ON COMPUTERS

When tracking fitness, 'misfit' orb is hard to beat

A little fitness tracker, about the size of a thick quarter, arrived in a package that looked like a spaceship.

It was somebody's really clever idea, and what we've noticed over the years is that people who make these clever packages have never tried to open them.

After only a half hour's work, we were able to open the $100 spaceship package and inside we discovered an orb. Very fitting. The orb was labeled "Misfit Shine," a name that might put someone off at first. But we're dogged.

There were almost no instructions, but we finally figured out it was something you wear on a wristband, a necklace or in a sock. The tell-tale clue was the fact that there was a pair of socks in the box. From there we were hot.

The Misfit Shine tracks walking, biking, swimming and sleeping. This is a crucial difference from most other fitness trackers: Very few register biking or swimming. And as for sleep, the long struggle to open the box left us exhausted, and we hit the sack early. Joy's sleep pattern was 62 percent "deep sleep," according to the gadget enhanced socks; 25 percent is average. (Earth to Joy: Wake up, Joy.)

Although instructions said the Shine disc works with an app in the iTunes App Store, we couldn't find it when we went there. When we Googled it, a link took us straight to the app. (This has been a problem with other apps as well -- when they don't show up in the App Store, they can be Googled.) You don't have to carry your iPhone or iPad with you; you only need one of those when you want to check your progress.

Set a fitness goal, and you'll see a trophy image on your chart when you reach it. It was nice to get credit for our biking and swimming, something our regular pedometer doesn't track. Joy ignored the fact that it didn't count yoga or weight lifting.

One tiny annoyance: Bluetooth has to be turned on for your iPhone or iPad to collect the data from the little Shine disc in your sock, or wherever you'd placed it. All worked well with our iPad Mini, but the device was not compatible with our Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S3. In October, Apple is coming out with a new fitness watch, and Withings has one that also tracks your pulse, but the Shine is hard to beat.

Internuts

• Blog.Petflow.com has some of the most remarkable videos we've seen. We especially liked the Ukrainian artist using black sand for finger painting; you can find it by Googling "She walked out on stage and blew everyone-away." In another, a fat man gets on the dance floor with his partner and moves as well as anything we've seen on Dancing with the Stars.

• Bing.com/gallery has magnificent photos. The world's greatest monuments and nature's wonders are breathtaking and there is a new one every day, going back to 2009. If you want a new one to show up on your computer screen every day, search on the phrase "Bing Desktop." It's a free download.

• YourHealthInsuranceCompanySucksWhen.org has complaints about insurance companies and invites you to share yours. One guy's policy was canceled after 12 years because he missed a payment when the premium doubled.

• Webutation.info tells you whether you can trust a website. Joy went to see if nutritionfacts.org was legit. Turns out it is.

• "What are common activities people get wrong every day?" Put that phrase into Google or your favorite search engine and you'll get a list of videos from our favorite question and answer site, Quora.com. For instance, to crack an egg without bits of shell clinging to it, rap the egg on the counter once, then pull it apart. (Bob tried this, and it didn't work.) Most of the tips are food-oriented.

Printer Friendly

Many websites have a "printer friendly" option, to allow the printing of an article without all the ads. But say you want to capture the home page of the website, not an individual piece? Then it's best to use the free app PrintFriendly.

Go to PrintFriendly.com and type in the website address you're interested in. We typed HuffingtonPost.com. What came up next was the site without ads and other extraneous stuff, and an option to print it, save it as a PDF or email it. The PDF and email options keeps all links clickable. This might be a good way to save a page on Yahoo, AOL or any news site with more than one interesting story. Otherwise, you return to the site tomorrow and everything you thought you saved has changed.

Gmail Tips and Tricks

Google the phrase "Gmail Cheat Sheet" and you'll get a handy chart full of keyboard shortcuts for common Gmail commands.

We were already using "r" for reply and "c" to compose a new message, but we discovered a lot more. For instance, type the forward slash "/" (without the quotes) to put your cursor right in the search box, which is faster that moving there with your mouse.

Bob and Joy can be contacted by email at [email protected] and [email protected].

SundayMonday Business on 06/23/2014

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