You may remember that last June, I reviewed just-eat.co.uk giving it major thumbs up & have recommended it to friends within the UK & Ireland and also sent a £20 gift voucher by David Buttress, who runs just-eat.co.uk to give away during my 6 Prizes in 6 Days for 6 years competition. Since then, they’ve under gone a major website re-vamp introducing Belly & Brain as part of their advertising campaign in within the UK (see the TV advert above!). Belly is such a cutie!

So here I am again, pimping just-eat.co.uk out for the simple reason that I love it, so much so that by their records, I’ve used it 23 times & spent over £400 to date *gulp* since I first used it in November 2008.

If you’re in the UK & stuck for dinner, then use the website, it’s great if you don’t have any cash on you (like I rarely do!) & ultra simple to use! If you’re in Ireland or Canada then you can use it too! Not to mention Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands & Norway.

& no, I’m not paid to pimp the website out! It’s just one of my favourite websites around I thought I’d share

Shortly before Christmas, I took the huge leap of converting to Apple after Jacqui hounded me and hounded me with all things Mac! She has this power you know, to convert people to the dark side, so you need to becareful when you talk to her mwahaha!

I got the 13″ High End Macbook Pro, the 15″ looked too big for me when I saw them side by side & after a few months of using it, I’m hooked! I’d be lost without my little Macbook now, it feels weird using a PC!

I bought a little handmade sleeve to protect my Macbook from etsy so it doesn’t get scratched, I’m like an over protective mother hahaha. It’s slightly padded & it great for when I want to take my Macbook with me on the move.

Yes Macbook’s are more expensive than normal laptop’s but it really is worth every penny. As soon as a booted my Macbook up, I was blown away by the graphic & sound performance compared to my 3 yr old Fujistu-Siemens. And I had my Mac Guru Jacqui to help me with what programs I should install right away. It did take a little getting used to at first, the keyboard, OS and shortcuts are all so different but much quicker & easier!

I use a website called Wakoopa to keep track of what programs I use on my Macbook, so if you want to add me as well, please do so by clicking here! To date, I’ve used 167 different applications both Web & Mac based, I won’t list them all but I’d be lost without Growl, Quicksilver, Photobooth (yes I’m addicted!), Coda & Cyberduck.

I’ll leave you now with photos taken on my blackberry (sorry for the quality!) of me unboxing and starting up my new baby! I still need to come up with a nickname for my Macbook, I have no clue what to call it.

Any suggestions?

A while ago I was sent a pair of Skechers Shape-Up to review by Fuel My Blog. While taking Shape-Ups out of the box, I noticed that not only did it include a pair of white & baby blue trainers (which just so happen to be my favourite color!) but also included a booklet & DVD on how to walk & make the most out of them.

Before wearing the Shape-Ups, I flicked through the booklet which highlighted that they are designed to promote weight loss & tone muscles in various areas in your body without having to step inside a gym (yaay to that!), not to mention:

1. Strengthen the back
2. Firm calf and buttock muscles
3. Reduce cellulite and tone your thighs
4. Increase cardiovascular health
5. Improve posture
6. Reduce stress on knee and ankle joints

Designed to improve your life by changing the way you walk, Shape-Ups feature a unique soft kinetic wedge insert and dynamic rolling bottom to simulate walking barefoot on a giving surface that gives such as sand. With the comfort of Shape Ups, you will feel your heel sink to the ground as you step, roll forward as your weight shifts to its center, and push off with your toes. This movement will result in stronger leg, buttock, back and abdominal muscles as you stabilize your steps

Source: Skechers Shape-Ups booklet

Putting them on my feet for the first time they felt extremely weird, I couldn’t get my balance positioned correctly on them, it felt I was walking on 4 inch heels and going to fall over. It took a while to get used to them because you basically have to train yourself to walk in a different way because they are totally unlike normal trainers and the soles are designed to have a rocking effect which sinks your heel into the ground then roll you forward before pushing your weight off your toes. It took around 5 minutes before I could start walking in them properly which at first seemed a little crazy but the more I walked around on them in the house the more it felt like I was walking on air, or clouds or a sponge and are unbelievably comfortable which makes a change for trainers which I usually detest, in fact the pair I own (also Skechers) I haven’t worn in over 2 years.

It has been a while since I started wearing them and I honestly love them, not only me but my mom has started wearing them at times as well (the downfall of having the same size feet?) and she has remarked that they are very comfortable and even helped reduce the muscle pain in her knees due to arthritis which make wearing normal flat shoes very sore for her. I’ve noticed that while wearing them, my posture changed by becoming straighter while walking, something which I’ve been trying to fix for years after hurting my lower spine, having 6 months of physiotherapy as a result and a rather nasty spinal injection. The muscles in my legs felt like they were stronger while walking Doggy Dog in the park and one thing that made me fall in love with these trainers was when I was out shopping all day wearing my normal ballet pump shoes and my feet were killing me, in particular the heels of my feet. I then got home, put on the Shape-Ups and the pain virtually went away, I couldn’t feel the pain in my heels anymore. I put this down to the special kinetic wedge insert which raises the heel of your foot slightly.

Overall, they are an amazing pair of trainers which I will be wearing time and time again while walking doggy dog (or running errands as my mom does when she steals them off me!) and would recommend them to anyone who asks. I’ve already had people on Twitter ask me about them and told whoever asks that they are amazing. Do they help you loose weight? Well I’m already on a diet loosing 2 stone (13kg) for far without any gym time and with any exercise it needs your own willpower and effort, you can’t put the trainers on and suddenly start loosing weight (otherwise they will be surgically attached to my feet!) but because they are so comfortable, they make you walk for longer periods which in turn helps you loose weight.

Available in various colors, they are approx £90 and worth every single penny!

This month, ananyah.COM has been around for 6 whole years and to help celebrate this occasion, starting tomorrow, I’m giving away 6 prizes in 6 days to celebrate 6 years of blogging *throws confetti in the air* can you tell I’m in a good mood?!

Prizes up for grabs within the upcoming 6 days include:
1. A customized blog design by moi including 1 years free hosting & maintenance
2. A years Flickr Pro account worth worth $24.95
3. A £20 gift voucher from Just-Eat (UK Entries only sorry) courtesy of David Buttress
4. A signed CD by Kelis & a deluxe box set CD/DVD set of Corrine Bailey Rae live
5. 3 of my favourite French Movies on DVD
6. A handmade bath produce gift basket customized to your choice, thanks mom :*

How will it work?
At 12 midday GMT, a new question will be asked and will close at 12 midnight on the same day. In total there will be 6 questions and all answers will be found within my blog, so make use of pages, archives & the search bar! Some are easy, some are a little bit more tricky but it’s all in good fun!

You can enter every days competition events, however, if you are a winner one day, you will not be able to win another day… making it fair to other participants!

How will I determine the winner & how do I enter?
Entries will be accepted by commenting on the individual blog post on the specific day. At 12 midnight each day, comments will be closed off. Once you comment your answer to the question, your comment number will automatically be your entry number, for example if you are first to comment, you’ll be Number 1 and so on.

You can also enter using twitter by tweeting the answer along with the hashtag #ananyah666 within the 12 hour allocated time. Your twitter entry number will be determined by counting the number of blog comments that have been entered. For example, if there are 15 blog comments and 10 tweets… the tweeted entries will be number 16, 17, 18 and so on.

Once all entries have been gathered, I will be using Random.ORG to determine the winner by inputting the total amount of entries and randomly generating the winning number. The winning number will be captured and posted to show that I’m not favouring one entrant over another

The winner on each day will then be posted on the entry after comments have been closed (so check for updates!) as well as on twitter, and will be emailed for contact details, so make sure you enter your correct email address if you enter by commenting. All prizes (excluding the Just-Eat voucher) are open to World-Wide entrants so no matter where you are, you’ll get your prize

The competition starts at 12 midday GMT on Saturday July 11th so keep a look out on Twitter, your RSS feeds & of course my blog for the first competition.

Good Luck & hopefully we’re around for another 6 years!

I was asked by the great people over at Fuel My Blog to review EMI’s brand new website. So I decided to step it up a notch & because I’m reviewing a website, capture my movements on video along with an audio narrative. It took so many takes to get it the way I wanted because trying to think of things to say adlib is kinda hard!

To recap, overall I love the website, the simplicity of it but would like the carousel in the main page to include more artists rather than the default. Changing the media player so it doesn’t refresh when you move from tab to tab and possibly an option to click music genre’s to show artists under each genre rather than a huge A-Z list, that would be a good feature to implement so you can explore artists under the genre’s you love, such as R&B in my case.

P.S: Sorry for having to listen to my voice for 18 minutes, press mute if you want LMAO

Last month, my favourite people at Fuel My Blog gave me the opportunity to try out and review the website just-eat.co.uk. I came across the website several months ago when I wanted to order some food but didn’t have any cash on me. I googled & found just-eat.co.uk who take credit/debit cards and placed an order with an Indian Takeaway nearby. So prior to my review, I had experience ordering from them, but this time I got a free £15 voucher to use & abuse to hearts content.

So what is this website if you haven’t already guessed? It’s a UK wide website which allows you to order takeaway’s and delivered right to your door without even having to lift the phone & search for money! About time it kicked off in the UK! It’s pretty simple to use which I’ll show via screenshots and all you need to do to start off with is create a user account & search for restaurants nearby which have signed up to the just-eat.co.uk site.

When you enter the website, the first screen you are met with is the search for takeaways area shown in the screenshot below. All you need to do is enter your postcode and press search. This screen also shows how many takeaways have signed up for the service along with how many takeaways have been ordered by people via their website. For support, just-eat.co.uk have a live chat support in case of any problems you may face with the website or while ordering which is available until 11pm 7 days a week.

Once you have searched for your postcode, a list of the takeaways in your area that have signed up to the program will be shown. In my current area, only 3 takeaways restaurants have signed up which is annoying because their isn’t much choice. 2 Indian takeaways and 1 Fish & Chip place. The last time I ordered from just-eat.co.uk, I still lived in the City Center of Glasgow and had over 10 to choose from which is much better & expected of a site like this. That however, is not a problem from just-eat.co.uk, that’s the takeaways problem who haven’t opted into the service available. So, back to the website…. once the list of takeaways in your area has appeared, it will show the estimated time it will take to deliver to you, what type of cuisine it is, any customer reviews that have been left & a button ‘Order Now’ to see the menu and start ordering.

I decided to order from Renfrew Curry House because I saw it had good reviews from other people who used the website & because I had previously used them in the past in the traditional way of telephone ordering. After clicking ‘Order Now’ I was shown a menu screen where it told me the takeaways opening times, how much the delivery charge is & the different menu types available e.g. collection and night delivery.

The menu is very well layed out into sections e.g. Beverages, Starters, Special Offers, House Specials etc along with prices and a description of the item (great for when ordering a dish when you have no clue what will be in it lol). To add a dish to your order, simply click the green [+] button and it will automatically show your items selected on the right hand side along with the subtotal. When you add items, you can also delete items easily by clicking the delete button and it will refresh your subtotal. Once you are done adding items, click proceed to start the order process.

The next screen shows your order with the option to add more items if you need to, the ability to specify delivery time and entering your personal details for the delivery.

Once that has been done, your order will be processed and just-eat.co.uk will begin communicating with the takeaway of your choice giving them your order. You must keep this screen on as if you close it, your order will not be processed. It can take anywhere up to 90 seconds for your order to be approved, so don’t worry if it takes a few seconds. It is rather scary at first when you think the website isn’t working lol

Next you will be given confirmation of your order with the estimated delivery time, the type of delivery and the method of payment. You will see that my order over all came to £19.90, I had a free £15 voucher to spend and paid the difference by cash on delivery which was great… the cheapest takeaway I’ve ever had to pay for hehe.

To end your just-eat.co.uk experience, you will then be emailed another confirmation of your order along with contact details of the takeaway incase you want to ammend your order and customer support information if you need to get in touch with a just-eat.co.uk employee regarding your order. Making things better, everytime you order, you are awarded points and these points build up on their website allowing you to get free gifts such as vouchers and tshirts

45 minutes after ordering, the delivery man from Renfrew Curry House arrived with my goodies I ordered a Lamb Bhuna which is a tikka style with fresh ginger, garlic, coriander & tomatoes and then the ‘Best Deal in Town’ which was a massive collection of Chicken pakora, Tandoori Chicken, Chicken tikka, Lamb tikka, Curry sauce, Rice, Naan, Salad, 2 Poppadoms & Spiced Onions… even with 3 people eating we couldn’t finish everything & left the rest for the next day lol

Overall, I really love this website & it’s potential. I just wish that more takeaways sign up because there is only so many times you can eat an Indian takeaway before getting sick of it Since this review, I’ve ordered several times and will continue to do so!

If you’re in the UK, check your postcode & see what choice you have

Oh BTW If you are in Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Netherlands, you can go to just-eat.com and order

Star Trek is a science fiction film directed by J. J. Abrams and is the eleventh film based on the Star Trek franchise and features the main characters of the original Star Trek series, who are portrayed by a new cast. It explores the backstories of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), before they unite aboard the USS Enterprise to combat Nero (Eric Bana), a Romulan from the future who threatens the United Federation of Planets.

I just came back from watching the advance preview of Star Trek with my parents and OMFG I loved it! The special effects were amazing, the plot was good, the cast were great together, Scotty & the Russian were hilarious and I loved the fact they brought back an original cast member

I’m not going to give anything else away other than what I’ve just said, you’ve gotta see it on your own! You really do! Plus, expect many many more Star Trek movie’s to pop up in the cinema!

Live Long and Prosper

Rating:

I’ve loved Hip-Hop & RnB music for god knows how long so when the opportunity to review an up and coming rapper came about, I jumped at the chance.

His name is Nyce Billy, straight out of Harlem New York and was discovered by Felippe “Yo!” Santos, who subsequently signed him to his record label Everything to Gain Entertainment. Nyce Billy was first noticed by Industry Exec’s after winning 1st place at the Faces in the Crowds Showcase in 2008 which promotes unsigned artists in the Urban Music genre.

His career has since taken off with his debut single “Pour on the Floor” being played all over clubs in New York & the radio! As well as “Feels So Good” which is currently featured on his MySpace page showing off his RnB vocals. His songs have killer beats you can’t help but dance to & lyrics that are so catchy you can’t help but sing along!

Crediting 2Pac, Mase & LL Cool J to his main influences, his upcoming debut album “A Bronx Tale” will be released later in 2009 where 10% of all proceeds will be donated to Breast Cancer and Lupus Charities for Research.

If you want to check out his songs then go to his MySpace page.

Update: Here is an mp3 of “Feels So Good” for you to listen too