New Year, New You

ByMike Moffit

…OK, so that’s a little hokey. I’m of the belief that a few resolutions are a good thing, but that they shouldn’t be so grand that they’re wildly out-of-reach. For me, details always help, but the more detailed they are, the fewer I should commit to. Example: I will make the time to hike Camel’s Hump this year. It’s not too realistic with my schedule to also plan to do Mt. Mansfield, Mt. Abe, and Mt. Elmore since there are only about 12 days of summer in Vermont anyway, am I right?

Anyway, I also believe that technology can aid in one’s resolve to be better in the new year. (Case in point: I was surprised to find out that my mom had a FitBit Wristband; she still uses a flip phone that’s about 10 years old and has no desire to upgrade. However, when the time comes, I think she’d love the integration with the app…just sayin’.) I’ve compiled a list of five apps that just might help you get things started right in 2014.

LiveStrong MyQuit Coach – Dare to Quit Smoking – Free ($.99 ad-free)
If you’re still a smoker, this should be goal #1. I can’t say I’ve tried this myself, but it gets high ratings from users, and I’ve polled some ex-smokers about the interface and what their biggest obstacles were to quitting. MyQuit Coach is physician approved, and it helps you set attainable goals to finally quit the habit.

Smoke Free – Free (It’s worth including a second one since it’s such a good resolution!)
Smoke Free’s interface is also very clean, and its approach includes a monetary angle — it’s pretty sobering to see how much you’ve been spending on cigarettes, and gives you “total $ saved” data along with positive statistics to help you stay on track.

Lose It! – Free ($39.99/yr for premium features)
There are a lot of calorie counting and weight-loss apps out there, and I’m partial to Lose It. I’ve always liked the interface, and I find it easy to navigate and add custom foods and meals. It’s a great way to really see just how good/dysfunctional your daily habits might be when it comes to food and exercise. I’ve had this app for several years, and I’m planning to accelerate my goals in 2014 to get back to a pre-baby, pre-mid-thirties weight.

Simply Being – $.99
Maybe it’s the Vermont getting to me, but I’ve found that it’s nice to slow down a bit to keep relaxed and centered. The biggest challenge for me is to turn my brain off, and get away from distraction, including feeling tethered to my phone. Ironically, I’m turning to Simply Being to do that. You can choose from four meditation times, and has the option to listen to guided meditation with or without music or nature sounds. Bonus: It’s been recommended by The New York Times, Huffington Post, Yoga Journal and others. Mmmmm…I’m relaxed already.

iHome+Sleep – Free
Keeping with the relaxation theme, iHome+Sleep is a great app to track your sleep habits and ultimately, reap the health benefits of a good night’s sleep. It’s a fully-featured alarm with multiple settings and options. I’m not a morning person…at all…and I’m a firm believer that waking gently keeps you better prepared for the day. iHome+Sleep also allows you to log your sleep times, giving you a better sense of how much time you actually spend in quality slumber.

Try ‘em out. You can’t lose (except maybe a few pounds).

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  • Fody Personal Weather Station: A Review

    When I saw that we had started to carry the Fody Tempus Pro Bluetooth weather station, I was immediately interested. At my apartment, I had a really old, pretty cheap, wireless thermometer I was using to help me figure out how to dress myself for the conditions outside. You know, t-shirt, sweater, jacket, full Antarctica-grade parka…it is Vermont after all. The problem I always had with it was that the remote sensor couldn’t get wet, and there just weren’t many places I could put it. Last year I got a slightly better thermometer base station that used a wired thermocouple that could easily be passed out a closed window. The thermocouple is sealed and can get as wet as you want. That worked a lot better, but the base station features weren’t as good. I didn’t like the way it recorded min/max temperature.

    So when I saw the Tempus Pro, I thought it might be able to solve all of my problems. In addition to indoor/outdoor temperature and indoor humidity, it also records outdoor humidity, rainfall, barometric pressure, windspeed and wind direction. Instead of all that data going to a limited base station, it goes to my iPad, where I can quickly see trends, share it with friends on Twitter or Facebook or just email myself the raw data.

    I had a few concerns such as whether or not the radiation shield on the outdoor temperature sensor would work. You have to install the Tempus Pro in an open location so that wind and rain can be recorded, but this most likely means it’ll be in the sun too, which would completely mess up the temperature reading. The radiation shield actually does an amazing job at preventing that. I haven’t seen any excessively high temperatures recorded even when the station was baking in the sun.

    Setup was very easy for a device that’s actually doing a lot of complicated things. The outdoor station transmits its data to the indoor base station that is plugged into the wall for power. This transmission is probably very basic radio since the range is quite a bit more than is possible with Bluetooth and the outdoor station only uses three included AA batteries. The indoor station uses low-energy Bluetooth to relay indoor and outdoor sensor data with your iOS or Android device.

    Once everything is paired and running (which is easy to do if you follow the order indicated by the instructions), you will see real-time data being displayed on your iOS or Android device via the Fody app. It also builds graphs of historical data so you can watch trends. One of the things I liked most about the app was the alerts feature. I can set high/low alert thresholds for any of the sensors. I set up an alert for when the outdoor temperature falls below freezing. A few times this past week, I was sitting on my couch and heard my iPad chime. It was an alert letting me know it had fallen below freezing outside. Very cool! You could also set other useful alerts for things like excessive rain, or high winds.

    Overall I think the Tempus Pro is a pretty neat device and the simple use and setup belies the actual complexity of having your own personal weather station. If you’ve ever been curious about setting up a personal weather station at home, or just want something a bit more than temperature readings like I did, you won’t be disappointed with the Fody Tempus Pro.

  • Seven Siri Tricks

    Siri is great for resolving trivia disputes, setting reminders and even texting or sending email but Siri is also a talented assistant. Here’s a few of the more non-intuitive tasks Siri can accomplish:

    1) Split up that restaurant bill and add a tip

    Ask Siri “What’s a 20% tip on a $105 bill split among 3 people and Siri will not only tell you what the total tip would be but also how much each of the 3 owes.

    2) Flip a coin

    Siri will bail you out if you do not have a coin to flip if you ask her to flip a coin. Or if you are killing time and want to play dice, ask Siri to “throw the dice”.

    3) Counting Calories

    Siri can help! Ask Siri how many calories are in that Big Mac and Siri will tell you that you are consuming 520 calories.

    4) Take a Selfie

    Ready to take that selfie and find yourself looking for the camera app? Just tell Siri to take a selfie and boom!, the camera app will open. Siri isn’t smart enough, yet, to ensure you have the front facing camera active so you might have to click that first.

    5) Name that Tune

    Siri integrates with Shazam to listen to the music. Ask Siri “What is this song?” and with some help from Shazam, Siri will let you know and if you click on the result it will play that song if you are a subscriber to Apple Music.

    6) Find your Friends

    If you use the Find My Friends app you can ask Siri to find them by asking “Where’s my wife?” and assuming that your wife has agreed to share her location in the Find My Friends app, Siri will let you know where she is.

    7) Convert Currency

    If you are traveling out of the country you can use Siri to make those currency conversions. Asking Siri “What is 100 euros worth?” today reveals it is worth $112.49.

  • Green Mountain Software Can Write an App for That

    We have a guest post from the “*developers at Green Mountain Software!*”:mailto:john@greenmountainsoftware.com

    *****

    Certainly you’ve heard the expression: “There’s an app for that!” but if there __isn’t__ currently an app for that, Green Mountain Software can write one for you.

    Now located in the Innovation Center in Burlington, Vermont, Green Mountain Software (GMSW) was founded in 1993 by Lou Krieg and his wife, Ann Pettyjohn after attending the ’93 MacWorld trade show where the Apple “Newton” was first introduced. Lou and Ann realized that mobile technology was going to be a huge part of the future, so Green Mountain Software was formed to fill that need. They were right. Mobile technology is changing the world and how business is done. The number of mobile users is predicted to surpass the number of desktop users by 2014.^1^

    It is apparent that simple email access is no longer enough. Mobile technology allows companies to have an unprecedented level of connectivity between employees, vendors, and customers.^2^ In 2012, Gartner Research predicted that sales of mobile tablet devices would top $120 million – double that of 2011. In addition, the number of active smartphones is currently over 1 billion worldwide.^3^

    During the past eighteen years, companies such as EcoLab, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Coffee Lab International, Pro-Cut International, United Technologies, Bio Tek Instruments, Leica, the Indy Racing League, and many others have trusted GMSW with their app development. In fact, even other software development companies such as Palm have relied on the expertise of Green Mountain Software to develop their mobile device apps.

    Today’s technology includes iPhones, iPads, Androids, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and others. These devices have thousands of times more advanced computing power that the computers NASA used to get to the moon! In the hands of good software engineers, there isn’t much these devices can’t do, and combining these capabilities to achieve the results you need is what GMSW does best.

    Do you have an idea for an app for your company? Are you wondering how can mobile technology can increase your productivity and profitability? Mobile technology can measure, compute, exchange data with machines, utilize GPS location services, interact with servers, be Web-based or native within the device, communicate through the Internet or cell systems, take photos, be used for medical diagnoses, and so much more.

    If you’re interested in more information, or just want to discuss your idea, Green Mountain software is on the Web at “www.GreenMountainSoftware.com”:www.GreenMountainSoftware.com. We can be reached at 802-865-2728, or email “john@greenmountainsoftware.com”:mailto:john@greenmountainsoftware.com.

    ^1^ Morgan Stanley Research
    ^2^ “http://www.strategicgrowthconcepts.com/growth/increase-productivity–profitability.html”:http://www.strategicgrowthconcepts.com/growth/increase-productivity–profitability.html
    ^3^ “http://mashable.com/2013/01/04/mobile-2013/”:http://mashable.com/2013/01/04/mobile-2013/

  • The Safety and Security of your Personal Information

    With all the headlines these days about data breaches, hackers, and spyware it is understandable that the safety of your information in cyberspace is on everyone’s mind these days. When we hear about companies such as TJ Maxx, Target and, most recently, TurboTax (hmm…companies that begin with the letter “t”…) getting hacked and potentially losing critical customer information, it can make consumers hesitant to use a lot of this brilliant new technology.

    Here are a few ways Apple ensures the safety of your information and a few tips on how to protect your information:

    Passwords, passwords, passwords…they can be the bane of our existence and are so hard to remember: “What password did I use for this site?? Is it case sensitive?? Did I use letters or numbers?? Holy cow that’s a lot to remember. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!?!? That’s the same combination I have on my luggage!!!”

    The strength of your password goes a long way towards protecting your information. As you might imagine, a password like “password1234” is not a very strong password. As time goes by, the requirements for passwords have become stricter and stricter as criminals devise more and more ingenious ways to steal your information. I personally recommend using a name and a year to begin with. This ensures its an easy password to remember, but not easy for someone to guess. Make certain it’s at least 8 characters. Add a capital letter and a special character to your password to make it even stronger! For example “Jenny5309!” is an example of a strong password. It has more than 8 characters, a combination of letters and numbers, a capital letter and a special character. It would be difficult for anyone to guess (unless they happen to have a family member named Jenny who was born in September of 1953.) It’s easy for you to remember because you do!

    Oh and FYI, nobody at Apple, or Small Dog Electronics has access to your passwords. If anyone ever calls or emails and asks you to give them your passwords, please feel free to refuse that information to ANYONE. That goes for any other password you use, whether it be for your email or your bank account.


    Ahh, the iCloud, is it up in the sky? Where exactly IS this cloud and will it follow me around dropping rain on me wherever I go??

    Here’s a great source of information on iCloud.

    Our main concern here is the security of your information. The iCloud uses a minimum of 128-bit encryption and as much as 256-bit to safeguard your information. What is encryption you ask? In the simplest of terms, your computer uses your password like a key to unlock your information. In the case of 128-bit encryption, your computer has THE single key to unlock ONE lock out of a possibility of 6 trillion locks. That’s trillion with a T! As you can imagine, that is a great number of locks to try to pick. Major financial institutions, the government and the military also use between 128 and 256-bit encryption.

    One of the major benefits of owning an Apple computer rather than a PC has always been they are less susceptible to viruses, trojans, malware, and other nasty bugs out there. This is still true, however some still slip through. These programs can wreak havoc on your system and cause general headaches all around.

    “Lets be careful out there.” This applies to the internet as well as the mean streets. Use strong privacy settings on social media sites. Use caution when entering financial information online. Look for a tiny picture of a padlock in the bottom right hand corner of the page you are on. Another way to tell if a site is secure is the web address. Sites with a web address that begins with https let you know the site is secure. Make sure your operating system stays up to date and your firewall is active.

    If you start to get pop ups, advertisements, and other annoyances don’t fret; there is an easy fix. Follow these steps to rid your computer of theses hooligans by following these steps to the letter.

    Woof, arf, woof! (Don’t forget to have fun!)