Here's a few items that I seem to be telling people about quite a bit lately. You may want to check them out.
Weather Underground – A Weather App That Doesn't Suck
It seems like as each of the main weather apps we all use on our phones (The Weather Channel, Accuweahter, Yahoo! Weather) have been trying to improve the experience, but have created a mess that I can often not understand. We've also seen a slew of apps like Shade, Haze, Nice Weather… that have tried to develop a new metaphor, but often lack critical data I'm looking for.
Then I tried the Weather Underground app again. Ahhhhh… so nice. Just about all the information I'm looking for, easily accessible, and you can customize the layout. It is hard to believe how bad the competitors really are.
Download it here: Google Play, iTunes
eReaderIQ – Pay Less For Your Kindle Books
I've written about this service before, and I'm still using it all the time. eReaderIQ will track books that you want to buy and let you know when there's a price drop by email. Its a fantastic service that also gives you a book's history so you can see how much less you may be able to pay for it.
Here's an example of the price history for Denis Lehane's "Gone, Baby, Gone". You can see that if you had an alert set up for this title, you could have paid only $1.99 for it (which I did).
Chromecast – Stream Video Services To Your TV for $35
Its $35 and it lets you stream video to your TV from your Apple/Android/Windows phone or your Mac/PC. And its starting to have games built on it. It is a small dongle that plugs into an HDMI port on your TV. Its simple to use and will work with most devices going forward. These simple, cross platform devices are a glimpse into the future of gadgets… I hope!
Bostonography.com – Mapping Boston
If you live in the Boston area the site Bostonography.com is a must visit. It uses maps to show you different aspects of the Boston population, voting trends, activities, and transportation.
This live map of Boston bus speeds is a great example. Check it out!
And here's a map the distance to a liquor store from any spot in the city. Awesome!
The ProJo's Tim Britton – Great Red Sox Analysis
If you want some great analysis of what is going on with the Red Sox, there's nobody out there better than Tim Britton. He covers the daily grind, but also often writes the article that answers a question that had been in my head for a while, but I didn't quite know it. A good example is this article: "Quantity and Quality: Breaking down the next generation of Red Sox pitchers". Good stuff!
Orphan Black on BBC America – Binge Worthy TV
"Orphan Black" is an fun and interesting drama/mystery from BBC America that is one season old, with a second season staring in April 2014.
It is now streaming for free on Amazon if you have Prime.
Here's the preview for season 1.