Posted on June 29th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
Several readers followed up on our review of the Amazon Fire tablet. Their comments led us to discover some features we didn’t know about. One reader was confused when he first tapped the “Books” tab on the home screen of his Fire. It looked like he had to join “Kindle Unlimited” to get books. But you don’t. It’s free for 30 days, then it’s $10 a month. Kindle Unlimited gives you a rotating library of ten books, audio books, magazines or some combination of all three. We noticed they have the Economist magazine, which is normally $189 a year. If we let our subscription drop, we could get it for $120 a year plus nine other magazines or books.You can […]
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Filed under: Amazon, apps, photos, science | Comments Off on PLAYING WITH FIRE
Posted on June 22nd, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
After accidentally dumping a load of cinnamon on our Echo Dot, Alexa wouldn’t talk to us any more. No matter. We decided to get a better smart speaker: the Sonos One. The Sonos One (Gen 2), for $200, lets you talk to either Alexa or Google Assistant when you want music or answers to questions. The sound is great but it didn’t exactly blow us away. Unless we’re talking literally. Joy upped the volume on George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” during the quiet part, then forgot about it. When we asked Alexa for the time the next morning, we were blasted out of bed. Before buying the Sonos One, we looked at comparisons between it, the Amazon Echo Studio and […]
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Filed under: gadgets, Internuts, iPad, music, Windows | Comments Off on A NEW SMART SPEAKER
Posted on June 15th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
Bob’s three-year-old Windows 10 computer went kablooey. Joy attempted to bring it back and made it worse. So we turned to our master fixer, Kenny. Kenny has never failed us. If the problem is easy for him, there’s often no charge. You can find him on the web at HelpHelpNow.com. Here’s what happened before we thought to call. Joy tried a “system restore,” and it failed twice, with the two available restore points. Next she tried “Windows Recovery,” choosing the option to back up files first. It failed too. So she tried it a second time. This time, it erased all the files and still didn’t work. Kenny told us to hold down the power button while Windows 10 was […]
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Filed under: apps, health, tech support, troubleshooting, virus | Comments Off on KABLOOEY
Posted on June 8th, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
We recently babysat our neighbors’ kids, ages 9 and 6, and had as much fun as they did with a camera that prints black and white photos. It’s called “My First Camera Insta 2” and is $100 on Shop.Oaxis.com. We were impressed by how quickly the girls got the hang of this thing. We only had to show the oldest how to do it once, and she taught the youngest, who got it just as quickly. Take a photo, press the gallery mode button, then the print button. If the paper jams, just give it a little tug. This only happened once in our tests. This is not a Polaroid-type camera. The prints you get come out on a roll […]
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Filed under: batteries, cameras, Internuts, kids, video | Comments Off on A CAMERA FOR KIDS
Posted on June 1st, 2020 by Joy Schwabach
Capturing Video Highlights One of our friends is writing her memoir about growing up in Iran. Since she reads it aloud to other writers through Zoom, the free video conferencing software, she was grateful that we could capture her part of the session in its own video clip. We could have downloaded a program to cut out her slice of the two-hour meeting, but there was no need. A free screen capture program is built into Windows 10. It’s called “Game Bar.” Though it’s meant for saving your game highlights, it can capture anything you have in motion. Once you have a video playing, bring up Game Bar by holding down the Windows key (looks like a flag) and tapping […]
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Filed under: Amazon, email, gadgets, photos, video | Comments Off on A LOT OF HOW-TOs
