Opera Mini: Verification of server certificate failed. Please check the date setting in your device.

Getting this error message on your mobile phone with Opera Mini?

Verification of server certificate failed. Please check the date setting in your device.

Some solutions you could try:

  • Check that the date on your phone is OK, i.e. the correct year and not last years date.
  • Check your Date/Time setting and make sure it is set to update from the network.

Phones that have experienced this: Nokia 6020.

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the suicide of your virtual self – How to Share

An interesting article appeared in the Sunday Times newspaper the other day. A topic that I have been wanting to comment on; so it saves me having to write an article, great.

Here is the article
sundaytimes.co.za “The blog graveyard”.
Article seems derived from the original article at The Sunday Times, England – technology.timesonline.co.uk

What’s it about?

“Hey guys, I’m soooo sooo sorry I haven’t written in a while!!” she wrote.

It has been a long wait for any Lohan fans who may be hoping for an update. That entry was posted in October 2003. Lohan’s blog has since taken its place in the Internet’s fastest growing graveyard — of an estimated 200-million blogs that have been started, then abandoned.

The extraordinary failure rate of online diaries and claims that interest in blogging will soon begin a precipitous slide are sparking an intriguing debate about the future of self-expression on the Internet and whether blogs, once seen as revolutionary, are destined to become a footnote in the history of computing.

To the embarrassment of millions of Internet users — from Hollywood celebrities such as Lohan, Melanie Griffith and Barbra Streisand to countless ordinary parents, workers and would-be poets — the evidence of failed diary-keeping cannot be easily erased from search engines that continue to provide links to blogs that have lain dormant for years.

Some Internet analysts call them “ghost blogs”, lingering reminders of a cultish enthusiasm for self-expression that is rapidly wearing off. Others liken the abandonment of blogs to “the suicide of your virtual self”.

Why am I saying this?
Show me how many people have had an active personal’ish site for a few years? A few maybe? Good.

I reckon that if you have something to share…

If it is obtainable elsewhere (another site for example):

    If you like it:

  • Link to it or bookmark it online. Use del.icio.us bookmarks, some place that other users will be able to find it.
  • Make suggestions or comments on what is lacking or can be improved. Or some praise even.
  • If you don’t like it:

  • Make a suggestion to the creators of the site. Maybe something is missing, then you can complete it.

Can’t find it anywhere?
If the site/source is really bad and has no hope of being revived by the author or it isn’t possible to take over the management of the site/source/page, then you have some options:

  1. Add it to wikipedia – it’s maintained and will be around for a while. In contrast to your personal domain which ceases to exist when you get bored and stop paying the registration fee.
  2. Wikipedia not appropriate? Consider using a Google powered free hosting service like blogger.com or googlepages.com to power your new site/information.
  3. Need more tools? Try finding a site that provides or deals with similar information – can you maybe partner with the site or create a new section for it? Please don’t create another forum.. unless you really have to. Learn to search.
  4. Lastly, you could get your own domain name and hosting for your website and do as you please.

There are many options, no excuse to pollute the web.
Collaborate to make it better and cleaner. If we don’t do it, who will?

This isn’t specific to blogs, it’s the same for any site, website, forum, what ever you want to call it. A html site is a html site no matter what name you give it.

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Motorola wap dropdown list (<select>) + Motorola ADK

OK, Motorola’s wap / xhtml browser on their phones has a few issues. (Scrolling issue I pointed out)

The Problem

I noticed that dropdown boxes (<select> html elements with <option>’s) on Motorola phones were being shown as a list, instead of as the usual dropdown list that we are used to.

Normal dropdown box html How a dropdown box should look like
<select>
<option value="CellC">CellC</option>
<option value="MTN">MTN</option>
<option value="Vodacom4me">Vodacom</option>
<option value="Virgin">Virgin Mobile</option>
</select>

Motorola shows it “wrongly” like this instead:

Which does waste a lot of space on the limited screen size of a mobile cellphone.

The Solution

Read the rest of this entry

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Proof that Yahoo! Googles

This is hilarious.

Yahoo! uses Google too!?

Specifically, the Ask Yahoo! service used Google search results and forgot to change the word Google to Yahoo!

It starts here: How many countries are there in the world? – Ask Yahoo!
yahoo_googles_full

Notice the line

We realized the chances of finding a Yahoo! category on the subject were about as small as Andorra, but we were confident the Google search results would point us in the right direction.

MMm… someone left the word Google there?
While the link actually points to a search.yahoo.com result page.

Internet Archive – Wayback Machine

wayback machine logo
I then went into the Internet Archive (yes, Yahoo archives the entire internet…) and looked at this Ask Yahoo! page in the past.

And I found that the “Google search results” link originally pointed to “google.yahoo.com” search results.
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=how+many+countries+in+the+world&hc=0&hs=1123

Strange, Yahoo used to have a google.yahoo.com subdomain …
google.yahoo.com in the past.
It used to just point to a Yahoo search page. But from 2002 onwards it just became a page with just “Do you yahoo?” on it before the subdomain was removed from yahoo in about 2003.

You can still see the “do you yahoo?” page archived here.

Digg this || &title=” title=”Post to del.icio.us”>Post page to del.icio.us

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Google Calendar has free SMS notifications (for South Africa too)

Google Calendar – probably the best online calendar you will find.

UPDATE: Get sms notifications of events on ANY calender! In fact, now you can schedule reminders for events on your personal calendar or any other calendar to which you’re subscribed.

NEW: Google calender mobile cellphone version!

Visit calendar.google.com on your mobile web browser.

  • Multiple calendars on one account – so you can separate the different parts of your life/schedule (work, home, etc)
  • Share events and calendars – You can let a calendar be show to the public or share a calendar with someone.
  • Planning an event? – You can create invitations, send reminders and keep track of RSVPs right inside Google Calendar.

star new item Now, the main reason for this post is the SMS/text notifications you can setup for any event! And it costs you nothing!

Staying on schedule
You can set up automatic event reminders, including mobile phone notifications, and instantly bring up anything on your calendar with the built-in search tool.

And they support all three networks in SA – MTN, CellC and Vodacom.

How to enable SMS notifications

  • Login to Google Calendar with your Google Account details (same as your GMail)
  • Click Settings at the top right.
  • In the Calendar Settings page click on the Notifications button.
  • Then enter your cell phone details and follow the instructions.
  • You’re done. Now any notifications you put on an event will come in an SMS/text to your cellphone. All for free!

Poor Google has to foot the bill for all the SMSs sent. I wonder how viable it will turn out to be?

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