Since some of my blogging and emailing and such comes from my phone, it’s only fair that I share with you my fav Android apps that keep me in the loop and connected with everyone and everything:

DailyBooth: the DailyBooth app allows me to upload a new or existing photo to my DailyBooth account

WordPress: WordPress has its very own Android app, so updating my blog and moderating comments is a browser-less breeze.

Mileage: the Milage app allows me to keep track of how much money I spend on fuel, and when, and the average MPG that I get with each fill-up, as well as the average of all of the fil-ups. You can track multiple vehicles, which is quite nice. I have been using this particular app since January 2009, so over the past year and a half my husband and I have been able to see – and cry at – just how much fuel we’ve purchased and how far it has taken us.

Facebook: the Facebook app does, as one might guess, what the mobile Facebook page does, except that it’s geared towards Android phones, and provides condensed, easy-to-access options and info

MySpace: ditto what the Facebook app does, only it’s for MySpace

Twidroid: a great Twitter app (note: newer versions of Android contain their Twitter app called Peep).

AnyPost: easily send updates (with or without photos – your choice) to Ping.fm, which in turn shares it with any connected social networks

Foursquare: a fun app that allows me to easily send updates and check-ins to my Foursquare account

WeReward: IZEA’s WeReward app is now available for Android, which means I can earn points (that can accumulate to be enough for me to cash-out for $10 via PayPal) for checking in at certain places and doing certain things. ?

In the mobile phone world these days the biggest competition isn’t one manufacturer or another, but Android (or “Droid”) vs. Blackberry vs. Apple iPhone (a manufacturer and OS all in one *snicker*). All have their features, advantages and disadvantages, but as someone who works from home full time, and uses Google for their email, Android is the clear winner. I am currently on my third Android phone, the slick and lovely T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide, and I can’t imagine using anything but Android. Its features, its apps, its sync options… it provides every single thing that I need!

For the past several weeks I have been wanting to put up a new layout for jenn.nu. Unfortunately, I don’t have nearly the amount of free time that I used to. Once upon a time I would wake up in the mornings and wonder how I would pass the time all day. If I had something exciting come up, the time would absolutely crawl until the eve of the event arrived. These days I’m doing good to get everything I need to get done each day done, let alone cram in things that I simply want to get done. So that means articles on baby shower games come over my need for a new design, as much as I want to get that new design done!

Nevertheless, I’ve managed to find the time this past week, and four days worth of 15-20 minute chunks here and there has allowed me to churn out a layout that is about 75% complete. Thanks to a spiffy summery palette at Colour Lovers and a few substitutions of my own, I have a kick-ass color scheme. I’m going slightly retro, too, bringing back things that haven’t really been seen on the personal website design scene since the early 00’s.

Right now I would love to finish up the layout, but I’m at the pool with my husband and kids, and it’s kind of hard to devote more than 5-10 minutes worth of concentration at a time. Both kids are swimming on their own and going off of the diving board, but understandably it’s important that I help my husband keep tabs on the kidlets!

Way back when there used to be tons of options available for tagboards. One in particular that I remember came from webfroot.com, or something like that. I know that “froot” was involved in the name. I’ll have to look around and see if I can find a tagboard that is still made by that particular person/company, because all of the other options I have found today just suck. Tagboards and shoutboxes just aren’t what they used to be. The ones that are available are hosted on third-party websites, so of course the customization options are limited, plus you’re required to include links back to the site as credit. Pfft. I would much rather have my own PHP- or WordPress- based tagboard that functions and runs from my site, so I can customize it to my liking, and credit the provider of the tagboard in the credits section of my site, rather than somewhere on the tagboard itself.

Thursday 13: Thirteen must-have WordPress plugins

1. @Reply – allows you to do Twitter-style replies to people who leave comments on your entries
2. Akismet – awesome spam protection
3. BM-TrackPing – separates pings and trackbacks from regular comments (very useful when organizing giveaways and selecting winners!)
4. CommentLuv – share the commenting love!
5. Comment Timeout – automatically close comments after X amount of weeks/months. This is especially great if you have a giveaway for baby shower games, and don’t want people entering after the contest has ended.
6. CR Post to Ping.fm – send notifications of new blog entries to Ping.fm
7. Custom Smilies – should be self-explanatory
8. Flickr Manager – makes adding Flickr photos to blog entries a no-brainer
9. Math Comment Spam Protection – more spam prevention
10. Search and Replace – run “find X and replace it with Z” queries from the admin panel
11. Spam Karma 2 – awesome spam prevention
12. TTFTitles – use fonts to generate custom title images
13. WP-PageNavi – add numbered pages navigation to your posts

A few months ago IZEA launched WeReward, a mobile phone application that allows users to “check in” to report where they’re at and what they’re up to, in exchange for points. Special tasks (such as taking a picture of yourself at a Panera Bread or in a grocery store with a particular product) can also be completed for points. So many points equals $10 cash-outs, which can be received via PayPal.

When I first heard about WeReward, I thought it was really neat, but didn’t join, since at that point the app was only available for the iPhone. But as of today it’s available for Android! Whoo! So guess who just signed up? I’m sitting in a Panera Bread right now, and as soon as I leave I’m going to take a picture of the entrance and submit it as a task, for which I’ll earn 5 points. Whee.

So, this is my official update to I want that phone: I got that phone! The T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide is my favorite Android phone so far. It’s the functionality (read: physical QWERTY keyboard) of the T-Mobile G1 & the glossy sexiness of the T-Mobile myTouch 3G combined and sped up to include loads of sexy new features. Besides the keyboard, my new favorite feature is most definitely the camera flash! Yes, a flash! It’s about time, T-Mobile.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some wrinkle cream reviews to look up. Not that I need wrinkle cream… yet. But there’s a product review from a big company coming up, and I’m going to put my mom up on the guinea pig block for it. So I’m looking at what’s most effective, what’s new, what’s working, what is friendly for sensitive skin, etc.

P.S. Of course I added this blog entry from my phone, using Android’s very own WordPress app.

Seeing as how I upload photos to Flickr on a regular basis, and regularly include photos in my blog entries, it only makes sense to span the distance between Flickr and WordPress with a plugin. Only, I didn’t think of that until recently. Now, there are several Flickr plugins available, but there’s only one that does what I want — include a handy link of sorts, that when clicked, will open up to display X amount of recent photos (and include links for searching by keywords, through photosets, etc.). And that plugin is WordPress Flickr Manager.

WordPress Flickr Manager does exactly what I want it to. It adds the Flick logo to the Upload/Insert ribbon that is located above the text editor on the Add New Post page. When clicked, it launches an overlay window that shows your recent photos (the number shown is customizable, of course). Clicking on any photo takes you to an individual photo customization page, similar to what WordPress’s Add an Image page does. There, you specify alt/title/caption (if desired), choose the size and alignment of the photo, and then click Insert to insert it into your post. The HTML coding goes wherever you have your cursor at. Simple, eh? That’s what I love about it. Intuitive, rich with the features I need, yet simple and quick. You can use this plugin to show off photos of your kids, the baby shower favors you’re thinking of having at your upcoming baby shower, photos of the products that you find effective at getting rid of blackheads, whatever. Whatever you upload to Flickr is there for you to add to your posts!

I will caution you, however: WordPress Flickr Manager, by default, does not work with newer (2.9+) versions of WordPress. But hacking it to make it work is quite simple. Simply open up the four .php files located inside the /js folder, and do a mass search/delete for the @ symbol. That’s right, find any instance of @ and delete it. Save, activate the plugin, customize your settings, and you’re good to go!

I thought it would be interesting to share my blogging history. Feel free to share yours, either in the comments or on your own blog (a link back here to help me spread this cute-though-not-original meme type post would be appreciated!)

1998: my mom purchased a Gateway computer (for $2000, no less) and dial-up internet service. Within a matter of days of being online I discovered Bolt.com, and started logging journal posts there.

1999: I started participating on the boards (the Sex & Love boards namely) on Kiwibox, and then started posting journal entries there.

1999/2000: I set up my own sites/manual journals on Geocities.

2001: After using Envy.nu and Virtue.nu for a little while, I got hosted at orange-jello.com (I don’t remember what my subdomain was).

2001: I registered my very first domain name, orgasmic-bitch.org (since I was just sixteen at the time, my mom was a little irritated about the choice of name…), and began blogging with Greymatter.

2002: I registered kiss-my-kitty.com, and continued with Greymatter, though I eventually switched over to b2.

2005: Several domain names later (seriously, I hopped around with so many. A few I remember: voluptuous-girl.org, mwahness.net, kittylicious.com, sassylicious.com, lusciousness.org), I started using kitty.nu fulltime and switched to WordPress.

2006: I registered xoxo.nu.

2007: I registered and made the permanent switch to jenn.nu. I also set up several blogs, including this one and In My Bag, which is a product review blog (I review everything from fitness equipment to what I had for breakfast to what shampoo I just bought).

Today I manage multiple blogs, but jenn.nu remains my one true personal blog.

Dailybooth is one of the latest social media crazes right now, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been sucked into it (you can find me there as kissmykitty, of course). Basically, you take a picture of yourself once a day (or more, but obviously daily is the recommended minimum). The site works nicely, and you can email photos to your account. Depending on your phone, you may also be able to find apps (Android users, there is indeed an Android app!) to use with it. I really like the photo emailing feature. Let’s say you’re in a jewelry store and want to share the mens wedding bands you’re looking over. What quicker way to do it than with DB?

You can connect your Dailybooth with your Facebook and Twitter accounts as well, so you can let your friends and followers know when you’ve updated!