MarcForrest.com

Month: November 2010

  • FNB Whisky Live iPhone App

    The FNB Whisky Live expo kicked off in Cape Town last night, and the organisers have included a spiffy to guide you through the festival this year.The festival runs to the 5th in Cape Town  and then from the 10th – 12th in Jozi. Um…no Durbs :(

    I downloaded the app yesterday to give it a run, and found that you actually have to sign up to use the app. This immeditatly put me off, so I closed it. Luckily I had a few minutes to spare later in the day, and I registred, albeit painfully. The form was a MISSION to use. Overall, not a very pleasant experience.

    Anyways, my moaning aside, the app gives you all the ins & outs about the festival, as well as a floor plan of the exhibitions.

    Here is more info from the apps :

    Whisky Live is the ultimate guide to the 2010 FNB Whisky Live
    Festival, which is taking place from 3 – 5 November 2010 in Cape Town
    and from 10 – 12 November
    in Johannesburg. Not only is it your ultimate festival companion but
    it also gives whisky lovers an application that they can use
    throughout the year.

    The new Whisky Live Festival application, provides whisky lovers with
    a wealth of fun and interactive information on the festival, and about
    their favourite whisky
    brands. Navigate your way around the festival by downloading the app
    onto your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, and you’ll get a comprehensive
    guide to the whiskies
    available for tasting, as well as an indication of where you are
    situated in the tasting hall. Most exciting is that each whisky will
    be categorised by their lead flavour,
    enabling you to discover a range of whiskies which suit your palate.

    If you are going to be attending the festival and have an iPhone, I would suggest you download the app :)

  • Win a seat at the Spud Premiere

    You might remember the post I did a while back where I showed you the trailer for the upcoming Spud Movie ? The movie based on the top selling SA book. Right ?

    So, the movie opens here in SA in the next couple of weeks, and the clever people from MTN Loyalty 1-4-1 have a couple of seats open for clever people, like you and me, who would like to attend. Free.

    The premieres of this highly anticipated flick are as follows:

    • Johannesburg Saturday 13 November 2010 @ 17:30 Nu Metro Montecasino
    • Cape Town Wednesday 17 November 2010 @ 18:30 Nu Metro V&A Waterfront
    • Durban Friday 19 November 2010 @ 18:30 Nu Metro Suncoast Casino

    There could perhaps be a “surprise guest” at the Jozi event. Think big. Like a really funny British Comedian who stars in the film :)

    To get your seat at any one of the above premieres, you can do one of the following:

    Write a blog post about the premiere, and why you think you and 3 (THREE) of your best mates should go. Also try and include a little story about your best high school memory if you want a little bit of an extra “nudge”. Once you got your post up, pop Sheena an email with the link, and your name will go into the draw

    If you not a blogger-star (get with the programme!!) then you can also enter via Facebook or Twitter. If you need to find out anymore info about the comp, check out the post on the MTN blog

    I think this movie is going to be a hit in SA, and I know I can’t wait to see it.

  • Video editing apps for the iPhone 4

    Since I got my iPhone 4, I have been using it quite a bit for its HD video recording. The quality is fantastic, and is perfect for spontaneous videos with the kids.

    But, the videos are pretty bland without a little bit of editing, so I came across 2 very cool apps that allows you to edit your videos on the device, and then export them in various qualities.

    Many people suggested iMovie but after reading some of the reviews, I noticed many people were not happy with the app. Then I came across ($3.99). Amongst other things the app allows you to:

    ? Splice, trim, split video clips
    ? Pan & Zoom photos and videos
    ? Add your own music from your iPod music library
    ? Add title and subtitle to each clip with fade in/out, adjustable fonts, length and styles
    ? 28 transitions can be set at start and/or end of clips

    The app is really simple to use, and the big bonus is that it is compatible with the iPad as well, which means you can also edit your videos on the iPad.

    But, video’s don’t always look that cool when you “stitch” them together with a couple of transitions. So, enter  ($2.99). This app allows you to add on some really cool effects to our videos. The app has over 55 different types of effects, as well as allowing to change brightness & contrast etc. Here are some of the effects that are included in the app:

    ?Essential (included)

    Everything you need to fix you video: Black and White, Sepia, Light Sepia, Negative, Vignette, Widescreen, Brightness/Contrast, Vibrance/Saturation, Exposure

    ?Cinematic (included)

    20 effects including Spartan Sepia, Egyptian Gold, Cinematic Color, Chill, TWI·Poster, Flashback, Heat Vision, Night Vision, Red, Flashback Glow, Elf Glow, Charmed Glow, Dark Comic, Color Comic, Surveillance Cam, Victorian, Dark Night, Vampire World, WWII, Kyoto

    ?Toycam (included)

    12 effects including Spice, Instant, Instant TZ, Redscale200, RedscaleXPro, Silver Xpro, Nostalgia, Dawn, Indian Summer, Cappuccino, HelgaV, Pink

    ?Vintage (included)

    12 effects including 8mm, 8mm Vanilla, 8mm Magenta, 70s, Pop, 70s Dusty, 1920, Techcolor, Dust & Scratch, Film Grain, Quick Blur, Smooth Blur

    Here is a quick video of a day out with the kids on Saturday showing the combination of the 2 apps.

    Have you tried these 2 apps or are there others I am missing ?

  • Elvis Blue Wins SA Idols Season 6

    WOOOT !!! I called it…Elvis Blue, the very talented musician from George in the Western Cape, tonight won the latest Idols installment on MNet.

    Elvis Blue’s whose real name is Jan Hoogendyk, is actually quite an accomplished Afrikaans Gospel singer, and has 2 albums called Diep Riviere & Ontskemer out, the latter which was nominated for a SAMA award earlier this year.

    Elvis started the season by singing a rendition of Bob Dylans make you feel my love, went on to win the competition agains Durban boy Lloyd Cele. The competition between the 2 singers was very very tight in the last couple of weeks, and I think they will both go on to very sucessful careers.

    Here is a video of Elvis Blue’s new Single “Things My Father Says”

    Well done Elvis !!! (Told you so :))

  • Dataman iPhone App

    The other day I did a quick review on the Consume iPhone app, which monitors your call balance and free minutes usage. The one major thing missing from the app was the fact that it didn’t show how much data you had used for the month. We all know what a mission that can be in SA, given the “higher” cost of data here.

    Enter the (iTunes Link $0.99). The guys from Dataman contacted me, and sent me a review copy of the app to check out. Basically, the app runs in the background on your iPhone, and monitors your 3G & Edge usage, as well as your WiFi usage. You can pull stats & reports on what you have used so far for the day, week & month. The app also allows you to set thresholds and will alert you once you hit a certain percentage.

    The other great thing about this app, is that also allows you to geotag & monitor where you used your data, and shows you a visual map of your usage. In the latest version, you can turn this option off so that it doesn’t drain your battery. The difference between the Dataman & Consume app is that you don’t need to log into anything specific for Dataman. It just works quietly in the background.There is also an iPad version coming in November, which I KNOW will be a hit !

    :

    DataMan monitors and manages your data usage in real time, keeping a log of your activities. To control your data consumption and stop additional charges to your bill, you can set your preferred usage thresholds and receive real time alerts when you exceed them. What’s more, it geotags your data activities. So you can browse your daily activities on a map. You can even zoom in on the map to see the time and usage amount for certain places.

    This app is a MUST MUST have, and at only $0.99 I would suggest you get it sooner than later, as I can only see this app getting better & better !!