Category Archives: Ways to use technology

Dashcams

Blog, Hardware, Ways to use technology

These are popular devices and for good reason. I’ve got one that records front and rear. Just make sure it is discreetly mounted and not right in front of you, like many I see!

Many people ask whether there are dashcams that record all the time and the answer is generally ‘no’ as they are for evidence whilst driving and not security devices.

However Garmin has gone two steps beyond with a dashcam that is designed to be permanently powered and that broadcasts what it sees over the mobile data network so that you can see what it sees from any computer or mobile device.

It can also show you where your car is, alert you if someone else drives it and record any incidents whether the car is moving or not. Sounds amazing.

Potential downsides are that being on all the time will deplete the battery so you need to drive the car a lot and frankly the cost!

But pushing the frontier forward.

Buying stuff for less

Blog, Internet shopping, Ways to use technology

Everything costs more right now, so I thought I’d review what you can do to buy stuff for less.

I’ve covered a few things before, like cashback sites such as topcashback who give you money back on purchases from many websites, price checkers and alerters like camelcamelcamel to check the price history or set a target, but now am going to cover voucher sites.

Voucher sites search for online vouchers around the web so that you can use them for your purchases. Examples are vouchercodes, vouchercloud and myvouchercodes where you search for your retailer and see what vouchers are available. Some times you can get the voucher direct – other times you need to supply an email address.

Paypal has bough Honey, who provide an add-on for your browser. This looks for online deals while you shop and applies vouchers automatically at checkout. For some retailers it also has ‘Gold’, which is a way to get points that can be exchanged for gift cards. Just sits in the background and does its job.

Remember that you can also try to combine all these methods.

Just what to watch on the TV?

Blog, News, Ways to use technology

It seems that we have so much TV that it is hard to find something to watch.

OnTvTonightUK is an app that shows you what’s showing in your region on free digital channels including FreeSat. Select the channels you want to know about, then browse or search.

ReelGood is all about series and films across the major streaming services.

Flixi is about you rating whatever you watch. It then uses this information to recommend new series and movies to you.

Feeding the birds

Blog, Internet, Ways to use technology

I’ve got some bird feeders in my garden and I’ve seen an early announcement of the Bird Buddy, which is a bird feeder with a video camera. But that’s not all, oh no. It has a microphone, sends an alert to your phone over wifi when a bird lands on it, identifies the breed of the bird and allows you to rewind the video in case you miss the feathered visitor.

All this for a projected $199 and they seem to have enough kickstarter funding to start work.

Keep your stuff safe and avoid stolen items

Blog, Internet, Security programs, Ways to use technology

Hopefully we have all got lots of presents. Let’s keep them safe. For protecting/tracing other items, then the UK National Property register at https://www.immobilise.com/ lets you register valuables and helps Police get your stuff back to you.

There is always a danger of buying electronics that are not sold by the rightful owner. One useful site is imeipro.info. This lets you check the IMEI number of a phone (basically its serial number) against a list to see if it has been stolen. It also lets you register that yours has been stolen.

You can find your IMEI by dialling *#06#, on an Android by looking at settings-about phone-all specs-status-imei or for an iphone settings-general-about. Make a note of the number.

Keep your stuff safe and avoid stolen items

Blog, Hardware, Ways to use technology

Hopefully we have all got lots of presents. Let’s keep them safe. For protecting/tracing other items, then the UK National Property register at https://www.immobilise.com/ lets you register valuables and helps Police get your stuff back to you.

There is always a danger of buying electronics that are not sold by the rightful owner. One useful site is imeipro.info. This lets you check the IMEI number of a phone (basically its serial number) against a list to see if it has been stolen. It also lets you register that yours has been stolen.

You can find your IMEI by dialling *#06#, on an Android by looking at settings-about phone-all specs-status-imei or for an iphone settings-general-about. Make a note of the number.

Use your phone to stay safe

Blog, Mobiles, Travel, Ways to use technology

With all the concerns about women being safe whilst out, I’d like to mention HollieGuard, named after Hollie Gizzard who was murdered one night.

Hollieguard is an app for Android and iPhone that uses the features of your phone to help people out and about.

Capabilities in brief include monitoring your progress along a route, sending emergency messages and location to preset numbers, as well as transmitting audio and video.

User reviews vary widely in their opinions but the app developers do respond.

Do have a look

Offline Google Lens

Android, Blog, Ways to use technology

I’ve often mentioned how useful Google Lens is for all sorts of tasks like identifying things, translation, etc. But what if you are out of mobile range or it’s a photo you got from somewhere else?

Well the good news is that if you photograph what you want to work on, then you can do that when the connection is back. Simply swipe up in the picture area to see all the photos on your camera. Now just tap on one and Goole Lens will process it as if you were pointing your phone at it.