I have not been blogging much lately. Go figure. Weekly news summary as usual..

• I entered Amobia in a venture fund competition. Should have some feedback by mid July.
• Added a Crackbook page for Amobia.
• Watched Zeitgeist, 40 Year Old Virgin and Oceans Eleven.
• We had a Frogfoot company photo taken for 2008. Pics at the usual place.
• Completed the Extreme Networks ECSP training course.
• Made a fact sheet for WAPA.
• Walked up Lions Head three times this week. Helps me think.
• I’m getting back into a swimming routine. Helps me think.
• Friday, made a new friend by apologising to an old friend. We avoided each other for the last 3 years.
• Removed two ~nasty blog posts.
• I brewed up Joe’s famous thai green curry on Friday evening. Nice to cook.
• Visited Wellington on Saturday afternoon.
• Anton is in ZA for a week. Had a nice dinner with friends at the Fishmonger followed by drinks at the Akker.
• Saturday and Sunday was Mia time. We watched Babe today. Sweet movie.

Joe’s news items..

• Random quote of the week: “What on earth would a man do with himself if something did not stand in his way?” — H. G. Wells
• Looks like Teraco raised its remaining funding.
• Tuesday, Georg’s home cooked veggie soup and red wine evening.
• Wednesday, downloaded Firefox 3.0 and moved some furniture.
• There seems to be good interest in a Cape Town peering point again. About 11 networks have responded positively so far, including Google.
• Finally found a use for the DMCA. Facebook is pretty quick with removing copyrighted material.
• Thursday, processed some iWeek paperwork. Amobia and Teraco are now Gold sponsors. WAPA will endorse the Thursday morning wireless session and will have a stand in the iWeek exhibition area. If you have not yet registered, go here.. it’s free.
• The Blio PBX passed 100% of the TBR-3 tests including the optional parts. This completes the 4th and final part of the ICASA requirements.
• I attended the 1st Cape Town Pecha Kucha night. The wine was crap. The Moscow Mules were good. The talks were pretty decent.
• Friday and Saturday was Mia time. We went for a swim again. She fell asleep in the car as we drove to go watch some rugby. Mia slept on my chest for most of the game. Not bothered by any of the excitement around her. It really is a magic feeling having her take a nap like that.
• Saturday night was Andy and Georg’s house warming party. Must be Andy’s 6th house warming in two years. All the usual suspects showed up, including my personal shrink, who’s birthday it is today.
• Sunday, had fish and chips at the Waterfront and watched Kung Fu Panda. A fun movie.
• Walked up Lions Head just before sunset and got some panoramic photos of clouds rolling into Camps Bay and Cape Town harbour. Cape Town is Rome.
• I now have a dinner table (again). Guess I’ll have to have a dinner party soon.
• I also have an Ubuntu PC and SIP phone at home now.. all I need is a big LCD screen for movies.

Peace.

News from planet Joe:

• Teraco now has a commitment for 2/3 of required funding
• Entered Amobia in a business idea competition of sorts, should have some feedback by mid July
• Updated the SwimGeek front page
• Friday, went for a walk with Mia on a strawberry farm
• Saturday, gym, swim, food, family, fun and friends
• Sunday, Fathers Day was a complete mess, I was a complete mess
• Ever see people you know are on your Facebook friends list but you can’t remember their names? It’s happened twice now.
• Persuaded the admin of the en_ZA locale settings to use 24:00 time format and make weeks start on Mondays. The power of open source. If a small thing bugs you it can be fixed quickly.
• I’ve taken an interest in peering (internet exchanges) again after the JINX workshop. Busy tinkering with a few ideas.
• Added a Facebook page for Frogfoot
• I registered for this year’s iWeek conference. I’ve been invited to be part of a wireless panel discussion on the Thursday (wireless day).
• Weekend movies:
  • Elf: Good
  • Sex and the City: Not that bad
  • Hot Fuzz: Classic

Have a fun 4 day week. I can see I’ll need to be applying some selective amnesia jedi mind tricks.

Bullet list news from the life of Joe..

• I watched the 4th Indiana Jones movie today. I liked it. George Lucas must have been too busy working on Howard the Duck 2 to have been involved.
• Nu Metro at the Waterfront is pretty lame. Both their self-service ticket machines were broken.. what’s the point of promoting the self help system if you can’t help yourself?
• To the girl at the gym who wears Issey Miyake, please stop, it’s distracting.
• Quote of the week: “Just remember one thing: they rip your heart through your ass”
• We did a site survey for our plan to build a big wifi hotspot in Long Street last week. Always fun climbing around on rooftops.
• Attended the Open Coffee club event at Sinn’s. Hmm.. not sure what to say other than maybe: it seemed a bit “diluted” (not the coffee).
• Mia and I visited the Spier Cheetah Outreach and bird of pray rehabilitation centre. The cheetahs liked Mia, I guess she looked like a nice afternoon snack.
• I think I caught a mild version of Mia’s flu bug, but I’m feeling better again.
• I wrote a short Q&A style article about Amobia for the WAPA website.
• I should be attending the ISPA JINX peering workshop this week.

Have a brave wintery week.

From an email I wrote to an Amobia staff member today.. maybe you find my little story useful..

This reminds me of what our underwater hockey coach used to try drill into us.. kick, turn, kick, pass.

You see, it’s natural to want to pass when you need air.

Most people go: kick, turn, pass,
and not: kick, turn, kick, pass,
the second being a much better strategy and keeps forward momentum.

My point is..
don’t just point out the problem, suggest the solution also.

The wiki can be changed easily, that’s why it’s a wiki. Give it a first shot.

Article about the Blio PBX…

Local PBX product on the market

A quick comparison between Amobia’s rate based last mile links and Telkom Diginet leased lines.

Here we have a list of common line speeds. Telkom Diginet pricing is based on links to the same exchange (cheapest possible). Amobia pricing is worked out for the common scenario where a client wants to connect to their ISP of choice in a single metro area like Cape Town or Joburg.

Amobia offers a saving of between 87% and 16% on monthly recurring costs:

Speed	Telkom Diginet	Amobia Wireless	Saving
64Kbps	R1594	R200	87%
128Kbps	R2226	R400	82%
256Kbps	R2579	R800	69%
512Kbps	R3279	R1600	51%
1024Kbps	R4655	R3200	31%
2048Kbps	R7269	R6080	16%

Let’s see, bullet list news for the week..

• I watched Paris Je’taime at the Labia today: not bad.
• Last night was a pre-house-warming party at Georg and Andrew’s new place. They make a nice couple, hehe.
• On Saturday morning, Mia and I went swimming at the gym. At first she was as stubborn as only her mother can be.. had to do some convincing to get her to swim. She loved it. She jumps into the pool, with her head going under the water like a little otter.
• After Jonathan’s GeekDinner pep talk about doing what Romans do in Cape Town, Mia and I went to see the Noon Gun on Saturday afternoon. We had tea and milk tart at the Noon Gun tearoom and visited Erf 81 to go see some goats, chickens, puppies, pigs, ducks, horses..
• Thinking back, it was one of the most fulfilling Saturdays ever. I guess it took me a while to acclimatise to this parenting thing, but it’s awesome being a dad.
• Mia’s new favourite phrase is: “What’s that?”
• Anton will be visiting Cape Town in July in the same week as my birthday.
• Mia and I attended Georg’s leaving Stellenbosch party on Friday evening at Fandango’s.
• There’s an article about Amobia in the latest iWeek magazine.. “puts us alongside the big guns!”

I’ll upload pics soon.

Have a fun week crazy kids.