A few years ago I saw one of the best Halloween stunts ever, right around the corner from my house.

Our neighborhood takes this holiday seriously, with lots of giant spiders, cob webs, skeletons, spook houses oozing fog and creepy music, and of course lots of children.

Deep in shadow in front of one house nearby, someone threw a noose over the limb of a big old oak tree and hung a dummy by its neck. The dummy, dressed in a wide brim hat, a death mask, long black cape, and high topped boots, swung gently right over the sidewalk.

Anyone walking down the sidewalk had to sidle around the hanging corpse so as not to
brush up against its legs. A group of us happened to be walking along that sidewalk, and as we came up on the hanged man, we started working our way around it.

Just then it kicked out is legs, threw back the cape, whipped out a chain saw and yanked on the cord. The saw fired up with a huge roar that scared the daylights out of everybody. It was great!

Some things about Halloween never really change. However the past couple of years have produced a number of new mobile apps that could prove to be incredibly valuable to Halloween revelers.

For instance there are a number of photo sharing apps like PhotoTribe (available as a mobile app) that enable users to share photos and information among friends. These apps provide a great opportunity to do some real-time photo sharing of costumes, house decorations, and information about which houses are giving out the best candy.

A tip for parents, look on candy packaging for QR codes, scan with your mobile devices to instantly find product information about questionable items. This may be useful if you have children in your family with allergies to certain kinds of foods like peanuts.

A really great app is the people tracker. There are a number of products designed for tracking and locating pets or people. For instance, pocketfinder is a GPS device that either clips to a pet’s collar or slips into a child’s pocket. This can be especially useful on Halloween if you are concerned about where your children are after dark.

If you are stuck at home handing out candy, or you are simply too tired to follow your kids all over the neighborhood, or your kids have reached that age when they don’t want you around,  with something like pocketfinder you can use a mobile phone to see their exact location at any time. You can even set virtual fence lines, and the mobile app alerts you if they go out of bounds.

With apps like PhotoTribe and pocketfinder you can sit back and enjoy the excitement of Halloween from the comfort of your own home, and even relax by squashing pumpkins with the special Halloween edition of Angry Birds. Happy Halloween!

Photo credit: YAXZONE via photopin cc