Saxtead Old Mill House – Jubilee Quiz – 1st June

Back by popular demand, another quiz at Saxtead Old Mill House. Please book direct with Nick and Ruth at the pub, expect a different kind of picture round.

Bubble-Stack-Draw-Swim-Carry On – Five Fun Apps

Time for a little review of five fun applications for the i-Phone; igobubble, Stack the Countries, Draw Something, Splash Path, Keep Calm and Carry On.

 

igobubble

The first, igobubble is very new and certainly underused in the area where I live. I love the concept, it combines some of the features of geocaching and social networking but adds more besides.

The basic idea is that you create a video, message or photograph, edit if you wish and release it as a bubble. Other igobubblers can, once they are physically close enough, capture it and if they chose clone, take on a journey, inflate or deflate it as well as add comments. You can track bubbles you have created or interacted with.

One of the smartest things is that once released you can not guarantee what happens next, rather like releasing trackables for geocachers, you might ask that something happens but you can’t guarantee it.

I’ve released a few in wild and woolly areas of Suffolk, these may never be found. A couple of shots are of detritus thrown from cars, with “Don’t be a Tosser” on them in tribute to @MarkGlennMurphy and his anti-litter campaign. Also some in Ipswich, which lovely @easternsparkle has collected and I’ve bagged some of her’s which I’ll drop somewhere. I’ve also set up and will continue to add, a series called ‘Where in Framlingham’ some are straightforward, shots of the castle, college and town sign some are more obscure like the one below, which I hope people might see as a treasure trail (@DancingGoatFram might be able to help you with this one).

I really like this app, I love the graphics, actions and ideas behind it and I really hope it takes off. It could be used for anything from just releasing nice thoughts, videos or snaps (uses aviary for photo editing on the move too), to campaigning and a little social theory testing, it is quite intriguing.  The only downside for me at the moment is rather like being the only person with a cocoa tin and a piece of string there are very few local users and with poor signal strength in our rural patch uploads take ages.

Stack the Countries

This is a nice simple game, multiple choice, identify countries.  They are released and stack up, once you reach the target you win a country. A great little diversionary app and if it means I do better on geography and flag identification questions at quizzes I’ll be happy.

I like this app, it’s a bit of fun. I’m slightly suspicious that a few of the countries are a bit smooth (as if not properly mapped) but it is only a very few, hopefully they’ll sort them out later.

Draw Something

I probably don’t need to say anything about this one; it feels like everybody is playing it.  Basically Pictionary meets hangman – draw sketches others to guess what they are, earn coins to buy extra colours and bombs to make the guessing easier. It is easy, addictive and improves my drawing not a jot. I’m using the free version and it seems the vocabulary bank is a bit limited, so once you have seen a word before it is likely to come up again in future games.  Occasionally games become corrupted, like the one below and the available letters do not form the word being guessed but it is easy to delete the game and start again.

 

Splash Path

One for swimmers who like to log their miles in an entertaining way. Just type in the name of your pool; easy for public pools – I’m logging as Stradbroke in Splash Path but actually swimming in Framlingham Pool as not listed. I’m currently ‘swimming’ the Loch Ness challenge.  Sadly the college pool was closed for a while so I’m in danger of having my toes bitten by Nessie.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Such a simple app to finish with – create your own Keep Calm and Carry On style posters and share, the only limit is how clever you are with your ideas and the range of logos.

I hope you enjoy them……..