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.

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!

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

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...

Teddy Bears beware!

Teddy Bears aren't welcome in Pick 'n' Pay!

R200 for a wrong flag design?

People should honestly know better. Not only is this iPhone cover more expensive (at R200) than the rest (at R80) but it's got our beloved flag back to front!!

You're basically paying R200 to someone else to reward them for being stupid and you're also advertising to the (intelligent) rest of the world that you can't tell your left from your right and you're as stupid as the people that make this. In fact, if you own one, you're even more stupid than the designers because they've got your money for it and you're the one showing off how you were ripped off.

Dealify is dead ... Merry Christmas!

I kind of always knew this was inevitable but for some reason it still makes me a little bit sad. Dealify - one of the social buying sites and arguably the most innovative in terms of being the only one to advertise on TV - is dead. That's right. Dealify is dealifud.

I suspect there are more reasons than I can discuss here but one of the failings is possibly the fact that Dealify was the only one to venture out to mainstream media. Not really sure if it cost them too much to advertise or if it opened up people's eyes to the concept (and their competitors) but it's a pity because Dealify tried to break the mould.

Here's their site's explanation:

This is the end...

It's official, Dealify is closed!

Now, if you've bought a coupon recently don't panic, they're still valid
and our lovely client service lass is still working (very hard) to make
sure your experience with us remains a good one.

And if you're a merchant with concerns about payment, don't be! We promise
to make sure you're paid, after all we're backed by Naspers who's been
around for over 80 years.


If you're a customer and have any queries, questions or comments please
don't hesitate to get in touch on 0861 332 5439 or info@dealify.com

If you're a merchant and have any queries about payment please contact
accounts@dealify.com


From all of us at Dealify we'd like to thank YOU for being part of the
Dealify family.


We wish you the happiest holidays and a prosperous New Year.

Much love,

The D Team.

Virgin Active gym times

This is for Westville gym but I'm sure it's the same for others too...

Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock Bundle at fantastic price

At Incredible Connection, today only!

Google sounding the death of BlackBerry or sounding a declaration of war?

Google recently announced that it won't support the GMail app for
BlackBerry any more. The app isn't even available for download any
more either, it's just gone!

Their argument is that they will now focus on the web based interface instead.

Somehow, I don't really buy it. I mean, they also recently pulled the
Apple app for GMail too, so I'm suspecting this is more an
Android-growing tactic. In either case, it's very sad news for
BlackBerry users and also very confusing: why not leave the app in
place until this new web interface is live?

BlackOps: Google Sync adding entries to BBM Groups instead of default calendar fix

If you are experiencing a problem with your Google Sync and the BB Calendar where everything is being added to the BBM Groups calendar, I can help.

This was first experienced for me on my BlackBerry Torch 9800 with OS6 and the source of the problem is a conflict between Google Sync and BBM. The quickfix is to uninstall BBM and then reset your calendar sync and then reinstall BBM.

Here are the steps in detail:

1. Backup your BBM contacts etc. and then remove BBM. In OS6 go to Options --> Device --> Application Management --> BlackBerry Messenger --> Delete
1. Note: some users experienced difficulties deleting BlackBerry Messenger; in such cases first try to install the latest version available from the BlackBerry App World and then delete it from there; for some reason the default "core" installation bundled with the OS isn't removable.
2. Consult http://brattex.blogspot.com/2011/05/blackops-that-google-calendar-syncing.html for initial steps and for methods to backup your calendar. You can skip the steps on deleting service books (i.e. do not do steps 3 and 5) but follow the rest.
3. After you've run Google Sync and verified that it's all in your default calendar ... reinstall BBM.

I would be really interested to know if this solution worked for you so please feel free to leave a comment below or give this a thumbs up, +1, like, etc.

Grannies are for pernonin' n00bs

Stop the Secrecy Bill today!

I just tried phoning Deputy President Mr. Motlanthe to voice my objections to the Secrecy Bill that is being pushed through Parliament today. After a very long wait on the phone (call it persistent), a gentleman answered and told me to email my comments through.

In order to assist everyone else in airing their same concerns, here are the email addresses to consider sending an email to, starting with the infobill one first...

• infobill@parliament.gov.za

And then also ...

• idavidson@parliament.gov.za
• gmagwanishe@parliament.gov.za
• mmotshekga@parliament.gov.za
• nntwanambi@parliament.gov.za
• vcalvert@parliament.gov.za

Here's the gist from Avaaz.org so you're armed with a thorough argument, as well as the message that I sent through:

Picasa and Picasa Web Albums - Free unlimited storage

I've been on a quest for a long time now to find the best site to backup all of my digital pictures and videos. I thought I had found the answer in Snapfish but a friend of mine pointed out that they charge you to re-download your photo's at their original resolution. No good!

I'm not on Facebook (and can't really comment on their photo storage options but I think pictures are resized) but am quite an avid fan of Google. Picasa Web Albums was limited to 1GB of storage so it wasn't really an option for me either but I've since learned that Picasa now offers a form of unlimited storage for photo's (and more importantly, videos).

In summary, files under a certain size don't count towards your 1GB storage limit and videos up to 15 minutes won't either. If you reach your quota, all future uploads are resized to fit within the free resolution requirements.

Sending an e-mail to Twitter, receiving Twitter to e-mail

I can get lazy sometimes, and if there's one thing I can guarantee it's that my email account will always be open and readily available. I can't always say the same for my Twitter account. That's because I'm lazy.

I've found a way to overcome my laziness with an e-mail to Twitter solution that allows me to tweet from the comfort of my mailbox.

TwitterMail (@TwitterMail or https://twitter.com/#!/TwitterMail)

TwitterMail allows you to send an email to a specific Twittermail email (for example, abc123@twittermail.com) which then tweets it to your associated Twitter account. Better yet, you can also receive tweets sent to your username (@twittername) via email.

The problem is privacy. For TwitterMail to work you need to share your twitter account with them. For some people, this may be a problem. For others (like me), it's not such a big deal because it's not like a rogue Twitter thief would be able to do much with my Twitter account anyway!

For a bit of piece of mind, it uses The Visitor Widget to authenticate on http://twittercounter.com/pages/twittermail without sharing your Twitter password (which allows the application to read tweets from your timeline, see who you follow, follow new people, update your profile, and post tweets for you; it will not be able to access your direct messages or see your Twitter password). You can also revoke access at any time by going to your Applications tab of your Settings page - good enough?

Additional features of TwitterMail include: