Zoe Corkhill
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Archive for February, 2010

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Things…

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

… I have been reading lately

Mostly, I have been reading the Twilight series (again!). I’m sorry, but they’re addictive. At the moment, when I want to immerse myself in a book, these are the books I am turning to. I don’t even know why. However, I do know that I resisted reading them for ages because of all the ‘hype’ and teenage mania – if this is why you haven’t picked Twilight up yet & dug in, then I suggest you reconsider. It was humbling to be proven wrong, and it shows that preconceptions can be incorrect.

I’ve also just reread both Honeycote by Veronica Henry and Connections by Sheila O’Flanagan. Honeycote is a fairly fun read, with affairs, dramatic business problems, and touching slightly on serious issues like anorexia and abortion. Connections is a fun compilation of short stories based at a Caribbean hotel, interweaving with one another, telling the tales of different visitors to the hotel. This sort of book is great if you want to pick up something for a quick read.

… I have been watching lately

At the moment James & I are trying to keep up with Dancing on Ice1, Heroes, and Lark Rise to Candleford. I have to admit I also have Relocation, Relocation on my Sky+ schedule, because I do love seeing people nosing around strangers’ houses that I could never afford!

 

As well as all these shows, we just finished watching Got to Dance, Sky1′s attempt at a dancing version of X Factor. The final of Got to Dance was broadcast on Sunday, and it was great! A little boy called Akai won, and deservedly so – he’s a great little street dancer. Although I do have to say that I really liked almost all of the final performances, though none of them quite as much as the epic show Diversity put on during the second round of voting!

  1. We are woefully behind with DOI - although they are all on our Sky+ box we’ve only managed to watch the first episode! I think this one may have to fall by the wayside in favour of the figure skating in the Winter Olympics instead! [↩]

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Introducing me.zoecorkhill.co.uk

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Jumping onto an internet bandwagon, I have decided to create a landing page for people who are looking to find me on the internets. I know I’m a little late to this party, but I thought it would be useful. I did try out a few third-party solutions, but decided that I wanted to make my own so I could personalise it as much as I wanted.

It has links to my profiles on the various networks I am signed up to, a little bit about me, and my basic contact information. You can download a vcard to get most of the information in handy .vcf format.

I discovered iWebkit a few days ago, and so I figured I would have a go at making an iPhone version as well – I think I did ok! If you head to me.zoecorkhill.co.uk in MobileSafari, it should flip you automatically to the iPhone version.

After a little help from my husband, we made it so that it can email you my vcard – so that you can add my contact info to your iPhone address book. I had some fun playing with SimplePie as well, so that the ‘Combined RSS Feed’ page shows an output of the RSS feed from the last two weeks, as well as linking to the feed itself. My combined feed includes my blog entries, tumblr posts, flickr photos, twitpics, youtube videos & delicious bookmarks – it’s like a watered down version of my lifestream page (no twitter, foursquare or last.fm info).

You can visit my ‘online business card’ at me.zoecorkhill.co.uk.

What do you think?

Posted in Journal | 1 Comment »

Film Review: Valentine’s Day

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

James & I headed out to the cinema this evening to go & watch this year’s V-day rom com: the appropriately named Valentine’s Day.

This film is everything it is billed to be: a romantic comedy packed full of big names, with plenty of scenes to make you laugh, and even one or two to make you cry. Thankfully they don’t overdo the gooeyness though – it manages a great balance between comedy and romance! With some of my favourite stars in the cast, I had looked forward to watching it since I first saw the trailer a while a go.

It has McDreamy AND McSteamy1! Julia Roberts! Taylor times two2! Topher Grace! Jennifer Garner! Bradley Cooper! Queen Latifah! Anne Hathaway! The list goes on…

From the director of Pretty Woman, Valentine’s Day uses a Love Actually / He’s Just Not That Into You type concept; with many characters’ stories and relationships intertwined with one another. The biggest difference to these films is that the stories are told over just one day – February 14th. I actually thought that the whole film had a similar ‘vibe’ to Love Actually, by telling the story of love & its many forms.

There were relationships between friends, the blooming of first love between teenagers, strangers on an aeroplane, and so on – beautiful stuff! I really enjoyed the characters that were in this, so many of them actually seemed to be realistic, which is one area where Love Actually falls a little flat – some of the characters in that are a little far-fetched (since when does England get such a fun Prime Minister)!

I won’t give away any of the storylines, but I do recommend that you go and see it, especially if you’re a fan of rom coms (and Love Actually or Pretty Woman in particular). I am a self-confessed chick flick/lit fan, and I loved it. This will definitely be one for the DVD/Blu-Ray collection – it’s going to work fantastically as a feel good film for cheering me up when I’m having a bad day.

Go watch it3!

Official Website

  1. this is a Grey’s Anatomy reference for those of you who are confused [↩]
  2. Taylor times two = Lautner (mmmm you’re sort of beautiful) & Swift (love her music) [↩]
  3. and hang around for the first part of the credits – especially if you’re a Pretty Woman fan [↩]

Tags: films, girl stuff
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Simplenote: my ‘must have’ iPhone app

Friday, February 12th, 2010

I started using Simplenote a month or so ago, and it has rapidly become my most used app on my iPhone. It’s a great notes app, which looks a million times better than the built in notes app1, and it is really easy & intuitive to use. The biggest improvement over the built in notes app is the over the air syncing, which is incredibly well executed.

I use Simplenote for all manner of things – draft blog posts, lists, random titbits of information I need to remember, which songs I want from the SingStore, etc.

I have tried a lot of notes apps from the app store, but this is easily my favourite from all of the ones I have tried. A lot of the other apps that I tried were overcomplicated, difficult to use & had annoying methods of syncing/backing up your notes. Simplenote syncs with their own servers which means you can access your notes in various different ways.

In their own words…

Why Simplenote?
Simplenote is a free replacement for the Notes app on your iPhone or iPod touch. It has a great interface, awesome web syncing, and it works with a growing number of desktop apps.

Everything you need, nothing you don’t
Don’t let unnecessary features get between you and your notes. Simplenote’s interface is designed specifically for text notes. It gives you fast, clean, synchronized access to your thoughts, dreams, musings, and masterpieces.

Syncing without thinking
The Simplenote app works together with our free web app and a variety of third-party apps to keep your notes in perpetual sync. No cables, no hassles, no fiddling. Automatic, over-the-air, and fast.

As well as being a super easy app to use, there are some really great extras for you to download. My particular favourite is JustNotes which allows you to read, add & edit notes from your OS X taskbar.

There is also a fantasic webapp to allow to access your notes from your browser – this is great if you just need to check something while at work, or if you don’t have your iPhone with you while you are at a friend’s house, etc.

If you are like me, and get frustrated with the looks & inconvinient syncing of the built in notes app, then this is the perfect app for you.

 

ITunes Link

  1. Yay, helvetica! No more Marker Felt :) [↩]

Tags: geekiness, iphone
Posted in Reviews | 2 Comments »

Race for Life!

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Race for Life

This year, I am joining Hayley and taking part in the Race for Life in Bristol, on June the 12th. I will be blogging about my ‘training’ (I plan on taking the dog for lots of walks/jogs) as well as the race itself, and you can catch up on things here at my blog.

I am taking part in the race to celebrate my Mum being given the all clear… She was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2008, and underwent operations, chemotherapy & radiotherapy in her battle against it. She was given the day off from her treatment to take part in my wedding though, and thankfully has been ok since her treatment ended!

Cancer Research UK really is an amazing charity that does such great work; I’m really happy to be able to do something to help support them. If you would like to join in too, please get in touch – the more the merrier! Girls only though, I’m afraid.

Please sponsor me whatever you can afford (every pound makes a difference!) at my sponsorship page!

Tags: race for life
Posted in Journal | No Comments »

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  • About Me

    I am 25 & a self confessed geek. I am a recently married self employed web designer, with a 9-5 desk job to help pay the bills. I love reading, puzzles, my iPhone (and everything else mac!), web design & blogging. I have a very sweet Norwich Terrier called Homily.

    View my amazon wishlist, email me, or find me on all my networks at me.zoecorkhill.co.uk.
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