Just Not That

If you are not connected to a school you can still help to make a difference by getting yourself either a MySchool, MyVillage or MyPlanet card. Yes that MySchool sign is not just for schools!

Raise essential funds for schools, charities and the environment without it costing you a cent (extra).

If you need help to decide who to support, I can recommend “Down Syndrome Support”, they are doing great work and certainly need the funds.

Often visitors to Cape Town would also like to see some real dangerous African animals in the wild. Obviously the lowveld (or Tanzania/Kenya) is the best place to have that experience, but time or money constraints sometimes makes this impossible. No need to despair, you can now see the big five on a day trip or overnight trip from Cape Town.

Where to see the big five near Cape Town:
Aquila private game reserve is well known, 1.5 hours away just before Touwsrivier
Fairy Glen is only 1 hour away near Worcester
Garden Route Game Lodge is 3.5 hours away past Albertinia, before Mossel Bay
Sanbona wildlife reserve for those with deep pockets is 3 hours away past Montagu
Gondwana game reserve is 4 hours from Cape Town, 30 km past Mossel Bay

Times stated are from Cape Town as stated on the web sites (optimistic in my opinion).

Hunters coined the term big five as these animals were the most difficult to hunt on foot: lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo an rhino.

Let me state up front that you will be very lucky to see the big five in a single short trip to most game reserves as you may not always see lions and leopards. In the small private reserves you can see these animals, although not necessarily all of them in the wild.

If you are not set on seeing the big five, there are many other game and nature reserves you can consider. You may even be able to see the little five. In order to promote the small animals, people came up with the little five: Leopard Tortoise, Rhinoceros Beetle, Ant Lion, Buffalo Weaver and Elephant Shrew.

Just wasted another couple of precious minutes trying to sort out the same problem for the fourth time with Cell C. So that made me think – how do the cell phone companies compare.

Quick Google search gave me a link to 2010 market share figures. HelloPeter.com gave me number of compliments and complaints for the last 12 months. Ok, so these numbers are not exactly for the same period but I am assuming no major changes from year to year.

Creating a graph on the data clearly shows that I can expect to get better service from Vodacom and MTN.

You are welcome to verify the accuracy of the data.

In a previous post I explained how to make free phone calls. This often requires that you spend some money on equipment.

Now here is a way to make international calls from a standard landline or mobile phone to another standard landline or mobile phone for a nominal fee compared to regular telephone company tariffs.

How this works is quite simple.
Step 1: You register your telephone numbers with Skype, e.g. landline and mobile.
Step 2: You tell Skype the international number you want to call and it will assign a local (to you) number.
Step 3: Buy Skype credit (or a subscription)
Step 4: Call the assigned local number from your landline or mobile.

That’s it!

What will it cost you? You pay the normal local connection fee from your phone to the local number and Skype’s low rate for the actual destination. Depending on your phone contract, the local connection fee can be free. Telkom charges 57c per minute for these calls.

Using this method I can call from South Africa to the United Kingdom (57c/per minute local connection fee) at a rate of 0.014 GBP/minute.

To get started, if you are not already a user then join Skype. Registration is free with no monthly cost. Log in as a registered user and set up Skype To Go.

If you have never heard of Skype, they are almost synonymous with free internet calls and was recently bought by Microsoft, so you can safely share your personal and credit card details with them.

Buying a vehicle (or any other movable asset) in a trust is much easier than buying property in a trust.

Before you can register a vehicle in the name of an entity (e.g. trust or company), the entity must be registered with the traffic department. The purpose of this is that the traffic department knows the contact persons in the entity (so they can get all your traffic fines to you).

The process is quite simple, you need to complete an application for a traffic register number at a traffic department.

Take the following documentation with you:

• Identity documents of trustees
• A resolution or letter of proxy that gives you authority to act on behalf of the trust in registering the vehicle
• Letter of authority
• The first page of the trust deed
• Proof of address in the name of the trust

This post describes the process in South Africa, other parts of the world probably has similar requirements.