Free, free, get it free

What you paid for yesterday may be free today on the Apple iTunes store. Every day, developers of iPhone applications — affectionately known as apps — shift from the "paid" to "free" columns. Some are free for just a day or two; some are free longer. To keep on top of which apps are going gratis, I recommend you become a fan of freeappalert on Facebook, or make a habit of visiting their site: http://freeappalert.com/

Today, 56 apps moved into the free zone. Crazy Snowboard, for example, used to be $2.99 http://freeappalert.com/2009-12-11

Thanks to my buddy David Bert for the tip.

Another app Bert alerted me to is Dragon Dictation. This free application turns speech to text with amazing accuracy. Simply hit the "dictate" button, speak, and hit the "done" button when you’re finished. The application quickly turns your spoken words into text, which you can edit on screen with your keypad. You can save the text to the phone's clipboard or export it to an e-mail or text message. (Since this app requires a microphone, it won’t work with an iPod Touch unless you have microphone-equipped headphones or some other mike.)

With a little practice, you can easily reduce the amount of time you spend composing e-mails and other written passages.

The app does download your contacts list into its database, but to correct spelling of names.