Top 10 Smartphone Apps

This is my list of the Top 10 Apps on my iPhone. For information, I have an iPhone 4S (not sure if all apps below are compatible with older phones or other smartphones).

1. WhatsApp

This is definitely my favourite app. For those who don't know what it is, WhatsApp is a messaging tool that allows you to send text, photos, videos, audio notes and contacts, as well as locations, with any of your friends who also have WhatsApp. Best of all, this is all sent for FREE. Yep, that magic four letter word beginning with F... Erm, I'm still talking about "free". The basic premise it that you pay a small fee to install the app, and then all the texts and other bits that you send don't cost you anything directly to send them, unlike if you were to send them through SMS or MMS.

Of course, they aren't entirely free as WhatsApp connects to the Internet to send things, but to be honest these costs are really minimal. It's an ideal app for me living far from my family and friends as it allows me to keep in touch with them, and to send them photos and other interesting bits. A great app that I use practically every day.

2. Facebook

Pretty much everyone knows the principal of Facebook by now, so I won't bother going into details to explain it. Even if you haven't got an account, you'll still know what it is (possibly through watching the movie "The Social Network"). This is the official Facebook app and is entirely free. It allows you to connect to your FB account and do on your phone pretty much all the things you normally would do on your computer, like adding statuses, links and photos, and of course spying on other peoples' lives. This is another one that I use basically every day.

3. WeatherPro

I've tried many weather forecast applications over the last couple of years, mostly with disappointing results (either wildly inaccurate forecasts or simply not enough information). A friend recommended I try WeatherPro, which isn't free (a couple of pounds, I think) but is accurate. You can see predicted weather for the next 7 days, as well as daily forecasts of the weather at 3-hourly intervals. Definitely my preferred weather-forecasting app, and certainly much better than the standard "Weather" app that comes pre-installed on iPhones (which gets it's mostly unreliable data from Yahoo!).

4. Sky Sports Football Score Centre

I like football. Specifically, English football. This app (which was originally free when I downloaded it on my iPhone 3GS but then required a small fee to re-install when I upgraded to an iPhone 4S...huh?) lets me keep up with the latest news, fixtures, scores and results from the world of English football. I definitely use this app on a daily basis, usually to give me something to read when nature... *ahem*... calls...

It's been high up on my list of most appreciated apps, but this week seems to have stopped updating properly. The fixtures and results pages are working fine, but the News page is stuck showing the news from Monday this week. I tried turning my phone off and on again (that old IT fix) but this hasn't helped. If it keeps going like this I might have to delete and re-install the app, although I'll be buggered if I'm paying for it again! Anyway, a good app that I would recommend to other English football fans (when it's working).

5. Skype

Another great app for keeping in touch with people. I generally only use it when I'm connected to a WiFi network (so it doesn't cost me anything), although mostly for instant messaging. I only have a handful of contacts on Skype, and tried my first video call this weekend - yippee! I use this to exchange free messages (not entirely free, but nowhere near as expensive as SMS) with a friend of mine who lives in Germany, who hasn't yet got himself a copy of WhatsApp (see #1 above). It's fun, and the app itself is free so can't be sniffed at really.

6. Angry Birds

I know everyone else got into this game ages ago, but I only recently purchased it (for something like 2 Swiss Francs) after trying the freeplay version. It's surprisingly fun and engaging, considering you are in essence chucking birds at pigs. It's actually a bit cleverer than that as it claims to involve physics as they would happen in the real world, and so might potentially teach the bird-flingers about something other than how many shitty red birds it takes to knock a shoddily-built house over and squash as many green pigs as possible in one go.

I've passed many hours playing this app since downloading it about 2 weeks ago, and so far I have not regretted my purchase. It's silly, it's pointless, but it's fun!

7. Blogger

Yep, that's right. I'm writing a post on my Blogger blog about my favourite smartphone apps that includes a reference to Blogger's own app. This app lets you manage the posts of all your Blogger/Blogspot blogs from the comfort of your own phone, should you find yourself computer-less with the urge to write an article. It's easy to use, although the features are fairly limited (no access to stats or comments, for example). If you want a simple interface to write simple articles, this is a good app to get - and it's free too.

8. Twitter

I am a twitterer. A tweeter. I twit. I have twat. I'm not sure if twitter is a verb in this sense and whether or not it can be conjugated, but whatever - I use the official Twitter app to check others' tweets and to send my own. It's very simple to use, which makes it the best app for me.

A while ago, on my old iPhone 3GS, my Twitter app stopped working - it would open briefly when selected but then exit back out to my normal phone screen. I tried deleting it and re-installing it, but couldn't get it to work. This lead me to try other Twitter apps, such as Echofon, Twitterific and Twitbird (as they are all free apps), but I didn't really like any of them. Finally, I noticed that the official Twitter app had an update available through the AppStore, and once I loaded and installed this the app starting working again. Joy of joys! Now I can stalk celebrities again in a legal way.

9. 101 Games

This is exactly what it sounds like - a collection of over a hundred games, all of which are free. Granted, a fair few of these games are crap and haven't been played more than once, but some are real gems. I particularly enjoy playing "White Christmas", which is a version of the classic Reversi/Othello strategy board game. As mentioned above, some of these games are just there as fillers and can be promptly ignored, but others are much better for helping to pass the time when you're sat on the toilet and your Sky Sports app isn't working.

10. Hanging with Friends

I used to like playing Hangman at school, the thrill of trying to guess a word before a little stick man suffers death by hanging. This free app is a variation of the classic game, where you play against other real people by guessing their words and hoping they don't guess yours. It's fun, but the problem is that you need other people to play against, and even then you are often left waiting for hours for them to take their turn. I sometimes imagine I can understand how frustrating it must have been to play chess via penpal.

Nethertheless, this is a fun game, and one that has actually helped to increase my vocabulary; I know now that "QOPH" is a word, and - through a subsequent disbelieving Google search - that it is the 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Who says hangman can't be educational?


Well that's my top ten. I do have other, far less used apps taking up space on my iPhone, but they aren't really worth talking about.

What are your favourite apps?

Random Sunset Photos II

I posted a while ago about some nice sunsets I had seen and taken photos of. Well, I saw another photogenic one the other day while walking near Lac Leman (I can't remember exactly where I was):

And then another one again next to the lake, this time taken from Lutry:

Think these aren't bad. I don't know what it is about sunsets that I like so much, but they certainly make for nice photos.

Will keep adding to my collection in future - watch this space!

2012 is here

Happy New Year!

It's that time again - we have to make resolutions for self improvement. We probably won't stick to them, but at least we show some good intentions.

My resolutions for this year:

1. Be more generous with others
2. Exercise more
3. Stop eating crap all the time

Honestly, 2 and 3 will be the hardest for me. I love fast food and I hate running. But, I want to be healthier in my life - I'm sure my cholosterol is high and my arteries are full of fat, and that's not a good thing. Time to change.

Two years ago I wanted to start training to run a half-marathon. Looking back, that was probably a bit unrealistic. This year, my only goal is to exercise regularly. If I can go out for a jog a couple of times a week, even if it's only for 30 minutes each time, that'll be a good start. I like playing squash as well, so I hope to do that a bit more often.

Everyone makes resolutions that sound like good ideas at the time. Usually they want to lose weight, stop smoking, etc. We always struggle to stick to them because life has so many temptations. This year, I will do everything in my power to stick to mine.

Then again, I might only have to stick to my resolutions until the 21st December 2012, when the world will apparently end. That would be just my luck - I'll be fit and healthy in time to die with everyone else...

I'm pretty sure it's a load of nonsense anyway - something that is very well put in this cartoon:

We will all still be here in January 2013, probably making the same resolutions we made this year, and wondering when the next doomsday theory will surface.

First snow of the season

With one week to go before Christmas, we've just had our first snowfall. It snowed late last night - not a blizzard, but more a light dusting.

Then this morning between 7 and 10am, it snowed some more, so now everything is a little bit white.

Here's what I saw earlier out of my office window:

I wrapped up warm when leaving the house for work this morning, with a hat, scarf and gloves to keep me from freezing. Unfortunately, I didn't think about footwear and wore my almost grip-less shoes. Not a good idea with lots of slippy snow around. Just about made it to the office without falling flat on my face!

Hoping the snow stops now so I can walk home without looking like Bambi on ice.

The Best Knitting Ever

I saw this on an advertising billboard this morning on my walk to work and was quite taken aback.


It is sheer brilliance - in all the history of knitting, nothing has ever been this cool:

I want one for Christmas! I've already sent it to my sister for her approval as she's a knitter (check out her blog here).

McDonalds - is there any limit to their abilities?

Grab those videos!

I've often felt a bit annoyed that YouTube doesn't allow us to download videos from their website. It's frustrating because some of them deserve repeat viewing, and you don't always want to connect to the Internet to do so (would also be great to email some of the videos as well).

This weekend I was making a mock up video of the CSI Miami intro with my daughter appearing at the end, basically because she I had a bit of film of her removing sunglasses in the same way as Horatio does in the series and thought it would be funny. I found the intro clip on YouTube, and knew I wouldn't be able to download it so I attempted to film the clip showing on my laptop using first my iPhone and then my digital camera, but the results for both were very disappointing (poor quality image with light reflected in the laptop screen).

I then did a bit of Google searching to see if I could find the intro clip anywhere on the Internet available for download (for free, of course). After browsing for a while, I came across a website that can download videos from the URL you give it, usually with a choice of file types as well. It required downloading a piece of software, but my anti-virus download scanner said it was safe so I went ahead to see if it would work.

After executing the software, I entered the intro clip URL from YouTube and hit download. The movie file was created in about 10 seconds. I opened it up in Windows Movie Maker and was able to watch and edit the intro clip exactly as I wanted to. Perfect!

I was fairly satisfied with the end result. It probably would have come out a lot better if I was using a better video editing software - Windows Movie Maker is quite limited in it's editing capabilities, particularly when it comes to graphics and titles. I had to make do with the standard tools to produce my little movie, but it still came out more or less as I had imagined it.

Anyway, the website (and software) I found for downloading videos is called "save vid" - I would recommend this to anyone who wants to do the same as I did. The software itself is free and as mentioned above it passed a virus scan so hopefully it's fairly legit. Works well for grabbing those videos!

Not sure if this link will work (I posted the vid to my Facebook profile), but here's the video.

If it doesn't work I'll upload my video to YouTube and put the URL to that on here. That would actually be quite ironic...

 

Random sunset photos

Summertime means more sunlight during the day, and it doesn't normally get dark until later in the evening.

Now that we're getting closer to winter, the days are getting shorter, which means the sun is setting earlier.

I was taking a quick break at work between meetings at work yesterday and noticed that the sun had already started to set:

So I took a picture of it. Nice clear sky, some (possibly) stratus clouds showing yellow and pink hues from the disappearing sun. Not bad at all.

I've taken a few sunset photos over the last couple of years but never really gave them a second thought until now.

Here are some examples:

Can't remember exactly where I took the photo above, but that's definitely Lac Leman in Switzerland, looking towards Geneva. Think it might be a view from the Lavaux region.

The sunset above was taken during a quick toilet break during a long taxi ride on a business trip in Morocco (going from Fes to Marrakech). I have no idea where precisely this was, but it was somewhere between those two cities. The taxi ride lasted about 9 hours, so Morocco is quite a big country.

This photo was taken in Vidy near Lausanne, Switzerland, looking out over Lac Leman. That's the Jura mountains in the background.

I'll have a look for more sunset photos as I've suddenly decided that I quite like them.

Still suffering

Day two of my current battle with Empty Mind Syndrome.

I'm not sure if this is caused by my work, where I have been stuck in meetings for the last two days, but that probably isn't helping.

I speculated yesterday that writing an article on my blog might help me out. It seemed to work but not how I expected - I had a very active mind last night when I didn't need it. Giving a bath and a bottle to a seven month old baby, followed by watching a football match, doesn't really require a great deal of thought. Then this morning I'm back at work and my mind empties again.

I even struggled to read some basic English this morning. Almost as if my brain is unable to link words together into something meaningful, which is not the most useful state of mind when one is attempting to work productively.

I've reverted to using coffee as a stimulant this morning. It isn't working.

There must be a miracle cure out there somewhere for EMS?

Empty mind syndrome

Ever had one of those days where your brain doesn't seem to be in gear?

Imagine you're at work, staring hard at your computer, trying to put together a plan for something. You concentrate on the task at hand, knowing that everything you need to complete your goal is available to you (how to do it, what the required outcomeis, where you can find the information you need, etc.).

Suddenly, your mind goes blank. The things that usually come as second nature are no longer there, as though they have vanished in an instant.

It's not that you don't want to do the piece of work in question. It's not a question of motivation or a lack of capability to do it. It's simply that your brain refuses to function as it does normally.

I'm having one of those days today. Unfortunately I have a deadline to meet, which throws an extra helping of stress on top of the sticky pudding that is my brain. Not helping.

I don't have any miracle cures for when this kind of "empty mind syndrome" occurs, sadly. I will have to try to get through it as best as I can. Usually drinking copious amounts of coffee helps a bit, but even that is failing me today.

Oh woe is me, I hath been foresaken, etc... Guess it'll be a late one at work today. Ho hum.

The daily grind is much more sufferable when my brain works.

I wrote this article in the hope that emptying this onto the web might free up some brain function and get a few synapses firing.

It's a vain hope, I know, but right now it's all I have.

Hey, if it works then maybe I can become some kind of self-help guru and give seminars about the mental benefits of blogging. Watch this space!

Freeze! Police!

Who out there watches all those detective and police shows on TV? There are thousands of them, and I'm probably not exaggerating when I say that.

Here in Switzerland it seems that every channel has at least one cop show per day, from the various CSI programs to Law & Order to Cold Case. I'm pretty sure that you could slump in front of the TV and watch nothing but police dramas constantly for a full 24 hours.

It's not that I'm necessarily against police dramas; some of them can be quite entertaining. I saw an episode of Criminal Minds last night that actually kept me interested until the credits rolled. Unfortunately, the majority of detective dramas tend to be fairly forgettable, especially the one with the over-dramatic ginger man who pauses for an eterntiy before saying something in a forced, gravelly voice, usually after slowly removing his sunglasses and doing a pose that an aftershave model would be proud of.

What is missing for me in this world of monotonous sleuthing is comedy. I know that the producers of these programs want to make sure the harsh reality of policing comes across in their gritty dramas, but the actors should be able to crack a joke every now and then, even if it's just a quick bit of toilet humour.

What we need is more shows like The Thin Blue Line. Ah, now that was a classic show. It only ran for two series back in the 1990s, with a total of 14 episodes, but it was a welcome injection of laughter in the fight against crime. Of course, the main reason why it was so funny was because it featured the irreplacable Rowan Atkinson, a true comedy genius. Every episode had at least one laugh-out-loud moment, and I think this could be ported over to a show like Criminal Minds:

Hotch is hot on the trail of a brutal serial killer. He is standing in front of a white board with various files and photos pinned up, interconnected with lines and scribbles showing the links between victims. Concentrating hard on tracking down the madman, he turns to Rossi for advice. Rossi sympathises with Hotch and attempts to help him find the killer, drawing on his wealth of experience in the Behavioural Analysis Unit. He tells Hotch in his hushed, gravelly voice that the situation reminds him of a case he had a few years back when a man complained that his neighbour had purposely trimmed his garden hedge to look like a bottom.

I would certainly watch that show.

Musical Mind

Does anyone else ever find themselves humming (or singing) a tune that they have not heard played or even mentioned recently?

Why is this?

Is it our brain subconsciously associating a particular piece of music or song to a thought we have had during the day at some point? For example, I found myself humming Shoot the Runner by Kasabian (an excellent, very catchy song, if you haven't heard it) on the way to walk this morning, despite the fact that I haven't heard that song in ages.

Nobody mentioned it to me and I hadn't seen it written anywhere either. Nobody even said the word "shoot" to me, as that might have been a trigger for it.

The only answer I can think of is that I saw someone jogging past me this morning while I was walking to the bus stop. They could technically have been classified as a runner, and although I had no intention or desire to shoot them perhaps my brain came up with this link all by itself?

The mind is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I really wonder how it works.

Letter to Joe Public

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to find your way to my blog. If you are reading this then you have either clicked on a link that I have probably posted myself on Facebook, Twitter or a message board somewhere in the great big wilderness that is the Internet.

Random photo of me holding a fish

Firstly, let me introduce myself. My name is Paul Reed-Peck, I'm in my late twenties and I live in Switzerland. Nothing remarkable to add really, apart from the fact that I am married with one daughter and no pets, and I moved to Switzerland to be with my new wife leaving all my family and friends behind in England and attempting to start a new life. Oh yes, I also met my wife whilst backpacking around Australia and proposed to her in Thailand before finally getting married in Switzerland. So, like I said, nothing remarkable.

I am the author of three blogs, including this one. "Why do you need three blogs?", I hear you ask. Well, the truth is I don't need three blogs. No one does. It would be far more sensible - and easier - to have one single blog to concentrate on as an outlet to the world. That would be far too easy though, so I decided to complicate things a bit and give myself more of a challenge.

This blog is designed to be a place for me to share my thoughts and feelings with the world, as well as giving my two cents on any topical news items that either inspire, bore or irk me. Like Kim Kardashian, for example - why is she famous? Why do I see her picture in every single trashy celeb gossip magazine? (note that these magazines belong to my wife, I just leaf through them to pass the time whilst on the toilet)

Anyway, I digress. From this day forth a new blog is born. A simple, honest means for me to share my pointless musings with anyone who is unfortunate enough to stumble upon it, such as you, dear reader.

Thank you once again for your attention. You may now return to your daily life.

Yours faithfully,

Paul Reed-Peck
AKA Ernie McPeck