Rebecca's Blog

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

20 Feb

Yes, yes – we are still alive. Our life as of late has been filled with Working, Exercising (and losing weight ) , and enjoying the sunny State of California. Clark just made it official for him as a California Resident with his brand new flashy yellow Cali Drivers License and I can’t wait to receive mine within the next few weeks! We love our home and as we’re settling here officially, we are overcome with new love for this area. It has always been a little confusing – “Do we stay, or do we move?” We’re still a little bit unsure of where we make our home ‘for good’, but settling here and registering has caused us to move a little more on the ‘stay’ side than on the moving. Clark was SO excited to hold his brand new Cali license and he can’t wait to register the car. Which is unusual for him because he always is a bit nervous (and so am I) about how much it’ll cost. California is known for being a more expensive place to live. So it was shocking for us both to feel excited about being “Cali Residents”. We love the sunshine, the beach, and the star-struck atmosphere of our Hollywood home. We’re happy that we’re making things more official. Extra cost and all, we make it work – and have fun doing it at the same time.

We’ve been successful in making each Saturday more fun and relaxing by doing activities we aren’t able to fit in during the week. Clark just had a REALLY fun job last Thursday shooting Green Screen for a digitally animated Museum tour for a fancy museum for New York. If I am correct, this was the first time he shot on Green Screen, and he said it was easier than he thought, and also a fun creative experience. He had to visualize the scene in his head and light the actors as if the surrounding elements were present. He loved it! He also just barely applied for a video job for a touring family who has a show on the travel channel. Their concept of their show is to “find the perfect place to live”. They high-light popular cities all across the U.S. It would take him away for 3 months, which we are a little bummed about, but he would make some great money, have a lot of fun and gain a lot of experience, so we can’t be too sad about that. I’m so proud of him!

Things have been going really well for us this year. I knew from the moment 2010 hit that this year would be a year filled with GOOD things for our little family. Monumental changes for us physically and mentally, a prosperous year and an overall memorable year. Only good things happening for this Cooper Family and we’re loving every minute of it! We are so blessed!

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Categories Family
Author Rebecca

Motorola Droid Review

15 Feb

My husband and I have now had our Motorola Droids for a few months now, and we are constantly raving about HOW COOL they are! However, with ALLLLLL the cool features, there are a few items that could be better. Here are our Pro’s and Con’s:

PRO’S

The Applications
Google/gmail & Facebook contact integration
Google Maps – Navigation
Call Filter
Three Home screens
3G Internet (unlimited)
Wi-Fi
GPS Locator
16GB SD card = LOTS ‘o Memory!
Google Voice
Text Messaging
5MP Camera
DVD-quality Video
Rubber no slip back, NICE!
Open source APPS = greater possibility of REALLY COOL APPS!
Voice Recognition for texting! SO cool! Just say what you want to text and it does the work for you in typing it out.
Pinch zoom – like iPhone

CON’S

Battery life – not terribly inconvenient, but could be better
Back of phone battery cover slips off easily
Touch Screen = dirty screen
Touch sensitivity is hard to get used to, and on screen keyboard, small buttons – easily touch wrong letter. Also, you can easily touch wrong action and end up doing something you didn’t want to. grrr . It took awhile to get use to this, but after awhile you adapt and it gets easier.
Phone does not come with Car Charger… bummer…
Qwerty, pull out keyboard – small keys, have to learn a new way from old LG Env large keyboard
Open Source Apps = greater possibility of phone virus

I can’t tell you HOW COOL this phone is. You dream of a phone doing something – this phone does it! I am constantly surprised at its capabilities and am SO HAPPY that I secretly purchased these Motorola Droids as a surprise for Clark for Christmas

My Favorite Apps:

Google Voice – WOW! SO COOL, you get a text transcript of the voice message, so you don’t have to call into your voice mail to hear the message, you can read it on your phone!
Zedge – Huge selection of Wallpaper and Ringtones
WeatherBug – No complaints, accurate weather. It’s nice that the temperature stays in the top left corner of your phone. It’s connected to GPS so wherever you go, the temp and weather reports/warnings are current and up to date!
Google Voice Recorder – NICE! If you need to make a quick verbal note, it’s there to do the job well.
USA Today – I’m not a newspaper reading kind of girl, so I depend on this little App to keep me up to date with headlines for politics and current events. Also, good Weather app too.
Twidroid – No complaints, does all that I need it to. Great organization for @replies, and Attachments.
* Update – Twitter came out with an official App that I like a lot better.
Tube Downloader – COOL COOL COOL! A fantastic way to find your favorite Google Video, or YouTube videos, and actually download them to your Droid! Don’t have to search for them, you have a hard copy on your phone! I instantly downloaded all my favorite Dave Matthews Music videos!
* Update - I uninstalled this after it became way to slow for me. I am looking / hoping for another App like this that works better.
SitOrSquat - LOL! So cool! If you drink A LOT of water, or just have a weak bladder in general – this is a MUST! It provides a Google map of all your local reported public bathrooms. Comes in handy in an emergency!
Scan2PDF – If you don’t have a scanner handy and need to email a document to someone, this is a handy App to have. Take a picture of your document, convert it to PDF and send it via email!
Photoshop.com Mobile – Provides very basic photo editing settings, but is nice.
Robo Defense – FUN game!
Furdiburb – The cutest Droid pet I ever did see!! Fun game.
Replica Island- I almost feel like I’m playing a gameboy game with this. Which says a lot – that they built a game that all Droid games should be like.
Monkey Kick – An oddly fun game. Play it and you’ll know what I mean.
Gem Miner – AWESOME game! Will keep you occupied for hours. You feel like you can mine for hours and sometimes do, finding Gold, Silver and lots of other things. The strategy is to dig deeper and deeper, build ladders to make sure you can make it out before you get too tired and die!
What the Doodle? – It’s like a pictionary game, live with people all across the world. Pretty darn entertaining!
Sketcher – Fun to draw a quick (good-looking) sketch to a friend, or to draw what you’re trying to say and txt them.
Shopper’s Paradise – So fun!
Gentle Alarm – Great App that’s literally gentle in waking you up with a pre-alarm and actual alarm that plays .mp3 music lists.
Reveal – Free LDS Scriptures, Ensigns, Church Gospel Sunday School manuals, and even Free Classic Novels (like Jane Austen Novels!)
* Update - While Reveal is great, the Church has come out with an official scripture app called “Gospel Library“. It has Study Helps, Church Publications and General Conference as well as all the scriptures, plus you can actually search the Gospel Library which is something that Reveal does not have.
Mormon Channel - LDS radio App, really cool! You can also listen to Conference Talks, Scriptures, Magazine Articles Audio tracks right on your Droid!
LDS Radio Live Streaming – This App is awesome for listening to LDS music, talks and the BYU channel.
Ward Central – Get your LDS Ward directory App here. Easy to email ward members from and easy to call them right out of your own LDS Member Phonebook!
My Days – Every woman who still goes through PMS, download this App. MUST HAVE! SO cool!
My Coupons – Doesn’t provide a HUGE selection, but its cool and does provide some local coupons for places like Target, etc
QuickUnit Price Compare – Can’t decide which is the better deal? This simple to use App will help you figure out which one is the better buy. Very helpful when shopping!
Movies – No complaints, has local Movie Time Listings, and reviews
Mobisle Notes – Awesome app for keeping notes and shopping lists. Love it!
iMusic – Free Music Downloads… ’nuff said.
Google Translate – Different from other Translating Apps that I’ve come across, because you can use the voice feature to say (not type) what you’d like translated into nearly almost any language. It will then provide an option to speak back the translated text so you can hear how its pronounced. Very cool
FxCamera – My Favorite way to take pictures! Provides photo effects like Polaroid, Toy Camera, etc. Really neat.
Calorie Counter – Really really really cool if you’re trying to lose weight and keep track of your calories. This app even goes as far as to provide an option for you to scan the bar code of your food so you don’t have to search or input the nutritional information. You’ll scan it and up pops up all the nutritional information with serving size and you click ‘save’ and it adds to your Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Snack. Then when you’re done inputting your food for the day and any exercise you did – you can sync with your free account on FatSecret.com online! You don’t have to use the free account online, you can just keep everything local to your Droid. Oh yeah, you can weigh in too. It calculates your RDI (Recommended Daily Intake for your diet plan of losing x per week). Pretty much has everything you need for keeping track of your daily exercise and food intake. A MUST HAVE!
Buzz Off – Ever went to the movies, turned off your ringer and forgot to turn it back on after the 2 hour movie? No more worrying, set the timer on this app to vibrate/go silent for 2 hours and let it take care of turning back on your ringer afterwards! AWESOME!
Call Filter – Block those annoying telemarketers/Unknown Calls, or for a specific number. Nice to have.
Call Location – Find out where a certain number you are unfamiliar with/ or are familiar with is calling from. Utah? New York? Virginia? This App will tell you as each number calls you.
Bump It – Did your other Droid or iPhone buddy just take a really cool picture you want to have on your phone too? Or how about inserting their contact information into your phone? Don’t go through the hassle of emailing or IMing it to your friend, or opening up a new contact card - BUMP it! Both of you open up your Bump It app and select whether you want to share a file or contact information then bump your phones together and wa ‘la , there you go! SO cool!
Reverse Lookup - Somebody called and you didn’t catch their number or who they are? This App will help you figure out the number and where they called from.
BMI Calculator – Nice to have to keep track of your Ideal Weight and current Body Mass Index.
AndroBlogger – If you have a blogger blog, this will provide a quick basic way to blog from your phone!
WordPress – If you have a WordPress blog on WordPress.com or self-hosted (wordpress.org), this is a must have! Basic settings, but all you need to blog from your phone. You can even edit your pages!
WP Stats – If you have WordPress Stats installed to your website, this is a nice app to have to check your traffic to your WordPress site.
mAnalytics – Good Google Analytics App
ASTRO – Best file organizing App I have found so far.
EEBA – Envelopes – AWESOME for keeping track of your daily budget. I’d be lost without this, it’s so easy to balance where all your money goes, how much you have left to spend and keep track of your daily transactions. LOVE it!
Uninstaller - Essential App to have to easily uninstall Apps without having to click through the settings to get to where you uninstall. This is quick to pull up and quick to get those uninteresting Apps gone!

What are your thoughts on the Motorola Droid?

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Categories Review
Author Rebecca

A True Gift – Put to an Inspiring Use

12 Feb

This little girl helps remind me of where we all truly receive our talents, and how we should use them. To help others feel good and feel the Love that God wants us to so badly feel, and remind us all where we come from. I love it!