Read Deemable Tech’s live blog from the Apple special press event discussing the announcements of the iPad Pro, new Apple TV and the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, and the new accessories, Apple Pencil and Keyboard.

This week Ray, Tom and Sean discuss the train wreck that was Amazon’s Prime Day, the loss of Nintendo’s Saturo Iwata and New Horizon’s historic visit to Pluto.

If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on our website, make sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher. And, while you’re there, leave a review. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

If you have a response or comment for the show, give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

Make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there. We’re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

New Horizons flies by Pluto

Space has been in the news this week. The spacecraft New Horizons, which launched in 2006, ventured closer to the dwarf planet Pluto than any other man-made object has ever been, 7,800 miles from the surface of Pluto. And the best part is, it took pictures! New Horizons has already sent back a handful of high resolution images of Pluto and its moons and more are expected to follow. New Horizons? journey is not over yet, as it is scheduled to continue on out into the largely unexplored Kuiper Belt.

#PrimeDayFail

Amazon held their much-hyped Prime Day event this week to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

Described as a summertime Black Friday for customers with Amazon Prime accounts, the company promised great deals on hot items all throughout the day on Wednesday. And depending on who you are and what you were looking to buy, this was true.

It was certainly a success for Amazon, who reported that sales were up 80 percent on Prime Day. They also most likely saw a jump in Amazon Prime subscriptions, since you had to be a member to get the deals.

The overwhelming reaction on social media, though, was ?meh.? Disgruntled shoppers quickly took to Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #primedayfail to voice their complaints about what they saw as Amazon?s failure to deliver on all of their hype. Reactions ranged from disappoint with the selection of sale items (some described it as being like a bad garage sale full of weird stuff), underwhelming prices, and frustration over limited quantities for items they actually wanted.

Gizmodo’s List of Prime Day Fails

Nintendo President & CEO Saturo Iwata

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passed Saturday July 11th at the age of 55 after an almost year-long struggle with cancer.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Iwata-san, early in his career he helped develop or worked on the Mario, Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros., Animal Crossing and Kirby series.

Iwata was promoted to president of Nintendo in 2003 and became CEO of Nintendo of America in 2013. Iwata took over Nintendo when it was struggling from poor sales of the GameCube, and brought the highly successful Wii and Nintendo DS to market. He was uniquely the first Nintendo president that was not related to the Yamauchi family since its founding.

Iwata was a very charismatic business leader that reached out to the community. He started an interview series on the Nintendo website called “Iwata Asks” where he discussed games with the developers and gave gamers a behind-the-scene view of the process.

He famously said at the Game Developers Conference in 2005, “On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.”

There have been tons of memorials to Iwata on the Internet since his passing, one of my favorites was Mashable’s “5 games you can play to honor late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata”

Hacking Team Gets Hacked

Secretive cybersecurity firm Hacking Team has long courted controversy for selling advanced cyber surveillance tools to governments with a less-than-spotless record on human rights. Well, two weeks ago they were hacked. Massively. An unknown hacker going by the pseudonym of Phineas Fisher broke into the company?s systems and dumped over 400 GB of the company?s data, including invoices, code for software, and software exploits it had paid for known as ?zero day exploits?, and posted it using the company?s own Twitter feed. Most controversially, the documents show that Hacking Team was doing business with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and the UAE, many of whom have been criticized by international human rights organizations for their aggressive surveillance of citizens, activists and journalists both domestically and overseas. Even Sudan, with whom Hacking Team had denied connections, was shown to be a recent client. These countries didn?t just use Hacking Team?s software, they often called upon Hacking Team?s specialized services to go after specific ?high value targets?, including journalists.

At this time Hacking Team has officially requested that its clients immediately cease use of all of its tools and software. This is slightly odd as leaked documents show that the company claims to have the ability to shut its own software down remotely.

The Hacking Team dump has also had some consequences for the larger software industry. The company had purchased a number of what are called ?zero-day exploits?, which are unpatched, undiscovered software vulnerabilities that can be used by hackers to infiltrate software or systems. Three major zero-day exploits were discovered for Flash, which Adobe had not known about and has been scrambling to patch. The fact that this company had access to loopholes in such a major, widespread piece of software is reason for concern.

Also, it is just one more reason that everyone should stop using Flash.

Firefox Axes Flash

Speaking of Flash. Computerworld is reporting that partly as a result of these new and really bad vulnerabilities, Mozilla Firefox has taken the unusual step of blocking Flash until it is completely patched. Alex Stamos, the chief of security for Facebook, has called on Adobe to announce an end-of-life date for Flash.

This week, Ray, Tom and Sean look at some of the news coming out of Apple’s annual Wordwide Developers Conference (WWDC), including the unveiling of the latest version of the iOS mobile operating system and the new music streaming app Apple Music. That and much more on this week’s Deemable Tech!

If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on our website, would you subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher? And, while you’re there, would you leave a review and say a few nice things about us? The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

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Make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there. We’re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Apple WWDC 2015

This week Apple held their annual conference to showcase its new software to developers. Since there was so much to talk about, we are just going to focus on the stuff we found really interesting. For full coverage of the announcements made at WWDC 2015, check out iMore’s article about everything you need to know about they keynote.

iOS 9 to offer ad blocking

Apple unveiled the latest version of its mobile operating system this week, and with it comes a host of new features. iOS 9 is going to have ad blocking for the first time ever. Specifically, Safari is going to allow extensions that include the ability to block ads. Publishers that depend on ad revenue to stay in business are super excited about this announcement.

Six-digit passcodes

In an effort to make their devices harder to break into, Apple revealed that newer iPhones and iPads that have TouchID and are running iOS 9 will be required to upgrade from a four-digit passcode to a six-digit one. Passcodes will remain optional, but if you choose to use one you will have to change it to at least six alphanumeric digits.

Another safeguard they introduced: after 10 failed attempts to enter your passcode, your device will erase itself.

iOS 9 brings multitasking to iPads

iOS 9 will also introduce a long-expected feature for iPads: multitasking. This comes in the form of three features, actually, called SlideOver, Splitview and picture-in-picture.

SlideOver will let you quickly slide in another app from a menu on the right side of the screen. For example, you could be using Safari to read restaurant reviews and then slide in Messages to message your friend. Other apps they showed taking advantage of this feature were the Calendar app and Notes.

There will also be a more traditional Split View mode where you can have your screen equally divided up between two apps running simultaneously and independent of each other.

There will also be a picture-in-picture mode that will let you have a small video player on top of other apps. Yes, Apple has finally added a feature all of our TVs had in 1993.

Not all of these features will be available on all devices. The Split View mode will only work on the iPad Air 2. SlideOver and picture-in-picture will be available on late 2013 or newer iPad Airs as well as all iPad Minis.

iOS 9 brings battery life, performance boost

Apple says that iOS 9 is all about making the existing hardware run better. They said that they have seen an extra hour of battery life on the iPhone 6, and iOS 9 has a new lower power mode that can save iPhones an additional 3 hours of battery life.

Apple News

Apple News is Apple’s latest attempt to disrupt a dying industry. This new app will be built into iOS 9, but fortunately it will replace the utterly useless hunk of trash app that was Newsstand. Instead of being what was essentially a folder for news and magazine apps, Apple News is going to be a a news curator app. You’ll be able to read Sport Illustrated, the New York Times, Wired and tons of other top tier media and some not so top tier media like local newspapers, TV and radio stations.

According to Apple, the new app learns what you like and suggests similar content. We’ll believe that when I see it. The promise of learning content has always been higher than the actual end product.

Apple News can include a lot of interactive features like charts, graphs, videos, and photos. So, it’s basically just like Flipboard, except it’s built into your iPhone. So, it’s going to destroy Flipboard.

Apple Swift programming language will be open-sourced

Apple Swift programming language is going to be open-sourced. For the first time ever, developers will be able to create apps for iOS and OS X on a computer that isn’t a Mac OS X. Don’t get too excited Windows Developers, it only runs on Linux.

Apple Music

Apple’s “one more thing” this year was Apple Music. Apple basically took Beats Music, Ping (you guys remember Ping, right?) and the new MySpace (you guys remember MySpace, right?) and stuck them in a Blendtec blender and poured out what was left and called it Apple Music. With Apple Music, you can listen for free to a 24 hour online radio stream called Beats 1, or you can listen to streaming music on-demand for $9.99 for a single membership or $14.99 for a family of up to six. They’ll give you a free, three?month trial membership to get you hooked too.

So, yeah, Apple created a Spotify killer. Built into the iPhone and you’ll be able to get it on Android too. That’s fine, but apparently Apple thinks that you don’t have enough social media accounts in your life, and you need one dedicated to communicating with your favorite artists with. You know, just like they thought when they came out with Ping. And it flopped. And, just like Justin Timberlake and the gang thought when they bought MySpace from News Corp and relaunched it as a social media site for musicians, and it? well we don’t know what happened to it because we’ve never been back for more than enough time to download our pictures and videos. But we’ve heard it’s a barren wasteland.

On Apple Music, you’ll be able to get exclusive content like behind-the-scenes videos, intimate conversations with the artists and musicians can post blogs and updates on Apple Music. You know, just like they can do on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and their own website.

Oculus Rift reveals consumer version of virtual reality headset

Oculus Rift held a major live event this week, officially unveiling the consumer version of their long-awaited, greatly hyped VR headset. Purportedly light and comfortable, the headset slips on like a baseball cap, is easily adjustable, and allows users to substitute their own headphones for the pair that comes with it. The screen is actually a pair of small, high-res LED screens set right in front of the user?s eyes.

Two controllers were announced. The one that it will ship with? The Xbox One wireless controller. Yep. A slightly more revolutionary controller called the Oculus Touch was also announced: this is a pair of thumbsticks with motion tracking and haptic feedback which the user holds in each hand. The Touch will release in 2016 but is not expected to be available when the Oculus Rift first launches.

Speaking of launching, you are probably wondering when exactly the Rift will launch and how much it will cost. That was one thing the press conference did not shed any light on. The company still says that it is targeting 2016 and there are rumors of a price point around $400.

Comcast takes away woman’s email address, gives it to new customer with the same name

Cable internet provider Comcast is infamous for their poor customer service, and this next story is not going to help their reputation any. Ken Amaro of First Coast News reports that Comcast took thirteen year veteran customer Kathleen Cox?s email address away and gave it to another customer with the same name who had just signed up in Michigan. Kathleen had used her Comcast email address as her primary email account and when it was taken away lost access to all her emails. She said that it wasn?t until local news took up the story that Comcast finally returned the address to her. No word on whether she got her old emails back as well.

Google Chrome will start pausing auto-playing Flash videos

Google says that their next version of Chrome will roll out a feature that “intelligently pauses” Flash content that isn?t central to the web page. This is in the interest of memory and battery life for laptops. By some estimates, disabling Flash while using Chrome on your laptop could give you 10-20% more battery life.

PornHub crowdfunding sex tape shot in space

Major porn site PornHub has launched a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGogo to raise money to shoot a sex tape in space. The campaign is looking for $3.4 million in funding which takes into account chartering the flight, insurance, crew, equipment, as well as backer perks. PornHub has not specified who exactly they plan to fly with or the exact date they plan to film on. They do, however, have the actors picked out.

Facebook payments

And here’s a story we apparently overlooked back in March that recently came to our attention. You can send your friends on Facebook money through Facebook messenger. If you have a debit card on file with Facebook (perhaps you have bought an ad or a dumb game), when you message someone on the Facebook messenger either the app or on the desktop website, you’ll see a dollar sign with a circle around it. Click that button and you can send your friends money. Right now it doesn’t cost anything to send or receive money via Facebook Messenger. Fortunately, you can set a PIN code for payments so that when you accidently leave your Facebook profile logged in and your friend or girlfriend “hacks” you, he or she won’t be able to transfer all of your money to a new account.

Reddit bans FatPeople Hate subreddit, throws angry redditors into an uproar

Reddit, which bills itself as ?the front page of the internet?, and is of course where post the news stories we are working on for this podcast, saw some major drama this week. Reddit has long had a policy of allowing people to create subreddits around virtually any topic they want, even when those topics are awful. There are subreddits devoted to racism, bigotry, and all kinds of vile stuff. Reddit generally leaves them alone, unless they start crossing certain lines.

This week, apparently, lines were crossed. Reddit banned five subreddits, the largest of which was one called FatPeopleHate, which boasted over 150,000 subscribers. At the risk of editorializing, FatPeopleHate was actually even worse than it sounded, as redditors there had linked to the Twitter feeds, YouTube channels and personal information of real people, allowing other redditors to pour abuse, bile and mockery on them. FatPeopleHate had also become very popular and was regularly voting threads to the top of reddit?s /r/all, the ?front page? of the internet?s front page.

Reddit said that FatPeopleHate and the other four subreddits had crossed the line by getting involved in harassment instead of just being about ideas. This did not go down well with a very vocal part of reddit?s userbase, who begin creating a flood of alternate subreddits like FatPeopleHate2 and FatterPeopleHate and filling up unrelated subreddits with angry posts about reddit CEO Ellen Pao.

This is not the first time reddit has had problems moderating its own users. There was similar outrage when it tried to crackdown on users posting images from the nude celebrity leaks last year and before that when it attempted to purge subreddits dedicated to ?creepshots?, where men shared sexualized pictures taken of women without their consent.

The problem for reddit is that it doesn?t even require an email address to sign up for the service, and creating a new subreddit is the work of a moment, thus creating a situation that is very difficult to moderate.

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If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

This week, Comcast can’t keep itself out of the news. First, Comcast announces that it is bringing the fastest Interwebs in the country to Jacksonville (WOOT!) and other cities in Florida. Then, the FCC and the Justice Department rain on Comcast’s parade and lets it know they are not going to let it merge with Time Warner Cable. In other news, a paranoid dad flew a drone to school with his daughter, and two guys took the iPhone/Android fight way too far.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

If you haven?t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcheror subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave a review on iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews posted, the higher Deemable Tech will be listed, and the more listeners will see the show.

And make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Comcast Gigabit Pro

People in Jacksonville and some other towns in Florida are going to be pretty excited next month. In a story Jessica Palombo contributed to Deemable.com, Comcast is bringing the fastest fiber optic Internet service in the country to a few cities in Florida, including our own fair town. The service, which is called Gigabit Pro, will actually have 2 Gbps download and upload speeds ? more than twice the speed of Google Fiber.

However, Comcast would not give a price for the new service. The next fastest service from Comcast is Extreme 505, which runs up to 505 Mbps up and down, and costs over $400 a month with taxes and fees.

Comcast Drops Its Bid to Merge With Time Warner Cable

Speaking of Comcast, earlier this week it was looking pretty  looked bad for its merger with Time Warner Cable. According to Bloomberg, the Justice Department’s antitrust department was going to recommend blocking the merger. And, the FCC was not negotiating the terms of the deal with Comcast, which made it look even less likely that it was going to go through.

But now, ?people with knowledge of the matter? have told Bloomberg that Comcast is backing out of the merger. There was supposed to be a board meeting Thursday. And an official  announcement will probably come Friday.

As the Verge pointed out in an editorial, throughout this whole process, Comcast has never answered this simple question: Why not compete?

Verizon to offer custom pay TV packages, let customers choose monthly programming bundles

And while we?re on the subject of Internet and TV providers, in move that is one small step closer to a la carte cable TV, Verizon recently announced that they are rolling out a new pay TV service that will let customers choose from channel bundles that they change monthly.

These Verizon FiOS ?Custom TV? packages will start at 65 dollars a month for broadband service, 36 fixed basic cable channels, and two genre-based channel packs that customers can swap or unsubscribe from after a month. You can also add packs for an extra 10 dollars. Verizon has seven of these packs to choose from, including sports and children?s programming.

Verizon says they are going after customers who want something in between giant, fully loaded cable packages and cheaper basic packages offered by their competitors.

After “Drone Dad” follows his daughter to school, DJI Phantom 2 grounded

Tennessee father Chris Early?s daughter decided she wanted to walk to the school bus by herself so he did what any tech-inclined father would do: he followed her with a drone.

The drone was a model known as a DJI Phantom 2 which has a high def video camera mounted on it. Early followed his daughter with the drone. A local news station caught wind of this and the story went nationwide. Chris Early has been called ?overprotective?, ?the world?s most embarrassing father? and ‘drone dad’. As a result of all the attention he says he has grounded the drone for now.

One World Trade Center Elevator Shows 515 Years Of New York City

One World Trade Center has added an elevator that displays 515 years of New York City history in 50 seconds.

The New York Times covered this story, but I wrote an article about it for Deemable.com.

While they haven?t developed time travel, the engineers and designers behind the elevators that takes guests to the observatory at the very top of One World Trade Center in New York City have come pretty close. When you board the elevators, you will see a panoramic view of New York City rising out of the underground in the 1500s all the way up through time to the 102nd floor today.

The elevator uses nine 75-inch screens to create the illusion that it is a glass-walled elevator traveling through time.

Along the way, you’ll see the arrival of the Europeans, the Revolution and the rise of the skyscrapers. Inevitably, as time travels through the late-1900s, one of the Twin Towers enters your sight and just as quickly fades away as the 2000s begin. It is a touching, beautiful memorial to the history of the site. You can see The New York Times video of the elevator on our website at Deemable.com

YouTube celebrates 10 year anniversary

This week marks the 10 year anniversary of the first video being uploaded to YouTube.

On April 23 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted a 19 second clip of elephants at the zoo titled “Me at the zoo.”  In it, Karim discusses the elephants’ “really, really, really long trunks” and, well, that’s all. Pretty tame compared to what you can find on YouTube today.

About a year after this video was posted, Google acquired YouTube for $1.6 billion.

According to reports, YouTube will mark the anniversary with a month-long celebration starting next week.

Skycure Hack Can Use Wifi To Disable iOS Devices

A research firm called Skycure reported that it has developed a hack based around a bug in iOS that could allow it to disable all nearby iOS devices using a wifi router. The wifi router has to be configured in a specific way. It will then cause any device connected to it to keep crashing and rebooting in an endless loop. It can be combined with another hack that forces iOS devices to connect to that network. Essentially the only way to escape the endless cycle of rebooting would be to get out of range of the router.

Skycure has not publicly released technical specifications for the bug it used to create the hack to give Apple time to patch it.

Argument Over Which Smartphone Is Better Turns Deadly

Police in Tulsa, OK apprehended a man staggering around a parking lot late at night cut up and covered in blood. The man reported to them that he had been in a fight with his roommate over which smartphone was better – the iPhone or the new Samsung Galaxy. iPhone versus Android fights can get heated, but most stop short of physical conflict. The man reported that he and his roommate had been drinking and wound up stabbing each other with broken beer bottles. Both were admitted to the hospital and are expected to make a full recovery. No word on whether either man was arrested or whether either had his mind changed about his preferred choice of phone.

How many tabs does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Redditor Peanut Butter Shudder suggested an answer to Ray’s question. Last week during Shower Thoughts, Ray said he didn’t know how many tabs he had ever opened in his life. Peanut Butter Shudder mentioned Tab for a Cause on our reddit page (reddit.com/r/deemable) Tab for a Cause apparently tracks how many tabs you open and it has a bit of slacktivism built into it. If you install the browser extension, you’ll raise money for charities simply by browsing the internet. Heck, why not?

Who had the best segue?

Vote! Send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com or leave us a voicemail at 1-888-972-9868.

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Photo credit: iPhone vs Android by nrkbeta.no is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.

Hey folks! We are not doing a normal podcast this week because of One Spark. Fortunately, there wasn’t much news in the tech world this week anyway. Basically everyone is sitting on their hands waiting for the Apple Watch to come out. But, if you have a Mac or an iOS device, Ray does have some news for you that you’ll want to hear, especially if you have an iPhone on Sprint. Enjoy this incredibly short, “all Ray” episode of Deemable Tech.

This week the guys are elated about the death of Internet Explorer, the low, low price of free to upgrade to Windows 10, (even if you never paid for Windows 7 or 8) and Mario, Zelda and the gang are finally coming to mobile phones, but not the way you want them to.

If you haven’t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcher or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave us a review in iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed, and the more listeners will see our show.

And make sure to share us on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

This Week’s Run Down

Windows 10 is free for everybody!

So, you may have heard of the latest version of Windows that Microsoft is working on releasing later this summer. If you haven’t, it’s called Windows 10. If you’re wondering why it’s called Windows 10 instead of… you know… Windows 9, it’s because of a little coding shortcut where programmers referred to Windows 95 and Windows 98 as – you guessed it – “Windows 9.”

Well, it turns out that Windows 10 is going to be FREE for everyone, well almost everyone.

Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s Windows chief to Reuters “We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10”

So that means, as long as you have a computer running Windows 7 or Window 8 or 8.1 you can install 10 on your computer, at no charge, even if you stole the version that’s on your computer right now.

The Death of Internet Explorer

Microsoft confirmed this week that Internet Explorer will not be the primary web browser in Windows 10. Yes, the venerable Internet Explorer, which has been a part of Windows since Windows 95, is being put out to pasture. It will still ship with the next version of Microsoft’s operating system for backwards compatibility reasons, but a new browser with the codename Project Spartan will be Microsoft’s flagship browser. Project Spartan’s real name has not been released yet but Microsoft says that it will not use the Internet Explorer branding.

Nintendo to develop mobile games

After years of speculation, Nintendo is moving into the mobile game market. They announced this week that they have partnered with Japanese mobile game giant DeNA to “develop and operate new game apps based on Nintendo’s intellectual property, including its iconic game characters, for smart devices.”

They were quick to point out that their primary focus will still be their game consoles like the Wii U and 3DS, and that these new mobile apps are intended to complement, not replace, those systems. In the same announcement, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that a new console codenamed NX is development.

Unfortunately for those of us hoping this means we’ll be able to play classic Mario or Zelda games on our devices, Iwata also said that Nintendo’s plans do not include direct ports of console games. He cited differences between dedicated controllers and touchscreens as the reason.

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If you have a comment, contact us at feedback at deemable.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-888-972-9868.

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Photo Credit: Internet Explorer, a web developers menace by Jorgen Kesseler is used under CC BY-SA 2.0.

It’s always good to make sure you have the latest version of iOS that your Apple device can run. iOS updates include bug fixes and security fixes that keep your smartphone and tablet running fresh and safe. Here’s how to update your iPhone to the latest version, iOS 8.1.3.

Q: I just got an iPhone 6. I heard about the new keyboards in i0S 8, but I can’t figure out how to use them. How do I get them installed and what do they do?

The Swype keyboard running on an iPad with iOS 8. Image credit: Swype

A: iOS 8, the operating system that comes standard with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, added the ability to install third-party keyboards. These let you type on your phone or tablet in a way that the company that made it didn’t originally design. For instance, instead of tapping individual keys, some of them let you type by drawing continuous lines from one letter to another. This style of typing was originally popularized by the Swype keyboard.

Third-party keyboards have been available on Android phones for several years, but iOS 8 is the first operating system to support them on iPhones.

To install third-party keyboards on the iPhone, you’ll first need to find the one you want in the Apple App Store and download it. Then, you’ll open the Settings app, look for “Keyboards” under the “General” menu, and tap “Add New Keyboard” and select the one you just downloaded. Then, tap the name of the keyboard again, and hit the “Allow Full Access” switch. Almost every iOS keyboard app will also explain these steps when you open the app.

Once you have the keyboards installed, you can switch between them while typing by tapping the globe icon in the bottom left corner of the keyboard.

Third-party keyboards are basically like any apps on Android – you download them and they automatically install. You can switch keyboards under the main settings on the device, under the “Language and Input” menu. There will be a list of all your installed keyboards and you can swap between them there.

We have been testing out a few third-party keyboards on iOS 8 since it was released. Swipe-to-type keyboards like Swype and Swiftkey definitely make typing a lot faster, but one of our favorites is called Fleksy. This keyboard basically lets you type as sloppy as you want, and as long as you tap somewhere near where the key is the keyboard will figure out what you’re trying to type.

Try some of them out, Miraya, and remember: the best third-part keyboard is the one you feel most comfortable typing on.

Deemable Tech is back with another fun episode! First, Ray and Tom discuss some big recent news items including a familiar face coming to Windows Phone and security problems for Apple’s iOS. Then producer Sean Birch joins them for another round of the runaway hit trivia segment Does Not Compute! Do you know what a common cause for software glitches is? Is it Colonel Panic? Find out the answer in this week’s episode of the Deemable Tech podcast! 

Hey, did you know that we’ll be premiering our first hour-long public radio special at the end of March? If you’d like to be a part of it and have your question answered on air, leave us a voicemail at 1-888-972-9868 to “audition” for the show!

#59 The Adventures of Cortana and Colonel Panic

Q: My coworker lost her iPhone at work the other day. She was in a panic because she thought that someone had stolen it. Fortunately, someone turned it in later the next day. I thought I heard there was some way to find an iPhone if you lost it? Is there a way, and if so, how does it work?

A: Thanks for your question Emily, and you’re right, there is a way. Any iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad) that is running iOS 4.2 or higher has a feature called “Find My iPhone”. With Find My iPhone, you can see on a map where your iPhone is, remotely lock the phone with a pin number and send a message to your iPhone that will show on the screen like, “Hey! I lost my iPhone! Call me at this other number if you find it!” You can also make an alarm go off on your iPhone that’s pretty loud, even if your ringer is on silent. And, in case you are a spy or secret agent, you can wipe your phone and delete everything on it.

To find out if you have Find My iPhone setup, open the Settings app. Then, tap on iCloud (which is right under General at the bottom of the first screen). Then, scroll down until you see the listing for Find My iPhone. Make sure that the switch is turned on.

Now, here’s the fun part. Go to iCloud.com on a computer and sign in to the website with your Apple ID. That’s the email address and password that you enter when you purchase something from iTunes or the App Store. Once the page loads, click on the Find My iPhone icon. The web page will open to a map showing a dot where your iPhone is. Click on the dot to get a menu to play a sound on your phone, put it in “lost mode”, and erase your iPhone.

You can also go to someone else’s iOS device and download the free Find My iPhone app and login with your Apple ID account and do the same thing.

So, if you actually lose your iPhone, immediately go to iCloud.com, or find a friend that has an iOS device and download the Find My iPhone app on their device. Login to the website or app, then put your iPhone in Lost Mode and lock your iPhone. Make sure to remember your pin. Do this regardless of whether you think it was actually stolen or not. A smart criminal might remember to turn off Find My iPhone, and an innocent person might not be able to figure out who you are or how to get the phone back to you.

Then, if you suspect that you just lost your phone, click “Play Sound” and send a beep to your iPhone. Hopefully, someone will notice it and return it to you. If that doesn’t work, or if you know your iPhone has been stolen, call the police and tell them where the iPhone is. Then, of course, just, let them do their job.

There’s something similar for you Android users out there. Since Android doesn’t have a baked-in feature like Find My iPhone, you’ll need to download an app called “Where’s My Droid” in Google Play that does pretty much the same thing. With the free, full version of Where’s My Droid, you can send a text message to your phone with a special activation word that will make the phone ring at full volume and provide your phone’s location. You can also go to WheresMyDroid.com and use all of the features there.

With the paid, pro version, you can also remote lock the phone, and remote wipe the device and/or the SD card.

Also, if you lose your Android and you haven’t already installed Where’s My Droid, there is a lite version that you can actually install remotely just by going to WheresMyDroid.com. That version is more limited, but you can still make the phone ring at full volume and get the GPS location of the phone.

Image Credit: Chris Owens / Flickr

Q: I use two desktop computers at work, and I’m starting to feel like having two keyboards and mice is taking up too much space on my desk. Is there any way I can use one keyboard and one mouse for both computers? Also, is there any app I can use to control my computer from my iPad?

A: Thanks for your question, Mike. There are a couple of methods to control two different computers from one keyboard and mouse: either with a cable or with software.

First, there is a cable called a KVM switch, which is short for “keyboard, video and mouse” switch. These let you share one mouse, keyboard and monitor between two computers. There are also KM switch cables that allow you to share just a keyboard and mouse with two computers that have two separate monitors. If you are using the two different computers at the same time, that second one might be the best option for you.

Either way, they both run between $20 and $100. The great thing about using a physical cable is that the connection is really fast, and you’ll never have any lag. The down side is that you are limited by the length of the cable. Also, you’ll need to press a button, or turn a switch, to go back and forth between the two computers.

If you want to go the software route, there are two great programs that do the same thing as a KM switch, but over your network instead of a cable. One is called ShareMouse. It is super easy to use, and isn’t too difficult to set up. However, it normally costs $30 per computer!

Another option is a program called Synergy (this is the one we prefer). It’s a tiny bit harder to set up than ShareMouse, but it starts at only $10 and it’s open-source, so there’s an entire community constantly working on it to make it better! On both programs you don’t have to press a button to switch computers – it’s as simple as sliding your mouse off the edge of one screen, and it will appear on the other screen. Also, both programs support clipboard sharing, which allows you to copy text on one computer and paste it on the other.

Both programs are relatively small ones that don’t use up a lot of resources on your computers or bandwidth on your network. One potential downside of using one of these programs is that if your network is bogged down (for example if you are running streaming video or downloading a lot), you might notice a slight lag in reaction time. Also, neither program supports sharing a monitor between the two computers.

If you are trying to do that with software, you’ll have to try Remote Desktop or a Virtual Network Computing program. That’s a little bit more complicated, and probably isn’t worth it if you have both computers in the same room.

If each computer does have its own monitor, we recommend starting out by trying Synergy. That will probably be the best solution for your problem. If that doesn’t work, then try ShareMouse or a hardware KM or KVM switch.

To answer your second question about controlling your computers from your iPad, we recommend Mobile Mouse Pro. You can get it in the App Store for $2.99 (it’s also available for the same price in Google Play for Android users). You have to install a small server app on your desktop, but once you do and open the app, your phone or tablet turns into a multitouch trackpad, remote keyboard, and music and presentation remote. If you just want to try out Mobile Mouse before you buy it, there is a free version called Mobile Mouse Lite in the App Store and Google Play.

Hopefully one of these options will help you out, Mike. Try them out, and clear off that desk!

You: “I’d really like to learn Photoshop. Ugh! There aren’t any classes when I am not at work. Private tutoring is so expensive, I guess I’ll just have to get a book and learn it on my own.”

Later, at the store…

You: “Man, there are so many books on Photoshop! I had no idea! I guess I will just get the book labeled “FOR DUMMIES” because I want to start from the beginning.”

Does that scenario describe your own experience? If so, you are reading the right post. Many people choose to buy a book when they want to teach themselves something on the computer. This works wonders if you are technically minded, a self starter, and extremely disciplined. The worst offenders are the “For Dummies” books. Have you even read one of them, actually read one? They may work for some people, but for most, they are too wordy and more technical than us “dummies” need. Their counter parts are the “Missing Manuals“. There was a reason they were missing. They come across as the bible of whatever subject their title boasts. However, upon further examination, they fall into the same mindset that anyone reading a technical book must be technically minded.

But, you are reading this to find out which books are the good ones.

The “Teach Yourself Visually” series is one of the better ones. They give you lots and lots pictures. There are some step-by-step instructions, but mostly pictures. I recommend this to my clients who are visual learners and those who learn by doing. The “Simplified” series come in a close second. Another great series for someone new to a certain subject is the “Plain & Simple” series. It is a great short book to get your feet wet in any subject.

“Visual Quick Tips” series is always a great reference. “Sam’s Teach Yourself” is good if you are attending a class where someone can explain what Sam fails to explain. It is a great supplemental read.

Portable Genius is a great series of how to and quick reference guides for anyone with an iPhone or iPad only. (Your parents, grandparents, etc.) It is a great series for those who just want to learn the basics and not be bogged down with too much outside info. Que came out with a “My…” series that rivals the “Portable Genius”. The “My…” Series covers all types of tablets, computers, phones. They even have a book on the Chromebook.

“In Easy Steps” and “In Easy Steps For Seniors” are two amazing series out of England. They are some of the best step-by-step and easiest to understand for seniors. I recommend both of these series to all seniors. The books are light, uncluttered, and a larger print; perfect for the Greatest Generation.

As you excel in your studies, “Digital Classroom” and Adobe’s “Classroom in a Book” series takes you to the next level. “Step by Step” is another series that can bring your skills from a 3 to a 7 in a matter of hours. They can be wordy, but they are easy to understand.

The O’Reilly books are not to be topped when it comes to the best in the business. If you are at a higher level and need that extra push or want to learn something new, O’Reilly is for you. They are comprehensive and serve as great desk references as well as paperweights when needed. They are worth every penny, and now available in non-paperweight edition (eBook).

When purchasing a book, Rule #1 is to always make sure you are getting the book that is right for you. If you have Mac OSX Lion, but the book you have in your hand is Mountain Lion, put it back. You should be getting the exact book for your exact program. If you have MS Word 2013, an MS Word 2010 book will not be kind to you. Close enough only works in horseshoes and hand grenades. Now that we know to match our book to our program, what about when the book was written? Was the program updated since the book was written? Take Facebook for example. People buy a book about Facebook, get it home and realize that nothing looks the same. Facebook doesn’t have a new “edition” out, but the program has been updated.

Rule #2 is always check the copyright! If a book was not published in the current year (ie: 2013), it is not worth looking at. When it comes to technology, everything changes so fast. It can take up to one year to bring a book to press and distribute it to the stores. If you have a book in your hand that says it was copyrighted in 2011, the info could be up to 3 years old!

For those of you on a budget, the library is a great resource, but remember to check on Rule #2! Many public libraries also now offer eBooks that can be “checked out” on a tablet or computer with an Internet connection. It takes a bit of time to figure it out, but it is a great alternative to the $60+ some books can run.

Another alternative is used bookstores. Sometimes, if you are trying to learn a program that is 1-2 versions back, the regular stores do not carry books on that software anymore. (See Rule #1.) Another option is a nifty little website called ALLBookstores.com. They have a one stop shopping approach to book buying. The site compares all other bookstore sites to find you the best price on any given book. They compile a list of well-known sites like Amazon, eBay, and Half.com, as well as the little guys like WonderBooks, and Textbookx.

If you still can’t find the right book, try this tried and true test. Grab three books off the shelf on your subject. Open each one into the middle. If you can comprehend and understand what they are asking you to do, and it makes some sense, it is the book for you! Not all writers write books for everyone. Find one that has a writing style you can learn from, hence the test.

Happy Hunting!

This week on Deemable Tech, Ray and Tom have so many questions they decide to have the first ever “Deemable Tech: Lightning Round.” In the Lightning Round, Ray, Tom and guest host Elizabeth Pampalone try to answer as many questions as they can off the top of their head. Sean Birch is the judge, and whoever gets the most questions right gets the grand prize of absolutely nothing!

Episode 38 – The Lightning Round

DRAFT TRANSCRIPT

RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and this is Deemable Tech, tech help worth listening to.

TOM: Got a question about your computer, smart phone, tablet or the Internet? Give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or send us an email at questions@deemable.com.

RAY: This week’s episode of the Deemable Tech podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at a small orange dot com.

And, by audible.com – Deemable Tech listeners can get a FREE audiobook download at audibletrial.com/Deemable Over 100,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.

And, from All Florida Insurance Options, an authorized Progressive agency, helping people shop for insurance at 904-757-3288 or at their office in Highland Square on Dunn Avenue in North Jacksonville.

RAY: This week, back in the studio once again, we have a special guest, Elizabeth Pampalone, owner of JaxComputerChic.com, a small business computer consulting and computer training company. Welcome back to the show Elizabeth!

ELIZABETH: *vamp response*

RAY: Today we are going to do something a little different. We have a backlog of older questions to get through.

TOM: Why didn’t we answer those questions?

RAY: Laziness? Stupidity? A lack of organization?

TOM: Yeah, that sounds about right. So what are we going to do about them?

RAY: I thought we should just run through them, as fast as we can, answering them off the cuff, gameshow style. In fact, I thought we could call it.

*THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

TOM: Wow, what are we calling it again?

RAY: *THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

TOM: Awesome! But before we dive into The Lightning Round –

RAY: You mean, *THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

TOM: Yeah, that. Before we do that, we have a couple of ordinary questions to answer. And, Elizabeth, feel free to dive in on these at any point.

ELIZABETH: OK. Looks like the first question is from a guy named Ryan.

RAY: Cool, can you read it for us?

ELIZABETH: Ryan writes, For some reason, I can’t find 1channel or icefilms as add on options on my XBMCHub on my Windows 7 laptop. They are amazing on the unlocked Apple TV, and I want to put them on my laptop. Any thoughts?
TOM: *laughs*
Now I know how listeners to our show must feel when we start going on and on about things they’ve never heard about.
Before I yell at those pesky kids to get off my lawn, does anybody know what a 1channel or an icefilm is? And what is an XBM-whatever and what does it have to do with unlocking an Apple TV? I didn’t even know you could unlock an Apple TV.
RAY: Well, in the Apple world we call it jailbreaking. And yes, you definitely can jailbreak your Apple TV. Just like Jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad, you are simply taking off or breaking the code that keeps iOS shackled.
TOM: Why would you want to?
RAY: Well, normally your Apple TV can do two things: mirror the desktop of your Mac, iPhone or iPad, and stream media from iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube or one of the other authorized Apple TV channels, to your television. If you want to play any other kind of media through it, you’re out of luck. But an Apple TV is actually a powerful little LINUX-based computer in its own right, and by losing it from its shackles, you can use it to stream just about anything you want to your television.
TOM: OK, what is XB-whatever?
RAY: XBMC. It used to stand for Xbox Media Center because that’s what it started out as, but now it is a free, open source media player which can be run on a variety of devices.
TOM: Including, let me guess, a jailbroken Apple TV or a Windows 7 laptop.
RAY: You got it. The XBMC platform support third-party add-ons which allow you to do things like stream movies through it and watch ripped DVDs.
TOM: So if I jailbreak my Apple TV, I can install XBMC and watch my ripped DVDs on it?
RAY: Yep.
TOM: Cool. But Ryan didn’t just say XBMC, did he? He said XBMCHub.
RAY: OK, so despite the fact that it was originally designed to be installed on hacked XBoxes and jailbroken Apple TV’s, XBMC is supposed to only access legal content. But since it’s open source, someone has created a separate version called XBMC Hub which is a little more – open – about what content you access through it.
TOM: I’m guessing 1channel and icefilms are ways to get free content that you’d normally have to pay for.
RAY: Well basically they are free services that host links to all kinds of TV and movies… some of which you should technically be paying for. But they don’t actually host the content themselves, so they’re in a legal grey area. There’s no law that specifically says what they are doing is illegal, but that’s never stopped a copyright lawyer before.
TOM: Riiight. So, just to recap, Ryan has jailbroken his Apple TV and installed XBMC Hub on it so he can stream free TV shows and movies to his TV. And now he wants to do the same thing on his Windows laptop, but he’s running into problems.
RAY: I think that sums up it up.
TOM: And… we’re not going to help him, are we?
RAY: No.
TOM: Here’s the deal Ryan, and all our other podcast listeners. Here at Deemable Tech we have a policy of trying to stay neutral on the topic of copyright, piracy, DRM and that sort of thing.
On the one hand, it’s your laptop, it’s your Apple TV, you are welcome to try and do whatever you want with it. And we’re not going to pretend that there aren’t lots of ways to get, say, pretty much any movie or television program for free and stream it to your television.
RAY: But we’re also not going to tell you how to do it. At least in the US, distributing copyrighted content for free without the author’s permission is technically illegal. Do people do it all the time? Yes. Should the laws about this stuff be different? Maybe. Are movie and TV studios technological dinosaurs with their heads stuck in the sand? Probably. But right now the law is the law and we can’t be in the position of encouraging our listeners to break it.
TOM: If you decide to stick it to the man and circumvent the official channels for this kind of stuff, well, that’s your business. I mean, we’re geeks, we get it. It’s like rooting or jailbreaking your smartphone – it’s your device, we think you should be able to do what you want with it. Fortunately, rooting and jailbreaking smartphones is legal. We’re glad to answer questions about that on this podcast. But with other devices you’re getting into a gray area and we can’t help you. And as far as copyrighted content goes, well, we’re not even going to touch that issue with a ten foot pole.
Ryan, I’m sure with a little technical know-how, Google-fu and maybe asking some questions on the right messageboards you can get your questions answered. But it’s up to you to face the legal or technical consequences. So you’re on your own with this one!

TOM: Fabio writes – Hi Tom and Ray,

I’m Fabio and I’m writing you from Italy. I’m Italian so please forgive me if I make any mistakes. Here’s my problem: I have a desktop computer with windows 7 and sometimes while I surf the web, (I use the latest version of firefox) the screen freezes for a couple of seconds and then on the system tray this message appears: ?Display driver stopped responding and has recovered?. I tried to update the video card driver (I have an ATI Radeon 5700) but the problem continues. I hope you can help me with this because it is really annoying. I really love your show, it’s useful and entertaining and I’ve downloaded every podcast of the program on Itunes.

Thank you in advance

RAY: Awesome! Thanks for your question Fabio. That’s a hard one. *PAUSE* Did you ever watch Eureka, Tom?

TOM: Like, one time. For five minutes. And then I changed the channel.

RAY: *Explain what Eureka is.*

TOM: OK, did you just completely change the subject? Aren’t we going to answer Fabio’s question?

RAY: Of course we are…

TOM: So what does this have to do with Fabio’s question?

RAY: Explain how every episode of Eureka works.

Here’s the formula for a perfect Eureka episode:
They’re having a normal day, *example*
then something wacky happens, *example*
Then, they find out that that wacky thing has gotten worse, *example*
Then they find out that the wacky thing was caused by some experiment, except the experiment wasn’t suppose to work like that, *example*
Then, they find out that the wacky thing happened because the first experiment interacted with a second experiment *example* and the interference of the two experiments caused the wacky thing.
Then, they find out the wacky thing is going to (A) kill someone, (B) destroy the entire town, (C) kill everyone in the country, or (D) destroy the entire world, and they only have five minutes or less to fix it.
So, then they come up with some ridiculously complicated method of changing the wacky thing described with technobabble by the geeks, and the sheriff describes it with an simple analogy, and it will probably result in an amazing new achievement in science if it works.
And then, they do it. It almost always works, unless it’s a ?very special episode? in which case the worst case scenario does happen, but even then there is a twist that makes it a good thing that it happened. *example*

So that’s how it works. And Colin Ferguson, if you’re listening, when you guys decide to make the Eureka movie, I am totally ready to write the script.

TOM: OK, Ray, while that was *vamps*, what does that have to do with Fabio’s question?

RAY: I don’t know? What was Fabio’s question?

TOM: Remember, his display driver stopped responding? I knew it, you were just changing the subject!

RAY: *Explain how PCs are like Eureka. Everything should work together well, but they sometimes don’t and it’s really complicated to explain why.

TOM: Anyway, this one’s pretty easy, you just

Open Catalyst Control Center and switch to ATI Overdrive
Unlock and enable Overdrive
Go to Options/Profiles/Profile Manager and create a new profile called, let’s say, STABLE.
Save the new profile. But DO NOT ACTIVATE the profile.
Now go to C:\Users\{YourUserName}\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles folder ( I assume C: is your system drive )
Note: You should have ” show hidden files ” turned on to see the folder.
Open the .xml file named STABLE with notepad.
Change the values of the idle Core clock and Memory clock speeds below

Feature name=”CoreClockTarget_0″
Property name=”Want_0″ value=”40000″ note: previous value should be “15700”

Feature name=”MemoryClockTarget_0″
Property name=”Want_0″ value=”90000″ note: previous value should be “30000”
Save the file and close it.
Go back to CCC and activate the profile. This will make the card idle at 400 MHz core clock and 900 MHz memory clock.

Boom! You’re good. Hopefully.

RAY: So… Yeah there is a possible solution, but it is very complicated and no one else in the world will get any benefit out of it. So, Fabio we are going to send you an email with a link to the information. So you can try it out for yourself, and let us know how it works out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/276896-33-radeon-5750-display-driver-stopped-responding

RAY: OKay guys, we’ve gotten through the regular questions, so do you know what time it is?

TOM: I think it’s time for *THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

RAY: Yes!

ELIZABETH: So how’s it going to work?

RAY: *explains*

Question 1:

Anonymous – I LOVE my Windows Phone. I just don’t know why the business world doesn’t use them more often. The OS is better than the ?cutesy? Android system that seems more teenager/unprofessional like. It has Office (word, PowerPoint, Excel), and more over Outlook ?.everything we may use in the business world. I just don’t know why I can’t sync my Outlook calendar at the office with my Samsung Smartphone Windows OS? I have an “Microsoft Exchange server” – the Phone asks for this but it always asks for a “domain name”? What are these and what do I type into make this work?

Question 2:

Hey guys,

I have my laptop hooked up to my LCD tv via HDMI so that I can watch  Netflix. However, recently I have noticed that if I’m watching a show that’s longer than 30 minutes the audio and video will suddenly stop being sent to the tv via HDMI, and instead it starts playing directly from the laptop, almost as if the HDMI itself went into sleep mode. If I move the mouse, then the HDMI audio and video goes back to the tv.

What gives?

Also, after trying to hook my laptop up to my tv via the VGA connection, now it doesn’t recognize my tv as an LCD, but thinks its an analog CRT and won’t allow me to set the proper resolution!

Arrrrrrrgh!

-Joel

Question 3:

Melody – I recently heard a piece where you all recommended the Find My iPhone app and was wondering about something. I keep my Location Services off unless I need them, since they seem to be a huge battery suck. Will the Find My iPhone features still work if the Location Services are off?

Thank you.

Question 4:

Voicemail transcript: Dan this jacksonville beach florida… I’m calling to see if you do house calls … and if you do … please call me back and let me know otherwise I guess I maybe have to call … I’m making some call again but thank you very much I appreciate hearing from you and enjoy your programs on … on the radio thank you bye bye.

Question 5:

Scott – Dear Ray & Tom,
I have windows internet explorer version 8 and everytime I bring it up, it gives me the error message, ?A program on your computer has corrupted your browser preferences? and then I have click on ?OK? or change my preferences. I can’t seem to get rid of it. I have re-enabled Google as my default browser and I still get the error message. I tried picking another browser and I still get the error message.
Is there any way I can stop the error message?
Thank you.

Question 6:

Jennifer writes, I listened to your show this morning on WJCT about protecting the iPad & iPhone. I have the Blackberry Bold 9900 & Blackberry Playbook 64gb tablet. I would like a recommendation for apps to protect, lock down & secure the Blackberry Bold & Blackberry Playbook tablet.
Thanks for all your help!

Question 7:

Alan – Hi Ray/Tom,
My iphone sends my incoming mail to the trash. The messages appear briefly in the in box, then go to trash. ATT says it is a problem with my computer settings, Apple says it is a problem with Yahoo. I have cleared and reset the account information to no avail.

I went online and spoke with some guy in India who said he could fix it for $50.00. I was irritated and did not take him up on it. I would rather pay you or someone local.

Please advise.

Question 8:

Mel – Hi I am using an HP laptop with Vista. My account is with AT&T (bellsouth.net) for my email. Yahoo is only my choice as my search engine. I would like to use Google as a choice. How can I do that with out messing up my email?

Love your spot on NPR’s morning edition.

Question 9:

Michelle – I have an LG Thrill from AT&T that has been unlocked. I’m using it on T-Mobile, but I can’t get the data to work on it. What do I need to do to get the data working?

Thanks for all your questions, and keep them coming. Call us at our toll-free number, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com. Also, subscribe to the show! Search for Deemable Tech on iTunes or point your favorite podcast app to dmbl.co/pod.

Our producer is Sean Birch. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, I’m Elizabeth Pampalone, and this is Deemable Tech.
Thanks for listening. Have a great week.

Ray and Tom join forces to form The Deemable Duo. Thanks to listener Ardis for coming up with that sweet name.

On this week’s episode of Deemable Tech, Ray and Tom join forces as the Deemable Duo to seek out people who need tech help on the dark streets of Twitter. Ray is The Rayzer Beam. Tom is The TOMinator or Atomic Tom. You decide. On the show, they answered questions about how to block unwanted numbers on your smart phone, what to do with old computers, whether you should toss your broken iPhone or try to fix it, and what to do if your hard drive space starts disappearing, and using your smartphone to augment your reality!

All that and more, on this episode of Deemable Tech!

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 1-888-972-9868, or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Links mentioned on this week’s show:

• Calibre
• Call Control – Call Blocker by Kedlin Company
• Kindle for PC & Kindle for Mac
• iFixit’s guide to installing an iPhone 4 Power and Lock button 
• iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone 5
• Motherboard.cz
• Crucial.com
• Good Old Games
• SETI@Home
• Folding@Home
• PC World – 11 Uses for an Old PC
• Google Goggles
• Wikitude
• 3D Compass+
• Google Sky Map
• Word Lens
• SnapShop Showroom

Episode 29 – The Deemable Duo Rises

What do you think Tom’s Deemable Duo superhero name should be? Tell us in the comments below.

On this week’s episode, we have a new toll-free phone number (1-888-972-9868) and a bunch of questions.

Questions

• How can I control what my kid can access on an Android tablet?
• What is the best option for kid safe email?
• What’s the easiest way to share a tablet like an iPad?
• What is the best antivirus software money can buy?
• Which Macs can do Airplay Mirroring on the Apple TV?
• Why isn’t my Rosetta Stone software working?
• What do I need to do to get my GS3 to stop talking to me?
• Why is every window I open only half-size?
• Where can I upload 20 GB of photos for free?

All that and more, on this episode of Deemable Tech!

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 1-888-972-9868, or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Episode 26 – Keeping Your Kids Safe Inside Small Windows!

Today, Tom and Ray were supposed to do another short mini episode, but they got way off the rails, and ended up recording a 49 minute episode!  They had tons of fun, and answered four of your tech help questions.

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 904-372-DEEM (3336), or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Episode 24: Holiday Minisode 2: The not so “mini” episode

Today’s Questions:

• Can I manage multiple email accounts from one web app like I can do on my iPhone?
• What are the differences between Windows and Android tablets, and which would be best for me as a writer?
• Why does Flash keep crashing on Chrome?
• How can I search my clouds?

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• Top 10 Handy iOS Tweaks That Don’t Require Jailbreaking
• See the Actual Signal Strength on Your iPhone or Android
• http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ways-simultaneously-manage-multiple-gmail-accounts/
• Searching the cloud with Cloudmagic

Apple has finally released the latest update to iTunes, the application that began as an MP3 player, but now is the all-encompassing media player and companion software for their mobile devices. iTunes 11 was scheduled to be released in October, but was delayed due to problems with development. The newest version has a cleaner design than the earlier versions and is more like the experience in the iPhone and iPad iterations of iTunes, so that, as Apple puts it, “it looks and works the same wherever you shop.”

Other than a whole new look, iTunes 11 is supposed to come with improved iCloud features, which if they work the way they should, they won’t be noticeable. You’ll just open iTunes and be able to download your iCloud purchases. One thing that you might notice is iCloud playback syncing. Now, if you pause a movie in iTunes and turn on your Apple TV, it will pick up where you left off. Also, a universal search across the entire local iTunes library has been added.

Hopefully, since this is a completely redesigned version, Windows users will have some respite from the earlier versions that had become notorious for being excessively bloated and slow.

Before you upgrade to the latest iTunes, check your specs. PCs will have to be running at least Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later or the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, 7 or 8. Macs will need OS X 10.6.8 or later.

iTunes is available in the Apple Mac Store and from apple.com/itunes

Have you downloaded it yet? What do you think? Tell us in the comments below.

I love the smell of new app updates. Well, I wish they had a smell. If they did, Google’s latest updates would probably smell like a nice, new fabric upholstered car. Not luxurious leather, but nice fabric. The update to Google’s two major offerings in the iOS app catalog have been long awaited, and are quite nice; however, they’re not enough to get super excited about.

Google Chrome, the alternate web browser for the iPhone and iPad, brings the less exciting of the two app updates, so I’ll cover it first. According to the update description, version 23.0.1.271.91 (They are very exacting with their version numbers, aren’t they?) of Google Chrome allows you to open PDFs with other apps, save tickets and boarding passes in Passbook, and enable text encoding detection so that the app will automatically show non standard characters correctly. Other than that, and the usual stability, security and bug fixes, that’s all that Google Chrome’s update bring with it this go round. The ability to open PDFs in other apps is long overdue, and something that most other browsers, including the built-in Safari web browser, could already do. This is a nice feature though if you have a preferred PDF viewer, and you have been using Chrome.

The ability to save tickets and boarding passes in Passbook is surprisingly unique to Chrome since Safari does not currently have that feature. Passbook has not been as simple and easy as most Apple products are known for being and as it seemed it would be when it was announced at WWDC earlier this year. When iOS 6 debuted, there were very few apps that worked with Passbook, and currently, only iOS apps that are Passbook compatible can generate a Passbook card. It will be interesting to see how this is implemented. Once I find a website that I can use to save a Passbook card, I will leave a comment on this article.

The big update tonight came in the Google Drive app. When the Google Drive app was originally released it was depressingly limited in its capabilities. Other than renaming and deleting files it was basically useless. Recently the Google Drive app added document editing, and now, the Google Drive app finally adds spreadsheet editing and file uploading to its range of features. Now, Google Drive users can create, edit and collaborate on spreadsheets that they save to their Google Drive account. That, combined with Gmail’s update yesterday to allow users to attach files of up to 10 GB to their emails, makes Google Drive a powerful tool for business users.

Spreadsheets on Google Drive are much more limited than on other spreadsheet apps such as Apple’s Numbers. However, the Drive app loads spreadsheets significantly faster than Numbers. The Drive app leans towards the more practical and less pretty, but in a usable, well designed manner. Just like document editing in Drive, formatting options are in the graphic menu along the top of the screen. Notably missing is number formatting. Even though you can bold, underline, strike-through and left, right and center align your cells, you cannot choose whether they are formatted as numbers, dates, times, or currency. The formatting is assumed based on what you enter into the cell, and cannot be changed. So, if you enter “1/4” Google Drive assumes you are entering a date and changes it to 1/4/2012. That is problematic if you were intending it to read “one quarter” or “one divided by four”.  Formats can, of course, be changed on a desktop in the web in Google Chrome, but that is an annoying extra step. Hopefully, that will be changed in a future update.

As usual, Google has brought good updates to an app that is slowly growing in usefulness and power. When it was launched, Google Docs was clunky and terribly under-powered. With each new update, Google Drive becomes more and more of a powerhouse that makes Google serious competition for Microsoft’s legendary stronghold, the enterprise.

The Google Drive app is available in the Apple App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch for free.

Deemable Tech – Episode 22 – Turkey and Pie Hangover

On today’s episode Ray, Tom and Sean (for the first time on the microphone) talk about their Thanksgiving festivities and Black Friday/Black Thursday experiences. We also tell you how to transfer business cards wirelessly with the phone you already have, how to upload an audio file to YouTube, how to transfer a big file to someone else, and whether you should be keeping track of your business’ widgets in Excel or Access.

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 904-372-DEEM (3336), or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Today’s Questions:

• How do you transfer a contact from your phone to someone else’s phone by SMS?
• How can you send a file to someone if it’s too big to email it?
• Why does YouTube say the video I uploaded is too big?
• Do I need to close my iPad apps or can I leave them all running?
• How do I transfer all of my files from my old computer to my new computer?
• Should I use Excel or Access to keep track of data?
• Is it cheaper to buy a modem, or is it cheaper to rent a modem from my internet provider?
• Can I block someone on Gmail like I can on Facebook?

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• Share Contacts for Android phones.
• Abbyy’s Business Card Reader available for Android (9.99) and iPhone (4.99).
• Yolu Card on Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 7 (Free)
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• Outlook.com
• How to upload audio to YouTube using Windows Movie Maker or iMovie
• YouTube.com/my_videos_upload
• Windows Easy Transfer software
• How to migrate your data from an old computer to a new one
• Gmail
• Viber
• OnDemand.WJCT.org/DT

Did upgrading to iOS 6 cause Eileen’s iPhone’s battery to drain faster, or was it something else? Ray and Tom find out. Listen to this week’s Ask Deemable Tech.

TRANSCRIPT

RAY: Hi, I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and we’re the hosts of Deemable Tech. On the show, we answer your questions about computers, tablets, mobile phones and the internet, like this question:
—-

TOM: Eileen asks “Ever since I installed iOS 6 on my iPhone 4S my battery has been dying in about half of the time that it used to. Have you heard about any problem with iOS 6 that is causing battery issues? Also, I’ve noticed a triangle in the top right corner of my screen that I’ve never seen before. Could that be related?”

RAY: Thanks for your email Eileen. Actually, that it probably exactly what is causing your battery to drain. Now, before I get into what that triangle is, you asked if there’s been any issues with iOS 6 causing battery problems.

TOM: Now, for our other listeners, of course, iOS 6 is the latest version of the operating system that runs Apple’s iPhones.

RAY: Right, and it’s not abnormal for a new version of a smartphone operating system to cause some battery problems, but there haven’t been any reports about it with iOS 6 as of yet. So, I feel like it’s safe to rule that out. Like I said, the triangle you mentioned is most likely the culprit of your battery problems. That little triangle is an indicator that your location services are turned on and running.

TOM: That’s the GPS navigation in your iPhone. There’s an app running that is using your location and it’s keeping that GPS antenna working. GPS is notorious for eating battery life, so turning it off will probably make your phone last much longer.

RAY: So, if you want to make it so that none of your apps can use location services, go to the Privacy menu under Settings, and just tap the On/Off switch next to Location Services.

However, what I would do is scroll down the list to see which apps are using location services. If an app is using location services right now you’ll see a purple arrow next to the name of the app.

If the app has used location services within the last 24 hours, you’ll see a gray arrow. On that menu you can individually choose which apps you want to be allowed to use location services. If you see that an app is using location services, but you don’t want it to have permission to do that just tap the on/off switch next to the app’s name.

TOM: OK, so hopefully that will take care of the problem, Eileen, but Ray, what other other things that can cause your iPhone’s battery to drain faster other than just having your location services on unnecessarily?

RAY: Well, one thing that will eat your battery life is not having a strong connection to the cell phone tower. What happens when you have a really bad connection, or no connection at all, is that your phone continues trying to contact the cell phone tower. So, it just keeps trying over and over again to make that connection. And that will cause your cellphone’s battery to drain really fast. Whereas when you have a good connection it won’t keep trying to connect over and over again.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about it. If you don’t get any bars at your office or your house, it’s not as if you can move your office or your house. However, you can do two things. First, if you know you are going to be somewhere that has terrible or no reception for a while put your phone in Airplane mode. This will stop it from trying to connect over and over again. Plus, you might as well since no one is going to be able to reach you anyway. Second, complain to your phone company. The carriers often use customer complaints To determine where to install new cell phone towers.

TOM: To hear more answers to questions like Eilieen’s listen to our show at Deemable dot com, that’s D-E E-M A-B-L-E dot com. There you can listen to all of our previous episodes and subscribe to our podcast.

RAY: If you have a question for Deemable Tech give us a call us at 1-888-972-9868, or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com. For Deemable Tech I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: and I’m Tom Braun.

Ever since the first time I saw the Brookstone Rover App Controlled Spy Tank, I have geekily lusted for it. That was even before I owned an iPhone or iPad. After I bought my iPhone 4S I thought about getting one, but I could never bring myself to buy it because of the price tag. At $149.99, as nifty it was, I couldn’t justify it. However, when I saw it on clearance at Target for $49.98, I suddenly found that a hole had burnt right through my pocket, my money fell out, and the cashier scanned the box and took my money before I could do anything about any of it. So, ever begrudgingly, I brought it home to play with it, eh, um, *clears throat*, I mean test it for our readers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7tKMw_jWzQ

After playing with it at my apartment a little bit,  I took it in to the studio at WJCT and really put it through its paces.

http://youtu.be/04L32cIsNW4

As you can see in the video, the Brookstone Rover App Controlled Spy Tank is relatively slow, but it is a tank after all. It’s not supposed to be a race car. I assume Brookstone chose the tank design to minimize the abuse that a remote control vehicle faces. The delicate hardware inside might not be able to take as much abuse as remote off-road cars and trucks deal with.

As the title of the product blatantly states this remote control vehicle is controlled by an app, specifically an iOS app. The app works on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. The only real difference between the iPhone and iPad version is the size of the app resolution. There are no Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry apps at this time.

The Rover is supposed to reach 200 feet unobstructed and 100 feet through walls, but I lost connection with it in my 920 sq ft apartment. So, don’t expect to use this thing in a large building or from a car parked outside.

The controls are easy enough to use, but just like any touch screen controls, it’s easy to accidentally slip off the buttons without realizing it. The G Drive accelerometer based controls work well, but only moving forward, backward, left and right. You can’t spin left or right. Also the accelerometer cannot be calibrated, so you must hold the iPhone or iPad flat to remain stationary and turn it away from you to go forward. Someone wasn’t thinking there.

The camera is surprisingly decent. It only shoots 320 x 240 but it works well in all light. The colors can be off. We found that blacks show up as blues on camera and vice-versa. The camera angle can be adjusted, but only manually. So you have to drive the spy tank back to you to adjust the camera. Whoopsie again. The infrared night vision is surprisingly awesome. Even in pitch black darkness almost the entire view screen is visible  The downside is that the Rover has two bright LEDs in the top, one blue and one orange. So, there’s no chance of it hiding unless you apply some electrical tape or open it up and disconnect the LEDs.

The Wi-Fi connection is built into the Rover. This is great because you don’t need to have a Wi-Fi network setup to use the tank, but unfortunately it means that you can’t connect to your router either. Connecting to a router could allow it to be controlled across the Internet and allow for greater range. Also, you wouldn’t have to switch Wi-Fi connections to run the Rover.

Over all, the Brookstone Rover App Controlled Spy Tank is a fun toy. I was right to wait until it went on clearance. I would have been sorely disappointed if I had spent $150 on this. However, at $49.98 it was definitely worth the price. It’s regularly available at Brookstone for $99.99. It’s worth noting that Brookstone released the Rover 2.0 recently, and from the reviews at TUAW, it looks like Brookstone has fixed all the problems with the original Rover and gave it a bunch of new features. That might make it worth the entrance fee.

After the obligatory months and months of iPhone rumors, Apple has finally announced its latest smartphone, the iPhone 5. If you were waiting with bated breath for something new and exciting, go watch the iOS 6.0 announcement from WWDC back in June. The only really exciting features in the new iPhone 5 are the features that come with iOS 6.0, which is coming to the iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S on September 19th. In fact, I can sum up the differences between the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 in under sixteen words: it’s a little bit taller, a little bit lighter, a little bit thinner, and it’s faster. That’s it. Oh, and it has a new connector that doesn’t work with any of the accessories you already have, but you’ll be able to buy an adapter. The only thing that the iPhone 5 can do that the iPhone 4S can’t do, other than showing an extra bar of icons, is take pictures while I’m shooting video. I guess that’s kinda cool.

OK, so yes, there are more things about the iPhone 5 that are different than the iPhone 4S, but not much that is going to impress the average consumer. The new 4″ screen is 1136-by-640 resolution instead of the 960-by-640 resolution of the 3.5″ that the iPhone 4 and 4S has. Since Apple kept the width of the screen the same, the new screen is now about 9mm taller than the previous iPhones. Apps that aren’t redesigned to work on the iPhone 5’s longer screen will be letterboxed, like what happens when you’re watching an HD movie on a regular definition television.

The new connector that Apple has dubbed, the Lightning connector, while making all of your existing accessories obsolete, is supposed to be more durable, and easier to use. No more trying to figure out if you are putting the cord in the right way though; the Lightning connector is reversable. A $29 adapter to make the iPhone 5 compatible with devices designed to work with the older 30 pin iPod connector is supposed to be coming soon, however the adapter does not support video out.

The iPhone 5 will be quite faster than the iPhone 4S because it has Apple’s A6 processor in it and LTE 4G data. However, because of the complexity of the different LTE 4G technologies, the iPhone 5 will not be a world phone like the iPhone 4S was. In the United States the GSM version will be supported on AT&T, and the CDMA version will be supported on Sprint and Verizon. Even with the faster processor and wireless data, the iPhone 5 is not suffering from decreased battery life. In fact, the

The rear camera on the iPhone 5 is the same as the iPhone 4S, but the front-facing is now a 1.2 MP camera that can shoot 720p video. The lens is made of sapphire crystal which is second in hardness only to diamond, which should help some iShutterbugs from scratching their iPhone’s camera lens. Also, the entire back of the iPhone 5 is no longer glass like the iPhone 4S and 4; instead, it is now mostly aluminum, with glass inlays on the top and bottom.

Apple also announced new “Earpods,” headphones that have been redesigned fit into your ear more comfortably and securely and to give better, fuller sound. The remote on the headphones has also been enlarged to make it easier to use the controls. It took 11 years, but Apple has finally fixed the problem of having a tangled mess of wires in our pockets; the Earpods come with a storage and travel case.

The pricing of the iPhone 5 remains the same as the pricing of what the iPhone 4S was: on a two-year contract the iPhone 5 costs $199 for 16 GB, $299 for 32 GB, and $399 for the 64 GB. The iPhone 4S has been reduced to $99 on a two-year contract, but only comes with 16 GB, and the iPhone 4 is now $0 on a two-year contract. Preorders of the iPhone 5 begin on September 14th, and the iPhone 5 will be available in stores at 8:00 AM, September 21st.

So, in summary, if you’re in the market for a new phone, the iPhone 5 is a good phone. It has solid hardware, and it is a handsome phone. If you were hoping for something more exciting, we’re sorry to disappoint. As soon as it is available in stores we’ll put up a hands-on review with the iPhone 5.

What’s your take on the iPhone 5? How do you think it matches up with the current phones on the market and the ones that have been recently announced? Let us know in the comments down below.

I have a bad habit (or good habit depending on your perspective) of updating apps without even looking at the description. As soon as I see the badge next to the App Store, I will automatically update all apps as soon as I get on Wi-Fi. So far this hasn’t been to my detriment. I know that a rogue update or bad app could slip through, but my mild OCD just can’t handle leaving badge numbers that can be cleared. So far, the worst that has happened has been that I have overlooked awesome new updates. That is apparently what happened yesterday. This morning, I opened my iPhone to take a look at next week’s show. I opened this week’s script for Deemable Tech, and I noticed a new green button that said “Edit.” I jumped for joy! Does this mean that Google Drive finally has native editing on iOS? Yes, it does! I went back to the App Store to see what the Google Drive description of the latest update said. It reads:

What’s New in Version 1.1.0

– Edit Google documents with formatting and collaboration
– Edits to your Google documents appear to collaborators in seconds
– Richer Google presentations with animations and speaker notes
– Create a new folder or Google document
– Upload photos and videos from your device or a photo directly from your camera
– Move an item to a folder in your Drive
– Delete and remove files from your Drive
– Drive is now available in over 30 languages

Thank goodness! This has been one of my pet peeves about Google Drive ever since the app for iPhone and iPad came out. Several apps (including GoDocs and AirSharing) could already upload and download documents to Google Docs before and after Google Drive was launched. It was ridiculous that Google’s own app couldn’t do that. Nothing drove me crazier than watching the Android guys edit the show notes on their phones while I was stuck using a desktop or laptop.

Unfortunately, the update only gives iOS users the ability to create and edit documents; spreadsheets and presentations are still out in the cold. Get to work on those spreadsheets and presentations, Google! I have TPS reports due by noon! At least I can create and edit the cover sheets in Google Drive, though.

The interface is quite attractive though, and in traditional Google style is very simple and clean. Once you tap the edit button, all the formatting options are at the top. A swipe to the left shows the rest of the options that aren’t on screen. If there are more options, an extra menu temporarily appears at the top or the bottom to select your option.

All in all, the update isn’t a huge step, but it’s enough to keep me happy for a while. How much can we really complain though? Pages from Apple costs $9.99 and it doesn’t even have an easy to use web interface or collaborative tools. Although to be fair, Google Drive doesn’t have nearly as many features as Pages for iOS either. Keep up the good work, Google.

I hate to give Android fanboys fuel for the flames, but it is true that sometimes convenience makes us stupid. Don’t take me the wrong way. I love my iPhone. I love using it. I love the way it works. I’ve never had as enjoyable an experience using a mobile device as I have had since I bought my iPhone 4S. I sometimes wish it was more like webOS, but otherwise I am quite happy.

However, last night I realized that I had accepted a less than ideal situation simply because it was the most convenient at the time. Let me give you a little background. One of the first actions that I found out Siri could do was setting an alarm. Just say “Wake me up at 7 o’clock,” or “I need to get up in 6 hours, ” or “Set my alarm to go off at 7:30,” and Siri figures out why you are talking about and sets the alarm accordingly. I love this feature. There’s nothing worse than trying to fumble with menus and buttons when you really just want to crawl into bed, and I’ve found that Siri often understands my slurred, half asleep speech better than my wife does. In the 10 months I’ve had my iPhone 4S, Siri has only failed me twice, which is much better odds than I was running before.

It had started getting on my nerves that I had to set the alarm every single night, though. Also, every single night Siri would remind me, “You already have an alarm set for 7:30. I turned it on for you.” As if she had this insatiable need to complain about how she has done this every night for the past 10 months. (Quit complaining! You have no rights, machine! Get back to work!) On my previous phones, I had been able to set an alarm for every weekday. Then, all I had to do was turn it off in the morning when I woke up. It would automatically be ready for the next morning. Since I had always used Siri to set the alarm. I didn’t know that my iPhone could do the same thing.

Last night I went to bed after my wife, and I didn’t want to wake her up by talking to Siri. So, I manually set the alarm clock. I opened the Clock app, and I accidentally tapped the Edit button on the Alarm tab.

That’s when I saw the “Repeat” option.

I tapped it, and saw that I could set the alarm to repeat on specific days. I tapped Monday through Friday, then tapped “Back.”

Now, the Edit Alarm screen showed “Weekdays” next to the Repeat option. On that screen you can also choose a different sound to wake up to, turn the snooze option off (What sick person would do that?!) and change the label of the alarm.

The last option is nice if you have a specific reason for an alarm clock, like remembering to take out the trash, or if you feel like berating yourself will help you get out of bed.

Now, is it Siri’s fault that I didn’t know about these options before? No, not exactly. It was just so simple and convenient to ask her to wake me up in the morning that I never investigated further. The irony is that if I hadn’t used the simple, convenient method to set my alarm clock, I would have discovered something that would have literally saved me hours over the course of the past 10 months. Oh well.

Have you ever discovered a feature on your phone that made you feel stupid for not knowing about it before? Tell us in the comments below.

This week Ray Hollister, Tom Braun, Kevin Clark, and Aaron Edelson we introduced a new segment of the show that we’re calling “The Deemable Dozen”, the top twelve tech news stories in under 12 minutes, and then talked about how Gizmodo reporter Mat Honan’s digital life was destroyed, and then we did the Two Step Verification, baby. (You’ll have to listen to understand.)

…all that and more on this episode of Deemable Tech.

Deemable Tech – Episode 10 – The Two Step Verification, Baby

The Deemable Dozen:

1. Sprint reduces iPhone 4S to $149.99 and Apple prices matches.
2. 3 guys try to buy cheap iPads off Craigslist and get robbed instead.
3. Google Nexus Q production postponed, but you’ll get it for if you already placed a pre-order.
4. Before Apple went nuclear on Samsung, Apple offered Samsung a licensing agreement: $30 for every smartphone and $40 for every tablet.
5. Google Listen is dead! Long live all the other podcast apps in Google Play!
6. Microsoft asks everyone to stop calling it Metro; call it Windows 8.
7. Square and Starbucks partnered up,  and ordered Orange Mocha Frappuccinos for everyone!
8. Everyone else in the mobile payments industry except for Square or Starbucks (including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Google, Intuit, ISIS, PayPal and several banks) joined the Mobile Payments Committee of the Electronics Transactions Association.
9. OUYA ended its Kickstarter campaign 8.65 million over their goal! Now OUYA has started accepting preorders.
10. Apollo 13 was really saved by a hippy at MIT?
11. WikiLeaks is under attack.
12. Mat Honan got hacked.

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• http://www.androidcentral.com/5-better-podcast-options-android-now-google-listen-dead
• http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/
• http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=1056283&answer=185839

Bumper Music

• Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling (8-Bit)
• The Beatles – I Am The Walrus (8-Bit Remix)