Category Archives: South Africa

Now this sucks

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Voting is open for SA Blog Awards and as a colleague and friend of mine has the best blog in SA I wanted to go an cast my vote. Well the voting site have problems …

Warning: mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: #08004Too many connections in /usr/www/users/sabloga/includes/db.class.php on line 27
Sorry, cannot connect to the database.

Please guys, fix your site … get somebody that knows a bit about MySQL and up those connections .. cannot think that on a Sunday morning you should run out of connections. How many connections do you allow — 10??

While I am at it .. if you have never read Tertia’s blog ‘So Close’, please do yourself a favor and read it.  Yes, it talks a lot about female stuff like PMS, infertility, babies but she writes it in such a way that us males even enjoy reading it.

BTW Tertia, figured out how to get you blog via RSS feed for my feedreader.  Will show you on Monday so you can add a link somewhere for all the people that does not use Bloglines or Google Reader.

Update: The error is fixed and I casted my vote … so Tertia, if you win that MacBook then you owe me …

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South Africans in Ireland for Lotusphere event

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See from Ed that some South Africans will attend a Lotusphere Comes to you event. Wonder who this South Africans are and hope they are going to take some notes so that they can bring the event also to us poor sods that have to stay behind here in South Africa.

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IBM SA delivers bumper year

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Yes I know this is mostly old news but it only hit the press here in South Africa yesterday.  It is good to see IBM South Africa doing so well. 

IBM SA had a record year, delivering a 20% rise in revenue for its 2006 financial year, says Mark Harris, IBM SA country GM.
Speaking at the annual IBM gala dinner for channel partners, Harris noted the year saw growth of 33% from the company’s Server and Technology Group, 30% from Business Consulting, 33% from its Software Group and 59% from its Services Group.

 
This contributes a bit to the $91.4billion revenue that IBM made during 2006.

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Budget day in South Africa

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Yesterday was budget day here in South Africa.  First surplus budget (this probably mean that the income will be more than what the goverment plan to spend). 

From first glance it seems to be a very balanced budget.  Lot of money going to education which is a good thing and even more needs to be done. Our future in this country depend of good education and we (meaning us and the government) need to do everything to make sure each and every kid in this country gets the best education possible.  What I realy would like to see done is that educational expences become tax deductable.

Glad to see that tax on pension funds is abolished.  We as ordinary citizens will get a bit of tax relieve.  Companies will get some and then obviously some money for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Now lets hope that the money that Trevor gave out get to where they suppose to go and not into the pockets of some corrupt government official.

Some links:

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Out with the old, in with the new

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Happy New Year to all and may 2007 be everything you want.

But it is also time to look back at 2006.  What a year I had — if anybody told me at the beginning of 2006 that I would end the year working for IBM, I would have laughed at them.  How wrong would I have been.

2006 was a good and stressful year. For the most part of it we had to keep under wraps the negotiations between Safmarine and IBM .. it was only in the latter part of the year it became public knowledge.  Then all the serious work started to move all the people and work over to IBM .. what a stressful period and this is going to keep us still busy for months to come.

On the personal front .. I am healthy and cannot complain.  My kids are young adults (almost) and makes this father very proud.  I started playing golf again and bought a new car.

Onto 2007 … I am not one for resolutions since we seldom stick to it.  Not because we do not want to but because life is so unpredictable that it usually take us in different directions.  I have one simple resolution .. try to stop working 50 hour weeks and spend more time on seeing our beautiful country and spend time with friends.

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Hooray!!! … I’am on leave

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Yesterday was my last day before a long break from work.  How nice it will be to wake up in the morning and not think about meetings, customers and things work related.  Sorry IBM, I am going to try to give you as little as possible of my time.

So what is on my agenda:  (no not plans, since I am sure some of these I will not get too)

  • Play a lot of golf — officially join a club again (looks like it will be Bellville Golf Club)
  • Find a new car — either a Honda Civic Hatch or Ford Focus 2.0 ST Hatch
  • Visit some family
  • Go to the beach
  • Work on a pet project of mine: (visit http://www.tee-time.za.net/ and you will see — if there is any golf clubs that is interested in it then just contact me and I will point you in the right direction)
  • and anything I feel like doing when I get up in the mornings.

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Home, sweet home

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Change the graphic at the top of the page to my home town.  That is what my workplace look like on a beautiful summers night.  The photo was take from a hill next to my house.

For those that does not recognize it … Table Mountain with Cape Town in the foreground.  And if you still lost … southern tip of Africa.

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Buying a new car!!

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I am busy looking to buy a new car and top of my list is the Honda Civic 5-Door Hatchback.  Have seen and read good things about this car and have driven Honda’s for a good part of my life.

What I am battling about is how to justify R204000.00 for a new car.  Yes it will  be fun to drive around in, but in the end it is just something that takes you from point A to point B.

So if anyone has good arguments why I should not buy this car then I am all ears 🙂

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Checky birds next to my house

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kiewiet
Originally uploaded by Marius.

Went for a stroll today and in an open area next to where I live, I found this 2 birds (in afrikaans they called a kiewiet) which made a hell of a noise as I walked past. The one even had the cheek to chase me. I did not hang around, did not want to disturb them just in case there was chicks or eggs around.

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