22 January 2012

Free undercover parking for as long as you like at Westwood Shopping Centre

I don't promote nefariously abusing what I'm about to tell you but use it if you feel justified in doing so...

You know how you have to pay R5 for 1 hour's worth of undercover parking at Westwood? Well, shopping at Pick 'n' Pay gives you 90 minutes free parking but what if you end up being delayed in the queues to pay for your shopping and the 90 minutes expires? Simple: swipe your ticket again!

You see, the system at Westwood seems to work by setting your timer back 90 minutes (e.g. 12h00 arrival becomes an effective 13h30 arrival so at 12h45 the system technically sees you as 'not having arrived yet') but when the 90 minutes is up the system seems to just count up from zero again (you've arrived at 13h30 so it counts as normal from then) so if you then swipe your ticket for another 90 minutes of free parking it thinks you're resetting another 90 minutes (e.g. 13h30 'arrival' becomes an effective 15h00 arrival).

If you are already within the 90 minute cycle then swiping your ticket again has no effect. You have to wait for the 90 minute cycle to end before doing this again.

And yes, I've done it myself and have had a friend do it too so it definitely works.

Feel free to +1 me if this post is helpful.

20 January 2012

Download YouTube to MP3 using YouTube MP3 and many others

If you've ever wanted to download a YouTube video's soundtrack to 'high-quality' MP3 there are a few sites to visit to achieve this which I've listed below. If you use Google Chrome you can also choose to install an add-on that will allow you to do the download at the click of a button while viewing the YouTube video. The add-on is called, creatively, YouTube MP3 and can be downloaded here http://www.youtube-mp3.org/addons/chrome.

If you want to use a web interface then try out these sites:

  • www.youtube-mp3.org/ the parent site for the Chrome add-on
  • www.listentoyoutube.com/
  • www.video2mp3.net/
  • www.vidtomp3.com/

There are of course plenty more that are just a quick Google search away and also a bunch of add-ons for other browsers - this is simply to point you in the right direction (and if you didn't know it was possible beforehand, now you know!).

Enjoy downloading your favorite Rebecca Black tracks this Friday!

18 January 2012

SAOL information misleading

Dear SAOL

Your homepage announcements are not providing the correct information about comparative pricing between Telkom and SAOL and this is false advertising.

SAOL:
Telkom:
Circuit Speed Up to 1 MB Up to 1 MB
Extras ADSL + 1 Gig FREE + Email ADSL Only
Top Up per Gig R29 NA
Price R299 R326
The Telkom website quotes the 1Mbps line as R289 (incl. VAT) per month. Your site says Telkom charges R326 which is not correct. Will SAOL be offering a better price than Telkom or should we stick with Telkom for our 1Mbps ADSL lines? In either event, please update your website to the current pricing to avoid misleading potential clients.

Regards,

Bryan Johnston

17 January 2012

NeoGo - 24GB mobile data + USB modem for R799 once-off



"Best prepaid deal" in South Africa at the moment, although there's no mention of the speed for the modem. Either way, 24GB of data for R799 (including the modem) is a very good price. That's R33 a GB which is equivalent (almost) to Afrihost's R29 per GB for ADSL. Just be aware that the modem is CDMA which is a lot less connected in South Africa than 3G...