Add new dimension to your love this Valentine’s Day with Hallmark Paper Wonder greeting cards

NEWS – For many people, greeting cards are a big part of celebrating holidays.  I can tell you from personal experience, my mom saved every single card she ever received and used them as reminders of special occasions. Hallmark, probably the biggest name in the greeting card business is upping their game with a new Paper Wonder three-dimensional card line.

The Paper Wonder line seems to be a direct competitor, and potential step up from Lovepop’s pop-up card line. Rather than just a flat card with sentimental writing, Paper Wonder cards offer intricate pop-ups and/or unfold and expand into three-dimensional paper sculptures.

If you’re looking for something out of the ordinary to help you express your feelings to the special ones in your life, Hallmark’s Paper Wonder might just catch the attention of your sweetie.

In addition to Valentine’s Day cards, you can find Paper Wonder cards for Christmas, anniversary, birthday, new baby and wedding giving. Paper Wonder cards are priced from $3.99 – $8.99 are available directly from Hallmark.

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Add new dimension to your love this Valentine’s Day with Hallmark Paper Wonder greeting cards originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 6, 2019 at 9:00 am.

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Gadgeteer time machine – Remembering the PalmPilot and its spinoffs

ARTICLE – For those of you who are new here, The Gadgeteer will be 22 years old this summer. That’s a long time to be writing about gadgets and as you can imagine, I’ve amassed quite a collection of devices over the years which I keep in a special drawer down in my Gadgeteer lair.

The other day I opened that drawer of gadgets-from-days-gone-by (yes, that’s the drawer’s name) and started sifting through the contents and ended up taking everything out to create the group shot that you see above.

There are a lot of great memories connected to these devices and I thought it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane and bring all of you along with me for the trip. So let’s go!

PalmPilot and friends

I consider the USRobotics PalmPilot to be the first real PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). I know there were Casio and Sharp databank style devices before the PalmPilot came on the scene, but they weren’t real PDAs in the way I/we think of them today. When I think of a PDA, I think of a touch screen, with a stylus, a selection of core apps like a calendar, task manager, address book, memo pad, etc., and the ability to install other apps to extend its capabilities.




The PalmPilot with its grey plastic housing, matching “toothpick” stylus, and iconic black on green non-back lit LCD display is the device that you can really thank for the Gadgeteer website.  This device is what originally fueled my excitement for reviewing products. I had so much fun with that little device, testing and writing about 100’s of cases, styluses, programs, and all the crazy accessories.

Do you remember The Bridge from Midwest PCB Designs? This little adapter would let you use a case with the PalmPilot’s HotSync cradle and was actually inspired by me. Go read the review for more on that back story.

Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan were the inventors of the PalmPilot and ended up leaving USRobotics/3Com/Palm Computing to start their own company called Handspring. They developed the Handspring Visor devices which also ran the Palm operating system. I had (and still do) several Visors which were exciting devices because they had a Springboard slot which allowed 3rd parties to create special accessories like modems, remote controls, etc.

But Handspring wasn’t the only company who made PDAs powered by the Palm operating system. Sony’s line of Clie devices was also popular. Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Palm, Sony, and Handspring were popping out new devices with stunning frequency. Sony was one of the best innovators of the time with their devices that had rotating displays and other unique features.

The image above is the Sony Clie PEG-N710C. It’s funny to read my review of this device from 2001 and see how excited I was about the fact that this device had a 320 x 320 resolution display back when 160 x 160 was the norm. My how times have changed. 😉

My first smartphone

The Palm Treo 650 was my first smartphone and as luck would have it, I still have this 15-year-old device and was able to find a charging cable that works with it. When I plugged it in, I was really surprised when it powered up. I thought it would be fun to see if it might still work as a phone, but when I checked for the SIM card slot, I didn’t find one because it was a Sprint phone. Those were the days when Sprint and Verizon didn’t use SIM cards and phone batteries lasted for days instead of hours.

Here’s an interesting tidbit… I “hacked” that Sprint branded Treo 650 to work on the Verizon network. The Treo was high tech then, but we are talking 2G speeds (if that). So it wasn’t that great as a web surfing device, but it worked if you had an unlimited supply of patience. Those were the good old days.

The Palm Centro was another favorite smartphone of mine mainly because it was so cute. I still had one in my drawer and was able to charge it up too and was very surprised to find a bunch of old text messages and a few old emails still saved on it.

Today Apple, Samsung, and even Sony could learn a thing or two by revisiting these devices from 15 – 20 years ago. Then Palm, Handspring, and Sony were in a pseudo “arms race” to see who could come up with the most featured packed devices. It was like they threw everything but the kitchen sink into each new model just to see which features would stick. Now, they only seem to throw in extra cameras and consider that to be the pinnacle of innovative.

Did you enjoy this quick stroll down nostalgia lane? What was your favorite device from 10 – 20 years ago? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below. And also be sure to check out our new Gadgeteer Time Machine widget in the right sidebar towards the top of the page. It shows Gadgeteer reviews from 1, 5, 10, and even 20 years ago each day.

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Gadgeteer time machine – Remembering the PalmPilot and its spinoffs originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 6, 2019 at 7:55 am.

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Skip the litter boxes and pooper scoopers and build your own pet

NEWS – Check out these DIY block building kits from JEKCA that feature LEGO-like bricks that lock together using a special tool to create your favorite dog or cat breed among other things.

The dog and cat kits are available in different sizes and a variety of action poses for each breed. Use them as art for your home or office, or if you’re off your meds, use them as a stand-in for a real pet. The JEKCA kits are priced from $40 – $140 and are available at jekca.com

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Skip the litter boxes and pooper scoopers and build your own pet originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 5, 2019 at 4:06 pm.

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What is PHP? (Video Explanation)

Come across the term ‘PHP’ (also known as ‘Hypertext Preprocessor’) and wondering what on earth it means? Fear not: we’ve got you covered! In short: it’s basically a scripting language used to power most of the web. In this quick video (below), we’ll go into both what PHP is, and how it fits in with… View Article

The post What is PHP? (Video Explanation) appeared first on WinningWP.

Bond smart Wi-Fi ceiling fan remote hub review

REVIEW – If your home is anything like mine, remotes rule your life, especially for your home audio/video. If you have ceiling fans with wireless control, it only adds to the clutter.

I have been searching for a solution to both eliminate my remote clutter and also add voice control to my four ceiling fans. Olibra has a solution. Enter Bond. Bond Home.

What is it?

Bond is a hub that adds remote control for wireless ceiling fans, both from Android or Apple devices and from Amazon Echo or Google Assistant.

What’s in the box?

Bond comes with the hub itself, a micro USB cable, wall plug, a very basic setup guide, and a future feature card.

Hardware specs

  • Width: 3.75″
  • Height: 1.1″
  • Network connectivity: Wi-Fi only
  • Power: micro USB
  • Remotes supported: Radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR)

There is no network port on the Bond. It connects to your network via Wi-Fi.

Design and features

The design is fairly typical for a device hub. It is glossy black plastic and feels sturdy in the hand. The top center ring lights up various colors, depending on the mode. It shines white when first plugged in, flashes green when ready, shines blue when online, flashes blue in learning mode, flickers blue when learning a remote and shines red when there is a problem.

The hub itself doesn’t really do anything but send out signals. The real magic is in the Bond app. Available from both iTunes and the Google Play store for no cost, the Bond app drives all the functions.

Setup and installation

First, connect the Bond hub to the network. If you have ever added any type of hub to your network, you already know the drill. Install the app, set up an account, connect the hub to your network by providing your network name and Wi-Fi password in the Bond app. Once you do that, the hub indicator ring will change from green to blue, indicating that the hub is online. This is where the fun begins.

Click “Add a Device” in the Bond app. The app prompts for the type of device to add.

Currently, Bond supports ceiling fans, some electronic fireplaces and is in beta for some air conditioners. If the app is to be believed, support for a bunch of other devices is in the works.

After choosing Ceiling Fan, the app prompts to choose a specific button on the remote and press it while holding the remote within a few inches of the Bond hub. The indicator flashes blue to indicate it is ready to learn.

The indicator will flicker as it reads the wireless signal from the remote and then flashes green to acknowledge it read it correctly. Bond maintains an extensive database of fan remotes and their associated signals. Once the hub reads the signal and the app looks up the specifics in the database, it will return a list of functions it thinks the remote has. Confirm that by testing the fan functions by hitting the remote button icons in the app. The app supports multi-speed fans and fans with upward and downward facing lights, with or without dimmers. Once the functions are confirmed, provide a name for the device and it is ready to be controlled from the app.

In this screenshot, “Living Room” is the name of the Bond Hub. I have four devices added to that hub, my four fans.

Bond can control up to six devices per hub. You can add as many hubs as needed and switch between hubs in the app.

Bond supports voice control via both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. I integrated with Alexa for this review. Alexa supports Bond via an Alexa skill that needs to be added in the Alexa app. The skill needs your Bond username and password. Once linked, have the Alexa app discovers devices and the Bond devices show up in Alexa. With my four fans, each with a light, eight new devices showed up as expected. Once they were there, I could turn my fans on and off, change speed, and turn the associated light on and off by voice.

One of the issues with a device like this is that many ceiling fans remotes toggle the lights on and off. What this means is that the remote doesn’t know if the light is on or off, it just sends a “change state” command to the fan and the fan changes the state of the light. If it is off, it turns on and if it is on, it turns off. Since the app functions essentially like a remote, that isn’t an issue. But, if you add voice control, Alexa or Google Assistant won’t know if the light is on or off, so a voice command to turn it on or off, may not work.

Bond has a solution for that with Light State Tracking.

Basically, the Bond app remembers the state of any light. So, when you tell Alexa to turn on the light and Bond thinks it is on, it does nothing. The caveat here is that if you use the physical remote, Bond has no knowledge of that. So, if you turn a light on or off with the physical remote, be sure to change it back again, also with the remote, or Bond will be out of sync and think on is off and off is on.

All my fans are three-speed fans. The app says that I should be able to control the speed by saying, “Alexa, turn on central fan, speed <1, 2 or 3>”. That has never worked. Alexa acknowledges the request, but the hub does nothing. Instead, I have to say, “Alexa, turn on central fan <33%, 66%, 100%>”, for low, medium or high speeds, respectively. It’s a minor quibble, but “…speed <1,2,3>” makes more sense to me than “speed <x>%”.

One ongoing issue is that Alexa and the hub seem to have occasional spats where they aren’t talking to each other. I can’t identify any cause or repeatable series of events that cause it. Eventually, they kiss and make up and everything works as designed.

All my fans are RF devices, meaning that the remote uses radio signals for communication. My Bond device is in the living room, near both the central fan and piano fan. It works perfectly with the bedroom fan and bathroom fan that are in different rooms. Bond also supports infrared (IR) devices. Of course, this means that the Bond device has to be able to physically see the device to be controlled, as IR signals are light and require a line of sight from the hub to the device.

Another nice app feature, at least on Android devices, is widget support.

You can add one widget for each fan, including one or more buttons on the widget.  If you include a single button, the widget shows that one function button.  I chose to add most of the features – light on/off, fan power and all three-speed settings.  The widget produced is a clever scrolling widget, allowing access to all the buttons from a single, scrollable widget.  Pretty slick.

Finally, Bond supports IFTTT (If This Then That). I set up automations with my Ecobee 4 thermostat. If the temperature in the living room is under 75 degrees, IFTTT has Bond set the fan to low (30% is IFTTT’s speed 1). IFTTT triggers Bond to bump the central fan to 50% (speed 2) if the living room hits 77 degrees and 100% (speed 3) at 79 degrees.

What I like

  • Attractive design
  • Easy setup
  • Alexa & Google Assistant support
  • Wide range of supported remotes
  • Widget support for one-touch control from my phone

What needs to be improved

  • Limiting the hub to six devices seems short-sighted, but the app does support multiple hubs
  • Minor usability issues with fan speed voice commands
  • Occasional Alexa/hub communication failures

Final thoughts

This was the only solution of this type that I could find. It brought voice and/or phone control to my fans, and eliminated clutter in the living room and on the nightstands. Sitting in the chair after playing a couple hours of pickleball and being able to say, “Alexa, turn central fan on, 100%” is a real asset to my automated house lifestyle. Having the fan automatically speed up and slow down with the temperature when we have the windows open is a real plus as well.

Lutron has just announced a potential competitor in this space, the Caséta speed controller, although Lutron’s website makes it look like the fan needs to have a wired controller. That doesn’t help me as my fans are all wireless. We shall see once more details are released.

Overall, I really like the Bond hub and what it has added to my automated home. It is a bargain for the price.

Price: $99.99
Where to buy: Bond, Amazon or Home Depot
Source: I purchased Bond with my own funds.

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Bond smart Wi-Fi ceiling fan remote hub review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 5, 2019 at 11:00 am.

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