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Exist app knows if tweets, emails or working out makes you happier

Is there an app that can figure out what makes you happy, productive, and active? Hello Code’s Exist for iOS and Android thinks it can. This app gathers data from your Twitter account, email account, local weather, Google Fit, Withings, Fitbit, Instagram, Facebook, and other accounts to draw conclusions about your moods and behaviors.

The app gives you the ability to add any tag that you’d like to your day like sick, headache, vacation, travel, etc. and will then use these tags with the rest of your correlated data to show you trends for your behavior and activities. Some trends might be that you’re more active on Mondays, or that you say you’re happier on days when you don’t receive as many emails, or that you’re sad on days when you send more tweets.

You can also use the app to track habits like flossing, working out, etc and receive a weekly email showing an overview of everything that happened.

The Exist app is free, but the service costs US$6/month with a free 30-day trial so you can get an idea of what types of info it can tell you about yourself before you actually start paying for it.

These days, we all use so many different services, that it’s interesting to see how the data fits together to form the puzzle of your days and weeks.

Grab the free Exist app at Google Play store or iTunes and visit exist.io for more info.

The post Exist app knows if tweets, emails or working out makes you happier appeared first on The Gadgeteer.

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Exist app knows if tweets, emails or working out makes you happier originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 2, 2018 at 3:08 pm.

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Everyone has a fun new part-time job with HQ Trivia

HQ Trivia is a new app available for iPhones and Androids that has the population going berserk.

It’s a live game show, where the winners of the 12 question trivia match split actual money! Currently, the usual amount up for division is $2,500, but it has been as high as $18,000! Depending on the difficulty level of the questions, people have individually won from $1 to $6,000. The creators of the game say that they hope to increase the prize winnings to $1,000,000 someday.

HQ Trivia is a trusted game; the winnings are given to the victorious via Paypal.

Doesn’t this sound AWESOME? That’s probably because this product comes from the brilliant creators of … wait for it … Vine! Remember those silly seven second loops? Yes, HQ Trivia was created by those guys!

The live game airs at 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays and only once at 9 p.m. on weekends. Usually, about 1 million people sign on and participate in the fun. Download the app and start your fun new part-time job, now!

Get the best purchase price using the Slice app or the price protection features of your credit card

Did you purchase something with your credit card only to discover a little while later that it had gone on sale? If it was only a couple of dollars, you may not be too worried about that, but what if it was $20 or more? The easiest thing to do is call and see if the merchant will do a price adjustment for you and refund you the difference.



You could also use a new feature in the Slice app which will automatically request a refund on your behalf if it finds that the price has dropped on an item you’ve purchased, but you must link your credit card to your Slice account (works only with supported merchants). Here’s the catch: they do this for a 25% cut of your refund. Slice is a package tracking app available for Android and iOS devices and allows you to link up to three email accounts. After which it combs through your messages searching for your online purchase emails. It will then inform you of the shipping status of those purchases.

If you are already a Slice user, when you open your app you may see the first two screenshots above telling you to provide the information necessary to link a credit card with your Slice account to start the process. If you do not see the first two screenshots, then all you have to do is tap on the following: the Menu icon > Settings > Link Credit Card and enter the data to link your credit card (as shown in the right screenshot above).

If you don’t want to have to keep up with price drops then this may be beneficial for you because something is better than nothing. Although in all the time I’ve used Slice (five years or so), I’ve never been informed of any price drops and I know there have been some because I personally have caught at least three.

So let’s move on to a more lucrative process to receive a price drop refund.

Some credit cards have price protection benefits that they offer to their customers (which is different from purchase protection benefits that include coverage for damaged or stolen goods over a 60 to 90-day period from the date of the purchase, etc.). Cards like Discover, Citi, and Chase Freedom provide price protection for their customers such that if the price of an eligible identical item drops at a store (in-store or online) within a 90-day period (60-day period for Citi), they will refund the difference up to $500 per item with a maximum of $2500 per year.

To start the process of obtaining your refund, you must submit a claim by calling the credit card company. With Citi, after you purchase the item, you need to log into their website and go to the Card Benefits section, click on “Start a price rewind”, enter the item in and they will start looking around for better prices for you for the 60-day period. That’s a bit of a pain compared to other credit card companies.

Be prepared to be able to provide receipts, the credit card statements that the items were purchased on, and a copy of the printed or online advertised sales. There are exclusions, so be sure to check your credit card company’s price protection details to make sure your purchase qualifies (Discover, Citi, and Chase).

There are sure to be many other credit cards out there that provide this benefit, so go online or call your credit card company and save some money!

You can download the Slice package tracking app for Android and iOS.

 

Keeping my balance in check with Dollarbird

I’ve been using a checkbook application on mobile devices ever since my first Palm Pilot. It was a simple application, probably cost me a dollar to download and didn’t come with many bells and whistles (and God forbid your battery died before syncing your Palm) but not having to bother with a handwritten checkbook register anymore was a revelation.

Since then, I’ve tried out dozens of finance trackers on my iPhone and the only one that stuck with me was Dollarbird.

What really sold me on their app was the lovely color scheme, simple interface and month view. I haven’t found a more useful display of where my money has gone and how much of it I’ll have left by the end of the month.

This month view has saved my butt so many times.

For instance, if I have a recurring daycare check set up every week and monthly bills, like a car payment, set to come out on the same calendar day, those payments are reflected in the balance at the end of the month, or on whichever day you tap on. I’ll always know how much money I have left to spend in the month after budgeting and setting up bills and transfers.

There’s even a great overview screen that tells you what you spend in each color-coded category every month and if you’re on track to spend that much compared to previous months.

It’s not the most robust budgeting tool, but it works for me and has kept my spending in line for years, now.

In Dollarbird’s recent upgrade, it moved to a subscription-based model in a shift toward catering to partners, families and teams. This isn’t an uncommon move with mobile apps… Ulysses, one of my favorite text editors for both Mac and iOS, just made the jump from flat cost to recurring fees and caught a fair amount of flack for it.

But in this instance, Dollarbird retained a free single-user subscription, which is perfect, because I’m the only one who uses it in my family. It also expanded accounts into a web interface, so you can check your balances from any connected device and also rest assured that your records are backed up online.

Dollarbird is available free on the App Store and Google Play and I really think it’s work checking out if you’re looking for a good budgeting and checkbook application.

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Keeping my balance in check with Dollarbird originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 24, 2017 at 8:00 am.

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Plotagraph iOS image animation app review

The iPhone’s camera can take amazing pictures, but if static images bore you and you want to take your photography up a notch, you need to check out Plotagraph.

What is it?

Plotagraph is an easy to use image animation app for the iPhone or iPad.

How does it work?

First, you take a static image that can be improved with an animated element. The image above looks fine as it is, but wouldn’t it be cool if the water showed movement? Plotagraph can’t do that with just a few clicks.

The app has a very simple interface with the tools at the bottom.

I like to anchor or mask all the parts of the image that I don’t want to animate first. This is can be done using the mask or anchor tools at the bottom of the screen. I like the anchor tool best. All you do is tap around the areas that you don’t want to move.

Then you use the animate tool to draw little lines in the direction that you want the image to move. That’s it! When you press the play button, you’ll see the results which are pretty freaking cool. I’ve exported this example as a 3 second MP4 video clip below.

Pretty cool right? The app will also let you crop the image and adjust the speed of the animation.

Let’s do another.

Water and cloud images are a good choice to animate.

Load the image from your existing camera roll.

Mask off or anchor the area of the image you don’t want to move.

Draw some animation lines.

And check the results. This app is a lot of fun because it’s so easy and fast to use.

Here’s another one saved as a PNG.

In the Plotagraph app, you can choose different time lengths for the clips and export them to your device’s camera roll as an MP4 video or animated PNG. You can then submit them to your favorite social media sites like Instagram or Facebook. Unfortunately, you can’t share directly to those sites from the Plotagraph app.

Watch the video below which shows the whole process.

Final thoughts

I had a lot of fun playing around with the Plotagraph app on my iPhone 7 Plus and my iPad Pro 10.5. Animate images like this remind me of Harry Potter. 😉

I found it was easier to use the app on the iPad Pro just because the screen is larger and it’s easier to do a better job masking off areas that you don’t want to animate. With the iPad Pro, you can also use the Apple Pencil to make things even easier.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned using this app with Android device, that’s because this app is not available for Android devices yet. Supposedly a version for Android is in the works but there’s no info when it will be available.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Plotagraph Inc. Please visit their site for more info and App store to buy it.

 

Product Information

Price: $4.99
Manufacturer: Plotagraph
Retailer: App store
Requirements:
  • iOS device
Pros:
  • Easy to use
  • Transforms old photos into living photos
  • Can't see where there loop starts and ends
Cons:
  • Can't share directly to social media from app
  • No Android version

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Plotagraph iOS image animation app review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 31, 2017 at 9:00 am.

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