8 solutions to life’s little problems

I came across a few examples of sites and apps the other day that really made me wonder at some of the amazing modern-day solutions to some of life’s most annoying problems! Here’s a selection of some of my favourites, old and new!

The Ex Blocker

This is a pretty cool plugin that basically blocks your ex from your entire online life! The extension for Firefox and Chrome allows you to put in details like their name, Twitter handle, blog url, Facebook profile and you need never have to worry about seeing your ex again. You can download the ex blocker here. One of the more unusual plugins, but a handy solution for some I’m sure!

Language Translator

A pretty nifty voice to voice translator app – Jibbigo basically allows you to talk into your phone in any language, you select the language you want to translate into and hey presto! It’s currently only available in 3 language – Chinese, English and Spanish, but they have more languages planned throughout the year! Currently only available on the iPhone or iPod touch and see it in action below :

Phone your lost car keys

Okay so not really an app, but a pretty cool trick anyway. I haven’t tried this myself, but have heard from people that have and it works! If you’re unlucky enough to lock your keys in your car, but have a remote-control key there’s now a way around it. You need to call the person who has the other key on their mobile, from your mobile. Stand next to the car door and ask the person on the other end to press unlock while holding the key near the phone. Would love to know if someone has tried this.

Turn your to-do list into a game!

Getting stuff done when you actually need to do it can be a bit of a problem when there are endless distractions around. I love making a list as much as the next person, but sometimes a stream of to-dos can seem a bit daunting. Now you can turn your to-dos into a game, with Epic Win. The brilliant video below shows how it’s done – earn rewards for completing tasks, move up levels and develop your character as you go.

Comment snob

One of the unfortunate things about the internet and bizarrely, youtube, is the amount of irrelevant, spam or nonsensical comments that you have to sift through. There’s a clever firefox plugin that sorts that out – the Comment Snob. The plugin basically allows you to filter out problem comments on youtube, based on spelling mistakes, profanity, excessive punctuation and a few other filters. Download it here.

No more timewasting

Our ability to waste time has always been a bit of a problem and this has grown even more with the increase in social media. No need to worry about that any more though! This handy app (available on Macs) allows you to select the sites that most easily distract you and block access for a certain period of time. This one’s only for the hardcore though, as you can’t undo it! You have to wait for the timer to finish. There’s also a similar service available on Firefox – the LeechBlock extension.

Safe Sex

Many parents and children are faced with the need to explain the ‘birds and the bees’ and avoiding red faces as they do so. Durex have come up with a brilliant solution that advocates safe sex. They’ve built an iPhone app that produces a baby, by rubbing 2 phones together. It’s built with the aim of giving you a taste of what it’s really like to have a baby, and you can ‘knock up’ a friend’s phone, having to take care of it 24/7. In a genius move they’ve also placed QR codes on packs of condoms that lead to an ‘anti knock-up’ application. Pure genius!

Goodbye drunken emails

Google introduced this option back in 2008, to prevent users sending drunken emails that they might later regret! Mail goggles require the user to solve a few maths problems before they’re allowed to send their email. The goggles can be selected by clicking on ‘settings’ then Labs. Scroll down and you’ll see ‘Mail Googles’.

They’re some of my favourites, any you’d like to share?