IE6 users given the message to upgrade or change

[person:Francois Bondiguel], founder of [business:PocketSmith] pointed out on his twitter page yesterday that Norwegian websites have started a war to combat users of the browser of Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).

This immediately caught my attention. For one, I myself is Norwegian 🙂 But more importantly is the extra work that IE6 causes web developers around the world, also here at Transfercar.

IE6 was launched in 2001 when the web was very different from what it is now. Also IE6 never complied properly with Internet industry standards. So web developers have been waiting for it to slowly die out. Unfortunately because of it’s bundling with Windows this never really happened, and web sites have been having to provide 2 versions of their pages; one for IE6 and one for the rest of the browsers.

Even the past 30 days on Transfercar.co.nz we have had 23% of IE users still using version 6.

23.9% of IE users are using version 6
23.9% of IE users are using version 6

So we have decided to join the efforts to educate and create awarness amongst Internet Explorer users that still have an old version on their computers. From today onwards we have the following message displayed on all our web pages:

Tip from Transfercar: You have an old version of the browser Internet Explorer (IE6)

To get the best possible experience using our website we recommend that you upgrade your browser to a newer version. The current version is Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 is available as a beta. The upgrade is free. If you’re using a PC at work you should contact your IT-administrator.

If you want to you may also try some other popular Internet browsers like Opera, FireFox or Safari

You can also see a screen shot of the message on Flickr.

We hope that every website owner in New Zealand now will take up the challenge and put a similar message on their site. Go here for the source code to implement it on your web site.

The movement also have a wiki page and you can find a list of all websites having implemented the message.

And the winners are…

Winners of the petrol vouchers announced
Winners of the petrol vouchers announced

We are happy to announce the winners of the “Wanna win free petrol?” -competition in the December issue of Transfercar’s email newsletter.

For those of you who missed it, this was the competition:

Wanna win free petrol?
Well, you can! What do you have to do to win? Nothing much really, just refer as many colleagues, friends and relatives to us as you can. That’s it!
We will draw 2 winners of $150 petrol vouchers each. To enter the competition just get the people you refer to enter  your username in the reference code on the registration page.
The more new registrations with your username on it, the bigger the chance you have to win!

We have had a great response with almost 650 new users signed up through the referral, so welcome on board to all of you!

..and the two winners of a $150 petrol voucher each are:

Matthew Rice
Queensland
Australia

and

Andrea Wilke
Berlin
Germany

We congratulate you both and thank you for your effort! The vouchers have been issued and sent out to you.

For all of you who missed out this time there will be some more competitions with even bigger prizes in the future. Hopefully we will see some Kiwi’s amongs the winners then as well! 🙂

Transfercar joins Made From New Zealand

A great new initiative for New Zealand businesses has begun to emerge; Made From New Zealand has grown out of the people behind [network:Silicon Welly] and [network:StartUp] and it is a web based community/networking/linkbuilding/promotional-tool, and I believe we have only seen the start of it yet.

I have already been posting a some articles to the Start-up blog over the past months and so through that I have been in contact with [person:Patrick Macfie] and [person:Tim Norton]. It is very cool to see what have come out of it (so far).

So for any kiwi individual or company that have something to contribute to the NZ business scene, be it entrepreneurs, investors or customers, check out Madefromnewzealand.com!

PS: From today the [business:Transfercar] blog will be plugging in to the Made From New Zealand blog network so these posts can be read there as well.

Keep it up guys!

Transfercar continues to increase in popularity

The Transfercar website continues to increase in popularity, much thanks to your increased number of links to us.

Transfercar website traffic increased
Transfercar website traffic increased

In January we increased visitors with over 10%. The number of rental car relocations increased even more, which indicates that the function changes we made in December (more information on each rental car relocation listing, individual rental car company terms & conditions) have worked.

Transfercar relocated 33% more rental cars and campers in Januray than in December.

This is great for us and means that even more of you were able to find a free rental car.

We look forward to February’s figures! 🙂

New and Improved site

Here at Transfercar we would like to make your visit to and use of our site a breeze. So from Monday the 1st of December on you will find a couple of new features implemented on the Transfercar site.

More tools and features on Transfercar

For example, there will be more relevant details on hand of the available rentals. As you know, the allowed amount of km’s and days was already specified with your free rental. However, to find out more about the vehicle you had to request it and then find out afterwards. But times have changed! Now you’ll be able to get the rental car company’s specific terms and conditions, more details about their requirements of you as a driver, and a price list of ‘optional extras’ like for example how much extra days or a baby seat costs.

If you are looking for a specific route, destination or date, and –fair enough- you don’t have time to check our site every day, then there is now the option of receiving email notifications. So get notified right away when your ‘ideal’ free rental becomes available, so you’re sure not to miss out.

And what about this-if you see a free rental listed that friends, colleagues or family really could use, you can forward this listing to them in the form of an email through our site.

Go to the site and check it out!