As you prepare for hurricane season, don’t forget about your technology. Make sure to download apps now that can make it easier to get through the storm, and make sure to have what you need to keep your devices running during and after the storm.

The Red Cross FRX3 Eton Emergency Radio contains a solar panel and hand turbine charger, rechargeable battery, AM/FM radio, NOAA weather band radio, LED red flashing beacon and LED flashlight. Image credit: Eton

Apps

There are countless weather apps on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.  Yahoo Weather, Accuweather, The Weather Channel, WeatherBug and Weather Underground all do a fine job of providing up-to-date weather alerts and information.

News4Jax’s WJXT: The Weather Authority app provides weather alerts and forecasts specifically for Northeast Florida. The JaxReady app provides evacuation information for Jacksonville residents. The Florida Public Radio Emergency Network’s new app, Florida Storms, provides weather and storm tracking and forecasting information, preparedness checklists, evacuation routes and a live audio stream from 89.9 FM or your local Florida public radio station.

The Red Cross Hurricane App helps you plan before the storm, gives updates during the storm and provides information on how to recover after the storm has passed. The Red Cross First Aid App has information and videos to help you handle common first aid emergencies that might arise during a disaster.

If you’re stuck in a precarious position, you may need to get information out fast to someone who can help. Red Panic Button is an app that can send out an urgent text message, tweet, Facebook message and email with a link to your location on Google Maps.

FEMA’s mobile app can help you find shelters and disaster recovery centers. It also provides tips to survive a disaster and can be used to apply for aid after the storm.

External Batteries

An external battery with a USB port will keep your devices working for a while until the power comes back on.

When shopping for a USB battery backup, look for the mAh, or milliAmpere-hour, rating. The mAh is a measurement of how much energy the battery can store. The more mAh, the better. Choose a battery backup that has more mAh than the device that needs to be charged.

The iPhone 6 has a 1,810 mAh battery and the iPad’s battery has 8,827 mAh. A quick search on the web will usually tell you how much mAh your device’s battery has in it. For a list of recommendations, Lifehacker has put together a list of five of the best battery packs.

Battery Chargers

There are a few options that can keep those external batteries and devices charged if the power is out for more than a few hours. Hand crank chargers are devices that turn your arm energy into battery power. There are also pedal-powered generators that use your feet to make energy, solar chargers that use energy from the sun to charge your phone, fuel cells that turn water into electricity and heat-powered generators that use the thermal energy from cooking to charge a battery.

Radios, Flashlights

Of course, if the Internet and cell phone service goes out your apps won’t much provide information. In case that happens, make sure you have a working, battery-powered radio. Tune your radio to WJCT 89.9 FM, the official emergency weather station for Northeast Florida and extreme Southeast Georgia.

Also, make sure to have battery-powered flashlights. Newer LED flashlights provide more light and last much longer than the older incandescent flashlights.

All-In-One

The ideal solution would be one device that had it all: a flashlight, radio, external battery and a way to charge the battery or an electronic device if the power goes out. Fortunately, Eton and the Red Cross have made that device. The Red Cross FRX3 Eton Emergency Radio contains a solar panel and hand turbine charger, rechargeable battery, AM/FM radio, NOAA weather band radio, LED red flashing beacon and LED flashlight. Eton has other survival devices of greater and lesser complexity as well.

Note: This article originally appeared on WJCTNews.org.

Have you ever had a hard time keeping your resolutions for the new year? There are plenty of iPhone and Android apps that can help you out.

Image credit: christmasstockimages.com

The University of Scranton surveyed Americans earlier this year to find the top 10 most popular New Year’s resolutions. Here are some of our favorite apps for helping you keep them throughout 2015.

1. Losing Weight

• MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter (Android, iOS): This free app has a huge database of food so you can look up the calorie count on almost anything. It also lets you set a daily calorie goal, track your weight, and even share with friends for mutual encouragement.

• LiveStrong My Plate Calorie Tracker (Android, iOS): Thiss app free on Android but will run you $2.99 on iOS. The nice thing about this app is if you have an account on LiveStrong.com this will link up to it.

• My Daily Plate (iOS): My Daily Plate is an app that can help you make good nutritional decisions throughout the day. It costs $.99, and is only available on iOS.

2. Getting Organized

• Evernote (Android, iOS) and Google Keep (Android): These are both great free apps that let you quickly type out or even write a message to yourself. You can also take pictures of things and save them for later. And they are both cloud-based, so you can write a note to yourself on your smartphone, update it from your tablet and check it later on your home computer.

• Google Now (built into most new Android devices; included in the Google Search app for iOS): This app is wonderful for setting creating reminders for yourself. If you give it permission to do so, Google Now will actually scan your Google calendar and even your email to find upcoming events. If those events have a physical address associated with them, Google Now will even tell you when it?s time to get in the car and head out!

• Any.do (Android, iOS): Any.do combines checklists with reminders. You can quickly enter a task by either typing it or speaking it, and then set when the task is due: today, tomorrow, or in the future. When the appropriate day rolls around, Any.do will pop up a helpful reminder.

3. Spending Less Money and Saving More Money

• Mint Personal Finance (Android, iOS): Mint is a free app from Intuit, the makes of Quickbooks. Mint lets you keep track of all of your financial accounts in one place, and set a budget and stick to it. On the website and the app, you can see all of your debts like student loans, car notes, credit cards and mortgages, and you can see all of your money like checking accounts savings accounts, money market accounts, and CDs. Mint gives you a snapshot of what your financial situation looks like, and gives you advice how to make it better.

4. Travel More

• Expedia (Android, iOS) & Kayak (Android, iOS): Book flights, hotels and  rental cars on these apps for popular travel sites Expedia and Kayak.

• Hipmunk (Android, iOS): We’ve discussed Hipmunk’s website, which rates flights based on aspects like layover time and whether or not they offer Wi-Fi, in an earlier article. The app also offers this helpful tools, but it also shows you listings from AirBNB and HomeAway, services which let people rent a room from somebody for just a couple of days.

5. Staying Fit

• Endomondo Sports Tracker (Android, iOS): This apps allows you to track your running/biking/skating workouts and set challenges for yourself. The pro version is $4.99 and includes features like a pedometer so it will work indoors.

• Active.com’s Couch to 5K (Android, iOS): Like its name suggests, the Couch to 5K training app will gradually get you ready to run your first 5K race over a period of about six weeks.

• Zombies, Run! (Android, iOS): This run tracking app helps to motivate you by disguising your workout as a game – a horrifying game. Imagine this: you’re out for a run, when all of a sudden you’re being chased by zombies! You put your headphones on, and as you run you’ll periodically hear orders from your fellow survivors to outrun zombie mobs.

6. Learn to Play a Musical Instrument

• Piano Teacher (Android only): This app has a Guitar Hero-style interface that lets you learn songs by hitting the right keys as notes fall down the screen. You can even purchase a USB adapter to use this app with an actual Midi keyboard.

• Piano Tutor (iOS only): Piano Tutor teaches you how to read notes and rhythms on sheet music, and how to to learn to play by ear. It also supports the use of a Midi keyboard through a USB adapter.

• Ultimate Guitar Tabs (Android, iOS): This app has a huge searchable database of guitar tabs (notation that shows you instrument fingering instead of sheet music notes) for popular songs. It also shows you how to fingering for chords and more. Ultimate Guitar Tabs is $2.99 on both Android and iOS.

7. Quitting Smoking

• QuitNow! (Android, iOS) & LiveStrong MyQuit Coach (iOS only): These apps both keep track of the time since your last cigarette, how many cigarettes you’ve avoided since quitting and how much money you’ve saved in the process. You can also set health goals and create motivators to help you quit.

8. Helping Others

• Feedie (Android, iOS): Feedie lets all the foodies who take pictures of their meals to finally do it for a good cause. For every food photo taken at a participating restaurant and shared via social media, 25 cents will be donated to the app?s nonprofit parent company, The Lunchbox Fund, which provides meals to students in rural South Africa.
• HTC Power to Give (Android only): By downloading the app, plugging in your Android phone and connecting to Wi-Fi while you sleep, your phone?s spare computing power becomes part of a huge grid that provides power to a scientific project of your choice, like researching cures for cancer, Alzheimer?s disease, AIDS, or understanding climate change, or searching for extra-terrestrial life.

• DonorReminder (iOS only): If you like to donate blood, this app keeps track of when you last donated and when you can do it again.

9. Falling in Love

• Tinder (Android, iOS): Tinder has gotten a lot of press in the last few years because it’s based entirely on looks. It’s like HotOrNot but you can date the person if they find you hot too. You open the app and see pictures of potential dates that are near you. You swipe to the left if you’re not interested, and swipe to the right if you are interested. If your crush finds you attractive too, Tinder lets you both know, and you can chat.

• Down (Android, iOS): If you’ve always wondered if one of your friends was interested in dating you, but you never built up the gumption to go and ask him or her, you can now do it in a more anonymous way. With Down, you can scroll through a list of your Facebook friends and swipe up if you’d like to date them, swipe left if you’re not interested, and swipe down if you’re interested in, to put it in polite terms, “spending a night with them.”

• OkCupid (Android, iOS): Just like OkCupid’s website, this app offers a free dating service that feels most similar to a social network.

10. Spending Time with Your Family

• No app recommendations for this. Just put away your phone and talk to them!

Did we miss your favorite app? Send us an email to questions@deemable.com and let us know.

Q: I just got an iPhone 6. I heard about the new keyboards in i0S 8, but I can’t figure out how to use them. How do I get them installed and what do they do?

The Swype keyboard running on an iPad with iOS 8. Image credit: Swype

A: iOS 8, the operating system that comes standard with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, added the ability to install third-party keyboards. These let you type on your phone or tablet in a way that the company that made it didn’t originally design. For instance, instead of tapping individual keys, some of them let you type by drawing continuous lines from one letter to another. This style of typing was originally popularized by the Swype keyboard.

Third-party keyboards have been available on Android phones for several years, but iOS 8 is the first operating system to support them on iPhones.

To install third-party keyboards on the iPhone, you’ll first need to find the one you want in the Apple App Store and download it. Then, you’ll open the Settings app, look for “Keyboards” under the “General” menu, and tap “Add New Keyboard” and select the one you just downloaded. Then, tap the name of the keyboard again, and hit the “Allow Full Access” switch. Almost every iOS keyboard app will also explain these steps when you open the app.

Once you have the keyboards installed, you can switch between them while typing by tapping the globe icon in the bottom left corner of the keyboard.

Third-party keyboards are basically like any apps on Android – you download them and they automatically install. You can switch keyboards under the main settings on the device, under the “Language and Input” menu. There will be a list of all your installed keyboards and you can swap between them there.

We have been testing out a few third-party keyboards on iOS 8 since it was released. Swipe-to-type keyboards like Swype and Swiftkey definitely make typing a lot faster, but one of our favorites is called Fleksy. This keyboard basically lets you type as sloppy as you want, and as long as you tap somewhere near where the key is the keyboard will figure out what you’re trying to type.

Try some of them out, Miraya, and remember: the best third-part keyboard is the one you feel most comfortable typing on.

Q: I recently changed my e-mail password, and now my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone will not show my e-mails. I assume the old password is somehow encoded in the phone. I cannot find a way within the “setting” folder to put the new password in to access the e-mails. How can I now access my e-mails on the S4?

A: Dale, it sounds like you are looking in the settings for the email app, but you won’t find it there!

Image Credit: Simon / Pixabay

Android phones, including the Samsung Galaxy models, store all the big, important passwords, like email accounts and social media accounts, in the same place. You need to bring up “settings”. Not the settings for the email app, but the main settings menu that you get to from the desktop.

Then you need to scroll way down. You’re looking for a section called “Accounts”. Keep scrolling down until you find it. Under that you should see an option called “Email”. Tap that. Then tap “Settings”. Then tap your email address again. Now you should see a page with a bunch of options, including one that says “password” – tap that and enter your new password.

Basically, any time you want to change a major password you have to go under “Accounts” under your main settings. Your email login, your Facebook login, your Twitter login, your LinkedIn login, it’s all stored there. These are all apps that have deep, native integration into the Android operating system, so it actually makes some sense for them to be stored down in the main settings of the phone.

That’s pretty similar to how it is handled on the iPhone and iPad too. Under the Settings app, you tap “Mail, Contacts, and Calendars”, then tap the account and tap your email address, then enter the correct password.

If you are a small business owner wondering if there are any apps out there that can help make your life easier, wonder no more! These days you can practically run your entire business through a tablet or mobile device. Your device can handle point-of-sale, time tracking, invoicing and much more.

Here are a few of our favorite apps for small business owners:

PayPal, one of the first online transaction companies, got into the mobile payment game with the PayPal Here.
Image credit: PayPal

Point of Sale

You’re probably already familiar with Square, the little plastic card reader that plugs into a smartphone. But Square is no longer the only card reader in town. Here are a few of the card readers currently out there:

• Square
• PayPal Here
• Amazon Register
• Intuit GoPayment

You can get all of these for essentially free (for example, the Square reader is $9.99 at retail stores, but it comes with a $10 mail-in rebate). The card reader companies make their money off transaction fees, which vary by device. You can read more about credit cards readers in this article.

Let’s talk about a different type of cards: business cards.

Business Card Readers

There are apps that will allow you to photograph, scan and store the information from people’s business cards, creating a digital Rolodex. There are two major apps. Abbyy’s is the tried-and-true original, Evernote’s is the new upstart:

• Abbyy’s Business Card Reader ($4.99 on Android and $5.99 on iOS)
• Evernote Hello (free)

Bookkeeping

A good bookkeeping app will not only connect to your various accounts and allow you to create invoices, but will categorize your expenses and income for tax purposes. There are a number of cool bookkeeping apps out there:

• Freshbooks
• Quickbooks
• GoDaddy Bookkeeping (formerly Outright.com)

Most of these charge monthly or yearly subscription fees. There is also a newcomer called Wave Accounting whose website is free to use. Wave also does payroll management for $4/month for the first 10 employees (and $1/employee after).

Productivity

You have two major options for productivity software. The first is Google Drive, which includes Google Docs and Google Sheets. This is free, but not as fully-featured as Microsoft Office. You can also get Microsoft Office 365, the cloud-based (read: online) version of Office. One user is $6/month.

Also, this is not exactly an app but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention Google Apps for Work. Do you want to have your own, custom email address that still uses the Gmail interface? Google Apps for Work can give you that. For instance, Ray@SmallBusiness.com could be accessed through Gmail and would also have full access to Google Drive.

Google Apps for Work is $5/user/month or $50/year.

On this episode of the Deemable Tech podcast, Tom and Ray answer your questions about downloading pictures off of iPhones, donating old computers and setting up RAID systems with your hard drives.

Then the guys are joined by producer Sean Birch to attempt the impossible: playing a mobile game on a podcast! The three of them suit up to test out the party game Spaceteam. If you like technobabble and yelling, you’ll enjoy this episode!

In-app screenshots from Spaceteam!
Image credits: Sleeping Beast Games

#63 Spaceteam!

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Using Your Mac’s Activity Monitor
• What To Do When You See The “Spinning Beach Ball Of Death”
• What To Do Before You Sell Or Give Way Your Mac
• How To Set Up RAID On Your PC
• Creating A Software RAID Array In Windows 7
• Spaceteam

Every once in a while we like to cover something everyone should know, and this time we wanted to talk about securing your personal information – on your smartphone.

Image credit: Kelvinsong / Wikimedia

If you own a smartphone, you probably keep tons of personal information on it: your address book, emails, passwords, maybe even credit card data. Your phone knows where you work and where you live and who is texting you. It’s a gold mine for everyone from phone thieves to advertisers to hackers.

Many smartphone owners would be surprised at how easy it is to learn some basic hacks which allow you to extract data from someone else’s smartphone. But there are a few simple steps that they can take to make it much harder.

We want to emphasize that it’s probably impossible to completely hacker-proof your phone. If government spies are trying to break into your phone, they are probably going to get in. But you can stop your run of the mill identity thieves.

Tip #1: Lock your smartphone!

It’s so simple, and yet so effective! Why should someone bother hacking into your phone when they can just pick it up and see everything on it? You need a lockscreen with a password or an unlock pattern or a fingerprint scanner. Using a password is the most secure technique, and the more characters you have to enter, the better. But even a simple pin code or unlock pattern is better than nothing.

Most Android phones support unlock patterns. If you use one, though, you should take one extra step for security: wipe down your phone?s screen frequently! This way a thief can’t simply follow the smudged fingerprints on the screen to determine your unlock pattern.

Here’s another lock screen tip for those of you with iPhones: by default, iPhones allow you to do a few things without unlocking your phone, like voice dialing and previewing texts. You can disable this, though, and you should. Unless you like the idea of a stranger at the coffee shop reading your texts!

Tip #3: Don’t connect to open Wi-Fi networks!

Avoid that free coffee shop Wi-Fi if it doesn’t have a password! Any device, whether it?s a phone or a tablet or a laptop, which is connected to an open Wi-Fi is a hacker?s dream. With some basic software installed, a hacker can see almost everything anyone on the Wi-Fi network is doing – sending emails, logging into Facebook, etc.

The good news is, people are wising up to the fact that having unsecured Wi-Fi is not a good idea. Some places still offer it, though. If you don?t have to ask for a password to get in, it?s probably not a good idea to use that Wi-Fi.

Speaking of Wi-Fi: if you got your iPhone from AT&T it has an interesting extra feature. Any time an AT&T iPhone detects a Wi-Fi network called attwifi, it will automatically try to connect to it. That’s a problem, to put it bluntly. A hacker could just setup a network, call it attwifi, and wait for people?s phones to automatically connect to it so they can extract information. The good news is, this is a feature you can turn off on your iPhone, and you should. Just open the Settings app, tap Wi-Fi, and tap the check box next to ?Ask to join networks?. And contact AT&T customer support and tell them that you don’t approve of them making their customers’ phones vulnerable in this way.

Tip #4: Turn off location tagging on your smartphone’s camera

When you take a picture with your smartphone, it adds the GPS coordinates of the place where you took the picture to the image file. Later on, that can help you remember where you took the picture at. That’s convenient, but many times when you upload that picture to a website or email it to a friend, the GPS coordinates remain embedded in the file. Anyone who has that picture can figure out where you took it. And if it’s your house, well, now they know where you live. And that?s no good.

You can turn this feature off on Android phones, although the details depend on what phone you have. You should be able to find instructions with a Google search. On an iPhone, go to Settings, and then privacy, and then Location services and then you should see an option for the camera. Switch that to off.

Tip #5: Require a password for purchases

This is something we’ve talked about before, but it?s worth repeating: both Android and iPhone allow you to set a password on the phone that must be entered before you can make purchases on the phone. Stopping kids or others from running up charges on your phone is always a great idea.

Tip #6: Disable third party cookies

Everybody likes cookies, right? Well, maybe not if they are cookies on your computer which can allow advertisers to track what websites you visit. For those readers who don?t know, a cookie is a small text file that a website places on your computer or smartphone. They can be used to help websites remember to automatically log you in, which is great. But they can also help advertisers to track you which not everybody likes.

On the iPhone’s Safari browser you can stop this. Safari lets you disable ‘third party cookies’, which are the kind of cookies that many people don’t want, the kind that help advertisers offer targeted ads. Most browsers now offer a ‘DO NOT TRACK’ option as well. It’s a good idea to turn this on. Now here?s the thing, the ‘do not track’ option is not universally respected. There are some advertisers that will ignore it and track you anyway. But it can?t hurt to have it turned on.

Tip #7: Wipe your personal data before you return your phone to the store

Occasionally you may need to take your smartphone somewhere to get it repaired or to swap it for a working model. Before you do this, it’s a really good idea to wipe all of your personal data from your phone! What you need to do is reset your phone to factory defaults. Your smartphone should come with instructions on how to do this. Of course you should backup all your personal data before you do this as it WILL be erased!

So these are just a few tips that will help you keep the personal data on your smartphone more secure from thieves, from hackers and even from advertisers. And if nothing else, you should always, always –

LOCK YOUR PHONE.

This week on the Deemable Tech podcast, Ray and Tom answer a ginormous number of your questions about everything from Gmail message threads to iPhone apps that won’t update.

Then the guys take a few minutes to discuss some of their favorite iOS and Android apps at the moment in our Downloadable segment – including Tom’s current favorite, Doge Weather. Much tech advice. So wow.

#61 An Explosion of Tech Questions

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Avast! Antivirus
• AVG Antivirus
• Apps Gone Free
• Google Keep
• Google Now Launcher
• Weather Doge – iOS – Android
• Magnifier Flash
• Baby Connect
• MOON – Current Moon Phase

Image credit: Stephen Jones / WJCT

In this first of four hour-long public radio specials for 2014, Ray and Tom hear from listeners experiencing problems with their Kindles, wondering how they can have safe and secure passwords, looking for advice on what kind of tablet they should purchase and more.

Links mentioned in the show:

• Laptop Magazine – Laptop Buying Guide
• Snopes.com – Facebook Blocking Religious Posts
• Avast! Anti-Virus
• PC Decrapifier
• Revo Uninstaller
• AdwCleaner
• Microsoft – End of Windows XP Support Guide
• Glympse
• MileBug
• CheckIt Speedometer
• Duolingo

Q: I have finally joined the 21st century by getting an iPhone. I’ve always had a normal cell phone before, and it did what I wanted: it let me make phone calls and text my kids. I know how to do those things with my iPhone, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know what else I should be using it for. Do you have any suggestions?

Image Credit: Phil Campbell / Flickr

A: There’s no reason to be embarrassed! Getting your first smartphone can be an overwhelming experience. What can you do with it? What should you do with it? There’s so much to learn and so many options, but we?re here to help. We’ve made a short list of a few of the things we use our smartphones for other than calling and texting.

Use number one has to be navigation. Your iPhone and any other smartphone worth its salt has built-in GPS. We personally like to use the Google Maps app for our navigation needs, but Apple Maps has come a long way as well.

If you want to use your phone for this, be sure to get a cradle so that you can mount it to the dashboard or windshield of your car. You don’t want to be fumbling with your phone with one hand while trying to drive with the other. In fact, in some states it’s illegal to do so. A cradle will keep the phone safely at eye level while you use it to navigate.

Next on our list are the voice-activated features of your phone. The iPhone’s Siri is the most famous, but there’s also Google Voice Search. Voice Search has a little less personality than Siri, but is faster. Either way, you can ask your phone what the weather is going to be like, when a store closes, definitions of words, how long a movie will be, what your favorite team scored in the last game, and much more. This is really useful when you just want a quick answer to something, or, going back to our driving scenario, when it’s not safe to use your hands to operate your phone.

Another great use for your smartphone is task management. Hopefully you don?t have terrible memories like us, Kelly, but fortunately if you do your phone is there to rescue you. You can use your phone to make notes to yourself, set appointments on your calendars, remind yourself to do things and handle your shopping list.

This is an area where your phone’s voice-activated features integrate beautifully. Try telling Siri or Google Voice Search to remind you to get the laundry out a 3:00 PM. It will!

Next up on our list is something that may seem pretty obvious, but is another terrific way to utilize your smartphone: using it as an alarm clock. There is a built-in alarm clock on your iPhone, and there are literally hundreds of alarm clock apps out there to cater to your waking-up needs. You can find alarm clocks that wake you up with music, or even make you do math problems to make sure you are awake. And if you don’t mind sleeping next to your phone in bed, there are even apps that will measure your sleep cycles and try to wake you when you will feel the most rested.

And all this stuff is really just the tip of the iceberg, Kelly. There are many more genuinely useful things you can do with a smartphone, including many great apps that do everything from help you find vegan restaurants to let you learn about our country’s national parks. Check out our list of recommend apps below:

GPS Navigation:

• Google Maps: iPhone – Android
• Waze: iPhone – Android

Take Notes:

• Evernote: iPhone – Android
• Simplenote: iPhone – Android

Make Lists:

• WanderList: iPhone – Android
• Any.Do: iPhone – Android
• Toodledo: iPhone – Android

Alarm Clocks:

• Sleep If U Can: iPhone – Android
• FreakyAlarm: iPhone
• Alarm Clock Xtreme Free: Android
• Wake N Shake: iPhone
• MotionX 24/7: iPhone
• SleepCycle: iPhone
• Alarm Clock Plus: Android

Find and Store Recipes:

• How To Cook Everything: iPhone
• Cook’s Illustrated: iPhone
• Epicurious Recipes And Shopping List: iPhone – Android
• AllTheCooks Recipes: iPhone – Android

Scan Barcodes for Comparison Shopping:

• ShopSavvy: iPhone – Android

Keep Membership Cards in Your Virtual Wallet:

• Google Wallet: iPhone – Android
• Square Wallet: iPhone – Android
• PayCloud: iPhone – Android
• Lemon Wallet: iPhone – Android
• LastPass Wallet: iPhone
• KeyRing: iPhone – Android

Find Restaurants and See Customer Reviews:

• Yelp: iPhone – Android
• UrbanSpoon: iPhone – Android
• Foursquare: iPhone – Android

Scan Business Cards:

• ABBYY Business Card Reader: iPhone – Android
• Yolu Card Reader: iPhone – Android
• Evernote Hello: iPhone – Android

Listen to the Radio:

• Deemable Tech App: iPhone – Android
• NPR News: iPhone – Android
• Public Radio Player: iPhone – Android
• PRX Remix: iPhone – Android
• Stitcher Radio: iPhone – Android
• TuneIn Radio: iPhone – Android

Monitor Your Heart Rate:

• Instant Heart Rate: iPhone – Android
• MotionX 24/7: iPhone

Get Important Weather Updates:

• Weather Channel: iPhone – Android
• WeatherBug: iPhone – Android

Image Credit: Chris Owens / Flickr

Q: I use two desktop computers at work, and I’m starting to feel like having two keyboards and mice is taking up too much space on my desk. Is there any way I can use one keyboard and one mouse for both computers? Also, is there any app I can use to control my computer from my iPad?

A: Thanks for your question, Mike. There are a couple of methods to control two different computers from one keyboard and mouse: either with a cable or with software.

First, there is a cable called a KVM switch, which is short for “keyboard, video and mouse” switch. These let you share one mouse, keyboard and monitor between two computers. There are also KM switch cables that allow you to share just a keyboard and mouse with two computers that have two separate monitors. If you are using the two different computers at the same time, that second one might be the best option for you.

Either way, they both run between $20 and $100. The great thing about using a physical cable is that the connection is really fast, and you’ll never have any lag. The down side is that you are limited by the length of the cable. Also, you’ll need to press a button, or turn a switch, to go back and forth between the two computers.

If you want to go the software route, there are two great programs that do the same thing as a KM switch, but over your network instead of a cable. One is called ShareMouse. It is super easy to use, and isn’t too difficult to set up. However, it normally costs $30 per computer!

Another option is a program called Synergy (this is the one we prefer). It’s a tiny bit harder to set up than ShareMouse, but it starts at only $10 and it’s open-source, so there’s an entire community constantly working on it to make it better! On both programs you don’t have to press a button to switch computers – it’s as simple as sliding your mouse off the edge of one screen, and it will appear on the other screen. Also, both programs support clipboard sharing, which allows you to copy text on one computer and paste it on the other.

Both programs are relatively small ones that don’t use up a lot of resources on your computers or bandwidth on your network. One potential downside of using one of these programs is that if your network is bogged down (for example if you are running streaming video or downloading a lot), you might notice a slight lag in reaction time. Also, neither program supports sharing a monitor between the two computers.

If you are trying to do that with software, you’ll have to try Remote Desktop or a Virtual Network Computing program. That’s a little bit more complicated, and probably isn’t worth it if you have both computers in the same room.

If each computer does have its own monitor, we recommend starting out by trying Synergy. That will probably be the best solution for your problem. If that doesn’t work, then try ShareMouse or a hardware KM or KVM switch.

To answer your second question about controlling your computers from your iPad, we recommend Mobile Mouse Pro. You can get it in the App Store for $2.99 (it’s also available for the same price in Google Play for Android users). You have to install a small server app on your desktop, but once you do and open the app, your phone or tablet turns into a multitouch trackpad, remote keyboard, and music and presentation remote. If you just want to try out Mobile Mouse before you buy it, there is a free version called Mobile Mouse Lite in the App Store and Google Play.

Hopefully one of these options will help you out, Mike. Try them out, and clear off that desk!

Image Credit: Niki Odolphie / Flickr

Q: I keep deleting apps off of my iPod Touch, but they keep reinstalling whenever the apps are updated. Why is it doing this? It’s driving me crazy. I want to be able to delete apps and for them to stay deleted. I am running iOS 6.1.3. My iPod syncs with iTunes on my laptop over Wi-Fi.

A: Great question, Lynda, and thanks for giving us specific details. It really helped us figure out what was going on here. We did a little research, and we found out what is most likely causing your headache.

Here’s what we think is happening. First, you installed an app on your iPod. Then, you decided you didn’t want the app anymore, and you deleted it before you synced your iPod with your laptop again. Now, the next time you synced your iPod with your laptop, iTunes saw that you didn’t have that new app on your iPod. So, in trying to be helpful, it reinstalled it on your iPod for you.

Now, what’s causing that to happen? Well, it sounds like you have iTunes on your laptop set to automatically download any new apps that you buy on your iPod. This is designed to make syncing your iPod Touch faster, but it can cause a problem like this to happen as well.

Lynda, it sounds like you’re going to have to decide which is more important to you: faster syncing with iTunes, or occasionally having an app come back from the grave. If it were us, we would prefer that our apps stay deleted when we deleted them. The only time where faster syncing would probably be important is if you were syncing your iPod Touch with a cable. Since you’re syncing over Wi-Fi, it’s doing it when you aren’t using the iPod Touch and it’s plugged in.

To fix this, all you have to do is open iTunes on your laptop, open the preferences menu, and click the “Store” tab. Then just unclick the check mark next to “Apps” under the heading “Automatic Downloads”.

If you weren’t aware of it, from this menu you can control automatic downloads of apps, music and books. So, if you want the music and books that you purchase on your iPod Touch to be automatically downloaded to your laptop, make sure to mark those checkboxes.

On your iPod Touch there’s a similar menu under “Settings”, then “iTunes and App Stores”. Play with the settings until you find an automatic download that works best for you. Hopefully that will take care of your zombie apps.

Q: Are there apps that can help me find vegan food options or vegan restaurants?

A: Great question Joti! There are a lot of great food-related apps out there for smart phones. Some are Vegan-specific, but some are general purpose apps which have Vegan and Vegetarian options.

A great app (and site) to start with is Urban Spoon. I suggest you get it regardless of your cuisine preferences. It is a really polished app, and more importantly it’s widely used so it has a lot of accurate, updated information, which is what you want in an app like this.

“Vegan” isn’t one of the options in Urban Spoon’s main search (“vegetarian” is, though), but once you find a restaurant that is tagged as “vegan”, just tap the word “vegan” in the app to get a listing of nearby restaurants that are vegan-friendly.

Another great general-purpose app is Yelp. If you have the Yelp app you can search for “vegan” from the main page, and it will pop up a list of restaurants. Actually, since Yelp isn’t just for restaurants, it will show you results like the nearby natural market as well.

As far as vegan-specific apps go, these is an app for both Android and iPhone called Happy Cow. It works a lot like Yelp, and the list it returned is pretty comprehensive and does include the local natural market.

There are also numerous vegan recipe apps – one example we found was I’m Hungry: Vegetarian Recipes. And if you can’t find a vegan-specific store or restaurant and you’re in a hurry, there’s an app called Secretly Vegan. Secretly Vegan lists common supermarket products that are vegan, so you can hit up your local convenience store confident that the stuff you’re grabbing off the shelves is vegan-approved.

On just the iPhone side of things, we found an app called VeganXpress, which works a lot like Secretly Vegan and tells you what vegan items you can find at fast-food chains and restaurants.

Other vegan iOS apps include Go Vegan with Sarah Kramer, which is a vegan recipe app with over 50 recipes. There’s also Animal-Free, which allows you to scan the UPC code or type in the name of the brand of the food to determine if the contents of the food is animal or plant derived.

If you’re thinking about going vegan, but you haven’t made the jump yet, check out 21-Day Vegan Kickstart by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which ?gives you recipes and resources to improve and regain your health and includes step-by-step recipe photos.?

So Joti, whether you’re ready to go vegan or just looking for some nearby vegan cuisine, there definitely is an app for that.

I have a confession to make. I am attached to my laptop. I fall asleep with it running near my bed. When I wake up, I check my email before I brush my teeth. As a freelance writer, my livelihood depends on a steady connection and speedy applications. Last week I reluctantly put my MacBook in the hands of a computer repair friend and he noted, “You have computer separation anxiety.” While CSA is not (yet) recognized by any psychology journals, there are some options to lessen the fear that comes from being away from your computer.
These apps can keep your business running whether you are sneaking your iPhone with you on a family vacation* or working through lunch.

Dropbox It’s easy to work across multiple computers when I put my work in progress in Dropbox. It’s secure and syncs quickly.

Pulse I like the interface for this app. I can stay on top of news and keep up-to-date on all my favorite sites with the swipe of a finger. It’s easy to scroll back for archives and share favorite articles.

iCal Keeping track of meeting times with clients in different time zones can be tricky. I like setting email reminders of important events. This app is also cool because I can import my Google calendars as well.

GoDocs Continuing my Google obsession, my workday would not be complete without Google Docs.  I use the spreadsheets to keep track of mileage and expenses.

PayPal I like knowing when a client makes a payment. Through Paypal, I can send invoices for unpaid bills.

*Please note that I do not advocate sneaking an iPhone on family vacations. I hear it is healthy to unplug and bond with those who still love you.

How do you remain productive away from the office? Let me know in the comments if I missed any awesome apps.

iPhone 4 image courtesy of Apple.