Well it is time – the Garden Route Geeks (a’la myXchange critters for those who are not so well informed) are hosting another Geek Dinner – and as mentioned a might earlier, this one looks set to be a stunner. Rumour has it that we can expect some good support from the Cape Town Geeks, but we really hope to see some decent support for our cause from local business, geeks and bloggers (even the closet bloggers – this type of event tends to push the shyest among us out of our little comfy zones).

The idea is for Geeks, bloggers and new media and/or open source enthusiasts in all/any guises to get in touch with marketing/ideas types in a relaxed environment and more or less exchange ideas, grab the open mike and speak your mind/share info or just (over)indulge in some beverage of an alcoholic nature while having a good old time all round. It is a network opportunity, a social event and an opportunity to get to learn more about all things web for those haven’t quite been able to connect all the dots themselves.

Bottom line is that any/everyone is welcome to join – it is really not a dry/stiff affair and you will have the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the hottest web property at the moment – guys like the formidable I rewrote Afrigator in a week hey where’s the furniture gone Stii and the code-crazed I have a dual core processor personality genius CharlVN.

The venue for this extravaganza is the superb Dutton’s Cove. The setting is phenomenal the food and liquorage top notch and the venue something to put on your list of places to visit before you grow too old to care. If you will be attending get your name on that wiki so our gracious hosts know how many cows to kill. You can also subscribe and, thus doing, keep track of how many other closet-geeks will be making the trek.

Proceedings get underway not long after high tea (around the 18h30 mark) and will continue as deep into the night as needs be or until our hosts decide it is time for us to leave and put that chair down – all this on Saturday June 23rd of this year … yes that’s in less than two weeks time … get the hindage moving and book a seat before we make you stand all evening.

As usual, the myXchange meeting was a roaring success. We finally met the crowd from locate & trade – that adds two members to our ranks. Our efforts to involve the next generation was not all that successful, but we may have at least one more member from this and things generally seem to be picking up for us. The team we were rooting for won (we think) on the evening. We were able to distribute some pamphlets in aid of raising awareness for myXchange and the Freedom Toaster.

What was very encouraging too, is the sheer speed at which we were able to wrap up arrangements for the next Garden Route Geek Dinner … Her Royal Feistiness has promised us a venue and we’ll be sure to post details as they are confirmed … and rev our automobiles beyond warranty conditions in a dice to the nearest pub in search of some beverages to consume.

WOW … two myXchange meetings in one night and a Geek Dinner of note plotted.

• Garden Route Geek Dinner
• 02 June 2007
• Venue to be confirmed, but it looks set to be a stunner
• Cape Town Geeks already queuing to get in the door
• Preceded by a Toaster Party – Friday 01 June 2007

The Toaster Party will be hosted by Imel and all interested parties who find themselves in possession of open source goodies are encouraged to bring along such goodness so that we can collate on the evening and proceed to move said software to the Freedom Toaster at JDL Printing for the business of re-distributing. All that and the fact that we really know how to piss it up and that the secret to a great piss-up lies in preceding it with a good one 24 hours prior (with reference to the Geek Dinner again).

So there we go… busy busy busy bees…

You’d better add the RSS feed from this post to your reader, because it will be tough keeping track if you don’t.

The venue for our next myXchange meeting has been changed!!!

Obviously, there would be no point to myXchange without members and for some time we have been trying to get some of the younger generation involved, as they imminently hold the future and everything that we aspire to in their hands.

Easier said than done though. In the good old bad days before myXchange, we had GROSSUG (Garden Route Open Source Software User Group) that regularly targeted this niche with little success and our thinking was that myXchange will be more successful at this, seeing that the whole vibe is fresher and younger and being a Geek is totally cool again.

So….. success at last. The myXchange meeting on the 16th will now be held in the main hall of the Saasveld Campus, in conjunction with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University‘s advertising showcase. The event starts at 19h00 and all interested parties should please notify myself, Charl or Stii as attendance is by prior booking only and we have to get your name on the guest list.

This will also be a prime networking opportunity – seeing that the George Business Chamber and some of its members will be in attendance. We are not sure what will be on offer as far as food & drink is concerned, but I am convinced that there will be a bar of sorts and trust that (if there is) this will be the gathering point of choice for myXchangers.

We sincerely hope to see you there.

It’s Friday night, I have a lot of admin to do, so logically I procrastinate by doing everything but the dreaded paperwork. I am all out of adventures in KOL, I missed all the evo launch windows (and even if I did not, I wouldn’t be around for a recall) and I am all drained on the creative front after one of the crappiest weeks of my entire life (a fact for which I have my buddy Gates and his proprietary wankdust to thank), so WTF to do indeed.

“Ooh, I know,” says the little voice on my shoulder “…you’re the fucking only SA blogger who hasn’t said a word about that Bullfellow yet.” Hence, my ten cents worth:

It would seem a lot of the blogging community create a lot of hype around themselves (even some of the more prominent SA bloggers) and thus keep themselves in circulation, while (if one was to actually read their blogs) they rarely have more to say or offer than your average blog hobbyist. Why then are they all so upset because someone has put these very tactics to use in promoting his own written material? If Technorati is correct and there are 71 million blog sites worldwide – surely the best way to get noticed in such a competitive environment would be pissing all 71 million of them off at the same time by pissing in their cornflakes on a Sunday morning. To top it off, the ones that felt that the shoe fit all linked back to the article, fuck me … the Googleplex must have trembled from the spike on the pagerankometer.

Now I hardly ever get ’round to reading the Sunday funnies, but I do recall seeing Bullard on Cartalk on a number of occasions, trying his utmost to come accross as the somewhat toned down personification of James May of BBC’s Top Gear fame – right down to his commitment to a Miami Vicesque ridicule of fashion statements. He obviously chooses to test drive vehicles in the Aston Martin league because it improves his perceived genital size – be that as it may, his chief complaint against and source of the verbal onslaught against the blogging community was journalistic competence – something which (had you ever had the displeasure of seeing him on telly) this man sorely lacks.

This post is, however, really not about what Bullard said, but about what he achieved. So… like him or not, like what he had to say or not – he got the better of all those who chose to spread the linklove his way and for that I do applaud the man. I’d figure he might turn out to be a way better blogger than he could ever hope to be a journalist.

For some time I’ve known of the advantages of having an XML sitemap as part of your array of SEO tools, but how to do if you don’t know how. One more reason to love Open Source – have someone do it for you and in the process learn some. I’ve learnt that sitemaps are straight forward and that there’s nothing tough about XML – toughest part is facing our fear of the unknown.

Or you can just simply go to XML-Sitemaps.com and grab yourself a nifty sitemap for FREE. Download it to your PC, upload it to your website and point bots in that direction. Great application and some really helpful SEO tools – Kudos to the creators.