From Blog Action Day Action:
This year's Blog Action Day topic is... Climate Change. You as a scuba diver may not think that it may directly affect you. But there are a lot of small factors involved, and as a whole, it may come to affect all of us in a big way.
We did some researches. We also borrowed ideas from this website, Center for American Progress. (Actual Article
HERE) Based on the ideas, we put some thoughts out there.
You might wonder why the title of today's post is "There's an app for that." Well, we're sharing some "app" ideas and how scuba divers can utilize them to protect our environment. Why mobile application? We're sure you might be aware of the decrease in the forest, pollution, carbon dioxide, climate change... Not-so preferable cycle.
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Seafood Watch by Monterey Bay Aquarium (iPhone/Mobile Web Application) There have been many write-ups about Seafood Watch. We've read them all including app reviews on iTune App Store. We also know that there are handy pocket guides for Sushi available by other organizations. What's so different about this? First, it's a mobile application. It'll go anywhere with you even if you are in another country on vacation, trying that popular seafood. Is it good for you? What you choose may make a big difference.
The Sushi guide nicely comes with the Japanese Name and the common market name (quoted from Seafood Watch website), easy to read, and color-code lets you know which sushi would be your best bet while dining at your favorite restaurant.
There are 2 things involved in this small change - protecting your ocean and beautiful sea creatures by being aware and practicing to select sustainable seafood.
Don't have an iPhone? No problem. Visit:
http://mobile.seafoodwatch.org And all in all, there's an app for Seafood Choices, for Free.
Where by Where.com (Android/iPhone/BlackBerry/Palm Pre Application) One of the reasons why you might go away for a day or on a vacation is probably because of that unknown adventure. To explore the local town, shop at local stores, or just walk around is always interesting. But where can you go? Asking hotel employees may be one thing but knowing "where" to go is another.
Where can help you all that. On your next trip, take "Where" with you. You can find Local Weather, Gas Prices (and Gas Stations), Traffic Information, access to Yelp to find restaurants (with phone numbers and address) and reviews, and you can even find Starbucks near you when you need a warm cup of tea after the dive.
How is this going to help divers to be sustainable? Think of it this way. You can find the information you need right in your hand at all time, no reason to drive around for hours trying to find places even if you are on a short dive trip.
This application is a GPS mobile application. This means you'll have to have a satellite enabled service to use.
DiveLocator (iPhone Application) Originally found the post on Scubaboard.com, DiveLocator is an iPhone application that provides an information on Dive Sites with a visual map (Google Map). Not only that, you can find the current condition in surrounding area with 2 tide tables.
How is this going to help divers? No more Print-Out maps. This also would potentially decrease the amount of time you'd be driving to find that hidden dive site.
PS> They also are accepting dive site information to grow their database. Click on the title above to visit the post from Scubaboard.com for more info.
Rent Cycle by RentCycle.com (Web application)
The reason why we picked RentCyle.com is because of their idea - reduce.reuse.rent. Rent Cycle can be potentially great for dive operators in vacation destination. Why? Well... Rent Cyle allows your customers to reserve rental gears and pay before their tour begins right at their finger tips. This web application has easy 3 steps for setup. First, you register. Second, you put the link to your Rent Cycle store on your website. Third, let customer book their rental gears and pay. All administration is done over the web. You can technically manage it from anywhere.
One of the great things we discovered about this service is you can create the store today with up to 5 items for free of charge. Features include an inventory management, online confirmation, payment processing, reservation systems, reports, and SMS (Short Messaging Services) to list a few.
How is this helping your dive business? Because you don't need papers to track everything. You are recycling other people's ideas to a good use, and reducing the cost but still renting.
Dive Log Mobile Applications (Platform varys) Some of the things we discovered during our research is that a lot of people are interested in mobile scuba diving applications, iPhone applications in particular. For instance, if you run a search for "scuba diving application iphone" on Google, you'll probably see a lot of forum entries by fellow divers seeking "it" app.
The use of mobile application on your mobile device make small differences, like reducing the use of the paper, decreasing the driving time, calculating
After all, we decided to put a list here. Our research went so far and some divers that actually use listed software are unable to get back to us on time. But here's what we found:
- iScubaPlan (Originally posted on DiveVets.com) - Recreational Scuba Diving Application for iPhone/iPod
- DiveLog (Originally posted on DiveVets.com) - Full featured Scuba Diving Logbook for iPhone/iPod
- iDeco (Originally posted on DiveVets.com) - Multi-Level dives/Multiple Dive planner for Technical Diving for iPhone/iPod
- V-Planner - King of Technical Diving Planning Software for Windows Mobile Phones and iPhone/iPod
- Mix Blender - Full function Gas Blending (Nitrox/Trimix) Application for iPhone/iPod
- Dive Assistant - Dive Planning, Dive Equipment Management, Dive Table Reference for Pocket PC
- My Deco Plan - Full Function Decompression Dive Planning Application on the web
So, what else can you do to be a sustainable diver?
Note:
All rights for the software/application listed above are reserved by its creator/owner/developer/business.
The result of this list is solely based on our researches and other divers. If you have other applications that you'd like to share, feel free to use the comment area below.
We also will add more as we hear back from our fellow divers.
We also would like to thank those who helped us today (and during our research) to make this post happen.
(Originally posted on
DiveVets.com) - Recreational Scuba Diving Application for iPhone
Orignal From:
Blog Action Day: There's an app for that. (Scuba Version)
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