Christmas will be upon us shortly so I thought I would share some Christmasy photos to get us in the mood.

iTunes Match has been available in the U.S. for a few months now, but it just went live in the U.K. and about 14 other countries (If you don’t know what it is just google it). For £22 you get your music backup for a year and can upgrade all those CD’s you imported when the standard iTunes import was the 128kb to the better quality 256kb of iTunes plus.

When I subscribed I was expecting for it to match half of my iTunes library; however I have been mightily impressed with it not matching just under 30 songs out of 3000. Interesting enough it matched most of the songs from an album but not 2 from the same album, peculiar? And then it found another 3 songs that had too lower Bit Rate for it to match.

Thanks to the wonders of having unlimited broadband I promptly downloaded almost 2000 songs to improve the quality. It is a great service at a nice price, but I am not sure if it is one I would re-subscribe to; simple because the biggest benefit to me is one off upgrading of my music. My iPhone is large enough to hold all my music so the idea of not having to worry if something is on my iPod is not their. As a backup solution I have too many photos to not backup my computer over the internet anyway.

My whole trip to Uganda was an amazing one, not only because I met some truly great people; but also because for the last three years I have been fundraising at the core of the scheme without ever having been there. The chance to go and meet the people was one I had to seize. The photo below sums up for me what that link is. The photo is a little cliché, but if cliché’s weren’t good we would never use them.

We were all sat on a couple of benches around a tree in the school grounds and two of the girls were holding hands after having met for a just a few minutes. In the truest sense of the phrase it really was a “hand of friendship”. The whole environment felt so natural and hopefully that comes through in the photo.

It is a simple B&W conversion in Aperture, I played around with a couple combination so I could keep the detail in the white hands yet bring the darker hand out from the black background. I actually found that B&W conversions were by far the most effective way to evoke the most emotion out of some of my shots. Having said that I also found the vintage filter in Aperture a great starting point to accentuate the richness of Uganda and its people.

One thing I have found on trips with groups of people is it offers the most spectacular opportunities to take portraits of people and your often able to catch them unawares as their attention is else where.

I have so many photos I would love to share, but here are just some of my favourites and a video that I made for the project to sum up the trip in a few minutes.

I have done this for the past few years and it has always proved to be very popular, I think mostly due to the insufferable pain anyone buying for a geek goes through. In end having to submit a list in advance so people can choose what to get me as it makes life simpler. Here are some ideas that people might enjoy this year.

Harry Potter or any other triple play BluRays – This is a great option for a geek that wants their content anywhere. Not only do you get a movie but with the triple play you get it in BluRay, DVD and download format.

The Magic Charger – A neat solution using inductive charging. Inductive charging isn’t really widely available yet, but its implementation here would save every having to think about batteries.

The Magic Bar – Another inductive charging solution for those wire free geeks, this time for your keyboard.

The Magic Wand – This one is an idea for those who have a computer in the kitchen or attached to the TV. It joins your Keyboard and magic trackpad together. It is perfect if your the kind of person that finds yourself not sat at your desk using a computer.

PlugBug – We have seen those wall plugs with USB ports in for charging but most of us aren’t going to go around and change the plugs in our house just to have a USB port. This adapter from Twelve South fits onto your MacBook /Air/Pro charger and allows you to charge any usb device as well. The rest of their products are well worth a look.

Lowkey Stand – These guys offer some great desk solutions for laptop and desktops that are worth a look.

I ? Math – What nerd would be complete without a nerdy T-Shirt? This one really is nerdy, but just search the internet and you will find thousand with witty remarks.

Canvas Print – Hello Canvas offer a great quality product and they are super cheap. Speaking from experience I have 4 of their prints and love the quality of every one.

aJays Four – Another favourite product of mine, you have no idea how hard it is to find reasonably price good quality headphones with inline controls that work with your iPhone. These work seamlessly with my iPhone and look great. They don’t offer the same comfort as full in ears, but they also sell a more expensive in ear version.

Holga iPhone Case – A little geeky camera case for your iPhone great for anyone who uses Instagram or similar apps.

Past suggestions:

2009

2008

Yet another shot taken during the summer, this time from my trip to Vietnam and Ha Long Bay. I almost didn’t make it to Vietnam due to visa issues. Trusting as I am, I left the organising to my step mum. Unbeknown to me and her we needed visas to fly Vietnam and we missed our flight, however we where able to get a flight a day later with visa’s in toe. This lateness in turn meant we were meant to miss our two day boat trip to Ha Long Bay. Thankfully the company that run the boat trips were kind enough to move us onto a boat a day later.

Ha Long Bay is not an ordinary bay, It is full of steeply sided island and spotted with floating fishing villages. Our first stop on the boat trip was to one of these fishing villages. After arriving at the village we were offered to take a ride around on some of the local propulsion and so this photo came about

On the walls of the boat we were staying on were sepia prints of old photographs of Ha Long Bay. I couldn’t decided if I really like the look of the scenery in sepia, but what I did like was the shades of brown the water went; giving it a viscous consistency. I noted this for when I came home hoping to have a go at replicating some of the styles I saw in the prints. This is my attempt, it is a basic sepia filter and some playing around with highlights, shadows and contrast too get a good balance.