On Computers

Why spend over a thousand on a Macbook or Windows computer when you can get a Chromebook for peanuts? According to ZDnet, there are five reasons why ordinary people would do better with a Chromebook than anything else. First of all, they’re cheap. On Amazon there are dozens of them for $300 or less, including the Samsung Chromebook 4 for $120. Many of these, like the Chromebook 4, have only four gigabytes of RAM, but that’s enough if you’re not a multitasker. If you do Zoom calls, however, you’ll want something more powerful than the Chromebook 4’s Intel Celeron processor. Experts recommend avoiding the Celeron or Pentium processor and going for an Intel Core i3 or above. A second reason […]

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Filed under: Android, books, computers, Google, Internuts, photos | Comments Off on THE SUPERIORITY OF CHROMEBOOKS

California just approved a new kind of license plate. It uses e-ink to display messages, like: “This car has been stolen.”  It could be the beginning of a trend. With the “RPlate,” by Reviver, you control your license plate’s messages from an app on your phone. Compared to a personalized license plate, the RPlate can display much more info, such as your business’s website and phone number. The new plate uses a monochrome e-ink screen protected by a cover six times stronger than glass. Its battery lasts five years, and it works with Bluetooth, allowing the plate to join the “Internet of Things.” The cost is $20 a month or around $215 for four years. A wired version for fleets […]

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Filed under: Amazon, Android, apps, cameras, Internuts, printer, trends | Comments Off on E-INK LICENSE PLATES FOR CARS

I hate to see my friends throw their clean, dry plastic bags in the trash. But even if they sort them, 95% will not be recycled. So I decided to do something about it. On Indiegogo.com, I pre-ordered the “Obaggo,” a 10.5-inch-tall trash compactor that will sit on my kitchen counter. With a little heat and a lot of pressure, it turns 20 to 25 grocery bags into dense hockey pucks about six inches in diameter. Recycling centers can shred the disks and turn them into pellets, the kind industry uses to make new products. If you use thicker bags, like those blue and white ones from Amazon, it will take fewer. You can also use vegetable bags, cereal box […]

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Filed under: Android, gadgets, kids, numbers, trends | Comments Off on GADGET SOLVES PLASTIC PROBLEM

I sent my favorite 11 year-old a personality quiz based on her favorite Amazon series. Then I made a better one. You’ve probably seen such quizzes on Facebook and elsewhere. Perhaps the most famous is from the New York Times. If you search on the phrase “New York Times quiz how y’all,” it comes right up. It figures out where you’re from based on the words you use. They marked me as a Californian, which is right on target, since I grew up there.  One of the words that helped them decide was my use of “crawdad” instead of “crayfish.” But they also figured I’d spent time in Reno, Nevada, which I had, as a college student. To get started […]

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Filed under: Android, batteries, books, browsers, education, facebook, Internuts | Comments Off on MAKING YOUR OWN ONLINE QUIZ

What if smiling at your phone triggered a slew of actions? It can do that in Android 12, coming in September. To try it out now, do a web search on “Android beta,” then click to enroll. The list of eligible phones includes the Pixel 3 on up, as well as OnePlus, Xiaomi and a few others, but not Samsung, Motorola, or LG.  I tried smiling, opening my mouth, and looking right and left to trigger an action. The first few times were OK, then my phone went berserk. Just looking at it set off a mad dash through flashing menus. I could barely tap fast enough to regain normalcy. Despite the facial fiasco, I’m enjoying Android 12. For starters, […]

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Filed under: Android, gadgets, Google, music, wearables, Windows | Comments Off on TRYING OUT ANDROID 12

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

Worldwide shipments of desktop computers have dropped in half since 2010, while tablets and laptops have surged, but I still like the feel of a good desktop. I just have to remember to clean the inside occasionally. This is the perfect time of year for that, before summer starts to fry everything. I’ll never forget the time my husband cleaned my sister’s desktop computer for her. No wonder her machine was slow! The dust bunnies were thick and still multiplying. Dust never sleeps, especially inside a desktop. The cooling fans bring in air from the outside, clogging the parts with dust. If it gets hot enough in there, the central processing unit (CPU) as well as the graphics processing unit […]

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Filed under: Android, apps, computers, email, facebook, security, troubleshooting | Comments Off on SPRING CLEANING

You can buy a thousand positive reviews on Amazon for $10,900. That’s less than $11 each. So how do you know which reviews to trust? I looked at an ArsTechnica article, “Posing as an Amazon Seller” to find out. One commenter said he rented a dreadful movie that had 4.5 out of five stars and over 10,000 positive reviews. Now he avoids anything with reviews in the thousands. A reader told me he only looks at the most recent ones. A third commenter observed that some reviewers get $20 per review. He says he’s in the wrong business. A United Kingdom consumer group found 702,000 product reviewers from just five companies. All were in the review-manipulation biz. Besides offering positive […]

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Filed under: Amazon, Android, apps, health, Internuts, photos, security | Comments Off on WHICH AMAZON REVIEWS ARE FAKE?

I asked a friend who has arthritis in his hands and feet to test a cordless massage gun. He gave it a pleasantly-massaged thumbs-up. A good massage increases circulation, decreases pain and removes stiffness. My friend reported back: “The Merach Pocket Nano Massage Gun is better than my Wahl Heat Therapy Therapeutic Massager, with one caveat. The hard plastic tips work well enough on muscles and fleshy parts, but pose a problem for bony parts. For instance, I usually run my massager over the tops of my hands. With this, I can only comfortably do my palms.” But it turned out that massaging the palms worked its magic all the way through to the bony parts as well. It also […]

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Filed under: Android, gadgets, health, Internuts, video, word processing | Comments Off on MASSAGE GUN GETS A THUMBS UP

Remember the first Samsung Fold phone? You could unfold it to get a much larger display. What a dud. Now they’ve announced their third foldable phone: the “Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G.” The reviewers of the first Fold went ballistic over cracking screens, black-outs and an unsightly bulge that appeared below the display. They also hated the bulky hinge. (This follows Bob’s general rule: Never buy anything with a low serial number.) The new Z Fold 2, Samsung’s third foldable phone, is getting good reviews, even before it’s out. There’s less of a gap between the screens. The hinge is better. Though some reviewers suspected a plastic screen, it’s actually ultra-thin glass. Samsung poured dirt and gravel all over it […]

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Filed under: Android, browsers, Internuts, maps, web | Comments Off on ABOVE THE FOLD