June 03, 2005
Alive
So, I was asked to type crap again,
10:00 < SoulFunk> Estaga: blog updates?
10:00 * Estaga has nothing to say
10:07 < SoulFunk> Estaga: how about an entry on your recent "bandwidth detox" and subsequent "return to broadband" ? :)
Righty, so after 30 days of downtime, all to blame to the first ADSL install in a new development, a broken exchange and other sad unmentionables, I'm finally back online.
Of course I received the SMS that I'm back online when I was a few hundred miles away in Bath. Some retry-forever scripts at least made up for the connectivity.
In my absence of broadband I was faced with dialup, it's sad how one forgets how utterly crap it is, 30mb download? more than a hour please! *Argh*.
Needless to say I'm much happier now, I just had to replace my gateway's 8gb hdd with a new one (80gb was best price/size for a small hdd) and I had to endure a few hours of harddrive-head-bashing-sounds while praying for data to make it to my new disk, all's well now though (:
Anyway, mandantory update completed now, I hope Soulfunk at least will be happy now.
Posted by fbotha at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 28, 2005
Offline
So, it's Thursday and I'm taking Friday off and Monday is a holiday, just perfect timing for exchange of contracts (UK way of saying 'getting the keys') for a small apartment I bought about 2 miles from where I live now and move all weekend.
I decided to grab a cheap-ish 2 bed/bath room apartment to get my foot in the market over in the UK since I'm tired throwing a rather large sum of pounds to the landlord every month. As with all UK-buys, I do not know how it will go with such a pre-election and fluxuating property market country but I've tried to cover myself on all the bases I could to make sure value "should" increase over time.
As a no-credit-worthyness-new-person-in-the-country it was quite a interesting buy vs. what I had to go through in South Africa, basically, since nobody will give you a 100% loan (which first time buyers in SA normally would get) you're stuck on having to buy something and come up with 5% of the money (ie. 95% loan), thats only the loan, then you are talking stamp duty, solicitor (lawyer) fees, etc. It can be pretty expensive and you're looking at needing at least £15k in the bank before you can really go see the bank about it. If you are here indefinitely, and been here for some time it seems like you can get 100% easier, although it is still a difficult process.
So, eitherway, I've opted to go for a new build, which generally around here means they will pay the 5% deposit (of a 95% loan) + stamp duty, etc. So in the end you just pay some odds and ends and the solicitors fees, around £4k alltogether will set you off nicely.
If all goes well and if the damn health & safety inspection passes I will get the keys to my new place sometime tomorrow afternoon (: And then I can start enjoying the fun of moving.
Of course just as I wanted to take some more pictures with my 'ol EOS 300D I noticed my camera will not power on at all, it just sits blankly as if there is no batteries in it. I've changed/charged batteries to no avail, I've decided to wait until I've moved before sending in my camera to have it looked at so I'm ridiculously-downgrading to my old HP C30 (1MP) camera (jipee!), that is no doubt going to be lots of fun.
I've tried to organise with BT my new phoneline today and they can only send out a engineer on the 13th of May! I've also contacted my ISP who tried to get my broadband done on the same day but unfortunately nobody in the new development has asked for ADSL yet so they need to come out and line-test it etc. which takes another 5-7 working days after that. So - looks like I'm not going to have access to a phoneline or ADSL any time soon. ):
Eitherway, I'm looking forward to moving into my pad and have my own little nest on this island. I've taken some pictures over the past few weeks and cannot wait to see it completed.
Posted by fbotha at 03:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 11, 2005
Half Eleven
I think it is not only me who is having issues trying to figure out so called "british time".
I've got a appointment for "half eleven" any normal South African (like me) would figure that that means "half past ten" (half way to eleven) but nooo, it means "half past eleven" in the "british time".
Why people cannot open their mouthes and say "past" inbetween those words are above me.
So, the rule (as per Oryx) would be anything !ZA, ie. skip your initial guestimate and +1 and you should be ok.
Posted by fbotha at 04:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 07, 2005
Electoral Roll
Yes, a entry, can you believe it? Blame Brick for this...
My bank, HSBC, suggested that I get my name on the Electoral Roll some time ago as it helps with all sorts of credit vetting nonsense. Got the application from my local council's website and sent it in. Finally yesterday I got a letter confirming my Electoral Roll Number saying I'll now be on the Register from the 1st of April 2005. yipeee.
As mentioned on Oryx's blog as a registered member on the Elecoral Register and being from the commonwealth I can even vote in the general elections, quite weird.
As warned by RIP one can get fined for not registering oneself on the Roll if you're from the commonwealth and living in the UK, so be warned.
On another note, a few months ago I was complaining to Brent about the amount of SPAM-phonecalls I'm getting. I used to atleast get about 6 telemarketing-related (mostly originating from Indian callcentres) phonecalls a week, he suggested getting my name on the TPS. It's much like the american do-not-call list, about a month after adding my name I've not received a single SPAM-call! Best is - you can get whoever is calling you into trouble if you DO get a call. Ditto for MPS which is the snail-mail alternative, as well as FPS which is for fax-spam.
Posted by fbotha at 01:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2005
Is it 'cos I'm black?
One can't help but think WTF when reading a story such as this.
In short, it's a story about a 13 year old girl, Olivia Acton, being kicked out of Middleton Technology School after returning back to school with braided hair.
That's all fine, however, the same action is not being taken with any black kids. When the head teacher was asked why action is not taken against all kids she piped: 'it's not your culture'. Weird.
Which reminds me, I saw a interesting billboard today on the way to work, "Upping requirements for immigration does not mean racism" or somesuch, fun and games.
Posted by fbotha at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2005
Wiki'd page
So, I had a static 'front page' for far too many years to count now. The page has rarely ever been updated (who would want to browse it anyway?).
Brick and a few others recently convinced me that typing-semi-static-crap online can be made semi-simpler with wiki's.
I had a quick look at pywiki and was quite impressed, I needed more html functionality and so, with chewy's recommendation installed moinmoin.
Spent some hours today sorting out the ACL's and just basically cut&pasting most of the crap content I have into the Wiki. I'll fix up the formatting in the next few days.
So, finally, my new little webpage that is far more complicated to use and has very simple pages are over here.
Posted by fbotha at 04:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 02, 2005
Virtual Estaga
Brick poked me today asking for a old site Raven came up with a while back, after a few minutes of CPUtime I finally found it in some old logs, it is called vEstie, mostly some quotes of shite I said on IRC over the years. I do not think it has been updated recently :P
Hrm yes, that was a bad night.
Posted by fbotha at 04:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 15, 2005
Move to new box
If you are reading this it means my move to a new machine worked. Thanks to RIP and his jails, I've got a little jail now somewhere in the states.
It's been quite some fun trying to get used to the FreeBSD way but ultimately I cannot really yet complain.
Posted by fbotha at 12:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 09, 2005
Change in working holiday visas
'Ol Blair decided to make some changes to people abusing the UK Visa system. The only major change is that you cannot work for more than a year in one go, if you go on holiday, etc. inbetween you can make up for this time in your second year.
You can also only extend your stay if you move on to a Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) Visa or Work Permit. HSMP was the first Visa in the UK to come up with a points system and seems like Blair likes the system thus far.
1st Contact has some more news on this issue.
Better start looking at HSMP myself!
Posted by fbotha at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2005
Leave...
A ex-colleague of mine forwarded me this from his mail stash today, it's a mail I sent just as I was going on forced-leave at itouch.
-- snip --
It's with a tear in my eye that I am saying this, iTouch has been a
wonderfull learning experience for me, I learnt many things from both the running of machines, and the people here (yes, fuzzylogic).
Unfortunately, I feel that its time that I move along into another direction for a while, and spend some time growing personally.
This all came to me on the sad day management informed me that I have to serve the maximum sentence, yes, take leave, or lose it.
So, sadly I must bid you all farewell and I wish you all the best of everything while im being sent on this selfdiscovering journey of offlineness.
Eitherway, I'll be back and full of action early December! (;
Anybody with SysAdmin requirements throughout November, please log a
ticket at xyz@xyz.co.za or chat to the very capable Mr X Y
on 082 99x xxxx. Any other queries, please contact my boss.
Sorry, the rest of you are on silent ring! (:
Enjoy!
FB
-- /snip --
Fun and games!
Posted by fbotha at 03:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Blogness
Due to enormous amounts of peer-pressure I have given in and started this blog.
I more see this more as a href stash than anything, so suffer or go away.
Posted by fbotha at 02:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack