Latest app reviews

Real estate agents are getting nervous. In the past, they kept a lot of information pretty close to their chests and spent half their time attempting to keep the buyer and seller apart to maximise their commission. And with rates often at between 5% - 6% that's a significant amount of money that they are trying to protect. But things are changing fast. Gone are the days when it was all down to neat little photos of available properties in the real estate window. These days, according to the National Association of Realtors, 92% of buyers are using the Internet to search for a new home and ...  More

Life used to be so simple didn't it? Back in the early days of the computer generation the only things we really had to worry about were 'spam' and viruses. We seem to have eradicated most of them these days but now we seem to have a much more insidious problem - people cyber hacking into our emails, our bank accounts and our social media networks and causing massive problems. Whether they are cloning our identities or attempting to steal our hard earned bitcoins - it's all bad. According to the American President it could be the Russians, the North Koreans, the Chinese or a 400 lb hacker ...  More

Many years ago there used to be characters called spruikers who stood outside of shops and restaurants extolling the virtues of the goods that were sold inside. You still occasionally see and hear them now but it's a bit of a dying art. They would orate like a town cryer and inform anyone walking by of the great things on offer inside and were an essential part of high street shopping. These days, with virtually every shopper holding a smartphone, there are more effective ways of grabbing the attention of potential customers.  More

I read with sadness this week that, after 66 years as one of the UK's most iconic music papers, the New Musical Express was to cease its weekly print publication. Over the years it has provided music fans all over the world with up to date information about everything that was happening music wide. Personally, it taught me so much about music and turned me on to countless new bands. It's no coincidence then that this week sees the emergence of a new music app that could well end up taking the place of many of the traditional music hubs.  More

We've all heard how video games are potentially bad for our kids development. They spend too much time on them. They socially isolate them and stop them from getting the right amount of exercise. They're bad for their eyes. Someone even suggested that they can cause brain damage!!! However, I was reading an article recently that detailed the opposite side of the argument. It highlighted the positive side of educational games for kids and discussed how they could be used to improve a child's focus, help them with their problem solving skills and boost their creativity as well as reducing ...  More

Many small business owners think that most of the hard work is done the second they've got their business website up and running. They tend to think that they've done all they can to make life easy for their customers and all they have to do now is to sit back and wait for the calls and enquiries to come in. I've got some bad news for them. While that may have been the case early on in proceedings, it certainly isn't true anymore.   More

First up I have to say that I could hardly be exposed as an expert on bookmark organizers. However, one thing i do know is that I can recognise a useful app when I see one. Here we have what looks like a very handy app that can be great either for students or for professional and semi professional content presenters. Kobble is a new app for iOS that lets the user instantly create and organize great looking content whether it be for the simplest of note taking, blog or wiki creation, business presentations and slideshows, work or school projects, official papers or just your homework. ...  More

Okay, here's the scenario. You have the day off work and you fancy a well organised game of basketball, a competitive soccer kick around or an afternoon of surfing. The only trouble is, your friends are mostly at work themselves and can't help you out. So, what do you do? Trawl the likes of Facebook and search for possible likeminded individuals who might want to play? Head for the local sports area and hope there's a few people hanging around? Or do you just head to the local pub and take your chances there'll be a few likely candidates who aren't too drunk yet? I think it's safe to ...  More

What do you do when you are planning to invite a whole bunch of people to a wedding, a gala opening or a birthday party? Do you pick up the phone and start calling, whip round to the local stationers to get invites printed up or start messaging? We've all had to do it at some stage in our life but it's hardly an efficient way of going about things, is it? Especially in this digital age when other options are available. Apart from anything else, it's hard to keep track of everyone and involves a heck of a lot of paperwork...not to mention brain power. Naturally, there's an online answer to ...  More

I read an article not so long back about how some New York restauranteurs were banning customers from taking arty photographs of their plates of food because it disrupts the ambience of the venue. Rather than surreptitiously taking a quick snap of the food they were about to devour, diners were going so far as to stand on their chair to get the perfect shot of their culinary delight. While we can only sympathise with restaurants who are having to put up with these excessive antics from customers, I feel that they are probably missing out on a great marketing tool that could make them even ...  More