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Are you one of those people who buys cell phones every other year? Chances are, you have a lot of unused and unwanted cell phones lying around. This is where SellCell.com comes in and help you get rid of those phones for you. SellCell is a cell phone recycling price comparision site that allows people to sell phones to cell phone recycling companies that want to buy them.

The process is straight forward, you search for the model of your phone, the results will be displayed showing companies looking to buy your phone as well as how much they are offering. You then fill out the details and follow the rest of the instructions. Once you have mailed your phone to the cell phone recycle company and they have verified the phone, they will send you the payment in cash or vouchers.

Most of the cell phone recycling companies offer free shipping by sending you a free shipping parcel, but SellCell recommand using tracking and/or have the package insured if your phone is worth more than $30-$50.

This is a pretty great way of getting rid of your unwanted or unused cell phones and help save the environment by recycling them.

Check out their site for more details at www.sellcell.com

[This is a sponsored post]

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I have always posted game related posts most of the time, maybe its time for a change. Since it is almost Christmas time, I had to think of something to surprise my girlfriend, it was actually her request to “surpise” her. I also happened to be interested and curious about photography and I found out that you can build your very own DIY Photo Studio In A Box easily. So I thought why not build her a mini photo studio since making a gift yourself meants a lot more than buying something that’s already made (its the thought that counts right?) and also the fact that she sells bling cellphone cases for iPhones, BlackBerry, HTC, G1 etc so that her product pictures look more professional.

By using just the digital camera with default settings, you will always have pictures that are yellowish (see picture below), with uneven lighting and looking too sharp because the flash light is not soft enough. But with the combination of correcting white balace using Photoshop and this photo studio in a box you can turn your everyday ameture photos into better looking images. My coworker once told me, its not about your camera, be it an everyday digital camera like my Canon SD400 or one of those fancy DSLR, its all about white balance, light and the lense itself. The latter might be hard to change since not everyone can or willing to pay hundreds just for the lense. So this is where the photo studio in a box comes into play!

Items you need for building your very own photo studio in a box:

• A box that is at least 10 inches by 10 inches, otherwise you are limited to taking photos of very small items
• Wrapping paper (the ones that you use for stuffing gift bags
• Two (three if you cut out the top opening as well) very bright lights, I bought two outdoor flood lights from Canadian Tire. If you can find natural light/bright white light lamps that’s good too but not necessary since you will be doing the white balance correction in Photoshop anyway. Oh, make sure you buy the matching bulbs, chances are most of the lights are only the housing themselves, without the bulbs.
• Tape, duck tape, scissors, razor, pencil and ruler

 

Quick and dirty build guide (for more detailed steps please check the links below):

• Cut out square/rectangle openings, depending on the shape of your box, on the left and right sides of the box and make sure you have enough space around otherwise the box might not be strong enough to stand on its own anymore. You can also cut out the top as well if you wish to have more light coming in (where the third light comes in).
• Tape the openings with wrapping paper and try to stretch them, but without tearing them apart, to minimize the ripples
• Don’t pretty it up yet though, we still have to test it. Place one light on each side and start taking test shots of some small items (once that fit the assumed 10 by 10 box). My coworker suggested me to set everything to manual for your digital camera with lowest ISO, enable white balance if applicable and TURN OFF FLASH! since we will be utilizing the two flood lights’ lights.

 

Here is what mine looks like

And the result…..

Yellowish and unprocessed image:

Processed image:

Notice it looks much better? Though not enough reflection or “bling” from the crystals but that’s a different experiment for now. All you need to do is go to Photoshop -> Image -> Adjustments -> and pick either Auto Level/Auto Color/Level and play around. I personally and mostly pick Level -> Options -> Find Dark & Light Colors with the Snap Neutral Midtones checked because I like the dark greyish/bluish tone.

I hope I haven’t missed anything or mentioned something incorrectly as this is my first photo studio in a box as well! Let me know if I did though!

For those interested, here are a few that I checked out and found useful (they are more detailed too!):

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/60804/2007/11/dec07digitalphoto.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Do-It-Yourself-Photography-Light-Box-for-Under-40/
http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent

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The Apple iPhone has been such a hit that 1 out of 10 of my friends has one, be it the first generation or the new iPhone 3G. They are always constantly looking for iPhone Accessories to personalize their iPhones.

Wireless Emporium, Inc offers a huge selection of iPhone Accessories such as iPhone leather case but I much prefer one of these Silver Aluminum iPhone cases.

WE (Wireless Emporium) also sells screen protector films as well as a huge selection of faceplates of different colors and styles. Aside from selling these protective products, WE also sells iPhone compatible hardware such as chargers, data cable, battery, holsters / belt clips and over 50 different hands-free headsets to choose from.

Wireless Emporium not only provides accessories for iPhones but it also offers accessories from other brand name wireless products like Sony, BlackBerry, LG just to name a few. There are also a few phones that you can purchase on the site as well.

The web site is also user friendly because you can browse the products by their brand names, accessory types or carrier types. For those that do not know the model of their phones, the site also teaches you where to look for it (as quoted from the site “The model number is noted on the back label of the phone”).

If you are looking for accessories for your cell phone, you should drop by Wireless Emporium and check out its huge selection of wireless accessories at very reasonable prices.

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I just read news, or rather rumors from DailyTech that Walmart will be selling the 4GB version of the ever popular iPhone. If the rumor is infact real, then its no brainer about seeing more people with iPhones. Hack, even I am tempted to get one myself now. I was tempted to get the 8GB version from Rogers AT&T when I saw the 8GB version for $199 with 3 year contract. For $99 you get a 4GB version, size doesn’t really matter to me here really. And I think 4GB is more than enough for me anyway. iPhone is more of a cool gadget to have and chances are I won’t be using it for heavy gaming, as a multimedia player, checking emails or surf the web even though it is capable of doing so. Most likely just like any other cell phones.

And there is this data plan that I have to worry about because as I said it comes with a 3 year turn, that’s the price to pay when you can get an iPhone for $199. The minimum cost for monthly cost is $35 (Voice Plan) + $25 (Data Plan) which equates to $60 + all that tax and other lame charges. Which is probably going to end up being 2-3 times more than what I am paying now.

Either way definitely a great move by Apple if in deed the rumor comes true and great news for those that crave for an iPhone but cannot justify buying the 8/16GB versions or without contract.

[update] Looks like the rumor will remain just a rumor. According to WIRED Appl WIll start selling iPhones through Walmart but not the $99 version like in the rumor. But will be selling the same 8GB and 16GB ones that we are seeing now.

Oh well, it doesn’t hurt to dream right?

I was reading an article on cnet and I have to agree completely with what David Carnoy have mentioned about the present and future of the Sony PlayStation. The current PlayStation 3 has just started to take off with the lowered production cost (chip shrunk from 90nm down to 45nm) and with slightly more games worth purchasing. Sony should get back or at least break even from the investment and money lost from selling each console under cost when it first came out. That won’t be possible however, if Sony started researching on a completely new processor chip from the ground up as it would need to inject a huge chunk of money for research and development all over again, well before Sony could profit from the current console. Therefore it makes much sense for Sony to stick to the current chip design and modify it.

As a PlayStation 3 (60GB with Spiderman 3 Blu-ray DVD) owner since November 2007, I would prefer to hold on to this console for at least a few more years as oppose to buying a new console every 2 years because I’m just not ready to make another expensive purchase, just like most of us normal consumers who would like to make purchases at the cheapest possible price unlike the hardcore gaming fans who will rush to get new consoles/games on their very first release days. I too agree Sony should improve the current console, not just on the technical side but the look and feel of the console as well. The PlayStation 3 console is huge, though its surprisingly quiet. It would be great if its size could be reduced to the same side as the slim PlayStation 2. I think the slim version of the PS2 is one of the sleekest console of all time, if not THE sleekest. And I assume by the time it can be shrunk to that size, the price will drop as well?

Sony should ignore and forget about Microsoft from releasing an XBox 720 or XBox1080 (I personally like the name XBox1080 as it would match with the current Full HD format). Why? What happened to the earlier versions of the XBox360? Remember the infamous Red Ring of Death? How many times did someone you know had to send back the console for a repair or a new one? Don’t get me wrong, I am not a PS3 fanboy and certainly not here to bash XBox360, at least not in this article and I don’t see a point in bashing it anyway as I heard from people the newer versions are much more stable than the older ones. I just want to point out that history would repeat itself if Microsoft rushed into releasing a new console. And even if a new XBox is released with better graphic capabilities, its not all about the graphics. First if a game has great graphics but no actual playing value, the game would still not be worth purchasing, well most of the time. Take the Nintendo Wii for example, it doesn’t have the graphics compare to the XBox360 and PlayStation 3 but its the best selling console these days. The reason is because it is innovative and it suits a broader range of audience from non gamers, casual gamers and to the hardcore gamers. To me its basically a tweaked GameCube!

But then again, imagine what the PlayStation 4 can do with a completely new chip.

What do you think?