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I'm packing for a small holiday away this week, and I ALWAYS forget something vital when I'm packing, so please help me think of typical forgettable items so I don't do it this time! The amount of times I've been stuck in airport shops buying international plug adapters when I have at least three at home, or remembering to bring my rechargeable batteries but not my battery chargers. The amount of money I've wasted on duplicate products because of my appalling memory is shameful! But on a side note, I do love airport shopping for other stuff. I don't like waiting for my flight, so I usually mooch around and pick up a few CDs, something electronic (tech geek that I am) or some gifts - there's usually an offer on some perfume or other. Now I'm looking forward to the airport part of my trip more than the rest, hmm... Photo: code_martial (Flickr)

I've never been a huge fan of shopping, I hate shopping for clothes, my other half sorts out gifts, and I zoom around the supermarket buying what I need, not stopping to read labels, compare prices, blah blah blah... So Internet shopping is a great alternative for me, if I need something I can just type it in on Google and it'll tell me where to buy it, with a nice price comparison list for me to see the cheapest option.

But it's not always that easy these days - maybe the web is getting too full with pointless sites - I've been trying to look for decent solar lights for my garden and am coming up with rubbish results. They're all the same horrible set, some of them American, no matter what I type in - 'solar lighting', 'outdoor lighting uk', 'garden lights uk' - the list goes on! I'm going to end up with the boring set that I don't want, aren't I? Photo: m-c (Flickr)

How nice are these: My new Diesel shoes! I bought them yesterday for £68 ready for the summer! They are beige with white laces and a grey rim round the bottom and they have a little design around the ankle. Perfect with shorts in the summer and a top for just going down the pub! Picture: Amazon

Finding a decent maya training course that doesn’t rip you off but still offers everything you need to know can be hard, especially if you are a student. If you are like me, and finding it tough with your studies, juggling work and trying to have a bit of a social life, then some extra help is always welcome. I have been on my animation course for nearly six months and I need just that extra bit of guidance so I found a really reasonable introduction to maya training course, which is about £54 for students. It teaches the Maya fundamentals, curve modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering, amongst other elements and is really good to give me that extra edge on everyone else in my class. The lecturer can’t always get round to everybody each session so having this option when I get home if I get stuck is really useful, and because the course is unlimited for 12 months I can access it when I want. Hopefully this time next year I will be introducing a brand new animated character! Picture: lifemi.com

Calling all budding photographers, amateur and professional. I thought I would throw you all something of a bone in the form of my latest internet shopping resource. Picstop. I recently used them to stock up on SD Memory Card but they sell a whole host of other essential bits of kit and all at very reasonable prices. If you’re the kind of person that regularly needs to replace things because you’re a bit of a cluts (like me) or even if you just like to stock up on things in case of the worst or in lieu of a rainy day (like me), then you should give it a check out. A lot of the more specialist shops on the net for photographers have jumped on the bandwagon of the recent years which has seen a massive boom in photographers with the hobby seemingly becoming dead fashionable and cool. Especially in the East End innit. Which is obviously a load of garbage. Anyhow, Picstop is more like a shop of old, great value and treats it all for what it is.