• fast and free shipping
• tons of real reviews (with images and video)
• easy returns (2 month return policy)
• decent protection plans (if needed)
• payment options – like Affirm

It may feel weird to buy a computer through Amazon because it’s such a big ticket item, but I actually felt better about it than the ones we bought from Costco over the years.  And even though some of the reviews on Amazon aren’t exactly genuine, when I see the questions and reviews for gaming computers I can actually see people ask “does it run this or that game”, or “will I have problems with ABC monitor” and get a good picture if it will work for us or not.

I think that one of the biggest benefits to purchasing a gaming computer on Amazon is the fact that you can get a professionally built generic PC computer made for playing games with Windows installed and without all of the bloatware you would get on an HP, Dell, Lenovo, MSI, Asus, Alienware, or the in house Wal-Mart brand Overpowered.  Those brands are paid to load in software like McAfee or Norton, and all kinds of other software you may or may not want.  They are pre-configured with certain apps, settings and default startup programs, as well as manufacturer help and assistance programs and files they deem necessary.  Those companies get paid to add all of those things to the computer (so they will never stop adding them).  All of those things make the “store bought” computer run slower.  The benefits of buying a generic brand computer is that they make money solely on the sale of the computer.  They’re going to install windows and that’s it!  It’s ready to go and fast as it can be out of the box.

There are many brands of computers you can buy on Amazon – in fact you can get many of the store bought brands I’ve already mentioned on there.  But what you will also find is that there are a LOT of generic options as well, built professionally with quality parts.  The option that we went for (and I recommend you checkout) is the Skytech Archangel Gaming Computer on Amazon.  You’ll find that you can configure that computer with just about any option you want from budget to very high end, and you can easily get it with monthly Affirm payments too.  Check it out!

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Hard boiled eggs assumes boiling – which means are you cooking them on the stove, or in the microwave? Also, what about the water? Before you boil do you start with cold or hot water? And do you add the eggs and the water at once – boiling them together, or do you only add the eggs once the water is already boiling? And how long do you cook them? 10, 15, or even 30 minutes? I’ve even seen arguments about whether or not to place them in cool water after boiling, or just leave them on the stove for another 15 minutes to cool after cooking. I even read one article about how you should let them stand in the hot water 15 minutes, and then plunge them in an ice bath for 15 minutes after that. All of this just to get a hard boiled egg that you can peel without the whole egg falling apart in your hands? I won’t even go into all the different ways we tried to microwave the perfect hard boiled egg.

There seems to be as many arguments and ways to hard boil an egg as there are discussions about which way the toilet paper should come off the roll (over or under). I JUST WANT A GOOD HARD BOILED EGG!

One day I happened to see an article about a dozen things on Amazon you didn’t know you could live without. Sorry – I don’t remember the page or website (or I would provide it). About halfway down was thing thing called an egg cooker. I thought – what the heck is that, and why would you need it? Upon further inspection I found it had a couple thousand almost 5-star reviews. When I read them people gushed about this little device making the best hard boiled eggs they had ever had. Most said they didn’t know that hard boiled eggs could even taste that good. I showed my wife, and she didn’t seem that impressed – but said for $15 why not just get one and see.

This is what we ordered (click here for the Amazon link or the picture below:

When our new Dash egg cooker arrived I couldn’t believe how small it was. It’s maybe 5 inches across, and 5 inches high. But you can cook a half dozen hard boiled eggs at once. After reading the instructions, I couldn’t believe how dead simple this thing was. It comes with a little measuring cup for water. One line is for hard boiled eggs, another for poached or omelet. Pour the water in the bottom of the cooker. On the bottom of the measuring cup there is a pointy needle. Use this to gently (and barely) puncture the bottom of each raw egg. Then place the 6 eggs on the cooker insert. Put the top on and push the on button and that’s it!

I think that the Dash company was smart because when I bought this contraption, no where in the title or description did it say it was a steamer. And yet, once I turned it on and watched it go to work, that’s exactly what it was! I never thought to steam eggs before. The lid of the cooker has a tiny hole about 1/8″. The hot plate of the cooker heats the water up to boiling, and the eggs get steamed for 6 or 7 minutes (until the water boils off). Once the water boils off and the temperature begins to rise dramatically in the cooker, a high pitched alarm goes off. It continues to go off until you physically turn the on/off button off.

What we do at this point is take the eggs out of the cooker (carefully – they are literally steaming hot) and put them in a bowl of cold water. We usually leave the cold water run on that bowl in the sink, and take the eggs out one by one to gently crack and peel them. One thing we instantly realized was that the eggs peel near perfectly – each and every time! Amazing.

This, however, did not prepare us for what the eggs would taste like.

FLUFFY HARD BOILED EGGS?

Whenever we explain to anyone what the egg cooker is I usually say two things. The first is – let me make you some eggs. The second is, once I do and you eat one – you will experience the fluffiest hard boiled eggs you have ever eaten in your life. I guess it would be more proper to say I’m going to make you a steamed egg, but that sounds weird. The eggs are light, airy, and just have this quality I can only describe as “fluffy”. Which leads me to believe that I had been eating over cooked hard boiled eggs my ENTIRE life! The Dash Egg cooker is the weirdest little kitchen gadget I never knew I needed (until I had it). You’d better get one for yourself today! Seriously, it’s only $15 – and apparently they now come in all kinds of colors.

Also – apparently they are so popular that now you can get a double decker egg cooker

Now that we have this nifty device, I see that they even make a double decker egg cooker (if you need to cook nearly a dozen at once).

The post The Hard Boiled Egg Cooker is Magic appeared first on The Smorgasbord.

Now that I’ve had the phone almost two years I think I can seriously comment on how to increase and save battery life in both the edge S6 and S7 – ALL the time. When I bought the Galaxy S6 Edge I knew the battery life would be less than the standard S6 because the battery is smaller (because of the case bevels). So you take about a 20% hit right there. But when I got it new it was chewing up battery like wild fire. So much that I could go from 100 down to 20% in 60-90 minutes easily when it was in my hand. The thing that really got me was that it would lose as much as 20% battery per hour, even when I wasn’t using it at all! Just in my pocket or on the desk. It was so bad, I called Samsung within a week of buying it (and they only reset the phone, which was no help at all).

App Usage

If your phone is chewing up battery left and right the first culprit anyone in support looks at is app usage. While it’s true that the more apps you have installed (especially social), the faster your battery will die – a new feature of Android makes this a little irrelevant. In the latest update my phone received there’s a notification I get every now and then that shows all the apps and says anything that hadn’t sent me a notification for 3 days will have notifications turned off. This is great for apps you don’t use all that often that want to “spam” you into opening them back up again (*Amazon* cough, cough). My point in this section is mainly – the apps you have installed don’t make a whole lot of difference, it’s how they’re setup. However, delete and remove all the ones you don’t need and don’t use. If you don’t really use Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine – delete the ones you don’t use. That’s a good opener.

Notifications

Anytime I advise anyone on battery usage for any Android phone – I send them to “notifications” under settings. Literally everything you have installed is setup to notify you – and it’s just not necessary. The first thing I turn notifications off is every single game I’ve installed. What game is so important that you need to be notified that you “need to come back”?

I certainly don’t mind notifications from “alarm clock”, but I don’t ever need them from “goat simulator”, lol. Personally what I do is turn off notifications for absolutely everything except phone, messages, and messenger. I don’t need to see notifications from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest – or anything else until I personally open those apps up. This change alone not only saves a significant amount of battery life – it saves you from getting sucked into the vortex of being controlled by your phone every second of the day. It puts you back in charge of opening your phone when you want to – on your terms.

Syncing

Your Android phone is constantly trying to “sync” all the accounts you have. Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, other work or personal email, and your Samsung account. I personally do not need Facebook, Twitter, or Samsung to “sync” all the time – those things can wait until I open the app. The only thing I tolerate is Gmail, because I like to know when email comes in.

In regards to the Samsung account, Samsung makes great phones – but I have no need to have an “account” with them. My contacts are stored with Google, and I don’t use any Samsung apps or games that need any syncing.

Go to “Settings – > Accounts” and then click on the various accounts that apply to you, and set them to sync (or not).

Conclusion

You Galaxy Edge phone is shipped to you from the factory be default with settings to bug and pester you. These settings were likely advocated by the app manufacturers. The latest system updates for the Galaxy edge do provide longer battery life, but updating the settings mentioned above for notifications and syncing will save more battery life than anything else you can do. This is mainly because when you’re not using your phone it’s constantly checking in with various services to see if there’s anything to notify you about – and you can stop that dead in its tracks.

The post How to Improve Galaxy Edge Battery Life appeared first on The Smorgasbord.

FormBox is a new kickstarter campaign, so you can’t exactly go out and buy this thing today. However, with over half it’s goal and 22 days left to fund (currently), I’m pretty certain this is a safe bet. The project team has worked on multiple successful kickstarter and invention campaigns before.

I’ve been watching 3D printers for a number of years, and for most people the main barriers have been cost and complexity (to understand and use). At least for the average person. Only in the last year have 3D printers become available in the big box stores – like Lowes and Home Depot, but they are still $1,000 and up. With this Kickstarter the lowest price to obtain a FormBox unit is $349. I’d say this is pretty affordable to start making and manufacturing your own items at home.

Why the FormBox is revolutionary (and you should watch what happens with it)

Pay attention to the part of the Kickstarter where they talk about this project funding the next items they plan to put out as part of what they call they “desktop factory”. Imagine a little legion of affordable machines that will allow crafty and creative people to create their own prototypes and designs from home.

I have long said that everything in life and the world operates in some sort of cycle. Hundreds of years ago every person had some type of singular talent by which they derived their livelihood. Everyone knew the butcher, the baker, the banker, the blacksmith, the typesetter. A hundred years later many of the singular skills from main street USA were eaten up and diluted by the industrial revolution. A hundred years after that (today), those industrial jobs have disappeared by 80% or more and the original skills people had have been mostly lost over multiple generations.

What I’ve been witnessing are lots of displaced workers who are left to obtain new skills in service related fields like medical, sales, retail, and tech. I have also seen lots of people try and augment their income either by some type of freelance work for hire, or by creating something (arts, crafts, woodworking, etc.). What we are missing are people that are interested in, and have skills in science and engineering.

My hope is that people will get devices like this in their hands, and use them to create things for themselves and others, building their creative skills and inspiring the children in the homes in and around them. I hope that they enable people to become “makers”, and inspire the young to create and make their own items (which will hopefully inspire them to creative or engineering backgrounds).

The post FormBox – Better than a 3D printer? appeared first on The Smorgasbord.

If you liked those, Goodyear’s new concept of spherical tires will really blow your mind. They basically created a rubber ball with tread on it. You may ask yourself, how exactly do you connect something like that to the car? You don’t. The car levitates above the tire by magnetism.

Because of the fact that the tires are now 4 spheres, the car has the ability to turn at literally any angle without actually turning the car. Imagine parallel parking just by moving directly to the left or right! I imagine much like any technology there are a ton of bugs to get worked out. In my mind I can see this doing away with things like traditional things like rack and pinion, tie rods, normal shocks and struts, and more. It computerizes most of the steering, not to mention the way that the drive train and transmission works would have to be completely redeveloped.

Maybe 8 years from now we’ll be still talking about it (with no real world usage). But for now we can dream. Here’s the Goodyear demo video of how spherical tires might work:

The post Spherical Tires appeared first on The Smorgasbord.

I’d been thinking about this for some time, and the floating shelf concept was one I had in the back of my head, but hadn’t seen anything even remotely like what I wanted at the store. I took 5 minutes to search Amazon today – and lo and behold they have exactly what I need!

This set of floating shelves was barely over $50, much cheaper than anything else I saw, it’s quality and can hold heavy weights like a big audio video receiver, they are stylish, come in three colors, and very functional! It’s exactly what I wanted and they are on order now! Most of us don’t have entertainment centers anymore, it’s usually some kind of TV stand (that holds less). Or maybe your TV is now wall mounted, and you have nowhere to put your Xbox, Playstation, WiiU, or surround sound receiver?

This works perfectly:

Here’s a slighter cheaper alternative version of black floating shelves:

Finally we really liked this version (got it for our basement) because it’s wall mounted, appears “floating”, but it also has room on top for a sound bar. This is really cool, and it was surprising how affordable it was:

[EASYBAY]floating shelves[/EASYBAY]

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There are all kinds of cheap online gadget stores selling sketchy merchandise from China and other foreign lands. You never know what you’re going to get, or how long it’s going to take to get it. An HD camera is a little bit different from a phone case for $10. It has to be durable, easy to use and configure, and take good video.

I have been watching the Xiaomi company for some time. For last few years at least. Who is Xiaomi you ask? They are a Chinese electronics company, in fact you might call them the Apple of China. A few years back, within a single year, they became the #1 phone company in China (overtaking Apple). In fact they have their own hardcore cult base of fans (just like Apple). The clincher is – their products cost about half of what Apple’s do. A lot of tech blogs were talking about Xiaomi last year.

Xiaomi has been trying to expand into a lifestyle brand, and they not only sell iPad alternatives as well as phones, they also sell fitness bands and other products. Including headphones, a fitness band, an air purifier, portable chargers, and even flat screen TV’s with their built-in alternative to Apple TV. What else do they sell? A GoPro alternative called the “Yi”.

This is what the Xiaomi Yi looks like. There are two versions, white, and blue/green. I chose to show the blue/green because this is the one we purchased. It cost about $80 (free shipping with Prime – woot!).

So when I first found the Yi the first thing that impressed me was the price. It was under $100. I could feel way more comfortable about giving this to my 9 year old to fool around with. Next I checked the specs. It was 1080p and H.264, and had a wide angle lens and noise reduction. It had bluetooth with remote control via an app, as well as wifi connectivity. I really didn’t expect a camera this cheap to have all of those features. Next I perused the reviews, and it had nearly 4.5 stars on Amazon from hundreds of people. They say that the GoPro model with competing features is almost 2-3 times as much (meaning this has more than their entry level model).

Suffice to say we decided to order the camera. It had nice packaging no English instructions, but that really wasn’t a problem (for us). My son installed the Yi camera app on his Android tablet. It showed in seconds how to hold down the wifi button on the side to connect to the app as a remote control. He initially got great delight in running around the house with the camera as we watched the video on his tablet from the couch. We also figured out that the camera has both a video and camera mode with the simple press of a button. He liked the fact that he could just walk around the house snapping pictures as well.

So about what we didn’t know. We didn’t think about the fact that it had an micro SD card slot and no onboard storage. So we had to run to the store and get one because he wanted to use it that day (which was way more expensive than Amazon). We also didn’t think about the fact that to edit the video, he would have to take the microSD card out of the camera and connect it to the computer to download the video. The first time he did this, he jammed the micro SD card into the SD card slot of my computer (frying the card and wasting $20 instantly). I’m just letting you know so you can prepare in advance, it has nothing to do with the quality of the camera itself (which has been great).

So would we recommend the Xiami Yi as a cheap GoPro alternative? Yes we would, especially at this pricepoint. You purchase one here.

We would also recommend that you get a camera accessories pack like we did. I wasn’t sure how this would work out at first, but we purchased the Oumers 16 and 1 Xiaomi Yi Camera Accessories Kit. For $23 this thing had it all. You get a selfie stick, handlebar mounts, head mounts, chest mount, wrist mount, dashboard mount – you name it! Now my son can mount the camera or use it practically anywhere, which makes it 100x more usable.

The last thing I would recommend is getting your micro SD card on Amazon as well. You can get a 16GB micro SD Kingston card right now for like $5. We paid $21.99 for the same damn thing at CVS because we had to have it that day. I so wish we would’ve had some lying around the house.

Last, you might want to check out this YouTube video. It helps you get started in just about 5 minutes.

If you end up getting a Yi – let us know, we’d like to see your video!

The post Where to Find A Cheap GoPro appeared first on The Smorgasbord.

How to Choose a Wall Mount

There used to be but one affordable wall mount solution – the standard flush mount (which you can still buy today). However, now you can affordably purchase a wide variety of wall mounts. Last year we purchased a standard wall mount on a black Friday sale at Wal-Mart for $29.99. The same wall mount sells at Meijer’s for about $70. Most of the big box stores have something similar for $50 – $99. This is insane. You can get a high quality wall mount from $13-$32 on Amazon delivered to your home in 2 days with free shipping (with Prime).

Here’s a basic flat screen TV wall mount for 20-55″ screens that is a flush mount. It is not only the cheapest quality TV mount you can buy, but it also comes with a free HDMI cable and a level. I trust Cheetah mounts because they are quality and have sold tens of thousands on Amazon (and they have a lifetime guarantee). I have never seen a quality mount in a retail store for this price, let alone one with an HDMI cable and level in the box.

So mounting your TV directly flush against the wall can look really great, but it can be a real pain in the butt if you ever need to plug something into one of the inputs on the back. Some TV’s had side mounts which make it easier, but a lot of the big ones have then on the back side. We have a 60″ Samsung LED Smart TV which has the mounts on the back. If we need to plugin a hard drive, or HDMI device it takes two of us to take the TV down, and then put it back up. Also the last time we had to do this I noticed that the main HDMI input cable is being bent, because our flush mount is pressing it right up against the wall. What to do?

If you have this issue what you need are some 90 degree HDMI cable adapters. Just plug them into the input, and plug your cable into them – problem solved. I was really happy when I found out you could get a pack of 4 for just $7.

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There are also all kinds of right angle and 90 degree USB adapters available as well – in case you need to hookup a cable for that 5TB hard drive, or even to make it easier to use a USB memory stick, Roku, or Chromecast.

So since wall mounts are your basic mount, what are your other options? We also have a TV mounted in our bedroom wall. We watch this one from the bed. If you want to do this what you are looking for is a TV that has about 15 degrees of tilt – to make it easier to watch while lying down. If you want to the ability to move the TV to a left or right viewing angle (to say watch the living room TV from the kitchen or another room), then what you need is a wall mount with an articulating arm. Thankfully enough – Cheetah sells wall mounts for each of these scenarios for $26 and $32 respectively

How to Cover the Wires for a Wall Mounted TV

So if you’ve successfully mounted your flat screen, LED, or plasma TV to the wall the next question naturally becomes “how do I cover the wires”? There are all kinds of solutions – I think I’ve seen it all because I did all kinds of searches to see what I could find. If your doing something similar you may or may not find the same things depending on what search words you use. I was using things like cord shield, cord cover, cable cover, cord coverup, wire covers, and all kinds of other things. It looks like “cord cover for wall mounted TV” might get you the most relevant results.

So – after all that searching (and buying multiple solutions), we found one particular cord cover that really stands out. It’s made by a company called Electriduct, and these are really commercial level quality products that should last for years and years. They make cable covers in various sizes and colors to match just about anything you have, including ones that are metal and wood patterns. They are also available in various widths. Find the size and color cord cover that works best for you here.

Once you have your TV mounted and cords all tidied up – you might want to also Learn How to Stream Anything Free with KODI, we really like the new Android TV streaming solutions that are now available!

The post How to Wall Mount a TV appeared first on The Smorgasbord.

However, there is something new that’s getting a lot of mainstream attention. There is a gaggle of people who still download things from the Internet to watch. It used to be just movies, but people are also downloading TV shows as well. Yesterday I saw a list of the most pirated shows of 2015 and Big Bang Theory was #2 (and you can watch it on regular broadcast TV for free!). There’s free open source software called KODI which anyone can download and install to create a home theatre PC. A few years back this only would have been possible on a nearly full blown computer. However, phones and tablets are so powerful now – the processors inside them are comparable to what were previously available only in larger computers just a few years back. That’s why Intel announced it’s PC USB stick this year with Windows 10 pre-loaded for just a little over a hundred bucks.

Since KODI is a free OS you can easily download it and install on a wide range of devices yourself. Just type “How to install KODI” and Google auto-complete will show you some examples of what people are already doing:

While setting up KODI on your own might be easy for a techie, electronics manufacturers are taking advantage of the opportunity to make this easier for the average person. There are dozens and dozens of “KODI boxes” for sale on Amazon for you to choose from. First you may be asking “what does this give me over a Chromecast, Roku, or Firestick?”

How KODI Works

Even though KODI itself is an operating system for PC’s, when you buy a “KODI box” you are purchasing essentially an Android TV streaming media box. This is also probably the best way to explain it to other people when asked. KODI used to be called XMBC (Xbox Media Center). Presumably because it was well liked among gamers, and also because it (I believe) was initially designed as an alternative Linux OS you could install on the original Xbox 1.0 console years back. KODI is free and legal as an OS itself. But much like your phone that has apps, KODI has “add-ons” that can be installed for free. Some are legal, some are sketchy.

People like KODI because it gives you access to content for free that your normally might not even have access to. Outside the normal Neflixy type apps, many cord cutters watch “TV” directly from websites like YouTube, College Humour, Crackle, etc. The advantage of a KODI box is you can install add-ons centered around the communities and content you like best from a single easy to use interface. You can watch content from all over the globe in nearly any language or region, much of it as it happens in live streams. You will literally have the ability to program your KODI box to be whatever you want your cable to be.

If you get a KODI box, you could for example install the “Super Repository” to gain access to easy installation of as many add-ons as possible:

Purchasing a KODI Box

If you start to search for a KODI box to purchase you might be overwhelmed by all of the different options and prices. I would make a few recommendations:

• Get a package that includes a remote: We will show show examples below with remotes, you really need one to take full advantage of the system
• Get enough processing power: If an extra $10-$20 doubles your processing or video power don’t scrimp. You’ll likely be using this device a lot, get something quad core or better
• Video counts too: Looking toward the future you might want to get one that’s 4K UHD right now so you don’t have to buy again when you get a better TV
• Be conscious of storage limits: Either make sure your device has enough internal storage for your future use or note how expandable it is. With a KODI box you can watch TV online, but you can also utilize any media you have of your own (pictures, music, video). So be aware of how much you might need, or at least the limits of the available ports. Some might only allow 32-64GB SD cards, and others might have a USB 3.0 port you can attach a 5TB hard drive to.
• Get the latest version of Android: Don’t buy a KODI box with an older version of Android – you might miss out on the latest features! As of this writing you want at least Android 5.x, but certainly don’t buy a KODI box with any of the Android 4.x flavors (which are severely outdated)

Here’s a KODI box you can get for $75, that has Android Lollipop 5.1, 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage. It has all the ports to expand and add via SD and/or USB. The box is only $60 when you consider that the included keyboard cost $15 by itself. It’s capable of video display up to UHD 4K, and has a quad core CPU.

Here’s an Octacore KODI box for just $80, but again – you can get a killer keyboard for just $15.

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I’ve given you just a few examples. There are literally hundreds of KODI boxes for sale on Amazon. I’ve also given you most of the criteria to look for (be sure to get gigabit LAN too), but reading the reviews will help a lot as well.

Good luck cutting your cable cord!

The post Stream Anything Free – Cut Cable with KODI appeared first on The Smorgasbord.

I have made the late night run to Wal-Mart to get the classic Apple charging cable for my wife – and it usually amounts to paying $20 for a single cord (or more). I have also learned over time that paying the higher amount to get the Belkin cable is almost always a better idea. It was after this one time that I decided to get on Amazon and buy a backup charging cord. I found an awesome deal that included not one but 5 different Apple charging cables in various colors for around $12.99. This seemed more than awesome, until we found they lasted only about 4-6 weeks. Sometimes when you buy something on Amazon “off the boat”, the savings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Recently I had to order yet another Apple lightning cable, and again (as if I hadn’t learned my lesson) I wanted to find the cheapest one available. When I did the search I was surprised to find that they had one available in the “Amazon Basics” line. Previously I’d purchased both USB and HDMI cables in the Amazon Basics line because they were both cheap and high quality. Amazon’s version is actually “Apple certified” – which you can’t say about all those import knock-off versions.

This is what I purchased:

It’s only about 10 bucks, but they have a 6 foot version that’s double the length for only $2 more.

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