This is has been a really awful long weekend…
Saturday i had work in Cape Town at a freelance client, when i woke up Saturday morning things were looking very sunny in Somerset West so i put on some baggies, slops and a t-shirt. I should have known better - don’t trust CT weather. By Saturday afternoon i was shivering my legs off!!! I eventually left around 6pm and when i got back to Somerset West i realized i forgotten my wallet in CT. I was not happy. Had to go to a friends braai completely empty handed. Sunday morning i woke up feeling really flu-ish (thanks to my CT missions) and to make matters worse I discovered they broke into my car - stole my 3 wood, and my brand new VZ sunnies (CRY!!!!).
Monday and today i been down with the flu - totally sucks cause i can’t even go to the chemist to get some meds as i have no cash. Can’t drive to CT to fetch my wallet as i have no money to put in petrol.
To spice things up even more is I leave tomorrow for 6 week business trip and I’m so unorganised thanks to my wallet deciding to stay back in CT. It’s just been such a shit weekend…
Hope everyone had a good long weekend. Enjoy the short week, peace 
Things have been really busy the last 2 - 3 weeks , I work at WorkTravelSA.org which is basically in the volunteer abroad business and we have one of our annual projects coming up next week- so the whole office has been in over drive. One can’t imagine the logistics involved when you have 350 international volunteers arriving for 4 - 12 weeks and they all spread across various game parks in SA - trust me it’s crazy! So this is just a friendly note to all my dedicated blog readers (thanks dad) that I will be gone on business for about 6 weeks. I need to launch some GIS projects for our company in the bush - so not sure how much connectivity i will have.
Moving away from work related stuff…
Last week Friday i realized that I’m loosing my patience. I personally don’t consider myself a stressed or uptight person, but after last week Friday i noticed how ‘life’ can just drain those good characteristics from us. I was a total wreck, i was loosing my mind at people on the roads, swearing somerset old age home drivers and getting annoyed with anyone who would confront me about anything. I’ve never experienced a day like this before - kinda got me thinking of how simple life can be or should be and how daily life pressures have got so high. Funny thing is that there wasn’t anything specific that happened to piss me off - it was anything and everything!
That same Friday i drove up the west coast to go visit my brother and nephew (Callan), yip thats right, I’m a uncle! I’m new to the baby thing so it was so special to hold a little baby that is family. I’m really excited to see Callan grow up and already have all these images in my head of going for endless summer style surf sessions with him and my brother! Now i just have to wait about 7 years for him to grow up! Callan made me realize that life is too short to get annoyed with other people or things. So from now on I’m gonna try my best to keep a cool mind and to leave my gun at home to live a more healthier life by not getting so worked up for silly things.
Take it easy people! Peace!
Couple of years ago if someone heard you spent up to 10 hours a day behind a computer they might think you a tad mad. Today is quite normal to be behind a PC for 8 hours and it’s also becoming more common to hear about RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) or Carpal Tunnel syndrome. Now i don’t suffer from RSI / Carpal Tunnel syndrome, but I do spend 8hours plus A LOT of time on my PC and when you see equipment like this it kinda gets you thinking. So hopefully this ergonomic mouse can be of some use or a step forward in preventing any unnecessary injuries for my fellow g33kers.. lol
Both these injuries can be caused by having incorrect workstation setups and thats where this new mouse apparently can do wonders for people suffering from RSI/Carpal Tunnel syndrome.
Price wise it’s not bad at all. Looking at about R800 which is what you pay for any decent logitech or gaming mouse. Runs at 1000dpi and has all the usual mouse features - from a technical perspective it doesn’t have anything interesting to offer, but i think loads of people out there can make there work days a lot more comfortable with one of these ergonomic mouse.
One of the most annoying things about web design/development is cross browser compatibility - making sure that ones website will work and look correctly it all the different browsers out there.
My mate (shot Warrick) discovered it and i been using it ever since. Anyway this little tool can be quite handy for any web developer, it allows you to install Multiple Internet Explorer on your own PC. So no need to make use of some online snapshot facility or running to a old PC to test your website. Just install it and you have all version of IE on your PC.
The download is decent (10MB) and makes use of DLL redirection to have all versions on your PC without overwriting each other.
Couple of the big gaming publications got to visit Blizzard headquarters recently and have compiled some reading on it. [links to sites at bottom of post]
I’m just gonna mention some of the exciting changes or advances in Blizzards new WoW expansion…
Death Knights are now obtainable if you have a level 55 character or higher. You can choose any race and roll a Death Knight. You only allowed one death knight per realm. Personally i feel that lvl55 is a joke for a requirement to get the Death Knight, i can already see every tom, dick and harry running around with there new death night. Oh did i mention that a Death Knight can summon it’s own pet too.
Raiding has also taken a new turn - which i think is a good idea. In the expansion all raid instances will be able to be done as a 10-man raid or a 25-man raid. I’m sure the hardcore wow addicts don’t like this, but i think it opens the game a lot more for the casual players. 25-man raids will still have the better loot to offer.
Heroic dungeons will also not be dropping blues anymore, and will have there own tier of loot. I can’t find the source right now, but i read online last night that Naxx will also become available as a easy instance for all the people who missed it in the original game content.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Preview
For complete reviews on the latest WoW: Wrath of the Lich King expansion than check out the following source.
EuroGamer
1UP
IGN
GameSpot
GameSpy
GamePro
Curse
Do Not Swallow Your Chewing-Gum!
HaHa, i found it kak funny!
The past two weeks I’ve been crashing at a friends place. Have to admit I don’t always find myself staring at a houses layout, but since staying at my mates place i’ve come to appreciate the layout and think I’ve found something i would replicate one day. Architecturally nothing spectacular, it’s a u-shaped house, but lounge, kitchen and TV room is all joined by open plan and rooms are on the edges of the “u” shape with on suite bathrooms. Really liked the idea of being in any any room and having solid WiFi signal
It’s in house layouts like this that I can see the possibilities and potentials of true IP rigged homes in SA. VoIP software on mobile phones will be able to function a lot more confidentially without any unnecessary signal interrupts just because of bad signal. Lets face it, walls suck ass when it comes to wireless.
Anyway it’s always a treat to be able to sit anywhere in the house with a laptop and get good WiFi connectivty. So I’m writing this quick post from the kitchen, while i wait for my supper.
All this WiFi talk kinda got me googling some Wifi Routers and came across this Linksys router. Below is a picture of it.
What makes the router unique is that it has 3 antennas and 8 times the speed and 3 times the range over standard 802.11g routers. Anyway this is definitely something i would consider purchasing. I would rather purchase something stronger when it comes to wireless routers than having to deal with wireless disconnects.
I’m definitely not new to the blogging thing, in fact this is my 3rd personal blog I’m starting. First it was mystudio.co.za, a non-wordpress blog that kinda got me into the blogging scene. After being owned by spam I decided to start a new blog called retrosaint.co.za which made use of Wordpress - this was my first proper blog and got me interested in other arenas like SEO, AdSense and Web2.0. I used retrosaint.co.za as a platform to practice and apply all my readings on. Slowly but surely I got caught up into the whole adsense thing and wasn’t long before retrosaint.co.za was just another MFA site.
So now i present crispy.co.za - you might be wondering why the name “crispy”. Well my original plan was to register a domain that was more closely suited to my real life name, Chris Bezuidenhout. Unfortunately domains like chrisb.com / chrisb.co.za were all taken. One of my past colleagues use to call me ‘crispy’, it obviously sounds close to ‘chris b’ when you pronounce it and thats how crispy.co.za originated.
I haven’t got major plans for this site, but just to try give a weekly blog post and to demo some of my portfolio work.