sWIFTKEY Free
Helping to clean up smartphone errors

A favorite third-party keyboard app is SwiftKey.

It deals with one of the biggest problems with typing on a touch screen: mistakes. SwiftKey autocorrects them.

But that's just the start.

As any smartphone user knows, autocorrect can mangle what you are trying to type even further.

SwiftKey uses artificial intelligence to learn about your writing style over time, building up an understanding of the words you like to use. So when you are typing a long message, the app can usually do a good job of correcting typos you make because it can guess the word you intended to use.

SwiftKey also suggests the words you may want to type next so they can be entered with a single keystroke. SwiftKey can even learn your slang and emoji habits.

The app does a good job of detecting which language you are using, automatically switching its correction of typos even if you switch languages midmessage (a common weak point of other keyboards' autocorrect systems, as bilingual typists know well).

The app supports glide typing, and it is quite customizable, so that its layout can be changed to a split keyboard, for example, or the background color can be changed.

SwiftKey is free for both iOS and Android, but some of the colorful themes cost $1 to $2.

NEW YORK TIMES

HOTSPOT SHIELD VPN free
Dealing with blocked websites overseas

A VPN, or virtual private network, can be used to bolster online security as well as to access resources that might otherwise be off-limits.

It is particularly useful in countries that block certain websites.

In Bulgaria, for instance, the ticket resale website StubHub is blocked, as is Southwest Airlines. Why, your guess is as good as mine, but I had a Southwest reservation that I needed to manage.

Using the Hotspot Shield VPN, I could circumvent the block by connecting with a server in a country that doesn't have those restrictions. It's not 100 percent reliable, and there are ads; you'll get better service and faster load times with a VPN that you pay for.

Hotspot Shield VPN does have an "Elite" option, with faster servers and no ads, that costs $29.99 per year.

Lucas peterson, NEW YORK TIMES