Into Tomorrow Quickies

Sonny asked: "I have an iPhone 5 and it usually dies sometime before it reaches "zero." Usually between zero and 10%. I've heard it's because using third party cords can mess up your battery and I wanted to know if that was true."     Given that the iPhone 5 hasn’t been made in a few years, it’s likely that your battery is just getting old. If that’s the case, you can replace it, but it will cost you a good percentage of what a new phone would cost, so look at your options and see if it makes sense. You can find batteries online, if you’re willing to do the swap yourself. That will save you some money, but it will require some work, those batteries are not meant to be user replaceable. There is a chance that this is just being caused by a software glitch, if that’s the case, things may go back to normal if you restore the phone. It may be worth a try, no one likes to have to restore a phone, but no one likes spending money on a new battery that doesn’t fix the problem either, so it’s probably worth a try before you spend any money. It is also possible that your iPhone 5 has a defective battery. Apple admitted to problems with the battery in some iPhone 5 devices that were sold in 2012 and 2013. They have a website set up where you can input your phone’s serial number to see whether you qualify for a free replacement battery. And we love free! 

Tammy asked: "I have a Samsung Galaxy S5. I'd like to know the best way to get all my pictures off of my phone and what to put them on to save them. I'm not very tech savy, so you might have to go a little easy on the selections for me please."   Tammy, the easiest way to get your photos off your phone would probably to use an app that will just do it for you in the background. You can use Google Photos and give it permission to upload your photos to their cloud, that will come with some added benefits, Google can connect your photos to Maps and restaurant checkins if you’re interested in that. If you’re not a fan of Google, you can use Dropbox. It does the same thing, and you can set your computer to automatically download the pictures as they are updated to Dropbox. That means that you would have them on your phone, your computer, and Dropbox’s cloud, meaning 3 copies for every photo taken, which makes for a decent backup. You can always just get your pictures off your phone the old fashioned way, just connect it to your computer using the charging cable, then transfer the files as you would from any USB flash drive or external hard drive. If you do that, it would be smart to make another copy just in case. Backups are always good to have. Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it seems. In the case of Google Photos, while we applaud them offering a free service with unlimited photo and video storage, we have to point out that they do not store your photos or videos in the same quality as you upload them. The maximum pixel size of photos is 16 megapixel and for videos it’s 1080p. However, even within those limits the images and videos will still be compressed. If you want to store photos and videos in the exact same resolution and quality you captured them with, you need Google Drive. Google Drive is free for the first 15GB of storage, but after that you will need to pay. Dropbox doesn’t change your photos or videos, either, but the free account is limited to 16GB of storage (apparently they felt the need to go one better on Google). So you can decide how you feel about this. Are you a stickler for quality and do you insist that the pictures and videos be stored just as you uploaded them? Or will you trade a possible drop in quality for the unlimited free storage?

Mary asked: "Who writes the stuff that gets on the smartphone internet and apps. So much of it is incorrect and I want to know why. Shouldn't it be the same as you get on PCs? Some of the stuff I look up - I already know it's wrong. Who gets hired to write that stuff? How do they find writers and how do those writers have the qualifications to be telling us stuff?"   Before we can answer that, Mary, we would have to know what particular apps you’re talking about. There isn’t a separate “smartphone Internet,” it’s all the same Internet. If the information you’re talking about is contained within a specific app, then the answer to your question is that the information comes from whoever wrote the app. When you ask “who writes the stuff,” that’s hard to answer. There are literally thousands of people involved in app development. At the Advanced Media Network, we have an app developer on our staff. So it could be, quite literally, anyone “writing this stuff.” As with anything you find through a smartphone app or online search, we encourage you to compare multiple sources before you decide who to believe. It is completely amazing how five minutes spent with search engines can peel back layers and layers of misinformation. Finally, when it comes to qualifications, surely you’ve seen enough of life in the 21st century to know that being qualified had nothing to do with having an agenda and advancing that agenda. If people had to be qualified on a subject before they opened their mouths, it would be very much like that old Simon and Garfunkel song: The Sounds of Silence.

Scott in State College Pennsylvania wants to upgrade his car radio: I have a question about automotive stereo systems. I have a 2007 Dodge Charger. It has a 6 CD changer in it now. It has a pretty good size area where the radio is. I'm thinking about getting a radio head unit that pops out with a video screen or has a video screen built-in, that has GPS and maybe my passengers could watch a movie or something. If you could help me, I'd appreciate it.     Scott, you’ll have plenty of options for car radios with navigation, but you may have to look a little harder to find radios that advertise video playback. It’s usually not legal to have video playing while you’re driving, having said that, a lot of radios will let you play video while the car is in park and if you happen to find someone willing to install a switch that will trick your radio into thinking the car is in park, well, the radio won’t know any better. Now, if you want to cheap options, for about $170 you can buy a Pyle PLDNB78i, it does come with navigation and bluetooth and it is double DIN, which means it a large unit, so it’s likely to fit that “good size area” in your Charger. For slightly more, about $190 you could buy a Pioneer, but the name brand will cost you the GPS navigation. Pioneer does have GPS enabled models that you could get, but all of the ones we were able to find were north of $500. In between those, you may like a Boss BV9386NV with navigation and a CD/DVD player for $279. Given the prices though, you may be better served by your smartphone if you’re not too bothered by having to put it in a mount. These radios will all do less and they’re not cheap. Joshua in Sparta, Tennessee listens on SuperTalk WTN 99.7 asked: I lost a battle with my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone, I crushed it up against the wall so the screen is black but I can still receive phone calls-- the screen is shot otherwise. I was wondering if you thought it was worth fixing? As well as my Sanyo television, the HDMI plug in the back is starting to cause trouble. It's probably a 9-year old television, I was wondering if that would be worth repairing?   We’re extremely sorry to hear about your recent troubles with electronics!  Be gentle with them. Tech is your friend! That must really cause plenty of inconveniences, especially the way you’re limited to not being able to make phone calls on your own. Just being forced to take calls from telemarketers and bill collectors must be a nightmare! Now, your best bet is definitely not to get another phone as it will likely be way more costly than just repairing this one, and to do so, you will probably need to visit a local repair shop and have them take a look at your phone. Prices will vary depending on the issue and what the particular repair shop charges-- but it seems like that would help, because you’re still able to receive calls, meaning your phone is not entirely dead and could likely -- hopefully -- be fixed. The more tedious but pocket-friendly solution is to order a repair kit for your phone, finding good instructions and doing it yourself. It may sound difficult, but plenty of people -- including me -- have been able to save money by doing this. Our intern had an issue previously with a broken phone screen and before paying $100 to a repair shop to fix it, his father was able to order a repair kit on Amazon that came with instructions and after it arrived-- it was fixed within an hour. He thinks that if his father, was able to fix a phone, just about anyone could do it too! About your TV, you’re probably better off not fixing the port, a 9 year old TV is probably not worth an awful lot today.  If you have another working HDMI port, you could buy an HDMI switcher and just use that to plug...

Continuing with our series on CyberSecurity awareness,  Ross Grenier from Webroot is here with a tip to keep you safe from cyber criminals, with this week’s “stay safe” tip. October is National Cyber security awareness month, and a good time to prepare for ransomware.  Ransomware is the most profitable type of malware in history, and allows cyber criminals to encrypt your entire hard drive, then demand a ransom to unlock your data. Prepare for ransomware by using an antivirus software program. Antivirus software can not only protect your computer, but also block malicious websites, and protect keyboard entry, keeping you and your data safe from cyber criminals. For more tips on being safe online visit Webroot.com/radio. Harry asked: "I live in a building. I am on the second floor. We have a Wi-Fi downstairs and I can get it from my apartment, but how can I get this signal on the higher floors? I have a friend up on the eighth floor and he really needs access to the Internet and this would be the best way for him. How do I do that? Do I use a repeater? "     You could use a repeater to try to push the signal up to your friend, but realistically, that probably won’t be enough. Think of it this way, you live on the second floor, how strong is the signal there? You probably aren’t getting full bars with 2 floors between you and the WiFi source. You’d be repeating that signal to a device 6 floors up from you. It’s not very likely that he’ll get anything at all. Frankly, as we see it your friend probably has 3 options: Talk to whoever manages the WiFi downstairs and see if they’d be willing to set up repeaters on every floor (keep in mind that, if they do this, your speed will likely drop noticeably) Tell your friend to pay for his own internet service, or Tell your friend to go all the way downstairs every time he wants to use the internet, except for any time he can use his phone, especially if he happens to have hotspot service on his smartphone. Your building is probably offering WiFi downstairs as a courtesy, and it may only be because they already needed it for other things, such as security cameras. They probably don’t think of it as a replacement for each resident’s own internet service. If that’s the case, unfortunately, that means that your friend is probably out of luck, when it comes to the building helping. That would leave you as his only potential source of free WiFi. If you can borrow a router, access point, or repeater, you can set it up just as a way to test whether or not any signal originating from your apartment would reach his without having to spend any money. It doesn’t matter if that signal is not connected to the internet downstairs, don’t worry about, just check to see if just the WiFi radio is strong enough to reach him. If he can see the signal, go forth with the repeater idea, otherwise, he’s probably out of luck, and frankly that’s the most likely case.

Austin asked: "Now that Google and other phones have an option for Antivirus, what do you do in regards to an iPhone and what kind of security measures should we take to protect the information on our phones?"   There really isn’t there much for you to do. Just don’t give any app permission to access any information you don’t want it to have. Apps on smartphones don’t work like programs on computers, they can only access their own data and they can’t see other apps’ directories. That means that malicious apps cannot spread, they can only access the data you allow them to access, no need for them to know your location? or to read your contacts? Then say no when they ask. There are antivirus apps for iOS too, but they’re really not needed, they not really needed on Android either. If your phone is not Jailbroken, apps cannot do anything you don’t explicitly give them permission to do in the first place. A little healthy skepticism wouldn’t hurt, either. Smartphone apps do steal people’s data, but not by sneaking in the back door and swiping it from their desk drawer. They knock on the front door, ask you for your information, and you hand it over. It’s not that the app has a virus, it’s that the entire app is malicious. The good news is that apps submitted to the iTunes App Store or the Google Play Store are not very likely to be in this category. Those apps are all, to one degree or another, vetted by Apple and Google. You can rest assured that bad apps get quickly removed. So use common sense. If you want your smartphone and its data to be safe, do not root it (if you’re Android) or jailbreak it (if you’re iPhone). Do not, under any circumstances, install an app from anywhere other than a trusted location (such as the iTunes App Store, the Google Play Store, or the Amazon App Store). And if an app asks you for something you don’t think it should need to do whatever job it’s supposed to do, be skeptical. There is no reason in the world that a weather program needs credit card information or your social security number. There is no reason at all for a game to need your banking information. Simply because an app asks you for something doesn’t mean you’re compelled to provide it.

TC asked: "I have a question about the best MiFi with unlimited data I could buy. I can only buy Wi-Fi at home and I'd like to have Wi-Fi on the go for my smartphone, laptop and tablet. I don't know what brand/company would be the best one to buy."   Well, if you can find a company selling a dedicated portable hotspot with unlimited data, would you please tell us? Because we’re not aware of anyone doing that. The devices themselves are inexpensive. Where they get you is the data plan. Now that’s not to say that you can’t find unlimited data plans. Depending on which wireless provider you choose, you may well be able to get unlimited data. For example, Sprint and MetroPCS are both offering unlimited data plans right now, and they both claim that their plans are unlimited high-speed data with no throttling. Most unlimited data plans offer you a certain amount of data at full speed and then they throttle you, or slow down your data rate. You can have the data, but you can’t really use it for anything worthwhile. It’s simply too slow. If you were willing to move your cell phone to one of the wireless providers offering unlimited data, you could pay a monthly tethering fee (it’s not much, usually $5 or $10) and use your smartphone as a hotspot for your tablet and computer. But, when you walk in the store and ask about dedicated hotspot hardware, they know you’re a data power user. You’re going to use this with a tablet, or worse, a computer, and you’ll use lots of data. It’s not that they couldn’t give you an unlimited data plan, it’s just that they don’t believe they have to, and they want to charge you as much as they can get you to pay.

Consumer Reports joined Into Tomorrow this week to tell us about lightweight laptops: In laptops, lightweight used to mean sacrificing performance and battery life. But that was then. Nowadays you can expect more than 10 hours of use with the most ultraportable models – that’s double the number from just 5 years ago - according to Consumer Reports. Their electronics spokesman James McQueen is here to reveal some great laptops that weigh 3 pounds or less.      

Geoff asked: "I'm trying to print from an Android tablet using Google Cloud Print to an HP LaserJet P1102w. When I try to add the printer, it doesn't find the printer. I've tried resetting the machine and various other things and nothing works. Wondering if you could help me."   The LaserJet P1102w offers integration to Google’s Cloud Print, but you may need to upgrade your firmware even if the printer is new. Not all of them seem to have shipped with the latest firmware on them and that has caused problems for some. Once you’ve done that, you can set up web services, including Google Cloud Print using the software that came with the printer, that is probably where your problem lies. HP officially requires that you use that software from a computer to set up web services. Once you’re set up, you should be able to print from your tablet or any other device without a problem, but at least for this first step, you may need to borrow someone’s computer, install the software that came with your HP LaserJet, and set up cloud services from there.  

Dave chats with Alex Haro, Co-Founder and President of Life360 about their location app that helps you stay connected with your loved ones as well as alerting you of emergency situations

Lisa asked: "I have an external hard drive that doesn't work. I was wondering how or if I could get the information off of it."   Lisa, the main question here is how much you value the information on that drive. If it suddenly died there’s a good chance that there’s something wrong with it that you won’t be able to fix for free. Depending on how bad things are, you may be able to recover some files using software solutions, or that you will need to send it to a lab to have recovery pros work on it. One way or another it probably won’t be cheap. Your first step would be try one of your free software options, they’re usually limited so you’ll buy a paid version, but they may help you. Take a look at DMDE, and Paragon Rescue, they both offer free versions but do expect to have to pay to recover all your files.

Darren asked: "I'd like to get a decent tablet that works well with Wi-Fi, particularly when I'm out and about."   Darren, any tablet will have WiFi, it’s a “base model” feature on absolutely all tablets, even e-readers have it these days, and all can be expected to get decent reception and work as you would expect from a WiFi device. If the main thing you’re looking for is internet on the go, you may be better served by looking for an LTE-enabled tablet. Again, just about any tablet will offer a model with mobile internet built in, though it probably won’t be the base model. There are some drawbacks, the tablet itself will cost a little more and you will be stuck with some kind of monthly data plan, but if you mostly plan to use it while you’re out and about, it may be a good option anyway. You can also just get any WiFi tablet and share your phone’s connection, most plans these days offer some kind of tethering. As for the tablet itself, if you plan to use it on the go, you may be better served by a smaller, lighter one. 7” and 8” models are popular, with the obvious downside being that they’re not that much larger than a smartphone, and the upside being that they’re light, easy to pack anywhere, and they do have a larger screen even if it’s not that much larger. In terms of brand or operating system, for your requirements that’s all about preference. Every tablet you look at will have WiFi, so if you already use an iPhone maybe look at an iPad, it will work together with your iPhone very nicely and you’ll be able to use some of the apps and features you’re already used to. If you’re on Android, maybe look at some Android options instead, but really it’s all up to you, your requirements will be met by any brand you look at.

Jim asked: "I recently started a new job and the Wi-Fi is terrible. I was wondering if there was a way to hook up my iPhone to a PC and use the Internet from there."   Jim, your iPhone can definitely be connected to your PC to share its connection, however keep in mind that it may cost you. The first thing we should mention is that this feature is carrier-dependent. All iPhones allow it, but it may be disabled if the company providing you service does not. The process is simple: you plug your phone into your computer, go to Settings and turn on Personal Hotspot, and you should be in business. The phone will act as a USB modem from that point on. The problem is that most phone plans put a limit on how much, if any, data you’re allowed to share with devices that are tethered to your phone, and computers can guzzle data. If you access any kind of media, especially videos, you will run through your data very, very quickly, in some cases that may just mean that it will be slowed down, sometimes it will stop working, and other times it will cost you actual money. You may be better off seeing if your company is willing to upgrade their router, or run your a network cable.

Dave talks to Frank Gruber, CEO and Executive Editor at Tech.Co about their startup competition, Innovate and Celebrate, and more!

Ron asked: "I'm told that there is a site out there that will identify images. What I want to do is take a picture of an artist's signature on a painting and upload it to some website and have it give me some information about that signature, or find that signature on other works of art."   Ron, to identify images you can use Google Images, it will do generally give you pretty good guesses as to what the image you uploaded may be. We wouldn’t necessarily trust it with signatures, but you may be able to get information from the whole picture and go from there. There are websites like ArtistsSignatures.com that will let you search for an artist’s signature, so if you can get a name from a picture of the whole painting, you may be able to compare the signature manually with one you get from the supposed artist on the image search results. You can definitely try to take a picture of just the signature and see if it’s recognized, just don’t necessarily expect it to be.