Data Doctors Tech Tips

If you need a little boost to make your morning runs a lot more fun, checkout the Zombies Run app. Zombies Run is one part Runkeeper and one part Walking Dead and it'll turn your morning run into a run-for-your-life virtual adventure. Out of energy on your run and pushing to bring yourself to finish that last mile? Well, maybe a bunch of virtual zombies breathing down your neck will help you with the adrenaline you need.and#160; That's the concept behind the Zombies, Run app, which is available for both Android and iOS devices. It gives you a totally immersive running game and audio adventure right on your phone.and#160; Here's how it works: Before you begin your run, you just start the app, pick a 'mission', slap on your headphones, and hit your run. Each mission has various goals such as get supplies, rescue others, delivering news to a base and of all things, keep ahead of the Zombies. With 200 missions, Zombie Chase interval training and using your own music, it provides you with the best of both worlds - a solid morning workout while saving the rest of the world from being eaten.and#160; So if you're looking for more excitement during your morning run, then try running away from Zombies.and#160; http://www.zombiesrungame.com

We have for years discussed why Gmail is our favorite web email service available, but how do you use a web-based service when there's no Internet connection? Gmail users know why we are such huge fans: it has great tools and spam filters.and#160; But what happens when you don't have an Internet connection, but still need to respond to emails or read your pile of unread messages.and#160; Gmail Offline to the rescue.and#160; Gmail Offline is an app that will allow you to work with your Gmail account, even when you are not online. It allows you to respond to messages and search through your old messages, but how?and#160; Just install the Chrome plugin and it will automatically start synchronizing your messages whenever you're online and you open the Chrome browser.and#160; The user interface is a lot like the tablet version of the Gmail app so it's fast and focuses on the things you most likely need, your email and contacts.and#160; To use the app, just sign into your account, open a new tab and click on the icon. You're now up and running!and#160; The app also provides offline capabilities for Google Calendar and Google Docs as well!and#160; The next time you have to fly across the country, you won't have to buy an expensive in-flight internet package to be productive!and#160;

If you have noticed that your web surfing seems to be a bit slower these days, it may be because you're a tabaholic!and#160; One of best features of today's web browsers is that they allow you to open individual web pages in separate tabs.and#160; It eliminated the need to hit the back and forward buttons, because you can simply click on any of the open tabs. The downside to this ability can become a piano on your computer memory's back.and#160; Every tab that's opened uses up a chunk of RAM as if it were another stand-alone program, so the more tabs that you open, the more memory you're using.and#160; Today's tip will help improve your computer's speed easily - keep your open tabs to a minimum.and#160; Other programs that have nothing to do with your web surfing will be impacted when you open too many browser tabs, because your working memory (RAM) is shared by all programs.and#160; If controlling your tab appetite isn't working, checkout this awesome add-on for the Chrome browser called 'OneTab'.and#160; It only takes seconds to install and making use of it is just about as simple. The next time you're out of control with open tabs, simply tap the OneTab icon and bingo - your tabs are consolidated in a list on a single tab.and#160; OneTab instantly clears lots of memory from all your idle tabs that are open, but also allow you to quickly reopen those tabs when you need them.and#160; It's completely free and available at http://www.one-tab.com

Here we go again...the Microsoft tech-support scams, which are essentially dialing for dollars are on the rise again.and#160; It generally starts with a phone call from a person claiming to be with Microsoft that says that they've detected that your computer is infected.and#160; If you talk to them long enough, they'll tell you that they can prove to you that you have the problem they called about, if you'll just run a few tests yourself.and#160; They'll walk you through what will appear to be a diagnostic process and ask you if you see certain things showing up on your screen.and#160; These 'certain things' are of course built into all Windows computers, so they will always appear, but for those that are not technical, it can be convincing.and#160; If they can hook you on the bait, the next step is to walk you through the steps that will allow them remote access to your computer.and#160; This will not only increase your risk of contracting a malicious program, you'll be asked for a credit card number so they can properly clean up your computer.and#160; The reality is that Microsoft or any other legit service company would never just call you out of the blue to alert you that your computer is infected.and#160; The good news: avoiding this scam is really easy. Remote help for your computer is completely safe but only when YOU are the one initiating the request for help.and#160; So if you ever get any type of call that is offering to help you with your computer from out of the blue, you'll know what to do: Hang Up!and#160;

We previously told you about Adobe's subscription service for their very popular programs like Photoshop.and#160; But for those that won't need these tools very often, it's probably had to justify paying $50 a month.and#160; Even buying an older version will cost hundreds of dollars, so today's tip is about an option that's both easy and free!and#160; Pixlr.com is a pretty complete photo editor that will work with nothing more than a web browser, so there are no downloads required and no money!and#160; It's got many of the tools that are popular in Photoshop, so you will have no problem making use of them.and#160; You can start using Pixlr in seconds and there is no need to register to use it.and#160; Here are just a few of the options in this free tool: red eye reduction, cloning tools, spot healing, drawing tools and the very useful sharpen and blur tools. You can also use filters that will mimic HDR, glamor glows, tilt shift, vignettes, and noise adjustments.and#160; You can of course control the very important tools: Contrast, Levels, Curves, Hue,, Brightness and Saturation Now when someone sends you a Photoshop file, you can use Pixlr to open them too.and#160; Check out all the tools for yourself at https://pixlr.com

Anyone looking for a better way to take daily notes will appreciate today's tech tip, because there's an app for that!and#160; If you are an old school note taker and tend to use lots of post it notes, you probably use different colors for different types of notes. You'll likely write your daily notes on individual notes for each category, for each day of the month. That's a lot of work... but it's obviously very organized. Well if that's how you think, then you'll love the note taking app called 'ThingList'. You simply take your notes and it takes care of organizing and categorizes them. The categories are common activities like movies you'd like to watch, books you'd like to read, restaurants you want to try, ideas that you have, people you've met, places you'd like to visit, products you'd like to try or anything you'd like to remember... the ThingList app will remember and categorizes all your notes.and#160; Anyone with an iPhone and a lot of things bouncing around in your head may find ThingList an awesome way to capture all those thoughts every day.and#8232; http://getthinglist.com

Just about all of us have heard the old saying, "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst". Most business owners should know that mantra very well, which is why they should make sure they review their 'Digital Disaster Recovery Plan' on a regular basis. For some business owners, it might even be a suggestion to simply "create" your disaster recovery plan. So where should you get started? Start by asking yourself what you would do if one of the common disasters was to hit your business: fire, flood, theft, malware infection, ransomware, human error, sabotage, hardware failure and increasingly, a major data breach. The steps required to recover from each of these disasters may be quite different and often requires different recovery processes. Most businesses have focused on creating a solid backup procedure, but they rarely put much effort into the actual steps that will be required for the recovery process. It is akin to having a fire drill in school during a real fire and hoping everyone knows what to do when it happens! The absolute worst time to create a disaster recovery process is during an actual crisis, so consider this a strong reminder to make it a priority soon.

Crowdfunding has become a very popular way to launch a new product or service because you can post the idea and ask for financial supporters and when enough of people think that you are onto something good, you get the funding. Websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are just a couple of ways to see what new products or ideas are being posted, but when they don't get funded, those ideas and products are nothing more than vaporware... In 2012 alone, Kickstarter had nearly $320 million dollars pledged and the site successfully funded over 18,000 projects. For those that love discovering new products but don't want to have to wait to see if they will will make it to their funding goals, there's a website calle https://OutGrow.me Outgrow.me only posts recent products that have been fully funded and are either soon to be available or are in the pre-order stage so you won't waste your time on projects that didn't raise their funding goals. This visual listing of successfully crowdfunded projects is an excellent way to see the latest and greatest technology ideas and lots of products that may having you saying "why didn't I think of that"! It's also a great place to find truly unique items for those hard to shop for friends and family members on their special days. For those that love crowdfunding projects, but don't want to waste their time on ideas that the 'crowd' clearly didn't like, checkout https://OutGrow.me

Taking medicine regularly can get to be a bit of a hassle... especially when there are several types of medicine which need to be taken at different times of the dayand#160; Anyone that has a complicated pill taking schedule should checkout an app that could literally be a life-saver that is called the Mango Health app.and#160; The Mango Health app can start by alerting you when it's time to take each pill based on a schedule you setup and then give you the info you necessary to prevent you from eating or drinking anything that could negatively interact with any of your medications.and#160; It can also help you from taking pills that could negatively interact with each other. Once you install the app, simply create the schedule and let it do the rest. The app makes it nice not having to set an alarm for each pill or guess what you can't eat or drink while taking them.and#160; If you're one of the many that forgets to take their memory pills, but you never forget your smartphone, the Mango Health app is just what the doctor ordered.

Just about all of us get tons of junk email every week and no matter what we do, they still seem to find a way to get through the junk filters. Most of us setup rules, blacklists and whitelists in an effort to create a productive inbox, but all that work can create a different problem: false positives!and#160; It is also nearly impossible to keep legitimate mail from ending up in our junk folders, whether it was from the sender using words that raise their spam score or if they forget to include a subject line or have a blacklisted domain.and#160; Today's tip is actually an important reminder to check your spam folders on a regular basis. It's surprising to some that find important messages or messages from old friends that have been trying to contact you.and#160; You won't want to scroll through every message in your junk folder; using a few keywords as search criteria which should be based on any important contacts, words or any current projects that you might be working on.and#160; When you do discover a legit message that was tagged as spam, you should use the tools in your mail system for reporting the message as not spam. The sad fact is that spam isn't going away and your legit messages will on occasion get caught in the filters, so consider setting a weekly reminder to check your spam folder to rescue legit messages!and#160;