Author: todd

Jon Westfall and I (Todd Ogasawara) took on the following topics this week:

1. Amazon Prime 20th anniversary sale a bust for consumers? Ref: TechCrunch
2. What’s with the giant gap in Microsoft’s new folding Bluetooth keyboard? Ref: The Verge
3. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley asked Microsoft CEO Nadella about mobile strategy. Ref: ZDNet

And, as a bonus, we discussed these free tips:

1. Instead of Adobe Acrobat to create PDF Forms, Use LibreOffice – it can export PDFs with FIllable Forms natively.
2. Instead of purchasing books tied to one platform, download free e-books (or strip the DRM off of e-books you own) with Calibre-ebook.com
3. Instead of using that stats package you were taught in school (Minitab, SPSS), use R
4. Instead of using iCloud Photos & Paying for storage, use Google Photos
5. Instead of paying for push gmail with Google Apps, use Jon’s iCloud/GMail solution
6. Instead of using “new fangled encrypted message service” (There are a few out there that offer “easy” encryption from providers you’ve never heard of), use good ole’ PGP / GPG – the tools are free.
7. Instead of using Papers or Endnote, use Mendeley (2 GB free sync’ing for your PDFs) https://www.mendeley.com
8. Instead of using Audio Hijack Pro, use Soundflower + Audacity https://rogueamoeba.com/freebies/soundflower/ (Made by the same company!)
9. Instead of paying for clip-art / stock photography, use Flickr photos licensed under Creative Commons (if you pick the right license type, you can even use them for commercial purposes!)
10. Instead of paying for Hulu & Netflix, try YouTube & TED talks

And, a couple of paid solutions:

1. Instead of using Twitter’s free clients, on iOS/Mac use Tweetbot (saves your place, keeps Twitter under control)
2. Instead of using your brain / a list somewhere / the power of prayer – use Lastpass or 1Password to rest easier at night!
3. Try viki.com or DramaFever.com for streaming video content from non-English speaking countries. About $4/month for either one

Jon Westfall and I (Todd Ogasawara) discuss the following topics in this podcast.

1. WWDC highlights
2. Jon’s Apple Watch tips
   1. Put your home time in the world clock so you have a digital readout on the analog faces
   2. Silence by putting your hand over it.
   3. Clear all notifications by force press
   4. How to Switch Arms
   5. Remember you can have / customize more than 1 of each watchface, and delete those you don’t use.
3. Is Windows 10 really ready for its July 29, 2015 launch date?
4. Oldie but goodie: An HVAC system still running on a Commodore Amiga computer since the 1980s< Ref: WoodTV.com/li>

Jon Westfall and I (Todd Ogasawara) recap the announcements from Google IO last week. For the most part neither of us saw items that might excite consumers. There were, however, some interesting items for developers. And, I admit that I’ve found the Google Photos apps and cloud service to be particularly interesting. You can read my initial impressions of Google Photos in this ExtremeTech.com article:

Google Photos: Unlimited storage for free, with a few gotchas | ExtremeTech

Then, Jon discusses whether Apple Watch’s heartbeat detection really become worse (or not) after the 1.0.1 Watch OS update.

And, finally, we discuss our current primary computing platforms and what it would take for us to shift away from them.