Tag: Future Publishing

Editing Portfolio: Dec/Jan edition of 247 Magazine

247-Dec_Jan-Cover

The December & January issue of 247 Magazine is out and  we’re feeling festive at 247 Towers and hope you are too? If not, grab a mince pie and your mulled beverage of choice, head to www.247magazine.co.uk where you can read the magazine online (although if you live in the South West grab a copy at pubs, clubs, bars and bangin’ shops) and immerse yourself in our seasonal fashion (p17), Christmas gift guide (p20) and New Years Eve event round-up (p8). Bah, humbug? Feel free to ignore our yuletide spirit and just enjoy all our usual features: music reviews (p22), style (p16), food (p25) and features with snow/skate/surf star Stefani Nerding (p14), The Voice’s Adam Isaac (p10), Welsh post-hardcore band; Funeral For A Friend (p12) and local soft soul acoustic singer; Alice Watts (p24). Lastly if you’re looking for a great night out over the forthcoming months, be it a gig or club night, check out our comprehensive gig guide at the back of the mag. Have a great time!

Here are some sample spreads from the Dec/Jan issue:

Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 17.00.11 Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 16.59.35 Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 16.59.20 Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 16.58.59 Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 16.58.46 Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 16.58.21

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Rachael Sharpe

How to give your laptop a funky makeover

Laptops can look lacklustre and uninspiring well before they need upgrading. The solution? Cool, cost effective, mini-makeovers that make your PC look fresh and funky. There are hundreds of ways to dress up your PC and give it a new look. This tutorial will have your PC looking fashionable for £5 or less, and you can get the whole job done in around three hours. It’s a fun project to complete, too.

For this project, you need to buy a roll of self-adhesive foil, which is available from most craft and DIY stores. It comes in a variety of different prints and patterns, from leopard print to marble. I opted for a wood effect but you can choose whatever design you fancy. And you don’t need to worry if you change your mind six months down the line – it’s easy to remove the foil with adhesive remover. This tutorial was written for and published in Windows: The Official Magazine.

Rachael Sharpe

How to create personalised Royal Mail photo stamps

If  you’ve got something special to send, why not make like the Queen for the day and have stamps printed with your photo on? Your recipients will be treated to mail with a wow factor. It’s the perfect way to inject some extra personality into invitations, announcements and thank-you notes, and make sure your mail stands out from boring everyday letters and bills.

Snapfish has a wide range of stamp designs available. There’s something for every occasion – whether it’s a baby announcement or a wedding invitation. You choose a stamp to complement the photo you want to use, decide on either a rectangular or circular frame and whether you want sheets of 10 or 20. As a Royal Mail product, facilitated through Snapfish, you’re guaranteed a first class result. And you can create it on your own PC in just an hour. In this feature for Windows: The Official Magazine, I show you how.

Rachael Sharpe1 Comment

Published: Network with Facebook’s branch BranchOut App

It’s not what you know, but who you know. We all know there’s some truth in that old saying and that’s one of the great things about Facebook application BranchOut. You get to network with your Facebook friends but in a new, professional way where you can see exactly what they do and where they work. One of the most important aspects of BranchOut is being able to find connections through your extended friend network – inside connections you can make use of. Search for a company on BranchOut and see a list of friends and friends- of-friends who work there.

Setting up a profile is a pleasant experience and because BranchOut is a Facebook application, you only need to log in once and can keep your account up to date without logging into another site. The app also operates the largest jobs board on Facebook, so what’s not to like?

I show you exactly how to use it, in this feature for Windows: The Official Magazine. 

Rachael Sharpe

How to take great photos for eBay

A while ago I was commissioned by Future Publishing to write 4-page feature on taking great photos for eBay, for one of their computing bookazines. This has since been published in one of their craft bookazines too – after all, everyone wants to improve their chances of a profitable auction with great-looking images, right? Click the images below for a better look.

Make your own light tent

If you’re interested in taking better product shots, why not make your own light tent, from a cardborad box? Just follow my step-by-step instructions below:

You will need: Cardboard box / White material / White paper / White card / Glue /Tape measure or long ruler / Tape /Marker pen

Step 1: Measure & mark

With your ruler measure and mark two inches from the side of the box, on all four edges, so you’ve effectively drawn a neat square/rectangle in the centre of the box, with a two inch boarder. Do this on all four sides of the box, but leave the top and bottom alone.

Step 2: Cut it out

Cut out the squares that you previously marked in step 1 – this is a little tricky so go slowly and be careful. You also need to cut the flaps off the top of the box, so that there is no longer a lid on the structure. Leave the bottom alone.

Step 3: Get it white

The inside of your structure needs to be bright white. Cut out 16 strips which are two inches wide (length will vary depending on your box) and then glue onto the inside – make sure they are a perfect fit before you get the glue out.

Step 4: Material magic

Take your piece of white cotton (an old pillowcase works well) and cut three pieces to cover the holes you’ve made in the sides of the structure. Tape these so the join of the material to the structure is on the outside of the box. Leave one side empty.

Step 5: Build a backdrop

The side of the box which is opposite the one side without material, is where you need to install a backdrop. Cut your card so it fits the side of box and along the bottom, making a nice curved bend. You’ll display your eBay items against this.

Step 6: Top it off

Cover the top of your structure with cotton, in the same way as before. Now its ready to use – shine a desk lamp over the top of the structure and shoot your items against the backdrop, with your camera on a tripod, poking through the one free side of your light box.

Rachael Sharpe

How to…Measure your online influence using Klout

Ever wonder how much influence your social media input has? Find out with Klout, a free tool that measures your online power and even rewards you.

While we’ve always had the power to influence other people, that power, which is being democratised, is much easier to harness with new social media tools. But how much influence do you have over others? Do your Facebook ‘likes’, retweets, posts and comments go unnoticed, or are you an online mover and shaker? This is where Klout comes in, measuring your influence based on your ability to drive action in social networks, and providing you with an updated Klout Score each morning.

Klout provides insights to help you better understand your own power – whether others trust your opinions online, what topics are you the most influential on and how you compare with your friends. Your Klout Score measures your online influence on a scale of 1 to 100, but the average Klout Score is 20, not 50 – bear that in mind when you get yours.

In this tutorial for Windows: The Official Magazine I show you how to get started with Klout.

Rachael Sharpe

A tutorial for the shopaholics…

If, like me, you find it difficult to keep your receipts together, with the pesky paper ones always getting lost and the digital ones waiting to be accidentally deleted from your inbox, you’ll love OneReceipt. It keeps paper and digital receipts in one place.

Indexing your spending records might sound like heavy work, but OneReceipt has made the process easy. The software will sync to Google and Gmail accounts, automatically pulling receipts into your personal space. Use a different email address? Simply forward your receipts to OneReceipt. Paper receipts are dealt with most impressively – simply take a picture with your phone and email it. The software does the rest.

Organising your receipts is child’s play with OneReceipt’s easy-to-use categorising and tagging system, and its filter search function makes it easy to find things, too. Plus it’s free. In this feature for Windows: The Official Magazine I show you how to get the most from it.

Rachael Sharpe

How to… Create a master password

Today you need a password for pretty much everything. You need one for Windows Live ID, another for your email address, one for each of your social networking accounts and then there are all your banking logons… The list goes on. Hopefully you already know that you should have a different password for each account. If not, a single mistake can leave all your accounts vulnerable to attack.

But although they’re safe, and preferable to using a single insecure password for everything, multiple strong passwords can be difficult to remember and keep track of. That’s why I love KeePass, a free open source password manager that helps you create strong passwords without the need to memorise them all. You put all of your passwords into one database, which is locked with a master key, so you only have to remember one set of login details. In this tutorial for Windows: The Official Magazine I show you how.

Rachael Sharpe
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