For those who may not know, as of yesterday iTunes started giving away something free each day for 12 days. Now, this stuff may not be your cup of tea, but who cares – it’s free! Yesterday was a music video from The Ting Tings, and today an episode of Derren Brown.
So keep your eye out and you might find something you actually want. Or you can be like me and download anything that’s free!!
I’ve placed the order for my new iPhone. The contract on my Nokia N95 doesn’t run out until the end of March 2009, but I guess it’s because I’ve been with O2 so long that they’re letting me upgrade from the 1st of January. So my phone should be with me next weekend. I can’t wait! I’m such a geek! 
I’ve also got rid of my N95 for a very reasonable price. I’ve sold it to a website called Fonebank who then do God-knows what with the things. Unfortunately I had to give a minimum of 10% of the price to Oxfam, but I guess it is Christmas, so that’s ok. Basically, once my iPhone arrives, I pop my old phone in a padded envelope and send it to them. They check it still works then send me a cheque for the value, minus the 10% I’ve given to charity. So that’s £85.50 I’ll be getting for a phone I’d otherwise be throwing away. Fantastic!
I was going to leave a Christmas posts yesterday, but in the end I simply couldn’t be bothered. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of the day either, though I just wanted to make mention of the photo-related gifts I received. I shall list them below under their own little headings!
4Gb Sandisk Extreme III CompactFlash Card
For my trip to Scotland I wanted to make sure that I had enough memory for my days out walking and photographing. Not the biggest of cards, but the Extreme III works at break-neck speeds (not as fast as the Extreme IV but there has to be a balance between function and price). It’ll go very nicely with my others and I’ll now hopefully be able to go out all day shooting raw without having to worry about running out of space. I must just remember to take them off the card and put them onto the laptop once back at the hotel, or I won’t be able to do much the following day!
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Classroom in a Book
I’ve become a great advocate of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2. I’ve never been overly familiar with Photoshop itself, although I have recently worked my way through a similar Adobe book on CS3 and I have to say it’s a lot easier to get to grips with than I ever imagined. Fortunately however, most of the functions necessary for me and my photography can now be performed in a much quicker and simpler way using Lightroom. I’ve been giving it a go for a while, and whilst I sort of know my way around it, I wanted to go through the same process I did with Photoshop and let Adobe tell me the key things to look out for. Hopefully let me start developing my own presets too, although I’ve not yet had chance to look through it to see what chapters are actually included. I’ll let you folks know once I’ve been through it.
Joby Gorillapod – SLR Zoom
This is something I was contemplating getting myself, though at the last minute decided to take off my Amazon Wishlist. So it was a very big coincidence that someone saw it and decided to get it me for Christmas. Very nice of them.
The Gorillapod, for those who don’t know, is a bendy tripod that you can hook around objects (posts, branches, fences etc) to enable you to get into some very awkward spots to take your pictures. It also enables you to get extremely close to the ground as the legs bend up on themselves allowing you to be able to practically stand the camera on the floor. And I have to say in my testing yesterday it seemed to work very well indeed. The legs are incredibly sturdy – the one I have has been built to hold an SLR with a big zoom lens attached. I can’t wait to get out there and start giving it a proper go in the wilds of Scotland!
I’ve gone a couple of days without making a post. My mind has been completely blank to be honest and I’ve not really had anything to say! So I figured I’d just write about what I’ve been up to rather than anything specific. I know you’re all excited by this prospect!
Well, Friday was the team Christmas lunch followed in the evening by the office Christmas party. So it was a long day. Especially as I’d got up at my normal time of 5:30 to visit the gym. The lunch was very nice, if a little minimal. So by the time two of us had left for a pre-party pub visit I was hungry once more. A plate of cheesy-chips soon got rid of that!
Then it was off to the party at the Star Rowing Club which wasn’t too bad either. Although completely unlike me, I stay right until the end. Didn’t get too drunk, but just nicely inebriated. Not really much else to talk about to be honest. No real scandals or bribery opportunities. And as it was away from the office, there were no photocopier incidents either!
The rest of the weekend was taken up with a drive back home up the M1, and then a fair bit of sitting around waiting for things to happen. Turns out if you just sit around then not much happens at all!
I did take a trip into town this morning to buy some cards and for one last visit to Woolies. The shelves are almost completely bare so I wouldn’t recommend anyone makes the trip for last-minute bargains; they’ve all gone.
I returned to work today, rather forelorn. It certainly wasn’t a prospect I was looking forward to, nor one which I enjoyed at all. There was quite a bit of work waiting for me, which was a bonus and helped to pass the time. But it’s not what I want to be doing. Not at all.
Though it is only four weeks until I get Christmas off, so I don’t have to put up with a huge amount really.
