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Your Child Is Away At College. How Will You Keep In Touch?
Back in the day when I attended college, keeping in touch with my parents was simple. I had a phone in my dorm room that I called them on or they called me on. We tried not to stay on the phone all that long since we were charged by message units which was related to both distance and time on the phone. I went to college in Manhattan and my parents lived in Massapequa which is on Long Island. There was also the occasional letter. Those students whose parents lived out of town had a different issue that some of us chronologically gifted people may know as long distance charges. Some dorms did not have phones in their rooms but there was a payphone in the hall. That created a different issue of trying to keep the call short since you may not have had much change, collect call charges could be expensive and there may have been a line to use the phone. Today things are totally different. Almost all college students have cell phones and there is Skype and iChat for video conferences. The cell phone provider you use at home may not have a strong signal where your child is at school. As a parent, it may be worthwhile for you to change cellphone providers or it may be more beneficial for your college student to get a cell phone plan of their own with a provider that has good cell phone reception at their school. There is also video chatting. Skype and iChat are the two big ones here. We̢۪ll keep our discussion to Skype as this works on both PC and Macs. iChat is a proprietary program that only works on Apple products. With Skype you can talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere, any length for free provided you are speaking with someone who is also using Skype. The only charge would be for internet connection fees if any. This is just like at home. One other possibility to think about is Magic Jack. For a $70.00 initial investment and a $30.00 annual subscription you can make unlimited calls to the USA and Canada from anywhere in the world where there is an internet connection. You will or should be having discussions with your college child about the new experiences they will be having. You also will need to also discuss how you will be communicating with him or her while they are away. Will their college friends be using the same cell phone provider? Will you and your child have the same cell phone provider? If an emergency was to arise how will you get in touch? Regardless of what plan you choose, your student should also bring an Ethernet cord with them. If your student lives in a dorm where there is an Ethernet connection you and them will be glad particularly if the Ethernet connection is the only way for them to connect to the internet. If you have additional questions about keeping in touch with your college child I can be reached at (917) 572-3468 or email me at mike@computerconciergeny.com My Facebook page http://on.fb.me/MikesCCNY provides information on the current goings on in the technology field. There are tips to better use your computer and smartphone. For timely information, please visit and "Like" my page.
Are You Wasting Money By Purchasing Microsoft Office?
Microsoft recently announced that their new version of Microsoft Office likely to be named Microsoft Office 2013 will be released early next year. As previous, there are likely to be different prices depending on which version purchased. Using the current prices of Microsoft Office 2010 at Staples you can pay as little as $119.99 or as much as $499.99. The price is influenced by whether you are purchasing a CD, the version being purchased and how many machines it is licensed for. Microsoft Office is the best known and the best office suite software. It also is the most expensive. There are free alternatives to Microsoft Office that are compatible with Microsoft Office applications. The three main ones are Google Drive, Libre Office and Open Office. Each has their own features and you would need to determine which is best for you if you choose to go the free route. Google Drive formerly Google Docs is web based and requires you to have a Google account. You can use it when you are not online but there are certain constraints that you need to follow. For one you need to be using the Google Chrome browser. This should not be an issue because many (myself included) view Google Chrome as the best browser out there for accessing the internet. It is great for sharing files whether it is with selected people or with everyone. You can choose whether people can only view the file or edit it as well. You can collaborate in real time with others who have editing privileges as they can change the file contents while you are also working on it. Libre Office first launched in September 2010 is the new kid on the block. When Open Office was purchased by Sun there was concern that Open Office would take a different path and perhaps not be free. This led to Libre Office. While there are many similarities, you can edit files in a Portable Document Format (PDF) in Libre Office but not Open Office or even Microsoft Office. It is not the most user friendly interface to do so but it can be done. Libre Office and Open Office have components for spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, word procession and database. Google Drive does not currently support a data base application among its components. Open Office is in essence the predecessor to Libre Office. As mentioned previous when Oracle purchased Open Office there was concern over the future direction of it. In 2011 Oracle donated Open Office to the Apache Software Foundation. There are many similarities between Open Office and Libre Office as noted above. Open Office is easier to download but you cannot edit PDF files using it. The interfaces for both are similar to Microsoft Office (MS Office). Open Office offers more Templates on its site than Libre Office but Libre Office offers more functionality by offering extensions. Per Wikipedia some notable users of Open Office are Singapore̢۪s Ministry of Defense, and Banco do Brasil. So do you continue to use Microsoft Office or do you switch and if so which do you use? From a personal standpoint being a power user who also uses Microsoft Office in my line of work as I now am also creating customized Excel spreadsheets I will continue using Microsoft Office. If you are not a power user of Microsoft Office and do not need to use it for work, using a free version is a viable alternative. The free versions offer approximately 75-90% of the features offered by MS Office. The features not offered in the free versions tend to be more advanced. I also find the three programs noted user friendly. The more expensive versions of MS Office include Outlook, Publisher, Access and OneNote. Access is a database program as Base in both Open Office and Libre Office are as well. Draw is an alternative to Publisher again in both Open Office and Libre Office. There are good free alternatives to OneNote and Outlook as well. If you wish to know more about which Office Suite you should use or about saving time and even $$ from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets call me at (917) 572-3468 or email me at mike@computerconciergeny.com
Gas Buddy – Your Buddy for Finding the Lowest Gas Price
With summer here many of us are taking trips with our cars. If you are looking for the lowest gas price while on your travels or even locally you may want to think of having the GasBuddy app on your smartphone. GasBuddy is a great app to help you find the lowest price in your area. If you do not have a smartphone you can go to http://gasbuddy.com and search before you hit the road. The prices are for areas in the US and Canada and the various grades of gas. Prices are obtained from members and you can see when the price was entered as well. By removing the price data after 72 hours for each station, you are assured the prices are current. The site is free, has about 5 million users and is advertising supported. Gas prices can widely vary in an immediate area. I have used it on my trips and found it to be useful in finding the lowest prices wherever I was. When we were in Maine last summer, prices in a small area varied as much as $0.20 per gallon. The app also gives directions to get to that gas station as well. Just make sure that a passenger is doing the search for you or you have pulled over to the side of the road if you are doing the search yourself. So give the site a try and/or add it as an app to your smartphone and start saving. You may decide that you too wish to become a contributing member and help yourself and others find the lowest priced gas in your area. If you have further questions or wish to know of other apps that may be useful to you, please call me at 917.572.3468.