Blog Posts by Becky Worley

With the kick off of Apple’s developer conference, the company has announced new hardware and a slew of software advances. Some are true innovations, some are an attempt to catch-up to Android, and some copy features in popular apps. Here’s why you should care - and when the changes will land on your phone and laptop:

New Laptops with Longer Battery Life

The Macbook Air gets a refresh with longer battery life and a price cut. The 11-inch model goes from 5 hours of battery life to 9 hours; and the 13-inch model goes from 7hours of battery life to 12.  Both sport upgraded Intel Haswell processors, but neither has the retina displays of the Macbook Pro laptops that Apple touts as visually superior. The new Macbook Airs cost $999 for the 128GB, 11-inch model and $1099 for the 128 GB, 13-inch model (a $100 price drop from the previous model). Both are available now.

New Mac Operating System

Previous Mac computer operating systems have been named after wild felines. But as Apple used up the

When you shop online, you use coupon codes for almost every site EXCEPT Amazon. Do those codes exist? And how can you get even better prices at the web’s biggest superstore?

Secret Coupon Codes?

Every time I buy something at Amazon, there’s this little box that comes up during the checkout process that says, “Add coupon code for discount.” But no matter how many times I’ve looked, I’ve never found a percentage-off code on any of the good coupon sites like RetailMeNot or CouponCabin. Sure, it looks like they have those secret codes, but when you actually click on “Get Deal,” a new window pops up stating “No Coupon Required!” So I called the folks at Amazon and asked where to get one of these mythical codes. It turns out that while they do offer them, they are incredibly rare, and usually product-specific. For example, they recently offered $35 off Quicken – if you have the code – and the code was right there on the same page.

So don’t beat yourself up the next time you see the code box and

The hotel you book could make or break your whole vacation.And yet, online ads and even user reviews may be misleading. Fortunately, there are some tricks for decoding online listings and finding the best hotel or vacation rental for the money.

Nearly 150 million travel bookings were made online last year, and that number keeps growing by about 10% a year. Without a human travel agent to help, we are increasingly tasked with trying to find the best accommodations for the best price by ourselves.

Tip #1: Don’t Get Taken In By Fancy Prose

Descriptions of vacation lodging can get pretty ornate. I’ve seen everything from “Our designers have made the rooms punch-drunk on color and light” to “We’ve included every luxury – and invented some of our own.” But what does that all mean? These descriptions are designed to evoke feelings rather than convey facts. So dig deeper; what are the actual, specific luxuries they’re talking about? In the case of the hotel this ad line came from, one luxury is

Eight years after the debut of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has announced the Xbox One.  While it’s no quantum leap forward in gaming, it is attempting to tackle one of the biggest problems we face in our living rooms: a fractured landscape of devices that don’t play nicely together and require WAY too many remotes.  

·     8 times the computing power of the previous Xbox 360

·     500 GB Hard Drive

·     8 GB Memory

·     Built-in Blu-ray DVD player

·     Kinect will come standard with every Xbox One

·     Kinect redesign with larger field of view, 1080p HD Camera, enhanced gesture recognition, and improved array microphones for voice control

·     Gaming Controller redesign: more distinct d-pad design, tactile feedback (rumble) “Impulse Triggers” and Wi-Fi Direct connectivity to the console.

Gaming or Entertainment Breakthrough?

The new Xbox One represents an upgrade rather than an overhaul on physical design, internal horsepower, and social connectivity. But it is making an

Flying first class is fun. Flying in the middle seat of row 42 generally isn’t. But a few tricks and low cost gadgets can transform that coach seat into a much more pleasant experience.

How To Score A Good Seat In Coach: The Basics

First, let’s be clear: there’s a big difference between a good seat in coach and a middle seat. So securing a good seat is the first trick. You’ve probably heard of seatguru.com; it lists all carriers and plane configurations to help you figure out which seats have the most legroom, which don’t recline, and which ones are too near the bathroom. You may assume that you can only get seats with good legroom in the more expensive economy plus type regions, but that’s not always true. Just as an example, seats 23A and 23F on a US Air Airbus 321 are amongst the cheapest seats on the plane, but there’s a missing seat in front of them to accommodate an exit row. So if you’re 6’3”,you need to reserve one of these.

New App: Seat Alert

Your best bet for getting a good

You’ve seen those pictures posted on Facebook “type ‘move’ into the comments and watch what happens” or “If I get a million likes my dad will get me a car.”  They seem innocent enough, but they are big business, and you are not doing yourself any favors if you like or comment.

The classic example is a colorful picture of a prism with the image from the cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album in it. It’s accompanied buy the caption: “OMG it really works ♥ Step 1: Click on the Picture. Step 2: Hit Like.Step 3: Comment "MOVE" Then see the Magic!!” You see in your news feed that your friends have liked and commented on the image, so clearly something amazing must happen when you interact as directed.  So you click, you comment, and... nothing happens.

Or at least you think nothing happens.  But your activity has now spread this image and the page into the news feed of all your friends.

Like Farming

It’s called Like Farming. Here’s how it works. Someone creates a page and starts

I get hundreds of pitches for new gadgets. Only a few really surprise me. Following are the newest and most interesting smartphone accessories I’ve come across recently. I’m not advocating you run out to buy them, but these are smart iterations and signs of what’s to come.

Microsoft’s new operating system has not been well received, and they may be planning to change some fundamental pieces – like reinstating the missing start button and getting you to your desktop as soon as you boot up. But in the meantime, I’ll show you how to fix Windows 8’s biggest annoyances right now.

First the rumors: Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet reports the update to Microsoft Windows 8 (code named Blue) that will release in August of 2013 may include a start button.  The little icon in the lower left hand corner of the screen has been an anchor of navigation for many, over years of Windows use, and they feel lost without it.

But if Microsoft succumbs to pressure and returns it to the operating system, it probably won’t be your classic start button, more like an icon in the same place as the original, which will take you to the Metro UI Start Screen of tiles.

Another rumor is that users will have the option to bypass that start screen on boot up and go directly to the