Posted on December 18th, 2023 by Joy Schwabach
Look out for old computers selling as new. Sometimes, they’re more expensive than ever. The HP desktop I bought in 2017 for $650, for example, is now selling on Amazon for $982. It’s not the exact model, but it’s a similar one from 2017 that comes up when I click “Buy again.” The same year, a friend bought a “new” computer with the old Video Graphics Array. The result was a slightly fuzzy screen. VGA was replaced by HDMI in 2008. To avoid duds, check the tech specs. You can find them on the product page at Amazon, BestBuy, HP, OfficeDepot and other sites. But what if you don’t understand what you’re looking at? The answer is UserBenchmark.com. It gives […]
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Filed under: AI, apps, books, computers, electronics, how-to, Internuts, storage | Comments Off on OLD COMPUTERS SELLING AS NEW
Posted on August 7th, 2023 by Joy Schwabach
Recently, I thought I got a Facebook friend request from a cousin, but it turned out to be her clone. Duped again. After accepting that phony friend request, I noticed two red flags: First, I was her only friend. Second, the clone had only three posts. When I typed her name into the Facebook search bar, I saw her real account listed after the fake one, so I immediately unfriended the faker. You might want to search for your own name to see if there are two of you. “What should I do about it?” my cousin asked. Here are the steps to follow. Go to the fake account’s home page and click the three horizontal dots near the word […]
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Filed under: AI, apps, batteries, electronics, environment, Internet, TV | Comments Off on FACEBOOK CLONES
Posted on November 28th, 2022 by Joy Schwabach
It takes a lot of gumption for a small company to put their smart speaker up against Google’s and Amazon’s. But the $349 “Mark II” from Mycroft.ai is a big disappointment. It looks like a retro TV, roughly five by five-by-five inches. On its cheery display, it shows the temperature, date and time, plus the answers to your questions, often with a small picture. I love the look. But its voice assistant, Mycroft, is a dud compared to Google and Alexa. When I said “play music” I got nothing. When I asked for a bread recipe, I got a picture of an album by the group “Bread.” When I asked for a definition of “optometry,” it didn’t know. When I […]
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Filed under: Amazon, electronics, gadgets, Google, Internuts, photos, tech support | Comments Off on MYCROFT CAN’T COMPETE WITH ALEXA OR GOOGLE
Posted on May 4th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
More often than not, the best way to solve a problem is to Google it in the same words you would use when describing the issue to your techiest friend. Recently we were trying to digitize our CDs so we could play them on our computer, but Windows Media Player couldn’t identify any of the tracks. We were stuck with “Unknown Album” and “Track 1,” “Track 2,” etc. Windows Media player is supposed to name your tracks automatically, but it didn’t. The Windows Troubleshooter popped up to tell us that our media player was corrupted but offered no solution. It dumped us out on a general Microsoft page where we could search vast reams of info from other users. So […]
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Filed under: apps, electronics, gadgets, Google, Internuts, music, programming | Comments Off on JUST GOOGLE IT
Posted on October 22nd, 2018 by Joy Schwabach
“Robo calls” are getting worse. Adrian Abramovich, of Miami, has been accused of making 97 million spam calls and is facing a $120 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission. There’s a call-screening feature in the new Pixel 3 phone from Google, and it’s a sure bet you will soon see it in other makes. When your phone rings, you’ll see a “screen call” option. Tap it and a recorded voice in the Pixel phone asks the caller to state their name and the nature of the call. The caller might say something like “You have won a free cruise.” (We win an amazing number of those, which is unfortunate because Bob doesn’t like cruises.) At this point, you can […]
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Filed under: apps, books, electronics, maps, music, phones | Comments Off on LET THE ROBOT TAKE IT
Posted on October 1st, 2018 by Joy Schwabach
We remember when personal computers first came out. You could build them yourself if you were savvy. That’s what Michael Dell did way back when. He sold them to other college students and the business went on from there. Now there’s a computer that kids can put together. The “Computer Kit Touch” is $280 from Kano.me. Designed for young children, it has a ten-inch screen. Follow a printed storybook to build a portable, touchscreen computer, and attach a keyboard. From there, kids can make apps, art, and games with simple steps. Included apps are Chromium (a web browser similar to Chrome), YouTube, Libre Office (similar to Microsoft Office) and Google Drive; more are available in the app store, such as […]
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Filed under: apps, business, education, electronics, gadgets, how-to, kids, podcasts, search, web | Comments Off on BUILD YOUR OWN
Posted on August 14th, 2018 by Joy Schwabach
We got a guide from Play-Free-Online-Games.com. The exact page is impossible to find in a search, so we’re giving you the gist of it here. Actually, these things are fun, and you can’t beat the price. Shooter Games. If you like to fly through space, try “Battleship Galactica” or “Ace Online.” If you prefer to fight on the ground and like monsters and werewolves, try “Wolf Team.” If you prefer mummies, try “Mission Against Terror.” If you would rather fight the military, and like World War II vintage tanks, try “World of Tanks.” If you prefer a deadly cartoon soldier, try “Lost Saga.” Role-Playing Games. If you like fantasy, join ten million others in “World of Warcraft.” If you’ve been […]
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Filed under: art, electronics, gadgets, games, printer, Uncategorized | Comments Off on FINDING FREE ONLINE GAMES
Posted on October 30th, 2017 by Joy Schwabach
What? As if 900 crypto-currencies were not enough, we now have “Dentacoin.” You guessed it, Dentacoin is for paying dentists. At the moment, you can only pay two dentists with this digital currency, one in Bulgaria and the other in London, but the wheel, and the planet, turns. (Update: Now 38 clinics in 14 countries accept the coin.) These digital currencies, also called “crypto” or “e-cash” are a way of getting out from under bank fees, inflation, security risks and of course government control. Eeek, as they say in the treasury. We are fast approaching a thousand varieties and there’s no reason to expect it to stop there. Shades of early America, when banks in all the states used to issue […]
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Filed under: art, business, computers, electronics, gadgets, Google, how-to | Comments Off on SMILE
Posted on October 9th, 2017 by Joy Schwabach
Ever adventurous, Joy decided the only way to really get an idea of what Bitcoin was about, was to buy some. So she bought a bit. At $4,000-plus per coin, she only bought a little bit of a Bitcoin. She bought $75 worth, which was a little less than two percent. With that little bit she bought a sweater from Overstock.com. It was $19.74. That left $54 worth of Bitcoin. She can go wild later. So what is this all about? James Dimon, head of J.P. Morgan and Co., the largest bank in the U.S., says “It’s a fraud, a scam.” Well, Mr. Dimon is always worth listening to, but in this situation, he may be talking his book (his […]
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Filed under: business, crytpocurrency, electronics, Internuts | Comments Off on A BIT OF BITCOIN
Posted on August 28th, 2017 by Joy Schwabach
We learned some interesting things about websites. For example, the minimum length for a website ending, which refers to the site’s “domain,” is two letters. There are more than one billion web sites and every possible letter combination has been taken. We went to GoDaddy.com to verify this and searched on tv.tv. Sure enough, it’s taken, though apparently it isn’t being used. (If you go to tv.tv, it just hangs there. It’s sort of a no-show show.) The domain name “tv” is for the Pacific island country of Tuvalu. Domain name sales are big business. HomeAway.com bought VacationRentals.com for $35 million back in 2009. You can buy the website name “TV.xyz” for $3,250. “TV.lgbt” is $4000. We know a few […]
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Filed under: books, education, electronics, how-to, Internet, Internuts, TV, web | Comments Off on FUN WITH WEBSITE NAMES