My 5 Favorite Free iPad Apps

Once upon a time, I had a Kindle Fire. I loved that thing and when it died, the day after the warranty expired, of course, I was quite sad. Unfortunately, it died at the same time that my laptop did, so when forced to choose which device my limited means would replace, I opted to replace the laptop. Junior, who had been the #1 borrower of my Kindle, was also upset, however, he did have the money to get his own tablet but chose, instead, to get an iPad Mini.


Curious about our newest Apple, I stole, errr...borrowed, it the other day while Junior was at school. After playing with it for a few hours and downloading some free apps from the App Store, here are my five favorites:

1. The Kindle App – When I had my Kindle, I downloaded free books from my local library with the added benefit that when the borrowing time was up, they'd just “magically” disappear from the device. The Kindle app gives all the benefits of reading on the Kindle with access to many of the free books Amazon's Kindle Store offers. The app replicates all of my favorite features of the actual Kindle including access to Amazon's Whispersync which “automatically syncs your last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across devices (including the Kindle), so you can pick up your book where you left off on another device.”
   
   
2. Dictionary.com (Dictionary and Thesaurus) – Being a word-a-holic, I love looking up words and this app gave me speedy access to more than two million words and definitions. The best part is that it works offline, so even if I didn't have Web access, I could use it.
   
   
3. Police Scanner + - I really enjoyed listening to police scanners when I was a local reporter and still do even though I'm not writing for our local website. With this app, I can listen to more than 40,000 police, fire, EMS, airport, railroad, comedy, talk, and music stations – FREE!
   
   
4. Soothing Sounds Light – The kids and I sleep with separate noise machines and we always schlep one whenever we travel. Soothing Sounds has a customizable sounds library and the manufacturer boasts that “you'll never hear the same 10 seconds of sound.” That means you won't hear the same bird chips every X-amount of seconds, something that drives me crazy with other noise apps. You can change the volume and intensity of each sound, meaning that you can either hear ocean waves gently lapping on a shore or hear the crashing of those waves on rocks. You can even save the combinations of intensity levels that you've created and re-play those at will. Use it as background noise during the day or while you sleep.
   
   
5. Sticky Notes Reminders & Notes App With Alarms & Sharing – Use Sticky Note reminders without the individual papers falling off your device or marring your screen. Create notes in dozens of styles, add alarms to the notes, password protect them, and share them with others. The best part of this app, however, is that you can add notes to your lockscreen so you don't have to unlock your device to view them.
   

Ok, so since the iPad Mini isn't mine, I had to delete all of these wonderful apps, but it was fun poking around the App Store to see what developers have come up with to make our lives “easier.” It may just be time to start saving up for a Mini.


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Thanks for reading! Please check back in with me in a day or so for more fun!

Damn The Ice Dam

Photo by C. Capozzi

I was in the den when I first heard the drip-drip.  It was a curious sound, one you don't expect to hear, but there it was.  The funny thing was, I couldn't find it. Then I heard more drip-drips. My heart sank.  They seemed to be coming from the ceiling around the window.  Then I spotted them...coming from the space just behind the windows. My stomach turned. I knew what was causing the drips, something I had absolutely no control over: ice damming.

The Winter it happened, we had had a ton of snow and even though we had had the gutters cleaned in the Fall, they had filled up with ice. Then the water runoff from the roof got trapped and with nowhere else to go, it backed up and got under the shingles, finally leaking into the house. I tearfully called my roofer who explained that until the ice and snow melted, there was nothing he could do. Maybe that was true, but in the meantime I couldn't let the water ruin my house! Now let me, once again, say that I am NO expert in roofing, gutters, mold or anything. But, as a homeowner, I did a few things which I really believe mitigated the amount of damage we experienced when this happened a few years ago. Here's what I did, what worked and failed:

1. The first thing I did was panic.  How can you NOT? Water was dripping in all along the windows in my den, with no end in site. And my beloved roofer said he couldn't do ANYTHING to help me?! Argh!!! Panicking didn't do anything constructive, but once I got passed it, I felt better.
   
   
2. Then I grabbed containers and towels. I used pots and pans from the stove, but in hindsight, those one-use aluminum pans used for cakes and lasagna are better for dealing with leaks. They can be squished into tight spaces and you don't have to worry about disinfecting them when you're done. I used towels so I wouldn't hear the constant sound of dripping water. Later on, I added some vinegar to the water in the pans to reduce the smell coming from the water and, hopefully, lessen the amount of mold in the air.
   
   
   
3. Where I saw water pooling on the ceiling, I drilled a tiny hole. This was actually recommended by the roofer. Water, obviously, spreads when it has nowhere else to go; giving it a channel minimizes staining and damage.
   
   
4. Since there was a good amount of water on the carpet, I blotted it up and ripped up the edge of the carpet to expose the padding. Now I had been in the carpet padding business for many years before I had kids, so when I purchased padding, I KNEW to stay away from foam padding which gets smelly when exposed to water. The padding I'd had put down contained a vinyl barrier to repel moisture, so I pulled up a bit of the padding as well and put a shoe in there to keep it up off the floor underneath. Then I fished out a fan from the basement and set it up in the area of the leaks. My thought was that circulating air would help dry the area up and lessen or stop mold from growing.
   
   
5. While it was snowing and raining outside, I would periodically swab the leaks and the area with a bleach solution to, again, keep the area as clean as possible.  I don't know if that did do anything, but swabbing gave me something to do and that control made me feel better.
   
   

Mother Nature eventually stopped pooping on us and we all went outside to see what was going on with the roof. Since I knew that chipping away at the ice would be dangerous and could hurt the roof and gutters, I nixed that. I attached a hockey stick to the tree trimmer we had (the photo at the right looks something like our tree trimmer) using duct tape and then my husband gently took some snow off the area near the gutter.


We still had a mess of ice up there, so I did a quick Web search and found a great idea off the site www.thisoldhouse.com. I filled a bunch of knee-high panty hose with calcium chloride ice melter and hubby positioned the hose every 6 inches or so in the gutter. The calcium chloride melted through the ice and allowed the water to flow down into the gutters and off the roof (here's the link explaining this method: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/skill-builder/0,,211604,00.html). It didn't stop the leaks completely, but definitely slowed them down. Oh, and I took pictures of all the damage just in case we needed to submit proof to the insurance company if we decided to file a claim (we did not because our deductible is so bloody high, it just didn't make sense to). 


When enough of the snow melted, eventually our roofer did come and replaced some of the shingles in the area of the leaks. He also repositioned the gutters. The result? Even with the mess Mother Nature is inflicting on us this year, no leaks!


For more information on ice damming, click on these links:

• http://www.handymanusa.com/articles/icedams.html – This is my favorite link because it actually shows a diagram of a roof and what's happening during ice damming.
  
• http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/inficedam/infdam.html – This article talks about the pros and cons of heating cables which are recommended but don't necessarily cure ice dams. The site also has a link to a question and answer area I found informative.
  
• http://homerepair.about.com/od/exteriorhomerepair/ss/Ice-Dam_2.htm – You'll find lots of diagrams here and although the article is long, read through it. The part on what a roof rake is and why you will want to get one is great.
  

We're getting another 6” tonight, so excuse me while I go get milk and bread at the store. We don't really need it, but it seems to be the thing to do around here just before another storm.


Please check back in with me in a day or so. I'm going to invade my son's iPad and I'll be writing about some fun apps for adults at this site and a few child-friendly apps for www.thegeekparent.com.


Ahoha!

Bye!  Come back soon!

UPDATE:  3/3/14 - 11:58AM - We had, probably a hamster's paw full of snow.  My sympathies to you south of me, who got the brunt of the storm.