MarcForrest.com

Month: February 2010

  • Jamie Oliver’s TED Talk

    Many of us know Jamie Oliver for his awesome cooling skills, and TV programmes, as well as his great cookbooks, of which I am sure we all have a copy lying around somewhere.

    Jamie was invited to speak at the TED 2010 conference in California last week, and the topic he spoke about was “Teach every child about food”

    Being a father to 3 gorgeous children, the video is an eye opener about the food we eat and  feed our children. America has a huge problem with obesity, and to be honest, South Africa is not far behind. I’ll be the first to admit, that I’m overweight, and watching the video of his talk, really made me think about what we eat. Watching some of the American kids in that video was quite heart sore to say the least, where they weren’t even able to tell the difference between a tomato or a potato.

    Spare yourself 20 minutes, and sit down and watch the video of Jamie Olivers Ted talk. It really is an eye opener, and makes you think about the food we eat, and feed our children.

  • Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock iPhone App

    I came across a really cool app the other day, called Sleep Cycle Alarm clock. How it works is, you place your phone on the corner of youe bed and while you are sleeping it tracks your body movements on the bed, using the accelerometer. You then set an alarm, and the app will wake you when you are in your least deep sleep, using a 30 minute cycle. So, if I set my alarm for 6:00 am, from 5:30 am, the app will continue monitoring my sleeping pattern, and wake me when I am in my lightest sleep, which means I wake up feeling refreshed, cause I was not in a deep sleep.It also displays a graph of your previous night’s sleeping pattern.This is one of mine from last week sometime.

    sleepgraph
    Now the question everyone has asked me is, does it really work. Well, I have been using it for over a week now, and I can confidently say, that it is working 100% for me. Waking up when the alarm starts going off, is so much easier, cause I’m in a light sleep. The alarms built into the app are also very cool, and have very mellow tones built-in. This means you don’t get loud beeping alarm clock noises, but rather gentle ones like “Sunrise” or “Morning mist”

    The app only cost’s $0.99, and is well well worth the money spent. Even if you don’t believe it will work, just try it. It is AMAZING :)

  • My interview with Rueben Goldberg on Classic FM

    A couple of days ago, we interviewed Reuben Goldberg on izimvo. When we first asked him for the interview, he sheepishly said, only if I can interview you. Shaun and I pulled straws, and I got the short one (and it was my turn after his interview with Aki Anistasiou). I am really not a fan of my voice, and cringe when I hear it played back, so I was kinda dreading the interview. I have to admit, it really wasn’t as bad as I expected when Reuben phoned me last week Wednesday to do the interview.

    The interview was finally broadcast last week Friday on Reubens show, The Internet Economy, on Classic FM in Jozi. I downloaded the podcast of the interview, and had a listen. I have to admit, although the cringe of the voice was still there, it sounded a lot better than what I expected. Towards the end of last year, I took a Toastmasters course at work, and I really think it helped with the interview, and there were a lot less um’s and aahs, that what I would have had before. So all in all, I’m pretty happy with the outcome.

    If you would like to listen to the interview (don’t judge me ;) :) ) you can listen (or even download if you like my voice that much) on Reuben’s Internet Economy page on the Classic FM website, or you can directly download the MP3 from the site. Here’s to the next interview :)

  • Nigerian Soccer team to make Ballito their home base during 2010 Soccer World Cup

    Word on the street in my small, but bustling hometown of Ballito, on the KZN north coast, is that we will be hosting the Nigerian Football team during the 2010 FIFA world cup. The Super Eagles, ranked 2nd in Africa and 15th in the world, have selected Ballito as their home town for the duration of the world cup. All of the Nigerian players in the national squad are based overseas, with the top players playing for teams like Chelsea and Everton in the UK.

    The team have 1 match in Durban, against Korea Republic, while the other 2 will be played in Joburg and Bloemfontein (both less than an hour by plane)

    The team has secured the rights to use the Ashton International College fields, which will be upgraded at the cost of a couple of million, to include floodlighting and a full on FIFA regulated pitch. The team will apparently staying at the new Hampshire Hotel in Ballito, which has recently been completed.

    As we get closer to the World cup, I’m really excited by the prospects it has to over, even to our small, bustling little town :)

  • Waze iPhone App

    I came across a very very cool iPhone app the other day called Waze. What is Waze ? From their site this is a very accurate description:

    Waze is a social mobile application providing free turn-by-turn navigation based on the live conditions of the road.
    100% powered by users, the more you drive, the better it gets. Join the community of drivers in your area today!

    So what this means is that while you driving, you “build” up the roads and maps, and then the Waze community provides live traffic information on the conditions on the roads. So for example, if there is a huge traffic jam, I will report it using Waze, which alert other Waze users in the area’s not to use that road, and provide alternative routing. This can also be extended to Roadblocks, traffic lights etc etc. Once the maps have been built up, you can use it to provide routing directions to a specified destination

    To get an idea of what Waze is all about, check out this guided tour from their website:

    I been using the app for the last couple of days, starting to create the maps around Durbs, and so far Waze has really impressed me. Once you have started tracking the roads you been driving, you can log into the Waze site, and update the roads with the correct names and features. I’m hoping that South African users start using it, and help it become an effective means of helping our traffic problems in our country.

    The app that you use to run Waze is available for the iPhone, Android, and Symbian