The Beta version of the latest Windows will be arriving in February 2012, and of course, all computer users are going to be looking out for that. Apparently, Microsoft is also going to go the route of applications, and there is going to be what they call a “Windows Store”.

When you want to use applications on your computer, you will have to download them from the Windows Store which means Microsoft is going to control what you download. Similar to the applications you can buy for your iPhone, you would be able to buy applications for your computer via the Windows Store. Of course, it will probably take a lot longer before the new version of Windows will be available in its final, subsequent testing phase and for now it is only the IT wizards that will show much interest.

I traditionally give out my device of the year award at this time, and while it is probably significant only to me, it gets me thinking about what devices I have really enjoyed using over the past year. I am nervous to make it my Kindle for the third consecutive year running, but I probably do use my Kindle more than any other device, apart from my iPhone 4 and my iPad 2.

I guess, for a variety of reasons, and because it can do everything that a Kindle can do, but I still prefer to read on my Kindle, I will make my iPad 2 my device of the year! I particularly enjoy most of the applications that I use on the iPad 2, particularly the business ones, and interactive reading together with videos and photographs and the stunning display of the iPad 2 always makes the iPad popular, but where it really does win hands down is in getting the attention of children. In fact, in my own experience, you will struggle to be able to use it yourself as your children will be asking for it all day!

From 19 to 22 January 2012, there is going to be a golf tournament at The Links at Fancourt, for the winners on the European PGA Tour during 2011. Also eligible will be those who had 10 or more wins on the European Tour during their lifetime.

This is the first tournament of winners for the European Tour, and with $2,7 million in prize money, the winner will walk away with $500 000,00 and no doubt with a prize like that, most of the best players in Europe are going to be back in South Africa, 6 or 7 weeks after some of them would have been at Sun City. The Links is an immaculate golf course and in fantastic condition which is why it has been rated the number one golf course in South Africa by Golf Digest magazine.

I think it makes sense that 27 December was awarded public holiday status, for those who would otherwise lose a public holiday. Of course, I think there is a lot of merit in the allegation that many would make that South Africa has too many public holidays, and as an employer, I definitely believe that is the case, particularly in April.

It does not however assist with long-term planning and that companies have already factored in their bonuses, calculated and loaded December salaries, etc, and on 14 December 2011 you suddenly get told that a day, in thirteen days’ time, and in most cases only one working day away, given that most businesses close on 15 December, is suddenly a public holiday. So it is amazing that some thought could not have been given to this, by all of the people it suddenly became so important to, quite some time before this.
 

One of the hard working professions was on display at the Nedbank Challenge, and that is that of the top sports photographers. They invariably lug two cameras around the course, one of which with a 500mm lens, would weigh probably about 10 kg, and they do that up and down a hilly golf course at Sun City.

Anybody who has been to Sun City in December will know that the one thing you don’t have on your side is the temperature, and the top guys, of who there are relatively few, really do earn their money. There are about 25 accredited photographers, and I noticed that 3 or 4 of them seem to cover most of the course while there are about 20 or so who don’t walk terribly far. In fact, on the final day, as the trophy is about to be handed out, a whole lot of photographers that one has never seen, come out and suddenly take pictures of the trophy when awarded. In some ways it is sad that it seems to be the shot that all the newspapers want, because it allows somebody to be wined and dined and Sun International’s expense until the trophy is handed over, and then the person needs merely run along and take a few pictures of the trophy being handed over. The action photographs are what interest me, and those top photographers really do put in a great effort to take them.
 

I recently had the pleasure of a sponsored round at Randpark Golf Club for a Rotary golf day. I was really impressed with the main buildings as well as the hotel, which of course is where the Brazilian team stayed during the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

The golf course was in a very good condition, with beautiful fairways and greens which I thought were fairly true. The bunkers were likewise in a good condition, but what really horrified me were the practice facilities. The practice facilities seem to be about 30 years older than the rest of the development and apart from just looking old, and to be honest, rundown, the mats on which you are forced to hit were also of poor quality. Most top golf courses of course allow you to practice off grass before your round, so it is bad enough that one had to use mats here in the first place, but far worse that they were in a terrible condition. I can only assume that the practice range is privately owned and obviously not profitable enough to justify expensive renovations, but it really does drag down the rest of what is otherwise a fine golf club.

I have written a number of very positive reviews about the TomTom GPS unit as well as the LiveTraffic on their website. They have also been very quick to replace faulty goods, but I must say I am getting a little bit frustrated now that I am onto my third GPS in only 8 weeks.

I am not quite sure whether I had the bad luck to buy into a faulty batch, all sold by the same distributor, or they have chronic problems but I already had two faulty units. The first one stopped giving the live traffic updates and then started resetting itself all the time and that was replaced for me. The second one worked fantastically for 2 or 3 weeks until it too stopped picking up the live traffic, and then on the basis that it allegedly was not charged, refused to pick up any more of the live traffic. The problem was that I could not charge it in the first place – not via a USB port and not via the usual cigarette charger either and I am not quite sure whether it is a faulty wire in the unit or a faulty battery pack, but I read that quite a few people had similar problems on the Internet.

Rectron is a supplier of computer goods as well as accessories such as printers, GPS units and even video screens. They have fantastic prices, although it is quite a difficult registration process to open an account with them, but what really sets them apart is their customer service. I never had a company that is so quick to replace something if it is faulty or to give you a new replacement straightaway. They really do a tremendous job and I will wholeheartedly recommend them to anybody who is involved in IT in a big way.

I have been very impressed with an evaporative cooling system that we have put in at our offices. It is an eco-friendly way of providing cool air during summer whereby outside air is effectively cooled by water mist and goes through one’s office or home. It is extremely effective, when it comes to cooling, and apart from that, it seems to leave a much cleaner air but reduces allergies that we typically suffer from.

I found, since we installed it at our offices in our main building, that I’ve had less asthma attacks and allergy issues than ever before and why precisely that is, I am not quite sure, but it certainly seems to be a better system than normal air conditioning. The apparent drawback however is that it does not provide heating in the winter, so it can only really provide you with cooler air in summer.
 

I’ve never had a golf ball break on me before, but this weekend I took out a new Srixon ball and the first shot with it did not go too well. I thought I hit it badly, and it went a far shorter distance than normal. With the second shot, it split into two, firstly making it very difficult to follow because I saw a ball going off in two different directions and secondly, creating a very interesting photographic opportunity to photograph the inside of a golf ball.

I understand that there are plenty of examples like this on the Internet, where people seem to spend their time cutting open all sorts of things, or putting them in blenders and then they make videos of them, but I just do it the traditional way – by breaking the object normally! The inside of the ball is certainly much harder than I imagined it would be and the cover is much thinner.

Donald has just created history by winning the money list on both European and American PGA Tours. He really has been the most consistent golfer in the world this year, and fully deserves his number one status. You will have to watch out next year though, because the former number 50 in the world just jumped up 29 spaces to number 21 with his recent win. That’s Tiger Woods of course, and there is no doubt that he is finally beginning to play like he is capable of.

This is my favourite time of the year to watch political spin-making, when we get the whole host of press releases during the festive season telling us about how the accident death toll is down on previous years. It is something I have been quoted about extensively in the media before, and I really hope it does not happen this year.

In short, what each successive Minister of Transport seems to do, is get the statistics from his of her staff as to how many people have died and compare it to the previous year. What they should compare it to is the press releases they issued the previous year, because those figures were lower than the comparative figure they now use. It might all sound confusing, but what happens, is that a lot of police stations report death tolls late, and a lot of people die in hospital 2 weeks, 3 weeks or 3 months after the date when their accident happened and they are not including in all of the provisional figures. The Ministers and their spokespersons are essentially then comparing apples and oranges, because each year they are comparing the latest provisional figure with the previous year’s final figure and the provisional figure is always likely to be substantially lower than the final figure because not everybody dies instantly at the scene of an accident.

What I would also prefer to see is if the media focuses the entire year on what is happening on our roads, instead of just in mid-December and in April. It is a tragedy that more than 15,000 people die on our roads each and every year, and the number, despite the press releases they put out every December, has not stopped growing. In fact, the death toll has doubled over the last 10 years.
 

It is always noticeable, whether in the malls, or in the office, that there is always an energy at the end of the year. Sadly, it often goes with a bit of extra tension, with rising tempers and difficult clients. Staff members at many companies wait nervously to see whether or not they are getting bonuses, what the extent of the bonuses are and everybody seems to alternate from being in a particularly good mood to the opposite.

It is only a matter of days now before the whole of the country essentially shuts down and the vast majority of the work force goes on leave. It is also the time of the silly season, with all of the antics that take place at office parties and at staff get-togethers fuelled by summer and alcohol.

My wish for all of you is that you drive safely and spend this time with family and friends and enjoy yourselves.
 

I must thank Nedbank for having me in their hospitality area during the Nedbank Challenge. It is one of the most sought after times of the year to be entertained by Nedbank, and apart from all the free shirts, umbrellas and peaks, you get wined and dined in great style with unlimited drinks, not to mention, unfortunately ice-creams. It is so popular that I know other clients who have JSE listed companies who only got two tickets, and it becomes quite difficult to even secure that invitation!

At a time of the year like this, when people tend to get a little irritable and sometimes perhaps a bit too demanding, it is always good to remind ourselves to remain polite and professional. I think every person is special in unique and different ways, and apart from the few who belong in prison for the rest of their lives, most people have a huge number of positive points.

It is important however, no matter how beautiful you think you are, or clever, or special, that we appreciate that we need to remain constant in our dealings with other people and treat them with respect and courtesy. I find, all too often, and especially when people are younger, that they tend to have a self-inflated self view, which revolves only around their needs and what they want and everything else is taken for granted. If that is not bad enough, some people even take that into adult life and continue their delusion!
 

This weekend sees the final event of the European PGA Tour. Luke Donald is likely to become the first man to win the money order in both America and on the European order this year, winning in excess of $10 million, but there is big money to be won by all the players who have qualified for this event throughout the season.

Very importantly, for South Africa, the flight to Dubai from Johannesburg is much easier than from America and so it is one of the reasons we get a lot of European players at Sun City for the Nedbank Challenge which of course has just finished. A lot of those players are going to be in action this weekend in the European Tour finale and I am certainly going to look forward to enjoying what is the last major televised golf event of 2011.

Lee Westwood’s game obviously suits Sun City. He is able to drive the ball far and fairly accurately, and stays out of the considerable trouble that you have at Sun City, when you hit a poor drive. He was already the favourite to win the tournament, before he set a course record on Saturday of 62, and quite frankly, he will be fairly good money to get whatever odds you could get now, probably 4 or 5 to 1 for him to win again next year.

I don’t ever think any player has had a hat trick of wins at this particular course, but such is his dominance at the moment when it comes to the Gary Player course at Sun City, and as long as he is in any reasonable form and by that I don’t even mean top form, I think he will go on to win again next year. One cannot underestimate the advantage distance gives you, and on hole after hole he came in from 30 or 40 metres closer than his playing partners, allowing him to hit wedges all day into the greens and put from considerably closer than his opposition was most of the time.
 

One of my favourite things, when people apply for jobs with me, who seem to have unusually high salaries, is to look into the job perks. I find the second I start hearing about the cost to the company, that I already know that the actual salary is going to be considerably lower.

The cost to the company includes bonuses, and things like that, which my company typically pays, or at least has done every year so far, but which I don’t guarantee in terms of a contract, because a bonus must always be dependent on performance of the company and the individual for that year. It becomes clear however that you can inflate somebody’s salary and make it look like they are earning an incredible amount, without actually giving them money. The most common way that companies do that is to allocate a parking space, and then give a value to that parking space. Typically, I see amounts at about R2 000,00 a month allocated to parking spaces and then all sorts of amounts of money for group life cover, funeral cover and all sorts of other products which are “provided” at values that are considerably higher than you would actually pay for those products if you went out and got them on the open market. So, in theory, you have a whole lot of benefits valued at R4 000,00 to R10 000,00 a month but none of them are any use to you, especially while you remain alive! It is not to say that a parking space is not valuable, but in most cases the employer is not really paying for the parking space, other than having paid to build it in the first place, and I would be more impressed if they were in fact renting that parking space from somebody else and then providing it to their employee – which is not actually the case in most scenarios.

This is a new website of mine, as I have a keen interest obviously, not only in sports, but more particularly in sports photography. It has a number of my photographs, particularly of professional golf, as well as various sport-related information, and if you are interested in seeing those photographs have a look at www.onlinesports.co.za

It is Nedbank Golf Challenge time again and Africa’s Major takes place at Sun City with the final two days this weekend. I took the winner last year and I am certainly going to have a bet again this year, even though the field is of a far higher quality than last year. There are more top 10 players in the world this year than previously and the 5 South Africans of last year have dwindled to only one this year, namely Blair Atholl’s Charl Schwartzel.

I believe ultimately that the Player of the Year on the US PGA Tour has to be Luke Donald. There is no doubt that he has been the most prolific putter this year, and when he really needed to he won the US money list and looks like doing the same on the European Tour now as well. Because of his putting ability and the fact that he is the number one player in the world, I wopuld favout him even if it next week is his real target. There is no doubt that Charl and Lee Westwood will mount serious challenges also.
 

I enjoyed an article by Thomas Friedman recently on being a better parent. Essentially what he says is that while good teachers make a difference, nothing is as important as good parents. Children, whose parents read them a book a day or every second day, do far better at school than children whose parents read to them infrequently.

Research shows that, regardless of how well educated the parent is, just in expressing interest and following what is going on at school with their school work, they can ensure that their children do better. They also found that children benefited more from having their parents assist them with homework, than having their parents attend a parent/teachers meeting, attend school board meetings, volunteer in classrooms, participate in fundraising or even show up at school events at night.

In other words, nothing works better than spending time with your own child at home with their homework and reading them a book every day or every second day. Everything else is an extra, it is nice if you can do it, and it will not make any difference in the long run to how they do in school, college and in life.
 

I was happy to see that Eskom had launched a solar power station to produce renewable energy sources for their own coal fire power stations. Solar photovoltaic technologies naturally use the power of the sun to generate electricity and that is clearly the way to go.

I have always believed in a green office and have done my best to instruct my architects and builders in that regard. My offices have hot water provided by solar power and more than 50% of the hot water that I have at home is likewise provided by solar power. Interestingly enough, the geyser that runs on solar power typically has a higher temperature, certainly at this time of the year, than the one running on electricity and as we all know the sun is really far more powerful than anything we could invent. It is just a question of harnessing it, and we need to do a lot more of that!