Q.
How do you check out library e-books on an Amazon Kindle?
A.
If you do not have a library card, sign up for one at your local branch and make sure you get all the materials you need, like a PIN code, to borrow from its electronic collection. Check with the library for its own instructions on e-book lending; the New York Public Library’s site for its collection of electronic materials is one example of what to expect. OverDrive also has a site you can search to see what libraries in your area offer e-books to borrow.
To borrow a book on your Kindle, visit the e-books section of the library’s Web site. When you find a book on the site that you want to check out, select it and enter your library card number, PIN code, e-mail address and any other requested information. Next, choose the “Get for Kindle” option, which takes you to Amazon’s Public Library Loan page.
After you log into your Amazon account, go to the “Deliver to” menu, select your Kindle and choose the “Get library book” option. Amazon’s Help page for using public library books on the Kindle notes that you need a Wi-Fi network connection to borrow public library books, and some titles may need to be transferred to the Kindle with a USB connection. The loan period for the electronic library book varies by title and library policy.
The revamped iTunes — iTunes 11 — has been lauded for its spare design and for taking what some iTunes users have called a bloated program back to the basics.
But other people may miss classic elements that have disappeared. The good news is that not all of them are really gone. Some are just hidden or renamed. You can get those back easily if you want to. Below are a few examples. (Other features that few people — except me, apparently — had used, such as cover flow and the ability to open multiple iTunes windows, are unlikely to reappear, said Apple.)
The most obvious loss is the sidebar, the vertical column that used to appear on the left side of the iTunes screen, giving easy access to things like playlists, TV selections and movies. To bring it back, go to the very top toolbar and click the View tab. That opens a drop-down menu. The fifth choice from the top is Show Sidebar. Choose it and the sidebar will reappear.
The iTunes DJ has been replaced by Up Next. At the top of your iTunes window in the center is a box with album art and song information. On the right of that box is the icon for a list – it’s a square of dots and stripes that looks a little like a flag. Click it and you see a list of upcoming songs, similar to DJ. Hold the cursor over a song to make controls appear that will let you remove that song from the list or get more information. You can also drag the song to a different position on the playlist. Or from your main music menu, right-click (control-click on Mac) a song to add it to the Up Next list. Read more…
Q.
Can I copy my iTunes music collection from my PC to my new Windows Phone?
A.
If the music in your iTunes library was purchased in mid-2009 and later or ripped from your own compact discs, you should be able to copy it over and play it on your Windows Phone. Music files originally purchased before April 2009 are probably still protected by digital-rights management (D.R.M.) software that restricts them from being played on non-Apple devices.
Windows 7 and Windows 8 users can sync the music between computer and phone with the Windows Phone app for the PC, which gives you the option to sync iTunes playlists and music to the phone. Third-party syncing apps may also copy files between the phone and the computer.
To get Microsoft’s Windows Phone app on Windows 7, connect the phone to the computer with its USB cable, go to the Start menu and choose Devices and Printers. Double-click on the Windows Phone icon that appears on the screen and follow the on-screen directions to download the Windows Phone app. On a Windows 8 system, you should get a message on screen that guides you to downloading the app as soon as you connect the phone to the PC.
For those still using Windows XP or Windows Vista, connect the phone to the PC with the USB cable. If you have Windows XP, go to the Start menu to All Programs, choose Accessories and then open Windows Explorer. Using Windows Explorer, drag and drop the music files from your iTunes folder to your phone. On Windows Vista, go to the Start menu, select Computer and then drag the files you want to copy to the phone from the iTunes folder.
Microsoft’s site has a syncing guide on for new Windows Phone owners, as well as more information on copying iTunes files.
In past years I have advised people looking to lower their phone bills to try the Web site Validas. It let them electronically enter their phone bills, which it analyzed, then suggested lower-priced plans that still gave them the same service or better.
Unfortunately, the company stopped offering the consumer service in March 2012, instead focusing on more profitable customers – businesses looking to save on phone bills.
But now the free Validas service is back under the moniker Vera, offered at the site savelovegive.com. This gets complicated, but stay with me. The site is allied with a charity, Seven Bar Foundation, which can put your savings to work as micro loans to women in need. You do have the option of keeping the savings, though.
While it’s noble that savelovegive wants to turn your savings into charitable gifts, it’s as though Validas is doing as much as possible to complicate a simple concept. That concept is “save money on your phone bills.”
There is a splashy animated site to wade through explaining the many facets of the system. You can skip the animated rigmarole by going to the bottom of the page and clicking on the link that says “Get VERA” on the lower right.
The site currently analyzes bills only for AT&T and Verizon, but more companies will be included. Years of analysis have led Validas to estimate that 8 out of 10 families in the United States can save $200 a year by changing their phone plan without losing any services.
Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS software both include a Web browser that lets you save bookmarks. For sites you visit frequently, however, it is often faster to get to your favorite page with the mobile equivalent of a desktop shortcut — an icon on the phone’s home screen — instead of fiddling around with the browser’s bookmark menu.
To save a bookmark as a home screen icon on an Android phone, open the built-in browser app, press the menu button and choose Bookmarks. Find the bookmark that you’d like to add to your home screen and press down on it until a new menu appears. Tap the “Add shortcut to Home” option to place an icon for the bookmarked page on the home screen.
On an iPhone or other device running Apple’s iOS 6 software, open the Safari browser and go to the page you wish to use. In the Safari toolbar, which is at the bottom of the screen on the iPhone and iPod Touch, but at the top of the screen on the iPad, tap the Share menu icon, which looks like an arrow bursting out of a rectangle. On the menu that appears, tap the “Add to Home Screen” option to create an icon that takes you back to the page with one tap from the home screen.
12:25 p.m. | Updated
The Duo Gamer controller from Discover Bay Games mimics the shape and size of video game controllers and has similar buttons.Part of the appeal of apps like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope is their simplicity. Just tap and swipe. But some of the more advanced app games require more complex finger maneuvers, making you wish you could use a physical controller.
Enter Discovery Bay Games, the maker of the new Duo Gamer game controller for Apple devices.
Duo Gamer connects wirelessly to an iPad or iPhone to play a range of adventure games from the app publisher Gameloft, including titles like Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation and Asphalt 7: Heat.
Duo Gamer mimics the shape and size of video game controllers and has similar buttons, like a D-pad, triggers and left and right thumb sticks. It’s comfortable to hold, and the buttons are easy to use. It’s not designed for hours of gameplay, but most game apps don’t last that long anyway.
In the hands of a casual game player, the Duo Gamer controls are intuitive, especially if you already have experience using a controller. First-person shooter games like Modern Combat are much easier to play with Duo Gamer than they are using tap and swipe movements because you can focus on the game and forget about where your thumbs are. I had less success with the Asphalt racing game, which is more fun to play using the gyroscope in the iPad 2 to steer the cars.
Duo Gamer comes with an iPad stand, but no content of its own. Originally priced at $80, the controller now costs half that. Even at $40, it should include some free games, but you have to pay separately for the Gameloft apps. It would be great if Discovery Bay had partnerships with other app publishers as well. The more games that are available, the better Duo Gamer becomes.
Q.
I installed the Windows 8 preview on an old laptop, but now the computer won’t start up unless I have the DVD in the drive. Help!
A.
When you installed the Windows 8 software on the computer from the DVD, the system may have been switched to start up from the disc drive instead of the hard drive, and never switched back. Unless the hard drive is damaged, you can usually fix this by adjusting a setting in the computer’s BIOS — Basic Input/Output System, a bit of software built into the hardware.
To do so, restart the PC and watch the screen for information about which key to press to change the normal start-up routine or adjust the BIOS. This key varies by manufacturer, but it is often the F2, F8, F10 or the Delete key; your computer’s manual should have instructions.
Once you press the key and land on the text-based BIOS Setup Utility screen, use the keyboard’s right arrow key to move to the Boot menu. Use the down arrow key to get to the Boot Device Priority area and hit the Enter key. Here, you can change the first boot device from the disc drive to the hard drive. Select the option from the on-screen menu to save the setting and exit the BIOS Setup Utility. The computer should now start up from the hard drive and not require the DVD in the disc drive.
Arriving by mid-December, Nabi Jr. is a 5-inch, 8-gigabyte $99 Android tablet that can do double-duty as a baby monitor or a karaoke machine. Educational apps, games and videos are pre-loaded. It has a single rotating front and back camera.
The maker of the device, Fuhu, brags: No cartridges; no AA batteries and includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. If the tablet is successful, it could mean serious competition for toy-based options from LeapFrog and VTech.
The Nabi Jr. has its own app store, with the promise of being able to load apps from the Amazon Appstore. If so, this could be a major advantage; previous Nabi tablets have made it very hard to download mainstream apps that don’t go through the Fuhu tollbooth.
Fuhu is also selling add-ons, and this is where things get interesting. The add-ons include an infrared night vision camera with a remote zoom for use as a baby monitor. When synced to Fuhu’s cloud server, you can use a second Android phone to have your own video baby monitor on steroids — with two-way communication abilities, a room temperature display, sound level meter and a low-battery alert. Other add-ons include a karaoke machine that plugs into your big screen through the HDMI cable, and a cash register simulator will be available in toy stores mid-December. Add $30 for the 16-gigabyte model. Accessories will be available in February 2013.
Over lets you add text to your photos and share them.From Christmas trees to Christmas cards, December is a pretty deadly season for trees. There’s not a lot you can do about the Christmas trees (aluminum tinsel tree anyone?), but you can cut down on the cards.
An iPhone app, Over, lets you put type on top of your own photos. Although it wasn’t intended with holidays in mind – more like a chance to make your own memes – it’s an easy way to make cards the way photo studios used to ages ago.
There are other similar apps, but few if any are as simple to use and as versatile as Over.
To get started, open the app and tap on “take a photo,” or “camera roll,” to take a photo or choose an existing shot.
Sample text tells you to double tap to edit. Once you do that, type in your message and then choose the color you would like your type to be. A yellow triangle on the right-hand side of the photo lets you pick a font and size it. You can move the writing around by dragging it with your finger.
When you are happy with your choices, you can save the photo or go directly to “share” and post your work on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram, or send by email.
If you really want to be a traditionalist, you can still kill trees by having your work turned into a 4 by 6 inch postcard, at $2 for a single card. You buy through the service Sincerely, which gets points off for making people go through sign up and set up without revealing the cost until the last step.
Over is a $2 app, but there is a version for use on Instagram only; it’s Overgram, and it’s free.
Q.
I’m new to Macs. What is FileVault and do I need to use it?
A.
FileVault is a data-security feature built into the Mac’s OS X operating system. With FileVault, you can encrypt the Mac’s hard drive to keep its contents locked up with a password, even if someone gets access to your computer. FileVault can also encrypt the data on external drives and can be used to completely erase the Mac’s hard drive when it comes time to recycle the computer.
As to whether you need to use FileVault, it depends on your personal need for file security and keeping your data confidential. You can get a better idea of how it might fit into your computing life from Apple’s current guide to the software on its site. Some versions of Windows include a similar feature, BitLocker.
Q.
Is there a way to make Internet Explorer open a link in a new browser tab, instead of in a whole new window?
A.
Right-clicking the link you want to open on the current page and choosing “Open in New Tab” from the drop-down menu is one way to avoid having a whole new browser window appear. If you want to make the process a little more automatic, though, you can adjust Internet Explorer’s settings.
In Internet Explorer 7 and later, go to the Tools menu (or click the gear icon in later versions of the program) in the browser toolbar and select Internet Options; hold down the ALT key if you do not see a menu bar in the browser window. In the Internet Options box, click the General tab and then click the Settings button; in Internet Explorer 10, click the Tabs button here instead.
In the Settings box, make sure the box to enable tabbed browsing is checked. In the area under “When a popup is encountered,” select “Always open pop-ups in a new tab.” Click the O.K. button until you have closed all the settings and options boxes. Now, when you click on a link that is coded to open in its own new window, the page should open in a new tab within your existing browser window.
Q.
Why does my Mac’s cursor often turn into rotating color pinwheel that freezes up my screen until I restart the computer?
A.
The “rotating color pinwheel” goes by many names, both official and colloquial (Spinning Wait Cursor, Spinning Disc Pointer, Beach Ball of Doom, Rolling Rainbow of Death and so on). It usually appears temporarily when the Mac is busy with a task, like saving a large file. In most cases, the wait cursor should disappear after a few seconds. If it sticks around until you have to restart the Mac, it sounds like time to do some troubleshooting.
If you regularly get the wait cursor when working on the Mac, it could be because of a number of things, including lack of memory (the RAM kind) to efficiently complete the task on screen, not enough available hard-drive space or an overworked processor. If the cursor appears only when using a certain program, the issue may be with that piece of software. If this turns out to be the case, check the program’s online forums to see if this is a known issue, hopefully one with a workaround or solution.
Instead of restarting the entire computer, you may want forcibly close the program you have open when the wait cursor appears, to see if the problem is just with that one particular application. To force-quit an unresponsive program, press the Mac’s Option, Command and Escape keys at the same time. In the box that appears, select the stalled program in the list and click the Force Quit button.
If more than one program keeps stalling out and the Mac is underpowered, adding more memory to the computer and deleting unneeded files from an overstuffed hard drive might help, as can downloading system and program updates. But before you dive into hardware upgrades, check out The X Lab’s frequently asked questions page for a collection of suggested solutions to various problems regarding the Spinning Beach Ball of Death.
When you replace your Android phone, should you have to replace your music dock too?
Maybe not. The iLuv MobiAir iMM377 is a dock that will accommodate a variety of Android phones regardless of which side of the phone the micro USB plug is on, or which way it is facing.
The micro USB plug in the dock rotates so it can accommodate a device, no matter which direction its plug faces. A sliding set of gripping arms that can be adjusted to fit any number of different devices. It worked fine with the Galaxy Note 2, an oversized phone, and it can take a 7-inch tablet, but it won’t fit a full-size 10-inch one.
It’s a very compact little unit, roughly 5 by 10 by 2 inches, and it sounds bigger than it is — but that is still not so big. The sound was better than I expected for a unit of its size, but you won’t fill your dorm room with pumping dance party sounds using the iMM377.
Even though it plugs in to a device, you still have to connect to the dock using Bluetooth (which was easy to do). Of course, using Bluetooth, you could connect any device, whether it fits in the cradle or not. The advantage is you can avoid draining your batteries because the plug sends a charge to the battery.
The iMM377 is $120 online from iLuv.
The Zikmu Solo speaker tower from Parrot, which stands about 30 inches tall, was designed by Philippe Starck.
The Zikmu Solo, a stereo speaker tower from Parrot, a mobile-products maker based in Paris, has a sleek, monolithic look that is sure to turn heads at parties.
Designed by Philippe Starck, the French product designer and architect, the tower produces balanced stereo sound through an acoustic configuration that puts a speaker on each side, a third in the front and a woofer in the base. Atop the tower, which stands about 30 inches high, is a dock for an iPod or iPhone.
The tower also has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capability for those who prefer to stream their music and maintain the aesthetic appeal of the obelisk, which comes in black or white and costs $1,000.
But the tower’s simple design suggests an ease of use that is not necessarily the case. After several attempts to get the Bluetooth to work, I resorted to rebooting the speaker. When I finally got the tower paired with my iPhone 5, the connection was still sketchy, working with some apps but not others. I tried pairing other devices, but ran into similar problems. Read more…
Q.
Is there a way to keep children from buying stuff in the Google Play Store when they are entertaining themselves with my Android phone?
A.
Smartphones are great for temporarily distracting fidgety children. If you would rather not get a surprise in your credit card bill because little fingers wandered into the Google Play Store, you can set the phone to require a PIN (personal identification number) before apps and games can be purchased. You need version 3.1 or later of the Google Play Store on the phone.
To set up a PIN, open the phone’s Google Play Store app. Press the Menu button and then Settings. Select the “Set or change PIN” option and enter the numeric code you want to use. Tap O.K. and re-enter the number to confirm it. Next, tap the box next to “Use PIN for purchases.”
The PIN will now be required to make a purchase from the Google Play Store. Google has instructions if you need to change, remove or reset your PIN later.
