iPhone Apps of the Week

Vancouver 2010 Olympics Official Guide: No explanations necessary.

iCall Voice over IP: Using this program, you can make free phone calls to all phones within USA. There is some lag during the call, but otherwise it is pretty good for a free service. It also integrates with your iPhone contacts.

World Customs and Cultures (by Hooked in Motion): This free program lists some basic information about cultures and customs of various countries. It lists some taboos, greeting styles, smoking/alcohol/drug laws, and views of time (punctuality). The information contained is fairly accurate based on my personal experience (in other words, it is "accurate enough").

iPhone Apps of the Week

Today ToDo: The best todo app out there. Easiest to use, but at the same time the most functional. Try the free version to see with your own eyes, and then go buy the pro version, it's worth the money.

Tweetdeck: Twitter client with Facebook support, and it's free. What else do you want?

Blogpress: To update your blog. I use the lite version and it does the job.

Finding best and free iPhone Apps

Of course you'd like to find the best applications available for iPhone, and find them cheap, or even better, for free!
There is an app for that!

• Bargain Bin with Push: You can set "watch prices". If a watched app goes on sale for below the watched price, you receive a push notification.
  
• Pandora Box: You see not only apps that have price drops, but also newly released apps.
  
• App Popular: You can track apps. If a tracked app has a change of price, you get a push notification.
  

I listed the apps in the order I would recommend. I use all of them. I also use a very nice web site for this purpose:
appshopper.com

Enjoy the best iPhone apps cheap or for free!

iPhone apps

My list of suggested applications (subject to change):

• Usual recommendations: Facebook, Skype, Yelp, Dropbox (see http://geekxperts.blogspot.com/2009/11/online-storage-and-backup.html).
  
• For IM: Nimbuzz. It is free and lets you join multiple accounts at once. It has a "stay online" period of up to 30 minutes after you close the app that pushes new message alerts.
  
• For text messaging: TextPlus. This one is free, and lets you send text messages as a group. Great way to reach multiple friends at once. It has push.
• For music: Pandora, Last.fm, and maybe imeem.
• For movies: Flixster. You can link it to your Facebook and Netflix accounts.

Now some extra interesting stuff:

• For reading books: Wattpad, Stanza. Both offer lots of free books, and a good reading experience.
• Cheap games: Tap Tap Revenge 3. You can try Tap Tap Revenge 2 before buying this one. But if you like version 2, you won't be disappointed to buy version 3 for just $0.99.
• For remote controlling your computer: AirMouse. This one I really love. Especially when watching a movie or listening to music, you can easily pause, rewind, etc. Also offers a nice touchpad mouse, and some programmable buttons.
  

Online Storage and Backup

I tried multiple tools and web sites for online storage. Dropbox is the best one I have found.

It synchronizes your files online, and keeps versions for 30 days (the paid version keeps unlimited history of versions and deleted files). It is extremely easy to use: After installation it creates a Dropbox folder. Just copy any files you want to that folder, and they are synchronized. You don’t need to change anything, just change the folder name you use. Their iPhone application is also very nice. Furthermore, the fact that they keep your data encrypted with your password on Amazon S3 servers sounds like a good reason to trust them.

The default is 2GB free space if you join on
http://www.getdropbox.com/
If you join through an invitation, you get extra 250MB. I have multiple invitations. Just drop a comment and specify a way to reach you (e.g., twitter DM) and I can send you the invitation. I'll check it often, so you should get the invitation soon.

Windows and Mac versions are easy to install. Linux version is also easy if you have root access. For using it under linux with no root access, download it from (or find a newer build in the forums):

http://forums.getdropbox.com/topic.php?id=12922&replies=67#post-81845
Unzip, untar and run
~/.dropbox-dist/dropbox