Direct Report: Employee Feedback Tracker
Michael E. | May 9, 2010 Business, Productivity
User rating: 
(17 votes, average: 2.29 out of 5)
(17 votes, average: 2.29 out of 5)
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If you are responsible for supervising either one person or a team and have to evaluate their performance annually or semiannually, then you know the challenges that can come with that.
Over the course of six months or a year, unless you are someone who manages to keep detailed and consistent notes on your staff as they occur, you will find yourself struggling to remember either the things your staff members did well or the things they need work to improve on come evaluation time.
Tags: $3.99
My Celebtwin
Brad H | Mar 12, 2010 Entertainment
User rating: (3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)
(3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5) Loading ...
A while back I started noticing people changing their Facebook profile picture to a celebrity that they looked like. Some pictures were close and others were way off. This got me wondering what celebrities I looked like. No one came to mind so I gave up and went on with my day. Little did I know that yes “there’s an app for that”. Ivango brings us My Celebtwin the app that uses facial recognition algorithms to match your face with a celebrities.
The app itself is fairly simple. You can either use an existing picture in your camera roll or take one in the app. Obviously you want to get a clear picture with your head taking up most of the space. Once you have your picture you choose your gender then send the picture to the servers, wait a bit and voila you have three matches. Here is where I had some issues. I couldn’t get any matches with the camera option, everything would come back blank. When I used a picture in my camera roll it would come back good about 90% of the time. This really hurts the app in my eyes because it’s all about going to a party or get together and seeing who your friends look like, and the last thing you want to do is take a bunch of pictures THEN opening the app and hope your picture as clear and aligned properly for the software to work.
I used the app on myself, my wife and my two sons. I wouldn’t say any of us look like any celebrities so I was very curious to see how it worked. My two boys and I did match one of the three celebrities so I am convinced that if anything the algorithms are consistent. So you might be wondering to yourself, Who does Brad look like? According to My celebtwin I look like (drumroll) Liam Neeson, Danny Materson, and Ryan Reynolds. I don’t think I look like any of them but maybe if you merged Ryan and Danny into one person then uglied him up a tad maybe that guy would look like me. Another fun thing to do is see what celebrity of the opposite sex you look like, definitely worth a laugh.
This app goes for $3.99 which in my opinion is way to much. Even if the app worked 100% of the time I don’t think 3.99 would be worth it. They do offer a lite version with only male recognition so go ahead and try that out for free.
Reviewed on iPhone OS 3.1.3
Tags: $3.99, Entertainment
Metronome TS
Sara | Jan 8, 2010 Music
User rating: (2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5) Loading ...
A metronome. It is a musician’s best buddy when wanting to succeed in being on beat. As a band geek who loves my saxophone dearly, I had to test this app out. It seems that every band geek and band director has some form of a metronome on their iPhone, so that you don’t have to always remember your physical metronome.
I have tried other metronomes before and must say that this one by Thezi Studios definitely out-performs my other ones, even my actual metronome, which cost $20! What will $3.99 get you in this app? First of all, you get a metronome (who would have thought :D )! This metronome is one of the best I have seen in the app store boasting a BPM count (for you non-nerds this is the beats per measure, or the number of counts per measure) of 30-250! And you don’t have to scroll from beat count to beat count; you can enter it with a keyboard entering feature too! The upbeats can be set from 0-19. The best part is the counting of what gets the upbeat: you can choose from the simple quarter note up to a very specific sixteenth rest, sixteenth note, sixteenth rest, sixteenth note! For all of you singers, there is a feature where you can choose a song from your iPod library and have the metronome running with that. This app will also save your previous tempos and let your group them in specific “folders”.
What made this app great was that not only was it a great metronome jam packed with features, but it also has a tuning fork. You just choose your concert pitch note (for C instruments, that is the note you normally play), and boom! You’ve got a concert pitch to tune your instrument or everyone’s instruments! At $3.99, this app is definitely worth the price, so if you need a new metronome that will definitely exceed your expectations, look at purchasing metronome TS!
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- wow! this thing goes up to 250 :o
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- you can organize your tempos into groups
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- you can save your tempos for future reference :)
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- woot! a tuner!
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- settings
iTunes Link – Metronome TS
Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.2
Version 1.5
Elven Chronicles
Michael (Admin) | Nov 17, 2009 Games
User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...
As you can probably tell by the name, Elven Chronicles is all medieval with swords and dragons and spells and all that. It’s an RPG, and if you’re a big enough nerd to automatically know that an RPG is a role-playing game then this is may be something you could sink your teeth into. People who have already compared it to Zelda and Final Fantasy are right on in some respects… it’s a little like old school Zelda (but better!) in the graphics department and similar to Final Fantasy in that it features turn-based battles, but whether or not you go ga-ga for this game will depend on what kind of RPG’er you are and that’s something I’ll get into later.
Every RPG is set against a storyline backdrop, and in this one you play the role of Rogan, a young stud who wakes up after being ambushed by bad guys. Apparently it’s your lucky day because you’re being cared for by a hot elf girl named Jada and, if it were me, I’d probably sit around drinking ale all day and let the world go to hell. Luckily for mankind, though, Rogan is waaaaay more noble than I am so he and the lady elf immediately go off and start completing quests handed to them by the locals. Obtain these items, defeat that monster, become a Level (x) badass, that kind of thing.
Tags: $3.99, action rpg, retro
Dungeonslayer
Swain Valasek | Aug 2, 2009 Games
User rating: (3 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
(3 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5) Loading ...
There’s been a growing trend among iPhone game releases lately and if you had to sum it up in one phrase it would be ‘has potential but needs work’. Adding +1 to this trend is the action RPG Dungeonslayer (DS hereafter) from Needsnacks Studios. This game will remind one of Diablo from the screenshots/video and certainly it appears to draw inspiration from that classic but alas, after playing through the game it’s clear the consummate Diablo clone for iPhone has not yet been delivered. Enough then about Diablo, let’s get down to specifics about Dungeonslayer, a game which I do like (despite my opening comments) and have lots to say about so buckle up for a lengthy review.
Tags: $3.99, action rpg, rpg lite, Swain Valasek
B-Day Giveaway: ooTunes
Michael (Admin) | Jul 30, 2009 Music
User rating: (2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
(2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5) Loading ...
Carrie Underwood is purrrrrrrty
Mike Lightman went ga-ga for ooTunes back in May, calling this app “arguably the most comprehensive & extensive radio app in the App Store.” Sounds like a stamp of approval to me!
I haven’t tried this app myself, but Mike’s review sounds like proof positive that streaming iPhone music actually does go further than Pandora and AOL Radio. You can get Bulgarian hiphop on this thing? Crazy!!
iTunes Link – ooTunes
ooTunes website
Tags: $3.99, internet radio
FingerBeat
T.J. Brumfield | Jul 19, 2009 Music
User rating: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...
I have the music talent of William Hung. And frankly I might be insulting William Hung with that comparison. But the Elionze Group have put together a music app simple enough for even me to make music, yet powerful enough to put together some great loops, exactly how you want them.
I’m talking about FingerBeat. At first I was expecting a fairly simple finger drum app. With some apps I download and play with from the App Store, I have to lower my expectations when it comes to features. I have to remind myself that this is a cheap app often made by a single developer, or a small team in a short period of time. FingerBeat is one of the rare apps I’ve downloaded over the past few weeks that really exceeded my expectations when it came to features.
Tags: $3.99, Entertainment, Music, T. J. Brumfield
4 Degrees – The Arc of Trivia
T.J. Brumfield | Jul 15, 2009 Games
User rating: (7 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5)
(7 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5) Loading ...
Admittedly, before I even downloaded ZAPiT Game’s “4 Degrees – The Arc of Trivia”, I was already a fan. I own their Game Wave console. 4 Degrees is my favorite game for that console.
ZAPiT Games is a small gaming company that has been struggling to hit it big time. It hasn’t been for lack of good products. The Game Wave is a simplistic console that hardware-wise is little more than a DVD player with six remotes. But the games are all designed to allow up to six players to play at once without having to wait and take turns. 4 Degrees is a sharp-looking game that I really enjoy playing with friends. I’ve been hoping word would get out, and someday ZAPiT would hit it big time. The Game Wave console itself has yet to be a big hit, so now the company is branching out with online gaming, and iPhone games. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: $3.99, Games, T. J. Brumfield, trivia
Archon
Swain Valasek | Jun 27, 2009 Games
User rating: (4 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
(4 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5) Loading ...
Archon from React Games is a faithful remake of the absolutely iconic 1983 8-bit classic from that bygone era when Atari and Commodore computers were bonafide ’high end’ gaming machines. I played Archon and Archon II obsessively on my beloved Commodore 64 and the reward today is vivid memories of solidly trouncing my friends that’s simply priceless…truly the Golden Age of game design back in the old 80′s. Archon’s foundation is the ancient game of Chess but really it takes the concept into some wild space far beyond. In fact, Archon is so cool, another of its influences was the scene from Star Wars where R2-D2 and Chewie are playing a holographic chess-like battle game on the Falcon and what kid didn’t just love that scene back in ’77???
Tags: $3.99, remake, retro, Swain Valasek
Sweetwater Defense
Swain Valasek | Jun 19, 2009 Games
User rating: (5 votes, average: 3.80 out of 5)
(5 votes, average: 3.80 out of 5) Loading ...
Proving that you simply can’t have too much of a good thing, here comes Sweetwater Defense from Werebear Games. This is a TD or tower defense game of the fixed path variety but there’s enough cool stuff here to allow this game to stand out and stake its own claim in the not-so-wild-anymore frontier of this category in the app store. There’s no backstory to bother with; just know that there are pirate fleets (ARRRRR) and monsters threatening your coast and you have to build up defenses in an attempt to send ‘em all down to Davy Jones’ locker. When you start the game you’re presented with a large, scrollable map showing all the locations you can play, divided into easy, med and hard levels and there’s about 25 unique maps in all. Your defenses consist of 7 towers and you face 6 different enemy ships and 5 unique bosses. The sound and music in this game are very well done; the BGM in particular is extremely hip and though contemporary enough to actually be out of place for the game’s setting, I found it to be quite awesome and moody. The fully 3D graphics are definitely some of the nicest you’ll see on the iPhone. Lots of environmental detail, stunning water effects, rain even…good stuff. The enemy ships and bosses were given a particularly high level of attention as for example, each ship has 2 unique sinking animations plus a special one for what I can only describe as the ‘penultimate death blow’ where a ship will notably shake and wobble when it’s just about to be sunk; really nice touch. Each tower changes graphically with each upgrade which is always a point of contention with TD fans. A rare feature but one that I think will catch on is that you can manually specify a target per tower if the auto-targeting just isn’t quite meshing with your strategy.
Tags: $3.99, Swain Valasek, tower defense
Open Cellar
jamie | Jun 11, 2009 Lifestyle
User rating: (4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5) Loading ...
Ooh la la: Check out this new app from France! Although Open Cellar makes no promises of turning you into a wine connoisseur, I’m hoping it will knock some sense into my fiancé, who’s idea of a good time is a jug of Carlo Rossi from CVS! Open Cellar, originally developed by Matthieu DUCROCQ as a wine cellar organizing software for Mac and PC, is now available as an app that is great for managing the wine you already have and exploring new ones. It even has a feature that allows you to pair dishes with different wines, giving options for both red and white when available.
Open Cellar allows you to search for wines in it’s database or enter your own. You can then add characteristics to your bottles including origin, year etc., add your own ranking and make personal notes. My favorite aspect of this app is being able to view your wine cellar in “graphical mode”—see the image of my dream cellar below!
This makes for a pretty useful app while shopping as it allows you to see what’s already in the cellar and your notes on wines you liked and disliked in the past. However, one aspect of Open Cellar that’s a bit disappointing is it’s video database, called BeWineConnected. It would be a great learning resource but currently there are only three wine tasting videos, all of which are in French. Let’s hope in the future Open Cellar adds more videos, including some in English.
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- View the wines in your cellar and information about them in "graphical mode"
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- Options on the main page
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- The welcome screen is colorful and attractive!
ooTunes
Mike Lightman | May 7, 2009 Music
User rating: (45 votes, average: 3.04 out of 5)
(45 votes, average: 3.04 out of 5) Loading ...
I like a few days to sit with the app before I get it all down on paper. I’ve taken a few extra days with ooTunes because frankly, the app terrified me. Yes, let me repeat – I was scared by a stack of code & some graphics. You think I’m pathetic, admit it. Well, if you witnessed the power this thing has, you wouldn’t be making fun.
On it’s own, ooTunes is arguably the most comprehensive & extensive radio app in the App Store. If you want to listen to Bulgarian Hip Hop, there’s a station for that. If you want local news from Saskatchewan, there’s a station for that. But, it’s really a misnomer to call it just a radio app. With the built-in web browser, it becomes your total streaming device. Factor in the addition of the ooTunes server for your home computer & you’ve got the a complete listening package.
