Techreluctant.com

Maybe you don’t even know that your phone is probably capable of T9, or predictive text. T9 actually stands for Text on 9 Keys, which is the format of the normal cellphone keypad. If you set your phone to use T9 (check your user manual or google your specific phone for that), you can greatly increase your texting speed but it helps to know some basics first.

T9 allows you to type on your cellphone’s keypad using only one tap per key. Normally, to type the word “bet” you need to tap the 2 (abc) twice to get the letter “b”, then the 3 (def) twice to get the letter “e” then the 8 (tuv) once to type the letter “t”.  With T9, you would just hit the 2 then the 3 then the 8. Predictive text will give you the most likely word you are trying to type and if it’s not the one you want, just hit the Next key (cellphone dependent but most likely down arrow, #, *, 0, or +key) to go to the next possible word, based on the numbers you’ve pressed.

Newer cellphones usually have T9 that will adapt to your texting and start to predict words based on the ones you most use. They have thousands of words but sometimes it won’t know the word. In such cases you’ll have to type in the word yourself. Usually you will be asked if you want to add a word. T9 even understands emoticons and chat phrases like LOL. If you want to type numbers, just hold down on the number key you want.

It’s one thing to tell you about T9 but if you want to know more and maybe practice a bit with an interactive web page, check out T9’s Learn Page.  Happy texting (or 42779 8398464)!

Ever google something and down drops your past search history including “homemade hemorrhoid treatments”, all while your boss is sitting next to you at the computer? No? Me either, but I have been appalled when some of my past google searches appeared onscreen. I mean the things you can conceivably google in a day could run from chicken recipes to sexual positions so every now and then it’s a good idea to clear those out. The search box on the Google homepage displays suggestions to help you search and they come from more popular searches but also from your own previous searches. But starting afresh with google is as simple as a few clicks, but which clicks depend on what browser you’re using.

In Firefox:

• Click the Tools menu at the top of the browser
• Click Clear Private Data.
• Select Saved Form and Search History.
• Click the Clear Private Data Now button.

In Internet Explorer 6:

• Click the Tools menu at the top of the browser.
• Select Internet Options.
• Click the Content tab.
• Click the AutoComplete button.
• Click the Clear Forms button.

In Internet Explorer 7:

• Click the Tools menu.
• Select Delete Browsing History .
• Click the Delete forms button.
• Click Yes.
• Press the Close button.

Phew, now no one needs to know about those searches you’ve been doing on what to do after you’ve talked with an alien. But good luck with that.

Okay, it’s actually Saturday now but better late than never. Coldplay has decided to give their fans a thank you and is providing their live album, LeftRightLeftRightLeft, for free to download (or free CDs at their concerts). This offer is good until their last show of 2009. I’m downloading it as I type this. Enjoy!

There are thousands of recipe sites on the Internet but I always keep coming back to allrecipes.com when I’m stuck for what to have for supper. You can browse, or type search by the ingredients you have on hand. If you find something you like you can check out recipes that are similar to it and best of all the reviews tell you if the dish is really tasty, and if something can be done to make it even better. I have a few recipe books but more often than not, I’ll go to allrecipes.com and do a quick search.  I even have it as an app on my iPod Touch. If only allrecipes.com could cook for me too.

When we go to my parents’ house in Aspen Cove for a visit, my son will always ask how to pause the TV while he goes to the bathroom. He can’t because they don’t have a PVR like we do here at home. The boy has been spoiled but so have I. I love my PVR or Personal Video Recorder. Such a device is sometimes called a DVR or Digital Video Recorder, depending on where you get it from. It is a recorder for your television that records shows on a hard drive. This means you can keep a lot of shows on the disk (50 hours or more of regular TV but much less than that when you are recording HD shows). You can also get, as mine is, a dual-tuner DVR so you can watch one show while recording another, record two shows at once, or record two shows while watching another you have recorded previously. You can also, as pointed out before, pause and rewind live TV. This is because the DVR records the last 45 minutes of whatever channel you are watching,  (or however many minutes you’ve been watching that channel, if it’s less than 45). It is a wonderful and convenient thing, especially when you have small children and you never know what crazy thing might interrupt your show. The DVR also includes an interactive channel guide which allows you to search for programs and use one button to record shows or to choose to record an entire series. Shows can pile up there too when you know they’re being recorded but you don’t get around to watching them. Just ask my PVR with its 23 episodes of Coronation Street waiting to be watched. Here’s a Rogers commercial about their PVR:

A PVR costs extra money for the service and to rent or buy the actual recorder but if you like to watch TV, and can’t always get to watch it when you want, a PVR can be a very convenient option.

I’ll be honest, I just found this one out recently. My cellphone is probably one of my least used pieces of technology, or at least it was until I just got my new phone recently, which I am loving. Anyway, maybe you don’t know about this trick either. If you want to get a list of recent calls, just press your Talk/Send/Picture of a phone button (whatever it is you press when you talk on your cellphone). A list of recent calls will come up, including incoming and outgoing on many phones . Just scroll to the number you’re looking for and press Talk again to call that number. Wow, could I have saved a lot of time knowing this before. Hopefully you can save some time and trouble too.

When this one came out, because I had both a small child and a pet, I got blasted with it. But I quickly checked it out and discovered that it wasn’t true (didn’t stop these emails coming to me, though).

Wet Jet and the danger they cause

Just in case you have pets or small children around.

This is scary…

I recently had a neighbor who had to have their 5-year old German Shepherd dog put down due to liver failure. The dog was completely healthy until a few weeks ago, so they had a necropsy done to see what the cause was. The liver levels were unbelievable, as if the dog had ingested poison of some kind. The dog is kept inside, and when he’s outside, someone’s with him, so the idea of him getting into something unknown was hard to believe.My neighbor started going through all the items in the house. When he got to the Swiffer Wetjet, he noticed, in very tiny print, a warning which stated may be harmful to small children and animals.” He called the company to ask what the contents of the cleaning agent are and was astounded to find out that antifreeze is one of the ingredients. ( Actually he was told it’s a compound which is one molecule away from antifreeze.) Therefore, just by the dog walking on the floor cleaned with the solution, then licking it’s own paws, it ingested enough of the solution to destroy its liver.

Soon after his dog’s death, his housekeepers’ two cats also died of liver failure. They both used the Swiffer Wetjet for quick cleanups on their floors. Necropsies weren’t done on the cats, so they couldn’t file a lawsuit, but he asked that we spread the word to as many others as possible so that they don t lose their animals. This is equally harmful to babies and small children that play on the floor a lot and put their fingers in their mouths a lot.

PLEASE, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE BABIES, SMALL CHILDREN OR OWN A PET PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON!

The truth is that, according to the ASPCA Poison Control Center, Swiffer WetJet is safe to use on your floors, even if you have a pet or small child (but keep the bottle of liquid away, you don’t want a small child getting hold of that). One of the ingredients of Swiffer WetJet (propylene glycol n-butyl/propyl ether) sounds something like ethylene glycol, the ingredient in antifreeze that has led to the deaths of so many pets. But it’s not the same thing. So, if you receive this email, please don’t pass it on.

When you get a new computer you often get a free trial of an office software suite such as Microsoft’s Office. That’s a suite of tools like a word processor, spreadsheet program, slideshow maker, and database program. Once your trial is up, though, or if you just decide you want to buy an office software suite, you have to cough up some money to buy the programs, and it’s not going to be cheap. I checked out a couple of my regular tech shopping spots today and at Staples.ca the price of Microsoft Office 2007, Standard edition is $496.95 (the Ultimate edition is $899.94). At Futureshop.ca, just the word processor Word is $309.99 Yikes! But here’s the good news. Here’s the amazing news. You can get a complete suite of such software, including a word processor, for absolutely free. It’s called OpenOffice.org.

Now, as with a lot of free things, there are certain limitations you must accept, like that the word processing program, Writer, can open Microsoft Office 2007 files but can’t save them in the Office 2007 format. So, if you do a lot of collaboration on files with others who use MS Office then it might  not be for you. But for most tech-reluctants, who just want to be able to type up a letter now and then, or maybe make a simple spreadsheet, OpenOffice.org is a fantastic, and free option.

I love Gary Larson’s The Far Side comics. I think I have every anthology and have many, unforgettable favourites. Unfortunately, Mr. Lawson doesn’t want his cartoons displayed online so I can’t provide a cartoon here (search for Gary Larson Far Side on Google images and you’ll find lots). His humour is hard to explain. Thinking outside the box, was a phrase probably invented to describe his cartoons of looking at things in a way we never thought of before, from squid playing “tentaclies” under the table at a restaurant, to what a dog really hears when you talk to him, to how we seem to insects, to what that scary thing behind you is. I think his comics sometimes made me cringe as much as they made me laugh, putting people or creatures in the most difficult of circumstances. If you love The Far Side then you can’t get enough of it and some people really love The Far Side, to the point that they would reenact a Far Side cartoon and put the results up on the Flickr Far Side Reenactments group. The rules of the group are clear: no real cartoons since you don’t own the copyright and you must “reenact the cartoons with your own little camera and photoshop fingers”. Like this one I love from The Rocketeer:

Whether you’re a Far Side fan or not, this is worth checking out just to see how creative some people can be.

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus and just about everything technological you can buy these days can attach to your computer via USB. USB is great because it configures automatically when you plug something in. It also allows your device to communicate at a high speed with your computer. Back in the day (five or six years ago, maybe), we had to plug our devices into the computer with various other connections like a serial port connector or parallel port connector, then configure everything and install software for it. Now, USB is that all important thing–Universal–so it allows you to plug your digital camera, printer, mouse, headphones, cellphone,and most other peripherals directly to your PC or MAC with ease. Your computer will recognize your device, install software for it and you just have to figure out what it is you want to do with the darned thing once you’ve got it attached to your computer.