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What Have You Bought?

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On 19/01/2021 at 4:40 AM, Will said:

Even thought the last one I bought hasn’t arrived yet I decided I wanted to upgrade my soldering iron. Got this with an extra tip and carrying case:

61pz5g08SQL._AC_SX679_.jpg

What ya soldering?

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On 26/01/2021 at 9:15 PM, Ashley said:

Been without Photoshop for a while (but did discover photopea.com which is really good for a website) and heard good things about Affinity and it's half price at the moment. Seems to be a pretty good competitor to Photoshop and at £24 for a lifetime license compared to nearly that per month...

Anyway here's the software with a seal for illustrative purposes. 

4-Affinity-Photo-Develop-Persona.jpg

Oh awesome. I’ll give Affinity a look!

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35 minutes ago, Retro_Link said:

Oh awesome. I’ll give Affinity a look!

It has a free trial so you can test it first. Lots of helpful tutorials on Youtube as well.

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1 hour ago, Retro_Link said:

What ya soldering?

So far not much, but my progress is all here. Haven’t updated the thread in a little while but have had a ton of things delivered over the last week. Hoping to spend a bit of time over the weekend doing the HDMI mod for the GameCube.

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15 hours ago, Raining_again said:

 

You can grow them inside, mine is living on my south facing windowsill right now.  I just referred to a YT video on planting lemon seeds from a lemon and managed to get a few saplings, its pretty easy to do.  banana skins soaked in a bottle of water is also a good feed for them.  I was at a loose end early 2020 (lol) and decided to give it a go. My plant is still very small, i believe they need a few years in the warm before they grow to a point of potentially getting any flowers/fruit.  Really looking forward to seeing how much growth i get from it this summer.  Kinda started it as a pet project without any assumptions that id get fruit from it, just gave it a go since it didnt really cost me anything.  Peppers are also ones that do reasonably well inside.

 

Shh I want a reason to move to Italy

2 hours ago, Retro_Link said:

Oh awesome. I’ll give Affinity a look!

 

1 hour ago, Happenstance said:

It has a free trial so you can test it first. Lots of helpful tutorials on Youtube as well.

Still not used it yet but there was a half price sale for Black Friday and then this one recently so if you use the trial and think you'd like it but in no rush might be worth waiting, but even so the full price is £45 for a lifetime subscription so it's potentially no huge loss (not knowing your financial situation of course).

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I only first heard about Affinity recently and it sounds interesting (and cheap). I might have to try it out to see how it compares to Photoshop. 
I currently get Photoshop (and the other Adobe programs) through my job, but it might be good to have an affordable backup in case I lose that. 

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1 hour ago, Eenuh said:

I only first heard about Affinity recently and it sounds interesting (and cheap). I might have to try it out to see how it compares to Photoshop. 
I currently get Photoshop (and the other Adobe programs) through my job, but it might be good to have an affordable backup in case I lose that. 

Likewise worth just waiting for it to drop again then. It's a lifetime account with upgrades included. 

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This and last years extended trials and 50% off sales were based around COVID and people having to work from home so I wouldn’t expect regular sales after this one. I think we used to get one or two a year before this and they didn’t last as long. I think £23.99 is a good price for a photoshop alternative as good as this so I’d still recommend grabbing it. 

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3 hours ago, Ashley said:

Shh I want a reason to move to Italy

 

Still not used it yet but there was a half price sale for Black Friday and then this one recently so if you use the trial and think you'd like it but in no rush might be worth waiting, but even so the full price is £45 for a lifetime subscription so it's potentially no huge loss (not knowing your financial situation of course).

“I don’t have much money, but boy if I did...”

That’s partly why it appeals. I first heard of Affinity a couple of months back who had got tired of Adobe’s pricing and was ditching it in favour of learning Affinity. He seemed to be adapting to it fairly well, and it’s good to hear you’re getting on ok with it. Definitely worth a look. £45 is a steal compared to Photoshop, their photography package of Photoshop and Lightroom starts from £10 a month...

Looking on their website it seems they have a Lightroom equivalent called Affinity Photo?... Any experience with that?

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9 minutes ago, Retro_Link said:

“I don’t have much money, but boy if I did...”

That’s partly why it appeals. I first heard of Affinity a couple of months back who had got tired of Adobe’s pricing and was ditching it in favour of learning Affinity. He seemed to be adapting to it fairly well, and it’s good to hear you’re getting on ok with it. Definitely worth a look. £45 is a steal compared to Photoshop, their photography package of Photoshop and Lightroom starts from £10 a month...

Looking on their website it seems they have a Lightroom equivalent called Affinity Photo?... Any experience with that?

Affinity Photo is Photoshop & Lightroom. Affinity Designer is Illustrator, Affinity Publisher is InDesign.

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7 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Affinity Photo is Photoshop & Lightroom. Affinity Designer is Illustrator, Affinity Publisher is InDesign.

Ahh thanks. Nice to hear it combines both programmes.

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Yeah photo is what I've gone for. May pick up designer later on to play around with that but I never figured out illustrator in the first place. 

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22 hours ago, Ashley said:

I have one peace lily that is mostly hanging in there. Did have a few other plants but they died. 

And while we're talking about it I really want a lemon tree but I don't have a garden and I live in the UK so...

Lilies are easy. When they start dropping and being dramatic - water. 

More light means more flowers. Otherwise they can deal in pretty shaded (not dark) conditions. 

 

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1 hour ago, Ashley said:

Yeah photo is what I've gone for. May pick up designer later on to play around with that but I never figured out illustrator in the first place. 

If you just want to play around with vectors you can try inkscape.

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Yet another cassette player, as the Alba "Tetris" one was a bit disappointing and the Aiwa one I got is probably beyond my skill to repair (it was only £1, so I only bought it to tinker with anyway).

This time a proper Walkman, which I'm hoping will be my main one, as it's has all the bells and whistles I want such as Dolby noise reduction and auto reverse. 

Sony-Walkman-Wm-2091-With-Original-Earpl

As always, it appears to need a belt, so ordered one of those too. I've already got a selection of belts, but I figured I'd get one that's guaranteed to fit properly, rather than find one that's close enough.

s-l300.jpg

Should be a nice Walkman when I'm done.

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15 hours ago, nightwolf said:

Lilies are easy. When they start dropping and being dramatic - water. 

More light means more flowers. Otherwise they can deal in pretty shaded (not dark) conditions. 

 

Yeah I had one at my place in London and likewise it was the only one to survive. 

Although just realised I told a lie before, I've still got a poinsettia going.

13 hours ago, Sméagol said:

If you just want to play around with vectors you can try inkscape.

Cheers, I'll give it a go at some point.

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Got myself a nice looking tool box to keep the mass of stuff I’ve bought for console modding in.

large-tool-box-blue-toyo-steel-company.jpg

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My mouse scroll wheel wasn't registering clicks anymore, so instead of doing the sensible thing and just buy a new mouse I got myself this combination (because you just can't have a non-matching mouse and keyboard!):

SteelSEries-Win-770x433.jpg

Steelseries Apex 3 and Rival 3. Yes, RGB, finally! Joke's aside, it's nice to have a fresh keyboard as well as now I notice how stubborn my old one got. The wrist support is a nice extra as well.

Didn't want to go mechanical for the keyboard because of the clickity-clack and the price, but so far it feels pretty good.

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Why is the keyboard wet? did they dunk it in the sink before taking the photo?

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16 hours ago, martinist said:

Why is the keyboard wet? did they dunk it in the sink before taking the photo?

It's waterproof so I guess they wanted to show that. So yes, I think they did dip it in the sink! :grin:

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Last big purchase, probably of the year. I've been wanting a new camera for over a year now but it got put on hold as I got the electric bike instead to help with health. Saved up a bit of money along with some birthday vouchers and got myself the Fujifilm X-T4, 16-80mm lens and a tripod. Gonna grab another lens or two later in the year when I can actually travel a bit again, most likely a 35mm and then a 12mm for astrophotography.

DSC_0595.acr.jpeg63e3a0c8-4b31-4d6d-b3f4-3f4f2399b3c2_1.9

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