Twitter Competition

Today I have been having a conversation with one of my twitter followers (@edsbrother) about how easy it is to lose followers and how hard it is to gain them.  I have lost 55 followers in one week, and the conversation today all started with me saying that if I had never lost a follower I would have over at thousand of them by now at least.

Followers are by all means NOT the be all and end all and neither is Twitter, but we have both decided to enter into a little competition.  Our aim is to be the first person who can get to 1,000 followers, and if we can do so by Christmas.

I say it’s a competition because the person that pushes one of us over the 999 mark will win a prize.  We are not going to disclose what this prize is, it could be good or it could be stupid, but it’ll be something we will send to you in the post as a thank you.  It is not a competition in terms of me being pitted against @edsbrother  - I do not wish for him to fail, he is a good, entertaining tweeter and I like following him so I hope he succeeds in this massively geeky quest – I just hope I get there first ;)

The conditions are:  We are allowed to be pimped out by our followers (we’ll more than likely heavily rely on this) and we are able to use #FF’s to the best of our advantage.  We will also be conserving our energy and trying to be the funniest, most entertaining tweeters we can be, as there’s no point in doing all this and then being massively boring.  Alternatively, we are NOT allowed to use automatic following systems, or that horrifically retarded #teamfollowback gash.  This is also not BEGGING for followers, as we are aware that people will only follow us based on the quality of our tweets, not because of this blog post.  This is just a light hearted competition.

Anyway, all of you reading this probably follow me already – if you could RT this blog post and spread the word as to what we are doing, we’ll see who’s victorious.  Just remember that as good, entertaining and nice as @edsbrother is, ultimately I am better and if you follow him and not me YOU ARE A DOUCHE ;)

(If this doesn’t lose me followers it’ll be a miracle).

Product Review: Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs

Haven’t done this for a while, have been a bit wrapped up in real life at the moment but I am going to review a product (oooooooh) 

Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs:  totally lived up to my expectations and is seriously one of the most helpful and amazing products I have ever used. 

I am not the sort of girl that is blessed with naturally nice legs.  You see these girls with perfect pins, not a mark on them, lovely and brown and slender and this isn’t me.  My legs are more likely to be covered in bruises from bundling on a night out, cut from falling over drunk or just abused through random (fun) activities.   My legs are also naturally a bit blotchy in places and don’t have a smooth texture to them (back down boys).

I had been thinking how awesome it would be for there to be a product just like foundation for your face, but for your body instead.  I have known about Sally Hansen for a while but short of reading the (albeit mixed) reviews online, hadn’t bought any.  The other week just before we went out my friend Jo had a similar product, bought from Victoria’s Secret in Vegas.  I tried some and the difference it made to my legs was AMAZING.  I decided Sally Hansen would be pretty much the same thing so I went and bought some from Boots.  At £9.95 for 1 bottle it’s not exactly the cheapest product ever, but I think it’s well worth the money.  I liked the fact it smoothed them out and made them slightly browner without the performance of having to have a spray tan.  Check out the results:



Before



During - Right leg airbrushed

  

After - plastic legs!



I like this product, as you can see before my legs were slightly red in places and a bit blotchy.  The middle picture showing one leg airbrushed and the other not gives the best representation of the effects this product has.  I am AWARE that afterwards my legs look hugely orange but it was an awful light in my room (I did this quickly before I went out) and it was the best I can do.  The only downside to this product is that it has lots of glitter in it – it’s not too bad when you are out as no one pays that much attention to your legs up close, but I did find the next day that I had a fine mask of glitter all over my body including my face which was a bit annoying, and still have some on my hands today even though I have bathed and scrubbed since then.

All in all i’d give it 9/10 – If you want perfect pins on the quick then this is the answer for you – just don’t spray too much as you’ll end up looking like you’re made out of plastic – Essex Barbie is not a good look no matter what anyone says.

Rotten Apple

So to gain a bit of inspiration today I asked my Tweeters what they would like to see me blog about.  If you follow me on Twitter you would have probably witnessed the near on melt down I had last night trying to download IOS 5, so this was the most popular choice.  Therefore, I have decided to give the people what they want:

Downloading IOS 5

Much like the adverts for how quickly you can do things on an iPhone, this sequence has been dramatically shortened, but basically I got in from work, bounded up the stairs like an excited puppy and plugged my iPhone into my laptop.  It conntected, told me I had an update and said that this could take around an hour so not to lose patience and disconnect.  I wasn't going to argue with my laptop and I had to eat my dinner anyway, so left my iPhone upstairs to do it's thing.  This was at 6.30pm.  Fast forward a lovely dinner (roast chicken if you must know) and 2 and a half hours of aggrevated tweeting/moaning, it's 9pm and the software has just downloaded to my laptop, ALL the while telling me it had 58 minutes remaining.  LIES.

The whole process stopped after the software had downloaded, so I had to click on my iPhone in iTunes and click 'check for updates' for it to register that the software had been downloaded.  I clicked ok when it asked if I wanted to update my phone.  I had the agonising wait for my phone to be backed up, and then another annoyance of waiting for it to 'extract software', then disaster.  A MOTHER F*****G ERROR MESSAGE saying some sort of twattery about how my iPhone could not be restored from back up.  I instantly went into a total tweeting melt down, cursing Apple and blaming them for wiping and ruining my phone and my entire life.  5 minutes later I bothered to check and see that it hadn't actually wiped my phone, but it hadn't updated it either.  Calm with a light sprinkling of annoyance was restored.  By this time it was 9.30, and I had been doing this for 3 hours  - I decided to keep trying as everyone was advising that this error was just because the server was overloaded with people attempting to download the software.  Cue me, two hours later STILL TRYING TO DOWNLOAD IT - iAnnoyed was an understatement.  In the end it started itself (?!) at midnight and then worked, but it still took 40 minutes.

IOS 5 Software Opinion

Once the update had worked, I was slightly underwhelmed.  I'm not sure if it was becuase it took so bloody long to download it, or if it's just because it's really not that impressive, but I almost wished i'd just gone to bed and left it updating.  There are the same new features that I listed before, but all of them have aspects that mean I am not as impressed with them as I thought I would be.. Here is my DL on the new features.

iMessenger - 5/10

I was annoyed about this as this is the 1 feature I was looking forward to most and it's really not that good.  The one thing I really like about BBM is that people don't need your mobile number to have it, it's a totally seperate pin.  I don't know about you, but for me i'd rather dish out a pin to a random person than my actual mobile number?  I assumed iMessenger would cotton onto this and thought it would be similar to BBM, but it's not.  It's basically just whatsapp integrated into the normal messages app - After the update I didn't even think I HAD iMessenger, it's that unnoticeable.  Basically when you go into messages, if you are sending a message to someone that has an iPhone AND has updated to IOS 5 the text you send now has a blue background instead of green, and in the body of the message before you write anything it says 'iMessage' - and that's it.  If the person you are texting doesn't have an iPhone or IOS 5 then the message you send is just green like it normally is.  ALSO, if the person you're sending a message to has an iPhone AND IOS 5, but at that current moment in time is not connected to 3G, it'll just be sent as a normal text message.  I get the idea, and it's all very nice being able to send any media to another iPhone user for free, but for me it's pretty pointless.  I get unlimited texts with my bundle anyway, and have been using whatsapp for months to send pictures.  That's it.  I didn't need a big song and dance about something being put on my phone that I already had anyway KTHANKSBYE.

Twitter Integration - 2/10

I was excited about this purely becuase you know how much I like a good tweet and the Apple website promised this update would make tweeting easier from your phone.  1, it's not hard anyway and 2, I am really annoyed with the Twitter app.  I use Echofon Pro for my Twitter account, and Echofon free for the Rejam Twitter account, because I realised long ago that I hated the standard free Twitter app.  The only way this feature applies to you is if you use the boring crap annoying free Twitter app, therefore it doesn't apply to me.  End.

Videos - 5/10

I can't really have an opinion on this, as I don't have any videos on my phone, and probably won't bother to download any from iTunes.  Nice idea though, I suppose.

Reminders - 5/10

Again, I can't really comment too much on this, as THE UPDATE MEANS MY REMINDERS APP DOESN'T WORK!  I was quite looking forward to this feature, especially as the phone can actually work out where you are and remind you of certain things when you are in certain places.  For example, I am going to Westfield tonight and when I am there I want to get some fake eyelashes.  IF the MOTHER F****R worked properly I would be able to set a reminder so the phone would recognise when I walked in the doors of Westfield and then reminded me to go and get the eyelashes - awesome eh?  Yeah, it sounds it!  Not sure what happened with my update but when I click on the Reminders app it opens and I can see the blank list of where all my lovely little reminders should be, but there is no option for me to add a reminder.  Helpful that...

Newstand - 1/10

Ok idea, but completely irrelevant for me.  If I want to read a magazine i'll buy one as I find reading long things really annoying on my phone.  It gets such a low mark because although it's a totally harmless, relatively good idea, I would never use it and you can't delete it from your home screen.  I would have though iBooks would have been a better permanent app over Newsstand?  Random.

iCloud - ?

Haven't used it, it's on but I have no idea what it is, even though I have been googling it all morning and reading what it is.  From what I can work out it backs up my phone wirelessly?  Whatever.

Camera button on lock screen

I didn't think I had this either as it doesn't show up all the time.  To get yours to show up you need to lock the phone and then double click the home button twice to get it to appear.  Why is it not just there all the time?  Also, once it opens the Apple website tells you to take a picture by clicking the volume button on the side. - why?  Once the camera is open you can use it like you always do, so why do it any differently?

Notifications - 10/10

I LOVE THE NEW NOTIFICATIONS.  It is so slick and classy, I love how it looks.  Basically now you can select all the annoying apps that bring that big ugly blue box up, and you can make the notifications come up as pretty little banners instead.  On the home screen there is a hidden notification centre (you literally put your finger on the small line at the top that shows your reception, time and battery life and drag your finger down, pulling the notification centre down like a little helpful amazing blind of awesomeness) and everything is there.  At the top it shows you the weather and temperature for where you are at this point in time, and then all the notifications you have received.  Everything, from Twitter, Facebook, text messages, missed calls, game notifications, calendar events and reminders.  I LOVE IT, it's so helpful and I think it just makes it look a lot better.  I also love that it's pretty much hidden and it's not another ugly app filling up my home screen.  <3

All in all I think for a general FREE update this is good but it's just such a faff to try and get it onto your phone, and as I have proven even when you manage to stay up all night and do it it still doesn't work properly.  I'll still be buying the 4S when my contract runs out in April because I can't wait to have a ELECTRONIC SLAVE in the form of Siri, but that's the only thing that really excites me about this update and the new phone.  I am a bit disappointed that the 4S doesn't even look much different to the 4 but oh well.

P.S I can't help but think it's weird that Steve Jobs dies and then Blackberry goes MENTAL and iPhones updates fail epically.  I think this might be the beginning of the end of the world.

Snapple

I do NOT know what to do.

My workplace are currently offering Apple products at a discounted rate.  Basically, they split the cost over 2 years and you pay monthly, but it's also tax and national insurance free - I have no idea how, or even why, but I can have a iPad 2 for £17 a month.  Why are they doing this to me?  It's easily obtainable for me to do that, but then the annoying disapproving mum in my head keeps saying "but what would happen if you get sacked - how would you pay for it?".  I am totally bored of being responsible, I wish I could just buy it and deal with it.

Anywho, Apple are enticing me greatly this week.  Not only is the iPad 2 being dangled in front of my face like a big white shiny fun carrot, the iPhone 4S will make it's debut on Friday.  There are a few people in my office who have pre-ordered them already, but unfortunately my upgrade isn't available until April.  I think i'll wait for them to iron out the kinks anyway, undoubtedly there will be some!  The best thing about this new phone is the Siri application.  Some random bird that sits IN YOUR PHONE and waits for you to order her about, telling her to write text messages for you, and call people on your behalf and just basically do EVERYTHING!!!  Ok, it's not a person that sits in your phone, but it's exciting to say the least.  I know I am going to end up being really lazy and laying on my bed trying to get my phone to make me a bacon sandwich or something.  This development leads me to think that in the future this could actually happen though.  This might be the beginning of i-Robot coming true?!  *gasp face*

Anyway, scary robot thoughts over, the thing I am most excited about this week is the iOS 5 update for iPhones.  This is basically the next best thing to getting a new phone - I love it when a substantial update comes out and I get to play around with lots of new little features and aspects that I don't need, and easily lived without before but now they are OH SO IMPORTANT AND FUN.  The best aspects of the iOS 5 update are here:

read me! mew

Reminders?  Notification Centre?  iMessage?  Twitter Integration?  *wets self*

It seems they have developed a whole range of new features that don't exactly make your life BETTER, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to sit in your kitchen and stuff your face full of chocolate and play The Sims while someone is inconvieniently trying to have a text conversation with you.  I am going to run home and update as it's out TODAY!  *party poppers*

That'll be me and my friends later - just not Chinese*

*There is nothing wrong with being Chinese, I just cannot BE it unfortunately... maybe in the future though *goes back to thinking about Robots taking over the world*

Once again, I am NOT a stalker...

One of my work friends sent this to me this morning, and I just had to put it up here:

I LOVE THIS.  My friends take the piss out of me for my avid Twitter conversations with Rick Edwards, the super tall, super fit, super friendy ex T4 presenter.  I met him the other week, (see here) and it just made me love him a tiny bit more than I did already (far too much).  I wish this was a relationship option on Facebook.

Now all I need is for Dave Grohl to join Twitter and I honestly believe I will be in jail within a year.