The iPhone pizza apps featured in this article are tried and tested methods of ordering your favourite pizza with minimum fuss. Of course some are designed to order all kinds of take-away, so if you’re craving Indian, Chinese, Mexican or something else entirely you’ll only be limited by your local selection. I can tell I’m going to be hungry by the time I’ve finished this.

Pizza Hut (US & AU)

Regardless of what you think of Pizza Hut food, there’s no arguing that they’ve got one of the best mobile apps, at least in the US anyway. Not only do they let you order food and locate restaurants but they also provide a bit of fun, allowing you to construct your meal from scratch as part of the process (or use the app in demo mode without ordering).

Don’t worry, there are quick ways of ordering too (favourites and previous orders) so if you’re in a hurry there’s no messing around.

Currently Pizza Hut have US and Australian apps, though the US edition is better kitted out at the moment. I’d also expect the UK and other parts of Europe to get a similar app before long. US residents can see the full line-up of apps (including Android, iPad and Windows Phone 7 versions) here.

Download: Pizza Hut US @ App Store
Download: Pizza Hut Australia @ App Store

GrubHub (US)

If you’re lucky to live in one of the 19 supported US cities then your pizza and other take-away needs will be satisfied with the official GrubHub app. Featuring more than 20,000 eateries from Los Angeles to Miami to New York, this app will serve up all kinds of food based on the local selections.

The app is loaded with features including GPS location detection, multiple address storage, the ability to quickly order past purchases with a few taps and the ability to save payment information for an even quicker checkout process. GrubHub also has an Android app which can be found here.

Download: GrubHub @ App Store

Snapfinger (US)

Snapfinger isn’t just another restaurant ordering and delivery app, but a listing for pretty much every restaurant local to you. What this means is that though you can’t order from all of the restaurants featured on the service, you do get fairly quick access to menus, phone numbers, prices and the full local selection when choosing where and what to eat.

Ideally this should help you make a more informed decision, even if you have to make a phone call to get what you want. That said, it’s easy to order from those restaurants that are compatible with the service, and of course you can search by cuisine in order to get your pizza fix. The app features more than 500,000 restaurant listings, local eatery discovery and handy features like repeat ordering and directions.

Download: Snapfinger @ AppStore

Menulog (AU & NZ)

I’m currently living in Melbourne, Victoria and have found this service incredibly useful over the past few months. Menulog makes it really easy to order a pizza from the finest local participating restaurants. By now I’ve found my favourite places and meals so ordering takes no time at all. Unfortunately the app is only available on the Australian app store, so my UK account is useless.

Never mind because it plugs into the same great service, providing the same selection depending on where you are. SMS confirmations are usually here within a minute or two, and new businesses are added each week. Now, if only the app were available internationally – for some reason the New Zealand edition is…

Download: Menulog (Home Delivery and Takeaway) @ App Store

HungryHouse (UK)

Unfortunately the UK’s selection of food ordering apps is a bit disappointing at the moment. There are great services like Just-Eat, which sets up many independent businesses with a way to make money online but no iPhone app. Step in HungryHouse, a mobile version of the popular website that features restaurants and deliveries from all over the country.

The service is still growing and at present operates best in large urban areas including London, the Midlands and the North West (Liverpool and Manchester). View more than 3,500 menus, filter by cuisine or simply use your iPhone’s GPS to find nearby restaurants. Even if the service isn’t up and running near you yet it might be worth keeping an eye on it.

Download: HungryHouse @ App Store

Domino’s (US, UK & AU)

Last but not least (or is it?) comes Domino’s, featuring 3 separate apps for 3 separate territories – the US, Britain and Australia. Domino’s Pizza is an entirely subjective experience, so if you like it you’re bound to enjoy being able to order it from your phone. The US version (pictured) appears to exhibit the best design, with the recently launched Aussie version looking considerably better than its British cousin.

Of course all of the apps allow you to order pizza, sides and whatever else you want from Domino’s. That’s the point here, though the UK version does seem to be poorly designed and inferior to the other two.

Download: Domino’s Pizza USA @ App Store
Download: Domino’s UK @ App Store
Download: Domino’s Australia @ App Store

Conclusion

If you thought ordering food in your web browser was easy then your iPhone will delight you. The ability to order anywhere you like, choose delivery times or simply plan ahead is great. Of course this could all have been accomplished with a simple phone call, but that’s no fun now is it?

Hopefully more and more services will launch mobile apps (especially in the UK, which already has some leading online ordering services – but few apps) in the near future to provide an even better selection than we’ve got now.

Do you know of any great iPhone pizza apps for ordering pizza? How about web services? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Image credit: Shutterstock

So, today we’ve pulled together this list of blogs and websites for fun toddler activities for you. Some sites made the list because of how fun and usable their content is, while others have made the list by having a good variety of content for toddlers on hand. This list should have something for you, whether you’re looking for educational fun, outdoor activities, printable pages, crafts or recipes.

1. Quirky Momma Kids Activities Blog

The Quirky Momma Kids Activities blog is a vibrant, interesting blog of kids activities and they make sure to dedicate sections of the blog to showcasing the best activities for each age group, making it easy to find things for your toddler to do.

These writers know exactly how to make up activities designed for the precise needs of growing kids. The toddler games focus on sensory activities, fine motor control, discovery, sorting games and building toys.

2. Play Based Learning

Play Based Learning is written by an Australian duo of early childhood educators, hoping to inspire parents and preschool teachers alike. Their colourful site is full of great ideas for toddler play which can be used by families or groups with more resources.

3. Today Is Fun

Two dads have come together to create Today Is Fun, making the site easy to search or browse by age so it’s easy to find something for your toddler or their older siblings to do. The activity ideas are quite creative and educational and they are colourfully displayed. It’s also possible to browse by handy categories such as “No Props Needed” and “Good For Bathtime”.

4. The Crafty Crow

The Crafty Crow is an aggregator site of children’s crafts with browsable categorising and a decent amount of toddler ideas. They feature and link to great ideas by smaller bloggers. While aggregators have a little less personality than a dedicated blog, they are certainly good at delivering exposure to numerous bloggers and ideas that may otherwise have not been seen by the reader.

5. Filth Wizardry

Filth Wizardry is a one-writer blog, so will never compete with the bigger blogs on the number or frequency of posts, yet it has a lot to give in quality. The charm of this blog is in the belief that kids are messy and that messy fun is great. There are some lovely art and craft ideas and ways to get involved with nature in this blog and it’s possible to browse by useful labels such as “at the kitchen table”.

More Reading For Toddler Fun

These articles might also come in handy for your children:

• 8 Awesome Android Apps To Keep Your Kids Entertained
• Preschool Online Games That Are Fun For Children
• 5 Best Computer Games for Toddlers
• ToddlerKeys Makes Your Windows Computer Baby Friendly!

These websites will offer you a wealth of fun activities for toddlers between them, ensuring you’ve always got a few easy, educational ideas for play up your sleeve. Have fun!

Since there are a great many fantastic blogs and websites for toddler activities out there, we do encourage you to link to your favourites in the comments and tell us why they are the best.

A lot of these toys come from offbeat and novelty shops such as Vat19, ThinkGeek, and others, all of which always present their products with ultra-witty descriptions and videos (especially Vat19). Let’s check out what pieces made it to this round of gift ideas.

Magic 16 Magnetic Puzzle Ball [$11.99 on Vat19.com; ages 3+]

Think of this puzzle ball as 3D Tetris around a sphere, where the purpose is to arrange the 16 colored magnetic pieces around the ball so they’ll completely cover the inner green ball and form a shell.

There are 4 solutions that are printed in a sheet inside the package in case your child has tried his or her best in solving the puzzle. The coolest part is that all the pieces fit inside the green ball for easy storage and portability.

IcoSoKu [$19.99 on Vat19.com; ages 7+]

Here’s another 3D brainteaser that uses a 20-faced shape with equilateral triangles. Your child must first insert the numbered yellow buttons on the many holes of the plastic icosahedron. After that, he or she shall stick the white plates so that the sum of dots matches the yellow buttons.

Since the yellow buttons can alternate randomly, there are numerous configurations and thus, unique ways to solve the puzzle.

Strange Attractor Magnetic Thinking Putty [$14.99 on Vat19; ages 14+]

Silly putty of this caliber is not like regular silly putty. This putty is infused with magnetic particles that will make it stick to paper clips, other magnets, and more. As if that wasn’t versatile enough, your teen can also manipulate it, bounce it, mold it, etc. and handle it like there’s no tomorrow.

The putty is available in black or silver.

Magical Growing Christmas Tree [$4.99 on Vat19]

Now your child can have his or her own mini Christmas tree! Not only that, they can actually see this tree grow to 6’’! That’s right, a few pieces of cardboard will transform into a bushy Christmas tree that your child can then decorate.

The magic lies in a special liquid that your child will pour on the plate where the cardboard pieces are stationed. The miniature tree will come to life in 6 hours. Pretty neat, eh?

The Original Slush Mug [$9.99 on Vat19]

Have a child that refuses to drink some healthy juice? This slush mug turns your child’s naturally-sweetened beverage into a Slushee in 6 minutes.

This doesn’t even have to be an exclusive gift for kids – It’s suitable for individuals of any age.

LEGO Digital Camera [$59.99 on ThinkGeek, shipping only within US; ages 7+]

Does your child absolutely love LEGO blocks? Here’s something different: A fully functional 3 MP digicam that sports a 1.5” LCD screen and offers 128MB of internal memory storage. Oh, and it’s made with red, blue, yellow and green LEGO bricks! Your child can even transfer photos to a computer via USB cable.

LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 [$229.99 on Amazon; ages 10+]

Some middle and high schools actually have Robotics teams where children and pre-teens can build MINDSTORMS robots, learn about teamwork and prepare for district- and state-wide competitions. If your child’s not in in one of these schools, these LEGO Mindstorms might be a good idea (though admittedly expensive) as they help unleash a child’s logic thinking and creative skills.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS consists of a microcontroller brick and programming software to help your child build a robot that can move, complete tasks with its sensors and do anything else that your kid programs it to. You could say it’s sort of like proprietary Arduino for kids. The cool thing is that many of the children that join the Robotics teams or build MINDSTORMS robots not only develop their analytical skills, they also get exposed to science and engineering basics at a young age.

You can see additional MINDSTORMS robot models on the official website.

What cool gifts for kids have you found online? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Gorilla – Shutterstock

Since I am a giant nerd, the first thing I did when I decided to ski was to look for iPhone ski apps dedicated to the sport. It turns out there are a few good ones out there that provide some incredibly useful information for skiers and snowboarders. They offer different features, ranging from mountain conditions to equipment buying guides. With these apps, you will be ready to hit the slopes. Just do not drop your phone in the snow; I can tell you from first hand experience, that will not end well.

Ski & Snow Report

Ski & Snow Report is an awesome application for tracking the conditions at your favorite mountains. This is especially useful at this time of the year, when most of the mountains are still closed and are just getting ready to open. With this application, you can easily store all of your favorite mountains.

The app also has a “nearby” feature, which allows you to check the conditions of the mountains within a reasonable distance of your current location. Not only is this useful for finding out the conditions of the mountains, but you can also use it to find spots to ski that you may not have heard of. Obviously, if you are out of the town, you will probably not be familiar with the mountains in the area, so having an app like this will help a great deal.

The last awesome feature this app has is push alerts. It will tell you whenever one of your favorite mountains receives a fresh layer of powder. You can set the threshold for how much snow it needs to receive before it sends you an alert.

On the Snow Gear Guide

This is an application for finding your new ski or snowboard equipment. After all, you cannot be ready to hit the mountain if you do not have all of the proper equipment. Gear Guide makes it easy to find exactly what you need based on your skill level, gender and sport (ski or snowboard).

When you first start the application, it will ask you the aforementioned questions and show you the equipment that is right for you based on your answers. After all, a new skier does not need to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on high-end skis, when a middle of the road pair would more than suffice.

In addition to the gear guide, this app offers videos and a glossary. The glossary is especially helpful for new skiers who are not familiar with all of the jargon used by more experienced snow sport participants.

AllSnow

AllSnow is another mountain tracking application, similar to Ski Report. It has the ability to find out the status at local mountains. It also tells you lift ticket prices for the mountains you are looking at and provides a link to their website.

They offer complete trail maps of most major mountains. This is very useful if you want to know what kinds of runs the mountains have before you go. The application also has a premium feature, where you can buy runs for various mountains and use GPS to track yourself. It provides information such as time and top speed for runs you have purchased.

This iphone ski app also has a social aspect. Users can leave reviews of mountains and individual trails at mountains. This way, you can find out what you are getting into before you head to the slopes.

Conclusion

I cannot wait for winter so I can hit the mountains. Now that I have these iPhone apps, I will be much more prepared. I know which mountains are open, and I have a better understanding of the gear I need. Now, you will too.

Are you a skier? Did these apps help you get ready for the season? Let us know in the comments!

But how do you track Santa Claus, and what’s the story behind it? To answer both these questions, we head to the principal organization’s website which started it all and is today responsible for tracking Santa Claus.

NORAD

It’s difficult to believe that this half-a-century old tradition started with a wrong number. It’s also slightly ironical that the agency that accidently (but then willingly) took on the task of tracking Santa for children across the world is a military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and its Santa tracker website has all the information about its mission of goodwill. Each is interesting in itself. Click on Why Norad tracks Santa to learn more.

4 Ways Your Little Ones Can Track Santa on NORAD

1. Tracking Santa Claus on Google Earth

On Christmas Eve you can start tracking Santa on Google Earth from the NORAD site itself. The video below gives you a peek into the highlights from last year’s tracking effort.

2. Track Santa with the Help of Mobile Apps

You can countdown to the days when finally Santa hitches his reindeers by playing a game of Elf Toss to help Santa’s elves deliver presents. The mobile apps for Android and iPhone are the official ones from NORAD and come December 24rth, you can show your kids Santa’s progress on your smartphones.

3. Follow Santa With The iGoogle Gadget

If you have an iGoogle page setup, you can add the NORAD gadget to it and track Santa from the homepage. A click connects it to the NORAD site.

4. The Santa Cam Network

Your kids won’t get to see Santa fly-by from the cockpit of a NORAD fighter jet. The next best thing could be the ‘webcams’ strategically placed at many locations around the world. The webcams will only start broadcasting from December 24rth and then they will present your children images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world.

NORAD for all its serious intents and purposes is a fun site. While your kids are waiting for the X-day, you can keep them busy in the Countdown Village. This is a fun Flash game where your kids can discover fun things to do like listen to a song or play a game while they browse around the ‘village’.

NORAD is the principal agency for tracking Santa and you really don’t need to go anywhere else. But if you decide to check out what’s out there, here are a few sites that use NORAD’s Santa tracker and give your kids fun things to do around it.

Northpole.com

This is a family oriented website that gives the family dozens of things to do during the holidays. The site opens with a panoramic view of Santa’s Secret Village. You can click on different houses to enter, leading to a variety of fun activities or stories. There’s the Christmas countdown calendar and ElfChat, a virtual chat app that mimics the way an elf would chat. Your child can also use this site to write a letter to Santa from October 1st through to December 24th each year. Then there’s the link to the NORAD Santa Tracker of course.

When it comes to tracking Santa Claus, nobody does it better than NORAD. And probably Google because with Google Earth, Google Maps and even Google+ on the trail of Santa, you are sure to get his exact fix. So, set your alarm clocks for Dec 24th (2 a.m. EST) but do let your kids know that Santa only pays a visit if they are asleep.

The hardest part about finding a game to play with your kids is that most kid’s video games are not even remotely fun for adults. Most of them are either too simple, too cheesy and, in many cases, just downright bad. On the other side are the games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty, which are games filled with violence that most parents do not want their kids to see. The key is finding one that is safe and friendly for kids, and fun for adults.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii

This game is one of the best games for a parent to play with their child. What makes Mario such a smart choice is that most parents will enjoy it, with or without their children. Every gamer has an affinity for Mario, and being able to share that with the next generation is something special. It is a way to pass down one of the classics.

Mechanically, this game is perfect for adults and children to play together. Nintendo implemented a system where death in the game causes the character to float in a bubble. This way, if the child is struggling to make a jump or complete a section, they can float along in their little bubble while the adult keeps moving forward. This gets the kids involved in the game without them holding the parent back.

Mario has never been a violent game, and that continues here. Of course, you are jumping on enemies heads, but this is always done in a cute and funny way. It never feels or looks like you are actually killing the bad people.

Rock Band

Rock Band might seem like an odd choice when you see people out there who are super hard-core about getting perfect scores on every song. However, Rock Band has a no fail mode, which is perfect for young kids. Parents can play the songs and try to put up the best score possible and kids can wail away and do whatever they want, all while still feeling like a rock star.

As the kids get a little older, they will start to settle in and actually try to play the songs. Rock Band is incredible for dexterity and it is an active video game experience. On top of being fun for adults and kids, it may also lead kids to a love of music, and perhaps, make them want to play a real instrument.

Wii Sports

Wii Sports is the game that launched the Wii into the sales giant it is today, and much of this is because it’s a game the whole family can play. Kids and adults can enjoy the game, and they can enjoy it together. Not only can kids have fun playing Wii Sports with their parents, in some cases, they can even beat their parents.

The controls are easy to understand in Wii Sports. To throw a bowling ball, you make a bowling motion with the Wiimote, to hit a baseball, you swing the remote like a bat and so on. It is intuitive, and it makes sense for both kids and adults.

Dance Central

Everyone understands dancing at the most basic level. It seems like as soon as kids start to walk, they start to dance. Just moving around is well and good, but using that for a purpose is where a game like Dance Central comes in. This game may not be as easy for little kids as something like Wii Sports, but it is not exactly the most challenging game ever.

There is a no fail mode in Dance Central, so if your child just wants to move along to the beat, they can go to town. You, as the adult, can still try to do the movements accurately while your kids go nuts and have a blast doing whatever they please. Like Rock Band, it is a fantastic game to get your kids into music. It will also slowly ease them into games that are a little more challenging.

Conclusion

There are many amazing kid’s video games, and these are just some of the games where kids and adults can have fun together. Over time, you can use these games to transition them into more “hard-core” games. Obviously, you need to wait until you feel they are old enough to handle some of the other things that come along with those games like violence and sexual themes. In the end, games can be a tremendous way for parents and kids to bond over something fun.

What games do you play with your kids? Let us know in the comments.

Cooking and eating the same things every year can get rather boring. True, holidays are all about traditions, but this doesn’t mean you can’t innovate! So check out these 5 fantastic recipe websites which will provide you with all the inspiration you need for this holiday season.

Epicurious

Epicurious is a a true foodie heaven, be it a holiday or not. But when it comes to holidays, Epicurious has you covered no matter what you are celebrating. The holiday index includes almost every holiday you can think of, and for each one you can browse recipes, menus or a complete holiday guide.

When you choose “recipes” or “menus”, you can then browse them by popular ingredients, by dishes (when browsing recipes), browse only vegetarian recipes and so on. The complete guides also include entertaining tips, gifts and wine.

The holiday recipes are not all from Epicurious itself, but come from a variety of different sources. You can view everything without being a member of Epicurious, but if you sign up for a free account you can save recipes, share them, rate and review them and create personal notes.

Pioneer Woman

I have written about The Pioneer Woman Cooks in the past, but I could not write a recipe article without mentioning this wonderful blog again. The Pioneer Woman Cooks is a beautifully crafted blog for your everyday cooking needs, which also boasts a fantastic holiday section.

While not featuring as many holidays as Epicurious, if you’re celebrating Christmas or Thanksgiving, you’re all set. The recipes include entertaining stories about life in the rural United States, and are accompanied by plenty of good photos.

Definitely a place to visit if you’re looking for something with a bit more of a personal touch.

SheKnows

SheKnows deals with much more than food and recipes. In fact, it deals with all the things they believe women should like. Despite the unfortunate name, SheKnows features a great holiday recipe section.

The recipes do not include a huge amount of images, so if you’re the visual type, you might find this recipe collection to be a bit too “texty”. There is no easy way to screen certain types of recipes, but there are a lot of them. So put on your cooking hat and start scrolling for your next awesome holiday dish!

Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart is one name that’s been rather hard to miss in the past two decades. And when looking for good recipes, it’s still a name you can’t ignore. Martha’s website includes a big holiday section featuring all your usual holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah and Mother’s day.

You’re not going to find only recipes here, but also decorations, gift ideas and activities for kids. One of the most inspiring sections is the food gift ideas. If you’re a foodie, or if your friends or family are, you know there’s sometimes nothing better than a holiday gift which is also edible.

Here you will learn how to make cookie compotes, fancy fruitcake, foolproof fudge and much more. They all comes with wrapping and decorating instructions, so you can try to mimic the beautiful little gifts you can see in the picture. There’s even a whole section for gingerbread houses!

Taste Of Home

Taste of Home is another large food & recipe magazine, which provides everything from recipes, videos, and forums to an actual cooking school. But today is all about holidays: Taste of Home features an impressive holiday & celebration section, which includes all your usual holidays, and adds celebrations such as graduations, bridal showers, etc.

The holiday section features the most relevant holidays at the top, but if you scroll down you can find a list of other holidays you can choose from. Once you choose a holiday, you will be able to browse recipes according to dishes and meals: breakfast, dinner, side dishes, main courses, desserts, and more. Each category includes a volley of recipes to choose from.

And again, I must recommend the food gift section, which is a sure way to make the foodie in your life much happier this holiday season.

Bonus: MealPlanningMagic (& More)

If all these huge websites are not really your thing, and discovering smaller more intimate food blogs is one of your hobbies, this is what you’ve been waiting for. This Christmas, many food blogs are holding a “12 weeks of Christmas cookies” blog hop. This means that when you enter one food blog, you can find links to recipes from numerous other food blogs, all about Christmas cookies.

The blog hop seems to be led by the blog MealPlanningMagic, and is very widespread among food blogs. For example, if you go to this blog and scroll all the way down (after you browse the mouthwatering cookie recipes, that is), you’ll find numerous thumbnails to recipes from many other blogs.

If you click one of those, you’ll be taken to a different blog, where you can browse some more Christmas cookies and then find your way to even more blogs. This is a fantastic way to discover great food blogs, and to expand your Christmas cookie repertoire.

Conclusion

Cooking and baking is one of the best parts of the holiday season. Don’t let it be a chore; find some exciting holiday recipes you just can’t wait to make, and surprise your family and friends with small presents that don’t take up precious room in the house (except for the room they’ll take up after eating it all!).

If you know of some more places to find fantastic holiday recipes, we’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Image credit: Shutterstock

I’d like to take you on a tour of two different Android task manager that can help you do this.

Routinely [2.1+]

The first app we’re going to be looking at is free and currently enjoys a four-star market rating with 113 reviews – Routinely.

As you can see, the layout is fairly simple and inviting. The app is made up of a single list of tasks, where each task gets two lines. Unfortunately, longer task names get truncated – you can see it on the last task above, where I’m supposed to check how many veggies we still have. While Routinely is simple, it still offers some options for every task:

You can set the days in which a certain task is to be done; for example, I don’t want to sort out the shelves on Friday, so I just disabled this task on Fridays. You can also set up routine notifications, and configure the time for each notification.

One thing I really like about Routinely is that it lets you see how you’re doing at a glance. Here’s what you get when you tap on a task:

So I cleaned out the coffee table and the sofa just once (today). The calendar view only becomes handy once you’ve been using the app for a while, but it looks like this:

This is a very useful view, both for motivating yourself and for showing others that you have been carrying your own weight around the house. Routinely also offers two simple graphs, showing the total done tasks per month or per day of week.

I really like its simple aesthetic. If you don’t have a complicated routine, Routinely might be the way to go.

Chore Checklist Full [1.6+]

The other app I’d like to show comes in two flavors – Chore Checklist Lite (free) and Chore Checklist Full, which costs around $1.50. I will be looking at the full version, which looks like this:

The first thing you may notice is that unlike Routinely, Chore Checklist supports multiple routines. Whether this is a good thing or not is up to you. Some people may find this needlessly complex, while others actually need it for their complex lives. Each routine has its own settings:

You can set the whole routine to repeat in certain intervals; so you can set up a routine for things you do only once per quarter, or even every six months. The single item properties are similarly complex:

And the screen actually continues down to let you select the reminder type and even the specific sound used for that task:

I’ve been using Chore Checklist for some time now, and I have had an issue with the reminders. The application is superb, but the reminders simply don’t always pop up. After checking with the Chore Checklist tech support, I suspect this is specific to my own device and use case. However, if you plan to make heavy use of reminders, I would suggest you try out the free version first.

Chore Checklist also comes with its own simple widget, which looks like this:

You can select one of five different sizes for the widget. Whether or not you actually want your chores sitting on your home screen is an entirely different matter.

Final Thoughts

I think there is no clear winner here – it all comes down to personal preference. I really like how Routinely looks, and I like the fact that it saves a history of your past performance. On the other hand, Chore Checklist feels more powerful.

What do you think – which one seems better? Or maybe you know of a chore-busting Android task manager that leaves both of these in the dust? Tell us in the comments!

Image Credit : ratterrell

This concern led us to set up an appointment for a hearing test. Of course, always on the look-out for new opportunities to seek out and test interesting software, I decided to strike out on the Internet to seek out a free hearing test application that would let me check my daughter’s hearing myself.

Frequency & Volume Tests With Ear Test

Now, I’m a computer geek, not a hearing specialist. So, while I did discover a pretty cool program called Ear Test to conduct the hearing analysis, it did take a little bit of reading up on hearing tests to figure out the most accurate way to do a proper test.

Ear Test is a high-quality application written by Johannes Wallroth of Berlin, Germany. It essentially provides you with a tool that you can use to vary the frequency and volume of sound in order to test the entire range of human hearing.

Please note: Never use this test with the volume turned way up and wearing earphones, as you could actually cause ear damage. Keep the earphones off, and test the sound turned down. Then put on your earphones and test starting out at the lowest volume again. Carefully increase the volumes only slightly until you can just barely hear the frequencies.

Here’s how you can give someone a hearing test using this software. First, have them sit in a chair facing in the other direction, and let them put on earphones connected to the computer.

The first thing you want to do is slide the volume down all the way to “1″, and lower the frequency all the way down as well. If your frequency step is 100 (you can go as low as 10 if you want), then your bottom frequency will be 100Hz. The best way to get started is to turn the volume down to 1, and put the frequency at about 2000 Hz. This lets the person hear a sound at a safe volume. Now, keep lowering the frequency closer to 10 Hz until the person can’t hear the sound anymore.

Select the frequency, press start, and when the person says they can hear the sound in that ear, lower the volume until they can’t hear it anymore. When they can hear it again, click the “I can hear it!” button. This places a marker at that frequency and volume in the graph at the bottom of the window. Go all the way down the scale to 100 Hz or so, and keep going down until they can’t hear the low frequency sound regardless of volume.

Next, put the volume back down to 1 or 2, and go back to where you started at 2000 Hz. Now you’re going to work your way in the other direction, into the higher frequencies. Make sure the volume is set at the lowest level that the person can hear the sound, then increase the frequency. If they can still hear it, click “I can hear it!“

If they can’t, increase the volume by one. If they still can’t, increase by 1 again. When they can hear it, click “I can hear it!” and move on to the next, higher frequency. Once you get to the top end of the frequency range, you’ll find that you have to increase the volume more in order for them to hear anything. This will show up quickly at a certain high frequency and will degrade into the situation where no matter what the volume, they can’t hear anything at all.

Wherever your slider is located at that point, that is the person’s maximum frequency threshold for their hearing.

Don’t forget to perform the test all over again for the other ear so that you have a fairly good profile of how well the person can hear in each ear. The graph below shows my own hearing test results in my left ear. I apparently can hear a bit better in my left ear than I can in my right – the drop-off occurred much earlier in the my right ear.

Once you’re finished getting your frequency/volume hearing profile using the software and you’re not sure what to make of the results, I recommend EarInfo.com as a good place to go to get started understanding your hearing profile.  The site has different charts that show you what a typical frequency/Db response looks like.

It also explains what to look for if you have “holes” in your hearing in very specific frequency ranges in that graph. What you really want to see is what my graphs look like above – the ability to hear all frequencies in the middle at a common volume level. Some people lose complete hearing of specific frequencies due to inner-ear damage, so if you see any of those in your own results, that’s all the more reason to get to the doctor quickly and have that looked at.

Give the Ear Test software a shot and let us know what you thought of the software and what you learned about your own hearing in the comments section below.

Food and smartphones can be a fantastic combination, and I don’t mean you should stir-fry your Droid. Some of the more recent Android smartphones have large screens (4.3”), and some even come with their own kickstand that lets you prop them up for easy viewing while cooking. All that’s left now is finding a good recipe app that can take you through the cooking process with style.

I’m happy to say that ChefTap perfectly fits that bill… and for a price that can’t be beat. Let’s see what makes it so good.

This is what you see when you first launch ChefTap. By default, the app is populated by recipes coming from Cheftap.com itself, but one of its key strengths is its ability to parse recipes from just about anywhere else and import them into its own interface. We’ll be looking at that ability later, but for now, let’s see what it can do with a recipe that’s already been parsed.

First of all, there are two possible views for the recipe feed: “Pictures” and “List”. The list view looks like this:

You can also star recipes, and view only recipes in certain categories (you need to set up the categories beforehand, though). Now let’s see what an individual recipe looks like… Say, for Cucumber Lime Gimlets:

As you can see, each recipe has two views. The Recipe view looks great for reading the recipe beforehand, when you’re still trying to make up your mind whether or not it’s right for you. The Step-by-step view is for when you’ve already decided to cook, and want to use your phone to guide you through the process. In portrait mode, it looks like this:

When you flip the device over, the app switches into landscape mode, which also includes a list of ingredients:

Once you’ve started cooking, you don’t have to stay within the same recipe. For example, sometimes you may have something in the oven, and want to browse around looking for other ideas. In that case, ChefTap pins your recipe in a “Now Cooking” category, making it easy to access later:

Now, let’s look at ChefTap’s famed recipe import facilities:

You can sync it with your Allrecipes or Epicurious account, which is great. But you can also just browse to any recipe site on your device and share the recipe with ChefTap, and let it figure it out. We’ve recently published a list of 5 awesome food blogs, so let’s test ChefTap with one of those. I like The Pioneer Woman Cooks, so let’ go there on my Android phone:

Okay, so this is a recipe for homemade cinnamon bread. Now let’s try pushing it into ChefTap and see what happens:

You simply share the page (the same way you do for emailing it, for example), and select ChefTap. That’s it! Now let’s go to ChefTap and see what happened:

The recipe appears in the list with all of the other ones, including an image:

Tapping it brings up a view of its ingredients and steps, and includes a direct link to the source:

In this particular case, ChefTap parsed the recipe perfectly, slicing it neatly into ingredients and instructions at exactly the right spot:

This is what the imported recipe looks like in Step by Step view:

Let’s say “1 cup Milk” was actually a step, and tap it to “correct” it:

You can easily change it to a step, title or a subtitle.

What’s Missing

ChefTap is impressive. For a free app, it’s darn near perfect. The only two things I feel are missing is a way to increase the font size in the Step-by- step view, and a built-in unit converter. This particular recipe goes by cups, but some bakers like to weigh their ingredients (they say it’s more accurate that way). A way to convert cups into grams (or whatever weight unit you’re used to) would be an obvious feature, especially given ChefTap’s already impressive parsing ability.

Do you have a favorite recipe app for Android? Tell me about it in the comments!