This App Could Save your Life

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The American Heart Association has a first aid app that could save your life.  Dan Wholley credits the app with helping him survive for 65 hours after the Haiti earthquake.  he was trapped in the ruins of the hotel Montana.  You can read his story here: Trapped 

Pocket First Aid & CPR Smartphone App

Some of the features include:

• 34 videos and 46 high-resolution illustrations
• Content to make it easier to find help in an emergency
• First Aid and CPR instructions
• Search functionality

You can download it from the Android Play Store, or iTunes

Props to Mari Kay (my sister)

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Do you Know What your Pet is Doing Right Now? and a Cool Star-map App

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A new product for your pet lets you see what it is doing while you are away.  It’s like a fitbit for dogs.   And some very cool star map apps.
GPS and Beyond: Fido Is on the Internet
Whistle
I did a review of the fitbit health monitor a while back, they seem to be all the rage right now.  You can see that review here.  Now a company called Whistle has come out with a fitbit for your dog.  It measures the pets activity level, uploads it to the cloud and compares it to data for that breed.  You can track pooches stats via your smartphone or online.  According to the founder of the company, the idea is that even small changes in activity can allow you to diagnose changes in health.  It costs $99.  You can learn more about it here: Whistle.com

Star Gazing 
As we move into summer, its time to look to the skies at night and wonder,  is that a planet? Or what is the name of that star formation.  There are some great apps that allow you to answer those questions. Most of these apps work in a similar fashion.  Once you have the app open you hold your phone up to the sky and point it in the direction of the celestial body you are wondering about.  Using GPS and your phone accelerometer, it determines which way you are facing and puts the map for that part of the sky on your screen.   It is really amazing the way it works.   For Android users there is the free Google Sky Map.  iPhone users can buy star-walk for 2.99 here.

Props to the Redeye, me, and kooky Beth, because I know she will buy anything for her dog..

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Auto WiFi Login App and Grow Your Own Celery

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If your phone has a metered data plan, you are always hunting for free WiFi.  This app will make the login to various WiFi services a snap. (Connecting to WiFi also conserves your battery) And did you know you can grow your own celery?

The Kitchn shows us how regrow celery using the base that you cut off before using.  Apparently its all the rage.  Just take the base and place it in a dish of water, in about a week it will sprout new leaves from the center.  Then just plant inside or out and in about 2 months you will have a new plant.  Not exactly a way to get all your celery if you use a lot, but I think it’s a fun project.
This is the 3 week photo

WiFi App
WiFi Web Login - Activation  I came across this app that works very well.  Its called WiFi Web Login.  It records the steps when you login to a free WiFi network.  The next time you encounter the same network, it automatically plays back the login steps and you are connected.

WiFi Web Login on Google Play  $1.60 This app if for android but there are several similar apps available for the iPhone.

Here is a review of several apps for the iPhone that do similar things:  About.com

Props to me and the Kitchn

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No-Waste Paste and An App for Your Rewards Cards

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A cooking tip today and an app to keep all your rewards cards handy.  It seems like when you need to use tomato paste in a recipe, you always have some left over.  Here is a simple way to save the paste for later.  And all those store rewards cards. it seems like every store you go into has a card now.  Here is an app to keep track of all of them.

Save leftover tomato paste
From EveryDay with Rachael Ray a great tip on saving the left over tomato paste you always seem to have left over after cooking up a new recipe   Just put some wax paper or parchment paper (See other great uses for parchment paper here) on a cookie sheet and then put tablespoon blobs of the paste on the sheet and freeze.  Once frozen, put them in a freezer bag and you can keep them for your next recipe

Key Ring

An app for both Android and iPhone called Key Ring, will save all your rewards cards on your smart phone.  I have used this app for a while and it is a great way to organize and save your store rewards cards.
iPhone Screenshot 1

You just look up the store, type in the code and the correct barcode or qr code is displayed for you to use at checkout.

As an added bonus, it also displays instant deals for that store, and allows you to create shopping lists.  Give it a try, its free.

Android Play  Itunes

Props to Rachel, Me, and Dee

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Gmail Custom Signitures and A Great IOS (read iPad/iPhone) Weather App

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Today we review an extension for Chrome, (Google’s web browser reviewed here) and an updated weather App for iPad or iPhone.

Wisestamp
I bit ago I reviewed Chrome which is Google’s web browser.  It is faster and has other great features compared to Internet Explorer.  You can read that review here.  One of the features of Chrome is the ability to add what are called extensions.  Extensions are custom apps that enhance functionality of the web browser.  Wisestamp is an extension that allows you to add a custom signature to your emails.  You can add your photo, images, custom colors, and fonts.  You can also but links to your social media sites, or even include your latest Tweet!

Email Apps  You can find out more about it here on their site: Wisestamp.com.

IOS Weather App from Yahoo
Yahoo was one of the first big Internet companies but lately does not seem to be very relevant.  As LifeHacker states, they got it right this time:  ”Say what you want about Yahoo, but sometimes they nail it. The new weather app uses Flickr to find photos of your current city with its current conditions to display the weather on its home page, with a big temperature indicator for quick-glance weather. Scroll down and you’ll see everything else you could possibly want to know: the daily forecast, the weekly forecast, an expandable radar map, wind and pressure, and even information on sunrise, sunset, and the moon phases.”
yahoo weather ss

You can get the app from the iTunes store.  Yahoo Weather
And here is how you can make it the default on your iPhone: idownloadblog

Props to me, lifehacker, and idownloadblog

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Home Inventory Lists, Do you Have One?

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A few years ago we had a fire.  No one ever thinks a disaster will happen to you, until it does.  All our cloths were destroyed along with many other things.  Having a home inventory list would have really helped.  Here are some suggestions on how to make this somewhat painless and be prepared for a fire or natural disaster.

Use your camera  This  may sound simple, but then again have you done it?  Just go around the house and take a picture of every thing.  Open drawers and closets, and don’t forget the basement and the garage.  Inventorying your cloths can be the biggest pain, but one shortcut is just to take several closeups of what is hanging in your closets.  It’s not perfect, but at least that sliver of a view will jog your memory on most items.  And you will have a good idea of the number of things you have.  For stacks of cloths on shelves or in drawers, like sweaters  again just a shot of the stack will do the trick for the most part.
Now the most important part, do not leave the pictures on the phone.  Upload them to a cloud service like dropbox, or an online photo app like picasa or Flickr.  If the photos are in you home, it defeats the purpose of taking them.  Top Ten Cloud Storage Sites

Use an App  There are several apps for your smart phone or tablet that help you do this task.  These apps walk you through the process of taking the inventory and have other features including being able to describe the items, and even putting a value on each.  Lots more work but for those of you type A’s, it may be right up your ally.   From Mashable: Spring Cleaning: 8 Home Inventory Apps to Log Your Stuff  (If you only see one app, click on the little icon in the lower right corner of the first one that says “Open gallery”.)

Props to me and Mashable

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How to Use Your IPhone

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Did you just buy a new IPhone?  Or perhaps you got one a while ago but still feel like you are not getting all you can out of it.  MakeUseOf just posted a great article that describes their in-depth beginner’s guide to the IPhone.  If you don’t consider yourself a beginner, I guarantee you will learn something about your phone you did not know.

From MakeUseOf:  ”The first of a three-part series of manuals from author Tim Brookes, this 14-lesson guide outlines everything from the lock screen to Safari.”

 

 

This online guide includes the following lessons:

  • Lesson 1: Lock Screen & Home Screen.
  • Lesson 2: The Home Button.
  • Lesson 3: Spotlight, App Switcher & Orientation Lock.
  • Lesson 4: Notifications, Badges & Notification Centre.
  • Lesson 5: Calls.
  • Lesson 6: Privacy Controls & Do Not Disturb.
  • Lesson 7: FaceTime.
  • Lesson 8: Camera I.
  • Lesson 9: Photos.
  • Lesson 10: Typing I.
  • Lesson 11: Messages & iMessage.
  • Lesson 12: Mail I.
  • Lesson 13: Calendar I.
  • Lesson 14: Safari I.

READ or DOWNLOAD It Now

Older phone? Check out the iOS5 version.

Props to Make Use Of

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Spring Health Tips

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Spring is a time we think of cleaning and painting projects around the house to spruce things up.  How about sprucing up your body.  Here are some health tips from the University of Tennessee Medical Center for just that purpose.  Let’s get outside and do something!

Here are a few of the tips mentioned in the article:

  • Time for a check up.  When was the last time you had a physical and or your cholesterol level checked?  I thought so.  Pick up the phone and make that appointment.
  • Protect your skin.  Summer is coming and its time to lather up with some sun screen.  Here is an earlier post concerning skin cancer.
  • Get out and do something.  Walking is one of the best exercises you can do.  And if you going to do that, here is a good way to track your progress.  Fitbit.

Here is the full post: 7 Ways to Put Spring into Your Health

Props to me and UTMC

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Sandwich Art and Magnetic Tape

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First some fun, then an organization tip for small items.  We start with a dedicated dad that has drawn a picture on his kids sandwich bags. Then some great uses for magnetic tape. Did you know there even was such a thing?

Sandwich Art
lunch
This is pretty amazing.  A dad has drawn a picture on his kids plastic sandwich bag everyday for over 1000 days.

Click here to see the art.

Magnetic Tape

This was a new one for me.  A very interesting product.  You can purchase rolls like this:side photo 1

Applications are many:

  • Put a strip on the inside of a tool box to hold loose small screws or bits
  • Create a quick magnetic spot for posting important notes.  For example you could put a piece on the back of the door where every your workbench is.  The use any small piece of metal to hold a to do list or shopping list.
  • In the kitchen small metal utensils that get lost in the bottom of drawers could be stored on the back of a cabinet door.
  • Using the second bullet idea, you could put a small piece on the inside of a cabinet to hold a recipe while cooking.
  • Inside the make up table drawer would be a good place to hold bobby pins.
  • Sewing box organization for pins and needles.

Get creative and add your own ideas to the comment section.

The tape can be purchased here: Amazon.com

Props to the Kitchn and me

Flashback Post: A new health app  |  For more tips go to http://tiptomato.com/  |  For a few laughs go to: http://funnycabbage.blogspot.com/.

 

 

 

Rental Car Insurance – To Accept or Not To Accept

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We have all been there, you are standing at the rental car counter and the agent asks:  Do you want the insurance?  Your answer should be no!  The reason is that you already have car insurance, (unless you do not own a car), and you have additional coverage you may not know about.

Post image for Rental Car Insurance: Which Credit Cards Have You Covered

Most of us would pay for the rental with a credit card.  As long as you pay with a credit card, you have additional coverage for damage from the card company.  Things like deductibles and other expenses are usually covered.  Nerd wallet does a great job in summarizing the coverage’s you have using different cards.  In most cases you need to decline the rental car company coverage in order for the credit card coverage to kick in.

Nerd Wallet makes a very important point: “Please note that cards on the same network may have varying levels of coverage. Some issuers don’t offer rental car insurance at all, while others set terms different from the network standard. Please call your bank to ask about your specific card’s benefits.”

See the whole article here: Rental Car Insurance: Which Credit Cards Have You Covered

Going on a trip in the next few months?  Put a link to this post in your online or phone calendar a week before you leave to act as a reminder.  Or if you use a paper calendar, just make a notation to check tiptomato for rental car insurance.  You can always go back to find a earlier post on this site by using the search box in the upper right corner.  It works very well. Just search for car rental and you will find it.  Or copy the information into Evernote.

Props to me and Nerd Wallet

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