On Computers

A friend wishes she’d kept her landline phone. The call quality was clear. The handset was comfy.  I have the best of both worlds: a landline phone with a “MagicJack” box plugged in. It lets me answer cellphone calls on my landline. I can also use the landline to make unlimited local and long distance calls. Callers tell me they appreciate the improvement in call quality. It only costs $39 a year.  Setting up MagicJack is dead simple. Basically, you plug it into the wall and connect a phone cord and an Ethernet cable into the MagicJack box. Dial 72 to forward cellphone calls to the landline when you’re home; dial 73 to turn off forwarding.  If you use Google […]

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Filed under: batteries, Internuts, phones | Comments Off on LANDLINE BLUES

The caffeine in a cup of coffee could blast me to the moon and back. I prefer tea. But when Kflow sent me a portable espresso machine, I had to try it out.  High tech coffee! All you do is add water and espresso grounds and push a button. The “Portable Espresso Maker” makes coffee in 30 seconds. It has 15 bars of pump pressure; the standard is nine. The more bars, the better, they say. I’m no connoisseur, but it tasted great in a latte. The model I received doesn’t heat the water. But you don’t need to heat it to brew a cup.  I added 10 ounces of hot soy milk, maple syrup and cinnamon to my blender, […]

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Filed under: Android, gadgets, games, humor, Internuts, video, Windows | Comments Off on HIGH TECH COFFEE

Everybody’s raving about Brave, the new web browser. They say it’s three times faster than Google Chrome. I like Brave on my phone and computer. It blocks ads and trackers, which means it makes websites load faster, saves data, and saves on battery life. But even if it only blocked ads, I’d like it better than an ad-blocking extension.  Every time I use AdBlock Plus, for example, I get bombarded with messages asking me to disable it. I haven’t seen those in Brave. In Brave, you can opt in to get an occasional text ad in the corner of your screen. Viewing these earns points toward gift cards and allows you to give a tip to websites you like. So […]

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Filed under: browsers, gadgets, kids, web | Comments Off on BLOCKING TRACKERS, GAINING SPEED ON THE WEB

A reader asked if the free Windows Defender is enough. Should he pay for an antivirus?   After a lot of research on this issue, I say no. Windows Defender, which is part of Windows, is good enough. In an AV-Comparatives test, it stopped 99.5 percent of threats. In an SE Labs test, it stopped 99 percent. By not renewing my Bullguard antivirus, I’ll save $120 over three years.  Windows Defender does a great job on old-school viruses, according to HowToGeek, so you don’t need another antivirus. But criminals have moved on from viruses to ransomware, zero-day attacks and other nasty stuff. For that, HowToGeek recommends Malwarebytes. I’ve been a subscriber for years.  There’s a free download at malwarebytes.com. It starts […]

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Filed under: gadgets, monitors, security, virus, Windows | Comments Off on DO YOU NEED AN ANTIVIRUS?

You’re out hiking when an earthquake strikes. You’re covered in rubble and there’s no signal on your smartphone. What to do? Take out your satellite phone. The “Zoleo Satellite Communicator,” which sells for $200, uses the Iridium network when a cellular or WiFi connection is unavailable. It’s about the size of a bar of soap– about four inches by three inches. It’s so rugged that one user said he could drop-kick it down a mountain without harming it. It weighs five ounces and has a battery life of more than eight days. There’s a button on it that lets you send an SOS to the company’s emergency monitoring and dispatch partner. Press another button to let others know you’re OK, […]

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Filed under: apps, gadgets, GPS, graphics, Internuts | Comments Off on SATELLITE PHONE FOR HIKERS