Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
The official launch of Windows 10 happened this week. Consumer Reports joined the show to tell you if you should take advantage of the free upgrade?
Ask many Windows 8 users what they missed most when they switched from Windows 7, and they’ll tell you the Start menu. Microsoft didn’t exactly bring back the old Start menu, which might disappoint some Win7 aficionados. But we think the new version is an improvement over both Windows 8 and Windows 7. It’s visually appealing, especially when you have a few live tiles working. It doesn’t take up your entire desktop, and you can make it quickly disappear by clicking outside the tile interface. If you’re a fan of tiles, you can also expand it across your entire display by clicking on the double arrow at the top left corner. And the Start menu now consists of a lot more than tiles. There’s an icon-based menu down the left that shows your most frequently used apps, and you get one-click access to an alphabetical list of all your apps. You can also get to File Explorer (which used to be known as Windows Explorer) from here and your Documents menu, as well as to Account Settings. And, of course, the Start menu includes a power button similar to the one in Windows 8.1.
For more info on Windows 10, visit ConsumerReports.org
The Into Tomorrow team recommended their favorites apps of the week
Dave recommended Unmooch
Carpooling? Put away those phone calculators and let UnMooch do the work for you. UnMooch allows you to select the trip you want to split, adjust the price per mile you want to charge, then select who was on
the trip. Then UnMooch splits the costs appropriately and allows you to request money from friends. You can then use a payments processor called Venmo, to send the request for money to your friends via their Venmo account or phone number. That makes it easy to share expenses between friends, transfer money without fees, and make requests via text message. It’s available for iPhones & Android.
Freddie recommended Overcast Radio
It’s amazing how big a deal podcasts have become in the last couple of years. Over 1 billion podcasts were downloaded last year and they estimate about 75 million people listen to them each month. I’ve downloaded about 8 of them on my iPhone and have spent a lot of time playing with them from the default Podcast app to Sticher. My favorite so far has been Overcast Radio. It’s got a very simple to understand interface and I like how it gets first time Podcast users going quickly with some nice early recommendations of relevant shows.
