November 12, 2014Formatting a Floppy DiskThe year is 1992 — some 22 years ago. PCs For Dummies was my second book in the For Dummies series, co-authored with Andy Rathbone (who went on to write Windows For Dummies and, soon after, retire). One whole chapter in that book was devoted to a topic that doesn’t even resonate today: Formatting a floppy disk.
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November 10, 2014Thoughts About Amazon Echo
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November 9, 2014Apple is Number Five!
According to IDC, the company that has all the numbers, Apple now ranks fifth for all computer sales worldwide. The numbers aren’t impressive overall, and historically Apple has never held a huge chunk of the market, but this new statistic is actually an increase.
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November 7, 2014Microsoft Surface Makes a Great iPad Cover
Microsoft has been aggressively pushing its Surface tablet everywhere. They were highly visible on TV news anchor desks during Tuesday’s US elections. But if you looked closely, you’d see the tablets were merely propping up iPads, which is the mobile device the anchors were really using.
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Flash CrashMobile devices — including Android and iOS — don’t run Adobe Flash. That’s a source of frustration for many people, but there’s a good reason for disabling Flash: It crashes.
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November 6, 2014Spotting a Facebook Scam
Over the past two years, it’s estimated 850,000 scams have perpetuated on Facebook. That’s a lot. The problem is that most Facebook users can’t tell what’s a scam and what’s not.
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November 5, 2014Laptops on the Space Station
I don’t even think of this, but why is the International Space Station literally littered with laptops? The answer is surprising. Android Email SolutionsOne of the poorest things Android does is Email. First, Google’s Gmail is split off from the main Email program, which makes collecting and organizing all your email in one app an opaque task. Even within the Email app, weaknesses appear.
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November 4, 2014Microsoft Office Welcomes Dropbox
Microsoft and Dropbox are becoming BBFs. Dropbox access will soon be integrated into Microsoft Office programs, allowing you to save documents to your Dropbox storage as easily as your computer’s own storage or to Microsoft’s OneDrive. For mobile users, the Dropbox app will soon add features to help you edit and manage your Microsoft Office documents. That’s pretty keen.
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Arcade Game Nostalgia
I don’t recall how many quarters I pumped into video game machines back in the 1970s and 1980s. Lots! Now those games are available free to play on the Internet. Alas, I wasn’t able to get some of the games to work. Perhaps you’ll have more luck.
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Right on the heels of the disastrous Fire phone, Amazon unveils another unique gizmo. It’s the Amazon Echo, which is a . . . well, I don’t know what it is.
