Friday, August 15, 2008

Cape Connect Newsletter August 2008

Greetings from a rather wet Cape Town.

August 2008 has kept us on our toes. First off, we were let down badly by the company we'd partnered with for internet bandwidth. Not only were they not giving us what we were being billed for, but once we'd proven to them that their service was not up to par (in fact our throughput was around 50% of what we were being billed for), we were told "your problem is you use the line to send data through". Our continued attempts at getting the matter resolved saw our service being suspended and all out websites offline for a week.

We've since entered into a partnership with MTN Network Services - giving us fibre optic access to London, New York, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and San Francisco. To give you an idea of the speed improvement: We used to be around 800ms from the Google data centres in Washington state. Those same servers are now a mere 200 - 250ms away.

The new link not only makes our clients' web browsing experience that much more enjoyable, it also means our hosted sites and services are quicker. You should notice a vast improvement in the speed with which the classifieds download.

Our classifieds subscribers may have noticed that the majority of the sponsored adverts on Cape Connect Classifieds are being provided by Offerforge and their partners. We joined OfferForge South Africa, the first dedicated South African Affiliate Network! Join today and start earning for yourself!

Some of the Offerforge featured advertisers include:

OUTsurance - We use them and have reduced the monthly insurance premium on just one of our cars by R500 a month since switching.

Ava FX is dedicated to providing the FX trader with an online FX platform with no compromise on integrity and fairness. Their state-of-the-art FX trading platform, AvaTrader, is easy enough to be used by novice traders and yet it provides even the most sophisticated trader with all the necessary tools.

Ava FX offer all their traders personal service, ensuring that their trading experience is efficient and hassle free.

* Fixed spreads
* FREE advanced trading tools
* Dozens of currency pairs and Metals
* Daily Exclusive Institutional analysis
* 24-Hour trading and support
* Trade immediately by Credit Card,
* PayPal, WebMoney or Money Gram
* Start trading with as little as $100
* 200:1 leverage*
* No commissions or fees**
* Euro or US Dollar account

E-Bookings-SA is an innovative, new concept, online booking website for the South African accommodation and tourism industry.

E-Bookings SA offers a comprehensive and user friendly portal, enabling South African hotels, guest houses, b & b's, health spas, tourism companies etc. to receive real time bookings, or via an email enquiry system. Their easy on the eye website is user friendly and allows you to view and compare accommodation establishments in any Province or district. Users can check availability and book immediately or communicate via email with the establishment, via the ebookings website, before confirming a reservation.

In these tough times, you may want to consider a personal loan from African Bank.

They offer a range of products through formal channels such as branches, traveling consultants and electronic media and they do not require any surety. Instead they assess the affordability and exposure of the client in order to determine installment repayment ability.

The credit they offer can be applied to

* improve your home
* pay for studies
* pay school fees
* pay for funerals
* buy retail items
* personal use
* etc.

Cape-Connect is committed to providing you with the best possible service via our networks and websites. We welcome your input - please let us know if you have any brilliant ideas to help us improve our offerings.

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