The more that I use my iPhone, the more that I believe that I can do just about anything I need to on it if I really force myself. Developers are creating apps that are making it easier for us to use our device to not only play games, take photos, or listen to music, but it is also becoming more of a productivity tool. The one thing that I have said about having an iPhone is its convenience to do something right then and there. I don’t have to go and find a paper and pen or I don’t have to have a computer with me; I always have my device with me which gives me the opportunity to use it to capture all kinds of things.
One tool that I’ve been very excited about checking out is CheckThis, which lets you easily create simple websites that you can share and interact with others. It’s like a canvas on your iPhone that lets you do a variety of things and then share it with friends who can comment on your activity. I was able to use CheckThis on the web and I really liked what they did there, so I was even more excited to hear that they were coming to the iPhone. (more…)
Finance is one area of my life where I always like to feel that I am in control and I know what is going on. When I was single it was easy to handle, but now with a wife, her small business and a son, the financial accounts have grown and become a little more complicated. I still want to stay on top of things and like to make sure that we are doing okay, but now I get a little help from an app called Personal Capital.
I have the bad habit of never keeping a very good record of our money, in that I don’t log somewhere every time we make a transaction. With debit cards and automatic withdrawals, it has made that process so much harder, in my opinion. What I would do is that I would just check my bank accounts every day to make sure that the transactions that took place the previous day, matched up with what I thought it should be. That can be a tedious process, and so I began searching for an app that could help me out, and that is where Personal Capital came into play for me. (more…)
Over the years, the iPhone has evolved enough that I can use it as my go-to camera for both pictures and video. With my wife being a photographer and a toddler that my parents want to see in photos, I have learned that there is never a bad time to snap a picture or capture a video. There are a variety of apps out there that I can use to do this and easily send them off to my family. But most of the popular apps out there usually do one thing well: they either are great for pictures or video, but not necessarily both.
For the past couple of weeks I have been trying out Qwiki, which combines both video and images that you take on your iPhone and gives you the freedom to create a cool looking slideshow. It gives me additional capability beyond just taking pictures and video, and I can now edit them and then easily send a slideshow to my friends and family. Let’s take a look at it more and so I can explain to you what I mean. (more…)
For the past few days I have been able to play around with Clinch, which is somewhat similar to another app I just reviewed, Qwiki, but it does things a little different. If you read my review on Qwiki, you’ll see how much I raved about it and how simple and easy it was to use. Well, I didn’t think I would say this, but I think I may have found one that is even simpler. On top of that, Clinch adds some features that I think are pretty neat.
Let me show you more about what I am talking about after the jump. (more…)
Nowadays with having a kid, I’m realizing that I hardly have time for much else in my life. That is not a bad thing, but I sure miss being able to watch a movie when it comes out in the theater or read a book when I want to. I always feel like there are so many good movies and books to get to that not only do I never get to them, but I always forget about them.
That’s where DoneNotDone (DND) can come in very handy for those of you that want to stay up on the latest books, movies or music. But it is more than just a way to remember those important things to get to later, they have a social aspect as well as a way to track what you have already completed. Let’s delve into it after the break. (more…)
Although social networking has gotten a lot of bad press lately with the likes of Facebook and Instagram, I will admit, I really like staying connected with people. When used properly, it can be a powerful tool to help you to stay informed and yet give you the opportunity to “meet” amazing people online.
One of the things that I love about social networking is to be able to see what other people are into, what the latest and greatest apps are, and what the cool things are that people are buying. There are some awesome tech toys that I own that I never would have known about if not for hearing about it first on Twitter. Another app that has been very intriguing for this purpose, called Mine, came out a little while ago and it has stuck on my first page ever since. It has been able to tie in social networking features in a different way than the likes of Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram. Will it get as big as those services? Not sure, but we can definitely take a deeper look at it. (more…)
Ever since I decided to cut the cord and get rid of cable a little over a year ago, I’ve found myself watching a lot more videos online. I soon realized that since I was now forcing myself to do this, there was a good amount of video content online that could help me get my limited TV fix. I have also been noticing that many of the news websites are starting to put more video content online than ever before, which is a welcome sign for people like me.
Through this continual experiment, I found that although I liked watching videos on my computer, I preferred to watch them on my iOS devices. When I learned about Frequency a couple of weeks ago, I just had to give it a try to see if it would meet my needs. The easiest way to explain it, is that it is your personal video app where you can get content from around the web and watch it on your iPhone. (more…)
Capturing memories with our iPhone has become very popular over the last couple of years. With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, there are so many ways that we can snap a quick photo or take a video of a moment and quickly post it so our friends can look and comment on it. Our iPhones have become our “go-to” camera because they are usually always with us when we want to document those precious moments in life.
But what makes these moments even better is that it is always cool to see what others have captured from that same event and to see what they think. Tracks takes that sentiment and makes it reality by giving you the opportunity to capture different aspects of life with each other then to be able to share it with each other all on one platform. Over the past couple of weeks or so, I have been able to play around with it and I’ve started to appreciate what it was made for and why it can be useful, even in a very crowded space. (more…)
As a tech guy, I tend to collect way too much “stuff,” whether it be the latest iPhone case, or some other random tech gadget that I impulsively bought on Kickstarter. My wife is making me get rid of some of the things that I hardly use, and so I started my quest to find a good way to make some cash selling it. I could go the eBay route, but that takes too much time and it is such a hassle for smaller things. I could also use Craigslist, but you just never know what kind of people you will find on there.
Then the other day I got an invite to try out Tangibles, which I forgot I had signed up for a while back. They just launched and I decided to give it a spin to see if it would be worth my time. We did a review of Yard Sale, which is somewhat similar, but I didn’t get many hits there, so I decided to give this one a try to see if I could have more luck getting rid of my stuff. (more…)
One of the biggest reasons why I love my iPhone is that it can be used for so many different things if you are willing to push its limits. Since becoming a teacher, in the last few years I have started to experiment with using iPod Touches, iPhones and other mobile devices in the classroom. I love to show kids how they can use their smartphones for more than just texting their friends and actually learning something.
One of the main things that we use the devices for is to not only consume content, but to make content that they can share with me and other classmates. There are a variety of apps out there that can do this, but I had my students try out Backspaces for a bit, and they seemed to really take to it. The more that I started to use and play with it, the more I saw why they liked it. (more…)
