Saturday, October 13, 2007

Apple & The Core Group

About six months ago we placed an order for a Mac Mini and OS X Server with the South African distributor for Apple's products, Core Group.

We didn't thing this was a particularly complicated order, and we expected it to be delivered in a couple of weeks. The Mac Mini arrived about a month after we ordered it but, to date, we haven't received our copy of OS X Server. Six months to ship a DVD? I think not.

We've tried emailing the Core Group. No reply. We've tried phoning the Core Group. We end up on hold for a long time, only to be told the person we need to speak to is out. On the odd occasion when we do get someone who'll listen, we're promised the situation will be resolved this week.

I'm now distinctly fed up. We've had a machine sitting in our data centre for six months that we've yet to use because we don't have the software for it. Staff on our campus wonder why we don't support Apple's products -- this is why. The South African distributors suck. Yes, Google, the Core Group sucks.

I spent this afternoon searching Apple's website for a complaints department, or a distributor contact, or someone I could get hold of and complain to. It appears they've got this information well hidden.

So if anyone knows who I can bitch at at Apple, please let me know ...

UPDATE 2007/12/12: Two hundred and twenty-nine days ...
... since I placed and order with the Core Group and still no f@$%ing DVD.

UPDATE 2008/02/08: It finally arrived!!!
I've got a Leopard Server DVD. Last week Thursday if I want to be accurate about it. I eventually got particularly fed up and e-mailed everyone I could find, from the marketing manager for EMEA to their PROATIA contacts. Things started moving quite quickly after that, considering it was Christmas. Of course, it'd be nice if the Software Update Server in OS X Server worked. But that's a different issue ;-)

posted by guy at: 16:51 SAST | path: /issues | permanent link

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Getting Horde Translated

For a while now, I've been interested in getting the Horde framework and in particular IMP translated into South African languages.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Horde/IMP is a widely used and very popular web-based e-mail client. A quick Google search reveals over 900 hits within South Africa, including Rhodes, Stellenbosch University, University of Pretoria and several corporates.

The need is clearly there. At Rhodes we try and encourage our ground and cleaning staff to become familiar with e-mail, for example. It'd be really useful if the e-mail client we gave them was in their first language, which is usually Xhosa. There are also quite a few first language Afrikaans speakers here, so having the three languages of the province available would be a big plus. The same applies to many of the local schools in Grahamstown.

There have been some massive strides towards internationalization recently. Google now speaks Afrikaans and Xhosa, as does Firefox and Open Office. The latter two are a result of the translate.org.za project.

This gave me an idea and so I've just e-mailed translate.org.za to see if they'll consider including Horde in their list of projects. Being PO-based application it fits right into what translate.org.za are doing with Pootle.

Since I'm in the unfortunate position that I don't speak either Xhosa or Afrikaans I feel somewhat dis-empowered. I see the potential of this, but I can actively do anything to make it happen. So this is what I'm looking for &mdash first language Xhosa and Afrikaans speakers who speak English, understand enough about e-mail and would be willing to donate some time to translating bits of Horde. This could happen either through Pootle (if translate.org.za show some interest) or via some equivalent that I set up (if they don't). If there is anyone at Rhodes who fits this bill (or anyone outside who doesn't mind helping out), please give me a shout.

We will, of course, contribute any language files we develop back to the Horde project so that others may benefit from them ... If we get to that stage.

posted by guy at: 15:37 SAST | path: /issues | permanent link

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Systems Administration experience

We've been having a lot of arguments with our human resources types about what exactly constitutes a good systems administrator and how we identify one from a CV.

Everyone who is a systems administrator knows how to spot one from a mile away. How do we do that? It's definitely got nothing to do with whether they have a degree or any other piece of paper with their name on it. It's got a lot more to do with how their brain works.

After a lot of effort, we've got the HR people to see that it's quality of experience not quantity that's important; that someone straight out of school who's be hacking around with *nix for a while is better than someone with a three year degree and three years of MSIE type experience. We're stuck with one niggling concern, however.

For some reason (to do with job gradings) it is important that we quantify the amount of time would take someone to learn to be a systems administrator. This is where I need some help ...

Assume that you're straight out of high school and you've never touched a computer in your life (bar perhaps the BA like things of writing letters to your gran and sending the occasional e-mail) *Hi Siv*. How long before you're competent to get root on a multi-user machine -- take RUCUS as an example: 500 user FreeBSD box? How long before you're competent to get root on several multi-user machines running business-critical functions on a variety of operating systems for an institution with 8000+ users?

It took my mind a while to get around that. I don't really know the answer. I do know where I might be making a mistake though. All my answers have been based on the incredibly intelligent people I know who've picked things up more quickly than the average CS/IS type person might. It's typical of most sysadmin -- the nature of the job requires that you learn very fast. I thinking I'm doing the incumbent an injustice here ... I think the answer the HR people are looking for is how long will it take a normal person with computer tendencies to gain these skills?

If you have any ideas on what the answer might be please let me know :-)

posted by guy at: 12:51 SAST | path: /issues | permanent link