Continue reading to find out…

How To Add 4 Hours of Battery Life to Blackberry & Android Phones

The small and light-weight EnergiStick Smartphone Emergency charger was really easy to use. All i did was plug it into my phones micro-usb port and it charged for about 20-30 minutes before it was nearly half way charged again. This allowed me to continue to discuss the pros and cons of biodynamic products while staying touch with my other half on WhatsApp

I’d recommend the EnergiStick charger to anyone who find themselves in situations where your charger or a reliable power source is not close by. Prime examples of when the emergency battery charger will come in handy would be when you’re at a conference or in the great outdoors. With a selling price of R239 this is one gadget that’ll add extra hours to your smartphones battery life in an emergency. You can order the Energistick for Smartphones here.

Nokia Lumia 800 South Africa

Simon Dingle tweeted the pic above but without any indication of where exactly this promotion is happening and he didn’t reply to my query either.

If you want to get your hands on the Lumia 800 and free Xbox this promotion is for you. If case you were wondering… you can download WhatsApp from MarketPlace right from your Nokia Lumia 800. Don’t think we can say the same about the Nokia N9 yet. To demo the new Lumia 800 check out Nokia South Africa’s Facebook page.

Will you be getting the Nokia Lumia 800 with free Xbox?

First two Nokia smartphones based on Windows Phone in South Africa

At an event at Vodacom World, Nokia announced the arrival of the Lumia range of smartphones in South Africa. The stunningly social Nokia Lumia 800 brings content to life with head-turning design, familiar Nokia elements such as leading imaging capabilities, and Nokia’s best social and Internet performance with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9.

“This is the day that something unique, bold and exciting arrived in the South African smartphone market,” says Gerard Brandjes, Vice-President for Nokia in South and East Africa. “I have been amazed with the strong operator partnerships, critical acclaim and consumer excitement the Lumia range has achieved across Europe, Asia and the US, and I expect exactly the same kind of enthusiasm for the devices locally. This is truly a new dawn for us.”

The Nokia Lumia 800 is expected to be available countrywide – together with Vodacom – on the 7th February 2012 on a Vodacom Business Call contract, with 100MB data per month for 24 months, at R279 per month.

“This is an important launch for us because the Nokia Lumia 800 is in line with our strategic focus, to drive data by bringing all the latest options and technologies to our customers, which includes offering devices with all the major operating systems. We’re therefore excited to be the first operator to offer Nokia’s Lumia 800 with Windows Phone to the South African market,”says Romeo Kumalo, Vodacom’s Chief Commercial Officer. “We’re thrilled that Vodacom customers will be the first to get their hands on Nokia’s latest smartphone locally and we are pleased that it will be available at such an attractive price point.”

The second device in the range, the colourful, affordable Nokia Lumia 710, is a no-nonsense smartphone that can be personalized with interchangeable back covers and thousands of apps, and brings the same Nokia Lumia experience to more people around the world. The Nokia Lumia 710 is expected to arrive in South Africa in the second quarter.

Based on the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango release, the Nokia Lumia smartphones are designed to appeal to people with lively social lives, providing instant social and image sharing and new signature Nokia experiences:

• Nokia Drive delivers a full-fledged personal navigation device (PND) with free, turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car-user-interface.
• Nokia Music introduces MixRadio, a free, global, mobile music-streaming application that delivers 100s of channels of locally-relevant music. In an update delivered later this year, Nokia Lumia users will also gain the ability to create personalized channels from a global catalogue of millions of tracks.

Completing the ultimate mobile audio offering, Nokia also introduced the on-ear Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster, co-designed and co-developed by Monster Cable, a recognized leader in high performance audio. This is the first output of the exclusive long-term partnership between Nokia and Monster Cable, intended to introduce a range of premium audio accessories to reflect the outstanding quality and bold style of the Lumia range. The estimated retail price for the on-ear Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster is approximately R1 799, and should be available in a similar timeframe to the Nokia Lumia 800.

Product Specifications:

Nokia Lumia 800 Tech Specs

• Head-turning unibody design with vivid colors: cyan, magenta, black
• Best social networking experience provided by Windows Phone release 7.5
• Best Internet browsing experience with Internet Explorer 9 the browser of your choice.
• Vivid 3.7″ AMOLED, ClearBlack display with WVGA 800×480 pixels, 16 million colours and 2.5D curved glass
• Leading imaging capabilities with Carl Zeiss optics, above the lock capture, 8MP camera with autofocus and touch focus capability, dual LED flash, high definition 720p video recording with 30FPS and one touch image sharing
• Nokia signature hubs: Nokia Drive, Nokia Music
• 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB program memory, 16GB internal user memory, and up to 9 hours of 3G talktime

Nokia Lumia 710: Designed to be affordable

• Can be personalized with white or black body design, five vibrant exchangeable back covers (black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow) and thousands of apps
• Best social networking experience provided by Windows Phone release 7.5
• Best Internet browsing experience with Internet Explorer 9<
• 3.7″ WVGA TFT, ClearBlack capacitive touch screen with pinch zoom, 800 x 480 pixels and 16 million colours
• 5 MP camera with auto focus, LED flash, high definition 720p video recording with 30FPS and one-touch image sharing
• Nokia signature hubs: Nokia Drive, Nokia Music
• 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB program memory, 8GB internal user memory, and up to 7.6 hours of 3G talktime

The Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster – The ultimate mobile audio experience

• Iconic on-ear headset from two trusted brands
• Sleek, lightweight, bold design
• Advanced Monster driver technologies deliver accurate reproduction of low bass without distortion, clear mids and crisp highs for a pure listening experience
• Ultra-soft ear cushions for hours of comfortable audio listening
• Tangle-free cables and Integrated volume and call handling controls
• Includes premium carrying pouch and two colour-matched audio cables for maximum compatibility with various mobile devices
• Available initially in black and white

Business Plan Tips

Thinking about starting a business and have no idea where to begin? Unless you know some people with past experience when it comes to starting a business and writing business plans the journey may take much longer than it needs to. Would-be entrepreneurs and small business owners in South Africa now have the free assistance of the SEDA Small Business Stars Business plan competition to assist you on your “how to write a business plan” journey. They are also throwing in R4-million worth of prizes for the best business plans. You have until the 29 February 2012 to enter.

How SEDA Small Business Stars Works

Firstly, the competition is designed to encourage and assist you in taking your business idea, or existing business, to the next level and support the development of your business concept. It’s open to any South African citizen over 18 who has a business idea or an existing small business and they provide free workshops/training to assist you in entering the onlien competition. You do not have to have a registered business to enter. To register click here.

The SEDA Small Business Stars Business Plan Template is broken down into the following 9 sections that have come all too familiar as I’ve written my first business plan in 2005. Herewith those 9 sections of the business plan and some tips based on past experience.

Tips to Writing a Business Plan

1. Product – when it comes to the product or service your new or existing business offer remember the following… You should be able to describe your business to a potential customer/partner/investor in 30 seconds or less highlighting the value your business adds to the intended audience. This is usually referred to as the Elevator Speech. When it comes to determining the market need don’t just thumb-suck numbers based on what you see around you. Try and substantiate market research based on White Papers published by various organizations, you could go as far and wide stats released by the United Nations depending on your business. Ensure you are able to back up any estimation you do during market research with facts and figures from reputable sources. Substitutes and Main competitors do not have to offer the exact same product/service you do to be a direct competitor. In many cases certain elements of a product or service that may be unrelated to what you offer clients can be a direct competitor. Just because a particular product or service doen’t say it ‘does the same as your business offering’ doesn’t mean it can be used to do the same thing as your business. When it comes to determining market need, once again, the research you’ve done the better. There is never too much market research in a business plan.
2. Marketing – This is the second most important part of your business plan, once again going into excruciating detail about your marketing plan is vital. Your marketing plan should be follow similar principles to writing a business proposal. As an added bonus I’d mention the marketing plan throughout the various other element of the business plan. A good marketing plan will be either make or break your business.
3. Sales – Instead of thinking of Sales being the responsibility of one particular person in your company think about this… Every person that interacts with your company, website or product/service is a potential sales person. Keep your customers happy, be sure they are aware of the value your business provides to them, and you cannot go wrong. There is immense value in word-of-mouth, Word-of-Mouse too. Your customers are online, make sure you are listening to the various online channels your customers are using and respond in a timely manner too. When it comes to sales tools please focus on the web and mobile. Flyers lead to dead trees and a waste of your cash flow. Watch this video for more about the right way to market your small business.
4. Management Team – This is the most important element of any business plan in my opinion. No matter how innovative your business plan is, without a team that can successfully execute, your business plan is futile.
5. Operational Issues – When it comes to operational issues, less is NOT more. Be as excruciatingly detailed as you possibly can. This will show you have considered everything. I mean everything. It’s your business, so you know exactly all relevant operational issues that are critical to your business success.
6. Vision and Mission – The only advice I can give is… ensure your vision and mission changes the wwworld
7. Financial Information – Enter the projected income for the next three years. You can use your past performance as a guideline. It is better to use conservative estimates. Being conservative doesn’t really cut it here. Whatever your projected expenses is, double it! When projecting income for the next year, imagine you won the SEDA Small Business Stars prize money (which you’ll use for sales, right ), factor this in when predicting (not projecting) income. Do not fib with your historical expenses.
8. Job Creation – Quick Tip: If your business really adds value to your customers, the products or service your small business offers, will not only create new job opportunities within your business but should create new employment opportunities within the business you service too. Add that into your submission. Here I’d add some customer references too for good measure.
9. Special Awards – Does your business support the achievements and aspirations of people with disabilities, supported the achievements and aspirations of young people or has your business created jobs in your community? If you can answer yes to any of these be sure to inlude it in your SEDA Small Business Stars application.

These are a few aspects of writing a successful business plan I’ve found to be important since writing my first award-winning business plan in 2005. If you have any questions or would like to give advice to those starting out writing a business plan which I may have omitted above, please leave a comment below.

Pinterest is visual in a way that anybody can enjoy. Male, female, young, old – there’s a little somethin’ Pinteresting (I just had to. Sorry.) for everyone. It’s a place where you see positivity. It’s like this unpretentious, noncommercial island in the middle of the advertising-riddled internet ocean; a place to escape to and indulge in eye-candy overload. I don’t know… there’s just something about Pinterest. When days seem dark, take a hop and a click over to ogle some ‘Pins’ – you may find yourself pleasantly distracted. Whether it’s by the discovery of a new exotic destination to add to your travel bucket list (I’m eye-balling the heck out of Patagonia right now) or whether you’re entertained by an infographic poster depicting the evolution of the geek – the point is, there is a distracting pin lurking around a pinboard near you.

I want to wax lyrical about this site and what a treat it is for the eyes but I won’t. I’ll just go so far as to say that it’s a place you’ll find easy to get lost in. The part I like most though, is that you can choose to follow other people’s boards. So if you’re keen on learning about or seeing more of a specific topic or theme, you’d just need to ‘follow’ a fellow Pinner’s board and you’ll start seeing all their cool Pins in your Pinterest news stream. And if you spot something you really like, you can ‘Repin’ it and store it in one of your own personalised Pinboards, making it easier to track down later on.

8 Things that make Pinterest appealing…

1. It’s easy to use. No, really. It’s quite simple.
2. It’s a useful tool for organising images and random finds
3. It’s a visual feast – Pinterest looks good on anything
4. You get to see things you ordinarily never would. DIY and travel/places Pin Boards FTW.
5. You get to see ordinary and old things in new ways and from other people’s perspectives
6. It’s a fantastic place for businesses to conduct free market research. Consumers are essentially displaying all their favourite brands, recipes, music, art, décor, travel destinations (and more) to the world. Market Research can’t get any simpler – or easier on the eyes.Pinterest harbours and promotes a warm and creative global community.
7. Pinterest has no ads. As in there is no advertising on the website. At all.
8. I’ll say it again – Pinterest is advertising free.

One Goal?

Back in June 2010 they launched a new project that aims to bridge the huge gap between hearing and non hearing people around the world by teaching users the Sign Language Alphabet with a mobile application.

Simon Botes Founder of AppCRAFT says: “It is our belief that even if you take the time to learn only the Sign Language alphabet, it will make communicating with the deaf in your area a lot easier. Our application helps you to learn the Sign Language Alphabet. Learning the alphabet is the best place to start when learning any new language and eSign makes this process fast, easy and mobile.”

”Our earlier research found that there was nothing for the deaf in the Nokia Store. It was with this in mind that we started by creating eSign for Nokia Devices.” Says Botes. 18 months later and the free Sign Language Early Learning Applications developed by AppCRAFT have already seen 44000 downloads or “students” as Botes likes to call them and this with zero government or corporate funding.

The Sign Language Alphabet Mobile app (eSign) aids in learning sign language SPELLING in 6 localized Sign Languages and is currently available freely for Nokia S605th, Symbian^3, S40 and Meego devices including the Nokia N9 (which I’m still waiting for).

Botes concludes: “If one small african startup with a non existing budget can help 44000 people to learn something in 18months with zero funding, just image how fast we could reach those EFA goals, if we had the support of governments and or large corporations around the world.”

Gerhard Potgieter released a WordPress SMS plugin that allows you to build an opt-in list of subscribers and allows you the functionality of sending out a Bulk SMS to your subscribers. You can see it in action in the sidebar of this site (SMS competition Alerts).

A few months ago the WooTeam assimilated JigoShop into WooThemes, rebranding it WooCommerce. A brilliant move by Adii and the rest fo the WooTeam.

With WooCommerce morphing your WordPress blog into a full featured e-commerce shopping cart some extra functionality is required. Alerting your customers to the status of their orders via SMS using the Clickatell APi is one of those features I’m sure most online stores would desire. With Gerhard already having designed the Clickatell SMS Alert WordPress plugin that has been downlaoded 5000 times, the next obvious step would be creating something for the 30 000 strong WooCommerce community…

It’s called WooCommerce Clickatell SMS Notifications, basically the idea behind it is to keep WooCommerce customers in the loop of the progress of their orders, you can personalise the messages with variables ranging from the customer name, address, order total to the order status. Shop owners can enable/disable automatic sending of sms updated based on the status of the order. There is also ability to send out special SMS updates from the customer order page and then the option of sending out bulk sms messages to all your customers from the WordPress dashboard.

Like I mentioned I am also busy with the development of a lite version, basically this version will have no customization options, SMS updates will always be sent out no matter what the order status changes to, and you will not have the ability to use variables in the messages to personalise it. There is also no bulk messaging widget in the lite version.

Keep a lookout for the WooCommerce Clickatell SMS Notifications plugin coming to your Woo within the next few weeks.

Update: Clickatell SMS Notifications for WooCommerce now available to download.

The Clickatell SMS Notifications plugin for WooCommerce allows you to keep you customers updated on the progress of their orders by sending them SMS notifications when their order statuses change.

SMS Notifications are fully customisable via the settings pages, allowing you to give the messages a personal touch by adding order totals, first names and the shop name. You also have the option to enable/disable SMS notification depending on the status of the order.

You can get delivery reports on each message that is sent. Delivery reports are integrated into the WooCommerce order notes system showing when SMS messages have been sent, what the message was and whether it was delivered or not with a short error message explaining what went wrong.

Government should be a platform

API stands for Application Programming Interface. Wikipedia defines it as “a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other.”
The government, in its role as a service provider to the citizens, needs to be completely capable of providing high quality, effective, affordable services. However, sometimes, in conditions where the government itself is unable to do so or when the government is not the best delivery vehicle (for example, citizen access to its own information), it must involve or allow third-party involvement (profit or non-profit organisations) in producing efficient and innovative ways to deliver access to governmental services. Hence the need for a governmental API. Is that too much to ask?

At the present time in South Africa, Access to basic government information is a serious problem. And so one of the ideas I had in mind is a simple implementation of this API to create or aggregate government services. And if a mobile version could be made available, this could be a potential game changer. By allowing citizen to search to find the relevant services offered by their local, provincial or national government – the possibilities are endless.

Tell us what you think?

Wed AddiCT(s); note – Aslam Levy’s prediction for 2012 could really make a difference when it eventually happens.

Fans of Android devices in South Africa will have to wait until “early 2012” to get this latest smartphone. The recent rumour has been that the new Galaxy phone by Samsung will hit South Africa on Feb. 14 with a price point of R 6,999 – R 7,299.

The Galaxy Nexus is an improvement over the Galaxy S II in a few significant ways.

First, the Nexus features a superb AMOLED screen with 720×1280 resolution. AMOLED screens have contrast rates that are much better than LCD screens. They are also much more power efficient so you won’t have to constantly recharge your phone because the screen is so luminescent.

The most important difference though, is in the software. Besides being a more feature-packed software set, Ice Cream Sandwich trumps the S II because of its “pure” Android experience. With the Galaxy Nexus, users can expect regular updates that are speedy and useful. The biggest beef Android users have had has to do with infrequent or non-existent updates for their devices. Those problems will be a thing of the past for Galaxy Nexus users.

These two phones are top of the line devices, but when the Galaxy Nexus comes to South Africa in February, expect it to be the new king of Android devices.

Where can you pre-order the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in South Africa? Can you upgrade to the Galaxy Nexus on MTN, Vodacom or Cell C? Continue reading for a video review and more details of the benchmark Ice-Cream Sandwich phone coming to South Africa soon..

Melissa is a guest blogger who loves to be up on the latest in tech news, movies and getting deals on her favorite gadgets using an HP coupon.

UPDATE: Virgin Mobile has been informed by Samsung that they can expect stock of the Galaxy Nexus to arrive in the South Africa at the end of January 2012.

Joe Botha – TrustFabric CEO

• More control over personal information and reputation.
• A focus on strong ties (real friends) – rather than weak ties (contacts).

Jon Cherry – co-founder & editor of Cherryflava.com

What’s going to be hot in 2012? Branded experiences – brand promotion that goes beyond a screen and sticky content. All the tools are now available to create branded experiences that closely resemble magic and seamlessly integrate that with popular social media platforms without the need for a digital device to share that experience on. Building an authentic, permission-based brand community is all in the design of the real-world experience.

Dave Duarte – MD of the Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy

More than 2 million people in SA will get their first smartphone in 2012, taking our total user-base to over 10 million. This will likely drive more broad-based use of the web and mobile apps for everything from job-hunting and banking to entertainment and socialization. As a result, early-adopter organizations will start replacing their traditional call-centers with text-based chat support for mobile users on WhatsApp, BBM and Mxit.

More than twice as much money will be spent on online and mobile advertising in South Africa, which will boost the incomes of online publishers and enable more success among digital entrepreneurs. As a result, we will also see more investment in the space, enabling yet more innovation.

Erik Hersman – Founder of Ushahidi & iHub

More African startups will find funding than ever before.

Henk Kleynhans – CEO of Skyrove Wifi Hotspots

In 2012, new “Super Wi-Fi” equipment equipment will become broadly available, allowing independent wireless ISPA and individuals to make use of prime, but underutilized TV white space spectrum for delivering high speed last mile broadband. This will likely be the most significant technology innovation of the decade, in terms of the economic impact it will unleash.

Alan Knott-Craig – CEO or MXit & World of Avatar

Advertising will become a secondary (and unnecessary) revenue stream for web businesses

Aslam Levy – Internet Portal Manager at the Western Cape Government

In the e-Government space we will see the eventual understanding and embracing of “Social, Mobile and Location”. The prioritization of these key theme’s will result in greater digital inclusion, especially for rural communities.

Paul Scott – Free Software hacker @ MIH SWAT

There is a lot of hype, but I think that the thing that is going to have the most impact will be bigdata and bigdata analysis. Not big as in petabytes, but big as in how to process it all quickly enough to be
meaningful.

Realtime analytics for predictive decision making in cities and medical will probably be the first iteration, but that will also be extrapolated quickly to other things too.

Mobile (android probably and WP) will make a lot of news. With new processors in devices (quad cores and GPU based processing) new apps will emerge that will allow folks to do much more on phones/tablets rather than desktop. Bandwidth will be an issue, but not as big an issue as power supplies (battery life).

I reckon that marketing will get more local and then hyperlocal. It will also be more targeted and intense. Spatial will (again) be a big player, but less so than the previous few years as the value add onto spatial will be more important than the spatial apps themselves. Basically, if I were to start a business this year, it would be with data processing and analytics for the masses.

What do you predict the technology trend for 2012 will be?