Last week was the first of three installments of Keeper Columns! – a compendium of my favorite apps and websites from my column this season. If you missed it (or any of my columns), visit Ocean Reef Press to read Dot.calm in issues going back as far as 2014. This Keeper Column! – Part Two is a handy list for summer fun, rainy days and retail therapy:
Recipe for a Good Summer:
The Big Oven Recipes & Meal Planner app bigoven.com puts summer meal plans and recipes at your fingertips with the added bonus of a recipe scan which lets you upload handwritten, typed or web-based recipes and keep them in its Recipe Box for safe keeping.
Schooled in Fishing:
The Fish Angler app fishangler.com lets you crowdsource where the fish are biting anywhere in the world, along with uploaded photos and exact longitude and latitude. It’s kinda cool.
The Fishtrack app by Seakeeper and roffs.com offer cloud-free sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll imagery tides, moon phases, marine weather forecast overlay, bathymetry (whatever that is!), ocean currents, and sea surface height.
Dog Days of Summer:
This summer, let the kids work with you to train Rover: try the Puppr training app puppr.app or Dogo – Your Dog’s Favorite App – both with tons of tricks and step-by-step instructions – perfect for your pup’s personal training.
For some in-gene-ious fun, discover your dog’s DNA story with the Embark Dog DNA Test embarkvet.com – the official dog DNA test of the Westminster Kennel Club.
Rainy Days and Mondays:
For rainy days, try the Masterclass app masterclass.com brings online-learning to a whole new level of intellectual stimulation. Browse the catalog and find your muse.
The Great Courses Plus app’s motto is Learn Anything About Everything. No homework, no tests. No pressure. Just you, over 10,000 in-depth videos, and the world’s greatest professors: thegreatcoursesplus.com.
The Official NY Times Crossword Puzzle app features the same great daily puzzles from the Times. Practice on the easier Monday crosswords as the puzzles get harder each day of the week.
Peak Brain Training peak.net, Lumosity lumosity.com, and Elevate elevate.com are fun memory apps that use neuroscience and daily games to help train your brain and improve memory.
This summer surprise your family with personalized Bingo Cards you print at home with the wordmint.com puzzle maker. Go to the browse section for a list of ideas and sample puzzles.
Curl up with a Good App:
Pulling the covers up high and curling up with a good book helped the time go by. I always seem to be at a loss of what to read next on my Kindle until I started turning to Amazon amazon.com/books and their Omnivoracious Book Reviews amazonbookreview.com. Its gazillion books are filtered by categories like 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, Best Books of the Month and Year, and Celebrity Picks.
Visit Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org (or download its Gutenberg Reader app) to find over 100,000 books that are free to download or read online. You can also visit YouTube.com or its app to search for and listen to free Audible Books (nice for long drives).
Shopping Must-Haves:
The RetailMeNot app retailmenot.com lists promotional discount codes and coupons for stores across the country and online. Why pay full price if you don’t have to?
The ShopSavvy Barcode Scanner app shopsavvy.com scans the barcode of any item and finds the lowest price in local shops and online retailers – great for stores offering Price Match Guarantees.
Giftadvisor.com makes buying gifts a breeze with a search broken down by age, relationship, personal interests and price, with wonderful off-the-beaten-track gift ideas.
Warby Parker is a discount designer eyewear app warbyparker.com which scans your face for instant virtual try-ons. It’s fun and easy (and the grandkids will have fun with it too).
The Wayfair app wayfair.com and Houzz houzz.com are cool Augmented Reality homeware apps that superimpose 3D images magically on your smartphone’s view of your room.
The Real Stuff: Send your favorite items off to a new forever home or rescue some of the “good stuff” from designer consignment website and app The RealReal therealreal.com – the leader in authenticated luxury consignment.
The Magic Card: Just like the “magic” Ocean Reef card, instead of caring cash, use Apple Pay apple.com/apple-pay, Zelle zellepay.com and Paypal paypal.com to pay for most everything, and send money or pay bills to people through texts.
Under the Weather:
Baptist Health’s Care on Demand app offers 24/7 instant specialized video care. Select from available online Baptist physicians for virtual home visits. No appointment necessary and very handy wherever and whenever you need to literally “see” a doctor. (Find it in the App Store or visit baptisthealthcareondemand.net to get started).
The Carezone app carezone.com makes it simpler to take care of yourself or a loved one. Quickly scan prescription bottles and the names and dosages are automatically added to the app. Receive reminders. You can invite doctors or caregivers to share the app with you (it also includes a to-do list, appointment reminder, photos of all documents, a healthcare journal and tracks blood pressure, blood glucose, headaches, etc.).
Work it!:
Can’t get to a gym? The Qinetic app qinetic.com streams live online workout classes by certified instructors and has an on-demand offline video library (for when there is no wifi) with hundreds of archived workouts with names like Ten Minute Plié and Fat ASSassin.
Stay-tuned for Part Three next week!