There's no getting away from it. What's the use. Any post that involves a highly recognisable and heavily branded gadget is going to be labelled an advertorial. How to talk about the things that enable me to blog on the go and give mad genuine props to these big purchases that I shelled out money on (that don't belong to the clothing realm) and NOT for it to seem like I'm walking around with a sandwich board advertising for said electronics brand? I tout new clothing buys quite often enough without any shame or discomfort but I guess this is wading into different territory when we're talking about sheeny shiny brands like Canon or Apple. Seeing as so many readers are also bloggers or people who work on the go, I still maintain this might be something of a useful post in the runup to Christmas when a VERY generous loved one might cough up – we can but dream, right?
Regardless, I give shout-outs to colourful jumpers, mad shoes and embellished dresses on a regular basis so why shouldn't I do the same to the tools that REALLY toil and make this blog come to exist… so here goes with the gadgetry quad that have come into my life.
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I'm just going to say it out loud. I'm NOT a DSLR girl. Don't talk to me about lenses, aperture, exposure or ISO as I'm not going to know what the crap you're talking about. I'll leave that to my more skilled fellow bloggers who know how to wield a camera that's bigger than one's hand span. Not to say that I don't have DLSR photography present as I'm also blessed with what Refinery 29 has termed a 'photo bitch' aka Style Salvage Steve (LOVE YOU!). That said, when I'm on the go in showrooms, events, travelling around with a downsized bag, and all I'm after is clean and simple reportage snapping, then this camera does do the compact trick for me. I don't need backgrounds of photos to blur into an atmospheric mess. I don't necessarily need dresses in foregrounds to look like they're jumping out from the picture. I don't need everything to be 150% crisp. I just need demonstrative images that says what the product is on the tin and the dinky Canon does the job as well as fitting in my pocket (many claims of pocket-sized cameras don't fall in line when you're talking about tight pockets on skinny jeans… this is actually that small…).
Some snaps taken around the house with the S95…
Christopher Raeburn's cross-eyed bunny…
Deborah Bowness' bookshelf wallpaper that adorns one section of wall in my apartment because that's all I could afford…
Our collective perfume shelf in front of suitably girly books – me thinsk you can see a clear running theme with my choice of literature and errr…a decidedly eclectic taste in scent…
P.S. Have any of you started naming your SD cards? I seem to buy different brands all the time so end up with these mini bundles of joy that I beam at and say "I'm mighty proud of all the pics you hold…"
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Does this even need a recommendation? I'm sure Apple could make canvas sacks with potatoes shaped like buttons stuck to it and still be able to shift them in millions. My old LG netbook which has admittedly served me well was physically breaking and people can attest to it being held together with fabric plaster/band-aids at the sides. I had wanted to resist using Apple-on-the-go given my dependence on it with the iMac at home however as soon as an 11 inch version came out, I was pretty much a goner. It does everything it's told and even with the omission of things like SD card readers and a disc drive (which you can add on…), working on it is a joy. Shamefully I want to get it out at any given moment and type out arbritrary things like short stories just for the sake of using it and feeling like "Wow I'm a smug Apple user…". it's an odious yet inevitable feeling…
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Giorgio Armani Samsung Galaxy GT-I9010
Alright, alright. This one was a wickedly kind gift. I hadn't realised that the phone isn't out yet either so I keep getting some unexpected coos over the phone whenever I whip it out. Orange have been real bastards and not allowed me to upgrade my dented, bent, mashed-up Blackberry until March so this phone which came in a pomp-filled box was a blessing that after two weeks of using, really does deserve biased praise. I had a go at using an Android phone when Google first came out with their phone and had such an awful time with it that I didn't think I'd ever go back to it. Samsung's GTI9010 is a different beast however. It has the sleekness that the iPhone interface has and more useful functions in terms of Samsung's own inbuilt apps as well as Android's wealth of apps. Calls and SMS alerts, up as puzzle pieces that can be dragged around the home screen which I find quite nifty. I'm finally able to view Java-based websites on a phone now so I can browse the internet properly on the phone. I also now have a decent camera for Twitpic-ing but need to beware of the data charges abroad as it doesn't resize images when you Twitpic (thanks Bryan for the tip!). Downside is the battery life which lasts a day before pooping out but I'm pretty sure that's fixable – just need to geek out in some forums to figure it out.
No complaints about a phone that comes presented to you like the crown jewels in an initial-ed leather box…
Hello moody Lina Scheynius photo…
I've also got Typepad mobile to work on this phone so that I can fully edit posts properly… which for some reason never happened on my old Blackberry…
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I never thought I'd be reviewing household appliances here but here we go. I wanted to go all infomercial on you but for the life of me, I cannot inject enough of those perky tones into my voice. Deadpan infomercials are not going to convince you to make those three payments towards ¬£99.99. This isn't a steamer that does a million different things that I would demo poorly on my infomercial (chops vegetables, cleans your windows, gives your dog a bath etc…) but it does do one thing well which is get wrinkles out… which is err…what a steamer's supposed to do. I'm actually without an ironing board and we do any ironing on our sofa with a towel so this has actually saved us from finally trekking to Argos for an eyesore of an ironing board and fits neatly by the doorway next to the Stolmen wardrobe mirror. It doesn't eat up water and require changing all the time or get that limescaley thing where the steam coming out will actually wrecks your clothes. It also heats up really quickly unlike the old hoary industrial ones that I use sometimes on shoots. As a final shallow plus point, it also come in different colours if you want to be all cutesey about it. Obviously, this being my first steamer, I don't really have any others in mind to properly compare but all I know is the silky Emma Cook blouse is looking a lot neater these days.
