iThings – Page 3 – Tech, writing, and tech writing

The Monster at the End of this Book

My oldest son was given the book of this story for Christmas a few years ago and he really enjoyed it.

The Monster at the End of the Book This Christmas, I decided to download the iThing version to entertain the kids while we were on the move visiting family, and both boys (now aged 5 and 1) were crazy for it. So much so, that I splurged and bought the sequel (Another Monster at the End of This Book…) too.

The basic premise of both books (and I don’t think I’m giving much away here) is that Grover reads the title of the book, freaks out about there being a monster at the end of the book, begs the reader not to turn the pages so that he can avoid meeting the monster, and attempts to thwart the reader in progressing through the book by putting up a variety of obstacles (heavy walls, tied ropes, and the like). In the sequel, Grover is accompanied by Elmo who is incredibly keen to see the monster, so wants the pages turned as quickly as possible.

The app follows the same basic story as the physical book. The contents of the speech bubbles appear one word at a time in sync with the voiceover which may be a bonus to kids of a learning-to-read age. Instead of a simple page-turn to progress, there are interactive elements related to breaking down the barriers put up by Grover, as well as bonus interactive elements on the pages (tickling monsters’ bellies and the like). If you don’t tap the screen pretty quickly, you’ll be prompted on what you need to do to move the story forward, usually with a comment along the lines of: “Don’t touch there! That’ll turn the page!”

There’s a bubble at the top of the screen just for parents. When you tap, a popup suggesting activities related to what’s on the page appears – speculate what other crazy obstacles Grover might put up, mime different emotions for each other to guess, talk about a time your child was scared of something.

For a short story (12 pages), there’s a lot to this app. We’re still finding new elements each reading even after a month. Highly recommended.

<a href=”https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0375805613/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwsharonmurp-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0375805613″>the book of this story</a><img src=”https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=wwwsharonmurp-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0375805613″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”” style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” />

Repak Recyclemore App

There’s no finer time than now, with Xmas behind us and a new year ahead, to have a bit of an auld clean out. And thanks to the fine people at Repak, it’s easier than ever to figure out what we can recycle and where, across the length and breadth of Ireland.

The new Recyclemore app, available for
iThings and Android, allows you to search for facilities by type, area and the material you want to rid yourself of (though the link to the search page is misleadingly labelled as a search “By Address” function on the home screen). Searching by material type is particularly handy for the stuff handled by a limited number of centres, such as that damnable white polystyrene. Once you’ve identified a facility that handles what you want to dispose of, you can view full details of that facility, including all the materials it accepts, their opening hours, contact details, and their location on a map (if you’re using GPS you’ll even get a route plan).

You can also go pot luck and just search for your nearest facility based on your current location. Again, you can view the facility details once selected, to see what you can recycle there and when.

And if you are without an iThing or an Android Thing, you can always pop across to the recyclemore website and get all this info and more the old-fashioned way.

Happy spring cleaning, y’all! 🙂

Bus Time Dublin App

I love the new signs at the Dublin Bus stops that list the next N busses and tell you how long it’ll be till they arrive. The only thing better than them is the free Bus Time Dublin iThing app I recently discovered.

What it does:

Uses GPS to figure out your current location and tell you what bus stops are nearby, as a list or on a map as you prefer.
Lets you search for bus stops by street name or bus stop number, if you have that information.
Lets you add particular bus stops to a list of Favourites for convenience.
Shows a much longer list of imminent busses than the signs at the stops, and shows data for stops that don’t even have the new signs.

What it doesn’t do:

Tell you which stop a given bus goes from.
Tell you which bus goes where you want to go.
Tell you the intermediate stops on any route.

But if you’re already in posession of this information, then this app makes the actual catching of busses that bit more efficient – 10 more minutes gossiping by the water cooler (or clocking up billable time, if you’re the more driven type) instead of standing in the rain. It’s all good.

TV Without a TV

BBC’s Global iPlayer app for iPad launched today – hooray! It’s a free app, but requires an in-app subscription to access anything beyond demo content. Subs are €6.99 per month, or €49.99 for the year. A nice touch is that you can download episodes to watch later when you’re offline – handy for commuters, holiday makers and the like. The selection is good, but could be, and hopefully will be, improved. Most noticeable gap for me is the dearth of good children’s programming – virtually the only channels we watch on traditional-format telly these days are Cbeebies and CBBC, and it would be great to be able to stick a few of their programs on the iPad for the kids to watch when we’re on the move. BBC iPlayer can be accessed through a web browser on a regular computer here – TV programs aren’t accessible outside the UK, but many excellent radio programs are.

Note: I tried accessing the BBC iPlayer Radio site through Safari on the iPad and iPhone, but on the iPad got an error that I had to switch from 3G to WiFi for it to work (3G wasn’t turned on), and on the iPhone got an error that I was outside the UK, although that’s not a problem when I access from my laptop, so I guess the site doesn’t play well with iThing browsers.

While I was enjoying the BBC iPlayer app, I decided to install the 4oD Catch Up app too. Although the blurb says it doesn’t work outside the UK, I’m watching an episode of Spaced (comedy gold) through it as I type and it’s working fine. You can watch 4oD in a regular web browser here.

ITV don’t have an iThing app yet, but have a web-based player here. (Doesn’t work from Safari on iThings.) Content is only available in the UK, though.

And last, but not least, RTÉ also lack an app, but have a web-based player here. (Again, doesn’t work from Safari on iThings.) A limited selection of their programming is accessible internationally. Aside from News programming, I’ve barely looked at RTÉ live since they launched their Player. It must be getting popular, as they’ve started including ads in many (/all?) of the programs now, which was a rarity when they launched.

So there we go – welcome to the future – TV on demand, without a TV – hooray!

2Do App Review

2Do is one of my favourite and most-used apps. It’s not cheap, at €5.49, but for me it’s worth every penny.

Features-wise, there are way too many to list in a brief review like this one. This app has just about every bell and whistle you could wish for when it comes to to do lists and I haven’t even used the vast majority of them, but I feel secure in knowing that they’re there waiting for me when I need them. (On a side note, I approve highly of the tech writing on their tips webpage – it covers a great many of the options and possibilities very neatly.)

A few of my favourite features:

Multiple calendars – Really, this is a necessity, but not all To Do apps have it, so it’s worth mentioning. Categorising your tasks using multiple calendars allows you, for example, to separate work tasks and home/family tasks. As a self-employed bod, I break down work tasks in separate calendars according to client/project. Once you have your tasks all neatly categorised, you can then look at your to dos for any individual calendar, all to dos for the current date (includes overdue tasks not completed on earlier dates), or to dos from all calendars filtered according to other criteria (for example, high priority, in a specific timeframe, or tasks with no due date).
Soundex searching – I don’t actually use this much, but it is quite nifty. If you can’t remember how something is spelled (client/product names, for example), you can search for it by typing in something that approximates what you’re after, and 2Do will locate the appropriate task(s). (For example “huver” will find tasks that include the term “hoover”).
Multiple sync options – One of the nicest things about this app is that you can sync it with several standard systems, so if you want to stop using it, or change to a new app, your data isn’t tied up irretrievably in a proprietary format. I sync every other day with ToodleDo, and at random intervals with Outlook. If you have a MobileMe account, you can sync with that too.
Different task types – You can add a vanilla “to do” item, a project with a number of sub-items (in which case you can tick off each sub-item individually, or mark the project as a whole as completed), or a check list (for example a grocery list). The options you can set for each task type changes depending on which of the 3 types you select.
Recurrence options – I love that you can specify whether recurring tasks should occur at an absolute interval (a specific day of each month), recur at a specific interval (every 10 days), or recur a certain time after it was last completed (water the houseplants 2 weeks after you last did).
Defer tasks – Tap and hold any task and you get a little popup of options, select Defer here and you get a second popup which allows you to “defer” tasks to today, tomorrow, the day after, the day after that, or no date. I’d prefer if the “day after that” option was “a specific other date”, but this feature is fierce handy for quickly redistributing things when you wind up with to do build up on any given day.
Sharing tasks – Again, not a feature I use much, but I can see great value in it. Tap and hold popup any task, select Share, and you’re prompted to Tweet, Mail or SMS details of the selected task. Particularly handy to pass on details of checklists or projects without going to the hassle of re-entering all the details.
Viewing “Done” tasks – You can define a period after which completed tasks should be deleted in the settings, if you’re so inclined. I like to hang on to mine, as my memory is crap, so that at the end of the day/week I can review and see what exactly I’ve been up to. It’s reassuring to see a nice, busy list instead of a blank screen.
Nearby – I don’t actually use this feature because I leave location services turned off to save battery, but it sounds quite neat. You can assign a location to your tasks, then ask the app to tell you what tasks you can do in or around your current location. I’ve landed home from a trip out shopping more than once to realise I should’ve done one more thing while I was in town, and this featue could be my salvation in cases like this.

If you’re using this or another To Do app and have favourite features not mentioned above, please give them a mention in the comments.

Now, I’m off to mark “Blog post” as done, then move on to the next task. 😉

Bis bald!