Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

All posts that don’t obviously fit in one of the sub-categories go here.

A word or two about how I use Twitter

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Far and away my first source for news. I’ve been on Twitter since early 2007. The first place I look in the morning and last thing I check before hitting the hay.

The 140 character limit is still my favorite feature and I hope that never changes. I follow 145 people but am continuously pruning and tweaking that list. I follow a few friends but most of my favorite tweeters are authors, reporters and publications.

To the extent I am able to tell, I only follow people who appear to be composing their own tweets. I like links to useful and interesting stuff. I avoid anonymous accounts. Before adding an account, I take a look at their profile page and read some of their tweets. If they don’t tweet with some regularity, I don’t add. If their tweets are mean, racists or sexist… no add.

I keep hearing that Twitter is in trouble. If it ever goes away it will leave a big hole in the internet. For some of us. For a while at least. In conclusion, I’d say Twitter is only as good as the people you follow and the time you spend in curating that list.

Google’s My Activity

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“Google’s My Activity is a new tool that will show you everything from the Netflix programs and YouTube videos you’ve watched to sites you’ve visited, the things you’ve searched for, as well as the Google products you have used. The tool’s detailed results will show you your search terms, the times and frequency you visited web sites, as well as what device and browser you used for the activities.”

My first thought was, “This is pretty cool.” My second was, “Why is Google doing this?” It really drives home just how much Google knows about what we do online. I jumped back to look at what I was up to on July 1, 2014. It’s all there. This goes waaay beyond browser history. Check this out and tell me what you think.

Crime Wiki

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“A Wikipedia is impossible, but here it is.” This was one of many insights from Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable that has stuck with me. I think he’s saying that with enough people using the right technology, anything is possible. I like that idea and agree that Wikipedia is a perfect example. Against that backdrop, I’m imagining a crime Wikipedia. Anything and everything you might ever want to know about crimes and criminals. I’m tempted to limit writing and editing to the criminals but we should probably let law enforcement types participate.

Wouldn’t you like to read what professional burglars have to say about breaking and entering? There would be page after page on locks alone. Think of all that could be learned about robbing banks, from the really smart bank robbers… and the ones that got caught. Of course there are many crimes that are so horrible and unspeakable that you and I wouldn’t want to read it. But for this thought experiment, in for a penny, in for a pound.

And let’s ignore all of the reasons why a criminal might not want to share his/her best tricks. I’m just imagining a prison full of knowledge and expertise in a Wikipedia format. Who would benefit most? Young crooks-in-training? Or law enforcement?

The question that brought this on was: Would a burglar be less likely to hit a place at the end of a dead-end street? As a civilian, I’d be inclined to say “not enough information” to answer the question. But a thousand experienced burglars would know what those are and could probably come up with a useful answer.

TraffickCam

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Smartphone users in the United States can try to help catch sex traffickers with *a newly introduced app designed to identify hotel rooms where victims are held*. The app, TraffickCam, asks users to upload photos of hotel rooms where they may be staying and compares those to photos by law enforcement that depict suspected sex trafficking. […] TraffickCam uses an algorithm that matches hotel rooms by comparing features such as carpeting, furniture and accessories. (Reuters)

Let me see if I have the right. I’m staying at the Day’s Inn in Pissant, Kansas. I take some photos of my room with this app. Up they go to cloud where they’re compared to photos some sick fuck has posted online. If there’s a match, authorities at least now know where those were taken. I do love me some Big Data. Like any tool, can be for good or evil.

How I use Google Calendar

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Barb recently started the process of transitioning from MS Office to Google apps (Gmail, Calendar, etc). I’ve been using Google Calendar for years (I’m hardly a power user) so I made this short (9 min) video. If you’re already using Google Calendar you probably won’t find much new here.

LibraryThing (update)

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Screen Shot 2016-06-20 at 11.09.48 AMI started using LibraryThing to manage my library in 2005, about a month after the service launched. I was using a spreadsheet for this task but quickly fell in love with the tools and features LibraryThing provided. I find their smartphone app very handy.

I have 740 titles in my LibraryThing long ago gave away most of the books. Someone calling themselves eandino2012 has more than 81 thousand titles in her/his LibraryThing.

If you’ve considered using a service like LT or Goodreads but dreaded the task of uploading all your book titles, LT has a good import tool (see below) and their smartphone app can scan ISBN barcodes. Neither of those were around back in 2005 so I entered mine one at a time.
import

LT does some fun stuff (total cubic feet of your books; how high if stacked, etc) and some useful (to me) stuff: list of all characters in the books in your LT.

height characters

I know of no better use of my time than reading. Books are important to me. LibraryThing is a way to extend the pleasure I get from books.

iPhone SE: Something smaller in my pants

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iphone6SI purchased the iPhone 6 in September of 2014 and traded it in for the 6S a year later. Now, just seven months later, I’m trading up/down/over for the new iPhone SE. The review below touches on most of my reasons. I always liked the smaller versions of the iPhone but they kept putting must-have (for me) features in the larger phones. With the SE, I can get those features in a smaller phone better suited to my Trump-like hands. But the change that sealed the deal for me was putting the on-off switch back on the top of the phone… WHERE IT BELONGS! A day doesn’t go buy that I don’t accidentally turn my phone off while adjusting the volume (see image below).

I thought the days of smaller (perfect) phones were forever gone. Thank you, Apple. Here’s some more money. This review mirrors my thinking on this.

Ruckus Cruiser

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ruckus-bike

“The cool bike is a throwback to when time moved slower and bicycles were fun things meant to take you to a happier place. The extra-long custom lounge seat with room to fit another passenger brings the social back to bicycling. Available with drivetrain options that include one with an electric motor.”

UPDATE: Someone just pointed out this bike is priced at $1,000. Hardly the bike for everyman. Nevermind.

SALT Gun

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Last fall I came across a story (and video) about the SALT Gun, a non-lethal home defense weapon. Think of a paint-ball gun except the balls are filled with some combination of chemicals that incapacitates. This video is what persuaded me to order one of these. And I like the idea of a weapon that won’t kill my drunken next door neighbor if he stumbles into the wrong house at 3 a.m.

After reading the operations manual and handling the gun for a bit, I decided to return it. (The company has a 30 day return policy.) Here are a few of the reasons I decided not to keep the gun. First, from the ops manual:

Pressurize the SALT Gun only when it will be immediately used.
At 2:00 a.m., in the dark, with a stranger in the house… will my wife remember this extra step?

Firing the SALT Gun – Eye protection must be worn by the user.
I’m guessing this something they have to put in the operations manual but it raises the question: Is this device save for my wife to use? Must she keep safety glasses with the gun?

I found the Trigger Safety Button hard to operate. Had to push very hard and fiddle with it to move it to either position.

And finally, I found the gun bulky, a bit heavy for a woman and generally unwieldy. This might be the perfect solution for some… but not for us.