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.

Adding Text to Photos on Your iPhone and iPad

A picture is worth 1,000 words but sometimes a picture needs a word...or two, or three. With your iPhone or iPad and Phonto, that's pretty easy. In fact, it's pretty easy to make your words themselves a work of art.

Like most photo-editing apps, Phonto allows you to take a photo with the camera or import a photo from your albums. From there, you can type in text and easily position it where you want it. You can move the text around by dragging it, or if you need more precise positioning, there are positional arrows for moving the text slowly into place.

Fonts and styles are where Phonto excels. Text, stroke, and background can be any color or a gradient of up to four colors. There are numerous fonts included in the app but, if you don't see one you like, you can add any TrueType font to the app.

To add a font using only your iPhone or iPad, simply search for TrueType fonts in Safari and download one. When you click a link or button to download the font, you'll have the option to Open in "Phonto". This will give you the option to install the font into Phonto and use it on any future photos. No other app that I know of allows you to find, install, and use any font that you want.

Post-apocalyptic Fitness: Running from Zombies

Removing the Monotony from Exercise

Exercising can be monotonous but, working behind a desk all day, it's something I need to do. If I have something that engages my mind, it makes exercise an enjoyable experience for me.  This is why I typically listen to something that I find interesting, usually talk radio, podcasts, or an audio book. I bought a new app for my iPhone over the holidays that makes going for a walk or run a more immersive experience. That app is Zombies, Run!

A Game and an Unfolding Story

Zombie's, Run! is an app that brings gamification to running or walking, and makes it truly a fun experience. It's as much a story as it is a game. In fact, it's a very compelling story that you take part in. Here is the gist of it.

1. You live in world where a disease of some sort has broken out and turned people to zombies. Those who get bit by zombies are doomed to become zombie's yourself.
2. You are Runner 5. Your helicopter was shot down near Able Township, a small fortified town where the citizens are protected by walls that keep zombies out.
3. Because the township needs supplies, runners are sent out to retrieve those supplies, occasionally encountering the zombies that roam the surrounding wilderness. Running is a way of survival.
4. Runners also have other missions, such as drawing zombie's away or saving someone stranded in the wilderness.

Premium Weight Loss Using Your iPhone

I've written before on several occasions about Lose It! for the iPhone, a great tool for weight loss and one of the best free apps in the App Store. You can get a lot of help in meeting your fitness goals by using this app's free features but it has some premium features that are quite compelling if you need a little extra motivation in getting fit.

Challenges

These are a great motivational tool. Here is where Lost It! gets both social and competitive. You can compete with yourself, with others (the public or just certain friends), and even as groups toward some goal. For example, a challenge might be between teams of four on which team can lose the largest percentage weight. You can join existing challenges that others have created or create your own. The challenges can be public or private and you can invite your friends to join with you for added accountability and competition.

You can do all of this from within the app but I found it easier to find challenges on the Lose It! web site.

Apps to Start the New Year Right

It's that time of the year when people have decided to keep a set of resolutions or goals. If you are one of those who set goals for 2013, there are apps for your iPhone and iPad that can help. Here are some that I've written about before that I think are among the best:

Keeping Score on Your iPhone

Around the holidays, you probably take vacation and spend plenty of time with family. Chances are good that you sometimes play card games or board games during this time. Whether you play UNO, Spades, Rook, or some versions of dominoes, you'll need to keep score. Typically, with pen and paper in hand, you tally the score and add up each hand or round in your head.  There's a better way.

Using Score Pad, a free app for your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, you can keep score without doing all the math. I used this recently when I played a game of UNO with the family. You can score up to 7 players and simply touch to add a new score (for a hand in a card game or a round in another type of game). What is really helpful is that you can include simple addition within a score for a single round. Let me explain with an example:

Let's say Bob goes out first in a given hand of the card game he is playing. Bob gets points for the remaining cards in each of the other players hands. Suzy has 12 points worth of cards, Joe has 11 points, and Sally has 7 points. If you are keeping score, instead of adding those up and entering "30" for Bob's score, you can simply enter "12+11+7" as Bob's score. Bob's score will then show as "30" on the score pad.

There are other scoring apps out there but I like this one because it's simple and it's free. Some people will prefer pen and paper but I'd like to keep my mind on the strategy of the game, not adding up scores in my head.