I’m often asked which phone to buy. Brands and model numbers mean little to me. What’s important is the operating system, in which case you have several choices. Among them, I prefer Android (of course). Apple’s iOS is also good, but I strongly recommend against buying a Windows phone.
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October 10, 2014Windows Phone? Nope!October 9, 2014The End of OutsourcingThe tech industry has a terrible reputation for taking local jobs and sending them overseas. After all, labor is cheaper in some other country. Labor was cheaper in some other country. As the world educates itself and raises its standard of living, the cost of exporting jobs is catching up. Don’t believe for a second that this change means that those jobs are returning. They aren’t. Instead, they’re being replaced by automation. This change shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. The big corporations are always looking for cheaper labor, which helps pad their bottom lines and keeps the stockholders happy. That’s sad because it’s the customer who gets shafted; automated anything — especially support — isn’t better than having a person involved. True, some tasks can be automated effectively without any loss of quality. That situation has been inevitable since the industrial revolution. However, quality isn’t the issue here; it’s making money. I also see an impact with regards to the minimum wage in the US. While I support indexing the wage to inflation, raising it too much prompts business owners to replace low-wage workers with automation. This trend may snowball in the coming years as consumers tolerate more automation and the corporations condition us to accepting crummy service.
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October 8, 2014A Better USB ConnectorDon’t get me wrong: The USB cable is genius. It improves upon a nightmare of cables that once festered behind every computer like a nest of snakes. The problem? While you have a 50 percent chance of plugging the cable in the proper way, you get it wrong about 80 percent of the time.
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October 7, 2014Driving DistractedPretty much anyone can guess that using a smartphone while driving isn’t the safest thing to do. In most states where such a thing is outright outlawed, they do allow you to use a phone “hands-free.” Turns out that’s even more distracting.
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October 6, 2014Windows 95 on an Android Smartwatch*sigh* Some people just have too much time on their hands . . . (Mute your speaker before playing the video.) The State of Computer GraphicsOne of the holy grails of computer graphics is the ability to realistically render a human face. Apparently that quest is now over. Check out the video (link below) and determine whether or not you think the human head rendering is realistic. It’s scary. The next step is to render a robotic face that looks realistic. How much longer until you think that happens?
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How to Shoot VideoYes, your smartphone or tablet has the ability to record video. I describe how it works in my various Android For Dummies books. What I don’t really do, but I’ll probably do from now on, is really tell you how to shoot video. October 5, 2014Wi-Fi is 15-Years-OldYou think nothing of having Wi-Fi today. Laptops, desktops, mobile devices, coffee shops, even the car dealer has Wi-Fi. But in 1999, Wi-Fi was a new thing. Business Insider does a quick look back at how amazed the MacWorld crowd was in 1999 when Steve Jobs introduced the iBook and it’s amazing wireless Internet access.
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October 4, 2014Wi-Fi SecurityI could write an entire blog post on keeping your home or office Wi-Fi network secure. Instead, I’m providing a link to an excellent article by Amit Agarwal, founding of the website Digital Inspiration:
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October 3, 2014The Post-Jobs Apple
Is creativity dead at Apple in the post-Jobs era? |
The recent introduction of iPhone 6 Plus has motivated some pundits to accues Apple of being a me-too company. After all, the large format iPhone comes years after Samsung created the first phone-tablet, or phablet, the Galaxy Note.