Clients and Projects

eSurvey is a unique new electronic survey platform that we developed for our client Outprosys. Outprosys is a leading document processing and data capture provider.

eSurvey allows market research companies to take their existing paper surveys online - and digitally offline. First, scanned images of the survey are loaded into the system. Then using a drag 'n drop tool form fields are overlayed on top of the images. Quotas are then set up and assigned to different interviewers. The interviewers log in on their laptops, tablets or smartphones and all pages and questions are downloaded for offline use on the mobile browser (no app installation required). The interviewer then hits the road, finds respondents and captures their responses while offline. When online again they upload their captured data and reports are quickly generated in spreadsheeet format.

eSurvey is made with a jQuery Mobile user interface. It makes use of the html5 applicationCache and localStorage APIs to allow for offline capturing. The server side is a CherryPy python application with a MySQL database.

For more info and a demo see here: http://www.outprosys.com/home/quote.php

Graphicmail.com is a web-based product for sending graphical newsletters to large amounts of subscribers. We developed systems to operate and maintain their backend email delivery and management infrastructure.  This includes delivery, signing, tracking, merging, reporting, monitoring and spam control.

The infrastructure currently stands at about 60 linux servers that send email and gather delivery statistics.

We've also worked on Quattro's new mobile offering Cliku.com.

Watermanlive (or WML for short) is a tool for managing new builds, major refits, vessel maintenance and compliance to international maritime regulations and standards. WML is for captains, insurance brokers, underwriters, surveyors, engineers, operators and owners to manage risk, build, maintenance and compliance issues on board their vessels.

WML has a powerful and flexible surveying module. Choose from preset survey templates or create your own set of survey questions. Once you've set up the survey you can load it on a mobile device such as a smartphone, Android tablet or iPad which you can take on board the vessel with you to conduct the survey. When you're online again, upload the survey results and WML will automatically create issues and notifications on all flagged items.

Built in to WML is an issue tracking system for managing issues, damage claims and warranty.  These can be manually created at any time. Also when a survey is conducted, an issue is automatically created for any item that requires attention - this could be a component needing technical attention, a missing or expired certificate or document or any other compliance or safety issue.

WML also keeps track of the vessel's documents  - photos, scans of certificates, regulations, contracts with crew, financial information etc. These are presented with an easily navigable gallery-style web interface and can be easily managed online.

WML was developed using Python, CherryPy, MySQL, Mako templates, jQuery and jQuery UI.

Yaccount is an online accounting system for yachts. Crew use Yaccount on board to manage cash and expenses as they happen. Because Yaccount is online, the accounts office of the management office back home have a clear picture of the yacht's financial position at any time and can efficiently process items without delay. Yaccount handles multiple currencies coherently and can also handle separate charter and general expenses. There are also functions for to help with regular drills and maintenance checks.

Yaccount was developed in PHP and MySQL. Our friends at Webfactory designed the attractive look and feel.

Media24 required a system to display circulation figures and other information to the stream of staff and visitors that pass through their Cape Town headquarters and their Auckland Park offices.

We developed a Linux-based player that shows icons of all their publications along with the latest circulation figures. There is a simple administrative interface that makes it easy to keep these figures up to date.

We've also developed a simple web-playing digital signage player for Die Burger that cycles through the latest news stories.

We have created many SMS-oriented systems, including the Titbits platform. We're fans of BulkSMS and have years of experience creating all sorts of SMS-based systems.

We also use SMS internally for fault monitoring - our internal Nitric Health System (NHS) checks for proper responses of http, email and other services - and if down for more than a few minutes alerts us by SMS.

We've had a long association with Webfactory and have worked on various content management and client-area systems over the years. Some of these include:

• Ana Balat
• TreatColic.com
• Montrose Asset Management
• Leopard Antiques

Our legacy system WNN still provides basic news and CMS services to sites such as the District Six Museum.

We create our content management systems with context-sensitive 'Edit' links that appear to authorised users making it almost as easy to edit the site as it is to browse it.

We've developed many custom tools that fulfill requirements for newsletter sending, client document management, personal information databases, syndication, image management, invoicing, payment gateways and surveys & questionnaires.

We make use of various third party open-source tools such as Image Magick, PDF utilities and ffmpeg to ensure that our content updaters don't spend unnecessary amounts of time fighting with dimensions and file formats.

More recently together with Supa Strikas we've developed the backend and comic-browsing interface for the Caltex75th.com site.