Posts Tagged With ‘ tech-savvy boomers ’

Some of the best gifts to give are those you’ve made yourself! Here is an opportunity to use your tech skills to offer unique and valued gifts this year. These ideas use technology you already have (or can easily borrow) to make thoughtful and well-regarded gifts using that most precious commodity, your time! As thoughtful as they are, you can have tons of fun putting these gifts together. None of these ideas are platform dependent and can be done on whatever type of device you have—smartphone, tablet, or computer. The best thing is that these ideas are as applicable for children as adults,... Continue Reading

Our iPhone cameras are pretty amazing. The newer the phone, the more things you can do!  Here are three features to try out before the holiday season. 1. Portrait Mode You can choose among natural light, contour light, studio light, stage light, stage light mono, and high-key light mono. You have to play around with the options to find the ones you like best. I think the stage light mono is the most dramatic. Here’s a hint for when you use stage light. A round circle will appear around the subject.  Wait for the circle to turn yellow before you tap the shutter. 2. Check out these options! In... Continue Reading

Yesterday at breakfast in a small cafe in Eastport, ME (the easternmost city in the continental U.S.) a gentleman at an adjacent table was fidgeting with his new smartphone while his tablemates were giving him all sorts of suggestions on how to make it work. Not wanting to intrude on their conversation but wanting to offer some help, I suggested that he watch a YouTube tutorial on his computer and learn how to use his new phone from the tutorial. If his new phone was an iPhone I would have suggested a number of resources that BoomerTECH Adventures have made for our friends and clients with a focus... Continue Reading

Sometimes my devices do the most bizarre things; it’s almost as if they have a mind of their own. Is artificial intelligence at work or simply an unintended tap or click? Who knows? But, invariably I learn something new. Here are several recent conundrums that vexed me and made me chuckle out loud. My pooch Sammy suffers from a food fixation and often whines persistently for treats or a meal. I was trying to cajole him into stopping his high-pitched nagging by saying, “I love you.” My Apple Watch through Siri responded, ” That’s so sweet.” What? How did that happen? I still have no... Continue Reading

I am always discovering new features on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac computer.  Sometimes it’s because I’ve been asked a question or there is a new option with a system update or I just don’t know how to do a particular process. This week was a banner one because I learned something new about each of my devices: iPhone: Why does the screen go dark during a phone call? iPad: There’s a new feature called Stage Manager. Mac Computer: How to alphabetize folders on my desktop (It’s changed from what I had always done! iPhone A friend asked me why her iPhone’s screen went black while she was... Continue Reading

  My iPhone goes black in the middle of a call! I’m tired of phone calls from marketers! It is so difficult to read the websites on my iPhone!   How do we solve these three very irritating problems on our iPhones!?! Fortunately a trip to Settings will quickly resolve these issues. Question: My iPhone screen goes black all of the time. Why does it do that? Answer: Your iPhone will require you put in passcode after a certain amount of time. You may be talking, but you are not typing or viewing a video so the phone’s software sees no activity; it essentially goes to sleep even though you... Continue Reading

  The news has exploded with stories about AI or artificial intelligence. One app that is getting a lot of attention is ChatGPT. It seems it will generate all types of writing.  I was in the process of writing an article for the Times Record and thought I would try it out. A friend and colleague from the days of the Maine Technology Learning Initiative, Jim Moulton, said he had asked ChatGPT to write a poem about Maine in the style of Emily Dickinson. So, I appropriated the idea and asked ChatGPT to write a sonnet about Maine.  Here it is–what do you think? Sonnet # 1 There lies a state with... Continue Reading

Why do I update my iPhone on a regular basis? It’s all about the camera app. Each upgrade provides a new feature that makes taking pictures more fun and offers the potential for exploring creative ways to edit and use the images. For example, the picture at the top of this blog was originally just a quick shot of the pooch. Then I opened it in the Clips2Comic app and turned it into a cartoon-type of image. Here’s another example of a fun transformation of a picture using Clips2Comic; you may recognize my BoomerTECH Adventures colleague Chris. Clip2Comic is a free app that you can use with... Continue Reading

  Do you have a folder full of recipes clipped from newspapers? Are your cookbooks bulging with handwritten recipes, perhaps dating back a generation or two? Are you in the process of giving your cookbooks to Goodwill because you just google recipes now?   Don’t lose those old, favorite recipes! It is relatively easy to digitize your favorite hand-written recipes these days. In Part 1 of this series, we explained how to use the Camera and Photos apps to digitize old recipes. Today, we will demonstrate how you can use the Notes app to scan and organize these recipes. The neat thing about the... Continue Reading

  Anyone who cooks, bakes and saves recipes has a file or box of recipes that are hand-written or clipped from newspapers. Often these recipes are family favorites that have been handed down through the generations. Yes, you can find almost any recipe by googling it, but somehow the results just aren’t quite as tasty as great-grandma’s potato salad or dad’s barbecue sauce. A much stained recipe card holds the magic ingredients and process and may be on its last legs. It’s time to digitize!     I can think of two ways to digitize these old recipes–take pictures of them or scan them.... Continue Reading