On Computers

Smart TV or Roku stick? Both have their advantages

A friend of ours is thinking of getting a smart TV. We asked her: Isn't your TV already smart?

A smart TV is one that can connect to the Internet, which our friend's can. Perhaps she is thinking of a super smart TV, the kind with voice control. These days, many Samsung and LG TVs have microphones built into their remotes. The LG ThinQ TV lets you use either the Alexa or Google Home devices for voice control. Ask for games, the weather, some scenery to jog into, or your favorite photos from Budapest; ask for a sports score without interrupting the movie your daughter is watching, and it will be displayed along the bottom of the screen.

What about movies and instructional videos? According to TomsGuide.com the Roku stick or Roku player has more channels for video and music than any smart TV on the market. We have the $30 Roku Express, the cheapest version. Besides Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Vimeo, it has some obscure stuff, like Free to Choose TV. Many cable channels, like the History Channel, Lifetime, and HBO, are available for a monthly fee ranging from $3 to $15. If you only want a couple of channels, that's far cheaper than cable TV.

The only drawback of the cheapest Roku stick is there's no tech support. For a while it couldn't find our Internet connection, which was annoying, but Bob gave it a stern talking-to and that straightened things out. We also use Google Chromecast and the Amazon Fire Stick. All seem equally good, but Roku has the largest lineup of channels. Some of these can't be had from cable companies. Joy recently discovered they have some recent movies for free in the Roku Channel.

Bottom line: If you need to buy a new TV anyway, might as well go for a smart one. The dumb ones are no longer for sale. If you don't need one, buy a stick.

WINDOWS ON A CHROMEBOOK

A reader with a Google Chromebook, a kind of laptop that runs Google's own operating system, says it would be perfect if it also ran Windows programs. If you're knowledgeable, you can probably do it.

Try Codeweavers' Crossover on Chromebook. This is a free program still in the testing phase. However, you can download it and it claims to let you install any of 15,302 Windows programs, without having to install Windows itself. It didn't work for us, but it didn't interfere with anything either.

We tried installing Microsoft Office 2010, and it looked like it installed, after jumping through a lot of hoops, including copying the setup file from a CD to a thumb drive to the downloads folder of our Chromebook. But it wouldn't launch. The same was true of Steam, from SteamPowered.com, a popular program for running games. Failure to launch.

This was all for experimentation. We find we don't need Windows programs on our Chromebook. Sure, they're comfortable and familiar, and we use Windows computers more than we do our $193 Chromebook from Acer. But there are so many free versions of the apps we use most that we just trundle on.

YOUR NAME HERE

A reader said he is a bit annoyed with Google policies and is thinking of getting out of Gmail. OK, it's easy to set up a Yahoo, AOL or some other account instead. But what about sending email with your own name, such as [email protected]?

If you have your own website, an email address may come with it. We looked at Wix.com, one of the leading, easy-to-use website builders. A Wix website is free but they charge $4 a month for an associated email account, which will have "wixsite" in the name -- unless you pay extra to get your own special address. GoDaddy.com gives you a personalized email address for $2 a month. You don't need to make a website, and you get spam filtering, anti-virus protection and five gigabytes of email storage.

INTERNUTS

Patch.com brings you short pieces of local news, including video. It began in 2007, was bought by AOL in 2009, and is back with the original owners. They turned their first profit in 2016 and have 23 million users, according to The Wall Street Journal.

SkinCancer.org, the home of the Skin Cancer Foundation, lists the best hats, the best sunblocks, the best sunglasses and so on.

"Supercut of 300 dancing scenes." Google that phrase to find a seven-minute video clip. The downside is you see only two or three seconds worth of some of the best dances. Don't blink.

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

Business on 06/30/2018

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