Microsoft has really come to the party with a higher performance and truly worthwhile business productivity suite.

For quite some time now, I have not been using MS office at all and have been an advocate for Open Office and all things open source, but I have recently grown closer to my proprietary roots and have developed much appreciation for the work and effort that goes into bringing out products like Office 2010.

The new version of the well know business productivity suite, is simply impressive. Office 2010, loads faster, can handle more diverse file types and offers a host of functions and embedded applications, for tasks that one would previously need to perform in external programs.

I have still not managed to pull myself away from using Gmail as my mail management system and I can’t see myself moving back to Outlook anytime soon, unless Gmail and Exchange can communicate with each other directly. Gmail simply offers me the flexibility and scalability I need to manage multiple profiles and access my info instantly from multiple locations on the go.

For business use and from a corporate perspective, I think the new MS Outlook is definitely becoming a player and integrated with MS Exchange 2010, it makes for efficient management of internal work flow and cost effective email.

I am looking forward to playing around with the latest versions of Project and Visio as planning and monitoring seems to take up most of my time these days.

All in all, the new Office 2010, is most definitely worth the spend.

Considering our meeting ended early and we were catching a lift to the airport, we decided to go to the airport early, that way ensuring we won’t get stuck in traffic.

We had some fish and chips and the Keg and Aviator which was pretty good. Herman also spotted Sekoati Tsubane (Kabelo Padi) from 7de Laan. We then headed down to the security check point which was busy as hell. The staff were also hasty as could be and practically threw us through the checkpoint.

After gathering my things together and getting comfortable again, I noticed I had dropped my ticket, fortunately for me it was on the floor underneath the check point.

The wait had only just begun and we heard our plane was going to be about 40min late. I looked for a decent coffee shop but only found the wimpy. Herman, who sits through hours of 7de Laan also spotted Hennie Jacobs(Diederik Greyling) and Christo Davids(Errol Pieterse) who ended up sitting right behind us on our flight to George. He also spotted Nico Panagio (George Kyriakis) who is now presenting on Top Billing. It seems that OR Tambo is the place to be if you want to spot SA Celebs. Now craving a good cuppa, little did I know that I would find I Vida E Cafe on the way to the plane, now why weren’t they placed closer to each other… Well at least I know for next time.

The trip into George felt faster than the trip to Johannesburg, but got really noisy on descent, with a few children screaming, probably due to the change in cabin pressure on their ears.

We landed just around 20:00 after getting to the airport well before 15:00, we truly spent most of our trip at the airport.

What an awesome view, we live in a beautiful country.

The flight from George to Johannesburg was pleasant and when coming in for our landing we caught site of the new soccer stadium, it was already dark and the stadium lights were on. What an awesome sight. I am not particularly excited or enthusiastic about the soccer or sport in general but the view of the stadium from the air definitely gives one the sense of awe.

Herman, Konstant, Eugene and I had supper and Rhapsody in Pretoria, the steak and conversation were great, even though business didn’t leave the table for long.

It would be great to travel without needing to deal with business, or at least being able to bring Amelia with me.

The place was full of dust but the maintenance crew did a neat and quick job breaking down the inside wall and have cleaned up most of the dust already, which is great.

We’ll hopefully have our air conditioning and flooring installed soon and then our desks. Looking forward to see the changes and an improvement in productivity.

The past twenty five years have been full of learning and a lot of work, not always doing stuff I wanted to but nonetheless earning some money and learning about business and dealing with issues and people. This year looks promising and I’m excited about all of the opportunities that lie ahead both personally and for MyEcommerce.

Amelia and I started off the day in a mad rush to get ready for Daniel and Marile’s wedding. For some bizarre reason, weddings always seem to invoke a form of natural chaos, even if it’s not your own wedding. The day was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, they had their service at the Moederkerk and their reception at one of the halls at Saasveld. The food was cool and they had the most awesome pumpkin dumplings in a caramel sauce and some really great desert too. Amelia and I left the wedding stuffed and jealous.

I hope that by next birthday I’ll be driving something with four wheels and hopefully be closer towards achieving my endless list of goals.

Welcome to Craig, Ryan, Dereck, Donald, Gerard, Nicholas and Kobus. Gregg and I look forward to working with you.

On a ownership level, MyEcommerce has now restructured and Deon Steyn now holds a 30% interest, Tienie & Gesie van der Merwe own a 10% interest, Gregg and I each own 30%. Welcome to Deon, Tienie and Gesie, we look forward to some exciting new projects.

Once everyone has settled into the new year, we will be rolling out a range of new product offerings.

Well, I did a fresh install and it was super fast. I was a bit frustrated with the fact that Dell didn’t send me a copy of the latest drivers. Windows didn’t natively support my integrated 3G, so I could not get online as fast as I would have liked to, thank goodness, Windows 7 had native support for Bluetooth and I could hook up my Sony Ericsson in a matter of minutes and downloaded the required drivers from Dell’s support site.

I have found Windows 7 to be an absolute pleasure to work with and had all of my programs installed and running in less than a day. I find the performance to be substantially better than that of Vista and it requires far less resources. Will make sure that I have got all the required drivers before I do a fresh install again.

If you have got the option to upgrade or you’re buying a new PC, if you’re not getting a Mac or going with Linux or Solaris, get yourself Windows 7 and be sure you’ll be happier than you were with XP or Vista.

Legislation

As with most things in life it starts at the top. Our Government is not actively encouraging or should I say enforcing green legislation. In my humble opinion I feel that the government should be doing more to get greener energy systems in place.

Government housing schemes, should all be fitted with Solar or Wind Powered energy units. All new building plans should not be approved unless they are implementing green energy systems as well as Grey Water management systems to harness both energy and usable water from household waste.

All products that would cause damage to our food chain need to be outlawed, this way our food chain and the environment at large are protected.

Eskom

The Government, who were dumb enough to keep Eskom as a state owned entity, need to reposition Eskom. I feel that our energy market needs to be opened up and Eskom is perfectly positioned to become a national network provider for energy transfer.

The Government should be encouraging private sector investment into energy generation using green technologies. All homes and businesses, should be given the opportunity to participate in the energy harnessing network.

Homes with green energy units, should supply excess energy back to the national grid which can then in turn be used by businesses during the work day. In the evenings when industry closes down, excess energy should be returned to the grid and made available to homes.

Eskom should be placing themselves not as energy generator, but as energy distributor. All users of the network should be able to earn based on a usage in usage out system coordinated by Eskom, so that those who need to draw extra energy from the grid will pay for it and those who provide excess will earn an income and or rebate from this.
Eskom should place itself as an Energy Network and Systems Provider.

Transport

Our country is blessed with a large workforce of welders, electricians and numerous other professionals. We need to be focusing on the development of green vehicles and green energy systems locally.

The Government could be saving and creating jobs by setting up incentive scheme for industries which have got the skills but are currently focusing on slow moving expensive product lines, such as petrol driven vehicles or conventional geysers.

With the right governance and correct application of funding, we could be positioned to provide Southern Africa with energy efficient vehicles as well as green energy.

I spoke on the needs for a business website, things to ask a developer before engaging with them as well as a quick introduction to Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing.

The session went well and I received good feedback from members of the forum.

The event was Coordinated By Ebrahim Abrahams (Business Development Manager) & Hosted at Far Hills Country Hotel

I also saw my man Ziyaad Brown, hard at work in his Chef suit bringing in some awesome food that we all enjoyed.

I look forward to attending the next forum.