Category Archives: digital

I Now Pronounce You A Wine Expert 

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This is good news for people like me who don’t know a thing about wine. We want to know more, but we don’t have the time for a classroom education.

Enter Delectable, a wine app that gives you all the information you would ever need to know about wines.

All you gave to do is take a photo of a wine label and you will instantly get ratings and descriptions. According to the Delectable app, you will now be able to:

1-Keep track of your favorite wines

2- Learn more about wine by following the world’s leading winemakers, sommeliers and wine critics. 

3-Buy wines you love.

4-Buy wine right from your phone and get it delivered to your doorstep

5-Add your own ratings and tasting notes to keep track of your favorites

6-Share recommendations with friends

Want to experience the latest version of Delectable before it gets released? Join the beta program by clicking here.

Windows That Transform Into Balconies  

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 https://youtu.be/iwguRr6LuAY

This is one step I’m not going to take. There is no way I’m going to trust a window that transforms into a balcony to hold me up. I’m getting vertigo just thinking about out it.

We had better take this innovation seriously. According to the manufacturer, it’s just a matter of time until these type of Bloomframe windows appear on the new buildings in your neighborhood.

The French manufacturer Kawneer, global leader for aluminum facades, windows and doors, is responsible for the development.

Gmail Tricks 

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I don’t know if this ever happened to you, but it certainly happened to me. I sent an email to the wrong person. Lucky for me, it was a harmless email. I fortunately didn’t disclose any private information or  give out any personal records.

I learned a valuable lesson. Don’t be so quick to click the “send” button. Check the name, the subject matter, and the content of the body copy. Focus, pause, then “send.”

That should do the trick. If it doesn’t, use Gmail. It will help safeguard you. Gmail has a feature to “unsend” an email. All you have to do is click the gear at the top right hand corner of your email page. Then go to Settings. There us an “Undo Send” option  under the “general”  tab. Click on it and then choose a cancellation period of 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds. 

From my experience, pick the longest option. It’s always better to go with the longest possible option. To find out some other really clever  Gmail tricks, click here. Techlicious, a popular tech site, covered the topic recently.

Remember When? 

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Remember when you would come home after work, and the first thing you said to your family or roommate was, “Anyone call me?” 

Or if no one was home, the first thing you did after you entered your home was check the answering machine.

Those days are gone forever. The big news now is that smartphone voicemails may become obsolete over time.

Cell phone users in their teens, 20s and 30s, have already written off using leaving  voicemails. They only want to text. If you call them, they won’t even listen to your message. They may call you back if they see your number on their recent call list. Or they just may choose to ignore you. 

Your best bet is to text. You may not have a choice in the future. There’s a new app that many are talking about that’s called “No More Voicemail.” It actually deactivates your  voicemail on your cell. In the past, you had to contact your carrier in order to get this done. 

Now this app uses the “conditional call forwarding feature” right on your phone to send your unanswered calls to a virtual number that will just ring and ring. Once the caller realizes that you will never pick up, he or she will learn to use text. 

If you want to find out how the “No More Voicemail” works, read Tech Crunch. 

Not My Grandmother’s Forward 

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I can still remember my Grandmother Elsie, reading The Forward, a Yiddish/English newspaper published in lower Manhattan. She would sit on a chair, by the window, whispering the Yiddish words she was reading to herself. 

Sixty-two years later, I find myself reading The Forward in English on my iPhone. In my estimation, The Forward has become a hip, pop-cultured, digital newspaper that offers a Jewish angle on every day events. 

You can’t find these kind of stories, one after another, in most newspapers and magazines. The fun part is that The Forward is now delivered in an electronic newsletter to my email feed everyday. 

That’s the way I receive most of my favorite publications–Vanity Fair, Vogue,  Variety, New York Times, New Yorker,  Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Huffington Post, etc.  All I do is visit their websites, look for the email newsletter subscription box, fill in my email, and then sit back and wait for the news and features to come to me.

This is a much better and more timely way to get information. Twitter also offers these stories in the form of tweets. Either way, you are getting the news in a constant and easy-to-digest format. Sitting down to read an entire newspaper, in one session, is just a thing of the past.

To tell you the truth, I never thought I would be reading The Forward. The current day editors got very smart. They write edgy news and then distribute it in a modern day, delivery package.

A gliklekhe rayze!

    
       

   

    
    
  

Blurring Out YouTube Videos

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Image: Venturebeat.com

I love YouTube. I love learning new things about this amazing video platform. I was astonished to learn that, as of the other day, I can now blur out moving objects, as well as people, on my videos. 

This is huge news for people like me who are always getting nudged by others to edit out of my shoots some private items, such as notes, signs, and paintings. 

I’m very happy that I can still keep my original videos and now add the edited videos to my channel mix. If I promise someone that I will eliminate the original one, I will do so. YouTube has now given me lots of options.

One catch. Google, the owners of YouTube, are only offering the “blur out” capable feature on desktops. Smartphones will be made capable in a few months.  

If you want a detailed description on how to make the necessary edit, read the CNET story.

Good Neighbors, Great Authors

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We are fortunate to have Trisha and Gerald Posner as our neighbors, South of Fifth, in South Beach. They are NY Times best selling authors with exciting news. Both Gerald and Trisha just received new book deals with fantastic publishing houses. 

I was thrilled to be a part of the announcement process. It used to be the power of the pen. Now it’s the power of emails and texts. I have learned to take the art of the spoken word and turn it into a powerful digital pitch. 

Now I get to watch this happily married couple work together on some days and separately on others. I may even get to help in the research.

   
 
   

 My favorite digital sign for today.

 

Stella Austi Gutenplan 

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Stella Austi Gutenplan

I wrote the following story for a group on Facebook that is dedicated to paying tribute to the pioneers of the consumer electronics industry.

The one woman who is not mentioned often enough is Stella Austi. She was one of the top executives at the famous, but now defunct, Stereo Warehouse of New York City and Rabsons Audio Video. It’s difficult and upsetting to believe that she died 10 years ago. She was a 35-year industry veteran.

While most women were afraid to enter the work force, or felt they couldn’t compete with male counterparts, Stella was building a thriving retail business in the consumer electronics industry. Marty Gutenplan, the owner of the entire company, would often tell me she was the reason he was so successful. 

In fact, when Marty recommended Donna Austi, as a future account executive at my agency, HWH PR, he said , “If Donna contributes 10 per cent of what her mother did for me, your business will forever thrive.” Donna went on to work at HWH PR for 12 years. She now does specialty PR work for the Consumer Technology Association. 

Donna and her daughter Alex

Her brother Paul, owns Audio Video Crafts, the super successful custom installer to the stars.

Paul Austi and Eli Manning

Stella was a single mother raising two children, but no one ever thought of her as anything but a highly-spirited and serious career woman.

She started at a low level administration job at Stereo Warehouse and rose to the top. It wasn’t till late in her career that she ended up marrying Marty. After working side-by-side with him for many years, they found romance. He told me a number of times that they were both as surprised to realize their attraction to each other as the rest of the industry was to learn about it. 

Franklin Karp, Marty’s son-in-law, and now COO at the prestigious and highly-regarded Audio Video Systems, said, “Without peer, Stella was the most astute consumer electronics retail buyers in the United States. She understood the need for the most popular inventory, at the best possible pricing, better than most. She negotiated till she got the best deal. Everyone was in awe of her. The CE manufacturers and reps loved her even though they knew she would get what she wanted.”

Franklin worked at Stereo Warehouse for 19 years before he went on to become President /CEO of Harvey Electronics. 

“There is no question about it. I learned a tremendous amount from working with Stella. Many people did. Those were great years watching Dave Pardo, buyer at Crazy Eddie, compete against Stella, and vice versa. Those were the true days of entrepreneurship.”

I was lucky enough to witness those days. I sure miss them. 

Personal Workouts Without A Gym

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I’m going to take this workout app, called Sworkit, very seriously. I have been looking for something to get me started in the comfort of my home. I heard about it tonight on Shark Tank and immediately downloaded it. Shark Mark Cuban invested $1.5  million in the app that offers five to 60 minutes workouts in strength, cardio, yoga and stretching. Video trainers tell you exactly what to do!  I’m starting in the AM. For the first time, I feel I have a choice of the type of exercise I need and the time I want to devote to it. Good luck to me.

 
    
   

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Lady Gaga Is A High Tech Wonder 

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I watched Lady Gaga perform a six-minute tribute this past Monday to music legend David Bowie at the Grammys. I was mesmerized watching all of the kaleidoscopic visual effects. I read in Engadget that the Gaga team, along with Intel, worked very closely to bring together art, technology, and fashion.

Here is a rare opportunity to learn the complete breakdown of the technology that was  used to power the performance.

Click here.

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Eliot and Lois sing Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. 

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Thank you Cathy

  
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It’s so embarrassing when you show up at an event and someone else is wearing your dress.