"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give" ~ Winston Churchill. With the holiday season hitting it's peak soon, many of us are moved to give or in some cases give more. Giving is something that doesn't have to begin or end with the holiday season. I've got a few apps that you will allow you donate to charity and they won't cost you any money!
You're familiar with Kia right? You've seen the commercials with the dancing hamsters, and they even have NBA baller Blake Griffin in their commercials. Now that I think about it, he's in the commercial for the Kia Optima. I had a chance to test the 2016 Kia Optima LX Turbo recently and l have a completely new outlook on the Kia brand!
You're gearing up for those New Years resolutions right? Probably the most common one is to lose weight, I know I've made that one a few times. Well with the Pact app, there's an incentive to stay on track...it pays you to meet your fitness goals!
There are so many people that are making careers or hobbies out of creating digital content such as vlogging, YouTube tutorials, and alot of time they are using other people's music as their soundtrack. Unless you're an artist this is the case, or your video may have no soundtrack at all. But what if there was a way for you to have unique royalty-free music for your video projects and you don't have to have sound engineering experience?
The holidays are rolling right on by us but over the Thanksgiving break I had a great time driving around, running errands and touting leftovers in the 2016 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring AWD! First thing out the gate look at the color, doesn't it just scream fall? The color is Titanium Flash Mica (still not sure who comes up with the color names but it's unique). I immediately loved the fact that it was a compact SUV, I've got a kid that's almost my height and with it being the week of Thanksgiving I needed all the room I could get! But that was just the beginning of the cool features, we've got to get inside it to really appreciate it...
Amazon is the place you can shop for just about anything...now allows you to dole out allowance as well. This feature which has been active for about 5 months, allows Amazon customers send one time transfers or recurring monthly, biweekly, weekly, or daily amounts to someone else. The funds are only allowed to be used on Amazon so it's like a re-loadable gift card. But you can literally buy almost anything on Amazon.
You ever see a that perfect shade of red or pink and think this would be perfect but struggle to find it in an actual cosmetic store? Well thanks to ShadeScout you can! This handy app let's you take the color inspiration you find in everyday life and helps you find the makeup to match it.
You hear that? *cues up Christmas music* Well if you have that one station that I know every area has, that plays Christmas music all day every day starting well before Thanskgiving, then you hear it. If you been into stores lately then you see the onslaught of Christmas decorations already front and center. So now comes the part of figuring out what to get everyone on your list, kids are usually pretty good about telling you or making a list of what they want. But what do you get for the geek in your life? I've got a few suggestions......
If you're like me and most girls I know, then you have tons of polish but how often do you want that little something extra? I mean they sell those little instant press on designs at the beauty stores, or you can get polish with flecks of glitter or one that changes color (mood polish). But how about instead of going to the nail shop you let your smartphone do your nails? *I mean it's 2015 why not?*
If you have any type of social media, you probably have used your phone to take a *gasp* selfie. Even people that don't use or take them know what they are. iOS 9 went as far as to integrate a folder just for your selfies into the Photos application. But let your imagination run away just for a bit and think what if your favorite Disney characters took selfies? Clearly they won't be using selfie sticks since Disney banned them from the parks. But Italian Artist, Simona Bonafini has a line of illutrations called SelfieFables that capture just that, your favorite Disney Characters taking the iconic selfie!
I am constantly on the go and last week was no different, well except I got to make all of my weekly routines in the 2016 Mazda 6!! When I first laid eyes on it I was like, "That's a Mazda??" I've seen the old Mazda 6's, 626's and I remember loving the Millenia (never ended up with one though). Mazda has really revamped their vehicles not only on the outside but the inside as well.
Ozon, personal computing ring device, Photo: 16Lab Press
Last week 16Lab announced Ozon, a new computing ring device. The wearable ring device can control other devices via gestures. These devices include computers, smartphones, TVs, tablets, lighting fixtures in your home. Even serving as a key to get in your home or office. There are plans to also add an electronic payment option. It also serves as an alert mechanism for connected devices, so you can get notifications when you're not near your device or smartphone.
I am a known Apple enthusiast, not a fanatic, but at the end of the day I love and am intrigued by technology in all it's forms. So for my Android readers, you will be happy to know that the new Android OS, Marshmallow is on it's way! This week it will begin rolling out to Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 and Nexus 7 devices. No word on when it will reach other Android devices. But let's look at some of these features....
Adobe fans, users, and those who just want to dabble, rejoice! Adobe is following up on all the fanfare they showed at the Apple Event in September, Photoshop Fix is finally here! Imagine all the most powerful parts of Photoshop at your fingertips, literally.
Project Spark, Microsoft's software program that allows users to create and play their own games, is going full on free as of October 5th! Initially the software was just free to play, but now it will transition to a free and open creation platform.
Outside the Apple Event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
This week has been insanely busy but I had to make sure my readers had all the latest information from Apple's huge September event this past Wednesday! Not gonna dance around too much there is plenty to get into!
It's coming this Wednesday September 9th, at 10am PT/1PM ET. Apple's Annual September Event (second only to it's WWDC event held in June. I will have all the major highlights on the blog that evening!
If you're like most people on social media, you take pictures and you post them right? Right. But what about those times when you have tons of pictures and you want to post them, but who is gonna sit there and post them back to back and essentially annoy our friends and followers? Well some people do, then some of us opt for the photo collage, but then you can't really see the pictures all the time.
Hello to my wonderful readers! Summer is drawing to a close, and like most of you I had the opportunity to take a vacation. It was definitely needed and I had the opportunity to zip around Miami in the 2015 Mitsubishi Mirage! Now this is a subcompact vehicle but boy does it have alot packed in it!
So I am sure by now you've heard about the Jeep recall on well over 1 million of their vehicles due to a remote hacking vulnerability. If you haven't where on earth have you been? This definitely makes me look at the IoT (Internet of Things) philosophy a little differently. As more and more advances are made in technology and the integration of said technology into our daily lives grows this seems that it will be a more regular occurrence. But let's get back to this recall info...
Everyone who has a cell phone has the ability to text, and if you have an iPhone then you know that we (yes I'm an iPhone user) have iMessage. A messaging service exclusive to iOS. Well T-Mobile has announced that they will be launching an advanced messaging service for Samsung phones. It will have features such as the ability to send large picture files and you can see when the recipient is typing back. Like those dots in iMessage. Right now the feature is only available on the Samsung Grand Prime and of course is exclusive to T-Mobile. Samsung Galaxy S5 and S6 users will eventually be given the feature via a software update.
I know it's been a while since I posted, but I come bearing plenty of techie goodness! While I've been away I had the chance to use the Home Screen Router. This little device, that can fit in the palm of your two hands, can function as a standalone router, or a range extender.
Unless you were under a rock yesterday and not online, you've probably heard that Apple held it's annual Worldwide Developer Conference (or WWDC) yesterday. This year didn't have a many big announcements as in previous years but there is still plenty to share...
If you're a fan of Minecraft, the game that essentially let's you design your own world or go about "mining" items to craft things to survive, and you're a fan of LEGOs then this is definitely for you. TT Games announced they are releasing LEGO Worlds. The game is pretty much you designing your own world of play with what else, LEGOs. Now the game isn't officially released yet, but the good news is that Steam is offering early access, you can sign up and play it ahead of time and of course this helps them develop the best finished product possible. The cost to purchase LEGO Worlds via Early Access is $14.99, otherwise the full finished game will be available in 2016.
Windows 10 finally has a release date, July 29. Is your computer ready, the better question is are you? Some users, like myself have taken advantage of the technical preview. Which I must say has me looking forward to the latest incarnation of Windows. So now is a good time for me to back up my important stuff and start preparing for the OS upgrade, and you should too. Another tip, look into software that you currently have running to see if it will be supported by Windows 10 or if the software vendor is going to release updates or new versions to ensure that you have no problems post upgrade.
Remember if you are running officially licensed Windows 7 or 8.1 the upgrade to Windows 10 is free for the first year. It will be available for retail sales as well with Windows 10 Home costing $119, $199 for
Windows 10 Professional, and $99 for a Windows 10 Pro Pack to upgrade from a
licensed copy of Windows 10 Home to the Professional version.
Will you be upgrading over the summer? Are you still running Windows 7, or dare I ask Windows XP? Windows 10 looks to be a good blend of features and familiarity. So it gets the green light from me.
This past weekend I had the privilege of covering Awesome Con, and it lived up to it's name. Of course most of geeks know what a Con is, it's short for convention. Awesome Con took over the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC for 3 whole days, and there was no shortage of well...awesomeness!
Does adding smart to the beginning of something make it better? Phones became more than just phones when we attached smart to it, as did watches. Well add one more to the list..Smart Credit Cards.
Shift key not working, well fix it with a blueberry muffin. No seriously. MaKey Makey, the creation from JoyLabz allows you to connect items to the MaKey Makey (pictured above) with the alligator clips and then connect the USB cable to the computer. Simple right? You get to put on your inventors hat and go to work!
I say science and I'm pretty sure emojis are not the first thing that come to mind. But General Electric has partnered with Bill Nye for a web series called Emoji Science. They are also working with the National Science Foundation to give you actual lesson plans. As I kid I remember watching Bill Nye the Science Guy, so I am glad to see him being reintroduced to this generation. Probably the hardest part with the instantaneous age we live in is getting kids attention and keeping it.
Over the weekend TechCrunch held it's Disrupt 24-hr Hackathon ahead of the actual Disrupt NY event that is happening right now. Now before I share my favorite gems from the hackathon, keep in mind that some of these may never come to fully exist or don't expect a complete turn around in the next week. I mean the coders and creative minds were up all night.
What is Power Box? Simply put a well curated resource of black owned businesses from all over. The creator, Tami Sawyer started by posting businesses on her personal Instagram page and it evolved into something much bigger.
Facebook has been rolling out a lot of features lately, this one much like the Scrapbook feature, makes sense. Video calling in Facebook messenger which is making the move for the messenger to be a standalone service make a little more sense. With services out there like Skype, Google Hangouts, and Hello from Firefox, this puts Messenger out there to compete. So you can open the video chat right from an existing messenger window. I think this is a great addition especially since most people maintain FB specifically for actual friends and family. Most of my family is scattered all over so sometimes a little face to face doesn't hurt.
Looking at the picture above you probably thought that was a USB stick right? Well you would be kind of right. It's fashioned like a USB stick but it has an HDMI connection on the end of it. The one on the left is Intel's Compute Stick and on the right is the Chromebit.
Following the release of their popular Microsoft Office apps to iOS and Android, Microsoft has followed it up by releasing it's scanning app Microsoft Office Lens to the iOS and to the test community for Android platforms as well. Initially the app was native to Windows phones only. What is Office Lens you ask? Well it's a scanner on your phone.
Surprise! There's a new feature over on Facebook (insert sarcasm font). Facebook is famous for making changes and all to often they are not to the pleasure of it's users, but this change might actually ok. They've taken the nostalgia of scrap booking and added it to Facebook
Thought I would share this since Game of Thrones comes back on this Sunday! One of my favorite games ever meets one of my favorite show/book series. Press play to check out Megasteakman 's mash-up. Make sure you tune in to HBO on Sunday at 9pm!
IBM's computer Watson has went to culinary school, meet Chef Watson! Now before you go crazy no Watson won't have it's mouse and keyboard in your stew or casserole. The concept is that you tell it what ingredients you have and what type of dish you want, then it searches known recipes and then gives you a suggestion. You know for one of those nights when you forgot to go to the store and you need dinner with what you have on hand.
How often are we in the store and need to find shoes to go with that perfect outfit in the closet? Well the company Ishuu may have a solution to our endless racks of shoes in our closets ladies; the Volvorii Timeless Smart High Heel shoe.
You're at an amazing event and sometimes 140 characters doesn't do it justice, or there's so much happening that you can't get it all out. Meet Meerkat, the app that lets you live stream video from your iPhone/iPad to your twitter followers. Simple concept and quite frankly is a lot easier than live tweeting each and every action that you have at an event.
On February 28, the NOBEL ( National Organization of Black Elected Legislative) Women held the first annual Girls, Gigabytes and Gadgets workshop. This was a workshop geared toward introducing young girls, ages 8-18, to the STEM field. So everything from science to of course my favorite Information Technology was covered.
Have you ever had a text message that you wished you hadn't sent? Do you find yourself sending messages when you've had a few too many while out with the girls (or the guys)? Or you send the message meant for your significant other to your parents? Now I'm sure your situation isn't as drastic but everyone has at least had a typo courtesy of auto-correct. Well then the, On Second Thought app, is exactly what you need.
This
app allows you to send/receive text messages, but also to
also edit them or recall a message before it makes it to the other
person's phone. Funny thing is I have seen people ask for this app over
and over. There is even a curfew feature, which allows you to compose
messages but while curfew is in effect they won't be sent. But one of the coolest things about this app is the creator, Maci Peterson, and I got the chance to interview her!
Last week Firefox quietly rolled out Firefox Hello. The new add on allows you to start video chats right from your browser without having to sign in, just send the person you want to connect with the link. You do need to have the latest version of Firefox installed to take advantage of this feature. The person you are chatting with doesn't have to be using Firefox but they do need to be using Google Chrome, Opera, or of course Firefox.
The reason with those specific browsers is that they support WebRTC (the technology that Firefox Hello uses). It's always a good idea to have more than one browser installed anyway. This is a pretty good way to start a video chat up on the fly without having to log in, check to make sure the other person has Skype or Google accounts. So next time you open your Firefox browser look in the upper right hand corner for the smiley face icon and check it out!
Currently in Barcelona, Spain the WPC is happening (Wireless Power Consortium) and of course like all major technology conferences or events some pretty exciting new things are coming out of it. Swedish furniture maker Ikea is teaming up with Samsung to launch a new collection of furniture that will charge your devices, no wires needed!
Last week Facebook unveiled that they will be launching better tools to help combat suicide. They've worked with organizations such as Save.org, Now Matters Now, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and many more to make sure these tools are resources for someone who is troubled or even their family members. The new feature will allow more support for those who are troubled, but also allow for friends and family members to report a post they think is troubling, it's then reviewed by 24/7 support. The next time the person logs into Facebook they will see options like the one in the picture.
Mental health is a huge issue, so I think this is a step in the right direction of social responsibility on Facebook's part.
I am almost sure if you grew up in the 90s you know what that picture above is, or at least what it appears to be. Nowadays we have the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and the Wii U, but when I was younger my favorite system had to be the Super Nintendo. Well you can play it on your PC!
We live in an age of digital sharing, but remember when we used to actually have to print pictures by getting them developed or instantly with a Polaroid camera? I remember having a Polaroid camera ( jeez the film was expensive) and being able to touch that moment I captured. While we can't go backwards we can move forward and on that note, I give you Prynt the instant camera case for iPhone and Android.
Apple recently released the iOS 8.3 beta 2 to developers. This gives the developers a chance to work with and prepare their apps for upcoming release, all though if you have a Apple developer account you can get access to the upcoming software. Just keep in mind what beta means, it's not finished and of course there are bugs. But anyway, for many of my readers the news you have been waiting for, there are going to be new and more diverse emojis in the 8.3 iOS update! They are even updating flags in it as well.
Also Apple has decided to start doing a public beta program for iOS the same way they did with OS X. So in March you will be able to test and provide feedback and provide information to Apple engineers on the forthcoming iOS release. The Apple Seed program is by invitation only but you can sign up for the OS X beta program without being invited.
On Saturday February 28th, 2015, The NOBEL Women (National Organization of
Black Elected Legislative Women) are holding a 1 day technology workshop for
girls ages 8-18. This workshop focuses on technology and the internet and
engaging our young women early on so that they can be prepared to work in the
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields.
This is so needed as young girls of color are a minority in this field and it's
important that we invest in our youth. Most girls aren't even aware of the vast opportunities in the STEM fields but hopefully with organizations like this and events such as these, we can show them and engage them. Where were these events when I was younger? The event is free but you must register
by February 23rd!
So unless you've been living under a rock, you know that winter is coming ( I couldn't resist). Check out the trailer for season 5 of Game of Thrones. The new season starts April 12 on HBO.
"You've got mail" well that's not what we hear when we get email but still. Email is the one of the most prominent ways that we communicate for businesses or contact nowadays. If you have an email address most likely you are using Gmail.com, Outlook.com, Yahoo.com for your personal email or small business. On the large scale business/enterprise side you are most likely using Microsoft. Well, now there will be another option soon, Amazon WorkMail.
Comic and super hero fans rejoice! According to the Hollywood Reporter Fox is in the very early stages of trying to bring a live action series version of the X-Men to television. The producers of 24, Evan Katz and Manny Coto are apart of this. We all know how good a series 24 was, so it's a pretty safe bet that if this series comes to fruition it could be handled correctly and be AMAZING!
As a kid I watched the animated series and even collected the trading cards (like kept them in plastic and all of that) so this is pretty exciting news. The X-Men stories go so many different directions and a series may be a great way to tell the stories without having to condense them into a 2 hour movie and angering the comic book world.
Yesterday Microsoft held an event to give consumers a better look at the new upcoming operating system, Windows 10. They kicked off by announcing that Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for existing Windows 7 and Windows 8 users for the first year (nice right?). It looks as though they are going the way of Apple with offering current users/consumers free upgrades to keep the loyalty, and to be honest it's not a bad idea. Now let's look at some of the details on this operating system
In this day and age many of us are on some type of social media platform, be it Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook. At any given time you can log into any of these social media platforms and you're getting updates from people, with most activity being during the work day. According to studies, nearly 1/3 of employees use Facebook while they are at work. So it's not surprising that Mark Zuckerberg has launched, Facebook for Work? But is it a good thing or a bad thing?
June of last year President Obama announced the ConnectEd initiative, which was created to rich education for grades Kindergarten through 12th grade. The program was created with the idea that it would provide teachers and students with the best technology and training. Well yesterday the Maryland State Department of Education announced in response to this that it will be piloting the Microsoft IT Academy program in 25 schools statewide. This is a partnership between the state and Microsoft.
I'm a mother, a wife, a network engineer...and I love tech! I wanted to create a platform to share my musings and insights on technology, apps, and the like to share with people. I hope you enjoy and please subscribe so you don't miss anything!
