On Computers

Why are the new over-the-counter hearing aids so much cheaper than the traditional kind? Because you don’t have to pay an audiologist. Two-thirds of a hearing aid’s typical $5000 price goes for an audiologist’s professional fitting, follow-up treatment, and maintenance. But last October, the Food and Drug Administration’s ruling went into effect, allowing you to buy them without a medical exam, prescription, or professional fitting.  The Bose company, well-known for home theater and earbuds, gets great reviews for its hearing aids as well. Their over-the-counter “Lexie” models range in price from $749 to $999. Around 97 percent of users say they can hear music better, including treble tones they haven’t heard in years, according to lexiehearing.com. Around 91 percent say […]

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Filed under: AI, facebook, Gmail, health, how-to, Internuts, phones, screen capture, text messaging, trends | Comments Off on EARBUD COMPANIES NOW SELL HEARING AIDS

Scammers are now adding hoaxes to legitimate text messages. It’s getting easier to be fooled. Recently, a friend of mine got a legitimate text about her furniture delivery. It asked her to choose a date. When none of the dates worked for her, she wrote down the number listed in the text, to get more options. What made it suspicious? She couldn’t just tap it to initiate a call like you normally can on a cell phone. And the guy who answered said: “How old are you?” When she said “70,” he said, “You sound so young, like you’re 30.” Then he added: “I’ll need your credit card number.” “Why should I give you that?” she asked, before hanging up. […]

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Filed under: environment, Internuts, Microsoft, photos, spam, text messaging, word processing | Comments Off on FAKE TEXTS LURK INSIDE REAL ONES

Three of my friends have books they want to self-publish. It sure beats sending your manuscript to the slush file of some harried, overworked agent. But another way to go is called “hybrid publishing.” With the hybrid approach, you team up with a publisher who lends an air of credibility to your book. As with Amazon’s “Kindle Direct Publishing,” you do the whole thing online. To find out more, I chatted with the author Samuel M. Goodman, a PhD chemical engineer. He took the hybrid route for his new book “Beyond Carbon Neutral,” by using an outfit called “New Degree Press.” What’s nice about New Degree is that you can refer readers to an actual publisher instead of a vanity […]

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Filed under: books, environment, Internuts, kids, music, text messaging | Comments Off on ONLINE TOOLS FOR PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK

My nine year-old Okidata color laser printer spews pale pink ink all over my documents and makes a black streak on the side of every page. Should I dump it or have it fixed? The Okidata tech support guy said the drum is busted, done in by the cheap toner I bought. I’d been buying knockoff toner from Amazon ever since I discovered that a full set of certified Okidata cartridges costs over $400. But those cartridges can print 6,500 pages in magazine quality, perfect for my greeting cards. The cheap toners don’t last and have lousy color, in my experience. In December, for example, I spent $55 on a set from “EasyPrint.” Six months later, one of the four […]

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Filed under: Amazon, games, Google, Internuts, photos, printer, text messaging, word processing | Comments Off on CHEAP TONER RUINS LASER PRINTER

Your smart TV has a lot more than Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Check out these channels for movies, documentaries and other, mostly free, stuff. If you don’t mind commercials, “Freevee” is a new, free channel from Amazon which can also be watched on the web. I tried it both ways, first watching on the web, then installing it from the Google Play Store on my TV, which I found under “apps.” It has a lot of kid favorites, like the animated dance movie “Leap,” as well as great selections for adults, like “Emma,” based on the book by Jane Austen, and “Knives Out,” starring the late great Christopher Plummer. When the Campbell’s soup commercial came on, I didn’t mind. I […]

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Filed under: apps, gadgets, text messaging, troubleshooting, TV | Comments Off on EXPLORING EXTRAS ON YOUR SMART TV

Some people buy an Apple Watch just to monitor their health. But is it worth the $399 price tag?  A reader said his doctor suggested he get one because it helped his other patients. In one case, the Watch noticed when its owner fell, and called 911. “Saved her life as it turned out,” he said.   But according to experts, the Apple Watch is no substitute for medical-grade tools that do what the Watch claims to do: monitor blood pressure, test blood oxygen, and perform electrocardiograms. It’s marketed only as a “wellness” device, so it did not need FDA approval. Expensive as it is, to take your blood pressure, you’ll need a cuff to go with it, such as the […]

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Filed under: apps, gadgets, games, Internuts, text messaging | Comments Off on GETTING A SMART WATCH FOR HEALTH REASONS

I rarely carry a physical wallet. I prefer the digital kind, such as the new Apple Wallet. With this month’s update to iOS 15, iPhone’s latest operating system, Apple Wallet will store your driver’s license, car keys, boarding passes, tickets, vaccination card and any other form of ID. When you show your digitized driver’s license, it will automatically conceal your home address if you wish. To digitize any document to store in Apple Wallet or elsewhere, tap your phone’s camera app and snap a picture. I store mine using Google’s free app, “Stack” for Android. It makes documents quick to find. No more wasting time rummaging through Google Drive for my driver’s license . Eight U.S. states accept digitized ID […]

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Filed under: Apple, gadgets, Gmail, Internuts, mouse, robots, text messaging, Windows | Comments Off on STORING IDS ON YOUR PHONE

When a young relative gave me a robot vacuum last Christmas, I got excited. Sure, it wasn’t a Roomba, only a $140 knock-off. But it jump-started my vacuum adventure. The “LeFant 300 M” robot did a great job, but I had to babysit it. It would go back and forth, practically on the same path, on a faux Persian rug from Home Depot, though it did better on wall-to-wall carpet. After awhile, I got bored and left the room. That’s when disaster struck. It made a beeline for the strings that pull up the blinds. After having a good chew, it burned itself out. I could still start it up, but after a few seconds it would stop and bleat […]

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Filed under: business, gadgets, Internuts, robots, text messaging | Comments Off on BYE BYE ROBOT VACUUM

Every year I consider dropping cable TV. Then I call AT&T and they offer me a deal. Using an ace negotiating technique — I simply ask– I got the bill down from $165 to $90  before it rose again. The discount ends every year if I don’t call to renew it. So this time I told AT&T: “ I don’t need cable; I have Amazon Prime and Netflix.” (If I miss “60 Minutes,” I’ll put rabbit ears on the set.)  AT&T offered me Internet-only service for $40 a month with a 1024 gigabyte limit. Is 1024 gigabytes enough? Currently, I’m averaging only 50 GB a month. What if I become a movie maniac? That’s OK too. A high-definition movie uses […]

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Filed under: browsers, Google, Internet, Internuts, text messaging, TV | Comments Off on NOT READY TO CUT THE CORD? THEN AT LEAST PAY LESS

Our new Epson “FastFoto” scanner sucked in photos so fast it made us laugh. Put a stack in, and the photos jump through the scanner like they’ve been shot out of a cannon. Typical speed is one a second. Then we asked ourselves the big question: Why get a photo scanner when ScanMyPhotos.com will do it for you?  For instance, they’ll currently scan a thousand 4- by-6-inch photos for $50. No muss, no fuss. So here’s why your own scanner might be more useful: A scanned photo, sent by email or shared on Facebook, is often a spur of the moment thing. Reach your hand into an old collection, pull out a stack and put them in the FastFoto scanner. […]

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Filed under: apps, scanners, social networks, text messaging | Comments Off on ONE REAL FAST PHOTO SCANNER