This week I’m going to write to you about National App Day which is this Sunday. Yes, I too was surprised to find out there is a holiday for apps, but they do deserve recognition for making our lives both easier and sometimes more complicated at once. I thought it would be cool to share six of my favorite apps that are not simple extensions of their computer versions, but rather designed with extra care or only made for smartphones. Let’s dive in!
Mapstr This app has been my go-to for pinning places on a map. Whether locally or when traveling, we find some gems that we’d like to come back to. Places like that Cuban restaurant with delicious café con leche on Milwaukee Ave, Bossa nova lounge with a great vibe in Rio de Janeiro or the beautiful Japanese garden hidden inside the Portland International Rose Test Garden. Mapstr lets you pin and tag these places on a map so you can quickly find them based on your proximity, activity type, and hashtags. You can also add new places and mark them “to try” which it tracks on a separate list.
Relive Want to track your walk, run, or drive? Relive does a great job! You can store stats along with pictures and videos on a 3D map to enjoy later. Here is a sample of what relive can do.
FitOn Busy schedules, travel, or even weather can be a reason to avoid hitting the gym but with FitOn it’s been hard for me to find excuses. Fitness classes by professional instructors ranging from 10 to 30+ minutes for everything from yoga to cardio exercise makes this app super convenient to squeeze in that exercise somewhere in your day.
Rocket Money When it comes to money or most everything else in life, being able to see the big picture helps tremendously when making plans. This app really shines at that by pulling all your accounts together in a single pane of glass. There are also bunch of other cool features for paid users such as: subscription tracking, budgeting, spending insights, and net worth. It’s a great app to get intimate with your finances and take control of them.
Todoist & Asana Todoist is a very intuitive and the most easy to use to-do app in my opinion. Features such as quick add, recurring due dates, and subtasks make this app very quick and flexible compared to many others. It does lack in the areas of project management and team collaboration; therefore, we currently use another fantastic app called Asana. What makes Asana unique is their Apple-like model. The app is built with best practices in mind so by giving up some flexibility you get a lot more consistency across your team. This in return means much better collaboration on projects as a team. Asana also does a great job of helping you get started quick with very easy learning curve. Advance features can be slowly adopted. This helps make sure your team does not stop collaborating or give up on the app early on.
I have many more to share and will do so in our future newsletters. What’s your most favorite app?
– Burak Sarac, Team Lead
Make and Share an Amazon Wish List
For the longest time, we’ve searched on Amazon and added whatever we wanted to buy to our cart. But no more! Using an Amazon Wish List to classify, keep track of, and bookmark everything you plan to purchase is a great way to stay organized – plus you can share them with friends (or Santa!). This article will show you everything from creating an Amazon wish list to sharing it, and outline the procedure for both web and mobile apps of Amazon.
Christmas Card Day is December 9th
’Tis the season for spreading cheer and joyful greetings, so why not grab a recent family photo, a box of cards, or even a tastefully designed e-card and get to writing! Christmas cards have been around for centuries, so there’s no time like the present to send ’em out and keep your loved ones up to date on your life while you wish them good tidings. If you enjoy a guided crafty activity, maybe check out one of these card making kits for a special DIY touch!
10 Fixes for Slack Notifications on Desktops
There’s nothing more terrifying than missing an important text at work on a Monday morning when it wasn’t even your fault since you never received the notification. And if you are a Slack user facing this issue, this article will help you with effective methods to fix Slack notifications not working on Mac and Windows desktops.
Gingerbread Decorating Day is December 12th
Baking of gingerbread is one of the oldest holiday traditions and Gingerbread Decorating Day unleashes the hidden artist in us! You don’t actually have to bake gingerbread cookies or a gingerbread house to participate, either. Pick up your favorite gingerbread items from the baker (or Walgreens/Target/Walmart) and get started on a gingerbread decoration project with all the candies you can lay your hands on. Here are some decorating ideas to get started!
