Category Archives: South Africa

Congratulations South Africa

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Today (27 April) is  Freedom Day here in South Africa, which for those that does not know, is the 13th birthday of when South Africa become a total free and democratic society. As a fairly old South African from the pre-1994 days, I must say that I was not sure what this would mean to me.  Now 13 years on I know that the fears I had, came to nothing.  We now have a society where white, black, coloured or whatever can compete on a equal footing with one another.  Yes, we as old white male South Africans had to endure some difficulties but that just meant that we had to look at things from a different perspective and use different opportunities that came our way.

I am sure that if we in South Africa did not change all that years ago, we would have been much worse off.  I for one am a much more rounded person and has been exposed to so many other cultures and experiences which did enrich my life.

Things are not perfect but that just means that we must work harder at it.  Be more tolerable and accept that there are other views, cultures and opinions than your own.

To my fellow South Africans, celebrate this day and embrace the wonderful future that we as South African can have.  Have a wonderful celebratory day and long weekend. And to top it off we can celebrate the day further with the 27dinner tonight here in Cape Town.

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The less said the better, but ….

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I have purposely said as little as possible during the Cricket WorldCup but now that we, South Africa, is finish I am going to say my bit. I know it is easy for us armchair cricketers to be critical but I believe that as a South African, and a proud one, I have the right to ask certain questions.

First about yesterdays game:

  • Why does injured players go play in an important game like that?  Does being the captain automatically imply that one play even if you have a injured knee? Is Andre Nel that much better than Ntini to play with an almost broken thumb – I think not.
  • What were Smith and Kallis thinking by storming down the wicket and throwing their wicket away so early in the game?  Cricket is suppose to be a thinking man’s game — there was absolutely no thinking.
  • Why did Smith not take the 2nd and 3rd powerplay or for that matter be more attacking in the field — they needed wickets. There was no way they would have won by defending the runs.

Overall on the whole worldcup:

  • Why did Petersen go with if he was not going to be used?
  • Why was there no stability in the team? I got the feeling that no one was realy sure who should play when.
  • Surely the team strategist, whomever he or she might have been, knew what type of wickets and condition was waiting on the team.  Why was’nt a team picked that are suitable for that conditions. I am sure somebody like Paul Harris would have been much more valuable than say Kemp.

Yes I am disappointed as a South African that we are out of the WorldCup but given the above I sort of expected it, so it was not a real surprise.  The surprise would have been if we actually went on to win the cup.  The fact that we got to the semis is already more than I expected with the team they picked.

I am sure lot of you have a comment and opinion, whether you agree or not.  At least we now have a Rugby WorldCup to look forward to.  Lets go into it  optimistically and I believe if we pick the right squad then we can win that Cup.

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IBM SA wins new contracts

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Over the past couple of weeks IBM has won 2 major contracts in South Africa. One in access of R1 million with ABSA and another with SAB.

This is great news for IBM South Africa and shows again the value of IBM SA as part of the greater IBM worldwide.

I would have loved to see more of an Application Development component in these contracts since that is the area where I operate in and provide value to the bigger IBM.

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Why is Telkom so anti everything?

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I just read an article in the latest iWeek on the issues that the roll out of broadband in Cape Town is encountering.  Here is a link to the article. (You need to be a subscriber, which is free, to read the article).

Basically it is about Telkom that is objecting to the awarding of the contract by the Cape Town municipality to a consortium consisting of MTN and Cornastone. The reasons Telkom gives is so childish ie – (1) that some old law is still in existence and only they are allowed to provide connectivity and (2) they were not informed that they did not make the shortlist.

As Mike Brierley from MTN says

.. the matter illustrates Telkom’s bullying tactics ..

Come on Telkom, grow up. 

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Do I comment or just keep quiet?

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Reading my RSS feed this morning and looking at South African Blogs, I see one common theme.  Yes you are all correct — everybody has something to say about the CWC cricket and the fact that SA lost to Bangladesh.

This made me think .. is this realy so surprising.  I think not.  Why did we became number 1 in One Day Cricket?  If you think about it then it is only because we played home series agaist 2 teams (India and Paktistan) that neither made the second round.  Oh and Australia had other things on their mind after winning the Ashes and before the world cup when they lost 5 ODI’s to New Zealand.  So just looking at this .. do South Africa realy deserve to be Number 1 in ODI cricket.  I think not and it is starting to show.  We were lucky to win against Sri Lanka in any case.

Now I have said my bit also so if anybody disagrees with me feel free to comment. Healthy debate is more than welcome.

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Congratulations Tertia!!!!!

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I fellow blogger, friend, colleague has won the SA Blog Awards. Congratulations Tertia, I am so happy for you and suppose now we will not cope at all with you in the office .. luckily you sit in a different building.  At least now I can rub shoulders with a famous person 🙂 but then you are famous in any case.

Does not matter what people say about the Blog Awards and the judging .. you deserve this one kiddo.

I know you on leave, when you back bring that new toy via my desk so that I can also play on it a bit … you promised!

Update: Here is a video of the award evening.

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Blogger Braai

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Stormhoek is having a bloggers braai on their farm this coming Friday, 23 March.  Wish I had the time to attend this as it looks like a great lot of fun but unfortunately cannot make it.  For all those attending, have a great time. If you want to go then sign up here … be quick since they only take 25 people.  And they will even give you a sleeping place if you taste too much of their nice wines.

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So frustrating — this $&^$#& Internet is SA

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I do not know whether it is Telkom or IS (my ISP is a IS affiliated one) but for the last couple of days/weeks my international connectivity is shocking.  As I sit or should I say type, I cannot even access Google.

This is a damn Saturday morning and everybody should be sleeping so it cannot be to little bandwidth so it is something technical which somebody should be able to easily fix.  But then we have so much morons in this country running companies that it is only interested in screwing us and pocketing the money.  There I got if off my chest but it did &$&^$& to my Internet connectivity .. I still cannot access most International sites.

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Are you in SA and an Amstel beer drinker?

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I suggest you stock up — with Heineken canceling the contract with SAB for distributing Amstel, it looks like there will be a dry patch for all you Amstel drinkers….

If you do run out then I suggest you switch to either Windhoek Lager or Heineken … please do not switch to Castle or Lion — you will regret it the morning after.

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Skaak Saterdag

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Sien op Tania se blog oor die Skaak ding Saterdag by Fandango … ek is seker Tania soek net skaak spelers soos ek wat sy kan wen.  Ek kan ongelukkig dit nie maak nie … daai familie verpligtinge wat mens van tyd tot tyd moet doen.  Sou graag daar wou wees al was dit net om mense in lewende lywe te ontmoet — sal maar moet wag tot die volgende keer of een van die Geekdinners of 27Dinners.

Vandag moet ek die verkeersdepartement gaan trotseer — my kredietkaart bestuurslisensie moet hernu word.  Sien nou regtig nie uit daarna nie … hopelik is daar nie veel mense in die ry by Durbanville nie.

PS. For my non-Afrikaans visitors … if you need a translation of this then just shout — it is about chess and drivers license.

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