Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Kodak Kiosk Review



Hey everybody!  It has been very busy around here- if you follow us on facebook you will know life has been full of rehearsals for Legally Blonde, thunderstorms and minor flooding, and even an agility competition!  I PROMISE a blog post later this week about the agility- Kerri did great.

In the meanwhile I have a review to bring you guys.  This may not be a dog product specifically but stick with me here.  The folks at Kodak contacted me to do a review of their Kiosks and after learning that they have some features specifically for pets I thought it would be a lot of fun.  I am a big fan of printing pictures.  I have had several hard drive losses in my life, along with a few stolen cameras and backup drives, so when I like a picture I print it.  I am also a fan of filling my house with pictures of my family and dogs so this is right up my alley.  Plus this Kiosk is at a CVS only blocks from my house where I usually print pictures anyway.


First I wanted to talk about what a good value it turned out to be.  For only $26 and change I got two 6x8 photo collages, three 6x8 yearly calendars, one 8x10 yearly calendar and an 8x10 photo.  The final products were great.  They had calendar backgrounds with little paws on them and there were a lot of layout options for everything.  My only complaint about the final product is that the 8x10 print out on a bigger sheet and you have to cut them yourself.

The best part about this was the photo editing options for pets.  They have a special tool for reducing pet eye glare- and it worked great!  I used that feature for most of the pictures I got printed and as you can see in the example of Copley below it made a great difference.  The eye ends up looking very natural.




In the future I am going to be using their collage making feature to print out some stuff for around the house.  I was surprised how good it turned out and how easy it was to use.  Took a lot less time than trying to do something at home with my fancy image editing software.  I did print one 8x10 that needed a little enhancement.  The picture was slightly underexposed and the editing worked fine on that but not any better than what I could do myself at home.  Like I mentioned it also printed on a larger piece of paper that I now have to cut (as you can see in the picture near the top of this post).  For that reason I would not use the Kodak Kiosk to print regular old 8x10s for the wall- but for other sizes and anything with pet eye glair it will be my go to source for printing from now on.

Overall I give the Kodak Kiosk 4 our of 5 stars!  It is certainly something that I will be using in the future and I am glad I checked it out.

I received a gift card from Kodak as part of their Kiosk Review Blogger Program so I did not pay for any of the products I talked about in this review.  I was not required to write a positive review and all the opinions I expressed are my own.



Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Busy... Follow Us

Sorry for the lack of posting, things have been insanely busy around here!  I want to encourage everyone to follow us on facebook- https://www.facebook.com/DogInTheDesert  I post a fair amount there and link up my good instagram posts so check it out!  In the next few weeks it is going to be a lot more witty facebook posts and a lot less blogging.


Why are we so busy you ask?  We have our first agility competition on Saturday and also lots of rehearsal for Legally Blonde.  Here is a video of Kerri practicing.  If you want to buy tickets check out this link.


Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Kerri the Superstar

Here is a shot of Kerrigan at rehearsal for a local production of Legally Blonde!  She will be playing Bruiser (of course) in a production in August.  If you want to check it out here is more information- http://supersummertheatre.org/legally-blond/

We could not be happier to be working with the fine folks at the Super Summer Theater.  So far Kerri is doing pretty good at rehearsal, and of course is very popular among the cast.  For those of you who don't know me in "real life" I do work in theater for a living, so entering a production like this is not totally foreign to me.  Being a dog trainer at a musical however is a bit of a new one for me.  I will be sure to update you all on the process as we go through- it should be a fun one!

Now I have to go pack for a camping trip!

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Pawalla Box Review- July



Hey everybody!  Since a lot of people visit my blog looking for reviews of BarkBox I thought I would review another monthly subscription box called Pawalla (Use this link to visit Pawalla and get a $6.50 coupon).  This is the first month but so far I like Pawalla lot better than Barkbox (not that barkbox is bad, but for us I like this one a little better).  I got the full size box, but you can also get a mini.  With that coupon the mini is really cheap- I think it would be worth a few months subscription for anybody with a dog who likes toys and can eat a variety of treats.

So what comes in the pawalla box?  They say you get 7-9 full size products including "wet food, supplements, treats, essentials and a toy".  I like that they give premium wet food- and in fact one of them this month was one of those mostly meat toppers.  I feed home- made raw as you all know but I like canned food for stuffing in kongs, hiding powdered medicine in and for when we go camping.  For us the cans are more of a treat type thing and I am liking adding variety to our canned foods on hand.  Pawalla suggests using the cans as toppers to add variety to your dogs main diet.  They even have some articles on their website about the benefits of that.  Since I think variety is the spice of life (and the key to good nutrition) this idea gets a big thumbs up from me.  If you follow their guidelines and just add a little to your dogs regular food it shouldn't upset tummies either.

The toy was a fun ball, and so far the dogs are loving all the treats.  I am also a fan of the doggie wipes that came in the box.  They are made of bamboo and a lot more convenient for a purse or a pocket than others I've seen.  Since these box reviews are not really about the stuff in the box I won't bore you with reviews of each item.  I do have pictures though.  At the beginning of this post is an amazing shot of Copley-  I actually said "wait" but this smelled so good he reached up for it as I was hitting the shutter.

Sniffing the box
Reading about the contents

Everything in there

ANOTHER one of these balls to review

Potato free!  Copley can enjoy that.

This is just cooked chicken.

Individually wrapped towlettes

Treats

And more treats
 Have a great day everyone!