For longtime Walkmans fans, the proof is in the listening
The first portable electronics gadget we ever had was a tape recorder, though we both remember the portable record player in a suitcase. Later, we both had Sony Walkmans.
More than 400 million Walkmans — mainly used for listening to music on the fly — as of 2014 have been sold, according to TheVerge.com. In the 41 years since they were introduced, they’ve evolved from cassette players to CD to Mini-Disc to MP3 to streaming music.
Recently, we wondered why people still buy Walkmans instead of listening to music on their phones. A reader told us the Walkman is superior. For one thing, you can store music in the “wav” file format, which takes up more storage space but sounds better. “Why listen to a lesser-quality format with a device as terrific as the Walkman?” he wrote. “Plus it holds nearly my entire CD collection, while the phone is severely limited. Even with the MP3 format, there’s no way can I get the bulk of it on a 32 gig micro SD card, which is the largest capacity card my phone will take.” He bought a Walkman NW-A55, which came out in 2017, on Amazon for $219. It’s smaller than his phone.
“Single-purpose devices,” he adds, “usually do a better job than those Jack-of-all-trades units.” We agree. “This is one of those things where you have to experience it yourself to fully appreciate the difference,” he adds. “I can tell you what it’s like, but hearing is believing.”
SIFT OUT THE SPAM
Now that everyone we know is hunkered down at home, they’re all emailing us. Personal notes are great, but what about all those newsletters that come in? We say, “Filter it.”
Joy had to get her email from a site without filters
recently. The difference was dramatic. Instead of 30 new messages there were 254 on one occasion.
Joy has 218 filters on her mail, all of which direct the mail to skip the inbox and go straight to the trash. Examples on the list include realtor.com, truewellth and urbankayaks. We literally don’t know what Joy is missing.
To set up a filter, click on the message you never want to see again. Then click the
three vertical dots. Choose “Filter messages like this,” then check off the box next to “Delete it” and then click “Create filter.” If you just click “block,” the sender will keep coming back. Only filtering works.
INTERNUTS
Phrases.org.UK Ever since we gave away our complete Oxford English Dictionary, we’ve been wanting a site like this. Here we learned that “happy as a clam” was originally “happy as a clam at high tide,” a favorite phrase of President Ulysses S. Grant.
“The cat’s pajamas” had its origins before the 1920s when all kinds of whimsical phrases came into use, such as “the bee’s knees,” “the kipper’s knickers” and “the monkey’s eyebrows.” “Cat” originally referred to a stylish woman but was later expanded to include men, as in “cool cat” or “hep cat.”
“Twelve board games you can play with friends from afar”: Search on that phrase to find an article from SmithsonianMag.com. Examples include Monopoly, Ticket to Ride, a virtual train game favored by our adult nephews, and Settlers of Catan, a race to settle an island with few resources.
BritishMuseum.org/collection gives you access to 1.9 million images. All are free to download, adapt and use for noncommercial purposes.
APPS ON THE KINDLE FIRE
A reader complained that his Kindle Fire is too heavy on Amazon stuff. That’s true, but you can add thousands of other apps.
Tap App Store on your Kindle Fire to search. Or, on a computer, start by doing a web search on “Amazon Fire tablet apps.” and click on the page link. Once you’re on the Amazon page, scroll down until you can tap the four stars on the left side of the page. That will bring up the apps with the best reviews. Tap on “Free” to see only the free ones. When you see one you might like, click it to get a description, then click “Get app.” It will be automatically delivered to your Fire.
To remove an app you’ve changed your mind about, tap Games & Apps at the top of
your Kindle Fire screen. Hold your finger down on the app you want to remove till you see “Remove from device.” Then tap it. The other option is “Remove from home page.”
Speaking of Amazon, a reader wrote that he bumped up against a storage limit when uploading photos and videos. Didn’t we say that storage space was unlimited? Not for videos. We said it was for photos. You get only 5 gigabytes of free storage for videos. Go to amazon.com/ clouddrive to see what you’ve uploaded and delete anything you don’t want.
NEED FOR SPEED
A reader wrote: “Having trouble with my internet speed dropping. Is there a way of checking the speed?” Sure there is.
Go to Fast.com. It will display what your speed is. A good internet speed is 10 megabits per second for download and 5 megabits per second for upload.
To speed things up a bit, try putting your router in a central location. When the AT&T service man did this for us in our new apartment, identical to the old one but on a higher floor, we started getting a good signal in the bedroom for the first time. The oft-touted mesh system by Google, which we thought helped at first, wasn’t nearly good enough. We dumped it. Also, take a look at “15 Tips for Faster Wi-Fi” from Techlicious.com.