• Monday, woke up at Andrew’s house, events meeting, press release writing.
• We moved around the office again at the end of last week.. ended up closer to the creative team.

• “Mxit musical chairs.. grab a seat when the music stops.” — Dirk about office moves.

• Tuesday, woke up with a stiff neck, Chinese back massage, did not make it to Netprophet this year, more press release writing, sunset podcast walk, Mia visit.
• Wednesday, Gusted a smoothie, had my ADSL line at home installed, beer with Parri and Alex, Mia’s school cheese and wine.
• GUST the news this week: BandwidthBlog, Memeburn, TechCentral, BizCommunity, Memeburn, ITWeb, Times Live.
• GUST mentioned on Podcasts this week: ZA Tech Show (at 54:37 and 1:10:50), Talk Central (at 7:40).
• TrustFabric in the news this week: ITWeb.
• Pro tip: Form first.
• Thursday, Gusted a smoothie, Gust meeting, Gino’s #hackstb planning meeting, dinner at Paul’s house and a blind wine tasting.
• Friday, Mxit Formal Friday, beer with Werner at De Akker, braai at Dirk’s house.
• Saturday, tea, Mia and I watched Star Wars Episode 2, botanical gardens with the family, Wakaberry frozen yoghurt, Star Wars Episode 3.
• Mia’s new party trick: making heart shapes out of cable ties.
• Sunday, woke up at 7:00 after having been migrated to three different beds during the night, Star Wars Episode 4, braai at Al’s house with Paul and Henk.
• I’m speaking at the ITWeb Securuty Summit 2012 on Wednesday.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

The idea with the Gust project was to design a really quick mobile payment experience (without NFC).

Mxit staff can buy lunch at about 15 places around Stellenbosch using their mobile phones. One restaurant had poor GSM signal which made the payment process a bit unpredictable and slow. While walking back to the office, ideas for a better payment experience were discussed. Six weeks later the Gust payment system was launched at a Mxit party.

Gust runs on an iPhone. The merchant side runs on an iPad. When two devices are close to each other the merchant can request a payment from the mobile phone. Unlike other payment systems which use geo-fencing logic, Gust does not need a GPS device or even a GSM connection. It will happily run on an entry level iPod Touch.

Gust devices on the same wifi network will discover each other. All communication happens over the wifi network which makes the payment process really fast. That’s where the name Gust comes from… rapid burst of wind.

Gust simply uses wifi, your name and our photo to make a payment. When a user’s phone joins a payment location the merchant’s iPad shows a list of names and photos of Gust users connected to that payment location. After a user places an order the merchant sends a payment request. The user sees a payment request and approves it.

The Alpha version video (quick hack):

Mxit staff have been using an Alpha version of Gust around Stellenbosch since early April. The first public demo was at a recent #hackstb meetup.

The Beta is in development and should be out in June. Stellenbosch only for now.

Follow @GustPay

• Monday, family lunch at Glen Carlou, watched UP with Mia.
• Tuesday, public holiday, Mia watched UP while I sorted out some camping equipment, family outing to Cape Town, gym, swim, Deer Park, Jimmy the Fish with Mia, UP.
• Winter. Drinking lots of tea. For some reason Mia still wants her rooibos tea in a bottle.
• Wednesday, dropped Mia at school, gym, fetched Mia, got some duct tape and fixed my tent, we watched Eight Below.. and we both had a bit of a cry, walked to Wijnhuis for pasta.. the food and service was not great but I enjoyed dining with Mia.
• Thursday, dropped Mia at school, gym, Gust meeting, fetched Mia, pizza at Gino’s.
• The next round of Gust dev has officially started.. expect a Beta around mid June.
• Friday, Mia was not feeling well so we skipped school, worked at home, Mia watched UP, office, calamari, red velvet cupcake at Nook, found a new home for my offsite backup disk, lemon meringue with Petr, Piet and Parri, Mia made an artwork with duct tape and cable ties, we watched Star Wars episode 4 – May the 4th is a good day to watch the first episode for the first time.
• Seems I need about 3500 Vitality points to get to Diamond status.
• After watching UP a few times Mia made me a Book of Adventures with 14 countries I’ve visited (13 actually, she added a page for AfrikaBurn).
• Saturday, tea, Star Wars episode 4, Cape Town, gym, swim, Deer Park with Sarah, a beer at Carlyle’s with Georg while Mia played at Sarah’s house, we watched Star Wars episode 5.
• Sunday, tea, we watched Star Wars episode 6, Blaauklippen market, a Guinness at Erinvale, Naulene fetched Mia, Andrew visit.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

• Yeah, this post is a bit late.
• Monday, dropped Mia at school, gym, Mill House to Gust me a smoothie, meeting with the Ramfest guys.
• Tuesday, last minute prep.
• Bought my first tent this week.. I’m not big on camping.
• Wednesday to Saturday, AfrikaBurn 2012.
• Sunday, drove back from AfrikaBurn with Cath, watched Cowboys & Aliens.
• Downloaded 533 photos from 6 different cameras.. only.
• AfrikaBurn Set1
• AfrikaBurn Set2
• Dr. Ernst started taking Aspirin on a daily basis. I guess I should too.
• Been a while since I drove a manual car.. more than a year before this Sunday.

Have a fun (default life) week, crazy kids.

“For those that have been no explanation is necessary, for those that haven’t none is possible.” — Devin Ross Herd

So, this is not a blog post about the event, it’s just a few random notes.

• AfrikaBurn is what happens when you open source the party. Nobody is working on somebody else’s dream.
• “Welcome home.” – the sign you see when you arrive.
• “Enjoy your life.” — somebody wrote this on the Solace artwork. Have more adventures.
• As for photography – it’s heaven and it’s a bit overwhelming. You’ve never seen so many L-series lenses at one event.

I didn’t think too much about the question at the time because I know it’s on my blog’s about page.

If you work in tech, you meet a fair number of people who want to be Steve Jobs.

Stephen Cohen: You need to avoid people who are likely to blow things up. One key question to ask is: how does this person see themselves? One trendy answer that people seem to have is: I see myself as Steve jobs. Absent context, someone seeing himself as the next Steve Jobs is neither bad nor good. It just is. But in context, it might be a disaster. If you have a team of 10 people trying to build product consensus, imagine what happens if all of them are Steve Jobs. It’d be a nightmare. At best you’d have nine pissed off people and one very insecure guy who got his way. — Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup – Class 5 Notes Essay

To all the kids out there that want to be Steve, always remember: Steve Jobs is a nice benchmark, but the idea is to do all the cool things he did without being an asshole.

We’re taking an Augmented Reality app (ARBurn) which shows art works, theme camps and general infrastructure. Big thanks Carel, Jan and Storm. It works on iPhone4, 4S and iPad2+3G. Email me if you want it.

We’re also taking a wifi mesh network and a Jabber server – which we’re still busy tinkering with. So, install a Jabber client. We’re also taking a solar powered phone charging station.

Note: there is no cellphone network or internet access at the event – so install apps before you go.

I’ll be there from Wednesday to Sunday.

• Monday, up at 6:30, made breakfast and a packed lunch, dropped Mia and Francis at school, gym, house cleaning day, filet bearnaise and Guinness with Werner at Hussar Grill to celebrate 100k opt-outs.
• Tuesday, 6:00 walk with JM up the Coetzenburg mountain, AfrikaBurn planning meetup at Gino’s, beer at De Akker, conveyer belt sushi at CTFM.
• Wednesday, morning podcast walk to Lazerac, AfrikaBurn shopping with Werner.
• Thursday, email gardening, AfrikaBurn group meeting at Gino’s, a beer with Alex.
• Friday, morning podcast walk to Lazerac, Gust meeting, lunch with Ernst, wine tour.. Glenelly, Rustenberg and Simonsig, nap, rushed Mia to the emergency ward and took her home an hour later.
• Now I know what it feels like to be an ambulance driver.
• Saturday, chemist, gym, got Mia a late 6th birthday present: LeapFrog LeapPad, lunch with the family, Mia and I had pizza at Panarotti’s.
• Naulene managed to have both her phones offline on Saturday morning and lose her house keys – locked in the house without a way to contact anybody. Haha.
• Sunday, watched Smurfs, gym, shoe shopping with Mia.. she wanted winter boots, family lunch at The Long Table, Haskell Vineyards, bumped into Georg at Mooiberge, dropped most of the family off at home, photo processing, bath, read, sleep.
• The LeapPad is a hit – getting way more attention than the iPad. It’s a nice toy – but it sucks battery power and it seems to fill up pretty quickly if you shoot video.
• If you play with things like Gust all week you have to grin when somebody brings a credit card machine to your table.
• 145k opt-outs now.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

• Monday, family day.. Easter picnic at Warwick Wine Estate with an Alice in Wonderland theme, got home with a box full of Easter eggs, a glass of wine with Andrew.
• Tuesday, woke up in Somerset West, dropped Mia at school, car service day, got an A4 2.0T to drive for a few days.. nice, typed up a press release, gym, work, Roelof Botha talk at STIAS.

• “Communication is the greatest multiplier.” — Roelof Botha

• Wednesday, morning podcast walk to Lanzerac, Gusted a smoothie, moar opt-out press releases, 1st #hackstb meeting, a beer at TrumpetTree with Henk.

• “When I say manage, I mean ignore.” — Alex

• Thursday, morning walk, kicked off phase 2 of Gust, used my Mxit wallet to pay for a haircut at Ancia’s, Mxit Thursdays and AfrikaBurn meetup at Gino’s, Taxi Violence at Bohemia with Paul.

• “We’re a finish-down.” — Ben, about the inverse of a startup.

• If you do something right the first time.. they will ask you to do it again.
• Seems I’ve been shortlisted for the M&G’s 200 Young South Africans 2012 project.
• Friday, office, got my car back, shopping with Naulene, finally ordered myself an ADSL line at home, WoodMill night market with the family.
• Saturday, Mia and Francis watched Thumbelina, lunch at Col’cacchio, nap, watched a few episodes of The Smurfs, 3 * kiddies hake and chips at Jimmy the Fish.. while watching the Bulls game.

• “Oplossing vir die digitale realm se muskiete.” — Joe from Die SON

• Sunday, gym.. sneaked Francis into the play area with Mia (as usual), we passed 100k opt-outs, lost Mia in the mall, found her again, got a mifi device, watched The Pirates – Band of Misfits.. not bad, got a copy of Die SON (local Afrikaans tabloid).. for an article about our opt-out service, a quick visit to Andrew’s house, we watched UP again.

• “Set a course for adventure!” — The Pirates

• I have a feeling the next post will involve some AfrikaBurn planning.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

“NEE DANKIE! Joe Botha het oorlog verklaar teen spam-SMS’e en opdringerige oproepe.” (-:

Die SON is a local mass-market tabloid with a readership of 1mil plus.