On Computers

Captricity.com digitizes documents at 20 cents per page, whether they’re hand written or typed. The first 25 pages are free. They use humans, not scanners, and here’s a tip Bob got from someone who uses this kind of data entry service extensively: To assure accuracy as much as you can, have the same documents done by more than one person, because it’s very unlikely that two people would make exactly the same mistake. Yes, it doubles the cost, but for many uses it’s worth it.

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Filed under: digital, Internuts, word processing | 1 Comment »

AuntBertha.com picks up where the government left off, offering information on social services. Type in a zip code and get information on sources for jobs, clothing, housing, health and food programs.

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To watch a few videos recently sent to us by relatives, we had to turn our heads to the side. We searched for a way out of that and found a free program called “Video Rotator,” from VideoRotator.com.

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Even with all the negative reviews being published about the new Windows 8, we thought the reality was even worse.

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Filed under: Windows | 4 Comments »

If you’re like us, you have photos scattered across the web. We have them on Flickr, Shutterfly, Facebook, Picasa, SmugMug etc. “Woven” is a new app for Android, iPhone/iPad, and the Kindle Fire which collects all your photos in one place and organizes them by date and app. The grouping by date is particularly helpful.

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A new iPhone app called Beamr lets you send high-resolution photos to your friends three times faster, with no loss of quality. It’s free. The receiver gets an email, Twitter or Facebook link and can then download full-resolution copies without registering or signing up.

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Filed under: apps, photos | Comments Off on BEAM THEM UP

Why watch the TV show when you can solve your local neighborhood crimes with your own forensic analysis?

“The Illustrated Guide to Home Forensic Science Experiments,” by Thompson and Thompson, $30 from oreilly.com, teaches you how to discover and lift fingerprints that are invisible to the naked eye, distinguish a person’s physical characteristics from examining a single hair, and — the ultimate – examining and comparing DNA. (Gotcha!)

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NationalGeographic.com sells a $200 DNA-testing kit. It lets you learn about the migration path of your ancestors, find out if you have Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestry, and share your story with other participants.

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When we were in Laguna Beach, California about 12 years ago, we stumbled upon a Dr. Seuss collection in a fine art gallery. Bob said they were just selling inkjet prints. But “No,” said the salesman, “it’s a Giclee.” “Giclee” is French, the verb form means “to squirt,” which is what inkjet printers do. (They put it in French to spray the buyers.) So we can “Giclee” a lot of copies of any print, but if you want it on canvas and wide, the inkjet printer that can do that costs about $5,000. That was the price for a Hewlett Packard inkjet printer we first saw in Pasadena a dozen years ago. You could print on paper or canvas and […]

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Filed under: art, graphics, printer | Comments Off on PRINTING ON CANVAS

Instead of fighting over the family iPad on long car trips and plane rides, three people can watch their own movie or TV show on their own tablet, computer or phone, all streamed from a little Seagate box that can hold 300 high definition movies.

(CLICK UNDERLINE BELOW HEADING FOR MORE.)

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Filed under: storage, video, wireless | Comments Off on SPREADING THE WIRELESS FUN