On Computers

“I am in need of a new Android tablet and Windows laptop,” a reader wrote. “My tablet will only charge to 29% and my laptop has many problems and is almost 10 years old.” “Get one like my HP,” I suggested. I’ve always liked HP, and “HP’s Newest 14 Laptop Ultra-Light for Students and Business” is no exception. It’s $255 on Amazon and comes with 16 gigabytes of RAM, Office 365 for a year and Windows 11s. The “s” means its operating system is fast for a cheapie laptop. It lasts up to 15 hours on a single charge. But this month’s PC Magazine recommends the Acer Aspire 3, $279 on Amazon. For a bigger budget, TechRadar suggests the Microsoft […]

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Filed under: AI, computers, Google, Internuts, robots, web, Windows | Comments Off on DEALS ON PCS AND TABLETS

I often write emails to myself, leaving them in the draft folder where I can easily find them. So now I have a build-up of 22 notes. “Why not use Google Keep?” a friend asked. I’d forgotten all about Keep. It’s like a bulletin board, with notes pinned to it. When I first went to the Keep site on my computer, I immediately saw a picture of me, my mom and my sister, pinned years ago. By adding a photo to each note, a Keep page begins looking like a scrapbook. But I’m mainly using it for my to-dos and grocery lists. Everything you do on Keep’s desktop version shows up in the free Keep app on your phone. This […]

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Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, Google, Internuts, robots, video, word processing | Comments Off on KEEP YOUR NOTES

To get into Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, all I had was a receipt with a barcode on it, sent to me by email. To make it easier to find, I added it to the Google Wallet app on my Android. The equivalent for iPhone users is Apple Wallet. To add it to Google Wallet, I hit the plus sign in the app and was prompted to choose a category. Since it wasn’t a payment card, a transit pass, a loyalty card, a gift card or an ID card, I chose “everything else.” After I was prompted to take a picture of it, Wallet automatically created a pass reading “Adler Planetarium.” Coming soon, Wallet will also create a digital version of your […]

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Filed under: apps, business, cheap calls, gadgets, Google, Internuts, troubleshooting, Windows | Comments Off on GOOGLE WALLET CREATES DIGITAL PASSPORT

Google Voice, the free phone service, saved me at least three times. It’s a great backup plan. As I was knocking on the door of a relative in San Diego this week, for example, my phone was speeding down the highway in the backseat of a Lyft. “Geez, not again,” I thought. But worst case scenario, I figured I’d still be able to communicate using Google Voice from my laptop, something I did for a whole weekend once. Before giving up however, I looked up Android’s “find my device” website. Once there, I kept clicking “play sound” to make my phone ring from the back seat. It must have driven the driver nuts. He delivered it pronto. But Google Voice […]

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Filed under: AI, Google, photos, wearables | Comments Off on GOOGLE VOICE SAVES THE DAY

A friend said she often loses cell service when camping in Yosemite. Either she’s too far from a cell tower or the signal is blocked by hills, dense trees and stormy weather. So what happens if she’s stung by a bee? There’s no Google when the internet is down. But there is artificial intelligence. A new iPhone app called “Survivalist.ai” can answer almost any question you throw at it, even offline, because it stores 1.8 gigabytes of info on your phone and was trained on 15 trillion tokens of public data. However, it can only provide event information up to March 2023. That’s because the system is based on many different language models, one of which, Llama 3.1, took 7.7 […]

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Filed under: AI, Android, apps, computers, Google, Internuts, keyboards | Comments Off on GETTING ANSWERS OFFLINE

It’s free to publish a book on Amazon, but what’s the catch? Turns out there isn’t any. Yet when I told an elderly woman about it, she was skeptical. She liked the idea of turning her novel into a paperback book, but balked when I told her that she would have to link her bank account to Amazon if she wanted royalties. “It sounds like a scam,” she said. It isn’t. It’s a familiar practice for anyone who uses online banking. Besides, Amazon couldn’t have gotten this big by scamming people. It sends over $520 million in royalties each year to over one million authors, according to Words Rated. To ease my friend’s worries, I offered to publish the book […]

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Filed under: apps, games, Google, inventions, troubleshooting | Comments Off on PUBLISH YOUR BOOK

I asked my diary: “Should I marry?” It answered me quickly with the pros and cons. What’s amazing is that it didn’t parrot my own words back to me. Instead, it offered interesting insights, delivered in its own style, inspired by the 38,000 words I wrote covering a four-year period. All I had to do was feed the diary into Google’s “NotebookLM.” NotebookLM is an artificially intelligent friend who absorbs everything you throw at it, then answers your questions based on what it learned. A YouTube tutorial called “How to Use NotebookLM,” by Tiago Forte describes the process step by step. Forte is a productivity expert with 263,000 subscribers.  He writes copious notes on every book he reads, amassing a vast collection. Using NotebookLM, […]

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Filed under: AI, Google, Internuts, photos, scanners, tech support | Comments Off on GENIE IN A NOTEBOOK ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS

Google Gemini popped up in a text on my Android phone today. She’s my new artificially-intelligent best friend, at least until the new “Astra” comes out. The first thing Gemini said to me was: “Chat with me to draft messages, brainstorm ideas, plan events or simply have a fun conversation.” So I texted her: “Help me plan a fun outing for two people celebrating an anniversary.” She came up with some great ideas. As pleasant as Gemini is, the new “Project Astra” is even more amazing, though it’s still a work in progress. Astra is like Siri, Google Assistant and Google Gemini, but with more capabilities. She has speech, vision, text and a working memory. Someday, according to Google, some […]

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Filed under: AI, Google, security | Comments Off on WOWED BY GOOGLE AI

I’ll never forget being stuck in North Carolina without enough cash to pay for a bus to a remote retreat. When a fellow passenger lent me the money, I immediately paid her back using the Venmo app. That turned me into a Venmo fan. Now I have their new credit card. The Venmo card offers three percent back in your favorite category, such as groceries. It also gives you a virtual credit card number, which protects your real card number from prying eyes. What’s more, you get 10 percent back at 95 golf courses. My favorite perk is the crypto option, which gives you cash back in Bitcoin, Ethereum or one of the other major cryptocurrencies. Though the most I could invest […]

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Filed under: browsers, Google, phones, printer, robots | Comments Off on NEW VENMO CREDIT CARD PAYS OFF IN CRYPTO

Free trials aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. I almost got burned. A Facebook friend showed off the restoration of an old family photo using an app called “Photomyne.” It looked good. At Photomyne.com, I clicked “try it for free.” After a bunch of questions about my intended use, the site asked if I preferred a recurring payment that I can cancel at any time or a free service with ads, among other options. I mistakenly chose the first option, thinking that the charge would start after the free trial. But my credit card statement immediately registered a recurring  $39.99 charge. Eek. I mistakenly thought it was $39.99 a month, but I also wondered: What happened to my […]

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Filed under: apps, Google, Internuts, photos, Windows | Comments Off on BEWARE OF NOT-SO-FREE TRIALS