Garry Kolb

After a successful 35-year career in information technology in mid-Michigan, I am now happily retired and living the dream life in The Villages, Florida with my fun-loving and very tolerant wife of 39 years. When not playing golf, pickleball, or water volleyball, I like amazing our neighbors with our automated home and fiddling with new gadgets.

Roborock Xiaowa E35 robotic vacuum/mop review

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REVIEW – Robotic vacuums suck.  Well, that’s their job, right?  They suck all the dust bunnies, hair, and dirt up from your floors so you don’t have to. Roborock’s new Xiaowa (pronounced ZY-o-wa) E35 robotic vacuum ups the ante by adding wet mopping to its repertoire. What is it? The E35 is a fairly standard […]

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Soon, your car will update just like your apps and other hardware

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NEWS – Cars today run on software.  Programs control everything from climate control to transmission shifting to air/gas mixture in the engine. Car manufacturers release software updates, just like other hardware manufacturers.  I get firmware updates for my Sonos speakers and my Kevo door locks.  They are delivered and installed pretty easily. But…for cars, it

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Musk aiming to provide global internet with Starlink

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NEWS – A while back, I wrote about Amazon’s Project Kuiper – a plan to launch over 3,000 satellites into low Earth orbit to provide broadband access to underserved areas. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space venture is preparing to launch the first 60 of nearly 12,000 Starlink satellites. The photo above shows the 60 satellites strategically

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Skylum Software Luminar 3.1.0 with Accent AI 2.0 photo editing software review

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REVIEW – Recently, I had the opportunity to review Skylum Software’s Luminar Flex photo editing plugin which offered much of their full Luminar product’s AI-based (Artificial Intelligence) editing available in Photoshop or other supported software.  Skylum has been in the lab and has released Luminar 3.1.0 with their new Accent AI 2.0 logic for one-touch

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Level up your DIY game with LumiLevel

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CROWDFUNDING NEWS – Are you a DIYer that needs to keep things on the level?  This can mean hanging things, building things, installing plumbing lines and so on.  Lots of things are simply better if they are straight side-to-side or up-down.  Kickstarter project LumiLevel looks to level up your game with their new digital level.

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MyCharge Unplugged10K wired/wireless charging pad review

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REVIEW – We all count on our phones.  We count on them for different reasons, calls, texts, social media, calendars, cat videos, games, and so on. No matter what your particular reason is, the underlying common denominator is that all those activities drain your battery. The MyCharge Unplugged10K can help alleviate dead-battery anxiety by giving

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Skylum Software AI-powered Luminar Flex one-touch photo editing software review

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REVIEW – Cameras today are amazing. Phone cameras, point-and-shoots, mirrorless, and full-on DSLRs all produce pretty jaw-dropping images, right out of the camera, all on automatic.  You can certainly tweak them in-camera by changing ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and white balance, but that definitely requires a deeper knowledge of photography and the specifics of your

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Get totally immersive with Feelreal

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CROWDFUNDING NEWS – Dive deeper into your gaming and movie experiences with Feelreal VR headset add-on. The patented design attaches to your existing VR headset and can simulate smell, rain, wind, vibration, punches and more. Weighing in at only seven ounces, the unit magnetically attaches to your headset.  It can generate up to 255 different

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Tronsmart Element Force Bluetooth speaker review

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REVIEW – It seems that every few days, there’s an announcement about yet another new Bluetooth speaker.  Today’s entry is the Tronsmart Element Force.  Is it worthy of your consideration?  Read on! What is it? The Element Force is a Bluetooth 4.2 speaker with up to 15-hour battery life. It is relatively small and portable

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SpaceX sticks the landing – the world’s first triple booster landing

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NEWS – April 11, 2019, I got to watch history – at least part of it, as SpaceX launched its second Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.  I did this from my driveway – or more correctly, a friend’s driveway down the street, which is pretty darn cool. Disclaimer – most

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