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Finance app review – Spot (beta)

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I received an invite to try out the a mobile app, Spot, which is still in Beta. It aims to be a Venmo-like alternative. I got a great response from the Spot team and I’m proud to be the winner of “most engaged inactive user” award ???? I think there’s room for peer-to-peer settlements in South Africa, but with the current legislation that states all of these sorts of...

Bitcoin to rand – price calculator and chart

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The price of Bitcoin is measured in a currency like US Dollar (USD) or South African rand (ZAR) . Here’s a quick Bitcoin to rand price calculator and graph. This price is set on Bitcoin exchanges all over the world by consumers buying and selling it. Since each Bitcoin exchange operates independently, the market of buyers and sellers will set the price independently on that exchange. In its...

Bitcoin is now worth more than a 1990 Honda Ballade

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For the first time ever, the price of one bitcoin has surpassed the price of used 1990 Honda Ballade sedans. While today’s swap can be attributed to a good day for bitcoin (up ~3%) and a bad day aging Japanese car owners, the big picture is that bitcoin has more than doubled in the last year (up ~185% from a year ago) while Hondas are essentially trading exactly at the price you would expect them...

How to buy international stocks from South Africa

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Update: I once wrote about eToro as an investing platform, available to South Africans. This is no longer the case, nor my recommendation and I have updated this article. If this is the start of your investing journey, you’d be wise to spend a few hours to brush up on the basics. It’s not difficult (what some in the industry will want you to believe) and you can absolutely do it by...

A case for pay transparency

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We don’t like to talk about how much money we earn (this is the case in the West, at least; when I was living in Taiwan, I believe my neighbours on both sides knew my age, weight and salary). We hide our salary from our friends, peers, colleagues and in some cases even partners. Now, there are reasons aplenty to keep things private and there is always a requirement for some degree of...

Multilingual site language list advice

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I’m currently working in Indonesia (and I’ll be here for a few more weeks) enjoying the hustle and bustle from sleepy, beautiful Cape Town.
A lot of apps and websites I use are now (and understandably) showing me their content in Bahasa Indonesia. Despite finding the language interesting and easy to study, I still prefer to see these sites in English.

Removing malware from first line of WordPress PHP pages

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Kudos to Carel van Wyk, for helping out with this one. I’m releasing it into the wild here to help other people who might have the same problem. The problem There are bots trying to gain access to websites, email and social media accounts, all the time. Don’t take it personally; they’re simply looking for (usually known) weaknesses to exploit and then once they’re in, they use your account to...

About me

Werner van Rooyen

Formerly Business Development and Marketing at Luno (where we went from eight nerds in a tiny office to hundreds of people spread over three continents) and before that Marketing at PayFast. Currently a full-time nomad, learning, running long distances and doing research, mostly in Mexico.