Our favorite online music service, Spotify, has more than 20 million songs that have been listened to at least once. But it has four million songs that have never been called up by any Spotify user.
Forgotify comes to the rescue of those lonely songs.
Using it, users can cycle through the lost tunes (Remember: There are only 4 million. If you listen to 50 an hour, you can get through them in just 80,000 hours - or around 30 years, assuming you sometimes eat, sleep and take a shower.)
Doing our bit for musicology, we found a nice Indian hit, a soothing instrumental number and many, many duds.
Now we’re sorry about this, and have to issue a warning to anyone else crazy enough to go through this routine: Any time someone listens to a never-before-listened-to tune, it comes off the Forgotify list. After all, they listened to it. That means that other searchers will be deprived of the chance to discover it. Let your conscience be your guide.
Users have to sign in to Spotify to use Forgotify, but it’s free if you don’t mind the ads. Otherwise, it’s $10 a month ad-free.
By the way, users can find the lyrics for many songs using “musiXmatch” for Android or iPhone. On the Web you can search for the lyrics for just about any song and usually see many sources. There are lots of sites that have libraries of song lyrics. Of course, users won’t find lyrics for the never-listened-to songs, because … well, you understand.
SHARING A LINK
This happens a lot: Somebody will tell us about a great site, article or video they saw on the Web, but can’t remember exactly where it was. Google it, they’ll say. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
If you use the Firefox Webbrowser, there’s an easy way to share what you saw. Click “File” from the top of the screen and then “Email link.” In Safari, click “File,” “share” and “email this page.” In Internet Explorer (for Windows 7 and XP), click “Page” and then “send page by email.” In IE for Windows 8, use the “share” charm, if you can get it to work, which we can’t.
But what about the totally popular Chrome browser? You have to install the free add-on, Shareaholic, from Shareaholic.com. It requires you to sign up for an account, but that’s easy. There’s a version for all the browsers. If you’re on YouTube, click the “share” button under the video, then choose “email.” Finally, the way we usually share things found on the Web is copy the address and paste it into an email. It’s easy. It’s just an extra step. God, we get so lazy sometimes.
BATTERY LIFE LOST
Why does the battery on your smartphone drain so fast? They’re all against you, that’s why. Here’s a list of the bad guys now:
According to KS Mobile, an app maker, the No. 1 battery drainer is the Camera 360 Ultimate app. Public battery enemies No. 2 through 10 are: Outlook.com, EZ Weather Forecast, Viki, Zello Walkie-Talkie, Temple Run 2, IMO Free Video Calls and Text, Racing Moto, Fruit Ninja and Candy Crush Saga.
KS makes a free battery-saving app called Clean Master, which we use to get rid of junk files, but our favorite battery-saving app is still Battery Doctor, also free.
WINDOWS XP DEADLINE
Uh-oh. On April 8, Bob and other XP users will have a decision to make - or not. That’s the day when Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP. Is this the end of civilization as we know it?
That scream in the distance is Bob crying out, “But I like my Windows XP machine!”
According to a recent study by Trustworthy Computing, Windows XP systems have a malware infection rate six times higher than Windows 8. AV-Test, which runs tests on security solutions, says XP will have more holes than Swiss cheese after the general updates stop.
However, Microsoft will continue updates to its free security product, Microsoft Security Essentials, until July 2015.
That’s Bob in the distance shouting, “But I like Swiss cheese!”
There are going to be a lot of upset people around, because Windows XP is still the choice of 29 percent of all the users. Windows 8, introduced by Microsoft almost two years ago, has just 7 percent of the market. What’s even worse, the number of XP users actually increased in December.
So why drop support? Well, you don’t make any money supporting old systems. So take that, old-fashioned users.
So what about the security issues? Well, we use Bull-Guard anti-virus (not free) and Malwarebytes, which has a free version. Avast anti-virus is very good and free, and we used it for several years before switching to BullGuard.
So what’s a person to do? Well, as they used to say back on the farm - sucking on a piece of wheat straw for the full effect - it seems to us that with a market as largeas nearly one-third of all PC users, it might be a good business for someone to offer continued technical support for a small monthly fee.
APP HAPPY
Dog Land for iPhone/iPad/ iPod Touch links dog owners from around the world in a like-minded community of pet owners. “Mark your territory” to share your location with others. Find dog parks, pet stores, vets and animal rescues. Vote on dog-friendly places. Use privacy settings to control who sees what. Their slogan: “This land is your land. This land is Dog Land.”
Ken Burns American History app for iPhones/iPads with iOS 7, the latest operating system. The app brings you highlights from 136 hours of Ken Burns videos. A timeline lets you tap a given year. For example, 1930 has clips on jazz, Prohibition, Huey Long, the Great Depression and baseball. Starts out free, then costs 10 bucks.
Bob and Joy can be contacted by email at bobschwab@gmail.com
Business, Pages 20 on 02/24/2014