More iPad Content Coming

I ordered an iPad from the Apple web site yesterday after confirming that there were no new iPads announced. It came today. That's pretty impressive delivery time for free shipping. I'm actually typing this post on it.

This is my first iPad so expect to have a number of iPad-specific posts sprinkled in with the iPhone and universal app posts. For now, back to exploring my new tool. I'd say new "toy" but, after all, this is Practical iStuff.

Buy or Sell Your Own Instagram Art

I use Instagram as a repository for artistic shots, many which I take with my iPhone 5 and post-process using apps on my iPhone 5.  On rare occasion, I may post something that I like well enough to want to get a physical print of it to hang in my house. Recently I used a service called Instacanv.as to get a canvas version of my own photo. (The one to the right is a 16 inch by 16 inch canvas.)

When you understand that images on Instagram are only 612 pixels by 612 pixels, it doesn't seem to make sense to create prints from photos on Instagram, even though Instacanv.as makes it very convenient to do.  However, Instacanv.as has an answer to that. They claim to use a resizing and optimization algorithm that makes for "crystal clear, crisp images". That sounds like a lot of marketing but my experience was that they did a really good job. My photo was on canvas and was somewhat "painting-like" after my post-processing so there was some room for error, but I could find no pixelation and the printed image looks like the piece of art that I wanted it to be.

Another benefit of Instacanv.as is that you can sell prints of your own. You pick what Instavanv.as photos to add to your gallery and you can add hashtags to your photos on Instacanv.as that are different than what you use on Instagram, though the Instagram hashtags are added by default.  You can also enter a caption and assign a category for each photo to make the photos more discoverable. If you sell an item, which can be a canvas, a framed print, a prism (a 6x6 acrylic paperweight), greeting cards, or an iPhone case, you get 20% of the sales price, which really isn't bad since they handle the display, production, shipping, and collection the money.  As of the time I write this, I haven't yet sold any of my photos yet, and I don't know if I will, but it's nice having that possibility for very little effort (aside from the effort it took to create the image in the first place).

Shortcuts on the iPhone and iPad

Shortcuts on the iPhone is one of those features that you may not know about but are extremely handy  when typing on small iPhone keyboard. Shortcuts, however, aren't very visible because they are tucked away in the Settings app. This little feature can change a quick "omw" to "On my way." or "ctn" to "Can't talk now, in a meeting."

From Settings, choose General, then choose Keyboard. Scroll to the bottom and you'll see Shortcuts and an option called Add New Shortcut...  If you click Add New Shortcut..., you can enter a phrase and a shortcut for it.

The shortcut field is optional, which sounds odd at first. However, it allows you to enter a phrase that you don't want autocorrect to change to something else. One time I texted my wife "Woohoo" and autocorrect changed it to "Elohim", a Hebrew word for God. In the context, it didn't quite make sense. If I had "woohoo" as a phrase, even without a shortcut, my "Woohoo" would have come across the same way I entered it.

iPhoneography: Get That Distressed Look Easily with Distressed FX

There are a multitude of iPhone apps in the App Store that allow you to apply filters to your photo, seeming to promise to turn your photo into a work of art. Many of them produce a washed out, dull look that falls short of this promise. Distressed FX, with some experimentation, will turn a good photo into a work of art.

One of the first things that you will notice about Distressed FX that is different than most "photo filter" apps is that it you have two sets of "filters", one called "gels", which seems to be more about colors (or birds, as I'll explain later), and one called "textures", which contains textured overlays. You can pick any combination of the two and choose the strength for each. You can also choose to control brightness, contrast, and saturation to further fine-tune your artistic creation.

Road Trip with the iPhone with iExit

When taking a road trip, often you know where you are going. In fact, often you get on the interstate and stay on it for hours, maybe transitioning to another interstate somewhere along the way. You don't need directions to your destination but you may need to know what exit has the next restroom or lunch options. You don't need a regular, turn-by-turn GPS for this and you don't want to be searching your map application for restaurants or rest areas while you're driving.

The interstate road trip is the niche that iExit fills. By default, iExit doesn't show a map (though a swipe to the left will show you a map). It simply shows a list of upcoming exits, how many miles to each, and what types of amenities are at each exit. Tap on an exit, and you'll see exactly what gas stations, restaurants, lodging, etc. is at that exit. It's the kind of app that you turn on and leave on during your trip so that you can, at glance, know exactly where to stop and how far you have to go before you stop.

Get Auto Service Estimates on Your iPhone with RepairPal, Before Visiting the Mechanic

Whenever you need vehicle maintenance, such as replacing your timing belt, or repairs, such as replacing a starter, you often have to take your vehicle in to the mechanic before you have any idea how costly it will be. Even then, when you get an estimate from that mechanic, you may not be sure how it stacks up with the cost that would be charged by other mechanics in the area. If you don't know what to expect, you can easily overpay.

What if there were an app that would give you an idea what you might pay for auto service? That's what RepairPal excels at. If you know what you need done, it will provide a low-end to high-end range based on what mechanics in your area charge. For that service, it even explains what the estimate includes, best practices for taking care of the part, common symptoms leading up to the service, and in some cases, common misdiagnoses. With this information, you can go into your neighborhood garage armed with knowledge, not surprised by an unreasonable estimate.

A Staging Area for Quick Notes on Your iPhone

Although I love keeping notes in Evernote, I didn't often use it for taking notes that had to be recorded quickly, like when taking notes in a meeting. There were a few reasons for this:

1. Launching Evernote and adding a new note in the right notebook takes a few seconds. Usually by the time I think of opening my Evernote app, I'll have to have either written my note down on paper or I will have lost it.
2. Evernote offers a lot of features (notebooks, tags, formatting, etc.) that make keeping organized notes very nice. When under pressure to record something quickly, these are a distraction. I find myself wanting to spend time to give my note a title, add tags, pick the right notebook, and make my note look nicely formatted, things I didn't have time to do.
3. Some notes were of a very temporary nature. I only needed the note for such a short time, keeping it in Evernote didn't make sense.