27 Dinner, networking with a difference

It was with great expectation that I packed my bags, the networking dinner everyone has been talking about was just a few hours away and all that lay ahead for me was the long open road from Plettenberg Bay to Cape Town.

Lucky my trusty fringmobile was all warmed up and the journey wasn’t that long after all. After only a few hours I arrived in the mother city, found my lodging and got some much needed rest.

This year we found ourselves at a new venue, the Deerpark cafe’ near Table Mountain National Park.

The air was filled with excitement as Dave Duarte welcomed everyone to this months 27 Dinner, Users where encouraged to exchange business cards and make friends. Dave continued by telling us why these gatherings where so important, he mentioned the example of a South Africa guy who set up fake profiles on the net, Blogged about himself and ripped off hundreds of people locally. The 27Dinner is an event that lets people network, it is a safe way to meet others mainstream Bloggers and techies and you go home with real contacts and not just virtual flyby nights.

Later the evening, Phil Barret of Userexperiance presented a great talk about making an application user friendly, he showed that many new users where using the net including “grannies and nuns” and that applications had to be easy to use for these new users, he went on to pointing out that most companies fold because they launch when their applications are not user friendly.

Another key speaker was Randolf Jorberg, who talked about the wonders of affiliate marketing. Randolf is the face behind anonym.to ranked 190th on Alexa.com

After the talk’s fring got great feedback from people like Jason of Zoopy who complimented fring on how easy the application was to install and use, Maximillian Kaizen was over joyed to hear that fring supported Twitter and wished that fring would soon support her Sony Ericson, Max your wish is our command

All in all the Dinner was a huge success, with valuable lessons learned and great new friends and contacts made.

Thanks to Brandon Golding for taking a few great pics.

Bryan Habana tackled for Webb Ellis Cup

A nutty Springbok supporter goes for gold and tackles Bryan Habana for the Rugby World Cup trophy yesterday, The Bokke where on their victory lap in front of thousands of fans at Newlands stadium in Cape Town.

This is the best rugby we have seen in ages, but this guy thought Habana was a walk over, better luck next time sucker.

Thanks to our friends at Zoopy.com for this video.

Sneak preview into the fring lab

Hey guys,

While being much focused on our mobile VoIP and internet community features we are also very tuned to support the users freedom of choice. With this in mind (and with some very clear pushes & shoves from users) our R&D guys started experimenting by opening-up the fring backend to allow the ‘fring experience’ from almost any internet enabled device, with some kind of softphone client…. In practical terms, this means that for example our Nokia fringsters with SIP clients can now make Skype calls (via fring of course) directly from their regular contact book. Nifty, huh?

Have a sneak preview, tell us what you think and keep those cool ideas coming.

Stay tuned for more news and sneak peaks from the fringcubator.

fring home screen plugin for Windows Mobile

A new version of fring for Windows Mobile was released (3.20.21.96).The main new feature on this version is a home screen plugin that enables you to check your fring status, see if you’ve missed any chat messages or calls from your friends. In other words: This is a smart shortcut to fring from the home screen.

This version also fixes the following bugs (…and more):
- Better bluetooth support (several bugs) - Fixed
- fring crashes when memory card name is in Russian - Fixed
- Connection through ActiveSync, other fring users see you as ‘Away’ - Fixed
- ‘Rejected’ call should show in history as ‘Missed call’ - Fixed

As always, we would like to thank all of you for sending us your comments. This feedback is essential to us, keep it coming! You can post it on the Windows Mobile forum or send it directly to us.

To get this version you can simply direct your handset’s browser to www.fring.com and download from there.

Oink goes down bigtime

The worlds largest source of pirated pre-release chart albums has been shut down.

Oink users where welcomed to their favorite website with this message on Tuesday the 23rd of October: “This site has been closed as a result of a criminal investigation by IFPI, BPI, Cleveland Police and the Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police (FIOD ECD) into suspected illegal music distribution. ”

“It is alleged the site was operated by a 24-year-old man who lived near Middlesbrough in north-east England. He was arrested on Tuesday. The site’s servers, based in Amsterdam, were seized in raids last week.” News 24

Early reports mention that more than 60 major album releases had been leaked via the net in this way in 2007 alone.

“Jeremy Banks, head of the IFPI’s Internet Anti-Piracy Unit, has stated that OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music ” Wikipedia

As with so many other BitTorrent websites Oink has finally met its maker. RIP Oink.

Wi-Fi sniffing T-Shirt

Last month we brought you the Tqualizer a T-shirt that beats to the music.

This month we bring you an even more mind blowing T-Shirt

The Wi-Fi sniffing T-Shirt. This T-Shirt has an animated Wi-Fi sign that detects various Wi-Fi networks and lights up the moment you walk into one.

The T-shirt is powered by three AAA batteries and will work for hours. You can get the shirt for about US$30 (R200.00) from ThinkGeek. Word is that they are running out of stock so book yours if you plan on sending people into lost thoughts.

Thanks to our Indian blogger for pointing this t-shirt out to us.

Skype and myspace partner up

Skype the worlds leading VOIP provider and Myspace have partnered to create the worlds largest VoIP community with over 330 million members.

“Skype will craft its voice over internet protocol (VoIP) into MySpace instant messaging software worldwide by December, letting website members easily call each other’s computers free of charge.” News24

This is great news for fringsters as now you have access to even more of your friends.

fring will soon be supporting a whole range of new phones, so if your handset is not already supported don’t despair fring will be there.

fring now supports the Nokia 5700

“The Nokia 5700 XpressMusic is a 3G smartphone running on the S60 operating system. it features a twist design that switches easily between four operating modes: Phone, camera, music player and video calls. The 5700 can download and play music tracks from a variety of internet music stores.” UK mobile phone Blog

But what makes this phone a must have? It now supports fring!!!

Thats right, the hard working guys at fring.com have heard your calls for the all new Nokia 5700 to be supported and after a few months of blood, sweat and tears it is finally here.

Download it free and let the whole world know you are now fringable.

fring wins international award!

The fring team has just returned from the DEMO Germany exhibition, not only did they bring back a heap of crazy pictures, they also brought home the ‘Demo God’ of the exhibition trophy.

Congratulations to all the hard working boys and girls at fring, the long hours of hard work are starting to pay off.

WISPr now available for Symbian 9.2

A few days ago we told you about WISPr for symbian 9.1

For all those waiting for WISPr on their Symbian 9.2 handsets, wait no more

WISPr for Symbian 9.2 has arrived!!

The latest version of fring can be downloaded here.