Noel Harrison

Palin

I found these words by Sarah Palin inspiring and helped me to feel that there is a hope in the future of the republican party.

Click here to download the video

This is one of the funniest things that I have ever seen. It was during a interview of SABC 2 with the influencial MP - Nhlanha Nene. I managed to get the video from YouTube where it has become a internet favourite. This interview is from a early morning interview in which we were able to hear the chair crack and later saw Nene fall to the ground and out of the camera’s range.

Whats funnier is the fact that the presenter continued without showing any emotion to the happening and continued speaking - if I was to be her, I would be laughing so hard.

He took it well and stated that “It was quite embarrasing because you know you can imagine when the millions are watching”. Due to the fact that he is involved in the states financing, and the SABC is a parastatal - he was asked if he would be allocating a larger budget to more robust furnature - he laughted a commented that he does not allocate to the SABC.

The SABC phoned and appologised. Nele added that the chair literally broke - “The wheels came completely off”. The interview was completed later and the video that I have attached was apparently leaked from a SABC employee and has been posted all over the internet recieving tens of thousands of hits.

This post refers to the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/15/sacramento-gop-removes-wa_n_134841.html and their response to a comment I made or rather let me put it this way - a lack of a response or even publication.

My comment to them in no way was indecent. I was just expressing that I felt that the article that they wrote was good other than a certain section in which I said it was unprofessional to say “How should I interpret that? How about, “Craig MacGlashan is a horse’s ass?”". This is a news / media website. They should not be biased in anyway and that I felt was crossing the line.

Anyway, in the end they did not explain to me as to why they did not approve my comment, and it has never shown up on the comments section - I feel that they did this in order to keep negative light away from them - and that made me feel as if I should blog about my annoyance with them.

As a part of reviving my blog, I will be writing a application review for a while every month. The one that I am doing today is Remote. Remote runs on my Apple iPod Touch (most likely would run on the iPhone too).

This application links into iTunes and basically allows you to control your music on your computer from anywhere in a wifi area. It connects through a wireless network - so for that reason, direct line of sight is not required. Why is this so wonderful? Well lets say that you are having a function, in which you have 100 people all around your house, and you have your computer running the music.

If you want to change the kind of music, you could do it from any location in your home by simply logging onto Remote and changing the music selection. Say you want to soften the music to make an announcement, you can do this by simply sliding your finger over the sound slider which will either make the music softer or louder depending on the way you move it.

This application works both on a PC and a Mac, but PC does give some problems as far as remaining connected to the device - you have to open certain ports in your firewall to let it through. Anyway, this application is avaliable for free in the iPod app store.

Regards,

Noel Harrison

I am in no way a real good photographer, in fact a few of these images quite possibly could of been taken by a friend of mine - we both took some photo’s on the same camera. Just though I would let you see what it looks like in the area that I live - and what it looks like to see the rain passing by. You can sometimes hear the rain approaching you from down the road, so if you’re outside, you know that you have a few seconds to relocate;

I did not want to write anything until I felt that I that I could cover enough about Mac. Mac is a wonderful operating system, so if you are a massive Windows supporter, now is the time that you should stop reading this blog post, or alternativly you could continue reading and tell me why you think Windows / PC is so great.

For a designer, it is the ultimate thing to have a Mac. I have now had my Mac for close to a month and have loved it. There have been a few hiccups though - it was not all a smooth ride.

Before I continue, I would like to let all you readers know that I have used a PC and Windows before - and I have used a number of versions 98, 2000, XP Home and Pro, Vista Home-Basic, Business and Ultimate over the span of approximately 8 years.

I had been contemplating this purchase for sometime, and finally I got the business that I own and manage to purchase it. It is the MacBook 13” 1GB with a processor of 2.1GHZ. Subsequently I have added another Gig of RAM and am thinking of upping it to 4 Gigs before the end of the year.

Mac OSX (Leopard - 10.5.5) is very light on system resources. I can easily run all my applications together without any problems. I absolutely love the iCal and Mail applications. Tim Keller (www.timkeller.net) kindly gave me a list of brilliant open source or freeware programs, so of which I had used the Windows versions of.

Being a web-application developer I was so happy to discover that Komodo Edit (Active State) ran on Mac. This is a freeware programming tool that I have used for the last year or so. It was good that I stopped using Macromedia’s Studio 8 - Dreamweaver.

The nice thing about Studio 8 is that the same installation disk runs on PC and Mac. The chat programme that I have been using is called Adium. It is amazing as it allows users to connect all of their accounts - eg. Gmail, MSN Live and Facebook - and you are able to talk to all these groups with a single application.

I also bough iWork which was amazingly cheap - R850.00 for a family pack which includes 5 licenses - Microsoft should consider pricing like such for their Office application.

Finally, the design of the Mac is really good looking. It is clean - I have the white one. The screen has  a crisp image and the apple light makes the design. The weight of the MacBook however is a slight let down.

I have never had sound problems with my microphone which is great. Speaking on Skype without having to come really close to the computers microphone is wonderful - but thats more a hardware issue.

So, do you work on a Mac, would like to work on a Mac? Or absolutly hate Mac? Share your opinion in a comment

Kind Regards,
Noel Harrison

Hello everyone,

I recently came accross a good blog - www.simondavo.com. The theme is great and looks like it could cover some interesting content regarding design, development and advertising.

Take a look at it when you get a moment: http://www.simondavo.com

Anyway,

Cheers

Just though I would write a post regarding my programming. Lately I have been working on a website for a client in the Eastern Cape. The website has brought a number of challenges along, but I have been able to iron out the majority of these.

The content manager that is being used is my company’s content management system - SpinningYourWeb’s Content Management System. (http://www.spinningyourweb.net)

The templating which my company developed is powered by the wonderful smarty templating engine (http://www.smarty.net).

As I had stated earlier, this website came with a number of challenges - the main on being the fact that pages may be attached to parent pages. This was handeled after thinking through the logic of the concept, the real problem arouse when we needed three levels in some instances, two in others and even single ones in some others.

This website is currently visable to the public at www.sywsocial.com/mtc/welcome/home/ - if you have a moment, your comments and suggestions on the website would be greatly appreciated!

Noel

The following is an article from the Mail & Guardian regarding the resignation of Honorable Trevor Andrew Manuel from his position as Minister of Finance in South Africa.

The resignation of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Tuesday — alongside 13 senior Cabinet ministers — caused confusion and volatility in the country’s financial markets.
The Presidency confirmed by midday on Tuesday that President Thabo Mbeki had received and accepted the resignation letters of 11 Cabinet ministers and three deputy ministers.

South African markets fell after news of the resignations. The rand extended its losses to more than 2,5%, bonds fell sharply and the blue-chip JSE securities exchange top-40 index plunged more than 4%.

However, Manuel’s spokesperson said both he and and his Deputy Minister Jabu Moleketi were willing to serve under the country’s new president in any capacity, which initially led to the rand recouping some of its earlier losses.

“The minister has resigned as a member of the Cabinet and felt duty-bound to do so as he served at the pleasure of the president, and President [Thabo] Mbeki had resigned,” Treasury spokesperson Thoraya Pandy said. “However, the minister has indicated a strong willingness to assist and to serve the new administration in whatever capacity they may ask of him.”

T-Sec economist Mike Schussler said: “He [Manuel] resigns and then in the next hour he says he may be prepared to stay on. He should have announced his situation upfront — now people in the market are really confused.”

As a consequence, there had been tremendous pressure on the rand, he said. “It bounced back but now it’s gone backwards again.” At 2.33pm the local currency was trading at R8,14 to the dollar, Schussler said.

He added that the resignation and the subsequent announcement that Manuel may be prepared to stay on had scared both local and foreign investors. “No one knows what the markets will do in the next few hours,” he said.

South Africa’s new political leaders need to put financial markets at ease, said Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt.

“What we need now is political leadership. I don’t know if they realise how it impacts on financial markets and they must put the markets at ease,” he said.

Roodt said if Manuel did not stay on, then a new replacement would be in place for next month’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement.

However, he did not think any radical changes could be made to the the budget statement as there would not be enough time, but he would definitely expect changes come February next year.

Tuesday’s other resignations were:

• Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota;
• Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad;
• Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils;
• Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour;
• Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin;
• Minister of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena;
• Minister of Public Works Thoko Didiza;
• Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi; and
• Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.

Deputy ministers who resigned:

• Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad;
• Deputy Minister of Finance Jabu Moleketi; and
• Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Loretta Jacobus.

“The resignations will be effective from the day that the president’s resignation takes effect [Thursday],” the Presidency said.

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka had earlier in the day announced her decision to leave her position, to which she was appointed after African National Congress president Jacob Zuma was released from his responsibilities as deputy president in 2005.

Meanwhile, South African lawmakers rubber-stamped Mbeki’s resignation on Tuesday, as he attempts to mend his bruised reputation from charges that he interfered in the prosecution of Zuma. The ANC-dominated Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of effecting Mbeki’s resignation from Thursday September 25, with only 10 votes against the motion.

ANC deputy chief Kgalema Motlanthe was named as the party’s candidate to take over as head of state. Parliament will on Thursday vote on his election, and he will be sworn in later in the day.

Mbeki, who announced his resignation on Sunday after pressure from the ANC, attempted to salvage his reputation in the Constitutional Court, as he challenged a court ruling that he says cost him his job as president.

Dissatisfaction
The resignation of 14 Cabinet ministers loyal to Mbeki shows deep dissatisfaction with the ANC’s decision on the weekend to “recall” the president, opposition Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Tuesday.

“It is clear that behind the display of unity, that there is deep dissatisfaction with the ANC NEC’s [national executive committee] decision to recall the president,” she said.

Many of the ministers resigning, including Manuel, Lekota and Kasrils, had served their office with distinction.

“That the ANC is willing to sacrifice them and risk our country’s stability in order to wreak revenge on the president speaks volumes about its lack of commitment to stable government,” said Zille, adding that it was time “radically realign the political landscape” andbuild an alternative to Zuma’s ANC.

The ministers’ resignations was “an unmitigated disaster”, said Inkatha Freedom Party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

They demonstrated that the ANC’s decision to recall Mbeki was made in “indecent haste”, “ill-conceived and ham-fistedly handled”, he said in a statement. It could only serve to erode further the political stability of South Africa, he added.

Buthelezi paid tribute to the courage of the ministers who had resigned and described Tuesday’s events as “a watershed moment” in the history of the country’s democracy.

The United Democratic Movement (UDM) also said the resignations were the latest repercussion of the ANC’s “over-hasty” action against Mbeki.

“The chickens are coming home to roost,” UDM president Bantu Holomisa said in a statement. “If the ANC is surprised by this news, they need to relook how they have publicly disrespected and humiliated the president of the republic in the past week-and-a-half — a trend rooted in more than two years of increasingly public disdain.”

Political analyst Aubrey Matshiqi said the string of resignations were an indication of a sectionalised ANC.

“Their resignation is an indication of how sectionalised the ANC has become over the last three-and-a-half years,” said the senior political analyst for the Centre for Policy Studies, adding that most of the ministers seemed to have made the decision to resign on a “factional basis”.

Matshiqi said a possible split of the ANC would be significant if it was a sizeable and qualitatively significant portion of the ANC leadership that left. The effects on the party probably would not be felt in the short term, but could become serious in the medium and long term.

The resignation of Manuel and the other key Cabinet ministers did not bode well for South Africa’s economic policies, the South African Chamber of Business said.

“It does not augur well for the prospect of continuity in our economic policies,” said consultant to the chamber Bill Lacey.

The South African Reserve Bank’s communications department confirmed on Tuesday that Governor Tito Mboweni would not be resigning in the wake of the Cabinet resignations.

Mboweni’s spokesperson confirmed that his stance as stated on September 2 remained.

“My own position is that I have been governor of the bank since August 1999 and I will complete my current term in August 2009. If asked to serve, I will. That should put that issue to rest and I will not entertain that question in future,” Mboweni had said in his speech on September 2.

With that in mind, what is your opinion on the economy of South Africa now that so many government officials have stepped down? I think we could be in for some difficult times, but I can say that Trevor Manuel will not need to search all that hard in order to find himself a new high paying job.

This is another economics project that I have just recently completed. I have made it avaliable for download in PDF format. It was really interesting to do the research. It was sad to see how little was done to save the lives of close to a million people.

Please Note: The content, design and layout is the intellectual property of Noel Harrison

Anyway, if you feel like it, you can download it here.