Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Useful iPh apps

I've found a couple of useful iPhone apps recently. One is "idea generator". It simply presents new, random three-word combinations. I think it could be quite useful, not only for a writer who is stuck, but for many more situations. Gift ideas for example. One combo I got right now was:

JEWEL ENCRUSTED - RUBBER - INSTRUMENT

... for the lady who has everything. But don't use it too enthusiastically dear, it may chafe.

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Another in a similar vein is "Nameshake", which gives you new names, I guess mostly for expecting parents. You can lock gender, or first letter, or nationality, or all or any or none. That's certainly useful for me, I keep getting new models named Julia or Anna or Natali, so I have to find new names.

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And then there's one I've barely tried yet, SnapTell. You use the iPhone to photograph a product or a barcode (so far books, DVD, CDs), and you usually get access to loads of online reviews, and places to buy it, ordered by price. Kewl. I'm guessing you can even photograph it off the computer screen or the TV if the picture is good enough...
... Yeap, you can. It worked with a very tiny picture (a thumbnail) of the DVD of "Life" season one. And it sort of worked with photographing the Kindle off Amazon's front page, although oddly, I got the charger for the Kindle instead, even though it was not in the picture. 

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