On Computers

Is online dating the worst way to find a mate, or the best? In any event, it’s much more popular than we ever thought. According to a Consumer Reports Magazine survey of 115,000 subscribers, 44 percent are in a long-term relationship or got married through online dating.  Yet reader satisfaction with these sites is lower than for any other service the magazine rates. They even rate lower than tech support. Now that’s the pits. As chance would have it, we know four women (no men) who have used online dating services. Two are happily married to the men they met this way, a third is happy in her new relationship and the fourth is still looking and not at all […]

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Filed under: apps, social networks, video, Windows | Comments Off on THE MATCH GAME

A reader asked us for our recommendation on the easiest tablet to use – the iPad, the Kindle Fire or something else? The easiest tablet is nearly always the one your friend has, because they’ll help you out. We always regretted getting an iPad for our aunt, because she never learned to use it. All her friends had computers, but they were thumb-dumb when it came to the iPad. If we’d thought of it, we would have told her to watch YouTube videos. There are good ones on every kind of tablet. So, go to YouTube.com and search on “how to use an iPad” or “how to use the Kindle Fire.” What could go wrong? Basically, all tablets are similar: […]

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Filed under: Amazon, Android, apps, gadgets, Google, Internuts, iPad | 1 Comment »

We’re going to talk some more about the digital assistants put out by Amazon and Google. Those would be the Amazon “Echo” and Google “Home.” They are small, relatively cheap (from $50 to $129), and they answer questions and do requests. This is the future. Essentially what we have are two devices that listen to what you have to say — with sometimes less accuracy than you would expect — and then respond. They can play music, occasionally with nonsensical results, and respond to more direct questions, such as “how many calories are there in an apple?” This is all new stuff, the edge of wedge if you will. It’s potentially an encyclopedia on your end table, along with lectures, […]

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Filed under: Amazon, Google, music, robots, trends, YouTube | Comments Off on HEY BOO BOO

From the earliest days, one of the primary rules about computers and related technology has been “No matter what you get, you have to get something else to make it work.” For example: We wanted our new Amazon Echo Dot to play thunderstorms in the bedroom as we were going to sleep. (This is one of those digital know-it-alls that you place on a table and ask it to tell you things, usually simple things, like “what’s the weather out there?”) Naturally enough, this didn’t work, because the bedroom was too far from the office router — all of 30 feet. So we bought a “Google WiFi” extender to extend our Internet signal there. This is what is often called […]

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Filed under: apps, art, gadgets, health, Internet | Comments Off on GOOGLE WIFI

Topics: the new Chromebook, 3D art and photos, glamorous camping, news, tech tips.

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Filed under: apps, art, cloud computing, computers, Google, Internuts, photos, video, Windows | Comments Off on THE NEW CHROMEBOOK