iOS 5: Explaining the changes

With all the buzz about buying the new iPhone 4S and the release of iOS5, a lot of people still don't know what all the new features are or how to use them. They also don't know how their OS has changed! Not knowing about all the new features can be a real drag. So for all of my tech-illiterate fans, I'm going to give you the down and dirty of iOS5.

Notifications: While you may be familiar with the traditional bubble popping up while you're busy working on something on your iPhone or iPad, NO LONGER! A notification box flips up on the top of the screen instead of a message box that interrupts what you're doing. Also, they've added a popular feature seen on Android phones, a pull down notification center where all your recent notifications can be seen. You can also view your stock ticker, the weather, and upcoming calendar events. I give this a big A+ because it makes multi-tasking easier. It's the end of losing your train of thought in an email because Words with Friends is reminding you to play with your mother-in-law. These new features translate to your lock screen, too. Just press a button when your phone is sleeping to wake it up into the locked mode. Then, if anything happened since the last time you played with your phone, it will show you a list of notifications. Just swipe the icon from a notification from left to right to open the app and respond.

iMessage: Most people at this point in time subscribe to some type of text messaging plan. However, if you don't subscribe to unlimited texts, you may be paying a little extra each month for those emergency texts from friend who are late or from children who forgot their lunch at home. iMessage is integrated into the text messaging app and takes the place of a text message when you are connected to wi-fi. It is like having an instant messenger instead of texting, no usage of your text message allotment. You can also see when they're typing, when they've seen your message and when they've received your message. Your buddies can do the same (this feature can be turned off in Setting>iMessage). What do I do if my phone dies? No worries. The iMessaging feature is available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and syncs across all of your devices. Don't miss any of the conversation, just switch devices while the other charges.

Newsstand: While not an incredibly popular feature with a lot of users at the moment, it's a monumental step towards digital media domination. This app lets you subscribe and download magazines and newspapers straight to your device. The best part, in my opinion, is being able to download magazine I already subscribe to in the app so I don't have to carry magazines or papers onto the airplane. I just need to download the issue ahead of time and bring my mobile device. This feature is only a perk if your favorite paper or magazine is available in Newsstand. I feel that many more will be added to the iTunes store in the future.

Reminders: I searched high and low for a reminder app that worked well for me. I think that Apple really hit the mark on this one. You can add reminders for specific days or just in general. You can set reminders to remind you at certain times or on certain days. It can even remind you to do something when you reach a certain location (as long as location services are on). I have really liked the app in regards to remembering to do last-minute homework assignments or remembering to pick something up from the grocery store on my way home. For the fan of a good list, this one lets you see the list you've written and all the things you've accomplished.

Twitter: There is now twitter integration. You can easily tweet a webpage link, photo or video from your device, YouTube link or a location in Maps. It very easy. Just sign in to Twitter in Settings and your ready to tweet away!

Camera: You can access your camera faster so you don't miss taking a photo of your nephew throwing his face in a cake at his 3rd birthday. Just double-tap the home button and click on the camera icon to open the camera. You can also use the + button to snap a photo instead of touching the screen for added speed and user-friendliness. They also added a red eye remover, auto photo enhancer, and the ability to crop and edit photos.

Safari: They changed the tabbed browsing feature so you can more easily see all the pages you have open. No more clicking the tabs button and scrolling through pages. The Reader now lets you view web pages without the clutter of banners and ads. Very nice if you hate all the extra noise on the page.

iCloud: This is the biggest new feature added by our friends at Apple. With this, you can sync between all of your devices without having to plug in every single time. Just make sure all of your devices are set to sync with iCloud and let the fun begin! One major problem with this feature is that enabling iCloud disables some features that were nice for adding documents from your computer to your device. The way around this is to upload all documents to your iCloud webspace first. This seemed to solve most of my problems with documents in Pages I had started on my desktop.

Other great features: Along with the features listed above, there are new multitasking gestures, new features in Mail and Calendar along with many others.

My advice to anyone is to just play with your phone and figure out how everything works. My parents have learned a lot about their devices from little hints and descriptions from me and working with the apps a lot themselves until they know their way around them. Enjoy and embrace the new iOS. I love it.

Tracking the MONTHLY VISIT! - Period Tracker Lite

 While not the most common app, it's not surprising that there are several apps like this available (both free and paid). The first one I've come across that I use regularly is Period Tracker Lite (available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad). 

The first screen allows you to view how many days are left before your period starts or how late your period is. You can also easily tap to say that you've started your period. It will track the days until you tap again to indicate that your period has ended. Here, you will also see flowers on the days you are ovulating. The app also predicts your future periods. You just enter how long your periods usually are and it will predict when (based on previous period) your next period will be.

It allows you to easily put in your mood, make notes of symptoms, track regular symptoms and how intense they are (light, medium, heavy). It also allows you to mark days of intimacy and shows you when you are likely to ovulate within the month. You can change the setting so that you have to enter a 4-digit passcode in order to open the application (in case your phone ever gets handed around).

The app also has a great feature where you can e-mail the data you have collected to yourself or anyone (i.e. your doctor) in case you need it for any reason. No longer will you have to make marks on your calendar or try to remember what day your periods started and ended when you head into the doctor. 

If your doctor changes your birth control or changes your dose, you can easily make a note on the date it changed and list when you've stopped or started taking the medication and see how that might correspond to its affects on your body. 

A simple app for savvy, busy women. I would download this today and start tracking now. 

Winchester Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder

Keeping up with the traditional festivities, there are few Americans who don't do something for the 4th of July. In honor of recent fire bans (I live in Colorado), I decided to review an app that might make your 4th a happier holiday! The best on this journey is Oh, Ranger! This app (for iPhone and iPad) lets you search your current location (or any location) for local parks. You can browse everything available or just select the activities you want to be able to do at the park. For example, you can select the icon with a bicyclist to find parks with biking trails or the tent icon for camping. The app also give information about park hours, who to call for more information and a link to the park's website should you need some more information. If you end up camping for the holiday and your park is full, try this app to get somewhere you can have a relaxing time at! My iPhone challenged parents loved just using the Maps application on their iPhones to figure out what large bodies of water with fishing were near them. With this app, they get maps and more detailed information about where they can park the RV and stay a while!

3x5 Folded Card

Thanks Script Noir Thank You 3x5 folded card

Click here to browse our popular thank you card designs.

View the entire collection of cards.

Bop it... Twist it... Bump it... Maybe just bump.

Have you ever wanted to share an app with someone but couldn't figure out how to do it short of e-mailing them a link to the app store or using word of mouth? Well, NO MORE! Now, you can bump apps and more to your friends using an app simply called "bump" for Android and iPhone.

There isn't much to explain, really. Once you open the app, you simply select different items that you want to share with your friend and bump fists (literally) for the files to be transferred. Your friend must also have the app...

I love this app. You won't use it every day (unless you're sharing apps like it's going out of style). However, this is the easiest way to share apps, information and images with friends versus just sharing by e-mail and trying to tell them what it is. You can instantly show they after you bump!

I use this app to share with my fiancé all of the time. We both like exploring new apps once in a while, and this has been useful in sharing anything we've found interesting. It has also been useful to share images with family members when we visit them so they can have a digital copy on hand (instead of just flipping through albums or paying for prints).

Short post today. However, we are getting into summer and a couple of great vacation apps for Android, iPad, and iPhone like Oh, Ranger! and Foursquare.

Social Networking Series: Twitter

I know we all know what Twitter is. Using it, however, is a different story.

Much along the lines of leaving short status updates on Facebook or texting a friend about something that happened during the day, Twitter allows its users to connect in a variety of ways. You can connect via trending topics (denoted by a hash mark, #), sending messages to specific users (using the @ symbol followed by their twitter user name), retweet others' tweets (usually contains RT somewhere in the post), or simply by writing a tweet to put your thoughts out there.

Sharing information is the real bonus of Twitter. You can send a short message, even just a title, and then include a photo or a link to a webpage of interest. Many organizations have taken advantage of this platform to get customer feedback on events and products all over the world. A great example of this can be seen by looking into the political arena. Many news agencies and campaign forums use Twitter to gauge feedback on their candidates and policies. President Obama's staff has used Twitter very effectively by tweeting quotes from his speeches. This allows users to re-port their favorites quotes or respond to certain parts of his speech. Politics is all about creating a forum for speech. I think he's done a great job of this so far.

So, enough about the why's and what's... You want to see what it looks like and how I feel about it, right??? Well, here you go.

First off: THIS IS A GREAT APP! I wouldn't just say that about any app, rest assured. Twitter has a simple website and there is nothing complicated about posting or reading messages. They have translated their website into their app entirely. You open up the app and sign in (you can create your account from here, as well). After that, you see your user name at the top followed by a scrolling list of tweets you subscribe to.

You can select any tweet to read it entirely, retweet, reply, mark as a favorite, e-mail, copy or translate it. Going one step further you can browse their profile to find where they are, see their webpage, and who follows them/they follow. This is where you can directly message a user or post a public reply by clicking the arrow in the top right hand corner of the screen.

What happens when someone messages or replies to you? No problem! You can just click back to the main screen and select the @ symbol on the bottom of the screen. Here, you can see any posts that were made that mention you. You can also reply back! Talk about easy... Messages sent to you can be seen by selecting the icon with an envelope.

The next icon is used to search. You can search by trending topics and by users. From there, it's pretty easy to do everything mentioned above, as well.

On top of all the great features of the app, I have NEVER ONCE had the app crash or freeze. That's a grand slam in app developing. Here's hoping they keep it that way.

You can view your own profile by selecting the icon with three dots. Very easy. Like I said, Twitter made an app that is a walk in the park. Tweeting about your flavorless bubblegum is only a few taps away... literally.