Brendan At Home Posts

September 13, 2011 / / Technology

Man… I been fighting with an install of drupal commerce installation for days now… it’s in theory perfect for my requirement but is seriously in need of some usability work. When will folks realise that for a project to be usable… people need to be able to actually use it! I reckon 80% of those trying this are looking elsewhere after… I wish I was not so committed now, I’d change out of principle.

September 8, 2011 / / Stuff

Some good articles from Planet Rugby summarising the four groups in the lead up to the start of the rugby world cup this weekend. South Africa looking to make history to be the only team to defend the trophy and to go ahead of Australia by winning it three times.

September 8, 2011 / / Diary

Just sent an email reaching out to the head of HR at SANParks. (www.sanparks.co.za) Lets see what comes of it! Thanks to Matt for the lead.

August 29, 2011 / / Diary

Hello my Friends, A short update on what’s going at the moment. I’m still staying with my folks in King Williams Town ans suspect I’ll be here till end of September. If nothing has come up work-wise by then I’m going to head back to Cape Town/surrounds and just pick up some bar work to tide me over and pay the rent. On the work front though I’ve been giving some great contacts to follow-up with via my old friend Matt who was visiting SA and whom I saw last…

August 25, 2011 / / Stuff

Apologies, I just realised that I had the permissions set incorrectly for some of the posts. If you been struggling to see any, especially the last post, please try again now. B

August 25, 2011 / / Conservation
Fish Fight logo
Hugh's Fish Fight

Cross posted from my work blog (http://brendanpiater.com/?p=334)

Something has been gnawing at me for awhile now. How to make people more aware of fundamental issues like the environment, conservation and related issues. There are certainly many organisations doing great work out there and also do a great job of getting the message out, but the reality is that the vast majority of people still do not stop and take the time to find out about what is going. To just read a blog post, to think about the impact of which tin of tuna or the piece of clothing they buy.

Quite often, change can happen just be getting enough people aware of what is going on. Hugh’s Fish Fight is a great example of this. Once people heard about it, saw what was happening, there was a large enough shift in thinking for corporates and governments, they stopped, took notice and importantly changed for the good. (Read, Fish Fight: Impact on you and Impact on Leaders)

August 22, 2011 / / Diary

Caught up with an old friend Matt Ramsden today for lunch with his wife Heather and their daughter Katie. Great to see them, been years since I last saw them and great to seem them while they where out on holiday here for a couple weeks. Matt also gave me a contact to get in touch with for some conservation work. Hoping something comes that! Safe travels Matt and Heather and look forward to seeing you both again soon.

August 16, 2011 / / Conservation

(cross posted from brendan@work) UK fishing communities are having their fishing rights stolen from them. Having lived in a fishing community in the UK for four years and fished for pleasure and profit, I have seen the devastation of this policy, and the myriad of other EU and UK fisheries policy, has wrecked the livelihood of local small boat fishermen, who make up 75% of the UK fishing fleet. Again we see big business forcing the hand of politicians for their own gain rather than the protection of a public…

August 11, 2011 / / Technology

Cross post from: http://brendanpiater.com/?p=201 Completed a small scale backup solution today for the Metlife Mall administration office. They only have a couple of work stations but had no backup processes in place at all. Backups are only important when you need them. It’s not a case of if, but when you’ll need to restore a backup of your data. Certainly, backing up is one of the most important safe guards for your data.  If you not backing up, start today. Hard drives fail, accidents happen. Personal backups are a pretty…