RichC | April 13, 2015
An article in published in an online story on Medium this past week shared the growing discontent from software developers over Apple’s dominance and authoritative control over “app” reviews. Dave Kushal believes that the slow review process hurts the reliability as well as “impedes the pace of innovation.” While I’m somewhat in agreement with Dave, […]
RichC | April 8, 2015
The spring thunderstorms are right on time now that we’re into April and decided to give the new LIVE broadcasting app called Periscope a try. Unfortunately capturing lightning on an iPhone is not as easy as one would think. Below is a file save from the short live broadcast stream.
RichC | March 1, 2015
Welcome to Blogsy! Let's get started. Set up your blog by going to the Settings Menu → Service Settings. Then choose your blog platform and fill in your information. Tap on the Post Info. button to get to all post information. Tap on the Plus button to start a new post or open a local […]
RichC | February 28, 2015
The Overdrive app on my iPad is one of my favorite reading and “listening” apps on any of my devices (previously commented). It is super for those who would love to spend more time going to the public libraries but have trouble finding the time to go. Have a “FREE” way to borrow from libraries […]
RichC | February 14, 2015
There was no love lost from customers of Intuit’s Turbo Tax software, and like many, I quickly looked to their competitors when I saw Intuit’s “money grab” in January 2015. Although the company responded with an apology and offered a $25 rebate to those who eventually figured out they needed to upgrade their Deluxe edition […]
RichC | February 13, 2015
Judging from the suggestions complaints to Google from users making an accidental “mouse swipe” through their online Calendar app, it looks like I’m not the only one frustrated. The problem of scrolling to the wrong month has existed for years and is most noticeable when using the Apple OS and their Magic Mouse. The sensitivity […]
RichC | January 23, 2015
If you are an Apple Macintosh user and have been living with a cluttered desktop, give the free program Hocus Focus a try … if you like it, make a donation. The purpose of the small program is to automatically hide unused but opened applications and windows so it is easier to focus on the […]
RichC | January 2, 2015
The slower work days between Christmas and New Years has given me a little time to clean up my files and office, both paper and digital. One productivity app that I’ve been using on my iPad for over 2 years is Notability and I’ve collected a bunch of “notes” and PDFs that have been semi-organized […]
RichC | December 19, 2014
Most media saturated consumers are frustrated using the various apps from big-name news sources for scanning, skimming and reading 100s of news articles each day. Some individual apps are pretty good, others are a real pain … particularly the newer “in your face – ad heavy” versions. The gripes are that each app is different […]
RichC | November 7, 2014
Microsoft is offering standalone versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPhone, giving users a much better productivity suite for the mobile devices. Prior to the new mobile apps, users who wanted to use Office on an iPhone had to use “Microsoft Office Mobile,” which really only allowed users to view documents and input text. […]
RichC | October 10, 2014
Sort of a timely website find if you are an amateur meteorologist or just enjoy watching and learning about weather. Check out MeteoEarth.com or their MeteroEarth smartphone app for $2.99. (explainer video) There are some pretty powerful features and the real time software offers stunning visual views of weather happenings — like the current Typhoon […]
RichC | October 4, 2014
The year 2014 is turning up to be the year of the data-breach. It seems every month another high profile company reports that their clients and customer data has been compromised. JP Morgan Chase is the most recent and perhaps the largest loss of data – a information from a “mere” 76 million households and […]
RichC | September 18, 2014
Most of Wednesday evening was spent backing up and cleaning up … and then downloading and installing Apple’s iOS8 release on a couple iPhones and an iPad (if full iCloud functionality is desired, then prepare for Mac OSX Yosemite install). Once finished, then the app update fun began and so as a reminder to those […]
RichC | May 9, 2014
I’ve mentioned LastPass a few times in the past as a way to manage the many passwords that our online presence requires and it still looks like a good option. Over the years things change, so I was interested to read “The Best Way To Manage All Your Passwords” article in the WSJ by Geoffrey […]
RichC | April 22, 2014
A post on the FiveThirtyEight.com blog by Kaiser Fung this past weekend analyzed the prediction of airfares on Kayak (after the removal of Microsoft’s Bing Travel’s Farecast in January 2014), left me wondering if the days of successful Big Data’s Predictive Analysis are disappearing? According to my read on Fung’s selective airfare routes research, you […]
RichC | February 14, 2014
Fing is a great little network scanner app available on iOS and Android devices that helped when diagnosing a network printer problem this week. It not really necessary, but is so convenient that I wanted to share it with others. If you are overwhelm with devices, ip and mac addresses and odd names showing up […]
RichC | January 17, 2014
A Tech Friday reminder to consider Soluto if you have a slow booting computer and revisit it after upgrading hardware … especially if you are for trying to stretch the “use by date” of an aging computer. Everyone I know love a fast booting computer, although I doubt a Windows machine is ever going to […]
RichC | December 30, 2013
Offering up a reminder to those running Windows (or any OS really) without or with ”OUTDATED” virus protection — questionable links, website and emails are plentiful. Most of them, from what I have read, still target the Microsoft Windows users, but we should assume most popular operating systems are at risk as well. Do your […]
RichC | October 23, 2013
Yesterday’s Apple product event came on the heels of last months lackluster iPhone 5c and 5s announcement (I watched on and off on my iPad – Jony Ive in photo on right) . First off, there wasn’t anything earthshattering just as with the new iPhones, but the updates and upgrades will be “want to have” items. […]
RichC | September 29, 2013
Untitled Blog Post Name I’m taking a look at the Apple Macintosh blogging app called PixelPumper after using the Windows-only Live Writer for years. I know the day is coming when either I’ll upgrade my old clunky PC notebook computer for a lightweight Macbook Air or see Microsoft eliminate LiveWriter entirely (rumors). I’m still a […]
RichC | July 23, 2013
Apple is testing a few new online iWork applications for those iCloud users accessing their cloud account. The addition of Apple’s document, spreadsheet and presentation software to iCloud will move the beloved computer company one step closer to Microsoft and Google went it comes to online “Office” productivity software. I’m reluctant to commit to one particular […]
RichC | October 20, 2012
Why is it that I question installing and using software some pretty impressing “debluring software” from a guy named Vladimir Yuzhikov? Am I being overly paranoid or worse … prejudice. Anyway take a look at SmartDeblur and what Gizmodo has to say about this windows only (for now) software … although with smartphones getting some […]
RichC | June 6, 2012
No longer available WSJ article
RichC | July 16, 2011
This content is restricted.
RichC | June 30, 2011
Upgraded to WordPress to 3.1.4 ; fixes potential security issues: This release fixes an issue that could allow a malicious Editor-level user to gain further access to the site. Version 3.1.4 also incorporates several other security fixes and hardening measures
RichC | May 6, 2011
Who doesn’t struggle with the bloated Adobe PDF Reader or the pricey full-featured Adobe Acrobat Pro PDF products? I’ve used both products over the years and have been frustrated by the cumbersome Adobe software. Although I still use an older full version of Acrobat upon occasion, I have fund Foxit Reader and more recent lightweight […]
RichC | January 25, 2011
After switching to Verizon’s webOS Mobile Hotspot on my Sprint connected Palm Pre in order to be able to tether my phone, I had all but given up on MyTether. Although I’m not an everyday “tether-er” … having the ability to connect my notebook computer to the Internet in a pinch is important. Thankfully Raja […]
RichC | December 30, 2010
The gurus at WordPress.org have tweaked their programming code and issued an Important Security Update. Take note if you are self-hosted WordPress user and update your install as soon as possible. Version 3.0.4 of WordPress, available immediately through the update page in your dashboard or for download here, is a very important update to apply […]
RichC | November 19, 2010
The boot modifying program called Soluto seems to help keep my Windows 7 notebook computer’s cold boot a bit snappier. Although my older Windows machine may not be up to netbook, tablet or Macbook speeds, the improved one minute and 44 second boot is better than without the Soluto tweaks. The company’s tagline as “anti-frustration” […]
RichC | November 12, 2010
Although I’ve used a few different online dictionaries over the years, I’ve concluded that using a program called WordWeb is better than all the cookies, flash cookies and beacons. According to a WSJ article this summer, sites like Dictionary.com were pretty intrusive. More than half of the sites examined by the Journal installed 23 or […]
RichC | October 16, 2010
Not that I’ve been all that regular at posting a “tech tip” on Fridays, but I did try out a new video recording program this week. It is called At-Large Recorder 2 (Windows only) by Applian Technologies and is a DVR of sorts for the Slingbox … which is a piece of hardware that broadcast […]
RichC | October 12, 2010
While struggling to stay productive during my out of town trip last week, I found it necessary to tether my computer to my Palm Pre a couple of times. On previous trips I bragged about MyTether as a way to do this, but after a summer webOS update it no longer works … so I […]
RichC | September 27, 2010
How do you keep all of your online passwords safe and secure? I’ll admit, I wasn’t all that smart about managing mine. About a month or so ago, a technology friend of mine shared his method of using the stand alone KeyPass Password Safe on his PC and explained how he then plop the encrypted […]
RichC | September 10, 2010
I’ve used Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client for quite a few years now and as it is with most software, it all in what one get use to using. Recent upgrades have required me to make adjustments to my set-up and I grumbled a bit … but for the most part upgrading to 3.1.3 has been […]
RichC | August 30, 2010
Every once in a while, the point of sale technique works on me … and today was the day. I coughed up $1.43 for a Palm Pre app called Neato! It’s a simple little application that runs on the webOS smartphone and receives webpage links, copied text and maps from a computer browser using a […]
RichC | August 15, 2010
I’ve used the same antivirus software on my PC for over a decade and have been pleased with how the company has supported updates and discreet reminder in both the free version and low priced home protection. Unfortunately things have changed for me, after struggling with an upgrade to the 5.0 update, I shifted back […]
RichC | April 23, 2010
At some point in collecting and bookmarking websites for research and the organizational complexity that comes with doing it can be daunting. My XMarks synced bookmarks have become so unwieldy that I don’t even use them anymore – same for those I’ve archived with Delicious.com. I’ve turned to use an Instapaper’s “ReadLater” bookmarklet, a PDFit […]
RichC | April 19, 2010
Delayed or no delay? In an interview with Fox Business News, Adobe‘s CEO Shantanu Narayen commented that Flash 10.1 for mobile devices would be available in the second half of 2010. Earlier this year many Palm webOS users expected to have Flash available much sooner (link) and have been disappointed in the delay. Some suggest […]
RichC | February 16, 2010
There are still a few of us running Windows 7 RC and putting off the inevitable reinstall headache. I suppose I’ve been hoping that there might be some kind of extension or that I might end up with a new computer? Alas, the time is drawing near to install either Windows 7 Home Premium or […]
RichC | February 15, 2010
Updated to WordPress 2.9.2 which was primarily released to repair a problem “where logged in users can peek at trashed posts belonging to other authors.” Not a big deal for most WordPress users, but an easy update for those desiring to stay current.
RichC | January 29, 2010
The MyTether “no patch” beta fix was release while I was traveling this week. I didn’t have the nerve to install on my Palm Pre in fear of ‘bricking’ it so waited until this afternoon to reinstall. So far so good, although the speeds aren’t what I would like, most likely due to 5PM Sprint […]
RichC | June 12, 2007
Although the Palm OS Slingplayer on my Treo 700p has been near flawless, SlingMedia has dutifully fixed a couple things and offered users a new 30 day free trial called SlingPlayer Mobile for Palm OS BETA2. (available as of last night) I installed it directly to my PDA over the Sprint network on the Treo’s […]