Ok maybe it's just me, but I swear to God that I nearly pee'd in my pants watching this video that my daughter made tonight. Ailey is so quiet in public that it is hard to believe that she is capable of these kind of escapades, but I swear she is a little comedian. She is using an app on her 5th generation Ipod 5, called Video Star to create these videos. She has the same sick sense of humor that I have, but the little booger is just way funnier than her dad will ever be. You have to see this!
Enjoy and share! Ailey would love to go viral on this one!
Proudly,
Ailey's Wacky Dad
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Free Apps I Can't Live Without!
Ok I am about to expose myself for the geek that I am. In the past year or so I have become totally obsessed with what today's smartphones and tablets have brought to the table with some of the amazing apps that are available. I am an android fan, but all of my favorite apps are available for Apple, Android, and in some cases even all of you Blackberry holdouts out there. I am going to list five apps that I use on a daily basis, although I may have to write more than one blog post on the subject - there are way more than five I use every day, but perhaps I might survive without those! Ok, here goes.
Pulse for Android and Apple has quickly become my favorite news gathering app. It is totally customizable, and you can bring news in from a plethora of sources including "social news" such as articles your friends might be sharing on Facebook. It is amazing to be able to press the icon button for Pulse on my phone and have articles available to me, on every subject that I find relevant in my life. From Wall Street Journal, to Lifehacker, pulse pulls in all of the news I love, and displays it in a totally readable format on my 4 inch Android screen. Give this app a try and I guarantee you'll be totally hooked!
Pocket for Android and Apple is another app I've come to rely on. Have you ever done a web search on your phone and been totally annoyed at how small the text displays on your screen. I used to just give up, or wait until I got to a desktop to read up on my interests. Not so when you install Pocket. When you find an article simply hit the share button in your mobile browser and share the page to Pocket. This automatically shoots the article straight into Pocket. Here is where the magic happens. It takes the text in the article and transforms it into a totally readable format susimilar to Kindle or Pulse. You instantly saved your article and made it available on every device you own with the Pocket app installed. Brilliant! My 9 year old daughter uses this app from her iPod touch all of the time to save articles relevant to her school projects. Another awesome feature within Pocket is the ability to let Pocket do the reading for you. Simply hit the menu button, hit the play button, and Pocket narrates the whole article for you. In this busy world of driving from one place to the next, it is totally great to be able to continue learning and discovering even while on the move. Example : The other day my daughter Abigail informed me that she hurt her shoulder at school and the school trainer said she had a shoulder subluxation. I had no idea what that was, so I Googled it, found an article, zipped it into Pocket, and then let Pocket do the talking. By the time I got home Abby and I were experts on shoulder subluxation. She's fine btw :). Totally love this app.
This is a new app for Apple and Android that I discovered while searching Google Play one day. I am unfortunately on an older Android phone that is far from state of the art, and that includes the camera. One of these days I will upgrade, but I just can't justify doing it right now while this old G2 is still getting the job done. Pixlr Express has breathed new life into an aging smartphone camera for me. Basically this app is like having Photoshop for your Android or Apple product. I use this app to take all of my photos now. Simply start the app, take your photo, and choose from a multitude of editing options. My favorite is "auto-fix" which basically adjust the color, brightness, and contrast levels automatically. Incredibly almost every time you hit auto fix the app generates a much more pleasing picture than you started with. You can also crop, fix red eye, and about a zillion other things. The great thing is that when you finish editing you can share that photo staright to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. with the click of a button. Love it!
I can't say enough about this app. Dropbox has literally changed the way I view computer file storage. I'm sure you've all heard of the "cloud" by now. Dropbox is cloud computing at its best. Simply open a drop box account, download the app to your device, android, iphone, desktop, mac, etc. and you instantly have access to whatever files you store in your drop box on every device you own, or on the web. Best thing about it is that you don't have to worry about losing data. It is safe and sound out there in the cloud. Forget about memory sticks, this makes them obsolete. I started using Dropbox for work, but use it now to share folders with friends, family, fellow volunteers, etc. Yes, you can add users of your choice to certain folders that you would like to share information with. I am not going to do this app any justice trying to explain it, so just open an account and plug and play. You'll love it!
I have saved the absolute best for last. Evernote for Iphone, Android, Windows, and Mac has totally changed the way I do business. I am a project manager for a general contractor. I am always running multiple jobs at the same time. This means that I need access to tons of information for different jobs. Up until 3 months ago when I began using Evernote, I used to lug a giant bin full of file folders with me wherever I went. I also had a notebook that was filled with an abominable amount of scratched notes, etc. It was all a recipe for a lot of sleepless nights! Evernote instantly changed that within a week of using it. I am able to electronically save all of the information I need within Evernote Notebooks. After you create a named notebook you can fill it with notes. Each note can carry text, multiple file attachments, photos, pdfs, word files, excel files, the sky is the limit. So when I am out on the jobsite now I can click into Evernote, pull up the proper Notebook, and instantly have access to all of my specifications, customer selections, etc. As with Dropbox, all info is in the cloud and you can share notebooks with others who have an Evernote account. Our company has recently adopted Evernote company wide and will be storing all of our documents, notes, etc.. electronically. I am excited to see what this does for productivity. No more searching through crappy folders for a piece of paper that might be there. Simply open the job notebook, run a search for the info your seeking, and voila, there it is. Within Evernote notes you can shoot pictures, dictate verbally, make checklists, tables, etc. If you have to spin a lot of plates at work or at home Evernote is the perfect solution to hold it all down. 5 Stars!!!
I hope you go on to try some of these apps out and enjoy them as much as I do. Have fun!
Geekily Happy,
Wacky Dad
| Dropbox Click to open your account! |
I hope you go on to try some of these apps out and enjoy them as much as I do. Have fun!
Geekily Happy,
Wacky Dad
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