Yes Indeed

It has been ages since I last posted to my blog. Things have been HECTIC here, and I have to be quite honest that any free time I have is spent with either the wife, the camera or Mr Credit Card.

Just out of interest, I am working on some cool stuff these days, including some nifty stuff designed around SyncML.

Then of course there is my photography. This has become my main hobby - and my real passion. My collection of gear is getting pretty big, as is my portfolio. As a result, I am starting a new blog / website that will be focussed on this - www.35mm.co.za. There is nothing there at the moment, of course, but give it some time.

I plan on getting involved in product review, maintaining a gallery, posting up some articles and guides that I write / collate, as well as blogging to it using my new toy - the iMate JAM. Read a review of it here.

The JAM is a real beauty. I'm currently writing a blogging front-end to the new blog engine I am writing too (I know - nerd alert. But seriously, its not a big deal, and there is nothing good out there anyway).

So, I'll start posting again to this, and keep you updated with my other projects. If you want to know when new content arrives, just sign-up on the right-hand side (compiments of Bloglet).

Weird things and hoaxes

After hearing Mark Gilman talking about strange things turning up in photographs once they're developed, I started looking around and came up with some interesting links and stories.

Mark's story related to the woman that took a picture of a frozen pond with some swans on it, and when she later looked at the photo realised that there was a hand sticking out of the ice (cue scary music). Chilling.

Well, there are certainly some strange photos out there, and this is one interesting gallery of paranormal photographs. It includes the usual "I took this picture of a gravestone and their was a ghost in the shot when I developed it" stories, plus some other gems.

Of course, most of us would think that these are hoaxes. At least I usually do. To find out if they are, take a look at The Museum of Hoaxes. They have some lovely ones, including this hilarious story about a "spaghetti harvest".

Then there are the classic crop circles. Why not learn how to make your own. Its fun, and the whole family can take part :)

Anyway, if you feel like browsing some of these sites, or finding your own, take a look at The Encyclopaedia of Hoaxes, or the Urban Legends Reference.

Are you open to open source

The debate over whether to move to open source in businesses is an old one, and not one that I care to enter into. What I do find interesting though, is two articles that I read recently.

The first showed how much people despise having to use Microsoft operating systems and software within their businesses (for various valid reasons), but how they still will not move to open source (for just as valid reasons). If I had to have participated in this survey, there are some clear statements that I would have made:

1. Although Microsoft operating systems appear to be more vulnerable to security vulnerabilities, it is only their widespread usage that creates this scenario. Were all desktops and servers to be Linux, there would suddenly be an insurgence of security exploits for this platform. The desire of hackers to break into systems will not diminish.


2. Support is a serious issue in business. Microsoft can be contacted (well, in theory) for any problem, and are obliged to offer you assistance, because you pay license fees. Linux operating systems are a different kettle of fish. Now you have to find a private support company, and make sure that they are suitably qualified and reliable.


3. Companies invest a lot of money into software, both commercial and bespoke, many of which are legacy systems that their business could not do without. To move to another operating system platform would require significant conversion expenses for these applications, enormous development time, and in some cases, would mean having to migrate to alternative software packages, therefore requiring costly conversions of data and staff skills.

The second article was concerning statements made by Linus Torvalds (the inventor of Linux). Basically, he was saying that open source is all very well and good, but people must forge their own way, not ride on the coat tails of successful commercial products, and reverse engineering them to make a free alternative. I fully agree with this. Proprietary is fine - they spent the time and money, so it should belong to them.

Anyway, I don't want to invite too many views and opinions on this, but let me know what you think.