Thing 23: Evaluate 23 Mobile Things

 

I had a great time doing 23 Mobile Things and I do feel that I learned a lot. It has definitely made me more willing to explore apps and not fear adding and subtracting them from my phone at will. I would absolutely participate in another 23 Things!


Apps added during 23 Mobile Things still on my phone:

• Apps Gone Free
• Bee Kind
• Blogger
• Candy Crush (added under the influence of 23 Mobile Things)
• Farm Heroes (added under the influence of 23 Mobile Things)
• Free Fall (added under the influence of 23 Mobile Things)
• Going Out
• Instagram
• Mediation Timer Free (added under the influence of 23 Mobile Things)
• MyGarden
• Pill Monitor Free (added under the influence of 23 Mobile Things)
• Project Noah
• Springpad
• Zite

Top 3 Favorite for Personal Use:

• Springpad
• Bee Kind
• Farm Heroes

Sadly, Springpad, which I find I use a lot, is shutting down on June 25. However, they provide for migration to Evernote, which I just did and it went smoothly. Now, we will see.

Top 3 Favorite for Possible Work Use:

• Vine
• Audioboo
• Pinterest

Favorite Mobile Things: (Pinterest definitely would have been on this list, but I was already using it)

1. Thing 22: Discovering Apps (Very happy to have found Quixey, but I did use it on my computer, rather than iPhone)
2. Things 10 & 9: Sharing Photos & Taking and Editing Photos (just fun!)
3. Thing 19: Hobbies

Least Favorite Mobile Things:

1. Thing 15: Infographics
2. Thing 6: Creating and Editing Documents (not practical on tiny iPhone)
3. Thing 13: Presentations (ditto and love my PowerPoint)

Thing 22: Discovering Apps

Apps Gone Free:

"Apps Gone Free is a great way to discover apps from the App Store that have gone free for the day. To get the word out, apps will occasionally go on sale for a day or a week and this app lets you know about them. You’ll find five to ten apps of all different kinds highlighted per day."

I added this app today (actually 5/28), and it advertised the following free (temporarily) apps:

• Tube for YouTube- "Get the full YouTube experience"
• Gridplay-"Turn your everyday videos into framed masterpieces"
• Fairway Solitaire by Big Fish Games, Inc. -"The highest and rated and most popular solitaire game in the app store"
• Game of War- Fire Age- "An addictive strategy game with a fun social aspect"
• Atomus- "Take control of thousands of particles with this relaxing entertainment app"
• Pocket Scanner -"Turn your iPhone into a powerful mobile scanner"
• Tadaa SLR -"Take fantastic SLR quality photos"
• Uface- Unique Face Maker -"Create hand-drawn versions of yourself"
• Pocket Scanner HD - turn your iPad into a portable scanner
• SalaryBook HD -"Freelancers, consultants, and professionals can keep track of their working hours and earnings'

I am going to pass on these. But, for kicks I went back a week to see what else had been offered, and this one seemed interesting.

IncrediBooth- "...Create awesome photo strips using your iDevice's front-facing camera"

In truth, I don't know how much I will actually check this app. I don't feel I'm really lacking apps, and I probably wouldn't pay for one unless it's really outstanding, but I guess it's a nice option.

Quixey:

"Quixey is the app search engine and it’s a great way to discover apps. It allows you to search for the type of app you’re looking for and it gives you great suggestions. It’s a much better way to do some keyword searching to find apps than you’ll get in the Apple or Android stores."

Puttering around on Quixey and searching for brain games, I turned up this app:

Fit Brains Trainer:  "Fit Brains Trainer is a brain training & fitness app with more than 360 games & unique training sessions that are designed to enhance your Memory, Processing Speed, Concentration, Problem Solving and Visual skills."

I had to enter my identifying information, including age, and the app began to "train" me with appropriate games. In session 1, I counted blocks for speed, then completed number patterns for problem solving. Ick, numbers. Things resembling math make me nervous. In session 2, I identified shadow shapes for visual improvement, counted more blocks, and spotted hidden shapes for speed. You get the idea. I think that I will use this app. Well, maybe not. Apparently you only get five sessions for free and after that it's ten dollars a month.

I also tried the keyword "kindness" and found:

Random Act of Kindness: Which suggests compassionate things you can do and lets you share them on social media. Some examples: "Help someone get their GED," "Document your family tree," and "Donate clothes to a woman's shelter."

Acts of Kindness: Which does pretty much the same thing, with additional suggestions of good causes to donate to. For example, "You could donate to Africare" and all you need to do is push "Learn More" to be connected to Africare's website. Other good deeds: "You could lend advice to someone with a problem," "You could donate to National Children's Leukemia Foundation," "You could donate to the American Brain Tumor Association," and "You could donate to the Animal Legal Defense Fund."

 

Bee Kind: Is more visually fun than the other two apps, more child friendly and probably more likely to be used by me. To get your kindness To Do List, you spend the bee's wheel and it gives you a suggestion, which you either accept or reject, such as "Be kind to the planet, shut the car off if stopped longer than a minute," "Be very kind to yourself, forget the past and let go of your guilt," "Be kind to animals, donate pet food to a local animal shelter," and "Be very kind to others, buy groceries for an elderly friend." All the ideas that you accept are compiled into a list and you can check things off when you have finished them. Then you can share on social media if you want. For extra cuteness and fun, there are also levels to the game. You start as a lazy bee and progress to a super bee!

 

 

Kindness Free Guided Meditation for Inner Peace:

As promised, this app talks you through a brief (approx 6 minutes) lovingkindness meditation. You can choose whether you want a male or female voice, English or Spanish and if you want background music, no music, or forest or beach sounds. It also offers written quotes about kindness that you can flip through.

And finally,

Kind MindQ:

This is a collective consciousness app that appears to be a work in progress. The idea is for beings the planet over to focus on love, kindness and world peace. I'll stay tuned for the next generation of this app.

The bottom line is that Quixey is a winner.

Thing 21: Free -for -all

Two apps that I find useful in my day to day life are Pill Monitor and Meditation Timer. These are admittedly not thrilling, but they are very helpful.

Pill Monitor Free Medication Reminder from Maxwell Software lets you enter the meds that you are taking and allows you to set reminder alarms. So, when it's time to take my pills, little birds begin to sing. It will also keep a history of  up to fifty entries for you.

 

Meditation Timer Free from Maxwell Software simply allows you to set a gentle timer for your meditation sessions. You can enter your preparation time, start chime, interval chime and an end alert. For these, you can hear either a bell, a singing bowl or Tingshas. They also show various soothing images on your phone, but since I close my eyes during meditation, it's pearls before swine. :)



Thing 20: Games

Frogger Free:

"You know you remember Frogger. Okay, maybe you’re too young (or too old?) to remember Frogger, but it’s a very fun game where you have to help the frog cross the street so he doesn’t get killed by a car. This was a very popular arcade game years ago and now you can play it on your mobile device."

I am the right age to remember this game. Then: It had a catchy theme song (which I didn't hear this time around) and I liked it because it was about a frog rather than invaders from space. Also, I was terrible at it. Now: I appear to be somewhat better, probably because I can use my finger to move the frog rather than a button or joystick. I played this in the classic and current view, but the app kept crashing.

Bubble Mania:

"If you think Candy Crush is addictive, try Bubble Mania. The baby kittens have been stolen and you need to get them back by matching bubbles. Match bubbles of the same color to drop them and get to the kittens. There are over 150 levels and they become more difficult with a variety of different types of bubbles the higher you get."

You had me at "kittens." Okay, they are some creepy looking cats, but if you just forget what they're supposed to be and accept them as kinda cute cartoon animals, all will be well. I played up to level 7. This is a maybe.

 

Word Collapse:

"Each puzzle in WordCollapse contains a number of words on a theme, such as fruits, sports or animals. All letters are mixed and you find a word and swipe it. The tiles disappear and the remaining tiles collapse into new words. The tricky bit is to remove the words in the correct order so you clear the board and complete the level. 70 levels, more via in-app purchase. Languages: English, Español, Italiano, Português, Français, Deutsch, Nederlands, Svenska, Norsk, Dansk, Suomi."

This was okay. Unlike other games I can play on autopilot, I did have to think a bit to do this. I played "20 Proverbs" and some of "Song Quotes, Free." I don't like how after every level a "Earn 15 free hints" type ad comes up. The game was fine, but not particularly addicting/intriguing.

I already have some games that I regularly play. These are:

Kitty Solitaire & Sweeper:

I only ever play the solitaire game. I have to say, that on a little iPhone it can be hard on the eyes. Also, you don't have to play it very many times before you realize that the aces and low suit cards will always be in one of the seven piles and never in the cards that you shuffle through.

That's okay, though, because the special feature of this game is that you get to collect cats. In between hands, cats walk into your room and you try to befriend them with toys, treats, etc. When you tame them, you get to "collect" them. This is stupid but fun for me.

This game provides me with a whole new, mess free way to be a crazy cat lady!

 

 

I also play Castle Solitaire and Jelly Splash and have recently started Candy Crush and Farm Heroes.

Thing 19: Hobbies

MyGarden:

"For those with a green thumb or interest in discovering who online might have gardening advice, try MyGarden. This web service and companion mobile apps categorizes itself as the Facebook of gardening. Share what is in your garden, ask for help identifying plants you would like to add (or eliminate), and get useful information for your growing zone."


This seems like a good idea, but time will tell. Aside from my log in, this is what the app looks like once you get it downloaded. After I signed in, I first went to "Plant overview" and began to add the flowers in my gardens. I figured the easiest way to start was to go to "all plants" and add from the existing list.

 

If you are interested, here are the 22 plants that I added:

 

1. Balloon Flower 'Sentimental Blue'
2. Baptisia australis
3. Bee Balm
4. Campunula 'Clips Blue'
5. Cat-mint
6. Columbine
7. Evening primrose
8. Fern
9. Flowering Crabapple
10. Garden Lady's-mantle
11. Hardy Geranium, Cranesbill
12. Lily-of-the-valley
13. Love-in-a-mist
14. Morning Glory 'Heavenly Blue'
15. Oriental Poppy
16. Paeonia lactiflora 'Sarah Bernhardt'
17. Pink
18. Scilla Siberica
19. Shasta Daisy
20. Snapdragon
21. Sweet alyssum
22. Sweet Violet

This is how this displays:

 

This is not all of the plants in my garden, assuming that they all come up/plant well, but I don't see a way to add plants that aren't yet in their list.

That leads to the problem that I did have with this app. It is not especially self explanatory. When I set up my account, I could see from looking at other gardener's profiles that there must be a way to add your photo and biographical information, but I never found it. Instead, I cheated and went to the website and added my info from there. I also noticed that you can add tags about your garden, which again I had to do from the website.

Here's my profile:

 

So, I'm happy to have learned of the existence of www.mygarden.org, but when I use it, I'll do it from the website and not the app, because I want access to all of the features. It does seem to be a unique social network for gardeners though, at least in app form. I've never found another one like it.

Note for gardeners: I think that MyGarden could be improved if users were asked to put more information about their gardens in their profile. Currently it asks for city, country and size of garden. When I was trying to find like-minded gardeners, I was looking for state, zone or region of the country (I know it's an international site, but it would be helpful for U.S. users), and garden conditions, like primarily shade or sun, etc. It just seems practical.

Thing 18: Education

Project Noah:

"Project Noah is an award-winning mobile application that helps nature lovers discover local wildlife and aspiring citizen scientists contribute to current research projects. Noah stands for networked organisms and habitats. Think of Project Noah as a tool people can use to document and learn about their natural surroundings and as a technology platform research groups can use to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere."


This app looks like fun, and as it happens today my coworker Carol and I saw some red and black birds that we found out are Scarlet Tanagers. I google searched "red bird with black wings" and from there found info at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All About Birds.

So, with Project Noah, I was able to record what I saw under "My Spottings." Kind of. Here are some things that I found out while trying to do so. 1).You must have a photo of the wildlife you have seen, or the information that you enter will not save. 2). It must be your own photograph or it will be deleted. I didn't take a picture of the birds that I saw, so I tried entering the photo from the All About Birds site above. I wondered why it didn't site my source, and when I looked again about ten minutes later, the photo had already been deleted and a message about FAQs had been left. The brief bird information that I recorded is still there, but it says that I added it 19 hours ago, which is incorrect.

You can also join groups with missions of spotting particular types of nature. I joined Minnesota Wildlife (Plants) and Minnesota Wildlife (Animals). I also earned the Tadpole patch for entering my first sighting.

3D Brain:

"Use your touch screen to rotate and zoom around 29 interactive structures. Discover how each brain region functions, what happens when it is injured, and how it is involved in mental illness. Each detailed structure comes with information on functions, disorders, brain damage, case studies, and links to modern research."

I used this one to take a brief tour of the brain. Specifically, I was interested in what part of the brain is responsible for anxiety and depression. Apparently, the culprit is the Amygdala. Little jerk.

There are many interesting educational apps listed, so I will probably be doing a part 2 in the future, but for now I can't wait to move on to Thing 19: Hobbies!

Thing 17: Connecting to Community

Minneapolis by Open Spaces: "This app is a great way to find great places and events in Minneapolis. You can also submit information and photos, but all items are approved by an editor before being added to the content."


I was not satisfied with the ease of use of this app and have already deleted it. When I tried to make an account I got a system error message. From what I can tell, this app is for searching, not browsing, but I have no way of knowing if everything was displaying correctly. What I got was a search box, period. When I tried to search with the keyword "theater," the little wheel spun for 5 minutes and pulled up nothing. I looked for further instruction under the "about" page, but found nothing concrete.

I also tried:

Going Out: "Created by the Star Tribune, this app guides you through the latest happenings in the Twin Cities metro, from the hottest nightlife to family-friendly attractions."

I got more satisfactory results from this app than with Minneapolis by Open Spaces. When I entered the app, the screen below appeared, which is much more obvious to use than anything that displayed on Minneapolis by Open Spaces.

I actually tried this out a couple of weeks ago. Maybe this isn't a fair judgement, but I looked for what I already had plans to do and couldn't find it, which annoyed and disappointed me.

From Friday, April 25:

Hunting around, I could not find what I am actually doing tonight, going to hear Jack Zipes speak at the Loft Literary Center's Children's and Young Adult Literature Conference preconference. Here are the juicy details from the Loft's website :

WHO’S AFRAID OF A CHILDREN’S STORY?
 

Anxious Adults, Real Children, and the Liberating Story

  

"Speculative stories, be they fairy tales or dystopian novels, have long enraptured young people—and unnerved adults, from parents to oppressive government officials. Yet these fanciful tales offer a door in the wardrobe, a portal to new possibilities. Why then do these same stories often trouble adults? What cultural beliefs about childhood do these anxieties reveal? And what is the hidden power of such fairy tales, fantasies, and dystopian worlds? To explore these questions, Jack Zipes will offer the Czech film Who’s Afraid of the Wolf, by Maria Prochazkova (2008, unavailable in the US) to illustrate his view that “children read the world through fairy tales.” Children’s literature scholars Marek Oziewicz, Lisa Von Drasek, and Jack Zipes will then discuss the unique possibilities of speculative stories for young people as well as adult resistance to these tales.

Panel moderated by Charlotte Sullivan."

To give Going Out a less agenda driven second chance, I'm now (5/12) looking under their Best Bets section to see what they suggest. Under the selection Stage & Comedy I am surprised to see suggestions beginning May 3. If these were eliminated, it would make choosing easier.  Looking for this coming Saturday, I see: Crimes of the Heart at the Guthrie, Song of the Jasmine at the Walker Art Center, and Bandara at Old Arizona. Expanding this out to Stage & Comedy (not Best Bets), selecting "tomorrow +5" for my date, and looking at May 17 I also get

• Zenon Dance Company at Cowles Center
•  Rocket to the Moon at New Century Theatre
•  Dave Fulton at Acme Comedy Company
• The Three Musketeers at Guthrie Theater
•  A Pedalpub Named Desire: Love in Minnesota at Brave New Workshop
• Aziz Ansari at the Orpheum Theatre
•  Lilies of the Field at The Open Window Theatre
•  Alternative Motion Project at Southern Theater
• The Dinner Detective at Courtyard Marriott Minneapolis Downtown
•  Love, Loss and What I Wore at Theatre in the Round
• Guinee Sogue at Ritz Theatre
• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Howard Conn Fine Arts Center
• Star City: A Russian Space Farce at Open Eye Figure Theatre
• Mrs. Charles at Nimbus
• Shrek: the Musical at Children's Theatre Company (Which we already saw, by the way and really enjoyed!)
• Detroit at the Jungle Theater
• The Saved by the Bell Show at Bryant-Lake Bowl
• Greg Bancroft and Karen Pavlicin-Fragnito at Magers & Quinn
• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Breck School
• The Drunken City at The Lyric at Carleton Place
• Ballet Folklorico Mexico Azteca at Washburn High School

And even more. Those are some incredible choices for a single Saturday night. And that is just in one category of entertainment. When you tap your selection, you can quickly find out  details like what time it begins, what address it's at and how much it costs. You can add it to your calendar, find nearby bars and restaurants and share it. You can also get a quick link to the venue's website. Pretty handy!

On the down side,  I also know that the wonderful Ten Thousand Things theatre group is also putting on the play Dirt Sticks by Kira Obolensky at Open Book that night, and I couldn't find it listed under any keyword search.

Still, I have to revise my original doubtful opinion about this app. It may not be perfect, and it may not find everything that I would like to do, but it sure won't leave me sitting home on the weekend from lack of choice. I think Going Out stays on my iPhone.

Thing 16: Audio

Audioboo:

"Audioboo is a very simple application where one can record up to three minutes of audio. Recordings (called “Boos” in Audioboo) can be shared via Audioboo, Facebook, Twitter, and more, and you can also find and follow other people within the app."


Making the Audioboo recording was incredibly easy. You just push record and speak. For my trial, I recorded myself reading a new book that I'm keeping in mind for storytime, Two Speckled Eggs by Jennifer K. Mann. This is a sweet story of a blossoming and unexpected friendship.

As always, it was a shock hearing how my voice sounds in a recording, but beyond that I am happy with the way it turned out. There was ample time to read the book. I would share it here, but I think that would be a copyright violation. The only problem with Audioboo is that you can't rewind and record over any mistakes that you might make. Since my first read-through wasn't perfect, I would need to re-record it if I really was posting it somewhere. Also, since I'm not sharing it anywhere, I don't know how difficult that would be.

Still, I think that I would use Audioboo, at least professionally, if I was given a opportunity.

Thing 13: Presentations

Haiku Deck:

"Have you ever wanted to make a quick presentation for a training session or to show photos from a field trip or library program? How about a slideshow of your Instagram food pics? Whatever your goal, with Haiku Deck you can easily create impressive-looking presentations without a lot of preparation—or time."

 I downloaded this app and began to look at the "meet Haiku Deck for iPhone" info. and uh-oh, slide 7 says "Create or edit on iPhone, Coming Soon!" So, this app is already off my phone. However, to get an idea of how Haiku Deck works, I went to Haikudeck.com and made a little fake presentation. Haiku Deck is really simple to use. I enjoy making presentations in Power Point and I also liked doing this, mainly because it was so easy to insert photos that made backgrounds for the entire slides. I can definitely see using this where Power Point is not available and maybe I will try doing a whole presentation on Haiku Deck and see how it goes.

You can see it here: Planting Bulbs for Spring
Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app

Thing 15: Infographics

info.Graphics:

"info.Graphics is all about finding infographics. This is a collection of the newest infographics from all different sorts of categories. You’ll find infographics about education, social media, technology, and just plain silly infographics."

Browsing this is not for me at all. I just don't see the necessity. I can see that an infographic is an eye catching way to display information, but I am not interested in anything on this app and I'm already itching to delete it. Also, it is difficult to read the infographics on my iPhone.

To be fair, I thought that I should try to make an infographic of my own. I thought that this might be difficult to do on my little phone, but I was willing to try. However, when I looked for the app Visualize by Reallusion Inc., I couldn't find it in the app store. I searched under Visualize, Visualize Free, Viz, Reallusion Inc., Visualize infographics and just plain infographics, but nothing came up.

I guess that Thing 15 is just a wash for me.

Backtracking to Thing 4: Keeping Up

"Zite is a smart personal magazine in that it knows what you like. When you build your Zite magazine, you tell Zite about what you like and it populates your magazine. Then it tracks what you read and continues to populate your magazine with things it thinks you may like."

This was fun to set up.  I began by identifying my  general interests in Gardening, History, Arts and Culture, Fashion, Hair and Beauty. I got a little deeper and now have 38 interests. I just re-opened the app and it brought up such potential hits as "Rethinking the plain old geranium, with shady hill," "Ikea Billy Bookcase Hack," "A Passion for Books: 35 Children's Books about Reading, Libraries and Librarians," and "Interesting Vintage Pictures of Female Students from 1920s to 1950s." It also turned up such misses as "Nicole Ritchie," "DJ E-Z Rock of 'It Takes Two' Fame Dead at 46," and "George Clooney is Engaged."

I appreciate that you can thumbs up or down the articles. We will have to see if that really improves the content match for me. Will I really use this app? ...Maybe. It seems fun, but will the articles really be helpful/entertaining enough to keep me hooked?

Thing 14: Videos

I had to skip Thing 13 for now, due to software issues. So, on to Thing 14, Videos starting with:

Vine

"Vine is the hottest video service right now that only allows you to take 6-second videos. 6 seconds doesn’t seem like long, but think of them as enhanced photos. Instead of a still shot of a library program, make a quick 6-second video you can share on the library website or via social media."


Making the video in Vine was super easy. I made one of our Staff Suggestions displays. We have five library staff who do themed displays and recommendations on an ongoing basis.

Posting the video to Blogger proved to be impossible for me. I'm not on Twitter, so I tried pasting it to Facebook to try to get the link. On my IPhone the video displays fine, but on my computer, clicking the video just takes you to the Vine homepage, and if you try to share, you get an error message. I see that you can post the video on Youtube and get the link that way, but this is just too much of a hassle. Frankly, I'm frustrated and I don't think I'll bother with it.

Or maybe I might in the future. Maybe the difficulty has to do with my outdated IPhone software. I can see uses for Vine in my library, if the county approved the posting. Also, I would be interested in using it in Power Point presentations.

Thing 12: Books, Books and More Books

YALSA Teen Book Finder:

"ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has produced an iPhone app (which will work as well on an iPad) to help teens, parents, librarians and library staff, educators, and anyone who loves YA literature access to the past three years’ of YALSA’s awards and lists on their smartphone."

Wow, my experiences with these recent apps are disappointing me. This looks like a fun and useful app and I'm sure that it is, but when I tried to begin my favorites list, I already ran into a snag. I searched for Susann Cokal's amazing book Kingdom of the Little Wounds, which won a Printz honor this January, only to find that it is not listed. A quick search of the Printz winning titles showed that the latest winner, Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick was also not yet included. I would have expected the titles to be more current! Oh well, soldiering on, I began my favorites list anyway.  Here's what some of that looks like:

On a positive note, I like the Hot Picks feature. Everyday it suggests three titles for you. Here is today's menu:

In spite of my criticism of title currency, I would recommend this app for its possibilities with Reader's Advisory.

iStoryBooks:

 

"iStoryBooks is an app that contains 25 free children’s story books, both text & audio. There are books in the following categories: fairy & folk tales, animals, educational, and Ramayana (Hindu stories). According to the company, they publish new books every two weeks and they will appear automatically on the app. The app does provide access to premium content as well."

 

"My Library" opened up with 36 books, some of them premium (pay to read). They are:

 

1. The Incredible Growing Plant
2. From Root to Flower
3. Food from the Sun
4. My Busy Body
5. The Hare's Liver: a Folk Story From Korea (Premium. Darn! Seriously.)
6. What Every Organism Needs
7. Food Chain
8. B- and the Case of the Missing Doll (Premium)
9. Chicken Little (Premium)
10. The Leap Frog (Premium)
11. Cars
12. The Amazing Life of Helen Keller
13. Violet's Gift
14. Kumba Am and Kumba Amul: a Gambian Folk Tale
15. Sea Animals
16. The Fish Snatcher: a Wolof Tale From Gambia, West Africa
17. Cock-a-Doodle-Moo!
18. Cinderella
19. The Ugly Duckling
20. Little Red Riding Hood
21. Things That Go
22. The Little Red Hen
23. Stone Soup
24. The Three Little Pigs
25. Four Clever Friends and a Hunter
26. The World of Dinosaurs Big and Small
27. Cenicienta (Cinderella-Spanish)
28. The World of Trucks Big and Small
29. A to Z Fruits & Vegetables: Preschool
30. A to Z Fruits & Vegetables: Junior
31. A to Z Fruits & Vegetables: Yummy Riddles
32. A to Z Animals
33. The Blue Fox
34. El Zorro Azul
35. The Crow, the doves and the Mouse
36. El Cuervo, Las Palomas y El Raton

 

The first book I listened to/looked at was The Three Little Pigs. The pigs live in an orphanage until they are too old to stay, and thus they need to build their own homes. The first two pigs are characterized as messy/silly and greedy/gluttonous. The final pig has only good qualities. It is sort of a mediocre version of the story, but it is still the story, if you see what I mean. The only thing that really is a problem is that the first pig is called Brownie and described as being mud colored, but is illustrated as a pink pig like his siblings.

 

Next, I naturally went for Kumba Am and Kumba Amul: a Gambian Folk Tale. I enjoyed this more. It is a tale in the vein of "Toads and Diamonds" or "The Talking Eggs" where there is a favored daughter ("bad" sister) and a mistreated stepchild ("good" sister) who when sent to perform a chore meet a mysterious old crone who punishes or rewards them as they deserve.

 

I  think that this would be a reasonably good app to recommend to patrons, primarily because it is free. I will probably only use it to read the free folktales and then will delete it.

 

Thing 11: Library and Reference

For this Thing, I decided to look at the ELM mobile website at:

elm4you.org

Here is the page as it appears on my IPhone:

 

 

 

ELM is neatly arranged and easy to navigate. There were no databases that my library doesn't have (because of ELM, I imagine), but it was handy to be able to access them without a library card. For kicks, I searched for "wild leopard cat" in Ebsco Academic Search Premier and came up with satisfactory results.

 

 However when I searched for the library that I work for in the "Find Your Library" feature, nothing came up, although I filled in the city, county and name keyword. This was tiresome. If I, as a librarian who is used to having to persevere in a search was discouraged, imagine how other people feel! When I searched again for the closest library to my house (in Hennepin county), by name in the keyword box, I did find the information for that library. So, I don't know what the glitch for my Dakota county library is.

 

Still, it is important to know that this is a mobile friendly resource for patrons, if needed.

Thing 10: Sharing Photos

Instagram: "Instagram is by far the most popular photo sharing app at the moment. And unlike some of those websites who developed a mobile version, Instagram was born mobile and developed a website afterwards. Simple and straightforward, it allows you to either take photos directly with the app or use one in your Gallery and crop, add a filter, and share with the world."


I know that I'm coming really late to this. My husband and friends already use it, so when I signed up, there were lots of people to follow. Instagram seems straight forward and easy to use. I don't know how much I will use it, though. I don't usually share too many pictures, and when I do, it's on Facebook.


For kicks, here is a picture of our other dog, Jack, as of now my only Instagram content:

Thing 9: Taking & Editing Photos

The first app that I tried was Color Splurge:

"Color Splurge lets you do selective coloring on your images, which is where you can choose to change the color of just one or many things in your image. You can change your photos to black and white and make just one color stand out, or you can completely change the color of clothing in a photo. Color Splurge is all about messing with your photos colors."

It was easy to work with and you can see my results above. I can't imagine that I'll use this a lot, but it's nice to know that I have the option if I want it.

Next up was Line Camera:

"With LINE Camera you can jazz up your photos in a lot of different ways. You can apply filters to your pictures, choose from hundreds of frames, add text on your photos with a variety of fonts, and so much more. It’s an easy way to quickly have fun with your photos or to make some promotional materials for the library."

Here is a photo of my husband and our dog Zoe. I played around with it, and I think the filter that I used was "Romance." :) I'm not likely to use stickers or cartoony frames, but the filter options were fun.

On a scarier note, here is a morning snap of me, before and after. On the right, my skin has been brightened and smoothed, my face has been slimmed, my eyes have been enlarged and my hair has been volumized. And guess what? It's not really me anymore. I disapprove of this kind of editing. It's one thing to take breakouts off your face, but come on, my left side picture is reality.

 

 

I have two more apps to try for this entry, but I have to upgrade my software first. So, more will follow.

Thing 8: Social Meda Management Tools

My social media is Facebook and LinkedIn, but honestly I only really check Facebook. I used to do Twitter, but I didn't feel that I had anything really urgent to say and frankly it was more information than I needed about most people. Most days, I kind of view my social media use as an interesting bad habit and time waster. Since, I'm doing this thing, I thought that I should try something new, so I added the app for tvtag:

"tvtag (formerly GetGlue) is a social network where you can connect with others who like the same television shows and movies. Check in to shows you’re watching, connect with other users, and earn badges."

This actually doesn't seem like anything that I need and I don't know if it will be useful, since I don't watch TV in real time, only as it comes out on DVD. Still, it's usually fun to set up this kind of thing, since it involves doing some self-inventory. I loaded this last week. When I opened the app today, I got the message :"Fatal error. Reloading app." Not a good beginning. I'm kind of ready to scrap the whole thing, but I'll see what happens now.

I got notification that six people are following me, but I don't know if it's of their own free will or because they are my Facebook friends. Under my profile, it lists my four recent top shows as The Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, Once Upon a Time and Desperate Housewives. Again, I think that it got that from my Facebook likes. I added some series that I'm still watching (when the next season comes out): Glee, Grimm, CSI, Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey, Major Crimes, NCIS, Orange is the New Black, Murdoch Mysteries, Sherlock, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and Nurse Jackie. Geez, I still do manage to watch a lot of TV.

For the Social Meda Management Tools part of this thing, I added Cloze:

"Cloze is a social media organizer that allows you to keep track of the people that are important to you. This focus on the people is really at the heart of this app. As it states on the Cloze website, “With Cloze people come first, everything else is secondary.” Cloze brings together Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and your email into one interface."

I'm assuming Cloze means close. I never approve of cutesy spellings, but maybe I'm missing something. I suppose that it's difficult to judge this app in one day, but here goes. It's working with my Facebook, LinkedIn and Gmail contacts. From this, it rounded up my "Key People" from mail and social and showed me their messages/postings. From mail, it pulled my husband. From social, it pulled 21 messages from 5 of my Facebook friends. It also brought me a list of people that I am "losing touch" with and I was amused to see my husband, who I spent all last evening/night/this morning with. Or maybe I should be dismayed? This app may be too much of a good thing for me. I just don't think that I'm so busy and swamped with friends and contacts that I can't keep track by myself.

Thing 7: Content Saving and Sharing, Pinterest

Pinterest: "Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that turns that traditional list of bookmarks into a bulletin board-type display of photos. You pin to Boards (folders) you create so you can find the pins again. Each photo/pin is a link to the site where you found it. This is great for visual learners or anyone who needs a pictorial reminder of just why you saved that link. Pinterest has many social features to explore, too, but this Thing focuses on the saving/finding features of the mobile app for Pinterest."

I am a mad fiend for Pinterest and I love using it on my iPhone. I use it both personally and professionally. How much do I use it?

Personally, I currently have 137 boards and yes, I am going to bore you with what they are. I am heavily into vintage and antique things and fairy tales. Fair warning.

1. Aged P's (inspirational senior citizens)
2. Alice, I Love You (Wonderland related)
3. Wonderful Animals
4. Art Deco Glamour
5. Art Nouveau Jewelry/Hair Ornaments
6. Art Nouveau Splendor
7. Arthurian Tales
8. Arts and Crafts Period
9. Authors and Other Famous Folk I've Met
10. Autobiography 1963+
11. Autumn
12. Beauties Illustrated (pictures, not photos, of the beautiful, mostly women)
13. Black Cats, to Thelma
14. Book Beauty (book covers)
15. Book Fun (book covers)
16. Ray Bradbury Tribute
17. Burlesque Beauties
18. Buttons and Buckles
19. C is for Clauser (letter C script)
20. Carousel Creatures
21. Chickens
22. Old-Time Circus
23. Art Deco Cosy Cottages (illustration)
24. D is for Donell (letter D script)
25. Downton Abbey
26. Dreamy Beauties (Pre-Raphaelitesque photos)
27. Playing Dress Up
28. My Faerie Fey
29. Fairy Gardening
30. Fairy Princesses (old photos)
31. Fairy Tales (misc.)
32. Fairy Tales Around the World
33. Feedsack Prints
34. Fabulous Felines
35. Flowers
36. Flower Fairies of My Garden (Cicely Mary Barker's illustrations)
37. Gardening/Cottage Gardening
38. Girlfriend Looks Like a Boyfriend
39. Glamour Girls (old photos of famous ladies)
40. Glamping!
41. Our Baby Goddaughter, Olive (present ideas)
42. Halloween Postcards: Finding True Love
43. Halloween Postcards: Romantic
44. Vintage Halloween
45. Vintage Halloween Photos
46. Vintagey, Shabbyish Home Style
47. I Like It (misc)
48. Whimsical Illustration
49. Jesus
50. Jewelry
51. Lovely Lace
52. Librarians
53. Sumptuous Lingerie
54. Lucky Cats (Maneki Neko)
55. Makeup, Hairstyles, Nails
56. Mysterious Merfolk
57. MN Spay/Neuter Rescue Cats (where I volunteer)
58. Naughty (and vintage)
59. Interesting People
60. Peter Pan
61. Pin Ups
62. Pin Ups with Pets
63. Pinocchio
64. FATshionistas Plus Size Style (group board, not created by me)
65. Plus Size Style
66. Pre-Raphaelites and Co.
67. Prettiest in Pink
68. Reading Relate
69. Maurice Sendak: a Tribute
70. Spring!
71. Squirrels for Mom
72. Style Inspiration
73. Colorful Tara
74. Tea Party Time (vintage with primarily children and animals)
75. Terraria
76. Tricksters (Coyote, Brer Rabbit, etc.)
77. Trims and Embellishments
78. My Twin Cities
79. Valentines
80. Vintage Children
81. Vintage Couples
82. Vintage Gentlemen
83. Vintage Ladies
84. Vintage Pets
85. Winter Holidays
86. Glorious Victorian (begins boards of vintage fashions)
87. Edwardian Beauty
88. Edwardian Beauty 2
89. Edwardian Underpinnings and Sleepwear
90. 1920s Style
91. 1930s Style
92. 1940s Style
93. 1950s Style
94. Vintage Stylemakers (modern folks with vintage flair)
95. Armless Maiden (begins boards of fairy tale illustrations)
96. Baba Yaga
97. Beauty and the Beast
98. Billy Goats Gruff
99. Bluebeard and Co.
100. Boy Who Drew Cats
101. Bremen Town Musicians
102. Briar Rose
103. Brother & Sister
104. Cinderella
105. Donkeyskin/Manyfurs
106. East O' the Sun, West O' the Moon
107. Emperor's New Clothes
108. Frog Prince
109. Goldilocks/Three Bears
110. Goose Girl
111. Hansel & Gretel
112. Jack & the Beanstalk
113. Jorinda & Joringel
114. Juniper/Almond Tree
115. Little Match Girl
116. Little Mermaid
117. Little Snow Maiden
118. Princess & Pea
119. Puss in Boots
120. Rapunzel
121. Red Riding Hood
122. Red Shoes/Andersen
123. Rumpelstiltskin
124. Snow Queen
125. Snow White
126. Snow White & Rose Red
127. Steadfast Tin Soldier
128. Three Pigs
129. Thumbelina
130. Tinderbox
131. Toads and Diamonds
132. 12 Dancing Princesses
133. Wild Swans
134. Andersen's Fairy Tales Covers
135. Grimms' Fairy Tales Covers
136. Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales
137. Fairy Tale Faction (group board, not created by me)

You can find these boards here: http://www.pinterest.com/cleery/

And some that have come and gone: Nutcracker, Tribute to Edward Gorey, Compassion, Wardian Cases, etc.

Professionally, I have 29 boards. I use them to share book titles and to save display and programming ideas.

1. Adult Fiction: Fairy Tale Root
2. Adult Fiction: Mythological Root
3. fiftyfifty.me 2013 Books
4. fiftyfifty.me 2013 Movies
5. Flannel Boards
6. Fairy Tale Retellings: Chapter Books
7. Fairy Tale Retellings: Teen
8. African Folktales
9. Australian Aboriginal Tales
10. Chinese Folktales
11. Japanese Folktales
12. Russian Folktales
13. Kid's Bulletin Boards
14. Based on Greek/Roman Mythology: Chapter Books
15. Based on Greek/Roman Mythology: Teens
16. Kid's Craft Ideas
17. Kid's Program Ideas
18. Librarian
19. Library Decoration
20. Matryoshka Stories
21. Pro Reading/Pro Library
22. Based on Mythology: Chapter Books (Norse, Egyptian, etc.)
23. Based on Mythology: Teens (Norse, Egyptian, etc.)
24. Passive Programs
25. Storytellers (Pueblo Storyteller dolls)
26. Storytime (activities)
27. Family Storytime Books
28. Teen Displays
29. Teen Program Ideas

Check them out at: http://www.pinterest.com/bookbesotted/