AAA Car Buying

I never thought of AAA as a resource when buying a new car, but they partner with TrueCar, the negotiation-free car buying and selling platform that averages $3,000 off MSRP on the purchase of a new car.  No haggle and save money.  Music to my ears.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aaa-selects-truecar-to-power-its-auto-buying-program-for-over-30-million-members-through-three-year-renewal-agreement-275110331.html

512GB SD Card

For a mere $729 you can own a half terabyte (512,000,000,000 bytes) SD Card.  If you shoot pictures that are 3MB in size, you can store over 170,000 photos, which works out to about 6 pictures per day over an average life span.  Not enough, is it?

It's available for pre-order from http://www.bhphotovideo.com and expected to be available October 15th.


http://www.sandisk.com/products/memory-cards/sd/extremepro-sdxc-sdhc-uhs-3/?capacity=512GB

iCloud

There are some exciting changes to Apple's iCloud coming soon.

The amount of free storage stays at 5GB, but the $0.99/month (my plan) increases from 15GB to 20GB.  200GB can be had at $3.99/month with several larger options available for the digital hoarder.

The new Family Sharing plan allows up to 6 family members to share App Store purchases, iTunes and iBooks using separate accounts.  I'll be jumping on this one asap.

Shared Photo albums will be a great way for families to share photos with everyone being able to contribute and view.

That's not all (just my fav's), and further details can be had at:

https://www.apple.com/icloud/

iPhone 6

While the iPhone 6's didn't come with the rumored sapphire display, but it is bigger, better and faster in almost every way. What's new?  Apple Pay, a new payment system that replaces plastic credit cards with an encrypted, wireless and fingerprint-authenticated magic touch.  Much needed in today's fraud-riddled world.  And upgraded specs and new camera features aim to make this your video camera of choice.

http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/

Home Depot Credit Card Breach

If you've shopped at The Home Depot since April 2014, you're credit card may be compromised. You can sign up, like I did, for their free identity protection services, including credit monitoring, at this link.

https://homedepot.allclearid.com/

Folding Fitted Sheets

Folding a fitted sheet has always been a mystery, at least folding them and having the result look decent.  But as this YouTube video shows, it's not only possible, but pretty easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z5k9nWcuFc

A&J Best Construction

My personal recommendation for a highly skilled, reliable and reasonable contractor for your home projects.  I had electrical work, bathroom remodeling and ceiling fans replaced and everything was top-notch.

http://jbestconstruction.com/

Office on iOS

iPad/iPhone Only:

There are a number of Office alternatives for the iPad and iPhone for handling documents, spreadsheets and presentations, including options from the "big three" of :

• Google (Docs, Sheets, Slides)
• Apple (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
• Microsoft (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)  

Google's runs on more devices (iOS, Android, Web Browser, Chrome OS) and all free, but is more basic than its competition.  Apple has the best (IMHO) interface and the most polished, costs on the Mac ($19.99 each), free for new iPads/iPhones ($9.99 each on older devices) and also runs in a Web Browser using iCloud.  Microsoft excels (pun intended) on Windows desktops, but their iOS apps are read-only unless you get an Office365 account ($9.95/month or $99.99/year - ouch!).

No clear winner and your choice will depend on how you'll use it.  Me, I just loaded them all.

Compass App

I may be old school, but a compass is a handy device to have around and the magnetometer inside a smart-phone, combined with an compass app, means you can have one available at all times.  Lots of choices out there, so look around for one that suits you.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/compass-54-lite/id464270330

Business Process Simulator

Business Process Simulator is a simple business process simulation web app (also available in the Chrome Web Store) and can be used to model new business processes or optimize existing ones.  Or handy just to document and share a process flow.

http://www.bpsimulator.com/