Information Technology Dark Side

Lose It! by FitNow, Inc. (free)
As you can probably guess by its title and scale icon, Lose It! is a weight loss application. With Lose It!, you enter some basic information about your health and goals, and it sets up a caloric budget to help you meet them. Then, you simply enter what you eat throughout the day and it tells you how many calories you have left in your budget. I really like this feature, because it’s changed my attitude about eating – I now see everything I eat as a tradeoff – the opportunity cost of chocolate milk at breakfast is a slice of chocolate cake after dinner, so I forego the one one I like in favor of the one I love. Other notable features of Lose It! include a thorough calorie dictionary for foods, both generic and name brand, as well as the ability to combine foods in a “recipe” that you can use over and over again.

If you’ve got a desire to lose weight, give Lose It! a try. It’s been very helpful to me so far. I’ve still got 48 pounds to go, but I’m off to a decent start.

Touch Physics by Marc D Simpson ($0.99, free lite version)
Okay, so this is practically everyone’s favorite iPhone game already and you’ve probably already tried it. But… I love it too, and so do my kids. Even my 10 month old will sit and quietly poke at the screen for 20 minutes before he finally gives in and tries to stick my phone in his mouth.

If you’re one of the the four people on the planet who haven’t heard of it yet, Touch Physics is all about moving a ball through/over/around/under obstacles to a goal, using objects you draw to flip, push, bounce, or support the ball along its way. The graphical style is crayon, the music is engaging, and the physical effects are really cool. It’s a fun, entertaining game that can keep you busy for anything from a coast-to-coast flight to an oil change at your local Jiffy Lube.

Quick Shot by Code Monkeys at Work($0.99)
Quick Shot adds some cool camera capabilities to your iPhone that make the whole camera phone experience a lot better in my opinion. With Quick Shot you can take pictures by simply clicking anywhere on the screen (as opposed to trying to hit a button). This makes it a lot easier to keep the phone steady for a picture since you don’t have to aim for a button on the screen.

Another feature I like about Quick Shot is the auto-save setting. My five year old likes to take pictures (I’ve been teaching him about framing shots) and he tends to fill up the camera with pictures of socks, toys, ear lobes, etc. With Quick Shot, I can turn off auto save and let him take pictures without having to go back later and delete them all.

Check these apps out. They are handy and fun to use!

~ Dave

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