Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (PS3)

UK Release Date: 19th November 2010

We got Assassin’s Creed II bundled with our PS3 and instantly loved it. In fact, I think we lost the remainder of the Christmas holiday to playing it! I’ve since completed everything bar a few trophies and a dozen or so feathers, including both of the (very enjoyable) download content additions. I’m really looking forward to this next game, which is coming out later this year. It looks like they’ve managed to improve already brilliant gameplay and really take it to the next level. I can’t wait to get this!

Website ~ IGN

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (PS3)

UK Release Date: 25th June 2010

I love all of the Lego computer games by Telltale, and I love Harry Potter.. so this one is a bit of a no brainer for me! I am getting this for my birthday and am really looking forward to playing it once we get back from Cornwall in August. I have just reread all 7 books of the series in anticipation. It looks like they’ve done a great job incorporating the magical elements into the game, as they did with the Force in Lego Star Wars. The Lego games have a great 2 player co-op mode, so this is one I can enjoy with James instead of squabbling over who’s turn it is!

Website ~ IGN

LittleBigPlanet 2 (PS3)

UK Release Date: Late 2010

LittleBigPlanet was one of the first games we got to go with our PS3, and after hours and hours on a particular level, I finally completed the story mode! I love LBP and have even made my own level. Considering how versatile the first game was, I’m amazed at some of the improvements they seem to have made – level building seems even better in the new version, which comes out in the Winter. I can’t wait to get my hands on this!

Website – IGN

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

UK Release Date: 11th June 2010

I completed Super Mario Galaxy 1 and have been eagerly awaiting the sequel ever since! Hopefully I will get my hands on this one soon, as the trailers look brilliant! I love the way Mario moves around the little planets, and the whole concept of the game is really fun. All the different power up modes are great, and it looks like there are some great new ones coming with this sequel – I love the look of the clouds one in this trailer.

Website ~ IGN

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

UK Release Date: Unknown (2010/2011?)

Only just announced at this year’s E3 show, the long-awaited & longed for sequel to the fantastic Twilight Princess has finally come to light. We now have a name! And a trailer! Yay. No release date though :-(. Oh well, I’ll just have replay Twilight Princess in preparation of Skyward Sword’s release!

Website ~ IGN

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I had a few guest problems after three of them had to cancel one after another for various reasons (none of them their fault, just a run of bad timings)! Hayley stepped in to take the place of the first guest when she cancelled a month or so ago, but I ended up being left with a spare hotel booking on Saturday… so Emma very kindly said I could drag James down to London to take advantage of the spare bed!

After some frantic last-minute getting sorted to go (including dumping Homily at my mother in laws!) we hopped onto a train at Moor St and relaxed for two hours. We got into Marylebone at around 5, bought our Oyster cards and then endured a horrendously long and over heated tube journey to the Old St station – it made me very glad I don’t live in London, as I don’t think I could stand commuting on the tube in summer.

We eventually got to the hotel and checked in, then I panicked a little as I felt like I’d been sitting in a sauna for 45 minutes and subsequently stank, and had less than 30 minutes to shower and get ready for the party! Luckily the venue was only just across the street from the hotel, and I only ended up being 20 minutes late.

Emma greeted Hayley & I with her usual friendly welcome and a glass of champagne – bliss after the manic day I’d had! We relaxed and chatted for a bit before the official welcome by Emma, which was followed by some great hair do demos by Amber and Zara, the fantastic magicians stylists. Whilst they were whipping a few of the girls’ hair into shape, they talked to us about the Aussie Luscious Long range (which I love, by the way) and the group chatted about how to keep our long locks in great shape.

After the demos finished, a finger buffet was served with amazing food. I have to admit, I pigged out a little bit – James & I had only managed a late lunch on the train! Hayley & I ordered a few cosmos and chilled out for a while, having a bit of a natter with a few familiar faces. A little while later, who should turn up but Cinderella herself? She was wearing a gorgeous dress which she assured me was “made by my fairy Godmother, isn’t it just lovely?”.

Next to arrive was Snow White, shortly followed by Prince Charming. To much applause, the ‘prince’ got down on bended knee and offered a silver sandal to Cinders, which fitted perfectly, of course. He abandoned her fairly rapidly however, and started to charm every girl in the room instead – what a sleazy ‘true love’ he turned out to be! The three characters were brilliant – we had a few conversations with both girls and their ad libbing was hilarious. Snow White was moaning about the trials and tribulations of caring for 7 men, whilst Cinders was contemplating how many frogs she was going to have to kiss to find a new true love, after she decided to dump Prince Charming for chatting up all the other girls.

James decided to pop over for a bit and join in the fun – it was really nice having him there although it was quite funny watching his reaction to being in a room full of dressed up females! We are both inflicted with the shy gene so he wasn’t exactly at his most comfortable! This picture is a classic capture of his reaction:

The wonderful Zara styled Hayley’s hair into a magnificent 1940s do, which she is going to attempt to recreate for a 40s event she’s headed to this weekend – I’ll be looking forward to how she does with that!

After Hayley had been transformed, it was my turn! Zara gave me a quick blow dry, and then plaited by hair around the back of my head, ending in a side plait which she twisted up into a side bun, then she finished it off with the flower I’d already had in my hair. I was really pleased with the effect and it was lovely to get my hair up off my neck after the hot day! I have a feeling I might be able to attempt the style myself with a little practice. It got quite a few compliments so I don’t think I was the only one who loved my ‘do.. I even had to do a twirl for the bar girl.

I definitely need to get myself down to a Boots or something and pick up some of the Aussie hair spray because it did a great job of holding my masses of hair up, and brushed out really nicely the next morning. I hate hair spray that makes you feel like you stuck glue into your hair, so it’s really nice to discover one that does the job without that feeling.

After we’d had our hair done, we mingled and relaxed a bit more, until the clock struck midnight and we all turned into little white mice eleven and it was time to depart. Emma loaded us up with some lovely goodie bags with some great leave-in conditioner¹, chocolates, a fun tiara and some earrings.

By the end of the evening, even my very own prince charming got into the spirit of things and borrowed some butterflies for a photo opportunity that I can’t resist sharing with the world…

After meeting Hayley for breakfast at the top floor restaurant (the views were to die for!) and swapping photos, James & I headed to Oxford Circus via the tube for a little light retail therapy. James bought me a couple of tops in the Gap sale, which made me a happy bunny. He even bought me a few cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery, so I could finally find out what all the fuss is about. Mmmm. We headed to Paddington and caught our train home, finally making it home after a few engineering work related hiccups!

Big thanks once again to the girls over at Uncover Aussie & 1000Heads for organising a nice event and inviting me along! I must admit I was a touch disappointed that the groups of girls didn’t mingle together more as they did at the Miracle Moist party I attended, but it didn’t help that I was rather tired and subdued/shy. It was great to see some familiar faces again though; to catch up with them and also to put some faces to twitter names.

To read more about the event, check out the blog post over at Uncover Aussie, and Hayley’s recap over at her blog! All photos in this post are from the Uncover Aussie flickr set or mine.

1. I have a half empty bottle I’ve been using for a while at home already, so I know it’s really nice stuff – it’s great to revive your hair a little when it feels a but dry, etc.

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Post tags: aussie, girl stuff

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To summarise my impressions; it was great to have with me to be able to get connected when I needed, I found it to be a handy size, there were a few things that I found annoying but it’s all been fixed for the new model, and I found three’s network to be good.

After using it some more, I still stand by my conviction that the MiFi unit is a better choice for me than the 3G iPad as we were able to connect several devices to it at a time and this turned out to be really useful. On the train to London on Saturday, the O2 service on our iPhones was terrible, so both iPhones & my iPad were hooked up to the wifi and kept connected for almost the entire journey.

The device is smaller (albeit slightly thicker) than my iPhone, and is nice and light – you can easily slip it into your pocket while you’re out, and it doesn’t bother you at all. It gets slightly warm after being on a while, but nothing that would be uncomfortable in your pocket. I kept it in the bag I made to go with my iPad case, along with my camera connection kit and memory card reader.

One of my favourite uses for the MiFi was at work. If I stay at my desk for lunch instead of popping home, it is nice to have my iPad with me to read a book or work on a blog post draft, etc. The MiFi unit let me hook it up to the net and I was able to stream HD video from YouTube or decent quality video from my AirVideo server at home, download apps, update my blog, and so on – it felt very liberating! I found the speed at work to be quite quick, which is great in comparison to my O2 iPhone, which either has an edge connection, or a very low & intermittent 3G one. Not very impressive considering there is an O2 mast just around the corner!

I did have a few niggling problems with the device, though it’s important to note that every single one of these issues has been resolved with the new model that has been released this month! The problems I encountered were as follows:

• After the screen turns off, there is no way to tell at a glance if the unit was on or off. The new model has a little indicator light to solve this problem.
• The symbols that indicated what network & wifi settings were activated were a little confusing – I had to carry around one of the (admittedly conveniently credit card sized) information cards with the breakdown of what everything meant. Version 2 has a new screen with more helpful information so I won’t be as clueless in future!
• You had to press (and hold down) three separate buttons to get the device up & running – one to turn it on, one to turn the wifi network on, and another to turn the 3G network on. This was particularly annoying and seemed unnecessarily complex, as I had difficulty occasionally actually getting them to work properly (the buttons were too small to hold down easily which didn’t help!), and I couldn’t understand why it had been done this way – I think it’s pretty obvious that if you want it turned on you want the networks up & running straight away! With V2, one button does all three things automagically, so that is a big improvement.
• Lastly, I found it irritating that you couldn’t charge the device and use the functionality at the same time. What if I’m out & need to get it working but it’s low on power? I would have to wait for it to charge before being able to use it, not good. However, this has again been resolved with the new model, and you can charge it & use it at the same time.

It’s great to see a company responding to user feedback in this way – Three & Huawei have really taken the trouble to listen to what bugged users and taken steps to improve their product.

MiFi Version 2 (E585)

For the price, I think this is a great device to have – particularly now the new one is out. It’s very handy and I found the three network coverage to be outstanding. I live in South Birmingham so it’s not surprising that it was good where I live; but I also tested it on a long car journey, the Birmingham Moor St to London Marylebone train journey & at my mother in laws house – all three of these situations had limited O2 connectivity on my iPhone so tethering would be out of the question.

You can purchase a MiFi unit from three for £39.99 with a one month contract, free with an 18 month contract, for £49.99 on pay as you go, or £69.99 on pay as you go+ which includes a data allowance for you to get started.

James & I will definitely be ordering one in a few months when we have some spare pennies!

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Post tags: geekiness, iPad, MiFi

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When I was just a kid we had an amiga, and then progressed to a PC with Windows 3.1 (yay DOS based games) and then carried on from there.

Lately I’ve been indulging in some nostalgia and playing the Broken Sword Directors Cut game on my iPad, and the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition that has just been released as a PS3 downloadable game. I have always loved the Monkey Island series, and was very excited when the series was revived with both the new ‘Tales of Monkey Island’ and the remade Special Edition that is simply brilliant. They have done a fantastic job updating the graphics, music and adding vocals, whilst keeping it completely true to the original game. If you were a fan of the original game then you should definitely give the remake a go!

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• Cinema trips… Last night James caved to my “but @studarby took @Dawnl627 to see it already” whining and booked tickets to see Eclipse this Friday night at our local Cineworld. I don’t care if it will be busy and crammed with screaming teenage girls, I’m excited! I’m also hoping to catch Inception, Toy Story 3, the new Shrek and although it’s still months away I’m getting excited about the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows film this Autumn.
• The Aussie party this weekend – I get to hang out with @hayles & @lilacdolphin666 … I’m thinking room picnic on Saturday, McDonalds brekkie on Sunday, and random London exploration.
• My birthday! I am going to be 25 on the 25th of this month, and I am spending it in Cornwall with my parents for the first time in years.
• Birthday presents! James is spoiling me with LEGO HARRY POTTER OMG and NEW MOON on blu ray, which is really above and beyond since he already got me the iPad and let me get away with several iTunes payments cropping up on our joint account statements.
• Going to see ‘Jake and Elwood‘ at the Hall for Cornwall on Saturday 24th – my birthday treat from my Mum & Dad who know me well! I have always loved the Blues Brothers films, can’t wait to see this.
• The whole Cornwall trip – Relaxing on the beach, swimming in the freezing sea, swimming in the marginally warmer sea water pool at Bude, going to a brill fabric shop that my Mum told me about, spending time with my family, laughing at James driving up and down the disused runways at Davidstow Moor¹, playing with the cats, and of course eating amazing Cornish food – specifically the pasties from Tasty Pasty in Bude!
• Being an Auntie.. only a few months left until I have a legitimate excuse to wander around mothercare squealing over the baby clothes and toys. Yay!

Nonsensical Birthday Celebratory Weekend Planning:

To celebrate the momentous occasion that is my 25th birthday, I would like to have friends come to our house for the weekend, whereupon we shall provide entertainment in the form of film watching, singstar, edible yumminess & alcohol. Oh, and ridiculous wii games.

Since we are in Cornwall for the actual day, the date is still to be decided on, but the vague plan is for it to be sometime in August.

If you are interested in attending, please can you fill in the dates you are available on this Doodle doodad, so that I can try to arrange it on a weekend that suits as many people as possible?

1. I told him about the old airfield and how I did my first driving lesson there, and now he has some Top Gear type fantasy of racing around the place. To be fair, they did hold some Formula One races there back in the 50s.

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Post tags: friends, fun times, holiday

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The theme for our party is ‘fairytale’, so the invitation takes the form of a scroll, sealed with red wax.

The Princess and the Roo

Once upon a time in a land not particularly far away, a princess with luscious long hair dreamt of going to a party where she could swap tips and drink cocktails with other long haired maidens.

The days were long and the nights were seriously dull, when suddenly out of the distance a Roo in shining armour bounded through her window, gifting her an ingenious invitation to the greatest gathering of lusciously long haired beauties in all the land… To go there would mean meeting her fellow Tribe members, and unlocking the secrets of keeping her long hair luscious forever.

Thrilled at the thought of such an event, the princess donned here best frock and hightailed it to the party, only to find it was everything her shiny Roo had promised and morel. The night went by in a flurry of frolics and hair, but alas! Before she knew it, the clock had struck 11 and she was about to turn into a low-fat pumpkin cupcake. She stole away to her carriage, tired and content, for the princess had discovered luscious Aussie products she never knew existed, and met maidens she’d tweet at forever more, and they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

I’m really looking forward to this party! I like visiting London and the Aussie events are always so much fun. I get to take a couple of friends so it will be a fantastic evening, I’m sure.

Of course, the important question now is… What do I wear? I need to adapt something in my wardrobe to fit the fairytale theme! Or I could just use it as an excuse to buy a new dress… Any suggestions of what I could do with a small budget?

I’ll let you know how it goes in a few weeks.

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At 10pm, I realised that we only had 6 safety pins.. Oops! Although this could have worked if I used the two pin method for one of my signs, @hayles was also missing this vital ingredient. So, my ever put upon husband took me to spar to try to hunt some down.

Yep, very organised, James & I.

At an unmentionable time on Saturday morning, James forced me to get out of bed and bundled me & the dog into the car. It was at this point that I was cursing about deciding to do Race for Life in Bristol. I wasn’t complaining about my decision to take part, you understand, but rather the fact that I chose to do it on a Saturday morning in Bristol. Bristol, of all places! It’s not like I couldn’t have done it in Birmingham, there were several on. They wouldn’t have required quite such an early wake up time! I blame Hayley, personally.

Homily after the race – Photo by @nixgeek

We arrived at Hayley’s house at a slightly unsociable time, and proceeded to drink a well needed coffee and play with their dog, Fern. I think that she easily qualifies as the most hyperactive dog I’ve met, tied with my friends dog Joop, that is. Homily was completely confounded by this animal. That’s not entirely surprising though, as her idea of activity is getting up to have a drink! It was nice to play fetch with a dog who actually goes and gets the ball though, for a change. Hom just isn’t interested I’m anything that isn’t edible.

The four of us (and Hompom) headed up to the Clifton Downs to meet up with @unbrokenreality & @kateykatey. James and Alex were designated official dumping ground for belongings, and Alex designated himself official photographer. As I’m sure you can imagine, the prospect of having someone take photos of you when you’re planning to do any sort of physical activity on a warm day isn’t the nicest thing in the world.

We walked the 5km course in just over an hour¹, and it was really nice to chat to each other and laugh together on the way round. Even Homily made it all the way, with only a few two-minute breaks where I would carry her a little way, whenever it seemed like she was flagging a bit! We were greeted with goodie bags and our medals, including one for Homily!

One of my cousins sponsored me as we hit the 2km mark – it was very motivating to be pushed over the £300 mark as we walked round!

Just crossed the finish line! – Photo by @jamescorkhill

After a quick shower and change back at Hayley’s, we headed into the city centre for our reward – milkshakes at Rocotillos! I swear, if I could find somewhere in Birmingham that did proper milkshakes like these people, I would be making up excuses to go there all the time. “oh, its wednesday, let’s celebrate with shakes?” … “you’ve found a missing sock? Wooohooo, time for milkshakes” … And so on. Nom nom nom.

Hayley & Alex very kindly offered us a bed for the night, so we headed back to theirs for a quiet evening and some well deserved rest! We headed back to Birmingham in the morning, after watching far too much of the hollyoaks omnibus. I don’t like soaps as a general rule, but I found it oddly compelling!

With our medals – Photo by @nixgeek

I have managed to raise over £300 for Cancer Research UK, which I am absolutely delighted about! If you want to donate you still can though, so please please please head over to my sponsorship page and donate securely & quickly online.

This experience was really great – and it meant a lot to me, so I’m really pleased I took part. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated, I am so grateful for your support!

1. ~1:02:30 hrs, to be more specific.

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Please help me raise as much money for this great cause as possible, by sponsoring me to take part! I explain why I’m taking part on my Race for Life page.

I think Homily is going to be confused by her very long walk! We will be getting up early, and driving from Birmingham to Bristol in order to get there in time for the start of the event – not my ideal Saturday morning. But it’s worth it, because I have already raised more than my target £250. Every penny helps though, so please ignore the fact I’ve hit my target and donate anything you can!

Please sponsor me

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I will do separate posts for ‘creativity’ and ‘entertainment’ apps, as the list for this post is big enough already, and I haven’t even got started on apps for working on graphics, design apps or games! The ipad is a really great games device and brilliant for drawing etc, so i want to give those app categories the full attention they deserve, rather than lumping them in with these apps, which are mainly content consumption and personal utilities. So, without any further ado, here are my current top 10 iPad apps:

1. iBooks

I’ve been reading ebooks on my iPhone for about a year using Stanza, and iBooks on this massive, beautiful, display really blows that experience out of the water. It is really easy to get lost in a book the way I do with a physical one; I have read 5 or 6 books now and each one has been really enjoyable to read. I haven’t experienced any eye strain at all, and prefer it to reading a physical book sometimes – especially in bed when James doesn’t like me having me bedside light on!

The bookshelf is really nice, though you can also display a list of books & sort by title or author to find the book you’re after more quickly. One of my favourite touches is that when you are reading a book the controls can be hidden away to leave a much more distraction free experience. You only have to tap the screen to bring up brightness, font & search controls, along with links to the table of contents and the bookshelf, and information about your progress overall and the pages left in the current chapter (a really nice touch!).

Reading books on the iPad is easily a nicer experience than reading:

• any book by torchlight.
• a heavy hardback in bed.
• a cheap quality paperback.

2. Simplenote

I’ve extolled the virtues of Simplenote before, so I won’t go on about it too much. The iPad app is easily as well designed as it’s iPhone counterpart. The wireless syncing works marvellously, you can create and edit notes offline, and I’m very happy with the overall experience. The beauty of Simplenote is in the name: it’s simple. There are no frills here, but instead you just have an incredibly easy to use notes app, with no Marker Felt in sight!

3. Dropbox

Pretty much everyone has heard of Dropbox, but just in case you are one of the few who haven’t, it is an absolutely fantastic online storage service that allows you to sync files across several devices & access them online as well. You simply save a file in your dropbox and it is uploaded to their servers, and the accessible via the web or the iPhone/iPad app, or any other computers who use the same dropbox.

This app is great because I can upload or drop a file into my dropbox from my MacBook or the iMac, and I know I will be able to access that file from my iPhone and iPad whenever I need it. The iPad app works really well & has a good user interface. It enables you to open your files in your other apps to edit them, which is a really nice touch – I can have a spreadsheet sitting in my dropbox and edit it using the Numbers app on my iPad.

4. Articles

Articles is a fantastic wikipedia app that I really like using. I have had the iPhone app since it came out, and the iPad version was one of my first downloads. It presents the wealth of information available on wikipedia beautifully, with nice understated controls & search.

You can look at nearby articles, have several pages open at once, bookmark articles, and so on. The nicest thing about articles is it is fairly feature rich (considering it is, as all wiki apps are, just a skin for the online database) for a wikipedia app, whilst still appearing fairly clean and tidy. It’s a really pleasant reading experience too.

5. Sorted

Sorted is a really pretty and intuitive todo app, which is something I’ve been after for a while. The developer has promised to add wireless syncing to the app, which will be the killer feature for me, especially if I can access my list via the web & therefore on my iPhone and any other computer hooked up to the net.

The app allows you to have several lists, and doesn’t insist on every task having a priority or due date, which I like. I want to use the app for all sorts of lists, not just todo ones. Adding new items is just as simple as typing a list in notepad; once you’ve added your first item just hit return to start typing in a new item. You can then rearrange the list items to suit you by tapping & dragging the item’s ‘move icon’.

You can add a priority, due date and notes to each item if you need to, via a popover that comes up when you tap on the arrow to the left of the item. You can view the list in its original order, by priority or by due date. Once you’ve added a note to something, a subtle icon is added to the list to let you know to check the notes for more info. Priorities are displayed via pretty colours, and due dates are displayed when you are in the ‘sort by date’ screen. Items are marked as complete (or deleted if blank) by swiping them. You can view a list of completed items for each list, and delete items entirely from this screen – always useful.

Overall, it’s a well designed and easy to use list app, and I eagerly anticipate the promised updates!

6. BeejiveIM

Beejive is a multi protocol instant messaging app; basically this means that you can use this app to chat to people on different networks at once. I have friends who use msn, some that use gtalk/jabber, others that only use Facebook, and so on. Beejive allows me to be logged in to all these networks at once.

I’ve been using the iPhone version of Beejive since it first appeared on the AppStore, and have always been pleased with the app. It’s supports push notifications so you can set it to leave you logged in after you quit the app, and it will let you know if anyone talks to you. I have always found the iPhone app to be feature rich and stable, and the iPad version is no different.

The iPad screen is perfect for this app; it allows you to see you buddy list, ongoing conversation and list of current conversations all in one screen, as opposed to the iPhone app where you have to switch between these three display options.

All in all, a nice chat app, and perfect for talking to my family & friends while I’m on my iPad!

7. Instapaper

Instapaper is one of those really simple, but really fantastic ideas. The basic concept is that you use a bookmarklet to send something to Instapaper, to be read later. You can access your Instapaper account on the web, or via the apps that are available for iPhone & iPad. A lot of apps now have Instapaper support built in, allowing you to send links and articles that you want to read at another time to Instapaper, from within their app. This is great for those moments when you see an interesting looking link in Twitter but don’t have time to check it out right then.

The iPad app is a joy to use, and I love having the ability to just send an article or webpage to Instapaper, and then being able to open up the app and have it all right there in a beautiful & very readable display. If I’m on my way out somewhere or about to go on a long journey, I can send a load of interesting reading to Instapaper, then sync it all onto my iPad to read while I’m on the Internet.

Instapaper is a really great tool, and I’m really pleased it has such a fantastic iPad app available from the word Go.

8. CaptainsBlog

CaptainsBlog is a very silly app really, but is ideal for Star Trek fans such as myself, as it makes your iPad look just like a PADD from Star Trek! You can keep a log, and then send your log posts to twitter, Facebook, or via email. It’s silly but fun, and it actually quite good for shooting off a quick tweet when you don’t want to wait for your twitter app to load up.

9. The Early Edition

This app is great for all those websites that you like to visit but don’t want clogging up your rss reader. You add rss feeds to different categories, and then each of those categories or feeds is displayed in newspaper format. The app scrapes the title, photos and content of each feed and arranges them on the page so that it looks like as close to a proper newspaper as you are ever going to get on an iPad.

You can you view feed items just from the current day, since your last fetch, or alternatively all the items available. Once you see an article you want to read, you just tap it and a page like display of it replaces the newspaper ‘cover’ so that you can read the full content. A built-in web browser allows you to view the original item at its website, and you can mail links to people, and of course send them to Instapaper.

I think I will find myself making less visits to my favourite news sites, and will favour getting an overview of the news via the Early Edition instead. Rather than visit each site in turn, I can flip through pages of content from all the sites at once. This is a rss app with a difference for me – it’s not one for hooking up to my Google Reader account (although you can) and then going through my favourite feeds, making sure I don’t miss anything, but one for amalgamating content from all over the web in an enjoyable format, without necessarily reading every post in every feed.

10. AirVideo

Again, this is another app I have blogged about previously, and I am happy to say that the iPad version is just as good, and in fact even better, than the iPhone app that I love to use. The quality of the video is outstanding, especially when you consider that the server application is converting the original video on the fly. The navigation is great, the controls are great, and the ease of use is great. This one is definitely a winner.

Honourable Mentions

For managing our TV connected hackintosh/server: iSSH (for VNC), FileBrowser¹ & Rowmote.
For recipes: Epicurious, Big Oven & Betty Crocker’s Cookbook.
iWork: I’ve installed Numbers & Pages, and enjoy using them both. Haven’t bothered with Keynote yet because I don’t use presentations very much.

Also, all of the ‘default’ apps that ship with it are great – Mail is a delight to use, Safari is really nice and nippy, the Maps app is very well done & the Contacts & Calendar apps are delightful.

However…

There are still some gaps in the AppStore as far as my needs are concerned. The two main things I am missing is a decent Google Reader application, and a Twitter app that suits me.

As far as Google Reader goes, I hope I won’t be waiting for long; Reeder for iPad is currently held up in the Apple app approval process, but nobody is sure why. The screenshots and reviews of it look great, and I haven’t found a better app for Google Reader on the iPhone since I started using the iPhone app. I’m chomping at the bit for the iPad version! The selection of apps for this currently available are disappointing – my priorities are speed, sharing capability & Instapaper support – three things which Reeder does brilliantly. I have very high hopes for the iPad app, but I think it will live up to its little brother’s reputation.

Where Twitter is concerned, however, it’s a different story. I’m currently using Twitterrific which is ok, but not great. A lot of the other apps that have come out have UIs which I just don’t like, so I don’t want to spend my pennies on apps that I won’t end up using. Twitterlator looks interesting, and I might look at some reviews of it & consider buying it to try out… But not until the guilt from my latest AppStore shopping spree has worn off! With luck, Loren² and the rest of the Twitter development team are busy creating an iPad app to match their amazing iPhone one.

1. This is fairly ugly, but great for fetching files from the server and saving them, or opening them in apps on my iPad
2. formerly of atebits, which developed Tweetie for Mac & iPhone – which has now been bought by Twitter and renamed Twitter for iPhone

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I managed to sort my self out & get ready in record time after a relaxing afternoon at the park, and so at 7pm on Saturday evening I arrived at the Island Bar on Suffolk St Queensway in the City Centre. I was all on my lonesome because none of my girl friends were available at short notice, so I was feeling rather shy and nervous – I didn’t know anyone who was going apart from Emma! A few of us arrived at about the same time and we headed upstairs to the Tiki Bar, where we were greeted by Emma and given some yummy cocktails. I felt like a little bit of an imposter because I’m really in the Luscious Long tribe – though I do use Miracle Moist occasionally so I wasn’t entirely out-of-place!

The evening was great fun; there was lots of chatting with the other angels, great food and drinks and a pair of fabulous hair stylists who gave us a lesson in looking after dry hair, and did our hair in fabulous do’s throughout the evening (they tried their best to give me some curls but they mostly fell out, my hair is just so heavy and thick!). I got some great tips about looking after my sensitive scalp, and some good advice about how to have my hair styled next time I head to the hairdresser.

The highlight (and main event) of the evening was Scott’s Cocktail Masterclass, which was absolutely hilarious. The group was split into two teams, team 1¹ and team 2. Each team was given a quick tour of the bar and shown where everything was (although I missed this bit due to my hair being done) and then Scott, the oh so marvellous barman, taught us how to make a Tom Collins cocktail.

One person from each team had to go up against another, with Scott timing the proceedings and judging the cocktails once completed. We even had to serve it up with a napkin and a straw, complete with the correct garnish. It was actually quite tense when you were behind the bar – the time limits were really low and there was gin and all sorts of things flying all over the place! All efforts had to be consumed by their creators, and shots were issued to any people breaking the rules or talking during the demonstrations - Fi in particular had to have quite a few (increasingly disgusting) dirty shots!

The competition continued with us learning how to make a Bramble, Cosmopolitan² and then a B-52. Great fun, and I even remember most of the instructions! I think Scott decided to make me his personal mission after I layered the perfect B-52 shot though, and proceeded to make me incredibly strong custom cocktails… a red tequila drink, then a blue one, then an orange. I think he thought I was far too sober in comparison to everyone else. That combination of drinks pretty much finished me off, and I was as sloshed as everyone else by the time we stumbled outside into the cold night air, that had absolutely no sobering effect on me at all.

Most importantly… Team One won the cocktail competition. Though nobody knew the score for sure, as the ‘drink everything you make’ rule messed with everyone’s ability to count! I did manage to get some blog addresses written down into my Moleskine so I should be able to keep in contact with the new friends I made, which is good.

Yesterday morning I was quite horrifically hungover (I suspect the tequila) and so my wonderful husband looked after me, and fed me coffee and a bacon & egg sandwich. I did manage to surface after lunch and headed downstairs to relax on the sofa for the afternoon, thankfully. On the plus side, because of the mousse the hair stylists put in my hair during the party, every time I rolled over in bed I got a gorgeous whiff of Aussie!

Thanks so much for the invite Aussie… I’m really looking forward to the Luscious Long party next month!

Loads more photos to see over at 1000heads’s flickr set & mine!

1. go team one!!
2. not sure this one was the best idea as it involved naked flames… We were all pretty merry by this time and there had been a lot of hairspray sprayed on us!

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So, I decided to use one of my birthday presents from last year, and make my own instead!

I used this great laptop sleeve tutorial I found online & adapted it to fit the dimensions of the iPad. I haven’t used my sewing machine much so I’m not very good yet, but I managed to make it & I think it looks ok, so I feel fairly proud of myself.

The fabric is from Fabric Rehab, which is a fantastic site – I drooled over about 90% of the fabrics on the site and ended up buying several different fabrics for future projects. I ordered the fabrics on Friday morning and they arrived on Saturday – brilliant service! I know where to look for fabrics in future, that’s for sure.

The fabrics I chose to use were Playday Little Birds White and Moda Essential Dots Turquoise. The blue flower buttons were from our local Hobbycraft store.

I had enough fabric left over to make a matching drawstring bag for my bits and bobs, which I thought would be useful to go with the sleeve to carry around in my handbag. It is big enough to carry an iPad cable, headphones, the camera connection kit & my memory stick adapter gadget which will allow me to read pretty much any type of memory card using the USB camera connector. The bag uses the birds fabric on one side, and the dotty one on the other, so it matches perfectly. I plaited some wool I already had to use for the strings.

The stitching is a little bit wobbly in places and the buttonholes (my first ever) are a tiny bit iffy, but it fits perfectly and satisfies my yearning for an attractive sleeve to transport my iPad in, so I’m a happy girl.

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Homily enjoyed rolling around the empty floor:

And now they’ve been delivered, hurrah!

Two Seater:

Three Seater:

Homily enjoying the comfy armrest:

They are bigger and taller than our old sofas so they look massive, but I think that’s only because I need to get used to them – they are not giant sofas or anything, but our old sofas were diddy in comparison¹. Pretty colours and gorgeous tactile fabric too.

Most importantly, they are super super comfy!

1. These sofas are called ‘Campbell‘ and are from the Vibe range at DFS, if you’re interested. We got them in the sale, and as you know there is always a sale at DFS :-D.

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We headed down on Saturday morning and time warped back to the 80s by watching Flash Gordon, closely followed by The Goonies and finished off with Short Circuit.

I had never seen Flash Gordon all the way through before, only snatches here & there, so it was great to watch the whole thing – needless to say I loved it! Completely mad story, nutty characters and the special effects to match.

The Goonies is one of my all time favourite films so watching that was no hardship, even if I did keep having mental flashes of the main character (Sean Astin) as him in his role as Samwise Gangee – he kept giving inspirational speeches not unlike the ones Sam gives Frodo. “We can make it to One Eyed Willy… I mean Death Mountain!”.

Short Circuit is one I remembered loving as a child, when my parents had it on VHS, and it didn’t disappoint on rewatching it 15 or so years later! Though I do have to say; my god I never realised just how much sexual innuendos and general perviness there was in this film! If you haven’t seen it since you were a kid, you have to rewatch it… You’ll see it in a whole new light!

Following the brilliance of those three films was the Eurovision Song Contest. Some good acts, some not so good acts and some absolutely hilarious acts! There were many sarcastic comments, lots of random tweeting and lots of laughing. Following our 5th position entry last year, the UK reverted back to usual form by singing a rather cruddy song and coming in last. We almost didn’t make it, but some last minute voting for Belgrave (surprise butterfly wings!!) saved us from the embarrassment of coming in second to last, and so we failed triumphantly and came in last of the pack. This was actually one of the funniest moments of the evening – all five of us cheered when Belgrave received the magic points that pushed us into last place.

The winner was the German entry Lena – rather unsurprising considering that song has been a no. 1 in half of Europe already! Poor thing, when she won she complained that she couldn’t hold her trophy because she wasn’t strong enough, and then rather pathetically blurted out “do I have to sing now?!?”. Bless. She looked rather bewildered to have won, instead of being happy.

After playing the awesome game that is SingStar, we headed off to bed. On Sunday morning, Neil & Becca were awesome and produced bacon butties for breakfast. Mmmm. This was fabulous preparation for the day, which consisted of Labyrinth, followed by Flight of the Navigator and then ending with Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Labyrinth is another childhood film that I’ve taken into adulthood, and so I was quite happy to settle down and watch one of my faves first thing in the morning. There were plenty of Bowie crotch shots, lots of freakiness and a fair amount of WTF moments.

I hadn’t seen Flight of the Navigator since I was a kid but my fixed conviction that it was brilliant wasn’t shaken – I loved it just as much as I remembered. I love the little alien creature – I want one!

To finish off our 80s film fest we watched Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. This was another one that I have never managed to watch all the way through (as far as I can remember anyway), but I really enjoyed it & giggled all the way through. Might have to pick this one up for our film collection some time!

After we were done with the films, we had a bit of gadget/game swapping so that Becca could play with my iPad and James & I took Red Dead Redemption out for a spin on the xbox. That’s definitely gone into our PS3 wish list, and somewhere near the top!

Thanks Becca, thanks Neil – we had a really great weekend!

(And the cake was GREAT).

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• It’s an absolute joy to use – the device is brilliantly made, and feels sturdy in your hand; closer to a MacBook air than an iPhone, yet really thin and light.
• When you’re using it, it’s all about the screen. The minimalistic design is just a frame for the gorgeous display, which changes completely from app to app. It can become a blogging tool¹, an absorbing article or magazine, the complete distraction that is the Internet, a fun game, a notebook, and so on. Videos look just amazing on this thing, and the speaker is surprisingly great – much better than my 13″ MacBook speakers.
• I’m getting used to the keyboard quicker than I expected. Typing is already quite speedy, it’s just getting used to the placement of the non-alphabet keys that is taking a few days.
• The iBooks app is really, really nice. I have read an entire book on it so far² and it was a very enjoyable experience. I didn’t want to put the book down last night when I was going to sleep! I’m a voracious reader and was already using my iPhone to read ebooks in bed, so the iBooks app was one of the main draws for me. It’s great that you can load your own epub files onto it as well – I already have quite a collection in calibre & I think it will continue to grow now I have such a fantastic ebook reader!
• Taking it out in public is going to be like accompanying a mildly famous person to the shops, for a while at least; I’ve had it out in McDonalds³ and at a service station cafeteria so far, and had people ask me “is that the iPad?!?” with starstruck looks on their faces at both places. It’s kinda embarrassing. But I know perfectly well that if I didn’t have such a wonderful husband I would be staring lustily at every iPad I saw out in the wild too.
• I love the ‘lock screen orientation’ clicker on the side⁴ and I’m already finding myself using it automatically when I’m lying in bed, or using the device flat on my lap. I hope that iPhone OS 4.0 includes an easy way to lock the screen orientation on the iPhone, because I’m getting spoilt with this thing. One of my pet peeves on my phone is the lack of a global setting to lock it, and the inevitable situations where I would be lying in bed holding my phone at a bizarre angle to avoid it flipping into landscape mode.
• I find it annoying when apps and games that should work well in both portrait and landscape mode only work in one of them, causing me to change how I’m holding the iPad. Some games are landscape only for good reasons, but others like Words with Friends, which is stuck in portrait, could probably work out a nice landscape layout – that one in particular is annoying me!
• The battery life is brilliant – I used it for more than 10 hours straight on Saturday before it ran down, and it wasn’t just light use; I was downloading apps and books, playing games, playing music, reading and sending emails, and so on. If you put it down with 30% remaining and pick it up hours later it seems as if it hasn’t gone down at all – even if you have it fetching data from your email account every 15 minutes.
• I already love this device, and in a way that I could never love a netbook. The beautiful design combined with the easy to use OS just makes using it a real joy. Netbooks feel physically cheap and tacky to me, with an operating system that’s designed for notebook & desktop p.c. displays crammed into a screen half the size. This doesn’t try to be a small computer, but it’s something else entirely, and I love it. Also, no crummy plastic in sight! I have a feeling I will only pick my MacBook up once or twice a week now, as opposed to every day – the iPad is a perfect ‘sofa device’ for me.

1. Yes, I am writing this entire blog entry on my iPad
2. Airhead, by Meg Cabot – I love a bit of escapism chick lit!
3. Hello, free wifi!
4. It’s positioned where the mute button is on an iPhone. To mute the iPad you just hold down the volume down clicker for a beat longer than normal.

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Anyway, after a serious crossword and starburst session, we arrived at Marylebone station and the time had come… for Carly’s first ever tube journey. Let me tell you, feeling like the expert on a trip to London was novel – I’ve only been a handful of times myself! I explained the basic ‘rules’ of the underground to Carly, including the very important ‘you must stand on the right if you are merely riding the escalators, as opposed to charging up and down them on the left hand side as if the extra 10 seconds that gives you is vitally important’. Of course, she forgot this several times, and throughout the day there were a few instances of people huffing or ‘excuse’ing their way past us!

So, after successfully traversing the tube system and making our way from Marylebone to the London Bridge station, we headed to Potter’s Fields for the Mind ‘Reclaim your lunch break’ picnic that I blogged about last week.

Like I said before, the cause that Mind work for is really important to me, and so being able to attend the picnic with Carly and help to raise awareness about mental health problems was really great. Although the balloons fought a losing battle with the wind for the entirety of the picnic, the sun came out and the jackets came off. The guys at Mind were great; they spread out a load of blankets, with baskets of information about Mind and the campaign… and put out trays of cakes – yum! We met a load of great people & enjoyed our ‘lunch break’ a lot, although I did manage to get pastry in my hair (note to self: eating flaky pastry whilst having your photo taken is not a good idea)!

In addition to promoting their campaign, I was able to talk honestly to the people there about my experiences with stress and depression, both recent and current. It was very refreshing to talk to people without getting a negative reaction; so many people there understood what I have been though in the past. I think talking to people helped me to realise how many problems I’m having with my mental health at the moment as well - yesterday when I got home from work I felt really overwhelmed and ended up soaking James’s shirt when he got home & found me in bed, hurting and upset. Poor husband, I hate to worry him, but I think admitting that I’m struggling again is a good step… and one that getting involved with Mind has helped me make.

After the picnic, Carly & I dawdled back to the tube station, having a little look around the area. We decided not to stay in London much longer because we were both really tired – Carly had been having a busy week with media interviews, and I hadn’t slept well the night before. So, we headed back to the station and completed another giant crossword on the way home.

For more information you can read the news article about the campaign at Mind’s website. Please take a few minutes to watch this video about putting on a happy face at work:

Put on a happy face from Mind Charity on Vimeo.

Carly was interviewed about her experiences on the You & Yours show on Radio 4; you can listen to that here:

You and Yours – Mind Feature by zoecorkhill

Duncan Bannytane is supporting the ‘Taking Care of Business’ campaign; listen to him being interviewed about mental health at work:

Full interview by Mind Charity

1. what can I say, I’m the exception to the rule on that one. I’m a small furry animal person.

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“We’re encouraging all employees and employers nearby to come and join us to take care of business and ‘reclaim lunch hour’ at a picnic in the park at London’s business hub on the Southbank.

At the picnic we will launch our brand new short campaign film ‘Behind the Mask’, which focusses on mental wellbeing at work. We’ll also have talks by guest speakers and plenty of information and advice on employment and mental health.

Reclaim your lunch break, wherever you are!

You don’t have to work in central London to join in the launch of this year’s Mind week. Take a lunch break on Monday 17 May, 1.00-2.00pm, no matter where you are, in aid of Mind week 2010.

We want to reinforce the importance of taking a lunch hour where possible, to regain that all-important work/life balance. For much more information about employment and mental health, see our website: http://www.mind.org.uk/work“

Mind is a mental health charity who “campaign vigorously to create a society that promotes and protects good mental health for all – a society where people with experience of mental distress are treated fairly, positively and with respect.”

The topic of mental health & depression is a very important & personal one to me, as I struggled with depression for a number of years, and still have issues with stress affecting my wellbeing now. I have, in the past, experienced problems at my various workplaces due to my condition, and I almost flunked out of university in my final year because my depression got so bad. Thankfully a friend of mine helped me to realised I needed help, and would have marched me to the doctor herself if she hadn’t been halfway across the country. As it was, I made a promise to go & ask for help, and I did.

I think that friend definitely saved my degree, and possibly even saved my life, as I was getting worse rapidly – I stopped eating for a few days at a time, and wasn’t sleeping much or leaving my room often. The hardest part of depression, for me, was to face up to it and admit to myself that I was having serious problems with my mental health. Asking for help is a hard thing to do, and I still struggle with that today. It made me afraid of talking to people; of letting them know that I was having problems – and experiencing discrimination at work and from fiends is a really tough thing to deal with.

A close friend of mine, Carly, has also had problems with her mental health and has been doing a brilliant thing and sharing those experiences with the media this week, and will be again at the picnic tomorrow. If you want to hear more about her story, you can catch her interviews at the following places tomorrow:

• The Times
• The Daily Mail
• The Morning & Lunchtime bulletins of BBC News (national)
• Radio 4 between 12 &1

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We got up to all sorts of stuff, including (but probably not limited to!):

• Numerous pub meals/cafe stops
• Steamer boat trip on Lake Ullswater
• Getting stranded at the wrong end of Lake Ullswater thanks to a steamer boat breaking down
• Putting Homily into Lake Ullswater (at the edge, not off the boat)
• The Cumberland Pencil Museum!
• Puzzling Place – a museum of sorts showcasing all sorts of puzzles and optical illusions, great fun
• Paddling in the River Derwent (including Homily)
• Buying a Marble Run
• Building a Marble Run
• Picking lots of marbles off the floor
• Trip to Wordsworth House while I was feeling like death
• Driving up Honister Pass (quite steep)
• Driving up Wrynose Pass (very steep)
• Driving up Hardknott Pass (very very steep – this one was on Top Gear)
• Picnics
• Walks & quite a few random wanders
• BBQ
• Watching Homily get lots of fuss from strangers
• Trip on a narrow gauge steam train
• Comedy Show – Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf – incredibly funny!
• Beatrix Potter gallery & home

Our static caravan was lovely – really spacious and very comfortable!

We took lots of photos:

Including a few panoramas of pretty lakes:

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A brilliant example of the power of WOM online is Hayley‘s recent blog posts over at Ceriselle.org. After a poor experience with the House of Fraser personal shopping service, Hayley did what any blogger would do, and wrote a blog post detailing her attempts to find an outfit for the Aussie event she was attending at the weekend¹. Wanting to give the company a fair chance to defend themselves, Hayley emailed the store she visited to let them know about her blog post, and to inform them of her disappointment with the service. Her original piece on the matter wasn’t anything too much out of the ordinary, just a slight moan about a service that didn’t meet her hopeful expectations. It was what happened next that shows that House of Fraser need to drag themselves into the modern world and get into the game of social media…

Someone from the House of Fraser actually left a sarcastic comment on her blog post! No apology for poor service, no explanation of why she might have encountered problems with the personal shopper.. but a sarcastic comment. Hayley immediately twitpic’ed the offending comment and the power of WOM kicked in. People started retweeting and replying to her tweet, and once Hayley blogged about the comment her website got over 1000 hits, currently has 24 comments & even a couple of blog entries about it. To add insult to injury, Hayley received an email from the store manager which was more of a list of excuses than a real apology for the unhappy experience she had.

It wasn’t the bad shopping trip that caused the fracas in the blogosphere, but rather the rude comment received from the House of Fraser employee topped off with the email that stank rather too much of being fobbed off. As a community, we don’t mind when companies make mistakes, but when they don’t apologise sincerely and instead are rude and dismissive, then the impression we get is rather awful, I’m afraid.

Companies, learn your lessons – if you want to keep your online reputation intact, you have to deal with bloggers politely – otherwise the power of WOM is going to kick in and you’re going to lose yourself some business!

1. now Aussie is an example of Word of Mouth gone right, you only have to look at the blog post about the event Hayley attended that is sandwiched between her House of Fraser posts to see that 1000heads are doing a fab job of that PR job!

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Our pluraity voting system (‘first past the post’) just isn’t suitable for a three party battle, and creates instability as it is. We go from one extreme of government policy to another, one set of attitudes and values to the opposite. I think that a PR system is better because it allows for all attitudes and values to work together to create our country’s laws and policies.. surely that is fairer than having one party gain power & create a law, only to be replaced by another party scrapping it?

If you believe that this country needs effective political reform, then please sign the petition at Take Back Parliament, and if possible attend one of their protests. Proportional Representation gives every party that people have voted for a voice – which means that the population is better represented. And yes, the BNP would get a few seats, because they’re racist idiots that racist idiots vote for… but the system has got to be fair, and those racist idiotic voters deserve a voice too. This new parliament does not fully represent the people who voted, and that’s not right in my view.

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I think that it is beautiful, and so very sad.

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