👋🏻 Fakespot shuts July 1: Amazon’s fake review detector, Fakespot, is officially going offline July 1, 2025. The Chrome extension will stop working, and the devs say it’s been a ride. If you’re ready to break up cleanly, here’s how to uninstall it (highly recommended). Pouring one out for the plug-in that saved me from hundreds of fake reviews.
Food companies hate this app
ChatGPT
Healthy eating isn’t just trending, it’s something I’ve lived my whole life. I read every label, choose organic whenever I can and try to never eat processed foods. Knowing what’s going into your body matters, and I’ve always believed that.
But even with all that vigilance, it’s easy to get duped by “natural” and “wholesome” packaging. That’s where these apps come in. Let me tell you, the food makers hate these apps, especially the first one.
✋ Yuka it up
I use Yuka for my food smarts. This little French app has blown up with over 30 million downloads, and yeah, it’s that good. Just scan a barcode and instantly see a health score. Green? You’re good. Orange? Think twice. Red? Put it back on the shelf.
Yuka checks three biggies: nutrition, additives and whether it’s organic. All things I care about. Is it perfect? Nope. It won’t know if you’re keto or gluten-free, but if you try to eat clean like I do, it’s great.
Pro tip: Screenshot a food’s result and throw it into ChatGPT (or your favorite AI chatbot) with the prompt: “Please find me up to five healthy alternatives to this food with links to purchase on Amazon or elsewhere.”
⚡️ Quick decisions
Now, if you’re all about quick answers without the deep dive, try the app Bobby Approved. It was created by influencer Bobby Parrish and gives you a straight-up yes or no. Just scan the item’s barcode.
It’s super handy if you’re rushing through the store or have kids pulling at your sleeve. Just keep in mind, it doesn’t get into all the nitty-gritty. You won’t see which ingredients triggered the red flag or why. If you just want a fast go/no-go, it gets the job done.
🧑🏼🌾 Crowdsourced advice
If you’re the type who likes to double-check everything (yep, I see you), Open Food Facts is a great free tool. It’s crowdsourced, meaning everyday people, not only companies, help fill in the details. You can scan barcodes and dig into nutrition, ingredients, allergens and even a product’s environmental impact.
Now, heads up: Because it’s user-driven, some entries can be outdated, wrong or incomplete.
Up to 16.7%
That’s the automatic price hike coming to Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps subscribers on June 17. Why? The new plan, now called Creative Cloud Pro, includes AI tools like Generative Fill in Photoshop. Individual annual plans will jump from $60 to $70 a month, and team plans will go from $90 to $100. At least the bugs will be free.
🎧 Spotify sounding flat? On mobile, it might default to lower audio quality to save data. On iOS, go to Settings and privacy > Audio Quality and set it to High. On Android, go to Settings and privacy > Media Quality and set it to High. If you have Premium, there’s also a Very High option. One great option that always sounds great is my show, IMHO.
🎤 Listen up: Adobe has a free tool to test if your mic is set correctly for a podcast or video meeting. Try it here. You’ll get pointers on where to sit relative to your mic and whether there’s too much going on in the background. Nice!
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Chrome user? Type chrome://restart in the address bar to refresh the browser with all tabs intact. Lovely.
Chromebook lagging? Press Search + Escape to open the Task Manager. You’ll see a list of apps, browser tabs and extensions. Look for anything using a lot of memory or CPU (processing power). If something stands out, click it and select End Process to force it to close.
📞 Old phone, new trick: Turn your old smartphone into a home security camera. Charge it up and download a free security cam app like Alfred Camera (iOS, Android) on both your old phone and your current one. You’ll get live video, motion alerts and even two-way talk.
🎮 Game lagging? Let’s fix that with a few tweaks. Head to your TV’s picture settings and turn on Game Mode. Then, turn off any “reduction” settings like noise or MPEG reduction. Finally, switch off motion enhancement or clarity settings (names vary by brand), so your button presses register right away.
📨 Faster email flow: Speed through your inbox with Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts. Go to Settings > See all settings > General, check Keyboard shortcuts on, then hit Save Changes at the bottom. Need the full list of shortcuts? Press Shift + ? while you’re in Gmail.
✂️ Snip that PDF: Using the free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader? You can’t pull specific pages, but there’s a workaround. Go to Menu > Print, set the printer to Microsoft Print to PDF (PC) or Save as PDF (Mac). Choose Pages and type the page numbers you want (like 2 to 5). Click Print, then Save the file.
Fix ghosting on Kindle: Seeing a faint outline of the previous page after you turn it? That’s because your Kindle isn’t fully refreshing the screen. To fix it, go to All Settings > Home and Library > Reading Options and toggle on Page refresh. It may slightly affect battery life, but the display will look much cleaner.
▶️ My favorite price is free: Pro video-editing software usually comes with a pro-level price tag, unless you know where to look. Kdenlive is free, open-source and gets new updates all the time. This gem works with Windows, Mac and Linux.
🌐 Browser acting weird? Extensions or broken settings could be messing things up. Time for a reset. In Chrome, go to Settings > Reset settings > Restore settings to their original defaults. Using Firefox? Head to Menu > Help > More Troubleshooting information, then click Refresh Firefox and confirm.
🎨 Need stunning photos? I’ve used Dreamstime for years, and for good reason. Whether you’re building a website, designing a presentation or just need the perfect pic for social media, Dreamstime has millions of royalty-free images that won’t break the bank.
Have a YouTube channel? The algorithm might not know who to show your videos to. Give it a nudge by adding channel tags. Click your profile picture > YouTube Studio > Settings > Channel, fill in your Keywords (like “travel”) and hit Save. It’s a small step toward building your audience.
🎶 Rockin’ votes: Planning a road trip? YouTube now lets your friends add and vote on songs in shared playlists. Here’s how to create one. Then, click the three-dot menu > Collaborate > toggle on Collaborators can add songs and videos. Hit Share to send the link to your pals. No arguing over who gets to DJ.
📖 Learn new words on Kindle: Come across a word you don’t know? Long-press it and you’ll get the dictionary definition. Each one you check gets saved to your Vocabulary Builder. To look back, tap the three-dot menu in the top right, select Vocabulary Builder, then Flashcards to run through them. Mark as Mastered when you’re done.