Exceedingly Mundane

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Jul
28
Posted by Stace

Debbie Macomber Fan Ambassador

*Disclaimer: Still duplicating posts that I made over at Tumblr while our site was down*

Yes, I’m a nerd. Even worse, a book nerd. And I’ve loved Debbie Macomber books for a long time, so when she started having a good online presence, I jumped on board. I get her postal mail newsletter, and I follow her on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’ve read over 20 books of hers, so apparently I qualified! I submitted my name on her fan page to be a Fan Ambassador, and I was picked! Of course, I’m sure they picked hundreds or thousands of readers, but still 🙂

They sent me an email informing me I had been chosen, and the nifty little badge above (I guess to display on my blog, who knows!), and now… I haven’t heard anything since. But I do love her books. I read a lot of her earlier ones and I loved all the Cedar Cove and Blossom Street books. I’ve started her new Inn at Rose Harbor books.. I think another one comes out in August, and maybe that will be involved with this fan ambassador business. We’ll see!

Jan
28
Posted by Stace

iPhone Apps

I know not everyone has an iPhone, but I do, and I LOVE mine! Tim and I got ours over a year ago, for each of our birthdays, so we’ve had them about a year and a half now. 🙂

I download free apps all the time, but only a very few pay ones. I go through phases of my favorite apps on the iPhone, but here’s what I am really liking lately:

Grocery IQ – my new grocery shopping app. I downloaded Splash Shopper when I first got my iPhone, because I had used it for several years on my Palm Pilot. And I really liked it on the Palm. On the iPhone, I don’t like it so much. It’s slow, its cumbersome, and you can really tell that it wasn’t designed from the ground up to use the iPhones many features, as Grocery IQ is. Grocery IQ is now one of my most used apps, and at 99 cents, was a steal 🙂

Bejeweled for the iPhone – I have loved this game for years! I played it on my desktop for years, then when I joined Facebook, I found it on there and played. I must say though, that the iPhone version for me is the most fun! It has 3 modes, and I like being able to play in timed or untimed mode, as well as being able to save my game and come back to it later. Plus, they have it connected to Facebook now, the Blitz version, so I can play there and have it post my score at Facebook (of course, it seems harder to score big on the phone version!) It was a little pricey, 2.99 when I bought it, but hey, I had credit in the iTunes store so it was a great buy for me!

One of the first apps I downloaded is still my most used – the Facebook app and the iTV app. Both have recently had big upgrades, and they are much improved. I really enjoy both, and love what they allow me to do from my phone. The iTV app not only shows me tv listings, movie listings, let us watch clips and even full length shows (although I haven’t done that), but most important to me – it lets me handle my Netflix queue from within iTV. I had another Netflix app, to manage my queue, but I don’t need it since iTV lets me do that, and more. The Facebook app is really nice, and much improved. I like that you can take photos from your phone and easily upload them.

There’s more, but those are a few of my favorites. I like the Weather Channel app too, especially to see the radar for my area. I twitter from my phone alot, and I personally like Tweetdeck, although I have 2 other free apps loaded on my phone. I go through phases with games, but have recently liked both Toobz (like the old game Pipe I used to play on my desktop computer) and Boxed In. I like playing Scramble on my phone too, because it interfaces with my Scramble on Facebook. However, my scores are really low from the phone.. for some reason, it’s harder to type in words quickly with your fingertip as opposed to using a keyboard on the computer, hahaha!
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My walking buddy and I are attempting to transition to jogging. She wants to do the C25K program, which takes you from the couch to running a 5K in 9 weeks (or in our case, probably a lot longer, LOL!) She has an iPhone too, so we both downloaded the C25K app, which tells us when to walk, when to jog, warm up, cool down, etc. I like using the app (2.99) versus the free podcasts, because the app lets you play your own music on your phone, rather than using the canned music that comes with the podcast. I have a walking playlist, of music that I like, so that makes it a lot nicer.

OK, I will end with a picture that proves that we are not the only ones who are addicted to our iPhones! Chris and Liz come over to hang out sometimes, and Chris has an iPhone. Usually one of them is playing on his, and sometimes, one of them will borrow one of ours, and it looks like this in the living room:

If you have a smartphone, whether its an iPhone, Blackberry or other, what apps or programs do you use the most? Some for fun, some for productivity? Leave me a comment and let me know! Oh, and …Have a great day!

P.S. I’ve had this post in my drafts for a while, but had never gotten around to posting it! With Apple’s announcement yesterday about the new iPad, it made me think about it. I think I want one of the new iPads, but we’ll have to give it some thought and see how it does. And try to justify the cost.
How about you, are you interested in getting an iPad?