My Tech Segment

Cerberus to take a photo of me while I was recording the tech segment

 As the week winds down a bit I have time between shows to reflect on the last several days.  I've been working on a tech segment that airs every Tuesday and Thursday on the morning show.  The station wanted me to be the resident tech expert.  To their credit, I usually am pretty current on tech tools, trends and software.  This segment gives me the opportunity to stay current on all of it too.  Actually, I've been using a news aggregator called pulse.  Its for android, apple and web. Its for everything.  Check it out here.  www.pulse.me
I use it to see the latest news, science, tech and other stuff.  Its really cool and syncs across all your devices.  AND I can save articles in Evernote to read later.

One of the stories I did last week was on a new piece of software that I discovered that honestly makes me so happy now as an Android user.  I have always been jealous of the Apple, "Find my iPhone" feature.  You can find it when its lost or stolen, delete everything on it for security purposes.  I found an app, called Cerberus, that will do all that and more from the web to your android smartphone.  I gave it a whirl for free for a week and then decided to buy it...why?  Because I can take pictures, video, and audio in addition to seeing the call log, sms log and location history.  Pretty cool right?!  And!! It has a feature that if your SIM card is removed and replaced with another SIM card it will alert you and authorize the software to be used with the new SIM card so you can find where your phone is and who has it. I'm not irresponsible when it comes to my devices...I'm likely NOT going to lose my phone or have it stolen...its ALWAYS with me or within view, BUT having this software on it makes it really nice that I can use it.  I'm excited.

Scored some IFTTT socks. Only a nerd would be happy

 Continuing my nerd-dom...I was wearing my IFTTT socks the other day at work.  IFTTTstands for IF This Than That.  Which is a simple programming web site.  If you have things you like to automate...it helps!  You might see a few things posted to my professional facebook page from IFTTT and those are usually things that are important or useful on a daily basis. It actually turns the light on in my apartment when the sun sets...more on that in upcoming tech segments.

Rudder at 7 years old

Rudder is coming up on 7 years old this year!  Which means I am getting closer to being on TV for 8 years!  I got Rudder when I was living in Jackson, TN, my first job in television.  She was born in August of 2006 and I brought her home in September.  She has grown A LOT!

Rudder at a few weeks old.

The herb garden is coming along!

The herbs in my herb garden are growing along nicely!  The chives aren't growing as well as I would like, but everything else is growing slowly but surely.  Such a change for me to have plants outside and planted before Mother's Day!  Growing up on Long Island that was our cut off for cold and killing cold weather.  Yeah...I know!  We would grow them from seeds around this time and watch them grow and grow in our sunroom, a South facing room that would get sunshine from sunrise to sunset.  It was the perfect little greenhouse.  Now I have the South Louisiana to keep the plants warm for me.

Even with the cold front that just came through this morning, thankfully I will be able to keep the herbs outside!  Whew!  Bringing them in and out is a pain!  Its pretty darn heavy!  

Just before the front came through my complex this morning.

I'm looking forward to the end of tonight.  Tomorrow Facebook Home comes to the Play store and I am eager to give it a try.  I'm not sure I'll keep it but it seems like it could be an interesting addition to my phone...which is getting a little old.  The first dual core phone 2 years ago and its closing in on its lifetime.  The stuff I CAN do with it is starting to be the stuff I CAN'T do with it because I'm making it do too much. Ugh.  That's the central caveat of all the technology I get.  It quickly lags behind the abilities I think it should do.  I can't be the only one who runs into this problem...can I?