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Guest Author:
Nancy Evans is a freelance writer that specializes in technology and business.

New Years Eve is just around the corner, and for many that means trying to come up with a list of this year’s resolutions. It seems like every year, nearly everyone you know comes up with a long list of resolutions designed to make them a better person only to have many off those resolutions pushed into nonexistence or rolled over on to the following year’s list.

While resolutions aren’t always easy to stick to or achieve, there are several ways that technology can actually help you stay true to your goals. The apps available on smartphones and tablets have become increasingly helpful when trying to better organize and manage our lives, and there are a few apps in particular that can make adhering to your New Year’s resolutions, even those hard-to-do ones, much easier and even rewarding. Such apps include:

LunchMeet
For those who are wishing to become better connected in the professional world in hopes of finding the job of their dream or to simply find a partner for a business venture, LunchMeet is just the app to have. LunchMeet connects to LinkedIn and allows professionals to meet with one another face to face in their available locations. Through the app you can locate other professionals of interest and list your location as well as any time you are available. You are then free to contact others which may just land you that job you always wanted – because as we’ve all heard, it’s not what you know, but who you know.

Mint
If you have found yourself surrounded by debt over the last year, your New Year’s Resolution probably has something to do with paying off those credit cards and loans. If this sounds like you, then Mint is your app. Mint automatically syncs all your bank accounts and other financial information, such as installment loans and credit cards, to help you monitor all of your spending in one easy-to-use place. The app will let you know where you are spending too much, and will also let you know when you are going over budget – making sure that you are spending and saving in all the right places.

Today’s Plate
Maybe you have got the job you’ve always wanted and your feeling financially stable so those two resolutions, which are at the top for many, don’t have a reason to make your list. Instead, however, you are growing wearisome of the spare tire sitting around your waist. There is no other resolution that makes the New Year’s lists more than losing weight, and for those who are finally serious about shedding those extra pounds, Today’s Plate is for you. One of the predominant reasons why people struggle with losing weight is because of their diet. With today’s plate you can keep track of all your calories on the go. The app even calculates restaurant meals so that you can always keep your diet in check ensuring that you will get that thin body after all.

MyQuit Coach
MyQuit Coach is the serious app for those serious about quitting smoking – which is a common New Year’s resolution for thousands of Americans. MyQuit Coach offers a personalized and highly customizable plan for quitting smoking, and will help you stay on track by alerting you to how many cigarettes you should be smoking a day in order to reach your goal. The app will even award you badges for quitting milestones, and will also tell you how much money you have saved to date by not smoking.

Quitter
While MyQuit is a little bit more intense as far as quitting smoking apps go, Quitter makes quitting, well, a little more enjoyable. The app provides you with a count of how many days you have gone without smoking, and congratulates you for reaching certain milestones. Instead of a coach, it is more like having your own personal anti-smoking cheerleader.

Following through with those New Year’s resolutions isn’t always easy, but thanks to a few selected apps, it can sure be a lot easier. Now if only one of those apps could actually create your New Year’s resolution list for you, you’d be golden.

Originally posted on BlackWeb20.com

Are you into gaming or mobile or social gaming or earning rewards or all of the above? If so you’re in luck as playd iPhone and Android apps are now available for you to download on both the iPhone app store and Android Market place. Playd allows you to you rate, share, and discuss the games you love with your friends!

In an email sent last night Playd founders say:

I’m proud to announce that Playd is finally born! We spent the entire summer building and collecting feedback from you guys and now you can see it in action. As gamers our work is never done. We are forever working on new features and partnerships to offer you guys the best experience.

Playd app features include verified check-ins, real-time game channels with your friends and tokens. With tokens you can earn you free swag, discounts, DLC, and more! Here are a few Playd screnshots.

For more about Playd visit: http://playd.it or follow @getplayd on Twitter.

Disclaimer: Anthony Frasier, @AntyonyFraiser, cofounder Playd was one of the startups that participated in the NewME Accelerator. BlackWeb 2.0 and NewME Accelerator are owned and operated by Black Web Media.

Also read: Anthony Frasier and Tiffani Ashley Bell are the new face of Black Startups

Have you downloaded and “played” Playd? If so let us know what you think about the app in the comments below.

Guest Post Author:

Lisa is an avid yoga enthusiast who enjoys writing in her spare time for Usdirect.com – home of USdirect.

I love music. Unfortunately, the only thing I know how to play is the radio. My husband sings, my daughters play the piano and my son not only beat boxes, he can hear a song twice and sing it back to you in key. Makes me sick.

On the other hand, I also love technology, which can help you look more musically talented than you really are if you know which programs to use! Personally I believe everyone can make music, and everyone should. So here are some brilliant applications you should consider if your interest is in music, but your talent isn’t.
Ocarina. One of the top 20 selling Apple apps of all time, Ocarina will have you making incredible music in moments. This amazing application uses the microphone on your iPhone to create a wind instrument. There are several ways to create music:

  • You can hold down each of the four “holes” on the iPhone to create the pitch (or combinations thereof).
  • You can change the way you hold the iPhone by tilting it and change the depth and vibrato rate.
  • You can even change the key.

Another fun aspect of this app is Ocarina’s user community. There are over 2000 user-generated songs you can learn with cool finger charts to show you how to do it. Just plant your fingers and blow! When you’re ready, you can name your Ocarina and allow other people to listen to you play, from all over the world. Want to listen to what other people are playing? Then just tap on the globe icon!

Magic Piano. Makes playing the piano and sounding like a musical prodigy virtually effortless. Created for the iPhone, you can now take music with you anywhere, and with it, the ability to spin your own versions of popular songs. Magic Piano is fun and easy to learn, because all you have to do is follow the beams of light. It’s that easy to sound that great. By the way, Magic Piano is FREE!

I Am T-Pain. Want to sing instead of playing an instrument? Then show off your amazing vocals with I Am T-Pain. Use it with your headphones or plug your iPhone to an external speaker and sing away. This powerful app applies the T-Pain vocal effect as you sing! You heard correctly: this uses the same correction technology used in professional studios, now available in the palm of your hand.
GLEE. Another fun option is the #1 music app in 21 countries: GLEE Karaoke. It’s FREE, it’s incredibly enjoyable to use and it lets you strut your stuff. The app has pitch correction with a little taste of reverb, so you’ll sound, well…better than you actually do. Made for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, GLEE allows you to sing along with any song you have in your iTunes library. You can even join into someone else’s performance and add your voice to theirs! One feature I find especially fun is owningmy own radio tower from the app itself. Share songs on Facebook and Twitter and once you’re ready for the big time, compete in weekly contests to win free songs.

Magic Fiddle. Want to show off your sophistication? Mashable says Magic Fiddle is “…pure, unadulterated musical awesome.” I couldn’t agree more. This brilliant app teaches you how to bow, pluck, vibrato, trill and glissandi right from your iPad. Give yourself and hour or two and you’re sure to blow away your friends and family. You can share your experiences with other enthusiasts around the globe as you perform like the masters. The fiddle shows you all the right notes and gives you a piano accompaniment to show off your new found musical genius. Heck, I bought it just so I could say “glissandi” more often.

Title of Talk: Acknowledgment- The Killer Business Strategy

Kimberly Dillon @prettylittleceo is the founder of House of Mikko, @houseofmikko,where she manages Marketing and Product Strategy. She founded the company to address the challenges that women, specifically women of color face at the beauty counter. She has been featured in TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb, named by Huffington Post as one of 25 Female Tech Founders to watch, and is a member of Women 2.0.
She started her career as an IT Consultant with Accenture and has over 8 years of marketing experience in the digital and consumer space, including a stint at Procter & Gamble. She has 2 undergraduate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from the University of Michigan. A lover of all things beauty, she won’t leave home with out eyeliner. Ever.

About TEDx?
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)
At our TEDxBayArea events, TEDTalks videos and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connections in a small group setting.


While in California for the summer I met two yobongo friends offline, Emmanuel @jewgonewild and Ben @benbinary who were  just getting started working on a new iPhone app to make it easy to invite your friends when going out. The app was called Whim @getwhim on twitter. Yesterday Whim launched in Apple’s App store [iTunes Link] . It’s great to see the progress that Emmanuel and Ben have made since the summer.

At it’s core whim allows you to do the following:

  • Quickly share plans with friends
  • See what friends are up to
  • Find places to go, together
  • Stay connected with real-time chat

Take a look a whim via the screenshots below.

Whim joins the growing trend of new apps to invite your friends to locations vs letting your firends know where you’re at after you have checked into a location. I all it “friends availability around location discovery”.

For more about whim visit: getwhim.com .

Congrats Emmanuel and Ben!

Have you invited your friends on a Whim yet?