Shout Out -- Audiable (now an Amazon Company)

First, after a considerable absence I re-joined Amazon's Audible.  As you may know, it has a fabulous APP now for smart phones, and iPod Touch devices.  The experience now is vastly better than when I didn't have those apps, and Amazon was not the owner of the company.  Audible still has an amazing array of audio books, even the Wall Street Journal is available, you choose the articles.  With cell phone use on the highways coming to an end soon, I think being able to listen to New York Times, or Wall Street Journal in your car, on the way to work might become more popular than in the past. 

Last night I downloaded a Bill Bryson book I wanted to read (listen to).  A Walk In The Woods.  I have listened to 3 other of his books, and loved them.  I pay $7 a month for Audible, and gain "credits", I can use to purchase audio books.  This one was $20 to non members, but only 1 credit for me, and I had 3 credits in my credit-bank.  What a nice system.  Whether walking for exercise, or riding distances, or even in town, I enjoy the extra knowledge and enjoyment I receive from this system.

$3 A Month Cell Phone Service ?

A French company, Iliad, has cracked a big market in France with the equivalent of a $3 a month cell phone service.  Competitors are scrambling, many have met the price.   Now they are seeking to buy part or all of T-Mobile in the USA to expand here.  Already T-Mobile is the leading price cutter here, and Verizon has lowered some prices to stay competitive.

Illiad thinks the US cell phone monthly pricing is way too high; I couldn’t agree more.  Illiad would like to cut costs and do away with paper monthly statements and things like that to get the price down.  I am not sure that appeals to me, but certainly my total cell-data package is too pricey for what it must cost Verizon to service my device(s).  And I don’t even get cell signal in every room in my house, only near some windows. 

Average costs of USA cell phones today is $47 a month, compared to about $30 average in France. Sprint is talking with T-Mobile about merger, and is thus not showing much interest in Illiad’s idea to buy a big percentage of the company. “Start small and disrupt something big” is Illiad’s philosophy.  Source  Wall Street Journal  

Uber Strikes Columbia

Usually Columbia is not on the leading edge of things, and Uber is well established Nationally, but it did open in Columbia yesterday morning (July 10, 2014).  As you know it works from an APP on your phone, and you don’t pay the car driver, it auto charges your credit card including tip, if appropriate.  Easy.  A little cheaper than cabs, perhaps and more up to date.

Uber shows you a photo of the car that will pick you up and a photo of the driver, who has been pre-screened for background and safety.  Also you rate each car and driver after you ride, and bad experiences eliminate drivers from the system (they say).  The APP shows you on a moving map the car that will be picking you up, so you know where it is by looking at your phone.

Uber says that soon it will be dispatching these  cars (cars owned by the drivers, but not officially city registered cabs) for pickup within 5 minutes.  Many drivers are part time, but they work in peak hours to give customers better service (theory, anyway).

There’s Uber and UberX  the latter is cheaper, not sure of the exact difference.  One big thing, you can add riders, there’s no up charge for other riders, and split the fare.  But it has to go on one person’s credit card of course. 

The news is your first 5 rides are FREE … but you have to use them by July 24, 2014 (Columbia, SC only)  Cab owners and operators say the insurance is not as up to date as cabs, Uber says it has a $1 million policy on each car being used, no cost to the driver, and no deductible (to driver?).  Check all the details if you are interested, possibly on their website.  The local Uber manager says “response to the new service has been tremendous” (State Paper).    

I have read that Uber might use "demand pricing", so that, in a rain storm in a busy city, they might charge more for a ride than other times.  The company says this motivates drivers to work in rain storms and times they might otherwise slack off.  Riders pay the premium.

First Hand Report LED BR-30 Flood Bulb by Philips

I just received, by mail, 2 Philips BR 30 flood bulbs which are LED  “90 degree Flood”, long life, 25,000 hours, energy saving  10.5 watts for 60 watts equivalent light.  Warm White Light,  730 lumens, 2700 K.  Information written on the box:

1.     offers superior life, and low energy consumption

2.     supplies warm white light

3.     provides a wide beam for flood light applications

4.     emits virtually NO HEAT and will NOT FADE COLORS

5.     discharges virtually no UV/IR light in the beam

6.     contains no mercury

7.     dimmable when using leading and trailing edge dimmers, see website for compatible dimmers  www.phillips.com/ledtechguide

I purchased these for some old track lights (which have frosted glass shades) to light a bookcase wall in one of my home offices.  I have had the track lights for 25 years, starting with 60 watt bulbs, normal type, which put out minimal light, generated heat, and had to be changed often.  I replaced them a few years ago with miniature incandescent flood bulbs, also 60 watt, that had a long neck to work in the fixture.  They did better, but were normal type bulbs, and thus generated some heat, but burned longer before burn-out (perhaps because they ran cooler).

Tonight, I put in a pair of the new Philips LED bulbs described above. Spectacular difference! Much more light, still in the warm range, but much like real light bulbs, not the warm white you often see from CFL spiral type fluorescents.  They are obviously a huge improvement over conventional bulbs in just about every way.  They are well made and look better than normal LED floods as well. I can highly recommend them. 

I got them at a large discount from a special source, $16.50 each.  So the price was less than Staples store (they were $24 there on sale).  AirFlux is the technology,  logo printed on the box. 

Help Stop Spam And Other Useful Advice

If you receive unsolicited e-mail offers or spam, you can forward the messages to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov.

Bonus advice of the day --- A friend told me he decided to photograph all of his credit cards (using a smart phone camera, I presume).  While typing all that information into a data base is good, photography was so quick and easy and he said it was amazingly clear.

An alternative use:  I photograph business cards, and could probably photograph credit cards as well, using the camera function in Evernote (one of my most used Apps on my PC and my mobile devices).  Evernote uses OCR (optical character recognition) to allow you to then search any photograph that has text or numbers in it, and it will retrieve it instantly, highlighting the requested text or number in yellow. Don’t ask me how it works, it is a miracle.

Graze – Gourmet snacks in a box. Once a week.

A new company on the web  http://www.graze.com/us has stepped on the scene.  A friend showed the system to me, and I signed up.  I get one box of snacks every week, or every two weeks (you choose frequency) for $6 a box, shipping included.  It fits in your mail box.  But the 1^st  and 5^th. weeks are free, so the net cost is lower.  And you can elect to have $1 given to charity if you like.

At first I thought it was just a gimmick, but I am surprised I actually like the things in my first box -- which arrived today. The food items are either unique, or a great take on an old item. The quantity of each is small, so it would push this box to last me a week.  I am about 25 % into my first box and it is day-one. You can browse the website, and select from a huge list of options to mark as “favorites”  I suppose they plan your surprise box each week based on those preferences.

One of the four choices in my first box, which I just tried, is “bonnie wee oakbakes”, little cookies with a sauce to dip them in.  The sauce is onion and orange, something like that, a new taste altogether. Not bad.  The concept is to give you an attractive way to snack that is more healthy – and likely would draw much attention if you put it on your desk at work.  I an in for 6 more weeks, maybe.  Will evaluate the happiness factor after that.  It certainly is better tasting that similar snacks that sell for about $1 to $2 a package in health food stores.   

They either advertise in Men's Health or they have had a story therein.  Other magazines as well.  

Tech to the rescure: Home Doctor

Tyto Care is the subject of a brief innovation story in this week’s Businessweek magazine.   http://tytocare.com/

The concept is to allow everyone to do a small personal physical exam, and eliminate or reduce some doctor’s office visits.  The results can be seen by the patient – and can be e-mailed to the doctor’s office for filing and to keep a chart to see if there are changes that warrant an office visit.

The device checks

Temperature

Basic self exam of heart, lungs, throat, ears, eyes, and skin.

Not yet on the market, but coming.  Note the website is cleverly designed, as you scroll down, the hand held device moves with you and appears in photos that show it at various angles and “in use”.  Very clever website design.