When we wrote about Roku and the Amazon Fire Stick as ways to bring extra movie channels, games and apps to your television, we neglected to talk about Google's Chromecast, which is cheaper: $35 online or $30 at Wal-Mart.
The $49 Roku stick easily won our test against the $39 Amazon Fire Stick. But we didn't have a Chromecast. So last week we went out and bought one and tested it thoroughly. The results were disappointing.
Chromecast sounds great in theory: Just about anything you see on your phone can theoretically be mirrored on your big TV. They call it "casting." In our tests, however, it didn't always work and was highly frustrating to handle. Now we're sorry we gave two Chromecasts as gifts. No wonder we never heard back from the recipients; they're probably still trying to make them work.
The Roku and Fire plug-in sticks are ready to use right out of the box and come with a handy remote control. The Chromecast is designed to work using a smartphone, tablet or laptop as the remote. (Forget the iPad Mini, though; it's incompatible.) To start watching anything, you have to add the appropriate apps.
We used a Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone as the remote and added Netflix, Google Play Movies and Pandora radio to our phone. Unfortunately, we couldn't add the Amazon Instant Video app; it's incompatible with the Galaxy S3, one of the most common phones around. So our Prime membership, which normally brings in free movies, is worthless on Chromecast.
Feeling miffed, we turned instead to the YouTube app and cast Ken Burns' much acclaimed Civil War series onto our TV. The sound and quality were excellent, and we could even do email on our phone while it was playing.
A Better Browser
We thought we'd never stop using the Google Chrome browser after switching to it 10 years ago.
But we recently switched to Firefox because Chrome began to feel buggy. Then Firefox started feeling buggy. So Joy has switched again, this time to Opera. It's fun, fast and less buggy. You can call it up on a search and simply download it.
Here's the bug that bugs us in Firefox: There's often an exclamation point showing before the web address when we're in Gmail. When it's there, Gmail stalls and you won't be able to reply to an email or an ad. Sometimes it even makes the keyboard go wild, typing extra characters. This hasn't happened in Opera.
One of the advantages of less popular systems is that they are usually not worth a hacker's time. One of the claims often given about the advantages of Apple computers, for example, is that they don't get viruses or "blow up." Bob has owned four Apple computers and is here to tell you this isn't true; they definitely get viruses and can crash. The reason they get fewer attacks is they represent only around seven percent of the market: Normally not worth a hacker's time.
Opera's latest version came out a couple of months ago and is a huge improvement over the first version we tried several years ago. The nicest improvement is that your bookmarks appear as thumbnail pictures when you choose "bookmarks" from the Opera orb in the left corner of the screen. This is especially handy if you bookmark recipes. As far as we can find out, no other browser has this.
Opera also has built-in folders for "Travel," "Reading List," "Shopping" and so on and lets you add your own. There's even "Opera Turbo" for super fast Web browsing. The downside of Opera is for Google Drive users. We got a message that Opera was not a supported browser and that we ran it at our own risk. We use Bullguard, an excellent anti-virus program, so we're not worried. Another good one is AVG, which is free.
An ad-free Web
Many people pay for ad-free TV, but will they pay for an ad-free Web? Google is testing that idea with a service called Contributor.
For $1 to $3 per month, users will see the Internet without ads. Right now, it's by invitation only but you can get on the waiting list at google.com/contributor. Of course, the other alternative is to use free add-ons like Ad Blocker. The trouble with both approaches is sometimes we find the ads interesting.
Here's an interesting sidelight to that problem: Ads, it turns out, are information. During World War II, Marshall Field, the Chicago department store owner, started an evening newspaper called PM in New York. Because of the war, he thought it was inappropriate to run ads in such serious times. But readers objected vigorously and he soon had to start covering sales at Macy's as news stories.
Tips and Tricks
• If you look up a map in Google Maps while you're connected to the Internet, it will still be there when you're disconnected. That goes for directions too.
• Your cellphone service provider will block certain text messages if you call and give them a name or number to block.
Saving Voicemails Forever
Sometimes a cellphone message from a child or loved one is so special, you want to save it forever.
A $20 app called Voicemails Forever does just that. The catch is, it only saves an hour's worth. To save an unlimited number costs $40. If you're techie, you can do this for free.
First install the free Audacity software from sourceforge.net. Then connect your computer to your phone through the headphone port using "mini to mini" auxiliary cables.
The Numbers Report
Freelancer.com claims to be the world's largest outsourcing marketplace for freelance jobs. It recently noticed some changes in the way listings are being posted.
The site looked at nearly 300,000 jobs posted in the most recent quarter and found that Pinterest, a social networking site where you pin items of interest onto your own virtual corkboard, is becoming more essential than Twitter and Facebook.
Pinterest, which recently expanded "Promoted Pins," which are bookmarked sites promoted by advertisers, is second only to Facebook in steering people to websites. Eighty percent of Pinterest's 70 million users are women and the average user spends 98 minutes per month there
Bob and Joy can be contacted by email at bobschwab@gmail.com and joy.schwabach@gmail.com.
SundayMonday Business on 01/19/2015