Minutes of Y’s Men Meeting of March 2, 2017
David Pogue
David Pogue has written three books (to date) entitled Pogue’s Basics, Pogue’s Basic Life and Pogue’s Basic Money”. In these he has provided some tips to make our lives easier and to save money. He provided the audience with some suggestions from the books.
Pogue’s Basics
To silence your phone when it inconveniently rings just squeeze it. Any button will silence the phone so you don’t have to remove it from your pocket.
To highlight a single word just click on it twice
Hit the spacebar twice to insert a period.
An IPhone will insert an Internet address suffix if you hold down the period key.
You don’t have to insert apostrophes. The computer will do it automatically.
Each carrier allows you to go straight to the tone for leaving a voicemail without listening to the regular message provided before the tone. But each carrier has selected a different key. The keys are the *, # and 1 so if you want to cover all the carriers hit all three keys.
If you want to erase your voicemail just hit the number 3 key and it will be erased.
When filling out forms on line if there is a box for the state you don’t have to click on the dropdown list. Just hit the first letter of the state and it will fill it in. When more than one state starts with the same letter they will appear in alphabetical order concomitant with the number of times you hit the letter key.
To make print larger on a Mac just hit the command key and the plus key. For Word computers use the control and plus keys.
To go ahead on U-Tube videos the number keys equate to percentages so if you hit the number 2 the video will go ahead by 20%. Also the “m” key will mute the video.
The sprocket key will turn off annotations.
If you double click a word while writing it will be highlighted. If you then drag that word over other words they will all be highlighted. Triple clicking will highlight an entire paragraph.
When proofreading change the font. This helps prevent your reading over mistakes.
Pogue’s Basic Life
Highway signs frequently have the next exit sign in a smaller sign resting on top of the highway sign. The position of that exit sign tells you if the exit is to your left or right.
To read small print without your glasses make a small pinhole over an eye with your hand. This blocks out light from the sides which can be distorted by eyes needing glasses and enables you to read even small print without glasses.
If you forget your charger in a hotel go to the front desk. They will have a box of chargers and you can borrow one.
Book hotels with your phone, not with your computer. Hotels provide cheaper rates for phone calls because they are used by busy business people and they want these people as customers.
For a longer lasting match light a piece of dry spaghetti. It will allow you to light multiple candles.
Proper place settings are arranged alphabetically.
For the coldest beer or soda in your cooler, add salt. This lowers the freezing point so the water around the bottles is below freezing in temperature.
Pogue’s Basic Money
Don’t change your oil every 3,000 miles. The manufacturer recommends changing after 10,000 – 15,000 miles.
You can exchange your gift cards on-line for cash at some Websites. There are other Websites that will sell you turned-in gift cards at a discount so you are buying free money.
A recommended and most effective amount of toothpaste is only pea size not the amount covering the entire toothbrush as shown in ads.
The Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic offer 40% off twice a month just wait for the next sale.
CVS offers 30% off every other month if you sign up for it.
Drugstore brands are the same as the branded products and have to be by law. The only thing different will be the coloring and flavor.
Always buy everything using a 2% cash back credit card. This amounts to a large amount on a year’s spending. You can even pay your taxes with a credit card by using “1040.com” but they will charge a fee, which is still better than not getting anything.
Tell your cable company you want to quit. They will give you a much lower rate rather than lose you. You can also buy the cable boxes that you rent from the cable companies.
Frequent flyer programs also have frequent diner programs where you can eat at restaurants and get frequent flyer miles.
Free art is available at “Flickr,” then you can go to “Mpix.com” to get it framed for $25.
Cable companies have vacation hold programs that allow you to suspend payment for the period of your vacation.
You can sell your old gadgets (cell phones, etc.) at “Gazelle.com”. Nothing is too old.
Discounted movie tickets are available from Groupon. But you have to buy in advance.
Check “Claimdog.com” to see if you have any unclaimed money coming to you from non-governmental sources. Unclaimed government money may be checked on the Treasury Hunt site.
“Trim.com” will give you a list of all subscriptions still in effect that cost you money and cancel those you want cancelled.
David then made a pitch for people to go on “novakickstarter.com” to help finance a new Nova program that builds on an older program featuring the periodic table of elements. This new program will focus on molecules. The older program is used in every school in the country in their science programs. David feels the new program will be equally valuable.
Q&A
Q. How do you cure emails that appear as thin vertical strips?
A. Double click it to open it up to its original size.
Q. How long did it take to make your energy storage film?
A. It took a year. Batteries are a fascinating subject and a very important one.
Q. What cell phone do you use and what service and why?
A. I use an IPhone for its ecosystem of things you can do, but most of the phones are similar. And I am on Verizon, although I hate them, because they give the widest coverage.
Q. Why does email text appear as a slant?
A. Somehow you have hit the key italicizing the scrip just turn it off.
Q. Do you still advocate using a password collecting system?
A. Yes. No-one can remember all those passwords themselves.