Putting an external drive on a mac to boot on for faster computer:
If you have thunderbolt, you can buy a wicked fast raid 0, or raid 5 ssd for blistering boot times.
http://macfilos.com/home/2012/3/25/lacie-thunderbolt-ssd-boot-drive-for-blistering-performance.html
Other drives that do about the same
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57503820-1/top-five-external-drives-for-hard-core-users/
One problem is if you unplug the drive while your computer on, it will crash!
If you wanted more space and a little less speed, you can buy a hybrid hard drive:
Seagate ssd hybrid hard drive
Slow computer:
If you have less than 4 gigs of ram, bumping it up to more than 4 will help alot.
If your hard drive is almost full (less than 2-3 gigabytes free) it will slow your computer down. This is especially true of SSD's where they will be slower than a regular hard drive if they are almost full!
Repairing the permissions or running ONYX will sometimes make a dramatic improvement.
Going to other countries with your phone:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/story?id=7460220&page=1
If your name is not Adam Savage, you will most likely not get out of your 10,000 phone bill.
The standard fee for a phone call is a $1 a minute, 50 cents per text, and somewhere around $15 / Megabyte (with an M!!!) if you download a movie on netflix and use 1 gigabyte that will be a 15,000 movie.
Be sure to turn off the data plans on your phone before crossing the borders, your phone constantly goes on the internet and uses a little bandwidth all the time.
Most companies have something just like this, you can buy repeaters, boosters, or something like this. The Microcell is just like having your own cell tower in your house routing your phone calls over the internet.
Our church put togeter this promotinal video with an iphone shooting the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB5eVhOXPIA
Google maps:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id585027354
Turn by turn directions for any iphone/ipad is here!
If you are going to a big town with a lot of universities, I highly recommend Waze, If you put where you are going, it will route your around traffice, accidents, or congestion better than any other program I have seen. It does not do this in Corpus simply because not enough people use it.
Team viewer
http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx
I have reviewed LogMeIn, gotomyPC, and others, Teamviewer is a little newer and in my opinion works a little quicker and faster than the others. Plus the iphone/ipad apps are very good.
Sheet Music:
http://www.sheetmusicdirect.us/i18n/index.jsp?refer=smduk&country=US
Sheet Music direct has some neat feature, it will play a tune so you can hear if you are playing the music right, and sells most songs for around $4
I like that it lets you download the first page of any song for free.
Musicnotes is another company that sells sheet music, it does not play the songs like sheetmusicdirect.
Music tutor
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/music-tutor-sight-reading/id507691358?mt=8
Helps you learn the name of the notes.
Goodreader
http://www.goodiware.com/goodreader.html
If you have a huge library of music, you can scan the music and use one of the many PDF readers to view the music.
Hotel Tonight:
I don't know if it is cheaper than hotwire, but you get to pick your hotel:
Measuring
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-measures-dimensions/id325962257?mt=8
This lets you markup dimensions in a room
Magicplan
https://itunes.apple.com/app/magicplan/id427424432
This integrates your camera and compass in your iphone to guess all the dimensions in your house.
Distance Tool
https://itunes.apple.com/cy/app/distance-tool/id478687476?mt=8
there are almost no free apps that let you gps three or more corners of a plot and tell you the area of what you measured, Someone has finally made one!
123d Catch
This is one of the coolest apps I have ever seen, I don't know if I'll ever use it, but it will make a 3d file of any object you can take a picture of.
Friendle
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/friendle-live-board-games/id472079521?mt=8
It has a good pass and play option for chess, scrabble and other games. If you want the social networking part it does that too.
Infinityblade
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/infinity-blade/id387428400?mt=8
Infinityblade is free, to try to entice you to buy Infinity blade 2, and of course you can finish the game faster if you buy virtual coins after downloading the free game...
Remote:
http://www.apple.com/apps/remote/
If you have appleTV you need the remote, no more hunting for a remote control.
Videotube:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-tube-free-for-youtube/id566564331?mt=8
A pretty cool youtube browser.
Songza
This program is like pandora, only it has hand tailored lists.
Coverage Map:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coverage/id388815949?mt=8
You can use this app to see if your bad reception is your phone, or your area, or which carrier works the best in your neighborhood.
Caller times on your ipad
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ccct-e-edition/id440583721?mt=8
If you like to read the local newspaper, this is a pretty good app.