Bottom-Line Performance

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This week’s app is “SayHi Translate”, an extremely impressive “Pocket Interpreter” that will enable you to quickly translate phrases that you speak out loud into many different languages. Your conversation can also be translated the other way, with your communication partner’s response also being translated back into your primary language.

It may sound complicated, but it really isn’t. The app’s design is incredible, it’s hard to imagine it being any more simple to use. The design mimics a text-messaging conversation between two people (one blue, one green). The blue represents the Primary language chosen, and the green side represents the Secondary language. The application defaults to English and Spanish respectively, but you can set either to one of over 30 available languages in the settings menu. When you tap one of the supported languages and speak it, it automatically translates the text of what you said into the message window, and then speaks your phrase out loud and provides the text of the translation as well. This let’s you not only confirm what it is attempting to translate, but visually see the translation once it is completed. An entire conversation can be maintained within the app, and then selectively shared via email, text message, Twitter, or Facebook.

In addition to providing a handy way for you to quickly communicate with someone that doesn’t speak your language, you can also use this app to practice your fluency and pronunciation with a foreign language you are trying to learn. By tapping on the Secondary button you can speak in that language and have it confirm with you what it heard, and then translate it back into your Primary chosen language. By using the tool this way, you can practice your speaking skills and work to perfect your intonation and clarity.

I absolutely love apps like this that provide multiple uses, are cleverly designed, and leverage the ability of my iOS devices in new and interesting ways. Throw in the fact that it’s a universal app that works on both the iPad and iPhone with a single purchase and this one is easy to recommend.

SayHi Translate – [.99] (Universal App)

Note: This app is currently on sale for .99 and will be $2.99 after a introductory period.

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This week’s app is “Pocket”, an really cool way for you to store various content that you find on-line and want to read or watch later. Perhaps the best way to think of Pocket is to imagine it as a DVR for the internet. Let’s say you were reading Steve Boller’s great post “Trainers: Is Gladwell’s 10,000 Rule a Hoax? ” and didn’t have time to finish it. With Pocket, you would just save it for later and finish it when you had time, across any of your devices or computers.

Now your first thought might be “I can just bookmark a link in my browser”, and of course that’s true. However a browser bookmark typically stays tied to that browser and that computer, you likely aren’t setup to have it automatically populated out to each of your devices. Also, when your app syncs on a given device, it also stores the data locally so you don’t have to have a constant internet connection to read what’s in your Pocket. There are other apps out there like Instapaper that provide similar services, however with it’s recent redesign, Pocket (formerly “Read it Later”) has absolutely raised the bar in design and functionality. Extending the value of Pocket, many of the most popular Apps for content consumption like FlipBoard, Zite, Twitter, and more provide methods for saving your content directly into your Pocket account.

While some have expressed concern about the negative impact that technology and the internet in particular has had on long-form reading, there have been indications that the iPad is providing some relief to this trend. Apps like Pocket can help you save meaningful content for later and get the most out of your digital tools. When viewing your content you can sort it by image, video, or text and you can even apply tags to your content to help with later sorting and retrieval.

So what will you keep in your Pocket? Do you think apps like this can help sustain long-form content in a byte-size world?

Pocket – [FREE] (Universal App)

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This week’s app is “Make My Own Puzzles“, a handy puzzle creation tool from Jeff Lowry. This very easy to use app will let you quickly build simple or complex word search or crossword style puzzles that feature content that you provide!

However, the puzzles that you create aren’t for playing in the app or even on your device. Instead the app provides you with the ability to export your puzzles as PDF, PNG, or JPG images that you can then print out or include as part of other material. You aren’t just restricted to exporting the puzzles either, the app also allows you to generate a version with hints or a full answer key as well. You can specify the grid-size of your puzzles and dictate the order of the content and the directions that your entries are displayed within the puzzle.

Our fantastic learning experts at Bottom-Line Performance have talked in depth about the fundamentals of gamification in learning, and one could argue that traditional puzzles like word search or crossword apply the some of these techniques in a fundamental way that has helped them stay relevant for over 100 years. Do you think your next training event would benefit from using an app like this one to create a customized puzzle with your content?

Care to try your hand at my technology-influenced crossword (hints provided!)? I will gift a copy of the app to the first person that provides the correct answers in the comments, think you can solve it??

Make My Own Puzzles – [.99 (Limited time)] (Universal App)

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This weeks’ app is Infographics, which provides you with an ongoing selection of informative and fun infographics from Column Five. Whether your interested in learning more about the “Profile of a Self-Described Mac User Vs. PC User“, or you want to dive into the demographic makeup of “Who Are Social Gamers?“, you’re bound to find great content that you’ll find useful and entertaining.

Packaged in a simple, but effective design, the app gives you with most of the features and functionality that you are likely to want.  Your primary navigation is by topic, including News, Business, Tech, Education, Offbeat, and more.  In addition to providing a search field for you to seek out specify content that you are interested in, you can also mark your favorites for later retrieval or share them via Twitter, Facebook, or email.

With the abundance of information in my regular data stream, I find reviewing a well-designed infographic to be a refreshing way to absorb data and consider the relational impact that the designer is using the data to convey.  If you do too, I encourage you to download this app and check it out for yourself!

If you do install it and find an info graphic you think is particularly effective, share it with me on Twitter (@bpenticuff) and let me know what you found most compelling about it’s design.  I’d enjoy hearing from you!

Infographics – [FREE]

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This weeks’ app is Textastic, an extremely powerful text-editor for the iPad. While Textastic is suitable for creating any simple text file, where it’s power really shines is in its syntax highlighting and completion support for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP, allowing you to finish complex code samples with a keystroke. If you’re not a programmer, what this means is that Textastic will recognize the format of over 80 different programming languages and provide color-coded highlighting automatically while you create your code, making it much easier to read and work with.

So how does an app like this fit into your workflow?
For me personally, I have multiple websites that I’m responsible for maintaining. Whether it is checking in on the server status or applying hot-fixes to a web-app, when we have an update that needs to be made, we need to make it right away. Before this app (and the iPad in general), that meant lugging around a laptop and all of the necessary support items (power, internet, case.) Now with a full-featured editor like this one, I have everything I need with a fraction of the weight/hassle. For example, with our Knowledge Guru eLearning game product, I can just about anywhere but still login and apply an update if needed at a moment’s notice.

In eLearning, content is and will continue to be king. However, we can’t overlook the vital roll that programming and media development play in providing effective mediums to carry those messages. Tools like this one empower developers by expanding their reach and flexibility. Textastic raises the bar for what is possible with productivity on the iPad and allows users to work differently, and that’s a great thing.

If you’re a programmer, what features would you like to see added to Textastic? If you’re not, what’s your dream productivity app that would help the iPad become an even more effective tool for you and your workflow?

Textastic Code Editor – [$9.99]

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

Mobile app developers know the mantra: make sure it works on every platform!

It can be difficult to make an app work on every version of iOS, let alone every Android tablet. When company’s decide to standardize their hardware, the developer’s job becomes considerably easier.

We were thrilled when Cummins approached us about their need for an easier way to rapidly author RFPs. We asked a simple question: “Want an App for that?” It was clear that their was opportunity for a unique approach to RFP creation.

The end result: a beautifully efficient application called Cummins EasyRFP developed exclusively for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

 

Dustin used the rapid authoring tool Screenr to produce a simple walk-through of the app. But don’t take our word for it:

What do you think? Are mobile applications a viable solution to improve workflow and productivity in your organization?