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App Review – Gardenate

I’m a pretty keen amateur gardener & was using the good old fashion pen & paper when it came to recording the progress of my garden or what I’ve planted where. I’ve been following the website Gardenate to have a bit of an idea on what to plant when. I have been waiting for the app to finally come to Android, and forgot all about it till recently. I’ve been building up quite a bit of credit on the Google Play Store by doing the surveys & decided that I needed to spend it soon before they expire. I might do another post at a later date explaining about the surveys for people who might be interested as I found it quite a nifty way to make some money on Google to purchase stuff. Good win-win advertising on Google’s behalf.

Anyway, I digress. I started using the Gardenate app in February or March & have found it pretty good so far.

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This is the landing page you get to when you open the app. There are a few tabs on the top & they are rather self explanatory. I like the simplistic design of it all, making it rather easy to navigate around. I haven’t used the wish list yet, just cause I’ve been pretty well stocked in terms of seeds at the moment, maybe in about a year or so when my supply dwindles, I’ll try it out.

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The Planting Now tab features the types of plants that can be planted according to what month it is. I take this tab with a grain of salt as I also go according to the specific seed packet as well as the present weather conditions.

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This tab features the things I’ve planted & the locations. Kind of like a digital map of my veggies. And good news is that the app is available on iOS as well as Android OS.

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There’s also the All Plants & Diary tabs which are pretty helpful in identifying any plants that you might consider planting & it gives details of suitable planting conditions & tips.

All in all, I quite like the app as I can always refer back to what I’ve planted when & replant stuff if they aren’t successful. They even feature a plant again button so that you can press it & it’ll document that you’ve planted something on that day.

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I find it very handy to know when I can roughly expect my veggies to be harvested. The app is able to link to your calender to insert a reminder when things can be harvested. Good to know as I’ve planted some things for the first time & have no idea how long it takes.

All in all, I really like this app in all its simplicity & for all the information provided in it. I bought the app for $2.58 I think, from memory & it’s one of the better ones I’ve spent my money on. Do you use any gardening apps? Let me know in the comments below!

App Review – Monefy

It’s without a doubt that I spend a lot of my time on my phone (my trusty Samsung Galaxy Note 4) each day, reading stuff on blogs, going on social media, as well as making phone calls. I figured, that given that the majority of you will own a smartphone, I’d review a few of my favourite apps for the Android OS. Sorry iPhone users, I don’t use one anymore & can’t review any!

I tweeted this week about the money tracker app that I recently purchased, Monefy. I tried the free version for a while & liked it & decided to fork over the money for the full version (AUD$2.58). I’ve been doing Google surveys & have earned quite a nice sum in the Play store, hence the decision to buy it was a pretty easy one.

The full version has the ability to password lock, sync to Dropbox & a few other features. I particularly like the visual display & the pastel colours of the app. I’m a bit of a visual person, and being able to see the percentage of my money being allocated to certain categories is really handy.

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Please forgive the stickers, I’d rather keep my actual balance sheet private. The balance at the bottom shows you how much is left after you spend stuff. The ability to categorise spending works well for the librarian in me, there isn’t a shortage of categories to choose from either – going from house, bills, eating out, groceries, right to entertainment, taxis, toiletries & clothes. Now if you’re not like Becky Brandon (nee Bloomwood) & makes excuses to categorise dining tables from a trip away as essential items, I think you’ll survive.

You can view your spending in daily, weekly, monthly or yearly modes & even go into a budget mode where every dollar is allocated to something – including savings. I’m by no mean a financial expert but I love dealing with figures & coming up with ways to challenge myself to save more & pay off my mortgage sooner. That would be another post for another day.

The ability to be able to enter purchases or bills in advance is really handy if you’re short on time or forget to account for recurring expenditure or bills. I’ve entered my mortgage payments in a few times & also my utilities. It’s been a pretty good visual representation of how each dollar is spent. You can also enter if you paid cash or card for certain things. Helpful if you need to keep track of how much plastic gets used in planning for potential credit card spend control.

There are many more features to this app & I’ll be playing around with it some more & might report back at a later date. So far, I’d give it a 4.5/5. Just cause I can’t set recurring expenses like mortgage payments to occur. Other than that, a fantastic app!

What’s your favourite money tracker app? Let me know!

Ross Noble Tangentleman Tour

I had the chance to watch Ross Noble’s 2015 Australian Tour, Tangentleman over the weekend. I just admit, I’ve been living under a stone as I didn’t know who Ross Noble is or what they did, some friends were going so I agreed to go along. I figured, it couldn’t be bad as they’ve been before to other tours.

We watched the Saturday session over at the Regal Theatre and boy oh boy did I enjoy it! I went in not knowing what to expect, which in my opinion, is not such a bad thing as I wouldn’t be biased either way. We sat down in the theatre to this sight:

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I still didn’t have any thoughts towards the whole thing yet, so I sat patiently waiting for the show to start. There was an ad that came on the screen for a charity that Ross was supporting (haha, we’re on first name basis now) called Riders for Health http://www.riders.org which gives people in disadvantaged countries skills & motorcycles to be able to provide health care to otherwise unreachable places. I thought it was a pretty nifty program & proceeds from the merchandise were going directly to this charity. I thought it was nice for Ross Noble to be doing that.

Anyway, the show then started & it was magnificent! He interacted with the front row of the audience & went on so many tangents from so many random things. I’m pretty sure you could not script the things he came up with. Like cmon, owl sex, give me krill & Darcy Watkins?? People at that particular show would know what I’m talking about. His jokes & demeanour was absolutely worth side splitting laughter & headache that ensued after. Tickets were well worth it as they were under $50 for the show that ran about 2.5 hours long, with a 15 minute interval. More bang for your buck than say, Russell Peters which was almost $200 but ran only for about an hour or so. Then again, they’re entirely different leagues so I really shouldn’t be comparing.

I would give that show a 5 out of 5 for its ingenuity, originality & randomness. To entertain a large crowd for nearly 2 hours takes some skill, especially when it’s largely freestyle. Kudos to the guy. 100% will be watching the next time he tours!