CTG rocking some VC style

29 Jun 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG recommends, a good cause, iphone, kindness of strangers, technology, 3 Comments

As a seasoned member of CT’s blogville, having been blogging for 7 billion years and having been a multiple recipient of 18 thousand blogging and blog-related awards in the field of bloggable blogging, I pick up a few things, namely that SA digital entrepreneur bros are looking for cash injections, the ever elusive Venture Capital. Well, on that topic, my dear friend @swartperd recently made me aware of a fantastic, bite-sized VC site called Kickstarter, which allows the everyman to invest in the everyman’s dreams. I love it and have thus far invested in a couple of projects, including The First iPhone 4 Cinematic Film as well as a South African collection of bicycle portraits. Pretty sweet. Looking forward to seeing the fruits of my small but meaningful donations. Go check it out – there’s something very special about watching a project grow when you have a little vested interest in it. I imagine this is what having children is like, just less mission and more reward.

Glamour Ask A Stylist App

04 Jun 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG recommends, fashion, iphone, technology, 1 Comments

I stumbled upon the Glamour ‘Ask A Stylist’ app during a late-night-app-binge, and it’s super cool. Basically, you upload an outfit, or an item you want some advice on, and you choose the stylist you think ‘gets you’ most, and they respond within minutes. You can upload 2 outfits to compare, or just one for an opinion – fab!

I tested it with a pic of Sam and my Hepburn Wayfarers, which can be tricky to wear. Sam is the fabulous makeup artist who worked with me on this shoot, and I also picked a stylist by the name of Samantha, who got back to me within half an hour with her opinion on my Hepburn Wayfarers.

How lovely, right? Maybe I’m just being buttered up by the ‘you are fab!’ line, despite it not even being an image of me. I’m just going to read it aloud to myself a few more times, and then we’ll get on to more pressing matters.

netprophet: what a ride!

17 May 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in Celebrity, bloggers, cape town, south africa, technology, weblebrity, 3 Comments

Netconference panel: Stephan Ekbergh, Sarah Lacey and Stephen Newton, hosted by Richard Hardiman

Went to the delightfully geeky technology and entrepreneurial-focused Netprophet conference last week, which has suddenly become amazing. it’s of the same standard as Design Indaba, except it’s totally free! i guess having Old Mutual funding much of it certainly helps. really – i was blown away. I was there as ‘media’, so put clothing over the lingerie to appear vaguely respectable.

Everyone there was on either a laptop, an iphone or an ipad. Felt right at home. Felt like, for once, no one was judging me for being on my phone. It felt good. A safe place. A happy place.

I won’t go into details over each speaker, but i’ll tell you who i thought stood out:

Rich Mulholland

Rich Mulholland, obviously. He had the crowd eating out of his clicker. I’ve never seen him speak before, and i love that he doesn’t take himself or his weblebrity status too seriously. Y’all shoulda seen some of the egos in the room, and Rich seemed pleasantly free from all that.

The Stephan Ekbergh, Sarah Lacey and Stephen Newton panel was great, because they were all such personalities. Between Stephan calling himself a “caveman” in comparison to Sarah, and Sarah’s no-bullshit, smart opinions (I’m kinda over cloud-computing too heh) and Stephen Newton’s experience, they made for good listening. And then Vinny Lingham tossing out the tweets about Stephan not investing in local startups, and then Stephan’s later blog post explaining that his entire business is South African anyway… oh my lord! Wonderful cross-mediumed geeky hilarity!

Adi “I don’t take funding” Pienaar had a good story too. Woo Themes have done undeniably well.

Adi Pienaar of Woo Themes

Highlights included the video intros – we even had a massive talking Seth Godin head! It’s like he was right there, with us. I felt close to him. I felt his presence.

seth godin netprophet blogger conference cape town girl

Oh Seth! Blessed were we

Loved Vinny Lingham’s kid up there in a bear suit, for why have kids if not to dress them up as small animals? Right Frances darling?

Vinny and his kidbro

Well done to the Netprophet team, and to Old Mutual and the other sponsors, for sponsoring such an awesome and worthy event. It’s super inspiring. If you use the internet in your business in any way, you really should make an effort to attend next year.

cool iPhone app: keeper

14 Apr 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in CTG recommends, iphone, technology, 2 Comments

Have so many passwords, and they’re not written down anywhere, so I end up resetting passwords over and over. Have resorted to making up little rhymes and stories about each one to help me remember them.

So for eg, say the password is foxtrot, I will sing ‘foxy foxy foxy, trotty trotty trotty’ out loud to myself in the hopes that the mortification of me singing ‘foxy foxy foxy, trotty trotty trotty’ to myself in public while logging in will help me remember in future. It used to work… but you’ll get used to anything. So now have

tah-dah

Keeper, which remembers all your passwords on your phone under one master password. And it self-destructs after 10 wrong tries. And it uses military encryption code. Yes, you heard me. It’s all militaristic. And stuff. Keeper. Yeah.

Audi MVP Day: Riding in cars with girls

29 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in Design, bloggers, cape town, cars, lifestyle, technology, 6 Comments

Picture it. A misty Friday. 10 guys and girls are brought together to drive 4 cars: The Audi Q5, The Audi A5 Sportback Petrol, the Audi A5 Sportback Diesel, and the cheeky l’il A3. And boy did we drive! First up 4 of us girls piled into the Q5 and headed off the in the direction of Somerset West. The Q5 ignited the lust for a performance car – at 150km/hr on the freeway there wasn’t so much as a vibration on the wheel. It killed!

Nikki and Leeanne

Therese riding shotgun in the Q5

The beastly beauty of the Q5

At the Firlands Shell we hopped out and claimed the A5 petrol. Our man from Audi got in with us and showed us how to really make the car work with you - accelerating into the corners and all that. I thought the Q5 was my new vehicle goal, but getting in the A5 has changed how I approach driving. The A5 Sportback, my friends, is the iPhone of cars! It’s unbelievable! I’ve always appreciated cars, but I now understand the geeky obsession surrounding performance cars. If you know what you’re doing, you can basically customise it’s performance to suit your mood. Lifechanging.

The A5 Sportback Diesel engine - 'the iPhone of cars'

Suits me, yes?

There is a notable difference in power in the petrol and the diesel A5s. The Diesel takes off like a rocket-launcher! It’s an addictive feeling, knowing you can move as quickly as you could possibly ever need to move on the roads.We made the most of this on the coastal road to Gordon’s Bay.

Chilled corners in the A5

The A5 Sportback Petrol Engine... beautiful

Within a matter of minuted we were suddenly in Betties Bay, having coffee at the Whale Cottage Cafe, reflecting on the morning’s thrills.

Audi MVP Day organiser Chris Rawlinson pictured with the lovely Amanda Whitehouse

Chris killing the trompe l'oeil

And then it was back in the A5s! We opened the sunroof and Nikki took the driving seat and worked the beasts on the coast road back to town.

The coast road

Then we were treated to a fabulous lunch at the Cape Grace as Audi gave us a chance to ask questions about the cars we’d just learnt to drive. We all got some funky caps too!

What a day! Nothing like having a new car to lust over! It’s like having a purpose in life, such as wanting a house and two kids, only less unrealistic and with more reward (heh..kidding… kinda of). Have any of you experienced the joy that is driving the A5? Were you guys able to ‘go back to real life’ afterwards? I’ll admit, I’m struggling. Big thanks to Audi and Chris Rawlinson, who make the MVP Days happen. Try and get yourself on the list for an MVP day – things will never be the same again! Click here to see the full album from the Audi MVP (Most Valued Player) day as photographed by Joe Botha aka Swimgeek.

For more Audi Action, check out Audi Cape Town and follow them on twitter.

Moments in a modern life: autocorrect

28 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in bloggers, technology, 0 Comments

Screenshot from a conversation on my WhatsApp messenger. Background: I’d asked a friend for a video he took, he offered to upload it and send me the code, I replied:

Autocorrect on iPhone can, at times, make it sound like one has tourettes. It’s a hard life!

Julia Allison quits blogging. Oh lawd.

24 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in bloggers, technology, weblebrity, 5 Comments

Julia Allison has ‘quit the game’.

Is this a foreshadowing of things to come? Will other bloggers ‘get over it’ and ‘drain their souls’ and just ‘up and quit’, one day, when you least expect it?

Some of you may know JA, some of you may not. She’s not relevant to everyone. But as someone who’s been blogging for over 5 years now, I’ve come to see JA a pacesetter, a blogger who pioneered the art of lifecasting and certainly someone to look up to when it comes to handling criticism. JA nobly shrugged off some very harsh shizz, including a douchebag who had no life and took to reblogging every post of hers with a negative, Julia-sucks slant. Every. Post. Yes, that’s like a whole new level of loser. I’d link to it, but losers like that don’t deserve links.

So after 6 years of this, she’s over it.

Which brings up some very NB questions. Namely…

who will be the new JA???? (start the clock ticking… I give her 3 weeks max from the moment this question is posted before she comes back). Ah Julia, don’t quit. Take the time you need. Change. Like the quote you posted in your farewell piece:

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.” – Curious Case of Benjamin Button

But please, don’t quit the blogs! xo Alex

Play Chatroulette, get serenaded by guy in green hoodie!

16 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in kindness of strangers, technology, 1 Comments

Gotta thank Kate in the twittersphere for this, it’s just too good not to share. Have you played chatroulette yet? If not, clicky over and have yourself a spin. Chatroulette is what the name implies - a game of video chat roulette, ie. you don’t know who you’ll be chatting with. But there’s video, so if the person in front of you looks a l’il dodge, you can just click ‘next’ and you’ll be on to the next chatter. This guy, however, takes it to a whole new level by serenading the people who end up chatting with him. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.

This is what I like to think of as ‘the kindness of strangers’. Getting my ukulele ready here. Let’s play… chatroulette!

Kenneth Cole taking control of the heel situation

11 Mar 2010, Posted by Cape Town Girl in Celebrity, fashion, technology, 0 Comments

I’ve always wondered why, in the era of the iPhone, wearing heels is still largely torturous. I mean didn’t that pick of Kate Moss wearing a Nike sole in her stilettoes just say it all?

Exactly.

But thank the heavens, it looks like Kenneth Cole is taking brave steps toward changing that, which is possibly the most blogworthy advance in fashion in the past decade. Let us have a look: