May 2007 Archives

Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri managed to stay awake long enough to present a speech to parliment today.

She addressed issues such as access to the Sat-3 submarine cable, LLU and Telecoms Licence conversions.

Duncan McLoed has selected a few of the non-waffle bits of the speech, which pretty much sums it all up.

Link to full transcript is available on the FMTech Blog

Could it really be? Neotel actually doing something constructive?

Apparently, they're trying.

Jump starting the light at the end of the high priced telecoms tunnel?

I haven't sat down and watched TV for a good few years now.

I'm not saying I haven't watched anything on the TV, I'm just saying that I haven't anticipated, and watched a scheduled program in years.
I don't even know what the usual TV line-up looks like anymore.
I do know that I'll find something worth watching on the 7-odd different Discovery channels we have, but thats just there to numb my mind after a long day.

Last week, for the first time in I dont know how long, I found a TV show that was worth watching (on the internet, via the BBC website).
I actually sat down at the TV, found the channel, and watched a documentary.
I watched it as it aired, which felt unusual.
I wasn't able to pause it, or rewind. And it had adverts.
And then I did it again yesterday.

All the good TV series' are coming to an end now anyway, so chances are, I might just do it again next week.

SARS (South African Revenue Services), in their wisdom, have implemented a national call centre. This means that there's one phone number for everything (0860121218).
The only problem with this, is that you cant dial 086 numbers from outside of South Africa.

No problem, I'll just check on the SARS website for the normal number.
No such thing. Or rather, too many of them.

So rather than calling up every one of SARS' little branches around South Africa, of which there are hundreds, I asked a friend in South Africa to call the 086 number, and ask them for help.
That didn't work either, so I started with the office that I believed would have the best shot of answering their phones.

The Johannesburg office simply had a little message telling me they're only open until 4pm. All other offices had a message telling me that I must call the central call centre.
Thats useful.

Eventually, I got through to the Boksburg office (probably because they're too behind the times to have implemented the advanced technology required to tell people to go away). The lovely lady on the other end was able to help me, and eventually gave me a number that I could call.

+27118763000 is an office somewhere in Pretoria, where the receptionist only knows how to transfer calls to HR. Which wasn't much help at all.
A little bit of friendly chat with the HR lady (after being transfered to her for the 4th time), resulted in me managing to get +27123172000 out of her. Which is the International Number for the Call Centre!

Hooraaaay. At last!

The "National" Call Centre, was able to give me a fax number in Cape Town for me to fax all my details to.
The concerning part is, I lived and worked in Johannesburg, so I have no Idea why they'd give me an 021 fax number to send my papers to. (Actually, I do have one idea, and thats probably explained by the silence on the line when I answered that I was living in Dublin now... Is there a Dublin in the Western Cape?)

I have no words…
One of the funniest Whose line is it anyway skits I’ve seen

VW Have always had some brilliant adverts, so I’ve decided to put a few of them together in one place.
Enjoy.

As IP Networking is one of my interests (infact, its my main passion, and now my job), Jawug was the perfect platform to learn.

Its one thing learning about the theory, and having a little lab with a few switches and routers sitting on your workbench to learn. Its another thing entirely having an ISP sized network that covers an entire city to play on.

Ofcourse, it wasn't always that big. It started off with only 2 guys, an idea, and some second hand equipment.
Sadly, it didn't work with just the 2 of us, so we grew it to a 3rd member, and then a 4th.

After a little while, and alot of interest from outsiders, we decided that we need to make it bigger.

I'd been watching the developments of SeattleWireless, and we decided that we would open our network.
We'd make it completely open to any who would want to join. The only condition was, they let us know who they were.

Our intention was never to provide access to the Internet. Its not an ISP. Its just a network of people interested in creating an even bigger network. Its almost like Amateur Radio, only we're doing it with Data.

We put up a website, which was a Wiki, making it editable by all so we could share information freely.
We made a few posts on Forums, such as MyADSL
Slowly the interest started trickling in.

I was even contacted by the Financial Mail in 2004 for an interview.
We got tons of feedback from readers, asking how they could become involved, and how they could join.

Roelf from Neology even did a presentation on community networks at the first MyADSL Conference.

And now, I'm amazed at how large it's grown.
The Network has actually outgrown most of the tools that were used to design it in its early stages.
NodeDB was a great tool, but it became too cluttered to use, so Xarion wrote our own version of it.

There are now Community Networks spotted all over South Africa, so Xarion also created a central site to bring all of these "Wugs" together. Wug.Za.Net was born to bring all of them together.

It really has become a community now, with friendships being formed, and regular "meetings" (Called "Koek en Tee", but its really more of a Beer and Braai).

Its taken a while to get here. It took loads of hard work.

So Jawug... here's to the next 5 years, and beyond.