On Computers

This struck us as a way for the computer to power its own desk lamp. The $25 Satechi “USB LED Bottle Lamp” fits into the opening of any bottle and includes a cord you plug into a USB port to power the lamp. If you don’t have an open USB port, you can plug it into an electrical outlet using an adapter. The bottle lamp’s shade is frosted white and there’s a silver on/off button. If you need light elsewhere, lift it out and drop it into another bottle.  We can imagine a whole room of these. The LED light has no mercury and lasts up to 50,000 hours. The lamp consumes 1.2 watts, much less than an incandescent or […]

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One of the most popular free apps in the Windows 8 app store is “AllRecipes,” which is kind of a flashback, since recipe programs were among the first to be installed on personal computers back in the stone age. But recipes are still fun and so are the following apps:   AudioBooks 8 has thousands of free audio books. We browsed through the stacks, so to speak, and were enchanted by “The Enchanted Typewriter,” a Victorian Era series of stories by John Kendrick Bangs Crayola Barbie and Crayola Hot Wheels are $3 coloring books for the iPad with animations, music and sound effects. Both apps work with the Crayola iMarker from Griffin Technology, a $30 stylus that looks and feels […]

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Filed under: apps, Windows | 1 Comment »

Avast makes a nice anti-virus program, and it’s free. Now they’ve added Secure.Me, an app for keeping nosy Parkers (and hackers) out of your Facebook account.

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You may have heard of the “Square,” an attachment for an iPhone that lets you swipe credit cards and do sales. Now they have a $299 stand that does the same thing for the iPad.

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Filed under: apps, business, electronics, gadgets | Comments Off on A SQUARE DEAL?

Browser extensions are much like apps. But instead of something you install on your phone, extensions are useful when surfing the web. The trick is not to install too many of them or they’ll slow down your surfing.

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Filed under: apps, browsers, Google, Internet, Internuts | Comments Off on EXTENSIONS

These are all from the social networking site LinkedIn.   Deepak Chopra on ending his career to find his bliss I dumped a pile of papers on my boss and quit on the spot. Read more  Sallie Krawcheck on being sabotaged by a cat My ugly cat awkwardly upstaged Bank of America’s CEO. Read more  Charlene Li on keeping silent about body odor I waited far too long to tell my boss he stank — literally. Read more  Herb Greenberg on botching a drug raid I embarrassed myself in front of my hero, and the cops. Read more  Nicholas Thompson on being fired from his first job I managed to work at 60 Minutes for less than 60 minutes. Read […]

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Filed under: career | Comments Off on MY BEST CAREER MISTAKE

Recent market research from IBM found that 90 percent of email marketing goes unread. The solution, says tech strategist Daniel Burrus, is to use text messaging. It’s just the reverse. People read and act on a text message 90 percent of the time.

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Recent market research from IBM found that 90 percent of email marketing goes unread. The solution, says tech strategist Daniel Burrus, is to use text messaging. It’s just the reverse. People read and act on a text message 90 percent of the time. The trick is you have get potential clients or customers to request a text message. On all of Burrus’ print and marketing materials, he puts the message “Text Burrus to 99000 for a special handout on this subject.” For more on this topic, go to goo.gl/5B26A.

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Filed under: business, email, text messaging | Comments Off on IS ANYONE OUT THERE?

Some may wonder why we recommend free anti-virus solutions like Avast and free anti-spyware programs like Malwarebytes when we pay $60 a year for BullGuard Internet Security. Well, many readers ask for free programs, and we like them too, but we’re willing to pay if something is really good.

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Speaking of the coming decline of cell phones (as they quietly morph into the power of Google Glass), our cell phone is sometimes set on vibrate instead of ring and we miss calls. There’s a $130 fix for that. That may seem a little high, but these days there seems to be no limit in the cell phone category.

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Filed under: apps, gadgets, phones | Comments Off on ANSWER THE PHONE