Posts Tagged ‘Free’
I started using CrashPlan as my cloud backup service in January of this year. I'm a bit of a backup freak. I have multiple backups including Time Machine, clones and lastly cloud backup for disaster protection. I always felt that a backup located in the same place as the computer offers no protection in the event of a disaster such as flood, fire, theft, etc. I went with the unlimited Family Plan and have multiple computers backed up to the service. While CrashPlan has always offered the ability to access your backed up files via their website, now they've introduced Universal iOS Apps that allow you to access your backed up data from anywhere you are from your iDevice.
Complete Access To ANY of your Files from your iDevice
Since all of my computers are being backed up to CrashPlan, this App means that I have access to ALL of my files now from my iPhone or iPad. If there is a document that I left on my computer (and it's been backed up to CrashPlan), I can access that document, view it on my iPad (if it's in a compatible format) or simply email it to someone all from within the App. CrashPlan takes advantage of the "Open In' command to say open a RAW file in an App like Photogene or open an Excel file in Numbers. Image files like JPGs can be viewed right in the App. Once a file is downloaded into the App it remains local and available offline until you remove it.
It works great! My only complaint is that there is no preview to the image files BEFORE you download them. In my case, say I have a folder of 100 JPGs and I want a particular one, they will be listed by name, but I'll have no way of know which one is which unless I know the names. This means tapping on and downloading each one until I find the one I want. Otherwise, this App more than meets my expectations and it was a pleasant surprise to see it released.
You can get CrashPlan for FREE here from the 
Recently I reviewed a new business card reader by Readdle that uses OCR to translate the picture of the business card that you take to text. OCR is not perfect and therefore will usually require some manual checking, verifying and corrections. These corrections are made by you, a human. What if you could hand a stack of business cards to your Administrative Assistent and have him/her enter them for you? If you've got an Admin, then you probably can. For the rest of us it's up to us to get our Contacts entered on our own. One of my readers suggested that I take a look at CardMunch, so I did.
CardMunch uses humans 
The big difference between CardMunch and all the other Business Card Reader Apps is that when you take the picture of the business card with CardMunch, it uploads to a LinkedIn powered service that employs real human beings to transcribe the business card, proof read it and then send it back down to your iDevice with a push notification to let you know it's done. Best of all it's FREE! Wow! Once you upload the photo of the card via the App it can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes on average to get the transcribed card back. However, in every one that I've tried to date they have come back 100% correct requiring no further editing on my part. You are required to have a free LinkedIn account to use the App. Since the cards are being transcribed by humans it doesn't matter how complex the card is in terms of hard to read graphic backgrounds that would confuse the OCR based solutions. Once you get the transcribed card back down into the App you can then choose to add it to your iOS Contacts or just keep it in the app. Bonus Tip: When you turn your device to landscape orientation it gives you a cover flow style view of all your scanned cards. Cool!
Sounds great! What's the downside?
While this is very magical and seems perfect, there is one bit of concern and that is that you are submitting your business cards/contacts to a 3rd party. This may be a concern to those who have Privacy issues in general.
You can get CardMunch for Free here from the
Facebook already has an iOS App called "Facebook". When I saw that they had come out with a separate Facebook Messenger app dedicated to sending messages to other Facebook users, I like many of you thought – why didn't they just build these new features into their existing App? That question remains unanswered, so let's take a look at the "new" Facebook Messenger App and what it does offer…
What's it for?
The Facebook Messenger App is designed to give Facebook users the ability to send messages to other Facebook users. Doesn't the Facebook App already do this? Yes, but the new Messenger App does a few things that the regular Facebook App doesn't. First of all and probably most important to me is that you can send pictures via this App to other Facebook users and they will see the photos whether they are using this App or simply logged into Facebook on their computers. Also with Messenger can not only send messages to other FB users, but any of your other contacts cell phones. This easily lets you skirt around any SMS limits you may have on your current cellphone plan. With messenger you can include your current location as well. This is especially helpful when trying to meet up with friends. Messenger does push notifications to let you know when you've received an incoming message.
What's missing?
While Messenger does what it does well, it has a couple of glaring omissions. The biggest one is that you can't see who is online right now and who isn't. The second one that I find really odd is that while the App does support landscape view, you can only compose new messages in portrait view. This will be a pain for two thumb messengers. Lastly and probably the most glaring omission is that like the existing Facebook App there is no native iPad version.
The Bottom Line
While I didn't really need a separate messaging App for Facebook, I will keep this one because it does things that the regular Facebook App doesn't do. I'm also fine with having a separate specialized App that's lean and fast, but i really don't see why these features couldn't have been added to the existing App and for God's sake please get the iPad versions out!
You can get Facebook Messenger for Free here from the
I play a game here and there on my iDevices. Every now and then one comes along that gets me hooked. This time it's compliments of my friend Mia. She told me that her husband (a new iPhone user) was playing it all the time. I decided to give it a try this past weekend and why on earth did I do that? I haven't been able to put it down. I'm playing as I write this (just kidding). The concept is simple. It's the wild wild west and your iPhone/iPod touch is your six shooter. When you start a match you point your iDevice screen down and wait for it to vibrate. When it does, it's time to raise, aim and fire. This game takes advantage of the iPhone 4/4th gen iPod touch gyroscope. So it's more than just aiming left, right, up or down, your opponent may move around behind you and you have to turn around to get him/her in your sights.
Play for free or pay for more stuff
It's like the Farmville concept in a way. You can download and play High Noon for free and have a great time. However, if you want to play for long periods of time you'll need more "energy". Well energy isn't free. At least not if you want it on the spot. You can either choose to rest (play later) for free or if you want to keep playing now you can buy some enery drink with your "wampum" (money). You accumulate wampum as you play and win. If you run out, you can buy more via in-app purchases starting at 30 wampum for $4.99. I'm not a fan of continuing to pay to play. I therefore don't plan to make any wampum purchases. When I run out of energy I look at that as a time to get some work done or play other games.
Multiplayer only
The game ties into the Game Center. You can challenge your friends or random players. The more wins you get the more cash (gold) you get to buy better weapons. I can't believe someone through a bag of flour at me! The game is fun and does require practice to get good. You can practice against the computer dummy. All-in-all it's a fun game to play. You can definitely play and have fun for free.
You can get High Noon for Free here from the
Bruce's antlers are actually being dynamically displayed with the software that came with his Logitech webcam.
FaceTime is great, but Skype is more prevalent. I would use FaceTime more if it worked over 3G. This is why I'm glad to see a native Skype App come to iPad. Skype calls are not just limited to iOS Devices. The call you see taking place above is between me and my buddy Bruce Mandel. I'm on my iPad 2 and he's on his desktop PC in his office. That's the real beauty of a solution like this. It's more universal!
How well does it work?
I downloaded the App, logged in with my existing Skype ID and my contacts came up. I was able to see who was online and who wasn't. I was able to initiate free Skype-to-Skype video calls with the tap of a finger. I could also use my Skype credits to call regular phone numbers. Again, this will be extremely more useful to me than FaceTime especially when traveling abroad. The call quality for both voice and video was good. Bruce said that I had about a 2 second lag in my video to my voice. His was perfectly in sync. I would probably attribute that to my slower upload speed where I am. Although there was a lag, the overall experience was very good. I placed a phone call to a regular landline and the call quality was excellent!
The only other minor issue was that when I initiated the video call with the iPad in landscape orientation the person I was calling said that my video was sideways. Rotating the iPad up and back again fixed it. This happened with two different callers.
If you don't have a front facing camera on your iOS device you can still receive Skype video from the other caller.
You can get Skype for iPad for Free here from the
Yes of course I have Direct Deposit when it comes to my paycheck. However, there are times where I get miscellaneous checks from others and of course these checks need to be deposited in my account. The problem had been making the time and effort to actually drive to the bank/ATM to make the deposit. The good news is that those days are now behind me. I can't remember the last time that I had to take a check to the bank. There are SEVERAL Apps offering this feature and it will vary by location and your financial institution. However, here are 3 that will let you get it done.
Chase Bank
Chase Bank was one of the first to offer this and as a matter of fact I ended up getting tired of waiting for my bank to offer it in their App that I opened up a Chase account just for this feature. The cool thing was that Chase even allowed me to open my account and complete everything via their website. To this day I have never been inside a branch!
You can get the Chase App for free here from the
PNC Bank
PNC Bank not long ago updated their App to allow deposits too. Like Chase you take a picture of the front and back of the check, enter the amount and account that you want it deposited to and you're done!
You can get the PNC Bank App for free here from the
PayPal
PayPal is not a bank, but it is synonymous with paying for products online. Now you can deposit checks into your PayPal account directly from your iPhone, iPad 2 or 4th gen iPod touch.
You can get the PayPal App for free here from the
If your bank doesn't offer it, it may be time to apply more pressure to their customer service line. If not, it may be time to switch banks
The one thing I keep hearing the most about Google's NEW Google+ Social Networking site is that it's a nice cross between Facebook and Twitter. It would be as if you sat down and looked at both Facebook & Twitter and then cherry picked some of the best features of each in an attempt to create the next big thing. I've been dabbling with Google+ for a about a week now and I'm startting to know my way around it. Of course no social networking site will be successful without embracing all the popular mobile platforms out there. Google is not stupid. Although they make a competing mobile operating system (Android), they know that in order for Google+ to be a success that they must also support iOS.
Google+ for iPhone offers the basics that you would expect
With the Google+ iPhone App I can post status updates, check ins, pictures and see the streams of my friends/circles. It also offers the quick messaging feature of Google+ called "huddles". Like Google+ itself the interface of the Google+ for iPhone app is clean and to the point. You can tap one of the 5 buttons on the home screen and get to just about anywhere in Google+. I can't think of really too many things I'd want them to add to the App. However, that's only because the App currently is limited by what you can and can't do on Google+ itself. With that said, there are a few things I'd like to see added to Google+ itself and of course I'd like to see the App evolve as the service does.
There is one thing that leaves me scratching my head
The only issue I ran into is that for some reason the App would not show up to install on my iPad. I knew that it wasn't a native iPad App, however most non-phone related Apps run just fine on the iPad. After doing some digging I found that this is not just an iPad problem. Currently the App doesn't work on the iPod touch either??????!!!!! Huh? That's right! Google+ for iPhone only works on the iPhone. I can't think of a single reason for this restriction. I'm hoping to see this little (OK, freakin' big) problem solved soon. Otherwise if you're iPhone user you can start playing today.
You can get Google+ for iPhone for Free here from the
You can add me to your Google+ Circles here.
I've enjoyed the TiVo App since day one on my iPad. However, it came at a price. In order to use the original TiVo App you had to not only have an iPad, but also a TiVo Premiere (Series 4) box. I bit the bullet and upgraded to a TiVo Premiere XL, but many loyal TiVo customers were quite ticked off that their perfectly working TiVo HD Series 3 boxes weren't supported. Also it was kind of a pain not to enjoy some of this TiVo remote love on the iPhone/iPod touch.
TiVo aims to make almost everyone happy this time around
TiVo not only updated their App making it a universal App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, but they also added limited support for TiVo Series 3 boxes. The first question I had was "what are the limitations on the iPhone and TiVo HD boxes? Since I have an iPad and a TiVo Premiere I can use all of the functions of the App. However, I do also plan to use this on my iPhone and I still have a couple of TiVo HDs. Here's what you can and can't do:
If you have a TiVo Series 3 or 4 you will be able to see your programming guide, schedule recordings , and control your TiVo remotely while on your WiFi network. However, if you have a TiVo Premiere (series 4) you'll also be able to access your Season Pass manager, ToDo List and browse the list of recorded shows. iPhone users will not be able to start the playback of shows via the remote.
While it would be nice to have all the features on all platforms, it's nice to at least have some functionality for almost everyone.
You can get the TiVo App for Free here from the
If you've ever read any of my iPad portfolio App reviews here then you know that I usually ding them all on one thing I'd like to see and that is syncing with Dropbox.com. I love Dropbox and use it all the time for all kinds of things. I pay for their top tier (100GB of space) and have been very happy with the service to date. One of my uses for it is that I use one Adobe Photoshop Lightroom's features called "Hard Drive Publish Service" and this allows me to publish and update a select number of photos to a folder on my hard drive. That folder happens to be in my Dropbox folder. This way I can use sub folders for each subject of my portfolio (beauty, fashion, etc.) and that folder is then sync'd to not only all my computers, but it's also available via the Dropbox App on iOS and Android. What I would LOVE is a portfolio App that not only can load photos from Dropbox (which most do), but actually keep them in sync!
CloudAlbums answers this request
CloudAlbums is NOT a portfolio App. It doesn't have all the cool features of the dedicated portfolio apps such as customization, music, slideshows, transitions, etc., but what it does do is the one thing that the dedicated portfolio apps don't. It can actually "sync" your Albums with the photos in your Dropbox folder. This is great and it's exactly the feature I've been asking for from several developers. The problem is is that it's in the wrong app. Don't get me wrong, CloudAlbums isn't trying to be a portfolio app, so it's not their fault. CloudAlbums is an App that designed for ANY user that is tired of having to manually sync photos between your iOS devices and your computer via iTunes. While Apple is promising some cloud photo syncing features with iCloud, CloudAlbums is delivering this functionality today!
How does it work?
Once you launch they App you will be prompted to sign in or create a FREE Dropbox.com account. You can then create your Albums in the App and add photos to those albums via your existing photos on your device. As you might expect this is creating folders (one for each album) in an "Albums" folder in your Public folder. The minute you tap the sync button those photos will be uploaded to your Dropbox folder. While that's great, the real magic is when it works in the other direction. Now you can just drop photos into that folder from your computer and the next time you tap the sync button those photos will be added to your album in CloudAlbums. It's this two way syncing that all the other Apps lack.
As you would probably expect, there is photo sharing via email, Facbook and Twitter right in the App. You can also save images to your Camera Roll to be used by other Apps. There is one catch. While the App is FREE, you only get ONE Album for Free. If you want multiple Albums you can unlock unlimited Albums via a $1.99 In App Purchase. Once you've made the In App purchase you'll be able to easily create additional albums either on your iDevice or on your computer by just creating additional folders in the main Album folder.
The Bottom Line
CloudAlbums does EXACTLY what it claims to do and nothing more. The App is targeted towards a broad user base of iOS users that want to easily and wirelessly sync their photos to their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. If you want more in terms of presentation of those photos then you're going to be disappointed. You can see your photos full screen and swipe between them and that's about it. It would be nice if you could rearrange the photos in an Album but I didn't see a way to do that. Lastly and probably most surprising is that there doesn't appear to be any support for landscape orientation and I find that to be very odd for ANY App designed to sync and display photos full screen.
If you're looking for a way to "sync" photos with Dropbox.com and display them on your iOS device, this is it.
You can get CloudAlbums for Free here from the
You can sign up for a FREE Dropbox.com account here.
A little less than a month ago I reviewed Sylights for iPhone and iPod touch. It's a great App that allows photographers to create and share lighting diagrams on their iPhones or iPod touch devices. However, the one thing that this App was screaming for and I requested in my review was an iPad version. This App screams iPad. While the functions are pretty much the same, it's just great having the extra screen real estate.
The same App, bigger
Like I said, it's pretty much the same functionality as the iPhone version. However, the user interface has be designed and optimized for the iPad screen. While this is welcomed and exactly what I asked for, my original feature requests from the iPhone version are still in play here. The App is VERY EASY to use and you can quickly create and share diagrams. It's also the only one that I know of that is iPad native. Not to mention that it's FREE. This makes it very hard to complain. So I'm not complaining, but I would like to see a few more features. While you can attach a photo to your diagram, I'd like to be able to have the photo on the diagram itself. I'd also like the ability to represent the height of certain gear. With a 2 dimensional diagram it's hard sometimes to give the complete picture of how things were setup. This is why I'd like to have the Photo and a photo of the lighting setup on the actual diagram itself. I'd also like to see a lot more built-in symbols ore the ability to add my own. Lastly I'd like to see the App sync with the excellent sylights.com website.
You can download the awesome Sylights for iPad App for Free here from the
