It’s cold outside. Really cold. As it should be for January.

Which means that if you have a car that stays outside, as we do, you’re dealing with frost, snow, ice, and sundry other winter mixes that need to be scraped off your windshield before you can drive off.

Tired of guessing at the best way to defrost, de-ice, de-whatever, I did some research.

Here’s what I found.

If you’re curious about the science behind why this is the fastest combo, you can learn why here.

You’re welcome.

I’ve been on a bit of a health kick lately, as there are some physically demanding activities I’m planning on doing and I need to make sure my body can keep up.

So, of course, all research leads to the internet. But, as we know, it’s also a place full of minefields; a big one being health and fitness. So when I saw this, I wasn’t surprised.

(You can find more infographics at Statista)

“The heart of the global misinformation […]

Don’t you just love it when you’re forced into an update and stuff stops working or, in the case of the latest iPhone update, apparently goes missing?

No? Me neither.

Latest MIA app? Find A Friend.

Actually, it’s not missing. They thought it would be helpful to roll it into Find My Phone. AND rename both. AND change the icon.

So, yeah, you’re not crazy— the Find A Friend icon is, indeed gone. Wiped off your phone.

What you need to look for now is the 2fer app now called simply “Find My.”

If you’re still not seeing it, swipe left until you hit the search field and type in […]

Okay, I’m about ready to lose my mind with all of the scam/spam/robo calls I’ve suddenly been inundated with. Many of them during the middle of the night.

I’m guessing that one of my recently hacked accounts with some company that supposedly “really values my privacy and takes safety seriously” is the culprit. Does anybody have an account anywhere–business, bank, government, medical, etc.–that hasn’t been hacked yet?  We’ve all gotten so many of these notices, “Sorry to inform you that we had a recent breach…” that nobody even blinks anymore.

I’ve researched many apps like Hiya, Truecaller, Robokiller, etc.  If you are also considering one of these, I strongly encourage you to read the […]

In recent years, I’ve been doing a fair amount of traveling to far-flung places. So I have some pretty unusual phone numbers in my contact list. Likewise, I’m used to getting calls at all hours of the day or night from different time zones.

But lately, I’ve been getting a rash of calls from Azerbaijan and Georgia. Neither are places I’ve been or plan on going to.

My first thought was that maybe they’re from someone who knows someone who knows me. But they hang up after one or two rings.  Just enough to wake me out of a dead sleep but not long enough for me to answer. And they don’t leave messages.

That’s […]

We’re in the process of recycling phones. When the oldest phone is ready to bite the dust, I get the new phone (because I need high tech equipment for my work), Andrew gets my phone, and my mother gets his.

So with the latest upgrade to iPhone X (which I love), I found that I was no longer able to use it as a hotspot for my laptop (which I didn’t love).

After researching, I found the problem. You can’t have any spaces or special characters in your phone’s name. I had both.

If you’re facing the same problem, you’ll need to change the network name (which is the same as your iPhone name). […]