I write a monthly column over at AlliOSNews. It’s a techie site – extolling all the goodies and gunpowder on the Apple OS. (SHINY TOY!) I’m TechMom. And these are my stories on how technology is really used. This is what you must deal with, as I am a Silicon Valley nerd by day.
I’m well aware it’s Thursday. TechMom Tuesday is typically published the first Tuesday of every month, and this month I’m sharing a cool new app I discovered at the BlogHer 14 conference. I reserve the right to rant more or less as the technical goings-on, well…go on.
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
I used to be a scrapbooker. Creative Memories all the way, with approximately 57,000 stickers for every adventure.
I was known for stealing piles of brochures from hotel lobbies. I’d squirrel away a menu from a fancy restaurant and save every ticket. Every vacation or milestone moment in time became a stack of memories carefully curated into an 11×14 amalgamation of arranged art.
When I became TechMom, I had the best of intentions of continuing with my hobby, documenting those fleeting moments of childhood. I even started both TechTots books during the months my family lived apart – tiny twin TechTots in Chez NICU and me wishing them home already.
It was a short-lived dream. For one, when we were finally reunited as a family, I quickly learned that baby boys do not jive well with a hobby involving a multitude of strategically placed stickers, photos and tiny cuttings. Also, I embraced my role of TechMom and dove further into the digital age.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
As of July 23, 2014, there is a new way to document life’s little moments. OneDay is a brand new iOS app that instantly creates movies based off pre-posed questions for kids.
The idea for the app originated when the developer realized he wished there had been a way to document his father’s life.
What resulted was an idiot-proof app, which allows tech novices to create a memory video with nary a need for effort, time, or skill otherwise required for high-quality difficulties. (Save for the difficulties involved in wrangling 4-year-old TechTots and bribing them into participation for this post.)
This version of the app is solely designed for kid-friendly q&a – capturing the creativity of little ones all while capturing their creativity. (Do pay attention to your filming location – volume can be a little tricky to capture.)
Open the app and you’ll find a thumbnail gallery of your videos.
By clicking the + button, you can choose a new storyline.
Each story set (such as When I Grow Up or All About You) has 10 questions – it’s easy to record all of them in one shot (given the disclaimer above regarding TechTots with the attention span of a drunken goldfish) or skip through to your favorite few.
To add a new question, select the video camera icon. When done, select the paper up icon and the app instantly creates a single moving movie with music. You can then save the video to various social media addictions platforms or simply save to your iOS camera role. You an also choose to save your memories within the app and come back to add more later.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
OneDay is a free app. (For now at least.)
There are definitely a lot of opportunities to build upon. I’m told that there are many “Coming Soon” features under development – many of which may end up involving 99-cent in-app purchases.
Some options soon to be available are:
- More story sets (might I suggest back to school).
- Custom questions (maybe birthday or personal experiences on being a TechTot twin).
- Editable song for each movie (trust me, that one default gets old quick).
- Varying focus on age groups – like creating a memoir of Papa’s life (this one may be more roadmap wishlist from me).
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
– Pink Floyd, Time
So start talking… You never know what story you’ll want to share one day.
Totally going to check it out!