Brian is on a fire call so I thought I'd share some tips on Chrome.  He'll be back with Tech Tips next week.

I use Google News as my basic news feed. It gives an overall selection of the news, no doubt monitoring what I read and then tailoring my experience to what it thinks I’m interested in. I can’t say it does a very good job, and recently it changed, and not for the better.
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I was saying to Carol how I was getting really fluffy news feeds lately and she told me I could edit my sources. An article on how to do that is HERE.

I had never noticed the 3 little dots at the bottom of the headlines, so look closely. This allows me to say I don’t like this source at all, or to send me more, or less from this source. I remember in the early days I could do a general selection on topics, like sports, and decide if I wanted more sports, or less (less please). I can’t find that anymore, but this is a great alternative.

As a tie-in to the AVFD article, I have the Kim Komando article HERE, about calling 911 from your smartphone.  Calling 911 in an emergency is critically important, and your smartphone can help. Learn how to use it and also, put your medical info in your phone so an EMT can find it when necessary. Learn about that HERE.

As a health device, the smartphone can be a great tool, especially when used with a corresponding smartwatch. I’ve recommended this before. While I love smartphones for being powerful computers in your pocket, the smartwatch really ties things together.

I don’t even use a lot of features on my iWatch, but some that I use a lot are: talking to it. I ask Siri to call Carol when I’m driving, send a text message, set a timer for me or an alarm. It keeps track of my “fitness”, which is fairly pathetic, but a real motivator for my mom and Carol.
The watch can also track heart rate, and send a report to your doctor if you want. These devices are getting more and more sophisticated, able to track your heart rate, Blood Pressure, and even run a single lead ECG. It won’t be long before they will be able to non-invasively monitor what’s in your blood, which they can do now by attaching to more standard and invasive devices. 

I went to an iPhone a few years back. Mostly because I got Carol’s old one, and partly because I’m a fan of facetime, which should be on every mobile device, instead of just Apple’s.

I like that the Android OS is used on many devices, not just phones and tablets, but also that some of the apps I used were free on Android, but paid on Apple.

The market is split pretty 50/50 between the 2, with Samsung being the leader in Android products. As most of us learned our phones as we went along, there may be holes in what we know. The article HERE can help teach about some things you may not know about your Android phone.

I was recently given an iPad with an extremely cracked screen. One of the reasons I wanted it was to replace the screen. I am really terrible at it, and do NOT do it for other folks, but, if I have one to practice on, then I might attempt it. I bought the replacement for this particular iPad 4 on Amazon for about $16, which makes it cheap enough for me to try. If you are patient and interested, you might give it a try yourself. If you have great eyesight and really tiny hands also, that will help. I have neither.
That got me interested in iPad tips and I particularly like this macworld article included here.​ I don't agree with the opening statement as I do think that the iPad is a good laptop replacement for many people.
​(Brian)

The iPad isn’t really the laptop replacement Apple wants us to think it is, but anyone who outright dismisses it as a productivity device shouldn’t be taken too seriously, either. The iPad can feel magical when you have the knowledge of the right tricks at hand. Once you’ve mastered them, works sometimes feels fun. It may not be a MacBook, but you’d be wrong to dismiss it as giant iPhone.
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Here’s a little introduction to the wizardry Apple conceals beneath the familiar facade of iOS. Some tips basically amount to refreshers of the tutorials, but other bits may make you whisper, “Wow.” (I’m speaking from my own experience.) Once you’ve got these tools at your disposal, you’ll understand why Apple has such a ridiculous lead in the tablet market.

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