I downloaded Frametastic a few weeks ago and it is listed (currently) as “free for a limited time” in its description on iTunes. If you are reading this and own any compatible device – iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (running iOS 4.0 or later), I suggest you download it – you won’t regret it.

What I like about the app is that you can share lots of photos in a single frame. If you use other apps like Instagram or Path, it’s just easier to share a collage than to upload 5 individual photos.

The app offers 18 (okay 17 – one is duplicated) free frames and another 18 pack of frames for 99c.

The free frames are good enough and you don’t have to purchase more unless you want something fancier/different from the rest.

Once you choose a frame, you can customize it in different ways like making it square or postcard (3:2), adjusting the frame width and color, and making the corners rounded. You can also select themes (wood, sports, wedding, beach & museum) and choose effects for your pics (b&w, sepia, cold, warm, etc).

It’s very simple and quite fun to use. You may spend time creating masterpieces, but the end result is worth it.

The app supports sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram, or sending via email.

I also own a similar app called Diptic, which is 99c. But if you want to play around and make your own collages without paying, download Frametastic. 

Coffee picture credit: Tumblr via Google Images.

I’ve been doing this post for the last couple of years. It’s my summary for the year.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Lived in a country that doesn’t speak English as a first language for 2 weeks – Taiwan. Dressed up as a zombie ballerina for a professional photoshoot for Aasia‘s birthday – it was loads of fun. 

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t make resolutions.

3. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?
Currently, I don’t have any plans.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother

5. What countries did you visit?
Kenya, Taiwan, China & Zambia.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
More challenges.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
9th July – the day my grandmother passed away, which is also my wedding anniversary.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
My Digital Life making it through the financial year.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not growing My Digital Life’s traffic enough.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I always pull a neck muscle around winter, which is so bad that I can’t check my blind spot, so I can’t drive.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Macbook Air.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Macbook Air and cost of living for 2 weeks in Taiwan, hence no New York trip. 

13. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Someone Like You – Adele.

14. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Spending time away from my laptop.

15. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Spending time in front of my laptop.

16. What was your favourite TV program?
I enjoyed Shameless and Game of Thrones.

17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No.

18. What was the best book you read?
Steve Jobs autobiography – but still reading.

19. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Deadmau5 (mostly because he came to South Africa).

20. What was your favourite film of this year?
Bridesmaids.

21. What did you do on your birthday?
Was taken for a surprise dinner (okay it came out shortly before I left home) to Bukhara – my dad was up in Jo’burg too.

22. What kept you sane?
Earphones.

23. Who did you miss?
My grandmother.

24. Who was the best new person you met?
I met lots of people while traveling.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
To be grateful for everything I have because there are others who are always worse off.

I was meant to blog about this a few months ago. I visited Taiwan in August for 2 weeks, which was part of Taiwan’s International Youth Week – Centennial Homestay celebrations (12-25 August 2011).

My first impression of Taiwan reminded me of the streets of Bangkok: scooters, crowds, bright lights and traffic – everywhere. Not to mention the humidity. There are night markets in every district, and stuff is cheap. Also, people are very independent – youngsters take the bus alone and the elderly ride their bicycles everywhere.

Anyway, I’ve made a list of my likes and dislikes.

LIKES
1. Public transport (MRT), it’s very easy to get around Taipei using the trains and buses. Everything runs like clockwork.
2. The city is very clean. They have a system where you get taxed if you don’t recycle. So the recycle bags are cheaper than normal bags.
3. Everything here is cheap. Especially electronic goods (a visit to the digital plaza is a must if you’re planning to go).
4. Fresh fruit. All fruit are very sweet, especially mango. My favorite was mango shaved ice:

5. The city isn’t very big so you can cover a lot of places in one day, via the MRT. All the major sight-seeing places are easily accessible.
6. People are respectable and polite. No unruly or uncouth behaviour. If you’re female and alone in the city, you will be safe/have nothing to worry about.
7. Everyone is so hard working and dedicated, in whatever they do. Really admirable.

DISLIKES
1. Lack of halaal food.
2. Humidity – but I went during the hottest time of year.
3. Not everyone is willing to help if you are stuck. They don’t reply in English (yet it is compulsory to learn at school, so they know what you’re saying).
4. Waiters and waitresses aren’t trained to understand basic phrases like “can we place our order” etc. It got a bit frustrating.

I also got to spend time with my freelancer, Ragel Nel (My Digital Life), who is based in the Western Cape. We spent a few nights together, did some sight-seeing, visited the best burger joint in the world too many times, got lost, amongst other things. I can safely say that she actually exists, is normal and a very good room mate.

Here are some pics. Click on image to enlarge (and scroll with your right arrow):

Here’s what’s high on my gadget wish list (originally blogged on MyDL).

1. Med8r – a high definition multimedia player

This fantastic device will let me watch TV series properly on my big screen, which I can access via the network (it’s WiFi compatible too). I really want a solution where I can sit on my couch and dump stuff onto the drives without any effort. And that it supports HFS+ (native Mac file system) – this is actually the biggest selling point for me.

2. Airport Express

My wireless router at home just decided it won’t reach my bedroom anymore! If I sit at the doorway on the floor with my laptop, it works. If I move literally a few feet onto my bed, it’s out of range! Anyway, I tried another router (I will refrain from mentioning the brand) and it was crap! So, next option, is the best option. Ha. Apple’s Airport Express. They describe it as “powerful enough to run a home Wi-Fi network, yet small enough to take on the road.”

3. Solo Beats by Dr Dre

A few years ago I had the opportunity to test the first set of headphones in this range that was available in South Africa. I fell in love. The quality is excellent and you can tell. It’s high definition sound. What more do you want? (Apart from not wanting to go deaf). I don’t want it in any of the funky colors it’s available in, just black.

4. Beatbox by Dr Dre

Okay, do I need to say more? An iPod dock… by Dr Dre!

5. iPhone lens dial

This nifty little add on for an iPhone offers three optical quality coated glass lenses – wide angle, fisheye and telephoto. I like taking pics on my phone (I do miss optical zoom) but I think this is quite a fun addition to have (in your handbag, wherever you go).

I was sent the latest Rubybox (November) by the company, to do a comparison to Glambox. It is also an online beauty service that lets you ‘try before you buy’, for a fee.

When I received it, my first impression was that it was much smaller than Glambox. The size of Rubybox as shown on their website is not the size you receive; it is a bit narrow/smaller. After what I read online, I had high expectations for Rubybox; I expected fancier packing too.

Inside the November box were 3 perfume samples from Guerlain: Aqua Allegoria, Shalimar and Idylle; Ahava purifying mud mask; Elizabeth Arden intervene radiance boosting moisture cream; L’Occitane butter hand cream and Carita ideal hydration cream.

To be honest, I expected at least one regular sized product (my eye pencil and mascara from my last Glambox stays in my handbag). The price for one month is R100, just like Glambox; but the contents did not impress me. I was considering signing up for Rubybox as well, but I think I’ll stick to Glambox for now. One of the reasons I like Glambox is that you get to feel like it’s your birthday when you open it (a welcoming feeling when you’re busy at work). I just didn’t feel that with Rubybox – it was underwhelming. 

If you are using Rubybox – let me know if you’ve been satisfied with it thus far (also from the previous 2 months). If you’d like to check out their website, go to www.rubybox.co.za. 

I got to try one of iOS 5′s new features earlier today – wireless software update, because I left my cable at home. It was very simple, all I had to do was go into Settings > General > Software Update and begin! 

Wireless software updates only work when you’re connected to a WiFi network; not via 3G. You will get a message suggesting you connect to a power source, but that isn’t necessary as it only used 3% of my battery. The update is 44,6MB and shouldn’t take too long to download.

I admit, I got a bit nervous while looking at the status bar after the download and before the installation – I thought it timed out on me in the middle of the update; but all I had to do was be patient

The changelog is as follows:

1. Fixes bugs affecting battery life

2. Adds multitasking gestures for original iPad

3. Resolves bugs with Documents in the cloud

4. Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation (ha).

Earlier this evening I attended the Zara South Africa launch in Sandton City, which makes it the 80th country that Zara has expanded into. It is also one of the largest stores worldwide and covers more than 2,700 square meters; and has a nice airy feel to it. 

If you’ve never been to a Zara store before, you will absolutely love how each rack has matching accessories to go with the look you want: shoes, handbags, scarves, etc. What you will love even more is the pricing – vests from R79, t-shirts from R99, jeggings from R299, jeans from R349, dresses from R499 and loads more. No more paying almost triple that price for jeans!

*EDIT* – The store includes women’s, men’s and kids wear. 

Here are some pics from the store (taken on my phone).

Studio line (pink shoes displayed on the top made exclusively for Johannesburg/South Africa):

Zara is open to the public from tomorrow, 10 November, in the new extension of Sandton City (upper level, by the Woolworths).

Happy shopping!

GlamBox is a ‘try before you buy’ online service for cosmetic samples, make up and beauty products. As someone who never has time to for these things, all the beauty products I own are months/years old. I read somewhere that mascara should be thrown out every 6 months. Oops.

So I took the plunge and signed up for a 3 month subscription with GlamBox – enough time to decide if I like it or not without feeling tied down to it like a cellphone contract. I also love the idea that you can sample products without making any effort to go out and buy it. Score!

I received my first box today and loved the packaging, as well as the contents, which were:

> Elizabeth Arden Ceramide gold ultra restorative capsules
> Catrice brown eyeliner pencil
> Skin Science rejuvenating enzyme exfoliator
> Hugo Boss Orange fragrance
> SoyLites massage candle
> Rimmel glam eyes Day2Night mascara

I’m happy with my first box, and definitely worth the R100 a month. If you’re interested in signing up (and feeling like it’s your birthday every month with each delivery), check out their website at www.glambox.co.za

I’m two minded about the Nokia N9. While a lot of effort went into its design, Nokia itself have given up on the MeeGo operating system in favour of open source Tizen (not forgetting that Symbian is being replaced by Windows Phone). 

So if you’re seriously considering getting the Nokia N9, don’t expect a lot of new apps, or updates/support for current apps.

The Nokia N9 has 3 home screens: a feed which pulls information from social networks or RSS; the regular menu screen with apps; and a screen that shows your current activities (you can also terminate whatever is running in the background by holding the app down hard and killing it).

The phone has 3.9″ AMOLED screen, an 8-megapixel camera, records in high definition, displays video in a 16:9 ratio (widescreen), fitted with NFC technology, voice guidance in Maps and turn-by-turn drive and walk navigation. 

This is what you get in the box: 

A very minimal design box (looks familiar), a user guide, a USB charger, a plug point (with USB input), earphones and a silicon cover.

I got play around with the N9 for a bit and these are my thoughts so far:

LIKES

1. Design. A lot of effort went into the design of the N9 and it shows. It’s sleek, smooth, has rounded edges and there’s no traditional home button you’d find on a Nokia handset. It sits very comfortably in your hand and doesn’t slip.
2. Swipe gesture. To come out of an open app, you swipe from the bottom up. To close an app, you swipe from the top down (you can create this shortcut under settings). It’s a smooth process.
3. Comes preloaded with apps straight out the box. This is sort of becoming standard on tablets/smarthphones now. It really does make a difference; you can start playing around immediately and handy if you’re on prepaid / don’t have data bundles.

DISLIKES

1. The qwerty keyboard. The keys were too narrow and it took quite a while typing tweets. Auto-rotate works when typing SMSes but not in apps like Facebook and Twitter. Thus, typing a status update took longer than necessary. Also, going back to add a word to a sentence was a nightmare. It took quite a while for the phone to register this function.
2. Screen one pulls all your feeds. If you decide to turn this off (to save data), there is no way of clearing the screen. Old feeds from the day this feature was deactivated still displays on the screen. I went into every logical setting to clear old feeds, and have yet to find it.
3. The input to charge the phone is covered, so every time you want to charge the device, you have to open and close it. I found this impractical. It’s only a matter of time before it weakens/breaks.

I received the Lenovo IdeaPad K1 tablet to use over the next few years. It runs Android 3.1 Honeycomb, and if you’re familiar with Android, you know that you need a Google account to access almost everything on it.

I started playing with it at the office earlier and so far, I’m impressed with the screen: the responsiveness, and the fluidity of swiping. I spent some time swiping between the 5 homescreens to make sure there is no lag, and it rendered very well.

It’s not difficult to familiarize yourself with how the tablet works. Like viewing all apps running in the background, adding widgets to any of your screens, killing a process, and taking a screenshot. There is a video loaded on the device that walks you through this process, if you have difficulty figuring it out.

It comes preloaded with loads of apps, and you can use it for quite some time before finding the need to download more. Preloaded apps (apart from Google-related) include: Amazon Kindle, Angry Birds HD, Drawing Pad (loads of fun), Facebook, Need for Speed Shift, Norton Security, Sound Recorder, to name a few. 

The tablet is 10.1-inch with an HD LED screen and weighs 1.46kgs. What I like about the back of the tablet is the rubberized honeycomb finish, which sits securely in your hand. And you know with that extra grip, it won’t slide off easily when holding it. 

The specifications of IdeaPad K1: Tegra T20 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 64GB SSD storage, Bluetooth, WiFi, MicroSD card reader, mini HDMI connector, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 5-megapixel back camera.

At the time of publishing, it is available on pre-order on Kalahari.net for R4,999.