Tag: made of win - Part 5

Facebook Emoticons, Facebook Emoji

* * * the Kindle Paperwhite, the absolute top-of-the-line—yet affordable at $119—ereader for folks who only need a device for reading. Advertisers make it possible for Digital Media Mom to bring you great content each day for free, so thanks for your support. * * * Today’s post is one that Facebook users* will want to share—or not, if you want to keep the secret to yourself! Today I’m going to show you how to insert emoticons and emoji into your Facebook status updates. Note that if you do want to share this on Facebook, you can just click the little Facebook icon above, or if you’re viewing this post on the front page of the site, use the little pull-down sharing menu at the bottom of the post. *The information provided here is for Facebook users who are accessing Facebook on a computer, NOT through an app, and NOT just the…

Target Ticket Gives You TEN Free Digital Videos For Signing Up

* * * Today’s post is brought to you by a terrific Amazon outlet bargain: the Beats Solo HD RED Edition On-Ear Headphones, currently on sale for $130 (35% off the regular price of $200). Advertisers make it possible for Digital Media Mom to bring you great content each day for free, so thanks for your support. * * * ***2/19/15 UPDATE*** Target Ticket is shutting down. Read my post about it here. Target Gets Into The Digital Video Game With Target Ticket + Ten FREE Videos At Signup As regular readers know, I’m in the process of going all-digital with my video library and my format of choice is Amazon Instant Video. I’ve decided to stick with Amazon Instant Video because Amazon’s pricing on digital movies is almost always lower than through any other vendor, and I’m confident Amazon will be around to support their digital video service for the rest of…

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…

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.

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…

Do You Need To Worry About the FBI Ransomware / FBI MoneyPak Virus On Your Mobile Thingies?

I recently got a question about The FBI Ransomware Trojan, which is also known as the FBI MoneyPak virus. A commenter raised the question in the comments section of my earlier post, Does Your Kindle Fire Need Virus Protection? What’s “FBI Ransomware”? This specific Trojan / virus is an especially nasty one, as it essentially locks you out of your computer or mobile device until you pay whatever fee it’s asking in order to release the lock. It’s got “FBI” in the name because the extortion pop-up says the FBI has identified some kind of threat on your machine and will remove it in exchange for a fee, usually $100, to be paid by credit card. So these hackers get $100 immediately, plus the duped consumer’s credit card number. Making matters worse, making that payment won’t necessarily unlock your computer or device. Even if it does work, it’s only a matter of…

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…

Upgrading To A New Kindle Fire: How To Copy Content From An Old Fire To A New One

In my previous post, Surviving A Kindle Fire Factory Reset – With (Most) Of Your Stuff Intact, I outlined a step-by-step process for backing up your Kindle Fire before performing a factory reset, then restoring that content after the reset. Now that the new Kindle Fire models are upon us, I’m getting this question pretty frequently: can the same method be used to transfer content from an old/pre-existing Kindle Fire to a new one? The answer is: yes, but with some tweaks to the process. When I got new Fire I was able to test this out for myself, so I can confirm that it works. A Step-By-Step Process For Relocating To A New Kindle Fire The steps below, and screenshot, are from going through this process with a Kindle Fire HD model. The process is essentially the same for all Fire models, but folder names and locations on different generations…