Friday, March 04, 2011

Phone Friday: The Next Killer App, Kid Goodies and General Mayhem

The Next Killer App

My friend Nick pointed me to: Overdrive an audio book app. And the killer app part of this? It seamlessly integrate with the Arlington Library. By just knowing my library card (the only ID card I've memorized - a fact I'm quite proud of), I was able to link this app up to the library. I was then able to check out books to my phone.

Think about that: high quality audio book content, for free, downloaded to your phone (so you can listen while out of range of a network). That's awesome. Thanks Nick!

Kid Friendly Apps

As our 18 month old starts to get more excited to interact with my phone rather than eat it, I've started using more apps. Including:

  • Baby Flash Cards - using flash cards to teach your toddler stuff is evil (OK, maybe not evil - just over the top). So I refuse to do that with our little one. But, he loves to look at the pictures and practice his vocab. And the sounds the app make are helpful.
  • Big Bang of Bubbles - this game is too advanced for our little one to play. But he likes to watch the little bubbles bounced around on screen. He can get his bubble fix, anywhere, anytime. And I'm sure he'll be making top scores in just a few months.
  • KidsTube - kids tube is little more than a pre-selected index of links to YouTube videos. But, it's still handy. It's especially useful for discovering new kid friendly content (if I see Baa Baa Black Sheep one more time, my head may explode).
  • Google Image Search - While not a real Android app, Google Image search has impressive integration with the device. I find that it's perfect for pulling up dozens of pictures on a given topic that our little one wants to see. Like when he pleads: more helicopter, please (OK, he doesn't say please every time - but he's learning).

General Mayhem

Not sure what the original post was, but something encouraged me to check out the infamous Ancharists Cookbook. There are PDF's of it all all over the web.

To my shock and amazement, downloading of the PDFs popped open the book in Aldiko instantly, and it looked great. There are some issues with zooming PDFs on Aldiko, but it was still workable. I'm amazed at how smoothly it rendered it.

If you do you check out the cookbook, make sure you start off by reading the author's latest comments on it. And be warned, it's value is historical and perhaps comical, but not much more.

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