Each of these Android apps are offered for free on the Android Market, but you’ll also find the download scan code for your convenience. If any of these issues are the sort of thing you find yourself dealing with every day, go ahead and give them a try.

Carr Matey Will Find Your Car

So you took your family to the mall, and everyone was excited about a fun-filled day of shopping. You all enjoy a great day – forgetting all about the fact that you’ll eventually need to remember where you parked the car. With some parking lots stretching for acres, it’s not always an easy feat. However, with Carr Matey you’ll never lose track of your car again.

With GPS enabled, the software recognizes where you are. All you have to do is click on “Drop Anchor” and it notes where your car is parked. The pirate theme is kind of cheesy, but it’s also one of the best car locator apps on the Android market.

If you’re using a parking meter and you want to make sure you don’t go over the time limit, just use the built-in timer to alert yourself that it’s time to get back to your car. When it’s time to go back, you can spot your car on the map by the icon of a ship.

You can either walk to your car by following your location on the map until you reach the ship, or click on “Find Vessel” and use the built-in compass.

You can download Carr Matey using this code:

Live360 Offers Family Safety

Another area of major concern, and a source of a lot of stress for many parents, is the safety of children and teens when they’re away from home. An amazing app that can help parents let go a little bit is Life360.

Life360 is like a window to the location of all family members, and the dangers in the area. When you first launch the app, it shows local hospitals, fire departments, police departments and even the registered addresses of local sex offenders.

So, if your preteen wants to go to a party that’s located in a neighborhood where there are 2 or 3 convicted sex offenders living next door, at least you’re better informed to make your decision.

The best feature of Life360 is that it helps you keep tabs on the entire family. Just install the app on their mobile device, and they can check in using the app to let you know that they’re okay.

Install the app using this code:

GTracker Solves Your Grocery Shopping Confusion

Who has time to keep an inventory of the food in your pantry, add those to a grocery list, and then remember to take that list with you? Most of us end up standing in the aisles without any list, because we forgot it at home. Well now there’s a mobile app that can help.

The cool thing about the app is that it turns several steps into one. You go through your kitchen, take inventory of your food, and then you’re done. Taking inventory involves either typing in the details of each item, or just scanning the barcode on each package.

When you see that items in your inventory are down to zero, just click to add the item to your shopping list.

While you’re going through the grocery store, just click off the items as you buy them. The app keeps track of everything.

The application is full of a lot of features, so there’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you get use to it, it’s an amazing time saver.

Download GTracker with this code:

Get Some Rest With Relax and Sleep

I think this is one of my favorite Android apps. There are a lot of people that really struggle to get a good night’s rest, and realistic background noise is the one thing that can do the trick. A cool app called Relax and Sleep provides over thirty amazingly realistic sounds that are sure to lull you to sleep in no time.

Just to make sure you don’t leave it running all night, you can set up the sounds with a timer so that it’ll shut off automatically.

Download Relax and Sleep with this code:

These four Android solutions for some of those simple life problems can really reduce the stress in your life and help you enjoy the things that you really love to do, rather than worry about those little things that you don’t.

Have you ever tried out any of these apps? Do you know of any other cool Android apps that solve some of those annoying everyday problems? Share your own resources in the comments section below.

Image credit: Gary Mcinnes

Many people suffer from poor sleep. They may have trouble falling asleep or they wake up in the middle of the night and are not able to go back to sleep.

Sleep hygiene i.e. controlling behavioral and environmental practices that affect sleep, may provide relief. Sometimes relaxing is the key.

One thing that naturally aids falling asleep is calming white noise. It soothes the mind and helps to fade out nagging thoughts or surrounding noise. Whether you are looking for a way to fall asleep quickly or to calm down for a power nap, free white noise can help.

Here is a collection of six pages that provide different types of free white noise and music for better sleep and relaxation.

RainyMood

RainyMood features a 15-minute high-quality loop of various types of free white noise including gentle rain sound, accompanied by thunder and chirping birds. The site recommends to combine the free white noise with your favorite music, which indeed works very well.

White Noise 24/7

This website offers more than just “a random signal with a flat power spectral density“, i.e. free white noise. You can playback nature sounds, e.g. a flowing river or hard rain, and mechanical sounds, including a washing machine and ventilator. Some of the free white noise can also be downloaded, which is very convenient in case you don’t want to go to bed with your iPod, rather than your computer running all night.

WhiteNoisePlayer

For those of you suffering from Tinnitus or annoying sounds from the outside, free white noise may provide a major relief. At WhiteNoisePlayer you can choose from eight different sounds, like the radio, crickets, or wind and play them indefinitely.

SoundSleeping

SoundSleeping lets you  create your own relaxing sound mix. You can pick from four controllers with nine natural sounds each and a fifth controller with four music sounds. For each controller you can individually adjust the volume. A “How To” explains what the different sounds are good for and what steps you can take to sleep better in general.

Last.fm – Absolute Sleep Music Radio

You can also create a relaxing mix on Last.fm or listen to a dedicated station. This station contains soothing tunes and sound collections that can help you relax. Since the tracks change every few minutes, the station is probably less suited for falling asleep. However, it’s excellent background material for Yoga or Tai-Chi.

NapSounds

Finally, if it’s not sleep you desire, but a short and refreshing nap, give NapSounds a try. You can replay the tunes online or download and listen to them on your favorite mp3 player. Choose from electronic, classic or nature background music or sounds and nap away.

Would you like to nap with music from your iPhone? Check out Jackson’s articles on 9 iPhone Apps To Help Soothe You To Sleep and Sleep Better & Re-Energize On The Go With Pzizz For The iPhone. He also wrote Sounds To Help You Sleep, Relax, Concentrate Or Wake Up!.

What helps you to fall asleep peacefully?

Image credit: qudbyesai

There might be times when we have stubbornly distracting noises or overwhelming thoughts that keep us rolling around in bed, or we do things that make us go unaware of time passing and we are more interested in keeping the activity going than disrupting it. In this state of mind, it’s hard to regain the awareness of our bodily needs, but with the right mindset, a few small changes, and practice, you might be closer to achieving a better sleep routine.

To Improve Sleep Patterns – Prepare mentally

For this routine to work, you should convince yourself of all the benefits you will gain by converting and how much of your body you are damaging by staying in your irregular sleeping pattern (perhaps you can stick a reminder list of these somewhere you can constantly see it). This works the same with exercise: To want to do it, you have to be convinced psychologically of the purposes behind your goals. Now think about a time that you want to shut all electronic devices by and go to bed. Does this time allow reasonable amount of sleep hours till the time you will wake up? If so, seriously commit to these bed times and waking times by setting them as priorities in your head.

Avoid

Now that you have a set time to sleep by, you should also remember to do a pre-sleep ritual that will help you be ready to sleep at that time every day. This includes minimizing and slowly cutting contact with all kinds of electronic devices and stimulants that keep your attention running wild, which instead should be winding down at this phase.

Try avoiding (for best results) or reducing these activities and foods (including fluids which may keep waking you up in the middle of the night to attend to your bathroom needs) within three hours of the new sleeping time:

• Exercise
• Napping in the evening, though there’s extensive research advocating the benefits of power naps during the day, especially to boost your energy and memory up when you are sleep-deprived or you work the night shift. See Aibek’s post on a tool to enrich your naps.
• Smoking (nicotine is a stimulant.)
• Eating fashionably late (a Swiss research study shows that individuals who dined at 6PM had stomach acid 20% lower throughout the night and experimented less discomfort at bedtime than people who dined at 9PM.)
• Big meals
• Sugar
• Alcohol (which may make you drowsy but will definitely awaken more easily later on.
• Caffeine (which lures you in soft and energy drinks, painkillers, and desserts such as chocolate and coffee ice cream and should be avoided within six hours of bedtime).

Adjust

For those who do try to stick to a bed time but end up lying in bed and rolling around for what seems a lengthy amount of time. A number of additional factors may be stopping you from being able to improve your sleep patterns:

• Distracting noises (ear plugs or cotton balls may help.)
• Temperatures (WebMD, a very accessible and good health resource, recommends temperatures between 75° F (24° C) and 54° F (12° C) to ensure a comfortable sleep.)
• Lights/colors (dimming lights of your screen can help you nod off and sleep better)
• Smells
• Thoughts (finances, relationships and a multitude of worries can be dealt with more efficiently at another time, when you can actively think about them.)
• Comfort of the bed (your bed should be comfortable, durable and provide good support. SpineHealth recommends mattresses that support alignment of the spine to prevent muscle soreness and that medium-firm mattresses that allow shoulder and hips to sink a bit may provide more back pain relief. Another MD at the blog suggests which sleeping positions alleviate different back pains.)

Practice

• Associate your bed with sleeping. If you sit on your bed to watch TV, use your laptop or read, you may want to switch places.
• Take a warm bath
• Do some light reading, nothing like a suspense book that will keep your attention up.
• Listen to relaxing music or equally relaxing non-musical sounds from Jackson’s article, and Kaly’s article on SimplyNoise. If you prefer to use your iPhone to present you with soothing sounds while you lie in your bed, take advantage of our promo here!
• Turn off the TV and computer, and dim lights an hour before bed.
• Do some light yoga or tai chi which can help you fall asleep faster (there are some wonderful videos at Prevention), but not right before bed. Studies have shown that people with sleeping problems were able to sleep without waking up for almost an hour when they practiced tai chi. Working out in the late afternoon, is also thought to contribute to better sleep. When you can’t go to the gym, you can try some easy exercises (WebMD has a section on 60-s aerobics and Mayo Clinic’s website has an exercise video collection for desk jockeys) at your desk.
• Try some mental relaxation techniques by a sleep medication website: Sometimes, instead of thinking that must sleep (which can cause you to worry more and stay awake), try thinking that must stay awake for as long as possible. You can also try breathing deeply and thinking that tension in your body leaves as you exhale, counting backwards slowly in different scenarios with your eyes closed, or thinking about floating down and feeling calmer.

Help fellow readers improve sleep patterns by telling us your suggestions in the comments.

Image credits: star5112, herval, SashaW

I’ve tried everything from soothing music to warm milk. Once in a while, they work but more often than not, I’m up until the sun rises. Insomnia is a terrible thing to suffer from and luckily, I don’t really have it that badly.

In the past, I’ve reviewed a couple of web apps that help with sleep. Among all of them, I listed Pzizz first. Their desktop application really helped me fall asleep and it was quite different from the rest of the apps I reviewed. Pzizz uses a combination of soothing sounds, binaural beats and the power of suggestion to help their users with sleep issues.

Unfortunately though, Pzizz is a paid app that will always remain that way. And rightly so — it’s a quality product! You don’t expect Louis Vuitton bags to be cheap or you’ll think there’s a defect somewhere, right? The closest you’ll get to “free” is a 5-minute demo of their desktop app for Windows or Mac.

Their new iPhone applications — Pzizz Sleep and Pzizz Relax are also paid applications albeit much cheaper than the desktop versions. At $9.99, that’s considered pretty costly for an iPhone app although you have to remember, we’re dealing with quality product here.

Luckily, MakeUseOf writers have always been known to go that extra mile. I managed to hook up with Edward Laing from Pzizz Technology Ltd and convinced him that MakeUseOf readers would enjoy Pzizz immensely. He graciously agreed to provide us with a considerable amount of promo codes for their iPhone apps. In turn, we are giving them out to you!

But first, let’s take a look at Pzizz Sleep and Pzizz Relax for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Pzizz Sleep

Let’s start with Pzizz Sleep. I had a really hard time reviewing this app. After ten minutes of listening to Michael Breen and I’d be snoozing. In short, I can testify that it works!

Upon launching Pzizz Sleep, you’ll be shown a warning that certain people should not use this application. It also shouldn’t be used when driving or during other activities which require complete alertness. If you’re not sure if you should be using Pzizz, consult with your medical physician.

Once I was past that, I explored the app a bit and tweaked the settings to suit my needs — track length (between 15-60 minutes), audio levels, etc. Then I tapped on Start and the Pzizz experience began. The concoction of soothing sounds, binaural beats and the power of Michael’s suggestions calmed me down. Like I said, ten minutes later, I was asleep.

Every time you use Pzizz Sleep, a new unique track is played. It’s nothing like other one-track “hypnotic” apps which you can remember what the next line is going to be. That’s what makes Pzizz Sleep such a pleasant experience — it’s different each time.

Pzizz Relax

On the other hand, Pzizz Relax is a totally different application. It’s not designed to help you fall deeply into sleep. Actually, its goal is to help you sneak that 20-30 minute power nap in the middle of your busy day. By blocking the thoughts running through your head and relaxing your body, it essentially re-energizes you immensely to tackle the rest of the day. It’s best used when you’re feeling exceptionally tired or saturated from work. Spend that 20 minutes with Pzizz Relax and you’re refreshed and ready for more. Here’s a personal suggestion: enable Airplane mode before starting your power nap so you won’t be bothered.

Pzizz Relax allows you to set the duration of your nap — anywhere between 10 to 90 minutes. What’s new here is the addition of alarm choices. You’ll need this if you ever want to wake up after the power nap! The soundtrack in Pzizz Relax also differs from Pzizz Sleep since its goal isn’t to help put you to sleep. Rather, Michael suggests a couple of relaxation techniques accompanied by a different soothing background tune, with a hint of the same winding sound that’s found in Coffee Replacement.

Pzizz Sleep and Pzizz Relax are both available from the iTunes Store [iTunes link] and priced at $9.99 each.

Giveaway: We’ve convinced Edward Laing from Pzizz that MakeUseOf readers will appreciate Pzizz for the iPhone and he’s given us a generous amount of promo codes! Valid for US iTunes Store accounts only. To get your hands on an absolutely free copy of Pzizz, either:

1. Share this post on Facebook by clicking on the Share button below or;
2. Click on the retweet button to share on Twitter or;
3. Do both!

Then tell us where you’ve shared it and which app you would prefer: Pzizz Sleep or Relax. Don’t forget to enter your email so that we can get in touch with you. Winners will be chosen randomly. Enjoy!

[Update: The promo codes have been given away. Congratulations to Ame, Doug, Chris, Dan, Diana, Chris, Jay, Lawrence, Jessica and LaShawnda!]

You must be familiar with modern LCD screens, right? If you look carefully, most of them have a button to automatically change the attributes of the screen to adjust for the types of media which is being viewed: one specially tweaked for movies, another for photos, a separate one for text and there’s one we’re particularly interested about — night.

You see, working in front of a computer screen at night raises a particular concern. The fact that you’re staring at a bright screen late at night when your body is supposed to be turning in, disrupts your circadian rhythm. A bit of medical jargon coming your way — during nighttime, darkness permits the production of melatonin by the pineal gland. Melatonin causes drowsiness and in tandem with the central nervous system, controls the circadian rhythm. In layman’s term, all this means is the bright light from the LCD screen screws up your sleep-wake cycle.

That’s why there’s a customized “Night” setting on your LCD. Furthermore, there are several apps that will reduce the brightness of your screen while working at night; Shades is one example of a Mac app that will do just that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the LCD’s reflection off a person’s face at night — it’s mostly bluish white. Technically, the specific colour temperature is 6500K; also known as daylight. That’s right. If you find it hard to fall asleep after using your computer, this is why.

F.lux addresses this issue but it does it slightly differently. Instead of reducing brightness per se, it actually warms the colours you see on your screen and imitates the lighting in the room during nighttime. It’s quite hard to wrap your head around until you actually use it but I’ll do my best to try and explain it.

After downloading and launching the app, it will ask you for your location and the type of lighting that’s in the room — tungsten, halogen, fluorescent or daylight. Based on the information, it calculates exactly when the sun sets in your area and adjusts the colour temperature of your screen to mimic the lighting in the room. Note that the Mac version’s interface isn’t as refined as its Windows counterpart — but it doesn’t matter very much because all of the time, the app is absolutely unobtrusive. There are no pop-ups and you won’t notice it running.

Here’s a short clip to show you how seamless the colour change is. I have to apologize for the video’s quality. The warming effect isn’t visualized in screencasts and I had to resort to using a digicam. The focus is invariably off. The point here is to show you that F.lux can actually warm the screen up quite a bit to compensate for the lighting conditions, especially if the room is lit with halogen or tungsten lamps. I can assure you that the colour changes evenly across the screen, even though it looks “top heavy” in the video.

I’ve been using F.lux for a while and I cannot instinctively tell when the warming appears. It’s a natural transition, which I appreciate. It can also be temporarily disabled in the menu bar to work on colour-sensitive projects. One more thing I have to stress: using F.lux doesn’t mean that you will fall straight to sleep once you’re off the computer and in the bed. No, there are other factors governing sleepiness. F.lux will only help reduce stimulated wakefulness and assist you in adjusting to lighting conditions.

If you find yourself skeptical, give it a try. F.lux is cross-platform and will work on Windows, Mac and Linux. If you think it works, share your experiences in the comments.

I used to resort to a couple of Mac apps to help put me to sleep. Recently, I found something another tool to help me achieve blissful slumber — my iPhone.

I was looking for an iPhone app that would play soothing sounds (something akin to a Sound Machine) like pouring rain or blowing wind (yeah, I’m kinda digging that) to help put my mind at ease. Coincidently, I found that listening to these sounds while falling asleep, I dream less and tend to get a better night’s rest. Although, your personal results may differ.

In my quest to find these apps (the App Store is so cluttered these days), I tested several and found that most of them have slightly different sounds to offer. Each one has its own distinctive motif. So, instead of choosing the best one for me (which may not be the one for you), I decided to list them all down so that you can try for yourselves. So here they are, 9 iPhone apps to help soothe you to sleep.

Custom Sounds of Nature Lite

CSON Lite provides 2 very realistic sounds of nature — Calm Ocean and Mountain Stream. Within Calm Ocean, there is a selection of sounds and the option to configure their presence and volume: Ocean, Seagulls, Wind Chimes and Foghorn. Mountain Stream has a several sounds to choose from as well: Stream, Bull Frogs, Birds and Day Crickets.

Each of the selected sounds loop so they can be played endlessly. CSON Lite also has a built-in timer so that you can listen to the sounds for as long as you wish before the sounds slowly fade away.

iRelax Melodies

iRelax Melodies is free for a limited time and has a collection of 16 very relaxing (indeed!) sounds to put you to sleep –River, Ocean, Flute, Rain, Winds, Music Box, Lounge, Birds, Piano, Orchestral, Waterfall, Thunder, Zen, Fire Camp, Melody and Night — all arranged as post-it notes spanning two pages. The sounds are selected by tapping on their corresponding notes and here’s the cool thing: you can select as many sounds as you want and mix your own customized track!

iRelax also offers a built-in timer albeit only as predefined time intervals of 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 minutes; 1 hour and 2 hours.

eSleep Lite

eSleep Lite is slightly different from your regular sound machine in the sense that it allows you to select 1 background “music” track and up to 3 “noise” tracks. Besides that, it also has a little party piece: it will let you record your own soothing sound to be played as a “noise” track.

eSleep Lite comes with built-in alarm and timer that starts to fade out in the final minute.

Ambiance Lite

Ambiance Lite is not your ordinary sound machine. It is a full-fledge jukebox of awesome sounds. The free app comes pre-installed with three: Large Wind Chimes, Loons and Rain and Thunder II. However, you can download as many sounds as you want for free from their online repository!

To imagine how Ambiance Lite works, think of it as an iPod. You can rate, favourite, loop and shuffle different sounds from the main playlist. It also features the usual timer and alarm functions so that you can set the app to play and drift off to sleep without a worry in your mind! Not bad for a free app!

Naturespace

Boasting holographic audio, Naturespace features five stock environments with 3D sound that are accurately recorded in high definition and seamlessly reproduced to provide you with a realistic experience.

If you’re not the kind to fiddle with settings or customize sounds to perfection but rather, just want a simple app that can help calm you down instantly (and effectively), this is the one you need.

Sleepmaker Storm, Stream and Rain

Sleepmaker’s series of apps are for the serious insomniacs who know what they need to put them to sleep. These 3 apps dish out specific collections of sounds, all targeted at tranquility. Unfortunately, this is also the apps’ weakness. Because they are separated into three distinct applications, there’s no mixing and matching. You are able to only play one sound at a time.

However, the sounds that they offer are pretty realistic. Take a look at their descriptive titles.

In Storm;

• Gentle long rolls with lite rain
• Medium thunder with heavy splatter
• Heavy constant wind storm

In Stream;

• Gentle mouth of brook
• Medium fast flowing stream
• Heavy bottom of waterfall

In Rain;

• Gentle onto forest foliage
• Medium and steady with puddles
• Medium rain against windows
• Heavy torrential downpour

Sleepmaker also produces Wildlife and Waves sound packs but I have yet to review them. Personally, I think it would be easier for end-users if they made one free app with all the sounds packaged together.

White Noise Lite

Don’t be fooled by the name, White Noise Lite has a larger selection of sounds than just pure white noise. Actually, it has several sounds that are pretty odd like Grandfather Clock, Oscillating Fan, Train Ride and Airplane Travel. Although, I must admit, they’re surprisingly relaxing and I grew to like them, especially Train Ride — it is hypnotic!

It also has the usual calming ocean and rain sounds. My suggestion is to try out the other sounds because they may seem weird but they’re actually quite good.

So which is my favourite? I can’t really say. They all have something different to offer. But I don’t see why we have to choose — they all free! Try them out and let me know how they work for you. Are you an insomniac? Do you find it hard to fall asleep? What do you usually do to get yourself some kip?

Well, I’m no doctor but what I do know is that there are tonnes of web apps and tools that you can use to find ways to stay healthy and physically fit. We’ll look at the three main areas of health that affect us in our day to day lives which can be made easier by our web apps; sleep, nutrition and medication for when all else fails!

iSleepDiary

Any doctor will tell you that a good night’s sleep is extremely important. Sleep allows your body to perform at its optimum level whether you’re running a marathon or fighting off a nasty infection.

Basically, in iSleepDiary, you answer ten questions every day about how you slept the previous night. You can see an example in the screenshot where I was asked about how long and how well I slept and about my routines before I went to bed.

All of this is recorded over time and in a few weeks results start to appear as to whether or not you are getting enough sleep and whether you have a sleeping deficiency. This can all be printed out or simply viewed as an easy to read chart in your account.

TwoFoods

Many of us eat food that we think are healthy but in actual fact, they aren’t. This web app will show you the nutritional value in food that we eat every day and it will also compare them to one another. What’s more, it tells you the nutritional value of items without a label such as apples and fresh bread.

In the example above, we compared apple pie and spaghetti. You can see their calorie and other nutritional information displayed below the item. I found this app useful as it raised quite a few warning flags for me. It turns out that spaghetti isn’t healthy if you laze around afterwards! Who knew?

iPills

Everyone, at some point in their lives will be put on medication. It could be antibiotics, anti-depressants, birth control pills (can’t forget that one!) or something more specific to treating an illness. Normally, you’re given strict orders from your doctor to take them at a certain time each day – obviously one of the most important ways to stay healthy is to take your medicine.

iPills is an iPhone app that acts as your virtual pillbox. Instead of simply setting an alarm, your “˜pillbox’ contains all of the pills that need to be taken that day. When you take it, you simply tap the pill (which can be customized to look different to the others) and it goes into the “˜Taken’ box.

Your pills can be set up to re-occur daily, hourly etc. And because it involves almost no interaction other than tapping the pill you just, it’s easy to use and it eliminates the painstaking procedure of organizing it on your iPhone’s generic calendar.

I have selected the three apps above because they all have one thing in common; simplicity. Health issues target everyone, not just web savvy folks like ourselves. Using these apps will get you on your way to being a lean, mean fighting machine. Just remember to eat your apple-a-day!

Which apps do you use to keep yourself healthy and stay in shape?