The Belgariad

I'm currently reading a series of books called The Belgariad by author David Eddings. This is probably the fourth time reading this set since my childhood years, the only difference is that I'm now reading it as an ebook of my cellular phone.

It's quite an interesting fantasy novel set in the ages of sorcerers, knights and vikings. There's suspense, drama and action. And Eddings adds a bit of intelligent humour in it as well.

The story is about the life of a young boy, who goes by the name of Garion, and how his simple life gets turned up side down and great responsibility is placed on his shoulders. Garion is teamed up with a very diverse group of people from all over Aloria, who possess unique skills which are used throughout their journey.

The Belgariad has been around since 1982, so it shouldn't be new to scifi fantasy fans. If you've read it once you will definitely want to read it again. Eddings has the magical ability of his own of taking you away from reality and sub merging you into the world of The Belgariad. A guaranteed page turner.

BEWARE of FNBs Credit Card Charges

I've been a client of FNB for a long time now and I have been content with the charges that go of my credit card, thinking that it was fair. Some years ago I applied for a Virgin Money credit card which operates via ABSA. I did this so that I could have a backup credit card at any time.

I never really used the Virgin card until recently. During the time that I had the Virgin Card there was never a "Annual Card Fee". The only charges that went of my account were "Finance Charges" which was the interest for the amounts that were used, at an interest rate of 17%. Which amounted to almost nothing. Even when paying for fuel there was no transaction fee.

Now with FNB Credit Card on the other side, I started to investigate what I would pay in fees for the year. With my FNB Credit card I have a linked Petro Card, which I get charged R270 annually, then there is the VISA Card Fee of R445 annually, due to these charges coming up unexpectedly every year and FNB not informing you of these charges I had to pay an over limit fee of R220, this happens every year, and after speaking to a few people who have FNB Credit Cards, this happens to them too.

I used to think that these charges are all good due to the fact that if I use my FNB Credit Card often enough I would receive a significant amount of eBucks. After looking at the total annual charges, which amounted to something close to R1000, I worked out what I would earn across all my FNB products in eBucks and it averaged eB800 p/m which is about R80, this over a year is R960, which almost covers the annual bank charges for your FNB Credit Card alone. But there is one more annual fee, which is your "Annual eBucks Fee"of R200. This now pushes your annual fees on your FNB Credit Card to almost R1200!!! There are other charges that go of your FNB Credit Card that I haven't listed, like "Debt Protection".

I've been using my Virgin Credit Card fully for the past six months now and so far my fees have mounted to just below R150.

So that's my scenario, look at yours and work out if it is actually worth having a FNB Credit Card.

Input from cardholders from other banks are welcome.

Why Android will overpower iOS

The battle between Apple and Samsung has merely fueled the sales of Samsung mobile devices even further, by increasing Samsung sales over the past couple of months to over 200 million devices worldwide. So why are more people choosing Samsung's Android powered device over Apples iPhone?
iPhone has been around for quite some time now and I think people are becoming curious as to what has threatened Apple so much as to sue Samsung, the various law suites against Samsung have done nothing but boost their sales even further. But it's not just Samsung that recorded high sales since the battle begun, other manufacturers benefited as well, like Motorola, LG and Sony. What do all these manufacturers have in common? ... They are all using Google's smartphone OS called Android.
The beauty of Android is its high customization and thousands of apps that are available through the Google Play Store. You can always find an app to do the task you want and you will almost always find a free version of it. Integration with Google services is seamless and effortless in 99% of the apps you just need your login details. Other services, such as social media, are easy to install and access as well, here as well, you are given thousands if options of how to access these services via various apps.
The point of Android is that you are not limited, you have the world at your fingertips, just waiting for your command and you can do it however you want to. If you find a few bugs in your app the real time communication directly with the developers, via the Play Store, helps to resolve these issues.
You also get regular updates for your phones OS, making your Android experience better every time. If your phone becomes outdated and the manufacturer is unable to support your phones OS anymore, there are developers out there that release custom software for these phones, such as xda-developers.
Android is going to be the dominant mobile OS, watch out for it.

Clouds & Sheep

I love almost every game that comes from Handygames, and the latest one that I'm hooked onto is Clouds and Sheep.

At first it seems to be just a simple time killer that even a five year old would get it. Then you start getting into the game and before you know it it becomes one if the most challenging games you've ever played.

The aim is to care for a flock of sheep, you are sort of the herder, and you have to see to their needs, which is making sure that they have grass to eat and water to drink. Sounds easy at first but then along comes challenges and you unlock new items and their needs become greater, suddenly your management skills are being tested, but all the time having great fun.

I would suggest this game to anyone looking for a laugh but also a challenge at the same time.

Fifty Shades Of Grey

I've been hearing a lot of talk about the recent craze over a novel, by E. L. James, Fifty Shades Of Grey. It's been on the TV, radio and all over twitter. I decided to see what the hype is all about.

I downloaded the sample from Amazon onto my Kindle app on my Android and read through the first two chapters. Apart from what people say about the content, apparently it gets extremely freaky, I think that the author did a very good job of capturing the readers attention in the way that she relates the story.

I haven't reached any spicy parts in the book yet, but it the way this story is being told, I'm driven to read on, and I'm not even a fan of this type of a novel, I'm more of a fantasy fiction person.

There are three parts to the story starting with Fifty Shades Of Grey, then Fifty Shades Darker and the Fifty Shades Freed.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds has got to be one of the all time best games for your mobile device. It has consumed billions of hours of millions of people around the world over the past couple of years. The guys at Rovio Entertainment must be very pleased with their creation... $$$!!!

Angry Birds is a physics based puzzle game involving launching a bird from a sling shot to hit a target across the screen, usually a pig. The story revolves around pigs stealing the eggs of these birds, they get angry and you have to now defeat the pigs to recover the eggs.

Game play is simple but intelligent. Using a sling to launch a bird, you are able to vary the angle and power used to launch the bird. As the game progresses you get a selection of birds that are better at penetrating different materials, such as the blue bird which best at breaking through glass and the yellow bird for wood.

Later on Rovio released more versions of the game, such as Seasons, Rio and the latest being Space. But I believe that the original is still the best, because it seems the physics part of the game is most accurate there.

The game can be downloaded from the Play Store for Android and the App Store for iPhone/iPad. There are also PC and online versions available, but not as fun as playing on your mobile device.

BSPlayer - Android Video Player

Alot of you might be searching for a video player for your Adnroid device that can handle any format that you throw at it. After many downloads and testing I've settled on the one app that can play it all, BSPlayer.

BSPlayer can handle DivX, Xvid, MKV, AVI, MPG and MP4. It uses hardware acceleration to render the movies that it plays, resulting in high quality and zero lag playback. So if your device has a GPU then this is the best player for you.

The interface is similar to the PC version of BSPlayer. One touch on the screen will display your on-screen controls and you also get quick functions by swiping your screen. Swipe up and down on the left will increase and decrease your screen brightness, on the right will change the volume and if you swipe from left to right and vice versa at the top of your screen you will be able to skip a few seconds forward or backward. The skip time can be set in the settings menu. Your playlist will also display thumnails of each movie, in case the movie labels are difficult to read.


BSPlayer also detects if there are any SRT files for the video being played and on launch of your video you will be given the option whether or not to display subtitles. When you install the BSPlayer app you may be prompted to install the supporting files for your CPU and GPU, the dev guys have made this task easy by taking you straight to the Play Store when prompted.

Curiosity Update

It's been about a month and a half since the Mars Rover Curiosity has landed on the surface of the Red Planet. I was half expecting Curiosity to have travelled halfway across the planet by now, but in fact it has only done 367 meters of driving.

The reason for this short distance is that for every meter that Curiosity travels it does numerous tests, such as surface and atmosphere tests. Curiosity is also observing and capturing images of everything.

Curiosity is still in Gale Crater but is working its way to an area in the crater itself called the Glenelg Area. It will be nearing a rock called "Matijevic", which is going to be the first that Curiosity touches with its robotic arm. The Matijevic rock is named after Jake Matijevic (1947-2012), who was a key engineer on all three rover missions.

Curiosity also observed one of the two Mars moons, Phobos, transit the Sun.