thing the twelfth | books, books & more books

For this thing, I first downloaded the Free Books app, which appears to be called simply 'Books' nowadays. Due to the name change I had a heck of a time, first finding it in the app store, and then being certain that I had the correct app. I poked around a bit, downloaded a sample ebook (Benjamin Franklin's autobiography) and paged through it. Overall, the interface seems pretty slick. While I'm not a big consumer of ebooks in general, I could easily see myself using this to read free classics while on vacation or in another situation in which I'd rather not be lugging around a print book.

Because I have a 4-year-old child, I was very interested in trying out the iStoryBooks app, but to my disappointment it appears to have been pulled from iTunes. (I'm uncertain whether it is still available to Android devices.) I attempted to find it via both a general search and a direct link from the 23 Mobile Things website. Both came up empty. If I ever find it, I'll post an update.

I passed on the Wattpad, Audiobooks and YALSA Teen Book Finder apps since I'm less interested in these topics.

My go-to app for interacting with other readers and gathering ideas for new things to read is GoodReads. I've never checked to see whether it offers downloadable, copyright-free titles, so I can't comment on that aspect, but I love that I can see what my friends and family are reading, keep track of what I read, and share ratings and reviews.

thing the eleventh | library & reference

My library system, Hennepin County, has a mobile app that seems to be both popular and a source of complaint from our users. I have it installed on my mobile device, but I have to admit I rarely use it. Until today I was never fully conscious of the reason, but it just came to the forefront of my brain: it's because on the full website I can store all three of my family members' cards and easily toggle between them. On those mornings when I'm running around the house scrambling to find all of the books that are due that day, the full website -- even on a mobile phone-sized screen -- is vastly more helpful. Since that is the only situation in which I access library accounts on a mobile device (I do everything else from a desktop computer), HCL's mobile app holds little appeal. Having said that, I very much appreciate that the full website is easily navigable via my iPhone or iPad.

I haven't used any of the vendor apps. As above, I take care of nearly all of my library business in a non-mobile setting.

thing the tenth | sharing photos

Yay, Instagram! I'm already a happy Instagram user, so I was pleased to see this app included in 23 Mobile Things. I use it to tweak and share photos, as well as post selected photos to Facebook. I sometimes wish it had more filters and frames to choose from (I'd happily pay for such an upgrade), but I find that it's easy to use other apps for missing features and then import the modified photo into Instagram for publishing.

I chose not to download Snapchat for ideological reasons. Its creators have come under fire for providing a false sense of security (i.e., photos are deleted after a length of time) which turned out not to be completely true. There are a number of ways to get around this feature. Added to the fact that Snapchat has been heavily marketed toward teenagers, who are inherently more likely to take photos that they wish to have disappear, I do not wish Snapchat to have my business, even if merely in the form of downloading a free app.

thing the ninth | taking and editing photos

For mobile photo editing, Instagram is my go-to app, although I also use a handful of others (BeFunky, ABM, Rhonna) for other occasional special effects. I exclusively use the iPhone's built-in Camera app for taking photos, even though many, if not most, of these apps also have a photo-taking feature.

I had not used LINE Camera previously, and I have to admit that I didn't find the interface especially intuitive. For example, it was not immediately obvious to me that there were free frame options available. It seemed that I first had to navigate through a number of paid, downloadable options in order to find them. Once found, however, I was pleased to note the variety (more and more varied than Instagram). From there it was simple to add a frame and text to the photo, and I'm somewhat pleased with my first hurried creation (below). LINE Camera is a photo app I probably will keep.

I next tried Aviary, but was not impressed at all. It didn't appear to offer anything new that isn't already available with most of the other popular photo editing apps out there.

ColorSplurge seemed intriguing, but HOLY CRAP the ads are annoying! There is a wiggling camera lens up in the right-hand corner that wiggles every 2 seconds or so and has nothing to do with the app itself. Clicking it leads to the app store page for a completely different product. Ads also appear on the bottom as you begin to edit a photo, and ads also pop up to take up the entire screen. I was too annoyed to really even test this app out, sorry.

I really liked CamMe! I tried it out at work, and it performed precisely as advertised. I don't take many selfies, but this app would allow for a lot more creativity than merely holding a camera at arm's length. I think I'll keep it.

thing the eighth | social media management tools

Here is a thing I have a lot of experience with!

While I am a Twitter user, I'm more of a lurker than a poster. I've never been comfortable enough with my grasp of twitter protocol, I guess. I follow a fair amount of folks, both people I know and others, mostly skeptics. I don't check it daily, usually just when I've already exhausted every other social media outlet and I'm still bored.

Facebook seems to be my (and half the rest of the world's) go-to choice for social media. While I'm not thrilled with every aspect, I'd rather be with it than without it. My 20-year high school reunion is coming up this autumn, and I suspect that Facebook's existence and current popularity (as opposed to ten years ago) is going to make a significant difference in attendance. My library once had lively and engaging Twitter and Facebook accounts, but ownership changed and sadly they are no longer.

I have a Google+ account, but I rarely look at it. If there had been a tipping point at which millions of users suddenly spilled over to Google+ from (or even in addition to) Facebook, in the same way that users switched from MySpace to Facebook, there would be reason to. As it is now, there is nothing that compels me to visit.

I was invited to LinkedIn by a long lost childhood friend who was not on Facebook but wished to reconnect, so I really joined for that solely that purpose. Shortly thereafter I was contacted by another long lost childhood friend in the same manner, so I guess it was worth it! Otherwise, I'm neither in between jobs nor looking for new employment at this time, so I don't feel that LinkedIn currently has much to offer me.

I was was an active user on Foursquare a few years ago, and diligently checked in just about everywhere I went for perhaps the first six to nine months. After a while, the sloppiness of the location database was so frustrating to my mildly OCD tendencies (locations in the wrong place on the map, multiple listings for the same place, made-up places, etc. and not seeing any corrections being made) that I simply abandoned it.

tvtag holds little interest for me since I rarely watch TV, and the last things we need are incentives to watch more TV!

The next few recommended apps appear to allow for management of social media across multiple platforms, so I'm declining trying them out. As I mentioned in thing the fourth | keeping up, I prefer to keep my social media feeds separate from one another in order to maintain a sense of control.

thing the seventh | content saving & sharing

No new download required for the first app here -- I'm already a user of Pinterest! I'm not the obsessive stay-up-all-night-pinning type, more of a copycat pinner, letting my friends do all the work searching out the cool and useful stuff that I just swoop in and repin like a Pinterest ninja. Pinterest has some practical applications for libraries -- ideas for programming, displays, visual book lists, etc. I also use it to collect bathroom humor (no, not that kind) for the staff restroom in my library. To bring a little levity into what is otherwise a professional workplace, we collectively post humorous (and often library-related) memes on the restroom wall. Searching the "humor" category on Pinterest is a great way to find some of these gems, but whether this could be considered a "professional" application of is debatable!

At first glance, I'm not entirely sure what Bitly is supposed to do for me. It appears to be a way to manage bookmarks, as well as access them universally, a service which Chrome already provides to me. To test it I hit the '+' and entered a URL, but it just kept spinning and spinning, never ultimately doing anything with what I had input. Since this was my first and only experience with the Bitly app, I'm not terribly impressed. Pass.

thing the sixth | creating & editing docs

For this thing I first downloaded CloudOn to give it a test drive. I don't typically find myself creating or editing documents on the go, so I'll be evaluating these primarily on interface, intuitiveness and usability rather than practical application. CloudOn was easy to link to Google Drive. I edited an existing document and also created a new one. The one huge, glaringly obvious deficiency in CloudOn is lack of auto-correction, which I automatically come to expect in everything I do nowadays.

I next tried Quickoffice, which I immediately noticed DOES automatic auto-correction. Yay! Perhaps this shouldn't be the deal-breaker when the app can do so much more, but when you expect it to be there and it isn't, it's kind of a drag. So Quickoffice wins this battle of the document apps. I could see myself using this if I had reason to be working on office documents on the go.

I opted not to download and try out SignNow since I have nothing that needs signing, but it's nice to know it's around.

iPad to the rescue!

Several weeks ago our library experienced a power outage during open hours, and staff were compelled to resort to circulation procedures from the Dark Ages, i.e., hand-writing the barcodes from each patron's library card and from every single book they were checking out.

I thought that there must be some barcode apps out there that could 1) capture and store a string of barcodes, and 2) export the stored data via email. After downloading seven or eight free candidates and trying them out, the "winner" was the Bar-Code app. It is admittedly still somewhat clunky, but it would nevertheless be faster than writing dozens of barcodes by hand. I've introduced it to a handful of our staff, so that in the event we experience a similar situation at least one pair of hands could be scanning cards and items with the library iPad.

thing the fifth | notetaking

I downloaded both Springpad and Remember the Milk, and while I was sort of intrigued by the variety of "stuff" that can be tracked, I'm unlikely to incorporate them into my life. For keeping track of the family calendar, shopping lists and to-do lists, my family shares a Cozi account. Having these three key things together in one place has helped to simplify and coordinate our lives. Springboard offers to keep track of recipes, books and movies, but I already do this elsewhere at a level of detail that's not possible here. For me, Springboard is a case of an app wanting to do many, many things, but not being particularly expert in any one of them. It might be a good fit for someone who isn't as obsessed as I am with documenting the details. Remember the milk is purely a task-oriented app, so I'm unlikely to switch to using it for the same reason as above. I will note that both of these apps had attractive interfaces and seemed intuitive.

I was unable to find Bamboo Paper in the app store. Perhaps it's available only for iPad, not iPhone.

I was unsure how I'd get to try Dragon Dictation without feeling like a weirdo talking to myself at my desk at work, so I decided to make a phone call to wish my sister a happy birthday. I used my work phone but had my iPhone sitting near me while I spoke. When the call was completed and I reviewed what it had interpreted, it was surprisingly accurate! I can see this as a great, free option for dictation purposes, of which I have few, but I'll keep it in mind.

thing the fourth | keeping up

In all honesty, I didn't download and install either of the two recommended apps for this thing. I'm already efficient at managing and organizing how, when and what I wish to keep up with online.

For news, I prefer the Feedly app, and I currently access all of my RSS feeds there directly. For nearly everything else I prefer to visit each individual app separately (i.e., Facebook, Instagram, GoodReads, Pinterest, etc.). Although it sounds counter-intuitive, by instead having all activity from each of these feeds funneled to one place I would feel something like a loss of control.

thing the third | utilities

I downloaded and scanned a few things using RedLaser, but it doesn't immediately strike me as an app that I'll come back to. I don't do a lot of online shopping or pay attention to QR codes, so I expect I'll likely forget about it.

Google Search is an app that I did already have on my phone but rarely use. When I want to search the web I just launch Safari and begin typing keywords. The times I do occasionally launch Google Search is to access Google Drive. I tested the Google Goggles feature at my desk at work, but it didn't recognize much in the immediate environment. However, one of the two things it did recognize, I'm amused to note, was the Flying Spaghetti Monster logo. I just thought of a practical use I might have for it -- my father has hanging in his home a painting for which we know neither the title nor artist. Next time I visit, I'll see if Google Goggles knows what it is!

I next downloaded StandApp, which is an app designed to get you moving around more throughout the day if you have a desk job. Although I have a desk, I'm rarely sitting at it for more than 30 minutes at a stretch, so I think I'm already doing a pretty decent job of not remaining sedentary for hours on end. I'm somewhat intrigued by the exercise prompts, but not sure how my employer would feel if I were to spend 5 minutes of every hour exercising. And although it might be to my health benefit, I would not necessarily be willing to sacrifice the opportunity to relax during my regular paid breaks in order to exercise. I'll keep it in mind in the event that I ever do ever find myself sitting too long.

iHome Sleep is an app meant to take the place of an alarm clock. In addition, it can provide a weather forecast and music, as well as record sleep statistics. Since the built-in iPhone clock app meets my current alarm needs and playing music would actually prevent me from sleeping, I don't think this will be a keeper. I'm intrigued by the notion of sleep statistics, but I think if I really wanted to pursue that aspect I'd instead find one of the apps on the market that go one step further and record your breathing and sleep patterns.

Wi-Fi Finder was an app that I installed last year in preparation for a vacation in Europe when I knew I'd have no phone service other than Wi-Fi. In my situation, had I been able to spend the required time researching where I'd be every hour of every day, it might have come in handy. In practical terms, though, you can't search for Wi-Fi if you don't already have an internet connection. I can see the appeal of this app, however, to laptop users who are using their phone to scout out a good spot to get some work done. My current phone plan has unlimited data, so I'm usually not desperate to find Wi-Fi when I'm out and about.

I didn't download and try any of the additional browsers. I'm satisfied with Safari for now.

iPhone to the rescue!

I recently was adjusting some cabinets with European-style hinges -- you know, the kind with three sets of screws that can adjust the cabinet door in one of three different directions: in/out, up/down or left/right. Once past the initial hurdle of mastering the mechanics of exactly what I was doing, I remembered that my iPhone had a built-in level in the Compass app! It sure came in handy as I was making the final adjustments and ensuring that the doors were all perfectly horizontal. And I'm now a cabinet hinge expert.