On Computers

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

A robot from Google’s “Food Mood” creates interesting recipes based on any two countries you choose. The 193-country list makes for some interesting combinations. I made “Beetroot Symphony,” a great yogurt-beet dip that combined the cuisine of Latvia and India. My other combos include Barbados and Tonga; Grenada and Turkey; Saudi Arabia and Australia; Moldova and Namibia; Japan and Peru. To try it yourself, search on the phrase “Google Food Mood.” When you land on the page, take a look at the recipe Google found for you.  If it looks good, click “let’s cook.” If not, click on any or all of the keywords to customize your next recipe. You can change the countries, the serving size, and the type […]

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Filed under: AI, Amazon, gadgets, Google, robots | Comments Off on FOOD MOOD

Why do I feel compelled to turn off my cell phone? It makes it so hard to find. Recently, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Worse, I couldn’t call it because I’d turned it off the night before. I couldn’t even use the “Find My Device” app or website for Android to pinpoint it on a map. Your phone has to be on.  But soon, Google is coming out with a version of Find My Device that works with trackers such as Tile Pro. They’re also hinting at a new Google Air Tags device. Either one would find your phone when it’s off by connecting via Bluetooth with any phone that’s near yours, then reporting its location to you. It will […]

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Filed under: Google, phones, robots | Comments Off on LOST PHONES

“This morning it took about four minutes to download the newspaper,” a reader wrote. “Usually, it’s only seconds.” Neither of us could figure it out, so he called his internet service, Xfinity. They said the problem was his wiring. But why, he wondered, would his download speed be 20 Mbps one day and 500 Mbps the next? After a runaround, he gave up on Xfinity and signed up for AT&T’s fiber optics service. He’s very happy with it. I like AT&T too. But I switched to Xfinity last summer when I found an unbeatable deal: internet service for $5 a month and cell service for $15 a month. But I had a heck of a time getting Xfinity to acknowledge […]

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Filed under: apps, crytpocurrency, Google, phones, scanners, shopping | Comments Off on BOOSTING YOUR INTERNET SPEED

My membership card for a local art museum never arrived. “We don’t use physical cards anymore,” the museum staffer explained. She suggested Google Wallet. The free Google Wallet app for Android now contains my museum card, credit card and loyalty cards from restaurants and stores. It can also store virtual car keys, transit cards and vaccination cards. If I had also been able to store my driver’s license, I would have saved a lot of hassle at the airport recently when I accidentally left my I.D. at home. But the Wallet only accepts driver’s licenses issued in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia or Maryland. With Google Pay, a part of Wallet, I can use my phone instead of a credit card. It’s […]

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Filed under: Amazon, Android, apps, business, computers, Google | Comments Off on GOOGLE WALLET STORES YOUR CARDS

A reader told me he can’t invite all loved ones to his neighbor’s memorial service because he can only find the guy’s Facebook friends. He wishes every senior would provide good contact information before they pass away. “We neighbors had been caring for him and making arrangements for his last days, which we knew would be soon,” he wrote. “However, he left no address book. He burned out on technology and had not used his cellphone in years.” At least Facebook was helpful. In fact, Facebook is so helpful, I’m tempted to let my late husband’s account go on forever. But this means his old friends will continue to get birthday reminders every year, and his name will still show […]

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Filed under: Amazon, facebook, Google, Internuts, photos, social networks | Comments Off on MEMORIALIZING A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

I asked an artificially intelligent version of Elon Musk what his most embarrassing moment was. He said it was sending a message to the whole office about “naughty snacks.” If you want to talk to him too, he’s at the website Character.ai. Character.ai, also a free app, offers a range of AI celebrities and professionals. Winston Churchill told me how the war in Ukraine will end. Signmund Freud told me not to feel guilty. An AI Frenchman helped me practice my language skills. A librarian gave me a great book suggestion. It’s addicting. You can create your own AI character for free.  I named mine “Health” and wrote a one-paragraph description on what it means to be a “Nutritarian.” After that, it […]

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Filed under: AI, apps, batteries, computers, Google, Internuts, passwords, photos, security, text messaging | Comments Off on AI CELEBRITIES TO CHAT WITH

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