Category: Technology

Yelp to Go

I just learned that the Yelp app on my blackberry is amazing. I don’t even remember how I got it. I think Kat downloaded it in NYC when the browser version was so lame it was unusable.

It finds restaurants near my current location (using cell tower triangulation I’m sure) which would be handy if I could get this bus to pull over for a hot bagel.

I looked up burgers in my town and the first review I hit was by Sally who I think has some kind of yelp jedi level status or something

Wicked cool tool!

Shred Lightly

I learned, the hard way, never to overwhelm a flimsy home paper shredder with a serial shredding job.

First, the thing overheats and shuts down.

Then, it stops autofeeding unless you hit reverse before evert new page.

Then, it ends up being a one-page, reverse-first shredder forever more.  Even though it was designed for 5 pages at a time, and the sad label still says so, even two pages at a time are WAY too much now.

Instead, take large jobs to some place like this – cheap and easy! http://www.absolutedatadestruction.com/

Or have a bonfire, like Caren did!

 

Not So Sharp

In our twenties, my friend Debbie and I went on a multi-month quest to find an elusive item: a graphite pen.  This thing wrote like a pen and produced “pencil” writing that was erasable.  (What can I say? We were nerds.)  We never really found one, although we heard they existed.

Now Sharpie has come out with just this thing.  I was so excited!  (hey some things never change)  Staples didn’t have them so I decided to order on Amazon.  

Good thing I read the reviews -these things are terrible!

http://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Liquid-Mechanical-Pencils-1770244/dp/B003VQHQ8E

The quest continues!

Stop, Hey What’s That Sound?

I learned how to download and re-install SoundMax, the audio driver that recently mysteriously disappeared from my laptop.

HP.com > support and drivers > enter device and operating system > audio drivers

That kept bombing out until I realized the secret: Do NOT do this from Google Chrome!  Worked like a charm with my antique browser: IE 6!

“Image Acquisition is the Problem”

That’s a quote from a tactful co-worker, when I was trying to figure out why sometimes I can copy/paste a photo from a web page into an email and sometimes not.  It turns out that sometimes the thing I’m clicking on represents a link, not a photo (such as a .jpg file), so I have to make that distinction before I pick it up.

PowerPoint to Visio

Barbara learned, and taught me, how to convert PowerPoint to Visio:

  • Open *ppt file
  • Edit > select all
  • Edit > copy
  • Open blank visio file
  • Edit > paste
  • Stretch diagram to fit page, if needed
  • Edit > Select all (one big blob selected)
  • From Visio toolbar:  Shape > Grouping > Ungroup

TA DA! All the little boxes and text are separate units to be manipulated as I wish.



Step AWAY from the Blackberry!

I learned another reason not to check the blackberry late at night.  By checking a new text message, I accidentally and unknowingly dialed the Loved One who had texted me, and then went, clueless, off to bed.  That left her confused and concerned.  Sorry Sweetie!

And if you want to know WHY we keep checking for new messages, it’s really well explained here:

http://ww.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=129384107

Look for the part around this  “GROSS: I always think maybe it’ll be a little gift there, like some really wonderful message, something like really interesting and fascinating or somebody I’m dying to hear from.”