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10 ways to save on roaming charges when traveling with your smartphone

August 9, 2011

Don’t blow the savings from your budget-conscious vacation on a whopping cell phone bill. These 10 tips will help keep your voice and data costs under control.

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10 ways to save on hotels using your smartphone or tablet

August 8, 2011

I’m just back from a week-long family road trip to the Oregon Coast, Portland and Seattle. One of the great virtues of a family vacation is its ability to separate us from our screens: to wean the kids from their daily fix of PBS edutainment, to interrupt the staccato sounds of videogame walkthroughs enjoyed on [...]

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Review: ThinkGeek TK-421 Bluetooth Keyboard for iPhone

December 23, 2010
iPhone case with integrated Bluetooth keyboard

In my gift roundup for Harvard Business Review last week, I wrote that the secret to buying gadget gifts for early adopters is “to surprise us with something so new that it hasn’t yet arrived at Best Buy”. The item I suggested was a keyboard case for iPhone or iPad, but true to early adopter [...]

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Locative technologies help us redefine what presence means

October 5, 2010
Guy on phone in cafeuy on phone in cafe

Simon King has a provocative blog post about the relationship between using technologies on-location, and actually being present in the location where you’re checking. He begins by comparing e-readers and smartphones to books or magazines: In my experience, there is a huge social difference between using an iPhone and physical media such as a book [...]

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Spice up your dates with technology

April 15, 2010

The new Italian restaurant in our neighborhood was the perfect place to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary. We settled into a cozy table for two and turned our attention to the menu. It wouldn’t be easy to decide on our courses: The menu included almost too many enticing options with ingredients like black olives, Jerusalem [...]

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How to use your iPad for family multitasking

April 13, 2010
Thumbnail image for How to use your iPad for family multitasking

Yesterday’s blog post about the merits of buying an iPad provoked some questions about overconsumption, as well as a shout-out from a fellow sofa commuter. In the tug-of-war between buying a device that is sofa optimized, versus buying one less thing because we already have eighteen million devices, sofa optimization won out. I tried to [...]

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How to password-protect yourself from iPhone addiction

March 26, 2010
Thumbnail image for How to password-protect yourself from iPhone addiction

iPhone contact has become reflexive. The five minutes before a meeting, the two-minute walk to the coffee shop, the 10 seconds between parking the car and walking in the front door: they’re all moments when I automatically reach for the iPhone.

If my iPhone were a cigarette, I’d be a chain smoker. If my iPhone were a bottle of scotch, I’d be a hard-core alcoholic. If it were a rosary I’d be a religious zealot.

There’s nothing I could touch as frequently as I touch my iPhone without looking like a total freak.

What makes me think that the constant, obsessive iPhone contact is any less freaky? Or more to the point, any less addictive?

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Seven ways to break the habit of compulsive e-mail and Twitter check-ins

September 10, 2009

I’ve lost too much of the present to my constant need to check the iPhone. Here are seven practices that are helping me break free of my compulsion.

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12 kid-friendly iPhone apps for toddlers and young kids

April 29, 2009
Thumbnail image for 12 kid-friendly iPhone apps for toddlers and young kids

The real power of an iPhone lies in the ability to keep a preschooler silent and occupied for the length of time it takes a grown-up to eat a meal in a restaurant with actual tablecloths.

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Keep iPhone, iCal, MobileMe and Google Calendar in sync with BusySync

February 13, 2009

If you use Apple’s iCal, Google Calendar and an iPhone, you want to look at this application.

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Take note of Evernote (especially if you’re an iPhone user)

September 18, 2008

Since upgrading to a 3G iPhone, I’ve gone on periodic app binges in which I download every app that looks remotely interesting and take it for a whirl. So far, the best discovery I’ve made is a free app called Evernote — and it’s changed my computer use even more dramatically than it’s affected the way I use my iPhone.

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