MarcForrest.com

Category: Tech News

  • 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.

  • Powermonkey – The ultimate lifesaving gadget

    I came across this awesome gadget the other day called the Powermonkey. At first glance you could, well, be mistaken for its use, given it’s rather “interesting” shape, but this is one gadget that is a MUST have.

    The Powermonkey is essentially a battery recharge on the go. So, you out and about using your phone like a madman, tweeting, checking mail, connected to WiFi etc etc, and suddenly your phone beeps and says, ” Battery low” And you nowhere near a charger ! I know this has happened to me. Not once, but plenty times !

    The Powermonkey comes with a whole bunch of connectors for almost any device you want. You can plug it into your phone, PSP, camera, iPad anything, and your device instantly starts charging. The Powermonkey comes with a 60% charge as you take it out of the box, so you can use it straight away. You can recharge it using a USB slot on your computer, or with the supplied adapter, that comes with a whole whack of travel adapters. Recharging to full 100% takes around 3 hours, and then that should give you about 96 hours charge on your phone or around 1600 pictures on a camera.

    I been using one for the last couple of days, and I can honestly say, this this is a must have. Especially if you travel quite a bit, and always find yourself running out of battery power on your phone.The Powermonkey retails for around R500, and you can in a variety of colours. You can also download the full fact  & spec sheet with more info.

     

  • Create awesome contact forms with Formsly

    I been chatting to the guys over at Formsly, a Cape Town based startup, over the last couple of weeks about their fantastic contact form product.

    Basically for $0.99 a month, you can create a professional looking contact form to your site. No coding experience or HTML knowledge is needs, and you use the formsly interface to setup your contact form. Once that is done, they give you some code, which you simply paste into your website. Really is simple !

    Some of the features that formsly offers include:

    • Smart Email Forms
      Let users choose which department to send their email to, opt-in for a newsletter, and have your emails all securely backed up
    • Maps, Directions, & GPS
      Integrate Google Maps and street view, automatically generate a GPS waypoint, and provide printable or animated directions to your business premises.
    • Social Media Integration
      Interact with your customers by adding links to all your social media profiles, a QR vcard, as well as displaying your Twitter feed.
    • Analytics & HTML Widgets
      Track which pages of your website are triggering contact, and intergrate your HTML widgets such as Live Support.
    • No Coding. Seamless Integration
      Configure a great Contact Page to match the color scheme of you website without knowing any code at all.
    • List Multiple Locations
      If you have multiple stores, offices, or branches, you can list each individual location and provide directions to each premises

    I used formsly to setup a contact form for our iPhone Repair site, FiXi. So far, the response has been incredible, with the amount of contacts we have recieved. Because the form is so easy to use, and I was able to chose what I wanted on the form, it makes it simple for the reader of the site to use. The cool thing about formsly is that you are able to customise the appearance of the form & elements as well. So if you need the form to be a specific colour, or font etc, you can do that.

    If you looking for a contact form for your site or company, I highly recommend Formsly, and at only $0.99 a month it’s a bargain !!

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  • Google Instant launches in South Africa

    Google rolled out a very cool feautre this week to Google South Africa users, called Google Instant

    From the Google Instant Site:

    Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

    So basically, as you type any query into Google, you are presented with a selection of what Google thinks you searching for. This is obviously based on what ranks as the highest site for that letter or combination of letters.
    I did a quick check to see what sites rank as the number one for each letter. These results are only specific to South Africa, so it gives a good indication of what the top ranking sites are.

    A – Absa

    B – Bid or Buy

    C – Computicket

    D – DSTV

    E – East Coast Radio (ECR)

    F – Facebook

    G – Gumtree

    H – Hotmai

    I – IOL

    J – JunkMail

    K -Kulula

    L – Lotto

    M – Mweb

    N – Nedbank

    O – OneTime

    P – Pnet

    Q – Quotes

    R – RE/MAX

    S – SARS

    T -Telkom

    U – Unisa

    V – Vodacom

    W – Webmail

    X – XE.com

    Y – Yahoo

    Z – Z83 – Application for employment

    Most of them make sense, but was very surprised with the likes of E, Q & Z.  Very interesting !

  • How to recover from the Pharma Hack

    Last week, I noticed that the traffic on my site was considerabily down. Putting it down to my not posting enough, I left it for a few days, but then I noticed that it sank even further and so, after a while started digging around on what the issue was. After a little bit of digging and self googling, I noticed that all the titles in my search rankings on Google were completely poked. Suddenly I was selling dodgy pharmecitucals.

    Eish ! So I set on to try and see how I could fix this mess. Basically it looks like the “hackers” come in through a plugin on your server, usually Askmiet. They then place rouge files on the server, which write DB entries, which cause the links to change. No physical damage is done, but it really messes with your SEO.

    I came across 2 really helpful articles, which both had step by step instructions on how to sort out the issue. You will need a bit of knowledge about WordPress, and access to the DB

    I also installed a couple of other plugins, which monitor files which have been changed on your server, as well as tightened up the security as well. Follow this post, for some really great tips & which plugins to use:

    Once you have done all the above, and completly removed the hack, you need to get Google to recrawl your site. You can do this through Google Webmaster Tools. Mine is slowly but surely coming right again, but I can honestly say, this has caused more damage that what it is worth :(

    I also came across a really cool plugin the other day called BackWPup, which allows you to backup the entire contents and DB of your wordpress install. You can also backup to Dropbox, which is really handy !

    If you need a hand cleaning out the Pharma hack, leave a comment below, and I will see where I can help :)