Tech Bite: MOTOROLA RAZR HD COMES OUT TO PLAY

The thin and powerful Motorola Razr HD LTE smartphone is now available in a hotly contested fierce smartphone market. The device will make its first appearance in Canada and should possibly make its next stop at the United States, Europe and other markets.

The Motorola Razr runs on Googles Android Operating System Ice cream sandwich, has all day battery life and an impressive 4.7 inch super AMOLED HD screen. The phone also comes with a 720p display and unlike its competitors which are quad-core; the Motorola Razr HD uses a dual-core CPU.

Being criticized as not being elegant and lacking flair one fails to see this device threatening the bigger sharks of the smartphone market such as the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy SIII and Nokia Lumia 920.

Ashley Mokwena

www.motorola.com

Couture Corner: THE OLD LADY OF AFRICAN FASHION

Vlisco has for many generations designed and produced colourful clothes that Western and Central African women have relied on to further enhance their style and creativity. Since 1846 Vlisco has been in the business of dressing African women from head to toe with its well tailored dresses, exclusively colourful accessories and handbags to complete the look.

The brand with its numerous collection lines recently added the Palais Des sentiment collection, which features an opulent mix of textures, jewel-toned prints and fluid silhouettes, inspired by dreams of exotic palaces, of delicate, dancing fabrics and of glittering golden moons.

Vlisco centres every design and everything that’s been produced by its labour force on the four values: elegance, imagination, class and quality. Surprising and inspiring creativity with unique designs has enabled Vlisco to align itself with the true sense and imagination of the African consumer. 

Along with introducing a new line in May this year, Vlisco also join forces with Orange Babies for the Orange Babies 2012 Gala held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in June whereby twenty seven Dutch designers were tasked to produce accessories made from Vlisco ‘Wax Print’ couture fabrics.

The old lady of African Fashion with its four stores in Nigeria, Togo, Benin and The Democratic Republic of Congo will forever play an essential role in fashion on the continent and it’s interesting to see how Vlisco will spread its wings and have an influential kick in other places.

Ashley Mokwena 

www.vlisco.com

Twitter handle: http://twitter.com/#!/vlisco

Facebook handle:   http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vlisco/52637732479

 

WRAP UP SUMMER WITH NEW GLODINA BEACH RANGE

This year, fun takes on a whole new meaning with Glodina’s new range of beach towels. 

With trendy seasonal designs, splashes of vibrant fashion colour- from vivid greens to aqua blues to dazzling pinks- Glodina takes to the seaside and poolside with the best of both worlds. Soak up the sun against the luxurious velour finish. Take a swim and then flip over and dry off with the super absorbent terry finish on the other side.

Glodina’s trendy take on summer has something for everybody- from the beach loving babe to the stylish surfer dude. 

Available at Makro stores countrywide, the Glodina Black Label beach range comes in various sizes:

Kiddies: 70cm x 130cm, priced at R109.00

Adults: 85cm x 150cm with velour finish, priced at R159.00

Adults: 94cm x 150cm with a velour finish, priced at R159.00

For more information- or learn how to take the best care of your beach towels, visit www.glodina.co.za

Helpful tips on caring for velour beach towels:

We recommend that you wash your velour towels at least twice before use to eliminate excess fluff. Do not tumble dry velour towels for the first few washes to prevent extra fluff being deposited on other fabrics.

Take care when removing stickers or price tags so as not to damage the veloured side of the towel

Once you’ve taken these initial precautions, your new Glodina Black Label beach towels can be washed and tumbled dried with other fabrics. 

Beat Box: FIFTY YEARS OF THE FAB FOUR

The great British rock band which set the rock scene on fire in the 60’s, The Beatles, celebrated 50 years of existence on Friday. Formed in Liverpool the band fast became the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed act from the United Kingdom in the history of Rock Music.

The Beatles consisted of band members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The band built its reputation playing at clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg. The first single ‘Love Me Do’ released in 1962 rewarded the band great popularity across Britain. As Beatlemania gained momentum, in early 1964 the band became a force to be reckoned leading the British invasion of the US Rock and Pop market.

From 1965 to 1970 the band released record smashing albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road before the bands spoilt.

With estimating sales of over a billion units, top charting singles such as ‘Please Please Me’, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘P.S I Love You’ and ‘She Loves Me’ to mention a few to offering fans fantastic albums and achieving 7 Grammy Awards and 15 Ivor Novello Awards... one would question themselves how could such a band reach a point where everything comes to an end? But as the saying goes, “good things do come to an end” 

    

Ashley Mokwena

Website: www.thebeatles.com

Tech Bite: THE STUNNING RESOURCEFUL AND INGENIOUS PEASANT TURNED FOURTEEN

September 1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin blessed the world with a resourceful search engine, Google. Since its birth Google has managed to excel and eventually leapfrog the competition. Google has shown no signs of easing the pace and it’s quite obvious that employees at Google know the expectation of working for a company of such great stature.

In its fourteen years of existence Google has dodged the kind of image issues which were pinching tech giants such as Microsoft and Apple. Court battle after court battle across the globe, the company still managed to survive the whirlwinds to be able to provide us with a clear window on the planet. Had it not been of this resourceful peasant’s entry in a market that was largely dominated by fallen tech giant Yahoo, chances are that information wouldn’t be shared at the speed of light.

Google over the years has played an integral part not only in the search engine space, but in other techno spheres too. The 2004 initial public offering ensured the Silicon Valley based entity to acquire and add more products to its fantastic product offering.

Today we can web search, blog, image search, video search; store documents online using Google Docs. We can access language tools, purchase mobile devices which run on Google Operating System Android; and we can use electronic-mail to communicate to good effect, all due to Google.

Google has pushed web standards to new heights and has separated itself from the pack. Though Google’s social media platform Google+ hasn’t really gotten grip of the social media landscape, having 150 million users in a short lifespan of the social network Larry and Sergey surely should be pleased with the products achievement.

To Google, had it not been of your being this blog wouldn’t be feeding the global village with interesting lifestyle happenings across the planet.

Ashley Mokwena

    

A SHOE FROM A SMALL TOWN

Ever heard of Swakopmund? Swakopmund is a small town situated on the coast of North Western Namibia. The small town is where the shoe I found as boring and too ancient, Veldskoen, originates from.

Herbert Schier’s Veldskoen shoes and boots are nowadays seen on all kinds of feet, from labourers to bush rangers to young stylish men. On average Herbert and his team of nine employees work hard to manufacture thirty pairs per day using their hands. The Veldskoen is made from a mixture of veg-tanned leather and soft raw Kudu hide.

Since this shoe is available, maybe it’s about time I found the attractive side of the Veldskoen and got myself a pair.

Ashley Mokwena

Website: www.schiershoes.com

  

Beat Box: TAXI VIOLENCE ON A HIGH

Couple of years ago I was having a conversation with a former mate from high school about the South African Rock scene and Rock bands that are sharing their music with the global rock enthusiasts. During our dialogue the mate kept on mentioning taxi violence and me being me, I was getting irritated with this person uttering taxi violence every ten seconds or so. Then I stopped and asked what’s with this taxi violence? And the mate replied, “it’s a local rock band boet, and believe it they are red hot”. I looked a little bit confused and I thought my former high school mate was on drugs... being inquisitive pushed me to research a bit and ask around if such a rock band really existed, and to my surprise Taxi Violence existed.

Taxi Violence Burst into the South African rock scene with a fresh, witty and noisy sound. The band came into existence in the spring of 2004 when best friends Rian Zietsman, Loedi Van Renen and Louis Nel invited George Van Der Spuy to a listening session at a military base.

Since its formation, Taxi Violence has showed rock music listeners with some fantastic and sizzling music that has seen the band claim a piece of the pie of a genre that is hotly contested. Over the past decade the South African Rock scene has gifted the Republic with great bands such as Prime Circle, Seethe, Cassette, FokofPolisiekar and The Parlotones to name a few. 

 

Taxi Violence has travelled a long daunting journey to prove themselves as one of South Africa’s best rock bands. Following the success of the bands first two albums ‘Untie Yourself’ and ‘The Turn’ the band released its third album ‘Long Way From Home’ in 2011, with which the band received nominations for MK Video Awards in Best Rock Category and they also got nominated for Best Rock and Group of the year at this year’s South African Music Awards. The departure of bass player Loedi Van Renen in 2008 didn’t stop the group from shining and in turn the band welcomed new talent in the form of Jason Ling.

Adding to the number of nominations received, performing on international arenas and sharing the stage with global acts such as Australian band Powderfinger and Billy Talent from Canada, and bagging two awards at the Wirral International Film Festival in England for ‘The Turn’ music video. To send a little warning to those who doubt the band, judge them at your own peril.

Ashley Mokwena

facebook: Taxi Violence

twitter: @taxi_violence