u/Moondoggy51

I was a hard contact lens wearer for just over 50 year. Each time I asked about switching to soft lenses I was encouraged by multiple eye doctors to stay with my ridged lenses as they force your eye to retain it's shape and my correction would be better than with soft lenses. Even after I started developing cataracts I was encouraged to stick with hard lenses. Well, when my cataracts got bad enough to warrant surgery, I found out that because hard lenses change the shape of your eyes, surgery cannot be performed until your eyes have returned to their natural shape. For me, because of 50 years of wearing hard lenses, this meant that I either needed to switch to soft lenses or wear glasses (UGH!) at least 5 months, 1 month for each 10 years of wearing hard lenses, Cataracts, most often, take time to develop before surgery is warranted but had I known what I know now, I would have switched to soft lenses much sooner. Even after switching to soft lenses I had to be out of them for 30 days, about 4 months into the waiting period and I had to be re-tested over and over until they were convinced that my eyes were no longer changing. The thing is that despite what eye doctors told me over the years, soft lenses are really comfortable and even with cataracts, my vision correction is better than it was with my hard lenses. So, if you're starting to get cataracts, don't wait, switch to soft lenses so you don't have to experience a long delay as I've experienced.

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a pair of Phillips 9050 hearing aids from Costco. After week 1 I went back as the initial settings were incorrect due to the type of loss in my right ear and I couldn't stand the right ear dome. Although the fitter made a number of changes I pretty much knew that more adjustments were going to be needed so I set up a second adjustment.

Let me state up front that some of you may wig out about the use of AI and that's OK but for the rest of you let me suggest that you make use of it as it may help you as it did for me.

Besides the frequency loss the damage in my right inner ear causes a distortion where the sounds sound fuzzy and they have a wawa type sound and this distortion can't be fully corrected. With that in mind I described everything I was hearing and fed Gemini AI all the details and each time Gemini would explain what was going on with my hearing and why. When asked, Gemini produced a narrative of everything and went further describing what changes the fitter should consider making using the Phillips hearing aid configuration software which really surprised me. As it turned out the fitter agreed with Gemini and when the changes were made the results were amazing. Not sure how Gemini knows so much about Phillips 9050 hearing aids but if you need adjustments my recommendation is to use it.

I've been wearing hearing aids for about 7 years now and my first 2 set of aids were purchased through an hearing aid provided and spent a lot of money buying expensive top of the line Oticon aids. Recently the opened a Costco in my community and I was curious if they had something that would better meet my needs. The problem I was having is that I was having a tough time understanding people when I wasn't facing them and things were even worse in crowded places. To make a long story short, I found that the Phillips 9050 hearing aids are one of the best hearing aids for my needs as the AI software is designed for speech isolation. I also found out that they are made by the parent company that make Oticon aids. With the 6 month trial period and the cost i rolled the dice and bought the Phillips aids.

My impression to start with was that Costco's hearing test was more thorough that the exams previously performed by my former provider. Although the settings were based on my hearing test results, I knew from experience that adjustments would be needed and I've already had one adjustment. That being said i was out for dinner and I actually was able to understand things being said at a nearby table and I have been able to understand someone speaking to me that wasn't speaking to me directly. So, at this point I'm very happy with the performance and quality of the aids and the staff.

My wife has a bunch of photos saved within text messages. She would like to keep the photos on her phone but when you download from Google Messages the photos are stored under Images-->Messages. When she went to verify the pictures were there she fired up the Google Photo app and couldn't see them because photos taken with the camera are stored in Images-->Camera. I confirmed her photo was there but she wants ALL of her pictures to be in the Camera folder so she can search for her photos using the Google Photo app. I thought it would be pretty easy to simply move the photos from one folder to another but I've tried two different file apps and when I select MOVE, Camera never comes up as a move to location. If I go to Google Photos you can see the the photos in the Camera folder but you can't see the Messages folder or any other folder like screen shot. Is there a way to move the photos from folder to folder to make my wife a happy camper?

I know that the Helium Browser still has some limitations and is a work in progress, but I decided to give it a try to compare it to my current Browser, Brave. After I installed it and set it up to look and feel like Brave in appearance, including my bookmarks and extensions that it added for me during setup I wanted to test performance. Note that my normal setup of Brave is to have all of the extra functionality that's included turned off so the comparison between the two should be similar. I ran a speed test and there was only a 0.1 difference in browser performance with Brave being the slight winner of the statistical tie. It was suggested in something I read that I should next open up 3 tabs to 3 identical websites on both browsers and look at task manager. After jumping from page to page on both browsers it seems that at now idle, CPU on Brave would frequently jump slightly while Helium seldom jumped. On the memory side Brave consumed 1,127.7 MB while Helium consumed 961.8 MB.

So this is not a scientific test but it does show that Brave is a bit more active and consumes slightly more memory but it's probably not as significant as I hoped it would be. Granted that Helium is a work in progress but one thing I found out right away was that any web page has an imbedded video, Helium will automatically play the video whereas with Brave autoplay is turned off and the ability to turn off Autoplay has not been added in Helium. First impression is that Helium pretty much has the same look and feel as Brave, so I'll be curious how this browser is developed but for now I'm sticking with Brave.

I cam across an article today referencing a browser extension called Knockoff. The extension operates locally on the user's device with no account creation, tracking, or server requests, ensuring privacy. When you visit Amazon and you're searching for a product to purchase Knockoff uses a combination of a 5,000+ brand allow list and linguistic heuristics (such as vowel ratios and capitalization patterns) to flag junk brands, I installed it to test it out and when I searched for a certain type of health supplement I was pleased to note that out of 60 products listed, it flagged 19 products as junk. The products flagged are still listed but grayed out so if you still want that specific product. moving your mouse over the product will still allow you to place an order. So, I'm liking what I saw and though I would mention it here so others can give it a try. 

I'm frustrated. I have a pair of Oticon More aids that I bought about 4 years ago and to my knowledge my audiologist only sells Oticon Aids and they are quite expensive. My issue is that if the person speaking is speaking away from me instead of speaking to me, I have trouble understanding what was said and I must ask the person to repeat what they said. Also if we're watching TV and a person says something I can't understand because I was focused on the TV not the person. In some cases certain words sound as if the person was speaking through tin foil. Hearing someone speak in a crowded room is also hard because of the surroundings.

They just opened a new Costco in our town and someone told me that Of the brands Costco sells the Philips HearLink 9050 Hearing Aids are made by the same parent company as Oticon and are the equivalent to the Oticon Intent but a lot less expensive. Can I get feedback from 9050 users and any feedback on whether this aid will help me understand more?

For starters let me state that my Dell Latitude 5520 is an experimental machine and I'm nowhere close to being proficient with Linux so there may be a way to upgrade the BIOS directly but I couldn't find any info on this so the following is how I updated the BIOS on my laptop.

The problem I faced is that the BIOS update file for the 5520 is an executable application designed to be run directly from within Windows. If this an be done a better, easier way, directly from Linux, please post how it can be done for myself and others that are not Linux proficient. Here's how I did it on my Linux 5520 laptop.

I download the BIOS update from DELL on my Windows desktop, along with a copy of HIREN's BOOTCD-PE ISO file from their website and a updated copy of Rufus portable edition from their website. I then used Rufus and the HIREN's ISO file to create a bootable WIN-PE drive on a 32 GB thumb drive. Once the bootable WIN-PE drive was created I copied the BIOS update application to the root of the thumb drive.

Once the thumb drive was ready I inserted it into a USB port on my Linux laptop, restarted the laptop and on my 5520 I immediately pressed the F12 key to enter the Boot option menu and then select the thumb drive from the list. Once selected the 5520 booted into a stripped down PE version of Windows and from there all I had to do was open File Explorer, find the BIOS Update application and launch it. Once launched the BIOS update process started up, restarted the laptop in BIOS update mode, updated the BIOS and when finished rebooted right back into my Linux Distro.

I found out that Dell updated the BIOS on the 5520. I have one 5520m that's Windows and the other is Linux. The Windows update was a snap but the Linux 5520 is dealing me fits. The BIOS level downloaded was 151. I put the update on a thumb drive but when I do an F12 restart the BIOS update function can't see the update stored on the thumb drive. It was then suggested that I make the thumb drive bootable to FreeDOS using Rufus but the an F12 restart didn't list the thumb drive to boot from. I then did a BIOS update online which did allow me to update the BIOS from 148 to 150 but evidently Dell doesn't have it setup for 151. So does anyone know what my issue is and how to fix it so I can update it to 151? It seems that my only options are to do a backup using Rescuezilla, doing a Rescuezilla restore of Windows 11 and then restore my Linux distro after updating the BIOS update OR staying with 150 and trying to update the to 151 down the road when Dell gets the online method resolved. That being said if someone know what I need to do short of the Rescuezilla backups and restores orvwaiting let me know.

Let me first state that I'm not a professional or even an experienced user of Photoshop Elements. I currently use Photoshop Elements 2025 and I typically use it to remove unwanted objects from photos I've taken on vacation, etc. To remove objects I use the guided method of removal. My frustration is that many times I outline the object to be removed and Elements 2025 only removes part of the object and leaves a ghost image that I have to use the cloning tool to "Fix" what's left. I'm actually pretty good at using the cloning tool but I'm wondering if there's anything that's better than Elements 2025 at removal that's easy for a casual user such as myself to use that will save me time? In addition to object removal and cloning are there any tools that will also give photos a "WOW" look as it just doesn't seem like the guided photo fixes too much. Please let me know. Thanks.

https://www.budgetandthebees.com/no-cpap-a-new-sleep-apnea-pill-could-hit-the-market-by-2027-and-it-targets-80-million-americans/

I was diagnosed last night with a 6mm stone that the ER doc said had already moved down toward the end of the tube leading from the kidney. The doc gave me prescriptions for FlowMax, nausea, and pain including Oxy. The doc said that I should pass it soon but I'm concerned that soon might not be soon enough as it's Friday and I leave on vacation to Aruba early Tuesday morning and I don't want to deal with this away from home. I've been drinking a lot of fluids and peeing a lot but nothing is showing in the strainer. I was really uncomfortable yesterday afternoon before going to the ER but the discomfort subsided while in the ER and I have not experienced any discomfort today. Is there anything that I can do to make this come out faster?