Famous last words of Marius

I am moving house at the beginning of October and the cartoon above made me think whether Telkom will get around to doing my transfer in time.  Monday this week I paid the local Telkom office a visit to arrange for the transfer of my phone and ADSL line.

What a surprise when I received this from Telkom

Telkom Ref:xxxxxxx/xx

Your service will be installed on 01/10/08.For enquiries please dial 10219

We will now have to see if Telkom keeps their word.  Not holding my breath.  Luckily I have 3G as backup.

I wanted to move to Neotel and although they do cover my area, they only support one device with some kind of Windows setup.  I have a network and will hang on till when their wireless device support an Ethernet connection to my router.

For a while now I have been contemplating buying a new Digital Camera.  The question was first whether I should buy a Point and Shoot or a DSLR.  I eventually decided, if I am going to buy then I can just as well do a good job of it so settled for DSLR. The next thing to do was what DSLR having decided that it will be a Canon.  I was between a 400D and a 450D and then the 1000D  made its appearance.

Read more about the camera here.

I have heard good things about the camera and from the 3 (400D, 450D and 1000D), it seems to be the best value for money.  Anybody has any different ideas about it or why I should not buy it?  Also if you know of any place that has the best price for it then please let me know.

Vrydag ‘n week gelede was ek by Hendrik en Melanie se troue in Stellenbosch.  Wat ‘n heerlike troue.  Die onthaal na die kerkdiens was by Cape Town Fish Market in Stellenbosch - iets anders as die normale troue maar uit die boonste rakke.  Baie geluk aan Hendrik en Melanie en mag julle ontsettend gelukkig wees.

By die werk gaan dinge maar voort.  Ek reis nie meer so baie nie en is besig om die reëlings te hanteer vir ons kantoor skuif van die middestad na Century City.

Ek het ook die week besef hoe wonderlik goeie vriende is en hoe hulle mens uit die bloute kan verras.  Dit was gister my half-eeu verjaarsdag en Vrydag toe word ‘n koerier pakkie by my kantoor afgelaai.  Binne was ‘n  verjaarsdag geskenk van iemand baie spesiaal en ver.  Wat ‘n verrassing en baie dankie M.  Ek waardeer dit opreg.

Ek het ook besef hoe geseënd ek is om 2 wonderlike kinders te hê.  Vrydagaand het my dogter vir ons die heerlikste aandete gemaak.  Dankie Meriska.

Hierdie fotos is gisteraand geneem van my dogter toe ons gaan uiteet het by Cattle Baron.  Dit was heerlik om net kwaliteit tyd saam met my kinders te spandeer.

Rainbow over Cape Town while I was driving home from work.  Those of you that know Cape Town will know these bridges - this is the half build bridges which is now earning the city lots of money being used in adverts and movies.

Two days later on my way back from Stellenbosch after dropping my son at varsity, I saw this view.  This is taken from the Polkadraai road between Stellenbosch and Kuilsriver.  Those of you that do not recognise the mountain .. its Tablemountain.

Yes I know I said that it will be Daily but due to unforeseen circumstances it got to way less than Daily. 

This is the sunrise this morning as taken from my house …

And this is the view from my office of beautiful Table Mountain …

How can one not love staying in this wonderful part of the world. 

Hierdie fotos is gister en vandag geneem vanaf my balkon van die sneeu op die Kaapse berge.  Geen wonder dit is so koud nie.

Gister geneem:

Vandag geneem … oornag het die sneeu redelik vermeerder op die berg spitse so ek reken vir die wat vandag en môre wil gaan sneeu kyk, julle sal redelik goeie sneeu kan kry.

A colleague, IBMer Luis Suarez, wrote an article in the NYtimes on how he is using Social Networking tools to reduce the use of e-mail.  And I quote

E-mail can become extinct, if not repurposed altogether, even at big companies like I.B.M. An e-mail in-box no longer needs to be like Pandora’s box.

I am not sure whether I totally agree with this … there is still a place for e-mail.  As another IBMer Ed Brill say and I quote

Even if you move all of your collaboration to other tools, there still needs to be a prompt, a push, a tickle, an alert … something that draws you into the collaboration.

And this push or tickle as Ed calls it is usually via email. If somebody comments on a blog post of mine I get prompted about it via email.  If somebody follow me on Twitter I get informed via email.  If somebody send me a message via Facebook then I get informed via e-mail.

So to answer my own question, no I do not think so.  Yes it can reduce the volume of email (an I do not talk about all the spam) in your inbox but totally replace, no I do not think so.  I would love to hear your comments about it.

Sorry for the quality but it is the best I could do in the dark with my cellphone.

Last night at around 7 pm the power went out in my room.  Luckily I had a battery flashlight (the first one did not work and I had to get a replacement).  Not being able to use the microwave or anything, I settled for a dinner of cheese and crackers.

Just some of the things to keep in mind when travelling across South Africa these days.  You never know when you going to be hit by a power failure.

As most of you know my current job involves travelling across the breath of South Africa, mostly by air but I do come across things I would like to share.  I thought I would take a leave out of Paul’s and Kerry-Ann’s (they are the people behind Cape Town Daily Photo) book and share a photograph on a daily basis.  At least that is the idea, I might skip some days when time does not allow.

I am calling my attempt at this, Daily Travel Photo (DTP) since it will be a photograph about where the road and work takes me.

I though the best place to start is where I stay at the moment.  It is a glorious sunny winters day in Johannesburg and this photo is taken from my guesthouse room balcony of the back garden with the swimming pool and little cascading  waterfall which has a very soothing sound.

Hope you enjoy what I have to bring you on a daily basis.  Actually I stated this yesterday with the post regarding the beggar.

Comments always welcome.

Yes I know it was a while but I have been so busy with travelling and working and life in general. 

Here is how ingenuous people can be.

This photo was taken when I stopped at a red robot in Johannesburg yesterday on my way from work back to my guesthouse.  This guy was painted silver from head to toe and stood dead still in the road.  I was at the robot for at least 2 minutes and he did not move at all, not even his open mouth closed. Just as the robot turned green the car in front of me dropped some money in his hat (which was also painted silver) and he moved to say thanks.  Although I do not like to give money to robot beggars, I also gave some since this was really ingenuous and he deserved some recognition.