PAYPAL: No more need to expose your credit card or banking details

BUYING and selling goods and services online is fast becoming the preferred way to shop and conduct business this century, and it recently became easier with the introduction of PayPal to South Africa.

This enables South Africans to buy from and sell to PayPal’s global customer base of more than 81 million active accounts in 190 markets around the world in 21 different currencies. South Africa is the 190th country to get access
to PayPal accounts and it’s about damn time too!

What is PayPal?

To put it simply, PayPal is a safe and easy way to perform online transactions without exposing your credit card or bank account number. It can be thought of as an extension of your bank account that allows you to send and receive money globally 24/7.

It has always been possible to make foreign payments, but now South Africans are getting a chance to cash in by being able to sell goods themselves within the global eCommerce marketplace. There are currently 200 million people that use PayPal to send and receive money today and for good reason.

You can use a PayPal account to:

• Receive payments in 190 countries.
• Checkout quickly at hundreds of online stores.
• Shop at online merchants or shops in 67 countries.
• Make or receive payments for goods and services online.
• Pay for things and send money without sharing your financial information.

How do I get a PayPal account?

To open a South African PayPal account, visit www.paypal.com and follow the instructions provided. You’ll be asked to fill in your details and link your credit or cheque card to your new PayPal account.

A small charge ($1,95) will then be debited from your account, which will be refunded (in two to three days) once you supply a four-digit reference number that is provided with this transaction to PayPal. This verification method is a security precaution that ensures that only you can access your PayPal account.

FNB’s Top Up and Withdraw service

Currently PayPal is exclusive to First National Bank customers, but no doubt it will soon be offered by other major banks as well. It is also likely that other PayPal options and services will become available once more South Africans get on board and become comfortable with using PayPal.

One particular offering is FNB’s exclusive Top Up and Withdraw service, which allows FNB customers to top up and withdraw funds from a PayPal account via a qualifying FNB account. FNB Customers can simply open a PayPal account and link it to a qualified FNB account and receive PayPal payments in 21 different currencies. FNB will then convert the currency to South African rands once the money is transferred into their accounts. No more lost cheques in the post.

How do I register for this?

To register for such PayPal services you’ll need a South African PayPal account, a qualifying FNB bank account and access to FNB Online Banking. (The following steps are specific to FNB and may differ for other banks offering PayPal services).

Step by step, you will need to:

1. Have a qualifying FNB bank account (FNB cheque, savings or transmission acc).
2. Have an FNB Online Banking profile.
3. Register a South African PayPal account on www.paypal.com
4. Verify your PayPal account on www.paypal.com
5. Login to your FNB Online Banking profile; register for this service and link your PayPal account to your FNB Online Banking profile.

Qualifying FNB accounts include most FNB savings, cheque and transmission accounts. When completing a FNB Top Up or Withdraw with PayPal, a list of all your qualifying FNB accounts that can be used for this service will be displayed.

Remember that they will have to be linked to your FNB Online Banking profile in order for them to be displayed. Also note that a credit card account is not a qualifying account for this service.

How do I withdraw and transfer money into my PayPal account?

FNB’s Top Up and Withdraw services allow you to transfer or withdraw funds from a qualifying FNB bank account into your PayPal account. To do this, simply login to FNB Online Banking and select the “PayPal Services” menu option.

Once you have registered for the service, you can transfer funds (in rands) from your qualifying FNB account into your PayPal account in United States dollars, which can then be used to make purchases from PayPal merchants worldwide.

Note that when completing the FNB Top Up service you will be required to disclose the purpose of your transaction and provide contact information to ensure that you comply with all South African Reserve Bank regulations. A Top Up of funds from FNB to a PayPal account may only be used for the specified reason.

It is also important to remember that according to South African Reserve Bank exchange-control regulations, all funds received into your PayPal account must be withdrawn within 30 days of receipt.

Fees: what does it cost?

FNB charges a transaction commission of 1,5% for each Top Up or Withdraw transaction using a PayPal account. This commission is calculated on the rand equivalent of the U.S. dollar amount requested.

An exchange rate is quoted by FNB on all rand/U.S. dollar transactions and may vary for Top Up and Withdraw transactions.

Certain PayPal transactions may also attract certain fees. Visit www.paypal.com for more information regarding any hidden costs.

** More Online Shopping ideas and Articles **

CLOUD COMPUTING: Doing business with shared cloud hosting

WHEN cloud computing and hosting technologies come together, the result is an entirely new breed of hosting that allows for businesses to dynamically alter and scale resources to meet their specific needs. This new model of web hosting also allows for resources to be rescaled at any time whenever the needs of the business change or is demanded by growth. Such flexibility directly translates into monetary savings because the business is only paying for what they need while avoiding downtime due to over-capacity.

These benefits can be obtained through three different types of cloud hosting platforms. One platform is not necessarily better than the other. It depends on the size of the business, their needs, and the scope of their online activity.

Cloud Shared Hosting

Cloud shared hosting is the basic package of the three modern hosting platforms. It is tailored to new businesses with a small online presence. The benefits of cloud shared hosting over other types are that it offers performance and reliability while maintaining high standards of security. It offers low costs and high uptime. This makes cloud shared hosting perfect for blogs, forums, informational websites, and basic e-commerce.

Cloud Servers

Cloud servers are the middle level of the new, modern hosting technologies. They can offer a business every benefit of a dedicated server without the downside of the high cost. The enhanced performance of cloud servers is combined with convenience and flexibility to meet the needs of a business that would otherwise require a dedicated server. Cloud servers can be dynamically scaled and rescaled at any time to meet the changing demands of the business. This reduces cost significantly because bandwidth is on a pay-per-use scale. Businesses never pay for unused bandwidth and there are no overage charges.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is the merging of backup technologies with cloud computing. It offers businesses extremely high-performance that is upgraded as technology advances, so the business is never left with an out-of-date product they can no longer use. Cloud storage is completely scalable and is often comprised of storage area network (SAN) disks for fast data throughput and increased reliability. This is a great way to host streaming media along with any and all other files a business possesses. Media can be served directly to any other website owned or operated by the business. Cloud storage is not only perfect for backups, but it also allows employees to access data from across the world.

Doing Business with Cloud Hosting

Cloud web hosting platforms are a reliable solution for businesses that require maximum uptime but cannot afford to pay for more services than they are using. If the future or growth rate of a business is uncertain, cloud hosting packages are the answer. The business will save money by not purchasing unnecessary features while still being given options for future upgrading. Cloud hosting packages give a company the benefits and performance of traditional hosting packages without having to tie up resources into a dedicated server investment that may not be necessary.

Guest post by Charles Homes - a consultant at Hosting.com.
For more info check out their Dedicated Servers

Related Article: Cloud Computing for Dummies

CLOUD COMPUTING: And how it could help fight global warming

ONE might think of the Internet as some intangible entity that exists somewhere in the clouds and is simply powered by the people that use it. In reality, the energy required to run the Internet and associated hardware and IT infrastructure is on par with the airline industry.

To put it simply, the Internet consists of huge data centres worldwide that host web pages and online content — some of which act as Internet service providers. The reason for the web’s extra large carbon footprint is that each data centre requires power as well as cooling systems in order to function. Furthermore, information technology is the fastest growing industry on Earth, and is becoming a real threat to sustainable development.

The concept of cloud computing, also known as distributed, Internet-based computing, is the idea of decentralising these data centres and sharing the available infrastructure on a global scale. The goal is to have applications and files stored on large, centralised supercomputers or networks. Rather than storing files and programmes on individual PCs, end users are able to store and access their files via the web.

According to www.howstuffworks.com, the concept is very simple: “On your desk, you would have a very low-cost computer with just a processor, a keyboard and a monitor. There would be no hard drive or CD/DVD drive. It would be hooked up to the Internet and would link to a central supercomputer, which would host all of your programs and files.”

Servicing the cloud with Google

In 2007, Google and Apple had a plan to take things forward. Apple was to develop inexpensive consumer computers that were small and portable. This was to leverage the computing power of the vast data centres Google has been building to hold the apps and the data for millions of users.

Unfortunately, development was halted due to different market demands, but Google has made progress since then with its growing library of Google apps. Apps like Google Documents, Spreadsheets and Gmail are all examples of cloud computing that people already make use of.

If we think about it, we do not use an installed programme to check our e-mail. Rather, you log into a web e-mai­l account, such as Gmail or Hotmail remotely. The software and sto­rage for your account doesn’t exist on your computer, but rather on the ser­vice’s computer cloud. We can think of the term cloud simply as a metaphor for the Internet, or a part of it.

How cloud computing works

GRAPHIC: www.howstuffworks.com

So, we have cloud computing to thank for storing all our e-mails and spam and there is more than enough web-space to go around. Gmail accounts alone provide users with close to seven-and-a-half gigs of space. I don’t think I have ever exceeded over two percent of my e-mail quota.

Things get a little more exciting with Google Documents and Spreadsheets. Developed in part as a solution to e-mailing documents back and forth, Google Docs allows several people to edit or revise the same document in real-time. This simplifies the remote process by having a single updated document and speeds it up by having Google store the data.

There are, however, privacy implications, as any data stored by Google has the chance of being accessible to anyone on the Internet. As a small safety measure, one is able to access previous versions of a Google document and is notified when others are using it. As with everything concerning the web, one simply has to be wary when publishing anything online.

Cloud computing: Cloudy Business

Cloud computing has huge implications for business in terms of cutting costs. Web-based companies invest millions into their IT departments — a large portion of which is spent on software licences for each computer that uses corporate software.

With cloud computing you would only have to load one application, which would allow employees to log into a web-based service, which hosts all the programs and files required. Remote machines owned by another company, such as Google, for example, would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs.

"This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralising storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. In September 2009, an Aberdeen Group study found that disciplined companies achieved on average an 18% reduction in their IT budget from cloud computing.” – www.howstuffworks.com

Of course, all these open-source applications are as good as they are by virtue of the fact that they are free; or at least still free. No doubt more complex apps would demand some sort of fee in order to be used so extensively. I don’t foresee many large web companies hosting the world’s data for nothing, and as much as it makes sense to decentralise the existing infrastructure, monopolies will emerge (or stay in power) that will profit hugely from cloud computing.

The cloud allows sharing of infrastructure and reduces the carbon footprint of IT. The prophecy speaks of creating something that is globally sustainable — providing greater capacity and higher performance at lower costs. This utopia would bring the world together by moving away from indivi­dual silos and data centres and “into the clouds”. Unfortunately, this is not nearly a reality for bandwidth-stricken countries such as South Africa, and will not be as cheap and fair as it should with the existence of Internet monopolies.

** More Web in the Media Articles **

MONEY: Earn a sizeable bounty for your creative ideas with Idea Bounty

HAVE you ever experienced one of those moments when you, a friend, or a family-member comes up with some really good idea during conversation when someone says: "That’s brilliant! You really should patent that idea!" Most people have, yet while we may dwell in the flattery of such words, very few naturally-gifted think tanks ever get off their behinds and actually do something with such ‘million-dollar ideas’.

Of course the market for ideas is a competitive one; people are trying to sell ideas every day. It’s also not easy pitching unique ideas to different individuals and trying to get them to see your vision. If, on the other hand, you decide to implement a practical idea yourself, you may find that you lack motivation or the resources to do so.

Sometimes you just want to get an idea written down and put out there and hope to the powers that be that it somehow gets discovered and praised. But why not get paid for it too?

If you’re bursting with business ideas, but perhaps lacks the motivation to implement them yourself, there is the perfect platform for you.

Idea Bounty is a social think-tank that provides a secure channel for the worldwide creative community to offer solutions to creative briefs. A bounty is offered for the idea that best answers the brief, and the contributor of the winning idea gets the cash.

Idea Bounty is an online service that operates within the market for ideas. Businesses or clients sign up and submit a brief for something they want — such as ideas for an advert. Users or creatives are then invited to submit their ideas for that brief. A sizeable bounty is offered by the client beforehand and it is bestowed upon the person who submits the best idea. In other words, the best idea is chosen by, and sold to, the client or business.

The Idea Bounty website is now one year old with more than 7 500 registered creatives. Among the clients served so far are FNB, Castle­ Lager, BMW and Red Bull, with the biggest bounty to date being a whopping $10 000. Here’s a little more from the Idea Bounty team ...

• What is Idea Bounty?
Well the simple answer is that for clients, Idea Bounty is the simplest way to hire thousands of creatives and only pay for the ideas you want. For creatives, it’s an amazing platform that allows you to pitch on various briefs. The bottom line: clients get the best ideas and creatives get paid for those ideas.

• How does this social think tank operate?
Idea Bounty is a social think tank that provides a secure channel for the world wide creative community to offer solutions to creative briefs. A reward or ‘bounty’ is offered for the idea that best answers the brief and the contributor of the winning idea gets the cash.

• What’s the catch?
There is none! We want to facilitate the exchange of ideas based on an open economy. The value of the reward will dictate the quality of the ideas competing for the bounty. Creatives: The idea belongs to you until you get paid. Clients: You only pay for what you like. You use it, you buy it.

• What’s in it for clients?
The traditional model for purchasing creative output (in the form of creative expertise, ideas and ultimately communication platforms) has dictated that the client (the person with the problem) pay based on how many people and hours have been used in creating the end product. So it’s rare that a budget allows more than two or three resources to be allocated to solving a brief.

If you truly wanted to inject the energy and diverse thinking (ideas) of hundreds of hungry experts, the costs would grow exponentially as new individuals lend their expertise... enter Idea Bounty. Here you have access to all the ideas and brains behind your brief but you only have to pay for what you like.

• What’s in it for creatives?
Are you a ‘great ideas scribbled on the back of a napkin’ type of person, the type who keeps a notebook next to their bed so when they wake up they can jot down the most insanely inspired dream-time Ideas?

So you’re über creative and ideas pop into your head at a rate of knots, but why would you need Idea Bounty?

The world’s creative industries are competitive by nature and driven by accolades and rewards. Unfortunately these don’t always carry any financial benefit ... enter Idea Bounty.

• What’s the deal between clients and creatives?
The ideas you submit will only be visible to you and the client so you don’t have to fret about anyone ‘borrowing’ your brilliant ideas. If your idea is used by one of our clients you will receive the cash reward (Bounty) on offer.

We will of course let everyone know whether their ideas have been rewarded, and in the case where the client would like you to continue working on the project we will gladly put you in touch with one another.

• The team behind Idea Bounty

“Idea Bounty was started by a guy who saw the light and a guy who was frantically waving a torch."

"The Idea Bounty team boasts a collective 16 years experience in the worlds of traditional advertising and online marketing. Above-the-line, through-the-line, below-the-line... any bloody line - you name it we’ve done it.

In short - we know how to find creative solutions to business problems and ensure that finding these creative solutions is a smooth process. Idea Bounty is the social think tank that is going to inject some real inspiration into your business.”

There you have it – the perfect platform to get those creative juices flowing and perhaps earn a pretty penny in the process.

That’s www.ideabounty.com

• Click here to sign up and get cracking!

** More Web Development Articles **

GOOGLE WAVE: The clash of the computer titans is on. Google has taken on Microsoft by announcing that it's launching its own operating system — free of charge. The war between the two software giants is likely to change the world of the Internet forever

Alistair Fairweather

IF business is war then two of the world’s biggest companies have finally stopped skirmishing on their borders and brought out the heavy artillery. On July 7, Google fired the first shell by announcing that they will begin offering their own operating system in mid 2010.

The warhead — called Chrome OS — is aimed straight at the heart of Microsoft who have built their entire business around operating systems since the 70s, first with MS DOS and then the globally-dominating Windows series.

But while Microsoft have always charged for their software, Google plan to give theirs away free of charge. What’s more, Google are starting from a completely fresh perspective — one with the potential to undermine Microsoft’s entire business model and loosen their foothold on the software market.

If the name "Chrome" sounds familiar, that’s because it’s also the name of Google’s web browser. And this isn’t just a case of lazy naming. By evolving Chrome into an operating system, Google are planning to turn the entire software world on its head and make browsing the centre of computing.

An Introduction to Google Wave
There is a full 1 hour 20min presentation on YouTube which Philc7753 has kindly and painstakingly edited down for our short attention spans

Hang on, isn’t an operating system a lot more complicated that a browser? Doesn’t a browser need an operating system to, well, operate? That’s the whole genius of the plan. Google are betting that the centre of influence in computing is moving out of personal computers and into the massive computing power of the Internet, known as the "cloud".

That means that in future, computers will be dumber and cheaper. They will rely on the enormous banks of computers that power the Internet to do much of their thinking for them.

This is already happening. One of the fastest growing sectors in computing is netbooks — smaller, cheaper, less powerful portable computers with speedy connections to the Internet that focus on tasks like e-mail and browsing the net.

Currently, Microsoft is tussling with free operating systems such as Linux for ownership of this market, and Google wants its own share of the pie. So what? There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about a free operating system. They have been around for longer than Microsoft have been in existence, let alone Google. And some of them are backed by huge companies such as IBM and SAP.

Yet none of those other companies is as heavily invested in cloud computing as Google. And it’s cloud computing that poses the greatest risk to Microsoft’s dominance.

Microsoft’s bread and butter has always been its desktop applications —  programs such as Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. Operating systems are like plumbing — expensive but necessary — and Microsoft have lost money on them for years. This was justified because they knew that by owning the platform they would be able earn it all back on desktop applications.

Google Docs, on the other hand, is nearly as good as Microsoft’s Office but is free and requires no hard-drive space and much less power (and therefore can run on a cheaper computer). It’s a true “cloud” application  — its platform is the Internet.

So Google have, in effect, pulled Microsoft’s own trick on them but in reverse, and for free. And given how quickly Microsoft are losing market share in the browser market (it’s now just above 50%), they have real cause for concern. If Chrome OS takes off, Google will start to hurt more than Microsoft’s pride.

That’s still a big "if" though. For all their mistakes Microsoft are still the top dog of software. Despite the current media hyperbole about Chrome OS, Windows still commands 90% of the market share in operating systems. Even if Chrome lives up to the hype, it will still take years to get a foothold. Only one thing is certain about this battle — peace talks are unlikely to begin anytime soon.

We’re in for a long slog and I don’t think anyone can accurately predict a winner. What we can be sure of is that the conflict will change software (and the Internet) forever.

- Alistair Fairweather writes for The Witness
newspaper in Kwa-Zula Natal, South Africa

** More News and Media Articles **

iPAPER: Digital paper that stores hand-written notes and sketches

THE other day I wrote a hand-written letter and found that my hand-writing looked like barbed wire. I realised that it had been a good while since I had used any hand-writing skills due to my increasing reliance on typing everything. It seems obvious to me that the archaic technology of hand-writing is being slowly killed by digital technologies, creating what has been called the paper-digital divide. Yet just when the patriotic hand-writers thought things couldn’t get worse, society unleashed something called “digital paper” or iPaper.

With the use of a digital pen iPaper allows hand-written notes, or sketches, to be digitally captured and stored. The ‘ink’ absorbs light transmitted from the digital pen, which contains a receiver that interprets the pattern of light reflected from the paper. This is creating new possibilities for publishing new forms of interactive based documents without having to worry about your pen running out of ink!

What seems more intriguing is that iPaper allows users to develop a wide range of interactive paper-based interfaces and applications without having to do any programming. Furthermore, active areas on the paper can be linked to and from a wide range of physical and digital media including web pages, images, video, flash animations, databases and RFID tags as well as application programs.

Some of the more interesting and useful applications that have been developed thus far include:

• A presentation tool suitably called PaperPoint. This is taking PowerPoint presentations to a new level by allowing one to control the presentation via a paper-based user interface.
• In Edinburgh they’ve created a tourist information system which provides users with information on venues and events at the Edinburgh festivals. Tourists are also able to enter and share reviews on the spot.
• In Zurich they’ve created a city map which provides digital information on restaurants, cinemas, shopping facilities and so on.
• And one that is not just for tourists, but which also applies to digital journalists, is the “paper-based travel diary” – allowing one to integrate hand-written notes with pictures taken from a digital camera.

So for those of us who are still great appreciators of the art of hand-writing there's still hope for maintaining our craft whilst keeping abreast of the latest in digital technologies.

Related post: Will e-readers end the Age of the Book?

Links:

• Digital Paper Portal
• Video: Digital Paper demonstration
• Global Information Systems Group

** More Green Tech Articles **