Four apps that make life easier

  • By Sven Mogelgaard Tech Talk
  • Friday, July 17, 2015 5:38pm
  • Business

There are literally thousands of apps available for your Android and iOS (Apple) devices.

The number of apps for Windows phone is rapidly growing as well. It can be really tough to sort through all these apps to find the ones that will make your life easier.

I’m hoping to help you find some that will make you more organized and productive. From time to time I will publish a few of my favorites. Let’s start with my top three “must have” apps.

• Wunderlist (wunderlist.com) is a great tool for organizing your to-do list(s). It allows you to create tasks complete with sub tasks.

You can then put tasks into folders. You can set due dates as well as prioritize your most important tasks.

You can even assign tasks to other people. Need to attach a document, photo or link to a task? No problem.

The basic app is free, and should be plenty for most of us.

But for $5/month you can beef it up to meet the needs of pretty much any organization. (Android, Chromebook, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows 7 &8, Mac OS X, and Web).

• Waze (waze.com) is — in my opinion — the most amazing and useful free navigation app out there.

It uses social networking to help you get from point A to point B with minimum hassle.

The app allows users to report slow traffic. construction, accidents, stalled vehicles and even police activity.

This information is displayed to you and used to help you find the quickest route to your destination. (Android, iOS and Windows Phone)

• Sunrise (sunrise.am) gives you the power to access, sync and share calendars across multiple platforms. This free app connects to Google Calendar, iCal and Exchange servers and combines multiple calendars into a single easy-to-read display.

Where this app really shines is the intuitive interface on your mobile device.

It’s not the fanciest or most feature-rich calendar app, but it does exactly what a calendar app is supposed to do.

No fuss, no hassle. (Android, iOS and Mac OS X)

• MileIQ (mileiq.com) records your vehicle mileage. I love it because I’m horrible about logging my business trips.

This app, while not totally free (you need to subscribe for $6/month or $60/year for advanced features), it is worth the investment.

It works in the background and tracks your start and endpoints using the GPS feature of your device and saves this info on a secure website.

You can then classify the mileage as business or personal.

You can name destinations you frequent, and can record mileage associated with multiple vehicles. Check with your accountant — you may even be able to deduct the cost of the full app. (Android and iOS)

Have you got a favorite app? Post it on my Facebook page or email me.

Sven Mogelgaard is the owner of I Need a CTO, an IT consulting firm based in Mill Creek. If you have comments, questions or suggestions for future columns, send an email to sven@millcreektech.guru or on Facebook at Facebook.com/millcreektech.

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