I’ve often found that writing for this blog is a challenge and no more so than in recent days. Some of you may know that I have a huge amount of work to get finished by the end of this week. For those of you that don’t know what I do outside of this blog, then I’ll tell you.

I am currently a student at Bolton University studying for a degree in Special Effects Development. The first year hasn’t exactly been an easy ride. We’ve had a whole lot of problems because we’re doing the first year of the degree (well three of us anyhow)  at another location. The three of us are doing the first year at Coleg Harlech, which is a Further Education college in North Wales. All three of us that are on the Special Effects Degree course have been past students of the college. I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in now if it wasn’t for the great staff at the college. If I’m honest I’ll be quite sad to leave there.

Anyhow, our first year is up and I thought I would let you know that I have passed my first year with flying colours. We still have a film to make, but that’s more of a labour of love now rather than an obigation for the course. We feel that we need to get this film made because of the time that we’ve spent on the planning and preperation for it.

We’ve already filmed it once, but the tape got corrupted so we’ve decided on doing a re-shoot. The main reason for this is because we don’t want to let the actors down. They gave us their time for free, so it’s only right that we produce the best possible piece of work for them rather than us. We’ve been marked on the work that we’ve done already.

The idea is that we produce a film and a prper DVD in the end with extra features and behind the scene stuff. That’s the idea anyway. Obviously I’ll upload an show you the finished piece of work.

These light are great. The Mathmos Wind Lights is perfect if you need to light up your garden for a barbeque or a few drinks with friends. They’re great little gadgets, and they don’t cost the earth.

When you see these kind of lights usually they cost a fair bit more than the £10.95 that you can get them for by using PriceGrabber. They’re a real bargain to be honest.

So what are the Mathmos Wind Lights? It’s quite simple really, they’re LED lights that use wind to power them up. SO all you need is a light puff of wind to get these little beauties lit up.

The 6cm propellers power two LED bulbs, in red or blue, that will be enough to light up your garden path. You don’t need any batteries at all with the Mathmos Wind Lights because they’re powered by wind. How cool is that!

You can use the Mathmos Wind Lights wherever there’s wind really. No need for a battery or a power supply with the Mathmos Wind Lights. Just hook them up wherever you decide that you want light and watch as the wind makes them glow brightly.

As I said earlier, the Mathmos Wind Lights are only £10.95 if you go through PriceGrabber of course. Sadly, I don’t have a garden that’s big enough to justify buying these in bulk, but if you do they’re well worth the investiment. The Mathmos Wind Lights are obviously good for the environment as well as your pocket, so why not grab a few of these great gadgets.

This is a great gadget. The ECCO GPS Keychain is a must have if you are a bit forgetful. The ECCO GPS Keychain is the ideal solution if you have trouble remembering where you left your car or if you can’t find your hotel.

The ECCO GPS Keychain is a tiny GPS system that will help guide you and show you the way back to your desired destiniation. With the ECCO GPS Keychain you don’t hve to remember the small detail of where you left your car or, where you’re staying for the night. In fact the ECCO GPS Keychain is ideal for any situatuion where you have to find your way back to your original location.

With the ECCO GPS Keychain all you have to do is “lock in” your location on the ECCO GPS Keychain then, when you’re ready to return, follow the instructions on the screen to find your way back. Wht’s good with the ECCO GPS Keychain is that you can store three locations within the tiny device.

I’ve always found myself lost at one time or another, and the ECCO GPS Keychain sounds like the ideal solution for those situation. Obviously, I don’t want to tell everyone that I get lost on numerous occassions, but sometimes it’s good to have a device like the ECCO GPS Keychain to help you out of a sticky situation.

Available for as little as £69.95, the ECCO GPS Keychain is a great little gadget to have in your arsenal if you travel around or get lost a lot. Grab yours today!!

I’ve read recently that most of the top mobile manufacturers in Europe have decided on a single universal socket for their mobile phones. This is great news in my opinion because at the moment there are so many different types of plugs out there. Apparently there are around 30 different combination of plug and socket from the different suppliers.

Apple, Nokia, SonyEricsson, NEC, LG, Samsung and Texas Instruments have all backed the move to create a single micro USB style charging socket on their mobile devices from next year.

It will be great to see this because my iPhone keeps running out of battery in the most inconvenient places and I rely heavily on it to keep in touch through SMS, Facebook, Twitter and email. Being able to use any charger would obviously be a great bonus.

It would also be a great move for the environmentbecause people could use the same charger for any number of mobile phones. The manufactures could offer the mobile devices with or without a charger. As I said, it’s a great move to make the socket an universal one for all manufacturers as it’s going to mean that anyone can charge their mobile anywhere there’s a charger available.

This is definitely a move in the right direction for a change.

I’ve written about the Flip Mino HD on this blog before, but they’ve bought a new chrome version out now. The Chrome Flip Mino HD has the same features as the Flip Mino HD, but it’s chrome.

The Flip range of cameras have been a phenomenal hit all around the world and it’s easy to see why. They’re so easy to use and convenient to carry around that anyone can now capture funny clips of their friends or that breaking news story that’s happening at the end of your street.

The Chrome Flip Mino HD records video in stunning High Definition as the name applies, with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. Now, as many of you will know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, that I have an Apple iPhone. The 3G iPhone that I have doesn’t record video in any format so a Flip Mino HD would be a great addition to my arsenal of gadgets.

I do think that a Chrome Flip Mino HD would compliment the iPhone better than a black or white Flip, but that’s just a personal opinion. I do think that I should get one of these great little cameras just to use when looking for locations to film at. What better way to show the rest of the team a location? You could actually film the shots you were thinking of doing with the Chrome Flip Mino HD and use it as a pre visualisation tool when planning your film. That’s what I would do anyhow.

So the Chrome Flip Mino HD is available now for the great price of around £157 and it’s still the worlds smallest HD camera. Grab yours today!!

It was a very sad day yesterday indeed. The world lost two amazing stars in the form of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. They were both young and taken away from us too soon. Farrah Fawcett was only 62 and Michael Jackson was a mere 50.

Farrah Fawcett was probably best known for being a pin-up model back in the 1970’s and for being one of “Charlie’s Angels” in the hit show of the same name playing Jill Munroe. She also starred in a number of movies. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, but four months later was given the all clear. Then in 2007 she was once again diagnosed with cancer.

Michael Jackson, the self named “King of Pop” has undoubtedly been an influencial figure in the world of music for over 3 decades. He released his “Thriller” album in 1982 and it went on to become the world’s best selling album of all time. He was also know for having a lavish and sometimes eccentric lifestyle. This was backed-up when he bought Neverland; his fairground themed home. In later years his life had been dogged by allegations of child abuse and ill health.

Michael Jackson was due to start a gruelling 50 date concert at the O2 arena in London.

I hope that both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson rest in peace. They will both be missed.

Recently I had to transfer an old Cassette to MP3 files for my grandfather. This was because the tape was getting old and he wanted a CD of the music to play in his car. I had forgotten that cassette tapes still existed. To be honest I hardly buy CDs these days either, because I have an iPhone I buy digital downloads.

Having a MacBook I thought that burning the MP3 files to a CD would be as easy as everything else is on the MacBook, but I was mistaken. I thought that iTunes or GarageBand would be able to do it, but alas no.

My thoughts then turned to getting the files from the MacBook on to a USB Memory Stick and using a PC and Nero to burn the disc. But before I did that I decided to have a look on the internet to see what was available for the Mac. I found Roxio Toast 10.

Roxio Toast 10 was exactly what I was looking for. Roxio Toast 10 does cost more than your average software, but it was well worth it. PriceGrabber has Roxio Toast 10 Titanium for £56.47. Roxio Toast 10 is so easy to use too as you’d expect from any Mac software. It was simply a case of choosing what kind of disc I wanted to burn (in my case an Audio CD) and dragging the files over, then pressing a red button to burn. That was it, my CD was burned and ready to use within a few minutes.

So, if you’re looking for a solution to burning CDs and DVDs on your Mac, then I would suggest Roxio Toast 10. There are two versions available too, Roxio Toast 10 Titanium and Roxio Toast 10 Pro. The Pro version costs a bit more than the titanium version though.

Today I witnessed something that was quite horrific and disturbing. I’ve personally never been in an accident but this morning I saw one. Two cars, a motorbike and an LPG lorry.

The tailbacks were quite bad and we had to find an alternate route to college. I usually catch a bus there, but today I had a lift from one of the tutors. I’d informed them of the accident and they still decided to chance it.
I’d seen the state of the two cars in the accident and they looked to be complete write offs.

On a slightly more cheery note, we finally managed to get some filming done with the new High Definition camera that we’ve bought at the college. I have to say that the quality of the camera is excellent and I’m pleased with what we’ve captured so far. Only got the one scene filmed and edited together, but it’s a huge leap forward from what we’d managed to do before.

I’ll be sure to write a review of the High Definition camera once we’ve finished the filming. The great thing is, that it works. The camera we had would film the scenes quite well, but when it came to getting them off the camera into the computer the tape was corrupted with artefacts all over it.

After our tests this morning, we’ve decided that it’s best to do a complete re-shoot of the movie. And, once we’ve done with all the editing and Post-production, I’ll put it up on here for you all to see.

It seems like it is that time of year again when all the festivals are upon us and whilst the festivals I usually go to are not running because of financial problems there are others going on.

What better way to improve your festival experience than by getting The Ultimate Festival Kit? It is a great piece of kit that will help you on your way. It’s packed with 18 goodies that are essential for a great festival experience.

There are apparently over 360 festivals happening this year so some of you will definitely be attending one or more. Maybe the most famous of these festivals is happening this weekend: Glastonbury. It looks like it’s going to be a great weekend for those of you who will be attending.

So what do you get inside The Ultimate Festival Kit bag of goodies then? Well, there are some really useful stuff to be honest?

• 1x PVC poncho (green or blue), reusable and durable
• 1x Banana Boat® SPF30 Suncreen, 29ml
• 1x Kiss My Face® Whenever Shampoo, 29 ml
• 1x Kiss My Face® Anti-Stress Shower and Bath Gel, 29ml
• 1x Travel size Kiss My Face® Liquid Rock Fragrance Free Deodorant
• 1x Pack of Pocket-size Tissues
• 2x Pairs of Moldex® Spark Ear Plugs in Pocket Pack
• 1x Moose Smooch® SPF15 Natural Lip Balm
• 1x Tube of 8 Magic Towels
• 1x LED keychain torch
• 1x Glow in the Dark Whistle
• 1x Travel Toothbrush with Paste
• 1x Extra® Chewing Gum
• 2x Condoms
• 1x Asseptgel Anti-bacterial Hand Gel, 59ml
• 1x Pack of 10 Toilet Seat Covers
• 1x Emergency Blanket
• 1x Mini First-Aid Kit

The Ultimate Festival Kit is one piece of kit you don’t want to leave home without. It’s available for £24.95 through PriceGrabber now.

Today at 6pm I finally got my hands on the new iPhone OS 3.0.I was reallyu excited about downloading the 230Mb file that would transform my iPhone into the best mobile device in the world.

Sadly that wasn’t to be. The things that I had been looking forward to the most don’t actually function properly. For instance, I’ve been going on about MMS for a long while now and whilst it does send MMS messages, it isn’t able to receive them. You still have to go to the O2 website to retrieve any images sent to you.

Another disappointment is the Tethering feature. Whilst it is there and apparently functioning, it will cost you to use it. O2 have decided to charge £14.68 per month for 3Gb of data transfer, or £29.36 for 10Gb of data transfer. I see this as O2 trying to make a quick buck out of us. How can they justify these charges when the iPhone contracts come with unlimited WiFi and Data Transfer as standard?

What does work well is the Spotlight Search and Audio Memo’s, but that’s about it. I’ve been reading on Twitter that a lot of people have been having trouble with activating their iPhones after they updated.

I do sometimes wonder if Apple hype up their products too much and release them too soon before proper testing. I have no doubt that iPhone OS 3.0.1 will be out soon to fix some bugs that have crept in to this all singing all dancing release.

Oh, I’ve not been able to figure the cut, copy and paste out either, but that may be just me doing something wrong. I wait with baited breath and with hope that Apple and O2 sort this out sooner rather than later.