It’s easy to get caught up in the rush to buy the newest gadget to replace your old one. The NosillaCast specializes in making you want to do it. When I got the Olympus OM-D E-M10 micro four-thirds camera in 2014, it was a delightful upgrade to my giant DSLR camera. It was light and […]
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Made for iPhone Hearing Aids – by Gretchen Macdowall
This is a product review of the Made for iPhone hearing aid interface. It covers the usability of iPhone integration features but only touches on the particular hearing aid I have, since there are several Made for iPhone hearing aid models. I’ve had the telltale signs for awhile now – not hearing timers go off, […]
Continue readingSecurity Bits – AMD Bugs (AMD Gets Its Turn in the Spotlight (RyzenFall, MasterKey, Fallout & Chimera) & GrayKey
Spectre/Meltdown Update Microsoft have removed the special registry flag which prevented the Spectre/Meltdown patches being applied on machines without AV that explicitly declares itself compatible with the patch. This approach made sense early in the response to these bugs, but it did have an undesirable side-effect, a machine with no AV would never get patched. […]
Continue readingCES 2018: Wonder Workshop Educational Robots for Kids
Allison interviews Bryan Miller from Wonder Workshop about their robots and apps that help kids learn. Bryan describes the educational robots Dash and Cue. Dash teaches children from kindergarten up to 5 to 6 years old how to code to control a small robot using block programming. Wonder Workshop’s latest robot, Cue, takes kids from […]
Continue readingHow to More Quickly Sync a 70,000 Image Apple Photos Library
iCloud Photo Library is a glorious thing. With a few dollars a month, you can have all of your photos swooshing up and down to the cloud, resident on all of your devices. On each device, you can choose whether to keep the originals or to let Apple use their algorithms to optimize your photo […]
Continue readingRings by Kamil Kucma
UPDATE: Since I wrote this post (and recorded for the podcast) an update for Rings has appeared which claims to fix the in-app purchase bug and also streamlines some other parts of the app. I’m not a “gamer” by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like to while away some time playing logic […]
Continue readingCyber Essentials
The management at my work often brings up the topic of training. While for many years it was a hollow promise, in recent years there has been a real push on staff to take training courses, and not just those directly relevant to their current roles. Anything that is relevant to our company is considered […]
Continue readingCES 2018: Bellus3D Face Scanning
Allison interviews Helen Tahn from Bellus3D about their new 3D face scanning technology. The Bellus3D Face Camera Pro is an easy-to-use, high-quality, and affordable 3D camera designed for self-scanning using selected Android and Windows OS 10 devices. To capture your face, you attach the Face Camera Pro to a smartphone or tablet, turn your head […]
Continue readingStretch Timer by Allister Jenks
In my story about PaintCode, I mentioned I had rewritten an app that I use for timing my muscle stretches. I’d like to tell you about that app now, in a bit of an ‘advertorial’. I first wrote the app in 2016 when I was having back trouble, and part of the treatment for this […]
Continue readingApple Watch Health Tracking
Since I got my first Apple Watch two and a half years ago, one of my primary uses of it has been activity tracking. Those three coloured rings drive me to move during my day for the payoff of seeing them completed before bedtime. I have been managing over 3000 kilojoules a day (about 717 calories) by extending my daily commute and lunchtime walking. Part of the process is seeing the various reminders during the day – time to stand, and the occasional encouragement to get active. Plus the frequent notifications that friends have completed workouts. I’m looking at you, Allison.
Early in December I turned off all activity related notifications and removed the activity ring complication from my watch face. I did not want constant reminders that I could NOT meet my goals.
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