Nathan Jeffery

No time for nonsense

In the past I made time, I literally made it. Whether it was to go to events, meetings, meetups, quick coffees or general get togethers, I made a plan. The last year or so has shown me that meetings, events and meetups are all pretty much a waste of time

Business

How we work

I often have conversations with business owners or managers about internal systems and collaboration tools. MyEcommerce is turning seven soon and we've tried numerous collaboration tools but seem to have settled on a few to keep things simple and focused. Our business is Google based which means our

Business

Email is not broken

My social feeds are constantly flooded with people sharing links on how to combat email. Seriously, combat it? Email is the way clients contact you, it is asynchronous and it is super efficient if you use it properly. A big problem is very few people know how to use email

Development

Ten years on the Web

Ten years ago today, I decided I was going to build a website. I started my journey by registering my first domain. I needed to get the site hosted so I signed up for an account with Hetzner. Thinking back now, embarrassing as it may be, I really didn'

Dear Twitter - an open letter

Dear Team Twitter, You have served me well over the past few years; helped me find many tabs worth of great content, facilitated interesting conversations, provided a medium to broadcast and follow conferences and current topics. Through you, I have met people who have become friends, clients and business partners

Development

I am an edge case

After much anger, frustration, rage and ranting I had the opportunity to engage with Sam Brown, Foursquare's lead UI designer and front-end developer. He was receptive and open to critical feedback, which I think is great. They've looked at the data, made difficult decisions and upset

Development

A case against Unbundling

The news broke that Foursquare is splitting off part of their functionality to build a new app called Swarm and it got me thinking about this unbundling situation. I'm disappointed, frustrated and angry. I use Foursquare daily as a social tool to engage with friends around the world,

Business

Simple Backup Plan

The beginning of the year is a perfect time to implement a new disaster recovery plan. All businesses rely on computers in some way or another these days, so it's imperative that you ensure your data is backed up in case of system failure. Not only should you

Life

2013: Year in Review

2013 was quite a year. It was both difficult and exciting. On a business level, MyEcommerce achieved some amazing results, our team has grown and we've launched some great projects in a seriously short space of time. I'm very proud of what the team has achieved.

Life

My take on investing

I was 17 when I first took an interest in the financial and investment markets. I was invited to buy shares in a company called Beget Holdings that was pioneering sms technology back then. I wasn't able to get funds released from a 32 day notice account in

Technology

I'm talking at Net Prophet 2013

Just got an exciting mail from the Richard Mullhand [http://richardmulholland.co.za] at Missing Link [http://www.missinglink.co.za], that I'll be doing a power talk at Net Prophet [http://www.netprophet.org.za] 2013. Now I need to take that massive presentation and all of

Technology

Two months without Android

When we opened up the office for the new year, Nicholas told me he had dropped his HTC Sensation in the Ocean, on a family trip to the Beach, over the holidays. He did his best to save it, drying it out, but it was too late. He had lost

Technology

Trying something new for Hardware Night

Rudie and I were talking and decided we should do something differently at G3ECS [http://g3ecs.co.za] to try and get everyone engaged and ensure we're catering for the different levels of skill within the group. Tonight Rudie split everyone into four groups, each focused on a

Restaurants

Cloud Connect Hot Spot at Caloroso

Got a message from Justin last night that there's a new Cloud Connect [http://www.cloudconnect.co.za] Hot Spot to try out and it just so happens to be at one of my favourite Espresso Bars, Caloroso Coffee [http://calorosocoffee.co.za]. I popped in this morning

Business

Networking Evening at Lynn Schroeder BMW

This months Business Chamber [http://georgechamber.co.za], Networking Evening was hosted by Lynn Schroeder BMW [www.lynnschroedermotors.co.za]. The Event was well attended, it's as if everyone knew how good the food was going to be. The Lynn Schroeder Team went all out and arranged a

Development

Software Night at G3ECS

We had a full house tonight and started off with a quick refresh of the basics of HTML as well as how the Web Works. Rudie, was great at explaining some of the concepts in a really easy to understand way. We then continued working through the HTML course on

Technology

Free roam at G3ECS

Tonight was free roam night, basically a do what you want as long as it is geeky, kind of night. On the gaming front, we had a group playing Minecraft, another group playing Call of Duty and a few playing World of Warcraft. On the programming front, there were a

Technology

A week with Moves

I saw a post from Robert Scoble, mentioning Moves and I was interested to give it a try. First off, this app is super easy to get started with. You don't need a user account, you literally just download the app and it does the rest. It became

Technology

Hardware Night at G3ECS

Tonight was our first Hardware focused night at G3ECS [http://g3ecs.co.za]. It was great to have a full house again and it was lively as ever. Rudie led the group through building LED Throwies and getting started with Arduino. I'm looking forward to seeing the group

Education

Tertiary School in Business Administration

We were invited to a site visit at TSiBA in Karatara. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but knew it was about education. There is so much to say about what they're doing, but the way I see it; is they're preparing people

Development

Introduction to the web and some HTML basics

Tonight would have been hardware night, but we had a smaller turnout than usual, due to an event at one of the high schools and we had a few new faces so we decided to do a night focused on the internet and on HTML. We started off the session

Technology

First G3ECS coding session complete

We had a great turn out an G3ECS [http://g3ecs.co.za] tonight. Tonight's session was focused on getting everyone up to speed with the basics of the web and HTML. We're basing our first phase programming sessions on the Code Academy [http://www.codecademy.com]

Social

Sommerset Mall

We decided to leave town early in an effort to miss after work traffic, but today was not our day. We ended up spending an hour in traffic just outside Sommerset. Don't know how people cope with this type of a time suck on a daily basis. We

Restaurants

Bean There Coffee Company

We struggled to find them, as Google Maps led us to an entirely different location, but fortunately in the same street. When we found them it was luckily coolish inside and we could hide from the blazing sun. They roast their own coffee and have quite a neatly set up

Restaurants

Escape Caffe disappoints

I had read some reviews on Escape Caffe and was really looking forward to the experience. To say that the experience was disappointing would be an understatement. They are supposedly known for their variety of cheese cake, of which they had none in stock. We asked what they would recommend