dubya-blog
31 May
In between sleeping this weekend I've been playing more with Webware and associated technology (SQLObject, Cheetah). dubya-blog (I hate thinking up names for software) can now import my vellum blog entries and display them. I've also got the architecture to customise the left-hand and right-hand navigation based on the content-type and content. Back to work, and PHP is just getting in my way. Oh to be able to use Python...
More than 1time
31 May
Two good experiences with 1time now, my trip back even more friendly and smooth. Staff (both on the ground and in the air) are really friendly, still have that amateurish edge that they're enjoying themselves, and are missing the SAA "professional" stuck-uppedness. Their DC9 aircraft have a copious amount of doors that have extra legroom, and the check-in staff have twice prompted me about getting them.
City tour
31 May
JC and Jaco gave me a tour of Johannesburg on Friday night, including Dimension Data's The Campus, where they work (but for IS!). As I said to Jeremy - it's not a workplace, it's a suburb, with hairdresser, shops, car dealerships, bank branches, and so forth. And then on to a few areas where people go out (Mellville, ...), which seem a lot more like the sort of place I'd go out. Johannesburg appeals to me quite a bit now; I guess the relative slowness of Cape Town and it's (lack of) opportunities for growth for me are something I've been thinking about for a long time now. And at least I'd be staying in-country.
The IT Manager of eThekwini Electricity, Philip Watkins, gave a talk on the migration issues encountered while planning for a migration from their old Windows 95/98 desktops to Linux desktops. Considers the Linux skills/support/training argument dead in the water, and was mostly concerned with just one application in their organisation - their ERP system.
Brainshare: Rest of day two
31 May
Well, rest of the morning, at least. I bunked the afternoon to look around the stalls, and to have an argument about whether one always has the right to run Open Source software that's been distributed to you. I attended talks about Migration from Windows to Linux on the desktop, and on Novell's Open Enterprise Server (basically Netware 7) which will give you the choice of running on a Netware or Linux kernel.
Well, the rest of the keynote were a few companies chatting about their involvement with Linux; nothing new here for me. But, Oracle did mention an upcoming RoadShow in collaboration with Novell happening in South Africa in the next few weeks. I wasn't sure what to expect when SAP was up, but Jonathan Pletschke from SAP didn't talk about Linux. Or SAP. He gave an excellent talk about the future of our jobs as computer practitioners, whether programmers or administrators. Quotes from Brooks always score points, as does mention of Knuth.
Running a bit late, the keynote of the second day started with an incredibly slick demo. A great demo, showing ease of use while keeping complete transparency of what's going on behind the scenes, since the BrainShare delegates include a large number of techies.
BrainShare: iFolder
27 May
Calvin Gaisford works on iFolder at Novell, and explained iFolder and how the Open Source project and the Novell product differ. I must admit, at first I was a bit concerned about the workgroup solution (as the Open Source project is called) being a bit crippled, but it seems it should do everything I'm likely to want to use it for. The enterprise solution (the Novell product) differentiates by bringing backup solutions, policies, directory services, support, and so forth.
Joe Ruthven, ``Linux Evangelist'' at IBM, announced that IBM and Novell want to build a Linux support center in South Africa, and we should expect to hear news about this in the second half of the year. I suppose I've always wondered about the ability of local divisions of largers companies to support Linux, so this should be something to watch.
The second half of the keynote involved a demo of Novell technology. Stafford Masie played guinea pig for showing off what one can do with Novell today.