Data Doctors Tech Tips

All of the major wireless carriers are engaged in battle to try to win your business with various new sensational sounding offers just about every week. But if the data and voice service and reliability in your neck of the woods is spotty, a sensational deal means nothing. Before you decide to make the jump from one carrier to another, I've got a resource that will let you do your research. You can evaluate all four of the major networks, Verizon, ATandT, T-Mobile and Sprint where you live, work and travel at a website called Rootmetrics.com. You start with the area you live in to get an overall performance rating for each carrier that includes reliability and speed indexes as well as data, call and text performance so you'll know the strengths of each network where you'll actually use them. One of the best features of the site is the CoverageMap because you can get detailed maps of where the call quality is bad or good, where data is slow or fast and whether 4G LTE service is available from each carrier. There's also a mobile app which allows you to help build the performance database no matter where you are traveling. I'v posted the all the Rootmetrics links at DataDoctors.com/radio Find your city reports: http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/usa-metros?z=united-states Explore the Coverage Map: http://webcoveragemap.rootmetrics.com/us Mobile apps: http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/products/coveragemap-mobile-app

Augmented reality apps, like Pokeman Go, that overlay information on your smartphone camera screen are growing in popularity. One of the more usefull uses for augmented reality is for real-time language translation, whether it's on a street sign, a restaurant menu or those description plaques in a museum. When you're in a foreign country, it's especially helpful to know what keywords mean so you can know what you are about to eat or where you are going. An app called CamDictionary provides real-time translation that's so much easier and faster than looking words up in a translation guidebook. You just open the app, point the camera at a word then tap the screen on that word to get it translated in real-time. It turns your camera into a dynamic dictionary to translate any word you point at in up to 54 languages. CamDictionary is it's far from a complete translation app, because it can only translate one word at a time, but understanding one or two words can make all the difference in the world. The basic CamDictionary app is free for both Android and iPhone users, so make sure you have the app before you leave on that next trip abroad. Download link: http://www.intsig.com/en/products/camdictionary

Whenever you are having trouble getting to a specific website, sometimes the problem is the website your trying to vidi and other times it's your equipment that's having the problem. When you're having an issue getting a specific website, before spending any real time checking your own equipment, take a minute to make sure that the website you're trying to access isn't down for the moment. A web resource called IsItDownRightNow.com can provide you with some information to quickly determine if the site is down or not. Not only can it let you know if the website is up or down, it can provide current response times and a recent history of availability for major sites. When the site has been confirmed to be up and running, it'll provide you with some troubleshooting suggestions to help you figure out why you can't currently access the site. Conversely, If others are having an issue with the same website, posted towards the bottom you will see others that commenting about the same problem, so you don't waste your time. If IsItDownRightNow.com determines that a site is down, they'll provide you with a list of alternative sites that may be able to provide the information you seek. IsItDownRightNow.com is bookmark worthy!

Food photography has both haters and lovers of this growing social media phenomenon. If you're a lover of this common act, there are a few things you should remember, especially if you're in a restaurant. The first thing is turn off the flash...not only is it an irritation to others around you, it's going to distort the actual colors of the food and turning it into plastic food. In low lighting situations, be sure you turn down the brightness of your screen as another courtesy and use a candle when possible to warmly light your dish. Another big irritant to those around you is the shutter sound every time you take a picture, so silence that too. The app you choose to take the shot can make a huge difference in the results, so instead of opting for the built-in picture app, give VSCO's Cam app a try. It'll give you lots of editing options for low lighting images after you take the shot. And remember, you're there to enjoy the food, so posting your meal can wait until after you've eaten. Link: http://vsco.co/vscocam

If you're ever tasked with the chore of transcribing a recorded voice message, interview or sound file, you'll be confronted with an inefficient process. You'll have to open multiple tools on your computer and then bounce back and forth between them to start and stop the audio to properly capture all of the words. I've got a better way through an awesome free utility for you to bookmark, whether you have to do this on a regular basis or on that rare occasion. It's called oTranscribe.com and it's extremely simple to use. You just upload the audio file through their web interface and viola, everything you need to get the task completed will be in one place. The included online word processor provides the controls for the audio file built right into the interface with keyboard controls for all of the commands. Need to slow down or speed up the audio to match your typing speed? No sweat! Want to start and stop the audio? No need to reach for the mouse, just tap the Escape key. It's really awesome! Bookmark this one! - http://otranscribe.com

If you're a parent of a teenager, you know the frustrations of getting them up to speed on doing their own laundry. You know the standard excuse: "I don't know what to do"...fair enough...so there's an app for that mom and dad! The free Complete Laundry Care iPhone app has instructions for washing, folding and ironing clothes and includes a chart to explain what each machine wash symbol means on the tags. Now your child can literally be walked through each step of the process: sorting, setting the time for each load and drying while providing a timer which alerts them when each load is done so no more forgetting about the laundry. It's a handy way to ensure that your new college student doesn't obliterate their entire wardrobe in the first semester because they won't just throw it all in together when they do their laundry. If they decide to attempt to do some ironing, the app can even save your child from burning their clothes. So if you know any teenagers or adults for that matter, that just can't seem to get a handle on the laundry process, the Complete Laundry Care app could save them money, time and frustration! I've posted the link at DataDoctors.com/radio https://goo.gl/L5jO7R

Having some sort of baby monitor is a pretty standard device if you have young children in the house. For those looking for an inexpensive alternative or something really convenient when you're on a road trip with your kids, I suggest taking a look at the Dormi Android app. The Dormi app can turn any two Android phones or tablets into solid baby monitors that can work from just about any distance. Unlike traditional baby monitors, Dormi can work with both wifi and cellular connections, which allows it to work in the next room, next door or the next county. There's also a feature that allows you to push a button to talk to your child if you need to and it can keep you updated on the battery levels of the phone being used to monitor. If you want to try it out, the basic service is free and allows up to 4 hours of monitoring a month or you can get unlimited use forever by buying the app for $9. This is a perfect way to use that old Android phone that's sitting in that junk drawer and bring it back to useful life.

Providing an e-mail address When we're interacting with various websites these days, its become pretty common to provide an e-mail address, but in too many cases, it can lead to a stream of marketing messages. If you're in the habit of using the same address for everyone online, it becomes very difficult to determine who is responsible for sending the unwanted messages. One way to fight this is to use an alternative e-mail account for non-essential interactions but if you're a Gmail user, you can easily create aliases for each of your online accounts. For instance, if you wanted to create an alias for your interactions on eBay and your regular address is [email protected], then you would use [email protected] as your alias. By doing this, you can setup filters to auto-file any messages sent to each address to skip the Inbox, send it to the Trash, apply a label or star and even auto- forward them to another account. What's great about this approach is that there's no limit to the number of aliases you can setup and it's a really solid way to track the garbage any given site starts sending you just because you bought or signed up for something. Users of Microsoft's Outlook.com online mail service can also use the same procedure for creating instant for tracking purposes.

Google has created so many incredible free tools that invaluable to business people. A seemingly lesser known Google resource that's one of my all-time favorites is Google Trends and it continues to get interesting upgrades. The Google Trends tool allows you to dig deep into Google's enormous database of search terms so you can see how often specific keywords and their associated trends. Not only can you use this awesome tool to find keywords that will drive relevant traffic to your website or blog, it's also an incredible market research tool. It allows you to track trends in specific countries, states or languages and provides you with charts that show interest in those keywords or phrases over time. You can drill down to what happened in the past hour or display a timeline of trends that go back to 2004 and even see the relationship between multiple terms in a given timeline. It's a useful way to see seasonality of keywords, which can make business planning for specific holidays much more strategic. Even if you're not a business person, if you've never seen what Google Trends can do, I highly recommend making it a point to checkout this amazingly simple but powerful tool Pop over to http://Google.com/trends if you want to give it a spin!

The summer heat is here and it's hot enough to make us both uncomfortable and cranky during the day. Know what else gets really uncomfortable and cranky from the heat? The batteries in all your gadgets! Heat is, without question, the most detrimental thing to the batteries in all your gadgets and being aware of this can help promote longer battery life. Leaving your laptop, smartphone or tablet in a steaming hot car, especially when exposed to direct sunlight will definitely kill your batteries. Whenever you notice that your electronics have been in a hot setting and are warm to the touch, avoid turning them on if you can and wait for them to return to room temperature. Another thing to be mindful of is blocking the exhaust vents on your laptop; having it on a pillow or thick bedspread while using it is a good way to overheat the entire system. Whenever you're outside with your smartphone, tablet or laptop, do your best to avoid direct sunlight for extended periods of time. Here's what you should remember: if you are uncomfortable from the heat, your gadgets will be too!