Category: Mom Said - Part 4

How To Boost WiFi Signals

I recently wrote about How To Boost Cell Signals, and today I’m tackling Wi-Fi. If you’ve been experiencing problems with weak Wi-Fi in your home, there are a few likely causes that are easy, and in some cases free, to remedy. Here are some things to try. 1. Check your wireless router’s location. When your service provider installed your Wi-Fi router, you may not have realized that its placement can affect signal strength and range. Ideally, your router should be located at the very center of your home in order to provide maximum signal range in all directions outward from the router. However, in practice it may turn out that most of the time you’re only actually using your Wi-Fi connection in one area of your home. To get a concrete idea of where signals are strongest and weakest in your home, you can simply take one of your Wi-Fi enabled devices and…

How To Choose A Printer

Last week’s Tech Frustration Friday meme was inspired by the death of my Canon PIXMA MX850 multifunction printer. I followed my usual process for deciding whether or not it was worth trying to fix what was wrong with the printer, then choosing a replacement, and thought I should share that process here. Here’s the new model I ultimately chose: Epson WorkForce WF-2530 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer, Copier, Scanner, ADF, Fax. Fix It, Or Buy A New One? I’d had the Canon machine for close to four years, so I can’t say it came as a total shock when it suddenly refused to perform any of its multifunctions (print, copy, scan, fax) and displayed an error code of “B200″ on its screen. A little Googling showed me that the code means there’s a printer head problem. A little more Googling, and watching some YouTube videos, showed me that if this problem were “fixable”…

All The Free Short Stories You Can Read On East Of The Web

the current ThinkGeek.com sale (up to 50% off!) on clothing and outdoor items, running through 3/2/14. Advertisers make it possible for Digital Media Mom to keep bringing you great content for free, so thanks for your support! * * * Next time you’re looking for something short to read, head on over to East of the Web’s Short Stories portal. There, you can find thousands of short stories to suit every taste—all for free! Each listing includes a brief description, an average review rating, a recommended minimum reader age rating, and even the story’s length in pages. The stories can be read online or printed out in hard copy. Kindle / Paperwhite / Kindle Fire owner tip: If you have a pdf converter program, you can click on the ‘printable view’ link for any story, print to pdf format from your browser, and then transfer the story to your Kindle, Paperwhite or Fire…

Amazon Instant Video Currently Unavailable – What Does It Mean?

Please see this more recent post, My Amazon Video Disappeared!, for information about cases where you’re sure you’ve bought a given Amazon Video, but it’s not showing up in your digital video library. This post is dated 2/6/14. Amazon’s policies and processes described here are accurate as of that date, but subject to change at any time in the future. While browsing the Amazon Instant Video store, you may sometimes come across a video that doesn’t have any buy or rent buttons available, and is marked, “This movie is currently unavailable.” If it’s a movie you don’t already own in Instant Video format, you probably just gave a disappointed sigh and moved on to the next movie. But the first time this happened to me, on an Amazon Instant Video I’d previously purchased, I immediately rushed to my Instant Video library to make sure my purchased copy was still there. And…

Technically Correct vs. Practical: Can Rechargeable Batteries Overheat Or Not?

Its battery shouldn’t overheat, but that doesn’t mean it can’t. From time to time I’ll get a comment or email from a tech-savvy person who’s read my post, Rechargeable Battery Problems: Overcharging, Leaving It Plugged In, and says I’m wrong about the possibility of rechargeable batteries becoming overcharged or overheated, because modern Lithium-ion rechargeables are designed with specific features to prevent this very problem. Every so often I’ll also get a note from an engineer or scholarly type saying one of my other posts isn’t technically correct for some esoteric reason or other. But I’m not here to provide technically correct details that would satisfy the most stringent engineer or scientist, I’m here to help consumers get the best and most economical use from their devices.

Where Did My Download Go?

When you download something off the internet, it’s not always obvious where your computer decided to stash the file. Even when the browser prompts you to specify a location to save the file to, sometimes the computer just goes ahead and saves that file to some other mystery spot among your files and folders, and you’re stuck having to hunt it down. My Dad ran into this problem when I sent him a redemption code for a digital video I’d bought him, and he had to redeem that code right on the performer’s website. He thought he’d downloaded the video, but when he went to check his My Videos folder, he couldn’t find it. Here are some tips and tricks for finding those pesky, missing downloads. Going On A Download Hunt Downloaded files don’t always go where you assume they should.

What To Do About A Lost Kindle / Fire Screen Lock Password, Lost Parental Controls Password

This little nugget was included in a previous DMM post, I Got A New Kindle Fire; Can I Give Away My Old Kindle Or Fire?, but since many of you who don’t have plans to pass on an old device might’ve skipped that post, I figured I should break this out as a separate post. If you’ve previously set a parental controls lock password or screen lock passcode on your Kindle, Paperwhite or Fire and don’t remember it, unfortunately, the only way to remove the lock is to do a combination unlock/reset on the device. Amazon does not keep any record of the personal password(s) you’ve set to lock the screen, for Parental Controls, or from within any of your password-protected apps, files or documents. It’s kind of a drag to have to do a reset because it will clear all your downloaded content and any bookmarks, annotations, etc. you’ve made…

What Happens When You Buy A Pirated Kindle Book?

Today there’s a pirated edition of JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye available for sale in Amazon’s Kindle Book Store. It’s very obviously a pirate copy, and here’s how you can tell: 1) No mainstream publisher name is listed in the book’s details, only “Amazon Digital Services” 2) The author’s name is misspelled right on the cover of the book 3) The cover is one of those generic ones that can be easily created using Amazon’s own Kindle book cover creation tools, and it’s the same as many self-publishers use to publish public domain works for sale in the Kindle store 4) The book is priced at $1.35—much lower than a mainstream publisher would go, unless they were running some kind of crazy (and probably highly-publicized) sale 5) Pretty much everyone in the book biz knows the real Salinger’s heirs have never given their permission to have his works released in…

Collections Are Here For 2013 Kindle Fires!

At long last, that feature so many of us loved in our monochrome Kindles — and bitterly missed when we switched to Kindle Fires — is here! That mid-November software update is finally being pushed to all 2013 (second generation) Kindle Fire models, and you may have already received it and not even know it because there’s no particular notification when it happens. I’ve just been checking my Fire HD every day for it, and yesterday, I was thrilled to find that Collections functionality is not only there, but it works great! Collections On Kindle Fire: Only For 2013 Models, Only For Apps, Books & Audiobooks I’m sorry to say this new functionality is only being rolled out to 2013 (second generation) Kindle Fire models. I’ve checked my first-generation Fires, both HD and non-HD, and it’s not there. I think this is because this new Collections thing is dependent on the…

If You Own A Kindle, The PowerFast Charger Is A Must-Have Accessory

Regular readers know I am nothing, if not frugal. But I’m not penny-wise and pound foolish, as they say. For the longest time I refused to invest the twenty bucks (it’s priced at $19.99 as of this writing) in Amazon Kindle 9W PowerFast Adapter for Accelerated Charging, because I didn’t think it made sense to buy yet another charger when my drawers are already littered with the many that have come with the various gadgets my kids and I have accumulated over recent years. But it was always a bit of a frustration, having to babysit my charging Kindle Fire and check on it frequently to see when its battery was back up to full, so as to avoid overcharging it. And with a standard charger, it would take hours to refill that little battery indicator in the menu bar. Even so, I thought, “How much faster could the PowerFast really be?” The…