The Mail Owl Scrolls

Try visiting a BDSM Moot

Oh Your God!  Last night I went along with a friend of mine to the CollarMe.co.za moot in Johannesburg.  For those of you who haven’t read Coffee-shop Schmuck’s post on his experience CollarMe.co.za…

“The website is a Premier BDSM Community Website aimed primarily at the South African Community and you can check it out at: http://www.collarme.co.za!

On this site you will be able to meet others with similar interests, talk about your interests, learn more about your interests, find out information about events organised in your area as well as find your way to suppliers of the products you seek to pursue your favourite pass times.

The community is built on mutual respect and acceptance of each others differences as well as each others similarities in so far as sexual orientation is concerned, therefore the site is Pansexual and as such Heterosexuals, Bisexuals and Homosexuals are all welcome to join and participate.”

But last night was different.  Even for some of the regulars, the short films we watched last night were pretty hardcore.  While there was no intercourse, the acts we watched included: exhibitionism, piercing, torture, mutilation and blood-letting.

To be fair, the director of the films (who was the speaker for the evening) did warn us about its severity; his comment “Get from it what you will”.

So to end this post; what I got out of last night is that I’m sane and normal; and my vices and depravities are within social boundaries.  I think we, as a society, needs extremists in our lives; they highlight the borders of our world.

My Blog's 1st Birthday

Very quickly about adding an image as an illumination; I found that if you add align=”left” to the attribute of the <img> then the text will wrap nicely around it.

.NET MSN Messenger library

Don’t you hate it when you get given some cool toy or gadget to play with, but you can’t play with it until later?  It’s like opening Christmas presents as a child but not being allowed to play with them until after breakfast.

It’s the same with me and the .NET MSN Messenger library as I’ve promised to get my Direct X 9 back up to speed, along with filling the missing corners in my C# understanding.

Quote:

“dotMSN is a class library to make use of the MSN Messenger Service. The library is built in C# and can therefore be used by all languages the .NET environment supports. DotMSN provides an easy and consistent interface through a clean Object Oriented approach. DotMSN abstracts the low-level MSN protocol so you can quickly integrate dotMSN with your application and make direct use of MSN-connectivity. DotMSN is free and can be used in both non-commercial and commercial applications.”

So please won’t someone else play with it and come back to me.  When the link was given to me, it was with the idea of extending MSN into a chat room; which, in theory, is really just a huge conversation but which users can join to as supposed to being invited.

April SA Developer Meeting - Conclusion

For April’s meeting we had Mario speaking on Serialization.  As with Mario’s previous talk, this one was well receiving, the demo’s good quality and the speaker definitely knowing his topic.

A small audience meant that everyone went home with a prize.  Paul, without too much bribery, got Microsoft .Net Compact Framework (Core Reference) (read his comments on the event here) and Craig (phyreg0d) got my last SA Dev shirt.  The other Craig (CraigN) and Mark walked away with C# Concisely and Programming in the .NET Evironment.

We also used a new caterer and the food was delicious.  Unfortunately due to a management slip up, we only had Windhoek light there, but the problem has been noted and we’ll be better prepared next time!

So until next time!

P.S.  If you’re wondering what the bribe was for Paul to get his book, he’s speaking for SA Developer in June.

F1 San Marino GP Review

Michael really showed off his talent today along with the possibilities of Ferrari’s new car when he went from 13th to 2nd position (only 0.2 seconds behind the lead) in today’s race at San Marino GP.

Congratulations to Alonso for winning his 3^rd consecutive race.  He’s really proving that he can keep the pace and even though he’s car is slower than the new Ferrari, he knows how to use it even when it’s been tormented by the previous races.

Williams (my team) were rather disappointing.  I firmly believe we have a good driver in Webber, and Heidfeld has proven himself beyond all expectations; but they seem to be slipping off the pace and came 9^th and 10^th today.

Fisichella still isn’t doing very well, and it’s weird as Alonso is still using the same car since he started his winning streak.  I hope he gets whatever the problems are resolved so he can support his team mate.

But my heart goes out to Raikkonen today, who beat Alonso in the qualifying and was doing a sterling job setting the pace until his driveshaft pulled him off the track; apparently flinging his steering wheel across the garage as he pitted.

This just proves that you can’t take the racing for granted anymore, nor can you just watch the start and the end.  The committee has, I think, done a good job of creating an exciting race without the cost to life.

So, until Barcelona, Spain on the 8^th May; travel safely.

Welcoming a new blogger

I’m managed to convince my co-worker to start a blog focusing on development with Crystal Reports.  He might be adding English premiership comments as well since he’s an avid Liverpool fan.

So please welcome Michael Tocick at Mikes rambles!

The Vatican and the Pope in the 21st century

You know, I was a little worried whether the Vatican was going to "get with the times" and realise the potential of the internet, reaching out and preaching to those lost sheep electronically.

You often see in movies that the Vatican, or some related monastery, has a huge, high tech underground data centre; doing everything from hacking the Da Vinci code, digitally decrypting Dead Sea scrolls, to spying on demons and communists via satellite.

But I see I needn't worry, the new pope Benedict XVI already has a fan site, t-shirts and mugs.  Pretty soon, there’ll be flash movies like Home Star Runner or Happy Tree Friends available.

What’s really funny is that someone has already bought BenedictVXI.com so the new pope is going to have to cough up if he wants the domain.

Thank you Cherryflava for the heads up

Learning Life's Lessons

Tonight and for the next couple of Tuesdays I’ll be attending an Introduction into Buddhism course at the Johannesburg Samye Dzong centre.

“The course will cover the basics of Buddhism by looking at the meaning of some of the core Buddhist symbols, such as the Three Precious Jewels, the Dharmachakra and The Lotus. Topics such as the Buddha’s life story and The Three Vehicles of Buddhist practice (Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana) will be covered. Instruction on basic shenay and contemplation meditation will also be included in the course.”

I’m really looking forward to attending this course.  While I’m not a Buddhist nor subscribed to any defined religion or lifestyle (except maybe Principia Discordia), I do like the teachings of a non-egocentric lifestyle (a lesson I could definitely learn).

Course dates: 19 and 26 April, 3 and 10 May

Time: 19:30

Cost: R200 (Full payment)

Venue: JHB Samye Dzong, 43 Floss Street, Kensington

For further info & booking: 011 614 1948 (9:00 - 13:00) or email dorje@gem.co.za

Time to upgrade my phone

OK, I’ll admit it; I have a severe case of “Tech Lust” and I’ll do nearly anything for the i-Mate JAM.  I’m due for an upgrade on my MTN contract but unfortunately the JAM isn’t available yet and I can’t afford to buy one out right. *burst into tears*

A book for DotNetNuke

While I was surfing, as one does in the evening, I happened across Building Websites with VB.NET and DotNetNuke 3.0 from Amazon.

I worked with DotNetNuke while I was working for Syncrony, and it’s a really great Open Source tool for rapid website development.

In my opinion, back then, it was a great open source option to SharePoint; where a super-user/non-developer can add, edit and delete pre-built modules on a page.  From news feed to shopping carts, it was also easy to build your own modules and upload them to the server.  It supported managed and anonymous users. It had some inbuilt reporting and, like we used it in a couple of projects, was great for intranet sites; and that’s just some of the features

So well done to the DotNetNuke community!

I'm famous (now if only it could make me money)

If you google for “lan session”, “wakeboarding” or “adventure golf” from South African pages, you’ll find my blog comes up in the top 2 for all of these activities.

This has led to phone calls, from non-SA Developer members, asking for advice for starting beginners in the sports, how much I charge for hosting events and whether I organise offices functions and provide catering.

I’ve decided not to take this opportunity to become an event coordinator (just yet) but there definitely seems to be a need in South Africa from someone to do this kind of thing.

So I realise this post is extremely egotistical, but as it stems from fact, I feel I’m allowed to blog it.  And besides, this is proof that blogging (and more importantly permalinks) can a powerful marketing tool for your profile/company/community.

April SA Developer Adventure Golf - Conclusion

So I think the biggest surprise of yesterday’s social was the presence of Karen Young; which probably explains the rain, why we couldn’t meet at Milky Lane and why we couldn’t even get into the Keg.

Eventually, the rain cleared up and we were able to play.  I must say that the Adventure Golf course at Fourways is pretty tough and be prepared to lose your ball in the bush.

So with the Keg closed, we ambled off to Billy the Bums where we had pancakes.  Ruari joined us later for a couple of drinks and then we were invited around to Tina and Evan’s place for a braai where we drank Rhum from Mozambique.

Craig, Mark and Tina got deep into architecture, while Karen (who had been partying until late the night before) got stuck into the food.

Found a Crystal Reports blog

For all you developers working with Crystal my co-worker, Michael Tocik, found this blog (Crystal .NET Blog) while he was learning about RSS Feeds and installing RSS Bandit to get Premier League news.

Looking for decay in abandoned places

For all you Urban Poets, Entropy Freaks, Goths and just plain RPG Junkies out there, if you’re looking for ideas and imagery of desolate darkness check out http://www.abandoned-places.com/

This Belgium has gone to great lengths to break into abandoned factories, hospitals, homes, etc and the photographs he’s taken could have come straight out of a Manson video.

June SA Developer Meeting - Johannesburg, South Africa

Date: 15th June 2005

Time: 18:00

Location: Torque-IT, Rivonia (Map here)

Contact: Andre Odendaal 083-410-7702 or email andreo@gmail.com

Topic: Reflection

Speaker: Paul Sainsbury

We are very fortunate to have Paul speaking for us at June’s SA Developer meeting.

Please RSVP here