Today went well. Nadia Musa, an ex-rhodent was my "buddy" and showed me around, she was awesome and definately went above and beyond. I was introduced to more people than I can remember (I usually have trouble remembering one new person's name). Does anyone have a tip on how to remember names? Most of the day was spent getting an info dump on how things work. By lunch time I had information overload.

My favourite part of the day was when I learned they have a central planning office. The commie jokes ran thick like vodka through my head, but nobody really appreciated them, least of all Lenin and Trotsky who work there.

I got a kief laptop, a Dell Latitude D600. One of the privledges of being in SSG (Security Services Group) is you get admin rights on your machine, so I promptly LiteStep'ed windows and slapped Ubuntu on, despite warnings that the IT people wouldn't be able to help me if there was a problem. The ubuntu install took less time than it did to configure bloody Microsoft *grumble* Outlook. Poked around in the network a bit, couldn't ssh out even with some tricks, but I didn't want to do anything too noisy on my first day. I recon I have a shot at asking for access instead of investigating ssh proxy CONNECT tunelling. The internal company homepage requires IE [sic]. I found IETab a great firefox plugin which uses IE as a rendering engine within a firefox tab, now that's cool.

I am being deployed to a client tomorrow already. Talk about being chucked in the deep-end. I am looking forward to it, although I may get lost in Jozi traffic on the way. Everyone there was very friendly and helpful and I can definately see myself getting on with most of them.

The confidentiality policies are hectic and I figure I basically wont talk about anything work related other than my 'feelings' and 'emotions'. Hence the lack of disclosure of which enormous company I am being deployed to tomorrow. *strut*