Bean Counter

 

One of my favorite apps is Bean, although I keep changing my mind on what I want to use it for. Right now, it's pretty much to track how many books I'm reading. In the past I've counted finished versus unfinished knitting projects, how many days a month I got stuck in traffic on I-95, how many times my daughter did the dishes, even how many butterflies I saw in the Memorial Garden. The whole purpose of this app is to count things. You can change the colors of the tiles and add short descriptions to count whatever strikes your fancy. Increasing the count is just a tap of a finger. Just be warned that if you reset the count to zero, the date also changes. It's usually easier to decrease the count by tapping with two fingers.

My only negative for this app is that I wish you could add more tiles, or have a 2nd version. Even though I don't have many items listed at the moment, I could easily load up two or three Beans with stuff to count!

Sweet Obsession

 

I have finally earned my title as a gamester -- if playing Candy Crush counts as gaming. I'm not really sure if it does. It seems a little simplistic and sweet to be really gaming. Which is how it sucked me in.

 

"Go ahead, give it a try," the salesman at the electronics display said to me. "You know you've been wanting to."

 

So I gave it a try. I wasn't going to get hooked on one quick game. Just a few moves to see what the fuss was about. And I told myself that I was smart enough to put it down and walk away long before I  got drawn in.

 

Only it was fun. And I won the first time, with all three stars, without even really trying. So I tried the second level. And again I won. So I tried the third. Before I knew it, the salesman was telling me that I had to share, to let someone else take a turn. I didn't know what else to do; I downloaded the Candy Crush onto my iphone.

 

Soon I was sneaking onto the phone to play one quick game instead of cleaning my house. I took a gaming break at work to play a level. Worse of all to admit, I started bringing my phone into the restroom with me. And of course one quick game becomes two, or three. Thank goodness it's just a simple, sweet game and not a heavy addiction -- I'd obviously be a junkie without any hesitation!

 

The only redeeming grace is that the game itself gives me time-outs. You get five chances on a level, then the game makes you wait to earn more chances. Sometimes you only have to wait 15 minutes. Sometimes you have to wait 24 hours! You can buy your way to more chances, actually paying cash for that one more game you know is all it will take to win a level. Or you can beg your family and friends to join you in your obsession, and the game will reward you with another chance. So far, I haven't sunk that low. Yet. I can still put the game down and walk away -- until the timer goes off and that beep sounds calls me running back to play again. But I know that there will come a level that will have me throwing out the names and emails of everyone I've ever met in order to build up enough chances to get through that golden level.

 

Do yourself a favor. Block my name and ignore the invitation.

TechnoThursday - Instagram

 

I resisted the siren call of Instagram as long as I could. Although I love taking pictures and showing them off, it was difficult to figure out why I would need to join the Instagram community. After all, there's Facebook and my blog -- surely that's enough self-promotion  for any normal person.

Several of my knitting circle are on Instagram, and they have managed to convert me to the wonders of this program. I love that I can share what I am doing, in the moment. There's no finding time later to upload and describe, which is what's involved with a blog post. And, for now anyway, I don't have to edit and limit what I share since I only have a handful of followers who even know I'm on. So I can have fun and be me without censoring. (There are too many family and professional ties on Facebook to feel that same freedom.)

I have Instagram as an app on my iphone. I can take a picture from within the app, or use a photo from my phone's photo library. There are some really nice editing tools, including several filters as well as cropping and focus. You can let your photo speak for itself, or add a short note as you upload it. Others are free to "heart" your photo and/or add their own comments. You can follow people you know, which puts all of their photo posts in your updates. If you're bored, you can randomly view pictures other people have posted. I found a fellow tatter that way -- she's become a wonderful resource for tatting patterns.

I still feel that a lot of our online communities are just self-promotion  rather than real friendship. But I'm willing to buy into that, if it allows me an outlet and an excuse to keep taking pretty pictures.

GasBuddy

I have become an app junkie! It is amazing all the wonderful things that I am finding out I can do with my iphone. Why did I wait so long to get one? 

 

This morning I discovered GasBuddy. Due to some rather annoying circumstances (gotta love family drama!), I spent the night at my mom's Tuesday. Which meant that I got to watch the morning news yesterday. The only thing I really miss about not having cable in my apartment is the local news. So I made sure that I was up early enough (4:00 am) in order to watch the news before I had to leave to drive to work (at 6 am). One of the things the news station did was list the cheapest gas stations in the area. They mentioned that this information was available on their website.

So this morning, I went looking for the best place to stop for gas on my way to work. The news station wasn't really a help, but they did lead me to a link for GasBuddy.com. And GasBuddy.com just happens to have an app for the iphone! Happy dance!

You can either put in the city, state or the zip in order to find the best gas prices for a particular area or you can click a button to see what's close to your current location. I found out that there is a gas station only a little bit further from my apartment that is 2 cents cheaper than the gas station I've been going to. Two cents isn't a whole lot, I know. But if I can save a little bit of money without going out of my way, it makes sense to change stations. 

The site works a lot like Yelp.com in that it depends on members to provide data. People have the opportunity to update the information for a station. If there are people in the area participating on the website, the information is current. 

I've downloaded this onto my phone, and I'll see how well it works out. I also signed up for a profile, and I'll try to remember to add my 2 cents to the data. After all, it's worth at least that!