The lies governments tell

The topic of this post is not some great conspiracy about the invasion of Iraq, Jacob Zuma, or probably anything else you may have been considering when reading the headline. It’s this line that caught my attention. They will not be able to stay overnight because the islands are infested with mosquitoes. In the 1960’s… Continue reading The lies governments tell

Hoo Boy

For those who’ve noticed the 2 days of server downtime, I’m back… Don’t ask…

Vodacom: Telkom or Vodafone?

Every now and again I am reminded that Telkom actually own 50% of Vodacom. I recently changed address, reported it on the vodacom.co.za site. At the same time I changed banks. However, my invoices were still being sent to the old address. So, I received notification that my account was in arrears. Fair enough, I… Continue reading Vodacom: Telkom or Vodafone?

Zend Certification

I noticed today that there are only 9 Zend certified developers in the country. Being a ZCE would definitely enhance most developer’s job prospects, but at $125, it’s not that cheap for individuals, especially those just starting out, where it would have the most impact. Perhaps one of the conferences can arrange some low cost… Continue reading Zend Certification

Wanted: PHP developer

If I can find the right person, I’m considering hiring a PHP developer (and this has nothing to do with those deadlines I said I was missing in my last post. Well OK, not much…). The person doesn’t necessarily need much experience, but must be talented and able to learn quickly. They’ll be working closely… Continue reading Wanted: PHP developer

Crime story 2

Regular readers may be wondering if they missed Crime Story 1. Well, no. And the title could more aptly have been Crime Story 9234, but seeing as I can’t really confirm 9234 incidencts of crime in my life (let’s see, four stolen cars, two encounters with armed assailants at home. House breakins, hmm, tough to… Continue reading Crime story 2

Broken blog competitions

There are now two local blog competitions. There’s the SA Blog Awards, and now News24’s Great South African Blog-off. Unfortunately both are hardly stellar examples of technical competence. SA Blog Awards permalink, comments and trackback links all break, so it hardly qualifies as a blog itself. Subscribing to the blogs feed is not worth it,… Continue reading Broken blog competitions

Local election blogs

With the local government election only two days away, I’ve been quite impressed with the coverage by local blogs. The SA Blog Awards site lists 10 nominations for best SA site about politics (and for some reason I’ve been nominated, albeit under the wrong name). Looking at the local government election coverage by each of… Continue reading Local election blogs

Of hosting, the Slashdot effect and, sigh, Telkom

My recent article, MySQL’s response to Oracle’s moves, was Slashdotted. We all know what that means. Luckily I host in the US, with layeredtech. The site seemed to survive the onslaught, except for a few complaints that may have been about the stylesheets not loading. Layeredtech customer service leaves something to be desired, and I’ve… Continue reading Of hosting, the Slashdot effect and, sigh, Telkom