This was supposed to be my Tuesday column and before you knew it Tuesday turned into Thursday. Time flies when you are having fun...testing apps! I was going to check out/review the SIMS game but I couldn't find it in the marketplace and that is ok because I was really not that enthusiastic about it anyway.
What I did want to tell you about is a few more great apps I found. They are halfway between productive and time wasting! Just a reminder, since this did start out as my "Time Waster Tuesday" column, there was a new episode of FCU staring Jon Heder (Napolean Dynamite) posted Tuesday to NBC.com or you can view it on your phone with VCast Videos. In searching for that, I also found a nutty webisode with Bill Murray, where Dylan and Russell have to check whether or not Bill Murray drinks warm milk before he goes to bed. Okay, onto the apps. These apps were testing using my Droid X but are available for any Android device and some are available for iPhone and others. The QR codes will get you to the websites for the apps or you can download them from the Android Marketplace.
Camera 360. This is a fantastic app for doing some really neat things to your pictures!
The trial app is free and the full version is $3.99. The trial does a lot. I took a picture of a sign outside of our building and then set many of the different effects so you can see what it is capable of.
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This is supposed to be the "normal" but to kill two birds with one stone, it is also "ghost effect"
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Fish Eye
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Surrealistic Color
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Surrealistic Painting
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Line Sketch
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Vertical Left Symmetry Split happens in middle of sign
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Vertical Left Symmetry
Split happens on right edge of sign
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Horizontal Top Symmetry
Split happens in middle of sign
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4 color poster
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Horizontal Symmetry- Split happens at bottom of sign
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Horizontal Bottom Symmetry-
Split happens in middle of sign
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Scenery Mode
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Using the same app, I photographed my skirt and there are tons of color effects you can perform. Here are a few.
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| Normal |
Negative |
Enhanced Saturation |
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| HDR Simulation |
LOMO Cyan |
Sepia |
There were several other offerings in the color category including "I'm Feeling Lucky" (picks random effect), Enhance, Black and White, Commercial, Light Cyan, HDR Simulation Heavy and Night. The Full version has extras like Dream effect and Back to 1839. That was all done with one app.
PhotoFunia This app is appropriately named! I had a lot of fun making pictures with it. There are many scenarios that you can out a face into. Some require a face because they use face detection. I tried to use my Chloe avatar in maby if them and it rejected some because it couldn't detect the face. Here are some of the results. Thanks, Jo, Des, Tina, Kim & Claire for being my guinea pigs!
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| Tulips |
Artist |
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| Crystal Ball |
Billboard Workers |
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| Hammock |
AX |
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| The Gun |
Decorated Billboard |
There are 25 scenes and you can load more. Some other scenes available are Male Gambler, Female Gambler, Bride in the Grass, Cafe, Artist in the Dark, Football Player, Soccer Goalie, Developing Photos, Pencil Drawing, Pavement Art, Hockey Team, Boxer, Film Photography, Singer and that doesn't even scratch the surface! Did I mention some are animated?
GroceryiQ Here's an app I am growing to love love love! It's good for the grocery shoppers in the family or...the people who need the groceries. You could actually make it fun for your kids to make you a grocery list. Imagine that? All they have to do is scan the barcodes and it generates a list. And the list is even categorized!
Look how easy it is. First you click "+" to add an item, notice I already have one item.
Next you can either type or use the microphone to search for an item or you can manually enter or scan the barcode.
It will let you know it found the barcode and identified the item, and add it to your list! Already categorized. SWEET!
As always, I like to really push the envelope, I scanned a pallette of eyeshadow I am running low on and it scanned and saved that. Very handy, so next time I'm on Walmart, I can pick up my "champagne" eye shadow! That's right, I said Walmart. I'm about a "low-medium" on the maintenance scale. Some Sephora, some Walmart.
Anyway, there are settings to maintain your list and to restart once you have purchased the items on your list. No more pen and paper...and you can email it to someone if someone lse decides to do you a favor and do the shopping. Now if I could just find someone to email it to!!!
