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Tech News & Commentary
Scott in Jackson, Mississippi listens on SuperTalk 97.3 FM and is calling via the App asked us: “I have an Android Phone and sometimes the phone will fill up with apps so I start delete apps. But as soon as I delete them, it keeps getting fuller and fuller. What’s going on? Eventually I just reset my phone and start over.”
Scott, Are you sure it’s actually filling up with apps and not something else?
Android will let you see what’s actually using up your storage space under Settings and Storage. It may actually be apps, just like you think, but you may be filling your phone with pictures, songs, or other media.
If it is your apps, they may just be storing data that you don’t know they’re keeping. Developers are technically supposed to keep their storage use in check, and cache files more than store them whenever possible. Meaning that if something will only be used for a short time, or if it will only be used to increase efficiency, it should be deleted when it’s not needed or when storage space is running short.
The problem is that the “don’t hog resources” rule, is mainly a “best practice” more than an actual enforced law, so unless the app is using an extreme amount of storage space, Google tends to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Restoring the phone would take care of that problem, but it’s a little bit like firebombing a village to make room for a fire hydrant, it gets the job done, but the side effects of restoring and having to get all your things back the way you like them is more than a little annoying.
You could go through you list of apps and check the ones you suspect of using too much storage space, Android will let you see the size of their caches, you may be able to get rid of the problem by just uninstalling and reinstalling those apps, or clearing their caches, rather than to have to deal with doing a full clean restore of the phone.
It would be very unusual if apps were taking up most of the memory on your phone, unless your phone happened to have very little memory indeed. We’ve seen a lot of smartphones run out of storage, but 999 times out of 1000, it’s caused by pictures, videos, or music.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Vicky in Lexington, Kentucky listens on WLRT 1250 asked us: “What is the best young-child educational type toy that you know of? I have a 14 month old granddaughter and I’m looking for something for her to use in the next few years for education.”
Vixky, There are lots and lots of educational young kid laptops and tablets, it’s hard to pick one, but we’ll give you a few to choose from.
For about $50 you can get a Fisher Price iXL 6-in-1 Learning System. It features a touchscreen with a stylus that kids can use, and it’s an ebook reader, mp3 player, photo viewer, art studio, notepad, and gaming system.
It comes with some games built in, but parents can buy new ones featuring Disney characters, SpongeBob, Dora, and other kid favorites.
If you want something that will probably last her a while, you could go with an Amazon Fire HD Kids Edition, it does cost more, around $125, but it comes prepared to survive being used by young children, and it comes with a year’s worth of access to a large library of kid friendly content via Amazon’s FreeTime.
The main advantage the Fire has is that it’s a real tablet, with real access to other content, like the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
For something in between those two, the LeapFrog3 features dual cameras, a pretty powerful processor for a tablet for kids, and can do everything the iXL can do and more, on a package that feels like it may hold her interest for a while longer as she grows up. This one would cost you around $100, which puts it a little too close to the price of the Fire for kids, but it is designed for younger children and it may serve her better right now.
If you already have an iPad, you might consider an Osmo. This $79 device consists of a reflector that clips over the camera, a stand for the iPad to hold it vertical, and software. The iPad engages with the children and guides them through learning games using REAL WORLD objects like blocks, or letters, or even drawing on a blank page. The child isn’t tapping and swiping on the tablet, they’re using the kind of spatial and motor skills that educators say are important to develop, and the device is simply patiently guiding them and interacting with them as they learn.
It really is impressive. Time Magazine awarded it Invention of the Year last year, and we can see why. There are videos of it in action on their website.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Victor asked us: “I have a hard time hearing my cellphone ring when my phone is in one part of the house and I’m in another. Is there something I could buy or use to make the ringers louder so I could hear it? I have a slight hearing problem.”
Victor, There are some ringer amplifiers designed for the hard of hearing, but be careful with them. If you don’t have hearing problems now you might after using them…
The is a cradle that detects the phone going off and plays a very loud audible alert, it can be set to ring at up to 100db, which is about the equivalent of Eisenhower’s old Bell 47J Presidential Helicopter hovering 100 feet over your head. It also looks old enough for Eisenhower to have used it with his phones.
Ironically enough, a company named “Serene Innovations” also makes some very non-serene loud ringers that feature a bright strobing light as well, since they’re also geared towards the hearing impaired, including the fully deaf, not just the hard of hearing. All of their models are somewhere around $100.
A much less ironically named company called “CentralAlert” sells a device that does the same thing and looks very similar, and unfortunately costs about the same too.
If you have a smaller budget, what you can do to ensure you hear your phone is to connect your phone to an auxiliary cable and connect the cable to a stereo or speaker and put the volume all the way high. Auxiliary cables can range from $5 to $15.
While it’s not exactly a ringer, you could look into a bluetooth enabled home phone,some of them can pair with a cellphone and have multiple handsets. That means that you could leave a handset in one room, another one in another room and have 2 ringers, plus the cell phone’s own, and you could pick up any of the handsets to answer calls.
It’s not a solution that will make your cellphone louder, and it does require remembering to leave your cellphone by the bluetooth enabled home phone, but you would get extra ringer and you wouldn’t have to run across the house to pick up.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, Author of Gene Therapy Plan – Gaynor Integrative Oncology
Michael in St. Joseph, Michigan listens on WSJM 94.9 asked us: “I have an Asus netbook, X205T. Got it on Black Friday, then suddenly the screen stopped working. The unit powers up, but nothing comes up on the screen. Not sure if it’s a known issue with netbooks and maybe you can offer in idea how to resolve it.”
Michael, Netbooks are less powerful and therefore less expensive laptops, but they shouldn’t be any more prone to screen failures than other laptops.
If you bought it in November, it has to still be under some sort of warranty, it’s not even six months old. Call either ASUS or the store you bought it from and tell them that the screen died.
To be honest, if it can’t be replaced under warranty, it’s probably a total loss… an entire ASUS X205T can be bought for under $190, back when you bought it, Staples had it on sale for $99, replacing the screen itself won’t be much cheaper than that.
Again though, there’s no way this computer won’t be under some kind of warranty and ASUS is typically a reliable brand, you shouldn’t have much trouble getting it fixed or replaced, and if it boots up, the drive and your information are probably safe too, so you shouldn’t lose anything but some time.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Larry asked us: “Whenever I open my laptop to log on there is a big message saying ‘please authenticate using your bluetooth security tag’ How do I get rid of this? I am running Windows 8.1 on a laptop.”
Larry, It sounds like you have some program installed that can allow you to log into your windows account using a bluetooth device.
There are a few that can do this, a company named Rohos makes one, there’s another one called Bluetooth Passport Pro, but unfortunately we have no way of knowing which one may be asking you to use your bluetooth device to log in.
Have you installed any security software lately? If you have, that may be the cause. Since this is something that seems to run on it’s own, you can try to disable it by going to run and typing “msconfig” and trying to figure out which service from the list it could be, but that will probably require a bit of trial and error.
Some Toshiba laptops a few years ago came with this feature built in, and it became active even before Windows was loaded, using a bluetooth device to give you access to the BIOS settings, for example. Your computer may have come with the feature built in and you or some software may have activated it without you noticing. As far as we know, though, this is not a standard feature that comes with every copy of Windows, and if it came on on it’s own, it’s probably the result of installing something recently.
If this is a corporate laptop issued by your workplace, you should check with the IT department there. These kinds of security measures are often put in place by those groups and are switched on for computers that will be accessing sensitive information. Perhaps yours was switched on by mistake?
If this is a personal laptop that you bought from the local computer retailer, you might also take it back to them and ask what is causing this. Because, as we’ve already said, this is NOT part of the base Windows installation. Someone has added this security layer to your laptop. It’s not something you should have to live with, if you don’t need it. (And especially if you don’t have this Bluetooth Security Tag.)
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Red in Delaware listens on WDEL 1150 asked us: “How come no one makes a tablet that can also be used as a regular phone?”
Red, One of the main reason why tablets haven’t come out with the phone capability feature is basically to keep costs down and many cellphone carriers want to sell phones AND tablets, and if they combine both together, they are concerned it will affect sales.
However, there are some tablets that do carry this feature such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab or Dell Streak 7 but they’re not designed primarily for phone use.
Or … some have said there is a size limit on what can be considered an actual phone versus a tablet. Dell Streak 7 has Sim Card capabilities but is currently only available in Canada. There are apps you can use that require Wi-Fi, mobile data or possibly both such as TextPlus, ooVoo, fring, and Skype being the most popular of the calling apps. These apps are available on Andriod and Apple devices.
There may even be a simpler answer. Not enough people want them. It’s expensive to design and build a consumer electronics device. It only makes sense to do it if you believe that you’re going to sell a bunch of them. And while we get a question like yours every once in a while, we’re confident that the number of people out there who want to spend money on a tablet that is also a phone isn’t large enough to justify making one. How do we know? Well…because no one makes such a device. And they WOULD, if they thought they could sell it.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Burg: Burg 16A Smartwatch – connects with iOS and Android phones, offering handsfree calling, text and e-mail notifications and more!
Education.Com: Several “Brainzy” 12-month codes for online early-learning programs for math and reading. If you’ve got Kids … you WANT one of these!
HD Radio: “Into Tomorrow” branded Portable AM/FM/HD Radios – these are in high demand and give you more FREE radio — the way it should be!
LG: An LG ‘G’ Vista Smartphone with an extra large display and good battery life.
NanoTech: Several UltraFlix Gift Cards for 4K Content, like movies and a ton of other cool stuff. Let us know if you have a 4K Ultra HD TV!
NovaPhotos: A couple of their cool Bluetooth off-camera FLASH units for iPhone (that we featured in a recent ITTV piece). Perfect for Selfies. They have 40 LEDs!