If you’re thinking of updating your beauty bag to capture these `supercool eyes’ for the autumn months, then drop into Myer!

Myer MyBeauty has a great offer starting March 2nd (until March 20th), which gives you this free Clinique goody bag* (below) valued at $150, when you spend over $60 on Clinique beauty products at any Myer store.

Your fabulous Clinique gift contains long last glosswear SPF 15 in Air Kiss 2.3mL, All About Eyes serum de-puffing eye massage 5mL, Superdefense SPF 25 age defense moisturizer 15mL, Dramatically Different moisturizing lotion 30mL, Deep Comfort body lotion 50mL, Take The Day Off makeup remover for lids, lashes & lips 50mL, High Impact mascara in black 4g, Colour Surge eye shadow duo in beach plum and blushing blush in smouldering plum compact.

See Myer MyBeauty Autum/Winter 2011 catalogue on Lasoo.

If you’re waiting for that very special little person to arrive, now’s your chance to win a wonderful four-wheel Atlantis Copper stroller from Love n Care.

In 2010, Love n Care - an Australian-owned business, won the inaugural CHOICE Award for Best Baby Brand - a great achievement indeed against strong competition. 

Now you can win the Atlantis Copper four-wheel stroller by telling us, in 25 words or less (in the Leave a comment box below), why you would love to win the Atlantis Love n Care stroller.

The Love n Care Atlantis (which also comes in Nero) has front swivel wheels, reclining back seat, all-wheels suspension, is an easy-to-fold and light-weight stroller at 8.1Kg, has a quick-release wheel system plus strong mesh basket for your shopping.

Competition closes Thursday 10th March.

Terms & Conditions.

For more information on stroller choices, read our Stroller Buying Guide. Find more strollers on Lasoo.

The Galaxy Mini is one of a new series of small Android-based smartphones soon to land in store from Samsung.

The mini-smartphone craze is coming soon - they’re designed to be a whole lot cheaper and appeal to both smartphone newbies and young people who can’t afford one of the current heavyweights (however they’re still perfectly OK for both fun and office functions).

Each of the small smartphones coming from Samsung (they’re also releasing the Ace, Fit and Gio almost at the same time)  are slightly different in styling, features and colour options, which means they can be offered by different telco carriers on slightly different plans. 

The Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 features a much smaller screen than the big smartphones - just 3.1 inches (QVGA 240×320) touchcreen which can display a range of 260K colours.  The Mini menu has an icon-based design but because of the small screen size, you have to scroll to see them all. You can however, see all the home screens at once. 

The Mini also has Bluetooth 3.0, microSD card slot, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headphone jack, and is using Android 2.2 as its operating system. Other Galaxy Mini features include a 3-megapixel camera, a 600MHz processor, 150MB of internal storage and ample capacity for external storage.

The Mini is integrated with Google Services, email, major social networking applications, Social Hub, Swype message composer, GPS, DLNA and powered by a 1350 mAh standard battery for up to 4 hours of battery life. It’s expected in store in April, price is yet to be released.

2011 is the year of the tablet wars! The iPad started the revolution last year by selling over 1 million in its first month.

Other tech manufacturers are playing catch-up, and there’s a flood of new tabs coming. Basically, your choice comes down to: the iPad, any one of the Android OS tablets, a Windows-based tablet, or one of the `others’  eg BlackBerry PlayBook, built on its own hardware/operating system.

The iPad

Apple lovers embraced the iPad because there’s great similarities between it and the iPod Touch and the iPhone. iPad critics say its too big, a jack-of-all-trades, doesn’t have cameras or support Flash - so you can’t render the full richness of the web. Reviewers are waiting for the iPad 2 to see if these issues are resolved. Supporters say the iPad is a great combo of e-reader, iPod, gaming device, netbook and photoframe -at an affordable price.

Apple apps are its greatest bonus - so many are available and compatible with the iPad (apps for iPhones won’t render as well). Apple has already specific apps for the iPad - iTunes, Safari, Google Maps, YouTube and more. Other developers are making iPad apps, such as the New York Times; the iPad is the first Apple device to run iBooks with content from Penguin and Harper Collins.

Android OS tablets

Tablets using Google’s Android OS are coming fast and furious from many manufacturers - all at different price points. After the iPad, Android tabs have the biggest slice of the market. The Galaxy Tab from Samsung has sold over 1million units and is called a ‘formidable iPad foe’, mostly for the media hub which downloads a huge library of movies and TV eps the day after they’re shown (Samsung has ties with Universal Studios, MTV, NBC and Paramount). Galaxy Tab is half the weight of an iPad, has front and rear facing cameras, is compatible with Flash video and games, which makes it a richer experience than the iPad.

The Motorola Xoom (in stores very soon), uses Honeycomb (latest version of Android). It has the latest `pinch-and-zoom’ screen for fast access to the 5 home pages. It’s more like a mini-computer as its functions go well beyond the core job of most tablets (web browsing and playing personal media). You can share, view and edit anything, check emails, view your calendar, set appointments etc.

Windows-based tablets

Laptops are big, bulky and awkward to travel with - firing one up to get an email address  is time-consuming. Which is why tablets running Microsoft Windows (also known as PC tablets) entered the market in the 90s. They are close to a laptop experience but some reviewers think that Microsoft’s big mistake with PC tablets was the stylus, which is expensive and easily lost. Stylus are OK for drawing but not for writing, which our fingers do well. Under this category, are also models known as`convertibles’ which further blur the line between laptops and tablets, with physical keyboards that flip behind the screen or slideout - converting tablet to laptop when required.

Fujitsu was showing off a Windows 7 tablet in January 2011 at CES in Las Vegas, due to arrive in April. The Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 will be aimed at business users and come with Windows 7 Professional. It has an Intel ‘Atom Oak’ Trail processor and you can interact with the touchscreen display using either a fingertip or a stylus. It will also have a fingerprint scanner and SmartCard slot.

To further complicate the tablet market, there are reports that Sony is working on a combined Android Honeycomb/Windows 7 tablet with a slide-out keyboard!

Other players in the tab market

There are a couple, but the  BlackBerry PlayBook is the best known and due soon. Ultra-thin and ultra light, it’s designed for the business-end of the market. 4G is coming to this tab in 2012 but for now, it’s the fastest tab around. It’s designed for the new online mobile consumer: JavaScript, Adobe Air and Flash Mobile, Open GL Standards, Blackberry Webworks and HTML 5 web apps platform are all supported, which means (in lay terms), rich multi-media will positively shine on this tab.

As we can see from TV coverage, the Christchurch earthquake has cruelly taken lives, injured many more people and damaged the city’s buildings.

Thousands who live in Christchurch - and on the wider Canterbury Plains - are suffering the stress of living with continuing aftershocks. Not only has the quake reduced both heritage and new  buildings to rubble, it has severed power, water and sewerage lines and there are now serious concerns for public health.

The most pressing need is to support the work of the New Zealand Red Cross who are immersed in emergency relief and recovery operations. The Australian Red Cross has already sent over aid workers to help their NZ counterparts.

Here at Lasoo, our company is matching employee donations, and has redirected all funds donated to the company’s giving program to the NZ earthquake appeal.

How you can help the people of Canterbury:

The Kiwibank has set up an account to receive donations - and all the money donated will go to the New Zealand Red Cross Canterbury Earthquake Appeal. The account number is 38-9009-0759479-00;  the account name is RED CROSS. Your money will go straight to the people of Canterbury who need it most - for shelter, food, clothing and medical supplies.  

The Australian Red Cross has also launched the New Zealand Earthquake 2011 Appeal. Donate to this appeal and directly help those affected by the earthquake, all donations over $2.00 are tax deductible.

Tablet wars are hotting up! BlackBerry’s PlayBook will land here soon, heralded as “the world’s first professional-grade tablet”.

The BlackBerry PlayBook is definitely aimed at the business-end of the tablet market, with features longed-for by corporate info tech departments. Like compatibility with the security-paranoid special servers that government, businesses and corporations use!

4G speeds are coming in 2012, until then the new PlayBook is still the fastest tablet around (faster than the iPad). This is because PlayBook is the first tablet to have a dual-core processor, and uses a brand new (very smooth) operating system, QNX.

Reviewers say these two things make it well-positioned for the multi-tasking needs of the new online consumer: JavaScript, Adobe Air and Flash Mobile, Open GL Standards, plus the new BlackBerry Webworks and HTML 5 web apps platform are all supported, which (in lay terms) means that all the increasingly rich multi-media on the web is rendered to the screen much better than any other tablet (read iPad) can.

The PlayBook is beautifully designed, ultra-thin (130mm) and ultra-portable (400g). With a 7″ high resolution display, you can enjoy browsing any website really fast, you can get into hard-core gaming and consume all the  media on the web including Adobe Flash (which gives richer content) - the iPad doesn’t display Flash. And all this without the tablet slowing down.

It has dual HD cameras for video capture and conferencing, full stero sound and an HDMI-out port for presentations. For those with a BlackBerry smartphone as well, you can use a secure Bluetooth connection which means you can simultaneously display email, calendar, tasks, documents to the tablet.

Expect to pay around $399 for 8GB, up to $599 for 32GB.

See Tablet Buying Guide on Lasoo.

Here’s a top bunch of apps to start your new Uni year with. Play games, de-stress, listen to music, time-manage and test your IQ etc - all via your smartphone.

1. Homerun Battle 3D (free, left) No time for sport now you’re studying? Baseball might not be your thing but Homerun Battle is one of the most-played games on Android phones. Slick 3D, clever multi-player tech, addictive gameplay fills your time.

2. Mensa Brain Test ($2.49) Are you as smart as you think? Mensa brain workout is from the world-wide group of high-IQ-ers. It’s just for fun, and even though they’re real Qs from Mensa tests, no matter your score, you can’t join the club!

3. AudioNote ($5.99 above) Lecture time equals zone out? AudioNote is a voice recorder and notepad so you jot notes while you record for playback later. Because its synchronised, you annotate/index recordings on the fly.

4. iStudiez Pro ($2.99) Timetabling is great, but that’s the least of this app’s tricks. Enter in assignments to keep track of  due date, plus it sends you reminders for classes and deadlines plus tracks your marks on a cumulative basis.

5. Australian Oxford Dictionary ($29.99 above) 1800 pages of  AOD is a quality app not to be without. Easy to search for words, audio for pronunciations, it’s the genuine Aussie version.

6. Instaviz ($9.99 above) Take your mind to other places. Mind mapping app to time-manage your uni projects graphically and in a way that’s easier to understand - especially if you’re group-working.

7. Grooveshark Lite ($3 per month) Grooveshark set out to change the way you listen to music. Plus they wanted to change the music industry. They did both with this hugely-downloaded app.

8. Books$Price (free) Hundreds of $$ for text books? This app scours the web for the best price for your course books.

9. tvGuide ($1.99 above) Time out from study? Grab listings for free-to-air TV. View current and upcoming listings across any channel.

10. CoPilot Live V8 Travelling after studies? CoPilot Live v8 is the best nav/map tech - pre-loaded maps are stored on your phone, no monthly fees - and it’s great on-foot, in your car or on a bike.

Congratulations! We’re pleased to announce the winners of CONVICTION double-pass movie tickets:

D Harrison, 0810; F Downing 0801;  L Carey 3152; C Williams 6210; A Nicolas 2147, K Snowden 2238; W Blom 4587; M Franchitto 5133; K Stacey 4152; N Horvarth 3195; E Staric 3020; S Chandler 2156; V Leitis 3030; L Gill 4043; V Harrison 2250; L Bates 5063; K Ngwenya 4216; D Modrich 3193; J Marshall 2217; N McRae 3216; E Norman 3028; A Dickson 3138; M Donn 4870; R Colombi 2022; C Licastro 2153; M Woods 2087, N Gilford 3825.

`Buy once, but give twice’ - shop at Kindred Gifts to feel good about your giving, because they’re all eco-friendly, recycled, Fairtrade or handmade.

Lots of celebs love them too - check out which ones think these gifts are great. All are brand new to Oz and only at Kindred Gifts.

Hank & JoJo bamboo retro socks for babies & kids ($44.95 left). Nicole Richie and Courtney Kardashian dress their kids in them!

Fluf organic lunch bags ($26.95 above), pillow covers and tote bags.

Fleabags organic cotton and vegetable-tanned leather handbags ($499 above). Anne Hathaway and Brooke Shields strut them!

Alchemy Goods up-cycled bike inner tubes and seat belts used to make laptop sleeves, messenger bags ($199 above) and wallets.

Same Sky bracletes handmade by women with HIV in Rwanda ($229 above). Halle Berry, Jessica Alba and Alicia Keys wear them.

Resource Revival bike chain bottle openers ($12.95 above), key chains and luggage tags.

Your smartphone is now your new sat nav system! Standalone devices are being gazumped by navigation/mapping technology that’s now available for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile phones.

CoPilot Live v8 is one of the best navigation/mapping technologies - pre-loaded maps are stored on your phone, no monthly fees - and it’s effective on-foot, in your car or on a bike.

V8 of CoPilot Live has been enhanced with a new lane indicator display arrow, showing exactly which lane you need to be in (wonderful in an unfamiliar city), plus it has a realistic display of motorway exits/junctions. Signpost info on the road matches your screen display, and you get to navigate right to a street name, even a house number!

There are several navigation views to choose from (2D, 3D, and Driver Safety), plus there’s a speed limit indicator. Change to either landscape or portrait - and obviously in the car, you need a dock for your smartphone.

CoPilot Live v8 includes the most accurate world maps and points of interest (POI) available from leading map suppliers: there’s constantly updated coverage of Western Europe, USA, Eastern Europe, Australia and South Africa. (ALK Technologies are set to launch v9 which you can easily upgrade to.)

CoPilot Live v8 also offers Live services:

Live Local Weather: At your destination, or in another city, plus 5-day outlook (click a day to visit AccuWeather).

LiveLink: Use the mobile internet and share your location with friends via their CoPilot Live app on-screen or email through CoPilot LiveLink website. Very useful if you’re group-travelling, updates Facebook status too.

Live Traffic: Shows incidents via map or lists highways affected. Choose to automatically avoid or select manually.

Live Local Search: Find local things to visit either near where you’re travelling or in another city.