Posts from the ‘App Reviews’ category

App Review: Felt

Review date: June 18, 2020

This app makes it possible to send #IRL cards (and some gifts) via snail mail, using your phone. 🙌

Apple App Store Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.8)*
Created by: Felt, LLC
Available on: iOS, and Android
Price: Price varies $4 to $7 per card; subscription-based pricing also available

screenshot of felt app

Img. source: Apple App Store

Overview

Official description: “Felt is the highest quality, most personal way to send real, handwritten cards and photos to friends and loved ones. Your handwriting is 100% authentic, like you wrote it with pen and paper. It’s personal mail for the modern world: beautiful, fun and couldn’t be simpler.”

I love receiving cards in the mail. Maybe it’s because a lot of my friends are artists; or, because I grew up in the days of dial-up internet and in the summers, my friends and I would write long letters to each other. Plus, there are times when real- or snail-mail is the only suitable option. It appears that mail has been making a strong comeback in the past few months. Now, most of us equate email with work or bills; 10–15 years ago, it was the opposite.

Felt is an app that enables you to send actual cards, personalized with your own handwriting, through the mail. I think this app is a perfect pairing of the analog and digital worlds. You can add in things like confetti,  actual cash (“just like grandma used to”), candy, and other small gifts.


My Review

Overall, I find the app straightforward, easy to use, and convenient. The quality of the cards is nice, too. The types of cards on there are the style of graphics I usually prefer anyway, so bonus points for that; there are options for mutli-panel cards.

Below, you’ll find a video overview/demo of how I typically use the app. For test purposes, I made up addresses. (Pardon the quality of graphics at certain points, this was my first time using Premiere Rush on iOS).

Queen of Apps – App Review – Felt from Gloria Shin on Vimeo.


*At the time of writing.

Have you tried this app? What did you like or dislike about it? Comment below and consider sharing this post with a friend.

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App Review: A Soft Murmur

Review date: April 7, 2020

This app provides the perfect blend of ambient noise, which helps me stay focused and sane while working from home.

Apple App Store Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.5)*
Created by: Gabriel Brady
Available on: Desktop (at https://asoftmurmur.com), iOS, and Android
Price: Free (But Offers In-App Purchases)

Screenshot of https://asoftmurmur.com

Image source: https://asoftmurmur.com

Overview

Official description: “Find the perfect mix of background noise to help you relax, study, work or sleep. A Soft Murmur is the ideal productivity app to help you wash away distractions.”

I am lucky to have a job that allows me to work from home regularly a few times a week (i.e., before COVID-19 and shelter-in-place orders). The biggest plus is that I don’t have to spend time and money commuting the 30 miles or so downtown. (At heart, I’m a city gal, but due to various reasons, I currently live in a Washington, D.C. exurb). Overall, I’ve found that I really enjoy the 50/50 mix of working from home and going into the office. But, there are some days where my home office or living room gets a little too quiet, and I seek the refuge of working from a coworking space or coffee shop. (As an “extroverted-introvert”, I love being around people, but not necessarily having to interact with them). In particular, I find that the coffee shop’s ambient/background noise helps me focus.

But in our current situation, of course, all the coffee shops or coworking spaces are closed. So I’ve found the next best thing — making my home office sound and smell like a coffee shop! (If you haven’t figured out already, I’m a bonafide coffee addict and coffee snob, and kind of obsessed with local/non-Starbucks coffee shops).

My Review

On A Soft Murmur, you can create your own custom mix of sounds. I particularly like the “Coffee Shop” and “White Noise” options for when I’m working. Also using A Soft Murmur helps provide a small layer of privacy through my thin walls, as it helps muffle conference calls. The app itself is very easy-to-use and straightforward. On an iPhone, a nice plus is that it saves the sounds locally.

A Soft Murmur’s Privacy Score

The terms of service screens are long and difficult to read; often, we just click “OK” and hope for the best. Unfortunately, these days, that’s not the wisest choice. Luckily, the experts at PrivacyGrade.org have done the work for us by analyzing and assigning each app a “privacy grade.”

PrivacyScore Screenshot

Image source: PrivacyScore.org

PrivacyGrade.org gave A Soft Murmur an “A” rating.

Check out A Soft Murmur on their website or in your device’s app store.


*At the time of writing.

Have you tried this app? What did you like or dislike about it? Comment below and consider sharing this post with a friend.

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App Review: LastPass

Review date: April 2, 2020

LastPass provides an easy way for you to create, maintain and use secure passwords.

Apple App Store Rating: ⭐ (4.6)*
Founded by Joe Siegrist in 2008; acquired by LogMeIn in 2015.
Available on: Desktop (as browser extensions for all major browsers, including Chrome and Firefox), iOS, and Android
Price: Free (But Offers In-App Purchases)

Image source: lastpass.com

Overview

We are now living in a brave new work-from-home world. Although necessary and convenient, working from home has inherent risks.

One of the most fundamental and important parts of minimizing your cyber risk is passwords. We all know that we should use strong, complex, and unique passwords for every website we visit and that we should change those passwords more often than we do. But, our memories can only take so much. So what ends up happening? We end up using the same passwords across multiple websites. The solution? Password managers like LastPass.

“LastPass is a freemium password manager that stores encrypted passwords online. The standard version of LastPass comes with a web interface, but also includes plugins for various web browsers and apps for many smartphones. It also includes support for bookmarklets” (Wikipedia).

My Review

I have been a LastPass user since 2013. (I’d like to think of myself as an early adopter; I started using LastPass long before password managers became the norm). I like that it’s easy-to-use across all my devices, utilizes two-factor authentication, and does its main job as a password manager very well. Another plus is that in the most recent versions, it seamlessly integrates with iOS, so I don’t have to open the LastPass app separately when I’m in Safari or Chrome on my phone to look up my password for a particular website.

The most common concern I hear from others is that they don’t feel safe using LastPass (or another password manager), because what if they get hacked? Then the hacker will have all my passwords! I understand where this is coming from, but the benefits outweigh the risk.

Beyond creating unique passwords, LastPass is set up in a way that is very secure. In its history, LastPass has only had one major security incident in 2015; in that case, their systems worked as designed. In 2019, there was an incident (most likely related to browser extensions) where certain users were put at risk, but this bug was quickly patched.

Around the time of the 2019 incident, ethical hacker John Opdenakker was quoted in Forbes, “Although password managers like any other software have flaws, the benefits of using one far outweigh the risks. It’s far more likely that your accounts will get compromised by attacks that exploit poor passwords, such as through credential reuse, than by attacks against password managers themselves.”

LastPass’ Privacy Score

PrivacyScore Screenshot

Image source: privacygrade.org

Often the “terms of service” pages are long and difficult to read; often, we just click “OK” and hope for the best. Unfortunately, these days, that’s not the wisest choice. Luckily, the experts at PrivacyGrade.org have done the work for us by analyzing and assigning each app a “privacy grade.”

PrivacyGrade.org gave LastPass an “A” rating.


Check out LastPass on their website or in your device’s app store.


*At the time of writing.

Have you tried this app? What did you like or dislike about it? Comment below and consider sharing this post with a friend.

Leave a comment