Tails’ Blography

My Christmas gift from my fiance this year was two GelaSkins, one for my HTC Desire Z and one for my Kindle 3 (now known as Kindle Keyboard since the new Kindles came out).

Happily I logged on to GelaSkins.com and browsed the many, many skin options available by so many talented artists. I eventually decided that, for my Kindle, I needed a darker colour one, as the light colours just didnt quite match with the grey background of the original Kindle cover.
And of course, I love nature and photography, so who better to go with as an Artist but National Geographic! Right, so I’d narrowed down the choice (the fiance had grown board by this point so it was just me now haha) of artist, now I just needed to pick a design.

It was a tough choice between the Baobab Silhouette and The Orion Nebula…the colours of the Baobab just pulled and tugged at me, and made me imagine sitting somewhere under the beautiful African sky reading my Kindle as dusk fell all around me (until the light became too dim to read haha). But the contrast of the bright pink colour around the keyboard bugged me. So I looked to the Orion Nebula. Immediately my mind was drawn to Pern, one of my favourite series of novels as I’ve mentioned before. Plus, if I look up into the night sky outside my house, I can see Orion and his Belt on many an oft occasion.

And the contrast by the keyboard wasnt too noticable and it didnt bug me. Done and done.

We ordered it on the 28th, and sadly had to pick “snailmail” for $3.95. I just couldnt justify spending $19.95 on P&P when the Kindle skin itself was $17.95 lol. But, I sat back to wait, and on on Jan 2 I got an email to say my order had been shipped, and on the 20th it arrived! (However, Murphy and his Law entourage decided to show his face and the Post Office was closed so I couldnt collect it til today).

So as soon as I got home, I whipped it open and ooh’d and ahh’d at the pretty colours (and the most beautiful Gizmo who I made custom for my cellphone from my own photo of course!). Of course I had to take before (, during) and after photos of the skin before applying it to my Kindle, so I present to you the transformation of my Amazon Kindle 3 to my Amazon “Orion Nebula” Kindle 3:

Before, front

GelaSkin!

Skinned!

Close up

Back

I didnt upload a photo of it, but the texture of the gelaskin is a crosshatch pattern which makes it seem more sturdy and stretch resistant while applying, and you can reapply it a few times before it loses its stickiness and becomes unusable.

All in all, I’m very happy with my Kindle’s new makeover, and for anyone wondering if its worth it to spend the dough, I highly recommend GelaSkins

This week has been a week for gadgets! Almost surreal, really.

First up: I got myself a Kindle 3!! Yes, latest generation, wifi and free 3G! Wow do I love this little gadget! It arrived last week in its innovative Amazon Frustration Free Packaging, packed neatly inside the box made from recycled materials. Grinning like a loon, I pulled the slider to turn it on and watched as the trademark Kindle Tree of Life greeted me on startup. The text on the screen almost looked fake, but the E-Ink display is awesome! I would recommend this device to any reader!

It’s pretty easy to navigate, basically if you know how to use a computer, you’ll know how to use a Kindle. I wasnt too impressed with viewing FB via the Kindle, but lets be honest, thats not what its there to do. I quickly loaded a txt file I had found years ago of (the softcover book I was currently reading) The White Dragon, by Anne McCaffrey. It viewed really nicely on the device and even Text-to-Speech worked really well (ctrl+sym shortcut)!

Battery life is around a month without wireless on, so I do turn it off when its not needed. I did download a sample of a book, which gives you the first chapter for free. I’m actually reluctant to read it now that I downloaded it incase its halfway decent and then I will have to buy it! Lol!

But I do have a few books I’ve collected in pdf format over the years, so now every day at work in my tea breaks and lunch break, I sit with my Kindle and read. It’s bliss and I cant wait until I go away on holiday and am able to sit in the sun and read…after all, that is a benefit of a Kindle

The Kindle 3!

This innovation truly is frustration free!

My first look at my new Kindle

A close up shot

Second up, my boss bought a R.A.T 7 gaming mouse a while back from Taiwan, and he used it for a bit and wasnt too fond of it (he likes his hyperscroll), so he gave it to my fiancé, who also tried it but didnt really like it (he prefers his Razer DeathAdder) so now its been handed to me and I love it! I do like my Razer Lachesis, but the R.A.T is a very comfortable mouse for people with smaller hands (if you have giant hands, give this one a miss, even with the modding options available)

And thirdly, the fiancé and I went to MTN the other day and upgraded our contracts, so now we’re both using the HTC Desire Z…I felt with the amount I type in FB and on mxit, I needed something with an actual keyboard, so this was pretty much the only choice (the only other viable choice was the Nokia E7, though it wasnt Android). And hell yea its been great!

Warning: However! I wouldnt recommend this phone (or possible anything similar) to anyone without a wireless internet connection at home/work which they can connect to. This little device guzzles bandwidth (so much so I’ve turned my Mobile Access off so it wont download anything and use up all my money!

A random pic (not my own) of an HTC Desire Z

The battery has been taxed a little, already so early on in its life haha, as I’ve been downloading apps from the Android Market and live wallpapers like its going out of fashion. I’ve fallen in love with Angry Birds, watsapp (GREAT chat program!), and even Bakery Story (silly baking game similar to Cafe World or Restuarant City in FB), and many, many live wallpapers (possibly my favourite feature of an Android phone haha!).

Just today I was wondering the name of a song which that I had in my head, and I knew it was a song played in my cousin’s wedding video on his FB page, so I tested out an app called SoundHound and within seconds it had identified the song (I’m Yours, by Jason Mraz). The fiancé and I even tested it against a not-so-well-known artist Kate Voegele (from One Tree Hill) and after a few seconds it identified her, no problem! So a big thumbs up to SoundHound!

Oh, my sister also upgraded to the same phone, on the same day, so we’re all in New Gadget Heaven haha!

PS: Poll updated! Go vote!