Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Computers
15 Sites That Help You To Share or Transfer Large Files Over The Internet
Oct 11th
These days, collaboration is a buzz word that is becoming a reality.
Along with collaboration is a nifty term called “file sharing” – it used to be something that sounds easier than it really is.
It used to be you had to put it on a flash drive or burn a CD or DVD to move large files back and forth.
Or if the file was big, but not huge, you could simply attach it to an email and click SEND. But these days, files can grow beyond the 20 MB limit quite easily. And if we’re talking about media files, the 20MB limit is a joke.
But these days, it’s much easier to transfer files back and forth.
Here’s a quick hit list of file sharing services that let you send large files to someone else (or yourself!) over the Internet: Read the rest of this entry »
14 Educational iPhone Apps Parents Should Know About
Sep 17th
If you’re a parent like me, making the most out of any screen time is something you have to attack with relentless pursuit. Instead of letting our kids become TV or game device zombies, there’s an alternative in today’s tech-dominated world.
With hundreds of thousands of apps being sold in the iTunes app store, there’s got to be a handful of great educational app, right?
Well, I was relieved and excited when I found out that there are in fact a bunch of really good educational apps available to choose from.
Here’s a selection of educational apps that fellow parents, teachers and app developers themselves have tipped me off about so that you can go straight to the App Store and start download these apps for your kids. . . Read the rest of this entry »
How To Get Free Access to 3 WiFi Hotspot Networks
Aug 12th
Last time, I blogged about getting access to Comcast’s WiFi hotspot network for free. It’s a little known secret that the marketing department over at the cable internet company hasn’t really pushed for some reason.
But today, I found out that there’s more to the story!
Comcast customers now get free access to two other cable internet wifi networks, completely free…and vice versa.
If you are a Comcast Internet customer like me, all you have to do is log onto one of the three wifi networks: xfinitiwifi, optimumwifi or timewarnercablewifi with your comcast email address and password like you do with your own Comcast wifi network
If you like Free, this is like FREE TIMES THREE.
If you don’t believe me, just look-up the coverage map for Optimum Online’s WiFi network and Time Warner see for yourself!
This is a huge win especially those that live in the tri-state New York City area since each company dominates different geographies around the City. So now when you travel about the region, you are most probably near either a Starbucks or McDonalds — or one of the three major wifi cable company wifi networks — You’re covered!
Check out this quick video that shares the details of the wifi network collaboration, worthy of to be called the real triple-play deal!
QUESTION: IS IT TRUE? DO YOU SEE ANY OF THE THREE WIFI HOTSPOTS IN YOUR AREA? LEAVE A MESSAGE TO SHARE THE RESULTS IN YOUR AREA!
How To Get Free WiFi Hotspot Access If You Are A Comcast Internet Customer
Aug 10th
Ever been out and about wishing you had a wifi connection?
Of course you have!
Instead of trolling for open wifi signals, you might want to consider a more reliable solution. Of course, you could sign-up for Boingo, Wayport or other WiFi networks, but if you are a Comcast Hispeed Internet Customer (randomly branded Xfinity recently to confuse customers as much as possible of course), you might want to check out this option before you go out and spend any more money.
I recently found out that I can get access to a free WiFi hotspot roaming account just because I’m a Comcast customer — and so can you!
In fact, through this largely unpromoted feature of Comcast Internet accounts, you already have it! There’s no need to turn anything on, upgrade or change anything on your account.
If you take a look at the coverage map of NYC and the Tri-State Area, you’ll see that there are TONS of Free WiFi Hotspots available for you to connect to in almost any general vicinity.
Check out the quick video blog update below which I recorded today and uploaded using the free WiFi connection that details how to get free WiFi access across town and while traveling:
Read the rest of this entry »
Windows 7 Hocus Pocus Disappearing Act Solved: Show Desktop Shortcuts
Jul 21st
I have always loved my laptop, but hated the OS.
So I recently upgraded my laptop from Windows Vista Business to Windows 7 on recommendation from…everyone. That’s right, just about anybody who used to use Vista before has said to do the switch pronto . . .
Windows 7 supposedly has more stability and speed than Vista. The techie mags and blogs seemed to agree, so I made the jump. . .
But now, as I get to know the new OS platform, I’m trying to figure out how to do all the tasks I routinely performed on a daily basis pre-Windows 7. Most of it has been ok — whenever you upgrade, it takes a little time getting used to the new look and feel. Upgrades are supposed to bring improvements and changes, right?
But there’s a couple of seemingly small things that have changed or plainly disappeared *POOF!* which make big differences in my daily workflow. It is frustrating because you sit there wondering where did they go?
Using the SHOW DESKTOP icon which was previously conveniently placed in my taskbar at the bottom of the screen was one of them. But guess what?! There’s no more icon/shortcut available in Windows 7 that’s available in the task bar! 
Personally, because I need to get back to the desktop so often, this creates a big hole in my Windows 7 experience. Luckily, there’s two specific ways to do the same function without much hassle or headache.  Here’s two ways to SHOW DESKTOP in Windows 7:
Free Screen Capture Software That Clicks With Me
Jul 11th
More and more, I’m find the necessity to create screen capture images of my desktop or a portion of a browser window more and more.
Typically, I’ve used the actual “Prt Sc” Print Screen button or the SHIFT+ALT+PRT SC combo to capture just the active window. This puts the screen grab into the clipboard memory.
From there, it’s an easy paste into MS Paint to resize or annotate with arrows, callout boxes, etc before saving it as “screen-URLorPROGRAMNAME.jpg” to use elsewhere – on blogs, twitpic, email, etc.
I’ve used a couple of Windows screen capture apps but none does what I want without cluttering my icon tray and hogging up resources. Recently, I’ve been testing out browser-based apps that do pretty much all I need. . .
One of them is called FireShot Pro and I used it with FireFox:
It’s been an easy-to-use screen capture program that works as a live browser plugin. The free version does most of what I need and even does Read the rest of this entry »
DEAL ALERT: Free Custom URL Registration + Email Account
May 26th
You know you should get a custom website address and email account.
Stop letting Gmail and Yahoo!Mail take over your identity.
It’s time you buy your own URL and then start using that for your email correspondence . . . For $0.00!
The world’s largest webhost, 1and1 Internet is giving away free URL registrations (worth about $8-10) for the first year. And included in their URL service is free 2GB email accounts.
Even if you “buy” a new domain for $0.00 and then transfer after the waiting period to your own webhost, this is a great promotion to take them up on: 
http://bit.ly/freeurlregistration
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!