A few of my favorite things…

 As anyone who has recently surfed the web would know, apps are where it is at.  Apps for this apps for that, and probably even a few whose functions elude me.  What we know as apps really is not new, nor did it originate with Apple, though they did popularize the concept.  It is an important trend, Blackberry has missed it, though rumors indicate perhaps they are getting on the band wagon, android thrives on it, and of course Apple dominates the mindshare. 
 
But before Apple and the app market there were Palm Pilots and Handspring’s Visor.  Turning back the clock a few years I owned a Visor.  One of the great things then was the ability to find free software and install it on the Visor.  I remember selling my (then future-) wife on this concept so we could get one.  It worked, we bought 2.  After we had our new toys we were playing around with them at a concert (Dream Theater to be exact) waiting for the show to begin.  We were messing around with our Visors when someone in the crowd noticed and he starting talking and sharing with us the greatness of the Visor.  I do not recall the exact details of the conversation, but it is similar to the app discussions that now seem to happen at family gatherings.  In short this was a market waiting to explode and no one until Apple seemed to tap into this excitement and make something of this.  It has made Apple a fortune.
 
Enough of the history lesson, in honor of the greatness of apps I thought I would share a few of my favorites.  These are all available on Android phones, I am sure most are available on the iphone as well.
 
1)      Tasker.  Just a brilliant app for taking full control of your phone.  Need to make sure the phone is quiet while at work, easy to set up.  Play your favorite wake up music in the morning, done, load Google maps when you enter your car...no problem.  All this an more.  It possesses a steep learning curve, but anything this powerful and flexible usually does.
 
2)     Dropbox.  This is more than an app, as you can use it to store any file in the cloud with a free account, but being able to pull these files onto my phone make this one useful app.
 
3)      My fitness pal and Cardio Trainer.  Perhaps shameful to admit I do not possess the will power and strength of mind to maintain a diet and exercise routine on my own, but these two programs taken together have helped me get in much better shape and begin the process of burning off the “holiday” pounds.
 
4)      Google Sky Map.  This is simply awesome. 
 
5)      Pulse newsreader.  This is an excellent app to pull all my RSS feeds (and more) into one handy location for easy reading and viewing on my phone.