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You are here: Home / Archives for Expert Advice

Seven Great Google Features You're Probably Not Using

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Google is pretty cool.  When you think about it, they’re basically one of the big reasons why the Internet is everywhere, and why other search engines might as well not exist.  Google has a lot of fun features, and a lot of them are going undiscovered.  Here are seven Google features that you might not be using.

I use Google all the time to help me track the calories in my food, and I also use it to translate the occasional piece of foreign language when I come across it.  However, I had no idea that Google Sky was a thing, and now that I know about it, I’m definitely going to use it to explore the solar system.  It also provides a lot of different looks from a lot of different sources, which is very useful.

I also had no idea that Google would keep a timer for me, because had I known that, I wouldn’t be forgetting to take my lunch on time, or forgetting how long my tea has been steeping, or any number of things that I completely mess up on a regular basis.  That’s definitely going to be something that’ll be useful going forward, no question about it.

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If You Want To Buy A House In The Future…

by Kathy T.

16610023059_e95bc1d6c4_zEverything you do today affects you in the future. If you exercise and eat healthy now, in the future you will probably have less medical problems. If you save your money and don’t buy that impulse purchase today, you can use that money for a vacation later. In fact, it’s especially true in the world of finance. Smart saving and frugal spending now will pay off big later! However, mistakes you make now can still do damage to future-you. Check out this post by Haniya Rae at Bustle. These are things that can prevent you from getting a mortgage later:

-Not saving for a down payment

-Having a bad credit score and doing nothing to improve it- pay those bills on time!

-Not having a credit score at all

-Having too much debt

-Not getting pre-approved

-Not working at the same place long enough- 2 years!

Photo Credit: Bad Credit 

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Pacify Without A Pacifier

by Kathy T.

3666880114_9843a99607_oOne of the most stressful parts of having a baby is when they cry…and you have no idea what to do. If they just ate, have a clean diaper, and they aren’t tired, but are still screaming, it can be super frustrating and makes you feel powerless. One way to calm them down is by sticking a pacifier in their mouths. However, if that doesn’t work, there is something else wrong. Check out this post by Aimee at A Moms Take for tips on calming a crying baby:

-Check their temperature- make sure they are not too hot or cold

-Try standing up with them and rocking them

-Check the noise level and take them somewhere quiet to calm down. They might just be overwhelmed!

-Make sure they are comfortable- burp them, check for diaper rash, and make sure clothes aren’t too tight.

Photo Credit: deovolenti

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Battery Life Tips And Myths

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

battery-life-new-york-times

One of the most difficult adjustments in the switch from a dumbphone to a smartphone is awareness.  I now have to think about my phone when I leave the house, and make sure I’ve either got a full battery or I have my car charger plugged in and ready to go for when I need to juice my phone up.  Before my phone would be good for literally a whole 24-hour period or more, and now, I’m lucky if I can get 8 hours out of my phone.  Part of that is the way I use my phone, and part of that is just the increased demand on battery capacity that comes with modern technology.

Everyone’s looking for a way to get more out of the phone, and the New York Times has a great set of tips and myths about smartphone battery life.  Color me amazed to discover that closing down all of my apps and turning off WiFi to preserve phone battery life might not always be the best idea, or even helpful at all!  I have long assumed, wrongly, that turning off all my running apps would make the phone last longer, but I never thought to adjust my screen brightness down to its lowest setting when not in heavy use.

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Tips For Best Buy Deals

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

BestBuy

Of all the retailers out there, Best Buy is the one that is having the most success at adapting to a new world in which pretty much all of your consumer electronics are bought online.  Sure, they still have crates of movies and CDs and the like, but Best Buy knows that Amazon and Apple are beating them in that department, and the company is actively working hard to figure out how to leverage its physical space and survive in an increasingly online world.  One of the ways the company is doing this is by being the best deal around.  Here are some tips and tricks for getting the most out of Best Buy.

One of my favorite things about this article is the idea of price matching.  If you could combine the ease of access of a physical store with the prices you can get online, well… that’s just sheer brilliance.  As for display models and open boxes, my late father was a big fan of those types of sales, and most of his big furniture purchases were products that used to be store displays that he bought on the cheap.  My unwillingness to actually look for those types of deals might be why I don’t have a whole lot of furniture at the moment.

That’s the whole problem with display model deals, you have to actually go out and look for them to buy them.

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How To Protect Your Home From A Fire

by Kathy T.

303873311_65c1d633b7_zMost house fires start in the winter months, because of heater malfunctions and dry Christmas trees. Also, according to this post by Jill Russell at the Trulia Blog, newer homes are more prone to fires than older ones (because of the amount of synthetic materials used in construction and furniture). So, how should you protect your modern home from fire during the winter? Check out the rest of the tips from Russell here:

-Always keep a fire extinguisher in your home on every floor

-Check your smoke detector regularly

-Check all wiring regularly

-Be careful with space heater and keep fireplaces clean

-Mind the dryer (and clean out the lint trap)

Photo Credit: Liz West 

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Run Windows 95 In Your Browser

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

There’s always a market for old technology.  People still play and purchase the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  I still own an Atari somewhere.  I have multiple video game consoles, all of which are old, but there are reasons to have this love of retro technology.  Sometimes, games don’t function well on new technology, so you need emulators to make it work.  You can run Windows 95 in your browser!

I have a newer laptop and I can’t play some games on it, because it runs incompatible operating systems.  Sometimes you can buy old games and make them work, and sometimes you have to work at it with software stuff.  The more people play with the old systems, the more people can get them to play nicely with modern systems.  I have some patches to various games, I’ve bought some older games that have been refreshed for new operating systems, and there are always less than legal ways to get video game software to play in the absence of older technology.

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Deep Cleaning Tips

by Kathy T.

If you’re anything like me, your house is probably wrecked during the holidays. Between all the shopping, cooking, decorating, and present wrapping, things get pretty chaotic…fast. But, once the New Year rolls around, I’m ready to get my home back into shape. That’s why I love these tips by Natalie Brown at Buzzfeed– here are tons of ways to deep clean your home! If you are considering selling soon, all of these will have to be done as well. Plus, they all seem to use items you’ll already have around your house, like vinegar, baking soda, or rubbing alcohol:

-Use rubbing alcohol to get stains out of microfiber couches

-Use an iron to steam clean carpet stains

-Vacuum your AC unit for cleaner air

-Use vinegar and water to clean your microwave and other appliances

Photo Credit: go_greener_oz 

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Touch-Screen Gloves: A Great Holiday Gift

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

This is my first winter with a smartphone.  On cold days, I might try to pull up my phone to stream some music or podcasts on the drive to work, or maybe just answer a phone call, and I discover, yet again, that my gloves won’t allow me to successfully use my phone.  Fortunately, this doesn’t happen very often, because usually I just go without gloves.  That’s no real way to make it through winter in comfort, though.  PC Mag has a great slideshow of touch-screen friendly gloves.

My wife has a pair of gloves and she really likes them.  They’re not the warmest gloves, but if you wear them under a pair of thicker winter gloves, then just slip that outer glove off to type, they’re really useful.  They’re also good if you’re going to mostly keep your hands in your pockets but need to occasionally make use of touch screens, like at the grocery store or, well, the phone.  Some of the gloves look like real leather, some of them look like standard fitness gloves for runners, and some, like the ones above, just look cute.

Not all of them have conductive metal in all the fingers; most just have the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger.  Then again, that’s all you need.

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Gift Guides: 12 Under $50

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

There’s nothing quite as terrifying as figuring out just what kind of gift to buy for all the people you need to buy gifts for.  More importantly, buying people fun or useful gifts on a budget is even more difficult.  Thankfully, for the holiday season, everyone lines up to throw out their best ideas for gifts for cheap.  PC World has put together a great guide of under-$50 gifts for the holidays.

Of the many gifts mentioned, one of them that I like the best is the idea of Tile.  Basically, it’s a little square thing that you connect to whatever you seem to lose most often, and when it’s missing, you just use an app to trigger the tile to beep or show up on GPS.  And if you happen to lose your phone, just reverse it… use the tile to make your phone emit a signal to help find it.  There are other fun things on there, like selfie sticks, USB sticks, and the Amazon Fire Tablet.

Of these, the one I like the best would probably be the Fire Tablet.  I have one, and while it’s not the best tablet on the market, for that price and if you’re an Amazon Prime customer, you really can’t beat it.  Plus it comes with a free month of Prime, so maybe it’s a good pre-holiday gift to get for a friend who is going to be doing some holiday shopping online and could really use the two-day shipping.

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