So 2018 started off not quite as smoothly as I would have liked. We had a lovely trip home for the holidays – first time in over a decade. It was great to see family, though too short of a trip to actually visit anyone outside of the immediate families. Still, watching my four year old daughter really experience Christmas was priceless.

Back home in Washington, my Dell laptop (only a couple years old) decided that it would no longer cooperate and reboot correctly after a bunch of updates. Granted, Windows 10 was always buggy, but come on. Like any tech, I just wanted it to work. I have images to load, stuff to print, things to market. So now the laptop sits on my desk. A brick. I have a good friend in Seattle that wants to give it a shot, so we will go see him in a week or so.

Thinking positively, it will make me less likely to tinker around on text based stuff and crank out some studio work. And now I am putting my IPad into overdrive use. As much as I like touch screens, nothing beats a good keyboard. Right now I am using one by Arteck, and trying to finish this post on my IPad.

I wanted to share with you my favorite apps of 2017. I have a couple that have come in really handy, and perhaps you might enjoy them as well. Most have free options, though, I have found that I ended up purchasing the yearly membership, which has a couple more perks.

First – “Later”, an app that helps you schedule posts to Instagram. The free version allows you to post up to 30 posts a month, and that works for me, for now. Very easy to use.

Second – IFTTT (If This, Then That) has helped me cross post to most social media platforms. And if you don’t find what you need, you can create your own “applet”. So now, if I post to my Instagram page, it automatically shows up on my FB Page and Twitter feed. A specific hashtag will post to my Pinterest. Gone (for the most part) are the days of loading each account individually. I am pleased that it doesn’t just load a link, which was happening with Hootsuite.

Third – PicMonkey. I did pay for the “Royale” version, which gives me more options. I can edit pictures, crop, create collages that are size specific (for social media or other things)

Fourth – Canva. A great app for non designers (and probably) designers too – to build very nice layouts for print or social media. Again, I did purchase the yearly membership, which allows you to access more layouts and has more perks.

I hope you take a moment to check out the apps. Perhaps they can benefit you as well. I wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year.