May 23, 2013

How to be a Frugal Technology Consumer

June 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment
OAKLAND, CA - JANUARY 08: The Wal-Mart logo i...

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We all want to keep up with the ever changing trends in technology. However keeping up with those trends can be costly! Here are a couple of tips for being a frugal technology consumer and still getting what you want.

Wait to Purchase

Many people go out as soon as a new or updated piece of technology is released to the public. Some people wait in line overnight to be one of the first to get it! If you want to be frugal with your technology shopping, the best thing to do is to wait a few weeks, even a month or two before you buy it. That way, you may be able to get the item at a reduced priced than when it was first released. Waiting to buy the item also lets you assess whether or not you really need it.

Search for a Bargain

Another way to save money is to wait for yearly sales. If you go out and buy the first one you see, then chances are you will not be getting the best price for the item. Depending on what time of year the item is released, you may have to only wait a few weeks before stores hold sales. It’s a buyer’s market, so look around and do your homework to find the best price available for you.

Make sure you look in both small and large retailers, and always ask if the store clerk can do you a deal. Don’t be embarrassed doing this. There is no harm in asking and the worst thing they can say is ‘no’.

 

 

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Filed Under: Apps, Technology Tagged With: , ,

Cooking Apps for Your Smartphone

June 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment
RECIPE: Decadent Guinness-Battered Fish and Chips

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These days you can combine your love of cooking and technology by installing some useful applications on your smartphone. Best of all, many of these apps are free. So there’s no excuse to run out of ideas in the kitchen!

Here are some of the most popular free cooking apps available for smartphones.

Recipe Calculator helps you to quickly calculate the amount of recipe ingredients you will need for a particular amount of people. The standard number of servings for many recipes is 4-6. But what if you had to cook for 15 people? This handy little app will quickly calculate the extra ingredients you will need to enable successful cooking for any number of people.

Trying to eat healthy? Spark Recipes is an app for your smartphone that provides tons of free healthy recipes for those who want to watch what they eat. You can save your favorites and know exactly what you are eating, as each recipe comes with detailed nutritional information. Perfect for keeping track of every bite.

Campbell’s Kitchen is a great cooking app for those amateur cooks out there. If you’re not sure what to cook it has many suggestions for you, plus there are heaps of tips to make your cooking experience an enjoyable one. You will be whipping up gourmet meals in no time with this easy to use application that encourages efficiency and speed of cooking for any level of cook, from amateur to experienced!

With so many free cooking apps available for download onto any smartphone, it’s a wonder that anyone goes out to eat anymore!

 

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Filed Under: Mobile, Technology Tagged With: , ,

How to Shop Online Using a Prepaid Card

June 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The world of online shopping offers you a lot of options as far as what you can purchase. If you look long enough and hard enough, you’ll find that there are very few things you can’t get online. Your challenge as an online shopper is deciding how to pay in a way that is secure and won’t compromise your personal information. With a nearly endless array of commerce websites and security not always being a top consideration for merchants, you need to be cautious. That’s why the prepaid card is a necessity for online shopping.

Your first order of business is to get one of the Visa prepaid credit cards. Once you have this in hand, you have the ability to buy anything you want online, as long as it doesn’t exceed the amount you have loaded onto the prepaid card. It will work anywhere that Visa is accepted, which means almost everywhere.

You can choose whatever website you like. If you were using your bank card, you’d have to stick exclusively to websites that have the most trusted security in place. However, with the prepaid card, you can shop anywhere you like. Since the card isn’t linked to your personal information, there could be a security breach and it wouldn’t affect your entire financial life.

The prepaid card gives you the total freedom to shop where you want online anytime that you want. It’s going to be the reason why you can finally feel comfortable when it comes to the world of online shopping. It’s the smartest way to do business transactions over the Internet.

 

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Filed Under: Computers & Software, Technology Tagged With: , ,

iPhone Versus Blackberry

June 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...

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It’s becoming a standard debate in the world of technology today. What’s better? The iPhone or the Blackberry? Take a look at what each has to offer and then decide for yourself, if you can!

iPhone

For this the specifications of the iPhone 4 have been used.

  • Interactive touchscreen with multi-touch input, accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off and a scratch-resistant surface
  • In-built camera, for which there is a vast array of apps to download
  • Speaking of apps, there’s one for pretty much anything you can think of
  • Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
  • A large battery life including up to 250 hours standby, 8 hours of talk time and 24 hours of music playing
  • E-mail, web browsing and SMS capabilities
  • Downloadable games
  • Unlimited phonebook entries
  • hands free talking
  • iPhone operating system
  • USB port
  • Polyphonic MP3 ringtones

Blackberry

For this the Blackberry Curve specs have been used.

  • Full QWERTY keyboard and touch sensitive optical track pad.
  • 2MP camera
  • Blackberry operating system
  • SMS, email, IM, and MMS
  • Downloadable games
  • Unlimited phonebook entries
  • Dedicated music keys
  • Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
  • hands free talking
  • Up to 408 hours of standby and up to 4 hours and 30 minutes of talk time
  • MP3/MP4 player
  • 256MB internal memory
  • Micro USB port
  • Polyphonic MP3 ringtones

The main specifications for each phone have been listed here, but when making any decision it is best to look at the full list of specifications. Each person will have a different set of requirements when looking for a smartphone, be sure to keep your individual requirements in mind when searching for the perfect phone.

 

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Filed Under: Computers & Software, Mobile, Technology Tagged With: , ,

A Look at Android Honeycomb OS

June 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

For a long time, Android was stuck on smart phones, which was great. However, like most community projects, it began to grow beyond what even the best smart phones could provide it with. There are not enough wide open spaces on a phone, regardless of its IQ, for this particular pony to frolic through. It was inevitable that Android Tablets would be created, and make use of the power that tablet PCs bring to bear.

For starters, the entire user interface has gotten a very handsome face lift. While the interface was okay before, it was still acting as if it belonged on a phone, like a basketball player used to hunching over in a short room, despite being in an auditorium. With a larger screen comes more options than a phone can provide. You can squeeze a lot more bars and a lot more buttons into a 12 inch diagonal screen than you can into a three inch screen. Of course, sometimes the placement of the buttons is the best part.  In Honeycomb, you get some nice little options for your Android Tablet.

First off, you have context-sensitive buttons in every application. In addition to that, important notifications and navigational buttons are everywhere, no matter what program you go into. While there is a lights out mode for doing things like watching videos, the rest of the time you don’t have to wander around to find what you want to do like you would in a PC. So in a sense, Honeycomb is the missing link between phones and computers. It’s simple and contextually viable, while providing you with tons of more advanced features.

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Filed Under: Mobile, Technology Tagged With: , ,

No one has to Miss out With Refurbished Technology

June 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment
computer monitor

Image by Mediajon via Flickr

For many people, if they want to purchase a new piece of technology, they head straight for the nearest store. Here, they can pick up a shiny brand new version of whatever it is they are wanting. This is fine for people who can afford it, but what about those who can’t?

In the current economic climate times are tough for thousands of families across America. Unfortunately the consumerism train continues to chug along at great speeds and many families are missing out, or worse, getting themselves into debt just to keep up with the latest trends.

For those who want to keep up with technology, but don’t want to end up in a heap of debt getting there; then refurbished technology may be a better option. Many people steer clear of refurbished items, thinking them to be no different than buying second hand. This is not the case at all! Refurbished items have been attended to by professionals and are restored to ‘as new’ working conditions.

Purchasing refurbished technology could save you up to 30% of the price if you were to buy the same item brand new. You can’t argue with that when you are trying to save money. Another benefit of refurbished technology is that it is available at many more places than new items, which may only be able to be sold at registered retail outlets.

When buying a piece of refurbished technology, be sure to find out if there is a warranty included. This will give you added piece of mind if something were to happen to it.

 

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Filed Under: Technology, Tips & Tricks, Tagged With: , ,

Quirky Technology That can be Found in Your own Smartphone

May 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment
LAS VEGAS - JANUARY 08: The Nokia N900 phone ... 

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There are many devices available these days to make life easier. It seems that every second person you see has a smartphone. Smartphones are quickly becoming the way of the future. They are a “one stop shop” for almost all of your personal electronic and computing needs. With tablets PCs now becoming just as popular, it may not be too long before desktop computers are considered vintage! Considering directtv deals are left and right, majority of today’s households are ridden with technology.

One of the unique and quirky features of smartphones and tablet PCs is the ability for their screens to be rotated, thus enabling the user to view a web page or application in landscape. This is a great attribute in the technology as there is nothing more annoying than trying to read a web page or document with text missing on the side. SO who do these nifty personal devices accomplish this? With something called an accelerometer.

An accelerometer does not have anything to do with the speed of the device as you may rightly think. It has to do with the measured weight of the object and its frame of reference. The accelerometer is also able to measure dynamic forces such as movement, and it is because of this that it is able to detect the movement of someone moving the frame of reference of a personal electronic device.

Devices that use the accelerometer technology include the following.

  • smartphones
  • digital audio players
  • personal digital assistants
  • Nintendo Wii
  • Sony PlayStation 3
  • pedometers
  • sleep phase alarm clocks

Accelerometer technology has allowed the products above to attain a higher lever of user interactivity.

 

 

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Filed Under: Computers & Software, Technology, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,