Do It (Tomorrow) is yet another to-do app among thousands in the app store. I think it’s worth featuring because first, it’s free, second, it’s dead simple to use, and third, it looks like the little moleskine notebooks I love to use for making lists.
The app is really just two pages, one for today, one for tomorrow. Each one displays the proper date, and you just tap to add an item to your list. If you decide to postpone a task, just tap the arrow and it moves to tomorrow. Anything left on today’s list at the end of the day will automatically be moved to tomorrow. When tomorrow becomes today, everything you didn’t get done will be there waiting for you. Make sense? When you complete a task, just tap to cross it out.
The perfect example of less-is-more, you won’t have to schedule an hour each day to organize your to-do list, just add a task to the list and don’t worry about it again until it’s done, when you can cross if off. I love the handwritten font, and the coffee ring stain on the tomorrow page is a nice little touch. If you’re looking for a simple way to keep track of the things you want to get done, give Do It (Tomorrow) a try, it’s a gem of an app!
Posted in free nonsense, productivity.
Tagged with Do It (tomorrow), list, moleskine, to-do.
By marne
– July 27, 2010
I confess, I love sushi. I’m lucky, and live near San Diego, home of some of the best sushi you can get anywhere. I also like to cook, and while I’ve attempted some simpler versions, I have no idea how to properly cut up the fish or make a hand roll.
Enter Teach Me Sushi, an app developed by real-life sushi chef Jake Davidow. With thirteen different videos, Jake walks you through every step of the process. He covers everything from choosing your fish, to how to make a rainbow roll. The videos are concise and informative, and being able to watch as the sushi is made is invaluable for aspiring sushi chefs. Jake obviously has a lot of enthusiasm for sushi and for teaching, and I found his excitement charmingly contagious. The videos themselves are well-done, but seem slightly amateurish, more like really well made home video rather than professionally produced. Rather than finding this off-putting, however, I think it makes sushi-making in my own kitchen that much more accessible.
In addition to the forty-five minutes of video instruction, there are some other nice features, like a rice timer and a where to buy map that will find your nearest source of sushi-grade fish. Lists of ingredients and equipment are handy for getting prepared, and many of the videos include supplemental step-by-step photos and more info about each type of sushi.
Teach Me Sushi has a nice, whimsical design, with it’s bamboo roller background and notebook pages. It’s easy to navigate, but there’s plenty of information there to get you started making sushi rolls and nigiri like a pro.
At $4.99, it may seem a little pricey (but then, I say that about most apps over $2.99, which is ridiculous of me), but it’s far, far less than a live sushi lesson, so I can justify the cost. Being a sushi fan and a home cooking fan, I give Teach Me Sushi four jars of applesauce.
Thanks to Jake Davidow, who kindly provided a promo code for this review.
Posted in cooking, review.
Tagged with cooking, how-to, sushi, Teach Me Sushi.
By marne
– July 26, 2010
I’m a regular audiobook listener, and the native iPod app works just fine. Like most people, however, I listen mostly while driving, and the tiny controls make it a little tricky to pause or rewind to a specific spot.
The Bookmark app solves these problems with a nice, bold interface featuring big buttons and a slider to move forward or backward in increments from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. Other features, like the ability to add bookmarks with notes while listening, and full-screen swipe to pause/play, make Bookmark the perfect player for audiobook aficionados. Just sync your audiobooks to your phone in iTunes (podcasts work too!), and you’re all set.
Bookmark has a prominent spot on my homescreen, and is used nearly every day. I love the clicking slider for easily finding my place, and the big pause button makes it easy to stop listening in an instant. It’s well worth the $2.99 price tag if you enjoy listening to books and podcasts on your iPhone.
Posted in app of the day, reading.
Tagged with audiobooks, bookmark, Podcasts.
By marne
– July 16, 2010
I may have mentioned my love of making lists and how checking off my to-dos is ridiculously satisfying. I’m always looking for a nicely designed planning app that I will like using as much as my moleskine notebooks and a sharp number two pencil.
While I may still often write out my shopping lists by hand, I love the way I can use Diacarta to create a graphical map of my day.
With over fifty icons to choose from, plus a blank badge that may be customized with your own text, you can schedule just about anything you’ll be doing. Double tap an icon once you’ve added it, and you can enter more information.
Each day has two screens, differentiated by the AM and PM clock faces, and you just swipe right and left to alternate between. Tap the calendar icon to select a future date.
Diacarta is wonderfully simple, but some may want a little more. The ability to sync with common calendars, such as iCal or Google or at least the native iPhone calendar, would be nice, as well as being able to add recurring appointments. I’d love to see these updates, but the vintage office vibe of the graphics and ease of use are enough for me to regularly use and enjoy this one. Plus, it’s just $1.99, and easily worth the price.
Thanks to Squnch for kindly providing a promo code for this review.
Posted in honorable mention, productivity.
Tagged with calendar, Dia-carta, Diacarta, schedule.
By marne
– July 6, 2010
The native iPhone calendar is kind of blah. Yeah, I know it syncs with my Outlook, and probably a bunch of other commonly used calendars, but when I have to watch the passage of time, I’d like to do it in a little more style. Colorendar is what a calendar should look like.
This is one sleek calendar. You may not be able to fill your days with your important appointments, but you can color-code each day and add a note or numerical data. There are several preset color schemes, but you can amend them or create your own. I especially like the way the (approximate) phases of the moon are shown on each day. The current date flashes slowly, and you can choose to have your weeks start with Sunday or Monday.
For all you stats dorks (like me), you can view graphical representations of your days. I’m not sure what I’ll use that for, but I’ll think of something. I like a good line graph, and if you use the colors to represent an emotion or biological state, you can see how the moon phases may be affecting you.
I’ve relegated my plain old calendar to a distant folder, far, far away from my home screen, and refer instead to my Colorendar. It’s simple, perfect, and just 99 cents in the app store. I have to give it four jars of applesauce, especially for it’s outstanding design.
Thanks to Mitsuhiro Sugimori for the promo code for this review.
Posted in productivity, review.
Tagged with calendar, Colorendar, graph.
By marne
– June 30, 2010
Taken with Gorillacam, edited with The Best Camera.
At the disc golf course. My first time playing, and I realize I do not have a future as a professional disc golfer. Luckily, I don’t find this to be a tragedy.
Posted in a photo a day, iOS.
By marne
– June 29, 2010
I’m pretty excited to have stumbled across this brand-spanking new app the other night. With the NPR Music app, you can explore any genre of music that catches your fancy. Here are a few features from the app description:
- Multi-genre music content, with news, music streams, live concerts and interviews organized by genre.
- A searchable artist directory of content from over 5,000 bands, musicians and singers, including interviews, reviews, performances, features and news from the NPR Music archives.
- Signature programs and popular series, such as All Songs Considered, Mountain Stage, First Listen, Song Of The Day and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. The app directs to a station stream when any given program is on-air.
- Updated daily. Hundreds of new music stories added monthly.
- Backgrounding, allowing users to listen to a stream or playlist while using other functions and applications.
There’s even more, but I just love that I can listen to The Thistle and Shamrock for the first time in years. There are a few problems that I’ve noticed and read in the reviews that others are having similar problems. The Streams, Artists, and Playlists screens are blank. I did a hard re-start and they appeared. I tried streaming a station, but it kept going silent every few seconds, and this was over wi-fi. I just re-visited all the former screens, and they’re back to being blank. The top stories and Programs however, have worked flawlessly so far, and there’s enough there to keep me entertained for quite a while. I just hope they fix the problems and release an update quickly. I’m willing to cut them a little slack, since it was created for the new iOS 4, and bugs are to be expected. It’s free in the app store, and definitely worth checking out.
Posted in freebie, music.
Tagged with background, music, NPR, NPR Music.
By marne
– June 26, 2010
Taken with Gorillacam, edited with Plastic Bullet.
I know flowers are kind of a trite photography subject, but I just like them so much. Peonies are a special favorite. I like how the Plastic Bullet app made it look sort of waxy.
Posted in a photo a day.
Tagged with Gorillacam, Plastic Bullet.
By marne
– June 15, 2010
Do It (Tomorrow) is yet another to-do app among thousands in the app store. I think it’s worth featuring because first, it’s free, second, it’s dead simple to use, and third, it looks like the little moleskine notebooks I love to use for making lists.
