October 16 …Technology Tidbits

Apple released their newest phone, iPhone 12. The differences between last year’s version and this year’s version aren’t dramatic enough for me to recommend that people upgrade, particularly for that price point. Upgrade when your old phone doesn’t work for you anymore. This can be between 2 and 5 years.

I’m almost finished with the third season of Halt and Catch Fire on Netflix. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I’m addicted. It’s a period drama set in the 80s and depicts a fictionalized view of how personal computers and the internet evolved.

I have had to “fix” my nine-year old’s school-issued Chromebook several times this week. Mostly, because he turns on the accessibility features and then can’t figure out how to turn them off. There are two reasons I am metioning this. First, there is this common misconception that kids just get computers, but they don’t. Parents do a lot of “fixing” of machines (computers, tablets, phones, etc.). Second, there are accessibility features on all devices, so increase that font size, turn on the magnifier, turn on the hearing aid feature.