Posted on July 31st, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
Previewing the new Microsoft Office 2013 is a blast. It’s totally unlike our experience trying to preview Windows 8, which crashed our test computer every few minutes. Office 2013 Preview is a free download from Microsoft.com/Office/Preview. The preview leaves your existing copy of Office in place, so there’s no risk of overwriting it. Unfortunately, 55 percent of Windows users won’t be able to try it, since it doesn’t run on the still widely used XP or Vista operating systems. But here’s our take for the Windows 7 users: While the Office 2013 preview is installing on your machine or tablet, you can experiment with a PowerPoint presentation that comes up automatically to tell you about the new features. You can […]
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Filed under: PowerPoint, spreadsheet, storage, Windows, word processing | Comments Off on NEW MICROSOFT OFFICE
Posted on July 30th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
Wow! This is the way to go! Coursera.org offers more than 100 free courses from universities such as Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, Rice, John Hopkins, U.of Illinois, and 11 others. The number of students is approaching a million. Bill Gates’ favorite online learning site, KhanAcademy, has hundreds more college courses, many on technical subjects, and they too are all free. Is this a trend? Is it the future? We certainly hope so. Considering the cost of attending a major university these days, there has to be an alternative. Sending a student to four years at one of the biggies like Princeton, Harvard, U. of Chicago, etc., costs around a quarter of a million dollars. Have two kids? That’s half a […]
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Filed under: career, education, Uncategorized | Comments Off on FREE ONLINE COURSES ARE PROLIFERATING
Posted on July 29th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
“Steve Jobs, the Lost Interview” is now available at the iTunes app store. This is a rare interview that was briefly shown in theaters last year. Jobs had just left Apple at the time and had big plans for his NeXT computer company. Even as hard-core Windows fans, we were sold by his visionary appeal. (Bob actually got to try the NeXT.) You can watch the interview on your computer, tablet or smartphone. Launch iTunes and click “movies,” then search for the title. It’s a $4 rental.
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Filed under: Apple, video | 2 Comments »
Posted on July 28th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
Magic Piano is free for iPad/iPhone/Android devices and lets you play the piano by tapping dots on the screen. The first few songs are free. They said we went too fast, but we got an “awesome” rating on Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” (That’s Ludwig, not the other Beethoven.)
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Filed under: apps, music | Comments Off on MAGIC PIANO
Posted on July 28th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
Song Pop is free for iPhone/IPad/Android or Facebook. It’s a contest that pits you against a friend in a “name that tune” sort of game. It’s multiple choice. We’re terrible on the latest hits. We wouldn’t know a current hit even if it, well, hit us in the face, but Joy’s a killer on the ‘60s. More info at SongPop.fm.
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Filed under: apps, music | Comments Off on SONG POP
Posted on July 27th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
We get a lot of appeals from Kickstarter.com, the website that uses crowd-funding to help start a business. The idea is that even a $1 contribution can give you a good feeling, while larger amounts earn various souvenirs.
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Filed under: business, Internuts, TV | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 26th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
The use of social media is beginning to seriously influence politics. The recent victory of Uber, a company that makes a taxi-summoning app, is a recent example. WhenWashington,D.C., council members tried to shut it down, the president of Uber fought back on Twitter.
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Filed under: apps, government | Comments Off on THE POLITICAL POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Posted on July 25th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
In the Google search bar, type “8 Essential Photoshop Tutorials on YouTube.” One shows you how to place a person’s picture on a different background, no matter how wildly their hair is blowing in the picture.
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Filed under: graphics, photos, photoshop, YouTube | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 25th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
— “The 33 Most-Watched Cat Videos Ever,” from YouTube. The first one shows a kitten stuck inside a plastic ball. Takes about two minutes to get out, to the tune of Paul McCartney’s “Stuck in the Middle with You.” Everybody loves kitten pictures.
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Filed under: humor, YouTube | Comments Off on AS SEEN ON YOUTUBE
Posted on July 24th, 2012 by Joy Schwabach
— Lights can be printed onto wallpaper. Researchers fromLinkoping University,.Sweden, have grown white LEDs (light emitting diodes) on paper. This is the first time anyone has built LEDs directly on paper.
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Filed under: environment, gadgets, science, security | Comments Off on THE GEE WHIZ OR “HOW ABOUT THAT?” DEPARTMENT
