Currently I feel as if I’m involved in a new form of hara-kiri:
Death by JBoss, JAAS, JBossSX, EJB, deployment-descriptors, OpenLDAP, Xdoclet, Authentication, Authorization, Declarative Security and more…
…and JBoss documentation is only aiding and abetting. Perhaps its time to start at the beginning. Again.
But have I met my match? Only time will tell.
Suddenly because they are touring South Africa, the music of R.E.M. is apparently worth playing on the air again. Shame on you 5FM for neglecting R.E.M. for so long. We don’t need your “arranged-the-week-before” competitions or radio inserts to know about R.E.M.
I’ll stick with iPod StereoTM. They play everything I want, when I want it.
Well, I’m here at Smartsource (in the Novell building at Morningside Wedge Office Park) where they are hosting a mass Linux LPI certification event – a conspiracy to take over the world (ok, maybe just South Africa for now) dreamt up by the folks at Afribiz.
I’ve just finished LPIC102, and did LPIC101 this morning, and well, here’s hoping its a success – I’m pretty confident but don’t want to get ahead of myself. It’ll be great to add a decent Linux certification to my CV though, especially considering it has been my platform of choice for a number of years. Next stop – LPI Level 2 Certification.
The whole event is being operated by the Shuttleworth Foundation – they are the official LPI partner in South Africa, and things looks good. There’s a whole lot more detail here.
Also had a good chat with Jason Norwood-Young from Tectonic – South Africa’s first open source themed media publication. Sounds like they are caught up in exciting times, and I might even get a few of my musings published in their magazine in the near future – looking forward to that.
And now, after a week spent crammed in the books trying to become a Linux guru I think it is time for me to go hunt down some beer…
So despite my Computicket debacle I still got my hands on a ticket to see Danko Jones at the Doors nightclub in Edenvale on Saturday. In all honesty the tickets weren’t that difficult to get hold of – the place was relatively empty but filled up enough to make it worthwhile.
16Stitch opened with a strong performance, although it was a very short set. Still they put on a class act and started to get the audience hyped, but it appeared quite a few people were not that into their performance. My highlight of the performance was when a girl sidled up to a guy standing in front of me, obviously her boyfriend, and asked him “Is this music a bit heavy for you?”. Oh dear.
Danko Jones came out firing on all cylinders and really got the crowd worked up. Danko has quite a strong stage presence, and just the right amount of attitude to be on the edge but not be overbearing. Their style of music is solid, heavy, real rock and roll. Not rock though – definitely rock and roll. All in all it was a top level performance. Well done guys.
An interesting point for me though was that I did not feel compelled to buy any of their CDs at the door. Perhaps I just spent too much on the Linkin Park and other CDs I picked up earlier in the week and didn’t want to destroy my budget completely, but perhaps, although it was great stuff I didn’t feel it was the right time for me to buy their CD. I’ll keep deliberating it though.
Computicket, “South Africa’s leading ticket booking site” (?? say what?) has changed their online transactions system so that credit card payments are no longer secure when purchasing a ticket online. (And its not a “secure frame inside an insecure window” thing either.)
Furthermore, according to their “Terms and Conditions”
‘1.1 By purchasing tickets via this website, you expressly aggree :
3.4 You further indemnify Computicket and/or the promoters or clients for which it is acting as agent, against any claims in respect of any loss or damage resulting from or related to :
3.4.6 any breach of privacy or security by any person or entity;’
I think this is bullshit. Computicket should at the very least take responsibility for the security of your credit card transaction. They have just created a cheap cop-out here to indemnify themselves for their own poor business, web development and testing processes.
And here’s a nice image of the insecure page asking for your payment details.
An interesting thought is that most Computicket outlets are using a similar web-based interface when you do over-the-counter bookings. I wonder if those transactions are also being thrown around the net at random. Time to go fetch my crocodile- clip-to-ethernet connector.
Pity their support hours are pretty much 9am to 6pm from the looks of it. Frankly I couldn’t be bothered to warn them. I’ve done that too often and received a lot of flak. I’m not a frikkin babysitter. Or maybe I should – Why, you ask? For the benefit of all who want e-commerce to be successful in this country.
