Happy Valentine’s Day to my special girls

| February 14, 2023

It is not a Throwback Thursday #TBT post, but the Echo Show photo below is from a previous year. Happy Valentine’s Day! The REAL Valentine’s Day story … (yikes!) The Catholic martyr St. Valentine was beheaded on that date in the third century, supposedly for breaking a Roman ban on performing marriages. Now in Dublin […]

Our Echo Show continues to remind us of family

| January 28, 2023

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Tech Friday: Ultrasound detection and the 4th gen Echo hub

| June 24, 2022

After a week of working with the new “trade-up” from an older Echo (triggered by a $30 trade-in offer) to the 4th generation Amazon Echo “with premium sound, smart home hub (Zigbee) and Alexa” … the results have been mixed. My advice, don’t rush. First, I was looking forward to the idea to not need […]

Messages on the Echo and crazy-faced granddaughter photos

| December 19, 2021

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Tech Friday: Our small Echo Dot on the Home Theater ceiling

| January 29, 2021

Now that the wiring in the basement is no longer laying on the floor in order to feed the kitchen television cable extender and ceiling repairs are finished up, I’ve been cleaning up and moving things back into the home theater and game room areas. With some fresh paint everything looks pretty good, so I […]

Santa Mouse slippers, Christmas stories and Echo messages

| December 12, 2020

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Music Monday: Time Passages -Al Stewart (1978)

| July 27, 2020

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Think twice before going into business with today’s tech giants

| July 24, 2020

As a start up, doing business with big company in order to boost sales and visibility can be a great way to grow a business. Unfortunately it can also be cut-throat and the smaller companies can and are taken advantage of. It is not new, but but in the fast-paced and highly competitive technology world, […]

Tech Friday: Amazon’s AI notifications needs improvement

| July 3, 2020

As often as I gripe about ordering from Amazon or more to the point, complain about their delivery and updating, one would think I would opt for another online ecommerce portal? Unfortunately there aren’t better options or more dependable deliveries. This past week a small order came a day early, yet the app notification that […]

Photos to keep us up-to-date with our growing granddaughters

| April 19, 2020

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Music Monday: Pandora streaming on the Brave Browser ad-free?

| April 13, 2020

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Simple mount in BMW X5 35d for Amazon Echo Auto

| October 12, 2019

It isn’t easy to see this little magnetic bracket I made to hold my new Amazon Echo Auto low on the dash of the BMW X5 35d. I opted to make a little aluminum bracket that straddles the pushbutton switch blanks to the right of a few other buttons. It is fastened with automotive trim […]

Tech Friday: Loving the new Amazon Echo Auto in my car

| October 4, 2019

Last week, Amazon authorized my invitation and gave me a promo code for the Echo Auto Alexa device for the car (it was a long wait, but they did discount to $24.99 for invitation holders). For the passed several months I’ve been using an Echo Input (no speaker) in my BMW X5 35d in an […]

Tech Friday: Limiting how much data Amazon Echoes collect

| June 28, 2019

Unfortunately I’ve bought into – or was “gifted” into 🙂 – BUT really enjoy the Amazon Echo smart speaker virtual assistant devices. I know Alexa is “always listening” (as is my cellphone, iPad, computers, etc) and that they are doing “who knows what”with my data, but probably not always what I want. Obviously, they dissect […]

Archiving a list to have some fun with our Amazon Echo

| May 4, 2019

We added yet another Echo Dot and so it only makes sense to ask Alexa a few more questions. Here’s list that has been floating around the Internet and so just wanted to archive it on My Desultory Blog.   100 Funny Alexa Tricks for the Entire Family For music lovers: “Rap for me!” “Sing […]

An of branded Smart Home plug fail … so what’ inside?

| April 11, 2019

A Smartthings- like plug that I used with the Amazon Echo virtual assistant failed this past week, so I took it to the workbench in order to diagnose. I suspected that I was not really going to be able to fix it, but was curious as to what what inside anyway (sort of hoping, but […]

When all is well, life is good, even if it is not always as planned

| March 2, 2019

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Tech Friday: Simple advice IF you must use a virtual assistant

| February 22, 2019

TechFriday advice for those of us who enjoy using virtual assistants like those from Google, Apple or Amazon: 1. Change the Default Password on Your Wi-Fi Router 2. Set the Voice Lock 3. Decide Whether You Want to Shop By Voice 4. Understand that Privacy Rights in the US Are on the Way – but […]

Such a DEAL – SiriusXM and Amazon Echo Dot 3rd gen

| February 17, 2019

Like clockwork, it was time to either renew or cancel SiriusXM (again). I refuse to pay the month to month rate with them or the very few newspaper/magazine subscriptions I still use that does the same thing. Thankfully I marked my calendar with a notification as to the last day to cancel service … otherwise the […]

Happy Amazon Alexa Echo iHome iAV2B Valentine’s Day

| February 14, 2019

It may be a quirky Valentine’s Day gift, but Brenda tossed our alarm clock of 36+ years into the trash a couple months ago saying, “I don’t trust it anymore.” I was relatively happy to see it go since the “honk, honk, honk” of the alarm was the most annoying alarm ever. Besides, I’ve been […]

My mom’s Jenny Lind bed will be Annalyn’s BIG bed someday

| February 1, 2019

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Tech Friday: The best TECH life-changers in the last couple years

| January 11, 2019

The Amazon Echo in Kitchen/Great Room and the new Echo Dot 3rd Gen in my workshop Not a day goes by without Amazon’s Echo devices doing something for us in our home … and it is only a matter of time before “she” (Alexa) will be assisting me in the car too. It is almost […]

Music Monday: Ooh La La, I wish that I knew what I know now

| November 26, 2018

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Tech Friday: The Amazon Echo will soon have Whisper Mode

| October 5, 2018

The Amazon Echo has been a fun gadget to use and have in our home since Katelyn and Drew gave it to us for Christmas. After having our granddaughter Annalyn with us for a few days last week, I realized we don’t always have the volume set appropriately especially when she is sleeping. Hm … […]

Tech Friday: The inexpensive Wyze Cam now supports Alexa

| July 20, 2018

I’ve been using the Wyze Cam to keep an eye on our Florida condo for a couple of months now … and besides an issue with a low-cost router overheating, it has been excellent. I’ve been thinking about adding a second one with the adjustable viewing angle, but it is not on the high priority […]

Set the Amazon Echo Follow-up Mode to ON in your Alexa app

| March 13, 2018

A new Amazon Alexa Echo voice command improvement now makes it easier to string together a series of commands without repeating "Alexa" over and over again. The back-to-back commands will need to right after each other AND you must turn on (off by default) the Follow-Up Mode under settings in the Alexa app. After switching […]

Tech Friday: A 2nd Amazon Echo – the Dot now streams music

| March 2, 2018

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Music Monday: A new Bible & the impressive Amazon Echo Dot

| January 8, 2018

Our Amazon Echo Dot Christmas gift is the gift that keeps on giving now that I’m learning new “skills.” There isn’t anything earth-shattering it is currently doing, but the “easy” interface to Amazon’s cloud server for content and function may be limitless … at least looking into the future. It is an impressive device; perhaps […]

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
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