Three lessons from Before Breakfast

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Reading Time: 3 minutes

A few weeks ago, a new podcast came out called Before Breakfast by Laura Vanderkam. It’s a short (5 min), daily podcast to give you “productivity advice that will take your day from great to awesome.“

It’s been really interesting for me. Most days I think “that episode was a nice reminder of x”, but really nothing more. It hasn’t felt life-changing or anything. However, it’s only been out for about a month now and I realized that I’ve already made three fairly major changes as a result of it, so she’s doing something right!

Tracking my time

I’ve known the value of time tracking for a while. We do it a lot at GreenMellen for projects, but Laura suggested tracking your entire life in big chunks in this episode. I’ve been doing it for a few weeks now, and it’s opened my eyes to some interesting patterns.

I’m not sure if I’ll keep it up long term, but I think I will for a while. I have a simple spreadsheet that I keep in Google Drive and update a few times a day with colors and short notes. Here’s an example:

Some of the colors: light green for work, dark green for network/biz dev, red for family time, yellow for driving, blue for 50% working (answering email while browsing Reddit).

The downside to this time tracking is the actual time involved in doing it. It only takes a few minutes a few times a day, but it can add up a bit. I’ll be interested to see how long this sticks for me.

Plan next week on Friday

This tip from Laura was simple, seemingly obvious, and brilliant. Instead of planning the week ahead on Sunday evening, do it on Friday afternoon. She gives a few big reasons why:

  • If you get it out of the way on Friday, your head will be a bit more clear on the weekend knowing that next week is already firmed up.
  • If you are confirming meetings for the following week, people are likely to respond on Friday afternoons, but not on Sunday evenings.

It was a simple change to make, and I like it. I’m pretty sure I’ll keep this going for a while.

Read everywhere

I’ve worked with a few business coaches over the years, and I find that one of the best things they do is to give you permission to do something differently that you “should” do it.

For example, we use the EOS model at GreenMellen, but we were frustrated by a few small aspects of it (though we love it overall). A coach told us “if you don’t like those parts of it, then don’t do those parts of it“. Somehow getting his permission made all the difference in the world.

I know I want to read more, but I can’t seem to find the time for it. Audio books while driving work great for many folks, but I have a relatively short commute and I already have too many podcasts to listen to (and I don’t want to give them up). I enjoy reading on the Kindle, but can’t easily bring it with me everywhere to fill up those small gaps of time. The Kindle app on my phone is fine, but it’s not good for long stretches of reading.

Laura’s suggestion in a recent episode — go ahead and use your phone to fill in the gaps. Her simply giving that “permission” that it’s ok to occasionally read on the phone has made a big difference and has helped me get better about the habit of reading. I still do 90% of my reading on the Kindle, but that extra little bit that I fill in with during the day on my phone is keeping the books more fresh in my mind, and it’s making me more likely to pick up the Kindle in the evening instead of just watching TV.

Give it a listen

I encourage you to check out her podcast and see what you think. It’s unlikely that every episode will be super valuable, but if you can pick up a few tips here and there, it may be worth your time.

Becoming Superhuman pushed me back to iPhone

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Reading Time: 7 minutes

I’ve loved Android for years (and still do), but I often said something like “I’m using Android for now, and for the foreseeable future, but I’ll move back to iPhone if it ever makes more sense for me.”

In my opinion, people on both sides should always keep an open mind; “iPhone for life!” or “Always Android” is silly thing to think, because things can change. For me, something just caused that change — Superhuman.

Superhuman

If you’re not familiar with Superhuman, it’s an email program. It works with Gmail, and there are a lot of similar applications out there (Newton, Spark, and dozens of others). I send/receive a lot of email every day, so I’ve tried most of the options out there. Some are ok, but I always went back to Gmail after a few days. Not this time.

Superhuman is weird. It breaks the rules. You can’t just sign up and try it out. There is a huge waiting list for it. At the end of the waiting list, you need to fill out a form to see if you’re a good fit for it. Then you have to sign up for a 30 minute one-on-one call with their staff to learn how to use it, and then it costs $30/mo. It’s that last bit that gets people; most email clients are free, or perhaps a few dollars per month. $30/mo is unheard of, but for those that love Superhuman it’s worth every penny.

This short podcast from Matt Bilotti at Drift talks about that onboarding process and why it’s so remarkable:

As for using Superhuman itself, there’s no one magical thing about. It’s cleaner than any other email I’ve used, it’s faster than any other email I’ve used, it has lots of great features, and it simply all comes together in a great package. I’m much more efficient when I use it, and it’s $1/day. Done.

iOS only

The main Superhuman app is web-based, which is perfect for me. I can use it on Windows or my Chromebooks, it works on Mac, etc. The problem is mobile — they only have an iPhone app. They’re working on Android, but it looks to be at least another year away.

I talked to them about this, and their suggestion was to use Superhuman on the computer and keep using the Gmail app on the phone. At the end of the day, Superhuman is still accessing my Gmail account, so that should work fine. And it did, and it was fine. Fine, but not great.

The more I used it, the more I hated the disconnect between Superhuman on the computer and Gmail on the phone, so I contemplated a switch from Android to iPhone. I did lots of research and before long, I did it. I’m an iPhone user again. I fully expect to switch back to Android in a year or so when Superhuman arrives over there, but we’ll see what happens.

iPhone versus Android

So for the second part of this post, I want to talk about iPhone versus Android. Over the years, they’ve become more and more similar to one another, which helped make the transition easier for me. If you’re considering a move from one to the other, here are some of my thoughts on their differences.

Messaging

Messaging on Google is a mess. They have Hangouts and Allo and Duo and Messages and no real plan. SMS works fine, but it’s not great.

Apple’s iMessage, on the other hand, is awesome — if you’re fully entrenched in the Apple ecosystem (particularly if you use a Mac). Since I still use Windows and Chromebooks, the benefits of iMessage would be largely lost on me. In a move I should have done a while ago anyhow, I ported my Verizon number back over to Google Voice and I’m using that on the iPhone. It has a few shortcomings, but all in all works quite well. I can get my messages on any device, and if I end up switching to something else later, it’ll be seamless.

Apps

In general, apps are a bit easier to load on Android (Apple keeps giving me bogus updates, takes more clicks to install, etc), but the general selection is essentially the same. The one bummer is that I had to pay $25 to get Anki on iPhone, but it was a cost I didn’t think twice about.

Of course, the lack of Superhuman on Android was the whole reason for this switch, so that counts in this section too…

Google Stuff

Being a Google-focused user, I’m also working to see how much other Google stuff works on the phone. Google Voice was the big one, and Superhuman replaces Gmail, but I also use the Google app (for searching), Google Maps, Hangouts, Google Keep and others. For the most part, other than the lack of deep/default integrations, Google’s apps on iPhone work quite well.

Speed

I hear a lot about how Apple’s chips tend to be faster than the ones that Android phones use, but it doesn’t matter much. However, in a few cases I can see a big difference, such importing all of those Anki cards, or loading a game of Ingress to play. Day to day, though, they’re comparable.

Photos

iPhone has excellent cameras, no doubt, but this is an area where Google has them beat. I’m already missing the amazing “Night Sight” on the Pixel 3, and the quick access is a little quicker on Android. Still, both have great cameras and I can push the images to Google Phones on iPhone without a hitch.

Notifications

I was concerned about this, as it seems that Android still has a much better notification system than iPhone, and it’s true. However, Apple is catching up and the gap isn’t as large as I thought it might be. I still miss the power of notifications on Android, and the ability to deal with things when viewing a notification, but Apple is getting better.

Auto

When I bought my current car back in 2017, a must-have feature was support for Android Auto (and Apple CarPlay). I still much prefer Android’s solution (largely because of Google Assistant), but CarPlay is better than expected. It tends to be more responsive to the touch, though it randomly jumps around to different screens sometimes. Ultimately, it gets the job done but I’ll be glad to switch back in a year or two.

Stupid Lightning Cable

It’s sad that Apple is still using Lightning connections on the iPhone instead of USB-C. I understand why ($$$$), but literally everything else I use is USB-C: our laptops, all of our other phones, our mobile hotspots, our new battery pack, etc. Even iPads and the new Macbooks use USB-C; it’s just the iPhones that don’t. We have USB-C cables everywhere, but now a slightly growing collection of Lightning cables.

It looked for a while like Apple might finally come around and change to USB-C with the new iPhones this year, but the latest rumors suggest they’re going to stick with Lightning for at least another year. Bummer.

Browsing

Web browsing simply isn’t as powerful on iPhone (Chrome is hamstrung by Apple’s rules). It’s fine, but I already see some shortcomings. It’s weird little issues (hard to view source code on iPhone Chrome), but a little annoying nonetheless.

iPhone has better bluetooth

Both my Pebble and my Moto 360 would occasionally disconnect from my Pixel (perhaps once every few days). Both devices sync and work with iPhone, but they never seem to disconnect. Somehow iPhones keep a more consistent connection, which is nice.

Pixel has better LTE/Wifi

I noticed this back when I was still using the Pixel and my wife had her iPhone; I often had 4G service when she didn’t (both using Verizon), and she often complained about dead wifi areas in our house that I never saw. Now I understand. It’s not a huge difference, but it’s noticeable.

Face ID vs Fingerprint + Smart Unlock

Face ID is pretty neat, and works well. It’s comparable to the fingerprint sensor on the back of the Pixel; each works better in various circumstances. However, the iPhone really needs to adopt some sort of “smart unlock” like Android has. With Android, you can tell the phone “stay unlocked in these circumstances”, including:

  • When my watch is connected.
  • When I’m on my work wifi.
  • When I’m connected to my car with bluetooth.
  • When GPS says I’m at my house.

If any of those situations are true, the phone stays unlocked. As soon as they’re not true (like if the phone was stolen), it locks immediately. It’s really handy, and I’m surprised Apple hasn’t copied this feature yet.

Superhuman

I use email more than any other single app, and having access to Superhuman on my phone makes it all worth while. Plus, given my affinity for tech stuff, it’s only fair that I try both sides from time to time so I can speak from a place of experience when comparing the two platforms.

I’m more impressed with the iPhone than I expected, but I still dream of the day when Superhuman launches for Android so I can go back.

Who’s listening – Facebook or Baader-Meinhof?

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

Facebook isn’t listening to your phone, but creepy things can still happen. I had a few things come up today that were assuredly random, but felt like someone might be listening.

At lunch today, we talked about the Fyre Festival. It was the first I’d heard of it, but now I’m watching documentaries to learn more. 🙂 This afternoon, a story about it crossed a feed I was reading. Coincidence, or AI listening? It had to be coincidence, since this was an old-school RSS feed (where I see all stories from various sites), so nothing algorithmic was at play there.

Also at lunch today, we talked about “laughing salads”, the phenomenon where stock image of people eating salads also tend to have people laughing while they eat them. It’s weird. This evening, Kel showed me a funny pic on her phone — a laughing salad montage.

What’s more likely?

So did some app listen to me talking about Fyre Festival, email writers for a site they know I subscribe to, then convince them to write an article and publish it real quick? Probably not.

Did Facebook hear us talking about laughing salads, then tell Kelly to show me a picture that one friend of hers had posted? Seems unlikely.

While Facebook and Google can do some really creepy things, it’s good to know what’s possible and what’s not.

  • They know where you are, usually. If you go to Longhorn for dinner tonight and see ads for it tomorrow, that’s real (thanks GPS!)
  • They don’t secretly listen and serve ads based on that. Too many people are watching too closely for them to get away with that.
  • Your Alexa and Google Home aren’t listening either. Same deal; people packet-sniff those constantly, and if either was sending back everything, we’d know. They could, for sure, but they’re not.

Even if they all decided to listen and serve ads, how good could it be? I’m really impressed with how well Google Home understands me, but I still have to call it to attention and even then it’s not perfect. If it was recording a room full of people all day and then tried to show ads based on that, the results wouldn’t be great.

I blame my events today squarely on the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also known more simply as the “frequency illusion”), which all of us have experienced.

In my case with the Fyre Festival, it’s probably come across my feeds a few times before and I just didn’t notice it, but today I saw it and was like “Oh, that’s the thing Ali was talking about!“.

All of that said, Facebook (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Google) really do some crazy scary things to help serve you ads. This podcast episode from Reply All in late 2017 does a great job of digging into it all. Give it a listen:

The best ways to keep track of your favorite sites

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Reading Time: 3 minutes

Browser bookmarks have been around since some of the very first web browsers were invented in the 90’s. They’ve improved a bit over the years, but have remained essentially the same.

I’ve been using the built-in Chrome bookmarks for years now, since they just work. It’s easy to add something, and they sync across your computers to always stay backed-up.

There are also tools like Evernote and Google Keep that have “clippers” to help you quickly grab items from pages that you’re on. They work well, but can led to clutter over time.

I wanted a place to just save stuff

I come across a variety of interesting sites each day, and I wanted a place to just put them all. Saving them all in Chrome would make a huge list, and putting them all in Evernote/Keep would make a mess. I wanted it to be easy to add new items (no tagging/categorizing required) and super easy to search.

After much effort, I found four good options — three of them might be a good solution to you.

Stash

I was very excited when I found Stash. They use AI to help categorize what you find, and it really works well. It had two problems, though:

  1. It’s buggy. When browsing your sites, it simply didn’t always work the way it should. That’s bad, but the bigger issue was…
  2. It’s made for saving, not finding. It does a great job of saving and organizing your items, but doesn’t have an easy way of getting them back. Most of these kinds of tools will (optionally) replace your “new tab” page to help you quickly find your saved sites.

Stash has potential, but I ruled it out rather quickly.

Pinboard

Every time I did a search in my quest for the right tool, Pinboard came up. It has an old-school feel to it (similar to Craigslist), but has a rabid fan base. It has a solid Chrome extension and tons of third-party tools.

For me, the problem again came down to surfacing the items you saved. It has a nice interface, but doesn’t have an easy way to add this to the “new tab” page. Even without that, their search feature is simply acceptable, but not great.

Raindrop

The one I may end up with eventually is Raindrop. It feels the most professional of the apps I tried, and does a great job. It has the “new tab” page that I’m after, along with mobile apps for easily saving on the go.

It’s a bit heavy on the “please organize these items”, but works well enough even if you don’t take the time to organize them. I’m going with Kozmos (see below) for now, but could certainly see myself ending up back here if things go south with Kozmos. Part of the issue with many of these tools is that they come and go often, and this feels like it’ll be one that sticks around.

Kozmos

The winner, at least for now, is Kozmos. While it seems to be a one-man show, which keeps me worried about it’s future, the goal is exactly what I’m looking for. Azer Koçulu, the founder of Kozmos, explained it well in an post he wrote in 2017. In part, he said:

This is exactly why I built Kozmos; bookmarking should be simple. Found a useful web page ? Click the heart button in your browser, boom, done. No more filling forms, no more trying to figure out tags. Kozmos is powered by an advanced search engine, so you’ll always find what you’re looking for.

Perfect! On a desktop/laptop, it works amazingly well. Easy to save, and super fast to search. It’s imperfect, for sure, but it’s a very good place to start.

There is no mobile app yet, but that’s in progress. They have some workarounds for mobile, but 95% of my use of this kind of product will be on desktop, so it’s not a big deal.

For now, it does exactly what I need — I can save a page with a click, and (more importantly) I can find it just as quickly. I find their “new tab” page in Chrome to be the best of the ones I’ve tested.

I have my worries about a product like Kozmos that is free to use with one guy behind it, but they’re clearly pushing forward and hopefully develop the missing features (mobile app, etc) and and a revenue model soon.

What do you use to keep up with your bookmarks?

Keep control of your digital business assets

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Reading Time: 3 minutes

We’ve long been believers that our GreenMellen clients should keep control of their digital assets. Among other things, their domain name and website hosting should always be something that they own and that they pay for. There are a lot of tricky technical pieces that we handle for them on a daily basis, but in the end they’re completely in control of their business.

These aren’t major expenses (typically around $10/year for a domain name and $10/month for hosting), but it can be awful if a business lets someone else have ultimate control of those assets.

Two recent incidents really brought this to life.

The Slacker

We were recently finishing a new website and it was almost time to go live. The previous website hosting and domain name were with their old company (who was sold to another company), so we were working to get that straightened out.

Hosting was fairly easy to solve — we built the new website on new hosting that the client (now) owned. The problem was the domain name. The old company had it, but wouldn’t respond to anything. Our client reached out to no avail, so then here’s what I tried:

  • Wednesday: Emailed them; no response.
  • Monday: Call them; disconnected number. Found another number, they answered, and they’d “call back in an hour”.
  • Tuesday: Called them again; no response.
  • Wednesday: Emailed them again; no response.
  • Friday: Called them again; no response.

Eventually our client was able to text them and get some of the info we needed and we’re moving forward, but it doesn’t always end so well. Domain names can expire (and be purchased by others), websites can disappear, email can go down, and things can get real bad. We got lucky on this one.

The Tragedy

This is certainly much more rare, but equally challenging for a business. I saw this post recently in a Facebook Group:

It’s a horrible situation! I don’t know the details of their relationship or passing, but once this person tries to settle back into work — they can’t. With security always getting more strict (in a good way), it’s going to be very hard to get those assets back under control since he didn’t technically own any of them.

Other users in that Facebook group were very helpful and offered some great ideas, so hopefully they’re able to eventually get things squared away.

Being “good” isn’t good enough

Our team has challenged me on this before. “We’d never do that to anyone“, they say, and they’re right. We respond quickly to any requests, and we have redundant systems in place to be able to help in case one of us were to have an accident (or even just move across the country).

But even if we promise to be good and do the right thing, you’re always in the best shape if you have full ownership of your stuff. You don’t have to understand the technical details — that’s why you hire people like us — but you should have complete control so you can always do what’s in your best interest.

If your website is important to your business (and you’d have to work hard to convince me that it’s not), then take stock and make sure you have control of what you need so you can always do what’s best for your company.

I thought I knew Chromecast

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

I’ve been a big fan of Google Chromecast since it first came out back in 2013. It’s a cheap device ($35) that makes your TV do some magic. If you’re not familiar with them, this video gives a nice overview — note that the video is nearly five years old, so some things have certainly changed, but the basic idea is still the same.

When I decided to finally cut the cord a few days, I thought I knew everything I needed to know about Chromecast. I was wrong. I had the basic idea right, and things are working as expected, but I’ve discovered a few things I felt were worth sharing.

Most of the major streaming services work with Chromecast (YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu Live, Netflix, DIRECTV NOW), with the major exception being Amazon Prime Video — and that’s simply due to pettiness between Amazon and Google.

For what we need, it works great.

Not all Chromecasts are created equal

When Google released a slightly newer Chromecast in 2016, I didn’t think much of it. Reviews said it was essentially the same, and I didn’t think I needed one. I used ours relatively infrequently, and when I did it worked fine. We eventually had two TVs with the old one and two with the new one, and I considered them equals.

With live TV, though, it was a different story. Shows from Sling would skip more frequently than I’d like, and YouTube TV would give a warning every time that I should update my Chromecast for a better experience. They were right.

The differences between the two models are subtle, but important. The new model actually has less memory, but much better connectivity and a slightly faster processor. The old one could cache a bit more data (and thus Netflix always worked fine for me), but simply didn’t have the speed to keep up perfectly with live TV. Now that all of our TVs in the house are using the “new” Chromecast (from 2016), the difference is quite noticeable and all is running great.

Keep it plugged in

Another reason I didn’t use Chromecast too often before was because of the hassle. It’s totally a first-world hassle, but it was enough to turn me off.

  • For regular TV, you turn it on and get watching.
  • For Chromecast, turn on the TV, change the input, wait for it to boot up, then start your show. Not a big deal, but adds up if you have to do it frequently.

Now that we no longer have “regular” TV, changing the input is no longer a problem — the TV always stays on the Chromecast “channel”. However, the TV comes on faster than Chromecast is able to boot up, so there’s still a lag there. The reason is because Chromecast needs external power (you plug one end into your TV, and the other end into a power source) and so it’s often turned off when the TV is off.

Since the Chromecast came with a USB plug, and most of our TVs have a USB outlet, I plugged it in there. It worked! However, when the TV was off it disabled power to that outlet, and turned the Chromecast off as well. I’ve now run the power for the Chromecast to a normal wall outlet, so it stays on even if the TV is turned off.

Not only does that eliminate lag when it turns on, but with most TVs you can “cast” something to the Chromecast and it’ll turn on the TV for you and start playing right away. Pretty handy.

Backdrop could be so awesome

When your Chromecast and TV are turned on but you’re not casting anything, you’re looking at the Chromecast “backdrop”. It looks something like this:

It’s pretty neat. It shows photos from around the world in categories you can choose from, including pulling from your own Google Photos or Facebook. You can have it show the weather in the corner, and even pull in some news headlines.

It’s great, but it could be so much more. I’ve seen various articles about smart mirrors over the years, and it would seem to be pretty simple to integrate those kinds of features into backdrop.

If you’ve ever read an article about DIY “smart mirrors”, they spend most of the time talking about finding the right mirror, trimming stuff off of the tablet, mounting it together, getting power and wifi to it, etc. With Chromecast, all of that stuff is already done — all that’s left is the content piece, which is relatively easy.

Chromecast is already connected to my Google account (hence the ability to add my photos). It would seem to be pretty straightforward to add my next few calendar events, commute time, and some basic info like that.

All of that said, it’s still kind of nice. The TV can just sit there ready for you, showing amazing photography and the weather info.

I’m still a big Chromecast fan, but now I’m much more educated about it too.

Do you use Chromecasts in your house?

Finally cutting the cord

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

Despite my constant desire for the latest and greatest technology, I’ve held onto traditional TV delivery until today. We did some digging and just made the switch from Uverse TV (which was really pretty solid) to a handful of streaming services: Netflix, Hulu, YouTube TV and Sling TV.

When AT&T added fiber internet to our neighborhood a few years ago, we jumped on it. The speeds are amazing, and even the TV prices were much lower than Comcast. It was a no-brainer. Now we’re taking it a step further and going with just the fiber internet from them and cutting everything else — we had four DVRs and a bunch of channels. Taking internet by itself (and removing the “bundle discount”) raised the internet price a bit, but still brought our total price down by $152/mo. We added $92 worth of streaming services, for a total savings of about $60/mo.

Starting my research, my only requirement is that it must work with Google Chromecast (since we have them on every TV). That ruled out the Philo service, which otherwise looked pretty solid. We also ruled out DIRECTV NOW; it’s a solid service, but Sling TV worked out better for us.

Here’s what we went with:

Netflix: $10.99

We’ve had Netflix for the past few years anyhow, so this wasn’t a new expense. Lots of great shows and movies in there.

YouTube TV: $40

This is the main service we’ll be using. Not only does it have a ton of good content, but the interface is the best of any of the services out there. It feels a bit more like a traditional cable interface, which might be why I like it.

Sling TV: $44.99

The Sling pricing is a bit weird, but ultimately got us what we needed. YouTube TV covered most of our needs, but Sling added Food Network, HGTV, NFL Red Zone and a bunch of others (Comedy Central, more kids channels, History, MTV, etc). We’re signed up for their “Sling Blue” ($24.99) along with “Sports Extra” ($10) and the “4 Extras” ($10) for more comedy, kids, news and lifestyle.

Hulu: $7.99

Hulu has “Hulu Live” ($39.99), which is similar to Sling and YouTube, but was unnecessary since we had those other two services. However, getting some of the other core Hulu services helped us to round things out.

As we were sorting things out, I build a spreadsheet of the core channels on YouTube TV and Sling TV (with the options outlined above) so we could see how things were covered. While they duplicate quite a few channels, they have a lot on each site that are not on the other. Between the two of them, we have pretty much everything. You can see the full comparison in this PDF.

As an added bonus, YouTube TV works well with Google Home and Chromecast (and we have both in most rooms), so now I can just yell “Hey Google, play the Braves game on YouTube TV in the family room” and it’ll start up. Pretty slick.

Have you cut the cable yet? Which streaming service(s) are you using?

My take on the Google Pixel Buds vs the Apple AirPods

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Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen it comes to mobile devices, Apple and Google are constantly playing catch-up with one another. One will release a product or concept, and the other will soon follow suit. In this case we’re talking about headphones; the new Google Pixel Buds, which I recently picked up, that were released on the heels of Apple’s AirPods late in 2017.

Similarities

The headphones share some similarities with one another, and they’re all good things.

  • Both pair with your phone rather automagically, instead of the traditional bluetooth headphone setup.
  • Both are designed to be non-isolating, meaning they perch in your ear rather than in your ear canal, making it easier to hear the outside world. Some don’t like this feature, but to me it was a huge selling point. In the case of the Pixel Buds, I can hear people talking to me virtually 100% as well as if I didn’t have them in (with nothing playing, of course).
  • Both recharge automatically when they’re in their storage case, which is a nice way to handle things.
  • Both have excellent audio quality, especially considering their non-isolating design.

Differences

Despite the similarities, these are very different headphones.

  • Design: They look very different. I’ve heard varying takes on which is better, and most people have a favorite, but both are well-designed, look great, and fit well in your ear.
  • Connecting Cord: The Pixel Buds include a short cord connecting the two ears, which lays on the back of your neck. I mentioned there are varying opinions about the design of the Buds, but the cord is a very divisive feature and people absolutely love it or hate.
    • I love it — not only does it reduce the chance of losing one, but it’s nice to be able to slip them off your ears and hang them around your neck, like people have done with headphones for years.
    • However, this makes it where you can’t easily share one ear per friend, and some people don’t like the feel of the cord on the back of their neck.
  • The Cases: I mentioned the cases are similar, but there’s one big difference. Because of the cord connecting the two Pixel Buds, it’s more of a hassle to put in the case. It’s not a big deal, but it’s a lot different than just slipping the two AirPods in the case.
  • Touch Functionality: The AirPods have a bit of touch functionality, but the Pixel Buds have a ton.
    • The AirPods allow you to double-tap to active a feature (which you can set up in the app). It can be to activate Siri, play/pause your music, skip to the next track, etc. The key is that you can only set up one of those, along with it answering/hanging up phone calls with that double-tap.
    • The Pixel Buds give you a lot of control. You can single-tap to play/pause music or answer a call, double-tap to hear details about recent notifications, swipe forward/back to raise/lower the volume, and long press to activate the Google Assistant or hang up a call.
  • Bonus Feature: The Pixel Buds feature the real-time language translation feature. It’s really cool, but more hype than reality, in that it’s not that different from just pulling up the Google Translate app and taking turns talking to it.

Battery life

Both sets of headphones promote similar battery life — five hours of listening time per charge, and the ability to recharge using the case for up to 24 hours of total listening time. However, I couldn’t find details on non-listening time; if you just had them in your ears, took some calls, listened to notifications, used the Google Assistant, etc, so I did some tracking.

Saturday I put the Pixel Buds in my ears, and periodically checked the battery level throughout the day. I took a few phone calls, played some games (essentially the same as streaming music), checked notifications, etc. Here’s how the levels looked at various times throughout the day:

  • 12:20 – 100%
  • 1:30 – 90%
  • 2:34 – 82%
  • 5:00 – 56%
  • 6:15 – 42%
  • 7:47 – 25%
  • 9:21 – 7%

All in all, I got about nine hours out of them with moderate use. Not bad! I suspect the AirPods would be similar.

Which should I get?

Despite some negative reviews for the Pixel Buds, they’re pretty great headphones. While you can use either pair of headphones with any kind of phone, they work best when they’re native

— AirPods with iPhone, Pixel Buds with Android.

If you have the money to spend on them, or find a good deal where they’re free with some other purchase, I encourage you to purchase the ones that match best with your device and you’ll be very happy with the results.

What is your favorite pair of headphones?

The Galaxy Note 8 vs the Google Pixel 2 XL

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Reading Time: 3 minutesIn mid-2016, I was super excited to get the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The rumored specs were amazing, and the resulting phone was as well. I got it, and it was an awesome phone with some really neat features. However, as you likely know, the Note was recalled due to battery issues, so I had to go elsewhere and I picked up the Google Pixel which was a great phone as well.

When the 2017 versions of both phones were announced this year, I spent a while debating the merits of each. I loved the Pixels, but hated having to give back the Note. I eventually purchased the Note 8 and have been using it for the past few months. Then, due to some swapping within our family, I’ve moved to the Pixel 2 XL.

At the end of the day, they’re both excellent phones and you can’t go wrong with either. However, here’s how I see some of the differences with them.

The Galaxy Note 8 is an exciting phone

The Note 8 is intended to amaze. It has the curved edges on the screen, and things you don’t see on almost any other phone:

  • One of the largest, sharpest screens around.
  • Fully waterproof (like most phones these days).
  • The most RAM you can find in a phone (6GB).
  • Expandable storage with an SD card.
  • Wireless charging.
  • The magic S Pen. The pen really is neat, though I didn’t really use it too often. My kids both have a Note 8 now, and they use the Pens a lot.

The Pixel 2 XL is like coming home

Since switch to the Pixel, it’s been like a big exhale — aaaaaah. It just feels right.

  • It has a very sharp screen, but not as big as the Note.
  • It’s waterproof, but to a slightly lesser amount.
  • It has a solid amount of RAM, but not as much as the Note.
  • It doesn’t have SD card storage.
  • It doesn’t have wireless charging.
  • It doesn’t have an S Pen.
  • It has larger bezels than the Note 8 and the iPhone X.

Of all of those, the lack of wireless charging is really the only bummer. They use metal for much of the case of the phone, which makes it lighter and more durable, but makes wireless charging impossible. It’s going to be very interesting to see what they do next year because while I love the feel of this phone, they really need to include wireless charging next year.

Despite those downsides, there are a few big advantages:

  • It feels amazing in the hand. The larger bezels don’t look sexy, but they make using the phone much easier.
  • It has the highest rated mobile phone camera ever. Even iPhone-loving friends admit that this camera blows away the iPhone.
  • It’s pure Android with no extra bloat, so it’s screaming fast.
  • It gets fun new things from Google before any other phone. As of now, it’s the only phone with Google Lens (to identify photos), “Now Playing” on your lock screen (to tell you what songs are playing around you) and AR stickers to put some augmented reality features in your camera. Those will come to other phones soon enough, but it’s nice to be able to play with those features already.

They both win – but I’m sticking with the Pixel

As I said at the top, they’re both great phones. If you love Android, you’ll love either of these phones. The Pixel isn’t nearly as exciting as the Note, but it just works. It’s fast, smooth, easy to hold and takes amazing photos. For the next 8-10 months, it’s likely the phone I’ll stick with. When Fall 2018 rolls around, I’ll do this comparison all over again!

What is your phone of choice these days?

The hearing impaired scam

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Reading Time: 5 minutesWe got hit with a fairly well-known scam, but I followed it through (for a while) to get some fodder for the blog so that hopefully this post will come up if people get a similar email and wonder if it’s a scam or not.

Emails like this are a scam 100% of the time. Let’s start with my first email from “Josh”:

Good Morning, My name is Josh Johnson, I’m hearing impaired, I wanna know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards ?? kindly get back to me ASAP so i can send you the job details.

Word-for-word scam. I didn’t think he’d write back, but I went for it and he did! Over the course of a few days, here’s how the scam unfolded (my words in bold, Josh in italics).

Sure! What do you have going on?

—–

Thanks for your swift response

Here is the job details

i have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in GA and the company  is based on importing and exporting of Office Equipment  such as Printer , Scanners,Laminating Machines and Dictation Machinesso i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than thisif its possible .govliquidation.com..  . the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate. And i will need you to understand that i wont be able to pay with Paypal and Square ,my account was compromised with those two merchants and my money got stolen ..
I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you tocheck excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as
mayannaofficeequipment.com
4. you will be updating the site for me.
5. i will be proving the images, logos and content for the site.
6. i want the site up and running before ending of next month.
7. My budget is $4000 to $8000

If this was a real request for a proposal, we’d have a lot more questions. In the interest of stringing him along, but still sounding interested, I kept it pretty simple:

That site you sent (govliquidation.com) has a LOT of pages on it. Will you be wanting that many pages on your site? Will you be writing them all?

Your budget and timeline are tight, but we might be able to make it happen.

—–

Yes,so can i have the total estimate now

Of course not (we need to know much more), but let’s go with it. I know his “budget”, so I’ll pick a number near the high end of it:

Cool. If you can do all of that, the total would be $6800.

—–

Thanks for your response, i am okay with the estimate and i wanna proceed so i will be depositing $3000 using credit card so work can commence ASAP,i understand the content for this site would be needed as for the job to commence so regarding the content i will need a little favor from you.

Wow, that was the easiest sale ever! However, here comes the “favor” he’ll need. I wonder what it might be…

What kind of favor will you need?

—–

The reason i need this favor from you is because the consultant does not have the facility to charge credit cards and i also am presently in the hospital for surgery so i will be glad if you can help me out with this favor,The favor i need from you is.I would give you my card info’s to charge for $7000,so $3000 would be a deposit payment for my website design and the remaining $4000 you would help me send it to the project consultant that has the text content and the logo for my website so once he has the $4000 he would send the text content and logo needed for my website to you also the funds would be sent to him via cash deposit into his account, sending of funds would be after funds clears into your account ,So i will be looking forward to read back from you.

This is the core of the scam. The scammer typically has a stolen credit card. They’ll send me the $7000, then I’ll send off the $4000 to the “project consultant”. Not long after, the charge will be disputed and I’ll lose the $7000, but I’ll be out the $4000 that I sent.

So I played dumb. Why not just set up the consultant with a way to accept the payment directly from Josh?

No worries. I can help him set up a Stripe account so he can take the payment directly. What’s his email address?

—–

Good morning,he only accept cash so can i have the grand total cost together now.

Ahh, cash only. It won’t really be cash, but a form of payment that I can never get back. Josh initially said he was in Georgia (like us), so I’ll play like I need to meet the guy to give him the cash.

Does he live in Georgia? Where?

I need to know if he’ll be coming to me to get the cash, or if I need to drive somewhere to meet him.

The total to start will be $7000.

—–

No,he lived in New York,you charge my credit card thru and wait till funds cleared into your bank account,you will send him the funds too him via CASH DEPOSIT.Are you ready for my card info

Also,can i have your cell phone number now

—–

That’s weird. Why can’t you just CASH DEPOSIT directly to him?

That scared Josh off, and he disappeared for a day. I had to get him back:

Josh – Just checking in again. Is there any way to deposit to him, or does it need to go through us?

—–

It`s greatly appreciated if you can handle everything for me. Much as i would have really loved to speak with you directly, i can`t for now as am in the hospital undergoing tests for my forthcoming surgeries that will be coming up in the next few days to correct my hearing problem and replace my knee cap just as i informed you in my previous text,so i want you too handle everything for me.

His hospital visit sounds serious. Needs to fix his hearing problem and a kneecap…

Yes,you get funds send too me via Cash Deposit or Wire Transfer so what is the name of your credit card processor or the name of you credit card merchant (Clover or FirstData),what is the name..

—–

Clover.

Do you need my password?

What hospital are you in? In Atlanta somewhere?

We usually use Stripe, but Clover sounds good. I also offered to send him my password, just to see what he’d say. He ignored it.

Okay,am in intensive care and are you ready for my info too charge it for $7000 now and how many days will the funds will be available in your bank account if you charge my card thru now.

Related: How to get obtaining long term disability benefits with Ortiz Law Firm?—–

They’re letting you use a computer while you’re in intensive care?

He eventually responded and wanted to move the conversation to text message. I went there with him, and we traded text messages for a while. He ultimately gave me two different credit card numbers to try (after I told him the first was declined) and we eventually admitted we knew what was up.

As he mentioned early on, he wanted to use mayannaofficeequipment.com. So, we purchased that domain and it redirects back to this very post!

Here’s a screenshot of our full text conversation if you’d like to see it.

This scam often appears word-for-word as you saw in the initial email, but can vary from time to time. The hearing impaired angle is likely a two-fold approach; partly to gain some sympathy, but also so they can avoid talking on the phone.

If you ever feel like something seems suspicious (or too good to be true), it probably is. A quick Google search will typically reveal that it is within seconds.

Has anyone ever tried to pull a scam like this on you?