More Android Fun...

FUN?!!!... Frustrating is more like it...

I figured out that Android Apps are a "free-for-all," and not all of them are free. I've tried many apps trying to figure out how to stream line my work flow. I'm getting into the Six Sigma process design, haha.

Anyway, the only things I use my Galaxy Tab for is 1) Reading eBooks 2) Posting on my Blog.

READING

Reading eBooks was a no brainer... the Kindle app took care of it all. It even works with most of my library eBooks. I have the Overdrive app for the library eBooks not borrowed from Kindle, but I haven't had to use it yet.

BLOGGING

Posting to my blog was not so easy. I tried many apps... different cameras, different photo editors, different journal apps. Some paid for, and some not... and many many apps that did not work or only partially worked. Thought I would like one app to do it all, no such thing existed. I needed a camera app, photo editor app, blogger app, and other apps that I didn't know I needed until I tried them as you will see if you keep reading:

I several different cameras... the popular Zoom FX, Paper Camera, and others that add special effect or borders. But, I keep going back to the camera app that came with the tablet. It's easy to use. I can zoom in and out using the volume buttons, there is a timer, burst mode, and I can record video with it. It's has everything that I need in a camera, plus it saves my pictures to my SD card instead of tablet memory. The other camera apps have been removed from the tablet.

I have tried many many many different photo editors until I settled on Aviary. It's easy to use. I can fix the image quality, add frames, crop, add text, and it can share with Blogger. That's what I need 98% of the time. One of the editors I tried was the very popular Instagram app. I like my pictures clear, bright and colorful. Near as I can tell, Instagram is for making your pictures look old. They do have a great community, but I can't have my family going to multiple sites to see what I want to show them.... I think that's just rude.

The last thing I needed was the Blogger app. The Blogger app lets me create a new post (with text and pictures) and publish it to my blog. Simple, straight forward and easy.

Now I can post simple text and pictures to my blog! Hooray!

So here is my blogging process:

1) Take a picture. I can use the camera app or take the picture through Aviary.
2) Edit the picture in Aviary.
3) Select sharing in Aviary and post straight to Blogger.

THE NEXT STEP

There are some fun apps out there that let me "play" with my pictures. Here are my favorites:

Instead of posting an entire line of photos to my blog, I'll post a collage of photos. The first collage maker I tried was Photo Grid. It did everything I wanted, so I didn't even try any other app.

InstaPlace along with InstaWeather are fun they let me add some stylish text over the photos marking the place, time and weather. However, they require wifi to work. So even though I have GPS location turned on, it still won't tag the photo without wifi. A total bust for camping. I added the InstaPlace information on the camping photo in the post below after I got home (no wifi in the campground).

So here is my blogging process if I want to use any of these extra apps:

1) Take a picture. I can use the camera app or take the picture through Aviary.
2) Edit the picture in Aviary.
3) Save the picture to my SD card.
4) Open the picture in the app of choice.
5) Edit the picture (create collage or add location text)
6) Save the picture to the SD card.
7) Post the picture using blogger.

I hope this helps anyone who is trying to get some basic use out of their new android device.