If you have a pre-payment meter, then you can save 31.3% on your electricity if you buy now, only 3 days to go!

Eskom electricity tariffs will go up by 31.3% on 01July - that leaves 3 days for you to stock up on cheaper electricity:
I'm going to save that 31.3% by pre-purchasing as much electricity as I can afford before 01July2009.
Once I've purchased all that electricity, I'll want to make it last as loooong as possible - I'll do that by checking where the biggest savings can be made by re-analysing my household's usage and cut down on the most expensive appliances: Saving electricity tips

See here for last year's posting (still relevant) for all the answers and the "Electricity Tariff Calculator tool": Beat Eskom price increases

This year's increase details:
When are the tariffs going up? @ 23h59 on Tues night 30 June 2009.
How much will the increases be? 2009's increase is 31.3%

The posting answers questions like:
How full can your pre-payment meter go?
How much can I purchase on my credit card?
Which tariff plan am I on?
If I fill my meter up too much will I lose my free 50 kWh per month?

And while you're saving money, why not ready the blog "Why pay cash for pre-paid electricity when you can use your credit card?" and earn cash back and "reward points".

How to save electricity:
*) turn down the temperature setting on your thermostat - here's where and how: Where is my geyser's thermostat? How do I turn it down?
*) use less hot water (ie. Install a low‑flow shower head). See here to purchase RST Profilence (RST contact details) and here for a report on savings (water and electricity
*) Shower, don't bath: see here for report on how much less power a shower uses than a bath
*) Install a geyser blanket to insulate your geyser and pipes. See here for a report on savings when using a geyser blanket (30% improvement)
*) use the ‘Electricity Usage Calculator’ to see where you ‘spend’ your electricity.
*) Reduce your pool pump's ON time per day
*) Install ceiling insulation. See here for more info and suppliers
*) Lastly, use solar power to heat your geyser: install solar panels. If you are building a new house or if you replace your geyser, then install solar panels and a time switch. See here for non-savings installing a time switch if you don't have a solar geyser: non-savings report

Update on 16June2010:

Watch out or, at least, be aware: #WTF Geyser's element has just blown <3 years after installation... 5 year geyser warranty, but only 3 months on the element! #FFS #RipOff

http://www.xstream.co.za/warranty.htm

Update on 09Aug2011:
I see the XStream warranty page has moved.... http://www.xstream.co.za/warrenty_document.html (and they can't even spell "warranty"!) 

Group buying schemes in Cape Town all in one place

If you aren’t taking advantage of the discount coupon sites around then maybe now’s a good time to start.

I have created a list of all the ones that I could find for Cape Town… just hold down the ‘Ctrl’ button and click to open each of the following links in separate browser windows and then wait for them to download:

http://www.cityslicker.co.za 
http://citymob.co.za/cape-town 
https://www.daddysdeals.co.za 
http://www.dealify.com/cape-town-central 
http://www.dealify.com/cape-town-north 
http://www.dealify.com/cape-town-south 
http://www.dealio.co.za 
http://hot-deals.co.za 
Twangoo/Groupon/MyCityDeal: http://www.mycitydeal.co.za/deals/cape-town 
http://onedayonly.co.za 
http://www.skoop.co.za/deals 
http://ubuntudeal.co.za 
http://ucit.co.za/cape-town 
http://wicount.co.za 
http://www.youdeal.co.za/deals/cape-town 
http://www.zappon.co.za/cape-town  
http://www.justhenga.com/capetown
http://www.mobstir.co.za/Cape+Town

There’s also this aggregator site that will list all the deals on one page: http://www.dealchecker.co.za
(See below for more aggregator sites)

If you use a browser like Opera or FireFox that allows you to save your browser sessions then keep the above sites open and then save the session for reopening later… or just bookmark this page and click on each link every day.



Updated on 25 July 2011:
More after a more extensive Bing search:
http://salewine.co.za
http://www.collectivecow.com (Pretoria and Johannesburg only)
http://www.vuvuplaza.com/capetown 
http://www.bangoo.co.za/cape-town
http://www.dealson.co.za/ZA/cape-town   
http://www.garethcliffdeals.com 
http://www.sacoupons.co.za
http://247deals.co.za/index.php?city=Cape Town

http://www.todaysdeals.co.za (aggregator)

http://www.24hoursonly.co.za


http://alldeals.co.za/category/cape-town-deals (aggregator)
http://www.dealspade.com/cities/cape-town (aggregator)
http://safindit.co.za/specials (aggregator)

http://www.dealzela.com/Daily-Deals/Cape-Town (aggregator)

http://www.buywithus.co.za/deals/western-cape (aggregator)
http://yadda.co.za/search?region=cape-town (aggregator)

http://www.dealafrica.co.za (aggregator) new, in beta still, very nice layout 



http://www.fooddeals.co.za (no deals yet)
http://www.dealison.co.za (no deals yet)

Telmap 5 maps were not showing [Solved]

I was extremely happy with the beta version of Telmap 5 on my Blackberry Bold (9700) until the maps disappeared at the end of June 2011 and I was wondering what was going on.  A colleague even emailed Telmap support and got a response to call Vodacom support as they were contractually not allowed to deal with clients directly (#Fail).

I kept on opening the maps to see if they were back.  I read on the Internet somewhere that the Telmap servers were undergoing an upgrade so I was hoping…

Until last week the maps were blank.  Funnily enough the maps of Europe were displaying fine – so I then suspected that perhaps Vodacom were blocking the maps for some reason – perhaps to force users to use the Vodafone Sat Nav software :( 
Luckily (for Vodacom) that wasn’t the case :) 

I was quite a happy user and excited when I eventually found an app that provided turn by turn navigation! – and I certainly didn’t want to be forced to use the SatNav software.  It shows weather at my locations and other widgets too.

Last week, I opened the Telmap software and it wouldn’t open saying that the software had expired!  I pressed the BB button and there was a link to “upgrade”…
I took a deep breath and thought that if I upgraded then I would lose “My places” – and wondered how I could extract these from the BB backups that I had made. 
Another deep breath accompanied by a click on the “Upgrade” link and I started downloading the new software…

A short while and a reboot later the software started up; the maps were visible again, and I didn’t even lose “My Places”! :) :)
Navigation working again too :)

I am now upgraded to version 5.41 build 49

Now if only this software would show traffic info and tell me where the speed traps are…

Similar posts:
Update your Blackberry Bold 9700 Vodafone Sat Nav GPS Navigator