Mobile apps & more for international travel
There are lots of useful travel apps out there that can help you find everything from low gas prices and least 'agonizing' flights (considering both price and travel/layover time) to good local restaurants and nearby national parks -- and we'll show you some in a Computerworld roundup review coming next week. But if you're traveling abroad, there are some additional things you might want on your mobile device, whether to cut down on pricey data use, find a data connection or get help with a foreign language.
Here are some apps and podcasts I found useful during a recent trip overseas. Have other favorites? Please leave details in the comments section below.
Connectivity
Boingo
Type: App & paid service
Price: App is free, Wi-Fi credits are $1.99 for iPhones and iPads
OS reviewed: iOS
If you're a tech-savvy professional in America, you probably don't need an app to get connected when in the U.S.; chances are you've already got a data plan to serve your needs. However, that might not be the case when traveling overseas, where data roaming can be quite pricey. Read more...
Shoppers love fondling iPads to fill out sex health survey
A survey conducted using iPads has helped an NHS cluster reach out more people in quicker time for their views on local health services.
The Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire NHS cluster gave researchers iPads that had a special software installed and asked them to gather opinions at Eden shopping centre in High Wycombe.
The method resulted in more public responses than the traditional paper and online surveys.
"A survey accessible by mobile devices was created, requiring no registration and asking only key questions so that the public could answer it quickly and conveniently," said a spokeswoman for the cluster. Read more...
The best iPhone blogging apps of 2011
Being a blogger may not be as difficult as being a firefighter or a doctor or even an accountant, but that doesn’t mean bloggers don’t need some help from time to time. Whether in need of inspiration for story ideas, or simply dying for ways to actually get their posts up, there were plenty of apps in 2011 that catered to the blogging crowd. Here are my picks for the five best apps for bloggers in 2011.
Pinterest (Free)
Blogging took many forms in 2011 but Pinterest, an app that takes what Tumblr started on the web and brings it to iOS, might be the most fascinating of the bunch going forward. Like Tumblr, the emphasis in Pinterest is on brevity. A picture with a brief caption fits the bill on a Pinterest post. But instead of posting a funny picture and calling it a day, the Pinterest app creates a collage of the things the user likes. As if the song “My Favorite Things” was turned into an app.
The app’s added social element — allowing users to re-pin and comment on things they liked from other people’s pages — completes the social cycle for this new kind of blogging. Long winded opinions are out, and showing off pictures of your new kicks are in. Read more...
Masterful mousing: 6 out-of-the-ordinary laptop mice
If you're still using a traditional computer (as opposed to a tablet), you're probably also still using a traditional mouse. While laptops all come with touchpads to help us move our cursors around the screen, there's no denying that many users are more comfortable pushing a mouse around a desktop. However, sometimes there isn't a desktop -- and sometimes you need a mouse that is more portable or more powerful than the $20 piece of plastic that you picked up on sale.
To help deal with such issues, we've found six mice that break the design mold that most of today's mice are built from. They do have some things in common -- they are all laser mice and they all use wireless Bluetooth to connect with the computer. Otherwise, these cursor-control devices don't have a whole lot in common -- except possibly the ability to make computing more efficient.
Cyborg R.A.T. 9 Gaming Mouse
You think a mouse is a simple device? You've got another thought coming. The Cyborg R.A.T. 9 Gaming Mouse is one of the most customizable mice around -- this is the mouse for gamers who are really, really serious about their pursuits. It offers a wide variety of tweaks, including interchangeable palm rests and pinkie grips; two batteries (one to power the mouse, the other to recharge in the wireless receiver/recharge dock); five 6-gram weights that you can subtract or add in order to get a perfectly weighted mouse (the knob that you unscrew to get at the weights doubles as a screwdriver to help you adjust other parts of the mouse); five programmable buttons; the ability to change the dpi rating (which goes up to an impressive 5600 dpi) -- and that's just for starters. This $150 device is the Maserati of mice. Read more...Yahoo! helps find smartphone ‘apps’
Yahoo! has begun helping people navigate the sea of applications available for Apple iPhones or mobile gadgets powered by Google-backed Android software.
App Search for personal computers and a free AppSpot program for smartphones were crafted to help people find what they seek at Apple's online App Store or the Android Market. Read more...