Yesterday at Thanksgiving, an older member of my wife’s family cornered me for some tech advice. She’d just “upgraded” her Samsung flip phone to a newer flip phone (yes, apparently Verizon still sells those), and she was confused about the menu layout.
Quick, what was your first job? Something entry-level and basic? Would you want to be defined by it, no matter how embarrassing or how much success you’ve enjoyed since then? CNN sure thinks so, based on their ridiculous profile of Kat Cole, the president of Cinnabon. Or, as CNN sought to define her, former “Hooters” waitress.
The ongoing joke about the finale of “Breaking Bad” was that it would end with Walter White in witness protection as Hal from “Malcolm in the Middle”, as both roles were played by actor Bryan Cranston. A recently leaked video that Forbes thinks is a legitimate special feature from the Breaking Bad DVD set looks at a similarly themed ending to the show! Yes, this video is an homage to the end of Newhart, and whether it’s a legitimately sanctioned video or not, it’s amazing to see Jane Kaczmarek and Bryan Cranston become Lois and Hal one more time! via…
One of the things I have learned extremely quickly as a new parent is that some kid’s accessories and toys come with crazy gimmicks. They’re either smartphone-connected for no good reason, overpriced, or they’ll make something simple overly complicated, all in an effort to part parents from money. The Toymail project on Kickstarter appears to nail the trifecta!
Every year, the same thing happens in my house. We find a great deal for a large amount of produce, and we vow to start canning with it. And then we remember how time-consuming and specific canning is, and then we rush to eat a lot of produce before it goes bad. That’s why the new FreshTECH canning system has caught my eye! The FreshTECH system is an all in one canning appliance, so you don’t need to fiddle with water baths and boiling jars. The company says it has several safety measures in place, so you don’t have to…
Image courtesy Science Daily Several years ago I tore my ACL. I sat with the orthopedist and he showed me a model of the knee to explain where the ACL was, what it did, and how they took other bits of a tendon to replace it. I was left with the impression that surgeons know exactly what’s in there, but a new study indicates they’ve discovered a previously unknown ligament! Yes, apparently there’s another one in there, the Anterorlateral Ligament or ALL. The new theory is that this ligament causes the “pivot shift” sensation when you tear your ACL. Pivot…
I haven’t set foot in a Blockbuster Video in at least six years. Yet when news broke this week that the final stores were closing, I felt a little bit sad. The experience of going to the video store was so much more than just clicking a button on a remote, and it made me realize how many great memories I have thanks to Blockbuster. When I think of Blockbuster, my first thought is the store I used to visit in Brighton, MA. I was working for Borders, and my schedule was always way off from my friends, so I…
Everyone knows the cliché joke about how “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere”! But what if your watch was ONLY clear when it was 5 o’clock? And it could open your drinks when you hit that magic time? Enter the new watches from Happy Hour Timepieces!
It’s no secret that “Amazon” is a dirty word among independent booksellers. They’ve fought against carrying Amazon-published books, railed against Kindles, and fought Amazon’s no-internet-sales-tax stance. But Amazon really wants to win over the indie booksellers, so they’ve rolled out Amazon Source, an affiliate Kindle program for indie booksellers. Because when someone hates you, they’ll totally sell your competing product…
Are you still using Google Voice? Better hope it’s an official Google Voice app, because third-party access is being yanked later this year. Most users won’t be affected, unless, of course, you use Windows Phone … then you will definitely lose Google Voice early next year!
I usually read books on a dedicated eBook reader, typically my Kindle Paperwhite. But lately I’ve done a fair amount of eBook reading via the Kindle app on my Lumia 928, and I’ve discovered an unusual bug. At random intervals the formatting will become wonky, cutting off sentences during page turns, and requiring an orientation swap to fix it.
It feels like after the initial excitement of eBook readers and eBooks taking off, the market had leveled off. There’s still book growth, but as tablets overtook dedicated readers, and Amazon settled happily into the number one spot, the improvements slowed precipitously. But now that Barnes and Noble is showing a new willingness to enter the market, it looks like the signs of innovation are back!
I am slowly working my way through Doctor Who; I just watched the fourth season episode “The Unicorn and the Wasp”, when the Doctor and his traveling companion Donna meet Agatha Christie. The episode is amusing all by itself, but what really had me cracking up was the end …
I have a dilemma. While I don’t need to upgrade my iPad 3, I have the “I want a new tablet” itch, and it looks like the newly updated iPad mini will fit the bill nicely. The real question, though, is whether to opt for another wifi tablet or purchase one with integrated 4G!
Sarah and I are really enjoying using cloth diapers on our son. It’s economical and better for the environment, and as a bonus it horrified my parents. After trying a few different styles, we’re very pleased with Bumgenius Freetimes. At $20 per diaper they aren’t the cheapest, but they work well, are easy, and come in an Albert Einstein pattern.
For the longest time, I couldn’t sleep unless I had at least two, if not three, pillows crammed under my head. For the past few weeks I’ve been testing the Technogel Contour Pillow, and I haven’t used another pillow since. What could be so great about the $169 Contour to cause the early retirement of the “triple pillow alliance”?
Concerned about the quality of the meat at your local grocery store? Do you want to have a better idea of where your beef and chicken was raised and processed? Unfortunately, it can be expensive to try direct mail order meat, especially grass-fed meats. Luckily, Amazon Local has an amazing $99 deal for a huge kit of grass-fed meat!
Twitter came under some fire this week for the lack of gender diversity on their board. Their CEO was defensive saying he wasn’t going to add women simply to increase diversity, implying there are no women qualified to sit on Twitter’s board. It isn’t just Twitter- this “no women are qualified” attitude spreads unfairly throughout Silicon Valley.
News broke this week that a Tesla Model S caught fire after hitting a piece of debris on the highway. People buzzed about safety, and Elon Musk posted a letter explaining why the Model S is actually safer than most gas-powered vehicles. My reaction, however, wasn’t fear about Teslas – I was happy someone had a weirder “exploding car” story than me! Several years ago, I drove a 2000 Nissan Altima. It had been my grandmother’s, and since she barely drove it before I used it, it had the original battery. Fast forward several years and several thousand miles, and…
I like Windows Phone quite a bit, and am rooting for it to succeed as a viable third option in the mobile phone market. So I was quite excited to see that Microsoft and HTC still intend to work together, even with Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia. But the rumor of dual-boot Android/Windows Phone devices send a shiver down my spine. Yes, the latest rumor from Windows Phone Central is that HTC is investigating the feasibility of a dual-boot phone, which is intriguing, but I think will ultimately be very damaging to Windows Phone. There’s already a perception that developers are…
iPads are cropping up everywhere, from homes to work and even in school settings. But can an iPad truly be secured to the satisfaction of a conscientious IT department? One expert says no, and a high-profile example may prove him correct. The city of Los Angeles has been planning to roll out iPads to their students, but it backfired slightly for them this past week. They initially rolled out the iPads with web restrictions, and within a few days many of the schools realized they underestimated the ability of children to circumvent technological roadblocks. All the students had to do…