MarcForrest.com

Month: October 2010

  • Business Trip Logger iPhone app

    As you may or may not know, if you receive a travel allowance from your company, SARS requires you to keep a logbook of all your travelling you do in your personal car through the year. At the end of the year, you need to submit a logbook with your tax return to show what kilometers have been used for business & what have been used for personal travel.

    This  from the SARS website:

    The income tax system allows taxpayers who receive a travel allowance to claim a deduction for the use of their private vehicle for business purposes. In order to claim a deduction, the first step is to record your vehicle’s odometer reading on 1 March each year (the first day of the tax year for individuals) and again on the last day of February the next year (the last day of the tax year for individuals). These opening and closing readings give you your total kilometres travelled for the year. And recording your mileage will help you make an accurate claim when submitting your tax return.

    TIP:  SMS your own car’s kilometre reading as on 28 February 2010 to your own cell phone for safekeeping.

    Hellz, hows that tip hey. What a CLEVER idea hey….If you are still stuck in the stone ages. You can download the “logbook” in PDF format from the SARS website, and then keep scraps of paper in your car, until the dude at the car wash thinks it “rabbish” and chucks it away, never to be seen again.

    Enter the Business Trip Logger iPhone app. From the smart dudes down at New Media labs, the VERY simple app allows you to record your mileage as and when you use your car for business, and then simple at the end of the year, export it to CSV, and BOOM ! you done. No Mess. No Fuss.

    From the app store:

    This application allows you to log all your business trips to a website. Each entry stores a client name and reason for the trip, a start odometer reading, trip distance and an end odometer reading. A list of all trips can then be downloaded as a CSV and submitted with your tax returns.

    Simple hey. And it’s free. Just do yourself a favour, and get it :)

  • My quick iPhone 4 review

    It’s been over a week since I got my brand spanking new iPhone 4 from the chaps at MTN. All I can say is wow. There is a remarkable difference between the iPhone 3GS & 4, in all sorts of categories.

    For me the kicker has to be the screen. I have never seen such a crisp & crystal clear screen on ANY device before. I honestly can’t spot any pixels, except in some of the apps I already have on the phone. That seems to be an issue is that the legacy apps need to be updated to take advantage of the screen, otherwise they just look crap. But that said, every time someone asks me about what stands out the most about the phone, I point out the screen and whip open the Epic Citadel app, which shows how awesome & clear it is.

    But it’s not only the screen that has caught me. The battery life on the iPhone is remarkably improved, and get loads more use out of the phone. With the 3GS, I charged it every night, (after using it a fair bit during the day) and now I can get almost 2 days out of it.

    The camera on the phone is also another plus. That and the HD video recording. Check out this video I took of my boy playing air drums. Awesome quaility. There is also a huge difference in speed on the phone. Apps load a lot faster as well, as well as app switiching.

    The one gripe I do have with the phone, seems to be the shape. I think cause I am accustomed to the “rounder” 3G & 3Gs shape, this feels a bit awkward to hold. But I’m sure I can get my head around that :)

    Overall, so far, the phone has been brilliant. I even landed up getting my wife one, so I could chat to the kids using FaceTime, when I am not around. Brilliant.

    Did you pick up an iPhone 4 ? What do you think ? Leave a comment below and lemme know ;)

  • Get your Pre-Paid Vodacom Microsim from Flickswitch

    Get your Pre-Paid Vodacom Microsim from Flickswitch

    With the launch of the iPhone 4 & the floods of iPads coming into South Africa, there has been a huge demand for both Vodacom & MTN microsims.
    I came across this very cool service the other day from the guys at Flickswitch. Basically they offer you a Pre-Paid microsim from Vodacom, which you can manage and recharge using their service called SIMcontrol, which allows you to monitor and recharge 3G data SIMs, and is ideal for iPad use.

    In short, it manages your 3G data top-ups making sure your SIM is always active and recharged. The simple online portal gives you full access to the SIM balance, recharge rules and details usage reporting. You simply specify a minimum recharge level (i.e. 80Mb) plus a recharge bundle of your choice (i.e. 600Mb). The SIMs are monitored daily and are automatically recharged from your pre-funded purse it when it reaches the minimum recharge level. It also avoids expensive out-of-bundle data rates that contract SIMs use, and removes the hassle associated with normal prepaid recharging. The service is also ideal to manage multiple company 3G SIMs

    The best features of the service are:

    • No contract commitment (You can simply cancel monitoring or recharges as needed)
    • Accurate usage stats (A way to check data balance online)
    • Easy cost control (One bill with accurate reporting)
    • Auto top-ups (Choose any standard data bundle to recharge with. You can change this at any time)
    • Takes the hassle out of managing prepaid SIMs

    The SIMcontrol Service costs R10 once off and there is a R6 monthly fee for them to manage your SIM. You can also buy the MicroSIM for R50 as well as the standard 3G sims for R1. Once you have the SIM, you can top it up with the standard Vodacom Data Bundle packages.

    If you would like to read more about the Flickswitch services & what they offer, you can download the full brochure & info package.