App and Website Review – August 2016
The following reviews are provided as an FYI. Our desire is to provide our DASNR clientele with information about mobile/tablet apps and websites that assist in their professional (and personal) lives. Should you have questions about a particular app being mentioned, please feel free to contact the individual listed in each review. If you use an app that may be beneficial to others, let us know and we’ll help spread the word!
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Remind is a great tool for sending text messages to groups without sharing your personal phone number. It is a popular tool in education to send reminders to students and parents about upcoming events, deadlines and trips. And the best part, it’s free to create an account. Apps are available on both Apple and Android devices. If you are looking for a great tool for reaching groups of people, check out Remind!
—Cynthia
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OpenTable (Android / iOS) is a great app for making a reservation for restaurants. You can search for places near you or by name. It allows you to search via how many people you have, date, times, price, type of cuisine, and even special offers. Once you book your reservation it will allow you to add it to your calendar on your device so you can receive reminders. You can also cancel, change, or modify your reservation in the app. A few other perks of OpenTable is that it shows reviews, ratings, the menu, and usually pictures of the restaurant. I have used it for over a year, and the only downfall is that not all restaurants are in the app, but they are growing. Its a great app for convenience and finding new places to dine.
—Mike
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Lookout is a security app that regularly updates and scans your device and its apps for malware. Lookout has free and paid for versions that run on both iOS and android devices. The free version of Lookout also backs up your contacts and helps you to find your device even if the battery is dead. I highly recommend it and have it installed on multiple personal devices.
—Levi
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Parkmobile is a handy app for paying for parking in controlled (metered) locations. The company has locations across the US; in Oklahoma, Tulsa and OSU-Stillwater are included in their services. You register your vehicle with the app and make payments for parking through it, rather than at the parking meter. The app will notify you when your time is about to expire and allow you to extend it without having to return to your vehicle. The app is available for Android, iOS, Windows, Amazon Fire and Blackberry.
—Scott
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Office Lens (iOS/Android) is an app developed by Microsoft that uses your mobile device’s camera to capture whiteboards and documents and save them as PDF’s, import them to OneNote, or create editable Word documents or PowerPoint files. With built in OCR (Optical Character Recognition), you can scan printed or handwritten documents and edit them on your computer later. In Business Card Mode, it can even extract the contact information and save it to your address book. Save images to your device, OneNote, or upload them to your OneDrive for Business account.
—Bronson
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During her July “Social Media Updates” webinar, Lindsey Davidson provided information about two useful tools for graphic image development:
- “Landscape” from Sprout Social is an image resizing tool.
- gifmaker.me is a site that allows you to create gifs.
If you are interested in an image resizing or image compression tool and feel overwhelmed by Photoshop, look at resizeimage.net which provides free image resizing, compression, and conversion tools.
—Dwayne
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