I asked for a list of apps and websites we love for a few Valentine’s tweets. I didn’t expect quite such a sea of responses from our consultants across the UK. Have a read here and see what we are using for work, social life and our interests. Maybe you will fall in love with a few too? Do let us know if there are some we should be using!
Work
JotNot turns your iPhone into a document scanner, so you can save documents, receipts and whiteboards in a readable format.
iPro Recorder helps you to get the best quality recordings and categorise them for later playbacks from your iPhone.
Logmein.com allows remote access of any computer, anywhere. We have used it for IT and remote International testing.
Dropbox is for cloud style document sharing and back up, we use it every day and it’s changed our working lives.
share.axure.com is a hosting site for sharing interactive prototypes – we couldn’t live without it
Doris is a dead-simple task manager that helps you see what you need to get done, and then check them off your list. She’s pretty new to the scene and has slightly limited features, but she’s already very charming.
WordPress – There is a free version – which you can host on your own domain. It has awesome community support, is continually improving based on user-feedback, has ‘plug-ins’ that let you tailor it to you needs so it doesn’t constrain you in the same way that other blogging software does (Blogger) and lets you demonstrate your creativity. Most importantly, it doesn’t require your blog readers to log-in before commenting (like Blogger).
kuler.adobe.com – highly addictive and useful tool to help you to choose colour palettes. Create your own or review the favourites.
Panosfx.com is a site of tips and tricks for Photoshop users. Useful and occasionally inspiring.
Travel
Navigation app on Android – we’d be lost without it! Boom boom
Met Office app, sooo much better than the iPhone one, I mean, they just make it up!
traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/ – because it’s hypnotic and cool
National Rail app – yeah it was £4.99, but it tells me whether I should change at Reading or Didcot on my way home from London and I’m always grateful for the extra 10 minutes it saves me.
British Rail app – even though it sometime brings bad news!
Lunchtime Fun
http://www.27bslash6.com/ – hilariously inappropriate, but you can’t stop reading. Loving the fact he has a “complain about this page” link, although I suspect you do so at your own peril.
http://damnyouautocorrect.com/ – just a funny list of misunderstanding caused by the autocorrect function on text messages
http://www.engrish.com/ – I’m not saying for a second I could even attempt to write things in other languages, but gosh it can be funny reading other languages trying to write in ours!
www.icanhascheezburger.com – never fails to amuse, even when my boundless rage is all-consuming!
www.lmgtfy.com – Let Me Google That For You. Pointless, yet the ONLY way to effectively patronise end users
Angry Birds – train journeys have never been so short. The Xmas expansion was bloody hard though!
Entertainment
Spotify It has however increased my CD spending rather than reducing it. They are in cahoots with Amazon leaving me financially poorer, but ultimately much richer.
Last.fm for finding new stuff to listen to on Spotify and therefore buy on Amazon, further depleting the cash stocks
Hipstamatic for taking lovely pictures
Instagram and Camera Bag for making pictures that I’ve already taken a bit lovelier
AirVideo for watching videos stored on my computer at home on my iPhone or iPad when I’m commuting for a meeting
YouTube – ditto (my favourites is full of epic guitar performances from the archives, most of which I’d never ever have had the chance to see, improved still further by the endless ‘This sux!” comments from all the 14-year-old internet hard men underneath them!)
Ebook Reader – on the go book loveliness
News
The Unofficial Apple Weblog for all my apple geek
Smashing magazine for design ideas and good, basic understanding of all the shizzle
Read Later – there is so much to read in our profession, Read Later means I can do so when it suits me (usually on that train back from London)
Instapaper is what I use instead of Read Later and it’s also very good – you add a little bookmarklet to your toolbar, click on it when you see something you want to keep for later and then you access it via your PC, iPhone, iPad, whatever for a graphics-stripped-out text-only version that is very small and therefore easy to download on the train, etc, for reading later. AND you can scroll through the page by tilting your phone!
RSA Vision – for making me feel deeply inadequate in an entertaining way
Hobbies
I love my Bosch cordless drill – not used for ucd yet although I have been tempted several times
Love birds app (?!) – There are quite a few things about RSPB website that are very frustrating, but being able to access the identifier and listen to the bird songs on my phone when out and about instead of carrying a heavy book is brilliant. If only they would bring out a bird identifier app (including sound) so it is easier to use on a mobile. There doesn’t seem to be UK bird identifier app out there at the moment.
www.deviantart.com – where else could you find a range of art from the sublime to the ridiculous, from professional to (very) amateur, all thrown together in one glorious, un-edited mess…
www.epilogue.net – for the good stuff. Very hard to get art accepted, and a brilliant forum of artists who are free (and honest) with criticism and encouragement (http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/list.pl?gallery=8516 by the way! 😉
www.zazzle.co.uk – make some money out of your artistry by letting people upload it onto tshirts, mugs and allsorts in the name of unique fashion.
Friends
Skype – for enabling me to keep in proper touch with friends in forrin parts
Occasions app – though now my seemingly uncanny knack for remembering friends and family birthdays will be diminished)
Facebook – love or hate it. I love it, as a way of passively keeping in touch with people who I’m fond of but who aren’t close friends, and who would otherwise drift away if I had to actually actively decide to get in touch!
Shopping
Ebay! – my old Star Trek collection bought most of the furniture in my new house! That chicken coop I’ve got my eye on currently better not go up much more though!
Tesco clubcard app – it doesn’t do much, but considering I am always losing my clubcard, it’s a Godsend!
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