Tech Tips

Showcasing the amazing information that can be shown in real time is this 3D site for the Tokyo subway, https://minitokyo3d.com/ It is a really big subway system and you can monitor car arrival times and the occasional live feed camera. Like many of these data visualization sites, you just have to poke, click, and drag around on the screen to find out the best way to use the site. I already lost nearly half an hour.

Changing the screen on a smartphone too greyscale a few hours before bed can be a great way to cut your interest in doom-scrolling when you should be calming down for sleep. On an iPhone you can set a color filter, in Settings > Accessability > Display & Text Size > Color Filters and turn on the Grayscale color filter. It sure makes the phone less appealing to use. Combine this with an Action and an Automation and you can make this turn on and off at set times. https://lifehacker.com/use-greyscale-make-your-phone-less-addicting-1850912330 Android phones with recent versions of Android have a bedtime mode that includes an option for grayscale. Begin by looking in Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls > Bedtime mode and start exploring the options. Some Android phones have a slightly different set of options.

Another playground (you could claim it as real work however) is upgrading what it can do. DALL-E 3 https://openai.com/dall-e-3 will soon offer better abilities to create images from words. DALL·E 3 will be available to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers in October, via the API and in Labs later this fall.

There is always one more suggestion for managing that ever-filling email inbox, this one is called “yesterbox.” The basic idea is to only deal with yesterday’s email today, there will always be more coming in today, but yesterday’s email is a fixed amount to deal with. Then handle those emails some variation of the one touch approach or the 4Ds (Delete, Do if quick, Delegate if appropriate, Defer for later task). Remember that replies you get to emails you work on today will be dealt with tomorrow when those emails enter the “yesterbox.” Personally, I won’t be doing this but I am always looking for ways to keep my inbox trimmed down and not scary.

If you have a Google account, even one of those free Gmail ones, and have been wanting to offer bookable appointments online but baulk at paying a monthly calendar service fee, thank Google. They now offer appointment scheduling where you can accept appointments without a fee. Of course, the steps are more than what will fit in a paragraph, so here is a link to Google’s help page, https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/10729749?hl=en  If you use Stripe to handle credit cards, you can enable appointment payments through that system also.

 Safety reminder, since we are all ordering online, scammers are texting fake package delivery updates to try to steal personal information or get you to pay for improved delivery. Always check for shipping updates by going back to the place you purchased from online and see what problems are listed in your order history. Don’t click through the provided link in the text. And, this applies to emailed “delivery updates” also.