Producing high quality, well-lit, studio-style photographs can be quite a challenge if you don’t happen to have access to a studio set-up at home or be the proud owner of an expensive camera.
Although half-decent pictures can be obtained courtesy of some Blue Paper style bodging about with white paper, desk lamps and sticky back plastic, it’s hardly the best solution if you need to be able to consistently take professional looking photos.
The Lastolite Cubelite kits look to provide a handy solution here, bundling all the components you need to knock out fab shots from the comfort of your own home.
The Cubelite cubes come in a range of sizes, from two foot up to six foot six inches, with each package including a 500w tungsten light and tripod, two-sided silver and white reflector, white background and carry case.
We plumped to review the 2 foot kit and the first surprise was the size of the box it all came in – it was enormous!
On unpacking the contents, we were suitably impressed by the pro-looking lamp and the tripod that extended all the way up to our ceiling.
Unleashing the beast
Releasing the Cubelite from its natty blue bag was fun: a quick shake of the thing and – wooowargh! – a white mini-tent pops out!
Although we chose the smallest size, it was still quite a large beast, and you’d need a fair size table to accommodate the set-up – we reckon you could probably take the 6 foot tent to Glastonbury and provide accommodation for a few friends.
Following the straightforward instructions, we stuck the lamp on the tripod and set it up so that it shone it through the fabric from a distance of 18 inches.
Inside the light tent, we used the elastic loops and supplied clips to fix the white background and then positioned the reflector inside, on the opposite side to the lamp.
We grabbed the nearest object we could find (an apple), lobbed it into the middle of the tent and then angled the reflector about until we got the light looking jus’ so.
A useful, albeit minimal, single sheet of A4 paper advised us on how to sort out the colour balance on our camera, and before long we were knocking out some s-s-s-studio style photos with ease, with the diffusing material making it a cinch to grab attractive, shadow-free results.
Verdict
We liked the Cubelite a lot, and it’s a great product for people who need to be able to take high quality images without the hassle of erecting a permanent studio.
We found the Cubelite easy to lug about, although the towering tripod and heavy duty lamp may have bordered on overkill for such a small set up.
It’s not cheap at £256 (excl VAT) either, but for working photographers and mustard-keen eBay sellers, it could prove a wise investment and it’s a product we’re happy to recommend.
Rating
Ease of use: 85%
Build: 80%
Features: 80%
Value for money: 80%
Overall: 83%
ViaMichelin is the part of the Michelin group that designs, develops and markets digital travel assistance products. They already have a successful Website that uses information from the Michelin Guide allowing visitors to plan their travel and routes utilising the Guide info. 
Why get a X-980T?
There’s also a speed camera database for the UK (which isn’t actually available yet, but will be in late October) and other countries. Again it’s included in the price (as are updates). 
Overall Verdict
A long time favourite of the Digi-Lifestyles crew, WordWeb is a free, cut-down version of the WordWeb Pro software, and includes a comprehensive English thesaurus and dictionary with the ability to look up words from within external programs. 
Simply highlight the word you need a definition for and either click the system tray icon or use the default keyboard shortcut of CTRL+ALT+W. 
The program can also be used to look up word definitions and alternative synonyms or antonyms – you could, for example, look up “tree”, click on the “Types” tab and you’ll be presented with a list of different types of tree. 
The program – which comes in regionalised flavours – can also access the web to offer a web search of the highlighted word or link to a site with translation capabilities. 
Fresh out of Japan is the new Caplio R5 digital camera, featuring anti-shake, a new 7.24 megapixel CCD and the same mighty 7.1x optical wide zoom lens (28-200mm, 35mm equiv) as seen on its predecessor, the Caplio R4 (
We can’t say we liked this move, as the smaller, recessed power button is much harder to operate (we also had issues with powering up the camera, but we’ll move on to that later). 
LCD screen
Seeing as the assistant was most unimpressed with our antics we had to cut short our testing, so we can only assume that the differences would manifest themselves under more demanding light conditions or under closer scrutiny. 
The LCD screen was easy to read (although, being London in September, the sun wasn’t exactly blinding), but we would have liked to have seen an optical viewfinder in there too. 
Night time woes
Noisy nights
Street photographers looking to grab late night sneaky shots with the camera on 10 second self timer will have to think again too as the flash – yes the FLASH! – blinks brightly on and off during the countdown! 
We had some problems with that the SD slot, with a worrying ‘card format’ error popping up unexpectedly halfway through a shoot. 
Spot
Like most Brits we’re more than a bit obsessed with all things weather-related, so as soon as we bought a Palm Treo we were busily installing a host of weather-related applications, including 
Setting it all up
Wind speeds can be shown in km/h, mph, m/s, knots or in the trusty old Beaufort Scale, with the choice to select temperature readouts in Celsius or old school Fahrenheit. 
At just €9.95 the program represents great value to our eyes and looks to be an essential purchase for travellers and meteorological mullers. 
We’ve already told you about the electronics-focussed and very blokey Make: magazine, but they’ve now got competition in the shape of a soon-come sister publication called Craft:, which is aimed at the “new alternative craft movement.” 
In line with its hip Web 2.0 aspirations, the magazine comes with an interactive website offering tons of links to ‘craft mafia’ clubs, an online blog, projects, magazine features and a clever idea to deliver knitting patterns over iTunes. 
The magazine are trialling the service now, so mad-for-it crafters can download a pattern for a stretch tube top with drawstring bottom, hipster shorts with scoop sides (whatever that is) from 
Fun, funky and painfully hip, the Craft: website is already a great resource for DIY types looking for inspiration and ideas, and makes a pleasant change from the usual corporate homogenised dreck that we keep getting press releases about. 
If you’re a modern, go-getting metrosexual-about-town like us Digi-Life hipsters, you’ll be the owner of a mile-long list of passwords, web logins, ATM PINs, program serials, bank account details, credit card numbers and passcodes for highly exclusive West End nightclubs. 
Using SplashID
Naturally, with all your precious data a mere password away, it’s vital that you make your SplashID password a good ‘un – if that kind of thing defeats you, there’s a handy password generator onboard to help you create hard-to-crack passwords. 
A nice touch is that you can click the clipboard icon next to listed passwords and have the code automatically placed in the clipboard ready for pasting into your browser or program password box. 
Because of SplashID’s cross-platform abilities, we’ve been able to exchange data from Palm to Windows Mobile devices (and back again) without a problem so it’s pretty much future proofed, and the desktop integration is a great way of ensuring that the info is kept up to date. 
Although we’re not alone in thinking that the Palm Treo is the best smartphone around, the device suffers from one tragic omission; Wi-Fi. 
This design has obvious advantages and disadvantages; the advantage is that the sled offers its own power supply, giving users a considerably enhanced battery life compared to handheld-powered Wi-Fi cards; the disadvantage is that the thing adds bulk to the phone. 
The unit must be charged for two hours before use, with a small amber LED blinking while charging. This turns to solid green when the Treo is connected to a Wi-Fi network. 
The first few times we tried this, it took so much effort to pull the phone in and out of the sled we began to fear we’d end up breaking the thing. 
Last week was the annual get together of TV ‘luvvies’ in Edinburgh and this year, as for the last few years, the current moguls felt it necessary to behave like Scrooge, reflect on their previous misdemeanours and take a bit of a look at TV to come. 
The spectre of Banquo’s ghost in the shape of everyone’s (now) favourite caterer, Mr Charles Allen, was there and delivered the keynote address, he of course blamed all and sundry for the mess ITV is in – ‘nothing to do with me guv’ should have been the title. 
It’s been a cult movie staple for over 15 years but, from Friday, you’ll be able to interact with Mr Pink, Mr White, Nice Guy Eddie and the rest of Quentin Tarantino’s be-suited robbers as Eidos launches Reservoir Dogs, the game. 
We said the graphics were realistic but so is the dialogue and each level is accompanied by excerpts, with each character having over 200 lines. 
This approach includes the music. Eidos licensed all the original music from the film but more was required to fit the length of the game. Some was written in-house and additional tracks were licensed including some stupendously funky 70’s driving music to accompany the car chase.