There’s a lot of buzz on Twitter at the moment about the new M-PESA service, launched a few hours ago by Nedbank and Vodacom.

Other than how one pronounces “M-PESA”, and why that name was chosen, it sounds like a really interesting and potentially useful service.

If I’m understanding it correctly, the concept works as follows…

• Anyone with a Vodacom cellphone can load money onto their phone at Nedbank branches (and other retail outlets).  This effectively means that every Vodacom phone has suddenly become a (very basic) Nedbank “account”.
• Once you have some money loaded into your phone, you can then use it to pay anyone else who has a phone, by simply sending them an SMS!  The beauty is that the recipient does not have to be a Vodacom client, and does not have to have an account with Nedbank.  All that they need is a cellphone number.  Period.
• The recipient can then exchange their “payment” for actual cash at any Nedbank ATM (or several retail outlets).

Sounds brilliant!

We’ve decided to extend the 50% sale on our Clarion Accessory products until the end of September.

Not sure what to get your gran for Christmas?

Why not take advantage of our 50% sale and get her an awesome Clarion 3rdParty library!

Just a thought.

Two years ago my blog was a very different place.

It had a more laid back theme, featured more laid back content, attracted (some might say) more laid back readers, and enjoyed a lot more traffic.  Two years ago we were number 15 on Amatomu (the South African blog rankings portal), today we’re number 3,152.

We still attract good traffic, averaging between 3,000 and 4,000 unique visitors a month (that’s just the blog, not the main site), but in all honesty I’m not actually sure why the numbers are even that high anymore.  Over the past two years StrategyOnline has grown up.  We’ve gone from being a young, geeky, all-about-the-tech, come-barefoot-to-work, shave-once-a-week company, to one that’s a bit more respectable.

I now wear a suit to meetings.  I shave.  I blog about business stuff.

Yawn.

This has been the right move for our company though, a necessary move.  We now have big, corporate clients, and our business is doing well.  But occasionally I do miss the old days, the old blog, and interacting with the old reader-base.

We recently launched The Newsroom, which basically aims to provide short, concise, news headlines about our company.  If you’re looking for purely business, grown-up, shave-and-wear-shoes type content, then The Newsroom might be where you want to hang your hat.

But I’m going to slowly start (re)introducing the personal touch back into The Blog.  I think it’s time.

We were at the Waterfront on Sunday when the Athlone Towers were demolished, a few minutes before noon.  I realize they were a hazard, and needed to come down, but driving back on the N2 later that afternoon I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad as we drove past where they once stood. (more…)

Do you know how much money / time your daughter spends on the phone each month?  What about your employees?

Would you like to know?

What if we said you could know each month, in under a minute?

We have just published a tutorial showing how you can use our Phone Statement Analyzer product to answer this question.  Click here to take a look.

Phone Statement Analyzer 1.07 has just been released, and can be downloaded for FREE from here.

Please try it out, and let us know what you think.

As part of release of our new website, we have been doing a bit of a spring clean on our server. In the process we came across this screenshot, showing our site as it appeared in 2002. (more…)

We replaced the graphing engine in our Phone Statement Analyzer product this week.  This was no small task, but has made a huge difference to the usability of the product. (more…)

We have just released J-Html version 2.61.  This build now includes the ability to override all text (window titles, buttons, strings) with non-English equivalents. (more…)

I just watched Trevor Noah’s skit on South African cellphone networks, where he takes a dig at our service providers (below).  It’s worth a watch, really funny stuff.

For those of you who haven’t heard, CellC responded by offering him a job as their new brand ambassador (aka “Customer Experience Officer”)!

How freaken brilliant is that!  Hat’s off. (more…)

A number of users have asked us if we could add “Word Count” functionality into our J-Spell product.

In MS Word, the number of words in the document is now displayed in the statusbar.  Additionally, there is also a “Word Count” dialog window, as shown here.

The idea behind J-Spell is simple.  Add it into your Clarion APP, and recompile.  Your users can then press F7 at _any_ point within your APP, and the currently selected field will be spell-checked.  We do this using a lightning-fast, has-nothing-do-to-with-MS-Word spelling engine, which you can ship royalty free.

So I’m wondering how to go about implementing this “Word Count” window.  Would it also need to be triggered via something like “F7″, maybe “Shift+F7″?  And what will it analyze – the selected field?  All fields on the tab / form?

We’ll start development on this later in the week, so please feel free to send through any suggestions / ideas / thoughts / requests before then.