I often feel like I'm quite set in my ways and tend to stick to things I know and trust. However, even I surprise myself every so often and uncover something new. I say new, but I generally mean new to ME...not to everyone else. What can I say? I'm a slow starter, sometimes.
These are some of the awesome websites and apps I made use of in 2015:
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| There's nothing I don't love about pictures of squishy faced dogs. |
Seriously - I bloody love it. I'm a bit of a news junkie and the first thing I tend to do in the morning, while trying to convince myself that I really should get up now, is read the news. I then check it, ooh, around 400 times a day to see what else has been happening. Earlier last year I discovered Buzzfeed and now most of my news (both serious and not serious in the slightest) comes from this medium.
In September, I then discovered that Buzzfeed has an animals site. With dogs on it. Dogs EVERYWHERE. I've done very little productive work since. After a long and draining day, there's nothing I like more than disappearing under my duvet with photos and memes of dogs dressed in costumes and failing to catch balls. It makes me very happy and is a lovely way to distract myself from my anxieties. It's not so good for encouraging me out of my introverted ways, however. I fear, rather, it may have made things worse. But, do I care? No, because dogs dressed as lobsters.
Also: Buzzfeed is solely responsible for my ever expanding love of Doug the Pug, as this is where I first found him. Now I've got him on Snapchat, Insta and Twitter and he makes me genuinely happy with his adorable wrinkly little chops.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I told you I was behind. I just thought it was another fad website that I wouldn't have to bother with until I started blogging and realised I might need it. Then I started playing around with it and now I can't stop. I have hundreds of travel and blogging articles pinned and I'm struggling to find the time to read them all. They also have brilliant Spanish lessons, which I'm making full use of. Oh, and all the hair tutorials I've watched? Immense. The fact that I can't do a single one of them? Hardly the point.
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| It's taken up a frightening amount of my time... |
MapMyWalk:
I used to use the Nike running app or my GPS watch to keep track of my running, but it affected my times and averages when I used them for anything BUT running. MapMyWalk allows me to log workouts on my fixed bike, wandering around Dolgellau, raiding the charity shops at lunch time (you'd be amazed how many calories this burns off...) and my weekly expedition up the steepest hill in Britain for my Sunday coffee stop at Harlech Castle. It also logs my runs and it's great that I can record everything in one app.
Evernote:
This has been a god send for keeping all my blog ideas in the one place. I used the free version on my iPad and phone and they just update between themselves. When I see something that I'd like to blog about, I just make a quick note of it and it keeps everything neat and well organised. Which is pretty much the opposite of what goes on in my head, TBH.
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| Have apps, will write down more nonsense. |
A friend introduced me to this for my blog and I now use it to scheduled posts on a regular basis. It's also a great source for news stories in your areas of interest. Just sign up for free, choose your favoured topics and it'll generate stories based on this. It's been a great way to keep up with world tourism trends and is easy to navigate and use.
Klout also keeps track of your impact and output from your various social media profiles and lets me see what I might need to work on, as well as what's already working well. All this interaction provides you with a Klout score and I've found this to be quite motivational over the past few months in terms of my blog.
What were your favourite apps and sites of 2015?
Suzanne x
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