GelaSkins has added a new artist to their ever growing collection of skins: Frank Miller! These skins look awesome:
There are six designs in total, some available for iPhones, others only for laptops (depending on the shape of the image).
Take a look at the artist page on GelaSkins.com to see all of Frank Miller’s available designs.
In the past week alone I’ve come across 4 different laptop decal shops and 3 pretty laptop bags, and I knew it was time to start blogging more about these pretty things I stumble upon.
I’ll start with a laptop decal design store that has been around for some time now and most of you might have come across already: the etsy store Movie Magic Man. He’s got some wonderful MacBook designs there, each integrating the Apple logo into the design. Here are my favourites:
Eve, The Serpent and Your Apple – $17.00
There are even more designs in Movie Magic Man’s store, like Street Fighter, Lego and even Twilight designs. Shipping costs are $1.00 if you’re in the US and $5.00 for everywhere else.
Regular readers of MissGeeky will know how much I love my Threadless tees. So when I hear they were teaming up with Griffin to make iPhone cases, I couldn’t help but think: AWESOME.
So far they’ve only got two designs out, and, in my opinion, they aren’t the most pretty or cool ones:
There are other Threadless designs that I think would have worked much much better as a case, and I’m kind of puzzled as to why they chose these ones. Still I find it pretty cool that Threadless and Griffin are working together and will look forward to future designs that will come out.
I’m a major addict to the Final Fantasy games, and I’ve been waiting for the latest addition to the series for ages now. The main reason I still haven’t gotten a PS3 is because FF-XIII isn’t out yet, and I think that would be the game I’d primarily play on it (even though there are many more awesome titles out there, I just know I don’t have the time to get addicted to yet another series). So I’ve been waiting, and waiting until FF-XIII comes out to finally give me a reason to buy a PS3.
Anyhow, in Japan it was just announced that Sony is bringing out a limited edition PS3: the Final Fantasy Lightning Edition. Lightning is the main protagonist in the game, and she herself is printed in pink on the chassis of the PS3. Yep, pink…
I like how this looks like, even though I’m not much a fan of pink. I would have loved to see in this other colours, but despite the pink, I have to admit it looks pretty sleek.
It’s got a HDD space of 250 GB and ships with a version of FF-XIII. In Japan it’s priced at 41600 Yen (around the £280), but I wonder how much it’s going to be here (if it even is released here).
Via GirlyBubble
Yay, the latest release of Mac OS X is out: Snow Leopard! It’s basically an upgrade of Leopard, with some great interface changes and a major speed boost. If you’re using Leopard it’s only £25/$29/€29 for a single user license, and £39/$49/€49 for a family pack (multiple machine installs within one family allowed). If you’re still using an earlier version, a full Box Set costs £129.
Check out the Apple Store to buy your Snow Leopard!
I’ve been using the Sony Ericsson W595 as my main phone for more than half a year now (but never blogged about it), so when I saw the latest addition to the SE Walkman mobile line, the Sony Ericsson W995, I just knew I had to get my hands on one to try out. And thanks to the guys from 3, I got one on loan for a couple of weeks.
A little bit of backstory: I’m very much a Sony Ericsson mobile user. For the past 5 years I’ve only had SE mobile phones, so this review might be a bit skewed towards those who have had experiences with the SE phones before.
The W995 is literally an upgrade of the W595. It’s got the same basic features and the same type of design, but it’s all more refined and better thought through. For instance, the main buttons:
These are exactly the same layout as on the W595, but the placing and spacing on this phone is much better. The buttons are easier to press, and there’s less of a chance of hitting another accidently (which happened a lot with the W595). On the left side of the phone you get Sony Ericsson’s Fast Port power socket, a dedicated Walkman button and the Memory Stick Micro slot (although hidden beneath the back cover). On the right side you get three music control buttons (forward, pause/play, rewind), a volume/zoom rocker and the camera button (to bring up the camera interface, but also acts as the shutter button). These buttons are again better designed than with the 595; they’re again less easier to accidently press and it’s pretty obvious which role a button has.
At the top of the phone there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack (yay!), although it took me more than a week to discover, cause the phone also comes with the standard handsfree set that connects to the Fast Port on the side. On the back is a 8.1 megapixel lens, LED flash and a small metal flip meant as a stand (I think I’d be using it more as a handy “hang it on a lanyard” clip). Besides photos you can also record videos with this phone. To be very honest, I didn’t really try either of these features out though. If I want to take photos, I’ll drag my DSLR with me. So far I’ve never been in a situation that I felt as if I needed to take a picture or video with my phone, so that’s not really what I’m looking for in a mobile.
However, the walkman side of the mobile is something I really like. I’ve got an iPod Nano, but half of the time I forget to bring it with me, and having your music within your phone is just perfect. The playback is good, and even the headphones that come along with the W995 are great (superb quality, in-ear, no “annoying other people because the headphones are crap”). The music player interface on the phone is pretty straightforward to use, with multiple ways to control your music (the buttons on the front, the buttons on the side and the Shake control, where you switch tracks by shaking your phone). The software that comes with it though for the proper Media transfer is only for Windows; if you’re on a Mac, there’s no quick and handy way to structure and synch your music files and playlists (none that was apparent to me; if you have any tips, let me know).
Besides music, you can also check out online videos on YouTube or the BBC iPlayer. It’s okay for the occasional “show your friend the funny cat video”, but I don’t think the screen is big enough for watching full length TV shows and movies.
The interface for all the “normal” stuff (calling, texting, browsing) is pretty similar to it’s predecessors with no obvious alterations. It’s pretty easy and obvious to use, but sometimes it can be a tad annoying. The fact is is that it isn’t a smart phone, and for some stuff like browsing the internet, it will always be a bit clunky. For small things though, like updating your Twitter or checking your email, I find it works perfectly well.
There are a couple other new features the W995 has (in comparison to the W595, that is), like Wifi and GPS. The Wifi feature is so useful when at events (like conferences, BarCamps, etc); you get a much quicker connection (well, that depends on the network, but most of the time it should be faster). The GPS functionality was also pretty handy (do I even have to explain why?). What I’d love to use it for is Geocaching (check out this blog post) and I still haven’t figured out what is the best way to find caches with this phone.
However, this phone does have a large downside: the battery life. If you’re using it quite intensely (for email checking, twittering, listening to music), the battery quickly drains. Without charging it fully the night before, the battery will die before the end of the day. For some this might not be much of a problem, but for me this turned out to be really annoying.
All in all, I find the W995 a great phone. I don’t have the budget to upgrade to an actual smart phone anytime soon, and this could be a good solution. It does all the things I want a phone to do and more (although I know compared to some people I don’t expect my phone to do that much). However, the battery life isn’t great, so you might want to invest in a second battery if you’re considering this phone. For the full specifications, check out the Sony Ericsson website.
Sony Ericsson W995 – Available at the 3 Store
Shopping nowadays is different than what it used to be. For me, an afternoon of leisurely shopping means looking around for clothes and shoes, and trying them on. Everything else though? Gadgets, books, games, holidays, everything else I do via the internet. This doesn’t necessarily mean I actually buy it online, but I’ll always know exactly what I want to get and where I have to get it.
The days of listening to a shop clerk and trusting his ‘expert’ advice are practically over. For almost everything I buy, I’ll always first do my own online research, reading reviews of other people, figuring out which product does exactly what I want, and where the cheapest place is to buy it. I’ve had a couple of times now that I’ve researched a product so much that I knew more than the shop clerk and had to correct him a couple of times.
But I realised not everyone is that web savvy, and most may not even have the faintest idea where to start finding these online reviews. So for that reason, I give you this blog post. Mind you, these aren’t all the resources that are out there, not by far; I’m only scratching the surface with websites that I like to visit myself when doing this type of “research”.
Even though it’s not primarily a review site, Amazon is a useful tool to get general views about products. The main focus may seem books, games and DVDs, but you’ll find a lot of other items have pretty thorough reviews too. The reviews consist of 1 to 5 star ratings and a written review or a video of a user. I mainly like to use Amazon reviews to get that first impression of a product.
For simple items, like books or DVDs, I’ll keep it only to just Amazon, but If it’s something more gadgety (and more expensive) it’s only the first step. A problem in the past with the Amazon reviews though has been that anyone can leave a review, which led to authors giving themselves great reviews or fans giving competitors bad reviews. While it’s by far not the norm, keep that in mind when using these reviews. [Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany]
For those based in the UK, Reevoo is another interesting review website. Unlike Amazon (and most other review sites) Reevoo only allows people to publish a review, if they’ve gotten their product via one of their retail partners. The reviews itself though are quite limited, with users reviewing a product with only a couple of sentences of pros and cons, and a 1 to 10 score.
I mainly use Reevoo when I want a certain gadget, but have no idea what type, brand or even price range. Reevoo has a useful filter functionality for each category, so that you can refine your product search. For instance, in the Headphones category you can filter the price (£3-£10, £10-£20, etc), brand (Sennheiser, Philips, etc) and other applicable groups. It also has a nice price comparison of the different places where you can buy the product. What I’m not sure about though is whether the retailers mentioned in this list are only Reevoo’s retail partners; it doesn’t matter too much, cause a lot of the big brand cheaper retailers are listed. [Reevoo]
I like to use TestFreaks to find more extensive reviews than Amazon or Reevoo. For starters, it splits the reviews into two groups: Expert Reviews and User Reviews. The Expert Reviews aggregates professional reviews from around the web, featuring reviews from blogs and online magazines. These reviews give much more technical analysis than your standard user reviews.
Besides the reviews, TestFreaks have some useful metrics, like the FreakScore: a weighted index of all aggregated expert and user reviews (expert reviews are given more value than user reviews, while older products and reviews are given less importance). It’s a great way to see what the hottest products are that people are actually talking about. Like Reevoo, TestFreaks also has a price comparison section, but is not limited to only the UK. [TestFreaks USA, TestFreaks UK]
This website is specifically for photography, covering everything from the latest industry news to very detailed professional reviews on cameras and lenses. And with detailed, I mean: DETAILED. Some of them go so far as measuring the time it takes to switch on the camera and to take a photo. There are also sample photos, so that you can view the quality of the camera under different light circumstances. Finally, there’s an compare tool, where you can select various cameras and see the exact specifications of each of them side by side. [Digital Photography Review]
I don’t travel that much by plane, but when I do SkyScanner and Kayak are both useful sites to find the cheapest flights out there. SkyScanner offers a bit more flexibility in choosing the airports; for instance, I can get a list of all the different flights between UK and the Netherlands, without specifying which UK airport or which NL airport. Kayak on the other hand gives a more useful overview of which days are cheaper so that you can select the cheapest combo of depart/return flights. [SkyScanner, Kayak]
Bview doesn’t really offer reviews of products, but of businesses. It’s handy to find reviews of local businesses like plumbers or electricians. Besides that they also have vouchers for a huge bunch of different stores and restaurants. [Bview]
As I said before, this aren’t all the review sites out there; these are only the ones I use myself. Feel free to share any tips of sites that you use in the comments below.
One of the coolest stands at the Gadget Show two weeks ago was The Gadget Hall of Fame, set-up by the Centre for Computing History. It was full of gadgets and gizmos, showcasing products from the past 34 years.
The Center for Computing History was established to create a permanent public exhibition telling the story of the information age. The museum is based in Haverhill on the borders of Cambridgeshire, Essex and Suffolk, but is currently only viewable by appointment. I definitely think I should organize a GeekMeet during the summer to visit, cause it looks like they have a great collection of old computer hardware.
The stand at the Gadget Show was clearly a favourite among most of the visitors. The exhibit was arranged in such a way that there were different sections for each decade, with retro gadgets against the wall and (per decade) two featured game consoles (everybody of course wanted a go on those). The 1970’s section had the Binotone PONG game and the classic Atari 2600 console, the 1980’s had the Sinclair Spectrum and the Commodore 64, and the 1990’s had the Atari Jaguar and the Sony PlayStation.
I was amazed how many of the gadgets featured there I still own: the NES (with the DuckHunt gun), the Donkey Kong Game & Watch, the Atari Lynx, the Atari Jaguar, the original GameBoy, the GameBoy Colour and the Sony PlayStation (not even mentioning the more newer consoles, like the Nintendo DS and the PS2, of which I’ve “owned” three different ones). It was great seeing some of them in action again, and makes me want to dig up some of my old consoles and play with them again.
There was also a video made of the event, and I’m actually in it! I’m seen playing the Jaguar (very concious that I was being filmed) at around the 3 minute mark:
[Watch the video on MissGeeky.com]
Btw, the Centre of Computing History is always interested in expanding their collection, including calculators, cables and books. Just check out their donations page. Anybody got anything obscure that deserves to go down in history?
Last Saturday I was invited by the team of 3mobilebuzz to The Gadget Show Live in Birmingham. I must confess I had no idea what The Gadget Show was, but it sounded like fun so I agreed to coming along. I’m glad I did, cause it turned out to be a great day.
So for those of you like me who don’t know what The Gadget Show is (and why there is a Gadget Show Live), here’s a little explanation. The Gadget Show is a British TV series on Five, featuring reviews and previews of the latest gadgets and other technology news. Apparently it’s really popular, so this year they arranged The Gadget Show Live: part live show and part gadget exhibition.
The exhibition floor had a lot more stands than I expected, ranging from computing to gaming to DIY to biking. Unlike most exhibitions, where I always feel as if I’ve seen everything after wandering around for 2 hours, I still don’t feel as if I saw everything at The Gadget Show Live. I spent more than 6 hours going from stall to stall and talking to people, and I still feel as if I missed some stuff. I’ll write about the cool gadgets I came across later this week, cause they all deserve their own posts.
The live show was fun too. We had tickets for the 17:00 viewing and it was packed! The show consisted of silly contests (whoever could hold up a laptop the longest with one hand won it) and some weird, yet interesting performances. The coolest were the digital jugglers Feeding The Fish, a juggling act with lasers and LED batons, creating a visually stunning spectacle.
If you want to see more of The Gadget Show Live, check out Marianne Taylor’s blog. I’ve also got some photos up on my Flickr event account, but they didn’t came out as I wanted them to (I really have to sit down and learn how to use my camera properly).
I’m horrible with answering my mobile phone, all mainly because of one single reason: I don’t have pockets (my coat does, but I hate carrying my phone in there). I tend to keep my phone in whatever bag I have with me that day, and half of the time I just don’t hear it when it goes off. And those times I finally do, by the time I’ve found my phone the person has hung up already. Annoying, but what can I do about it?
Well, something like this: some time ago Sony Ericsson released a series of girly Bluetooth watches, that are compatible with their mobile phones. When you get a call or text on your phone, the watch will vibrate and show the incoming caller ID on it’s display. You can reject or mute the call with the watch itself and even answer calls when paired with (Bluetooth) headphones. It can also be used as a music player control to play, pause, stop and change volume, with the phones that have that capability.
There are three designs: Sparkling Allure, Contemporary Elegance and Evening Classic.
I really like the idea of these phones and for someone like me they’d be a perfect solution to not hearing my phone in my handbag. But I wonder though how comfortable these watches are; I’ve noticed a lot of “gadget” watches tend to be designed on the lumpy side and are extremely irritating to wear. The price tag is also not very appealing: at £195 (in the online Sony Ericsson store) they’re not the cute little extra gadget anymore. A pity, cause I would have loved to try a watch like this.
Check out the online Sony Ericsson store for more mobile phones and accessories.
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