Mindfly Website Design Studio

We get pretty excited about the holidays at Mindfly. In exchange for working the day after Thanksgiving, we celebrated by decorating the office for Christmas (and any other winter holiday that your family may [or may not] celebrate. Really, when the centerpiece of our decorations includes little bottles of liquor hanging on an artificial tree, you can tell that no one around here gets too uptight about the political correctness of the holidays).

In anticipation of the holiday marathon ahead for the rest of the month, here are some handy iPhone applications that might help you survive the holidays.

Please note that my suggestions in no way endorse these as "the best apps" (I honestly haven't even downloaded them all). But if you're looking for an app to make your holidays more bearable, these ideas might point you in the right direction.

For Shopping
I’ve made it my own personal mission to as little physical shopping as possible for the holidays this year. No visits to the crowded mall, no wasted money on wrapping paper, no trying to figure out how to get Christmas gifts for my whole family into my carry-on bag. But if you’re a thrifty holiday shopper, you might want to check out Red Laser, which iSmashPhone heralds as "The First Accurate iPhone Barcode Scanner". Scan a product's barcode or enter the UPC number to compare prices. Available for $1.99 at the iTunes store.

For Travel
Look, there are a lot Flight Status-esque apps out there, but I don't like to spend money on apps if I can help it. But a handy app for when you've already reached your out-of-town destination is AroundMe, which features categories of nearby restaurants, ATMs, pharmacies, and more—everything you need to survive a visit with your relatives. There's also a search function that's useful if, say, you’re in an unfamiliar city and you're looking for a restaurant known for its infamous macaroni and cheese concoctions but of course you forgot to write down the address when you looked it up the night before. Available for FREE at the iTunes store.

For Eating
A really good app that a good friend suggested to me is AllRecipes.com Dinner Spinner. There are three categories—Dish Type, Ingredients, and Ready In—that you can spin or select to find recipes that will match your requirements. For example, maybe you have some leftover ham that you want to use to make a quick breakfast. View matches and—ta-da— Dinner Spinner suggests "Plantation Ham Cakes". What I love most about this app is that other cooks can leave reviews and provide their modifications to the recipes. Available for FREE at the iTunes store.

For the Kids
I don't have kids, so it sometimes baffles me when I see so many child-oriented apps in the iTunes store. Are there really kids out there with their own iPhone? The answer is probably, "Yes, but not as many as you fear," as I’ve also discovered that a great way to distract a child is to give them free reign of your phone for awhile. At least while their PSP recharges. But the holiday season gives adults an excuse to act like a kid again, and to celebrate, I downloaded Christmas Countdown to mark the days until the BIG day. It's a musical app with animation and the best part is that you can select a song from your own musical to play whenever you open the app; I have selected my favorite Christmas song of all time (or at least the past two years), "Why Can't It Be Christmastime All Year?" by Rosie Thomas. Available for FREE at the iTunes store.

For the Awkward Pauses
The holidays are a time to gather with family that you don’t see for the other 364 days a year, to remind you why you only see them once a year. Just kidding, Mom! I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys for the holidays this year. But just in case you don't get along with your family as well as I do with mine, the Touch Hockey: FS5 app is always an option when you hit that long lull in the conversation. It's a great time killer and topic starter if you’re grasping at straws to find something in common with your second cousin from Akron, Ohio. Available for FREE at the iTunes store.

October is one of my favorite months of the year in Bellingham. I always look forward to watching the leaves of deciduous trees on Sehome Hill change from green to gold, and the days of rain interrupted by unpredictable bouts of sunshine. A trip to a different Whatcom County pumpkin patch has become a tradition with a good friend, and I am constantly in search for the perfect cup of hot apple cider at downtown Bellingham’s many cafés.

And now that I work at Mindfly, the first full month of fall is also a time of firsts and fun celebrations.

Last October, I went on my first business trip to Las Vegas. While I was there, I got to see my first Cirque du Soleil performance for my job. Not a bad deal.

Also in October of 2008, Mindfly celebrated Christmas early with a trip to the AT&T store to stock up on iPhones to reinforce our company’s dedication to design for mobile and the use of social media in online marketing and image branding. And decorating for downtown Bellingham’s Halloween Trick-or-Treat is always big day at Mindfly. In fact, John Raasch even asked me if I had a Halloween costume ready at my interview two years ago.

Yep. October 29, 2009 marks my second anniversary as Mindfly’s resident journalist and go-to grammarian (it’s also the 40th anniversary of the first communication sent over a host-to host connection via the ARPANET, a precursor of the Internet, which is certainly something to celebrate at Mindfly Web Studio).

Two years might not seem like a long time, but it’s a big achievement for a twenty-something Millennial in her first real post-college position. I’ve learned much more about websites than I ever thought I would, and I’ve also learned a lot about online journalism through trial and error. It’s been a unique experience to help start a local website from scratch and watch it grow.

Although we’re missing out on some of the Halloween fun in 2009 (don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining that the studio won’t be open on Saturday), Mindfly still has a reason to celebrate as October comes to an end.

I’m not at liberty to divulge too much information just yet, so allow me to paraphrase Mr. McGuire and his famous advice from The Graduate; I just want to say one word to you – just one word. Boogaloo. Think about it.