Live WebCam of beached ship in Bloubergstrand – updated every 2 minutes

Here’s a webcam that’s updated every 2 minutes (during the day):
http://www.tablemountainview.com showing the ship (and Table Mountain).

The ship had 25 Turkish crew members on board.

From www.iol.co.za
“
The ship, Seli 1, ran aground just before midnight on Monday after massive swells and gale force winds sent waves crashing over the bow of the 77 metre Panamanian-registered coal bulk-carrier, which rolled and listed in the rising tide.
Twenty-five Turkish crew members had to be rescued. One of them was treated for mild hypothermia.
”

Here are some close-up pics of the cargo ship and rescue operation (from Aki Anastasiou’s blog – the presenter from Talk Radio 702) taken by Clinton Geyser:  http://aki702.posterous.com/incredible-pictures-of-the-turkish-ship-that

Update on 30Nov2009:
Well done Darren Rahme – he’s decided to rescue the coast line by investing over R3m Rands to salvage the stricken ship and its contents: Developer buys coal from wrecked cargo vessel

Yippee: False advertising on www.solarquip.co.za has been removed – thanks to everyone involved

A friend took this issue up and emailed CapeTalk, Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) http://www.asasa.org.za/ and SABS and it seems to have (eventually) worked.  SolarQuip have removed the logos from their web site.
The previous HTT article was posted on 20 May 2008, so it’s taken over 15 months to get the issue resolved.

Original article:  Beware of scammers using false logos eg: SolarQuip http://handytechtips.blogspot.com/2009/05/beware-of-scammers-using-false-logos-eg.html 

 
Here are screen shots of the before and after:

Before (May 2008):

After (Sept 2009):


Thanks to everyone involved!  :)

International calling from your South African PrePaid cell phone: if you’re with Vodacom, then you’re getting ripped off!

If you have a Vodacom PrePaid cell phone, then here are some tips to avoid the very high Vodacom call charges (R10 per minute).  One could use an MTN SIM card and save over R6.51 per minute!  Or dial a local CellC number and save over R6.40 per minute – here’s how:

A friend asked me how much it was to call Italy from his MTN Prepaid cell phone – here are the outcomes from my investigations:
Vodacom PrePaid cell phone to Italy from a PayAsYouGo phone is R10 per minute. http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?action=getpkgmenus&pkgTypeId=2&pageId=21

{If you had a contract: Vodacom Talk120: International Calls (Per minute):
Off Peak: 0.99 + Telkom Off-peak (landline = 0.83; mobile = 2.82) ===> Off peak to a landline: R1.82 per minute; Off peak to a mobile: R3.81 per minute.
Peak: 2.10 + Telkom Peak (landline = 0.99; mobile = 3.19) ===> Peak to a landline: R3.09 per minute; Peak to a mobile: R5.29 per minute.
http://www.telkom.co.za/products_services/internationalcallservice/cost.html
}

 

For MTN PrePaid Classic: it costs (per minute) R3.49 to dial a mobile phone directly in Italy, and R2.90 to a landline in Italy (billed on a per second basis).
http://www.mtn.co.za/Travel/International%20Calling/Pages/default.aspx?index=2 

Wow, seems like MTN is MUCH cheaper than Vodacom…. But still, VoipBuster to Italy landline is free for 120 days!  See here for more details: http://handytechtips.blogspot.com/2009/08/voipbuster-over-skypeout-verdict-read.html

You could also dial this CellC number (084 198 0001) and speak to over 60 international countries for no extra cost: http://handytechtips.blogspot.com/2008/10/make-cellc-call-and-speak-to-over-60.html . This works for landlines only in Italy.
{Works for cell phones in these countries: USA (most networks); Canada; China; Singapore; Hong Kong.}

Costs of calls to CellC:
For Vodacom pre-paid Vodago to CellC: to Value-Added Services Off-Peak: R1.08; Peak: R3.60 http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?action=getpkgsgroups&pkgTypeId=2&pkgGroupId=8&packageId=17

For Vodacom contract Talk 240 to CellC: Value-Added Services Off-Peak: R0.98; Peak: R1.88 http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?action=getpkgsgroups&pkgTypeId=1&pkgGroupId=1&packageId=4

For MTN PayG Classic to CellC: Peak: R2.85; Off peak: R1.60 per minute.

See here for details of MTN’s peak and off peak calling times: http://www.mtn.co.za/Support/faq/NewSubscribers/Pages/MakingTakingcalls.aspx

So, HTT’s verdict:  since my friend was already with MTN (whew), his cheapest option to call a landline in Italy @off peak times is to dial the local CellC number which would cost R1.60 per minute. 
At peak times he should rather dial direct (ie: MTN call) @R2.90 per minute (the CellC number’s cost is R2.85 but the call setup time (while you’re keying in the international number on the CellC call) will use up time and nullify the 5c per minute savings).
If he needed to call a cell phone in Italy (the CellC number doesn’t cover cell phones in Italy yet) then he would need to dial directly @R3.49 per minute.

HTT’s verdict for other Vodacom PrePaid users: rather than paying the R10 per minute, get an MTN SIM card for your international calls.

But, for all of you that read this far… these costs can be slashed further if you use VOIP – even on your cell phone.  Install NimBuzz and configure a SIP connection using your VoipBuster account.  Then for the 1st 120 days you’ll pay nothing for landline calls to major international cities except for the data costs (R2 per MB on prepaid if you don’t have a data bundle). See here for more info:  VoipBuster over SkypeOut: the verdict? Read this for hands on tips on saving on your phone bill