Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Welcome back to the Car-tel Communications blog! Being the holiday season, we have some really great gift ideas to share and applications that will help you get through the season merrily. When I think of the holidays, I think shopping, traveling, food and of course, time spent with family. With that being said, I wanted to share the staff picks for the best apps in those categories and tell you a little bit about why they're going to work for this season.

Top Shopping app: Smoopa.
Why? There are tons of apps out there that allow you to scan a bar code and compare pricing, set up alerts on an item you want and the like. With Smoopa, a green light will appear when the item you've scanned is the lowest possible price. Likewise, a yellow will appear to warn you that another location has a better deal. Visually, this is clear and when we're out shopping the easiest visual indication of a deal is whats best. BUT, this is not our favorite reason for loving this app. What is? Well, this app allows you to earn rewards for your purchases in the form of cash rebates, gift cards, or charity donations. Pretty sweet, huh?

Top Traveling app: Expedia.
Why? Expedia allows you to book flight, hotel, and car reservations all in one spot with the lowest price around. For anyone who has ever used the Expedia website, the app is just as accessible, easy to use and effective. You can purchase your reservation directly in the application and it saves all of your payment and confirmation information.

Top Cooking app: Foodily
Why? Because Foodily is like Pinterest for recipes only! Foodily is the world’s largest social recipe network where you can discover and share any recipe on the web, including your own. Use Foodily to keep track of all the recipes you love in one complete recipe box. Get ideas everyday by following friends and experts like Wolfgang Puck and Cat Cora.

Top Family-Time App: Cabin
Why? This holiday season is all about making memories and with this app, it's super easy. Cabin is a private networking app that requires an invite to access the photos and information being sent out. Posts are made for everyone in the group so no one misses a minute! Create tasks for yourself and others and find out where your loved ones are with the family locator tool.

Our gift picks for this month are pretty awesome and great for anyone you need to buy for! My personal favorite is the Jabra SoleMate Mini. This bluetooth speaker packs a big punch in a small package. The durable rubber outside material allows for you to take this speaker with you indoors and out. With 8 hours of battery time, a day at the beach on your Christmas vacation has just gotten that much better! At a great price of $99 this gift is great for the music lover in your family.

The other great gift this year is a power accessory for your smartphone. Ventev offers a car charger that allows you and your driving companion to charge your devices at the same time. Whenever I've been on a road trip I needed to bargain for charging time with the driver and other passengers since there generally only one USB port. With the dashport 2100 car charger you can charge two devices at the same time without loosing any of the charging power so your phone or tablet will charge at the same rate as if there was only one device charging. How convenient is that?! And at a great price of $24.99, ya can't beat it!

Keep checking back at the Car-tel Communications blog for new application suggestions and more exciting updates!