Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

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

All my health data on iPhone app

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I’ve never paid much attention (or used) the Health app on my iPhone. Apple says it “consolidates health data from iPhone, Apple Watch, and third-party apps” to do all kinds of stuff. It has a “Health Records” section that I never did anything with until a couple of days ago when I learned I could sync my records (University of Missouri Health Care) to the Apple Health app.

I have about ten years of records stored in the MU Health system and can get to them via browser or iPhone app. But it took a little digging and I rarely had the need.

Within minutes all of my data was pulled into the phone app and I mean everything. More than 600 records (I’ve been pretty healthy). Immunizations, lab results, medications… the works. And much easier to navigate than the website and app I’d been using. So now I have all of my health records right there on my phone. Additional info.

Google Docs scroll feature

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Google Docs launched in June, 2006 and Google Drive didn’t come along until April of 2012. (I’ve always been a little fuzzy about the Docs and Drive) I’ve found docs going back to 2010 and I put everything in Google Drive. Today stumbled on a feature I hadn’t seen before.

If you put sub-heads in a Google Doc, you can scroll to those headings with the little scroll button in the iOS app. Just pull the little button to the left. Very handy on a long document.

“Intelligent uniforms”

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“Over 10 schools in the (China’s) southwestern Guizhou province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have made students wear “intelligent uniforms” from Guanyu Technology in the name of improving attendance and safety. Each uniform has two chips that indicate when a student is entering or exiting school grounds, and automatically sends that data to both parents and teachers. Leave without permission and an automatic voice alarm will make it patently clear you’re a truant. […] Each uniform is linked to a given child’s face, and facial recognition at the school entrance will raise an alert if there’s a mismatch. The chips in the uniforms can survive 500 washing cycles and temperatures upward of 150C (302F), and they’re also useful for purchases.”

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Ten year old iPhone

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The phone on the left is a 3GS from 2009. Fits the palm of my hand. Barb found it in the back of a drawer. I’d forgotten how small the early phones were (the phone on the right is a XS). I still prefer the smaller phones but that ship has sailed.

Camcorder video

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This found photo reminded me of how difficult it used to be to record, edit and share video. Only the true geek (or your uncle) carried one of these cameras around. When you did get some video you had to get it off the camera and into that big old desktop computer (SCSI) where you could edit it with really bad software. If you wanted to share it you made the video teeny tiny to keep the file size down. Then all you could do was email it. No place to share. Better than Super8 but just barely.