Gettin’ App Happy

"I thought automation was keen, 'til you were replaced by a ten-ton machine," sang our favorite satirical balladeer of the mid-century, Allan Sherman, prescient of the electronic age to come. "It was the computer that tore us apart (dear), automation broke...my...heart."

Flash forward to the Internet era, and computers are neither ten tons nor the threat to home and hearth of which Sherman sang.

In fact, a story in the new winter 2018 issue of CA-Modern magazine—aptly and reassuringly titled 'There's an App for That'—documents how computers can keep households running with, well, machine-like efficiency.

Click here for a PDF version of 'There's an App for That.' Otherwise get inside your copy of the print edition of the winter '18 CA-Modern, now in the mail to our homeowners.

For her app story, home improvement editor Tanja Kern delivers the lowdown on 14 different software applications for the home computer or cell phone. Ten are free to users and four carry small monthly fees, but all meet potential needs of the homeowner and/or head of household.

Several of the featured apps, Kern says, are primarily useful when undertaking home improvements, such as to manage a project. Other selections, she admits, are influenced by her own experience as a homeowner.

'My Garden Answers,' for instance, is an app that will identify more than 20,000 plant species from photographs you send to it. Furthermore, it provides detailed information about each plant and answers to more than 200,000 frequently asked questions about gardening.

"I have a black thumb with gardening, or at least I did, and I'm really trying to improve," Tanja explained earnestly. She uses 'My Garden Answers' often when she is out walking and spies a plant she'd like to add to her garden. "It's a good tool for that. It's helped me learn."