Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

Do you know any iPhone users from our generation who do not use Instagram? Because I don’t.

Ever since its launch back in 2010, Instagram quickly became one of the most popular photo-editing and photo-sharing services for mobile devices. And while the company has recently announced that an Android version will be released “very soon,” Android users have been without the ubiquitous app for years.

I considered doing a round-up of all the best Instagram alternatives for Android, but I didn’t want to insult the intelligence of my readers.

Instead, I’ve decided to highlight my personal favorite photo app for Android: Camera360.

Camera360 is very much like Instagram and other photo apps in that it applies filters to the pictures you take with your phone camera. However, to me, what helps Camera360 stand out from its competition is its well-rounded mix of fun, professional, vintage-looking, as well as silly filters without being too overwhelming.

According to reports, Camera360 has already surpassed Instagram with 6 million users worldwide (as of June 2011), and for good reason: its high-quality filters and effects, as well as quick processing time, are vastly superior to many Instagram clones. By concentrating on the image processing, in addition to adding effects which are highly sought in Asia, Camera360 was quickly able to gain a strong user base in China, where it is most widely used.

As you can see from the screenshots below, Camera360 comes with a myriad of filter categories — 18 to be exact! — as well as sub-filters within most of the categories. (For example, the HDR filter category has five sub-filters: Soft, Gorgeous, Classic, Bright, and Storm.)

Additionally, you can enable one of the many frames, called “Scenes” — and as you can see below many of the frames are the type that inserts your picture into another one (e.g., poster, billboard, art).

What good is a review without some real-life examples? Here is a picture of Aerin I took yesterday — Miss Smileypants was especially giddy and splashy during her bath last night:

And here are four filters I have applied to the picture. The “Enhance” set of filters is especially great at adding an extra “pop” to any image:

One feature I love is that you can set the app to save the original version of the picture along with the edited — this is something that is missing from far too many photo apps.

Oh, and have you noticed the “Ghost” filter in the screenshot of filters above, and been wondering what it does? It adds a spooky, ghost-like figure of a girl to your picture. I won’t show it here — you’ll have to download the app to see it in its full glory!

Camera360 Ultimate — the full version of the app — used to sell for $3.99, but it is currently FREE in at Google Play (previously called The Android Market).

I have read that some people prefer the older version of the app, called Camera360 Memento, citing it to be more user-friendly and including a tilt-shift filter. Although I have this version also (it is also free), I personally prefer the Ultimate version — probably because I am more used to its UI.

Camera360 has actually replaced my default phone camera because it is that much better. The only thing I don’t like about it is that you can’t take any ol’ picture and apply the filters…but since I take all my pictures with Camera360 anyway, this doesn’t bother me too much.

Are you an iPhone user who has read this far? I’ve got good news for you: Camera360 is also available for the iPhone — for FREE — here!

1. 7 Little Words

This little app has got me losing sleep and seeing word combos everywhere! (Similar to when you play Tetris for too long, you start seeing Tetris shapes in your head. ) I’ve gotten a bunch of my friends hooked on it too, including J, who usually hates word games.

I’m going to let the following screenshots do the explaining for you:

I highly, highly recommend this game for all my readers…even if you normally don’t like word games!

Get the Android version here.

Get the iOS version here.

2. Divergent

Last month, I fell on The Hunger Games bandwagon…and I fell hard. So much so that when I finished the trilogy — literally within days — I began to exhibit symptoms of withdrawal. So when I posted on my Facebook page, asking for books that are similar to The Hunger Games, I received a bunch of great suggestions.

The best so far — and the book I am currently reading — is Divergent by Veronica Roth. I’m only a few chapters in, but I already love it for its fast-paced, action-packed storyline that draws the reader right into Roth’s dystopian Chicago.

I will be out of new books to read after I am done with Divergent — does anyone have any other suggestions for fast-paced, adventure books?

3. Up All Night

I just caught this new NBC series on Hulu and I couldn’t help but fall in love. And I won’t lie — there were moments when I couldn’t help but think to myself, ‘Ohmigawd…THIS is my life!’

I knew that the show couldn’t be horrible by just looking at the cast (I *heart* Will Arnett…I want to be his and Amy Poehler’s child!), and I am guessing that it will get better and better as the season progresses.

Maybe then might I finally forgive NBC for canceling Outsourced.

Androidify is a free app in the Android Market which allows you to craft your own version of the Android robot. Yes, it is yet another “create your own avatar” application, but it’s pretty amusing for Android fans such as myself.

There is even an option to add a baby Android robot —

Here is my own Androidified self, complete with a steaming cup of coffee and a book. And I just couldn’t resist the shirt with the Korean flag on it.

Watch the video below to learn more about Androidify. Have fun Android-ifying yourself!

Via Engadget.

Ever since I got my first Android phone I had been wondering if there is a way (outside of hacking the phone) for me to customize the color of the blinking LED notification light depending on the type of notification.

Well, as they say, there’s an app for that. Blink, released last week, allows you to customize the LED — from a choice of twelve colors — for SMS/MMS, Incoming Call/Missed Call, and Low Battery/Memory. What’s more, you can also customize the frequency of the flashing light.

The only thing missing is that you can’t customize the LED settings for email. However, the team behind this awesome app assures us that the option will be available in a future update.

Blink is a FREE app that is publicly available on the Android Market. If you are reading this post from your Android device, you can use this direct download link: http://downloadandroid.info/download/Blink.apk

Or you can be cool and use this QR code:

Now excuse me while I change my text notification light to a pretty purple.

P.S. — Thanks to my geeky husband for giving me the heads-up on this app!

Remember when I wrote about Swype? Since downloading what has been called “the fastest keyboard for mobile phones” my mobile life has unquestionably changed for the better. And I wasn’t the only one; I have since received many comments, emails, and tweets thanking me for writing about Swype.

So imagine my surprise to learn that there are some people who hate Swype’s gliding input system. One prime example resides right in my household. That’s right. My own husband — *gasp* — hates Swype.

Now there may be an alternative for people like J. Introducing SwiftKey, which is being touted as one of the best predictive text input methods out on the mobile market. SwiftKey has an uncanny ability to guess what your next word will be, and delves into your SMS history (if allowed) in order to “learn” how you converse.

Since SwiftKey, like Swype, is still in its beta phase, the keyboard is available for FREE to Android users running all the main releases of Android — 1.5 (Cupcake), 1.6 (Donut), 2.01 (Eclair), 2.1 (Eclair) and 2.2 (Froyo).

You can find it by searching for “SwiftKey” in the Android Market, or, if you’re reading this post from your phone, just click on this download link.

Still not convinced? Take a look at SwiftKey in action:

Via Engadget.