I grew up with a strong fascination for books, largely because my parents truly encouraged and insisted on fostering a love for reading. Well, that, and we were a disciplined bunch, with many rules and restrictions, and when such things tide over a young person’s rambunctious mind, I quickly learned the best outlet is through a book. Almost a year ago I reviewed a stellar app by the name of The Little Red Hen, one that I absolutely raved about and upheld as an example for all kids apps to follow. Back then, The Little Red Hen and its brand, Kidztory (a brand of Stepworks), where unheard of, just a diamond in the rock waiting to be discovered. Appstruck was just starting up then, so, needless to say, my adoration and rave review was largely unheard until more people discovered the app, and came to the same conclusion as me. I was surprised, actually, to find that if you type in The Little Red Hen app, our site is the second link shown. Fancy that. Since the inception of The Little Red Hen, Stepworks has been on an app-making spree with other classic tale releases like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Three Little Pigs, The Lion and the Mouse, and now, their most recent, Duck in the Truck, made in collaboration with HarperCollins Children’s Books.

The beautiful thing about this most recent collaboration is it takes the brand Kidztory and merges it with contemporary children’s literature, preserving all the original artwork from the books, themselves. I truly enjoy the digital artwork seen in the other Kidzstory conceptions, but it’s good to see modern tales upheld in their original light – and now, with the aid of the iPhone, they are given a voice and a bit of interactivity. HarperCollins truly picked a perfect brand with the now well-regarded Kidzstory brand, and after releasing Duck in the Truck, they plan on releasing more books by Jez Alborough, including Captain Duck and Fix-It Duck. Not too long ago I reviewed a storybook app called The Boy Giant by author Allan Penderleith, which I found emotional and entertaining – but, he doesn’t have quite the household name that Jez Alborough has. With Alborough’s  iPhone storybook app releases, I hope more people will become aware of, and embrace, the storybook idea for the iPhone.

As a book, Duck in the Truck is, without further explanation, an excellent read for the young mind. The characters are well-sketched, with individual quirks and looks, and this book, in particular, exhibits the moral of being a good Samaritan.The artwork is vivid and lush, with an almost old world look to it – old world in the sense of having that highly detailed drawing style usually not seen in more modern children’s books, which I feel mostly favor the scant and pared down look, a minimalist world. On the iPhone, Duck in the Truck bears that same fecundity, with bright colors jumping out at you from the screen, and slow animations that let you explore the world one mindful blink at a time. It’s amazing what designers can do with static images, taking a truck and just doing a simple clip clip on the computer, and then pasting that image onto the background, so it appears that when Duck’s truck gets stuck, it bucks back and then forth. To make the story even better for the young listener, who but Harry Enfield, comedian extraordinaire, should be the in-app narrator. The app is mechanized like the other intuitive storybook apps from Kidzstory, utilizing the flipping mechanism that mimes actual page flipping, with the page animation to boot. It’s overall, just a joy to behold, a joy to read, and a joy to listen to. If I were a child, who wanted to foster his own interest in reading, Duck in the Truck, and other apps by Kidzstory, are the best ways to develop that reading autonomy, in the guise of a modern, digital toy.

Meet Hujo.

Starting off Kids Week we have a beautifully illustrated storybook app by the name of The Boy Giant by Wotsamaflip, an original tale written by Allan Plenderleith, who happens to be one of the UK’s top screenwriters for children. As noted from earlier reviews, I do favor the storybook app quite a bit -books are a mainstay of any child’s life, and reading, itself, is important for instilling fun in an otherwise educational tool. Reading allows a child’s imagination to take hold, and take him to different places, or see things he wouldn’t otherwise see in his day-to-day life; what’s particularly exceptional about reading on the iPhone is it suddenly take on a more immersive feel, animating the characters on the pages, and creating a sense of autonomy for the child by having a built-in narrator should a real adult not be readily available. For kids who do not take keenly to reading, apps like The Boy Giant may give them a bit more leeway in figuring out books by themselves.

He's a biiiiiiig baby.

Of course, we already know about such technical splendor – The Boy Giant, itself, is a wonderful tale. While a contemporary original, the tale is a classic one, appealing to the lost, forlorn soul we all felt to be at one point in our lives, and finding happiness in companionship. The Boy Giant tells the tale of Hujo, the tongue-in-cheek literalism of a humongous boy, large from conception, throughout gestation and into birth, who finds himself at odds with the rest of the world because of his size. His parents, amusingly, seem to possess none of these larger-than-life attributes, his father even going by the name of Mr. Small due to his short stature, and his mother compensating for lack of inches with her stratospherically tall beehive hairdo. Of course, like all parents, they lavish adoration and love on Hujo, and treat him as they would any other child of reasonable proportions, sending him to school, and letting him run amuck on the playground. As the story continues, we empathize with Hujo’s plight as he breaks playground equipment, their steel frames bending under his voluminous weight, and in one scene, we feel our hearts ache at seeing Hujo perched outside a classroom, in full rain, trying to participate in class with his peers. The worst, by far – though humorous in its own way – is when a “No Hujo” sign is perched outside the playground, a large red slash centered on a silhouette of the big baby. Big, fat tears roll down his cheek as Hujo slowly realizes how different, and unrelatable he is. The sad part of the story climaxes in a beautifully drawn scene, with a rising sun highlighting the brilliant blues, indigos and reds in a pre-dawn sky, and hills of golden wheat undulating behind Hujo, as he seemingly contemplates his life ahead.

Each page in the storybook is illustrated in a simple, but likable manner, with offbeat drawings of a strange, billowy feel, like soft clouds inflated with the likes of crayons and watercolor paint. Hujo is simply drawn in the shape of a bean, with a few distinct lines here and there to demarcate where his too-short shirt ends, and his too-small pants begin. His googly eyes blink – sometimes barely, sometimes in rapid succession – and the faintest blotches of red appear on his face when he becomes sad, or when he becomes flustered, all adding to his human appeal. Every page holds some modicum of animation, even if it’s just Hujo’s big body wobbling back and forth, as if his breath is so large, and his legs so frail beneath that huge belly, that standing perfectly still is an impossibility. Like other, well-made storybook apps, The Boy Giant has a flipping mechanism that mimes real page flipping, enabling kids to learn how to use gestures to read through the entire book. An option to read by oneself or to have a narrator puts children in a decision-making role, allowing them, hopefully, to one day pick up the story and read it by themselves.

Happiness at last.

As with all good, tragic stories, The Boy Giant ends in happiness, with Hujo finding a purpose – from a presidential call, no less. President Obama is colorfully penciled in, entreating Hujo to assist with a matter in New York City, one that only Hujo himself can do given the sheer magnitude of the situation. With brave and independent gusto, Hujo sets off to find bigger meaning, and finds alongside this newfound purpose, a bigger person as well. A girl, named Bigsy, shares the same too-big-for-this-world plight as Hujo, and they develop an immediate bond, laying peacefully on the moon together in one of the final scenes. After we’ve all smiled and laughed, we can rest assured that if there’s anything Hujo and Bigsy can teach children, it’s that you are never alone.

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I’m all about decorating this year. This year is the first I feel like bona fide adult, with my own humble abode, a sweet fireplace, and yes, even my own DIY projects, like overhauling my bland kitchen by splashing a bright apple green on the walls, and hanging a festive devil’s mask from my newly red bathroom door*. I painted my cabinets, attached hardware, bought vintage glass knobs, and now, I’m even decorating for Christmas. In downtown Petaluma I shopped longingly at a wonderful store called Tuscan Gardens where the prettiest, handmade Santa Claus hats and stockings dangle on an eco-tree adorned with globe-sized ornaments, and for the more frugal finds, I even found some excellent bows by Jacqlyn Smith’s line at Kmart, with tinkling golden bells, that I hung from my fence and front door. Yes, it is indeed Christmas in California.

I probably won’t decorate a tree myself – I tend to leave those big projects to my parents, still, where I always spend the holidays – but I’m always looking for ways to experience the cheer of this month, through storybooks and classic movies, or like now, with decorating. I was happy to note for this week on Appstruck we received many app review requests for holiday-themed iPhone apps. This past year was truly the year of the iPhone, so now, what better way to celebrate the holidays on a tiny, personal level than to find apps that remind us of the festivities we celebrate? It’s too bad I couldn’t find more cultural-specific apps, ones for Hanukkah perhaps. The App Store is filled to the brim with Christmas specific apps, making for a very biased holiday selection; but, then again, for many people Christmas has become more of a wintertime gift-giving holiday, than a religious occasion. Yesterday, I chuckled to myself as I wrote out cards, saying “Have a Satisfactory, Non-Denominational, Wintertime Gift-Giving Holiday.” Last year, in reflection of the waning economy, it was a crude brown paper card with black marker scribbling out, “Times are hard, Money’s scarce, Here’s your f***ing, Christmas card.”

While you may enjoy the one Menora app, hopefully you’ll find satisfaction in the plethora of Christmas apps. Thankfully, most are priced in the $0.99 range, so they’re definitely affordable ways to keep the holidays cheery for both you and your kids. The Christmas apps below are a few I found worthwhile, or at least entertaining in a slightly quirky and off-center way. May they bring cheer, or at least a chuckle to the wintertime cold.

UPDATES* (from original post 12/04/2009).

Elf

In a manner reminiscent of the popular Doodle Jump, in Elf you must propel your Elf higher and higher into the sky, bouncing off lighted vortexes and shining stars so you may rack up the points and collect candy canes. In the holiday spirit, in Elf you cannot die. Your Elf, when missing a shining orb to bounce from, will fall gently down. A tiny “whoa!” of a scream lets loose from his mouth, but then he flutters down, like a spindling leaf, to land safely back upon the ground. The graphics are pretty and bright, your Elf clad in the quintessential Elf garb of green leggings, green hat with pom pom ball, and the movements are slick and smooth as you tilt your iPhone back and forth to move your flying Elf this way and that. Collect four red orbs in a row and a red candy cane will appear, giving you the chance to nab 500 points. If you collect four green orbs in a row, a green candy cane will appear worth 1000 points. Spinning candy canes are even better, worth a whopping 5000 points. But, don’t overestimate the holiday cheer too much – you can still lose points (500, at that), by hitting these spiky red orbs that also nastily reset your bonus collection. Casually fun for those idle moments, Elf is a good way to pass the time with a bit of Christmas spice.

Merry Christmas Curious George

A sweet narrated storybook always hits home for the wee ones, as evident from the popularity of such apps like The Little Red Hen and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. So, what better story to have read aloud than a Christmas story about one of the most lovable characters of all time, Curious George? I grew up on Curious George’s mischievous antics, and for future generations, the iPhone proves to be an invaluable tool of entertainment. With easily turned pages, easy navigation, bookmarks, and the option to record your own voice for the story, Merry Christmas Curious George is a good educational app for the kids, while being interactively fun. Children can drag the screen around to view other images of George while the story is being read, and then can repeat the page, or flip forward and backward at their leisure. The story is heartwarming, too – Curious George picks out a Christmas tree, and in his accident-prone way, accidentally gets hijacked in a truck and finds himself at a Children’s Hospital where he puts cheery grins on young inpatients. A lovely story for all ages.

Santa Wings

Ever want to know what it’d be like to fly Santa’s sleigh? Well, now you can with Santa Wings. There may be no objectives, no game over, and certainly no dying in this game (What? Dead reindeer? Nooo way!), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to play around with. You ride as Santa, holding on to the reigns of his reindeer as they fly over what seems to be the endless snowy peaks and valleys of the North Pole. You will probably crash every now and then, and when you do so, snow crusts around the edges of the screen as if being blinded by snow in your eyes. Santa will mutter grumblings of annoyance or frustration when this happens, as I’m sure anyone flying a crazed bunch of reindeer would. You can change the speed from a dead halt in midair to a frenzy of lightning speed, and you may either float with gravity keeping you fairly level above the ground, or fly with nothing holding you back, twirling up and down, spinning in corkscrews in the air and no doubt becoming increasingly dizzy. Touch Rudolph to shine a light while flying, and if you do manage to find the North Pole, then you can fly Santa home.

Santa’s Run

Use your aiming skills wisely when you don Santa’s boots in this game, as you aim and throw presents to chimneys far and wide. With two playing modes, Endless Delivery and Around the World, you can change up the game’s pace a bit, but I favor Around the World for a more objective-centered game. The game did crash on me a few times, but I suspect most holiday apps are just churned out for the season; besides, the crashes were infrequent, and the gameplay engaging enough to overcome this shortcoming. The aiming mechanism does take some adjusting to – your first few presents will most likely be flung into the far corners of the world as you underestimate the sensitivity of the controls, and, apparently, the strength of Santa’s arm. A wind device in the upper right shows the current wind speed, so take angles into account when throwing, otherwise that 14 mph wind may knock your present a little more to the left than you anticipate. Overall, a fun game with cheery, snow-filled drawings and pleasant music in the background.

Festive Holiday Baking

Christmas isn’t Christmas without sweets and treats, so what better way to bake than to consult a baking app that focuses on holiday-themed cookies? With 35 delicious recipes to choose from, and handy weight and volume conversation tables, you’ll find yourself well-prepared for a long day in the kitchen. A few noteworthy desserts are missing – the quintessential Gingerbread man cookies, the Gingerbread House, the sugar cookie with royal icing – but the other available desserts, with cutesy names like Holly Jolly Fudge, Snowball Surprise, and Candy Stripe Cookie Stripes help make up for the lack of these classics. Many of them have peppermint and chocolate flavors, of which I’m wholly a fan, and they’re all intensely rich and decadent. Navigating is easy enough with a tap along the bottom to expose the Cover, Contents, and Random buttons, and each recipe has a main page with recipe title, photo, and ingredients, and a second page of directions. Each photo is devastatingly enticing, especially the Stained Glass Trees with their cool, clear centers made possible by the insertion of a red Jolly Rancher candy. Okay, so maybe I’m not the biggest fan of Jolly Ranchers, but the effect is cool enough to incite me bake them.

Chrimbell

I was skeptical about this app, but it was free, so I figured, why not? I was pleasantly surprised at how engaging it could be for kids, or even adults after they’ve sloshed enough Nog down their gullets. An animated image of a present opening reveals a prettily rendered bell, which you may shake to ring out a tune, selecting from Jingle Bells, Auld Lang Syne, Silent Night, and Ding Dong Merrily on High. Thumbing to the right shows two more bells, or rather, one antique bell circa 1812 and a cooked turkey thigh. No worries, though, the turkey thigh rings rather than emits fleshy thwapping noises (phew!). Once you’ve picked your bell and tune, tap the bell again and the page flips over to reveal just your bell and the start of the song. Shake your iPhone back and forth to ring out the tune, and you’ll see the words scroll in succession with the tune, should you want to sing along. When you tire of solo performances, tap the icon in the lower left of three bells together, and then select from among 5 carols to sing as a group (We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Away in a Manger, Auld Lang Syne, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Little Donkey). The caroling is set up somewhat like a game, since you must ring the bell in accordance with the speed of the words coming out. Free and fun, with its pretty red and snowflake-riddled background, Chrimbell is sure to please.

Classics – A Christmas Carol

I reviewed Classics almost a year ago, and its still on my iPhone I enjoy it so much. I recently downloaded A Christmas Carol for free, which is a book in the collection of the Classics library, but stands apart as an app unless you upgrade to Classics 2Go, which gives you a wide access to literature by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and more. It’s only $0.99 to upgrade, so I definitely recommend it. Just like the other books in Classics’ compendium, A Christmas Carol is beautiful to behold, with its weathered, antique yellow pages and believable page flipping. The words are large and bright, easy to read, and searching through the Table of Contents takes you wherever you please, with bookmarks placed when you shut the book for the night. When it comes to Christmas stories, you can’t find one more classic than A Christmas Carol. Read, and enjoy.

Trigger Happy Christmas

How about something a little different? The title says it all: Trigger Happy Christmas. This is definitely a quirky, slightly macabre spin off from the usually cheery and bright-eyed, cherubic and benign holiday stuff you see in storefronts and games, stockings and presents. The graphics are well-done is a cartoonish manner, with a slightly manic looking Santa Clause as your main character who with various weapons mows down an onslaught of evil, greedy Elves wanting to steal your stockpile of presents. Rudolph helps you out every now and then, but it’s really up to you, Santa Clause, to run and jump back and forth to protect your presents. Pick up presents dropped along the way, and use your flamethrower and bombs to explode Elves in a downpour of blood and bones, the occasional brain – curiously intact after the body is torn apart by bullets. Some fast-paced music keeps you in the killing mood, and plenty of gushy, fleshy sound effects make you cringe while laughing. There’s even an option to send a Christmas Card, blood included. Hey, I said it was different. It may not be everyone’s cup of hot chocolate, but I found myself entertained silly.

Grinchmas

Everybody likes the Grinch! Another classic for the kids, in this game you play either as Mean Grinch or Merry Grinch, with the former slugging snowballs at homes and the latter tossing presents to home. Much like Santa’s Run, the aiming takes some adjusting to, but after awhile it becomes just another mindlessly entertaining game. Try to improve your scores by accurately tossing things at homes.





Holiday Music from Nutsie

Why bother buying a bunch of Christmas melodies when you have this Christmas app on your iPhone? The app contains tons of holiday favorites, from classic songs like Silent Night and Jingle Bells, to the more pop and rock oriented Jingle Bells Rock and Elvis Presley’s White Christmas. Select from the scroll bar which category of music you’d like to see – Rockin Christmas, Classic hymns, etc, and the app will give you a random song from the category. It’s too bad you can’t select your own songs, but then the app wouldn’t be free. There is the option to buy the music from iTunes, but if you, like me, just enjoy a random music selection, then this is the app for you.





Save Santa

Another Christmas-themed gaming app, Save Santa is just that – save Santa from the oncoming snow by tapping on snowflakes to melt them. You wouldn’t want Santa to be buried in the snow, now, would you? While cute and mindlessly addicting, the game is ridiculously easy. It takes forever for the game to pose any challenge, and with every 30 consecutive taps, the sun shines brightly anyway, obliterating a wash of snowflakes. But, there’s something about continually tapping at things onscreen that just numbs the brain, puts you in default, glazed eyes mode, that proves entertaining in the end. I could play this for hours, probably, just tap tap tapping away. Besides, it’s cute to look at, and the Hallelujah that rings out every now and then reminds you that, yes, this is a Christmas app.

A few months back I mentioned that GQ would be the first magazine to transition its publication in entirety to the iPhone, and on November 18, that day finally came. Though I neglected to mention it, I predicted that if the GQ app proved a success, Conde Nast would start transitioning its other popular magazines, like Vogue, W, Bon Appetit, Wired and more to the iPhone. Actually, with the Droid’s better screen, and the immensely growing Android app store, Conde Nast Digital could possibly make the move toward other mobile platforms, as well. You might think the iPhone’s small screen inferior to larger digital readers, like the Kindle, and Nook, Barnes & Nobles’ new killer eBook reader that already sold out for Christmas, but for sheer transportability, the iPhone definitely has its merit. Besides, as it turns out, reading the whole GQ Men of the Year Issue on the iPhone was not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.

The app cleverly skips all the advertisements, so those who hate being inundated with glossy images of trenchcoats and watches and lipsticks, rejoice. Also, rather than choose your pick among all five covers, the GQ app cleverly contains all five men of the year covers, which for the year 2009 includes Badass of the Year Clint Eastwood, Comeback of the Year Tom Brady, Breakout of the Year Chris Pine, Leader of the Year Barack Obama (second year in a row), and Funnymen of the Year, the motley crew of The Hangover movie. Tapping anywhere onscreen briefly pops up the navigation bar, where you may tap the Home button to peruse the Table of Contents. You have before you everything you would expect – Letter from the Editor, various features, the Style Guide, an About section, the Hot List, a Feedback section, and a link to where you may subscribe. For this issue, most people will be gearing toward the Men of the Year portfolio, the men of which involve other studs aside from the cover models, men like EveryBro Paul Rudd, designer Tom Ford, the Twitter creators Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and Attorney General Eric Holder, the maverick behind re-enforcing civil rights.

After reading through the entirety of the GQ magazine, I was perplexed to see many complaints in the iTunes Store about the app’s slow speeds and poor execution. It’s true, the magazine issue should be available as a download, much like the maps of Accuterra, because slow wi-fi speeds do exist, and can be very cumbersome to the reader on-the-go (I imagine loading speeds could be veeeery slow). But, my main qualms lie with people claiming the app has poor execution. For a first time iPhone magazine release, I applaud GQ for plundering into unchartered territory – albeit, with a tiptoe, a hesitant and held breath than with a confident, marauding stride. It’s true, they should have made the issue readable through a flip interface, miming, as other apps do, the physical act of reading; but, I hardly consider the lack of this feature a means for labeling as poorly executed. The app, when read through a good connection, is easy to navigate with a Table of Contents and scrolling up and down pages. Double tapping on media portions – various images peppered throughout the app – instantly zoom you 50% closer for a pretty picture, but it’s too bad there was no pinch and zoom feature for reading. Those who already gripe about reading on an iPhone will not enjoy being forced to squint their eyes at the unchangeable size 10 font, so future GQ apps will have to contend with this.

As for the features themselves, I wasn’t terribly intrigued by the montage of sexy Leighton Meester photos, nor was I flummoxed by the array of affordable fashion choices I and everyone in my age group have already known about for the past few years. Trust me, I know H&M has ridiculously low prices, and I’m aware Club Monaco has a style factor that belies its $30 skirts. Not everyone needs $1500 Balenciaga bags to prove a point – unless you’re a frequent reader of GOOP, and consider this a bargain. But, then again, I’m not an avid GQ reader. The app’s presentation more than speaks for itself, though, and its snazzy interface does justice to the glossy, suave pages of GQ. Who knows, maybe we’ll see more issues in the future, from both Conde Nast and other giant conglomerates.

A somber fog hushes the woods. A fog so thick it’s palpable, able to be indented, as it undulates, clinging to the craggy faces of rocky outcrops and the splintered shell of an antique, befallen stump. A deer steps out from the thicket, dew cascading from her mange-bitten fur, her doleful eyes searching for something. A piece of bark with those chewy grubs, maybe. A spot of grass. Lowering her muzzle to nose the ground, she huffs hot air into the soil, revealing tender shoots of grass, and the deer starts eating mindfully. But, the grass is so tender, and the fog so quiet, the deer makes the mistake of snuffling a bit too loudly, and chewing with nary an ounce of abrupt, onset fret, like most, inherently flighty deer. Had she minded her species’ instincts, her god-given skills, she would not have been unaware of the strange, crepuscular creature to her left, hidden in the underbrush, the creature with no fur, and lanky, joint-ridden extremities. She also, would have been aware of the snare.

* * * *

In situations of peril when you are alone, lost, in the wilderness, there will come a time when you must fend for yourself, meaning you must find food, water, and shelter. You must survive. Relying on your instincts, your body and senses, is an arduous, challenging task, and one that many people fail at – some people never make it out of the wilderness. Think about the odds – it’s you against nature. Wild animals, rocky precipices, extreme temperatures, lack of water, poisonous plants, giardia, broken limbs, and far more pose serious threats to the untrained individual. Unless you’re a wilderness instructor, a ranger, or a member of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy or Air Force, you’re fairly plumb out of luck. However, some reading can be done on the subject, and what better way than with the new Survival Pocket Reference app, a guide to Survival Tactics by the US Military, itself (developed by Double Dog Studios). Hell, they’re only the authority on the subject.

This app doesn’t kid around. Starting off in quintessential military fashion, the app opens with a lively background splash of camouflage, with the next few pages dissecting the given mnemonic of S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L into its various mantras and codes. Either flip through like a book, or double tap the screen to access Chapter, to bookmark, and to otherwise easily navigate. The app then delves deeply into 11 chapters covering all the most important areas of knowledge. Some are more militaristic than others, dealing with evasion techniques in enemy territory, and proper POW interactions (in short, no interaction), but a lot of the information in these sections can be applied to the outdoor enthusiast, as well. Skills like radio communications and fire signals (Chapter 4), and navigation (Chapter 3) – knowing how to make a sun compass, determining your position, star navigation, triangulation and more – are truly exceptional assets that can spell success for the hopeless wayward. Even the chapter on “Evasion”(Chapter 2) can be relayed from avoiding enemy detection to avoiding animal detection. It’s good to know how to move along the ground, how to conceal yourself and your odors, and to understand that binnocular vision is best for direct examination – when tracking an animal, say – and that peripheral vision is better trusted at night for recognizing movement in the twilight. Some tips seem common sense, sure, but reading them from a recognized manual gives them some credence, some tangibility, over your basic first instincts.

*****

Scene: Siskiyou Wilderness – Day

Greg bit hard into the heavily charred thigh of venison. No grubs, a good sign. He had put the meat away before the flies could get to it. Rolling the meat around in his mouth, trying for the best angle of chew – game meat is always so rubbery – Greg noticed the cut on his arm looked a little worse for the wear than the night before, a few pustules visible just below the skin. That deer’s hooves sure were sharp.

Did I wash it enough?

Yes, yes, I did. A foreign body, maybe.

Maybe it’s impetigo.

He closed his eyes and sighed, knowing if it was impetigo, then there likely was an infection. He would have to find some tree bark, possibly from that acorn tree where he had made shelter the previous night. Finishing up the last stringy piece of meat, he threw the bone into the flailing fire, the last dying embers valiantly leaping in dazzling, futile trajectories toward those tempting pine needles scattered in clumps in all directions.

*****

The First Aid section of this app (Chapter 6), is exceptionally thorough for a quick guide to survival. A whole section on Plant Medicine shows the different uses of the Common Cattail, the Common Plantain, Willow leaves, Aspen leaves, tree bark, and several other less common plants that can be used to treat dystentary, boils, infections, and more. For the more serious bodily injuries, the app makes sure to include handy and easily deciphered illustrations going over the various steps in, say, how to properly apply a compression bandage for a snakebite. The big offenders are obviously included in this chapter, conditions like Hypothermia and Frostbite; Heat Stroke and Sun/Snow Blindness; Burns, Fractures, and Shock; and tools like how to apply a tourniquet, how to perform CPR, and how to properly apply a bandage. The First Aid section pays great attention to details, covering even pressure points along the body, to ease hemorrhaging, and covering the concern of a “sucking chest wound,” a frightful condition where the chest wall has been penetrated, causing the victim to gasp for breath. Many of these techniques require some technical skill, but it’s nothing so far advanced that a thorough perusing of the chapter won’t prepare you.

The chapter on Personal Protection (Chapter 7) may be overlooked by some for its sheer common sense value, but it would be unwise to do so. Remembering that your priorities are to 1) construct a shelter and 2) procure water, are absolutely vital to your initial 24 hours of survival. This section also covers helpful clothing amenities, such as how to improvise gaiters, foot pads, bedding, and snow goggles. It’s of great significance that this chapter heavily covers different types of shelter: immediate shelters (ones from already present objects that require minimal action on your part), thermal A frames (like an angular, sideways teepee), snow trenches, snow caves, molded domes, and more. Pitch (i.e. sap) from trees may be used as tinder (defined by the app as a smaller version of kindling, meant to be finely shredded to provide a low combustion point), and fires may be created through any one of various designs, all of which can be narrowed down to what’s available in your situation. If you think all this is mind-blowing, then wait until you check out the water section. I, for one, had absolutely no idea you could whack off a piece of bamboo and drink the water within. Next time I’m in China, I’ll have to try that.

The other chapters cover, obviously, Food (Chapter 9), and two of a more curious nature. Chapter 10 probably won’t pertain to most people stuck in the wilderness, it covering Man-induced conditions like post-nuclear, post-chemical or post-biological attacks. But, for those completely stricken with the never-ending fear of terrorists, such knowledge isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Chapter 11 – an appendix that concerns Edible and Medicinal Plants – is definitely more useful, but it treads a thin line of reliability on personal judgment. For anyone who has read Jon Krakauer’s heartbreaking book, Into the Wild, you can understand how mistaking one plant for another can spell the difference between health and a crippling, drawn-out death. Take the elderberry, for example. Commonly found all over the East Coast of the United States, the elderberry is a delicious berry I would eat as a kid in Pennsylvannia in the form of jellies, jams, and baked into cobblers. It’s quite good for sore throats, and we would pick them by the basket load in the summer. However, it’s all too easily confused with the water hemlock, cicuta, a highly poisonous plant that, upon ingestion, releases a toxin named cicutoxin, which causes seizures and other central nervous system disorders. Some varieties of elderberry, too, have poisonous properties, like the bush with red berries, sambucus racemosa, which is toxic regardless of cooking. The edible elderberry is even toxic raw, as it contains a large quantity of cyanide.

For anyone who makes a habit of plundering in the backwoods of some remote area, like the Siskiyou in northern California (the most isolated stretch of forest in the continental U.S.) or in the trenches of Appalachia (Deliverance, anyone?), or anywhere else in the world, the Survival Pocket Reference is your new best friend. In one backpacking excursion in the Siskiyou with three friends, one of the girls and I had become lost in the woods, disoriented from our camp location. Thankfully, I knew enough about compass and topography to re-situate ourselves; every backpacker or ardent hiker must know how to read a topographical map. But, then again, what if we didn’t have our map? Who knows, we could have gone off in the wrong direction, and ended up miles away from our destination. Had we not been as bright, or more inclined to panic, we could have been in serious peril. This app, certainly, could have saved our lives.

*****

Scene – Siskiyou – Smith River – Day

Greg surveyed the scene. The river was fully engorged, a sheer white sweep of rushing liquid, freshly thawed from the spring sun’s rays. Should he cross? He thought better of it. He could be swept away in the torrential river, and whatever strength he could muster wouldn’t help him any once his body hit a rock, his body thwacking with incredible force, and ribs cracking, no doubt. There would also be hypothermia to contend with. No, he would have to follow downstream. Or, was it upstream? If only he had gotten lost in the winter.

A New York Times article highlighting the most expensive Colleges in the United States was written just in October of last year, and the most expensive college was revealed to be Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY,  with a tuition of $53,166 for the 2008-2009 school year. At the start of 2009, most of the Ivy Leagues ranged in the $40-$50k range, with smaller, private liberal arts institutions slowly bridging the gap. However, for the 2009 – 2010 year other institutions have far surpassed this already exceedingly high cost. George Washington University in Washington, D.C, now costs $41,610 per year, and nearby Mills College recently raised its tuition to the $52,000 range for undergraduates, when a mere 3 years ago it was roughly $32,000. Even state schools are getting expensive, with the usually affordable California State University system, slowly raising its prices a few hundred dollars in this last year. For independent students who work and attend school, any increases are a significant deal, and once you add additional costs like living expenses (food, rent), possible commuting costs (bridge toll, gas, bus or train fare), and textbooks, suddenly, affording college can be stressful and overwhelming.

Textbooks, in particular, are a huge contention for students. Many still buy from their college bookstore because it’s there – it seems convenient enough because it’s on campus, and waiting in line for hours still seems better than trying to find the best deals online. However, buying straight from the school is asking for the highest retail price – I remember one semester in college I spent almost $400 on textbooks, equivalent to two classes at a junior college at the time. At UC Berkeley, most students prefer to buy their textbooks at Ned’s Bookstore for used books and half-off prices, even though the store is located just across street from campus on Bancroft, is adorned in the same blue and yellow color scheme, and price differences are roughly the same as you would find on Amazon. With textbooks being one of the only avenues where students can truly make a difference in cost management, searching for low prices should be of utmost concern. Thankfully, I just discovered BIGWORDS.

BIGWORDS is an iPhone app created by Bigger Words, Inc., that finds you the cheapest textbook prices by comparing prices at every good online textbook retailer. To achieve this, BIGWORDS uses a multi-item price optimization, a process that calculates the total price for any combination of books and stores, taking into consideration shipping costs and various promotional deals, and thereby finding you the lowest total price for your entire order. Even better, it it supports affinity programs with sites like Half.com, Amazon, Barnes&Nobles Booksellers memberships, Booksmillion memberships, and Ecampus.com eVIP accounts, enabling the app to find you even better deals. Not only does it sound great, it works excellently: I recently tried it out in comparison with my boyfriend’s astute bargain scouting skills, and BIGWORDS would have saved him an additional $10.00 off his already low, low textbook purchase total of approximately $50.00 (he’s very good at finding deals). The developers themselves ensure a savings of at least 50% on your textbook purchases, with findings on BIGWORDS being, on average, 50% cheaper than bookstores, and 20-60% cheaper than other online retailers.

To use BIGWORDS, search for books by ISBN number (the most accurate, obviously, should you know it), title, or author. A results list will pop up showing all the books that match your search criteria,with preliminary details being the book’s cover, the ISBN number, and the title. You may add the book to your “bookbag” right away by tapping the “Add” buton, or you may tap the arrow tab to check out more information on the book in question. When searching for Introduction to Documentary by Bil Nichols, the detailed information screen for the book shows – in addition to the ISBN number and title – the publisher and publishing date, the book’s format (e.g. paperback), the page count, and a short but detailed blurb on the book’s content. After reading through this, there is another “Add to Bookbag” button at the bottom of the screen, with a cute, zipped open green backpack as your visual cue.

The bookbag, obviously, acts as your Checkout bag, and any books you add to your bag are kept there until you decide to make a purchase. Make sure you search for all your books before checking out your bookbag for a complete price comparison (for your ease of use). Tap “start price comparison” once you’ve finished searching so BIGWORDS can find you the best available deal for all your books (note: you don’t have to check out on your iPhone – you may send your bookbag thru email should you wish to check out later on a desktop platform. Just tap the “Trouble” button on the top right of the screen). BIGWORDS has a cool interface with a funky, orange robot called the “Uber-Bot” that wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Futurama. When you check out your bookbag, the Uber-Bot gathers all prices from all the good stores, applies your preferences from the options screen, and calculates the cheapest combination of stores to get your books. A short image of him tapping his foot in a waiting room will be seen, with the words “Can’t Talk, Computing” seen in the background. One of those popular 80′s black cat clocks wags its tail in the background before you are taken to your price results screen.

The pricing screen shows you each book, the store that sells it, and how much it will cost to buy the book or combinations of books at each store. The “Cheapest” tab shows you the best combination of stores from which to purchase your books, and often ranges $1o cheaper than the other tab. The other tab is labeled “One Store” and it shows you the best price if you want to get all your books from a single store. Many times, if the price is not much more, this is preferable to checking out your books on many different sites (if you’re buying a lot of textbooks, and they’re all at different sites, you must go to each of these sites to check out). To proceed, simply tap the “buy buttons” and check out on each store, which, it turns out, isn’t too much of a hassle since most of the online retailers have a single link that automatically adds your books to checkout. Honestly, I don’t mind checking out on different sites because BIGWORDS managed to actually collect all these sites for me, and simultaneously find me excellent textbook prices. No matter what, it saves time and money.

At any time you can change your search option by tapping the Options tab in the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. Here you can change your default pricing type of “high-quality, used or new” to “cheapest used or new,”"new items only,”"new only,”" no 3rd party,”or “no 3rd party sellers.” You may also switch from standard shipping to overnight or expedite if you’re in a rush to get your books, and you may turn off EBooks and Rentals and International Editions. You may ignore any book BIGWORDS finds for you – or an entire store -, and that copy will be removed from consideration, replaced with the next cheapest copy of that particular book, with the knowledge that you may “unignore” items at a later date on the options page.

People point their fingers in blame at everything from green infrastructure expansions and research endowments, to the economy, even blaming the low teacher to student ratio common in small liberal arts colleges as a factor in tuition hikes because those professors are purported to be paid much larger salaries. People blame the health coverage plans offered by colleges, the Corporate America factor prescient in big colleges, and even wealthy families who don’t mind spending large wads of cash to send their child to such-and-such big name school. Really, though, the only truth is that college is increasingly expensive for students, and until young adults realize just how significant debt can be, how college may or may not change their lives or earn them a large paycheck, they can at least lighten some of the load with BIGWORDS.

As long as I’m reviewing for Kidztory, that trend definitely will not end. Just the other day I came across The Little Red Hen, which charmed the pants off me with its cute animations, neat page turning interface, and by the child’s voice narrating in that slightly offbeat, disjointed way kids do when they’re learning how to stress syllables and read words.

Kidztory does it again with The Boy Who Cried Wolf, another classic tale of moral tidings. As many well know, the example of the boy who cries wolf is to not tell lies and not lose the trust of others. Children can learn in a fun and interactive way, much like toting around a smaller book where the images are animated rather than static, reading about this shepherd boy who decides to play naughty tricks on the villagers by feigning danger to his flock from a wolf, causing a furor of fret, to only laugh in the villagers’ faces once his cries of “Wolf! Wolf!” fooled them into a stampede. Just like The Little Red Hen, this story is narrated by a jubilant child, with great graphics and simple animations to pull your child into the story. Turning the pages involves a quick tap on one the arrows along the bottom of the screen, navigating the reader either forward or backward according to his whim. The story may either be narrated, or should you child wish to experiment with his voice without the voice-over, then he can tap the “Read By Myself” option; once again, there is the option to have the story narrated in either English, Spanish or Cantonese to cover a fair range of linguistic backgrounds. On a cute note, the characters from The Little Red Hen may be seen in the foreground of the villagers’ home setting.

For those children who are a bit skittish when it comes to bared teeth or dark colors, frightened animals and the like – those children who cling to their mother’s skirts at the mention of Halloween or at the sight of a Chihuahua, even – then The Boy Who Cried Wolf may prove to be a bit upsetting. The story is not in the least bit scary, nor do I think mothers should shield their children from the darker sides of life and expose them only to sunshine and rainbows, the odd unicorn or two – after all, Grimm’s Fairy Tales and other moralistic tales were created to warn children of the darkness in human nature and inculcate a natural wariness – but perhaps read the story first, as a mother, before reading it alongside your child. After all, there are no sunshine pots of gold here, just a scary-looking, hungry wolf with drool whipping across his cheek chasing sheep with frightened expression, one sheep even centered up-front, spinning around choppily, tears streaming down his face, mouth open in horror. Much of the story takes place under the glow of dusk and in one shot, I believe, there is even a dead sheep in the background, and in several shots there are villagers running with axe and bat in tow, ready for action.

Despite my preemptive, mostly undue concern over skittish children, I must commend Kidzstory for depicting a darker tale. I, myself, was raised watching Alien and Terminator at a very young age (I was born in 1984), and this violent exposure did not turn my brain to rot or scar me with a permanently pallid and worrisome face. The story here is very benign, and does not compare in the slightest to the oftentimes gruesome depictions of the originals Grimm’s Fairy Tales, yet the message it conveys is just as strong. For mothers who aren’t skittish themselves, The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a wonderful tale about a boy who learns his lesson, and all children could serve to learn from his example.

During those cooped up winter months and the rainy season that just passed, or even during those lazy hazy summer days, kids often have so much pent up energy that too much time gets wasted in front the television, or else they drag their heels, that familiar strained expression on their face as they whine, maybe cry for mother’s attention. Mom, however, is often too busy to devote constant entertainment to her children, cleaning diapers and kitchen countertops and cooking meals, and so children are often left to their own devices – somehow this always includes something destructive.

For children who are not yet old enough to read alone, The Little Red Hen by Kidztory acts as a narrated storybook, providing an entertaining, educational outlet that encourages the act of reading. The beautiful illustrations and the easy page flipping are just as captivating as a book, and even a child’s voice is heard narrating the story clearly, to further prompt your child to sound out the words on the page. For time-strapped mothers, having The Little Red Hen gives your child the reading time he needs on his own terms, making him more autonomous, and all on a small, portable iPhone that fits easily in his hands. Even better, The Little Red Hen story is a classic, passed down and interpreted from Russian folk tales, and makes not only for good reading, but good morals and good character-modeling for your child.

Your child may choose to have the story read to him in either English, Spanish or Cantonese (to cover the main languages); or, should he be feeling extra confident, he can choose to read the story all by himself, a silent option that also works for when mother decides to read for him. The story is told in landscape mode, with very cute and vivid, choppy modern illustrations that actually animate as each page is flipped. The story actually becomes more dynamic with the iPhone than with a book, as your child watches the little red hen walk across screen, the cat’s whiskers twitch, and the wheat grow after being watered. It’s all so adorable, if I must gush myself. A tinkling bell is heard each time you flip a page, and, much like Classics, an animated page mimics the turning of a page.

Hopefully, KidzStory will create more narrated storybooks, because – particularly in this Go Diego! dominated day and age with two working parents – helping your child read by interacting with the story can sometimes be more stimulating than books alone. Nurture the budding reader, develop his autonomy, and mothers, just relax by the poolside and watch him learn.

In my article Ten Time and Money Saving Apps That Cost Nothing, I wrote that while Audiobooks will never replace for carnal lovers that rough thumbing through of pages, Classics by Andrew Kazmierski & Phillip Ryu sure gets close to it. The app redesigns your reading experience on the iPhone by imitating actual page turning with three-dimensional page flips. Reading applications like Kindle and eReader are fabulous and warrant further review, but neither can offer the physical experience of reading as Classics can. As more people adopt e-reading over books for their downtime, having Classics recreate having an actual book helps the transition. While you may miss the sensation of real paper under your thumb, the paper graphic fluidly following your finger in a nearly perfect mime is satisfaction enough.

Classics offers, so far, a limited spectrum of classic books to choose from. Most are famous titles, like The Wizard of Oz, A Christmas Carol, and Dracula, but there are a few lesser read titles like Flatland – a book I was surprised to see – and The Hound of Baskervilles. All are elegantly showcased with their fully illustrated covers on a mahogany bookshelf backdrop, and just as you would with your own bookshelf, you may rearrange your collection as you see fit. It seems many of the classics are more youth-oriented, with The Jungle Book and Alice in Wonderland standing out compared to Pride and Prejudice or even The Illiad. However, for a mere $0.99 – a sale with a finite lifespan – Classics offers you enough books, even if there are only 20.

To read, simply click a book and start flipping away with your finger. You may start from the beginning or, as you would in a regular book, select a chapter. Unlike a regular book, Classics maintains a progress bar for you to check how far you’ve read in the book. A different animation and sound effect occur when you flip forward as opposed to backward, and should you decide to stop reading for the time being, then Classics kindly lays a red satin bookmarker graphic onto your page which can be seen on the book cover when viewing the bookcase. Should for some reason the page flipping sound begin to bother you, then you have the option of silencing it.

While feeling the weight of a solid book in my hands and seeing the gradual weathering of it with time could never be replaced by a device like the iPhone, reading The Call of the Wild in Classics, with its tawny stained pages, still offers me the magic of a real-live book.

Below is a list featuring ten apps that save you time and money in those areas of life we tend to have the most need and interest. Best of all, the apps are all free to download, saving you money simply in the process.

1. AudioBooks – For those of you who love cracking open a good book, look no further. Audiobooks by Cross Forward Consulting gives you tens of thousands of books from the LibriVox Project right at your fingertips, or, more appropriately, right at your ear. For those of you not familiar with Librivox, it’s a fabulous volunteer-driven project where people upload chapters from their favorite books onto a public domain for all to share, for free. With all types of genres to choose from – science fiction, comedies, classics, self-help books – boredom is not an option, especially when downloading an entire book, War and Peace even, only takes a matter of seconds, minutes at most.

Selecting a book to download is extremely easy; you may browse by author, title, most popular, or even a cute “surprise me” which just tickled me senseless. I did notice a few famous novels were curiously absent – Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and anything by John Steinbeck – and it seems the available titles sway more toward classics like The Odyssey and Shakespeare, and obscure historical books like The Bhagavad Gita; perhaps Audiobooks would best benefit those in High school and College English classes and those who enjoy a good read on The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses.

Nevertheless, for free titles from the ever-expanding, nearly limitless LibriVox Project, Audiobooks is sure to entertain and fascinate those who can’t or won’t spend another dollar at a bookstore, for a hardcopy they know they’ll either donate or forget within the next few years. So why not skip that step, and just digitally archive your book collection? For the carnal lovers of that rough thumbing through pages, Audiobooks will never replace the visceral sensation of reading, but it provides instead that long lost art of storytelling.

2. Say Where – As recently reviewed, Say Where by Excuse Me Services is a wonderful time-saving app that goes above and beyond the iPhone Maps feature by translating your spoken word into destinations and automatic directions to there from your current GPS location. With people no longer bothering with maps unless they’re topographically traversing the trail-less plains of backcountry Yosemite, online directions have been a boon in the last decade, and especially within the past few years with the advent of GPS car systems and, lately, the iPhone. The one drawback of the iPhone maps feature is the need to type out your addresses or business destinations; when driving in a car, this is not only illegal, but dangerous. Say Where prevents the hazard of texting on the road by allowing you to simply state where you wish to go; it them formulations directions immediately, and, since it operates through the same Google Maps feature, you follow these directions step by step with your blinking GPS tracking in suit. While it might be a bit much to claim Say Where can save you time and your life, it certainly does provide you with a hands-free, hassle-free direction system that prevents any future frustrating circling around city blocks.

3. CellFire – Coupons are finally making a comeback, only this time, they’ve modernized into the digital world. No longer need we clip them from magazines or print them from computers; with Cellfire we simply see what coupons, discounts and redeemable values are currently available to us, then we show them to the corresponding retailer on the iPhone screen, ready to scan. While some may balk at the idea of using coupons, when presented with a FREE rental from Hollywood Video, hopefully those pinched for money will realize when something is given for free, it is not to be snubbed. From movie rentals to food discounts, clothing sales and the like, saving money has become much easier with CellFire’s digital coupons, and racking up those 15% discounts makes for a more padded wallet, or – to escape old clichés – just a higher bank account statement. Read my full review about CellFire here.

4. AirFare – Nowhere is there a more pronounced desire for saving money than with purchasing airline tickets. Notoriously expensive, and more expensive the closer to departure date, airline tickets have never been considered throwaway expenses. People put considerable time and thought into buying a plane ticket because serious cash is involved here, often in the $400 and above range, more so for those travelling to the high-traffic areas of New York and other east coast ventures. JetBlue is perhaps the only airline that offers tickets as low as $28 roundtrip – only, of course, if you notice the deal within the existing timeframe of three seconds, before other travel-wary hunters pounce upon it.

Airfare by techTravelr not only finds you flights, a considerable process in itself, but cheap flights. On average, it has surprised me with cheaper flights than online sites like Expedia and Orbitz, which themselves find cheap flights quickly for you. Searching is easy with Airfare, and booking a flight is just a tap away once being linked to the ticket online. Airfare saves you plenty of time and money, and even stress, by navigating the confusing waters of airline tickets for you, and without a doubt, the best bargain for your budget. Learn more about AirFare here.

5. QuikTip Tip Caluculator – Seemingly more mundane and pedestrian than the other apps listed in this review, QuikTip Tip Calculator’s strength lies in its pedestrian value. Just as many women in America wear the wrong bra size, many restaurant-goers tip either too little or too much, often without intending to do so. Mental math is not the strong suit of many, and when it comes to quickly calculating that 15% tip that is the norm for many places – not as scrimping as 10% and not as overindulgent as 20%– most people forego the time to configure the answer in favor of estimates which are often several dollars off the mark. With QuikTip by Spare Change Software, all you do is adjust the tip percentage – from 0%, you thief, to 30% – type in the bill amount, and Quiktip immediately calculates the total amount you should leave. You can even round down or round up if you wish to adjust the price slightly in favor of you or the waiter. Really, it takes no more than five finger taps, seven at the most for you big thousand-dollar spenders at The French Laundry. So make friends with your waiter, and save a few bucks with QuikTip on your next night out.

6. RepairPal – In fictional lore, and maybe some truthful lore, mechanics are a scrupulous bunch. A notable episode of Seinfeld called “The Dealership” comically portrays mechanics as misleading and opportunistic when Putty – a mechanic – stops giving Jerry accurate repair prices after he ends his relationship with Jerry’s friend Elaine Benes. Since he and Jerry are no longer on friendship terms, he instead gives Jerry the usual inflated mechanic prices. While mechanics may not be as untrustworthy as depicted on television, there is always that underlying suspicion that consulting an expert on car repair, when you, yourself, are completely a laymen, only provides the right circumstance for being taken advantage of.

Regardless, RepairPal gives you average price estimates on car repairs in your area, and after choosing your car brand, model and year, shows you shops where you may have it done. RepairPal neatly breaks down the cost by parts and labor, and even offers some recommendations. When searching for a Drive Belt Replacement for a 2002 Hyundai Accent in the 94952 zip code area, RepairPal informed me the repair price would range on average from $114-$172 dollars, with parts roughly comprising $31-$68 and labor comprising $83-$106. It recommended me to replace the drive belt every 6,000 miles and even explained that leaking valve cover gaskets and engine oil could cause premature drive belt failure. Good to know. I could then select a shop nearby to get this repair, and even click on a “Directions to Shop” button to easily find the place. On a final, excellent note, RepairPal even offers 24/7 roadside assistance, from emergency towing to flat tire changes, with a simple “Call Now” button, and even offers a listing of various car manufacturer helpline numbers.

Easy and quick to use, RepairPal is a must for any car owner, and is especially helpful for those who do not possess much background knowledge on car jargon and appropriate prices.

7. Mint.com – Many banks offer their services through their own personalized app, such as Bank of America (their BofA app), and these serve the public well. However, to make matters even easier, and to keep an eye on your budget, Mint.com offers you a consolidated collection of all your financial records, including your checking and savings account, your investment portfolios, and even miscellaneous items of personal worth, should you decide to record them (these can include personal assets like cars owned, properties owned, even minute items like clothing, etc). To add accounts onto Mint.com, simply enter in your login information for the bank and the information will be saved onto the app; when setting up the account you’re given detailed calibration options, like setting your average monthly food and billing payments, so that Mint.com may develop budget plans for you and later alert you if you went over budget, or if your bank account is lower than average. Also, just like your banking site, it tracks your transactions for ease of financial records.
Having everything in one location, and in a password-protected application that tracks your budget, allows you to spend wisely and accordingly.

8. iWant – When walking the streets or navigating traffic, sometimes you find yourself in need a bite to eat, or a place to fill up on gas, or a nearby pharmacy, or something else of less pressing concern. iWant by Rudrajit Samanta searches for all kinds of amenities nearest to you based on a personally calibrated distance setting, from a mere 0.1 miles away to 15 miles away. It lists your options based on either distance or community rating, whichever you find more pertinent, and then finds directions to that place based on your current location. iWant even caters to the socially oriented, as you have the option of emailing your location to someone so they may meet you at said bar, restaurant, pharmacy, etc. Rather than asking someone on the street where the closest gas station is and maybe getting an answer, just fulfill your wants with iWant and get the closest amenity to you, always on the mark. Check out my full review of iWant here.

9. Good Guide – This is my new favorite app (sorry Yelp! You’re still dear to my heart). For a self-professed foodie who is a member of the fast growing green community, Good Guide offers detailed information for over 70,000 healthy and green products, including food, personal care items, household cleaners, and toys. When searching for a product, Good Guide gives you community ratings – which you may access live throughout the day with their unique text messaging feature – and after clicking on a specific product, gives you detailed information including health, environmental, and social ratings, the reasoning behind these ratings, and the product’s ingredients. Should you particularly like or dislike this product, you may add it to your Favorites list or Avoid list, and you may share it to an outside source.

Let’s search for peanut butter, shall we? I search for peanut butter under the Food tab, and the results include 10 peanut butter brands for me to sort through. At the top is the Santa Cruz Dark Roasted Creamy Peanut Butter with the high rating of 7.0. When I click on the product’s details, I can view its different ratings, and, more importantly, the ingredient label, which I can click on for even more information. The nutrition summary shows me an easily understood chart that tells me if various nutrients like saturated fat and cholesterol are in the low, medium, or high range according to nutritional guidelines set by institutions like the FDA, WHO, AHA, and CSPI. There is also a chart that compares these nutrients to other products in its category, showing whether they are better or worse than others. When reading through this peanut butter review, I was happy to see the Santa Cruz company has one of the highest scores in climate change, labor and human rights, and in recycled material use. Healthy and green.

Next time you’re in the market searching for the most environmentally friendly and nutritionally healthy food, make sure to consult Good Guide for featured products and for reviews on your usual Whole Foods market fare. You’ll never wonder about your choices again.

10. Truphone – This app is as versatile and money saving as they get. Knowing from personal experience by calling my family in Mexico, the cost of international communication on cell phones is definitely not cheap. Fortunately, with the advent of VoIP technology there are a wide range of voice services out there that can make communication quick, reliable and cost effective. Most of these services, like Skype, have been relegated to the desktop, making on the go communication cumbersome or downright impossible, but Truphone by Software Cellular Network, Ltd solves this problem by allowing you to use your existing handset and service provider to make cheap calls worldwide, using either Wi-Fi or your phone’s 3G data connection.

Making a call entails simply choosing someone from your contacts list or dialing a phone number and hitting “Call.” Since Truphone works in tandem with your existing iPhone plan, you keep your number, SIM card and current setup. All you have to do is download the app, save your credit card information online and use it when you want to make low-cost Internet calls.

The service works best when in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot, but you can use it anywhere. When connected to a hotspot, 100% of the call is routed over the Internet until it reaches the other users handset, allowing the company to offer some of the lowest rates on the Internet. When not connected to Wi-Fi but still in your home country Truphone routes as much of the call as it can over the Internet, and completes the call via your handsets phone connection. It also features a Bluetooth ability.

Truphone has integrated instant messenger clients such as Skype, MSN, Yahoo and AIM into their software, allowing you to use Truphone as a universal messaging application. There are also a few option screens that allow for integration with Twitter, or viewing data such as your account info or recent calls.

There are 3 different plans that you can choose from for the service, depending on how much calling you plan to make. For $17 per month on the TruUnlimited plan, unlimited calls can be made for no additional charges. If you don’t want to pay a charge each month, the TruStandard plan gives you rates around $.05 per minute. Finally, if you plan on making a fair number of calls, but don’t need unlimited access, the TruSaver plan is $4 per month, and cuts rates on the TruStandard plan by about 60%. If you are looking for an option to help you save money on making international calls, Truphone may have a plan for you. By using VoIP technology, they create multiple ways to make calls cheaply to anywhere, from anywhere.

While Skype may still be the current trend among internet callers, so ubiquitous now that some of my college professors would adamantly persuade us to contact them on their skype address, perhaps Truphone, with its all-inclusive nature and cheap ways, will become the greatest and latest calling sensation.