Two Fun, Free, Relaxing Android Games For Word Lovers

Two Fun, Free, Relaxing Android Games For Word Lovers:

I know I’m not the only one around here who loves word games. Well, today I’d like to share two free, fun Android word games. One involves a bit of fast action, while the other mainly involves looking and hunting around. Ready? Here we go!

Letter Rip

The first game I’d like to share, Letter Rip, supports Android 1.6 and up. It has a 4.0 rating with 813 reviews, which isn’t bad at all, and you’ll soon see why. Here’s what the board looks like early on in a game:

The board starts out empty, and the tiles fill in gradually, about one per second. Your job is to drag tiles around to make words. Much like Scrabble, every letter has a point value, shown as a small number on the bottom-right corner. If you don’t make words fast enough, pretty soon the board looks like this:

Meaning, it is now completely full. In the screenshot above, this happened because I simply didn’t play – I wanted to let it fill up. The game is far from over: You can still make plenty of words, and they don’t even have to be in a single line. Take this, for example:

As long as the letters are somehow next to each other, the resulting word is acceptable. Personally, I really like this – it allows for a great deal of flexibility. Gameplay is very calm, and there are no stressful timeouts. Once I found “JET” above, I cleared those spaces on the board and got my 50 points:

Now, I can drag any letter from the top row into the empty space, and I can also move other letters around. Let’s do this in two steps: First, let’s use the free space to shuffle things around a bit.

With this shuffle, I just made a new word, “WISH”, without using any of the letters above. With a quick swipe through those letters, I can claim it, earn my points, and clear those tiles.

Now I’d like to use the letters from the top bank, to make a new word:

Can you guess what word I made? I would not usually do this so early, but it shows what the top tray is for. Note that after I empty it out, it does not magically refill – you’d best save those letters for when you really need them.

After a while, it looks like all of your options are out:

Not much to do without vowels. Now, you can either surrender, or buy new letters:

Buying letters looks like this:

Again, this is another very relaxing part of the game. You don’t buy random letters in hope you’ll get something good. You actually get to pick and choose the letters you want, and pay their price with the points you’ve accumulated so far. Of course, not all letters cost the same (just as not all letters are worth the same amount of points when used in a word).

Last but not least, I’d like to show you the generous options screen:

As you can see, you get to control the board size, game speed, and even the minimum amount of letters that count as a word.

I really like Letter Rip! because I feel the designers went out of their way to create a calming game. Where in other games I would expect to have a timer, Letter Rip! just lets me keep on playing to my heart’s content. And where other games only let me create words from top to bottom or left to right, Letter Rip! doesn’t care about directions. Very enjoyable, and captures the feel of a crossword puzzle while providing something you can’t do with paper (move letters around).

Word Search

The second game I’d like to share with you is called Word Search, and it also runs on Android 1.6 and above. It’s a much simpler game, really:

What you see is what you get; it’s a large grid of letters, in which you have to hunt for the words listed. Once you find a word, just draw a line through it, and it becomes highlighted. It’s an extremely simple game, but is also nice and relaxed. I only wish there was a way to hide the list of words. As it is, the game doesn’t involve much thought, but mainly looking and hunting around for those words. That’s also a mental skill, however.

My other feature request would be a way to make the board dark. This could be a great game to play at night right before I fall asleep, but the bright white board makes that impossible.

Every time you start a new Word Search game, you get a different grid with different words. You can swipe the list of words left to right – you don’t have to stick to the order they are listed, of course.

There’s not much else to say about this extremely simple Android word game, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. If you like words, take it for a spin!

Your Turn

As usual, this is the spot where I ask you if I missed your favorite Android word game. I don’t mean Words with Friends; can you surprise me with an awesome free word game that not many people know yet? Tell me below!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

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5 Ways To Kick Your Moleskine Notebook Up A Notch

5 Ways To Kick Your Moleskine Notebook Up A Notch:

Over the years, the Moleskine notebook has become a trademark staple for anyone dabbling in creative endeavors – especially writers and artists. In fact, the Moleskine is almost as iconic as the Apple laptop, the hipster glasses, and the daily visits to Starbucks.

But simply having one of these notebooks won’t be enough to spark your productivity and get your steam pumping towards optimal efficiency. Here are a few ways you can elevate your Moleskine from “just another notebook” to “I can’t live without this anymore.”

1. Stay Productive With Circle To-Do Lists

The most basic to-do list is often no more than a list of shoddy descriptions of tasks that are crossed out when completed. While this simplicity may be enough for simple tasks that are either “done” or “not done,” you may need a more elegant system for longer-term tasks.

In steps the Circle Method. Basically, this method starts each list item with an empty circle beside it and gradually fills those circles with marks depending on the tasks’ completion levels.

• New Item: To start a new item in the list, draw an empty circle.
• Next Item: To distinguish the next task you want to tackle, place a dot in the center.
• Item Started: To mark a task that you’ve started, cross the circle with a diagonal slash.
• Item Cancelled: To mark a task as trashed, cross the circle with an opposite slash.
• Halfway Complete: When you’re halfway through a task, fill in half of the circle.
• Fully Complete: When a task is completely finished, fill it in all the way.

The method is smart and extremely versatile, allowing you to change the status of a task if necessary.

2. Organize Using The Quadrant Technique

If your notes require a lot of internal referencing, then the Quadrant Technique will be a lifesaver for you. The only downside is that it requires an initial time investment to set up the notebook.

Set up your notebook by dividing each page in half – draw a line through the center, separating the top from the bottom. This will create four quadrants: the top-left quadrant is A, the bottom-left quadrant is B, the top-right quadrant is C, and the bottom-right quadrant is D.

Each group of four quadrants is called a block. Now go through and number each block, starting with 1. I like to place the number in quadrant A, but feel free to put it wherever you like.

That’s it for set up. Now, if you’re writing notes in quadrant 38C (block 38, quadrant C) and need to reference something in block 12, quadrant A, just insert a parenthesis: (12A). Done.

3. Create An Index In The Back

Set aside the last 10 pages of your Moleskine notebook and use them to create a system of indexing. This is extremely useful if you have notes on various topics and intend to reference them over and over again.

In order to use an index, you’ll need to number your pages from start to end. If you’re using the Quadrant Technique, you can use that as your reference instead.

Indexing itself is simple. If you have a page of notes comparing different laptops, flip back to the index and write on a new line, Laptop Comparison, page 38. Now, if you need to reference that comparison, you can find it easily. Instead of flipping through the entire notebook, you only need to flip through the 10 or so pages in the index.

The indexing system grows more useful as your notebook grows more packed with information.

4. Divide The Notebook With Plastic Tabs

Bump up your notebook’s organization by using plastic divider tabs, especially if you use your Moleskine for more than one purpose.

If you’re using the previously mentioned quadrant technique and indexing system, you might feel tempted to just fill out your notebook as you go. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it certainly isn’t optimal. Wouldn’t it be easier on your mind to split up the notebook in chunks and assign each chunk to a topic?

The plastic tabs, then, are a great way to visualize the different sections. Combine this with the other organizational techniques, and you’ll soon find your Moleskine becoming an integral part of your life.

5. Choose the Right Pen

Believe it or not, you can boost your Moleskine notebook to the next level simply by switching to a different pen. Which pen should you switch to? That’s entirely up to you. However, there are a few guidelines for which pens work well with the Moleskine.

• Choose a pen that doesn’t bleed. Using a pen that bleeds through the pages can be disastrous. At best, you’ll render clean pages unusable. At worst, you’ll render past work illegible. Mostly, you’ll just turn your notebook into a mess of ink spots, and that might keep you from wanting to use it anymore.
• Choose a pen that doesn’t smear. Similar to the bleeding problem, a wet pen that smears easily will result in notes that can no longer be read. Even if you’re careful as you write, the ink will smear as soon as you close the notebook. Avoid smearing pens unless you want to wait for the ink to dry every time you jot down a note.
• Choose a pen that feels comfortable in your hand. It’s amazing how holding the right pen can make you want to write more. Pen comfort is individual, so you’ll need to find one that fits your hand well. It doesn’t matter if you need a thin pen, fat pen, long pen, short pen, or one with rubber grips – get one that you enjoy writing with.

If you need a recommendation, try using the Pilot G2 pen. It won’t break the bank, it doesn’t smear or bleed, and it writes smoothly.

Conclusion

If you don’t use your Moleskine all that often, then you probably won’t gain much benefit from applying these tricks to your routine. However, if you use your Moleskine enough that you carry it around with you everywhere, then these tricks can heighten your notebook to the next level. Let us know in the comments what tricks you use.

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8 MS Word Templates That Help You Brainstorm & Mind Map Your Ideas Quickly

8 MS Word Templates That Help You Brainstorm & Mind Map Your Ideas Quickly:

We have featured quite lot of online and offline ways to brainstorm and mindmap. But when you want to jot down your ideas quickly then there’s nothing quite like a simple piece of paper and pen…or its digital equivalent – a document processor. That’s what we saw when we built a mind map in Microsoft Word.

Brainstorming your ideas visually helps with clarity and allows you to connect ideas and interlink them together. That’s where mindmapping took off. You might know zilch about it, but even age old habits of doodling your ideas is better than a blank page. But you don’t have to draw aimlessly because MS Word offers you a few free templates to structure your ideas and sharpen your thought process.

Let’s fire up MS Word and take a look at 8 free Office.com templates that help you generate ideas with Microsoft Word. You can use the search field to get to the template if you have a specific term; you can drill down the categories; or you can follow the links below.

Story Map Templates

The Story Map template looks suitable for writers who are trying to outline a plot. Alternatively, it can be used by students, as intended to plan out a narrative. But it can also be used to plan out a team role-play for a given situation when you are trying to connect a solution to the underlying problem by assigning specific roles to team members.

Process Chart

This is a very simple step-by-step chart that can be used to describe the flow of a process. You can use the process chart to break down a complex event into a sequence of smaller action steps.

Event Map

I have tried using this Word template while plotting the idea for a short story – and it worked. Along with the Story Map template, the Event Map can be a useful tool for beginner writers.

Spider Map

The Spider Map is a little like a conventional mind map. The large central circle represents your main idea, and the branching linear lines can be used to jot down the subsidiary ones. The description says that you can use the spider map to investigate various aspects of a single topic or just to organize their thoughts about a subject.

Umbrella Chart

To be frank, I haven’t figured out a way to use this MS Word template effectively yet, so I have yet to find out how versatile this graphic organizer is. The description says that you can arrange the details of any subject or topic using this visual aid. What I have learnt is that the umbrella chart can be used to represent a core idea and the subordinate ideas around the spokes.

KWL Chart

Using this simple columnar template, you can easily track what someone (or you) knows (K), wants to know (W), and has learned (L) about a subject. It’s a very handy aid for studying and also if you are trying to research something. Wikipedia has a more detailed explanation on its use, and as it says the KWL template can be used to reduce repetition by leaving out prior knowledge and focusing on the W (wants to know). Based on this, students can concentrate on what exactly they want to learn or how and where they want to learn it from.

T-Chart

Every issue has two sides and this template helps you to examine both sides of the same coin. The T-chart is a graphic organizer that can be used to look at different viewpoints and broaden your view on an issue. Anything that can be broken down into two opposing views can be stated using the T-chart.

Fishbone Diagram

The Fishbone diagram came out of Japan (not surprisingly). Also called Ishikawa diagrams, they are somewhat advanced idea organizers in comparison to the others we have on this list. This diagram analyzes the relationship between a cause and its effect. You can use it to drill down into the root cause of a problem by organizing a complex cause-effect event into categories. The Fishbone diagram is widely used in quality control.

The templates are mere tools. Ideas and brainstorming effectiveness will depend on how well you put them on paper or on the screen. But MS Word and its gallery of templates give you easily downloadable files that can be turned into idea organizers in a flash. Customize the templates by changing the text labels and/or adding to the sections.

Are you a brainstorming kind of guy? Tell us how you go about it and tell us especially if MS Word is on your list of tools. What do you think of these brainstorming capable templates?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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