Techish

ONLINE SHOPPING? Watch out for these SCAMS!

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When you’re online shopping on Cyber Monday, it’s easy to get carried away in the excitement and potentially fall for a scam. EMAIL SCAMS Look out for links and attachments in emails or popups that could contain malware that steals your credit card information. For example, if you get an email that says it’s from a retailer with a promotion or "free offer" that looks skeptical or too good to be true, NEVER click on the link. Visit the retailer’s website directly by typing its name in your browser. Make sure the URL (web address) starts with "https" and that there are no other misspellings in the company name. Also, double-check that the company has a phone number to call if there are ... Read more

Simple tech tools to make your holidays feel “almost” normal!

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Everything really is different heading into this Holiday Season. But that doesn't mean it has to suck. Here are 11 simple tech tools to make your holidays feel “almost” normal. 1. FILL YOUR HOME WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC Piping music into every room of your home used to cost thousands of dollars, but not anymore! The GED LED+ Speaker bulb (on sale for around $25 on Amazon right now) is a bright light with an onboard Bluetooth speaker built-in. Just screw the bulb into any lamp or light fixture, pair it with Bluetooth on your mobile device, and just like that, you get all your favorite tunes in any room you want. You can pair up to ten bulbs and don’t need any extra apps, wires, or ... Read more

Techish word of the week: “Friluftsliv”

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Our Techish word of the week may have you doing a double — or even triple take — to read it, but it likely describes a new way of life for you and yours. The word is "friluftsliv." Rolls off the tongue, right? You pronounce it "free-lufts-liv." Translated from Norwegian, it means open-air or outdoor living. This isn't just for the lucky ones who live in warm climates either. Friluftsliv means spending more time outside no matter what — rain, snow, clouds, or sunny skies. The concept originated in Scandinavia, but it's pretty commonplace in areas like Alaska (where Jennifer grew up and waves to us from Prudhoe Bay in the photo above) and the Pacific Northwest (where I live). It may ... Read more

Mood-boosting gadgets to help you survive until 2021

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It has been a long, long year. The doom scrolling, the isolation, the election madness, and the fear have been brutal. But the end of 2020 is in sight. Maybe next year won’t be such an apocalypse? Maybe 2021 will be all kittens, hope scrolling, and sunshine? We can only hope. What we can do is try every possible mood booster available to order online. And, while you’re at it, load the holiday gift basket with gear that will help your friends and family go into 2021 in a good mood? I rounded up some fun, functional, mood boosters you can order on Amazon. Nothing here will break the bank. But it will improve the mood. Prices on these gadgets are subject to change, this is what they were at ... Read more

HOW TO: Zoom-free ways to connect with family even when you’re far apart

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A year ago most of us had never heard of Zoom, and no one would have been able to coerce any of us into a video gym class or Sunday dinner over Zoom. But here we are. “Brady Bunch boxes” has become a term we toss casually into conversation, and everyone has a preferred brand of webcam. By next year, Zoom Fatigue will make into the Merck Manual as a real health condition. Zoom pushback has already started. Another Zoom call after a day of school or work on Zoom? No one has it in them anymore. It’s great to see everyone. But sitting in front of a screen to chat is often boring, hard to pay attention to, and exhausting. There are other ways to connect with the people you love. Because you ... Read more

AAA Holiday Travel Forecast: No “home for the holidays” this year.

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No more sitting in traffic for hours or waiting in a mile-long airport security line. The Thanksgiving travel rush will likely be more of a bust this year. AAA is forecasting a steep drop-off in travel for the upcoming holiday season. No surprise here: COVID is to blame. AAA Travel says the combination of health concerns and high unemployment means fewer Americans traveling to have turkey with family and friends. Not to mention, many states, cities, and counties are increasing their restrictions amid a rise in cases. Just how big of a drop will we see? AAA says there will likely be at least a 10% drop in travel — that would be the biggest one-year decrease since 2008. That 10% includes ... Read more

HOW TO: Unsend an email

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Ever had an email fail? Typos, reply-all gaffes, or accidentally sent a note about your awful boss... TO your awful boss? Now there's a way to undo some emails — before it's too late (on Gmail at least). Gmail has an "Unsend" feature. It's both on the app and the desktop version. Here's how it works on a desktop: First, click on the "Settings" button in the upper right corner. That will bring up the "Quick settings" menu. From there, click "See all settings." Next, scroll down on the "Settings" page to "Undo Send." Bingo! Change the time to 30 seconds, then scroll to the bottom of the page and save your changes. The next time you send an email, this bar will pop ... Read more

Techish Word of the Week: “Gleefreshing”

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Do you have a brighter outlook opening social media for the first (or 27th) time today, compared to a week ago? You aren't the only one, and it's inspired a whole new word. Welcome to gleefreshing. It's the opposite — and much happier sibling of — doomscrolling. Whether you use that word or not, you've likely been doomscrolling for weeks. It's opening up Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or endless news pages with a sense of dread — but doing it anyway. You might be scrolling for minutes on end, only finding negative posts, friends arguing, or another depressing update from news sources. But you just. can't. stop. That's doomscrolling. Gleefreshing, on the other hand, is the act of ... Read more

10 things to do INSTEAD of fighting with “friends” on social media today:

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The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was read ALL the news, then scan ALL the social media. Then, I shared a post along with this personal comment: "It’s hard to believe. What now? Where do we go from here?" I had 56 comments in less than 30 minutes. With the floodgates to politics open, both sides started going at each other. Sigh. Rather than getting into it all over again, I sent thoughts of "love and light and peace" into the page and turned here to write this post instead. Here are ten great things to do right now that don't have anything to do with fighting on Facebook. TURN OFF THE NOISE: Use an app like Freedom or LeechBlock to "turn off" social media ... Read more

HOW TO: Spot fake election news

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I’ve had a ton of conversations on my personal Facebook feed recently where people are genuinely confused about which news outlet to trust. I — and many of my colleagues — have offered several fact-checking and news bias-rating sites, including the Associated Press AP Fact Check, FactCheck.org, Politifact, and AdFontesMedia. USA Today even has its own fact-checking pages and election fact-checking site. Other great go-to’s here include the U.S. Cybersecurity Agency’s rumor control site, web browser plug-in NewsGuard —  which rates more than 4,000 news websites based on their records of publishing accurate information, and Ground News, which shows you how many top outlets have covered a ... Read more

HOW TO: use tele therapy and other online tools to handle #Election2020

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Experts recommend talking with a professional, which is easier than ever these days thanks to “teletherapy.” Online therapy sites such as BetterHealth, Doctor on Demand, Wellnite, Larkr, Real, ReGain, AbleTo and MDLive are affordable, often take insurance, and easy to schedule appointments on. Apps HearMe, Wisdom, and Lyf (iOS and Android) hook you up with a person, or group of people, ready to lend a sympathetic ear and help you talk things through without waiting for an appointment. HearMe lets you chat via anonymous text with a stranger within a minute or two of logging in. Lyf is similar but lets you connect with — and follow — hundreds of other people using the app. Wisdo hooks you up ... Read more

HOW TO: Mute Election Stress

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**This is part 5 of our series on "Election Stress Disorder"** A whole lot of people are turning-off and tuning-out. Some took the day off of work to head outside and stay far away from all things electronic. My 19-year old daughter deleted the top social media apps off of her phone for the week, while my husband turned off all social media and news outlet notifications. Others are simply drowning distractions by hitting the “mute” button on every social media outlet and for all notifications in the settings on their devices. Since that can take a bit of time, other people opt for apps like Freedom, Dewo, FocusMe, and LeechBlock. Each of these work in similar ways — letting you turn ... Read more

Do you have “Election Stress Disorder?”

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Election Day is finally here and most of us are either stressing out about it — or trying not to.  In a year we’ve dealt with banner blows to every aspect of our wellbeing, this is the week of peak anxiety, according to experts. There’s even a term for it — “election stress disorder.”  A recent report by the American Psychological Association shows more than two-thirds — nearly 70% — of American adults say the 2020 U.S. presidential election is a significant source of stress in their lives. The survey shows that anxiety is even worse for people of color.  “It’s a lot of fearfulness, a number of mixed emotions ― people with fear and hypervigilance — constantly searching the news and ... Read more

HOW TO: Use your smartphone to fight skin cancer

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**This story originally posted/aired in USA Today** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKpD3_3BNdY&t=12s   It wasn’t long ago that cell phones were accused of potentially causing cancer. But times have changed, and the National Cancer Institute put many of our cell phone fears to rest. Now, with routine exams and trips to the doctor hampered by a pandemic, new technology and app advances on our very own smartphones may very well be the most important tools we have on hand for screening and early detection. "I'm going to paint a wild picture," Deloitte’s Life Sciences and Health Care, Neal Batra told me over the phone. "Imagine a magical technology that allows you to detect ... Read more

WORD OF THE WEEK: “Sadfishing” – Parents, here’s what you need to know!

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Cue the virtual violins. Sadfishing's a new term for a not-so-new trend on social media — and there's a good chance your teens are doing it. Here's what you need to know:   Sadfishing is a play off of the term catfishing — which is all about luring people with fake images or profiles — usually to get information or money (or both). This version is similar, but with a more psychological focus: Posts may look like a video of a teen crying along with a cryptic caption, or a slideshow of a family tragedy. What isn't clear is whether they are true cries for help, or exaggerated stories for attention. Essentially, sadfishing is when people "fish" for sympathy, attention, or followers by posting ... Read more

Political text messages blowing up your phone? Here’s how to stop them:

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*This story first ran in USA Today.* Set your message notifications to silent, and get ready to ignore a whole bunch of texts. Unless you want a lot of extra reading on your smartphone, that is. Americans are expected to get hit by more than three billion political texts between now and Election Day, and it’s already driving some people (aka, me...) crazy. Here's an unsolicited text -- with an obviously threatening tone -- that my friend Matt received last week: Call and text blocking app RoboKiller put out a new Political Insights Tracker that gives us some pretty keen insight into national data around political text messages and robocalls. What they’ve found is that the sheer ... Read more