“Why did you have to be” by Patrizio Buanne
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Category Archives: General
Introducing Music I Like
So today I was sitting and thinking how much I love music, my first idea was to blog the lyrics – but that was not the ideal for me. So the solutions to this is to release an article “Music I Like” once a week with one of my favorite songs accompanied by a video / slide show of images from the week.
The first one can be seen below. If you have any suggestions, I would appreciate them.
Noel Harrison
Waking up as me
So not that really anyone cares about what I do in the mornings, I thought I would still share what I do in the morning – just about every morning – so my schedule kind of. Due to my school days – I would set my alarm for 5:30 am so that I would be awake and ready to be happy by 6:30 am. So as the time has passed doing this, my body has begun to wake itself before 5:30 am anticipating the alarm going off.
So now that I am done with High School – I have an interesting yet relaxing morning schedule which I follow. So Ill take this morning as my example. I must of woken up at around 5:30 am. My laptop sits right next to my bed – so I reach for it to check email, IM, twitter and Facebook – to name a few. I spoke to a good friend for a few minutes, then I decided I was going to try and sleep a bit more. I turned on some very relaxing piano music (I have a large collection of just Piano music) and soon drifted back to sleep until 9:00 am.
It was great getting those extra few hours of sleep. After this I got up and showered, cleaned up my room a bit and then prepared to write this post.
I know it is not of much interest to you most likely, but I thought why not share it.
Noel Harrison
What are friends?
(Click on the image for the full-sized version)
A Year in Review: 2009
A Year in Review: 2009
This is my last planned post before the new year. 2009 has been a year of great challenges and amazing successes. So as I did last year, I want to do a review of the website and the coverage it has had.
This year (up to now) has seen another 4812 new faces, which generated 18287 website hits and this lead to the viewership of over 41500 page views. This is an exciting growth for my small yet largely opinionated blog. Yet again, I do claim that this is my personal website and I write about things I enjoy and I do not claim that the content is unbiased. (Just wanted to throw my small disclaimer in).
I have seen a great increase in my website readership this year, with a few of my articles being published on news sites – mainly my Hot Topic: Israel and my Capitalism in a cup write up. My Hot Topic: Israel post became the top read item on this other news site by easily more than four fold and it generated and encouraged much positive debate between accusers from both sides of the spectrum. This is by far one of the most favorable achievements – I am controversial – and this I attribute the success of this website to.
Ok, so now more on a personal note, this was my last year of high school which I am now complete. I get my final results on the 30th of December, and this will be a huge deciding factor on the fate of my planned studying in 2010. I am studying part time through the University of South Africa (UNISA) and will be working full time during the day at a wonderful company – Umoya Network Solutions. The environment at this company is one which encourages productivity – but on a more important note – encourages the personal growth of individuals within the business. The development team I am working with are all under 23 and this is enjoyable for me too as they are on top of the latest technology and are still in that stage in which they are passionate about their work (dont get me wrong – you do get older people who are). It is refreshing.
In part this change has been a sad one for me – as it has required me to close down the business I have nurtured and grown over the last five years (which too has brought me much experience and joy). It is the closing of a path.
From a social point of view, this year has been life changing. I hope to keep in contact with a few of the people from my high school career and in the last 6 months of this year I have made some very close friend. My closest being the girl I went to the Matric Dance with (Otherwise known as a Prom for my American readers). We have become really good friends during this time and I hope that we will keep in contact over the years – I too wish her all the success in the world with her choice in studying down the path of Law in the greatest wine town in the world (not the bias coming up here) – Stellenbosch. Talking of wine, I have taken a great liking to wine (much against the general grain for an 18 year old) – but quite frankly, I dont care.
I have too learnt that people are not as they seem (makes me think to Shakespeare’s Othello act in which Iago makes the comment that men should be as they seem). This in reality is not so – I have seen this first hand and it has caused great pain in my life – but from it, I have obtained many new experiences and am now am much more cautious about whom I talk to and spend my time with. Our time is limited – and I am not willing to waste time on those who do not invest in my life – as I like to think I did or would do in theirs.
I have also started talking to a guy I met. He is from Italy, but is living in America. He has taught me many important things about life and for this I am grateful. I hope to get to know him better as the days and years go on and I wish him all the success in the world as he pursues his path in life. You are special to me – for me it was so refreshing to get to know him a little better – he shared much about his family. You know, I have never know a family that is so close – It amazed me and touched me. One day when I have a family – I will demand this of them, but in all seriousness it is wonderful. It because they are Italian I say 
Then my local friend – best friend Jonathan. This year, and I am sure he will agree has been one of great interest and amusement. We are the best of friends and I see that this will continue as is. Ill make sure of it.
So now looking forward, 2010 is approaching – “The big year” for South Africa. The world cup is here and it is going to be interesting. I say no more on this at this point in time, but I do hope that it is a huge success and that it brings much positive publicity to South Africa. As far as this website goes, I hope to expand it – into a wider array of topics, and I intend on doing this by widening my interests, but also by pulling in guest writers to assist in making this website as interesting as possible to you – the readers.
I look forward to creating new articles which will encourage and stimulate discussion and I look forward to sharing my interests with you in the New Year.
God bless you all in the New Year!
Noel HarrisoThis is my last planned post before the new year. 2009 has been a year of great challenges and amazing successes. So as I did last year, I want to do a review of the website and the coverage it has had.
This is my last planned post before the new year. 2009 has been a year of great challenges and amazing successes. So as I did last year, I want to do a review of the website and the coverage it has had.
This year (up to now) has seen another 4812 new faces, which generated 18287 website hits and this lead to the viewership of over 41500 page views. This is an exciting growth for my small yet largely opinionated blog. Yet again, I do claim that this is my personal website and I write about things I enjoy and I do not claim that the content is unbiased. (Just wanted to throw my small disclaimer in).
I have seen a great increase in my website readership this year, with a few of my articles being published on news sites – mainly my Hot Topic: Israel and my Capitalism in a cup write up. My Hot Topic: Israel post became the top read item on this other news site by easily more than four fold and it generated and encouraged much positive debate between accusers from both sides of the spectrum. This is by far one of the most favorable achievements – I am controversial – and this I attribute the success of this website to.
Ok, so now more on a personal note, this was my last year of high school which I am now complete. I get my final results on the 30th of December, and this will be a huge deciding factor on the fate of my planned studying in 2010. I am studying part time through the University of South Africa (UNISA) and will be working full time during the day at a wonderful company – Umoya Network Solutions. The environment at this company is one which encourages productivity – but on a more important note – encourages the personal growth of individuals within the business. The development team I am working with are all under 23 and this is enjoyable for me too as they are on top of the latest technology and are still in that stage in which they are passionate about their work (dont get me wrong – you do get older people who are). It is refreshing.
In part this change has been a sad one for me – as it has required me to close down the business I have nurtured and grown over the last five years (which too has brought me much experience and joy). It is the closing of a path.
From a social point of view, this year has been life changing. I hope to keep in contact with a few of the people from my high school career and in the last 6 months of this year I have made some very close friend. My closest being the girl I went to the Matric Dance with (Otherwise known as a Prom for my American readers). We have become really good friends during this time and I hope that we will keep in contact over the years – I too wish her all the success in the world with her choice in studying down the path of Law in the greatest wine town in the world (not the bias coming up here) – Stellenbosch. Talking of wine, I have taken a great liking to wine (much against the general grain for an 18 year old) – but quite frankly, I dont care.
I have too learnt that people are not as they seem (makes me think to Shakespeare’s Othello act in which Iago makes the comment that men should be as they seem). This in reality is not so – I have seen this first hand and it has caused great pain in my life – but from it, I have obtained many new experiences and am now am much more cautious about whom I talk to and spend my time with. Our time is limited – and I am not willing to waste time on those who do not invest in my life – as I like to think I did or would do in theirs.
I have also started talking to a guy I met. He is from Italy, but is living in America. He has taught me many important things about life and for this I am grateful. I hope to get to know him better as the days and years go on and I wish him all the success in the world as he pursues his path in life. You are special to me – for me it was so refreshing to get to know him a little better – he shared much about his family. You know, I have never know a family that is so close – It amazed me and touched me. One day when I have a family – I will demand this of them, but in all seriousness it is wonderful. It because they are Italian I say
Then my local friend – best friend Jonathan. This year, and I am sure he will agree has been one of great interest and amusement. We are the best of friends and I see that this will continue as is. Ill make sure of it.
So now looking forward, 2010 is approaching – “The big year” for South Africa. The world cup is here and it is going to be interesting. I say no more on this at this point in time, but I do hope that it is a huge success and that it brings much positive publicity to South Africa. As far as this website goes, I hope to expand it – into a wider array of topics, and I intend on doing this by widening my interests, but also by pulling in guest writers to assist in making this website as interesting as possible to you – the readers.
I look forward to creating new articles which will encourage and stimulate discussion and I look forward to sharing my interests with you in the New Year.
God bless you all in the New Year!
Noel Harrison
P.S. – I have attached two pictures from the Waterfront yesterday, not that you really care. But take a look
Introduction: Jonathan Wagener
Hello Readers,
Just a quick notice, noelharrison.net will be having a new guest writer, Jonathan Wagener. He will be writing about PHP, MySQL and other programming technologies which are being used on the internet. He is a really close friend of mine and he has alot of knowledge in this field.
Jonathan and I intend on doing a PHP / technology based podcast series in the near future, so keep an eye out for that. I hope that you enjoy his writing and feel free to contact me if you feel you could be a positive contribution to this blog.
Kind Regards,
Noel Harrison
Butter Chicken Recipe – Serves 10
I tried my hand at cooking and found a basic butter chicken recipe online and have modified it heavily. However, many people have asked for my recipe, so rather than sending it to everyone, I decided it could make a good blog post.
Firstly, you need no talent what so ever to make this – I havent got any when it comes to food, but this is really easy
So what will you need?
- 12 chicken fillets (breasts)
- 2 tins of tomato puree
- 2 cups of fresh cream
- 1 red pepper
- 1 green pepper
- 1 yellow pepper
- 2 chillies
- 2 onions
- 250g butter
- Dry Spices
Depending on how spicy you want the meal to be – you can select the desired amounts of spices. I make use of the following;
- Ginger
- Paprika
- Chilli Powder
- Chilli Bits
What to do with all this stuff;
You will need a large pot. In this pot first put the butter and onions (cut into rings), let the onions brown. Once browned, put the dry spices in and the chicken (cut into small strips), once the chicken is browned and “tender”, add the tins of puree, the chilli’s and the peppers.
Let this cook for 10 minutes, then add the cream and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. This period should allow for the thickening of the sauce.
Hope you enjoy,
Noel Harrison
Introduction to Simon Davo – Guest Writer @ noelharrison.net
Just a quick notice, Simon Davo has asked to be a guest blogger on noelharrison.net. He will be writing small articles on Ireland in order to gain awareness for the country and its events. This will be published on a weekly basis.
We look forward to reading some new content on noelharrison.net and hopefully also learning something new about the beautiful country – Ireland.
Should anyone else be interested in taking up a guest writers role at noelharrison.net, please feel free to contact us by utilising the contact form on the contact page.
Regards,
Noel Harrison
More Image Edits
I worked on two more images that were taken this evening near my house. I tried a few different things and here are the results. Please let me know what you think of them if you have a moment;
An OSX Users Review of Windows 7
If you are looking for an article that will bash Windows, this is not the article you are looking for and also if you dont have much time, I can sum my experience of Windows with a single word – Wow! I am a very strong “follower” of Apple and have removed Windows and PC’s from my life in general. However, I was interested in seeing what all the talk about Windows 7 was about. A good friend of mine (he is sold of Windows) convinced me to install it as my main operating system on my designers computer, which I let him do.
Although it is still in Beta, it has proven to be brilliant in every aspect of the word. In general it has the same clean and dynamic looks as Vista, but it is better. They have added many minor tweaks which makes it easier to make use of. One of the issues for me at first was the ugly start bar, but now that I am using it, it aint ugly anymore. When you delve deeper you also realise how much work they have put into something as simple as the start bar.
An application when running is displayed in a small square along the start bar. When moused over, all the active open windows running with the program show in a small thumbnail above the icon. Also when mousing over, you will notice that it takes the most used color in the logo and makes it the highlighed icon color. See screenshot below;
The start menu is alot like Vista, but the main thing that is so wonderful about this one is that the shut down button is the first button – unlike Vista where you had to click and go into a small menu to shutdown. It is that kind of minor tweaking which makes it so much better in my opinion.
On a more intellectual note, Windows 7 is by far more stable than any other Windows OS that I have ever used (with Windows ME or Vista ranking as the worst). As far as software compatibility goes, Windows 7 runs like a charm. One of the huge put offs for me with Windows Vista was the fact that I could plug a memory stick in and it would not be able to locate the driver and therefore I could not use the memory stick. It was terrible, I could not use devices that I needed to do the work that I do.
The computer that I am running Windows 7 on was built to run Vista. It only had a gigabyte of ram and Vista was heavy on the system resources. Windows 7 on the otherhand starts quickly and runs fast in general and also shuts down very quickly in comparison to my experience with Vista on the machine.
They have built in many useful small things such as libraries. This makes it easy to share files with other Windows 7 users. The networking controls have been improved dramatically – one of those things that many Vista users hated about Vista.
In closing, it is the same beautiful look of Vista, but this time it is backed by the stability and speed of OSX. What do you think, have you tried it – what will you be willing to pay for it?
Noel Harrison