Moved!

Check out http://whatcharliewore.blogspot.com for more blog posts, as I have combined the 2 blogs. :D

The Insane Discounts at Snapfish...

A photobook for under £25!? Impossible!

Nope, I definitely read the total right, I managed to get a 15.5 x 11.5 photobook today of 20 pages for just... £16.89! (Which includes postage, and normally that's where they catch you out.) Normally these photobooks are £43!

I managed to grab this amazing bargain from Snapfish, which is a company owned by Hewlett Packard. Located at www.snapfish.co.uk, the website is easy and fun to use, although making the photobook was some what time consuming.. which isn't too much of a problem for me as I'm trying to pass the time as I anxiously wait for Charlie to arrive.. but I can imagine it would be some what frustrating for a mum on a busy schedule. Regardless, it was so much fun to play around with the themes and embellishments and make something truly beautiful to keep forever. I feel like I have been scrapbooking all afternoon but without the mess!

I made one with our maternity photographs, why not have a look?

It's really easy too! I find with most websites like this, it's hard to get the book to look how you want because the website is too complicated or slow, but not here. You start off by uploading the photos you want in the book into an album, simply select them from your hard drive and wait for them to upload to the website. Alternatively you can choose photos from your Facebook or Flickr account. Watch out though, when you upload photos to Facebook, it reduces the resolution so these photos may be blurred or pixelated when it goes to print. It does warn you if this is going to happen before you go to checkout, which is a relief!

Next up you choose your size, now I chose the biggest size because it was 70% off, but you can choose smaller cheaper ones if you wish.

Next, you choose a theme, which is like the 'backgrounds' or 'papers' if you're into paper scrapbooking. There are so many to choose from, I was a bit overwhelmed! Watch out though, some are chargeable  especially the 'Hallmark' ones, I'm guessing due to the copyright of Forever Friends etc, yet to be fair £10 is probably what you would spend on a set of Forever Friends papers in a scrapbooking store. 

Time to personalise! Now you can either autofill the book so Snapfish chooses where the photos go and you can make the book quickly or you can do each page one by one. I'm very creative and crafty so I had fun doing each page one by one adding embellishments and borders to the photos. Some photos look better filling the whole page, yet if you have some of the same looking photos it might be nicer to have a collage on the page. Have fun and be creative! 

When you're done just check out and make the payment! Don't forget to put in the promo code if you have one, right at the end. The codes I used can be found here but hurry, they're only valid until July 14th.

Finally! You have something to do with the 10,000 photos of the kids.. and they make great gifts too! I can't wait 'til mine gets here!

Tech Mum Rating: 8/10!

The Oh-So-Useful Apple TV

Back when I was working in retail, a lot of people would ask me:

"What's the point in the Apple TV?"

It looks like a useless black box that would sit under your TV gathering dust that you might use occasionally for those 'I'm gonna show off my technology' moments when your friends are over...and yes, even though I'm a complete Apple fan girl, even I thought 'We're not gonna use this much' when my partner was raving about them last year.. but I couldn't have been more wrong.

The Apple TV is a wireless streaming device that plugs into your TV via HDMI cable, which means 1080p, yay! It's just the little box and the remote inside so you'll need to get your hands on a HDMI cable, if you haven't already. 

If you have any Apple product, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Mac, you can mirror everything you do on the device onto your TV, so if you're watching a film or flicking through photos, you can project them onto your widescreen. It doesn't take effort to set up either, just make sure your Apple TV is on the same Wifi network as your iOS device, then double tap the home button, swipe left, click the TV icon with the arrow in it and swipe across to turn mirroring 'on'. And viola! Everything you do on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is now on your TV. Just make sure you don't mind everyone watching TV read your text messages...

Also, as with most Apple products, the Apple TV has apps. These vary from country to country and of course the USA have a better selection than us, including Hulu and a wider range on Netflix. In the UK we have YouTube, Netflix, Flickr and Vimeo.. so even if the Apple TV is the only Apple product you have, you can still enjoy streaming TV Shows, music and films straight through your TV.

Even if you have PC, you can stream your iTunes library to your TV so all those 'legally' downloaded films can be watched in the comfort of your living room on the big screen! No films or TV shows? No problem! You can even rent them from the iTunes store all from the Apple TV, but unfortunately at a price.. it would probably be cheaper to sign up to Netflix or LoveFilm.

The downside is.. you need a badass internet connection. We have a lousy one right now so watching Ugly Betty on maternity leave has become a bit of a chore since it wants to buffer every 5 minutes. I can imagine when Charlie is here he would become impatient if Go Diego Go's mouth didn't move with the sound, so I think a better internet connection in the new house is a must!

Also, the remote is really small and slim which is a great design BUT we have lost ours, and it's £15 for an official replacement. HOWEVER! You can download the remote app for iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and use that instead, genius!

Apart from that, an amazing piece of kit, and a very un-Apple like price of £99! Trust me, you will use it more than you realise, especially when keeping the kids quiet.. or better yet, your partner! 

Tech mum rating: 9/10!

iBaby Monitor

Why an EARTH would you spend £169.95 on a baby monitor?
Well...

After months and months of paying off little bits we finally managed to pay off our Mothercare baby plan at 36 weeks pregnant. Buying the baby monitor was one of the hardest choices we had to make because we're such tech-y people we wanted the best. Looking at review after review we decided that one that comes with a little monitor wouldn't be a good idea, we would only lose it around the house.. (we lose remote controls now as it is, never mind with a child around!)

An example of one with a monitor...

We are such an Apple family, with an Apple TV, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, a Macbook and a Mac mini along with a few other old generation iPod's and iPhones, it would be stupid not to get the one that Apple sold and raved about, the iBaby monitor by iHealth. 

We were a little weary at first, because it was a lot of money and the reviews said things such as; 
"It says it will alert you when your baby moves or cries, and it does, sometimes." and " It only seems to work on some wi-fi networks, which is hopeless and you can't view it on 3G like it advertises." However, the good reviews kinda counter balanced it all, so we decided to bite the bullet and give it a go.

Even though baby Charlie wasn't here yet, we couldn't resist but to give it a go! Esteban set it up with ease, you have to know what you're doing with IP addresses and such though and set up an account. I don't think the people on the review's did this properly, hence their problems with 3G access etc. 

I signed into the account he created and it worked like a dream. The app was free to download from the app store and asked you to sign in and viola, the image was there, in colour. You have the choice of 'HD' as well, which is very nice and clear. There's a screenshot mode too, so you can take pictures and capture that cute moment without hunting for the camera!

Other features include physically moving the camera by swiping your finger across the screen. This works really well although it's quite creepy when you're in the room and the camera suddenly moves! Also it has sound and motion alert which is very handy. If the baby moves or cries (and you can adjust the sensitivity) a notification will come up on your iOS device screen and a sound will play, alerting you that the baby needs you. The picture quality is really clear and it doesn't seem to lag too much like an old school webcam would, also it comes with a wall bracket, which could be helpful in some nursery environments. 

The only thing we were expecting that we were a little bit disappointed with is the fact it doesn't have 2 way audio. We can hear the baby from our iOS devices but the baby can't hear us. We thought it would use the microphone from our iOS devices so we could comfort the baby while we made our way to his nursery, but no, there doesn't seem to be this function, or we haven't found it yet. 

Due to some crafty price matching, we managed to get the camera down to £120. Don't be put off by the price tag though, it is truly worth every penny. The technology is outstanding and the quality exceeds my expectations! We have yet to try the night mode or the 3G mode while Esteban is at work yet, but I will do an update once we have tried it...

So far? A tech mum rating of...8/10!

EDIT: We found out that you need to connect a speaker in order for the two way sound to work. It works like a dream! :)