Capture the Cover and win $1000

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It’s baaaa-aaaack! After the success of last year, Yellow Pages’ Capture The Cover Competition is back and I’m super chuffed to be part of it again.

Because plain covers are boring and so 2010, you’re invited to liven up the humble ol' phone book a bit and give them a local flavour. It is happening all over the country and I’ll be helping to spruik the Perth competition. Map Guy’s photograph of yachts at sunset at Hillary’s Boat Harbour was a winner last year and got on our local cover! He now thinks he's a famous photographer...

Map Guy's image is bottom row, centre

But rather than just local pics, this year the Yellow Pages team want to go one step further and are looking for the hidden gems in your community. Places “Only Locals Know”. You know the spots; the tucked away nooks that only the people in the immediate area know. Though I’d suggest you stay away from the tucked away nooks that are frequented at night by necking P platers. People with cameras in those places tend to be frowned upon.

It could be anything, really. The best place to get fish and chips, that park that has the enchanting trees at dawn, the ideal sunset watching spot, you name it, or, er, photograph it as the case may be. As long as it is local, it’s good!

So how do you enter? Head to capturethecover.com and upload your pic. Super simple.

Your image must:

• Be a .jpg
• Be the highest quality your camera allows
• Not show anyone's face
• Be taken in the region that you live (you’ll be asked your postcode & photo location)

What I really like about this year is that you can enter directly via Instagram, just remember:

• Take the picture in your local region
• Include the hashtag #CaptureTheCover and @yellow_au
• Include the location and your postcode in the caption

There are five awesome judges for the whole competition including Perth photographer Steve Fraser who takes the most stunning landscapes I’ve ever seen. Check the website for some great photography tips - make your pic stand out from the rest and you just might win.

There will be five covers for each of WA's regions and the winner of each cover will receive $1000 and there will be seven runner up prizes of $100.

So go out, start exploring and get snap-happy!

Is there a local gem in your area?

SlackKeeper: The must have app for Slackers

Glow Industries is proud to present the newest and greatest app ever designed to help you faff around and do nothing all day: SlackKeeper^TM

In this increasingly corporate world where hard yakka is, regrettably, rewarded, it's difficult to keep track of your laziness and ensure you spend enough time faffing about on each of your interests rather than doing actual work.

But now, thanks to SlackKeeper^TM, being productive is a thing of the past! SlackKeeper is the perfect app for bludgers who want to keep track of their Slacktivities^TM and simultaneously increase their calorie intake whilst reducing their physical activity.

Left: Keep track of how many packets of chips you're eating and optimize your carb intake per minute with handy, easy to read graphs.

Centre: Using your phone's gyro and GPS features, SlackKeeper^TM alerts you when you have been physically active for more than 10 minutes at a time. Because you don't get to be Slacktastic^TM by exercising!

Right: Optimize your doughnut eating skills by doing the SlackKeeper^TM Doughnut Time Trials - you'll be eating a doughnut a minute in no time!

SlackKeeper^TM has been designed specifically for bludgers who are also social media junkies and love to inundate their friends and followers with pointless updates. Your SlackKeeper^TM account automatically posts your accomplishments directly to your Twitter and Facebook account - you don't have to set it up, because we know you're too much of a slack ass to do it!

Available on both Apple and Android systems for $2.99, SlackKeeper^TM is the most effective app you will ever find to help track, measure and improve your slackness.

At Glow Industries we're so confident you'll be the champion of slacking off after using this app that we're offering a money back guarantee! Use the app for 60 days and if you don't see either a reduction in productivity or a gain in weight in that time, we'll refund your money... if we can be arsed.

Are you gonna get slack with me? If you could create any app what would it be?

Yellow Pages Capture The Cover Competition

This is a compensated post* 

I have all the apps ever created for taking photos, editing them, organizing them and sharing them. ALL of them. Sadly, the number of apps I have has absolutely no correlation to the level of talent I possess for photography. As a result, you lot are subjected to my "chuck a filter on it and it'll be fine" approach. Hey, it's working for me so far. The only problem is that when people meet for the first time they wonder why I don't have flawless skin and a permanent duck face expression.

But some of you lot are fantastic whether it's with your phones, a point and shoot, or with a fancy pants DSLRs. I don't even know what DSLR means, but I'm just going to assume it stands for Did Someone Let Rip? Amiright?

This year the Yellow Pages is running a Capture the Cover competition (say that three times fast) where you are invited to, well, capture the cover.

The covers of local issues will feature local images taken by local people. Local, local, local. If your picture ends up on the cover not only will your image be on the phone tables of thousands of households (or holding up computer monitors and acting as bookshelves in student accommodation) but you can win fabulous prizes including fancy pants cameras, iPads and cold hard cash. Ca-ching!

Tricky tried to get in on the action but had a little trouble... it seems when given a spunky blue toddler proof camera, he only takes photos of himself. He was all "What? My face is in my local area! Be more specific with your instructions, woman!" When I said it just wasn't gonna cut it, that he wasn't meant to show faces in his pics, he attempted to eat the camera in defiance.

I wonder where he gets that from?

First cab off the rank is Perth! Yay! So get snapping your local area now. Other cities are going to follow soon so you East Coasters can start prepping. 

To enter your pics and learn the Ts and Cs, head to the official website at CaptureTheCover.com. If you're a Twitter junkie, follow @YellowPages_au and keep an eye on the official hashtag #capturethecover and see how many places you can recognize. Alternatively, check out the Yellow Pages facebook page for more info. I'll be joining in on the fun but sadly, I dont' qualify for any of the prizes and with his stellar photography of his own face, neither does Tricky.

*I was not paid for this post. I received a toddler-proof camera from the Yellow Pages to help Capture The Cover

Tinybeans Baby Journal Review and $100 Giftcard Giveaway

This post is sponsored by Tinybeans

I am obsessed with taking photos. It comes with the Bloggy territory that you document everything that inspires you to write. Even more so though, I’m obsessed with taking photos of Tricky. He’s my first born and it’s a rite of passage for him that in this digital age there will be thousands upon thousands of photos of him, ready and waiting to be collaged embarrassingly for his major milestone birthdays.

For the last month I’ve been using the free Tinybeans app to create a baby journal of sorts for Tricks. Well, a toddler journal, really. And I’m loving it. So when I was asked to write about it last week, I was all “I already know all about it! For sure!”

The app lets you keep a day by day photographic record of your kids so you can really see them growing, track their milestones and notice all the tiny changes you might not pick up on day to day. You can have a separate profile for each kid so even neglected third borns like me can get in on some of the photo lovin’. If it just did that, it would be pretty cool, but it does a lot more.

Easy to add new profiles and see all your photos for the month

There are in-app filters to turn your ordinary photos in to fancy pants ones and a notification centre to remind you to take a pic every day so that your baby journal doesn’t become something you use half a dozen times then forget about… like your gym membership. But you don’t even have to have an iPhone to play along, because you can control it all from the website too – so all the Android peeps and those poor, unfortunate souls who don’t have a smartphone can have a slice of the action, too!

Filters make everyone look better

I’ve been tweeting out some of my photos using the #tinybeanskids hashtag as part of the launch challenge because I’m a social media whore, but I know putting your kids online isn’t for everyone. So my favourite part of the whole app is that it is completely private and only shares your photos with who you choose. Which is great for all the photos you want captured and shared with family but not publicly – you know the ones I’m talking about… nudie runs!

Tinybeans in App and Website form

I have it set up to automatically email Map Guy to give him a little mid-afternoon pick-me-up, and Tricky’s paternal grandparents who live five hours drive away and don’t get to see him as often as they’d like. Plus if I send them pictures they’re less likely to go hunting on the blog for them and find out I’ve been off gallivanting in Sydney with a man who isn’t their son!

Easy to navigate, set reminders and share photos with family

To help celebrate the successful launch of Tinybeans, I have a $100 Westfield voucher up for grabs! To enter, click here - it will redirect you to the Facebook entry form.

To create your own baby record download the free Tinybeans app from the App Store or head to tinybeans.com.

Did you keep a baby journal?

Full terms and conditions can be found here

iProtect my iPhone from my iToddler - Review & Giveaway

We've established previously that whilst I'm a bit of a Crunchy Mama that I'm not adverse to a bit of iParenting when the situation calls for it. Distracting Tricky from his crazy itchy eczema long enough for the creams to work stopped him gouging his skin off for the 3000th time and that alone makes me happy to say I'm OK with iStuff.

A few weeks ago I got myself a new baby... An iPhone 4S (the S stands for SUPER!) - the first top of the range phone I've ever bought. Tricky had his eye on it from the moment I whipped it out of the box. With Tricky (and every other toddler) it's a little bit like When Harry Met Sally because as soon as I start using something he comes along and says/grunts/cries "I'll have what she's having"... and there is Buckley's chance I'm giving him an $800 toy without any sort of protection. And no, a $5 jelly case just ain't gonna hack it, not with Mr Destructo.

Enter the Fisher Price Apptivity Case for iPhones (and iPod touch too!).

Oh my gawd. This little thing is unbelievably good.

Concentrating so hard. Also: cheeeeeeks!

Some of the things I love about it are the clear film that protects from drool and grubby, sticky fingers and the rubberized, shock absorbing inner lining which meant my two day old phone survived without a scratch when Tricky decided to throw it on to the pavement (my heart did miss a beat though).

But the thing that makes this little gadget completely awesome in my eyes is the way you can choose to block the home key to stop your clever munchkin navigating out of their game educational program and in to the app store to buy a $7.99 interactive guide to the best Himalayan eateries.

Because you have to lock the phone in, it does mean you've got almost zero chance of getting it out in time if you get a phone call... and if you have the home key blocked you won't be able to navigate back to the app without getting the whole thing out and starting again - but it's a small price to pay for the safety of your iBaby.

Playing with the apps that come with the case

Aaaand the bit you've been waiting for, I've got one of these to give away!

To get your baby or toddler's sticky hands on it all you have to do is tell me what was on the grubbiest, yuckiest, stickiest hands that were wiped all over you/your stuff by your charming spawn. For an extra entry, Tweet or Facebook about the giveaway then come back and tell me with a separate comment for each.


Entry is open to Australian residents only. Entries close at 10pm AEDST on Monday 12th December 2011 at which time three winners will be chosen using a random number generator. Make sure you sign in to the comment platform with a valid email address/twitter handle or leave your details as part of your comment so you can be contacted. Winners have one week to reply to notification, failing that, the prize will be redrawn. The prize is provided by Fisher Price and Thrive PR and is not transferable.