On Computers

Pandora, the online radio station, has created programs for the holidays. Click on Pandora’s “new station” box, and you’ll see a link for holiday stations. We saw stations for “Rockin’ Holidays,” “Classical Christmas,” “Swinging Christmas,” “Hanukkah,” “Navidad Latina” and many others. Pandora’s basic service is free, or $36 a year for the ad-free version.

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Over half a billion people have played “Bejeweled,” the popular game from PopCap, and version 3 is now out for Nintendo DS, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. You may have played it on a computer, an iPhone or the airline seatback.

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Joy’s sister never uses a credit card online for fear of identity theft. The “SmartSwipe” from Brookstone.com, should quiet her fears.

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A survey in Great Britain found that 74 percent of IT managers (the ”IT” stands for Information Technology) do not want to use “cloud computing” for their companies. The cloud designation that you hear tossed around these days is the new name for a bank of high-capacity storage units that can hold all your company’s data and communication traffic. Only three percent of IT managers said they use it to any great extent. The primary hesitation of the majority, of course, is based on security; if the cloud goes down, so does the

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Recently, we wrote about how to find out if your computer had been hacked and turned into a zombie that sends out spam and viruses. Then a wary reader wrote to ask us if a hacker could find out your name and address just by finding your computer’s “IP address.” (IP stands for Internet Protocol and the number attached to is unique to each user.)

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Two years ago, we joined Amazon “Prime” to get free shipping and two-day delivery on any purchases at Amazon.com. Then they added free video streaming on thousands of movies. Now they’ll loan us Kindle books for free.

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Here’s a fun way to say happy birthday to someone. Have a rock group sing it to them, with a personalized message at the end. You can sing along and add your own face if you like. It’s a free Facebook app called “Say it with Skype.” Type in a friend’s first name and get a choice of Facebook contacts with the same name. Then choose a rock group. We hadn’t heard of any of them, but then again we’d undoubtedly fail any pop-culture quiz. They’re supposedly well-known: Bowling for Soup, CSS, Parlotones, Imogen Heap, Ash, Charlie Simpson, Body Language, Scarlet Grey, and Kill the Young. At the end of the video the group will hold up signs saying “Happy […]

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Filed under: apps, facebook, music | 1 Comment »

It’s good when an elderly person has a cell phone at hand, to call 911 in an emergency. Even better is a big button around their neck.

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We’re going to try our hand at songwriting, and we have just the thing. It’s called Magix Music Maker and it’s got the beat.

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Over two billion Android apps are downloaded each month according to research firm “Chomp.” Over Halloween weekend, the most popular apps were Pumpkins vs. Monsters, Angry Bird Seasons, Bubble Blast Halloween, Coin Dozer Halloween, Halloween! and Halloween Live Wallpaper.

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Filed under: Android, Apple, apps, iPad, iPhone, numbers | Comments Off on OVER TWO BILLION ANDROID APPS