Forget the iPhone 7 Apple's new handset could be called iPhone 6 SE

 

Rumours about when the iPhone 7 will launch have been circulating for months. 

However, the latest puts a new twist on the mystery, claiming it won't be called the iPhone 7 at all.

 

Instead, it will be called the iPhone 6SE - leaving the iPhone 7 for next year, when apple is expected to introduce a major overhaul of its iconic handset. 

Evan Blass, today tweeted: 'iPhone 2016 release: week of September 12th'. 

The launch date has been suggested by mobile phone leaker Evan Blass, who has accurately leaked images and details about other phones in the past.

 

Mr Blass followed up his first tweet with a second, which read: 'Just to clarify, this refers to the retail release, not the launch event. To be even more specific, it should happen on Friday, Sept. 16th.'

 

The mobile phone leaker, who is also a Mobile Reporter at Venture Beat, is best known for leaking Android-based smartphone details. 

 

His prediction of the launch date for Apple's newest phone is in line with their previous announcements, such as the iPhone 6, which launched in September 2015.

As well as the launch date, some rumours about specifications have also been circulating. 

 

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported: 'Instead of 16GB as a starting point for the entry-level iPhone, the new starting point will be 32GB, according to a person familiar with Apple’s iPhone plans.'

 

As well as ditching the 16GB model, rumours suggest that Apple will also be introducing a larger 256GB model.  

  

 

4 Things You Should Never Wear to a Wedding

Ah, summer. A time for beaches and barbecues and…a bevy of wedding invites. You’ve likely got a stacked schedule, so plan your outfits accordingly. Namely, avoid these five cardinal wedding-outfit sins.

1. a white dress

You know there’s always that one woman who shows up in ivory--and drives the bride to an early grave. At the very least, keep your fabrics in the taupe or blush territory, and save that white lace number for a graduation or garden party.

2. A pair of brand-new stilettos

We know, it’s your one chance to get really dressed up. But remember: You will be walking from table to table and you will be dancing till midnight. If you haven't adequately broken in those heels yet, you're asking for trouble. Either make sure to wear them in beforehand or choose a more sensible pair from the start.
 

3. Anything too revealing

Even if you think something looks good straight-on in front of the mirror, make sure to do a chair (and stairs) check. Weddings are a time of support--not a time for other guests to gossip about your Spanx line.

4. Anything outside the dress code

You may have the fiercest little cocktail frock you're dying to debut, but the dress code may be black-tie optional. And in that instance, you're better off in a long gown (so you don't have any chance of feeling underdressed).

 

How To Prepare Your Relationship for Renovations

Renovations may look like a great idea when they are in the draft stage, with all those clean lines and modern spaces, but it's the relationship collateral around it that you have to consider.
Home renovations cause major stress on relationships, so I spoke to relationship expert and sexologist, Dr Nikki Goldstein, to give us some pointers on how to rebuild your love, and your home, simultaneously.
Dr Nikki flagged hurdles you need to be mindful of in the hope of avoiding, or being more prepared to deal with them when they arise. Similarly, she offered five tips to help you get through the renovation without any major emotional casualities!

5 Hurdles You May Face: 

1. Finances: This is perhaps the major cause of stress throughout the time of a renovation, Dr Nikki says. “Renovating can put a couple under financial stress, especially if you have a budget or have gone over budget.”
2. Conflict: "Renovations are a time when conflict skills need to be in place and communication is paramount," Dr Nikki advises. “It's only natural that you might hit heads with things, but it's how you solve issues and compromise that will help you to the other side and also for your future relationships. If you can negotiate a difference in paint colour then hopefully you can transfer those skills to other areas of your relationship.”
3. Stress: Renovating can be a stressful time, and you might often take that stress out on the person closest to you - your partner. “If you find you are arguing a lot more, you might need to stop and consider [why],” Dr. Nikki suggests. “Are you arguing about real issues or are you just taking out stress and frustration on each other?”
4. Doubt: Renovating together might highlight the differences you have, and cause you to question your compatibility, Dr. Nikki points out. “If you feel like you are always at other ends of the scale on decisions this might make you doubt how compatible you are in general.”
5. Future: If you are in a relatively new relationship, renovating together might bring up some interesting issues for the future, Dr. Nikki notes. “Is this a place you will always have together? Are you planning on making space for a family?  If you have not discussed these things but one person mentions a room potentially being the babies room it could bring up conversation or issues about the future." You may want to be prepared!  

How To Prepare Your Relationship for Renovations

Agree on a Goal: Ask yourself these questions: What is the budget - idealistically and realistically - of the renovation? Why are you doing it? What rooms are a priority and will it be enough space for the long term? Answering these will help ensure you and your partner are on the same page, Dr. Nikki notes.
Delegate Tasks: “Instead of both working on the same thing and potentially either having a difference of opinions or working too closely, it might be good to choose things that you can do separately to meet your end goal,” Dr. Nikki suggests. “Also, consider when doing this each other's strengths, weaknesses, and enjoyments.” Trust is a key ingredient here.
Plan Stalemates:  Before you hit any hurdles (remember all those points above?), discuss how you will deal with them, advises Dr. Nikki. "It might be good to discuss these ahead of time, so there are no surprises."
Be In A Good Place: Not only geographically, but as a couple! “Putting your relationships under the stress of renovations when you are already in a bad place can have more of a negative impact and go against you,” Dr. Nikki cautions. “Are you getting upset because you can't agree on the tiles for the bathroom or because you feel your partner never listens to what you want?”
Have Fun: “Renovating can be a great bonding time and should be seen as an activity you can do together not a burden,” Dr. Nikki advises. Keep the mood light and keep perspective on these often troublesome home ventures!

5 Effective Ways To Train Your Creative Mind

Ever felt yourself on the brink of an amazing idea, but suddenly, your creativity seemed to grind to a halt? If you’ve experienced this annoyance before, you’re probably keen to learn how to get the creative juices flowing again.

In this day and age, creativity is as important as it’s ever been. Even in the business world, the greatest success is achieved through innovation, for which we must have creativity!

If you’ve ever felt let down by your current level of creativity, it’s time to work on improving it. You may be surprised to realize that intelligence only plays a modest role in creative genius.

It’s actually far more complex than we first imagined. In fact, creativity is complexity in itself. There are no quick or easy fixes, however, you can gradually boost your creativity with these 6 simple mind shifts.

1. Believe Creativity Can Be Grown

While this may seem obvious, it’s essential for you to harness all your willpower from the start. The mere act of belief is one of the most powerful motivators.

You must throw away the concept that creativity is an inborn gift. It’s true we naturally develop a certain level of creativity, but then it’s up to you to encourage and allow its growth.

Align your belief now and you will commit yourself to becoming more creative.

2. Choose Lateral Over Vertical Learning

Broadly speaking, there are two different ways we acquire knowledge. Vertical learning is specialization in a particular knowledge field, whereas lateral learning gives us a grasp on a variety of different knowledge fields.

Naturally, you’ll find yourself gravitating towards one or the other. If you’re typically a logical thinker, you’ll often lean towards vertical. However, making an effort to focus on lateral learning will fuel your creativity greatly. Having a wide variety of knowledge in different fields will give your creative side more resources to flow through.

3. Train Your Creativity as You Would a Muscle

Steve Jobs was without a doubt a creative inspiration to all of us. During his time, he shared a wealth of creative wisdom, including this quote:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” – Steve Jobs

However, it’s worth knowing that Jobs already had some mighty creative muscles in place. Without them, it’s difficult for us to achieve the same.
Fortunately, we can train the creative functions of the brain much like we train our muscles in the gym. By providing regular stimulation and pushing ourselves, growth can be triggered.
Practice stretching your creativity using methods such as brainstorming or writing as many ideas as you can on paper. As you become more creative, you’ll notice ideas flowing more easily.

4. Dedicate Time to Creativity

If you’re serious about becoming more creative, you’ll need to dedicate time to it. Save at least one free hour per day solely for your own creativity. Allow your mind to wander without daily activities and duties interfering.

Don’t see this as unproductive time, see it as essential playtime for your creative side. When you grant your mind this freedom, you’ll be amazed at what you can come up with!

5. Keep a Thought Journal

Have you ever experienced a spark of creative genius, only to have it fade away before you can act upon it? This is actually quite common, even for the greatest creative thinkers of our time.
Creativity is introspective and sensitive to our feelings. Ideas can come and go as fleetingly as our emotions. Inspiration can strike at any moment and be gone in the next.
Creative geniuses often keep thought journals for jotting down these thoughts as they go about their day. Start capturing your fleeting thoughts on paper, then you can revisit them later for deeper reflection.

Self-discipline is the key to reaching your life goals

If you're not a self-disciplined person, nothing feels simple when it comes to reaching your life goals.

Whether it's staying on your diet, organizing a neglected closet, finding that better job or simply getting off the couch and getting to the gym, there's no question that self-discipline is key.
But what exactly is self-discipline?

We seem to think of it as a commodity, a thing, something that you either possess or you don't.

You tell yourself, "I just don't have enough self-discipline." This, unfortunately, is a tragic misperception.

Why? Because if you decide that you inherently lack self-discipline, then eventually you'll reach a point where you throw up your hands and say, "Why bother? I'm just not strong enough!"

If you struggle with a lack of self-discipline, you're probably no stranger to feeling powerless. Truth is, you may feel powerless-but you're not. Feelings are not facts!

A simple self-coaching maxim says it all: What you tell yourself and what you believe is what you become.

And while we're on the subject of self-discipline, let's not fail to see how whining or complaining — telling yourself, "I can't" or "It's too hard" — can impact your goals as well.

Although closely related to a lack of self-discipline, whining and complaining have more to do with self-deception. This distinction — self-discipline vs. self-deception — is moot if you're forever coming up short of your life's ambitions. One is just an excuse for not trying, the other for not persevering.

There's a wonderful line in the musical “Man of La Mancha” that goes: "Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be bad for the pitcher."

Either way, lack of self-discipline or self-deception is going to be bad for you and your goals.

Neutralizing Self-Deception

When it comes to neutralizing self-deception, you need to develop a habit of separating facts from fictions. Since feelings are not facts, you can begin by prefacing any inclination to sabotage, excuse, or otherwise sidestep a life challenge by changing what you say.

Instead of saying, "I can't," say "I feel like I can't." Instead of saying, "It's too hard," say "It feels like it's too hard."

You do this in order to get away from the self-defeating, black-and-white reasoning that, until now, has given you a cushion — an excuse — from having to challenge yourself.
Bottom line: replace self-deception with self-scrutiny.

Developing self-discipline

For the sake of developing self-discipline, let's start to think of it as a muscle! You know about muscles. Muscles that aren't exercised become weak and atrophied, whereas muscles that are routinely exercised become strong and resilient.

Just as an atrophied bicep muscle will resist doing curls at the gym, your atrophied self-discipline muscle will try to reduce resistance by getting you to abandon your goals.

But when you handle this discomfort, rather than capitulate to it, you strengthen your self-discipline muscle. Understand the critical importance of perseverance and you'll be less likely to cave at the first signs of resistance.

Starting today, stop thinking of yourself as undisciplined or weak and start recognizing the need for some muscle building — self-discipline muscle building.

Every success you have, no matter how small, is important. Whether it's making that uncomfortable phone call, getting the bills paid, or giving up that ritual nighttime bowl of ice cream, success is defined as handling discomfort long enough to reach your goal.

As your successes begin to add up, you will grow stronger, more confident, more motivated, and of course, more self-disciplined.

Starting now, set up small challenges to prove to yourself that you can set an intention and then handle the discomfort involved in reaching your goal.

Keep a mental list of your successes. Each one will help cancel out the list of your failures that may already run on an endless loop in your mind.

Empower yourself one success at a time. Recognize that fortifying your self-discipline muscle produces incremental growth in confidence and strength.

Rather than whining, complaining, or excusing yourself, welcome every challenge as one more opportunity to handle life as a warrior rather than as a victim. After all, victims by definition are powerless. But you are NOT powerless!

5 Homemade Hairsprays To Try This Summer

 

Thankfully, there are simple recipes that you can use to make natural, phthalate-free hairsprays. The primary function of hairspray is to hold our hair in place, however, these natural solutions also offer a range of other benefits. Check out these five very easy to make homemade hairspray recipes that you can enjoy this summer and even impress friends!

1. Sea Salt Spray for the Summer Beach Party

This sea salt spray helps add volume to your hair due to the Epsom salt and sea salt, which creates texture, while the aloe vera and coconut oil act as moisturizers. Coconut oil is widely known for its superior moisturizing effects and if you are worried about the smell of coconut oil lingering in your hair, use pure virgin coconut oil instead of refined coconut oil, as the former does not have the strong aroma that most refined coconut oil has.

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
1 Tbsp sea salt
1 tsp Epsom salt
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 Tbsp aloe vera gel
5 drops essential oil, optional

Directions: 
1. Heat water on medium heat but not to boiling
2. Add sea salt and epsom salt until dissolved
3. Add coconut oil and stir until completely melted
4. Add aloe vera gel
5. Add essential oils if you prefer and stir well
6. Pour in a spray bottle for convenient use

2. Rosemary Coconut Hairspray

If you are suffering from dry and damaged hair, you can create this simple concoction of rosemary and coconut that can help keep hair in place and moisturized.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp coconut oil
3-4 drops rosemary essential oil
2 cups distilled water

Directions:
1. Melt coconut oil
2. Add distilled water and essential oil
3. Mix well and add into spray bottle

 

3. Marshmallow Root Detangler

Marshmallow root has been used for centuries to deal with irritations internally and externally. If you regularly find yourself dealing with tangled hair, why not try this everyday use hairspray?

Ingredients: 
1.5 cups distilled water
3 Tbsp marshmallow root
2 Tbsp conditioner of choice (use organic)
10+ drops essential oil of choice

Directions: 
1. Boil water and marshmallow root in a small pan
2. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes
3. Let cool slightly and then strain using a cheesecloth or strainer
4. While still warm, pour into bottle with conditioner and essential oils

 

4. Strong Hold Homemade Hairspray

This is what hairsprays are known for – to hold hair in place – and here is a cheap, effective and healthy way to make your own strong hold hairspray. Sugar is one of the main ingredients here that provides the strong hold without any sticky residue.

You might be wondering, “wouldn’t that attract insects?” We can assure you that by adding lavender and rosemary oil, it can ward off the pests as they are known to be natural insect repellents.

Ingredients:
1 cup filtered water
4 teaspoons sugar (depending how strong you want it to be)
2 drops geranium*
2 drops lavender*
2 drops peppermint*
2 drops rosemary*
*Essential oils are optional but good to have

Directions: 
1. Heat water in a small saucepan to boiling
2. Add sugar and stir to dissolve
3. Let cool and then add essential oils
4. Pour into spray bottle
5. Use quickly and store in the fridge for a longer lasting spray. Do not keep long outside as there will be bacteria growth.

5. Smooth and Shine Hairspray

Try out this recipe with aloe vera and glycerin that can give your hair an enviable healthy and shiny look.

Ingredients:
1 cup water
2 Tbsp aloe vera juice
2 Tbsp rose water
2 Tbsp vegetable glycerine

Directions: 
1. Combine all ingredients together
2. Pour into spray bottle and shake well to incorporate