Data Doctors Tech Tips

Using your smartphone for detailed maps is great when you are traveling with access to a cellular connection, but when you're off the beaten path, they are pretty much useless. For those times, an app called Anchor Pointer for iPhone can be a real help. Because the GPS in your smartphone works without a cellular connection, the app can turn your iPhone into a pretty decent compass. The app allows you to create 'anchors', which are essentially waypoints for navigating using the GPS. For example, if you are taking a hike, create an anchor point wherever you park your car or if you are exploring a remote area, you can create anchors where you are staying overnight. Making use of GPS coordinates allows the app to provide both direction and distance to all of your anchors without the need to reference a map. If you are traveling in a group, the 'meet a friend' option allows you to coordinate gatherings or meetups. The Anchor Pointer app will run you $1.99 and is available in the AppStore http://pleeq.com/anchor-pointer

Supporting charitable organizations with a small donation should not happen only when we hear about horrible tragedies around the globe. That's the idea behind an app called 'One Today' that was created by Google. One Today profiles a different non-profit every day, explains their work and makes it easy to donate between one and ten dollars if you'd like to help. You can also set up match donations to encourage your friends and family join in or use their Pay-it-Forward feature to build up the donation amount from a group. Should you decide to donate to various causes, you can wait to pay it in a lump sum and when it reaches 250 dollars, Google will email you a tax deduction receipt. Helping others always makes you feel better and the One Today app makes it so easy to make a small difference. Imagine if a couple million people donated a dollar a day; nice work Google! Learn all about it at https://onetoday.google.com

If you're like me and are fed up with all of the inconveniences of participating in a conference call, especially from your smartphone or tablet, raise your hand! Because of this ongoing frustration, I've been touting that everyone make a change if you're responsible for hosting any conference call. I highly recommend a service called "UberConference" for any kind of conference call because it is simply much better than old-school services. To be clear, they aren't related to the Uber car-sharing service. You no longer have to type in long PIN numbers on your phone, or put up with constant beeping as people join or exit the call and you no longer have to wonder who all is on the call and best of all, who's currently speaking because it is all on display right on your screen. The host controls make it simple to mute a participant, like when on-hold music starts blaring because someone put the conference on hold. It allows you to record sessions, screen share and plenty of other useful features that will improve conference calls for everyone, whether they're on a computer or mobile device. The basic free service allows for 10 users, but anyone needing more can opt for the $10 a month plan for up to 100 participants. Take it for spin yourself at http://www.uberconference.com

Tech gadgets are amongst the most sought after every holiday season, but the good stuff can be really expensive. Anyone seeking that unusual but amazing tech gift that won't cost an arm and a leg, should checkout Cardboard from Google! I have talked about this simple virtual reality tool before and anyone that still hasn't experienced it will be blown away whether they are technies or not. Google Cardboard is a small cardboard holder that turns just about any size smartphone into an incredible virtual reality headset. There's large number 'Cardboard' apps available to amaze anyone ranging from Paul McCartney concert videos to virtual field trips using the 'Expeditions' app. You can also truly experience the latest 360 YouTube videos in a way that will totally immerses you, making you feel like you are right in video you are watching. For as little as $15 to $30 It would be hard to find a better all around gift or if you are more of the creative type you can even make them yourself at https://google.com/cardboard

Whenever a technology problem pops up and you want to find the tech support number, Google is always a good place to start, right? Wrong! A growing number of users are being scammed when they call what they believe to be the legitimate phone number for tech support because they found in through a Google search. For example, searching for 'Norton Tech Support' displays mostly companies as the official tech support but in fact have nothing to do with the software company. Many are also posting toll free numbers in the ads, knowing full well that a percentage of people will just call the first number that appears from a search. One AZ woman was victimized for $7,000 over the stretch of a year because she thought she was working directly with the tech support for Norton. The simple way to make sure you are getting the legitimate tech support resources for any organization is to manually type their web address and add the word 'support' to the end. For example, for Norton you would type http://norton.com/support I have posted more tips for avoiding these growing scams at DataDoctors.com/radio http://www.datadoctors.com/help/columns/22031-Beware-the-Latest-Tech-Support-in-Search-Scams

Getting a handle on your financial situation while planning for your retirement is something that we should all be thinking about, but getting around to it is often overwhelming when you try to track everything manually. One of my recent discoveries called https://www.personalcapital.com is something that can greatly simplify tracking all your various financial accounts. I was rather quickly able to create a dashboard that was able to show me everything in my portfolio in one place. Personal Capital gives you easy to use tools to see everything ranging from your net worth to a complete analysis of your portfolio and also provides some 'what if' retirement planning to help you understand what it's going to take for retirement. This tool isn't intended for active stock traders, it's really for anyone that wants one place to see a dashboard of their financial information. They also have smartphone apps that will allow you to quickly check your financial life daily, no matter where you are! Start truly managing your personal financial situation at https://www.personalcapital.com

This time of year, we see people on the Internet claiming that Christmas lights are causing problems on their wifi network. While this is certainly technically possible, the real chances of this type of interference causing a wifi problem is actually quite low. Be sure not to plug those strings of light in the same outlet as your wifi router just to play it safe and should you think there is interference, it's really easy to test it out. Just check your connection speed with and without the lights plugged in at a speed test site like http://speedtest.net. Your Wi-Fi signal is much more likely to be interfered with by your microwave oven, old cordless phones, a baby monitor or most likely from your neighbor's wifi router competing with yours. If your Wi-Fi router doesn't automatically find the least congested radio channel, for 2.4 Ghz signals, the best channels to use are 1, 6 and 11 because they tend to have the least amount of signal overlap from other channels. Android smartphone users can also us a free app called WiFi Analyzer (http://wifianalyzer.mobi) that can also help.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a huge music nerd that's constantly searching for great music, old and new. I often revisit older bands by searching through their greatest hits which helps with discovery and rediscovery. While searching around last week, I learned of a website that I had never heard of: TheTopTens.com. Unlike other top 10 lists that are generally created by a single person, this resource leverages crowdsourcing to compile what "the Internet crowd" thinks should be in the top ten. It isn't just for music; say you want to get a new nail polish or how about gatherin holiday gift ideas? Anyone that wants to help out can vote on any of the lists and you do not have the hassle of signing up for an account; just click to Vote! Even better, you can start a top ten list of your own to get feedback, so there really is no limit to the lists you'll find. Whether you are searching for new artists, new songs or just doing a little research for something a little more serious, checkout http://TheTopTens.com.

Yesterday I gave you a tip on using GetHuman.com to find the contact information whenever you need help from large brands. Today I want to tell you about a website that works with GetHuman and lets you avoid being stuck on hold when you try to reach out to customer service departments. A service called 'Lucyphone' will wait in your spot when you are calling recognized help phone numbers and you get put on hold. When you use Lucyphone to call support numbers, it allows you to press the * button twice when you get put on hold. This lets the Lucyphone system to hold for you and call you when an agent finally picks up. Simply type the customer service number along with your phone number and click the connect button to get started. The system generates a call to your phone with options to either connect directly or get their instructions for things like how to record your message for the person answering when they pickup. You can even have Lucyphone connect to completely different phone number when the support person does finally pick up. Get more on this awesome free service at http://Lucyphone.com

We all need to get in touch with the various customer service department at large companies from time to time, whether to clear up billing issues or just to get help on something we purchased. In some cases, the phone numbers are easy to get, but more often these days, many companies are doing their best to hide their toll free phone numbers. Turning to Google for phone numbers can present you with a myriad of common scams, so there's a better way called http://GetHuman.com GetHuman has put together a list of the many ways to contact major organizations which can include numbers, email addresses, social media accounts and even live chat options when they exist. We're not talking about a single number, but every number for every department they can find that provides some way to contact customer service. Sometimes they can even provide the average wait times to get to a real live human being. Bookmark GetHuman.com for the next time you need a customer service shortcut. Tomorrow, I've got a tip for avoiding waiting on hold!