This gallery is also available as a TechRepublic article.
As someone who frequently travels, I spend plenty of time on airplanes. Thankfully, I can use my Microsoft Surface tablet to either get things done while I’m in the air, or I can use it as an entertainment device. This gallery highlights five apps that I like to use when I fly. All of the apps listed here can be found in the Windows Store.
The Business Trip app is an\r\napp that’s designed to help you to stay organized while on business trips. The app lets you define a series of trips, so that you can keep track of which trip is coming up next and where you have been recently. It costs $2.99 (USD), but a free trial is\r\navailable for download.
Business Trip allows you to store information such as flight\r\nand hotel details for each trip.
This view shows detailed travel information.
You can also add expenses\r\nsuch as meals and entertainment to a trip.
This view shows all other travel expenses.
When you’re done, the app\r\ncan build an expense report based on the information that you’ve provided.
There’s even an option to\r\nexport the data to an Excel spreadsheet, and the app keeps the spreadsheet\r\nassociated with the trip.
I actually have several games installed on my Windows 8\r\nlaptop and on my Surface tablet. The reason why I chose to mention AirHockey\r\nis because, unlike my other games, this one allows for two players. I’ve found\r\nthat it’s great for those times when I’m flying with my wife and I want to\r\nplay a game, but don’t want to ignore her. AirHockey is set up in a way that\r\nallows us to play head-to -head. We are both fiercely competitive and have a lot\r\nof fun playing air hockey on a long flight.
AirHockey allows you to rank your gameplay.
You can compare your score to other players.
AirHockey is free, but like many free games, AirHockey contains ads. However, you can upgrade to an ad-free version.
In case you are wondering,\r\nAirHockey does offer a single player mode that allows you to play against the\r\ncomputer.
Here you can see what the gameplay looks like in AirHockey.
FlightAware is an app that\r\nI find myself using very frequently. The application is designed to let you\r\ntrack flights.
You can look up a flight by\r\nroute, flight number, tail number, etc.
You can search FlightAware by airport.
One of the perils of flying\r\nis that sometimes flights run late. A delayed flight can be especially\r\nproblematic if you have to catch a connection.
If I’m on a flight that’s arriving late and I have a connection to catch, then as soon as the plane lands (and it’s safe to use cell service), I’ll use FlightAware to look up my connection. By doing so, I can find out how much time I have to catch the connection, and what gate it is leaving out of.
If I’ve already missed a connection, I can use FlightAware to find out what other options exist for getting to my destination.
Sometimes, a long flight can be the perfect excuse to\r\ncatch up on your reading. Of course, most people probably don’t want to weigh\r\ndown their carry on with a stack of books. Thanks to Amazon’s Kindle app, you don’t have to.
A few years back, the Amazon Kindle was arguably the\r\ne-reader of choice. Over time, of course, dedicated e-readers have given way to\r\nfull-blown tablets. Not to be outdone, Amazon offers a free Kindle app for all\r\nthe most popular tablets. This app makes\r\nit easy to take your book collection with you when you travel.
Here you can see a book as it appears on the Kindle app.
Here are some offerings from the Kindle Store.
I have to admit that when I fly, I usually spend most of\r\nmy time in the air watching movies on Metro Media Player. I almost never get a chance to watch movies\r\nor television at home, so before I travel, I load up my tablet with digital\r\ncopies of the movies that I want to see.
Metro Media Player plays\r\nboth music and videos.
I’ll be the first to admit that Metro Media Player\r\nisn’t as feature rich as some of the other media players that are available,\r\nbut that’s actually what I like about it. The media player is light weight and doesn’t overwhelm you with a bunch of unnecessary features, which is a good\r\nthing when all you want to do is to watch a movie on the flight home after a\r\nlong day.
Watching a movie with Metro Media Player.
You can adjust the screen size with Metro Media Player.
You can also adjust the volume with Metro Media Player.
* 1988 - Started teaching myself about computers \ * 1992 - Mainframe programmer for an insurance company \ * 1993 - Network Administrator for a different insurance company \ * 1996 - Author for The Cobb Group \ * 1998 - Network Administrator for Fort Knox \ * 1999 - CIO for chain of hospitals \ * 2000 - Gave up the corporate rat race to work out of my home. I have been a full time technical author ever since. Visit my Web sites at http://www.brienposey.com and http://www.relevanttechnologies.com \
