All posts by Jo B (Subscribe: RSS)

Everyday Awesomeness: how to sell your house in style

Have you ever searched for a new home and despaired at the uninspiring photos you found on property websites? It can be enough to put you off house shopping. We all need a bit of help imagining what a space could be, rather than than what we see on first glance. Enter Fantastic Frank.

Fantastic Frank is a Swedish estate agency. This is how they approach selling the homes on their books.

We are changing the world of real estate brokerage by taking a novel approach to the game. Besides recruiting the most competent and ambitious real estate agents we can find in Stockholm – our skilled marketing team beat the competition by having a 50% higher viewing rate* of the properties than other brokers in Stockholm. One key to this is that our photographers and interior stylists treat each and every home like a sleeping beauty…

We hire photographers and stylists from the high-gloss industries, like interior design, fashion and architecture, to make every home look stylish and inviting. The result are photographs that don’t seem out of place in the pages of the best interior design magazines – as a matter of fact our images finds its way there pretty much all the time.

Our philosophy is based on a simple axiom: we’re not interested in creating something that the majority of buyers are going to like. We’re interested in creating something that at least one person is going to positively LOVE because at the end of the day, a house or apartment can only have one owner. Our job therefore, is to find that one person and seduce them!

What a novel idea. Business opportunity, anyone?

Information via Fantastic Frank’s website and images via their blog.

Everyday Awesomeness: Eat for the Earth 2013

It’s time for Yuppiechef’s yearly Eat for the Earth campaign!

Yuppiechef celebrates World Environment Day and supports Soil for Life with this annual event. A bit about Soil for Life:

Soil for Life is a Cape Town-based non-profit organisation teaching people how to build the soil and grow healthy plants, so that families can sit down to plates of safe, fresh nutritious food, all year round. The low-cost methods we teach enable gardeners to harvest large amounts of food from small spaces using very little water and no harmful chemicals. Not only this, but the NPO looks for, and creates opportunities for food gardeners to expand their horizons beyond the garden fence, to develop skills and talents so that they are able to earn money to pay for what they need. ~ 

How Eat for the Earth works:

Eat for the Earth 2013 (EFTE) has a fun social media aspect to it. Once you register your meal (you do this on the EFTE website with your Facebook login), Yuppiechef puts a plant on their wall for you. Your guests visit your plant on the wall to RSVP and donate.

Visit the Eat for the Earth website to learn more and sign up.

Everyday Awesomeness: a man and his cat

The interwebs is full of Easter eggs. This one came via Pinterest.

Remember Postman Pat and his black-and-white cat? Rudi Saldia and his tabby, MJ (Mary Jane), cycle the streets of Philadelphia making deliveries. MJ perches on Rudi’s shoulders and goes about his work with him.

People are amazed when their packages are delivered by courier and cat.

According to Rudi, his feline companion loves her outings on the bike.

‘MJ enjoys the wind rushing through her fur and she moves around from shoulder to shoulder.’

‘MJ is so comfortable on my shoulder she never uses her claws. My shoulder and back are scratch free.’

Let’s hope they stay safe on the roads of Philly!

Here’s a video of Rudi and MJ in action.

*Images and info via The Daily Mail.

Everyday Awesomeness: Leap Motion

Here’s a toy/tool for your birthday list. Meet Leap Motion. (It’s that unassuming silver box in front of the laptop).

“It goes where no device has gone before. With a wave of a hand or lift of a finger, you’re about to change the way you use your computer. The Leap Motion Controller senses how you move your hands, the way you move them naturally. So you can point, wave, reach, and grab. Even pick something up and put it down. Just like in real life. It’s an amazing device for the things you do every day and for things you never thought you could do.”

This is one of those situations where seeing is believing. Have a look at this video to see what Leap Motion can do.

For more information (and to fly through the sky on Google Earth), visit the Leap Motion website.

Everyday Awesomeness: PC on a stick

Have you heard of the Cotton Candy? It’s a flash-drive-sized computer.

Popular Mechanics magazine explains the Cotton Candy like so.

The Cotton Candy may be small, but it has the ability to transform a TV into a fully functional PC. Connecting via HDMI, it’s powered through its USB port (ensure your power supply has a sufficient current output), using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to get you online and connected to other devices. The Cotton Candy runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, so operating it is as easy as working your smartphone or a tablet PC.

Features

  • Quad-core ARM Mali-400MP graphics processing unit
  • 1GB DRAM
  • Up to 64GB storage on a microSD card

This “sweet little PC” costs about R3800 and includes a mini keyboard with touchpad.

The write-up gives www.adpod.co.za as the the contact for the Cotton Candy.

Everyday Awesomeness: Pick n Pay’s clever use of Pinterest

Pick n Pay has come up with something clever and useful for those of us who battle to think of what to cook for dinner night after night/what dessert to make for the dinner party/ideas for that bring and share event. It’s called the Daily Dish and you’ll find it on Pinterest.

The Daily Dish is a Pinterest board filled with beautiful food photography and accompanying recipes designed to provide meal inspiration. Here’s a screenshot:

Looking for warm winter comfort food? How about this Shepherd’s pie?

Or what about an easy but impressive post-supper treat?

If you’re keen to see more, visit the Daily Dish.

Everyday Awesomeness: Easter sale at Woolies

Chocoholics, unite! Woolworths is sporting its post-Easter sale with specials on their Easter fare.

There are pages and pages of tasty treats available at reduced prices, so if you’re interested take a look at the Woolworths Easter sale page or pop in to your local Woolies to see what’s there.

Everyday Awesomeness: Yuppiechef Easter Hunt 2013

The delightful folks from Yuppiechef are up to their Easter tricks again!

The online kitchen tool store is running a five day Easter hunt . Here’s a bit more info:

Think you can riddle? For the fifth year running we’re proud to present the almost impossible Yuppiechef Easter hunt. Brush up your clue cracking, flex your pinkies and get ready to hunt down five kitchen tools on Yuppiechef.com for a chance to win daily rewards and a grand prize of R2,500 to spend on our kitchen tools. This year’s hunt will run from from Friday 22 March until Thursday 28 March. May the best riddlers crack it like it’s hot.

Prizes from today and tomorrow’s riddles are still up for grabs. If you’re wondering about how it works and what the prizes are, here you go.

To start riddling, visit the Yuppiechef Easter Hunt page.

Everyday Awesomeness: a pep talk from Kid President to you

The world needs you to stop being boring.

What will you create that will make the world awesome?

This delightful and inspirational video did the rounds earlier on in the year. If you’ve seen it, watch it again as a reminder. If you’ve not seen it yet, you’re in for a treat.

This is your time. This is my time. This is our time.

Like a boss!

Everyday Awesomeness: WooCommerce 2.0 released into the wild

WooCommerce is “a WordPress eCommerce toolkit that helps you sell anything.” Basically, it’s a powerful plugin that has the ability to turn your WordPress install into a potent online shop. The new, improved WooCommerce (2.0) was released on March 4th.

The company that created WooCommerce is called WooThemes. WooThemes is a well-known and highly popular WordPress theme developer. They have thousands of users, and their online theme shop uses WooCommerce. That gives an indication of how useful and scalable the plugin is. It can be used to sell anything from a few downloadable ebooks to hundreds of original dvds to custom-designed artwork, and just about anything else you can imagine.

Watch the video to get a better idea of what WooCommerce can do.

Features include:

  • High security
  • Sales reporting
  • Tax and shipping options
  • Comprehensive store management
  • Marketing and promotion
  • SEO

You can also extend WooCommerce with extensions such as payment gateways, shipping services, Pinterest buttons for product pages, Gravity Forms add-ons and plenty more.

While your hosting and WordPress theme may cost you something, WooCommerce is free. You can learn more about it here.

 

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