Wednesday, May 14, 2014

23 Mobile Things--Thing 5

Thing 5 is all about notetaking and the many ways we can do that using our mobile devices.  There are numerous apps for this, but I chose to look at Remember the Milk and Dragon Dictation.  Get started with Remember the Milk or Get started with Dragon Dictation.

I would have liked to have looked at Bamboo Paper (Here's a little information on that), but for some reason it wouldn't show up on the App store when I looked for it for my iPhone.  (I suspect it is because I have a 4s and, even though I keep it updated, it may not be able to handle everything out there).  The reason I think I may have liked Bamboo paper was that it allowed for drawing and, as an artist, it might have been fun to try it out.  I did find an app for Bamboo Loop where you can make your own digital cards to send to friends in the "loop" or share on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.  That might be an interesting thing to look into at some point.  In order to use it well with an iPhone, it is recommended to use a stylus as it can be hard to make any fine lines with just your fingers.

Anyway, I worked a bit with Remember the Milk and Dragon Dictation.  They probably could make me quite a bit more organized, but my brain just doesn't seem to organize lists and other notes well.  I keep things up to date on the calendar on my phone, but trying to add more notes and lists just seems to be beyond me (even when there are great apps that do this).

Using Dragon Dictation makes me think a lot of using Siri and, I guess, that I just never get around to using Siri, so trying to come up with things in Dragon Dictation just isn't what works for my personality either.

I imagine notetaking is a great thing - the best I tend to do is to make a grocery list (when I remember) and a list of Christmas presents that we're going to buy for family (mostly because my husband reminds me I should make a list of these things).  I fear remembering to remind myself to do something is one of the hardest things for me to do and even these beautiful apps, don't make it any better!

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

23 Mobile Things--Thing 4

On thing 4 we were assigned to be "Keeping Up" by downloading an app that would be a one stop shop for all the news in which you might be interested.

I chose to download the Flipboard app.  Find information on how to download it here.

I've used it a little bit and it is pretty easy to get a hang of flipping through the various news stories that come from the web and Facebook and your favorite blogs.  You are also able to add a "magazine" to your account.  I added some Etsy pages, so that I could flip through various gift ideas for family members.

Time will tell if this is something I will use a lot or not.  I feel like my phone is already a source of being a one stop shop even if it means I open a few more apps here and there.  If I am trying to find out what my Facebook friends are saying, I guess that I prefer to go to Facebook itself, so that I can easily navigate to all of the Facebook features.

I do like the options for finding out news related items on your favorite topics, so I might keep this app to find those bits of information more easily.  I really enjoy reading about fashion (even if I'm not very fashionable) and about world news.  I tend to like to see all sorts of different sources for this information, so that I feel like I am getting a more well rounded picture of events (especially concerning world news).  Because of this, Flipboard probably would not become the only source I would look to, but it is a nice addition, as I was finding articles that I had not previously found.