Thing #3: Utilitarian utilities

I am a huge fan of Google Goggles already, and have been for years.  When I was in grad school I did a presentation where I postulated that since so many people had mobile devices that had phones, visual internet searches would soon become common and available for everyone.  Then Google came out with the Goggles just a short while later.  So, basically, I kind of feel like I came up with the idea myself. For this Thing I played a bit and thought again about how awesome it is.  And a little bit about the limitations, as well.  And then, just for kicks, I used it to on some QR codes on a poster on my desk.  This made me realize that the Google form I set up for gathering RSVP info for an event was configured incorrectly.  Thanks 23 Things!                      

I have another barcode/QR reader, but I don't really like it and it has been glitchy at various times.  So I decided to try the Red Laser one. Clearly designed to help with shopping, it worked well with UPCs.  However, it had some trouble with the QR codes I had on a poster near my office.  Not super excited about this one professionally, but it might have some utility with the comparison shopping features for acquisitions (or personal use).

I thought it was a good idea to have a back-up browser, so I decided to try the mobile version of Firefox.  Seems very usable, just like the PC version.  I also like how the URL address line can really easily work as a search box for multiple things (Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, etc.)

New Find Alert!
In my online searches of reviews for various utilities, I also found a fantastic free app that turns my phone camera into a scanner: CamScanner.  It not only helps correct things like camera tilt, outputs to PDF, allows for quick watermarks, etc., but it will also (with a plug-in addition) OCR my "scanned" documents.  Loving this!  As a researcher, this will be incredibly helpful.  As a reference librarian, it is a new way for me to share docs with co-workers and patrons, create watermarked images for presentations, etc.