OLD COMPUTERS SELLING AS NEW

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 […]

Read more

DIGITAL ADVENT CALENDAR

A friend just gave me a delightful Christmas present. It’s the Jacquie Lawson Edwardian Advent Calendar, an $8 download from JacquieLawson.com. Besides something special on each day, it has other activities. In a beautiful living room with colorfully wrapped presents, for example, I found an undecorated Christmas tree. I clicked it to choose lights, ornaments and more. Then I clicked the presents to reveal games. One led me to fascinating versions of Solitaire, including one with cards of the same suit and color. I then solved a puzzle that turned into a beautiful painting, and clicked a music book to reveal the wondrous tunes I was listening to. When the program first opens, click the star on the outside of […]

Read more

GOOGLE VOICE SAVES THE DAY

I left my phone in a Lyft on the way to the airport. But Google Voice, the free phone service, saved me. Using the airport’s free WiFi on my laptop, I went to Voice.Google.com and typed in my friend’s phone number, to say that I’d arrived. Alternatively, I could have used the Google Voice app, though on a Windows machine you need to go to the website instead. Either way, the call quality is excellent. The great thing is, Google Voice lets you call anyone. With apps like Facebook Messenger, your recipients must use the same service. For the next six days, I was happily phoneless. But I still wanted to find the darn thing. So I Googled “Find My […]

Read more

EARBUD COMPANIES NOW SELL HEARING AIDS

Why are the new over-the-counter hearing aids so much cheaper than the traditional kind? Because you don’t have to pay an audiologist. Two-thirds of a hearing aid’s typical $5000 price goes for an audiologist’s professional fitting, follow-up treatment, and maintenance. But last October, the Food and Drug Administration’s ruling went into effect, allowing you to buy them without a medical exam, prescription, or professional fitting.  The Bose company, well-known for home theater and earbuds, gets great reviews for its hearing aids as well. Their over-the-counter “Lexie” models range in price from $749 to $999. Around 97 percent of users say they can hear music better, including treble tones they haven’t heard in years, according to lexiehearing.com. Around 91 percent say […]

Read more

ONLINE PIANO LESSONS ROCK

Years ago, my mediocre piano teacher failed to show up for my lesson, even though we were meeting at her house. I heard she did it to others too.  Phooey on her. I can get the best teachers in America online, and they’re cheaper. According to a 2020 report from Thumbtack, the average in-person piano teacher charges between $40 to $100 an hour. I just got 36 lessons for $25 from TheGreatCourses.com during one of their major sales. By using the free Chrome extension from CapitalOneShopping.com, the price dropped to $18. The equivalent from a live teacher would have cost $1440 to $3600. My online teacher, Pamela Pike, won the “Outstanding Teacher Award” from Louisiana State University, among other honors. […]

Read more

THAT DARN CAT

I might have said yes to the cat my neighbor offered me if I’d had “Leo’s Loo Too,” a robotic kitty-litter cleaner from SmartyPear that ships this month. It looks like a miniature dryer. Cat pooh can be dangerous. According to a University of Chicago study, 60 million Americans have “toxoplasmosis,” a parasite you can get from touching it. It causes “intermittent explosive disorder” and increased aggression in humans, experts say. With the Loo Too litter cleaner, a rotating drum separates your fur baby’s pooh and sends it into a carbon-filtered, odor-containing waste drawer. When the drawer is full, a notification on your smart phone tells you it’s time to take out the trash, which is automatically bagged. You’re back […]

Read more

FREE TV

“Locast” brings TV over the Internet. Locast is low-cost. How low? How about free?  The TV people, namely CBS, ABC, Fox and NBC, are upset and are suing. They want to keep collecting the fees they get from cable companies. This follows an old business practice: If things aren’t going your way, sue somebody. It reassures the shareholders that you’re on the job and who knows, it might even work. The fees collected by the big networks amounted to $10.1 billion last year.   Locast brings you TV through an internet connection. So far, it’s available in 13 markets, such as Boston, Chicago and New York,  but it will be coming your way. It worked great on our TV, and we […]

Read more

TV OR NOT TV

A reader writes that his daughter signed up for “Hulu Live,” dropping her cable TV. What do we think? It’s $40  a month for more than 60 channels. Similar services include YouTube TV, Playstation Vue (no Playstation required), Sling TV, and DIRECTV Now. They’re all about the same price except for Sling TV, at $25 a month, which we haven’t had a good experience with. We currently pay AT&T $167 a month for TV. So we’re trying out the seven-day free trial of  the $40 a month Hulu service. So far, it’s OK, not great. Hulu Live brings us our live favorites: Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and 60 Minutes, as well as sports. It also has our favorite movie channel, […]

Read more

ONE MINUTE ON THE INTERNET

From The Guardian, a British newspaper, we learn that one minute on the Internet looks like this: 156 million emails, 29 million text messages. Wait, we’re still not through. One point five million Spotify songs, four million Google searches, two million minutes of Skype calls, 350,000 tweets, 243,000 photos posted on Facebook, 87,000 hours of Netflix, 65,000 pictures put on Instagram, 25,000 posts on Tumblr, 18,000 matches on Tinder, and 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube. If you take just the online video watched on websites, YouTube, Netflix and webcams, you have 77% of the world’s internet traffic. Whew! The Readers Bite Back We recently wrote that there’s no reason to have a terabyte drive if you don’t have […]

Read more

BUILD YOUR OWN

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 […]

Read more