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Monday, November 19th
Millions of people are shopping Amazon for Black Friday, those specials started last week. Here’s something only power-Amazon shoppers know about: if you’re patient Amazon will actually give you money. Why “no-rush shipping” is a no-brainer for Christmas shopping.
Friday November 16th
The App of the Day. People are thinking of Thanksgiving and helping other people. I have an app that makes it easy to do.
Thursday November 15th
If you haven’t signed up for the U.S Postal Service’s “informed delivery” emails, you should stop what you’re doing and do that. I told you about the Postal Service sending emails with photos of what’s coming in your mail. Now Homeland Security is warning people that bad guys could be signing up for your mailbox and if you’re getting something good, like a new credit card, they’ll take it right out of your mailbox right under your nose.
Wednesday, November 14th
Cord Cutting. How much will you really pay for Sling, YouTube TV, Direct TV Now? Is it really just $25? Is there a catch? I’ve tried them all to find out.
Tuesday, November 13th
Tonight I’m looking at the best tech gadgets for mom this Christmas. By the way, as a reminder, I will be doing something different every Wednesday on “Cord Cutting”. Tomorrow I will take a look at the #1 cord cutting service, Sling. What’s good about it? What might surprise you.
Monday, November 12th
I think it’s time to start looking ahead at some of this year’s top tech gift ideas. Cyber Monday is exactly 2 weeks from today. I’m kicking things off with some tech gift ideas for dad. A remote control you can control with your voice, a TV that looks like fine art, a locker for the gym that opens with your fingerprint, and a Bluetooth speaker with a radio built in. I’ll try to fit all those in a :90 story.
Friday, November 9th
It’s App of the Day Friday. Today I’ve got an app that’s perfect for planning and cooking a Thanksgiving meal. Project Foodie.
Thursday, November 8th
Christmas spending is expected to hit a record $1 trillion. A trillion!? I’ll be looking at this year’s hot gifts and why Amazon is making its customers feeling a little nostalgic. It’s sending out a Wish toy catalog, the same type their parents grew up with from Sears and JC Penney. I have one and I’ll show you what it looks like.
Wednesday, November 7th
Should you “cut the cord?” Ditching cable or satellite TV is a popular thing these days, but does it make sense for you? I’m starting a series of stories about cord-cutters. I’m likely going to do this every Wednesday so you can air them as a Cord Cutters Wednesday or Thursday. Today I’m going to look at questions you should ask yourself before cutting the cord.
Tuesday, November 6th
The mid-term election will dominate your news coverage today. I’m going to do a piece about voting online and on your phone. There is a push to make it happen and a trial run in West Virginia.
Monday, November 5th
Should you wait until Black Friday to buy gifts? There are some tech gadgets you should buy now before they sell out. I’m looking at things that never go on sale but they do sellout. Apple products, GoPros, Nintendo gaming systems.
Friday, November 2nd
The App of the Day. I wore myself out this week and need to get some rest today. I hope you don’t mind if I use an App of the Day story that ran last May. It’s called “Canopy” and is perfect for people who are starting to shop, or at least thinking about shopping for the holidays. It helps find products you’d never see if you just browsed Amazon.
Thursday, November 1st
You have family coming over, or friends for dinner or a party. But it seems everyone keeps checking their phone, even at the dinner table. Here’s a genius way of encouraging people to stay off their phones, if not for just a few hours.
Wednesday, October 31st
This will scare you: next year about half the time your phone rings it’ll be from a telemarketer or a robo-call. How do they make so many calls at one time? I’m going online to show you how it works, how much it costs and why more and more companies are using them.
Tuesday, October 30th
Maybe you’ve heard of Amazon Smile, maybe you haven’t. This little known way to shop online raises money for your favorite charity. Amazon donates 5% of many purchases to charity and it’s just announced that since it started, charities have received over $100 million. I’ll talk about this and show people how to shop at Amazon Smile and why they should as opposed to Amazon.com
Monday, October 29th
and we’re back to our regular schedule with regular story pitches and downloads in our regular Dropbox folders. Today I’m looking at Halloween safety. Convicted sex offenders are not supposed to participate in trick-or-treating but they don’t always obey the law. There are probably more sex offenders in your neighborhood than you think. I’m looking at two apps to keep kids safe Halloween night; one will keep them from unknowingly knocking on the door of a convicted sex offender.
Monday, October 1st
It’s Cyber Security Awareness Month. Today I’ll be looking at one of the things we all do that puts our information at risk of being compromised. We’ve all downloaded a free app, so have our kids. Play with them a few days and then we forget about them. But leaving an app on our phone can let hackers track our location and take our data. Here’s why you may want to clean out your phone before you go to bed tonight.
Friday, September 28th
The App of the Day: U-Consent. In light of the Kavanaugh hearing and all the talk about sex and accusations of assault, I thought I’d look at a new app that records mutual consent prior to sexual activity. If a couple decides to sleep together, they will take out the app, scan a QR code that that they mutually consent. The agreement is saved in the cloud in the event either person claims assault. Wow.
Thursday, September 27th
Did you know you can tell if a battery is good or bad by dropping it on the floor? We’ve all got drawers where batteries have been tossed but never know if they’re any good. I’ll show you how and why this simple trick will help you find out if you should try using them. I did a similar story about 4 years ago and it was a big hit.
Wednesday, September 26th
I am trying to work ahead the rest of the week so I can put away a series of stories for October while I’m recovering so I need to recycle one. This story originally aired last December. How closely have you looked at your phone bill? There may be a charge or two on there every month that you’re paying for and that you didn’t authorize. It’s a scam called “Cramming” and according to the Better Business Bureau it happens frequently to people who answer a phone call.
Tuesday, September 25th
Things you didn’t know you can do on an iPhone. Adding a home button to the screen may be a sweet hack for anyone who gets one of the new iPhones, also how to raise the volume for music (big time increase) and how to easily undo mistakes you make (or auto-correct makes) with a shake.
Monday, September 24th
For all those folks upgrading to a new iPhone or Android device, there are things you should do before you sell or trade in your old phone. A few steps to protect your privacy and identity.
Friday, September 21st
updated: 8:40am. Only 2 people were buying new phones and they didn’t have one of the larger Xs Max phones or the Apple Watch on display. So it was a total bust.
I’ll do an App of the Day story instead. Are you tired of the stale ringtones that come with the phone? You can purchase ringtones of your favorite song, but why buy those when you can make them yourself?
I’m looking at the App Ringtone Maker and how to create a custom ringtone from your favorite song, or anything else.
Rather than an App of the Day story, I thought I should cover the release of the new iPhones and Apple Watch. I’ll be out when the doors open to talk to customers and get a first look. Obviously it is best if you use this story Friday. It will be dated.
Thursday, September 20th
MoviePass showed everyone that people would go to the movies more often if they could get a good deal. It was great. Great! Now it’s not so good and millions of people have canceled their membership. What’s to do? A new subscription service is very tempting but how good is it? I’m taking a look at Sinemia, the MoviePass competitor. I subscribed for a month to see what it’s like.
Wednesday, September 19th
I went to the dentist yesterday to ask a dental hygenist to help me review a techie toothbrush. The Quip, one of Time magazine’s best inventions of 2016. Oh, and I found out I had a cavity which had to be filled. Anyway, I’m looking at high-tech toothbrushes.
Tuesday, September 18th
My apologies but I need to use a story that’s previously aired. It is still topical. I had a doctor’s appointment that took up all of yesterday and a dentist appointment first thing this morning. My mouth will be numb. This story aired last November. It’s about fake Amazon reviews and how to identify them. A website called “FakeSpot” looks at any product and can spot fake reviews written by people paid to leave positive comments and . Since most Amazon purchase decisions are made after reading reviews this is a worthy story for a re-air.
Monday, September 17th
Apple releases iOS 12 today for most everybody. It has a lot of new features that I’ve covered before. One of the questions I am asked everytime an update is available is: “should I update now or wait?”. I’m going to answer that question and show you a few things you should do before installing the update.
Friday, September 14th
The app of the day: Songbot. One of my favorite apps. I did something on this in the spring of ’17 so it’s a repeat. Songbot is an app where you can search for your favorite song and the app finds a radio station somewhere in the world that’s playing it. Enter: Back to You by Selena Gomez, and it finds a station somewhere in the world that’s playing it live. You can use it as an alarm too so you’ll always wake up to your favorite song. Very cool app.
Thursday, September 13th
All the new iPhones, which one are you going to get? Apple threw caution to the wind this time with three different iPhones. Millions of people are still holding on to their iPhone 6 or 7 and it’s time to upgrade. I’ll be looking at best part of each phones, plus why the Apple Watch 4 means it’s finally time to get a smartwatch.
Wednesday, September 12th
of course today is Apple iPhone day. I’ve learned that, due to the California time zone change and lack of video, it’s best for me to do a story focused on a new feature rather than bore people with a blow-by-blow account of the announcement. The big story with these phones is the disappearance of the home button. For the millions who are debating whether they should upgrade from a 6, 7 or 8, I’m going to look at the pros and cons of Face ID.
Tuesday, September 11th
I’m sure your newscasts will be filled with hurricane coverage. I thought I’d take another look at an app that allows people to stay in touch through phone calls and text messages when the power goes out and when cell towers go down. It’s Zello. I used it last year during Hurricane Irma, and contrary to what some stations reported (that never tried it), and it worked. I’ll show what happened when I tried to talk to a friend in the path of the storm.
Monday, September 10th
By now you may have gotten one of these cryptic text messages, or you’ve seen it shared on Facebook. “Someone complimented you”. A warning is being shared on Facebook, alleging these text messages are from a sex trafficking ring and will put a tracker on your phone. Is this true? Where are these messages coming from and what can you do to stop them? The app is called “IRL” or “In Real Life”.
Friday, September 7th
The App of the Day: “Hitlist”. I love this app, and I don’t even get to travel that often. Ever been thinking of taking a few days and just getting away somewhere? Seriously, it seems the hardest part is trying to decide where to. “Hitlist” shows ideas of where you can go just by showing you the cheapest airfare at the moment. Nothing to do next weekend? Check the app and you might find a trip to New York City for under $100 or Italy for $500.
Thursday, September 6th
Serial is back. The podcast that made podcasting a serious media industry will release its first season in 2 years. If you’re unfamiliar with it, this is the podcast with nearly 200 million downloads, won a Murrow Award and resulted in a convicted murderer getting a new trial because of new evidence produced by the show. I mean, Serial is a very big deal. A new season was just announced to start in 2 weeks.
Wednesday, September 5th
Email ‘drafting’. It’s a technique some people use to hide their tracks online. Say 2 people want to communicate with each other over email but they don’t want anyone to find out. They’ll use ’email drafting’. How does it work and why have people used it in the past? And why is it nearly impossible to catch.
Tuesday, September 4th
A coloring book app is being used by people to share explicit photos and artwork. The popular app ‘Recolor’, is a nice little app where you can spend hours coloring in pictures and doodles on your phone. Several viewers have sent me photos of images they’ve found on the site which were shared by others. Pornographic photos, chat messages about sex and some bullying as well. I’m taking a look at the app again and talk with the app developer about how they moderate what’s being shared.
Monday, September 3rd (Labor Day)
Apple will introduce new iPhones next week. This should be a big year for upgrades since sales of the iPhone X have been lower than expected. It’s also an ‘S’ year. What will the next generation of iPhones look like? I’m looking at rumors and the ones most likely to be true.
Friday, August 31st
The App of the Day: Cinder. How many contacts do you have on your phone? Hundreds? Thousands? I’m guessing that many of those contacts are either outdated or unneeded. But deleting those contacts takes a long long time. 4 taps and 2 swipes. But Cinder makes deleting old contacts a little like Tinder. Swipe them away.
Thursday, August 30th
Do you use a shared computer at work? Ever use a computer at a library or hotel? Protecting your email and other accounts is critical. But don’t you get tired of having to wait on a text message with a secret code before logging in to Google, Facebook, Dropbox or anything else? There’s a quick and cool solution and Google just announced it. A security key that uses your fingerprint to log in on a computer or your phone. I’ll show you how it works and why it’s important.
Wednesday, August 29th
MoviePass. I cover this often because so many of our viewers have it. The new rules have just gone into effect for subscribers. Mine kicked in this week. A new survey shows half of MoviePass customers are thinking of canceling their membership. I have a tip on how to see the movie you want to see with your MoviePass card.
Tuesday, August 28th
College football kicks off this weekend and lots of people will be spending their Saturdays from now until Thanksgiving, at tailgate parties. Football fans will tailgate at high school, college and pro games but those parties can be better with some high tech gadgets. I’ve ‘huddled up’ a few tech products especially for football fans.
Monday, August 27th
we’ve all done it: accepted a friend request from someone we don’t know in real life. It might be time to go through your long list of Facebook friends and start the un-friending process. This story looks at some of the reasons having the wrong ‘friend’ can be dangerous.
Friday, August 24th
update: App of the Day: Airbnb. I know everyone knows about Airbnb but I’ve talked to about a dozen people who didn’t know you can do more with Airbnb than a book a room at a stranger’s house. Airbnb has “experiences” within the app that find interesting things for people to do when they’re visiting a city or in the city they’re in. Everything from taking a photo tour to learning how to paint to spending an evening in a recording session.
I have a very early doctor’s appointment but I plan to have a new app of the day piece for you. I’m not sure what it will be right now but I’ll update this page as soon as I can.
Thursday, August 23rd
Remember Samsung’s Galaxy Note? The phone/tablet that kept exploding or catching on fire a few years ago? The new Note 9 will be released tomorrow and I thought it deserves a review. There are tons of Samsung users out there. It’s huge and has a pen that’s finally useful.
Wednesday, August 22nd
Did you know that Netflix takes requests? If you don’t see your favorite movies you can ask Netflix to add it. But you have to know where to find the email address to make it happen.
This is a repeat of the story that ran August 22nd, 2017. It is still relevant and correct.
Tuesday, August 21st
I’ve seen several of my friends get locked out of their Facebook account because they can’t remember their username and password and don’t have access to the email address they used when they first signed up. Most of us just open a browser or the app where we’re already logged in. Did you know Facebook won’t help you get back into your account unless you have that email address? But some of the friends you trust most can get you back in IF you know about this Facebook sign-in secret.
Monday, August 20th
iPhone battery myths. 3 things you’ve heard that keep your iPhone battery from an early death. Is charging it overnight bad for the battery? Does closing apps you’re not using make it last longer? and the one no one seems to know: should you let the battery drain to 0% before recharging or keep it on charge throughout the day? Which myths are true and which are false?
Friday, August 17th
the app of the day is the most popular education app that you probably haven’t heard about. “Remind” is being used by over 20 million teachers and parents to communicate about what’s going on in the classroom. No more having to send notes home about field trips, snacks, parties or problems.
Thursday, August 16th
Google isn’t the only one tracking you. Most iPhone users do not know their phone is leaving a trail and if you know where to look, you can (and maybe Apple) can see your every move. I’ll show you where to check in settings, how to turn it off and how to erase or delete the saved map of your trail.
Wednesday, August 15th
Back to school help. Students, teachers, professors can benefit from these websites and apps. Whether you’re writing papers, updating a blog, or clipping recipes from the internet, these programs are life-savers. Grammarly automatically corrects grammatical errors when writing anything, Evernote organizes anything you save and create. Throw old papers away.
Tuesday, August 14th
So Google is tracking you even when you turn off location services. It was the big story happening late in the day yesterday. So can you find out what Google has done to track you and what information it stores? Yes you can. I’ll show you how to see everything Google knows about you and how to delete it.
Monday, August 13th
“Alexa! Protect my house”. Alexa can do lots of things but you probably didn’t know she can keep someone from breaking into your house. How a few Alexa skills makes it look like no one is ‘Home Alone’.
Friday, August 10th
It’s the App of the Day. With kids going back to school i thought we’d look at an app to help anyone of any age learn any subject. Quizlet is the most popular study app in the world but there are a few things you should know before looking for it in the app stores.
Thursday August 9th
You probably take dozens of pictures every week with your smartphone and we rarely think of just how good those cameras are for something other than selfies. I’m looking at this year’s winners of IPPA, the iPhone photography awards to inspire people to take better photos.
Wednesday, August 8th
If you haven’t heard, Amazon is hiring and you don’t even have to put on pants to get the job. Virtual jobs are ‘work from home’ and Amazon has quite a few openings. Here’s what you need to know if you want to go to work for the world’s largest retailer.
Tuesday, August 7th
I cannot ignore another huge change for the 3 million+ people using MoviePass. The company just announced it will put a limit on the number of movies a subscriber can see in a month. Previously it was unlimited (one a day) now 3 a month. It’s not all bad news though. I’ll break down what the change means to subscribers and do a little math to see if it’s still a good deal.
Monday, August 6th
Parents can find ways to monitor what their kids are doing online, but only when they’re home. When a teenager is out or at a friend’s house, it’s almost impossible to keep an eye on what they’re seeing. Disney has a device that does the impossible. I found a family of four using the Disney Go who’ll tell us how it works.
Friday, August 3rd
The app of the day is a follow up to the story we did Tuesday. Musical.ly has been purchased by another company and the next time you or your kids update it, Musical.ly will change its name to Tik Tok.
Thursday, August 2nd
Are you getting more telemarketer and robo-calls? It may be because of the upcoming “Open Enrollment” period for insurance. Nearly every call I’m getting is about insurance options. They’re using tactics that make it impossible to block the calls on your own. I’m looking at an app that’s best at doing the blocking for you.
Wednesday, August 1st
With the big story of MoviePass changing its price and terms, I thought it’d be a good time to look at other options. After MoviePass launched other companies released competitors. With over 3 million current MoviePass subscribers some of them will be looking to switch or cancel the service all together. Let’s look at what the other movie subscription services look like? How do they stack up with MoviePass?