Worth Sharing Again: A Few of My Favorite Tech Choices

 

Over the years I have developed some strong opinions about my tech tools. And sometimes my choices surprise my friends or relatives, requiring me to explain myself! In a few cases I decided to elaborate, once and for all, by capturing a complete explanation in a blog post. Below are four such explanations that I believe are Worth Sharing again. I hope you find them interesting or enlightening!

• One Year Later: How Our Chromebook is Working Out

Chromebooks are low-cost, secure, fast and tough enough for schools to buy them and pass them out to students! So what's so great about them? This article summarizes the benefits my wife and I have found.

• Goodbye Facebook. Hello Bluesky!

Zuckerberg's Facebook is a cesspool of misinformation and purposely "sticky" garbage. Learn all about Bluesky, a grown-up alternative to Facebook that's populated by folks with generally positive vibes.

• Replacing Google Play Music: How I Store & Stream 22 GB of My Own Music (MP3s) for a One-Time Cost of $7.99 [now $14.99]

The title says it all. Learn how you can rip all those tracks from your CDs and stream them yourself for the one time cost of just $14.99 (... up from $7.99 when the article was first posted).

• 11 Apps I Use Almost Every Day

This is a review of my favorite apps -- little power houses that help me do all sorts of good stuff. Maybe you'll find one or two that are new to you! 

In Case You Missed Them: Top 5 Articles Worth Sharing in 2023

This year I found all kinds of stuff worth sharing, from the cosmic & philosophical to the nitty-gritty &  practical. In case you missed them, here are my picks for the top five articles I posted in 2023. Hope you find them interesting!

Inside the Black Box: Thoughts on Judgement, Intuition, Synthesis & Artificial Intelligence

Go to article: Inside the Black Box...

The end of 2022 (November 30, to be exact) saw the introduction of Chat GPT. After playing around with it a while, I shared my reactions and discussed what I saw as the implications for content creators. See: Inside the Black Box: Thoughts on Judgement, Intuition, Synthesis & Artificial Intelligence

Bonus: Check out ChatGPT is one year old. Here’s how it changed the tech world. from Ars Technica.

Smart speaker not useful? Give it more smart things to control!

Go to article: Smart speaker not useful? 

As my wife will tell you, I am a super-geeky early adopter of all kinds of tech gizmos and gadgets. Some are productivity enhancers and others are just cool, fun conveniences to have in our house. Given my own relationship with smart things, I am always amazed when someone says, "I got one of those smart speakers [Google Home, Amazon Echo, etc.] and I don't think it's all that useful."  My reaction: "What!! Well, you need to fire up your imagination and put these things to work for your family!"

In the article Smart speaker not useful? Give it more smart things to control! I share a typical "day in the life..." of our smart speakers & connected devices. It's loaded with practical, real-world applications that you can apply to your home to make your smart things more useful.  

A Curated, 21-Video Study Guide for Absolute AI (Artificial Intelligence) Newbies: What It Is, Where You Can Play with It & How We Might Want to Shape Its Role in Our Lives

Go to article: A Curated, 21 Video Study Guide...

The title says it all: This is my easy-to-assimilate video intro to AI (artificial intelligence).  

One Year Later: How Our Chromebook is Working Out

Go to article: One Year Later...

That graphic above tells the story: No Windows, Only Chromebook: 1 Year Later.  This is my review of our new life without Windows in Google's Chrome OS world. (Spoiler: It's just fine!)

My Three Websites: A Lot of Stuff Worth Sharing

Go to article: My Three Websites...

In this article, I remind readers that I have a couple of other "frozen" websites that are loaded with tools and information to help manage projects and teams. 

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So that's it. Just wanted to make sure you didn't miss these articles that you might find useful or thought-provoking. 

Happy Holidays!

One Year Later: How Our Chromebook is Working Out

Windows PC? What Windows PC?

It's been a full year since we've used our Windows PC. Since then we've been all Chromebook, all the time! I use it for research and content creation, my wife uses it for online purchases and financial management and we both occasionally use it for social media, browsing, etc. Last year I documented the research and reasoning behind this decision to switch and the specific Asus Chromebook we bought. (See Secure, Fast & Customizable: Why I Ditched My Windows PC for a Hot Rod Chromebook.)

Living with Our Chromebook

So what's life been like without a Windows PC? In a nutshell, it's been great! Here's a summary of benefits and a single challenge.

The Benefits

• It's just more peaceful! There are no more breathless notifications from the tech press or emailed warnings about a potential hack of the OS such as we had been vigilantly tracking when we were beleaguered citizens in the world of Windows.
• Frequent, automatic updates of the ChromeOS pushed by Google which bring up-to-the-minute security protection and a regular stream of new features which are always fun to investigate.
• Ability to seamlessly use our Android apps and have app data instantly updated across all our devices (phones and tablets).

For example when I have ideas about a new article, I can speak them to my Google smart home speaker and it will add it to my Google Keep "Ideas List." Later, if I'm on the go, I can flesh out the idea by dictating directly into Keep using the mic on my phone's Gboard. When I get home I can kick back on my recliner and use my Samsung tablet to research and further expand the outline/draft in Keep. When it's time to pull in images that will be part of the article and prep them using Google's online Drawing tool, I simply fire up the Chromebook and use its large screen and mouse to work with them. Eventually, when the article is close to completion, I pour everything I've assembled in Keep (and sometimes drafted using Google Docs) into my Google Blogger website, add any graphics I've built then finalize the post using my tablet and my Chromebook. And throughout this process, while I'm using any of these devices, I can see and handle incoming texts/voicemails from Google Voice and emails from my Gmail. In short, my Chromebook is seamlessly integrated into my Android-based workflow! 

 

My Document Work Flow:
from Phone to Tablet to Chromebook & Back

• Super fast performance ... Did I mention it's fast.. really fast?! No lags or waits for hunks of software to load. In fact, sometimes I feel like it's challenging me to keep up!
• Very simple sharing of our Chromebook between two separate, independently secure user accounts. In the morning we both just sign in and we each take turns throughout the day jumping into our own unique, customized desktop and workspace as needed. It feels like we have two separate machines.
• There's none of that lead weight feeling when I switch to using my computer from using my tablet or phone. In the past my fast tablet and phone apps would help me breeze along doing all sorts of different chores, including making notes and drafting publications. But when I fired up my Windows PC to finalize a document or assemble a bunch of elements into a single graphic, it felt as though I were trying to walk with lead weights on my feet. Everything slowed down and I had to wait for security updates, apps and other stuff to load. It simply took the swiftness, efficiency and spontaneity out of whatever I was doing. Now that particular computer speed bump is gone! My creation process is seamless from brainstorming through finalization.

A Single, Easily-Overcome Challenge

After many years of using TurboTax we had developed the habit of buying the disc, installing it on our Windows PC, updating it with state and local files and then using it to prepare our taxes. But this year that was not possible, since the disc-based version is only available for Windows and Mac machines. Chromebook users must use the online version of TurboTax. While this online version had always been an option, we have been hesitant to use it for security reasons. In fact, we have always made sure our Windows PC was completely offline while we are working on our taxes. 

So this year we had to remind ourselves that most experts regard the Chromebook, with its frequent security updates, as a far safer online machine than either Windows or Mac PCs. And we also reminded ourselves that millions of people are already using TurboTax's online option so their extra stringent security measures are essential to their existence as a business. The bottom line: We took the plunge, set up the account and were pleasantly surprised to find the online TurboTax user interface was pretty much the same as the disc-based version. We filed our taxes quickly and without any glitches!

The Moral of the Story

In sum, our first year with our new Chromebook has proven to be quite painless and has even held a few pleasant surprises. In particular, the Android/Chrome OS interoperability among devices is super convenient. So if you're a Windows user, like we were, I don't think you should hesitate to take the leap to a Chromebook when it's time for that new computer. 

Just ask yourself this question: Do I really have any programs or chores that I can only run on a Windows PC or Mac, as opposed to using online or with a Chromebook? If you have none, then let that old PC or Mac go and get yourself a speedy and secure Chromebook! But do take your time to shop around and get a machine that has the horsepower to meet your needs and the lifespan to receive security updates for the many years that you will probably be enjoying it.

For a deep dive into the technical issues and shopping considerations for Chromebook buyers, see my article Secure, Fast & Customizable: Why I Ditched My Windows PC for a Hot Rod Chromebook.

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But don't simply take my word for it! See:

• Why a Chromebook Is Probably All You Need (from CNET)
• 5 reasons why Chromebooks are the perfect laptop for most people (from ZDNET)

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Related Articles from this Website

• Secure, Fast & Customizable: Why I Ditched My Windows PC for a Hot Rod Chromebook
• Quick-Reference PDF: A Dozen Free Google Apps to Keep Your Family or Team Organized
• A Dozen Free Google Apps to Keep Your Family or Team Organized [Part 1 of 2]
• A Dozen Free Google Apps to Keep Your Family or Team Organized [Part 2 of 2]
• Why I Use Google Photos, not Facebook, to Share Photos  

In Case You Missed Them: My Best Articles of 2022

Here are five articles that I spent a lot of time researching and writing in 2022. They are all loaded with links that will take you even deeper into the topics presented. I'm proud of these and I hope you find them informative. Happy New Year! 🎉 🎆 😁

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Replacing Google Play Music: How I Store & Stream 22 GB of My Own Music (MP3s) for a One-Time Cost of $7.99

[excerpt] "Here are the key components of my Google Play Music replacement:

• CloudPlayer Platinum app: $7.99 one-time purchase
• 15 GB Google Drive cloud storage account: Free
• 5 GB Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage account: Free
• 2 GB Dropbox cloud storage account: Free
• [for buying new music] Mp3Caprice.com account: $0.12 - 0.22 (Yes, that's 12 - 22 cents!!) per MP3 song, one-time purchase fee

Using the components above, I am able to do pretty much everything I was able to do with Google Play Music, including casting music to any cast-enabled device...."

[Read the full article here.] 

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Become an armchair expatriate with these 55 video series that'll take you out of the U.S. & around the world!

[excerpt] "Below is a list of 55 fictional series we have seen and recommend, categorized by the part of the world to which they will take you. The majority of these are from two low-cost sources: Acorn TV ($5.99/month) and PBS Passport ($5/month). A few are from Hulu and Netflix. ..." 

[Read the full article here.] 

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Music to Get Lost In: A Brief Introduction to Jam Bands

[excerpt] "I like all kinds of music: blues, rock, psychedelic, R&B, jazz and occasionally even folk/bluegrass and their offshoots. And I especially like long, well-developed performances that I can get lost in -- the kind of music that musicians love playing as they engage a melody and soar side by side like the Blue Angels in tight formation and then diverge into solo musical loops and barrel rolls, eventually converging back at the melody where they started. This kind of musical aerobatics is the domain of the jam band..."  NOTE: Article includes links to 9 full-length pieces of music from my favorite jam bands. 

[Read the full article here.] 

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Secure, Fast & Customizable: Why I Ditched My Windows PC for a Hot Rod Chromebook

[excerpt] "[In this comprehensive article]...you can skim through the stuff in bold to find the big ideas. Or you can just scroll down to one of these main sections:

• After 30 years, enough with Windows, already!
• Chromebooks dominate in education because they're powerful & easy to use.
• Chromebooks are REALLY secure.
• Chromebooks are fast! (Thanks to the ChromeOS.)
• Chromebooks are customizable.
• Buyer beware! It may be cheap, but when does that low-cost Chromebook expire?
• My Chromebook: Part of a Powerful Ecosystem of Google Tools
• Final Thoughts: How 40 Years of Personal Computing Has Led Me to a Chromebook
• Bonus Tip: Don't throw away that old Windows PC or Mac. You might be able to make it a Chromebook!

[FYI: This article contains over 60 links to references for further research. Enjoy!]"

 [Read the full article here.] 

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Stuck waiting? Doing mindless chores? Don't be frustrated or bored: Fire up a podcast & learn or just be entertained.

[excerpt] "... Podcasts are the answer to dealing with mental "downtime." They give you your own custom-tailored content stream which you can access at your own pace and on your own schedule. Specifically: 

• You can pause them when you need to switch your attention to your otherwise boring chore and then pick them up later. 
• If you miss something because your chore needs you for a few minutes, you can easily "rewind" the podcast and go back and repeat what you missed.
• You can listen to them at high speed, without chipmunk voices, but with the pauses and spaces squeezed out. (See the settings in your podcast player or this on Google Podcasts' "Podcast Controls" from PC Mag, for details.)
• You can save them for later and even binge listen to a whole series you may have missed.  
• With today's smart speakers (Google Home, Amazon Echo, etc.) you can do all of the above completely hands free while you move around your house. 
• Using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay you can start or continue listening to your Google Podcasts (and most other podcast apps) while you drive. 

How to Get Started 

Are you new to podcasts? Here's an easy way to get started... "

 [Read the full article here.] 

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See also:

• [from December, 2021] In Case You Missed Them: Some Ideas “Worth Sharing” from the Past Couple of Years

Secure, Fast & Customizable: Why I Ditched My Windows PC for a Hot Rod Chromebook

Overview

In this article I explain why, after over 40 years using personal computers (mostly Windows-based), I  switched to a powerhouse Chromebook. And I'm loving it! If you're in a hurry (and you're willing to skip my carefully-crafted prose😞) you can skim through the stuff in bold to find the big ideas. Or you can just scroll down to one of these main sections:

• After 30 years, enough with Windows, already!
• Chromebooks dominate in education because they're powerful & easy to use.
• Chromebooks are REALLY secure.
• Chromebooks are fast! (Thanks to the ChromeOS.)
• Chromebooks are customizable.
• Buyer beware! It may be cheap, but when does that low-cost Chromebook expire?
• My Chromebook: Part of a Powerful Ecosystem of Google Tools
• Final Thoughts: How 40 Years of Personal Computing Has Led Me to a Chromebook
• Bonus Tip: Don't throw away that old Windows PC or Mac. You might be able to make it a Chromebook!

[FYI: This article contains over 60 links to references for further research. Enjoy!]

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