Ellen writes, How do I download videos from my iPhone to my PC? When I try to email them to myself it shrinks the video. I’ve been told to just connect my phone to my computer and download them that way, but how?

Here’s what you need to do Ellen. Fire up your computer, grab the charging cable for your iPhone and plug one end into your iPhone and the other end into your computer. Only one end will fit the iPhone, and the other end is the obvious end you’ll plug into the PC.

With this easy to follow guide, you too can plug your iPhone into your computer.

If this is the first time you have plugged your iPhone into your computer, you’ll see a pop up indicating that the software for the device is being installed.

Without the device driver software, the two pieces of hardware cannot communicate.

Right after you plug in your iPhone, (or after the driver software is done installing) you’ll get a notification on your phone that asks if you should trust this computer. Tap Trust.

Trust is an important part of any relationship, especially the one between a smartphone and a computer.

You may see a similar window appear on your computer. Click Continue.

Trust is a two-way street.

Then, if you’re using a Windows PC, you should get a pop up window on the computer that basically is asking “What do you want to do with this?” It will literally say “AutoPlay” and give you options to choose from. Click “Import Pictures and Videos.”

So, uh, what do you wanna do with this here thing, eh?

All of your pictures and videos will be selected. You can make changes to how and where they are imported by clicking Import Settings.

Import pictures and videos? That sounds exactly like what I wanted to do!

On the Import Settings Menu, you can choose to send the images and videos to different folders, change the file name of the photos and videos, and other options. Click OK to keep your changes.

Lots of choices. Where do you want what to go? Don’t feel like making choices? Afraid of succumbing to analysis paralysis? Just click Cancel, and get out of there.

Once you’ve chosen which videos and pictures you want to import, then click Import. Your images and videos will begin to transfer to your computer. Depending on how many pictures you have, this may happen quickly, or it may take a while.

You’ll watch your life flash before your eyes ? if you took a picture of every moment of your life.

You’ll see a checkbox that says, “erase after importing.” We recommend not checking it. If there is a problem transferring the video, then the video is gone. It’s best to wait until you you?ve confirmed that the video is transferred, and then delete it from your iPhone manually.

Finally! The pictures and videos are on the computer!

Another window will open up showing all of your pictures and videos that you just imported.

If for some reason you don’t get a pop-up, click the Start button and select “Computer.”

Then, you’ll right-click the iPhone icon, and select “Import Pictures and Videos.” From there, you’ll do everything else the same as we said before.

If you are using a Mac it starts out the same: plug the iPhone in and tell it to trust the computer.

Then, you’ll need to open the application Image Capture or iPhoto. We prefer Image Capture because you can choose where the video is stored on your hard drive.

Just open the Launchpad, and find Image Capture. (Start typing in Image Capture. It will be the only thing that comes up.) You could use iPhoto, but trust me, you don’t want to.

Once Image Capture is open, at the bottom of the window, you can select which folder to import them to.

You can choose the obvious places like Pictures or Documents, or you can decide to save them where ever you want to.

You could even choose to import your pictures and videos to iPhoto, but no one really knows why you would want to do that.

Then, you can click the “Import All” button or select the individual video and click “Import.”

If you’re like us, you probably got a shiny new smartphone or tablet for the holidays. Here are our tips for keeping that device looking brand new, and few ideas for what you can do with your old one.

Protect Your New Device

An iPhone 4 in an Otterbox Impact case. Image credit: gisuser / Flickr

The first thing you should do with your new device is put a case on it. We can’t stress how important this is. It breaks our hearts to see people with gadgets that came out not even a month ago, and they’ve already broken the screen.

There are a ton of different kinds of cases out there. If you’re really concerned about protecting your device, we recommend a hefty case from companies like Otterbox, Lifeproof or Griffin. Both brands offer cases that are rated for protecting against drops from normal heights and have material to keep your screen scratch-free. Some of them even claim to be waterproof.

If you don’t want to hide your fancy new smartphone or tablet, a number of companies sell thin, clear plastic cases. These will not offer the same level of protection as an Otterbox case, but they will be better than nothing. Look around online or head to pretty much any store that sells electronics to find one that best fits your needs.

If you decide not to get a case (or even if you do), you should seriously consider buying an extended warranty for your device. For most electronics, we don’t feel like extended warranties are worth the money. However, they are a godsend for smartphones, especially if they cover accidents

Whether you get an extended warranty or not, take the time right now to figure out how long your warranty will last. A year is pretty standard for a new smartphone, but be sure to double check. It also helps to mark that date on your calendar or set a reminder. If your device starts acting funny, you can make sure to get it taken care of before that timer runs out.

With a good warranty, the device maker will often send you a new one before you mail back your old one so that you don’t have to be device-less for any longer than necessary.

What to Do With Your Old One

If you’re not planning to keep your old smartphone or tablet as a backup or for archival purposes, you should consider selling it or recycling it.

To get the best price, you’ll want to sell it on Craigslist or eBay. The downside to Craigslist is that you have to meet strangers from the internet in real-life. The downside the eBay is that you have to go to Post Office or the UPS store. You can try searching through other auctions and online for a good idea of how much your device is worth in the condition it is in.

If you have a fairly new gadget like an iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy 4, you could also check out places like Amazon and Gazelle. They will buy your phone online and pay you fast. Or you can trade in your iPhone at the Apple Store, Best Buy, Game Stop and Target. You won’t get as much selling your iPhone or Android phone to the big companies, but you’ll get rid of it fast and get your money fast. So, if convenience is what matters to you, that’s the route we would go.

If you have a smartphone that you think is too old to sell, or you just want to do something nice for others, there are a lot of charitable organizations that can make good use of your old device.

If your phone can at least still make phone calls, you can drop it off at any Verizon Wireless store and they will get it into the hands of someone who needs it. Through their program HopeLine, they collect phones and give them to victims of domestic abuse.

If your phone is completely dead, there are charities that accept electronics that can recycle them and get money to go towards their efforts. As always, make sure that you trust the charity you are giving to.

Also, many cities have e-waste recycling centers for computers and other electronics. Try looking on your city’s website to see if there is one near you.

No matter what you decide to do with your old device, you need to make sure you wipe its memory and reset it to factory default if possible. The last thing you want is for your personal information to fall into the wrong hands. Your device should have come with instructions on how to reset it. We’ve got full details on how to do it for iPhones, iPads and Android phones in this article.

Have you ever had a hard time keeping your resolutions for the new year? There are plenty of iPhone and Android apps that can help you out.

Image credit: christmasstockimages.com

The University of Scranton surveyed Americans earlier this year to find the top 10 most popular New Year’s resolutions. Here are some of our favorite apps for helping you keep them throughout 2015.

1. Losing Weight

• MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter (Android, iOS): This free app has a huge database of food so you can look up the calorie count on almost anything. It also lets you set a daily calorie goal, track your weight, and even share with friends for mutual encouragement.

• LiveStrong My Plate Calorie Tracker (Android, iOS): Thiss app free on Android but will run you $2.99 on iOS. The nice thing about this app is if you have an account on LiveStrong.com this will link up to it.

• My Daily Plate (iOS): My Daily Plate is an app that can help you make good nutritional decisions throughout the day. It costs $.99, and is only available on iOS.

2. Getting Organized

• Evernote (Android, iOS) and Google Keep (Android): These are both great free apps that let you quickly type out or even write a message to yourself. You can also take pictures of things and save them for later. And they are both cloud-based, so you can write a note to yourself on your smartphone, update it from your tablet and check it later on your home computer.

• Google Now (built into most new Android devices; included in the Google Search app for iOS): This app is wonderful for setting creating reminders for yourself. If you give it permission to do so, Google Now will actually scan your Google calendar and even your email to find upcoming events. If those events have a physical address associated with them, Google Now will even tell you when it?s time to get in the car and head out!

• Any.do (Android, iOS): Any.do combines checklists with reminders. You can quickly enter a task by either typing it or speaking it, and then set when the task is due: today, tomorrow, or in the future. When the appropriate day rolls around, Any.do will pop up a helpful reminder.

3. Spending Less Money and Saving More Money

• Mint Personal Finance (Android, iOS): Mint is a free app from Intuit, the makes of Quickbooks. Mint lets you keep track of all of your financial accounts in one place, and set a budget and stick to it. On the website and the app, you can see all of your debts like student loans, car notes, credit cards and mortgages, and you can see all of your money like checking accounts savings accounts, money market accounts, and CDs. Mint gives you a snapshot of what your financial situation looks like, and gives you advice how to make it better.

4. Travel More

• Expedia (Android, iOS) & Kayak (Android, iOS): Book flights, hotels and  rental cars on these apps for popular travel sites Expedia and Kayak.

• Hipmunk (Android, iOS): We’ve discussed Hipmunk’s website, which rates flights based on aspects like layover time and whether or not they offer Wi-Fi, in an earlier article. The app also offers this helpful tools, but it also shows you listings from AirBNB and HomeAway, services which let people rent a room from somebody for just a couple of days.

5. Staying Fit

• Endomondo Sports Tracker (Android, iOS): This apps allows you to track your running/biking/skating workouts and set challenges for yourself. The pro version is $4.99 and includes features like a pedometer so it will work indoors.

• Active.com’s Couch to 5K (Android, iOS): Like its name suggests, the Couch to 5K training app will gradually get you ready to run your first 5K race over a period of about six weeks.

• Zombies, Run! (Android, iOS): This run tracking app helps to motivate you by disguising your workout as a game – a horrifying game. Imagine this: you’re out for a run, when all of a sudden you’re being chased by zombies! You put your headphones on, and as you run you’ll periodically hear orders from your fellow survivors to outrun zombie mobs.

6. Learn to Play a Musical Instrument

• Piano Teacher (Android only): This app has a Guitar Hero-style interface that lets you learn songs by hitting the right keys as notes fall down the screen. You can even purchase a USB adapter to use this app with an actual Midi keyboard.

• Piano Tutor (iOS only): Piano Tutor teaches you how to read notes and rhythms on sheet music, and how to to learn to play by ear. It also supports the use of a Midi keyboard through a USB adapter.

• Ultimate Guitar Tabs (Android, iOS): This app has a huge searchable database of guitar tabs (notation that shows you instrument fingering instead of sheet music notes) for popular songs. It also shows you how to fingering for chords and more. Ultimate Guitar Tabs is $2.99 on both Android and iOS.

7. Quitting Smoking

• QuitNow! (Android, iOS) & LiveStrong MyQuit Coach (iOS only): These apps both keep track of the time since your last cigarette, how many cigarettes you’ve avoided since quitting and how much money you’ve saved in the process. You can also set health goals and create motivators to help you quit.

8. Helping Others

• Feedie (Android, iOS): Feedie lets all the foodies who take pictures of their meals to finally do it for a good cause. For every food photo taken at a participating restaurant and shared via social media, 25 cents will be donated to the app?s nonprofit parent company, The Lunchbox Fund, which provides meals to students in rural South Africa.
• HTC Power to Give (Android only): By downloading the app, plugging in your Android phone and connecting to Wi-Fi while you sleep, your phone?s spare computing power becomes part of a huge grid that provides power to a scientific project of your choice, like researching cures for cancer, Alzheimer?s disease, AIDS, or understanding climate change, or searching for extra-terrestrial life.

• DonorReminder (iOS only): If you like to donate blood, this app keeps track of when you last donated and when you can do it again.

9. Falling in Love

• Tinder (Android, iOS): Tinder has gotten a lot of press in the last few years because it’s based entirely on looks. It’s like HotOrNot but you can date the person if they find you hot too. You open the app and see pictures of potential dates that are near you. You swipe to the left if you’re not interested, and swipe to the right if you are interested. If your crush finds you attractive too, Tinder lets you both know, and you can chat.

• Down (Android, iOS): If you’ve always wondered if one of your friends was interested in dating you, but you never built up the gumption to go and ask him or her, you can now do it in a more anonymous way. With Down, you can scroll through a list of your Facebook friends and swipe up if you’d like to date them, swipe left if you’re not interested, and swipe down if you’re interested in, to put it in polite terms, “spending a night with them.”

• OkCupid (Android, iOS): Just like OkCupid’s website, this app offers a free dating service that feels most similar to a social network.

10. Spending Time with Your Family

• No app recommendations for this. Just put away your phone and talk to them!

Did we miss your favorite app? Send us an email to questions@deemable.com and let us know.

Every once in a while we like to take a few minutes to cover something everyone should know. This time, we want to talk about the website everyone loves to hate… Facebook!

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

If you are honest with yourself, you are probably on Facebook because it is kind of unavoidable, but you don’t love it. A lot of time it’s just full of stuff you don’t care about, like that friend-of-a-friend who posts a dozen posts a day about her dog, or your high school friend who is always starting political arguments.

But the fact is that you have more control over what you see on your Facebook feed then you think you do. There are things you can do to greatly improve that. And there are some ways that you can make sure that when you post something, it gets noticed.

Before we dive in, let’s explain what we mean when we say “Facebook feed”. Basically, we are just talking about the homepage of Facebook, where you see all the updates from friends and from pages you?ve liked. That is referred to as the “news feed” or just the “feed” for short.

The Facebook feed doesn’t show you EVERYTHING your friends post, however. Most people on Facebook have 300 or more friends, and if you saw everything every single one of them liked or posted you would be swamped with information. So Facebook employs an algorithm to decide what to show you.

The real question is how this algorithm works. The actual algorithm is top secret, but just from experimenting around with Facebook we know a lot about it. The Facebook algorithm is more likely to show you stuff from people it thinks you care about and from pages it thinks you really like.

Every time you like a post or comment on something someone wrote or visit someone’s profile, Facebook notices that, and it will start to move that person higher up in your feed. So if you’re always checking out someone?s profile, Facebook will show you more posts by that person.

Some people have said that Facebook knows that two people will start dating several days before it actually happens, supposedly because those people will start liking and commenting on each other’s posts much more frequently. Now, we don’t know if the secret algorithm really knows, that, but it feels like this would be the case . The more you interact with someone, the more Facebook knows that you like that person and want to see more posts by them.

Okay, but what if there?s someone who you really don?t want to see in your feed that much? Is there anything you can do?

Absolutely. A lot of people don’t realize this, but you can explicitly tell Facebook that you don’t want to see a post. You can try this out yourself by bringing up the Facebook home page on your web browser. Pick a post in your feed. At the top right of that post there should be a faint gray down arrow. You might have to hover over the post to see it if you?re on a computer. Click it.

You will get a pop-up with some options like ?I don?t want to see this,? and ?Report this.? Click ?I don?t want to see this.? Don?t worry if you actually do want to see it, on a computer you can undo your choices.

Now it should say that the post is hidden, and there should be a link asking you why you don?t want to see it. Click the link. You will see the options, ?It?s annoying or not interesting,? ?I?m in this photo and I don?t like it,? ?This shouldn?t be on Facebook? and ?This is spam.? Clicking any of those will give Facebook some useful information about what you want to see in your feed – and what you don’t want to see. Now if you click out of that box and then click “undo” in the gray box that tells you the post is hidden you will get that post back.

There’s another trick you can try also. Do you feel like many of your Facebook “friends” are more like “acquaintances”? You can tell Facebook that. Just over to a friend’s profile on Facebook. Up at the top you will see the “Friends” button – click that. In the drop down that pops up you should see the word “acquaintances”. If you click it, it will add this profile to a special friends list called “acquaintances”.

Acquaintances are still friends in Facebook?s world, but Facebook won?t show you very many posts by acquaintances. In fact, it will only show you posts by them that either have a lot of comments or that are about major life events. So if you made someone an acquaintance then you’d see if they got engaged or got a new job, but you wouldn’t see the three posts they made about what they had for lunch yesterday.

Before we go any further we should mention one important thing about your feed. You may have noticed that your feed isn’t strictly chronological. Stuff your partner or best friends post stays at the top of the feed for a day or two sometimes.

If you want to see a more chronological view of your feed, you can click the down arrow next to “news feed” in the bar on the left of the page, and then select “most recent”. That will make your news feed more or less ordered by date rather than how much the algorithm thinks you like stuff.

We should mention that if you are in the Facebook app on a tablet or smartphone, you won’t have this option. Actually, the app has a lot fewer options in general. So if something we’re talking about here isn’t working for you on the app, you may need to log in to Facebook on your home PC to change it.

Alright, time to get down to brass tacks. How do you make “the algorithm” show your friends YOUR posts? How can you be Facebook cool?

Well there’s no sure-fire way to be the most popular kid on the news feed, but we know that there are some things that Facebook likes and that it will factor in when deciding whether or not to show your posts to your friends. Facebook likes posts with pictures and links more than posts that are just updates. So if you link to a website or post a pic, you’re more likely to get noticed. The exception, of course, is if you post a link or a picture that people don’t like. Remember we talked about how you can hide posts? If a lot of people are hiding something you posted, Facebook is likely to downgrade that post. So you want to steer away from controversial topics if your main concern is Facebook popularity.

For instance, cute animals are always a big hit. Facebook also loves “positive” posts. It probably searches posts for keywords like “happy”, “engaged”, “married”, “pregnant”, “kitty”, “love” and so on. Facebook likes happy posts because they are more likely to be shared. Happy links are more likely to be clicked on. And when people click links, Facebook is usually making money.

So if you’re happy and you know it, tell Facebook!

Following these tips will give you much more control over your Facebook feed. More control, but not complete control. At the end of the day, the secret Facebook algorithm is still deciding what it thinks you should see. You may be wondering, is there a way tiycan have total control over my news feed?

There is only one we know of: switch to Twitter.

If you are a small business owner wondering if there are any apps out there that can help make your life easier, wonder no more! These days you can practically run your entire business through a tablet or mobile device. Your device can handle point-of-sale, time tracking, invoicing and much more.

Here are a few of our favorite apps for small business owners:

PayPal, one of the first online transaction companies, got into the mobile payment game with the PayPal Here.
Image credit: PayPal

Point of Sale

You’re probably already familiar with Square, the little plastic card reader that plugs into a smartphone. But Square is no longer the only card reader in town. Here are a few of the card readers currently out there:

• Square
• PayPal Here
• Amazon Register
• Intuit GoPayment

You can get all of these for essentially free (for example, the Square reader is $9.99 at retail stores, but it comes with a $10 mail-in rebate). The card reader companies make their money off transaction fees, which vary by device. You can read more about credit cards readers in this article.

Let’s talk about a different type of cards: business cards.

Business Card Readers

There are apps that will allow you to photograph, scan and store the information from people’s business cards, creating a digital Rolodex. There are two major apps. Abbyy’s is the tried-and-true original, Evernote’s is the new upstart:

• Abbyy’s Business Card Reader ($4.99 on Android and $5.99 on iOS)
• Evernote Hello (free)

Bookkeeping

A good bookkeeping app will not only connect to your various accounts and allow you to create invoices, but will categorize your expenses and income for tax purposes. There are a number of cool bookkeeping apps out there:

• Freshbooks
• Quickbooks
• GoDaddy Bookkeeping (formerly Outright.com)

Most of these charge monthly or yearly subscription fees. There is also a newcomer called Wave Accounting whose website is free to use. Wave also does payroll management for $4/month for the first 10 employees (and $1/employee after).

Productivity

You have two major options for productivity software. The first is Google Drive, which includes Google Docs and Google Sheets. This is free, but not as fully-featured as Microsoft Office. You can also get Microsoft Office 365, the cloud-based (read: online) version of Office. One user is $6/month.

Also, this is not exactly an app but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention Google Apps for Work. Do you want to have your own, custom email address that still uses the Gmail interface? Google Apps for Work can give you that. For instance, Ray@SmallBusiness.com could be accessed through Gmail and would also have full access to Google Drive.

Google Apps for Work is $5/user/month or $50/year.

Every once in a while we like to cover something everyone should know, and this time we wanted to talk about securing your personal information – on your smartphone.

Image credit: Kelvinsong / Wikimedia

If you own a smartphone, you probably keep tons of personal information on it: your address book, emails, passwords, maybe even credit card data. Your phone knows where you work and where you live and who is texting you. It’s a gold mine for everyone from phone thieves to advertisers to hackers.

Many smartphone owners would be surprised at how easy it is to learn some basic hacks which allow you to extract data from someone else’s smartphone. But there are a few simple steps that they can take to make it much harder.

We want to emphasize that it’s probably impossible to completely hacker-proof your phone. If government spies are trying to break into your phone, they are probably going to get in. But you can stop your run of the mill identity thieves.

Tip #1: Lock your smartphone!

It’s so simple, and yet so effective! Why should someone bother hacking into your phone when they can just pick it up and see everything on it? You need a lockscreen with a password or an unlock pattern or a fingerprint scanner. Using a password is the most secure technique, and the more characters you have to enter, the better. But even a simple pin code or unlock pattern is better than nothing.

Most Android phones support unlock patterns. If you use one, though, you should take one extra step for security: wipe down your phone?s screen frequently! This way a thief can’t simply follow the smudged fingerprints on the screen to determine your unlock pattern.

Here’s another lock screen tip for those of you with iPhones: by default, iPhones allow you to do a few things without unlocking your phone, like voice dialing and previewing texts. You can disable this, though, and you should. Unless you like the idea of a stranger at the coffee shop reading your texts!

Tip #3: Don’t connect to open Wi-Fi networks!

Avoid that free coffee shop Wi-Fi if it doesn’t have a password! Any device, whether it?s a phone or a tablet or a laptop, which is connected to an open Wi-Fi is a hacker?s dream. With some basic software installed, a hacker can see almost everything anyone on the Wi-Fi network is doing – sending emails, logging into Facebook, etc.

The good news is, people are wising up to the fact that having unsecured Wi-Fi is not a good idea. Some places still offer it, though. If you don?t have to ask for a password to get in, it?s probably not a good idea to use that Wi-Fi.

Speaking of Wi-Fi: if you got your iPhone from AT&T it has an interesting extra feature. Any time an AT&T iPhone detects a Wi-Fi network called attwifi, it will automatically try to connect to it. That’s a problem, to put it bluntly. A hacker could just setup a network, call it attwifi, and wait for people?s phones to automatically connect to it so they can extract information. The good news is, this is a feature you can turn off on your iPhone, and you should. Just open the Settings app, tap Wi-Fi, and tap the check box next to ?Ask to join networks?. And contact AT&T customer support and tell them that you don’t approve of them making their customers’ phones vulnerable in this way.

Tip #4: Turn off location tagging on your smartphone’s camera

When you take a picture with your smartphone, it adds the GPS coordinates of the place where you took the picture to the image file. Later on, that can help you remember where you took the picture at. That’s convenient, but many times when you upload that picture to a website or email it to a friend, the GPS coordinates remain embedded in the file. Anyone who has that picture can figure out where you took it. And if it’s your house, well, now they know where you live. And that?s no good.

You can turn this feature off on Android phones, although the details depend on what phone you have. You should be able to find instructions with a Google search. On an iPhone, go to Settings, and then privacy, and then Location services and then you should see an option for the camera. Switch that to off.

Tip #5: Require a password for purchases

This is something we’ve talked about before, but it?s worth repeating: both Android and iPhone allow you to set a password on the phone that must be entered before you can make purchases on the phone. Stopping kids or others from running up charges on your phone is always a great idea.

Tip #6: Disable third party cookies

Everybody likes cookies, right? Well, maybe not if they are cookies on your computer which can allow advertisers to track what websites you visit. For those readers who don?t know, a cookie is a small text file that a website places on your computer or smartphone. They can be used to help websites remember to automatically log you in, which is great. But they can also help advertisers to track you which not everybody likes.

On the iPhone’s Safari browser you can stop this. Safari lets you disable ‘third party cookies’, which are the kind of cookies that many people don’t want, the kind that help advertisers offer targeted ads. Most browsers now offer a ‘DO NOT TRACK’ option as well. It’s a good idea to turn this on. Now here?s the thing, the ‘do not track’ option is not universally respected. There are some advertisers that will ignore it and track you anyway. But it can?t hurt to have it turned on.

Tip #7: Wipe your personal data before you return your phone to the store

Occasionally you may need to take your smartphone somewhere to get it repaired or to swap it for a working model. Before you do this, it’s a really good idea to wipe all of your personal data from your phone! What you need to do is reset your phone to factory defaults. Your smartphone should come with instructions on how to do this. Of course you should backup all your personal data before you do this as it WILL be erased!

So these are just a few tips that will help you keep the personal data on your smartphone more secure from thieves, from hackers and even from advertisers. And if nothing else, you should always, always –

LOCK YOUR PHONE.

It’s officially summer – the kids are out of school, the weather is fine, and for many of us it’s time to travel. We here at Deemable Tech are planning vacations of our own, and we’ve got some really useful tools to help make things easier.

Image credit: Atlas Obscura

Here, in no particular order, are some of our favorite vacation planning websites:

OptionsAway.com – Sometimes when you’re looking to buy an airline ticket, you might find a price you really like early on but aren’t quite prepared to buy. For a fee, Options Away lets you put a hold on that price for up to 21 days and buy it later, even if it has increased on other sites. Fees start at $4 for holding the price for a day to about $20 for 21 days. We should note that they currently only offer their services for flights within the continental U.S. and Canada.

Peek.com – Peek mainly focuses on offering curated packages for attractions in selected cities like Paris, London and New York City, but the reason we included it on this list is their Perfect Days section. Here, users can submit their “perfect day” in a city with a day’s worth of suggestions activities. For example, a user might suggest visiting a certain cafe for breakfast, taking a bike ride along a particular river, shopping at local boutique, etc. It’s a great free way to plan a vacation day.

Tingo.com – Have you ever booked a hotel room online only to see the price drop a few days later? When you book through Tingo and the price drops, they will actually refund the deference to your credit card. Tingo also offers free upgrades, so if you pay for a room and a better one opens for the same price they will automatically give you that upgraded room. We’re not entirely sure how the site makes money as no fees are listed, but we love the idea.

AtlasObscura.com – If you like to travel but don’t like tourists, Atlas Obscura is a good way to get off the beaten path. The site is sort of a Wikipedia for the sights most travelers won’t know about; simply enter a city to find nearby stuff you would never thought to look for. You can also use Atlas Obscura to come up with great staycation ideas for when you want to try something new at home.

Booking.com – Finding a hotel room in a city where a major event is happening – like San Diego during Comic-Con – can be practically impossible. This doesn’t stop Booking.com from finding vacant rooms, though, even just days before the event and for rates comparable to other sites. We don’t know how they do it, but our bet is on some kind of black magic.

Hipmunk.com – There are dozens of sites for booking airline tickets, but Hipmunk is one of the few we’ve seen that realizes that price isn’t the only thing that matters when you fly. When you search, Hipmunk displays the results in an easy to understand grid that shows the length of each of flight, how long any layovers are and even whether or not the plane has WiFi (it also, of course, shows the price). We’re also intrigued by the fact that it lets you sort those results by “agony” – direct flights are listed first, then ones with longer and longer layovers. It doesn’t hurt that the site has an adorable mascot as well.

BeFrugal.com’s Fly or Drive Calculator – An important thing to consider when you’re planning a trip is whether you should fly or if it would be cheaper to drive to your destination. Be Frugal’s Fly or Drive Calculator not only calculates your trip using the price of gas and the cost of an airline ticket, but also takes things like car rentals into consideration.

Twitter.com – OK, OK. We know Twitter’s not really a travel site, but we wanted to include it because it can be helpful when dealing with travel companies. For example, most airlines have whole customer service teams that just monitor Twitter for tweets about their flights and complaints from passengers. We’ve heard many stories of someone tweeting an airline about something they’re not happy about (like the plane being too hot) and the customer service team contacting that individual flight to resolve the problem.

Did we miss your favorite vacation planning website? Let us know in the comments!

The big news in tech right now is a dangerous bug in the internet known as ‘Heartbleed’ which could be putting your personal information at risk. Here’s what you need to know about it and what you can do.

What is Heartbleed?

Heartbleed is a “vulnerability,” or a hole in the elaborate security systems in place around the web. Imagine if there was one company that made over half the locks on doors in the world. Now imagine that someone discovered that all those locks could be picked easily and without anyone noticing. That frightening situation is basically what has happened on the internet.

To put it simply, Heartbleed is basically a programming error that makes many secure websites less secure. When you visit a page that asks for private information, such as a password or a credit card number, that page almost always has a lock icon beside its web address. This means that the page uses SSL, the technology that secures web pages with sensitive information. A popular and widespread version of SSL is OpenSSL, which is used by almost 60 percent of all websites. OpenSSL is where this bug was found.

On some versions of this system a small but critical error made it possible for a hacker to “snoop” the encrypted data being passed back and forth without being detected. Experts estimate that this problem has existed for the past two years.

While some internet security threats are overblown, this one is real. World-renowned internet security expert and author Bruce Schneier recently stated that “on a scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11.”

What Can I Do About It?

The bad news is that there is not a lot that ordinary users can do about this. It is up to the companies that run the compromised websites to fix it. Patches are available, and IT administrators world-wide should be scrambling to implement them.

For the moment, the best thing you can do is to avoid compromised websites that have not yet been fixed. How do you know if a site is compromised? You can check it by entering the address of the site at this page: http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/

Major websites that are known to be SAFE and were UNAFFECTED include:

• Twitter
• Amazon
• Microsoft (and sub-sites)
• AOL
• Paypal
• Most banking websites

Major websites that are SAFE but had been PREVIOUSLY AFFECTED include:

• Google
• Gmail
• YouTube
• Facebook
• Yahoo!
• Instragram
• Pinterest
• OKCupid
• GoDaddy

Mashable has a long list of sites that were affected with up-to-date information about their security status.

Should I Change My Passwords?

Yes, as long as the website you are changing your password on has been fixed. If you change your password on a site that is still vulnerable, hackers can simply grab your new password! At this point, however, it should be safe to change your password virtually everywhere.

Your best bet to protect yourself is to use separate passwords for every website.

We have long preached the virtues of password managers. These are programs that can generate truly random passwords and remember which password goes with which website for you. It used to be just a good idea to use a password manager, but now you need to seriously consider using one.

The password managers we recommend are LastPass, DashLane and KeePass. LastPass and DashLane store your passwords in a very secure cloud so you can access them from all your computers and mobile devices. KeePass stores them on your hard drive. Use whichever feels more comfortable to you, but please use one!

If you are dead set against password managers, you should still try to use different passwords for different sites. Your Amazon password should be different from your email password, which should be different from your bank password. To help you remember these passwords, consider writing them down and storing them somewhere safe at home – like, maybe in a safe!

What Else Can I Do?

Become better educated about internet security! With so much of our lives now stored online, this is a topic that affects virtually everyone. Knowing good password practices, like how to make a hard-to-guess password and that you should have separate passwords for separate websites, is critical.

Check websites that you regularly visit for the Heartbleed vulnerability using the link above. If you find that one has problems, you could try emailing their IT administrators to inform them and find out what steps are being taken. In the meantime, stay off of that website. Once the hole is plugged, log in and change your password.

Keep an eye on bank statements and credit card information for unusual activity. Heartbleed was discovered by security researchers. We have no proof that hackers have been using it, but the possibility exists. That means you need to take precautions to protect yourself in the digital world.

If you have more questions, call us a 1-888-972-9868 or email us at questions@deemable.com.

This is our first day at One Spark. We haven’t seen any creators yet. But what we did is we searched through the One Spark website to see which creators we definitely wanted to check out while we were here. Now, this is in no way saying that these are the best tech creators here at One Spark, but these are the ones that got our attention.

Verti Bluetooth item finder – Urban Grind Coffee Company (50 N Laura)

This is similar to the Tile you may have seen advertised on Facebook. This is a small bluetooth device that you can attach to your key ring, or stick to something. If you lose your item, you can open the app on your iPhone or android smartphone, and find the item.

What makes the Verti different is that it has a button on it. So, if you lose your phone, you can press the button on the Verti and find your phone. Also, according to the creator, the Verti will have a much larger range 200 feet instead of the normal 50-100 feet. It also has motion detection so you can tell if an item has moved.

What I want to know is if you can replace the battery. A lot of these Bluetooth finders have batteries that cannot be replaced, Which means you have to buy a new one every time the battery dies.

Park Genius – North Bank Riverwalk (341 South Hogan Street)

Instead of replacing the existing parking meters with electronic ones that can cost tens of thousands of dollars, their idea is to just augment them with a mobile app. All the city has to do is put a sticker on the parking meter that tells parkers that they can pay on the iOS or Android app, and the parking enforcement can check on their mobile device to see if you paid or not.

Marbel – SunTrust Building (76 N Laura Street)

Ultralight electric skateboard that can travel up to 10 miles with a top speed of 20 mph, and only weighs 9.9 pounds. The coolest part is that it also has an iOS app that you can use to control the ride! My inner twelve-year-old boy is thrilled.

Bucketwish – Jacksonville Bank Building (100 N Laura Street)

Bucketwish is a social network where you can post your wish list. It gives a fun way to share the crazy dreams and wishes that you want to do with your family, friends and strangers, and they can contribute to them and help make them happen.

The idea is, it’s kind of like Make-A-Wish or Dreams Come True, but not just for kids with life threatening illnesses.

The idea behind Bucketwish sounds odd. Who would want to pay for you to live out your dream, but honestly Kickstarter would’ve sounded insane just five years ago.

We’ve seen this kind of thing happen on crowd funding sites, where someone will do it for someone else, Like what happened with the bus driver who was being harassed by the students. Someone saw that terrible video and then turn around and raised enough money for her to go on vacation. There was such a huge response, that he ended up raising over $750,000.

WaZINIT – SunTrust Building (76 N Laura Street)

WaZINIT is an app that lets you scan the bar code of food products to see if they contain anything that you are trying to avoid. So, if you are allergic to peanuts, or you just don’t like artificial sweeteners, WaZINIT would let you know whether to avoid it or not.

It reminded me of an app that we talked about on our show one time called secretly vegan. Secretly Vegan lists common supermarket products that are vegan. WaZINIT takes it one step further.

Brash – The Jacksonville Landing, 2 Independent Drive

A universal gift card that is randomly filled with money throughout the day by various stores. But the money is only on the card for a limited amount of time.

The example they give on their profile page really explains it best. John Doe would get a text message saying “Hey John, you just received a $23 gift from Kohl’s! Hurry, that money is only good for 72 hours. BTW Kohl’s has 20% all coats this week!” John goes to Kohl’s and uses his Brash Card like a normal gift card. But, if John doesn’t spend that gift in time, that $23 goes directly back to Kohl’s. Merchants are guaranteed nearly full return on marketing investment, consumers get a few extra bucks.” Everybody is happy!

Alert The Boss – Visit Jacksonville (208 North Laura Street)

Alert the Boss is a text messaging service that allows customers to interact with businesses before they post a negative comment or complaint on a site like Yelp or Urbanspoon.

Evan Diamond from Alert The Boss was on Deemable Tech last year to talk about it before One Spark last year. At the time, Alert The Boss was really still just a concept. They were literally still working on the prototype right up until we started recording the podcast. In the year since then Alert the Boss has grown tremendously, and is a really great service.

SwitchTick – The Jacksonville Landing (2 Independent Drive)

Switch take is a website that allows you to exchange items with other people. So, for example if you had a microwave that you no longer need, but you need a new recliner, you could trade someone for a recliner on SwitchTick

#crtfreejax – South Laura Street

This is something that we’ve talked about on our radio segment and on our podcast before, you cannot just throw out computers, especially computer monitors. #crtfreejax wants to fabricate a machine that can recycle the Cathode Ray Tubes, which are the most difficult and dangerous part of computers.

Two projects that aren’t tech related that we have to mention:

Dawgtown – Icon Boutique (108 East Adams Street)

Dawgown is a hand-drawn animated movie by my friend Justin Murphy about a pitbull that is trying to escape the world of underground dogfighting. And, Al Letson, the host of State of the Re:Union is the voice of the MC in the movie.

Chomp Chips – Chomp Chomp (106 W Adams Street)

Curry. Potato. Chips. That’s all I have to say. If you haven’t had them… you haven’t lived. In fact, I have to wrap this up so I can go get some right now.

It’s estimated that nearly 500 million people around the world use the Windows XP operating system on their computers. If you’re one of those people, you need to be aware of an important change from Microsoft.

So long, it’s been good to know you.
Image credit: Microsoft

On April 8, 2014, the software giant ended their support for Windows XP.  Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that your computer suddenly stopped working on April 9. It will, however, start to be a lot riskier to keep using.

Windows XP was released in 2001, and because of its worldwide popularity Microsoft has continued to support it with updates, bug fixes and security patches for the past 13 years. As the company begins to focus on newer versions of the Windows operating system, they’ve decided to stop releasing these updated security patches for XP. This means that there will be nothing to guard you from hackers finding new ways to break into computers running XP and stealing personal information from victims.

Now, the chances are that your copy of Windows XP will still be relatively secure on April 9, but that will change as it gets older and older. To protect yourself, we recommend that you upgrade your operating system. Microsoft, of course, is happy to help, and have created a page with all of the information you’ll need to know. There, you can download a program that will check your PC to see if it is compatible with Windows 8.1, the latest version of Windows.

You may have heard about Windows 8 getting a bad rap due to a new interface and the fact that initial versions didn’t include the classic Start Menu so many of us know and love. But the truth is that you can still run the classic Windows desktop in Windows 8, which looks and feels a lot like what you’re used to.

We should note that upgrading to a new operating system will cost money, and that an upgrade to Windows 8.1 costs $199. That’s a lot, and that’s the reason most people buy a new computer with Windows already installed on it. In fact, you can get a new Windows 8 computer for as low as $249.

If those options sound too pricey or if you’re just not ready for Windows 8, we recommend checking out Windows 7. Microsoft has stopped selling it officially, but you can still buy copies of the home version from many third party vendors like Best Buy and Amazon.com for around $100. It is a great operating system, and we would go as far as to say it’s the “new” Windows XP in terms of it being easy to pick up and use.

Whatever you decide to do, you need to start taking steps to update that old copy of Windows XP right now. Having an outdated, unsecured operating system might cost you more than any new one ever could.

Looking for apps to download for your shiny new iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Here’s where to start. Here’s a not-so-scientific list of some of the absolute best apps that came out this year.

The Top 20 Best Apps of 2013 (via Apple Gazette)

It?s been quite a year for iOS apps. With the release of iOS 7 many apps have started to take on the flat look and feel of the new operating system. A lot of new apps were released while most were updated with new features and layouts. We?ve compiled…