A Kindle or a Nook or an iPad or a Tablet?? Oh My!!! Part 2 of 2

Continued from Wednesday, March 28th, 2012…

Then of course there’s the question – is an e-reader enough or should I spend the extra money and invest in a tablet and if so should I get an iPad or a tablet??? Tough choices for sure…

Differences between an iPad or one of the many Android Tablets…
1. The iPad is a single product, Android tablets are a common name for a variety of products
2. The iPad runs on the MAC iOS; Android tablet run on Android based system
3. The iPad lacks flash while Android tablets have it
4. The iPad doesn’t have true multi-tasking; Android tablets do
5. The iPad has more apps than Android tablets – but both are increasing their numbers daily
According to an independent survey done by cnet.com, their recommendations are as follows in these major categories… so happy shopping… and remember as always with technology – do your homework first and set your budget next…

Best basic e-book reader: Amazon Kindle ($79, no touch screen), Amazon Kindle Touch ($99 to $189, with touch-screen), Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch ($99, touch-screen),

Best reading tablet for under $200: Amazon Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet

Best all-around full-featured reading tablets: Apple iPad (third-gen), Apple iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 or the new Samsung Galaxy 8.9

A Kindle or a Nook or an iPad or a Tablet?? Oh My!!! Part 1 of 2

Every where we go, someone is using an e-book reader, iPad or Tablet. Yes, whether you are on a train, plane, bus or automobile; or walking down the street or sitting in a lobby – to many, the days of fumbling with newspapers and sneakily removing recipes & coupons from the doctors office are long gone… Today with many of these devices you can do all of this and surf the web and much more…

But how do you decide which is best for your needs.. 

Yes, it’s true – Amazon’s Kindle was the first, but it didn’t take long for Barnes & Noble to introduce their Nook, and of course we are all familiar with Apples iPads, and then of course other manufacturer’s are introducing their own, including Sony’s Reader Wi-Fi, Kobo Reader and many Android manufacturers which are a step up from the SmartPhones and just below (according to some) a tablet, such as the popular Samsung Galaxy Tablet… Sure can get confusion…

As with all technology, it’s all about the options – what do you plan to use the device for – just reading books and magazines, or do you want to be able to store and listen to music, what about taking and storing photo’s, streaming videos like youtube, hulu or netflix, and surfing the web… so many choices – so many options.. And for most, just as importantly, should be that you establish & stick to a budget before you head to the mall..

Yes, prices are coming down daily and surprisingly as the prices drop, the list of features grow with each new model – the result obviously of competition….

• Basic Black & White e-reader: Prices range from $80 to $150
• Color e-reader with a 7” color screen from $400-$300
• Full Size, multi-feature, color tablet (like the iPad2 or “new iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tablet ) where screen choices used to be 7” or 10”, but that’s changing and prices are $200 to $800+

Continued Part 2 of 2 on Saturday March 31st, 2012

COPY FILES FROM COMPUTER TO YOUR FLASH DRIVE

Whether you are travelling and want to take the folders on your computer with you, or simply want to "back up" what you've saved on your computer, it's easy to copy any or all of the folders of documents, music, photos, etc onto a portable drive or flash drive) and here is how to do that quickly and easily... 


• Open Windows Explorer/My Computer to see which drives are shown – easiest way to do this is hold down the Windows Flag Key + E .

• Insert flash drive in the USB port, it will appear as “removable drive” or indicate the company name (Removable Disk (G)

• In Windows XP - Open MY DOCUMENTS & Select the files or folders you want to copy to flash drive by left-clicking on them. To copy multiple, hold the CTRL key while you click & select all the files to save.

• In Windows Vista & Windows 7 - Open LIBRARIES; then Open Each of the Cabinets you want to copy –My Pictures, My Music, My Movies, My Pictures; Select the files or folders you want to copy to your flash drive by left-clicking on them. To copy multiple, hold the CTRL key while you click folders or files at random; Or hold the SHIFT key to copy GROUPS of folders OR hold the CTRL + A to copy all folders in the parent folder…

• Once highlighted…. RIGHT-CLICK on the folders you want to copy (or go to Menu Bar & Edit) and choose COPY.

• Go to “My Computer”; choose the correct Drive you want to copy your work/files/folders to; highlight that drive (i.e. "Removable Disk (G:),

• RIGHT-CLICK on the Drive (or go to Menu Bar & Edit); choose PASTE

• When the copying is finished, DO NOT IMMEDIATELY REMOVE THE FLASH DRIVE OR PORTABLE HARD DRIVE FROM THE USB PORT :
Always left-click on the REMOVE HARDWARE icon located in the System Tray to be sure it says: SAFELY REMOVE STORAGE DEVICE.

How to design & print calendars

A question I’m asked quite often is where can I get FREE calendars that I can modify and or print??

One way, if you have WORD on your computer, is to use one of the Microsoft office templates – simply go to your File Menu or Button, and choose “New” depending on the version of Word that you will have you will see a variety of templates – check them out, download them and once downloaded save them in a folder with a name you give them…

OR

There are numerous websites that offer free printable calendars, a personal favorite of mine is

www.eprintablecalendars.com

How To Add a Link In Your Email To A Popular Video

Whether you are visiting “YouTube.com” or “HuLu.com” or a local media stations, there may be times that you will see a video that you think someone you know would like to see. It is easy to copy that video location and paste it into your email. Here’s how:

If you have just watched a video on Youtube, look up at the address bar. You will see something that looks like this in the “address bar” of the internet browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox) that you are u sing.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-6dQvOSYmI

• Highlight the letters in the address bar, by hovering your mouse over the highlighted area and right click.
• When the action list appears, choose “copy”
• If you email account isn’t open it, then by using your Tabbed Browsing, open another Internet connection and open your email account (Hotmail, Gmail, AOL…).
• Add the addressee and subject fields.
• Type your letter. (Something like “I thought you’d enjoy this.”) and once you have written what you’d like, be sure to come down to an empty line, then right click and when the action menu appears, Choose paste.
• The link will now be in your email. Notice it is normally a different color than your regular font because it is an active “hyperlink”
• Click send.
• Now, all the receiver has to do is “click on the link” and they will be taken to the website and see the video.

Why you can’t add or delete photo’s from you SD Memory card…

The number one reason – you’ve inadvertently locked your SD, Mini or Micro SD Memory Card. On the side of all memory cards, there is a small slider. Check to see if your SD card is locked. If the slider on the left side of the card is in the "locked" position, you will not be able to delete photos. Move the slider away from the "locked" position.
SD-Stands for Secure Digital...but is becoming the most common memory card used today
Now when you reinsert the Memory card into your Smartphone, camera or camcorder - you will be able to take photos. When you put the Memory card into your computer you will be able to copy all photos, music, and other data to and from the computer. You will also now be able to delete anything not wanted.

Remember, never delete or remove the DCIM folder that is on every memory card.
What is the DCIM Folder? DCIM (Digital Camera IMages) is the default directory structure for digital cameras and is there to keep your photos and or videos organized. When you put a memory card into a camera, camcorder or Smartphone, the camera device immediately looks for a ‘DCIM' folder. If it doesn't find such a folder, most cameras will create one.

CHANGE YOUR CLOCKS THIS WEEKEND

Set your clocks AHEAD ONE HOUR before going to bed THIS WEEKEND - TOMORROW EVENING, SATURDAY, March 10th, 2012. Spring's daylight saving time begins this Sunday, March 11th at 2 a.m. (Except Hawaii, Arizona, (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands).

Yeah!!!! An extra hour of daylight when we "spring forward" each March and then lose it when we "fall back" on Sunday, November 4th, 2012 at 2am.


Almost all computers, cable boxes and other satellite services (including those for smart phones, cell phones, blackberry’s, dish & satellite TV services) will make this change automatically without our help..

Visit this website to learn what other parts of the world change their clocks:

www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/2012.html

For those of you who wonder how DST began, here are some tidbits about its origins and pros and cons of these time-changing events. According to lots of sources on the Internet, several events led to our modern-day DST:

Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers, suggested something akin to daylight saving time in a 1784 essay

During World War I in an effort to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power, Germany and Austria began saving daylight by advancing the hands of the clock one hour from April through October

A postal clerk from New Zealand was the first to propose modern DST

Congress first put America's clocks ahead one hour during World War I and (later for WWII)

Congress enacted the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to eliminate confusion about DST across the country-thanks to this act, DST in the United States now begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November

Windows 7 - turning the new style Taskbar off

The single most visible change in Windows 7 is the new “dock style” taskbar, which shows icons instead of buttons, with all application windows combined within a single button. To me it appears as though they’ve simply combined the Quick Launch and Applications Open Tasks into one area – personally once you get used to it, I think you’ll really like the new style… But many of you continue to email me to ask how to get it back to the “old look” so here is how you can “turn it off”:

 

Windows 7 Taskbar to XP/Vista Style:

• First, right-click on any open area of the taskbar
• Choose Properties from the menu
• From the Taskbar buttons drop-down menu, you’ll want to choose “Never combine”, which will make every window show up as a separate button on the taskbar, or you could choose “Combine when taskbar is full”, which does just like it says
• Now you should see the buttons show up with text labels like you are probably used to… but in the Windows 7 style
• If you chose the “Use small icons” checkbox in the properties screen, the taskbar will actually shrink down to look very similar to Vista
• The only problem is that the “pinned” icons are still sitting on the taskbar, which isn’t the same as Vista or XP, but you can easily remove all of them by right-clicking and choosing “Unpin this program from taskbar”. And now the taskbar looks and works very similarly to Windows Vista 

If you wanted to be really silly, you can choose the “Windows Classic” theme under the Desktop \ Personalize section… but that would be taking it a little too far, I think.

I would urge you to at least give the new Windows 7 taskbar a try… it takes a little getting used to, but it’s a great new change..