Being a software developer, I am on my computer most of the day and anything that makes my job a little easier, catches my eye. There are three applications that I will be very briefly mentioning: Versions App, Omni Focus and Sparrow Mail. All of these products are beautifully developed and easily affordable.

Versions App 
Web: http://versionsapp.com/
Twitter: @versionsapp

Versions is a very easy to use OSX svn client. It does everything for you – you are able to view changes, view the timeline of past code commits, checkin, checkout, revert etc. For me, it gets the job done and it has an amazing interface that is user-friendly.

Well worth the €39.00.

Omni Focus
Web: http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/
Twitter: @omnifocus

I work at many different businesses, doing many different things. For this reason, I find it hard to keep track of all the tasks that I have to get done and when they are due. This application allows you to load tasks into projects and contexts which allows sorting and makes it easy to get a clear overview of all the work that you need to get done.

The product is sold for $79.00. A little pricy, however worth it.

Sparrow Mail
Web: http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/
Twitter: @sparrowmailapp

This again is another brilliantly designed application. It has a beautiful UI and also works so much better than the built in OSX mail client. It automatically links into Facebook and loads contacts images and details.

This application is priced at $9.99.

Not that I love my BlackBerry, but it is so much better than the other currently alternative I have – my Sony Ericsson C902 (or something along those lines). Stupidly, I tried to turn it on after only drying it with a towel – then decided after multiple failures to place the handset (with the battery removed) into rice. I also put the battery into the rice – just to ensure that all the moisture would be absorbed.

I then left the handset and tried not to think about the fact that I possibly would have to spend the next 10 months using a Sony Ericsson. About 1 hour later, I decided to try the handset again. This time, the screen turned on and the phone actually loaded the OS. The keyboard was not functional. I put it back into the rice and about 10 hours later removed it.

Everything is functioning perfectly again. Apparently one should leave the handset in for at least 24 – 36 hours – so if faced with this situation – if you have the patience (unlike me), try to give it that amount of time to ensure that all is perfectly dry.

I have had my MacBook Pro for just over a year and a half and have never been unhappy with the performance until I upgraded to Lion OSX earlier this year. The OS seemed to be slow and buggy in general and this frustrated the life out of me.

Apple has released an Internet Recovery system which basically allows you to wipe your main hard drive clean and do a fresh installation using only the OSX base to run the installation over the internet. I admit – I was very nervous. With the bad connectivity here and the slow and unreliable wireless signal I use – I was scared that I would be without my main laptop for a day or so.

Anyway – I did a time machine backup as well as my own backup to multiple locations – just incase things went badly. I then restarted my laptop and waited for the Apple icon to show. I then held down the command + R key together to get into the Apple Recovery mode.

Here I erased my main drive (which took less than a minute to do – scary!) and then returned to the main recovery screen. I then clicked on the link that said something along the lines of “Re-install Lion” and logged into my Apple account. Apple authorized that I had purchased Lion and the download began.

It started at something like 197 hours remaining which worried me, but within about 4 hours, the download was complete and the system had completed the installation to the point of creating user accounts.

From what I can tell, the fresh install is much more responsive and has dealt with most of the issues that I had with Lion when I just did a basic upgrade. I have always been really scared of doing a re-install – especially without a disk.

Apple made this one real easy!

In my seven years of working (yes, I started to work in high school – I’m being honest – seven years), I have come across a wide variety of people. I have worked with people of all ages – private and public organisations (software company) and with students and teachers (teach Information Technology at a few local high schools).

As just about anyone in IT would agree, IT professionals can be very arrogant and I am not exempt to this trait by any degree – it is something that I need to be very aware of all the time and admittedly - it is something I really work hard at avoiding.

Often you will come across people that you dislike – both in a working environment or in a social environment – the main difference being that you cannot always chose the people you work with.

If there is one thing that really raises my blood pressure and makes me burn up in rage – it is dealing with difficult people who have a bad attitude (in the form of being grumpy, unfriendly, unprofessional or just outright rude and arrogant).

Attitude: A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior

Something that I learnt in school was that attitude is a choice. It is a choice that only you can make for yourself. You chose how to perceive a situation and you choose how you react to it.

I recently was reading about how you can deal with people who have a negative attitude around you. I found the following  saying really insightful:

It’s our Attitude, and not necessarily our Aptitude, that determines our Altitude in life.

Your choice of an attitude is a life choice – it can determine the quality of life you live. Those who choose a bad one, often will be unhappy, unfriendly and generally an unpleasant person to be around as they breed negativity. Be cautious and aware of such people – avoid allowing them to bring you down.

Just today, I had to deal with an unpleasant co-worker. The tone of voice and body language both shouted arrogant and as I walked away to go to my next appointment, I was negatively affected – I thought “Oh, she really doesn’t respect me, or like me. I really try to be friendly to her, I really respect her”.

Tone of voice supposedly gives off around 40% of your message to another person. However this is not the main evil here – body language is. Out of the remaining 60% of the message – 55% is derived from your body language. That leaves only 5% to what you are actually verbally portraying.

With students, this is just about always true. If you have ever asked a question to an ‘energetic excited to learn group’ of students – you will see hands flying up to answer a question and see a sense of satisfaction as they get the correct answer. However on the flip side, a class that is uninterested and has a lack of motivation, often will not give you eye contact and you will be forced to select the student to answer the question – which generally comes with a shrug of a shoulder and a grunt or two.

The above mentioned is not really a question of intelligence, rather an attitude issue. You choose your attitude toward everything you do.

So what do you do? On my way in the car, I thought about what I could do about the situation which arouse and initially though “Do I bring it up with an authority?”, “Is that a childish way to deal with the issue?”, “Should I just continue to show respect and friendliness in the attempt to be the bigger person?”.

After some time and reading up, I came to the conclusion that not everybody is going to like me – not because I am a bad person or an unbearable person (which is possible), but because they have chosen an attitude which forbids them from giving others respect – or even the ability to be civil. I have decided that I will try with every part of my being to not change the way I deal with people like that – to continue to show them respect and friendliness – despite how they ‘talk’ (tone, body language) to me.

I refuse to step down to their level. I will not, and I hope those around me will hold me accountable to this – as I would do to them.

In closing, choose your attitude. Make the difference. Do not allow negative people to bring you down to their level – lead the way in hopes to bring them up to your level and beyond.

Take a look at the post from 2009 (Review of noelharrison[dot]net) if you would like to compare results. When reading this post, do note that the data collected by the statistics package is not 100% accurate. It is near impossible to give exact figures when it comes to tracking visitors.

From the beginning of January 2010 until the end of December 2010, noelharrison[dot]net has seen over 5950 new visitors and over 165000 page hits. The blog has used over 1,6GB of bandwidth.

From the statistics generated, it is clear that the more I write, the more visitors I get (this is obvious). The monthly unique hits have grown from early January at 384 to 731 in December 2010.

When looking into the day and time that people view the website the most, the following was discovered; People view the website most on a Sunday and a Monday between 11am and 1pm.

The following I found most interesting. I am able to track great amounts of geographical information. Certain packages are able to break it down to suburb level, however for this blog post, I will keep it nation based. As it normally is, the United States of America ranks in first place. The interesting second runner is the Russian Federation. South Africa is third and Great Britain is fourth. Other nations in order – after fourth are;

• The Netherlands
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Romania
• Ukraine
• Brazil
• Latvia
• Australia
• Japan
• Italy
• Indonesia
• South Korea
• Czech Republic
• Malaysia
• India
• Finland
• Saudi Arabia
• Poland
• Austria

The next bit of interesting information is the content that viewers have found most interesting – based on the number of views. Ranking very high up is the first blog post on noelharrison[dot]net, Government Intervention; Destroyer of the Free Market and the Hot Top: Gaza / Israel.

Again, on a more technical note, 67.9% of all viewers on the site were Windows users and 18,8% are Macintosh users. I have looked at the hits to date this year, I am very proud to say that Macintosh is on top in 2011 (I do wonder how long this will be the case).

Browser wise, in 2010, 47,2% of viewers were using Internet Explorer, 17,1% were using Firefox and a small 14,5% were using Google Chrome. In 2011, I have seen that Google Chrome is sitting at 49,1%, Internet Explorer at 26,2% and Firefox at a dismal 6,9%.

I have found that posting on Facebook is a huge traffic driver to the site, along with Twitter and actually interacting with other blogs – ie. commenting.  Some of the top keywords used to find noelharrison[dot]net are:

• Economy
• Free Market
• Intervention
• Forces (economic)
• Production (economic)
• Interference
• Government
• Africa
• Life

In conclusion, there has been dramatic growth of traffic on the site, which is exciting. The site has made it onto the first page of Google, in 2 or 3rd position over the singer – Noel Harrison. Silly, but it is a rather large challenge to compete.

Im looking forward to huge growth in 2011. Thank you for reading. Comments are always appreciated and generally (if need be) responded to.

Noel Harrison

Firstly, I met my biological mother a few days before the new year. After over 13 years of no contact in any form – this was most definitely one of the highest points in my life. I had never really imagined this day – I guess I thought it would never come.

For me, I was able to have a number of questions answered, a number of personality features were highlighted – small things and then also a number of rather larger things. I’ve been spending great amount of times with her lately – I guess there is just so much to catch up on and so much to get to know. It really has been so very exciting. Possibly one of the best gifts someone could get around Christmas time.

I am very keen to see where this goes and to continue a good relationship with her in the future. (See photos below).

On a less eventful note, I have always been a very pro conservative kind of person. However I got speaking to a friend of mine, who listened to what I felt were my political views.

This friend has studied political science and works as a political strategist at the Cape Independent. After listening to my views, he informed me that I am more of a Classic Liberal. I did some reading later that evening – and it turns out that the views that I hold are in fact not entirely conservative – but in fact fall into the more Classic Liberal park.

Shock and horor?

Not really. For me politics is very important – especially in relation to Economics. The Classical Liberal view on economic is inline with those that I have adopted as my own. I will most likely be posting a little more on this a little later this month.

I think is about all I have to say for this moment.

Above: Photo taken on 1 January 2011.

So 2010 is gone. 2011 is upon us. I can honestly say that 2010 was an amazing year. I have learnt many new things, worked very hard, had great experiences and some not such amazing ones. I guess that is part of life – the good and the bad times. However, we learn from both – I finished this year with a very positive attitude with some amazing friends that I have got to know other the last 12 months.

As I traditionally do (if one can call it a tradition – considering this is the second year I am doing this), I would like to give an overview of 2010, and then also talk about my plans for 2011.

Looking Back:

1. Possibly the most memorable experience this year was the experience of loving someone – for me this was very new.I mean, I love my family and many of my friends – so I speak of a more romantic type of love – I have gained love and lost love this year.

   However I do not regret it – I have learn so much from the process and also have come out as a better person – this person helped me make many important decisions in my life – for one – urged me to register to study in 2011.

   For this I am grateful  - I needed a kick to get that done. With love comes a fair amount of pain – this I have also experienced – yet again – I do not regret this at all – it was such an amazing experience.2011, I will be open to love. Something I was always closed to – I thought I never needed anyone else.

   So, thank you.

   “If you love someone, let them go: If they return to you, they will be your’s forever; If they do not, they were never your’s to begin with.” – Anon.

2. In April 2010, I decided that I needed to follow my vision. I left a company I was working at for around 6 months and started my own business again – SpinningYourWeb.I started SpinningYourWeb in 2005 – when I was 13.

   It is now going into its 6th year of operation. It is finally looking financially viable and I guess this is testament to the power of hard work, consistency and dedication. I love my work – this helps greatly.

   Someone wise said something along the lines of – do what you love, then it is not work.I know where I want my business to be – I know where I want my life to be. I will succeed.

   “There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

3. I have made many great friends. I love my friends. They are what keeps me alive, keep me from loosing my sanity and who are there for me when I am going through a rough time. Without them, I would be nothing.In 2011, I wish to get to know my friends better, to become more involved in their lives and in general, to build some more amazing bridges.

   “You can have friends as numerous as leaves on a tree, but only one good friend will change your life. My life has been changed” – Davide Mancinelli

Looking to 2011:

I have divided this section into two – personal and work.

1. Personal:

   I have many aims in my life.  One of my aims is to be the best friend I can be to those who mean so much to me. I want to always keep my eyes open to new relationships and bridges that can be made. I find I have a very closed mind – this year, I want to expand my horizons and I want to be open to new things and new experiences.

   I start my studies this year, while working a full time demanding job. I made a decision to drop marketing and to move to my initial interest (which I was talked out of in 2010). I will be starting a long process of extending my education.I will be starting a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics. I would like to take this far – how far – that I am unsure of.

   I want to live a healthy life style in 2011. I want to remove things that make me stressed or add additional complexity to life.Life is not meant to be complex and difficult. Living a healthy life includes relationships (both friendships and romantic), healthy eating, fitness and such. I want to be fulfilled in all these areas – however I want to be open to what fulfillment is in these areas.There is so much I could say with regard to my personal life, however as I experience things – I will write additional blog posts.

2. Work:

   With regard to work, I aim to continue my commitment and dedication to the businesses growth and success. I want to work harder – I often feel I do not put my all into my work.

   I guess it is important to do this – in order to reach the maximum potential. I need to be more harsh on myself and I need to force myself to work towards goals.In mid 2010, I launched a software project called Capital Software. This product has been in development for over 5 months. We have a number of clients wanting to license this software. This is very exciting for me – I would love for this to become the core of my business – and I know that it has the ability to become financially viable early on in 2011 as we expand the functionality and make the correct partnerships.

I think that is about it from me for now. I wish all my readers great success in 2011 and I hope that it is a productive year for all.

Here’s to 2011 and whatever it brings us, lets be open to anything.

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?

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/