HIDDEN NUMBERS REVEALED

HIDDEN NUMBERS REVEALED  ~

Contacting Tech Support Made Easy….

© 2017 BOB SKIDMORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BOB SKIDMORE

CORRESPONDENT

Have you ever wanted to talk to a real person for TECH SUPPORT, but didn’t know who or how to call? It’s a common problem caused by many companies not listing their contact phone numbers. So, here’s a list of some of the most common that I’ve managed to acquire. Hope it helps!

(TIP: I’ve provided a link where you can easily download this reference sheet as a jpeg chart. Go to: http://www.goo.gl/pLb2gr Drag and Drop. NOTE: These numbers were accurate when this article was written, but as always, subject to change.)

SERVICE PROVIDERS

AOL                    800.827.6363

AT&T DSL          800.331.0500

AT&T Universal    800.288.2020

Cablevision           800.868.9840

Charter                 888.438.2427

Clearwire              888.253.2795

Comcast               800.266.2278

Cox                     800.234.3993

Earthlink              888.327.8454

HughesNet            866.347.3292

Qwest                           888.777.9569

RoadRunner          877.318.8333

Spectrum              855.222.0102

Telus                    877.310.4638

Time Warner         800.892.4357

Verizon DSL         800.567.6789

Verizon FIOS        888.553.1555

WOW          855.496.9929

SOFTWARE VENDERS

Adobe                  800.833.6687

Alsoft DiskWarrior   800.257.6381

Amazon ECHO     877.375.9365

Dell                      800.624.9896

FileMaker             800.325.2747

Google                 650.623.4000

IBM                     800.426.4968

Logitech               800.231.7717

Microtech             800.223.3693

Microsoft (MAC)   866.474.4882

NetFlix                 888.638.3549

NetScape              866.541.8233

Parallels                888.811.2489

Quark                           800.676.4575

VMware Fusion     877.486.9273

PRINTERS

Brother                800.282.4329

Canon                  800.828.4040

Epson                           800.533.3731

HP                       800.474.6836

Lexmark              800.539.6275

ROUTERS & MODEMS

AT&T Uverse       800.288.2020

2wire                   480.567.7021

Belkin                  800.223.5546

Cisco                    800.553.2447

D-Link                 888.814.2882

Linksys                800.326.7114

NetGear               888.638.4327

Motorola              877.466.8646

VIRUS PROGRAMS

AVG                    828.459.5422

ESET                   619.630.2300

Kaspersky             781.503.1820

MacKeeper           888.572.5876

McAfee                888.847.8766

Norton                 800.441.7234

Symantec             800.745.6071

EXTERNAL DRIVES

G-TECHNOLOGY   888.426.5214

iOmega                888.516.8467

LaCie                   503.844.4503

Promise                408.228.1400

Seagate                800.732.4283

Western Digital      800.275.4932

DISPLAYS & TELEVISIONS

Acer                    800.816.2237

Hitachi                 800.448.2244

JVC                     800.252.5722

Mitsubishi             800.222.0037

Philips                  888.744.5477

RCA                    877.506.3411

Samsung              800.726.7864

Sanyo                           800.577.5032

Sharp                   800.237.4277

Sony Display         866.357.7669

Sony TV               800.222.7669

Sylvania               866.321.3927

Toshiba                800.631.3811

Vizio                    877.698.4946

MISCELLANIOUS

Adeptec                800.416.8066

Amazon               888.280.4331

Apple                   800.275.2273

Apple (iPhone)      800.694.7466

Apple (Education)  800.800.2775

Apple Accessibility & Assistive-

Technology           877.204.3930

Asante                  877.262.0324

Avid                    800.800.2843

BIAS                   800.775.2427

BlackBerry           877.255.2377

DHL                    800.225.5345

EBAY                  866.540.3229

FedEx                  800.406.3339

GoDaddy              480.505.8877

Kensington           800.535.4242

MacroSystem U S 877.554.2846

Microsoft              800.936.5700

Motorola              800.331.6456

Palm                    877.426.3777

Quicken                800.811.8766

Yahoo                  866.492.4684

YouTube              650.253.0000

UPS                     800.742.5877

USPS                   800.275.8777

Vonage                 866.243.4357

Weebly                 844.493.3259

CREDIT SERVICES

Equifax                800.349.9960

Experian               888.397.3742

TransUnion           888.909.8872

TV NETWORKS

ABC                    212.456.2700

CBS                     212.975.4321

CNN                    404.827.1500

FOX                    888.369.4762

NBC                    212.664.4444

Graphic credits: THE GADGETEER

Bob Skidmore is a freelance writer, who may be contacted at bob.thegadgeteer.skidmore@gmail.com, or followed at twitter.com/bskidmore for the latest gadget industry news. He does not represent, or endorse any of the products he reviews and his opinions are solely his points of view and not those of the manufacturer. The manufacturer generally supplies products and press releases at no cost for the articles and no other compensation is received. THE GADGETEER is highly selective as to products he feels worthy of review so as not to waste the reader’s time, thus the reason for many superior ratings.

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iMAZING

iMAZING  ~

A Way To Easily Backup Your iPhone,  iPad or iPod….

© 2017 BOB SKIDMORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BOB SKIDMORE

CORRESPONDENT

The iPhone recently celebrated its tenth anniversary while the iPad its seventh. Both these devices over the years have brought many useful communications tools to millions of worldwide users. Until recently, it was somewhat difficult to transfer or store various data from these devices to a computer for archiving or printing purposes. iMAZING may have solved that problem.

I am often asked if it’s possible to forward a group of text messages from one person to someone else, or to perhaps print them, or even store them on your computer as a back up for future reference. This is especially useful in legal situations where they may be needed as evidence. iMAZING is a software program that interfaces between your MAC or PC computer and your iPhone, iPad or iPod. When the devices are linked to your computer the transfer of texts is very easy. Once transferred the data is easily printed, shared or permanently stored on your computer. Voice mails can also be stored on your computer making it possible to archive a library of audible messages. In fact, you can easily transfer all your data from your old iPhone to the new iPhone X or 8 without the need for iTunes or iCloud. You can also easily transfer or backup music, photos, books, messages, contacts, apps, and other data.

(TIP: Download for MAC is currently available for OS 10.8+ and supports ios 11, iPhone, iPad and iPod. Download for PC requires Windows 7 or higher and also supports ios 11, iPhone, iPad and iPod. iMAZING speaks eleven languages.)

iMAZING’s deluxe version is available as a download to your computer. Simply go to the link below and select the version that suits your needs. A SINGLE license includes one computer and all 2.x updates at $39.99; A UNIVERSAL license includes  two computers and all 2.x updates at $49.99; A FAMILY license includes five computers and all 2.x updates at $69.95. iMazing Mini is a free Mac or PC app which backs up your ios devices automatically, wirelessly and privately.  It offers “Time Machine” like snapshots of your devices.

I found that iMAZING works well. Printing certain types of data directly is possible if you have a wi-fi printer. I underline, “certain” documents. A text message is not one of them. That’s why iMazing is such a great tool. It’s the answer to transcribing important data so you can easily print it making it a great reference and legal tool for personal or business use.

GADGETEER’s RATING: ★★★★★

For more information go to:

www. http://bit.ly/2ct4D1Z

Graphic credits: iMAZING

Bob Skidmore is a freelance writer, who may be contacted at bob.thegadgeteer.skidmore@gmail.com, or followed at twitter.com/bskidmore for the latest gadget industry news. He does not represent, or endorse any of the products he reviews and his opinions are solely his points of view and not those of the manufacturer. The manufacturer generally supplies products and press releases at no cost for the articles and no other compensation is received. THE GADGETEER is highly selective as to products he feels worthy of review so as not to waste the reader’s time, thus the reason for many superior ratings.

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Ask My Buddy Alert App

ASK MY BUDDY  ~

Summoning Help With Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Home and Microsoft’s Cortana Devices….

© 2017 BOB SKIDMORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BOB SKIDMORE

CORRESPONDENT

Last year I featured Amazon’s “ALEXA” a/k/a “ECHO” in my March column. http://www.goo.gl/TFX7GF Since then many similar devices such as Google’s “Home” and Microsoft’s “Cortana” have appeared in the market place. While all these devices offer many neat features, none actually summon help. Amazon’s “Echo Connect” will be available later this year in the U. S. A., UK and Germany, as an optional, one-time, cost. Since it interfaces with your landline, if you still have one, it could call 911 or other emergency service by turning your ECHO device into a speakerphone that lets you make land-based phone calls by just using your voice.

Ask My Buddy is an app that is loaded into your ALEXA (ECHO), HOME or CORTANA device. It’s a free service, with optional upgrades that connects a user to their personal alert network by voice commands that are recognized by any of the three devices listed above. The free version is designed for use by all registered users and is especially a favorite of senior and mobility challenged individuals. It’s not a replacement for calling 911, but rather a tool for those people trying to maintain their independence, offering the security of knowing help is just a shout away. Accidents do happen and in many cases summoning help can be a difficult thing for anyone.

Ask My Buddy is the brainchild of Pat and Sheryl Coggins. They recognized the need for a service that would interact with these devices when emergency help is needed. In an effort to make this available to the masses they offer it in a free version as well as two enhanced ones. The FREE version gives you a 5 contact list and 10 combined alerts per month. For $3.66 per month you can have 120 alerts per month, 5 additional contacts as well as a multi-lingual feature. Multi-lingual alerts offered are German, Spanish, French, Swedish, Portuguese and Italian with more under consideration. For $5 per month you qualify for all of the above with up to 400 alerts per month in addition to even more upgrades. Both versions allow you to ask your buddy for help by simply stating the request in the following manner. I’m using Amazon’s “Alexa” for these examples, but you would use HOME or CORTANA if that’s the device you have: “Alexa, ask my buddy to send help” ~ This will send an alert to all of your pre-registered contacts and tell them you are in need of help and that they should contact you. “Alexa, ask my buddy to alert Bob” ~ an alert will be sent to your friend Bob who is on your pre-registered list. When you initially set up your contact list you can select how each contact is to be contacted be it text, email, by phone or any combination of the three methods. International calls are possible.

(TIP: Notify your pre-registered contacts that you’ve listed them on this service and explain how it works. It’s important to advise them that an unknown number in West Palm Beach would be notifying them so not to disregard or consider it a robo call or spam. The same would hold true for email and text notifications. You would be well advised to ask each contact to create an address book entry for the West Palm Beach ASK MY BUDDY phone number, 561.231.5676, and text number, 888.734.0751, and label it something like “Ask My Buddy Mom”.  This way your caller ID will clearly identify what’s up when an alert comes in. Please be aware that these numbers can change in the event of an outage and that they do not accept incoming calls. As previously explained, the notification method is pre-determined by you in the initial contact set-up process.)

There is no question that this is a most needed service for all of us, at little or no cost. Hats off to the Coggins’ family for providing and maintaining a life-saving app. At present they are supporting a user base of over 100,000, so your contributions by selecting the upgraded versions would go a long way to supporting the service, which obviously has some operating expenses for the Coggins.

Ask My Buddy is now also available at the Alexa UK store.

GADGETEER’s RATING: ★★★★★

For more information go to:

http://www.goo.gl/5T1KUT

http://www.goo.gl/VGmbrZ

Graphic credits: Ask My Buddy

Bob Skidmore is a freelance writer, who may be contacted at bob.thegadgeteer.skidmore@gmail.com, or followed at twitter.com/bskidmore for the latest gadget industry news. He does not represent, or endorse any of the products he reviews and his opinions are solely his points of view and not those of the manufacturer. The manufacturer generally supplies products and press releases at no cost for the articles and no other compensation is received. THE GADGETEER is highly selective as to products he feels worthy of review so as not to waste the reader’s time, thus the reason for many superior ratings.

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