(apple)mac geek

For Mike.

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My friend Terry just bought a 20” iMac – and loves it. He dumps all videos which need to be rendered on it, and instead of taking 2 days to render 2 green screen layers and an image layer in Final Cut Pro, it now takes 50 minutes (!). ZA Store is selling the 17 inch for R10, 271 – and that’s not a bad price at all. Sean is thinking of buying one this weekend (ABOUT TIME!) and just heard Jonathan has a Mac Mini.

Technorati Tags: iMac

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Stormhoek sponsored some fantastic wines for the Jozi Geek Dinner last night – I tasted some Rose and Cabernet Savignon which I would recommend to my friends, and would also recommend they don’t have more than 2 glasses. Graham (from Stormhoek Wines) told us how the blogosphere helped get their wines from unknown to world-famous on a tiiiiny budget. Thanks to Mike for organising, D for taking photos, Aiden for talking about how the connected web saves lives, Max for an inspiring talk (“I’m not a motivational speaker!”), Christoff for telling us an intimate story about him and a goat (real “hands-on” stuff…) and surprise guest, blog god Seth Godin, for telling us how well placed we are in South Africa right now.

I invited my friend Thando to come along kinda because she’s new to the whole geek thing (having discovered open source like, last week) but more because I was hoping she’d meet some people who could help her with her dream. She grew up in the rural Eastern Cape (close to Grahamstown) and her family raised enough money for her to study so she could get a job. She been in Joburg for a number of years doing the corporate thing and has realised she just doesn’t enjoy it. So she’s heading back to her roots, but wants to start an education/social upliftment thing – and a computer lab will be a big part of that. After looking into licensing fees from Microsoft she realised that wouldn’t be an option, and so has just discovered the open source approach. I would love to help her succeed in getting this computer centre off the ground, including full internet connectivity. Thando got several ideas from tonight – including blogging (with the view of connecting her vision globally with interested people and perhaps raising funds), getting people to donate towards the vision and getting the geek community involved (Jacques definition of a geek: a nerd with social skills…I’m not sure I agree!).

Other conversations worth mentioning: Stormhoek, geek groups and energy with Graham; getting together genius groups (and general energy!) with Max; the Nimda worm, DOS 6.22, Kings Quest, technorati stats, bad tech support and Macs with Jacques and George; China, Western sense of self, African cultures and the South African future with Tumi (thanks for the encouragement!); the good-lookingness of [name deleted for fear of incriminating people we know]’s cousin with Mike; BMW, CSS, splattermail, more regular blogging and broken sites in IE 7 with the inimitable Scott; custom php/mysql song database/print app with Chris and Justin; GTD, subversion and Drupal with Monkey Barrel Carl; rubbing up against a pillar with Jonathan (Mike’s fault, that – I disavow all knowledge); “I want to say just 2 things,” with Aiden; and a great moment of connecting Max and Thando who can hopefully have some synergistic sparks as they work out her dream.

So a great evening all in all. Thanks to Primi Piatti for excellent service and going the extra mile (“What?! Tap water?! Now? WITH ice?!”) – and thanks to Mike for organising. We’re sending you virtual hugs (because for f*&^s sake, you got given a 17″ MacBook Pro!).

[Uptime: 20 days 12:19]

Technorati Tags: Jozi Geek Dinner, JoziGeekDinner

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Or at least encourage them to do a better job when it comes to the internet in South Africa. That’s the message from TAG – the Telecommunications Action Group – which was started by Richard Frank from Tectonic whom I met at BarCamp Jozi. They’ve now registered a domain, opened a bank account and are sitting by their computers waiting for confirmations of the flood of cash which should be pouring in any minute now so they can take out a full page advert in a national newspaper (Mail & Guardian?) to send a message to Telkom (we would’ve emailed them, but they wouldn’t have got it…hehehe).

Cheers, I’m about to go and send them my R200 – all so I can get my name in the newspaper!

Technorati Tags: South Africa, Telecommunications, Telecoms Action Group, Telkom

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