My sister-in-law came round last night asking me to help her with her online dating profile picture as I have a decent camera and a bit of knowledge about photography. I took a few pictures of her, loaded them onto the computer and cropped them to size.

Uploading the pictures was easy and fast, but it did get me thinking about the do’s and don’ts of choosing the right profile picture. This is what I’ve come up with to help all you potential online daters:

Do:
1.    Use a photo that you like. Even if your friends think it’s amazing, if you don’t like it you’ll be tempted to downplay it and/or make negative and apologetic responses.

2.    Use something recent. Keep it to within the last nine months – 18 months at most. Using an old photograph is like lying.

3.    Use a good head shot. Save action photos for the “more photos of me” section. Make sure your photograph is clear, well-lit, and presents your head and shoulders (neck up shots may look as if you’re trying to hide something).

4.    Smile! A smiling photograph always wins over a non-smiling one – there simply is nothing more appealing than a smiling face.

Don’t:
1.    Use a glamour shot. It’s not real and while it may get you noticed, it’s going to be a real let down if/when you finally meet face-to-face.

2.    Use poor quality photos – blurred, yellowed, too dark photos make it seem as if you don’t really care.

3.    Wear hats or sunglasses and avoid photographs with too much hair in your face. These things give the impression you’re trying to hide something.

4.    Show too much flesh. It may get you attention, but is that really the kind of attention you want?

5.    Wear too much makeup.

My son’s birthday is coming up and he wants the new Sony Ericsson Vivaz mobile phone, luckily I got his first contract just before his birthday a couple of years ago so he is due for an upgrade. The only trouble was that the mobile company he is with, Virgin Mobile doesn’t stock the phone so he will have to change mobile service providers.

I checked various mobile phone comparison sites and found a T-Mobile contract with free handset, 300 minutes, unlimited text messages and free accessories for £25 per month, it also includes unlimited internet which is good because I know he will use it.

Now I know it doesn’t seem like a lot for his birthday as it is a free phone, but I do pay his contract every month so he is getting a good deal if you ask me, that is of course till he gets a part time job (hopefully sooner rather than later, he’ll be 16 next week), then he can pay for it himself.

I’m intrigued to see what the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is like, especially with its HD video recorder and how the touchscreen compares to my HTC Magic.

I’ve got a face dress party coming so I’ve decided to go as a zombie. I’ve got some ripped jeans and a white slim fit t shirt, and some FX stuff for my face. I’ve been looking around for coloured contact lenses, I’m drawn between two pairs.

1. The Zombie branded pair has a very small pupil with a larger black circle around the outer eye.

2. The solid black lens is just one solid colour.

I think that the Solid black colour gives a better zombie look. The party is about a fortnight away so I don’t have to worry too much at the moment.

At a push I could get some white UV contact lenses which would give that extra sparkle.

I’ve seen that I can keep the contact lenses for around 3 months in some contact lens solution. So I might even where them on general pub outings.

Prices seem to vary a bit from site to site, but I think that I’ll get a slightly more expensive pair as you pair for quality, buy cheap buy twice is my moto

Well my £2 free bet from The Sun came up trumps in the Grand National on Saturday. I Choose Don’t Push it early on in the Morning and got it at 20/1 which wasn’t great as a mate got it for 40/1. Anyway i knew that McCoy was desperate for a win, so i knew he wasn’t on a donkey. You didn’t really hear much about Don’t push it until the end. Connor Castle did worry me slightly as he stayed out in the lead for quite a while, if he hadn’t gone wide on the canal turn would it of been different.

Don’t push it seemed to be around 5th but just not mentioned by any commentator. It wasn’t until the 2nd time round on canal turn where Tony McCoy started to up the ante a little even though there was a slight mistake. I think Black Apalachi was push slightly too soon. When the big 4 separated you could see that Don’t Push It would clearly get the win.

Me and my wife have been thinking of having a weekend away for a couple of months now and we’ve decided to go to Belfast. Neither one of us have been to Ireland before so though this would be a great getaway where we could relax for a couple of days.

There are lots of cheap flights to Belfast and their tourism website has lots of things to see and do including visiting St. Anne’s Cathedral and the Titanic Boat Tour, as well as various shopping centres to keep my wife happy.

Being an up and coming city, Belfast has a plethora of restaurants and pubs to choose from, I just hope we can make up our minds when we get there

All we have to do now is set the dates book the flights and hotel and make sure the grandparents can look after the kids for the weekend and we’ll be sorted!