Techish

AS SEEN ON HLN: Tips for scoring all the gadgets you need for school or work from home

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Laptops are the new T.P. shortage, everyone’s stocking up as supply chain issues and trade tariffs add to months-long delays in meeting meteoric demand due to the pandemic.  My mantra here is GO CHROME AT HOME. You can still find some fabulous Chromebooks that can do everything most students — especially K-8 need —  for a fraction of the cost.  But not all lower-priced Chromebook models are the same — and there’s some buyer-beware advice especially this Holiday weekend.  There are very few in-stock at most big box stores — and the ones you'll see discounted at prices less than $200 — might not last through the end of this year, let alone through the school year.  Go for names you ... Read more

Disaster Tech for Smoke, Hurricanes, and LIFE in 2020

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Fires in California. Unsurvivable hurricane storm surge in Louisiana. Flooding. Tornadoes. The worst hurricane – and worst hurricane season – the U.S. has ever seen. Oh, and there’s also a pandemic in full swing. If you don’t have an emergency plan to help you survive a disaster, you need to look to that STAT. The emergencies are coming faster than the news can hype them. Is this an apocalypse? Global warming? Retribution from the gods? Whatever reasoning you subscribe to, it’s time to gear up. The right gear can make the difference between having water and not, getting rescued and being stranded, knowing what’s coming and being caught unawares. And once the disaster is upon you, it’s ... Read more

HOW TO: Set Up a Safe, Ergonomic School-from-Home Workstation

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In the 1980s and 1990s entire industries went digital when computers hit the scene. People stopped using typewriters, light boards, and pencils and started sitting at computers. It was amazing. And, we all soon learned, it had a dark side: Huge numbers of people – me included – developed crippling injuries from what all now know were computer-related repetitive strain. It took years of lawsuits, permanent injury, research, and suffering before we learned that these injuries, tragedies really, could have been easily prevented. This year, an entire generation of children are making the shift from going to school – full of varied kinetic motion – to remote learning at home – rife with the ... Read more

Back to School At Home? These 10 gadgets help make distance learning less stressful:

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Whether your child’s just starting kindergarten or going back to college — at home — we’re all trying to figure out this unwieldy mess that is the new school year right now. Sure, most school districts will furnish laptops and Wi-Fi hot spots to students to help bridge the digital divide — but many schools still expect families to have their own devices, plus access to the Internet. They also expect parents to navigate the whole online world and become overnight IT pros to manage it all too. I know, it's overwhelming. As a mom and tenured tech-life journalist, I've gone hands-on with hundreds of gadgets and tools these past few months. My main goal? Help ease the stress of being ... Read more

The pandemic’s reshaping back-to-school shopping. Here’s how to take advantage of it:

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Leave it to a pandemic to upend yet another American tradition: Back-to-school shopping. Oh, it’s still happening. It just looks different than say — every mad-dash parent scramble for school supplies over the last century. It comes with a higher price tag and critical shortages too.  With so many students starting this new school year at home, the National Retail Federation (NRF) says spending could top 100-billion dollars. That number breaks all kinds of records as parents and college students ditch the No. 2 pencils and trips to Forever 21 for more pricey supplies like laptops and desks.  On top of it all, there’s a laptop shortage, as supply chain issues and trade tariffs on China ... Read more

2020’s Best Back-to-School-But-Stay-at-Home Online Resources:

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With so many schools — across all grade-levels — planning to start the new academic year with distance learning, parents everywhere are scrambling for resources. It doesn't matter really whether your child’s just starting kindergarten or going back to college — at home — we’re all trying to figure out this unwieldy mess that is school right now. The good news? There’s an abundance of free — or low cost - online resource to ease feeling so stressed-out and overwhelmed. Here are several links, and we'll keep adding them here too! WideOpenSchool.org A great place to start is with WideOpenSchool-dot-org. It’s a fairly new resource out of Bay Area based Common-Sense Media that features a ... Read more

5 Truths And 5 Lies You Might Be Spreading on Social Media About COVID-19

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It’s being called the worst pandemic in modern history. I’m not talking about COVID-19 — thought it most certainly applies here too — I’m talking about the dangerous, disturbing and even deadly spread of misinformation online.  You can’t go on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter — to name a few — without seeing examples of it all over the place, from people reposting old photos as if it’s current news and information to the more nefarious trolls, bots, deepfakes, and online agitators.  No matter how much big tech companies and others pledge to contain this toxic spread, it’s up to us to actually do something about it. TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR OWN FEEDS We’ve all done it — spotted that headline, ... Read more

HOW TO: Keep your pets safe this summer – tools to deal with fireworks, heatstroke, and more

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It was one of my darkest days. My beloved Malamute, Nik, was old. She had no patience for the outing on my agenda, preferring the shade of her favorite tree. So, I left her in the yard with plenty of water, snacks, and toys. It was early summer and the day was cool. By the time I got home, though, she was unresponsive. Heatstroke. I rushed her to the vet, where she spent several hours on an IV and languishing in an ice bath. She recovered. But I could have lost her. And the emergency bill was huge. “Dogs are not people,” says Paul Brazzell, veterinary consultant, and JustAnswer pet expert. “They function very differently. Heatstroke is at the top of my list of summer pet hazards.” But his ... Read more

Road Trip Ready? Here’s what to bring – and do – to stay safe!

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After four months of staring at the same four walls — walls you have scrubbed, painted, and the kids are climbing — literally(!) — you’re ready for a change of scenery. You and everyone else too. Arrivalist’s Daily Travel Index shows nearly 40-million Americans plan to hit the road this Fourth of July weekend. Even though air travel is on a steady climb back up in recent weeks, MMGY Global’s Travel Safety Barometer also predicts road trips and RV travel to National Parks and “less crowded destinations” will dominate summer, while AAA shows Independence Day as the biggest road trip event of 2020 so far. If you’re feeling the need to be anywhere but home this summer — remember we’re ... Read more

Ready to travel? I flew during a pandemic–here’s what I used to stay safe!

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I fly around 10,000 miles a month for work. When COVID-19 grounded non-essential travel in mid-March, I did what I had to do: Hunkered down, followed shelter-in-place orders, and researched tools to help make it safe-ish to travel again. I also worried about work. As a freelancer, I wondered how many jobs I could turn down before feeling like I absolutely needed to get on a plane for work again. The answer to that question came earlier this month. I didn’t venture more than 20-miles away from my home in Oakland, California for more than three months. Then, on June 11th, with a big project at stake, I stepped out of my house, into a mostly empty Oakland International Airport, and onto a ... Read more

How to Meditate: A Beginner’s Guide

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Meditation doesn't have to be scary, or complicated, or even difficult. It can be exactly what you need it to be in any given moment once you realize just how simple and straightforward the practice really is. Here are a few things I've learned that may help you start your own meditation journey, and some resources to help you get started. You're not fixing anything I started meditating because I thought it could fix me. Fix my anxiety, my rumination, my mood, or whatever else what so out of whack inside my head. You'll learn quickly, as I did, that practicing meditation isn't an exercise in correcting thoughts but accepting them. I know how ridiculous that sounds when you feel like all ... Read more

HOW TO: Be an ally to the cause

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 By Christina X. Wood We are all angry, furious really, about the injustice, the lies, the intimidation, and the brutality we see unfolding in the news and in our social media feeds daily. In the wake of the George Floyd murders, our collective fury erupted into the streets. And when we got there, it was dangerous. My daughter (21) went to a protest and, while trying to be an ally to a black man there who was being threatened by an armed police officer, was thrown against a wall, threatened, and “gassed.” (According to news reports, this was inert gas.) She wasn’t hurt. The black man, though, was arrested at gunpoint. “He was saying the same things as me. ... Read more

Tele-Trends? Virtual services boom, including auto mechanics, baby-sitters, and summer camp

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Tele-what? You know all those services that have always been in-person – but then weren’t for a while due to the coronavirus and sheltering-in-place? Things like going to the dentist, getting your haircut, getting your car fixed, going to a lawyer? Well, you won’t believe how many of these – and more – are now available online. I’ve been covering Telemedicine apps that connect people to doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, and therapists over via text, phone, or by video chat for more than a decade now – but they’ve only gone mainstream in the past few months. Lately, we’re seeing a 500%-to-800% uptick in traffic across most telehealth sites since the pandemic began. People still need to see ... Read more

JENN’S PICKS: June’s Best Gadgets

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We made it through June (almost)! Yes, celebrations are hard right now — hard to pull off and sometimes difficult to enjoy — but we don’t want to forget about our amazing dads, equally awesome new grads and all the summer fun the best gadgets around can make even better.  If pandemic times have taught us anything about our gadgets, it’s that we don’t need every new-fangled techy-toy to come along. Just the ones that help us stay healthy, connected, and having a blast, no matter what. Here at the 10 best gadgets you can still get in time to help with all of those goals. KEEP IT CLEAN Monos CleanPod UVC Sterilizer One of the hottest new gadgets around is a hairbrush-sized, ... Read more

HOW TO: Get Cash For Your Trash!

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There’s nothing like being stuck at home to force you into finally doing something about the clutter you’ve been stashing in closets and under the bed for years. Deep cleaning our homes – like baking – has emerged as one of the universal human responses to this pandemic, according to recent data. The JustAnswer Art Appraisal team has been fielding something like 4,000 questions a week from people wondering if any of their clutter qualifies as vintage, collectible, or – better still – rare art. JustAnswer antique appraisers get 4,000 questions a week around hidden treasures have uncovered in their own homes. Some are worth millions. Often, the answer is a startling, “Yes!” One man in ... Read more

HOW TO: Use this tech to find a local demonstration + stay informed and safe at a protest

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I have covered more than 100 protests in my tenure as a general assignment news reporter, before turning my focus to tech. Most were peaceful, but I’ve been caught in the midst of the melee, too – pelted with rocks, tear-gassed, and attacked by extremists co-opting nonviolent marches to create chaos nonrelated to the cause. What I learned early on, long before the days of smartphones and social media, is that keeping track of what’s going on – even along the same city block – can be next to impossible. Just gathering information, law enforcement would often tell me one thing, the protest organizers another, and dozens more leaders, marchers, and watchdog groups would say something ... Read more