As a South African user of Ubuntu there has been one problem that has been annoying me for the last few versions of Ubuntu and that is that for some reason the system wide South African dictionary it ships with has the annoying tendency to refuse to believe that many correctly spelt plurals are indeed correct. Luckily I found a quick fix that should solve any problems you might have and make your Ubuntu experience far more enjoyable.
It took me a lot of Googling and forum trawling till I managed to stumble on the following forum post by yac on the OpenOffice user forums:
The “aff” file has an error in it. I’ve somewhat edited my files, but on or about line 9 there is a “REP 27″. The en_ZA file has had some extra bits added in the REP section, so the REP 27 should now be REP 35.
This is in the “en_ZA.aff” file that on my windows setup is in:
…\OpenOffice.org 3\share\uno_packages\cache\uno_packages\86.tmp_\dict-en.oxt
Knowing that this is the same dictionary that Ubuntu uses across all its programs I tracked it down to /usr/share/myspell/dicts/en_ZA.aff and made the appropriate change. Et voilà! Hopefully somewhere along the line the correct dictionary file will filter its way through to Ubuntu, Firefox and OpenOffice. In the mean time you can either use the above mentioned fix or you can the wait for updated OpenOffice dictionary files at translate.org.za which should contain the fix and merely copy it over to the old file.
Just the other weekend I was fortunate enough to be invited to a gathering of friends at the lovely Gordon’s Bay Lodge where Chantelle offered us a whole heap of hospitality by allowing us to have a braai and catch the Tri Nations rugby match between the Boks and the All Blacks. Most of the regular clan was there with myself, Craig, Chantelle, Ryan, Wayne, Candice, Michelle, Damen, Dean and Zania all arriving towards the end of the afternoon to a peaceful Gordon’s Bay. Luckily Mother Nature was playing along and gave us some good weather amongst all the rainy days we’ve been experiencing here in the Cape of late. After a chat amongst all of us to catch up on what’s been happening we threw some charcoal on the fire and took to the activity that defines the South African male, braaing. It quite quickly emerged that this was not to be Craig’s day with the tongs as he was quickly bumped aside by the duo of Wayne and Damen who were determined for once to not drop any meat or scorch it as Craig seems to do out of habit these days 
While this was all going on the rest of the guys, myself included, made our way into one of the guest house’s rooms to catch the rugby. I’m not much of a fan of the sport but there always seems to be something special about watching a sporting event with a group of friends and the Boks decided to treat us to a resounding win by trouncing the All Blacks, although they did managed to give us a fright or two before the final whistle sounded. With impeccable timing Wayne and Damen managed to get the braai out to us just as the game ended and we all tucked into some of the best meat I’ve had the pleasure of eating. With that out of the way we all sat back and relaxed and chatted the remaining portion of the evening away. I had to leave a bit earlier than the others who had elected to stay over the night in the guest lodge itself and be treated to Chantelle’s world famous English breakfast the next day. So after some fond farewells I hopped into my car and made the long trek home to Bellville. Overall it was a great day out, so a big thanks to Craig and Chantelle for hosting a great day out 
How many guys does it take to braai?
The view from the guest house
One of my passions as a guy is of course those mechanical beasts that ride around on four wheels, better known to many people as cars. Unfortunately somewhere in my early years as n adolescent guy I ended up getting attached to the car that definitely won’t be featured in Fast and the Furious any time soon. I am of course talking about the venerable old Mini. Maybe it was all those Mr Bean shows I watched as a youngster, but when it came to choosing my first car I ended up getting a tiny Leyland Mini 1275 E with a sunroof that leaked and an engine that leaks more oil than the Exxon Valdez. Nevertheless the car had an engine that was remarkable for a car of its size and it managed to take me to and from Stellenbosch every day for close on 5 years and though it has a tendency to break down at the most inappropriate times it has so far managed to keep going when I’ve needed it most. The reason I mention this is because my father shares my passion for all things Mini and just recently had his little Mini 1100 resprayed with a rather fetching paint job:
Before
After
Recently I started using identi.ca to check it out. For those of you who haven’t used it before, its very similar to Twitter with a stronger focus on open source software and computing in general. I hadn’t really gotten too active in it because I didn’t see the use of having a second microblogging account above Twitter. After all, all my contacts and friends were on Twitter and not identi.ca, so why use it then?
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