GARDENING APP
Zone-targeted advice
Gardening Toolkit, an app from Applied Objects, is $1.99 for the iPhone and $3.99 for the iPad version. When you start it up, there’s a prompt for your ZIP code that will establish your plant-hardiness zone. Then go straight to the advice section, where there’s general guidance for what garden chores you should be doing this month. For more ideas, tap the light-bulb icon and see which plants are best for nurturing bees or butterflies, for attracting hummingbirds or for different planting situations, such as sun and shade.
Reid Kanaley, The Philadelphia Inquirer
JOB SEARCH TOOL
Line up summer work
Winter is just ending, but if a summer job is on your agenda, it’s not too soon to start looking. Many job sites have areas catering to students and others looking for part-time or seasonal work. A page at Snag organizes student jobs — in restaurants, retail, customer service — and links to lists of postings. It’s pretty simple to scan for something that fits your profile. Search by ZIP code or town name. The Snagajob site focuses on part-time and hourly jobs.
Reid Kanaley, The Philadelphia Inquirer
FREE SAMPLES
Try out Target brands
Everyone’s favorite bulls-eye big-box store makes it easy for customers to give new products a test run. Just log on to to sign up for free samples of such products as gourmet Gevalia Kaffe, a Swedish coffeemaker now entering the American mass market. The site also includes a link to store coupons.
Elana Ashanti Jefferson/ McClatchy-Tribune
ONLINE SHOP
Soaps for nostalgic gamers
The Digital Soaps shop at offers an admittedly “geeky” alternative to regular bar soap. Founded by Chrystal Doucette in 2008, the Bellingham, Wash.-based company sells a variety of soaps based on cartridges and controllers from iconic video-game consoles of the last 30 years. The soaps are relatively low-priced for their novelty, with the smallest soaps (in the shape of Game Boy Advance cartridges) coming in at $3.75. Larger cartridge soaps fetch between $5 and $15, while larger controller soaps can be as much as $22.
Matt McNab, McClatchy-Tribune
