Buying Apps (and Music) for Cash

I am a big proponent of apps for expanding the capabilities of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.  Most apps are less than the price of lunch at your favorite fast food restaurant and many are less than the price of a bag of chips. In fact, if you paid $199 or $299 for an iPhone and won't pay $0.99 or $1.99 for an app, you are probably missing out on a lot of capabilities for a small fraction of what your phone costs.  The same can be said for the iPad, which you likely paid even more for if you have one.

Given all that, I know that a $0.99 app here and a $0.99 there can soon add up to real money. If you're using your credit card or PayPal account to pay for it, it's easy to lose track and find out later that you spent a lot in a relatively short amount of time. I'm an app junkie and I've found that to better control my spending, I need to pay cash.

Create Motivational Posters on Your iPhone

You're probably familiar with those motivational posters you often see in office settings. You may even be familiar with their funny counterparts sold by Despair.  If you're like me, you've always thought it would be fun to create your own. An iPhone app called Motivational Poster makes that easy.

The app is simply. You choose a photo from the photos on your iPhone, adjust image levels if necessary, add your own caption and sub-caption, and you've made your very own motivational (or demotivational) poster in just a few minutes. I created the poster on the left in about a minute from a photo I had already taken at the Georgia Aquarium.

If you decide to use Motivational Poster to create your own works of inspiration, comment and link to your photo.

Monitoring Severe Weather on Your iPhone or iPad

Today the Southeast U.S. is experiencing severe weather and several tornados have touched down in the region already. If you have an iPhone or an iPad, keep it charged and use it to help you monitor the severe weather. For those of you who haven't my past weather posts, here are a few informative one for keeping an eye out for the bad stuff:

• You Need a Weather Radio: Your iPhone Can Be That
• Tornado Safety Via Your iPhone
• Spotting Tornados on RadarScope
• Weather and iOS: Why Are You Still Using the Built-in Weather App?

Be careful and make sure you have your tornado plan ready.