The purpose of this app is to keep track of your stats while skiing. I hate to quote a line from an infomercial, but with this application, you really just need to “set it and forget it”.  It sits in your pocket while you ski or snowboard and keeps track of everything you do, from your speed, to your slope and everything in between. If there was anything you were curious about in your performance while on the slopes, chances are great that this app will have you covered.

How It Works

Ski Tracks uses GPS to keep track of your statistical information while skiing. It is able to find your location using the phone’s built in location service. The thing that is incredible is that you do not need to manage it manually. It knows when you are on a chairlift. This means it is able to start a new run automatically. You do not have to pull your phone out and fuss with it each time you ride to the bottom of the mountain. It is incredibly impressive.

Since Ski Tracks uses GPS, it can also track where you are on the mountain. This is awesome if you need to see what runs you have missed. In all honesty, the fact this app works as well as it does seems like some sort of voodoo magic to me. I am certainly not complaining, because it has made skiing even better.

Stat Tracking

This application’s main selling point is its ability to keep track of your performance on the mountain. To get it to track your stats, you simply need to open the application on your iOS device and click the start button on the bottom right corner of the screen. From there, you can just throw your phone into your pocket and it will keep track of everything automatically.

I suppose saying it keeps track of “everything” is a little broad and perhaps I should narrow it down. To start with, it keeps track of speed, which was the statistic about which I was most excited. It tracks your top speed throughout the day as well as your average.

Another of my favorites is distance. It lets you know how far you have skied and how far you have ridden on the lift. This gives you an amazing feel for how much ground you have covered throughout the day.

The complete list of stats the app tracks is as follows:

• Speed
• Distance
• Ski Vertical
• Altitude
• Number of runs
• Slope
• Duration

It will also break all of this information down run by run, so you can see how you compared on each run down the mountain. It is impressive just how much this application can tell you about your ski day.

Social Features

After you finish skiing, click the ski icon on the top right corner of the screen to edit the name of your day and give it some information such as the current weather and the snow conditions. Click “save” and the track will be locked in.

After you save the track, you can click the share button on the bottom right of the screen to email it to a friend, upload it to Facebook or send it to your computer with iTunes document sharing. This is an awesome way to show you friends how well you killed it on the slopes on your last trip.

The app will create an album in your Facebook photos and add all of the images there. It will add your charts, maps and any photos you took during that ski trip for all of your friends to see.

Of course, you can also access your ski tracks at any time from the application. This way, if you wanted to see how you did last time at a particular mountain, you can do so quickly and easily.

Other Features

Ski Tracks has iPod controls built right in. You can control your tunes while on the slopes without ever exiting the app. It also features a camera, so you can quickly take photos from the mountain.

They also added a proximity sensor that works similarly to using the phone. It will automatically turn the screen on when you remove the phone from your pocket and turn it off when you place it back. The app has surprisingly low battery drain. I was able to have it running for about 7 hours straight before my phone died. That is impressive considering it is constantly using location services.

On top of these cool features, you can also choose to have the app measure in metric or imperial units, depending on where you live.

Conclusion

This is without question the best ski application I have ever used. It keeps very accurate stats that make skiing a lot more fun. For example, you can try to beat your best speeds or cover a greater distance that you did on a previous trip. This app allows you to take the act of skiing and make it into a competition with yourself. The data it provides is awesome, and it is so useful for any skier or snowboarder.

iTunes Download Link

Image Credit: Shutterstock

The increased connectivity that is afforded by mobile phones and tablets has a distinct dark side – many of the apps and games that we use can reveal our location, one way or another. This is done explicitly – think of the “check in” function on Facebook – or done in a more underhand manner, and if used unchecked can cause serious personal safety and privacy issues.

How does this happen? It’s all thanks to localization, the name given to the way in which mobile phones collect and share data about your location to the apps that you have installed.

Localization – Friend Or Foe?

Included as a feature on all of the currently used mobile phone and tablet platforms, localization doesn’t just rely on GPS to provide your location to an inquisitive app.

Along with GPS, localization can determine your location by triangulating your position from mobile phone towers and even wireless hotspots that you might be connected to. During 2011 we saw how this information can be used by the mobile phone operating system to record your position, and similarly apps use the data to provide a richer mobile experience.

Only apps that have previously been assigned permission can utilize the data. That’s right, the apps have permission. Assuming you are downloading apps from the official store for your mobile device, they will be enjoying your consent to share details of your current location to services such as FourSquare or Google Maps. Permission is generally granted when installing the app, but it might also be given when the software is run for the first time.

The Effects of Disabling Localization

You can of course disable localization, particularly if you have concerns about the way in which the information is being used or shared. Twitter in particular can prove troublesome if you have it configured to share your current location with every Tweet that you send.

The most important thing is to be aware of the risks and advantages that localization can bring to the day-to-day use of your chosen mobile device. For instance, using the Facebook check-in feature can help you to meet up with friends, family or colleagues at a particular location just as easily as it can reveal your whereabouts to stalkers (obviously this can only occur if your Facebook profile isn’t private). On the other hand a game or map tool is unlikely to share your location with just anyone (although Google Latitude will divulge your whereabouts).

Control the Information Your Cell Phone Shares

Taking control of the data that is shared by apps means spending a few moments with your mobile phone and checking the current localization settings. You can use the guides below to help – notice how they are all quite similar.

Android

Altering your Android’s settings so that localization information is not collected is relatively easy. Open Menu > Settings > Location & security and clear the Use wireless networks and Use GPS satellites options under My Location.

BlackBerry

The process can differ between BlackBerry OS versions, but this is generally made possible by opening Options > Advanced Options > GPS and altering the Location Aiding setting to Disabled.

iOS

On iPhone, open the Home screen and find Settings. From here, select Location Services and switch to Off. For disabling localization for specific apps, these are listed on the same screen and can be configured as required.

Windows Phone

On Windows Phone, open Settings > Location to disable all localization data sharing; alternatively if you only wish to disable a specific app from sharing data collected from GPS or cellular triangulation, go to Settings > Applications and find the app in question, flicking the Use my location switch to disable.  If the app you’re looking for is not listed, open it as normal and use the app’s own settings menu.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why you might wish to keep your whereabouts under wraps, depending on who you are, where you live, what your career is, etc. The tips above work for each of the mobile platforms listed and can be used to your advantage, but remember that localization services are provided to make life easier for you.

Thankfully, disabling localization isn’t irreversible, so if you decide at a later date that you would like to take advantage of this functionality simply reverse the steps!

Image Credit: Nachoman-au, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telstra_Mobile_Phone_Tower.jpg

Normally you’d be able to turn over couch cushions or survey the floor, but not now. Now it’s time to rely on your inner geek.

Alert Your Phone Using A Call Or SMS

Your first step when attempting to find a lost phone is to try and locate it immediately using the oldest trick in the book – calling it. However, calling your phone has limitations. You have to constantly re-dial, and what if your phone is on silent or vibrate? You might be able to hear the buzz when you’re at home, but you won’t at even the lamest party.

That’s where apps come in, and Where’s My Droid is the gold standard for finding a lost phone. You can text your phone a pre-designated code word in order to activate Where’s My Droid, which will then cause your phone to ring even if it’s on silent or vibrate.

Where’s My Droid is free and available for Android 1.6 or newer. Other options include Lost Phone, which requires Android 1.5 and up, and Lookout Security, which also requires Android 1.5 and up.

Track It With GPS

If you haven’t been able to locate your phone by activating its ringtone, then your phone may not have been lost in the area you originally thought. It’s even possible you left it at home, or someone carried it off, either accidently or not.

That’s where GPS tracking comes in. Almost all modern phones have a GPS device built in, which can then report location remotely. Apps like Where’s My Droid and Lookout Security & Antivirus offer this feature, as do most free or paid mobile security apps. Some mobile security apps (including Lookout) can provide a rough location even when a phone’s GPS is turned off.

If you did not have the foresight to install a security app beforehand, you can try something like Lookout’s Plan B. This works by installing through the Android Web Market. Your phone will have to have mobile data reception and at least Android 2.0 for this to work.

Don’t count on GPS as a miracle worker. With a phone it is accurate to within a few feet if you’re using it outside, under a blue sky, without any large structures to interfere. Change those conditions and it becomes less accurate. Indoors, under a couch, it may have some trouble. The results should at least be accurate enough to tell you if your phone has left the building, however.

Wipe The Phone & Reset Passwords

You’ve tried ringing your device, and you’ve tried to track it with GPS. Still, no dice. Maybe it ran out of battery, or maybe a thief took it and was smart enough to turn it off and let it sit for a few days or weeks. Either way, your phone’s gone and you don’t know who has it.

In this grim situation you’ll want to wipe data so that your phone can’t be used as an avenue for ID theft or harassment, two rare but troubling possibilities. Most paid security apps, like Lookout Security, will allow for remote wiping of data from your phone.

However, there’s some doubt as to how well this feature works. In a recent AV-Comparatives test researchers were able to recover some or all data from mobile phones after they were allegedly wiped. It it was also possible to access Google Mail account data after the wipe. Only Kaspersky Mobile Security successfully protected Google Mail in the test, which is one of the reasons I’ve been recommending it despite a $9.99 price tag.

There’s always the chance that someone might be able to snatch data before you wipe your phone, however – or they could disable the phone’s networking capabilities, rendering wipe attempts invalid. As such, you should treat the loss of a phone the same as the loss of a computer. Reset all passwords that were stored on the device as soon as possible.

It might also be wise to send an SMS or email to friends and family letting them know your phone is no longer in your possession, as well. They can be on the look for it, and treat any calls or texts allegedly from you with suspicion.

Conclusion

Despite the advanced features in modern smartphones, there’s still only so much you can do to find your phone. Most options rely on preemptive measures. Attempting to locate a phone without a phone-finding or security app is extremely difficult, so don’t doddle. Install Where’s My Droid or a security app as soon as possible.

Have you lost your Android phone before?  If so, how did you locate it?  With one of the above apps or with another?  Let us know your experiences in the comments below.

Geosense is a sensor that can use this technology and feed the data into location-aware applications.

Setting Up Geosense

After installing the sensor, you need to enable Geosense. Go to your > Windows Start menu, search for > location, and select > Location and Other Sensors from the results listed under > Control Panel.

Check the box next to > Geosense Location Sensor and click > Apply to enable Geosense.

To view more information about the Geosense Location Sensor, change its description, change who can access the sensor, and to uninstall Geosense, click on > Geosense Location Sensor.

Now that the sensor is enabled, you can use it with location-aware applications.

Google Maps

To demonstrate the functionality of Geosense, its developers have created a Google Maps demo client, which you can download from the Geosense homepage or through this link (ZIP file). The app reveals your current location on a Google map and allows you to quickly locate facilities in your area.

In my tests, the accuracy was so good that the street address displayed in the Google Maps sidebar diverted only by meters, i.e. it calculated that I was sitting in the house next door.

This location-sensing Google Maps client can be very useful for travelers. When stranded in a foreign city, not knowing your current street address, all you have to do is connect to the Internet, launch the client, and it will tell you right where you are. You can then use the Google Maps > Search nearby feature to look for restaurants, bars, or other public facilities in the area.

We have written many interesting articles about Google Maps, check out some of them here:

• How Does Google Maps Work? [Technology Explained]
• 5 Tips To Perform A Smarter & Faster Google Map Search
• 10 Impressive Spots On Earth You Can See With Google Maps Satellite View
• 3 Awesome Historical Google Maps Mashups
• How to Use Google Maps for Your Business
• How To Create Shared Collaborative Google Maps

Weather Gadget

The Windows 7 Weather gadget for your desktop is a location-aware application. To add it to your desktop, search for > gadget in your Windows Start menu and select > Desktop Gadget Gallery from the results under > Programs.

When the Gadget Gallery has opened, double-click the > Weather gadget and it will load on your desktop.

If it works, you will see a blue WiFi signal next to your location, which indicates that your location is detected. If it does not work, this little icon will be marked with a red cross and it will probably display the default city, which is Seattle, Washington.

More cool Windows 7 desktop gadgets can be found in these articles:

• Top 7 Coolest Windows 7 Desktop Gadgets You Have To Use
• The 7 Best Windows 7 Gadgets
• 7 MORE Windows 7 Gadgets To Make Your Life Easier
• 7 Must-Have Google Desktop Gadgets for Productivity

Another application that supports Geosense is MahTweets, a social network client for Twitter, Facebook, and FourSquare, including multiple accounts for each. Since its release in early March 2011, however, not much has happened and it seems like it has not been developed further. Therefore I will not explore this application further.

Unfortunately, although the Windows Sensor and Location platform and the relevant technology have been around for several years, there are very few location-aware applications for Windows 7. Geosense hopes to “kickstart a pool of cool location-based or location-enhanced applications on Windows 7.” Until further applications are available, the tool remains a fun demonstration of how accurate free location sensing technologies are these days.

If you are concerned about your privacy and don’t want to share your location under any circumstances, be sure to check out this article: How To Disable Or Fake Your Location In Firefox, Internet Explorer & Chrome.

What do you think of this technology? Do you use location sensing on your mobile devices and would you like to see more location-aware applications for Windows?  Or does this kind of thing scare you with its privacy implications?

Image credits: Tobias Machhaus

Well, geo-location apps sure help. You can use these types of applications to check in wherever you’re at and tag things to share with your friends, filling them in on where you’ve been and giving them a brief inside look at what made it so interesting. Most location-based apps focus on letting you share a photo along with your location at the places you visit, but what if they were to take it a step further?

In this article, I’m going to show you the one geo-location app that allows you to attach audio and video to your check-ins, which should help give you (and your friends) some added value around every check-in that you make from here on out.

What Is Clingle?

Clingle is a geo-location app that incorporates multimedia into your check-ins. Like other location-based applications, Clingle utilizes the GPS utility of your mobile device to help you interact with others and share information about the interesting things you see and places you visit.

Clingle makes capturing and sharing moments a rich experience. When you’re out visiting an area, you can use the app to take live video, explore popular places around you, start conversations, or leave messages for friends at specific locations. And if you like, you can also leave them a video, photo, or even audio to further engage them.

What differentiates Clingle from other check-in apps is the inclusion of video into check-ins. One of the things I love about apps like Foursquare and Oink is the ability to add photos to check-ins, which really add to the experience and help users show off a little bit about the places they’re visiting, activities they’re doing, and things they’re seeing. According to Clingle, “It’s the best way to check-in ever!”

The other cool feature is being able to leave messages – called Clings – at places for your friends. These can be in the form of a surprise audio, video, or picture message that friends would then have to unlock when they visit a particular place. Regardless of the type of Cling you leave for your friends, it should be a nice surprise for them once they unlock it.

You can also start a private group conversation with your friends, which you can use to do anything from planning a future trip with them to sharing a song that comes to mind whenever you visit a specific place. iTunes audio can be used as Clings too, which really makes sharing audio easier.

Currently, Clingle works best for users located in the US, UK, India, and Singapore, but you’ll soon be able to use it everywhere. It’s available for iPhone and Android, with support for other devices coming soon as well.

What do you think of Clingle? Will you be adding video to your check-ins?

With Foursquare events, users can be more specific about what they’re doing while they’re in a given location. For instance, if you’re at a popular concert venue you can say which concert you’re seeing; or if you’re at the movies you can let people know which movie you’re at. This gets to the heart of our personalities and tastes, allowing friends to connect more over mutual experiences. That, and it’s fun!

Cool Things To Do With Foursquare

So, if you’ve not played with Foursquare before (or for a while), you might want to refresh your knowledge of the Foursquare check-in service and some of the cool things you can do with it, like using other apps in conjunction with Foursquare to enhance it, automatically syncing Foursquare photos to Flickr and sharing your favourite Foursquare venues using Scoville.

Old-School Foursquare Event Hacks

The basic way people have previously been checking into events via Fourquare is a two-part process. To begin with, you check into the venue as per usual. Then, you follow that up with a shout of what you’re seeing. For instance, check into your local cinema and then type in “Pirates of The Caribbean” to make it clear which movie you are at.

For major events, some people have gone a step further and created a new venue including the event name. For instance, instead of checking into “Botanic Park” while you’re at a festival you’d check into “Womadelaide at Botanic Park” to make it clear that you’re a part of the Womadelaide event there.

But both of these methods are user hacks to do something Foursquare never used to do – That is, to check into events.

Foursquare’s Event Listings

Foursquare itself will now be pulling in information on major events ahead of time to ensure the event is already listed before people start to check in. To bring in the large event details to their database, Foursquare have teamed up with MovieTickets.com for movies, ESPN for sports and Songkick for concerts. These events will be available for check-ins from a few hours before the event begins.

As for functionality, the events are just like venues and you can do the same things with them, such as adding photos, giving tips and adding the event to your to-do list. The only real difference is that they’re more specific and this means your friends know more about what you’ve been doing with your time. Your friends are now able to learn about your movie taste and music taste instead of just which cinema and concert venues you visit the most.

Have a go using Foursquare events with the Foursquare website, iPhone application or Android application. Will you check into events from now on?

But with all of the apps and information we have floating around today, feeling like a local in a strange place should be fairly easy, shouldn’t it? With the tips people leave on Foursquare, the photos they post to Instagram, and the general comments they make on Facebook and Twitter, finding a place you would enjoy should be as easy as cake – and now it is.

What Is Roamz?

Roamz (directory app) is a location-based app that helps you find out what is happening around you. It uses information from your favorite networks like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Instagram and delivers personalized content about the places, events, and activities that are relevant to you.

The more you use Roamz, the smarter it gets. Once it sees the types of places you like to go and the types of activities you like to do, results will become all the more accurate and personalized.

Also, while you’re out experiencing all of these “Roamz moments”, you can share them with your Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare friends as well. And who knows, maybe they’ll be more inclined to join you while you’re out and about.

To view how the app’s makers have described their app, be sure to check out this short video:

Using Roamz

Once you install the Roamz app, you’ll be able to set it up to your liking. You can set the Roamz feed to display results near your current location, or select a custom location to view information about the places nearby.

Feeds are sorted based on distance from the place you choose, and contain photos and comments from other users who have been there.

You can also check out the Popular section, which displays shares by other users that are generating the most buzz. You can find interesting places without a Roamz account, but adding to the content will require a profile.

Roamz also lets you select your areas of interest to help improve results. There are ten categories in the Interests section, which you can opt to turn on or off, including College & Education, Shopping, Nightlife, Bars & Clubs, Restaurants & Food, etc.

When you want to share your thoughts about a place on Roamz, just hit the large Share button at the bottom-center of the app and you’ll be given the option of selecting the appropriate social channel for your content.

Conclusion

As many of you know, I’m really into geo-location applications for mobile devices. In my experience, I’ve found that mostly any app that acts to improve my experience when I visit a specific area is one that is worth checking out, and Roamz is one of those apps. More and more people are beginning to utilize geolocation apps in general, and we’re starting to see the next wave of companies coming along and using the data that’s being created for even more useful utilities.

What do you think of Roamz?  Do you know of any other alternatives, maybe also for the Android?

How would you like to be able to not only recall where you went on your trip, but see photos from different locations and notes you took about events that happened during that time? Well, thanks to GPS technology and everyone’s most trustworthy personal assistant, you can share your trip experience.

In this article, I’m going to show you an iPhone application that can help you do all of that and more. So the next time you take a trip somewhere, no matter how small, you can keep track of those moments you’ll want to remember.

What Is HipGeo?

HipGeo is “the most convenient way to track where you go, take photos, record the world around you, and tell the story about where you’ve been or traveled.” It provides families and groups of friends an easy way to automatically share a moment, event, or trip without sending that information out to the whole world.

HipGeo lets you know where your friends and loved ones are with auto-updates or at your request, and you can use it to share your location, a place, a route, or photos through its integration with Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and email.

HipGeo, as you might have guessed, utilized GPS tracking features to “follow” you around and keep track of the places you’ve been and things you’d like to share. Once you’ve been enough places, you can create a shareable trip to show your pictures and tell your story with an animated map and slide shows.

Using HipGeo

Once you’ve downloaded and installed HipGeo to your mobile device, you can utilize its “Places” mode to track the places you visit (but not your exact routes!). Its background running GPS app is supposed to help HipGeo get the information it needs while also preserving your phone’s battery life.

You can make and share comments and photos along your route, as well as create an automatic journal record of your day, keeping an accurate history of where you’ve been and what you’ve done, which is accessible through the “My Day” one-touch option, as well as via daily emails containing the previous day’s events.

HipGeo allows you to automatically share your location without much effort, or manually share places and routes with friends via SMS, email, Facebook, and Twitter. You can post a place, a travel, or your whole day if you like. Or, you can choose to keep your journeys private with HipGeo’s intuitive privacy controls. You can set your privacy level to “just me”, “just friends”, or “everyone”.

If you’re in the sharing mood, you can also create distribution lists for different groups. And you can easily invite friends from your phone’s address book, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Conclusion

HipGeo is currently only available for iOS devices, but plans are in the works for Android, etc.

I’m a big fan of useful geolocation apps and I think HipGeo is definitely one of them. Whether you’re going on a hike, road trip, or even a pub crawl, you can utilize this app to both share the great moments that happen during your trip and look back at them later on. And if you simply need directions to a place you can’t remember how to get to, you can use it for that too.

What do you think of apps like HipGeo?

Essentially, Gowalla is now about building stories and about travel. Stories are built around your friends’ check-ins and behaviour, showing users when their friends have done something interesting together. Travel guides for top tourism spots have also evolved out of the check-in data in Gowalla. The result is that you want to use Gowalla to plan trips with friends and then to record them for your memories as you go.

Check-Ins Are Still There… Sort Of

Users can still let people know when they’ve visited a place – and are encouraged to by all means! All of your shared activities are used to build the stories with friends and travel guides for all.

On the Gowalla website or smartphone application, search for the “spot” you’re visiting and add a “highlight” about any aspect of the location, upload a photo, like the location or add the location to a list. These activities let people know what you think and where you’ve been.

If you’re a little over all these multiple check-ins, you can connect your Gowalla account with Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook so that you only have to check in once. Head to You > Settings to enable this cross-posting. However, it would be great to have the ability to cross-post the other way around as well. That is, from Facebook and Foursquare into Gowalla.

Stories

Instead of seeing a long stream of disconnected check-ins and photos you’ll now see these as a cluster of events, pieced together as a story. If a handful of your friends all went to the same event, you’ll see all of their check-ins and photos together as the one story, making it far more cohesive, interesting and readable. You’ll also see comments by friends of friends who were at the same events, making the story even more interesting and complete.

Travel Guides

Now, this is where all that information in Gowalla starts to really take shape. Travel guides are pieced together from all the public information on a venue, city or country.

If you check out the guides you’ll see the top cities grouped by country for convenience, so you can browse through them and do a virtual tour. Clicking on a city will show you top locations, recent photos, featured locations and more. It’s easy to click through to other practical traveler-focused information, such as nightlife, food venues and the best lists people have made featuring this city.

These travel guides are filled with real-life things that people have done, seen and recommended, so they’re great for getting an honest perspective on the place before you go. It’s definitely worth adding Gowalla to the list of places you’ll use to research destinations before or while you travel.

What do you think of Gowalla’s guides and stories? Let us know!

This brings its own challenges. With everyone spread far and wide, you may want to keep track of your family or friends. You might also want to watch what you’re eating, lest the candy bars get out of control. Let’s have a look at some apps to solve these problems – and more.

Keeping Track of Family and Friends: Life360

It’s easy to become separated during Halloween, and if you’re a family out for a night of trick-or-treating, that situation can be stressful. It’s not unusual for a child to wander off to check out someone in a cool costume, and usually it turns out fine. But the experience of losing track of a kid for a few moments can ruin the evening.

Enter Life360. This tracking app lets you locate other people (who’ve authorized your tracking of their devices, of course) on your phone using a map. It can be used to track any phone, but tracking those running Android or iOS is free. If you want to track some other device, you’ll have to pay for the $4.99/month subscription.

Best of all, the app seems rather simple to use. I was able to install it, sign up for an account, and set up the app on another phone for tracking within about five minutes. The tracking feature isn’t always pinpoint accurate – it depends on how strong a GPS signal a phone can receive – but trick-or-treating in an outdoors environment should allow for accurate tracking, since a GPS signal should be easy to acquire.

Image Filtering: Pixlr-o-matic

Halloween is the perfect time to make use of your phone’s camera. You’re (probably) in costume, surrounded by people with costumes…this is the stuff Facebook photos are made of!

You may feel, however, that your slightly washed-out phone camera photo doesn’t convey the atmosphere you were hoping for. This can usually be corrected with some simple image filters, and Pixlr-o-matic is the current champ.

It’s really quite simple. Snap a photo (or open it through the gallery) and then add color filters, lightning effects, and a frame. You’re not going to end up with a professional Photoshop job, but you might end up with a nice, campy horror shot. And hey, it’s Halloween – that’s what it’s about, right?

Calorie Counting: Calorie Counter by FatSecret

Halloween can be an intimidating holiday for those on a diet. There’s candy, candy everywhere…and not much accountability, since no one is going to pay much attention if you’re scarfing down candy bars. That’s kind of expected.

Still, some intrepid weight watchers may want to test their willpower, in which case a calorie counting app can be of great use. There are several available, such as MyFitnessPal and Calorie Counter Pro, but the most popular and best is Calorie Counter by FatSecret.

It does require registration, which is a bit annoying (but then again, so do most of the calorie counting apps). Once you set it up, it’s easy to use. The best part is the fact that you can scan barcodes in order to find data, so if you pick up a bag a candy or a candy bar, you can simply scan the barcode instead of looking it up manually.

Should a barcode be missing, however, you can look up via search. There are a lot of entries, and I think the results are less redundant than what you sometimes find with MyFitnessPal.

Gaming: Bubble Blast Halloween Edition

Whenever a holiday comes along, about four million novelty games are uploaded to Android. Most of them are terrible.

If you’d like to get in the holiday spirit, however, Bubble Blast Halloween is a safe bet. That’s largely because this is just a variant of Bubble Blast, made by the same developer, and that’s already known to be a fun Android game. Changing around the graphics doesn’t change the fact that it remains a solid puzzle game that can keep most players entertained for hours on end. Those who are obsessive about being the best will enjoy the global scoring system.

The fact that this game is free, just like the other Bubble Blast games, is just the candy corn on the cake.

Conclusion

What apps do you find useful when it’s time to dress up? Is there an app that you like to use to help stake out the houses that give the best candy? Or is there a camera app that helps take spooky photos? Let us know in the comments!