Product review: Fantime Bluetooth Smart Watch Sports Sleep Tracker Smartwatch

There are a few things I like about this watch, but as it has one huge problem. The app for this watch is not available from Google Play (or Amazon store). I also believe it is not available in iTunes, because the documentation says to down the app from a Chinese web site for all operating systems. This is not secure! In order for the app to be accepted in GooglePlay it undergoes security scans and must pass some basic set of rules. If the app is not available in Google it maybe because it failed those checks. I am software engineer with a lot of experience in security: do not load apps from random manufacture sites, it is not safe. I notified the manufacture of the problem and they said they will work on correcting it.

The watch is usable without the app if you are willing to give up some major functionality. The time can be set manually. The smartwatch has a number of apps that work find without communication. Pedometer shows the step count, sedentary reminder alerts you if you sit for too long, calculator works well with a touch screen, you also have a calendar and a voice memo recorder.

This watch has a nice display. It is bright and easy to see. The watch has a responsive touch screen. The size of the watch is not too large (1 5/8" wide) to be worn on a woman's hand. The leather band is comfortable and looks nice.  The charging port has a proprietary connector. If you lose it you will not be able to recharge the watch.

The pedometer appears to be reasonably accurate. It has an issue that it uses metric units (it shows the distance in meters) and I have not found any way to change the units. However, I mostly care about the step count so this is not a huge problem for me.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★☆☆☆

How to: How to grow potatoes in a grow bag

• Plant potatoes when the soil is 43 F or higher
• Use seed potatoes (not supermarket potatoes) cut into chunks with at least two spuds on each chunk. Plant chucks with the spud up in 6 inches of soil.
• Do not water for the first 2-3 weeks until leaves emerge. After leaves emerge water when it is dry.
• When the plant is 12" tall add 6" more soil (it is okay to cover the bottom leaves)
• Let the plan grow another 12" and then add 6" more soil.
• New potatoes can be harvested in 7-8 weeks after planting.
• You can harvest full size potatoes when the foliage dies
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Product review: Medpeel Retinol Collagen Cream

I use the retinol collagen cream around my eyes.  My goals is to decrease the fine lines and get smoother skin around the eyes.  I have been using the cream for about two weeks and I see small improvement especially in the morning soon after I apply the cream.  This is not a miracle and improvement is slight, but I thinkit does make my lines look less noticable.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Book review: George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved America

This book tells us about a little known team of spies that helped Patriots to win the war against the British. To quote the book George Washington did not out battle the British he out spied them.

The six brave spies in the book (5 men and 1 woman) were so secret that we would have not known about them if George Washington did not keep their letters. This group of amateur spies came up with the methods of spying that are still used today - dead drops, back stories, code names, secret codes. The book describes how they invented these technique learning from mistakes and near calls of collecting information. This is the type of the book that makes learning about history so much fun.

I listened to the audio version of this book. It is read by the author, Brian Kimeade. He reads with a lot of passion and is well spoken, but he is a fast talker. It did not make the book less enjoyable, but I listen to an audio books a lot and this is something that jumped out at me.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Liby Liquid Dish Soap, Orange , salt and tea flavor,16 Fluid Ounce

This is the first time I used Liby's dish cleaner. It my experience it works as well as Dawn. I was attracted to the scents in this three pack and I like how they semll. "Green tea" smells similar "green apple" scent, "orange" scent is exactly what I expected based on the name, and the blue "Mineral salt" has a light flowery scent.  All three liquid soaps are clear in color, only the bottles themselves are colored.  The soap worked well on greasy dishes as you see in the attached video.  It left my hands smelling nicely too.  The cleaner generated medium amount of suds. 

The bottles were well packaged, nothing leaked. They were shipped in  a sealed plastic bag so if something did leak it would have been well contained.

I am pleased with this set and would buy it again.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Little World Gear Steampunk Fashion Heart-shaped Pendant

This is a fun piece!  This is not fine jewelry, but is perfect for piece for a costume I am planning to wear to a costume party.  It is 2 1/4" at the widest part, and the plastic blue bead is 7/8" wide. In attached video you can see on 1/2" grid to get a good idea of various dimension. The chain is 16" long. The piece is chunky and fun, it is somewhat roughly made but that goes with the theme.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: ODSEN Phone Call Blocker

This call blocker works - i.e. once you block the number the calls from this number are disconnected after one ring.  The caller hears nothing, it works like a disconnect.

The user interface is easy when you want to block a number of something calling you by pressing the red button while the call is active. However, pre-programming the device to block number using programming code does not work with Verizon FIOS service.  These commands collide with Verizon's own codes and generate an error  when I tried the codes specified in the ODSEN manual on page 10.  You can see an example in my video.

On the positive side, some of the commands can be entered by using the keys on the device itself: such as deleting blocked numbers or seeing which numbers are blocked.  I show this in my video as well.

The second issue I ran into is related to showing caller id on my phone.  I found a solution to this problem as I explain below.  The issue depends on how you hook up the blocker. There are two options for hook up - you can plug the call blocker into the wall, and hook up the phone to the blocker. Alternatively, you can put a splitter in the wall and have the phone and the blocker hooked up in parallel. If you use the phone in-line with the blocker, the caller id is no longer visible on the phone display. I am using the parallel hook up because in this configuration I still see the caller id on the phone.  The phone blocker only displays numerical phone numbers, caller ids are not shown even if you have the caller id service. Since only the numbers are displayed  it is not easy to identify a marking call without picking up the phone or looking at another phone which shows the caller id.

Blocking a marketing calls gives me a lot of satisfaction. Just the fact that I am not helpless and can take some action has a great mental benefit.

This phone call blocker strenth is preventing repeated spammers from calling again, but I have to block them manually once first.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review