Category: Uncategorized

Fellow price watchers, I have made a big decision and went all-in to the Casper bed ecosystem.  Their new ‘WAVE’ promises to be a mattress that “actively mirrors the natural shape of your body at 36 specific points for deeper, more restorative sleep.”

If you want to save $75 ($25 more than the typical podcast adverts offer) on your order, just click on the link below and have fun! I’ll be reviewing the entire set, with my full review expected in October 2017.

$75 DISCOUNT LINK

With phone spammers becoming more and more of a nuisance, technology developers have been working hard to combat the problem.  On the iOS platform, Apple introduced an API called CallKit which gives third-party developers the ability to develop and extend the iPhone’s ability to identify and block these unwelcome callers.  A growing trend is for Threat Actors (a fancy way of saying scammers, spammers, and criminals in general) to spoof their Caller ID.  A favorite technique is to spoof a number in the same ‘prefix’ as the intended target.  So, if your number is 305-555-1212, the TA will spoof his Caller ID to be 305-555-1294.  You may think this is a legitimate call, since it’s in your phone’s ‘neighborhood’.

An app developer has released a great tool called WideProtect.  This allows iOS users to block entire prefixes from calling them.  So, in my example from above, you could instruct the app to block all caller from 305-555-xxxx.  It even allows you to whitelist numbers in your designated prefixes from your contact list, in case you have legitimate contacts you don’t want to block.

This is a welcome addition to the CallKit framework, and I highly recommend you give this app a try.

Other great apps in this category include Nomorobo, Hiya, and Truecaller… among others.

Source: iOS Store

Headspace is a great way to practice meditation.  While there is a free version, there’s a ton of great content that’s only available to paid subscribers.  Here’s a code to score 1 month of access to the entire service.  After that, you’ll have to pay to keep it going.

It’s finally available for purchase. Go get it.

Do you use the Internet?  Yes, obviously.  Do you have online accounts at various websites?  Yes, again, obviously.  Do you use the same password for more than one of those accounts?  Yes, you do.  Admit it.  If you DO happen to use multiple different passwords for different accounts, how do you remember them all?  You can’t.  How often must you go through a password reset process to get into your accounts?  How many times have you been locked out of an account because you tried too many unsuccessful logins, requiring a call to customer support (if you’re lucky)?  Yes, I know… too often, right?

I’ll briefly share my personal experiences with 1Password from AgileBits Inc, both from a product usability and customer support and perspective.  Their software tries to solve the password problem by offering a drop-dead-easy and secure way to store all your login details for all your accounts under a single ‘master’ password.  The software integrates right into your web browser, allowing you to easily store your login credentials with the program, and easily call those credentials back up and auto-submit them as you log into your various accounts.  It also offers a way to generate unique and complex passwords for when you’re creating a new account (or updating the security of your existing accounts).

Best of all, for me, is that they offer software for OS X, iOS and Windows.  That means no matter which platform I happen to be using, all my password data is securely and automatically pushed to  all of my devices, via Dropbox and iCloud syncing.  if I add or change a password using 1Password on one device, all my other devices are updated too.  Simple.  But pure genius.

I could spend time explaining more about the capabilities of the software (I just glossed over the basics here), but I’d rather have you visit their site and read about it yourself.  Instead, I’ll take my remaining words to describe my interaction with AgileBits when I had a problem while evaluating 1Password for OS X.

I downloaded the OS X trial, and had a problem with it expiring after just a few days, rather than the 30 that was advertised.  When I contacted support asking for some help, they immediately identified the problem, and on top of that went one step further: they sent me a fully licensed version of the software so I could continue my evaluation with no more licensing issues.  The only thing they asked of me was to actually come back and buy the software if I liked it and kept using it.  That sure seems fair.  More than fair, actually, compared to how other companies operate.

Needless to say, that kind of customer support deserves recognition.  I’m now the proud owner of 1Password on all three platforms, and would urge others to evaluate the software for their own needs.