http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk Articles from WineGifts4U. en-gb Fri, 02 May 2008 06:17:18 -0400 http://www.rssfeedssubmit.com/rss-generator/ http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php Albert Einstein - The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving. In the early part of the 20th Century, Einstein (1879 - 1952) believed that giving was better than receiving, but do people in the 21st Century agree? Traditionally, in the UK people give gifts and presents as a way of congratulating someone on a special achievement, such as passing a driving test, graduating or having a baby. Presents are also given on occasions, such as birthday's, wedding anniversaries and at Christmas time. Gift giving can be an expensive business for the gift giver, but can be a rewarding career for gift companies and greeting card companies. In recent times, the market has noticed some amount of change, coming from what can only be classed as, 'recessionary pressures'; reduced disposible incomes and higher expenses in the form of living costs and fuel costs all play a major role. As part of working for an online web business selling personalised gifts and other gifts ideas (www.WineGifts4U.co.uk), it is always necessary to keep in mind the current economic climate and potential future environmental changes. A question that came to mind to ask the general public(who are after all the buyers of gifts) was, 'will people ever stop giving gifts?'. I posted the question onto a couple of forums to get the opinion of buyers of gifts - would they ever stop buying gifts for friends and loved ones? especially in these times of 'recessionary pressures'. At Christmas, which is coming around very soon, many of us get into lots of debt, trying to find the coolest, most up-to-date presents for our loved ones, especially presents for children. The amount of toys and gadgets available for children is absolutely mind blowing and at the same time can be ludicrously expensive if you think about the amount of money a Wii costs, for example. Somebody once said, 'Christmas is the season when you buy this year's gifts with next year's money.' A member of the forum posted her thoughts and opinions, she recounted having seen times when the economy was in a terrible state and everyone said, 'I am cutting down this year' or 'I cant afford to spend so much on such and such' but, yet every special occasion there were many gifts and lots of cards, suggesting that no matter what, people will always give gifts and cards. From the information collated, the outlook as a general consensus was that people will always give gifts, as it is a wonderful way of showing you care. There are still a number of methods which can be employed to reduce the costs of buying gifts or making the gifts you give seem special: A Gift Closet Buy gifts throughout the year, gifts which are on sale, a bargain, or just a good idea. Have a place where you can store these gifts and when a special occasion, or a birthday comes around choose something from your 'gift closet' to give. This will reduce costs as well as the stress of having to find something last minute and also, if you forget a particular occasion, you will always have something on hand. Design Your Own Gifts This is a particularly effective method of gift giving. You can create your own gifts by spending time and effort, which will be noted by the recipient. Buying gifts can be a fairly easy and effortless task, especially if you buy online (a few clicks and most of the time the gift lands on your doorstep). If you make your own however, it can be a little cheaper and shows you have put alot of thought into the gift. Personalised Gifts Give personalised gifts. There is a whole array of personalised gifts on offer, it is another way of finding gifts at affordable prices as well as showing people that you have thought about what you are giving. So, it seems that people in the 21st Century will not stop giving gifts. Giving gifts is a way of showing that you care about the person the gift is being given to, as well as the special achievement or the special occasion that is being celebrated no matter what the economic climate or the world's finances, the only thing that might vary is the type of gifts that are given. From the information collated, the outlook as a general consensus was that people will always give gifts, as it is a wonderful way of showing you care. There are still a number of methods which can be employed to reduce the costs of buying gifts or making the gifts you give seem special: A Gift Closet Buy gifts throughout the year, gifts which are on sale, a bargain, or just a good idea. Have a place where you can store these gifts and when a special occasion, or a birthday comes around choose something from your 'gift closet' to give. This will reduce costs as well as the stress of having to find something last minute and also, if you forget a particular occasion, you will always have something on hand. Design Your Own Gifts This is a particularly effective method of gift giving. You can create your own gifts by spending time and effort, which will be noted by the recipient. Buying gifts can be a fairly easy and effortless task, especially if you buy online (a few clicks and most of the time the gift lands on your doorstep). If you make your own however, it can be a little cheaper and shows you have put alot of thought into the gift. Personalised Gifts Give personalised gifts. There is a whole array of personalised gifts on offer, it is another way of finding gifts at affordable prices as well as showing people that you have thought about what you are giving. So, it seems that people in the 21st Century will not stop giving gifts. Giving gifts is a way of showing that you care about the person the gift is being given to, as well as the special achievement or the special occasion that is being celebrated no matter what the economic climate or the world's finances, the only thing that might vary is the type of gifts that are given. http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php Christmas presents and gift ideas, how to avoid the mad rush with a few online gift stores Christmas is still a few months away, but it's almost September and as soon as the sales end the shops are going to be kitted out with their christmas ranges. Chocolates, cards and plenty of treats will be available for the festive celebrations, which consequently means time to start thinking about what christmas gifts to get for Auntie Sally, the next door neighbour and your third cousin's children! Are you fed-up of wasting time buying the same old things; socks, smellies, ties and chocolates? If you feel like having a change for Christmas 2008 and wish to avoid spending hours and hours in queues, pushing past people trying their best to find unique and original gifts, but at the same time trying to get it all over with as soon as possible , why not try buying Christmas presents online? Purchasing christmas gifts for friends and family needn't wait until Christmas Eve! You can bypass the queues, put your feet up and even drink cup of tea whilst browsing leisurely the array of online stores offering special, original and personalised christmas gifts from today. To lead you upto Christmas, you might need some chocolate advent calendars, I'd recommend Sweet Temptations (www.chocolateadventcalendars.co.uk) who have a wide range of fairtrade chocolate advent calendars. Or, for something a little more upmarket, try (www.storkgifts.co.uk/ginatadventcalendar.htm) for a giant felt advent calendar with Christmas decorations and pockets, guaranteed to make any house look festive over the Christmas period. A surprise gift often loses all meaning, especially if the recipient has to trek to an out-of-town post office to collect it. Geneiva Chocolates (www.geneivachocolates.co.uk) and its sister company Hotel Chocolat specialise in chocolates by post. Not only do the firms offer an impressive range of boxed chocolates, the special chocolate postal packs have been designed to fit through a standard letterbox. You can give chocolates for every occasion under the sun, and perhaps you have?! It's now time to try something different, if this will be you're first time ordering online, you might as well continue with the theme! Why not try looking at personalised gifts, as really special gift ideas? Find a unique christmas gift for each member of the family and all your friends, at affordable prices, which won't break the bank! Flowers: Obviously, you've got Interflora, who you know are probably going to do a great job at getting your flower gifts delivered, but other online florists who also deserve a mention include (www.flowersdelivereduk.com), they do some amazing personalised roses! You can choose silk roses or fresh roses to add your personalised message onto and (www.serenataflowers.com), they have a fab range of flowers, often with some good deals. Will you be, or have you been invited to someone's house over the festive season or a you looking for a wonderful looking group gift? Hampers are a wonderful gift idea, they can contain an assortment of food, condiments and treats, and the container itself is often highly desirable. Good quality hampers needn't cost the earth, either. Harrods (www.harrods.co.uk), for example, have hampers from as little as £30. Thorntons www.thorntons.co.uk, also offer a Corporate Christmas Party Box which is filled with party poppers, indoor sparklers, balloons and wine as well as delicious snacks, such as chocolate, turkish delight, toffee, fudge, truffles and even a model chocolate santa and Rudolph. It's a beautifully-designed gift idea! Alcoholic gifts are well received at any time, especially Christmas and most suppliers have a price range which is flexible enough to suit any budget. Specialist firms despatch everything from a single bottle of wine to cases of top Champagne costing many thousands of pounds. (www.sparklingdirect.co.uk) have a brilliant range of champagne, cristal champagne and champagne gift packs. (www.WineGifts4U.co.uk) also do a great range of personalised gifts including personalised wine gifts, personalised champagne, engraved gift ideas, personalised ale, teddy bears, design your own mugs and design your own t shirts. Perhaps this could be a one-stop shop to get everyone's Christmas presents from this year? Looking for something slightly more adventurous? Try (www.intotheblue.co.uk) who offer a superb range of exhilaration day gifts, day's out and experience days. Christmas gifts are an annual "problem", it can get tiring and expensive, gifts of specialist foods and wines are a great idea, particularly at a time of year when people celebrate with family and friends. The websites and gift ideas offered here, will hopefully make it easier for you to find something extra special for your loved ones this year, taking away unnecessary hassle and tension during a time that's supposed to be full of happiness and good will. http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php I think many of us have no idea what we are drinking, because the system the UK uses for measuring alcohol in beverages is slightly complicated, so I've put together a helpful and easy to use guide so you can drink safely and responsibly! The alcohol content of drinks is measured in units, with one UK unit containing eight grams of pure alcohol. Now, you can't just count each drink as one unit of alcohol unfortunately, as the number of units depends on the different strength and size of each drink, so it can vary a lot. Know Your Units - How do I calculate what I'm drinking? There's a whole load of alcoholic beverages on offer; wine, fortified liquers, beer, lager, spirits, ready to drink bottles, stout etc and each drink has a different alcohol content, you can see from the examples below just how the unit content of alcholic drinks actually differ... Small Glass of Wine - 175ml - 12 percent abv = 2.1 Units Spirits - 35ml - 40 percent abv = 1.4 units Pint of Standard Beer or Cider - 568ml - 4.1 percent abv = 2.3 Units Bottle of Beer or RTD - 275ml - 5 percent abv = 1.4 Units To figure out how many units your alcoholic beverage is worth, there's a simple formula: [Volume (ml) x abv]/1000 = Unit content Small Glass of Wine - 175ml - 12 percent abv = 2.1 Units 175ml x 12/1000 = 2.1 Units So, what's healthy? The UK Government advises that men should not regularly drink more than 3 to 4 units per day and women should not take in more than 2 to 3 units each day. Continuously drinking four or more units for men, and three or more for women can lead to progressive health issues, so it is best to stick to the recommended levels! Drinking and Driving... The legal drink-drive limit is 80mg per 100 millilitres of blood, but this cannot easily be translated into alcohol units as this measurement can be affected by age, weight, sex and whether food has been eaten, plus a host of other factors. It is therefore (to be safe) best not to drink and drive! A little interesting fact: Your body breaks down alcohol at a rate of about one unit per hour - and nope, there's no way you can speed this up! http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php I rarely listen to the radio (unless I am forced to listen to Radio 2 at work), I never read the papers, and watching the news on television bores me. However, given my lack of interest in current affairs, with no mortgage to pay and limited responsibilities, up until now I wasn't bothered about world news or national issues. Lately though, I can't help but notice the recent dramatic changes in the UK's economic climate. I work for a company, Vin De Terre Ltd, which established itself eleven years ago as a wholesaler in beers, wines and spirits, supplying shops within a fifty-mile radius of Spalding. This strategy worked fine until 1999, when supermarkets began selling alcohol at cut prices making it very difficult to compete in the market place. Vin De Terre Ltd, therefore diversified into a slightly different market segment, providing a similar service to pubs, clubs and restaurants, which had a very positive influence on profit margins. Since 2005, even this sector has also shown an enormous decline and with the smoking ban in public places taking effect from July 2007, as well as the widespread reduction in disposible incomes the whole pub sector has taken a very big hit. Being an innovative company, the wholesale business in 2006 decided to find another opportunity of selling goods available from exisiting suppliers, and has since developed and established an online e-commerce website, www.WineGifts4U.co.uk selling personalised wine gifts, wine gifts, which were originally sold in bulk to exisiting restaurant customers within a 50-mile radius of Spalding, Lincolnshire but are now available to individual customers thoughout the UK. The idea to sell personalised wine online came from a conference, which was attended in 2005 by our Managing Director, Asgar Dungarwalla. A presentation was given by Viking Direct, the stationary supplier, who make a point of personalising all of their customer mailshots in order to create a rapport with their customers by offering a unique selling point, making stationary seem a little more interesting. So, it seems the key to stay in business through these tough time is to be innovative, continuously looking for new ideas to excel within the market place. Even without taking notice of the media and the situation at work, it is obvious to me that the country's economic situation is fairly delicate at the moment, with recessionary pressures hitting small, medium and large companies as well as the general public; the ever increasing fuel prices are a primary factor. Petrol is now at £1.15 per litre at my local supermarket, and I remember it costing 70 pence per litre not so long ago. Also, over a similar time frame, the cost of a weekly shop has gone from £100 to £150, meaning living costs have been rising sensationally, but my salary hasn't gone up as spectacularly (or at all infact!), leading to a fairly low disposible income left over at the end of the month. Some food producers have seen the cost of key ingredients rise by as much as 300% over the past year, and earnings for major food companies like Kellogg (K) and Kraft (KFT) have taken a hit. Ernest and Young describe the current economic climate as a "horror movie" at risk of turning into a "disaster movie" and Simon Rubinsohn, the RICS's chief economist suggested, "There are no positives out there right now". This is all rather worrying and with the credit cruch too... What is a "credit crunch" ? Quite simply, a credit crunch means that banks hold on to the cash they have as tightly as possible, making it harder for people to borrow money. The reason for this is America's mortgage market meltdown, meaning that banks are becoming very wary of whom they lend to. Banks are particularly averse to dealing with hedge funds and other financial institutions that might be exposed to the repackaged sub-prime US loans, which were lent to low income American households. Consequently, the cost of borrowing has risen well above target rates set by institutions like the Bank of England. However, it is still fairly easy to get a mortgage in the UK, if you are a good credit risk. On the whole, those with a lower credit rating are finding it more expensive to borrow, as banks tighten their lending criteria. The Telegraph UK believes "the economic outlook for the business sector was "grim and ominous" and the downturn could be "longer and nastier" than previously expected." In my opinion, this description is probably very accurate, people still need to make a living though, so companies should try to look at reducing their costs as much as possible as well as changing or improving their exisiting business to cope and survive in these hard economic times. http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php Personalised Mugs and Design Your Own Mugs - How To Get The Most From Your Designing Your Own Mugs Obviously, we want you to be happy with your final personalised mug designs, so we have put together a few tips and ideas to help you along the way...(hopefully!) We believe the three key areas you need to look at before submitting your personalised mugs are photo quality, image size and positioning of personalised message. Photo Quality: Uploading a photo or an image onto your personalised mugs is a fairly simple task, using our interactive 'design your own' mug tool, which will take you through all the steps of designing your own mug. The main thing to consider though, in order to get the best out of your personalised mug (and be totally impressed) with the final product is to upload the best quality and sized photo or image. To get the best image on your personalised mugs, may we suggest that you upload a digital photograph or an image from a modern digital camera, which was set on the high quality or fine setting? You can upload a scanned image or photo onto your personalised mugs. The quality of this may be slightly reduced, but we are able to do some minor magic, to help you get the best from your image. If you would prefer us NOT to retouch your image or photo at all, please let us know. We won't mind! Using a photo uploaded from a camera phone may also not bring you the best quality, but if this is the only image you've got, give it a try and we'll see what we can do. If we think the image or photo you have provided for your personalised mugs just won't work, we'll let you know! Image Size You can upload images and personalised messages onto one, the other or both sides of the mugs. Portrait and landscape images are both great, but how great they look on the mug are dependent on whether you would like the same image on both sides or a different image on each side. Portrait and portrait images work really well, but portrait and landscape images don't look so great (but are still possible to do). We use the whole image on the personalised mugs, so please ensure you want all of the image on the mugs before uploading it. If you need to edit the image before placing it on your personalised mugs, we suggest using Picasa, a free image editing software from google, http://picasa.google.com . Personalised Message The message often looks best just above, or just below an image ( this is if you wish to have both an image and text on one or both sides of the personalised mug). If you place the text over the image, it usually doen't work, as it is very hard to read the text. If you are just using text, centering the text on each mug side looks brilliant as does using the largest font size you can to fit the space. Please make sure you can see all of your personalised message before submitting your final personalised mug, because if you can't see the text on the mug on your design, you might not be able to see it on the final product (although again, here we can use a bit of imagination and minor magic!) We have put together these few tips to help you get the best out of your design your own mug experience. If you have any further questions or queries, please do get in touch, we would be more than happy to help! http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php This is not a sales pitch or a marketing ploy as such, but it is an account of my tumultuous experience in setting up an online business, www.WineGifts4U.co.uk, selling original personalised gift ideas for all occasions. In reality, setting up a full e-commerce website is a very complex topic, which might take me a while to explain, so I’m going to condense it down into manageable chunks: 1) The motive behind setting up an online business. 2) How did we go about setting up an e-commerce website? 3) Problems we faced after putting the website “live”. 4) Website development 5) Top Tips that we think will help new e-business starters to avoid the mistakes we made. Let’s start from the beginning… During 2006 and 2007, with a little (ok, a lot of) help from our in-house graphic designer, Lea, my sister, Hanifa, my dad, Asgar and an ingenious web coder named Charlie, a website www.WineGifts4U.co.uk was created. The motive behind setting up an online business Vin De Terre Ltd was established in 1997 by Asgar Dungarwalla, as a wholesaler in beers, wines and spirits supplying pubs, nightclubs, restaurants and sports clubs within a fifty-mile radius of the warehouse. The company began with just three employees eleven years ago, and over time has grown to employing nine members of staff today. Over the last two years, Vin De Terre Ltd has diversified its product range to include personalised gifts, including personalised wine, personalised champagne, vodka, whisky, mugs, engraved items and a ‘design your own’ t shirt section. These gift ideas are incorporated onto and sold through the website, www.WineGifts4U.co.uk, which a subsidiary company of Vin De Terre Ltd Over the last few years, due to raw material and fuel price increases, inflation and the smoking ban in July 2007, sales in beers and spirits have steadily declined, so the company has focused its efforts on wine, where there is growth and where margins are better. The personalised gift business, WineGifts4U was developed following a conference six years ago, where the focus was on the ‘personalisation’ of marketing products and services, which captures the consumers’ attention. The brief for this website was a location where customers (the general public as well as corporate clients) could personalise the wines we sold on the wholesale side of the business, online and in real time with their own images and messages to create unique gifts (which would be appreciated by the recipient) for all major special occasions throughout the year. http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php T-shirts are not a topic of conversation that one might normally spend time discussing, especially since there are much more pressing issues in the world, which certainly warrant more attention, such as cyclone’s in Burma, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7389541.stm and news of Royal Mail’s £200m losses http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/support_services/article3892886.ece However, I recently attended a meeting with one of our suppliers in order to understand how t-shirts often found in high street shops bearing witicisms, insults and funky art designs are made. The t shirt making process (before heat transfer or screen printing) is a relatively simple automated process. 1. The basic t shirt is designed and the dimensions are transferred to patterns 2. The t shirt material is then cut to the dimensions of the pattern, these pieces can include seperate front and back sections or atubed body, sleeves, perhaps pockets and trim. 3. The pieces are then sewn together. The hems of sleeves are generally finished before they are fitted into the garment, since it is easier to hem the fabric while it is flat. An automated system moves the sleeves to the sewing head by conveyor. The edge may be finished by folding it over, forming the hem and stitching, or by applying a band. The band may be attached as a superimposed seam or folded over the edge as binding. 4. One or more labels are usually attached at the back of the neckline. Labels provide information about the manufacturer, size, fabric content, and washing instructions. The t shirt is now ready to be designed upon! There are two main processes which can be used to transfer ink or designs from a computer onto the plain t shirt or garment. Sublimation Sublimation itself is a process used to imprint a design or image onto products with a polymer-based surface. First the artwork is designed or scanned into your computer. The design is then printed using sublimation ink onto sublimation transfer paper, and heat applied to the receptive product such as a polyester coated outer tshirt using a heat press. The result is stretchable, extremely durable and can be washed without fading Screen Printing The increasing demand for low volume runs of personalised clothing combined with the ease and speed required when producing transfers, make the screen printing an excellent system for the personalisation of clothing. Used in conjunction with a computer and a heat press, the screen printing can produce single or multiple colour transfers in a wide variety of high performance materials, including floc and flex materials. The screen printing system allows businesses to produce transfers that can be industrially washed, dry cleaned, tumble dried and ironed, making them ideal for sports, promotional and work wear. Company’s, individuals and groups of people use personalisation of garments. You only need to go to your local Wetherspoons to see those on a hen party or stag do, or check out your favourite football team playing at the weekend to see how popular and useful personalised garments can be. So, many of the “fashionable” t shirts found in high street shops bearing funky designs are made using one of the technological processes above. Lucky for us, right? Else we’d all be walking around looking pretty plain and similar ;) http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php As a daily user of the internet for the past ten years or so, I felt ashamed recently, when I was asked to explain to an elderly member of the community what a 'blog' was. I have heard the term thrown about in relation to the web over the last few years, but as I had never used one or knowingly seen one I was stumped. Since then, I have done some research and compiled it in this blog! So that anyone else in a similar predicament to myself doesn't have to feel as stupid as I did! What is a blog? Share whatever you want with the world through a blog. A blog is short for a web blog, kind of like an on-line diary. Your blog can contain whatever you want it to contain, as there are no set rules to the structure or layout. Combine your personal thoughts with politics and breaking news, for example. When you write a new post, it will appear at the top and subsequent posts will follow below. People who read your blog can make comments and reviews on what you have posted, they can link to your blog if they find what you have written interesting or informative and they can also email you with remarks or questions. To make it easier for other bloggers or viewers to navigate through your blog posts, you can archive your posts under categories. Where can I keep/find a blog? There are a number of places where people can keep their blogs on the internet, www.blogger.com, www.livejournal.com and www.wordpress.org. You can either host your blog on your own web server, as part of your website (if you have one) or you could use a free hosted service with the most popular software being Word Press, Blogger and Blogspot. Some hosted services, such as Blogger, will post to your own webspace if you provide the necessary FTP information. Happy Blogging! http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/pdlabels.php?cartid=-1&sid=71&maincat=15 April 1st 2008 marks the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Royal Air Force. This important anniversary will be marked by a number of special celebratory events, which will take place throughout the year. The first event, which launched the 90th anniversary year, took place on 18th March at the RAF Museum in Hendon where the Chinook helicopter Bravo November (veteran of the Falklands and Afghanistan) landed in time for the flypast of 4 Tornado aircraft. Another of these celebrations to take place on the actual anniversary date, 1st April includes the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows flying in formation with 4 Typhoon aircrafts along the River Thames to the London Eye for the very first time in history. The route of this large-scale event will give Londoners, no matter whereabouts they live in London the opportunity to see the display. The flypast has been organised so that the formation will fly over the London Eye at exactly 1 o' clock. The Royal Air Force has invited Londoners to come and see the show to help celebrate this special birthday as a way of saying a big thank you to both exisiting and past airmen and women who have served the Royal Air Force. Other events include a dinner to be held at the Royal Air Force Museum and the presentation of both the Royal Air Force and Royal Air Force Regiment Colours in July at the Royal International Air Tattoo. In September, the Battle of Britain weekend will allow for an excellent opportunity to celebrate the contribution that the personnel of the Royal Air Force have made to the defence and security of the Nation across the 90 years of its existence and show that the ethos remains as strong today as it was in 1918. www.WineGifts4U.co.uk specialists in personalised wine, champagne and other gift ideas has been working with the RAF for the past 11 years, supplying RAF mess' with personalised wines. One of the RAF mess' has commisioned a special personalised label to be designed to honour this extraordinary occasion. This unique label design can be found at exclusively at WineGifts4U. Click on the title of this feed. Order this original label design and choose a wine bottle to put it on. It can be ideal as a gift or to keep as a display piece for yourself! http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php In today's society, there's not a lot you can't do is there? Every day there appears to be some new gadget or gizmo available to buy, which can do things you would never have imagined possible. Most recently, I have been amazed by the Apple iPhone, which I received as a 21st birthday gift a couple of weeks ago purchased from FoneLink (07855 555786). I asked for it as a present, because I was fed up with my nokia, which I'd obtained second hand over four years ago, which only allowed me to send SMS and make phone calls, and because I have everything I need, but mainly because I was intrigued by the way 02 and Apple's multi-million pound advertising campaign made this new piece of technology look. In all honesty, I didn't really understand what the iPhone was all about even after seeing the advertisements on Sky, in the newspapers and in shop windows. I understood from Apple's UK website, that the iPhone released in the UK in November 2007, 'combines three devices into one - a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and the best mobile Internet device ever', but I still wasn't sure exactly what it did or how it worked. I just thought it looked good and therefore I new I wanted one! Since receiving this revolutionary phone on 5th March 2008, it is practically attached to me. I am still, after 2 weeks fascinated by the capacity of the 115 x 61 x 11.6 mm phone weighing just 135 grams. Not only am I able to send SMS and keep track of all the messages that I receive and send, but I can play pool, take photos on the 2.0 Megapixel camera as well as use the metronome from the installer application to help with me with my piano playing. What I find even more interesting is that I can surf the net using the WiFi and Edge facility practically anywhere I go, which means I can access emails and browse videos on YouTube. It also means you can purchase gifts from www.WineGifts4U.co.uk whilst on the go! One of the first things I did was to see if the website worked on the phone. Now, I believe that although the website is easy to navigate, it is very interactive and I thought this may prove a problem, but it actually didn't. I managed to order a couple of bottles of personalised labelled wine without any effort at all! So, if you're looking for an original gift this father's day, an upcoming birthday or a wedding anniversary present for someone who has everything they need, I would suggest buying the Apple iPhone from FoneLink (£100 + £35 mobile tariff for 18 months) first and then placing your personalised gift orders on www.WineGifts4U.co.uk whilst you're on the move! http://www.winegifts4u.co.uk/articles.php With summer just around the corner there are many functions take place, such as weddings, barbeques, summer balls and parties. One of the products we sell at www.winegifts4u.co.uk is a White Zinfandel, a rose coloured wine from California. Here is a few quick notes about the White Zinfandel wine: Historically an inexpensive jug wine, White Zinfandel is a quaffing wine that is sweet, soft, and low in alcohol, making it a popular choice with those who would not otherwise drink wine. The sugar content can make White Zinfandel taste almost like a fruit punch, although some examples have crisp acids and are balanced in their own way. White Zinfandel is typically manufactured for immediate consumption rather than for aging. This blush wine was introduced in California in the early 1970s. It became the most popular varietal table wine during the 1980s. Consumers liked that it was sweeter than most wines (and it was a pretty color). Many people were introduced to the rose wine category through White Zinfandel. Have you ever wondered how rose wine is made? Well..., when the red grape is crushed for its white juice, the skin of the red grapes is left in contact with the juice for a short amount of time, which makes the liquid turn pink! Our californian white zinfandel is light and easy to drink with subtle tastes and aromas of luscious strawberries, raspberries and other ''summer'' fruits. The wine is best served chilled. Last year, we noticed that the White Zinfandel sold very well as a personalised gift for weddings and birthdays! In a couple of weeks we will be writing an article on how bubbles are made in champagne.