The Democratic Alliance as a Majority Political Party in South Africa

The Return of Apartheid.

This is the scenario most proposed by the current ANC hegemony in regard to a possible DA victory over them in the polls. The most disturbing aspect of this opinion is that so many South Africans actually believe this drivel. This is pure propaganda and scare tactics by a corrupt regime, willing to do anything including murdering striking miners to stay in power. They react to a possible DA majority in the future by utilizing the same old racist segregation tactics they have used for the last 18 years, simply because they’ve worked so well on a widely unsophisticated electorate before. Even well-educated professional people have expressed this same opinion to me. To all of the DA apartheid doomsayers, trendy white apologists, black racist haters and even the remaining Woolworths shoppers, there are some vital points that need to be taken into account in a functional democracy, which should the DA win the next election, South Africans will in all probability experience for the first time in 18 years.

Apartheid was an abomination inflicted by on a majority by a militant minority intent on remaining in power. Its demise was brought about by a majority no longer willing to be racially discriminated against.

Apartheid today is an abomination inflicted on a majority by a corrupt ruling elite intent in remaining in power for as long as possible, with a purpose to strip all wealth from the country and divert it to their own pockets.  Its demise will be brought about by a discontented electorate tired of watching the favored elite get fabulously rich and flaunt their wealth in the face of the 40% functionally unemployed people in South Africa, who by now have realized that all their vote did was to ratify the decision of the approximately 2800 corrupt delegates at Polokwane who voted for the current president. The people have for their vote received very little in return, living conditions are at an all-time low, the widely documented deterioration in basic services does not have to be enumerated here, it’s a an accepted fact.

So, what exactly in my opinion would a DA (or any other political party that is prepared to serve the people) mean to the majority of the people of South Africa? Dealing first of all with the return of apartheid; is there logic is assuming that the electorate which is some 80% black, would render a majority to a party, which by demographics is likewise racially structured, so that a return to the previous apartheid regime can be effected?  I don’t think so either, because no electorate would stand for that, and there would be an immediate bloody uprising against such a fallacious policy. So clearly the scaremongering and outright lies are easily exposed by applying a little common sense.

What will it mean for South Africa?

The brand South Africa is depending on whom you believe, or not, at an all-time low. Never before as a people have South Africans been embarrassed and humiliated by the leadership of the country as they are at the moment. Without rehashing recent political events, and the ongoing as well as publically visible battle for succession within the ANC, mass corruption within government and the blatant looting of the public coffers by what has clearly become an out control administration. This fact or scenario is clearly visible to the rest of the world. No amount of devious calculated spin doctoring by an increasingly desperate regime can hide the facts from the rest of the world anymore.

Under a democratically elected government, that does not embrace corruption and wanton self-enrichment as some sort of State Religion, the people of South Africa no doubt could expect a radical improvement to the value of the brand South Africa. With that would doubtlessly come renewed foreign interest, selfish as it may be perhaps, but bringing with it also new investment, to replace the investment lost by the current ANC government’s policy of crony capitalism, tender corruption and racist business models. Which have seen Foreign Direct Investment dry to a trickle comprised only of rigged tenders and corrupt principals willing to pay the massive bribes needed to do business in the current environment. Quite frankly I believe we have enough jets, submarines, corvettes and failed toll road systems. I also believe we need projects that stimulate basic employment of the largely uneducated, unskilled workforce.

Economic Benefits

Estimations vary on the amount of GDP lost to mostly government corruption, from 25% of GDP up to 30% of GDP depending which reports you believe. The bleed in government spending could be effectively used to provide many things such a free schooling for all at world class level. Free healthcare for all at world class level, are these exaggerations? I don’t know, because the numbers are staggeringly large, I’m proposing an alternate use for the funds which are looted now by the current administration. I have no way of knowing if with cessation of looting, could come a national free rail network. I can only hypothesise on the possibilities. What I can state with certainty is that none of the hypothetical improvements can occur under the current corrupt regime. Their addiction to looting and squandering funds appears to be for moment incurable. It must also be pointed out that if the improvements mentioned possible were to come about, unemployment would without doubt be radically reduced in the short to medium term.

Capital projects require extensive labour, which in return provides employment. More importantly it increases the economic cycle and injects money into the first tier economy immediately. The ripple effect is felt throughout the economy both local and neighboring. A radical improvement in the general as opposed to specific population could be reasonably expected to follow as a result of that.

What will it mean for the current regime?

Not very good news I’m afraid, the current regime has built a reputation of a rampant kleptocracy, some have labeled it an ineptocracy, semantics aside, a legitimately run government would not be good news for the current regime. Ironically, in building additional correctional facilities to house those found guilty of corruption and criminal conduct could provide an additional temporary burst of employment in the civil engineering industry.  The government tax revenue generated by these operations could well be put to good use elsewhere at a later stage. That aside, a properly functioning society has to, of necessity deal with all criminal elements in a fair and just manner, if in the course of doing that, the previous victims of the criminal elements are afforded the opportunity to enter into gainful employment, all the better. A successful country, like a successful business, should have accountability as one of its cornerstones; the current regime should accept that its past behavior will, at some point be assessed and if found lacking, appropriate steps be taken against offenders using evidentiary principles in law.

What can the Majority Expect from their Party?

It’s a very open ended question, isn’t it? The temptation to insert rainbows and unicorn symbols does seem strong. Reality or realistic hypothesis for the purposes of this has to prevail, we have as people paid for and watched the current regime concoct their own rainbows and unicorns, and have not seen the benefit to the majority of the people.

In economic terms an economy that is not bleeding money through corruption, can heal itself rather quickly. That raises several interesting possibilities, the least of which is a leveling out of the secondary and invisible taxes the current regime is so adept at inflicting on the taxpayer base. The next important aspect of a rapidly healing economy and a tax body that is not a slave to the corrupt foibles of a morally bereft government, would be increased efficiency not only in the collection, but in the utilization of public funds, which would no doubt lead to a medium term reduction in taxes which would further stimulate the economy.  Clearly the wages of corruption are stagnation and higher taxes. A realistic positive jump in the living standards of all South Africans could be expected, further confirming the correct choice of government in the minds of the voters, instead of the current race-scare economic disaster model employed, increasingly less effective by the kleptocracy.

What will the people get out of it?

Again a difficult point, but besides the obviously advantageous economic rewards, the benefits to be had on a societal level are considerable. The long term damage done to national psyche by sustained abusive administrations is best left to sociologists and the like to quantify if that is at all possible. But a start can be made on telling people that their colour or race is just that, nothing else, and that it in no way influences their standing in the community, or their chances of success in society, be the catalyst that starts and sustains real Ubuntu, instead of the current racist view of that held by the ANC government, who failed miserably to learn from the past and have spent the last 18 years repeating it.

Setting South Africans free may be far easier than sawing through some chains, or prison bars, it may well be as simple as telling them that they are all worthy of the same rights and freedoms as people and that they don’t have to be a particular colour to get them, or support a specific kleptocrat to ensure their uninterrupted enjoyment.  The temptation at this point to insert a relevant quote from people I admire the most is strong. But I will not quote Steve Biko or Martin Luther King Jnr or Abraham Lincoln for that matter. I will instead say this to every South African: Your potential as people and as nation is far greater than anyone wants to allow you to believe.

If you believe that you are prisoner, or will become a prisoner because someone with devious motivation for telling you, told you these things, then you will remain a prisoner of your own irrational fears.  

Woolworths Never Ending SAGA.

So many words written about a stupid employee employed by a stupid company, who mistakenly thought she/he could save a lot of time by re-enacting job reservation in the name of the new apartheid.  The amount of mealy mouthed, sanctimonious, responsibility evading commentaries that have been made about this topic, would make a whore with the most advanced gag-reflex control, projectile vomit across a soccer pitch.

There are no shortage people who fondly believe themselves to be luminaries, such as Jacques Rousseau, and a whole gamut in between, to comedian (?)  John Vlismis who have all weighed in, on this, beating their little self-righteous chests, and bleating plaintively about the need to address the “injustices of the past” by wait for it, continuing to discriminate against people on the basis of race.  The most recent diatribe, and the reason for this substantially shorter piece on the subject, is none other than the MD of TBWA Hunt Lascaris, an advertising agency (really?) either pitching for, or recently lost the Woolworths business. 

The chorus which they all sing is nauseatingly familiar, it is not about addressing the injustices of the past, as they announce with such alacrity, it is beyond any doubt to prop up their decaying positions in the current rotten corporate and tertiary education hegemony, dominated as it is by unconcealed racists who dole out tenures and positions to those who best lick racist boots. This is the cacophonic chorus of in the interests of redress to keep the minority oppressed at the pleasure of the minority. A minority which to their chagrin and great personal revulsion, they unfortunately find themselves ,members of, if only they could change their own melanin levels and join in, in the unbridled condemnation of the pariahs, they so fervently wish they did not resemble in colouring and hair consistency, where applicable. 

This outpouring of verbal diarrhea in support of a practice which debases humans and reduces them to mere skin coloured objects of various shades to be pushed around an environment ruled by colour, is beyond reasonable human comprehension and is redolent of the actions of collaborators of Nazi Germany leading up to and during World War Two, who for a few favours, and be allowed to live a little longer would sell out their fellow humans.  History is littered with the bones of collaborators, who died at the hands of the oppressors while waiting to be favoured for their betrayal.  These are the Judas goats of history, the cowards of no moral convictions, and the abusers of human rights by omission and silence.

Not one person has stood up from their scrupulously guarded liberal bolt holes and said that human rights abuse cannot be tolerated, nor can human rights be selectively applied to one elite group of humans who happen to be more favoured than others on the basis of their skin colour. Not one person has taken a stand to say that, the injustices of the past can best be addressed by not perpetuating them into the future. Because as it stands we are as a people becoming more and more polarized  and enraged by those who would manipulate race for their own advantage, instead of  constructively uplifting people because not of their colour, but because of their humanity. The lack of cognitive processes in these sycophants, who are too eager to please the race Nazis of the day, makes them beneath contempt. 

If the worth of humans could not be measured by skin colour before 1994, leading up to the removal of the racist government of the day, what the hell makes it acceptable now, 18 years after democracy?

67 minutes of reflection

What it means for me to be South African for 67 minutes out of one day of every year, or every day for that matter.

After 18 years of commemorative chest beating by the ruling party, I still see that over 20 million people live below the R10 per day breadline. But the ruling elite live in the most opulent luxury our taxes can buy.

Millions of youth have no jobs, partly because the economy is not growing and partly because their education does not qualify them to do anything, other than be unemployed in despair of ever finding jobs. Ministers and mayors and other functionaries of the ruling party think nothing of voting themselves 34% annual increases though.

Thousands of youths have been denied an education for several years due to Education Department mismanagement and corruption, including inter alia the failure to provide textbooks and teachers with suitable qualifications. The ruling elite live off education tenders and send their children to private schools at taxpayers’ expense.

There are more people killed by HIV annually than in the imperialist war in Iran and Afghanistan which are active war zones. The hospitals which could help the fight against HIV are for the most part dilapidated and neglected, understaffed and ill-equipped. The fight against HIV is relegated to a minor irritation as long as the elite can spend tax money on test kits that don’t work. Incidentally the Elite State Employees Medical Aid is the best in the world. They would not be seen dead in a State Hospital.

A woman is raped in South Africa every 27 seconds. This is the rape capital of the world; despite civil society efforts to reduce these horrific acts, the police are not inclined to direct their efforts to this. Social workers and NGO’s relate incidents where the police join in gang rapes instead of stopping them, in many cases they partner with the pimps and human traffickers for profit. The elite have platoons of bodyguards, 16 000 thugs in uniform to protect the 3000 or so kleptocrats who voted themselves these privileges.

The South African economy is dying a slow death, while companies hoard large cash reserves, estimated between R500 Billion to R1.2 Trillion reluctant to invest in the economy, due to the inherent instability of the current government, for want of a better less flattering word. Foreign companies and investors are not interested in investing in South Africa anymore. A combination of racist employment policies and extreme government corruption has effectively driven away most Foreign Direct Investment. The corrupt political elite continue to try to gouge more revenue out of a shrinking economic pool.

Any economic growth is stymied by a phalanx of racist laws designed to discriminate against 8% of the population, which in turn has led to a reduction of vital skills in South Africa, as people of undesirable races, chose to take their skills abroad. Corruption is the order of the day, in State as well as private companies with as much as 25% of GDP lost to corruption. This represents enough to provide every South African with free education to tertiary level, free health care for life, longer than the current 42 years average life expectancy, and free public transport in all areas.

Every South African should spend the next 67 minutes thinking on how best to correct the wrongs which our legacy has bestowed upon us all.

Wall of Shame

It seems once again censorship is at work at the Mail & Guardian, Heres my contribution to the fight against the curtailment of freedom of speech.

The pictures should be self explanatory. Zwelo Masilela is a senior COSATU official.

 

They all support violence against people they do not agree with. Do you? 

The Putrification of South African Politics

The most advanced enlightened constitution in the world, a leading light among democracies, a truly equitable document providing a framework for good governance and equal opportunity for all people to share in the wealth of the Nation.  Sounds great doesn’t it? Its sweeping and dramatic and hints at a society where fundamental human rights will be observed above State interests, allowing the people to develop and prosper right?

We all hoped so when we voted ANC in 1994, the heady euphoria, the feeling and belief we could accomplish anything in a country where a Muslim could be minister of something, and a minister still drove his beat up Jetta around Cape Town himself. Government was accessible and worked for the people.  Other Nations envied us from a distance, wishing they had the harmony and success that we did, all living together, and working to build what would become a truly great Nation in Africa, a feat hitherto unreachable in a continent plagued by corruption, violence, human trafficking, war crimes and all manner of human rights abuses.

We were going to rise well above all that, and prove to the world that we had the indomitable spirit that would prove them all wrong. We were a nation reconciled, intent on building a better future for all of our people. So in order to combat racism, the government started to enact racist laws.  I know who knew you could fix racism by being racist? Interestingly at this point, not one member of the international community that had campaigned so vociferously for the abolition of apartheid actually said anything about the resurgence of racism in South Africa. The much vaunted ideals of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which had become the rallying point for the anti-apartheid movement,  suddenly became collateral damage in a much more insidious conflict, fought well away from the prying eyes of the pro ANC activists, who nodded wisely about restorative actions and justice, dispensed under what could only be seen as dubious circumstances.

We hoped the new administration would address these things but alas Mbeki, for all his diminutive size, was no statesman. In order to garner support among his own party he proceeded to further tarnish the reputation of the country and the spirit of the constitution, by not only endorsing the enacted racist legislation, but by sponsoring additional racist legislation which it was clear he hoped would secure him a second term in office. The silence form the rest of the world had by now become a feature of the South African political landscape, it seemed that the rest of the world was done with liberating South Africa, and very little interest other than perhaps taking most of our GDP in somewhat shady business deals was shown by the rest world in our progress.

The African National Congress elective conference in Polokwane in 2007, was the real eye opener for many people, and the death of democracy in South Africa. The lead up to Polokwane and the recall of a sitting President demonstrated that South Africa was run by the 2800 delegates that had voted for Zuma, and that they would stop at nothing to loot the country of every resource available. Perhaps coincidentally at that point our GDP growth suddenly slowed down, foreign investors driven away by the largely racist requirements of doing business in South Africa. Government became largely about looting the public purse for the benefit of cronies and to repay political favours, the President became a corporation, grabbing shares in companies, and ensuring state tenders were allocated to them, frequently without any tender process, corruption became the accepted order of the day. The putrification of the government rapidly spread to lower tier government positions, particularly in the provinces, where gross maladministration was allowed to flourish for as long as the funds lasted. Abuses became the daily norm, and instead of accountability, the government chose rather to defend the abuses as rightful entitlements. Motorcades of blue light flashing expensive vehicles containing minor functionaries became the daily spectacle on the roads, intimidating and threatening anyone who would not scuttle out of the way of the plenipotentiary in the back seat. Accidents resulted in deaths and maiming of victims, without much accountability for the perpetrators, some cases taking 5 years to resolve or more. Compensation for victims in these cases has never been recorded.

The destruction of the economy is well underway, instead of stopping corruption, the current regime is making reporting on corruption a criminal offence, the introduction of the Protection of State Information Bill, will effectively make whistle-blowing punishable by 25 years in jail. With that as a backdrop, the way is open for mass looting of taxpayer funds, another arms deal, Toll Road Projects, re-capitalisation of the railways, all work to go to either companies owned by government players, or to companies willing to inflate prices and provide substantial kickbacks. In part this feeding and looting frenzy may be driven by the knowledge that the ANC will be elected to power for another term by the current electorate, or it could be just playing out the African theme of viable countries turning into dictatorships like Zimbabwe, never to recover economically within the lifetime of the dictators. To call South Africa a democracy would be to ignore the most of the criteria that make countries democratic. A plebiscite of 2800 voters among 48 million is hardly democracy. The hoodwinking of the majority of voters through propaganda and outright lies to secure the public vote, though the intervention of social media’ has been reduced and vociferous reactions to certain public issues have caused the government to back down and show the public that public opinion counts for something at least.

The crippling of the Judiciary has been accomplished by electing judges who are openly pro-ANC, and are elected in the understanding that they will called on to deploy their skills [sometimes questionable] to suit the party. Irrespective of the legality and feasibility of the requests, this was glaringly illustrated by the Willem Heath input into the quashing of the rape and corruption cases against Zuma. Who quick to learn from the past, promptly ensured that should he ever be charged again in the next few years, the effectiveness of the country’s high courts would be stymied, and he would in all probability never face prosecution. Not surprisingly, very few jurists are accepting nominations for the high courts. After the installation of a judge of dubious integrity, who among other things admitted to god having told him he would be elected to the Constitutional Court as chief Justice. Subsequent to his controversial appointment he has tried to force fellow judges to attend religious instruction events, irrespective if they wanted or not. Transformation has become the buzzword of those seeking to implement structural changes to the courts, effectively crippling them and ensuring if nothing else, the short term survival of the corrupt cadres, who might be interested in evading prosecution long enough to secure their retirement.

The biggest issue and the means to fix it, remains the absolute widespread corruption in all tiers of government, which for the meantime keeps the media frenziedly occupied, with daily and even hourly exposure of instances of government corruption, costing taxpayers Billions of Rand every month. Every day brings news of a fresh corrupt scheme concocted with the express purpose of defrauding the taxpayer. Government commissioned a National Development Plan [NDP] and Hundreds of Millions of Rand later and an impressive 400 page report later, it becomes apparent that the NDP is yet another crony vehicle for cadres who missed the previous gravy trains.

That pipe of trash that someone smoked

The Pirate Bay's press release, Interesting in the extreme.

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for

the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edison’s patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North American East coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.

There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them – like Fantasia, one of Disney's biggest hits ever.

So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.

If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.

The reason they are always complaining about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between each other, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition.

We've proven that their existence in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.

And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech.

We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a Swedish friend said this:

The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.

They want to make the internet into a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers.

The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that no one wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the American people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown.

SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.

To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and TV shows that make them think that they're fat.

In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complaining that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.

Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.

THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012

The great Linux Noob Experiment

The Objective: For a total Linux Noob to experience the Operating Sys. as a hard-core Windows  user, to be open minded and experience the software, with the objective of deploying it in a business environment. 

The Machine:           My venerable HP / Compaq 6910p

The Specifications:  Duo Core 2.4 GHz, 32 bit, RAM reserved for Linux: 2.9 GB

Install spec:              Dual Boot, as per Ubuntu 11.10

Display:                    1440 X 900 pix’s

Installation

After downloading the ISO file from Ubuntu mirror servers, I decided to burn it to disc, using Power ISO, a long-time favourite for this type of work.  The initial objective was to use the disc to carry out the installation from disc as per the Ubuntu site suggestion. BUT, all that windows user experience and laziness kicked in and in short: Power ISO was used to mount the image in virtual drive and the install was run from there. 

The dual boot / boot manager process worried me, as I have not done one of these since XP stopped being what all the cool kids played with. My trepidation was unwarranted and my concerns amounted to precisely nothing. It occurred to me that the initial installation was probably better than a lot of Windows installs I have done in the past.

On to the main installation which followed on from the dual boot setup, seamlessly, funnily enough I was expecting to see the enter license information here portion of the installation, and then I remembered that Ubuntu is free software, like Android OS, its cousin once or twice removed, but never forcefully. So far the Linux experiment had cost me nothing at all. I brightened up considerably, bracing myself the all the horrors of open source software and the need to learn to write code to make it work.

None of that happened. It installed, no problem, detected the hardware, no problem, connected to the WIFI network in the office, no problem. Updated it-self, no problem. Offered various User interface options, some of my online/ real life friends had suggested Gnome 3 User Interface; I used the vanilla version of the Gnome 3, works beautiful. On to the serious stuff.

First Impressions of Applications

I thought I would need a mail client, so I downloaded Thunderbird from Mozilla, it worked had no built in calendar. Turns out Ubuntu carries an Office bundle which includes Evolution Mail and Calendar, caused me to uninstall Thunderbird, with mental apologies to Mozilla, as I like their applications, but Evolution just works better. The other Libre Office applications all seem to do the job, all seem to be compatible with Microsoft docs. Interestingly, I was able to import .PST files into Evolution Mail and Calendar, so 8.4 Mb of address book was imported via the network from a shared folder, no problems. Oh did I forget to say that the network connection was painless? Consisted of inputting the network password after enabling the MAC address on the router? 

The next major test was how well and how effectively 3G connectivity could be established. Bearing in mind the somewhat diabolical nature of W7 with 3G devices [ Firmware, Network interfaces, general connectivity, yada yada, generally experienced with network USB type dongles] The latest Huawei E36 HSDPA+ modem from MTN was inserted into the USB port,  and it appeared that nothing was happening. As I went to start muttering and fiddling with the network settings, the dialog window said: You are now connected to the GSM network.  So much for struggling with installations from MTN, to get control of the modem..

A minute or two later, the experience gained in setting up the modem in windows, was utilised to get into the network device settings and I had HSDPA+ functioning and was surfing away and downloading mail to the machine. And sending responses via the Evolution mail client, which had been no harder to set up than any version of Outlook. All the expected option were in the Evolution mail client, it seemed like a direct clone of Outlook, spam filters, junk mail filters all in evidence. No problems there.

Next, the browsers, present in the install was Firefox, worked without issues, imported my Bookmarks from the windows version, as a html file, no problem, same with Opera for Linux, no problem. Ubuntu has also come with Epiphany web browser, which I opened and it seemed to work as well as any of the other two browsers, no problems there.

Then I had a brainstorm, why not try Chrome to see if I can break something? Off to the Ubuntu cyber store and Chromium duly installed. Its fast! It’s faster than FF or Opera on the same sites. Definitely faster, so where to from here, more tests or just use it for a while? 

In the spirit of using it for a while I also tried variety of twitter clients, this area needs work! The best of the lot was Turpial, which worked most of the time. It was susceptible to becoming occasionally unresponsive.

Skype works, no issues to report, a variety of messengers, work well, supporting Gtalk, Mxit, MSN chat and all of the other suspects, all work on my accounts.

Movie players /streamers that came with Ubuntu all played my clips, audio and video.

Observations

The whole package works well, it’s easy to install, its user friendly if you don’t expect a Windows clone, take the time to figure out what goes where, it will make the experience more pleasant. The Linux OS appears to me to have a lot to offer, in some ways it was far easier than Windows, in others, I just had to learn new menus options, like anything that’s different it can cause frustration if you’re impatient with it.

The really big question for last: Would I go out into the wild armed only with a Linux machine to do business? 

Long Answer: I have many years of experience on Windows machines, enabling me to resolve many issues on the fly, from that aspect I would not be comfortable yet, BUT with a few more WEEKS of Linux exposure, I have no doubt that I would be comfortable to switch Operating Systems and not become frustrated because of functionality issues. 

The other issue of course is cost, Cost of W7 professional compared to cost of Ubuntu 11.10 is a strong motivator to people who rather limit their spend on software licences, but don’t forget to bear in mind that not ALL applications are directly translatable from W7 to Linux, TweetDeck is only available for Win and Mac and it was the one app I really missed. 

Many people opt for Hootsuite,  browser-based cross-platform, no issues there.

Lastly, if you’re the kind of person who abhors change and resists it at every turn [still using that old Nokia 6310i ?] rather don’t get involved in try Linux, avoid the stress. If however you are not averse to mildly different things and would like to pay nothing for your next OS, then by all means, go for it, and I hope my experience will be valuable to you.