15 – 6. Destiny for the Bokke

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Posted on 21 October 2007 South Africa Sport

Winning the World Cup is something that unites South Africans. Driving home this evening, people were hooting, screaming out their windows and were just loving the feeling of belonging to such an awesome country. South Africa.

Highlights

  • Os du Randt – 80 minutes.
  • Percy Montegomery’s boot
  • Francois Steyn. 20 years old.
  • Defence
  • Johnny Wilkinson
  • Jake White and his 4 year plan.
  • Winning the Rugby World Cup in 2007 was our destiny.

My voice is gone and my nerves are shot, but I am a true and proud South African today and forever.

John Smit and the World Cup Trophy

Top Billing’s totally rubbish website

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Posted on 8 October 2007 Design Rants South Africa

I actually can’t believe that Top Billing, which is a weekly lifestyle programme that also publish a monthly magazine could run such an incomplete and cheaply put together Joomla site.

Top Billing Homepage

My dad watched last weeks show and wanted to know more information regarding some water pump that they installed at Robbie Fleck’s home as part of their Handy Man series on the show. My dad told me to go and check out topbilling.com for more information, as the show instructed. When I spotted the Joomla favicon in the address bar, I knew we were in trouble.

Big problems on the topbilling.com

Firstly there is no Top Billing brand identity. The logo is handmade, and the site design is using a basic Joomla template (RocketTheme?).
Content on the site is down to a bare minimum. There is very little information on the TV show or magazine, and other than the information being completely out of context and irrelevant, the Magazine page has a lovely paragraph of Lorem ipsum dolor text. (I also just noticed that the TV Show page is dated the 28 August. Lovely.).
How about contact details? Nope, nothing but a nicely placed back link.
Want some info on the lovely Jeannie D? Forget it.

Top Billing Lorum Ipsum text

But wait, there’s more rubbish! They running a forum on the site, with one of the Admin’s posting this gem:

Welcome to the New Website

There is lots of potential for your interaction here !

All you need to do is register an account – thats your password to interactions like:

-Making comments against presenter search candidates
-Participating in this forum
-Submitting your OWN article – how about that? You could use this space to promote your business or whatever you like. Use your discretion and good taste though.
-We may even let you communicate with other users – we will see how that goes.We want to do that in contained manner so that this site is always a pleasure for you and not another space where you are constantly interrupted.

Try this forum – you can discuss anything here!

Thanks
Selwyn Wacks

Complete and utter rubbish

Top Billing’s web presence is a joke. For all the glitz, glamour and jet-setting presenters on the show, their marketing team has completely left out one of the most crucial aspects that could enhance their brand. The www is not some kids toy. Show some respect.

Oh, and I still have absolutely no way of finding some sort of info regarding that water pump for my dad. Anyone know someone at SABC that might help?

Tags: ,

Waiting for iTunes to come to SA? Don’t. Use Amazon MP3!

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Posted on 27 September 2007 Internet Raves South Africa

Update: I’ve written a follow up post and step by step guide on how you can buy music on iTunes from South Africa.
Amazon MP3
We have all bitched and moaned about iTunes not being available in South Africa, and that we currently have to put up with Pick n Play or Musica Digital to buy MP3′s, who have the worst search features and have a really small MP3 collection. Well no longer! Amazon are now selling DRM free (yeah baby!) MP3′s cheaper than iTunes, and us South African’s can buy them!

Amazon MP3

Amazon’s digital music portal features 2 million songs from 180,000 artists and 20,000 labels all without DRM. They even include songs from EMI and Universal, which iTunes no longer sell. The top 100 tracks will cost $.89 (Just over R6), with the rest costing $.99.

In order to download songs, you must install the Amazon MP3 downloader, which converts the .AMZ file you download to .MP3 and then automatically imports that song into either iTunes or Windows Media Player for you. So it literally is a glorified download manager.

Amazon MP3 Downloader

I downloaded Makes Me Wonder by Maroon 5 to test the service, and it worked perfectly. The screenshot above doesn’t show the downloaded song in the queue, because after I closed and then reopened the application after downloading the song, it no longer listed it there.

The songs are encoded in 256Kbps which is not CD quality, but you won’t be able to tell the difference. It’s those audiophiles that will be the only people complaining. ;-)

So now no more sulking about not being able to buy international artists MP3′s in South Africa anymore, just use Amazon MP3!

Disclaimer: I’m not 100% sure if this is legal from SA, or because I am buying it outside of America causes trouble, I don’t care. The person that made the song is getting paid. ;-) That is all in my mind that counts!

Bobby Skinstad’s Castle Diary

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Posted on 21 September 2007 Design Sport

Now that SA has been dumped out of the T20 World cup, all my focus now turns to the Cup that matters, the Rugby World Cup. I stumbled across the Castle Lager site that has a diary of Bobby Skinstad’s journey at the 2007 World Cup. It gives a slightly more personal account of what the Boks are going through at the moment as well as some pics too!

Bobby Skinstad Diary

The thing that impressed me the most was the actual “diary” itself. The website is using flash heavily to make it feel like a real diary and Castle Lager have done a damn good job of it. Just a pity they haven’t any social aspects to it, like being able to comment or view the picture gallery etc. The pics are just “sticky taped” to each page in the diary.

Anyhow, its a slick site that will distract you for a couple of minutes to get your mind off our choking cricketers.

Pink rocked and so did Cassette!

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Posted on 12 September 2007 Cape Town Raves

Pink Album CoverWhat an awesome night out I had last night at P!nk. I probably wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for my girlfriend and her sister wanting to go. I will listen to Pink if its on, but I’m no over the top fan, like those 6 okes wearing pink tops, pants and wigs that were standing in the Golden Circle. But last night I was lank impressed with her performance. She really knows how to get the crowd going and her voice is damn strong! (Dunno how to phrase that sentence, but what I’m trying to say is that she is loud!)

Cassette (listen to a few of their songs here), who opened the evening, were also just as brilliant. I didn’t know they had so many hits on 5fm! I recognised all their songs except for 2, which were equally as good as the rest. The lead singer, Jon Savage is awesome! He, just like P!nk, knows how to play for the crowd.

I’ve posted a couple of pics on my Facebook profile with my new Samgsung U700. The pics aren’t the greatest, but in terms of a cellphone camera, I think they came out quite well considering. Go you 3.2 mega pixel camera!

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