On Computers

Using the new Microsoft Designer, which is free, I made a personalized postcard showing an old-timey train heading toward a gorgeous mountain range. My friend said it reminded him of painting on velvet, but I think it’s great. To start, I downloaded the app from the Microsoft Store for my Windows computer. Next, I chose a template, and tweaked it by typing over its description with my own words. Besides postcards, Microsoft Designer also creates images, photo collages, icons, stickers, wallpapers, birthday cards, Facebook posts, avatars and more. For an avatar, I typed over the words “athletic, happy teenager shooting a basketball in an urban court at evening,” changing it to: “an athletic, happy woman with auburn hair in a […]

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Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, electronics, environment, health, Internuts | Comments Off on MAKE ART IN A COUPLE OF CLICKS WITH FREE MICROSOFT APP

I’ll never sell anything on eBay again. Or if I do, I won’t use the Post Office to ship the package. The Post Office lost the Pixel 6a phone I sold on eBay to a man in Miami. He got a refund, but I had to pay eBay $38 in fees, ten bucks of which went to promoting the phone on their site. I wish I had the phone back. My sister had suggested keeping it as a backup after I’d temporarily lost it, then replaced it with the Pixel 8. But when I found it again, I figured eBay was the best solution. I was sucked into using the post office by eBay’s offer of a discounted shipping label. […]

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Filed under: Amazon, business, environment, games, Internuts, robots | Comments Off on EBAY AND POST OFFICE DISAPPOINT

I felt guilty returning a pair of black pants to Amazon. They will probably be dumped, shredded or both. There’s a name for this: “DIF” or “destroy in field.” Defective gadgets, luxury goods and cheap clothing are all candidates for the shredder. An Amazon spokesman told the New Yorker that nothing goes back on sale after the seal is broken or the wrap is torn. Returning stuff is part of a growing trend. A century ago, only two percent of stuff was returned to J.C. Penney’s department stores. Today, 40 percent of clothing on average goes back to US retailers. Returns are about to get even easier no matter where you do your shopping. A company called “Pollen Returns,” run […]

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Filed under: Amazon, business, cheap calls, environment, notes | Comments Off on BETTER RETURNS

Here’s my new habit: Whenever I take the plastic wrap off a roll of paper towels or some other package, it goes straight into my Obaggo, a personal trash compactor about the size of a coffee maker. With a little heat and a lot of pressure, the Obaggo turns Amazon bags, cereal box liners, bubble wrap, zip-lock bags, single-use grocery bags, dry cleaner bags, and dozens of other plastic thingies into frisbie-like disks that recycling centers can shred and stamp into pellets, which are used to make new products. Your local grocery store’s recycling bin will take the disks, or you can get a free label to mail them back to Obaggo. Otherwise, most plastic bags end up in landfills. […]

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Filed under: AI, computers, environment, Google, Internuts, wireless | Comments Off on OBAGGO KEEPS BAGS OUT OF LANDFILLS

Artificially-intelligent bots are plagiarizing known authors. It happened to author Jane Friedman, who reports on the publishing industry. A copycat version of her work was reviewed on Goodreads. Friedman told ZDnet that an author she found on Twitter.com has been plagiarized by AI bots 29 times. It could be a growing problem. Suppose, for example, that you insert the text of a published novel into a site like ChatGPT, and ask for it to be rewritten in the bot’s own words. Next you run the result through an AI content detector. If it scores 100 percent, it’s 100 percent fakey-sounding. So you tweak it a bit before uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing. I decided to test this idea myself. I […]

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Filed under: AI, environment, games, Google, health, Internuts, kids, security, text messaging, video, word processing | Comments Off on PLAGIARISM BY CHATBOTS

Two decades ago, Bill Gates began filling his enormous mansion with digital picture frames to display the world’s best art. Now you can too. “The Frame” is a Samsung TV made to look like a painting, complete with a matte finish. With a $5 a month subscription, it displays 2,300 pieces of digital art, including a new Salvador Dali collection in partnership with an institution founded by the painter himself. The 2023 model is considered a vast improvement over the version that came out in 2017. For one thing, it’s a lot thinner, nearly melting into the wall.There’s no gap. It’s a smart TV too. But when the TV’s off, the Frame goes back to displaying art. It even has […]

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Filed under: art, cheap calls, environment, Google, Internuts, maps, numbers, TV | Comments Off on ART TV DISPLAYS THOUSANDS OF PAINTINGS

Recently, I thought I got a Facebook friend request from a cousin, but it turned out to be her clone. Duped again. After accepting that phony friend request, I noticed two red flags: First, I was her only friend. Second, the clone had only three posts. When I typed her name into the Facebook search bar, I saw her real account listed after the fake one, so I immediately unfriended the faker. You might want to search for your own name to see if there are two of you. “What should I do about it?” my cousin asked. Here are the steps to follow. Go to the fake account’s home page and click the three horizontal dots near the word […]

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Filed under: AI, apps, batteries, electronics, environment, Internet, TV | Comments Off on FACEBOOK CLONES

It’s nighttime in a garden full of solar lights hanging in the trees like beautiful paper lanterns. You pull one off a tree to charge your phone. When a power outage strikes, you take the lights indoors to illuminate your home. I’m talking about the $38 MegaPuff, also known as the “Origami Solar Light and Power Bank.” This multi-colored cube, about six inches on all sides, is amazing. It’s not only beautiful, it self-inflates as you pull the handles from a half-inch-high stack of recycled thermoplastic. It’s charged by the sun in ten hours or you can plug it in with a cable. Its light lasts for 12 hours. Carry it anywhere. Solar devices are known for decreasing pollution. Using […]

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Filed under: Amazon, environment, Google, photos | Comments Off on SOLAR-POWERED LIGHT CUBES DOUBLE AS PHONE CHARGERS

When a neighbor’s 12 year-old stayed with me for a week, she stayed up past midnight every night to shop on her phone. Where were parental controls when I needed them? It turned out she was buying cheap items from China. The same $12 necklace from Target was only $1 online, she pointed out to me while we were in the store. Once, she came to me at 2 a.m. to ask if she could use my PayPal password for a $20 shipping charge. Another time, she didn’t go to sleep until 9 a.m. the next day. Short of taking her phone away, I wish I’d had a Gryphon. The Gryphon is a router that lets you strictly monitor how […]

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Filed under: apps, environment, Internuts, kids, text messaging, YouTube | Comments Off on HOW TO PREVENT TECH ADDICTION IN KIDS

Your garbage isn’t chicken feed. But it could be. All it takes is the right composter. The “Mill Kitchen Bin” converts discarded scraps and leftovers into food for chickens. When the bin is full, the user empties it into a prepaid shipping box and sends it back to the company. Unlike typical composting, the Bin can handle any food, including dairy, meat, grains– even Twinkies. It de-stinks as it turns into soil-ish. Food waste makes up 24 percent of the stuff in landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and its production wastes water, land, fertilizer and energy. Even worse, it makes methane gas. So instead of throwing out your food, why not mail it in? Here’s the catch: Though […]

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Filed under: environment, games, Gmail, Internuts, inventions, robots, security | Comments Off on JUST CHICKEN FEED