Tech Tips for the Modern Wedding Pro

This fabulous tech tips article was created by Erin Hight, National Chapters Director and presented at the meeting in Portland, Oregon.

ORGANIZATION

Cloze
The iPhone app Cloze collects tweets, emails, Facebook posts, and other bits of communication from your contacts and prioritizes them based on people who are most relevant to you. In other words, if my colleague tweets three times, posts on Facebook twice, and shares an article on LinkedIn all in a single day, I can see all that activity in one shot in Cloze. It’s a wonderful tool for getting relevant information about people in your network.

WorkFlowy
Need a way to organize that’s easy and convenient? WorkFlowy is a lifesaver. The setup is straightforward and helps you track your overflowing to-do list in a simple, all-in-one spot on your phone. No more post-it notes lying around the office. The app design is clean and simple, organized the same way your brain thinks with lots of lists and sub bullets that feed into bigger overall tasks or jobs.

There’s no learning curve. If you can read and write, the app is already fully functional for you. With some big name fans already using this “stress less, do more” app such as Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger and Twitter, there are plenty of reasons to download it now.

Leave Now
This free app keeps you on time for your next meeting by telling you exactly when to leave. It posts a reminder message on your iOS device’s (iPhone, iPod touch and iPad) home screen precisely when it’s time to get up and go.

Using GPS, LeaveNow automatically calculates traffic for various modes of  transportation, including walking, biking, driving and public transportation, and adjusts your departure times and reminders accordingly. When you’re running late, Leave Now sends “on my way” texts and emails on your behalf to let people know your estimated time of arrival — all in a single tap

Dropbox
If your files live all over the place—your office computer, home desktop, laptop—having a dependable syncing program is a must. Dropbox, the service and productivity tool that lets you store your files in the cloud and access them from anywhere you have a signal, fills that role nicely with a Dropbox iPhone app. It has a simple interface, easy uploading, and swift syncing across all accounts.

EasilyDo
The free iPhone app EasilyDo works as a personal assistant and automation machine. You connect the app to a variety of online services, like your email, calendar, Facebook account, and so forth, and then EasilyDo looks for things it can help you get easily done. For example, a notification might ask you if you’d like EasilyDo to add the contact details of someone who has recently emailed you to your address book. Or it might spot an upcoming birthday of a friend and let you set up a “happy birthday” post to their timeline in advance. It’s an amazing productivity app that helps you take care of a variety of tasks quickly and efficiently

HeadsUp
One of the best calendar apps for android installed an impressive new update for meetings called HeadsUp. The feature synchronizes all of the important elements of a meeting. HeadsUp can schedule an Uber car to pick you up, send an email to attendees that you could be running late, automatically silence your phone once you arrive, and more.

Seed Mail
Seed Mail is an email client app, and it’s really good. It connects to multiple webmail and Exchange accounts to give you a unified view of all your messages, if that’s what you want. You can also view just one email account at a time. Even better, it includes the related calendar and contacts sections of those email services, too. In other words, you can read all your mail from any of your accounts and then switch to your Gmail calendar without ever leaving the app. Seed Mail is speedy and comes without any gimmicks. It’s a wonderful free app.

Any.do
List-making and task-management app Any.do has a unique feature called the Any.domoment, which encourages making a habit of reviewing your daily tasks. This sophisticated app includes time and date reminders, as well as geolocation reminders, which work surprisingly well. Overall, Any.do is great iPhone app for jotting down tasks and goals, and for keeping yourself committed to doing them.

CONNECTED

Flipboard
Flipboard curates content from your social networks and websites you like, from magazines to blogs, and turns them into stunning magazine-like digital pages. Flipboard absolutely shines on the iPad, where it first debuted because it takes full advantage of all the possible swiping gestures with both visual and interactive grace. On the smaller iPhone, it’s still quite elegant.

Smartr Contacts
Need to find a specific person in your network in a hurry? Smartr Contacts provides great search functionality across your many address books, including your iPhone Contacts, Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts, and Gmail. The iPhone app Smartr Contacts hooks into all those different contact lists, and it’s designed to be more useful for earching than for browsing.

LinkedIn
In this fast-paced, high-pressure world where business blends with the personal all too often, an app like LinkedIn’s turns out to be pretty useful to have at your fingertips. If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to suggest a new potential connection to a friend, associate, or colleague, the LinkedIn app is the one you want. It’s the central place where you can find all those “loose ties,” the acquaintances that turn out to be the most valuable to your career advancement and overall success.

ooVoo
OoVoo is an ambitious little app. It supports video calls, voice calls, group video, and IM. And that’s across a number of major platforms—iOS, OS X, Android, and Windows. Past experiences with video chat apps have taught us that more features does not necessarily equal a better experience if performance flags. Luckily, ooVoo delivers across the board. Super smooth communication makes this app shine. It’s one of the few video chat apps on which you feel like you can have a real conversation.

LIFE

GAIN Fitness
The iPhone app GAIN Fitness acts as a total workout buddy, coaching yoyu through a fully customized exercise routine as often (or seldom) as you want. The free app comes preloaded iwth a variety of excercises for a complete body workout, and it’s more than enough to keep you from getting bored week after week. Optional in-app purchases can add special workouts, like yoga.

LIFT
This self-proclaimed life-coach app really is all that. Lift helps you set any kind of goal, track and monitor it and even inspires you along the way. Its tagline is “succeed at everything,” and it certainly feels like that’s possible. Lift acts like its own mini social media platform, allowing you to get community support from other Lift users When you meet your own pre-set goals, the folks at Lift send out encouraging emails to keep you motivated and going. It’s a cool concept for staying on track in 2014.

Strava
Runners and cyclists who thrive on competition love Strava. After a major overhaul and release, this free app is better than ever, pitting you against other users to see who can complete various segments fastest. If the thrill of getting into the top ten on isn’t your thing, this is not the app for you. But athletes looking for a competitive boost may find their Strava addiction hard to kick.

The Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout App (for iPhone)
This app helps you squeeze some exercise into your day at an intensity level that’s right for you. All you need is seven minutes (or about 11 if you add a warm-up and cool down) and a chair. Despite its name, the 7 Minute Workout App includes more workout options than just the seven-minute quickie. It has other premade routines, such as a Beginner 9 Minute Workout, The 21 Minute Cardio Blast, and a Core Workout.

Carrot
Let’s play a game. It’s called “Don’t Suck at Life.” That’s how the developer chose to introduce Carrot to the world. This app has attitude. Designed for a traditional To Do list, Carrot can help you make or break habits by dangling rewards (aka carrots). When you complete tasks you get points you can use to unlock features, purchase cheat codes or gain access to a virtual kitten. . . a kitten you can dress in a pirate costume. Yes, seriously. Slack off and Carrot gets angry which leads to it calling you names and sending you angry messages. Even nice Carrot is a little mean because she’s known to offer you a brownie as a reward when sticking to your diet. If you’re extremely competitive and respond well to negative reinforcement, Carrot’s the app for you.

QuizUp
QuizUp (free) is a social iPhone trivia game with an impress array of more than 250 quiz topics that amount to 150,000 questions. You can play against strangers or challenge a friend, and games are fast, wrapping up in about a minute or so.

CONTENT

Pic Stitch
The next time you share a photo from your iPhone with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your social media app of choice, try using the Pic Stitch app to make it a three-in-one…or a four-in one. This app lets you stitch different images together into one collage quickly and easily. It has tools for editing the photos as well. Pic Stitch gives your image-sharing efforts three or four times as much punch.

Adobe Photoshop Express
Digital photography editing, has until recently, been a task best suited to desktop and laptop computers. Adobe has proven it can be done in the mobile space with Photoshop Express, a free photo-editing application for the iPhone and other iOS devices. Photoshop Express is a powerhouse of a mobile app and can even handle noise reduction (getting rid of those extraneous particles that show up on photos). All in all, Adobe Photoshop Express is a solid tool fo rmaking light photo edits on your iPhone.

FINANCE

Shoeboxed
Shoeboxed snaps a photo of your purchase or client meal. The app will scan for data (like the restaurant’s name and the payment type you used. A human at Shoeboxed will then verify it for accuracy before the digital service categorizes the receipt. You can even use it for mileage. Just click the “Go” button and click “Stop” when you arrive at your destination. Those with the premium service ($9.99/month), receive pre-paid envelopes where they can place paper receipts that Shoeboxed adds to your account.

Onavo
The free app Onavo Extend compresses data automatically to help you reduce data usage on your phone. In other words, it will save you money if you typically exceed your mobile service plan’s data allotment. Additionally, anyone traveling abroad with an iPhone should absolutely have Onavo installed. Learn the settings well, and watch your data usage decrease without you having to do anything else.

PAID

Audio Memos – Paid: $0.99
Audio Memos is a professionally made audio recorder. It has an amazingly intuitive interface, easy to use and full of powerful features. Use in interviews, lectures, music session, briefings, and simplify your recording tasks. Amazingly loud – hear your recordings.

• Background recording – multitask at will.
• iCloud – access your memos everywhere.
• Email your recordings.
• USB file transfers.
• Append audio to existing recordings.
• Search / Sort / Filter your recordings.
• Variable speed scrubbing.
• Send recordings to a computer using WiFi.
• Records when your device is in sleep mode.
• Pauses automatically on incoming phone calls.
• No time limit on recording length.

Print Central – Paid: $6.99
Print direct to most WiFi/Wireless printers without additional software. Print to ALL printers and any document type via your Mac/PC. Print remotely over 3G/4G and in corporate/other networks where WiFi is not available. View, store & print email, large documents & PDFs, files, attachments, photos, contacts and web pages on your iPad.

TimeClock – Paid: $6.99
TimeClock turns an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad into a timekeeping device for tracking and reporting multiple employee’s work hours. It works best for cases where all employees are clocking in and out of the same device. A growing list of expansion packs, which are purchased from the app, deliver additional functionality.

Business Plan Premier – Paid $9.99
This will guide you through the development of each section, which includes:

• Writing your Vision & Mission Statements
• Creating your Product Description
• Identifying your Target Market
• Competitive Analysis
• Creating your Marketing Plan
• Developing a SWOT Analysis
• Outlining the Management Summary
• Identifying your Start-up Expenses
• Creating an Income Statement
• Formulating a Balance Sheet
• Summarizing an Executive Summary