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I’m baaaaaack! I’d love to say I’m all rested but a baby, a five-year-old and moving them into a new house is no beach retreat. That said, I return with lots of ideas for newsletters, columns and videos after setting up my new smart-but-also-really-dumb house. (Don’t get me started on my “smart” sprinkler system!)
But before any of that I need to come clean about the hours I’ve spent working on wire management. I promise, it’s not as geeky as it sounds. Plus, why Amazon is buying everyone’s favorite robo-vacuum company, the Gmail redesign and throwback to a time when a personal digital assistant was not Siri or an Alexa.
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CREDIT: ELENA SCOTTI/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Wife: Why do you need eight of these TV cords?
Me: Well…Umm…What if we want to add more boxes to our TVs? And our neighbors need cables for their TVs? And what about our neighbors’ neighbors? You never know how we could help the community.
My name is Joanna and I’m a cord-aholic.
In the move to my new house, I packed up 50-something charging bricks along with an assortment of cables: 25 USB-C, 18 Lightning, 13 Micro-USB, 10 Ethernet, 9 Mini-USB, 8 HDMI. And that’s not even counting the many miscellaneous extension cords, old FireWire cables, auxiliary wires, iPod chargers… You name it, I had it in a moving box labeled “JOANNA’S CORDS.”
Now, you’re either me or my wife in this situation. Either you have a cord collection you’d proudly display at the Smithsonian OR you live with someone who does—and you absolutely despise it.
I can’t say there’s any logical reason for my cord hoarding. All I know is that I have nightmares of not having the right cable for my 2007 BlackBerry and I believe it’s my tech-given right to have as many Mini-USB cords as I want.
But hey, the wire spaghetti was out of control. So I vowed to get to work. I now have a donation pile for my local e-recycle location and the rest I’ve organized in a few key ways:
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The stuff I use:
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On a daily basis I use a few key cables—Lightning for my iPhone and AirPods, USB-C for my laptop and various other gadgets. When going through the mess, I set aside the best of those, coiled them up, wrapped Velcro cable ties around them (I suggest buying a 50 or 100 pack of these) and then placed them in the spots I use them the most. On my desk and nightstand, I use these colorful Function 101 cable blocks, which keep the cords from falling on the floor and getting tangled.
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The stuff I rarely use:
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The HDMIs, the Micro-USBs, the old 30-pin iPod cables? I coiled them up with those Velcro ties and even added labels to some, like “6 ft. Ethernet.” Then I placed them in Ziploc bags with the name written in Sharpie marker. Then I got some big wicker baskets and tossed those bags in there.
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CREDIT: JOANNA STERN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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The stuff in the basement:
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I’ve spent more time than I care to admit trying to figure out how to organize the cords in my basement’s home-networking closet. So far I’ve bought an enclosure to hide a lot of the cables and a shelf for the Wi-Fi router.
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Speaking of home networking, I decided to power the mesh network satellites around my house via Ethernet. Guess who had all the cords to make it work!? This cord-aholic. (More on my adventures in blazing-fast home Wi-Fi soon.)
Reply to this email with a photo of your best cord organization tricks. I’d love to feature some in next week’s newsletter.
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Alexa, Meet Roomba 🤖 🧹
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“Alexa, clean up the cat hair!” In a move we should have all seen coming after my Amazon Astro review, where I knocked the company’s home robot for not sweeping floors, the e-commerce giant has bought iRobot in an all-cash deal for about $1.7 billion. Yes, iRobot is known for the smart vacuum Roomba, which has been tidying up homes and bumping into walls for two decades. Between this and the Ring and Eero acquisitions, Amazon’s strategy is clear: It wants to be the company that owns it all in the smart-home space.
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Gmail Glow-Up? 📧✨
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After Google soft launched a Gmail interface redesign in January, it’s now rolling out to most of its users. The main difference is that Chat and Meet will now appear in a new, decluttered sidebar with the goal of allowing you to switch from inbox to meeting without changing tabs. It also has a nice visual makeover with a more rounded design, some light-blue accents and a fresher font. But if you hate change, for now you can go back to the way it was by clicking the settings gear in the top-right view, then “Go back to the original view.”
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Uber: More Drivers, More Money 🚗📈
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Calling an Uber is a lot more expensive these days. But the company’s quarterly earnings and recent comments may indicate some relief from the post-pandemic demand surge. In addition to doubling its revenue to a record $8.07 billion, Uber reported that more and more people are becoming drivers for some extra cash to offset rising household expenses. According to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, 70% of new drivers have cited inflation as why they joined.
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📰 Catch up on the headlines, understand the news and make better decisions. Sign up for What’s News, free in your inbox on weekday evenings and Sunday afternoons.
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CREDIT: JOANNA STERN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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I’ve embarked on many new adventures in smart-home improvement. (Hey, Tim “The Toolman” Taylor, how about a revival?) If they’ve taught a self-sufficient person like me one thing, it’s that you sometimes have to ask for help. And you want that help WITHOUT having to sit on customer-service hold for the length of a transatlantic flight.
This week, my colleague Dalvin Brown tackled some of the best tricks to get in touch with customer service. He included one of my new favorites: contacting the company via Apple’s Business Chat feature, which lets you start a text exchange right inside the Messages app. I discovered it myself a few weeks ago when I needed assistance with something I bought from Home Depot.
Not all businesses have this feature. Here’s a quick trick to figure out if one you’re trying to get in touch with does:
Go to Apple Maps to search for a company’s contact information, or ask Siri for it. When it appears, look for the familiar blue message bubble. If it’s there, tap it to launch the conversation in Messages. From there, you might have to answer a few automated questions about your issue before getting to a real person on the other side.
If you don’t see that blue message bubble, you better start dialing. (Or just read the rest of Dalvin’s article.)
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PHOTO: JOHN GAITHER
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John Gaither from Evansville, Ind.
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Regrettably, it became obsolete when internet connectivity became widespread.
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For 4 to 5 years, I kept track of my personal and professional life using it. I can still go through the database and recall details like it was yesterday.
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Its outside case is a little worse for the wear, but it is fully functional—now if I could just remember the Lotus 1-2-3 command set.
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📷 Got an idea for a throwback? Reply to this email with a photo of your old tech and tell us why you loved—or hated—it. 📷
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Reply to this email and share your feedback and suggestions.
User-submitted content has been edited for clarity and length. This week’s newsletter was curated and written by Joanna Stern, Maddie Ellis and Cordilia James.
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