by Jeff McKamey
Our StMug dinner will be at Friday Poets, Thursday Jan 3rd. Be sure to let us know if you are going to attend!
Sharing Photos on the internet:
There are lots of options for sharing photos on the internet, some are easier than others, and some work on more devices. Keep in mind that Facebook owns the rights to your photos when you share using their platform. Here are some other options:
Google will dig though your photos and make nifty slide shows and put photos together by analyzing your pictures.
OneDrive: Microsoft’s answer to sharing files.
One drive has less features than google, but still works.
There is also flickr, Dropbox, Box, Sync.com, and pCloud
Photo Books
Apple got rid of the calendar and photo book options from iPhoto a while ago, but there are many alternatives:
The oldest two online companies that do it that have been around a long time are Snapfish and Shutterfly. They both have a variety of books, calendars and card options.
There is also blurb which can print magazines, which is a unique option.
mpix is a newer one I had never heard of. It claims to have a higher quality than all those other websites! Although if you dig around, I have read some reviews that were not happy with mpix.
PC Magazine has another list.
I have read several places that the quality of Nations Photo Lab is the best, but it takes the longest to get your book.
Apple Music
If you have an Apple Music account, you will soon be able to listen to your tunes on the Amazon Echo.
iPhone Battery Replacement
You have until December 31st to get a new cheap battery if you old one is failing. You can go to the battery page in settings on your phone and see if your battery needs replacing, anything under 80% you definitely want to think about replacing it.
DownDetector
The closer we get to the holidays, the more your favorite websites will be down. You can check here.
3D photos on Facebook
It’s a pretty cool effect, but you need a portrait picture to make it work. Go to Post, and 3D photo — it analyzes the photo and makes it look 3D!
New Mac Mini
The mini finally has an update after many, many years.
Apple did not skimp on some things, it is really fast, and the RAM is not soldered in.
New Mac Mini 2018: Everything you need to know about the new Mac mini
If you need 32 gigs of RAM, you can buy a kit and add it yourself.
TV’s
You can buy just a regular TV now to be the display of your Mac mini. There are two Chinese TV companies trying to get into the American market:
TCL has Roku built in.
They are really cheap, they sell them at Best Buy.
Watch OS 5
The most noticeable new feature is the walkie talkie, but there are several tweaks to mail and viewing websites.
Electric Scooters
Bird has come to Corpus, they are electric powered scooters that you can rent with a phone App. Bird is based out of Seatle, there is a local Texas company called Blue Duck. But it’s app is not supposed to be quite as good.
Corpus was quick to regulate it after they showed up.
They look like a tornado dropped a whole bunch of scooters downtown. They have a top speed of 15 MPH, cost about 20 cents a minute, and the charge lasts around an hour.