Glasgow Photowalk

A few Sundays ago I headed to Glasgow not for my usual Sunday cinema trip but for a photowalk and workshop with a bunch of strangers. Standard. This was arranged by Ashley over at Girl With A Camera and since I couldn't go to the first one, I sure didn't want to miss this second one. Armed with nothing more than my iPhone 4S I made my way there.

I was late. Only by a few minutes and only because the queue for the car park was looooong, then i had to catch the underground. But I did make it and they hadn't started yet. Phew. When I arrived there was a room of people sitting in dim light on various shapes of seating, kinda like a house party! I took a seat and waited a few minutes. Then it began...

Ashley welcomed everyone and introduced today's guest, Dan Rubin. Someone I actually have followed in Instagram for a while. Great photos there. He gave a little talk about what we'd be doing, then about some of his favourite photographers, then techy stuff about cameras. Myself and one other person were the only ones using smart phones - iPhones to be exact. Yikes. Everyone else seemed to have huge all singing all dancing camera equipment with them. It was all very interesting though since I am in the middle of deciding which camera to buy and what use i would get out of it. (As is the norm for me, I'll have to go through my 6 month uhming and ahing research and gestation period before i nail the final one down. By which time a new model will be in the pipeline!). Anyway, I felt a little bad for just having my iPhone but then Dan said it doesn't matter what equipment you have, it's what you see that's the main thing - or something along those lines. He put a list of apps that were useful for phones and luckily I had almost all of them on my phone already.

After about an hour of slides and tech talk and pointers about what to talk pictures of we set out on our walk. It wasn't raining but it was dull and grey. No harsh sunlight though which was apparently good. We wandered out into the lane and everyone set about taking their pictures. It was good to see how other people worked and what they wanted to take pictures of. Some were portraits, others were buildings. Me? Well I like looking up. Buildings, skies, clouds, architecture. Portraits are quite hard on an iPhone unless you are able to use your elbows to get to the front. My elbows seemed to be out of action that day...

However, in the lane next to the workshop venue there was an old bike, a worn old crumbling painted door and a great wall. I took one of my best pictures there. What do you think?

I shot this on the VSCOcam app, then edited it later on at the workshop after a few hints and tips from Dan. It's my best picture form the day, or one of them at least. When I uploaded it to the Glasgow Photowalk Flickr group then opened it on my laptop, I loved t even more. The quality is pretty decent for a 3 year old iPhone 4S camera.

We walked around Ashton Lane, the headed to the University of Glasgow and back around in a loop to the workshop venue. I was glad as it was getting pretty cold and my hands were numb from taking pics on my phone. My battery was almost at zero too! Damn you iPhone and your rubbish battery.

Back at the venue we got sandwiches and tea and then were told to each pick about 3 photos to edit. I had a hard job deciding. In the end I opted for the bike shot above and the two below.

Not a bad days work and a great way to spend an early spring Sunday.

Hopefully I can make it along to the next one. And you can too! check out the website.

Angela x

Embedding Instagrams

Testing testing.
Testing out the Instagram embed feature. Hope the photos are of decent quality and size...
you decide...






Edit: I've just done a preview and the pictures look pretty nice (except for the user name at the top, but i'll forgive that).

Angela x

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No Words Wednesday

my new chair...perhaps

Angela x

Photo by me taken with my iPhone 4S. Edited using Pixlr Express app

No Words Wednesday

Rainy days and sunsets...

Angela x

Photo by me using iPhone 4S and Camera+ app

May Photo A Day Challenge

Tomorrow's the start of the May photo a day challenge. What with it being May 1st and all!
I am seriously loving this project and can't thank @FatMumSlim enough for the monthly lists.

You can get further information about the list and the al important hashtag over at her blog here.
And now for the list!

Angela

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Face-Stagram

Yes, that's right, according to rumours will be the new hip place where all the cool kids hang out on t'internet - Face-Stagram! Okay, okay so I lied but it's just over a week now since the announcement about Facebook buying Instagram was made and I'm glad the dust has settled.

my home screen: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Camera+ All the my fave apps

It was inevitable that someone was going to buy Instagram. We live in a more visual world than ever before and images are everywhere. Instagram made it easier to share lovely pictures with people across the globe. Adding one of their filters means that even the most kak-handed of us (not me btw!) can post decent enough looking pictures. Our brains process pictures in a different way than words. A famous example is the TV debates between Nixon and Kennedy. Radio debates showed Nixon in the lead, but when they hit TV Kennedy was an outright leader in the polls. He was a master at the little facial expressions, and I think he even wore make up! So you see people judge on site first and foremost and so pictures are real popular.

I've been an avid Instagram user since the week it went public back in October 2010. At the time I only followed a few people I knew on there but slowly over the 2 short years I've built up quite a good little visual playground for myself in the form of my Instagram feed. It's sitting at 205 just now, deliberately much less than Twitter. For you see I don't want to be bombarded with every Tom, Dick or Jason's silly pictures. I've collated a number of cool people and brands from a range of backgrounds and locations across the globe. Aside from Twitter, it's the first place i check each morning when I wake. I like to see what's gone on around the world via the varying images from numerous time-zones. I like to see the photos that have been captured lovingly or on the hoof. Maybe it's my natural nosiness inside.

Anyway, back to the deal. A Billion Dollars. $1Billion. Let's not think about that too much. After all it's not a truck full of cash delivered to the Instagram team is it. There'll be shares and the like. Maybe? But why did Mark Zuckerberg, seemingly on a whim, buy Instagram for that much money? Probably not data, let's Face it they have pretty much cornered the market with that one. Mobile Photography is more like it. Rumour has it (not sure where I got that from) that the deal was done in two days! Zuck to Kev: I wanna buy Instagram, how much will it cost? Kev to Zuck: Errrrr...(leans back in chair and plucks a number out of thin air) A billion?.... (laughs like a child who's just swore for the first time) Zuck to Kev: Okay then! Where do we sign?. Kev: (falls off chair, rolls over, does the dance - you know the one, scrambles back onto the chair, clears his throat) Deal!
And so the deal was done. I'd like to think that's how it went down. In my mind it happened like that. *winky eye face*

Everyone's gone mobile #SadDigitalCamera  ~ Taken on Instagram

So, why did he buy? Mobile! Mobile photography. Mobile. Much has been said about the rubbishness of the Facebook mobile apps and that the photo interface has, until recently, been pretty bland. But now, look what they have. Potential new Facebookers? (we'll come back to this later). I don't know about you but i certainly do hit share to Facebook on some Instagram photos. It even puts them into an Instagram album automagically. I mostly use this method because they're fab pictures of my nephews and my family only follow me on Facebook, especially ones who stay far away. So I like to share those moments I've captured on Facebook too. But it's easy now to with a smart phone and a decent app, enter Instagram.

Some people got a bit hysterical when the deal was announced. "I'm leaving Instagram" was the cry. Well I'm not. Some people were posting links to new photo apps, but the beauty of Instagram for me is the simplicity, the ease of use, the fact that you can follow people and they can follow you, you can share to most social networks (well that ones that everyone's uses lets face it), the filters are pretty (who remembers the astro filter?!) and it was the original. And I like that. It's not always about the next new thing, it's about the original.

One thing I didn't like was a i read a tweet from someone who claimed that 'creatives' like them would all leave and a certain faction would be left. Hmmm... Just because I don't work in the creative industry does not mean i am not creative. It was a silly tweet from someone who has posted no more than twenty photos, if you're lucky! Grrr. Sometimes the downright snobbery in social networks gets right on my nerves. There's a lot of it around.(another post maybe).

mobile photography

I'll end by saying Congrats to the small but perfectly formed Instagram team! I hope that the statements from both Instagram and Facebook are upheld and they don't tinker about with it too much. Perhaps a few extra filters? Perhaps a better Facebook mobile service? who knows. But just like Darcy told Jones in the movie... I like it just the way it is.

ooh! Before I go perhaps you might want to have a watch of this video I found about 6 weeks ago. It's Kevin Rose interviewing Kevin Systrom (co-founder of Instagram). Interesting, inspiring and well worth a watch. Love his thinking behind Instagram - hits thoughts about the early days, focusing on photos only, with XProII being the first filter. Turns out that was a great move!

Angela x

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PhotoWeek 1

It's a bit bare around here these days. No photos. Lots of words kinda bare. So I thought what I'd do is do a post once a week with photos from my week. Now, you all know that I love taking pictures. Mostly on the iPhone these days so...the photos that I'll put here will probably all be from my iPhone. I can't even tell you the last time I got my digital camera out. I must do that soon. Also, whilst we're here. I'll tell you that the pictures will be a mixture of my Instagram images, standard iPhone camera app images and images I've taken and edited using the Camera+ app (I love this app). I've been a busy bee yesterday and managed to figure an easy-ish way to get photos from my iPhone to the iPad without too much hassle or without waiting on my five year old laptop heating up. It's really very slow.

The images will be bunched together in little groups, again using apps on the iPad like Picframe or Diptic and I may further edit them using Snapseed or something like that. Just to shoosh them up a little.

Without further a do. Here' set number one. I hope you like them.




A cupcake, sticky toffee pudding, clouds, curry.



Lanolips new lip balm, matching nails and shoes, cinema toilets, new Zara bag.



The sunset sky as I came out of spin class on Wednesday. Top is blurry effect from raindrops on the lens, bottom is with a clear lens.



The sunset in my car mirror (I had stopped when I took this), cloudy sky, hills on a clear morning.

Let me know what you think!

Angela x

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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April photo a day challenge

It's that time again for another photo a day challenge from Chantelle over at Fat Mum Slim blog. I actually love this series and cannot wait to see the whole collection at the end of the year. I'm trying to keep them all on my flickr account but i mostly upload them via Instagram (@Ange77H is my username there).

Anyway, enough talk, here's the list. Join in. #PhotoadayApril is the tag.

Angela x

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Photo A Day Challenge: March 2012

I cannot thank Chantelle from Fatmumslim enough for highlighting the Photoaday challenge. What started off as just January has now made it's way into March and she says will last all year. I am so loving this project. In mid February over 250,000 photos had been uploaded using the tag. Fantastic.

Last year i did try to do my own photo a day challenge but i didn't have a list to begin with so i kind of lost my way. I love that it's there on a list that i can check every day and compose, take and post my photo. I love different people's interpretations of the daily topics. It's great to see things through different eyes.

I'm trying to keep my Flickr page updated with my daily photo and mostly posting the photos via Instagram too, which helps. Why not join in too! Here is the list for March. My birthday month and the month the clocks go...forward? backwards? i always forget.

Happy snapping.

Angela x

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Photo a day challenge: February 2012

I've thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the photo a day challenge that I found over at FatMumSlim's blog. It seems that lots of other people have too because there's now a February one! Yay. And she's going to be doing it every month. Can't wait to see my year in photos, all 366 of them.

Here is the February edition. Join us!

Also, if you want to see the results of my January photoset head over to my Flickr page to see them. Pretty neat.

Angela x

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iPhonography with Camera+

As you know I'm a huge fan of Instagram, the app for iPhone that lets you capture moments and upload them straight away and share across your social networks. In all truth I'm just a big fan of iPhonography itself and if you ever get near my iPhone you'll discover 3 folders (which contain 16 apps) filled with lots of different photo apps. There's cameras, Adobe express, framing apps and generally anything to do with enhancing and taking pictures using the iPhone. On my home page, nestling in the corner beside Twitter and Instagram you'll find Camera+, another amazing iPhone app. It cost me 69p about 2 years ago and for 69p you get a whole bunch of iPhonography lushness. The app is produced by Tap Tap Tap and was given an overhaul last year. Introducing new filters, a better zoom and focus and for me it's just so easy to use. I currently have 200 photos saved in the app itself in the Lightbox, so good they are I can't bear to get rid of them once saved to the laptop.

In the app there are different camera settings such as...
SCENES - including clarity (love this one), portrait, scenery, auto, flash, fluorescent and more.
ADJUST - to rotate and flip the picture
CROP - to crop
FX EFFECTS - this is where you'll find 3 different folders. Color. Retro. Special, and another called Analogue that you have to pay for. Inside each folder there are 9 different filters. They are all great in their own way. A few of my favourites are vibrant, tail fins and Lo Fi, fashion and so emo.
BORDERS - are just that white, black, thick, thin, viewfinder, grit and the list goes on. All nice borders.

The camera has a stabilizer and burst setting. Admittedly I've not used that one that much but I'm getting there.
Lastly you have the Lightbox where all the photos you take are stored. You then have the option to save to the iPhone camera roll. Of course there is the option to share your pictures to your social networks (Twitter and Facebook), SMS, email and Flickr account.

Over on Mostly Lisa's blog (Lisa Bettany, co-creator of Camera+) I read a great post before Christmas about how to make the most of the app when capturing Christmas memories. Read it here. These are a couple of pictures I think I managed to capture quite well.

cute Santa ornament and tree

a little bokeh effect on the tree lights

And here are a few of my favourite photos I've captured on Camera +

before

after adding filter

Christmas present ceramic cupcake

before: no filter

after: Fashion filter

One of my all time favourite pictures. The detail on the droplets is amazing. 

I love a cloudy sky picture

Again clouds, just before a summer rainstorm hit

And so if you really love iPhonography, my advice to you would be to go out and spend 69p on a fabulous app, Camera+. You won't regret it. You can see more of my photos on the Camera+ website HERE.

Angela x

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Top Picks from 2011

Since 2011 is over i thought i'd take a loot back and list a few things that i absolutely loved from then. Yes, it's another list and no, i'm not sure how long this list is going to be. And yes, it will be a bit picture heavy too.

So...
* iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S.
Literally could not live without my phone now. Not for the reason we usually have a phone (to call people) because no one EVER phones me on it. Although i did get a nice surprise phone call the other day from someone who was just about to jet off on holiday. That was particularly nice. No, i use it mostly for the internets. The usual Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Words with fricking Friends. Frankly i could not live without a phone. End of. My trusty 3GS saw me through two years without so much as a slight glitch. The quality of the 4S is more superior and aside from the stupid data usage scandal(!), i actually do LOVE it. That is no exaggeration. I can hear folk groaning at reading this but hey, we all have our things we love don't we.

* Instagram.
I know some folk have only just cottoned on to Instagram [you know the type. The social media luvvies who always seem to be 3 weeks behind on the latest thing! Would you trust anything you read from them?.. No, me neither]. Anyway, some folk have only just cottoned on to the fact that Instagram deserves it's title as App of the year on iTunes (probably the only reason they cottoned on to it). I was an early adopter having posted my first photo on 15th October 2010. And i know this because I got this cool little badge from Statigram (that i run alongside Instagram). It's full of cool stats about your Instagram stream.

What I love about Instagram is that you can see a shot, take the shot, enhance it with a filter if you want and upload the photo and share to the web all within a matter of a few minutes. Seconds even but i'll stick with minutes. The filters are basic and cool, there's enough for now. There's a great community feel. I follow Instagrammers from all over the world. I love seeing photos and lives from the perspectives of these people. It's grand. Take a look.


* blogs.
I've discovered loads of new blogs this year and i'm going to list them below. A list within a list. These have been keeping me entertained all year. Thank you Bloggers!
Vivianna Does Make Up - the clue is in the title. Fab young beauty blogger.
RocknRoll Bride - Kat does a fantastic blog about alternatives to the 'big white wedding' every girl is supposed to dream of. Frankly, id rather my wedding day be like one of those featured here. Fab Fab Fab.
The Daybook - lovely lovely Sidney shows us fashion a shares stories from her life with husband Tyson and new baby Ever. Such a lovely family.
Whatleydude - Whatleydude's happy place. Discovered this one back in April/May time, I think. Love the variety of posts. Some days there's the writings from his Moleskine's. Other days there's three lines of words. Always interesting and sometimes cryptic. But always a joy to read.
Pacing The Panic Room - ok, this is a cheat. I've followed this blog from Ryan Marshall for years. It's so incredibly fabulous i just can't describe it. It's honest and candid and the family are just the cutest. It's the ups and downs and he shares a lot of it right there on the page. He and Cole are also massive Instagrammers too. Hearts.
Miss Smidge - LOVE THIS BLOG. Honest, great writing. Fab recipes. Real stories from the life and times of the writer. Miss Smidge also loves shoes, which makes me happy.

* Elemis skin nourishing body lotion
does exactly what it says on the bottle. I have dry skin all over really, except my tummy, i have a really nice smooth flat tummy. But anyway this lotion sorts my dry patches out and smells lovely and clean. Like a new born baby. It's a bit on the pricey side but i'm on my second bottle from a set i got for Christmas last year and hopefully it'll last until my birthday when i might get another bottle?! someone?

* Converse trainers
Except they're not really training shoes are they. They're the comfiest guttie i've ever worn. My purple 2009 affairs were heading on their way out. The sides have started to split and the purple was feeling a little old so i decided it was time for another pair. A RED pair. I love them. Except i made the mistake of wearing them with new dark indigo and black jeans a few times and now they have that annoying faded mark on them from the colour rubbing. Grrr... Oh well, this means i can buy another pair when we're heading into spring / summer. There's bound to be a nice bright colour i can get.

* Cineworld cinema card
I've now had my card for exactly 1 year and it's been a godsend. I've seen more movies than i ever would have if i didn't have that card. Let's face it, the cinema isn't cheap so £15 a month isn't too bad. If you go to 3 movies per month you're already saving money. Oh and i only did popcorn once. Never again. it was like eating the most tasteless balls of rolled up cardboard, and that was the sweet flavoured one too. No, my munchies of choice were salt and vinegar crisps and a bag of sliced apple. Oh and a wee bottle of Irn Bru of course. Anyway, i'd recommend the card if you can afford it and like going to the cinema. Some favourite films were The Hangover Part II, Drive, Blue Valentine and 50/50. Not sure if i want to see The Iron Lady though....

* nail polish
I was never ever really into nail polish. You'd never catch me wearing scarlet red nails... until this year. In particular, the summer gone. I suddenly become more than just a pale Rimmel French ivory girl and ventured into yellow Mimosa from Chanel, bright pink strawberry margarita from OPI and even Rainbow collection glitter top coat too.

It's fun and certainly can brighten up your day when you've got nice nails. It depends what mood i'm in too. Some days i'm all about the nudes, others the reds and lately i've even headed towards the nearly blacks. Brave of me. But i'm not buying any more. I bought some more from a great eBay shop (US) which sells all the top brands (OPI, Essie, China Glaze) much cheaper and they were delivered within a week. They're at least 50% cheaper than here and that includes delivery. Pretty good but i have to stop. As you can see there's not many colours i don't have. Oops.

Anyway that's all for now i think folks. What were your top picks from 2011?

Angela x

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Photo a day challenge: January 2012

Yes. That's right. I'm going to do one of those photo challenges as mentioned in the title. Simply because I love taking pictures. I may not be a photographer with all the equipment but I have an iPhone and a digital camera and that'll do me nicely. We all know i post loads of photos everywhere.

The challenge is over on Fatmumslim blog. See all the details here. What I'll do is post my daily photo on Twitter, Instagram, with Camera+, on Google+ but I'm going to collate them in a set in my Flickr account. See the wee box on the right hand side of this blog. The hash tag to be used is #JANphotoaday so that everyone who's taking part can see. And now for the challenge.
Listed below.

photo credit: fatmumslim.com.au

Hit that link above to Fatmumslim blog and you'll see more details.

Hope you enjoy.

Angela x
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Five Things...

So I opened up twitter this morning and there was the usual mix of morning/breakfast/exercise/travel/weather tweets. If you can navigate your way through this river of greige, you can always find a few gems hidden. Like, there was also the much tweeted link to the little ditty played by Zoe Dechanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I decided to watch it and it was sweet and nice. I've followed both people here, well over on Twitter, for a while. They're quite good value.

In addition there was a post over here by @Whatleydude. Have a read. I decided that I'd try the five things list on this blog, after all, yesterday in my Mission 2012 post I did say that I'd like to get this blog going again, make it huge, and we all know I like a list! So here it is... Except it's not quite five things, it's from the past year so it'll be a little longer than five. Next week will be the five things list. Ok enough. Let's go...

•  Multicolour trousers - mostly from Topshop. Awesome. 
• Ryan starting school and getting on fine, what a relief. 
• Meeting Miss Laura Woods. An amazing person and friend. Also on that same trip south in February I met lots of Twitter people who really we're lovely. It can happen. 
• Getting fitter and losing weight. 
• Hello size 8 little black dress. Okay dresses. Plural. I bought two! 
• Three beaches in one day with Surfpunkian. Awesome awesome day. Thanks dude. 
• Finally meeting MisAKis. Fun, bubbly and lots of great stories about social media 'darlings'. Haha laughed so much. 
• My first Illegal Jack's. I'll be back. I did. A few times. 
• Loving painting my nails. With glitter! Me! Glitter! WOWSERS how times have changed. 
• Cycling 55 miles from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Fantastic feeling. 
• Giving blood for the first time. 
• Becoming unofficial aunty to baby Kai. Gorgeous. 
• Weekend cinema trips. A sanctuary. The cineworld card has been a godsend for me. 
• Favourite movies: Drive. Sherlock Holmes. 50/50. The Hangover part II (obviously). 
• Elemis skin nourishing body cream. Smells gorgeous and keeps my skin soft and err nourished. 
• Twitter. My love affair with it will never end. Not for the foreseeable future anyways. 
• Baking cupcakes. Several good attempts. 
• Seeing brilliant Twitter friend @pyllon finish one of his races. I was going to say "for the first time" but what I'd mean is I saw him race for the first time. He's raced loads. And done very well, thank you very much. These are no ordinary races, oh no, they're across tracked up and down hills and are usually never any less than about 50 miles!! No mean feat. 
• Meeting Miss Karlie MacGregor. A wonderful person. Damn straight. 
• My love of spin bike class. I can't miss any now. Except I am right at this minute missing one, but you get what I mean. 
• Seeing Mr Neil Fox (@drgonzolives) perform at the Edinburgh Festival with his fab Great Brain Robbery comedy mates. What a laugh! 
• Finding fabulous blogs to read, like Whatleydude's. I've nearly finished reading all the away back James!
• New Red Converse. Only my second pair in two years. I think I deserve another and I think I found them today! 
• Buying my iPad 2. Finally. Although it may be going on sale soon. I love it but... The screen thing still irks me a little. 
• The joy I had doing my walk with Instagram back in October. Me, my iPhone and Instagram. Walking around Edinburgh. Good day. 
• Taking the boys and my sister to the National Museum in Edinburgh. They had a ball. 
• Seeing Kings of Leon at Murrayfield in June. Sounded just like the cd. Great gig. 
• The Killing (Danish version). I love that programme! 
• My trip to London in April. Three days exploring that fab city. The weather was brilliant too. I'll be back.
• My trip to Philadelphia in August. Ok ok it wasn't the real Philadelphia but Glasgow. The film set for a new Brad Pitt movie. Hope it's good when it comes out. 

So that's a few of my most memorable good things from the past year. Next week it'll be just five things from the week. It'll hopefully be a regular post. If not, shout at me!

Angela x
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O2, Apple and The Continuing High Data Usage Scandal

Ok, I know you don't care that much and it's only a scandal to me, but still...

If you follow me on Twitter you'll notice that lately i've been less than happy with the amount of data my new iPhone 4S appears to be using. For the past 2 years I was on an unlimited data contract with O2 (who, by the way i've been with since the very early days - previously pay as you go). Mobile companies got wise to the fact that they'd missed a trick and could/should be charging for data or at least cap it. And so most introduced different rates or levels depending on what you needed. 100MB, 500MB or 1GB per month. Now i've read a few tech blogs and most say that an average person won't need more than 500MB per month so that's which option I went for this time. Only it didn't quite work out like that. I got my new phone on 14 October and by the 5 November I had used 80% of my data allowance. What?!! That can't be right surely. I called O2 and spoke to a girl with a distinctly northern accent, i can't quite place it though. She preceeded to tell me that the data usage was in fact correct(!) and that I could purchase more data if i wanted(!), that her friend had a new iPhone 4S too but she swapped it for a Samsung Galaxy thing because and i quote "the 4S updates every night and uses all your data. She was using too much data too so she swapped. I wouldn't have gotten a 4S if i were you" (!!!!!) I just hoped that O2 were indeed recording this call for training purposes as that wasn't a very professional thing to say, was it?

Anyway I let her ramble on. Asking me if i was streaming YouTube videos or tvprogrammes (WT actual F?!) Of course not. I have a laptop and a tv for that. Was I using it any more than normal? NO! Did I have location services turned on? YES. Turn them off then. What is the actual point of having a smart phone if you have to turn off most of the services you bought it for in the first place? It was a frustrating conversation and I left with no answer to my original question - why were my data usage stats to high? Surely I can't be in that top 2% (or whatever the latest infographic shows) who have a higher data usage. Surely?!! She suggested i go to an Apple store or...wait for this... go to an O2 shop to speak to a GURU! (as when i asked if there was a tehcnical helpline she said no, they just deal with billing enquiries etc on the phone). NOTE: later whilst browsing the O2 website buying an extra 100MB data bolt on i saw they also have a Bolt On for monthly technical help, it'll cost you £7.50 though! I mean WT actual F two??

Anyway not satisfied with that i went on the phone to Apple. The guy talked me through all my settings and suggested that i turn off Cellular Data Network. I do that at home now but what if i'm out and about? I won't get the internet if i'm walking down a high street. "No you won't" so again, what is the actual point of a smart phone if you cannot do this?! These people were missing the point... Anyway, the Apple guy emailed me a copy of the user guide and made sure my settings were all turned on / off in the right combination. I'd try this out to see if the data usage went down.

Three days later (yes, only 3 days after the original 80% data text from O2), I got one to say I'd run out and that i could follow a link to buy more. I was seathing at this point. I phoned them again and caused great hilarity in the office at the lack understanding at the question I was asking O2 (yes, I was on the phone to them again). We went around the houses. I was still using too much data, according to them. Yes, but there must be a reason for it? I don't get more than 15 emails per day MAX, I never use it for YouTube. I only downlaod songs or apps at home on a Wifi signal. All I really use it for is Twitter, Facebook and Words With Friends. That'll be it then, she said. WTF?! At this piont i am losing patience. That night i go home and check my bills for the past two years. Maybe i am a large volume user? Maybe i am in the top 2%? I'd never actually checked my data usage since it was always unlimited, have you?... I sat down, logged in and started going through my bills... Previous bill prior to getting 4S circa 175MB for the month. Next one - 380MB. One before that 250MB. I scrolled back and back and back and the only bill i found that had me anywhere close to 500MB was from April 2011, which coincided with my trip to London. I was out and about wandering without wifi so of course the data usage was higher but still not above 500MB. SURELY THERE IS SOMETHING NOT RIGHT HERE??

I made an appointmewnt with an Apple Genius. In the meantime i searched all the forums online and it seems this is a common problem. And the solutions appear to be the phone companies blaming Apple and Apple blaming the phone companies. I don't care who's fault it is i just want it sorted. I don't want to have to be buying extra data each month! Oh and also, Appled released the new version of iOS which was meant to help the battery life. Since my 3GS days i've always got a day's use out of my battery. Not a full day mind you but if i charge it at night use it all day, i don't need to charge until about 8pm. This was the same for my 4S, which is meant to have a better battery(!). Anyway i installed the new version and that night the phone was on standby and had only dropped about 2% during the night. Before it would've been about 15% drop. However it seems that this hasn't fixed the battery problem, which i'm not sure I have anyway. I'll await a next release. The high data usage is a much bigger concern to me.

So the Apple Genius was nice and again checked all my settings to make sure I had it set properly and he said that O2 must be charging me for using data that I'm not. I told him what the 3 different people on the phone have said and he said "yeah they would say that". He said to monitor it and if it was still overly high then i should go back. Frankly I'm fed up with the whole saga. My new allowance began yesterday and according to my bill i've used circa 800MB of data in the first month of having an iPhone 4S. It means i'll probably have to up my bolt on to the £10 (1GB) per month extra instead of £6 (500MB). Now you might think that this is a whole lot of palavar for just an extra £4 per month, but it's the principal of the thing. How come before I wasn't using anywhere near 500MB per month but now with the new phone I am? In my head there's a dodgy deal been done between the phone companies and Apple. We'll make it use data, you can start charging! or something like that *wink*.

Whatever it is, it's certainly not making for a good experience. More and more i'm hearing stories of high data usage being recorded, which weren't there before. I mean in theory i should be able to read half a million emails on 500MB.

Anyway... It's a shame as before this i'd never ever had a bad word to say about O2. And I absolutely love the phone. It keeps me connected. And the girl who quipped about how i should've got a Samsung Galaxy can run to the hills!! So that's it. My story. I had to get it out there. I can now put it to bed and succumb to the grip that O2 has on me and pay that extra £4 per month for data. You could say i'm playing right into their hands.

Angela x

Instagram Worldwide InstaMeet - #InstaWalkAnge #InstaWalkScotland

Wednesday 26 October was the 3rd Worldwide InstaMeet day. What's that you say? Well Instagram is an iPhone photo app (one of my favourites) and an InstaMeet is a group of people who get together and chat, take photos all relating to Instagram. Well, that was the idea, but despite countless calls and few people saying yes, they'd come, I ended having a day to myself walking around taking pictures and posting them to Instagram, and Twitter.

As you might guess this is a picture heavy post so look away now if you don't like pictures. But I wanted to mark the day, my day, in pictures. I decided that i'd go to Edinburgh for this day that on Instagram and Twitter I called #InstaWalkAnge #InstaWalkScotland  I'll explain... The hashtag for the day was #InstaMeet - check the Instagram blog - with the name of the city attached to the end. But since there weren't many takers i thought I'd name it after our beautiful country. I mean surely we have enough going on in the wee nooks and crannies of our cities to capture. Yes we do and that's what i did.

I hope you like the photos. There will be more days like this soon so give me a shout if you fancy tagging along on the next one.

my pillow - the morning of Worldwide InstaMeet day

Connor - one of the angels

Stairs

Scott - The Scott Monument, Edinburgh

Never Ending - Princes Street, Edinburgh

Already Christmas

Occupied

Abandoned

Highland Dress

Pedestrians - Royal Mile

Tea Break - Hula Juice Bar

- - - , Greyfriars Cemetary

Rooftops

Skull and crossbones

Words, Sir Walter Scott

Edinburgh Castle

Castlebarns Steps

This one isn't an Instagram but these shoes kept me walking all day in comfort

White Building - Royal Lyceum Theatre

again, not an Instagram but a picture from food stop at Illegla Jack's

Stained

Castle by night

Door. Pillars

Trains

Last one of the day. Me. Ange

Hope you enjoyed my walk with Instagram. I certainly did. You can follow my photos on Instagram by looking for my username @Ange77H
And a big thanks to @Drgonzolives @CaesarLopez @Cheakodaman @littleembot @abzquine @nickdixon8 @ for the likes and comments on my pictures. Thanks for walking with me, virtually.

Angela x