MarcForrest.com

Category: On The Marc

  • Road Closures Sandton 1 Sept 2011

     

    If I wasn’t such a loyal and patriotic fan of the Springboks, I would have been more upset that I am already, but luckily, luckily, I’ll (try to) forgive them this time round. Well, that and today I found out that it’s not as bad as I expected.

    You see, for the last 6 months, I been been planning the iPhoneography exhibition at the Sandton iStore, and yesterday I found out that the Springboks are having a little going away party, for the World Cup, on the SAME night as the exhibition !! With road closures around the whole Sandton area, I started panicking a little.

    So, if you are attending the iPhoneography Exhibition on Thursday eve, please make sure you give yourself a bit of extra time to get there, as there will more than likely be congested traffic. If you coming from Rivonia Road side, try and avoid it, by coming around and approaching from Rosebank side. Or alternatively coming from William Nicol side. The iStore itself isn’t too affected as it is on the complete opposite side of Nelson Mandela Square, where the Springbok do is. Another alternative is to to perhaps use the Gautrain, bearing in mind that the last train from Sandton leaves at around 20:30. Check the timetables here. 

    On a side note, today I looked at the map again, and realised that someone had been very lazy, and confused the heck out of people.

    At first glance you would think that all the yellow roads were closed off. But look again. Only West street is closed. You see they have 2 black lines at the end of West Street, and only the 2 thin black lines on the other side of west street. Given that the standard colour for showing a major road on a map is yellow, these guys decided to just use Microsoft paint and draw in 2 lines, and colour in the other side of the road red. Silly people !

    It’s only 3 more sleeps, and I’m really really excited. And nervous. A bit :) See you there

  • Check out my awesome instagram canvas

    Remember a while back I told you about Printwild. Well, I decided to get myself an A2 canvas of a collection of mine and the wifes instagram pics we have taken over the last couple of months. I saw Dean on Twitter did this a while ago, and I was really keen to do something similar.

    We picked it up on Friday and am really stoked with the results ! Check…

    A few people have asked me how I did it, so here is a quick rundown. Can’t promise it will work, but I played around quite a bit to get it to look the way I want

    • Download all your images from instagram using Copygram. An awesome awesome tool that allows you to download every single instagram pic you have ever taken.
    • Once I had chosen which images I wanted, I opened them in Adobe Bridge which comes with Photoshop. In there, I sorted the photos in the order I wanted, and then exported it to a PDF. I worked out the size of the canvas, and then how many images I could get across & down. As you can see above, using the standard 612×612 instagram resolution, I managed to get 80 images on the A2 canvas
    • Once I had the PDF, I opened it in Photoshop, made slight changes here and there, and then exported to JPG
    • Uploading to Printwild was seriously a breeze. It took less than 5 mins, and I had my canvas printed in my hands within 4 days. Very cool
    I am hoping to take this up with me to the iPhoneography exhibition, so you can have a look see there if you are attending (Don’t forget to RSVP if you are )

  • Introducing the new & awesome Private Property iPhone app

     

    As you may recall from my post from a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I would be starting as the Mobile Product Manager at the Private Property Group down here in Durbs. And WOW ! What an awesome 4 weeks I have had so far, that have flown by in an exciting blur. We have some really exciting things lined up in the mobile space, and given that Mobile & Property go hand in hand, you can only imagine :)

    Our first big project, the update to the previous , went live this morning, and I am really excited about it. We have re-written the app from scratch and there are some really exciting things down the line. We have had some beta testing on the app over the last few weeks and the comments we have received, indicated that this app is a hit.

    Here is what is new in this version:

    • A complete re-write of the Private Property iPhone app 
    • Regional property search – Search for property in a specific areas 
    • Favourites – Keep a list & manage your favourite properties 
    • Radius search – Show the closest properties around you in a 10km radius 
    • Bug fixes 

    App Store description:

    South Africa’s favourite property website now on your iPhone. 

    Find thousands of properties for sale and to rent from estate agents as well as private sellers and landlords nationwide, in our newly redesigned iPhone app, that focuses on ease of use while giving you a great property search experience. 

    Key Features: 
    • Rich, detailed and up-to-date listings 
    • Comprehensive photo galleries – up to 12 quality photos on all sale listings 
    • Videos – walk through the property to get a real feel (*) 
    • Addresses & Maps – know exactly where the property is (*) 
    • Location-Based Search – find properties around you (*) 
    • Save your search criteria for easy access 
    • Contact or call the seller or agent from within the listing 
    • Save contact to Address Book 
    • Manage your favourite properties 
    • Retina Display Support 
    (*) At the discretion of the advertiser, not available on all listings 

    Coming soon: 
    • Augmented property search – View properties for sale & rent around you 
    • Property Values Index – discover the value of any property around you by simply holding up your phone and moving it around 
    • Syncing favourites & account details between your iPhone & your Private Property account 

    The Private Property iPhone app only currently allows searches on South African properties. We will be releasing apps for other countries in the near future. 

    An internet connection is required to use the app and return results 
    Requires iOS 4.0+

    The from the app store, and as I said earlier, there are some really cool enhancements coming in the near future. Standby :) If you have any suggestions on the app, or would like to see something, please feel free to give me a shout.

  • Printwild – Order your Canvas Printing online

     

    I came across quite a cool service the other day who are also based in Ballito, where I live. The service, called PrintWild,  is an online service that allows you to order a whole wide variety of photographic canvases & photographic prints.
    The process is pretty simple, you chose your image, upload it, chose your canvas size & they deliver it to you anywhere in South Africa for free (for orders over R300). Easy !!. They also do standard glossy prints which start at R23 for an A4 print. The stretched canvas prints start at R323 for an A4. Check out their full price list here.

    Here is more info on the service from their site:

    PrintWild takes your favourite image and turns it into a wide format canvas, acrylic or glossy print. PrintWild uses only the highest quality machine, ink and paper to produce exceptional canvas prints, acrylic prints and glossy prints in full colour, sepia or black & white.
    The output quality is second to none and the canvas print or photo print is guaranteed not to fade in 75 years. We will arrange delivery of your canvas print or glossy print to anywhere in South Africa free of charge for orders over R300.

    I am busy putting together a collage of some of my instagram pics (thanks to Dean for the idea) and want to have it printed on an A2 stretched canvas. As soon as I have it done, I will post a pic up here of what it looks like. Can’t wait to see the final results. If you keen on seeing some of the services that PrintWild offer, check out their site @ www.printwild.co.za

     

  • Worlds easiest Scone Recipe

    Worlds easiest Scone Recipe

    I came across this really awesome recipe on the very cool local Nom-Nom blog, run by Conrad & his wife. They cover all sorts of cool foodie type things, check them out.

    If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen this, but I thought I would re-post the worlds easiest scone recipe here. These are DIVINE, and with some jam & butter they rock. And, they cheap to make.

    So, this is how you make them…

    • 500g Self Raising Flour
    • 1 Can of Sprite (No jokes)
    • 250ml Fresh cream

    Bang them all together in a mixing bowl, and mix together, till all the ingredients mixed properly. Fill the mixture into a muffin tin (about ½ to¾ full) & bake for 20-25 mins at 180 degrees, and BOOM, you get this.

    No lies. And they taste absolutely awesome. Try it, and let me know.