Amazon Won the Holiday Weekend in a Big Way
According to stats released today, Black Friday and Cyber Monday vaulted Amazon’s own devices above any of the other products it sells on its massive, mega-shopping site. In fact, the Echo Dot was the...
View ArticleAlexa Tip: Using Routines to Making Sure Lights are Turned Off at Night
One of the cooler features that has been released for Alexa devices recently is the Routines functionality. Routines is like a scripting language for Alexa devices, though its pretty simple in its...
View ArticleExpect More Third-party Notifications for Alexa
Amazon on Tuesday revealed additional options for developers of Alexa skills to enable more notification capabilities. These capabilities will ensure that more Alexa skills will soon be capable of...
View ArticleAmazon Adds Threat Protection to AWS with GuardDuty
Microsoft has been promoting its Advanced Threat Protection service for Azure and now Amazon has matched the service with one of its own. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that provides...
View ArticleAlexa + Furby = Furlexa
By combining a Raspberry Pi Zero W (a tiny computer), Amazon’s open-source Alexa Voice Service software, and a few other electrical components, I converted my normal Furby into a Furby Echo. I give...
View ArticleEcho Show Tip: Hard Reset Using Buttons
I’ve seen, heard, and read about instances where, for some odd reason, someone will purchase and receive an Echo Show, but it will need to be factory reset before it can be configured – or even...
View ArticleAmazon Launches its Own Time Sync Service to Control Time
Amazon has made a long list of announcements at its re:Invent 2017 conference this week and there’s more to come. The company controls many different industries already, so why not control time, too?...
View ArticleAmazon Includes Device and User Provisioning for IT Pros in Alexa for Business
Device deployment is a huge task for IT Pros. New and refreshed PCs are in constant demand and strict policies and procedures have been put in place to ensure the devices meet corporate guidelines. In...
View ArticleFire TV Adds More Voice Control Over Hulu, CBS, and Others
Not too long ago, Amazon promised more voice control capability over the video apps customers install on their Fire TV devices. The enhanced functionality would be made possible by the updated Video...
View ArticleDownloading Your Groove-purchased Music Before Its Gone
Just a quick reminder before we get started: The Groove Music Pass streaming service and the ability to purchase music through Groove and the Microsoft Store will be discontinued on December 31, 2017....
View ArticleAlexa-enabled Product of the Week: Honeywell Lyric T5 Thermostat
With Alexa’s ever-increasing popularity, new Alexa-enabled products deliver almost daily. Some are duds – some are interesting and valuable. When new and interesting products are available, we take a...
View ArticleAlexa Skill of the Week: Change the Subject
Each week, we take a look at new and important Alexa skills you might want to consider enabling for your Alexa device. Amazon continues to improve Alexa with its own updates, but skills are software...
View ArticleAlexa FAQ: Creating and Managing Routines Online
Q: Is it possible to use the online version of Alexa (http://alexa.amazon.com) to create and edit Routines? A: Not yet. Currently, Routines can only be configured using the Alexa app for iOS and...
View ArticleAlexa Tip: Unresponsive After Drop-in
The Drop-in feature for Alexa devices is great, allowing customers to easily setup whole home intercoms. Some customers have noticed recently that when hanging up a drop-in session, an Alexa device...
View ArticleAmazon Working on an Alexa Fix for Directional Listening
First off, we were surprised to find that there are many Alexa owners that didn’t know that the blue light ring on top of the Dot had more significance than just a fancy “listening” notification. For...
View ArticleAlexa Tip: Light Ring Color Meanings
Except for the Tap, Alexa devices have a visible ring on top that provide visible indications of what the device is going. Here’s the current list of color communications: Light Ring Status Description...
View ArticleAmazon ECS Support for Windows Server Containers Exits Beta
In public beta for almost an entire year (started December 20, 2016), Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) now supports Windows Server containers for production. Amazon ECS provides an...
View ArticleAlexa-enabled Product of the Week: BOND Ceiling Fan Control
With Alexa’s ever-increasing popularity, new Alexa-enabled products deliver almost daily. Some are duds – some are interesting and valuable. When new and interesting products are available, we take a...
View ArticleAlexa Skill of the Week: Destiny 2 Ghost
Each week, we take a look at new and important Alexa skills you might want to consider enabling for your Alexa device. Amazon continues to improve Alexa with its own updates, but skills are software...
View ArticleAmazon Announces AWS Single Sign-On
Amazon is putting its hat into the single sign-on ring. This is great news for AWS customers and very interesting news the other cloud providers such as Google and Microsoft who also provide services...
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