Technology & Gadget Blog

The holidays are on their way and the Apple App Store has everything you need to throw a fabulous Christmas bash. While styleathome.com has all of your party planning, decorating and tabletop ideas covered, these 4 apps are ideal for getting the best food and drink recipes at your fingertips.

1 Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals ($7.99)
He’s British, he’s cute and now he’s gone mobile. With 50 brand new recipes and over 1000 hi-res step-by-step photos, this app doesn’t mess around. It also includes a shopping list for each recipe that you can cross off once you’ve purchased. Even better? Once it’s downloaded onto your Phone or iPod Touch there’s no internet connection needed to access the recipes.

2 Canadian Living Mobile (free)
Finally, the great recipes that our nation’s own food mag produce every month are now available in mobile format. Follow their holiday countdown or check in daily for the featured ‘Recipe of the Day’. Plus, check out tips on entertaining, holiday and style and bookmark recipes and articles that you want to keep close at hand.

3 Mixologist: Drink Recipes ($0.99)
A party isn’t a party without a great selection of mixed drinks. This app literally has every combination you can think of — over 7,900 drink recipes, to be exact. You can browse recipes, search by what’s in your liquor cabinet and also by category (Jello shots, anyone?). Definitely a must-have app for discovering your party’s signature drink.

4 All Recipes Dinner Spinner (free)
From the net’s best user-contributed recipe website comes an equally wonderful free app. With thousands of recipes to choose from, it may seem overwhelming at first, but the Dinner Spinner portion makes it easy as pie. Just choose the dish type, ingredients and ‘ready in’ time amount and the app selects all the recipes that fall under those categories. Need something that’s gluten-free? When using the recipe search function, you can filter what you’re looking for, whether it’s a variety of vegan dishes or meals with no wheat or milk.

Much like what you wear is a reflection of your style, so are your personal tech goods, in my opinion. You won’t catch me with an ugly laptop sleeve, iPhone case or mousepad. Which is why I L-O-V-E these wallpaper options for your PDA’s, by top designer Jonathan Adler.

Simply stunning and sized perfectly for 6 different smartphones (iPhone, Palm Pre, and an array of Blackberry’s), these wallpapers will guarantee you nods of approval from stylish techies and design lovers alike.

To view the whole collection, visit jonathanadler.com

I have to say, when I read about this, I almost cried (only because Apple hasn’t come up with something similar for the iPhone). The geniuses at RIM have developed a TiVo app for the Blackberry that will allow users to remotely schedule tapings from their phone. So what the heck does that mean, you ask? Basically, Blackberry and TiVo users can now set up their home PVR to record a show, regardless of where the user is located. I could be getting off the subway to go for dinner and remember that Mad Men is on in an hour — no problem if I’m a BB user! I can just look it up on my phone and hit record and a signal will be sent to my TiVo at home.

Since I am a Tivo user, I’m just waiting patiently for Apple to come up with their own TiVo app.

Just the mention of IKEA makes me all warm and happy inside.Their designs are modern, super affordable and they go to great lengths to keep things eco-freindly. Basically, IKEA rules.

However, if I were to nit-pick, I do find the task of writing down aisles and bins and trying to find all the products in the warehouse a little tedious. I’m more of a ‘I see, I like, I pick-up’ kind of gal.

The iPhone app store has come through once again, this time with an awesome application called SwedeShop, where you can track the IKEA items you want for easy finding at the end of your trip.

5 cool features:

1 Record items you see in the showrooms and organize by section (cooking, textiles, etc.)

2 Add details to items like the name, quantity you need, price, and priority on your shopping list

3 Take pictures of items for reference and add to the item’s folder

4 Differentiate if the item is self-serve (i.e. in the warehouse) or in housewares (IKEA Marketplace)

5 List items you will need to order from the store

To purchase for $0.99, visit the iTunes App Store.

As much as I love iPhone apps, I get bummed out when they cost more than $1.99 (I did buy The New York Times Crossword app for $10, but that took several days of convincing myself).

Style at Home assistant editor Jenn Houlihan just forwarded me a link to the absolute coolest app I’ve seen in awhile. Best thing about it? It’s 100% free! It’s Benjamin Moore’s Ben Color Capture app, and it basically lets you take a pic of anything you want, tap on any colour in that image, then shows you the Benjamin Moore paint swatches that most closely match your colour. Brilliant!

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I’m a TiVo fanatic. Ever since I brought the wonderful little box into my apartment, I’ve been hooked. How did I enjoy life before the magic of digital TV recording? I just don’t know. Whether it’s to watch junk reality shows like MTV’s The Real World, or record my fave movie that is inconveniently airing at 4am, my TiVo has become a reliable pal.

Well, TiVo has just made my life even easier. When I was away in Boston this past weekend, my little video buddy recorded a plethora of programs and I’m having a hard time trying to watch them all. And now, I’ve just found out this fascinating little program: iTiVo. That’s right, folks. You can now transfer your recorded programs from your video box to your iTunes account on your Mac computer. From there, you can upload the content onto your iPod or iPhone. How cool is that? Now there’s no reason for you to fall behind on your fave TV shows, even when you’re on the road.

Check out the details here, as well as instructions on how to download the instruction manual.

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It’s a fight to the finish line – at least, in my head it is. Who will win the coveted award of downloading the billionth Apple iPhone/iPod application? The stakes are high with this one, as the winner gets a $10,000 US iTunes giftcard, an iPod Touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. With swag like that up for grabs, I am determined to win, and have been downloading apps like crazy for the past few days. The internet is abuzz with dates on when the tally will hit a billion, the favourite being April 23rd (follow the countdown on the Apple website).

To get you on the road to the grand prize, here are a few of my fave apps:

Tweetie: One of the most popular Twitter apps. Allows you to use all of the conveniences of web-based Twitter on your iPhone/iPod Touch. ($2.99)

Camera Zoom: The answer to your iPhone camera’s prayers. This app is only $.99 and gives yo 4x digital zoom on your phone’s camera. When zooming, it looks a bit blurry, but focuses automatically when you hit the capture button.

Urbanspoon: Not sure where to go for dinner? Let this app decide. Your device’s GPS finds your location and Urbanspoon will randomly suggest a place to eat and give you contact details. You can also manually search within their database.

Remote: I love this app for those lazy Sundays when I don’t want to get off the couch to change the music on my iMac. Remote allows you to control your iTunes music and playlists on your computer directly from your iPhone or iPod touch. Best part? It’s free!

Who Has The Biggest Brain?: This is my fave game to play while riding the subway in the morning. The perfect way to exercise the brain, this game tests your skills in 4 segments (analytics, math, memory, visual processing) and analyzes your brain size based on how well you scored combined with how fast you worked. ($.99)

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