Archive for New Purchases
Week 4 Photo
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Do you agree that the earphones that come bundled with your iPod/iPhone/iPad are utter crap?
For a company that prides itself on the quality of it’s products, it’s a glaring oversight on Apple’s part that they have created probably one of the worse pairs of earphones… ever!
For me, the sound quality isn’t too great but the most annoying thing is getting the bastards to stay in your ears. Fine, if I sit completely motionless and do not attempt to move my head a millimetre in any direction, they just about stay put. But if I should happen to be walking with them in, forget it.
I reckon Apple have some kind of pact with third-party earphone manufacturers. Apple continue to bundle those shitty white earphones, causing customers to invest in an alternative pair from another manufacturer. In return, Apple get a cut of the sale. I could be right.
Anyway, I decided I needed to invest in a decent pair of in-the-ear phones. I love my Bose headphones but they are just too cumbersome to take out with me all the time. They are reserved for listening to tunes in the office when I want to shut out the world.
Getting back to the in-the-ears, if you have happened to take a look at the choice that is out there nowadays it’s astounding! Where to start?
So I did what most people do, I asked the interweb. A couple of sites were saying some good things the SoundMagic E10′s. I wasn’t looking to spend a small fortune but I also didn’t wanted a piece of shit – I already had that with the Apple buds! Now normally you wouldn’t expect £35 to get you much in the way of quality but a couple of the independent reviews I read said they performed much better than earphones more than twice the price. Combining these reviews with actual customer reviews, I thought £35 was worth the gamble. If they turned out shit, I hadn’t broke the bank.
As it turned out, they aren’t shit… far from it. I’m suitable impressed with them.
Can’t fault the sound quality. The bass of my dance music makes my ears bleed and my orchestral film scores are crystal clear. They have passed the Jean Michel Jarre test with flying colours!
The earphones came with EIGHT pair of ‘flanges’ – more than enough to find a comfortable pair that keep the earbuds in and external noise out. I’ve had no problems with them while pounding the streets of Manchester, nor have I needed to crank the music up while sat on the train. All-in-all, I’m pretty chuffed with them.
Christmas Goodies
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My family know me so well…
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson
Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation by Pamela Glintenkamp
Banksy Myths & Legends by Marc Leverton
The Book of Skulls by Faye Dowling
Clan Robertson: Your Clan Heritage
Amazon Kindle
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Recently, I’ve been getting more and more involved in producing books, book covers and magazines for the Kindle. I could continue using the excellent Kindle Previewer app on the Mac to view my work before sending to the client, but, you know me, I’m never going to turn down the opportunity to buy a new gadget.
So a couple of weeks ago, I purchased a Kindle 3G from PC World. Originally, I was just going to purchase the £89 base model, but after comparing the specs, I swayed in the direction of it’s bigger brother – packing a keyboard and free 3G. My thinking was that the free 3G would potentially come in handy when not connected to a WiFi network i.e. lying by the pool, sat waiting to board a delayed plane. I did buy the Kindle for work but if the wife and I can get some extra use out of it on holidays, then bonus!
I’m loving how when you connect it to the Mac via USB, it appears on the desktop as an external hard drive which you can just drag and drop files to. No need to add files via an app like the iPad. Take note Apple.
Navigating round the actual Kindle takes a bit of getting used to. Having owned an iPad for almost two years, I’m constantly touching the screen on the Kindle to select items – which obviously doesn’t work. You have to keep reminding yourself to use the scroll pad and buttons.
The only other issue I have with the Kindle is when you flick between pages of a publication. Instead of the black text disappearing and the new text appearing, the screen does this annoying thing of momentarily inverting to white text on a black background while it refreshes itself. Why does it do this? Is this something in the settings you can turn off?
All-in-all I’m quite satisfied with the Kindle. It’s very lightweight, easy to hold, easy to read (in decent light) and came in some lovely packaging.
I don’t think my iPad has anything to worry about. Apart from previewing work and reading the odd book while on holiday, the iPad is still my king-gadget.
Latest Graphic Novels
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Some light Christmas reading. Batgirl: The Flood, Batman & Robin: Batman vs. Robin, Red Robin: Collision and Red Robin: The Hit List. All published by DC Comics and all purchased from Forbidden Planet.
Gutted that Red Robin: Collision is a second printing. That’ll teach me not to pre-order a graphic novel!
Latest DVDs
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This week’s purchases include The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and [Rec]2
Interestingly, both these movies share something in common. No, I don’t mean a predominately black cover with splashes of red or the fact that they are both 18 movies (very rare nowadays).
Both these movies are in fact European… and therefore prime targets for a US Hollywood remake!! In fact, I think they are currently filming a US remake of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and I know there was a remake of [Rec] called Quarantine. Only a matter of time before they rehash this one.
Latest DVDs
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The latest DVDs to be delivered are…
Dexter Season 1 and Mad Men Season 2
Yes, I know they have both been out for a while but better late than never is what I say. Just don’t post any spoilers!
Gelaskins
Posted by: | CommentsI own a Blackberry (don’t laugh!) and I’m not due to upgrade my handset until at least February next year.
So, I was quite happy to do anything to my boring-looking Blackberry to make it appear more attractive.
Cue Gelaskins!
These guys produce funky stickers you can wrap your gadgets up in. They have hundreds of pre-designed stickers to choose from or you can design your own and upload them.
I decided in this instance I would choose from Gelaskin’s library. I picked the eBoy’s ‘Baltimore Docks’ (see below).
