Well, we’re not particularly cash people, so we couldn’t really buy much, as no-one accepted cards for payment. We did however get to try some of the most interesting Garlic Mayonnaise.

We decided to take a stroll and look for something to eat at a place that would accept plastic.

We ended up walking into Pomodoro’s and were seated and given menus. After waiting quite some time not getting any service, we decided to leave. On the way out, we were thanked for coming, and we politely told them that we were leaving because we did not get any service. The manager was all to eager to sort us out and make us happy, but we continued out the door.

We then moved our way up the road and had a look at the Blue Olive, and what a good decision it was. The service was great and the food was good too. You get the feeling from the moment you walk in the door that it is an owner manager establishment. The only thing I would personally like to see is a proper uniform.

If you are going to own a restaurant and want to make it a success, the best way is to be personally involved, but then again, I guess that only works if you’re a restaurant person yourself.

After calming my craving, I hit the road off to centurion, for a short meeting with Marius from Balance Your Debt.

I then began my way towards the head office of the Banking Association of South Africa(BASA), where we were to have a meeting with some of the major banks and credit providers in the country. We had quite a productive session and made quite a few decisions, relating to standardisation within the Debt Review sector.

After the meeting with BASA, we decided to have a short Credit Technology Association(CTA) meeting.

Then for the long drive home in some serious traffic. You never truly understand, what is meant by peak traffic until you sit in it yourself.

I honestly believe that Gauteng people have been gifted with a surprisingly large amount of patience, if they didn’t have it, I am sure there would be far more reports of road rage. The traffic seriously moves at snails pace and a distance that would take you ten minutes to cover during the middle of the day, easily takes up to an hour to cover in peak traffic.

I hope that the Gautrain has the positive impact that it was intended to have as this could not only reduce traffic and frustration, but also reduce the amount of unnecessary fuel consumption during peak hours.

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.

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.

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.

• Core 2 Quad 2.33 GHz
• 4 GB DDR2 667 MHz
• 2 x 160GB SATA HDD
• H/ware RAID 1
• 99.9% uptime with SLA

It is something that has been a hot topic at the office, and a very important decision for me to make. I guess everyone would like to have one, but being ready for the commitment is another thing all together.

Ordering the server is only one step in the process. I will have my work cut out for me over the next few weeks, till the end of the month. I will be completing all the administration involved with the upgrades and transfers of the domains that we are currently managing.

MyEcommerce will be releasing some exciting new packages, and promotions for both new and existing customers.