My view of the world and anything that might interest me.
My SA passport expires in February 2007 and it is probably time to get the ball rolling to get it renewed. Having heard and read about other peoples experiences renewing one’s passport, I am not looking forward to this.
At least I have some spare photos lying around so I do not have to go and have my picture taken.
Any good advice will be appreciated on making this process as painless as possible.
Technorati Tags: passport, South Africa, Internal Affairs
As mentioned before, Safmarine has outsourced their computing requirements to IBM and in the process sold all of SCS to IBM. Now that includes all the people of which I am one.
The official date when we become IBM’ers, as it is called, is 1 Dec 2006. Up until 30 November we are in a process called transition. That basically involved getting everyone changed/moved/converted to the IBM Medical Aid, IBM Pension Fund and all things IBM. So this means that we are bombarded with information so that we can make informed decision about we going to structure our salary package and IBM needs to make sure that none of us is worse of than we are at the moment at SCS.
One thing I am really looking forward to is having access to the vasts amount of information and knowledge that is available in the IBM organization. I am a real information junky, you have to see what my RSS reader looks like. Oh and not forgetting all the training and courses that is available, most in an online way to be done when it suits you.
On the downside is that IBM SA headoffice is in Jhb which means I have to travel to Jhb from time to time — in fact will be spending a couple of days in Jhb coming week.
Technorati Tags: IBM, SCS, Safmarine, new work, transition
What a crooked ref …. just saw the game between WP and Blue Bulls and I have never in my live seen a ref that is so crooked. Knock-on happen right in front of him and he ignores it. He was one sided, inconsistent, and warn but never go through with the warnings. I get the distinct feeling that he was paid or bribed.
It is times like this were team captains should be allowed to do something like requesting a new ref or taking their team of the field.
Most of you might say it is sour grapes because province lost. Maybe, and I will be the first that will say that WP did not deserve to win in the end. But it still does not excuse the way the ref handled the game. But as we also know nothing will be done about it.
Oh for those that do not know WP lost 45-30.
Technorati Tags: Rugby, WP, Blue Bulls, crook, referee
After watching yesterday test between SA and NZ (btw for those that does not know, the score was NZ:45 SA:26), I am seriously starting to think that rugby in SA is a big farce. Then White goes on to say that there is no need to panic. Well he is obviously living in a dream world.
It is time he is brought to book and fired and also then select the players that is on form and not has beens like John Smit, Percy and the rest.
Technorati Tags: Rugby, All Blacks, Springboks
Safmarine has outsourced their computing requirements to IBM South Africa for the next 10 years and with it all staff (that includes me) will be moving to IBM subject to approval by the competitions board. So sometime in the future when the transition process is complete, I will become part of the IBM family. Will have to see whether this is a good or bad thing — time will tell.
To read more about it visit – http://www.moneyweb.co.za/shares/ict_sector/920207.htm
Everybody says, what a great game of cricket. Yes it was exciting and good that SA won but I do not think it was a great cricket game. I always thought that cricket is a contest between bat and ball and yesterday that did not happen. It was a one sided batting performance by both teams. The bowling and fielding team had no say in the game and that cannot be good for cricket. It was purely of entertainment value for the spectators, nothing else.
Technorati Tags: South Africa, Australia, Cricket
This is now getting ridiculous. Now the government (Alec Erwin) claims that is was sabotage that damages the one reactor at Koeberg to disrupt the elections of today. Well this is just bullshit and does not make sense since the reactor was damage during November last year — a whole 4 months before the election.
This is a classic case where the government is covering up incompetence at Koeberg but what do you expect with all the affirmative action people that was appointed to run these critical organizations. I have heard a little birdie whisper that the guy running Koeberg (yes he is an affirmative action case) earns in the region of R900 000.00 per month.
Technorati Tags: Koeberg, Power, affirmative
Mark, congratulation on being named International Open Source Personality Of The Year. It is nice to see somebody from South Africa being recognized for the work that is being done on an International platform.
Technorati Tags: Shuttleworth, Ubuntu
One thing that is missing from my hardware list and which is a critical item. I obviously need some optical device and the first one that springs to mind is a Dual Layer DVD writer. After thinking about this a bit I was wondering whether it would not be worthwhile to go directly to Blu-Ray or HD DVD drives. The question then arises, what one?
For a while now I have considered getting DSTV, I do not even have M-NET at the moment. Now that DSTV also come with their own PVR (Personal Video Recorder) I was considering it. Over the New year long weekend I read an article about a guy that build his own PVR. I then decided that it would be a nice hobby project to also build my own. Here is my idea on what I will use (please comment if you have any other ideas)
Hardware
Software
I will add blog entries as I progress with this hobby project.