.

16. What was your favourite TV program?
I enjoyed Shameless and Game of Thrones.

17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No.

18. What was the best book you read?
Steve Jobs autobiography – but still reading.

19. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Deadmau5 (mostly because he came to South Africa).

20. What was your favourite film of this year?
Bridesmaids.

21. What did you do on your birthday?
Was taken for a surprise dinner (okay it came out shortly before I left home) to Bukhara – my dad was up in Jo’burg too.

22. What kept you sane?
Earphones.

23. Who did you miss?
My grandmother.

24. Who was the best new person you met?
I met lots of people while traveling.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
To be grateful for everything I have because there are others who are always worse off.