Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
How To
17 Must-Know Habits of iPhone Super-Users That Save And Extend Battery Life
Aug 31st
If you’re an iPhone 4 power user like me by the time lunch-time comes around, you start to get concerned about just how much longer you can last without an outlet and phone charger. . .
While the battery in the iPhone 4 far surpasses the older generation models supposedly, I find that I use my iPhone so much now that it has so many features (and apps!). So seriously, there are times where I’m done to 20% battery life by lunch time!
How do you keep your iPhone charged to extend the battery life when you’re out and about?
Well, I checked with a bunch of self-proclaimed iPhone gurus that I’ve connected with in the recent past.
Check out some of these tips below. Hope you find some new ideas to save the battery on the iPhone: 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 »
How To Transfer Big Files To Co-workers, Friends, Family Via Email
May 15th
These days, sending big files to other people via email (or even yourself!) is becoming more and more common.
Any video file, or those huge 12-15 megapixel photos of the kids’ soccer game, etc sometimes exceed the email attachment limits of your email provider.
Most of the popular web-mail email services like Gmail, Yahoo!Mail, and AOL all have file size limits of 25 MB or so for attachments. This means that you may have to send multiple emails, each with the various files you want to send, or you may even be prevented from sending the file at all if it is a large file. Video files typically encounter problems when trying to send through email.
So what can you do besides invoking snail mail? or waiting to hand over a CD or DVD the next time you see the other person?
There are free services online that let you upload files, and then simply send a download link that are live for a limited period of time – many times just a week or less, giving the recipient enough time to retrieve the file before the file become unavailable. Although there are services which let you transfer files via peer-to-peer, so that you don’t have to upload and leave your file in the hands of someone else, most people will want to use web-based services which temporarily hold onto your file until the recipient grabs it at their own convenience.
One of the services I’ve recently been using has an upper limit of 1 GB of file size, deletes the file after 5 days, allows up to 20 downloads of the file and is free. . . Read the rest of this entry »
How To Enlarge Your Field Of Vision: Multi-Monitor Set-Ups
Apr 20th
As HDTV flatscreen TV’s get bigger and bigger, so do computer monitors.
As of April, 2010, Samsung makes the largest LCD computer monitor at 46″ in size. . . But you can enjoy the benefits without paying $48,000 that is required to buy a big fat computer LCD monitor display!
If you have more than one monitor, that will work too.
It’s one of the best ways to increase productivity (and your geek factor) – chances are you have an extra monitor lying around in the back closet somewhere – it doesn’t even have to be a flat-screen monitor to add value either.
Setting up a multi-screen computer monitor set-up is easy. Windows and Mac have built-in tools to extend your desktop to more than your main screen.
But sometimes it’s better and easier to use 3rd party tools. Lifehacker to the rescue with their roundup of 5 multi-monitor management tools for the pc (actually it should be 4 since the include Windows 7 as one of them):
Of course there are bunch of other utilities out there to use, but the first two above do offer freebie versions which may work for what you need. And the other two made the list for good reasons too.
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!