Thing 23. Evaluate 23 Things

All in all, quite a useful course. I appreciate the effort taken by those involved to select topics and find appropriate and FREE apps to download and try out. I was already using many of the apps suggested. But, by undertaking the lessons, I was "forced" to dig deeper. I really learned how to use several of the apps, exploring how powerful quite a few of them were. I discovered some of their strengths, and quite often, their flaws. In fact, I often went beyond the app to the developer's website for more information, tips and trouble-shooting (sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't). So, a lot of success, some lack of success, but always an interesting learning experience. Thanks so much for making 23 Mobile Things available.

Thing 22. Discovering Apps

Slice was the app of choice for this Thing. It's a delivery tracker. You give the app your email address(s) and it retrieves online shopping information-without having to enter tracking numbers--pretty cool. Info provided includes receipts, shipping notices, return policies and price changes on products ordered. If you want, Slice will also give you info on specials and recalls. Interesting, the app tracks how much cash you're shelling out online--something I'm not sure if I want to know!

Thing 21. Free-for-all

TripIt was my choice for this Thing. It's a pretty handy travel app, allowing you to set up an account that auto-forwards your various itineraries to your phone: flight, lodging and rental car. TripIt also sends you emails or texts to alert you to upcoming travel or possible problems via alerts. I do wish it would store boarding passes, though, like other travel apps. Total one-stop travel shopping would be really nice. Maybe I'd better check out the upgrade....

Thing 20. Games

Candy Crush was my choice for this Thing. A confession: I don't like games; I'm boring--I prefer to do something to broaden my mind when being entertained, and gaming on my iPhone seems like a total waste. Of course I can see Candy Crush's appeal to "normal" folks. The app has lots of bright colors, makes cute noises when you move the those little pieces of candy and provides a sense of accomplishment when you manage to move to the next level. Gotta say, though, the baked-in links to other apps/games is super-annoying.

Thing 19. Hobbies

Vivino Wine Scanner was my choice for this Thing. While I haven't yet used it (as I'm in the office and I don't work in a liquor store), I like the most powerful function of the app: you can snap a pic of a wine label, add your review, record the store where you bought it and the price and save it on a wish list. All this can be accessed by your friends, so you can share your vino experience. Vivino also provides basic/advanced details about the wine: location where it's grown, tons of grape info, other vines produced by the house, food pairing and vintage selection.

Thing 18. Education

TED is an app that works two ways for me: it's educational AND entertaining. I really enjoy hearing interesting people talk about subjects they enjoy or know a lot about. TED's "surprise me" feature is way cool: you choose a topic (jaw-dropping is the best), then select the amount of time you want to spend, and the app presents you with one or a series of talks to watch. Of course, there are also topics to browse and a search engine.

Thing 17. Connecting to the Community

For this Thing, I downloaded Minnneapolis Skyway. Skyway is a pretty useful app. I don't use Skyways much (don't believe in them, despite the cold--they're street-front killers) so when I do, I sometimes get lost. I've ended up going down endless blank corridors, or mistakenly opened emergency-exit doors and once found myself in dank, deserted building where the staircase emptied into a funky alley with real live rats. Minneapolis Skyway hopefully puts a stop to that. It also allows you to search and browse for business and stores, as well as create favorites. A big caveat though: the app doesn't appear to be updated much. Search on Block E and it provides info on many businesses that have long flown the coop.

Thing 16. Audio

I used Soundcloud for this Thing, and like the app a lot. It's cool having the ability to search for and follow music, artists, etc., and add streams. Of course, many music apps let you do that. But the super-cool aspect of Soundcloud is being able to record yourself. I use it for guitar practice. I can play a lick, or part of a piece, and hear if I'm getting close to doing it right. As for library applications, podcasts, sure. But I can visualize Soundcloud being useful for any time you need to record something: a bit of conference presentation, a story-time, comments about a library event. Soundcloud--nice work, developers!

Thing 15. Infographics

I used info.Graphics for this Thing. At first I liked having the ability to browse infographics by subject. Lots of good infographics, on many interesting topics. But then, unfortunately, I couldn't get the search function to work. Being able to search for libraries as a subject would have been cool, as the app. would be an easy source for ideas. And it got worse. Info.Graphics is slow, and pretty cumbersome to use on an iPhone. Text was just to hard to read on a small screen. And I know the developers need to monetize, but I could really go without a Candy Crush ad running at the bottom of the screen! Rating: 2 out of 10.

Thing 14. Videos

I used Vine on my iPhone for this Thing. I like Vine, for how clean and simple it is to use and for its social media functionality. I think it's cool that you can browse the channels, or just search for hashtags or people. I did some looking around for libraries but didn't find a lot of them using Vine. I suppose that may be a matter of staff creating social media weighing the pros and cons on how useful a short video is for providing info. My thinking is that Vine videos are similar to a tweet or a Tumblr or Flickr post--the fact that it's a video just makes it more interesting!

Thing 13. Presentations

I downloaded Deck Slideshow Presentations for this Thing. I think Deck would be very useful for presentations that need to be created on the fly, or those that don't require much detail. The app. works well, even on my iPhone and I like its simple and clean functionality. The only drawback is a lack of real creative options to make a presentation more interesting. But what the hell--it's an app.

Thing 12. Books, books and more books

As I'm not a fan of audiobooks, I didn't find too many of these Things interesting. The one app. that looked promising here, Free Books, turned out to want 3 bucks to download; only the audiobooks were free. Bummer. So instead of these apps, I guess I'll continue to download books from my library, using either Overdrive or Kindle. But as this Thing concerns mobile: the Kindle app. isn't very user-friendly for finding free, pre-1923 books from the Amazon website (golly jeez whiz--I wonder why?). Amazon calls this category "Free Popular Classics," but you can't search for this on your phone--once you type the word "free" in the search box, you immediately get locked into the free sample part of the site. Don't want a sample; want it all. Free. Get on the stick, Bezos!

Thing 11. Library and Reference

My library uses Boopsie as its mobile app. Last week in a meeting an IT guy said the app. will soon go away, once our new, more mobile-oriented site rolls out. That's ok with me. I've never found poor Boopsie very useful. For the most part, I use it to search the catalog, and that's the one thing it doesn't do well:(no advanced search options, no controlled vocabulary, etc.) On the other hand, for a lot of folks, Boopsie may be fine. You can check your patron account, see what events are going on, download ebooks, that kind of stuff. I guess it's not Boopsie; it's me.

Thing 10. Sharing photos

I've used Instagram for a while now, and like it--who doesn't? It's easy to use, even from the get-go, and amazingly intuitive--whoever engineered the app. thought logically about how it should work: Either snap a pic or access your phone's camera roll, edit the image, add a caption or hashtags and post to just about any social media platform. Piece of cake. I also like how you can use hashtags to follow a topic (like Twitter). I see libraries all over the place using Instagram for pics of interesting or new books, events, images of staff or patrons; it's a great way to draw attention to your library.

Thing 9. Taking and editing photos.

Line Camera was my choice for this "thing." It's a fun little app. Like many photo apps, you can either take a pic or access the camera roll, then do the usual stuff like cropping and adding colors and tones. There's also the ability to frame your image using various types of frames. Text can be added as well, in a variety of fonts. What I really liked about Line Camera is the dual functionality of the entry tools called Beauty or Design--get your pic and choose one to get started. The former lets you touch up your images; the latter lets you apply the above-mentioned fun stuff like frames and text.

Thing 8. Social Media Management Tools

I downloaded Hootsuite for this Thing and did some practicing with various social media. I belong to a social-media group at the library where I work, and other folks on the team have mentioned the value of using a cross-platform tool. I don't see the need for this personally, and so tailor what I write to the type of social media I'm using (Facebook = friends, chatty, casual; LinkedIn = work, colleagues, former classmates in the field; Twitter = newsy stuff to a broader network). But for institutional/library posting, where you'd want to get the same message out various ways quickly and easily to different sorts of people, a social media management tool like Hootsuite is the cat's meow.

Thing 7. Content Saving and Sharing

I downloaded Pinterest for this Thing. I admit I looked down on Pinterest for a while, thinking it belonged in the realm of scrapbookers (sorry!) but now I can see I was wrong. Visually, of course, it's great and must be especially impressive on a Retina iPad. I also like how you can structure and annotate your pins. The examples linked from the Thing website, showing how libraries are using Pinterest, show how creatively the app. can be used to promote library content, events and provide info about their communities. Again, it's a little clunky to use on the phone, but Pinterest is a pretty nifty app.

Thing 6. Creating and editing docs.

I used Google's Quickoffice for this Thing. All in all, it works well for creating a simple document on the fly or doing some quick edits. Of course, Quickoffice would be much easier to use on an iPad than my phone, simply because any typing or editing is better accomplished on a larger screen. Still, I really like how fast the app. is, and how simply and cleanly it interfaces with my Google Drives accounts and documents. I'm impressed by the search function as well, and it's pretty cool having the option to display all the docs in a folder via list or gallery.

Thing 5. Notetaking

I downloaded Remember the Milk from the Apple app. store. While Remember... seems to be a pretty powerful tool for notetaking, reminders, etc., I'm finding the app. is clunky. After setting up an initial note, it stuck on a calendar screen, leaving me unable to access any other features. Also, I say it "seems" to be valuable only because I logged onto Remember's... website and checked out the features and help menu. They seem to be pretty much non-existent via the app. I'm thinking of deleting Remember the Milk and sticking with Evernote. At least I know that app. works!

Thing 4. Keeping Up

I use Feedly as my RSS reader, since the demise of the Google product. I tried several, but Feedly does the trick. I use RSS a lot, so value being able to keep my links in such folders as Library, Art and Music, Politics, Technology, etc. Feedly has a pretty cool app for iPhone. Easy to scroll through and nice graphics, too.

Thing 3. Utilities

For this "thing" centered on Utilities, I used Google Search for iPhone. There are some interesting features, particularly Google Goggles. This app, which uses your phone's camera for access, appears to be driven by Google Image's dbs. Like many apps, sometimes it works fine, sometimes not. Here's some more info about Goggles

Thing 2. Mobile Device Tips

I watched the iPhone 5 video for this new "thing," which focused on various capabilities of IOS7. (BTW, the upgrade from 6 totally glitched out my phone's cellular data and caused me to spend many hours at the Genius Bar and on the phone to my provider. But success, eventually....) Some of the tips were pretty cool, like hiding those damn baked-in apps that I never use.

I'm back

The Upnorthlibrarian has returned. I'll be reviving this blog, mostly for the purpose of tracking my progress on the new "23 Things..." project, this time focusing on mobile.