Pogue’s Basics

You’re probably well aware that all kinds of things have gone digital, including books, photos, movies, TV, and phones.

But you’d be surprised at how many more of life’s objects are going digital or wireless (or maybe you wouldn’t be). Thermostats. Kitchen appliances. Toothbrushes. You can even buy, if you can believe it, an electronic wireless fork. (It notifies your smartphone and beeps if you’re shoveling food into your mouth too fast.)

If you feel like it’s all a little overwhelming, you’re forgiven, but the pace of digital progress won’t be slowing any time soon. You can either dig in and try to master it—or move to the Amish country.

Read Kindle books without a Kindle

You know what the Kindle is, right? It’s a gadget that lets you read electronic books sold by Amazon.com, which offers nearly every book imaginable as a Kindle e-book.

E-books are great. You can make the type bigger if your eyes are tired (or you’re over 40). You can search for a certain word or phrase. You can get the definition of any word you don’t know. And you can download any e-book in about 20 seconds instead of hauling off to a shopping mall and hoping for the best.

A Kindle, the machine that lets you read the electronic version of a book, is also great. It’s portable, lightweight, and holds hundreds of books.

It is, however, a machine. You have to buy it, carry it around, and keep it charged.

The good news is you don’t need one.

There’s a free Kindle app for every kind of phone, tablet, and computer: iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, and so on. In other words, you can still buy and read Kindle books without owning an actual Kindle machine—by reading them on a gadget you already own. In fact, you can read your Kindle books on the Web, wherever you happen to be; just go to read.amazon.com.

All of this also applies to Barnes & Noble’s e-books. You don’t have to buy a Nook e-book reader to read them; you can read them on the Web, on your phone, or on your tablet.

You’re welcome.

Why your cordless phone goes staticky

You already know that radio waves travel on different frequencies. Turn the knob, and you pull in a different station.

Those same electromagnetic waves, at different frequencies, bring you all kinds of wireless goodness: Wi-Fi Internet, cordless phones, microwave ovens.

But a problem arises when two of your wireless technologies are operating on the same frequency. That’s why your call on a cordless phone goes staticky when someone operates the microwave, or downloads a big file, or watches an Internet video. Millions of cordless phones use the 2.4- or 5.8-gigahertz frequencies, which also happen to be the same ones that Wi-Fi hot spots use.

Your solutions are simple. Either get a cordless phone that uses a different frequency—the ones labeled DECT 6.0, for example, use the 1.9-gigahertz band—or don’t use your wave-happy machines simultaneously.

The story of the third prong

America’s walls are decorated with two kinds of power outlets: two-prong and three-prong. There’s nothing quite as frustrating as trying to plug in a gadget that comes with a three-prong power cord—and discovering that your (old) house has only two-prong outlets! So you can’t plug in!

Turns out there’s some logic to this design. Of the outlet’s two parallel slots, the smaller one is “hot”: Electricity comes out of it and into your appliance. The other slot, known as “neutral,” sends electricity back into your house. The appliance itself completes the circuit.

Any appliance with a metal case (toaster, microwave, fridge) or a metal case inside (laptop, radio) comes with a third prong on the cord. It goes into the hole in the wall outlet—the “ground.” It’s exactly the same thing as the neutral slot: an escape hatch for extra electricity.

It’s there for safety, for one situation only: A wire comes loose inside the appliance, sending that excess electricity into the metal case. If you touch it at that point, you could die. At the very least, you’ll swear loudly.

So if you equip your gadget with one of those three-to-two adapter plugs, your gadget will work just fine. It won’t know the difference. Electricity will still come out the hot slot, into the gadget, and back into the neutral slot. But you’ll be defeating what engineers consider a very important safety feature.

The secrets of the Apple earbuds

Every iPad, iPod, and iPhone comes with a pair of Apple’s famous white earbuds. Most people don’t do much more with them than stick them into their ears.

That’s a shame, though, because the clicker on the earbud cord has all kinds of magical powers.

• When a call comes in: You can click the clicker on the earbud cord to answer the call and, at the end of the chat, to hang up. (The earbuds have a microphone built in, too, so you can have the whole conversation without taking them off.)

Or, to ignore an incoming call, squeeze the clicker for two seconds. You hear two low beeps, and the call goes to voice mail.

• When you’re listening to music: Click the earbud clicker to pause the music or to start playing again. You can also pinch it twice to skip to the next song or three times to hear the previous song. (If you’re watching a movie, the same gestures skip to the next or previous scene.)

The + and – buttons on the clicker cord, as you’d guess, control the volume.

• To speak to Siri: Hold down the clicker on the earbud cord. Siri beeps twice as though to say, “OK, I’m listening!”

• When you’re taking a picture: The volume buttons on the cord trigger the camera’s shutter—a handy, impromptu remote control for selfies (see here).

• When you’re shooting a video: You can start and stop recording by pressing the center clicker button.

The secret of the USB cable

USB cables are everywhere. They’re those black cables that connect your computer to printers, scanners, phones, tablets, and cameras.

They’re also a pain. There are so many possible different connectors on the end of them: the standard thin rectangular USB; the chunky square connector; the tiny flattened “Micro USB” type; and even proprietary shapes for certain gadgets.

Worst of all, you can never tell which side is up! Half the time, you try to plug something into your computer—and you guess wrong. You can’t plug it.

Those days are over now, because you’re about to learn the secret. Before you plug, look down. Only one side has the forked USB logo on it, either painted or molded into the plastic. That’s the top side.

How to save money on anything

Time equals money, of course; that’s especially true when you buy stuff online. Just a little time can save you a lot of money.

Whenever you’re about to buy something online, your first stop should be RetailMeNot.com. It’s an Internet clearinghouse for discounts and deals from 50,000 stores online. Into the Search box, type what you’re shopping for, and boom: You save an average of $20 per order.

Sometimes the site provides a promo code or coupon code; you then head to the retailer’s Web site and paste that code into the Promo Code or Coupon Code box at checkout. Other times, you get a physical coupon that you print and take to an actual store.

Amazon.com offers enormous deals, too. The Amazon Warehouse offers pretty incredible “open box” specials (somebody bought a product, opened it, and returned it without using it) in every category: computers, cameras, phones, TVs, video games, shoes, sporting goods, and on and on. (You get there via http://www.amazon.com/b?node=1267877011—or by just typing amazon warehouse into Google.)

What to do when you’ve forgotten your charger

Electronic gadgets are great and all, but they have one big downside in common: They require charging. Everywhere you go with your laptop, phone, or tablet, you also have to carry its charger. Inevitably, you wind up in some hotel without the one you need. You forgot to pack it. You left it somewhere.

The great thing is that you’re not the first person to leave a charger behind. Lots of people have left theirs behind—in the exact same hotel where you are!

So hie thee down to the front desk and ask. They’ll offer you a Lost and Found box of iPhone chargers, Micro USB cables (for Android phones, e-book readers, some cameras), and even laptop adapters of every description. Borrow the one you need.

Meanwhile, take this moment to write your own name and phone number on your chargers, so you have a chance of recovering it when you lose it.