Some of my work – spy-computing.co.za

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Noel Harrison

I was recently contacted to design a website for a local computer company. They wanted an online store and a basic information site. However, the development of the store was a little more difficult that initially anticipated.

PayPal opened in South Africa just recently, however one of the flaws is that you are unable to sell in ZAR (South African local currency), you have to sell in Dollars. I looked for alternative systems, however none were as easy to use as PayPal. So I spoke to a few friends, and one of them directed me to this code which I edited a bit to work.

You can insert the ZAR rate and use the exchange rate server to return the USD rate.

function convert($amount_rands)
{
$from = “ZAR”; //Can be issued as a variable
$to = “USD”; //Can be issued as a variable
$amount = $amount_rands;
$url = “http://www.exchangerate-api.com/”.$from.”/”.$to.”/”.$amount.”?k=uNxOS-xphNp-xXC96″;
$result = file_get_contents($url);
return $result;
}


Thats how I worked around that issue. Take a look at my clients site at www.spy-computing.co.za

Posted in General, Media, Programming | 3 Comments

Portugal vs. Spain – The Game

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Noel Harrison

I generally do not enjoy sport at all. I admit that I had a bad attitude to the entire idea of going to see one of the soccer games. However, I had the feeling that that would be turning down an opportunity of a life time. My sister and I went to the game in Cape Town where Portugal and Spain played. I know very little about the game, however decided to go against my sister’s team selection (she supported Portugal), so I supported Spain.

In the end, I really enjoyed the game and the environment. The noise that all complained of, was really not that bad, however, the traffic leaving the stadium was a total nightmare. What could one suspect with around 62950 fans in the area?

Posted in General, travel | 3 Comments

Steenberg Wine Estate

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Noel Harrison

This past month ive been at the Steenberg Wine Estate a number of times. In my humble opinion, it is one of the best settings and was one of the most enjoyable wine tasting experiences I have had so far.

I went for the classic tasting which was enjoyable (and free), however a friend of mine tried the Ultra Premium range which was amazing.

View their website here: http://www.steenberg-vineyards.co.za/

Posted in General, food, travel | Leave a comment

Introducing a classic

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Noel Harrison

So I have been rather silent for a number of weeks, however, not without a reason. I have been working on a number of projects – however the one that I have enjoyed the most is an open source framework that a friend and I have started. We have been working hard on getting the system to a stage in which we are ready to show the public.

Introducing the Classic Blend Framework.

Both myself and the other developer (a good friend of mine – Jonathan Wagener – http://www.espresso-online.info) have worked with many other frameworks over the many years that we have been developing. What we have done is committed to developing one of the easiest frameworks to use – both for ourselves and for anyone else – for free.

What have we done so far?

  • Database Class: We have created a powerful database class which handles all database queries – from one -> x number of database connections
  • Module Class: This powerful class allows the framework to be easily extended for any purpose. Third party developers will be able to create and edit their own modules and optionally make it a public module which will become available to any other developer in the Classic Blend community.
  • Theme Class: This is possibly one of my favorite aspects of the framework. It allows for the development of themes for the system to run. However, it also makes use of the “Smarty” template’s engine (however is heavily edited), and allows for the assigning of theme variables from anywhere in the entire framework!

That’s it for now - take a look of the first screen-shot the public has seen!

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Weekend in Stellenbosch

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Noel Harrison

Posted in General | 4 Comments

April Updates

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Noel Harrison

Posted in Business, General | 4 Comments

The Lighter Side of Life :)

Posted on March 20, 2010 by Noel Harrison

Today I wanted to take a few photos – so I got the camera and looked what was on it. Now understand im not home all the much – so I had no idea what had been happening at home, but as I looked through some of the photos that one of my other family members took – I realised that we had some visitors. Im not going to say they were cute – because frankly – they are darn ugly ;)

Also, I found a few nice shots from the garden. So enjoy.

(CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE LARGER)

- Noel

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Books I am currently reading

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Noel Harrison

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Government Intervention; The destroyer of the Free Market

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Noel Harrison

Traduction du texte en Français: L’intervention du gouvernement ; le pourfendeur du marché libre

There is no doubt that I am a supporter of the free market – all the amazing benefits which come from it and the overall successful implementation around the world of the system.

So what is this? Well there are many interpretation of what exactly the free market economy is. This is my definition of the free market economy though – “It [the free market economy] is an economic system which is guided by the invisible hand which is controlled by natural market forces. This hand in the market is self regulating and determines in essence what will and wont survive”.

Before you say it – “Look, the free market failed in such and such a year, in such and such a place”. My response is no – it did not fail. Why so? Well the concept of the free market is that it works without external intervention in the markets forces. What would this external intervention be?

If we look at the most recent world economic crisis (which many nations are still working out of), we will see that the leader of the recession – The United States of America’s government began interfering in the economy. When government begins to regulate banks (look at the Clinton years and the 2000’s recession), problems begin to occur. The obvious example of this would be the government forcing banks to offer loans and mortgages to people who are unable to afford the repayments. When interest rates are artificially altered (as often they are), this leads to a state in which credit often becomes so easily accessible. This will without a doubt lead to a peak of what we call a bubble. This bubble is inflated through the affordability of debt.

Then what happens? Well the bubble essentially pops and the markets go into free fall. Government at this stage (which has done enough damage), attempts to fix things by making credit more expensive (lifting the interest rates), this creates the situation in which debt becomes overwhelming and debt repayments in essence are not met. Logically, this leads to the repossession of individuals, corporations and other bodies possessions. Corporations which expanded due to the availability of cheap credit now are forced to lay off large numbers of staff members which lifts the unemployment rate.

Many economist then suggest that government will introduce social welfare programs and projects (such as done in the 1930’s with the Great Depression) which will make the recession dramatically worse and more drawn out. Now that it is rather evident that this failure of the free market system, in fact is not a product of the free market philosophy, but rather an interference from external factors of the market, we are able to look at the benefits of the free market economy.

The free market economy in essence is a market system which regulates itself. It has no government intervention and is free of all forms of external intervention. This market system is driven of the natural forces of the market, self interest, competition and supply and demand. Such a market system is often referred to as the laissez-faire approach.
This invisible hand in the economy ultimately is controlled by the forces of supply and demand and in a situation of excess of the provision of supply – it results in a certain action. What is this action? The simple answer to this is that there then is an excess of supply of the certain product which leads to a reduction in the retail price, which in essence leads to a reduction in revenue generated from the sale of the good or service. This is the perfect example of how the market is controlled by the natural forces of supply and demand and also how they regulate the market.

This market system is driven off healthy competition. Competition is what creates the best product for a consumer. It is clear that people living in markets which are monopolized are receiving a less than satisfactory end good or service from the provider of the good or service. Why is this so? Well companies who operate in the imperfect market have no competition. This means they are the price choosers and they in essence are making the choices about the quality of the end good or service. This leaves a situation in which consumers are powerless. In the free market, the economy is driven by the perfect market in which consumers own the factors of production and they are the price choosers.

This means that the consumers have full knowledge on the possible goods and services that they could receive from alternative providers and this becomes for corporations – the battle for the revenue from the consumers. What does this lead to? Well it leads to a situation of healthy competition and this is better for the consumer. The consumer now has the option to choose a homogenous good or service from a wide array of corporations all competing to make the best good or service for the lowest price.

Self interest is the driver of any economy. I would like to clarify what this means to me. I look at this and think – thats greed. Then when thinking about it – why does anyone work hard? Most people will answer – in order to future myself, my position, my business and so on. The free market economy has the ability to cleanse out the weaker elements and in doing so – it often has affects such as business going bankrupt. This must happen – business must not be propped up by government. Those employees at such companies can go onto working for other organisations which are more powerful or they can – most importantly as it is the driver of economic growth in the world – start up their own business which is driven by the same forces of supply and demand and it powered by innovation which leads to new products. Necessity is the mother of invention, however this cannot go without innovation and dedication.

The free market, because it works on self interest, is where the worlds greatest inventions and products come from as they are environment which are supportive of such growth. The country that runs the most of such principles is the United States of America – however they have even failed at doing this in its purest form. In conclusion – ask yourself which nation has made the largest number of breaking news technologies? Then ask – what economic / government style was ruling at the time. More and more, we are seeing communist nations (which by no means are free market economies) – leaning towards a more free market approach. They are backed by the free market nations – what would China be without the United States (or other free market like nations) consumption?

They would in essence be nothing!

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Four Universal Principles to Living a Regret Free Life

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Noel Harrison

Recently I was reading the February 2010 Christian Living Today. My mother pointed out an article – “A no regrets life”. I skimmed over the article and then also researched it a little more and also put my own thoughts into it too. So this blog post is a combination of works of my own, the Christian Living Today magazine and a article called “One month to live”.

This post is titled  “4 universal principles to a regret free life”. I hope it makes you think about your life and how you could be doing things differently. However – in saying that – im not suggesting that you have problems in yours.

So the four principles are; Live passionately, love completely, learn humbly and lastly, leave boldly. With that being said – I feel it important to quote something that Mother Theresa said – “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much”.

Live Passionately

passion • noun 1 very strong emotion.  2 an outburst of very strong emotion. 3 an intense enthusiasm for something. 4 (the Passion) the suffering and death of Jesus.

“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” – John 10:10b (Msg)

This made me think of the fact that our time on earth is so short and that we should be looking at more than just what we have here on earth. What is of real importance on earth?

We look at how Jesus lived in his short time on earth – He forgave – even those who put Him to death on the cross. So the lesson I get from this is that we should be forgiving of everyone – despite what they have done to you.

I think of one of Don Francisco’s songs now. The name of the song is “I don’t care where you have been sleeping”. The words go something like “I don’t care where you’ve been sleeping, I don’t who’s made your bed, I’ve already gave My life to set you free; There’s no sin you could imagine that is stronger than my love, And it’s all yours if you’ll come home again to Me.”

Jesus loved everyone and showed this in numerous ways. We need to love those who interact with us fully. This will be discussed in more detail in “Love completely”.

So how should one express passion in life? Living a life of passion means living life as God would of intended you too. God wants our lives to be filled and guided by passion for life and others. He wants us to be compassionate to others and he wants us to care for those who are hurting.

We often hear people saying – “Live today as if it were your last”. This has everything to do with living passionately. What will you be happy with facing on the day of judgement? Will you be able to answer for all you have done? Did you do all you possibly could? Did you take every possible opportunity to use what you were given?

Love Completely

love • noun 1 an intense feeling of deep affection.  2 a great interest and pleasure in something. 4 a person or thing that one loves.

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ This is the first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 22:37 – 39 (NIV)

When one thinks about love, our minds often shoot directly to the romantic kind of love. I tend to think about the kind of love that God has for us. It is unconditional love – love that is not subject to being loved in return. Humans do not have the ability to love like this, but we can try our hardest.

I want to love people despite what they have done to me – and this I try to do. We see that in Jesus’ last 30 days on earth, he loved completely. This we see in John 13:1 – “Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.”

So many people, at the end of their lives have many regrets – many of which could be said were from caused from not loving completely. When you question if you love completely – ask yourself the following questions; Did you love God fully? Did you love and show love to those around you?

We must love those around us despite what they do – the Bible says in Cor. 13:8 that “Love never fails…”

Learn Humbly

humble • adjective (humbler, humblest) 1 having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance. 2 of low rank.3 of modest pretensions or dimensions: humble beginnings.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!” – Phil. 2:5-8 (NIV)

Jesus, at the end of his life, humbled himself to the degree of dyeing a shameful sinners death upon the cross. We should take every experience in life and use it as a opportunity for learning. I don’t speak from experience. I often take criticism badly – and after having time to think about it – I realize that, well – I could learn from it and become better through it – as bad, shameful or painful it was.

God allows us to see our problems and we need to take this with humility and try and resolve these problems. God does not expect us to do this alone. Life is not meant to be lived alone – we need people around us – to help us and in the reverse – for us to help.

We need to get to the stage in life when we can say that I cant do this alone. I give up. We need to then ask God for help – only after we admit these things can He work within us. So we need to take advice and criticisms in life humbly.

Leave Boldly

bold • adjective 1 confident and courageous

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” – Matthew 25:23 (NIV)

I believe that our time on earth is limited and I believe that we are not made to live on earth for eternity. We need to let go of earthly things when our time comes. We need to have a sense of security about what happens to us once we die.

We need to see death as simply a path to eternity with our maker – Christ Jesus. If we see it like this – we should not see death as the end of life as we know it – but rather a beginning of a new chapter – and if this is how we view it – surely we are able to leave boldly. So we need to ask ourselves – are we ready to meet our God?

I hope this article has given you some food for thought. It made me think hard about myself – as I write this article – I know there are many unanswered questions for me. So I write this not as someone who is perfect in all these areas – but rather as someone who would like to embrace these principles and introduce them into my own life.

Noel

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