For a cause close to my heart, and a way to raise money for Ovarian Cancer research, please head over to the review page of my blog here. 

My family makes fun of me because my iPhone is literally an extension of my arms these days.  And I make fun of myself about it too.  However, I thought I’d talk a bit about WHY it’s an extension of me and WHY I love it just so much.  I was a Blackberry user, but I’m firmly converted. I could never go back to the ol’ Crackberry.  For me, the iPhone fits me much better. 

My entire business life runs online. If I don’t have access to it, I am not able to work.  Yes, I receive phone calls on the iPhone - that’s important.  I get texts about work, occasionally, but more often than not it’s from a friend wanting to poke fun at me about something or to respond to something we’ve talked about previously.  The phone is really the least important part of it to me, but it is necessary.  If you hadn’t guessed, I would much rather write - or text something - than talk on the phone.  The iPhone allows me to sneak around talking as much as possible.

Since training for the 10k began, I use the stopwatch feature on the phone constantly.  We’re doing a run/walk training for the first few weeks, and that’s been indispensable.  I can listen to music while timing myself.  If I run on the track at the Y, I can use the lap feature to count how many (or how few) laps I’ve completed.  Best of all, I’ve downloaded an app called “iMapMyRun” which can be used to map out a location (including things like calculating distance when you run around a cul-de-sac or the block), gives verbal directions, tells you what your pace is, and can berate you if you’re not meeting a goal or a pace you’ve set beforehand.  It uses GPS to map exactly where you are and you can see graphically how fast you were running during specific parts of your run. 

I constantly use Weight Watchers’ app as well.  I can track my points directly from the phone, yes, but I can easily search foods by restaurants or style and get the points value before I even order off the menu.  This enables me to go to a new place, scan the menu, do a few minutes of research and have a fairly accurate idea of what I’m eating and how much it’s gonna cost me (points-wise - money is a different story entirely). 

I’m a movie freak, so I use the Fandango app.  You can view showtimes and movie theaters, read reviews and rate your own experience, but best of all you can buy tickets with 2 touches of a fingertip.  For a $1 convenience fee, I’ll gladly bypass the ridiculous lines at my nearby theater, blow into the theater and swipe my card to retrieve my pre-reserved tickets.  Now if only they would let you pre-order Twizzlers and water . . .

QuickTip, for the mathmatically challenged, is fabulous.  Since I usually give 20% in restaurants, I can figure out the tip by adding 10% plus 10% and generally not make too big of a mistake.  It’s the pesky ADDING of the tip to the total that gets me every time (math major I am not).  QuickTip has a slider that allows you to move the tip percentage around.  You enter the amount of the check, slide to figure out what percentage you’re going to give, and voila - it adds that percentage to the total and tells you to the penny what you owe.  It turns a #mathfail into a #mathwin.

CheapGas uses GPS to determine where I am, and gives me a list of all stations within a preset radius of my locations (I usually set it around 5 miles).  I get a list of gas stations and their current prices for different octanes of gasoline, and lists the cheaper ones first. 

It took awhile for the value of FourSquare to sink in.  It’s merely a bigger and better version of BrightKite - basically a stalker’s tool to find out where your friends are and what they’re doing.  FourSquare is private - meaning only people you allow can see your location - but it’s better than a simple GPS system.  Those in Richmond can post their locations to their friends and add tips and suggestions that pop up when you check in at that same place, or near it.  For example, I was at Short Pump Town Center yesterday and checked in on FourSquare.  A couple of tips popped up, telling me to visit the Apple store for awesome customer service from a specific person. Another one suggested a menu item at a restaurant nearby.  Yet another alerted me to a discount at a nearby sporting goods store.  For the voyeur in me, I enjoy seeing where my friends are - I’ve been introduced to a few new places I’d never heard of.

The Flickr app lets me consolidate any pictures I take with my camera phone or on the fly into my main Flickr account.  It also updates my Facebook photos and Twitter, if I want it to. 

Tweetdeck is my choice for Twitter apps - I like being able to separate with columns the different things I watch for, like people tweeting from RVA or those using a the hashtag for #writeclubrva. 

The Facebook app is much better than it used to be, but I still find it clunky and a bit buggy.  Still, I check in with Facebook more through the iPhone than I do with my laptop. 

Shazam is the most fun app because it puts an end to the annoying “What the heck is this song playing???” question.  Hold it up to the source of the song and voila, it tells you artist, name of song, album, and links you to a place where you can download immediately. 

Trapster is another new favorite of mine.  Using GPS, you can quickly add a live police checkpoint, a traffic camera, or an accident.  It blasts the information out immediately through text messaging to other users of Trapster with a specific location of the incident.  Ironically, a friend of mine who is also a police officer told me about it.  Now that more users are on Trapster, the results are much more accurate and reliable. 

A friend turned me on to Beejive - I can’t tell if I hate it or love it.  It pulls all of the IM programs from Facebook, GChat, Yahoo, AIM, et cetera ad nauseum into a single space on your iPhone.  This means that at all times of day or night, anyone who sees you online can start a chat - directly to your cell phone.  I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I know I’ll enjoy bothering random people while in waiting rooms. 

Boxcar uses push notifications to let you know if you’ve been @ replied through Twitter or mentioned on Facebook and a variety of other programs. I find it highly annoying, but since I’ve been taking a break from Twitter, I’m getting notifications of @ replies a lot less frequently.  You can turn off the random beeping and clanging sounds but I always leave them on so the rest of my family can be as annoyed by it as I am.

Now if I could just find an app that makes my kids quiet and well-behaved, I would hermetically seal the iPhone to my forehead for all eternity. 

If you’re an iPhone convert, what kind of things do you like about it?  Favorite apps?

Final warning:  The Ragu sweepstakes end tomorrow . . . so go here to leave your mark!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting, live and in person, the infamous and city-renowned Kate Hall from Richmond Mom.  If you use twitter, you can also follow her @richmondmom.  Her tweets often make me spew water out of my nose or snort loudly in public, both good things (if not slightly painful).  Kate’s my hero, and I really fell in love with her after we carpooled to an SMC event and she sat down in my car with a purple Solo cup full of red wine.  The woman can rock it!  She also understands completely that just because you own a website doesn’t mean you’re rolling in the cash.  We both work hard, and understood immediately the challenges of being both mothers and business owners.  It’s not all that glamorous, but the good thing is, I get to meet women like Kate because of my job.

Kate is also my hero because she’s a published author.  And she wrote an amazing book for children entitled Richmond Rocks.  In a nutshell:  Richmond Rocks is a brief glimpse into the amazing history that Richmond holds for its little learners. Three Richmond, VA kids discover Richmond’s past by journeying through some of its many historical landmarks and sights, with the help of their mom.  On this fabulous journey, they learn that Richmond really does rock!

As a non-native to this area, one of the things that struck me my first year of living in Richmond was how saturated with history the streetcorners and cobblestones are.  My kids are growing up in a historical environment, but are clueless because we mostly hang in the sterilized green-grassed lawns of a suburb.  There ain’t nothin’ historical about the Starbucks on the corner, or the strip malls.  Head 15 minutes east and slightly south and you’re surrounded by history.  Kate recognized the story idea would be an excellent way to introduce the 4-8 demographic about their hometown. 

One of the things I loved best about the book is that it is all Richmond, 100% through and through.  The author and editor, the illustrator, the photography, and the publisher:  all local.  It’s awesome.  I’m super proud of Kate, and encourage you Richmonders (Richmondites?  Monders?  RichmondPeeps?)  to purchase the book.  Or at least go to her site and send her a message of love and support.  She deserves it.