GETTING THE RIGHT SMART WATCH
After a bad experience with a smart watch for kids, I was eager to try one for adults. It didn’t turn out well.
I wanted a smart watch as a backup for my phone, in case I lost it again on a trip. But the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE for $136 on Amazon turned out to be too good to be true, I discovered after buying it. It’s for users in the Caribbean and South America. Beware of products marked “international.”
I would have found that out earlier if only I’d asked Rufus, the AI assistant on Amazon’s product page. When I asked him later if the watch was for the US, he said that “while it supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, it does not include LTE connectivity or service from US carriers.”
So I started looking at other Android options. But every low-priced watch I examined had too many negative reviews for my taste. When the number of negatives gets up to around nine percent, I begin to sense problems. Besides, if you want a watch that can take calls without your phone nearby, you need to spend at least $200, I discovered.
An exception is the Apple Watch SE, second generation, for $169 at Walmart and Amazon, for iPhone owners. It gets great reviews. At Amazon, the only Apple SE watches that don’t are the refurbished models. Some reviewers said their watches quickly stopped working and needed expensive repairs, others said their watches had bum batteries.
Ringtones
When I got a new Samsung phone, I lost all the great ringtones from my Pixel phone’s built-in library. But now I have better ones, from my own digital collection.
The easiest way to get a new ringtone on your phone is to email one to yourself, unless your MP3 files are already on your phone. I thought at first I had to trim each song to about a minute in length, using something like the free VLC player, but why bother? It doesn’t seem to make any difference.
On an Android phone, once you’ve opened your song from the email you sent yourself, tap the three vertical dots in the upper right and choose “copy to” or “move to” and choose “Internal Storage.” From there, tap “Ringtones.” On an iPhone, save the email attachment to the Files app, then use GarageBand to convert the song to a ringtone format (M4R). Finally, sync it with your iPhone.
If that’s too much trouble, consider the premium versions of the free ringtone apps to avoid being bombarded with ads. For example, the Classical Music Ringtones app for Android has ads that are so excruciatingly long and numerous, I cut out before choosing one. I’d rather pay $10 a year for the paid version.
Once you have your new ringtones, you can choose a different one for each of your most important contacts. In the Google Contacts app, open the listing for the person you want, then scroll down until you see the ringtone section. Now choose one, and exit the app. On an iPhone, tap the pencil to edit a Contact, then change the ringtone selection.
Safe Driving
According to the National Highway Safety Administration, 845,000 people have died on US highways in the last 25 years. That’s over 15 times the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War over a 20-year period.
Using smartphone apps like the kind that insurance companies use to track driving could make a big difference, according to a recent study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. The apps measured hard braking, sudden acceleration and speeding by 1400 participants. Thirteen percent of participants showed a reduction in speeding, 21 percent showed a reduction in hard braking, and 25 percent experienced less rapid acceleration. Over 67 percent said they wouldn’t mind being tracked if they were offered money in exchange.
Just about all insurance companies offer discounts ranging from 10 to 40 percent or more for your participation in their tracking program. Some, such as Progressive and AllState, may increase your premium if you’re found to be a risky driver. AAA includes variables like cell phone distraction.
The Complete Archive
Archive.org just became an official US federal depository library, adding to a trillion other files it archives, including newspapers, magazines, videos and old versions of current websites. Now, they’re about to add congressional bills, laws, regulations, presidential documents, and other U.S. government documents.
But for now, I only see old stuff, since the federal depository was just okayed by Congress about a week ago. While waiting for the new stuff to land, I found myself perusing the flipbook versions of the New York Times from 1854 to 1969. An issue from the 1920s struck me as much more exciting than today’s paper, since there were lots of grisly headlines and quirky local news on the front page. I tried the free audiobooks too, but the readers there can’t hold a candle to the professional actors on Audible.
Internut
“This aerogel and some sun could make saltwater drinkable.” Search on that phrase for more info about a desalination breakthrough from researchers at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University. It’s crucial, given that 97 percent of water on earth is salty, and most of the remaining three percent is frozen in glaciers, which leaves just .3 percent for drinking.