Designer stores scare me. Snooty shop assistants, ultra-organised and therefore intimidating rails, and huge price tags have me running for the high street faster than you can say “so this season”

The thing is, after years of buying cheap and cheerful high street clothes, I want to start investing in a few high quality designer pieces. Sample sales are one of the best ways to access designer pieces at affordable prices, but they’re not particularly accessible to those of us living outside the big cities.

Thankfully, there are now plenty of websites with private sales, so you can pick up a bargain from the comfort of your own home. For your surfing pleasure, I’ve created a round up of all the top websites to bookmark next time you’re on the hunt for a retail treat.

ASOS.com
Probably more well known for its cheap and speedy imitations of celebrity outfits, ASOS has recently expanded into the higher end of the market.  Head to the outlet section and you’ll discover pieces from Diesel, French Connection and Twenty8Twelve. For a more expensive splurge, click on the designer section.

Cocosa

Cocosa is an invitation-only fashion destination, giving members a chance to view private designer sales from the comfort of their own homes. Daily e-mail updates alert members as to what sales are coming up, and each sale runs for a limited period of time.

If you’d like a code, let me know in the comments and I’ll send you one!

Rue La La
Cocosa only delivers to the UK, but luckily the USA has Rue La La. You can expect prices to be slashed by up to 50%.

Comment below if you fancy an invite.

Brand Alley
Brand Alley is a private designer sale site which doesn’t require an invitation, just a quick registration. I’ve seen some great sales here recently for Traffic People (dresses starting at £8) and on designer sunglasses (around 50% off)

My-Wardrobe
My-Wardrobe is a fashion focused website in the UK that focuses solely on this season’s collections. Now the sale has kicked in, you can grab some real bargains.

Net-A-Porter
Net-A-Porter describes itself as the “world’s premier online luxury fashion retailer”. It’s an A-Z of designer names and editorial pieces.

Koodos

Koodos is the family choice, with over 170 designer brands for women, men and children.  In their quest to get the best for less, they’ve also launched a blog rounding up all the best deals.

Know of any other designer discount sites? Let us know in the comments!

Article adapted from a post on Emma Cossey’s blog

Let’s get the truth out there first: Alice in Wonderland is indeed wonderful, unless you’re expecting a Tim Burton film. If you’re a die-hard Burton fan waiting for a warped, gothic version of Lewis Carroll’s immortal story, you might leave the cinema with a bitter taste in your mouth.

Thankfully, the film is not a reboot (who came up with this term anyway?) of the Disney animated picture: the story is set 13 years after Alice’s tumble down the rabbit hole, and the girl, destined to save the kooky world, doesn’t remember a thing about her previous escapades in Wonderland. The CGI is Disney-worthy, the sceneries flamboyant, the colours sensual and captivating, the talents all out there.

So what’s missing?

A simple answer would be the ‘Burton factor’: that hint of creepiness, that nudge to the dark side that Burton’s best works, from Beetlejuice to Big Fish, never lacked. If you listen carefully through the THX sound effects, you might be able to hear the director’s creative wheels being crushed by the Disney giant: the film is unashamedly family friendly, and even Johnny Depp, although mastering the role, doesn’t reward us with a truly insane Mad Hatter. While Helena Boham-Carter, Burton’s second-best muse, gives us a twisted, giant-headed Queen of Hearts, I felt like Johnny Depp could have done more even with his somewhat limited screen time.

Expectations aside, it is a thoroughly enjoyable production, with Anne Hathaway as a prancing White Queen, Alan Rickman as a Caterpillar worth waiting for, and Stephen Fry’s delightful Cheshire Cat. I was impressed by new comer Mia Wasikowska measuring up to so many stars as a perfect willowy, curly haired Alice. Still, I can’t help feeling that Burton, left to his own devices, would have made a more macabre, compelling film out of the story.

This week, guest blogger Wez Knowles tries out Vodafone’s latest gadget.

I live in a village smack-bang in between two major cities (Sheffield & Nottingham) which also happens to be the place mobile signals go to die. Every time I want to make a call or send a text message I have to stand near a window and pull positions even a Yoga pro would wince at.

For the past few months, every time I’ve planned on making a call, I put my phone on my desk next to the window and use a Bluetooth headset (shudder) to place the call. Yeah, yeah, I know.

I recently switched from O2 to Vodafone for a better signal. But there are still dead spots in my house and 3G is nowhere to be seen.

But browsing the Vodafone forums put me onto a new device from Vodafone called the Sure Signal. Formerly known as the Vodafone Access Gateway, the Sure Signal is a small white box that connects to your internet router and sends your call over the network instead of through the air. The upside of this is no matter where in your house you are, your phone will receive a full 3G signal. No dropped calls, no missed messages. Of course, you’ll need a 3G compatible handset (most modern phones are) and at least 1MB internet.

It’s £50 if you’re on a £25 per month contract or above, or £120 if you pay less than £25 per month. Not cheap, but much less expensive than paying for a chiropractor if you put your back out leaning out of a window while hunting a signal.

Gains points for:

• Easy setup

• Does exactly what it says it does

• Not too ugly

Loses points for:

Maybe too expensive depending on your contract

Vodafone only (I’m sure they could open it up if they wanted to)

Do we really want another box hanging out of our phone sockets?

Conclusion

I’ve been using the Sure Signal for the past couple of weeks and I love it. It’s a great idea and I’m sure it won’t be long before other networks are jumping on the bandwagon (Orange already do something like this for BlackBerry). In time I expect the price to drop, but for now, it all depends on how much a good phone signal is worth to you.

Vodafone Sure Signal

When you’re seven years old and your evil older cousin has regaled you with stories of the hungry monster that lives under your bed and eats children, you tend to be a little bit scared when the lights are turned off.

Which is where nightlights, like this Beba Light, (Alessi, £16) on the right come in. Providing just the amount of light to help your child drift off to sleep, they’re usually fairly light on the electricity usage too.

Thinking of investing in one? Check out some of the Dork Adore favourites.

Turtle Power

This cuddly turtle toy on the left is not a nightlight in the traditional sense, but the Twilight Turtle lights up whilst beaming thousands of tiny stars onto the ceiling to fascinate your child in three colour options.

Whilst I’m not entirely sure what the link between turtles and stars is, it’s definitely got the cute factor the kids will love.

You can grab it from www.Firebox.com for £29.99

The lights are on, is anyone in?

This Fairy Tale Cottage Ever-Changing-Colour Nightlight is a adorable little nightlight that scrolls through an assortment of colours. Very Wizard of Oz

The only downside about this one is that it’s battery powered, so you’ll have to remember to creep back in and turn it off when they finally drift off to sleep.

Buy it from the Dotcomgiftshop for £4.95

Follow the rabbit to sleepyland

Alice in Wonderland has spawned thousands of fairytale inspired pieces, so it’s unsurprising to find this White Rabbit light (White Rabbit England, £59)

This particular design is classic enough to suit the décor of a child’s room or to add a touch of whimsical charm to your own room.

Eco-friendly nightlight

Finally, this eco-friendly
Love Eco Tooli Nightlight from My Deco (£49.95) lasts up to 6 hours once fully charged.

Sure, fifty quid is a lot of money to spend on a light up decoration, but who cares when it looks this funky?

Seen a cool nightlight? Let us know in the comments

I’m beginning to suspect that my critical faculties leave something to be desired. The number of times I’ve found myself listening to (for some reason usually male) friends panning a season finale or a show ender while I sit in puzzled silence is starting to alarm. [OK, not really "silence", I'm not much good at muteness.]

Now, I’m aware that I’m often a little too easily pleased (I quite enjoyed Hulk for goodness’ sake – though even I draw the line at The Incredible Hulk) but I can’t help feeling that fangirls and boys are a difficult bunch.

Is there a single geek show that doesn’t suffer from severe criticism once it reaches its end?

Buffy’s finale lead to howls of protest; Battlestar Galactica caused all kinds of upset, and the death of the 10th doctor in Doctor Who got the grumblers going into overdrive (it’s a kids’ show people, give over). But were they really so terrible?

Since I’m so easily pleased, I quite liked the BSG finale (I’d been beaten into submission by the religious mumbo jumbo seasons ago so I didn’t expect any better) and I thought Buffy did a pretty decent job of coming up with something bigger than the previous “world’s going to end” season enders (though I’ll never forgive Whedon for Anya).

Are your favourite shows ever going to please, when ending them is such an unnatural process (life very rarely comes to a halt after a neat story arc), or is there a show out there that bucked the trend and left the fans feeling all warm and fuzzy inside?

Twin Peaks? Quantum Leap? Angel? Is there a show out there that didn’t set forums alight with the fire of geek ire? What are you favourite show enders? And what are your most hated finales?

The Chumby is a prime example of a gadget I hate. It’s frivolous, of limited use and it looks ridiculous. In short, it’s an electricity thief. And yet, when the courier came to collect it to take it back to Firebox, I had to stop myself from clinging to his ankle and weeping.

Yes, it’s ultimately pointless; yes, it seems to have been designed by someone working JJB Sports, and yes, it is a waste of the earth’s precious resources, but goddammit I want one!

It’s hard to explain the appeal of the Chumby. When it was sent to me for review I gave a weary sigh. It’s a gadget designed to connect to your wi-fi — which means setting the thing up and answering questions about what sort of encryption system your WEP key uses — allowing you to keep up with things like Twitter, Facebook, the BBC News headlines and all manner of other stuff.

At this point you’d be forgiven for thinking “I already have a gadget that connects to my wi-fi and lets me check Twitter. It’s called my laptop/iPhone/BlackBerry/all of the above”. That’s certainly what I was thinking as I grasped the squishy beige box in one hand and jabbed a WEP key into the small touchscreen with the other.

Then I plopped it down on the arm of the sofa and started to feed my baby. And that’s when the Chumby started its charm offensive.

Every 30-45 seconds a different widget would flash up. Sometimes it would be a game like Pong or one that uses the motion sensor to let you tilt a ball round a course; sometimes it would be news headlines or silly facts; and other times it would be a quirky clock where the numbers are hidden somewhere in a photo.

I soon found myself staring at it. Then I picked it up. And then I started to fall in love.

If you decide you quite fancy playing one of the games it offers, you can sit and do that for as long as you like. But once you’ve finished, the widgets start rotating again, making it strangely compelling as you wait for the next one to appear.

The Chumby seems to have charmed quite a few people, which is why the community keep on making more and more widgets for you to load onto your beige box of nonsense.

Gains points for:

• Simple interface
• Fun games, news, clocks and other widgets
• Being strangely lovable – it’s like it emits pheremones or something.

Loses points for:

Not really having a purpose
Squidgy beigeness
Costing quite a lot of money for something that you don’t actually need… or even want (until you get one).

So in spite of the fact that it’s clearly a waste of resources, it doesn’t actually solve any particular problem and it looks weird, I can’t bring myself to give the Chumby a bad review. How can I when I want one?

£139.99 from Firebox

Professor Brian Cox is one of those ultra-annoying people who are just TOO cool. He was in a chart-topping band associated with a dawn of a new political era (that’d be D “Things can only get better” Ream) and now he’s forged a second – and let’s face it, even cooler – career as a top physicist. He’s worked on the Large Hadron Collider, advised the makers of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine and regularly appears on radio and telly. The guy’s been on The Colbert Report, for goodness sake! And now he’s back on primetime BBC with the aim of explaining little old Earth’s place in the big (not really blue) yonder.

Wonders of the Solar System, which starts on BBC Two this Sunday at 9pm, will see the Professor visit some pretty extreme terrestrial locations to show how we fit into the Milky Way, and the ways in which it affects our planet. In this opening episode, Cox concentrates on the Sun (hence the not-so-cool shades), perhaps the most important force that impacts upon us; visiting India for a solar eclipse, making contact the Voyager probe which left Earth 30 years ago, and heading way north to experience the Sun’s winds in action – the Aurora Borealis.

If you’re anything like me, then you’re an enthusiastic layman when it comes to space – excited by it, confuddled by it, but always eager to learn, safe in the knowledge that it is so vast and impossibly complex that knowing a little more is unlikely to dispel its magic and mystery. Plus, on past experience, I’ve no doubt that Cox will be a charming presenter who neither blinds us with unfathomable science nor takes us for idiots. And he looks alright too, I guess. In short, Wonders of the Solar System looks set to be perfect Sunday viewing from which we will all emerge a little wiser… In the meantime, here’s a short preview to get the old grey matter warmed up.

Fallen in love with the new Apple iPad, and now counting down the days until they’re released in the UK? Why not use your time more effectively, by investing in a case or cover to keep it box-fresh and scratch-free.

Griffin Flexigrip

Griffin were one of the first brands to bring out a range of iPad cases. These Flexigrip cases on the right are made of a silicone skin which will protect against bumps, whilst still allowing for use of the touch screen. Like many of the cases, the price is still undetermined.

Luxury pink sleeve case for Apple iPad

This case on Amazon is only £9.99, but the design still offers a waterproof and shatterproof protection.

With a similar shape and style to the netbook cases, you could use this as a multi-purpose case.

Apple’s iPad Case

The official iPad Case is only available in the USA at the moment (priced at $39) but we should see it over here soon with the rest of the Apple iPad accessories.

The case protects your iPad and when folded backwards works as a stand to prop up your screen when you’re watching movies,

Contrary to the picture, it’s not a hardback case, but it should still provide enough resistance to keep it safe.

Belkin Grip Sleeve

Belkin have also gone down the silicone route, bringing out a selection of grip sleeves that don’t look a world away from their laptop covers.

I’m still not quite convinced by the iPad, and I get the impression the accessories brands are unsure too. The current range of products is fairly limited, so it’ll be interesting to see if this changes once it’s released in the UK.

Diets suck.

Cutting out all the good stuff, eating salad and counting calories is a seriously boring way to spend your time. But for many of us, it’s essential to keep an eye on our food, to ensure we don’t end up shopping in the tent section of Argos.

One way of doing that is by altering the way we cook our food. Which is where the Tefal Actifry (£131.50) comes in. This alternative electric fryer cooks your chips with a tiny amount of oil, rather than submerging them in it.

I recently got a chance to try the ActiFry out. Here’s how it went.

The ActiFry is really simple to use. Simply pop your peeled and sliced potatoes into the tub of the ActiFry, pour a tablespoon of oil over the chips using the mini measuring spoon and close the lid.

The top of the AcriFry has a LCD display where you can choose the amount of time you want the chips to be cooked for, and hit start. 45 minutes later, you’ve got tasty and crispy chips.

This fryer isn’t limited to chips either. You can cook meat, fish, rice and stir-fried vegetables. The accompanying cookbook gives an assortment of ideas.

Here’s my verdict:

Wins points for

• Ease of use: The time consuming bit is the peeling and slicing of the potatoes
• Lack of odour: Unlike its full-fat brothers, the ActiFry has an odourless filter to stop your kitchen smelling like a fish and chip shop.
• Dishwasher safe: Most of the bits can be bunged in the dishwasher, although there is very little to clean up thanks to the lack of oil.

Loses points for

• Time it takes to cook: It takes 40-45 minutes to cook enough chips for a family of four.
• Noise: When it’s cooking, it has quite a loud humming sound. Not great if you have thin walls and irritable neighbours.

Conclusion

I’m a convert! I genuinely loved this product, and the chips went down really well with my picky family. A friend of mine uses her ActiFry regularly to create Cajun wedges,  and I’d like to try a few more adventurous meals with it. Especially if I can use it to cook a variety of foods in a healthy way.

After seeing the Wii Baby and Me game last year, I figured we’d kind of reached our limit when it comes to freaky games for kids.

I was wrong.

Toys R Us in the US have bought out a bubblegum-pink Ouija board. Because who doesn’t want to scare the crap out of their favourite little girl?

The game is actually designed to ‘answer’ questions like “Who will call/text me next?” “Will I be a famous actor one day?” and “Can you hear me gran?”.

OK, so that last one isn’t strictly true, but this game still seems like a whole world of wrong. Kids should be playing Monopoly, Scene it! and Wii Fit, not replicating an ancient game that was designed to contact the dead.

Or am I being too overprotective? What do you think about this Ouija board for kids?