Google Maps Tip – Start directions

Just a quick, favorite tip about Google Maps on mobile… After searching for a place, and getting its location on the map, it’s pretty normal/common to hit the blue “Directions” button – THEN tap the “Start” button. Instead, just tap-HOLD on the “Directions” button, and Google Maps will automatically start your driving navigation. Sure, it only saves a moment, but sometimes after tapping the “Directions” button, Maps can take a “long” time to come up with different routes for you to choose from… although for 99% of trips, …

DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE IF YOU’RE BUSY!

Since mobile phones became a body-part (meaning, just about every adult in the modern world has one,) expectations and etiquette of person-to-person communications have changed drastically. Now that “everyone” has a phone in the palm of their hand for HOURS every day, some people have turned into Pavlov’s dogs – they feel that they MUST answer a ringing phone, regardless of their current situation. STOP IT! The overwhelming majority of phone calls are not life-or-death. They aren’t ‘the radio station is calling to give you a million dollars.’ …

USE A PASSWORD VAULT!

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of technical consulting for individuals and lots of small businesses. The one thing that is almost universal with all of those people is – they don’t use a password vault. But they REALLY need to use one. Why? Because, if someone gets access to their computer, or steals their computer, or hacks it, those people can either lose all of their passwords, or worse, someone can login to many website and do malicious things. (Ya know, log into your bank, transfer …

Cruise ship app

Almost EVERYONE today carries a smartphone. Carnival should create an Android and iOS app that can connect to the ship’s WiFi but can only access the ship. This app can be a way for passengers to communicate with each other, look up show times and schedules, use maps of the ship, request or schedule services and even scan QR codes around the ship that would give them information about where they’re at or what they are seeing. Carnival could also send messages and information to passengers, coordinate disembarking, …

Audio cues in podcasts

With smartphones being a regular part of most people’s lives and podcasts becoming more popular as in-car entertainment, advertising needs to catch up with the technology a bit. I often hear ads that are interesting enough to want to look up, but if I’m driving I can’t pull up a website or even take a note, so I need to really want to remember what the ad was about to recall it later. So instead, what about an app that would listen for audio cues and pull up …

How to stop Smartphone theft…

A recent article on CNET titled “Android, Windows Phone to add kill switch to thwart theft” missed the point on how to actually stop Smartphone theft. The article talks about Google, Microsoft and Apple adding a ‘kill switch’ to phones to "…remove all data and information in the event their devices were stolen." That’s great, but it doesn’t actually stop theft. As an Android user, the ability to remotely find, lock and wipe my phone gives me great confidence that my data is safe(r) than if there were …

Back to Top