Apps for New Parents

Someone I know is having a baby and I came across a video podcast that discussed Apps for New Parents: https://twit.tv/shows/android-app-arena/episodes/116 so today's review of apps are all geared toward helping parents to be and new parents keep track of progress, be better informed, and capture the moments of their major life events.

Feed Baby (Free) Android and iOS – Users can track feeding times, types, and sides (breast feeding). Nice user interface. Track diaper changing, baths, sleeping, weigh, height, and much more. The app creates charts and graphs based on data. There is comparison data available from the CDC and WHO.

Website: https://www.feedbaby.com.au/

Baby Day Book (Free: basic, Pro: $3.99) Android only – Users can track food, drink, diapers, activity, temperature, or you can create “other”. The app creates charts, graphs, and a daily summary. Easily track multiple children. App has ads and does not allow you to sync without paying.

Website: http://www.drillyapps.com/

The Wonder Weeks ($1.99) Android, iOS, Windows, Amazon – This award winning teaches you about normal milestones and development. The app tracks the mental health and development milestones of children. App informs users of how to comfort your child through these changes. A bestselling book is also available: The Wonder Weeks: How to Stimulate Your Baby's Mental Development and Help Him Turn His 10 Predictable, Great, Fussy Phases into Magical Leaps Forward. By: Frans X. Plooji

Website: https://www.thewonderweeks.com/

Baby Bundle (Free; with in app purchases) iOS only – Users can track their baby’s daily activities and growth. They can stay up-to-date on health information and keep vaccinations records in order. One of the really nice features is the app’s interactive forum and parenting guide. The app has the ability to turn your phone into a baby monitor.

Website: http://www.getbabybundle.com/

The Bump (Free) Android and iOS – For newborns and parents to be, The Bump offers real-time parenting advice, expert articles and an active community of users. Weekly checklists help users stay on top of everything and the app helps users keep track of the pictures, videos, and memories of their pregnancy and newborn.

Website: http://www.thebump.com/

Hell’o Baby (Free) Android and iOS - Giving you a place to keep all your precious memories, Hell’o Baby is an easy-to-use interactive baby album. You can easily add content, such as photos, videos, or audio, and then share it with your loved ones. The app also offers up a place to insert memories such as your baby’s first words or steps.

Website: https://hell-o-baby.com/promo

WebMD Baby (Free) Android and iOS - WebMD is the first place many people go to check their symptoms or look up health information. This app focuses on your baby’s health, providing advice relating to the child’s age, hundreds of articles, tips, and videos. Weekly updates give users information that corresponds to the health related issues children may encounter at their current stage of development.

Website: http://www.webmd.com/webmdbabyapp

The Many Problems of Yahoo

You may or may not have heard but Yahoo has been in the news quite a bit. First they were being sold to Verizon for 4.8 billion dollars. This was no surprise to people that follow technology because Yahoo has been doing poorly in the last couple years despite acquiring other companies, investments, and changes to the company. Verizon bought Yahoo because they have a lot of online advertisement revenue and technology patents.

Many technology reporters have disliked Yahoo's website, search, and e-mail for sometime. The reason for this dislike was that the company has paid associate and referral payments to companies that sent them users despite many of those companies doing so through malicious and illegal means such as malware, ad ware, and deceptive software downloads.

News recently came out that Yahoo's e-mail system was hacked and 500 million users accounts were affected. It is unclear how long Yahoo knew this occurred but the breach was from 2014 and they just notified the public last month. This Business Insider article claims that the real number of affected accounts is probably closer to one billion http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-insider-hacking-2016-9?r=UK&IR=T and this article discusses who may have pulled off this massive hackhttp://fortune.com/2016/09/29/yahoo-hacked-by-eastern-european-gang-cybersecurity-firm-says/

Then just a few weeks after this happened an insider at Yahoo discussed that the National Security Agency or Federal Bureau of Investigation asked for a real time filter of all e-mails to find and record suspect conversations (Here is a New York Time article discussing it: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/technology/yahoo-email-tech-companies-government-investigations.html?_r=0 ) . It turned out that it was much worse, there was a 'rootkit' on Yahoo's system which may have allowed government employees access to any and all communications that were being made on Yahoo's system http://motherboard.vice.com/read/yahoo-government-email-scanner-was-actually-a-secret-hacking-tool

Why does this all matter to you?
Many articles from technology publications and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have asked that users close their accounts with Yahoo. They say this because Yahoo has not taken security seriously and not protected its users information from the government or from outside bad actors.

While I think that everyone who has a Yahoo account should immediately change their password; I do not think that you should delete your account and the reason that I say that is because Yahoo recycles e-mail addresses. If you have 'ABC123@yahoo.com' and you go delete your account then in 6 months Yahoo will make 'ABC123@yahoo.com' available for someone else. If you fail to inform everyone from your family and friends to that website that sends you reset codes to change your password, it means that someone else will have that e-mail address and may get an e-mail that was intended for you.

If you have an account with Yahoo change the password and try to change all your accounts that have a Yahoo e-mail address as the username / contact to another provider. I have had one employee and a few patrons that have had people try to get into their Apple account, Facebook account, or receive text messages that were "phishing". In one case a patron was called and told that they had been "hacked" and that they needed to purchase protection or assistance. Luckily that patron called me and we were able to determine that this was a scam.

Caller ID / Call Blocking Apps

Recently I listened to a technology program that discussed Caller ID apps. This came up because of a recent story where hundreds of people were arrested in India for running a scam where they called US citizens and pretended to be the IRS http://www.wsj.com/articles/indian-police-detain-workers-over-possible-irs-phone-scam-1475674691 I read another article that was really interesting about how one journalist kept scammers on the phone for a long period of time and learned a lot about their operation http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/10/18/13276464/irs-scam-phone-cartoon .

There are a lot of telemarketers and phone scammers that call these days and they seem to ignore the Do Not Call list that has been created by the FCC. Several app companies have created crowd sourced databases to combat this annoyance. I have reviewed a couple below and each has its strengths and weaknesses.

Hiya (Free) Android and iOS – This app came from the company that created WhitePages.com. They have a really nice interface and users can make calls directly from the app. There are no ads and users can block both calls and SMS (text) messages from various numbers. They have a large database of numbers that is constantly growing.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.webascender.callerid&hl=en

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/truecaller-enhances-your-phonebook/id448142450

True Caller (Free) Android and iOS – As caller ID and call blocking apps go this app has the most users and the largest number database. The app has ads and not the nicest interface, good just not great. I like that when it does recognize a spam number the whole screen is red which screams to me “Don’t answer!”.

Website: https://www.truecaller.com/

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/truecaller-enhances-your-phonebook/id448142450

Whos Call (Free) Android and iOS – This app comes from the same website that a lot of people use as a reverse lookup to see who or what just called them when they don’t recognize a number. I really like the user interface of this app the best but unfortunately it does not have a large database. The lookup feature is the strongest part and when it finds a number in its database it has a good amount of information about it. The app has ads but they are very small and unobtrusive.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gogolook.callgogolook2&hl=en

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whoscall-caller-id-block/id929968679?mt=8

Contactive (Free) Android only – I was not able to try this app out but I found it interesting enough to include it. The app pairs up with the user’s social media accounts so that when someone calls it shows it shows all kinds of information about that person and their picture. It also has a database of telemarketers and scammers. You can browse friends in your contact list and see information from their social media accounts at a glance. The interface looks nice and it has a large database of numbers.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.contactive&hl=en

Alarm Clock Apps

Life Time Alarm Clock (Free with in-app purchases) Android only – styles, lots of tones or music, vibration choices, pre-alarm to wake you gently, snooze settings, challenge to wake you up.

YouTube Video illustrating the app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5xzwNOHhxo

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mcc.alarmclocklifetime&hl=en

AlarmPad (Free or Pro $3.99) Android only– gives you the ability to annotate your alarms, create greeting, receive news and other information for when you awake, reminders, sound settings, vibration settings, dismiss methods, challenges, NFC or QR tag requirements to shut off alarm to make you move

YouTube Video about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FMLXJmyL6A

Free version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindmeapp.alarmpad&hl=en

Pro Version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindmeapp.alarmpadpro&hl=en

Rise Alarm Clock ($1.99) iOS only - nice looking simple clean app, lots of sound options, multiple background options, you can set alarms for multiple days, can play tunes to put you to sleep, set how you want the alarm to shut off (shake, swipe, or tap)

Website (has a nice video to illustrate): http://rise.simplebots.co/

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rise-alarm-clock/id577221529

Alarm Clock Pro (.99) Android and iOS – This app has the alarm display that you might remember from the 80’s and 90’s with the large bright digital numbers. You can keep the time on if your phone is plugged in. It will give you sound options, gentle wake, news, weather, local information.

Website: http://www.ihandysoft.com/apps.html

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ihandysoft.alarmclockpro&hl=en

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alarm-clock-pro/id335678373?mt=8

Sleep Cycle (Free with in-app purchases) Android and iOS – This alarm seeks to wake you during the lightest portion of your sleep cycle. You choose a 15 minute window in which you want to wake up and it determines how asleep you are based on the noise and vibrations from your bed. You can choose sounds and vibrations. It gently wakes you up and records how well you slept.

Website: https://www.sleepcycle.com/

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.northcube.sleepcycle&hl=en

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock/id320606217?mt=8

YouTube Video Review by Suchas Nadiga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isCiHWV-rKg

CARROT Alarm ($2.99) iOS only – This app is unique it tries to wake you up with silly robotic (or alien) voice that threatens or mocks you until you shut it off. To get a better understanding watch the app developer’s video trailer below.

YouTube App Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysNLJ03SzTk

Website: http://www.meetcarrot.com/alarm/

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/carrot-alarm/id623700355

Wake Alarm Clock ($1.99) iOS only – This alarm has a beautiful design and uses a natural interface (in simple terms this means users swipe and use gestures on the screen instead of pushing buttons). To set the alarm you can swipe the time or speak it. To turn off the alarm you can: slap, swipe, shake, or flip. You can use it on an iPad as well as an iPhone. The website has a cute video illustrating all the features on its website.

Website: http://www.tinyhearts.com/wake/

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wake-alarm/id616764635?ls=1&mt=8

Apps for the Sight Impaired

Mobile devices can assist those with sight impairment in many different ways. Today I am going to highlight some apps that provide that can assist those with sight impairment.


LookTel Money Reader recognizes currency and speaks the denomination. This app assists users with visual impairment recognize and count bills. By pointing the camera at the currency the app speaks the amount and displays the denomination in a high-contrast font. The app recognizes 21 different currencies. This app is free and is available on iOS (Apple) devices.

LookTel Money Reader Website: http://www.looktel.com/moneyreader
LookTel App in the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nantmobile-money-reader/id417476558?mt=8


EyeNote is a similar app created by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that also recognizes currency but only from the United States. It is also free and available for iOS (Apple) devices.

EyeNote Website: http://www.moneyfactory.gov/currencyidmobileapps.html
EyeNote in the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eyenote/id405336354?mt=8


IDEAL U.S. Currency Identifier was created in part by the Department of Education. This also recognizes and identifies U.S. currency audibly and visually. It is free and available for Android devices.
IDEAL U.S. Currency Identifier in Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ideal.currencyid&hl=en


LookTel Recognizer can recognize everyday items. It speaks and displays text about the item. It can also use the barcode of many items to audibly explain what the product is to the user. The app costs $9.99 and is available for iOS (Apple) devices.

LookTel Recognizer Website: http://www.looktel.com/recognizer
LookTel in the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/looktel-recognizer/id501088555?ls=1&mt=8


KNFB Reader scans documents and then reads it aloud or can provide the text using a Braille display. This app uses some amazing technology and does a number of complicated tasks to quickly translate the printed word into speech or Braille. The app provides assistance to users to help them scan. It allows users to import or export documents. It works for multiple formats and languages. The app is $99.99 and is available for iOS (Apple) and Android.

KNFB Reader Website: http://knfbreader.com/

KNFB Reader Overview Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti0vd78D-AI

KNFB Reader in the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/knfbreader/id849732663?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

KNFB Reader in the Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sensotec.knfbreader


Bonus: A while back I suggested the app Duolingo. It's free and helps users learn a foreign language. It's still one of my favorite apps and I still use it each day to work on my Spanish. They added a new feature to the iOS (Apple) version of the app, the feature is a chat bot that allows you to practice the language conversationally. This article has some pictures and explains a little more in-depth https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/06/duolingo-language-learning-chatbots/