This site helps you avoid scam vendors

Whenever we go looking for a new service provider or vendor, we make a visit to the Better Business Bureau website one of our first stops. We know the BBB checks out the companies on their list and we feel confident that we won't be pointed toward anyone with a sketchy reputation.

But the bureau's website is not especially easy to navigate. So I wasn't surprised to find that the site called eLegitimate has created a new and enhanced online database of BBB accredited companies.

At the eLegitimate website, users start by selecting one of 11 top-level categories, then drilling down to a subsection. For example, a user would start with the Automotive category to find Walmart and The Tire Rack among accredited tire dealers that have a national presence win the web. Each listing on the site contains a link to the company's website.

Other categories include Financial Services, Health & Beauty, Gifts, Tech & Communication, Home and Travel.

The eLegitimate site also has a collection of articles to help people avoid scams and fraudulent websites. Here's a sample of topics:

• How to Find Out If a Website Is Legitimate or Not
• The Effects of Falling Victim to a Scam
• Common Online Scams to Be Aware of
• What Is a BBB Accredited Business?
• The Sad Truth behind the Trustworthiness of Online Reviews

To see the full list of articles and vendor categories, visit the eLegitimate website.

By: Ric Manning On 12/24/2018

Continue Reading

New website covers electric skateboards, scooters and unis

Ever since the Segway was launched in 2002, battery-powered personal transportation devices have been exploding into a variety of sizes, shapes and prices.

At this year's CES trade show in January, I saw hover boards, skateboards, unicycles, scooters, and even roller skates that were all driven by rechargeable batteries.

And now there's a new website called Hover Patrol that tracks, reviews, compares and scores many of the better and more affordable e-vehicles.

The website is divided into four primary topics: Hoverboards, Electric Scooters, Electric Unicycles and Electric Skateboards. The articles cover topics such as street-legal electric scooters, reviews of electric skateboards and a look at off-road hoverboards.

Each segment also offers lists of the best brands and models in each category along with advice articles such as "How to Fix an Electric Scooter," "How to Ride an Electric Unicycle," and "How to Build an Electric Skateboard."

The articles are reviews are available at the Hover Patrol website.

By: Ric Manning On 5/02/2018

Continue Reading

Finding Florida island real estate without leaving home

A friend who knew I was going to Florida a few weeks back asked be to bring her some of the real estate magazines that are available in restaurants and convenience stores. Our friend is nearing retirement and she’s thinking about a resettling near a beach, maybe in a nice condo on an island.

I was happy to deliver a stack of magazines, but I also suggested that her computer could show her far more real estate options than what she would see in this publications.

For example, let’s say she’s heard about a popular South Florida area like Singer Island near West Palm Beach. She could use Zillow to get an overview of real estate prices in the area, then zoom in to collect more information about the area and some of its better condo developments.

For a closer look at Singer Island properties, the Singer Island Real Estate website would be a good place to check. The site has details about the island and profiles of more than a dozen condo developments including Dunes Tower, Inlet Pointe and Martinique.

Any prospective condo buyer who spends some time online exploring their target location and its real estate market will be a much smarter shopper when they are actually on site.   

By: Ric Manning On 5/31/2017

Continue Reading

Smart door locks come to mobile homes

One of the more welcome additions to our home is a battery-powered digital lock that I installed on our front door. It eliminated fumbling for the door key in the dark and it can be programmed to give a special access number to service people or a cleaning crew.

While high-tech locks are becoming more common on single-family homes and small businesses, they have also become an option for mobile home locks.

A new website called Mobile Home Locks & Door Knobs includes the Samsung Digital Door Lock among its list of the best mobile home door locks.

The Samsung lock, shown above, incorporates a variety of access options, including a keypad and a fingerprint scanner. The website also has a review of another high-tech option, the YL 99 Keyless Electronic Keypad Lock from SoHoMiLL.

The site offers advice on choosing the best lock for mobile homes and a DIY installation and repair guide. Another section discusses options for knobs and locks for interior doors. 

By: Ric Manning On 3/23/2017

Continue Reading

Website covers tech news from Pakistan

Facebook is in trouble in Pakistan. There’s a petition circulating that asks the government to temporarily shut down Facebook because of “blasphemous content” and Facebook is sending a delegation to the country to meet with government officials.

I know about the controversy because I’ve been dropping in at Techlist, a website that covers a wide variety of technology news in Pakistan. That’s a country where residents are just as tech hungry - and tech-savvy - as anywhere in the US or Europe.

The site is run by a team of technology enthusiasts who have experience working for large tech companies and startups in Pakistan. The site is a blend of articles about local IT along with analysis of tech startups, product reviews, and interviews with founders and executives.

Recent articles have reported on a government plan to tax Pakistan’s eCommerce industry and on college students in Karachi who have developed robotic legs to be worn by disabled persons. The site also had the Pakistani spin on Apple’s release of a new red iPhone and on the growth of mobile payment options.

Techlist looks like a valuable resource for anyone who wants to keep up on technology news in Pakistan and get a perspective on what’s happening in the Pakistani version of Silicon Valley.

By: Ric Manning On 3/22/2017

Continue Reading

New website tracks lace front fashion craze

Back in the long-ago days before the Internet, new fashion styles usually started on one of the coasts, then travel across the country through appearances in celebrity magazine with occasional exposure on television.

Today, fashions and hair styles spread faster than wildfire. As soon as an idea or design pops up on Facebook or Instagram, it’s quickly followed by blogs and websites offering tips and easy access to products.

One example is Lace Frontier, a new website devoted lace front wigs, a popular hair enhancement approach that’s being embraced by African American women.

The site is still under construction, but it currently features a few articles about lace front wigs and why they have become so popular. One article called Why lace front wigs have taken over explains how the wig’s mesh front is integrated with human hair to provide an very natural look. Another offers tips for finding and buying lace front wigs at discount prices.

There are more tips and advice coming soon to the Lace Frontier website.

By: Ric Manning On 3/15/2017

Continue Reading

Gear Heads explore Virtual Reality

Like any emerging technology, the world of Virtual Reality can be confusing. Headsets can vary from one mobile phone brand to another. And where can you go to learn about the best new VR games?

The gear heads at Gear Heads VR hope to fill that gap. They’ve created a website that posts reviews and profiles of VR gear and software.

The site lists four different headsets as the best of the year (so far). Each listing is accompanied by ratings on the product’s design, quality and price along with a link to buy the headset.

Visitors will also find a review of the Oculus Rift. Here’s a snippet:

This headset offers a lot in regards to comfort and immersion experience, but the best games have yet to be made. 

The game list includes reviews ARK Park, Robo Recall, Fallout 4 and Star Trek: Bridge Crew, among others.

For a deeper dive into Virtual Reality equipment and content, check out the Gear Heads VR website.

By: Ric Manning On 2/09/2017

Continue Reading

Radio Garden's dial tunes in 8,000 stations

Growing up in a small town in Midwestern farm country, radio was my link to the larger world. New York deejay Cousin Brucie introduced me to The Beatles while Dick Biondi at WLS in Chicago delivered The Rolling Stones. Baseball arrives on summer nights from clear-channel AM stations in St. Louis, Detroit and Cincinnati. With my father’s shortwave radio, I could travel the world through the BBC and Deutsche Welle.

I recalled my radio days recently when I heard about Radio Garden, a website that lets listeners roam the globe by clicking into live local broadcasts. The collection includes tiny FM stations in Africa and national broadcasting services on almost every continent. Radio Garden was launched just last week and so far roughly 8,000 stations have signed on.

The station locations are represented as green dots on rotating globe that looks a little like Google Earth. Put your cursor near a dot and the broadcast will materialize, after a few moments of static hiss, along with the name or call letters for the station.

Radio Garden was created using public funds provided by the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision. Jonathan Puckey, one of people behind this project, explained the goal of Radio Garden in an interview with Deepak Singh that was posted this week on the NPR website.

"The main idea is to help radio makers and listeners connect with distant cultures and re-connect with people from home and thousands of miles away."

Using his mouse, Singh tuned into a station in Lahore, Pakistan (where they were playing American hits), moved on to Dew Delhi, India, stations in Iran and Ghana, and then to a college radio station in Maine based about 30 miles from his home.

In addition to live broadcasts, the site also offers clips from radio history, stories from people who used radio to cross borders and a collection of station ID jingles like those used by pop stations in the 1960s. When I clicked Jingles, they were playing the musical IDs for WAKY, the Top 40 station that ruled Louisville is AM radio’s heyday.

By: Ric Manning On 12/18/2016

Continue Reading

KEEN.TV could be a cable-cutter's dream

Once the cable cutters cut their cables, where are they going to go to get news, sports and their favorite shows?

Of course there are websites for Netflix, Amazon Prime and broadcast of cable channels, but that’s going to take a lot of switching and clicking.

My guess is that once they hear about KEEN.TV they’re going to love it. KEEN.TV has collected more than 850 live TV channels from around the world and made them accessible with one click on one website.

The service's lineup of live TV includes some familiar names from cable and satellite, such as TruTV, Al Jazeera and the US feed of Bloomberg News. Offerings from outside the US include multiple channels from the BBC and feeds from more than 40 countries, from France, Germany and Italy to Pakistan, Somalia and Venezuela.

The site also has a Video On Demand section where visitors can find where recent movies like Captain America: Civil War or popular series are legally available for binging. Want to revisit Breaking Bad? KEEN.TV has links and pricing for episodes streamed on iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube and Verizon.

And viewers can spend hours exploring scads of specialty channels for topics such as snooker, fashion clothing and wine. My current fave is the Drone Racing Channel.

KEEN.TV is a free service. You can get more details and browse the channel lineup at the KEEN.TV website and check in for news and updates @keenlivetv on Twitter.

By: Ric Manning On 9/22/2016

Continue Reading

Website links drivers to rideshare bonuses

The ridesharing services Uber and Lyft continue to expand and more people sign up for rides and the services move into new territories. That means they need more drivers with cars and they’re willing to pay to get them.

Both services offer signing bonuses to new drivers who register and start working in selected cities. In many cases that bonus can be as much as $500.

An enterprising entrepreneur has created a website that connects interested drivers with the the applications process used by both Uber and Lyft.

RideShareCoupons describes the different levels of ride services offered by Uber and Lyft such as UberX, Uber Black, and Lyft Plus. And it has links that potential drivers can use to fill out an application and qualify for the signing bonuses.

To get a closer look, visit the RideShareCoupons website.

By: Ric Manning On 6/17/2016

Continue Reading

Microsoft Outlook gets an add-in for Mosspaper

The quote and contract management app called Mosspaper expanded the arsenal of tools that a sales professional can use to organize prospects and quickly respond to requests for price quotes and contracts. Sales people and independent contractors got a reliable platform to keep their workflow on target and on time.

Features in the Mosspaper Outlook add-in let users easily add new business contacts, create a quote or contract and sync incoming email messages without leaving their inbox.

Mosspaper says having the program work inside Outlook will improve sales efforts by delivering a higher level of customer tracking. Users can add new contacts to Mosspaper with one click, create a quote or contract within Office 365, allow other designated people to to view the status of a quote or contract at any time by viewing incoming emails and linking important email messages to a customer’s quote or contract so all emails in an important conversation can be easily viewed.

More details about the Outlook integration are available on the Mosspaper website and the add-in can be downloaded for free in the Microsoft Office Store.

By: Ric Manning On 5/31/2016

Continue Reading

Go Pricing brings WordPress tables to life

While browsing the web, I’m sure you’ve come across sites where products or services are listed side-by-side in a set panels that list the features for each item. The display helps shoppers decide whether they need the $5 basic package or the $55 professional version.

Those comparison tables used to be simple boxes filled with dry and boring text. But the versions I’ve seen lately add a measure of sizzle to the website. They expand when they’re touched and they include eye-catching graphics, maps and sometimes even video clips.

If you’ve ever wondered where those tables come from, let me direct you to Go Pricing, the home of an impressive array of table designs available as plugins for the popular WordPress site-building tool.

The site offers more than 250 different templates that use an array of colors and fonts. The tables support different animation elements (I like the one that looks like a pivoting door), they support multiple versions of WordPress, and they display on mobile devices as well as computers.

A standard license cost $25 and extended is available. For a closer look at tables in action, watch the video below and visit Go Pricing on the Envato Market website.

By: Ric Manning On 5/17/2016

Continue Reading

Jivr joins the discussion

Gizmo Review

Reddit or Digg are among the websites I visit from time to time to catch up on Internet chatter. Both sites share photos, videos, memes, comments, opinions and links to articles that pique the interest of their users or editors.

Those sites and others tackle the formidable challenge of distilling the immense volume of material flowing through the Internet down to a collection of items that are both current and popular. One of the primary tools in that process is reader opinion. If you like what you’ve seen or read, you express that opinion by clicking a thumb up icon or something similar. The more positive sentiment that an item attracts, the more prominent and visible it becomes on the site.

Now those digital discussion boards have new competition from a site called Jivr that has added a new twist to the reader sentiment system. Jivr bases its display formula on the number of votes that a post has received in the past 10 minutes. That means the items that get the most prominent placement are the ones that are hot right now, not ones that collected a ton of votes last month.

Jivr uses a very simple and unadorned display with posts sorted into topics and the major topics shown in the header area of each page. They include News, Politics, Animals, Photos and NSFW (not safe for work). There is also a quick link to see what’s trending.

Users can several hashtag terms to their posts. A photo I found of a pitfall balancing a ball on his nose carried more than 20 tags from #pitbullnation and #dogsofinstagram to #showmeyourpits. Readers can use the hashtags to follow related discussions and use a voting button to give a post their blessing.

Because Jivr is new, it has far less content that discussion sites that have been in operation for several years. I found several active conversations in the Politics section, which I expected, but nothing posted in NSFW, which was a bit of a surprise.

I also found that the Jivr server can be slow to respond and sometimes my browser would time out without returning any data at all. I chalked that up to the usual growing pains experienced by many new sites. When I did connect, I was rewarded with new content that I had not seen on a previous visit, which tells me that Jivr is starting to catch on.

To check share your own pearls of wisdom and gems from the web, visit the Jivr website where you can create a new account or log in with credentials from Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr.

By: Ric Manning On 5/15/2016

Continue Reading

Partialpress lets you rewrite the news

At the newspaper where I worked for many years, we had an exercise that we would present to educate and entertain visiting groups. We would put them in charge of the paper’s front page and they would have to decide which stories would be published and which ones would get the most prominent display

Like any news outlet, we got plenty of criticism from people who question our judgement, so this was our way of saying, “Okay, let’s see if you can do it any better.” Some of them actually did.

Our front page exercise is a bit like the idea behind partialpress, a new website that lets users both share interesting news items, but also make their own changes and submit their version to a community of other reader/editors. It’s developers call partialpress “a news gamification experiment where users post their own stories, headlines, summaries, sources, and images.”

It’s a step or two beyond simply sharing an interesting story and adding your comment to the collection that trails behind the story. Once a story is posted, other readers have a chance to revise it further, adding a clever headline or a humorous photo, and also cast a vote that will help move the story up or down on the partialpress front page.

To add your own touch to the day’s news, check out the partialpress website.

By: Ric Manning On 4/21/2016

Continue Reading

Hupclub plans to stream live electronic music

Doctor Jekyll, a Barcelona-based design and marketing firm, has an idea for a new music streaming service that will deliver electronic music packaged and delivered by big-name DJs.

Think of Hupclub as the Spotify of live electronic music. The site will allow subscribers to access thousands of live DJ sessions from around the world.

Why electronica? Jekyll cites research that says it’s the only style of music that showed growth last year (about 8%), compared to falling numbers for styles such as pop or rock. And it appeals to a lucrative market of  young males between ages 18 and 24 who have some college education.

Plans for the Hupclub service will include sessions that start with a visual interplay of colors, lights, and smoke, just like a live dance club environment. Subscribers will also have access to premium options such as special events and information for hiring DJs.

Jekyll is currently seeing investors to get Hupclub off the ground. More details are available at the Hupclub section of the Doctor Jekyll website.

By: Ric Manning On 11/29/2015

Continue Reading

SpeedRumble tracks luxury supercars

Someday, when I think up the next blockbuster app and cash starts rolling in, I’ll do when every freshly-minted mogul does: go car shopping. And I think my first stop will be SpeedRumble.

The website has the latest news and videos from the world of supercars and luxury motorsports. My local newspaper may have an occasional story about what Ford and Toyota are up to, but this websites keeps its eyes on Porsche, Bugatti and Lamborghini.

Recent posts delivered specs and commentary on Koenigsegg’s two new supercars that were revealed at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show, views from the Mercedes-Benz Media Night at the Frankfurt Motor Show and a look at what the the rumored LaFrerrari Siper might look like.

In addition to news updates, the site has reviews, videos and even spotlights some of the supercars that are for sale. It all looks like super fun for the super rich. Check it out at the SpeedRumble website.

By: Ric Manning On 11/03/2015

Continue Reading

Greads helps sell your articles, essays and other docs

A few years ago, I wrote a long article about some of my ancestors who fought in the American Civil War. I added photos and maps and wrapped it up in an attractive PDF document.

My article is the sort of product that would be welcome on Greads, a new social library platform that allows users to buy or sell digital documents.

Greads was created as a vehicle to let ordinary people monetize their knowledge. Items offered for sale might be an e-book, a PowerPoint presentation, an essay, a translation of an article or any other text-based material.

Items for sale are categorized under topics such as Programming, Religion, Politics, Economics, Journals, Graphic Design, and Social Studies.

Participation in the Greads system is free but Greads takes a 10 percent commission on sales. Sellers are paid through PayPal when their account reaches $5. For more details, check the Help section on the Greads website.

By: Ric Manning On 10/26/2015

Continue Reading

Free service checks your writing

After several decades as a newspaper and freelance writer, I thought my grammar skills were pretty damn good. So imagine my surprise when I submitted a few paragraphs from a recent article to Grammar Checkup and it highlighted the phrase “there’s more details.”

Ouch. That’s clearly an error I should have caught. But while I have only one brain, Grammar Checkup is the product of and entire team of “computational experts and Natural Language Processing practitioners,” according to the Grammar Checkup website. So, obviously I was thoroughly outnumbered.

The good news from this exercise is I now know how to get a second set of eyes (okay, algorithms) give my writing an expert review of my work before it is published. Grammar Checkup is fast and free. It finds and tags problem passages and even offers alternative wording. It also highlights spelling errors. And with each review, you get a set of stats listing the number of words, sentences and characters.

Try the service for yourself at the Grammar Checkup website. And, yes, this article was checked before it was posted.

By: Ric Manning On 10/21/2015

Continue Reading

AbanteCart delivers open-source e-commerce

I’ve always appreciated the ethic that drives open-source software projects. Rather that paying steep prices for packaged software, talented enthusiasts pool their skills to create and support applications that often have higher quality than the commercial versions.

That’s why I was pleased to see the arrival of AbanteCart, an open-source shopping cart program for e-commerce. The software lets website owners and developers sell just about anything, just like the big catalog sites do it, but without the need for high-priced support.

AbanteCart is free. There are no startup, licensing, subscription or transaction fees and no special training or knowledge is required to install and manage it.

Like most of the best open-source programs, there is a robust library of free and inexpensive plugins created and shared by users. Some of the more popular extensions include support for PayPal, credit cards processing, UPS or USPS shipping and live chat.

Anyone interested in trying AbanteCart can create a free personal demo on the AbanteCart website and follow product news @abantecart on Twitter.

By: Ric Manning On 10/11/2015

Continue Reading

WPFix offers flat-rate WordPress repairs

How popular is WordPress? Some recent reports say that more that 74 million websites are using the content management platform. They include everything from small personal blogs to sites run by big name brands like Sony Music, The New Yorker and Beyonce.

And while WordPress has been lauded as an easy way to publish an attractive site, sooner or later every WordPress user will need some help from experts. WPFix wants to be those experts.

The service offers small, fast and inexpensive fixes to WordPress problems. Maybe a theme doesn’t allow changing a font color or a button size or a new plugin update causes everything to stop working.  There are plenty of WordPress consultants ready to charge $1,000 for consultation. But Miami-based tech entrepreneur Pylyp Matiukhin believed small fixes should come with small price tags. That's why he created WPFix.

At WPFix, every fix has flat rate ranging $5 to $29. Fixing logo costs $5, adding analytics is $15 and adding PayPal payments costs $19. All fixes are delivered within 24 hours and customers don’t pay if a fix can’t be made.

To see a menu of services and their prices, check out the WPFix website where you can also submit a request for custom services.

By: Ric Manning On 10/11/2015

Continue Reading