Who the 5c Is Best For

As the cheaper model, it's obvious that the 5c is targeted at more budget-minded shoppers. Starting at just $100 with a contract, it's hard not to see the appeal, especially if you don't care that much about doing anything complicated with your phone. Here's who the 5c is best for: People on a Budget: It's pretty clear that the iPhone 5c is targeted toward people on a budget. The cheapest model is just $100, so if that's all you have to spend then this is the phone for you. People Who Like Color: The 5c is targeted more toward people who are looking for a little color from their iPhone. Not only does the phone come in five different colors, you also have the option for six different colored cases. If color's not your thing, you might as well just grab a refurbished iPhone 5. People Who Aren't Using Resource-Intensive Apps: Since the 5c has the same guts as the iPhone 5, it's a perfectly capable device, but it's going to become outdated quicker than the 5s, particularly in the realm of resource-heavy apps like games or video. If you don't care about any of that, then the 5c is all you'll need. Essentially, this time around we're getting the iPhone 5c instead of simply bumping down the price on an iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 is still plenty powerful and capable of running iOS 7, so the 5c should work just as well. The slower processor does mean it'll be slower than the 5s overall, but for casual users it won't be that much of a difference. If you're looking for a bit more info, you can take a look at a comprehensive breakdown of the 5c over on Gizmodo. Considering the price difference between the two models is only $100, your best bet if you have the cash is the iPhone 5s for future proofing, which is worth it considering since you'll have to sign a new two year contract to get the discounted pricing. The 5c's color options are certainly enough to appeal to some, but since it's essentially a repackaged iPhone 5, the 5c just doesn't have the legs of the 5s, so don't be surprised if starts feeling sluggish after just a year or so.

Who the 5s Is For

The iPhone 5s is Apple's flagship phone right now and if you're a power user it's the better option currently available to you. It might look the same as the iPhone 5, but it's faster and has enough improvements to the camera to set it apart. So, the iPhone 5s is really better for: Gamers: The 5s has a much more powerful chip than the iPhone 5c. With the new 64-bit processor, it's twice as fast as the last generation and also comes with a new motion coprocessor called the M7. This is a processor dedicated just to motion controls like the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass. This is going to run the latest and greatest iPhone games (like Infinity Blade III) better and last longer as a gaming device than the 5c. Frequent Camera Users: The megapixels are the same as previous iPhone's, but that's not really the whole story. The iPhone 5s has a larger aperture and sensor, which means the camera has more light sensitivity and should take better pictures. It also gets a new burst mode for action shots and slow motion for video, if that's your kind of thing. Security Minded Users: The last big seller of the iPhone 5s is the fingerprint sensor. On the surface, this means you won't have to worry about passcodes and passwords ever again. You can unlock your iPhone with your finger or purchase apps. Theoretically, this should be a more secure way to protect your phone, but we'll have to wait and see how viable of an option it really is. So, if you're concerned with the security of your passcode, you're looking for a big speed boost, and you take a lot of pictures with your iPhone, then the iPhone 5s is your best choice. It's more future-proof than the 5c, and at least from what we've seen so far, the camera appears to be a pretty solid improvement. If you want a more comprehensive look at the iPhone 5s.

The Main Differences Between the 5c and 5S

You can find the full list of features for the 5c and 5s on Apple's site, but above you'll find a breakdown of the main differences between the two. Most obvious are the colors and material. The 5c comes in all kinds of colors with a plastic backing, whereas the 5s sticks with silver, gray, and gold metal. The differences between the two are more than skin deep though. For the most part, the iPhone 5c has the same guts as the now-discontinued iPhone 5. It's the same basic speed, shape, and has the same camera. While the colors are nice, the 5c is a plastic case, which means it won't have quite the same feel. Otherwise, it's essentially a repackaged iPhone 5 with a $99 or $199 price tag. The 5s has a few notable improvements over the iPhone 5. The most obvious is the new fingerprint sensor. This allows you to unlock your iPhone with your fingerprint so you don't have to worry about passcodes and passwords. The iPhone 5s gets a new 64-bit A7 chip, which Apple claims is about twice as fast as the iPhone 5 (and subsequently the iPhone 5c). It also has a new M7 motion coprocessor to handle specific motion-based tasks so the CPU doesn't have to work as hard. The other main addition to the iPhone 5s is the new camera. It's still an 8 MP camera, but it now has a wider sensor and aperture so it can take better low-light photos. The iPhone 5s also gets a new burst mode for quick pictures and "True Tone" flash for more accurate colors when using the flash. The 5s continues the same pricing scheme of previous years with the lowest cost 16 GB model coming in at $199 and prices going up from there. Otherwise, everything else is pretty much the same. The screen size hasn't changed on either from previous models, Siri works the same on every device, and both the 5c and the 5s see a small increase in battery life over previous generations.

Surespot for Android Offers Free, End-to-End Encrypted Chats On the Go

Android: Plenty of services promise that your messages will disappear when viewed, or that your conversations are private, but Surespot actually delivers. All of your messages are encrypted, you control whether images are sharable or not, and if you delete a message, it's deleted from the recipient's phone, too. Surespot is a messaging app, and like most alternative texting apps it's only useful if your friends are using it too. You can encourage your friends to use it, or pull up a QR code on your phone that they can scan to download it and instantly add you to their friends list. All of your messages through Surespot are sent with symmetric-key encryption (256 bit AES), and the keys are exchanged when you first add a user to your friends list. You can read more about the technology behind the app here. Surespot is open source, and its code is available to view (or fork) over at GitHub. Of course, there are ways around the protection any app offers, but Surespot has gone the extra mile to give you and friends who use the app a secure way to chat privately. It works as advertised—you can revoke images and messages and when they're revoked, the recipient can't see them anymore. You can "lock" images so they can't be saved outside of the app. Sure, you can always take a screenshot, or turn off data before a message is revoked, and if someone has physical access to your phone, then all bets are off. Even so, if you're looking for a privacy-focused texting replacement, Surespot is worth a try. It's free, ad-free, and light on required permissions.

Use a Paper Towel Bar as a Garbage Bag Dispenser

If you still have your empty garbage bags sitting under the sink in the box you bought them in, try this storage method instead. Just take the huge roll of garbage bags out of their box, slide them onto a paper towel bar, and you've got a space-saving, one-handed garbage bag dispenser. Yeah, it looks a little silly, but the photo above tells the tale. We can see this being especially useful if you have a portable paper towel rack that can sit or mount on the wall near the trash can, or in a place where you do a lot of work, like outdoors in a garage or a workshop. Besides, pulling one off of the roll when you need it definitely beats fumbling for a loose bag in the box. Most garbage bag rolls will sit neatly on the roll, and as you pull one bag off, the roll spins and makes the next one available whenever you need it. Unclutterer suggests buying a spare roll you can stash anywhere and mounting your trash bags on it. The original tip (via DIY 101 on Facebook) was specifically to make yard-work like raking leaves or cleaning up in the garage easier by making it easy to grab a bag whenever you need one. Whichever approach you take, give it a try, it works like a charm.

The Biggest Mental Roadblocks of Paying Debt

The hardest part of getting out of debt is not the math. For many of us, it’s not even the money. No, for most people the hardest part is the perseverance that is required in order to complete your goal of being debt free. Any long-term goal takes focused effort, fierce prioritization, and a healthy appetite for making sacrifices—and paying off debt is no exception. Since paying off debt takes time and perseverance, it goes against human nature. But you can help get your mindset right by learning some coping mechanisms. Here are the greatest mental challenges involved in debt repayment (from my experience) and my tips for how to overcome them: We Have Short Attention Spans Human beings naturally gravitate towards short-term thinking. Our lizard brains are wired to react to immediate danger and short-term gains. This means that our attention spans are, well, short. Unfortunately, when it comes to paying off debt, our lizard brains are a liability and not an asset because–let’s face it–without any short-term benefit it’s hard to stay focused on debt repayment. Sometimes it seems like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Coping Mechanism: The easiest way to cope with our tendency to be short-term thinkers – making that long tunnel seem especially dark and difficult to navigate–is to break up your debt payment goals into manageable and measurable chunks. A “chunk” could be one credit card, one creditor, or a specific amount of debt paid off (such as $2,000). After each chunk is paid, you can give yourself a frugal reward. Then rinse and repeat. We Feel Deprived if We Have Less Than Other People Did you know that the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” originated over 100 years ago when it debuted in the comic strip Keep Up With The Joneses? This should tell you that the tendency to compare our lives to others’–and particularly to those who seem to be doing very well for themselves–is inherent in humans. The only problem is that we are left feeling deprived when our lives are compared to others’, and we are often unable to move forward and better ourselves because of this preoccupation. Coping Mechanism: Realize that the longer you spend watching other people’s lives, the less time you have to live your own. Instead of feeling deprived or jealous, keep a gratitude journal. Each day, write down five things that you are thankful for. This will turn your feelings of deprivation around and leave you feeling an abundance of blessings instead. Tracking Our Spending and Payments Feels Overwhelming For so many people, the hardest part of paying off debt is keeping track of spending and making payments on time. I’m sure you realize the importance of tracking your spending and payments. However, it can be to keep track, right? This is because it seems to go against our desire for ease and simplicity (and minimizing stress). Coping Mechanism: Your best chance to cope with feeling overwhelmed at debt repayment and tracking your spending is by automating everything. Do it once rather than having to do it over and over each time. Start by setting up a plan and putting a system in place at the beginning, and then automate it so that your financial life runs seamlessly. For debt repayment, sign up for ReadyForZero and link each of your financial accounts. In order to decrease the amount of tracking needed with your spending, make an initial budget with specific categories. Add up the amount for discretionary spending for all of the discretionary spending accounts (groceries, gas, entertainment, etc.), and memorize this number. Instead of tracking every purchase throughout the month, just make sure that all of your spending is under this number–and you can track that by checking into your accounts once per week for heavy-spending weeks, or once every other week if you haven’t spent much. Remembering one number is easier to do than remembering each purchase you’ve made. The Goal of Being Debt-Free is Intangible Have you pored over others’ debt payoff stories–eager to learn their secrets–only to convince yourself that you could never actually attain the same thing? Part of the reason why debt is persistent is that the goal of becoming financially free is not tangible. That is, you can’t see it in front of you; it is an abstract idea even though it has such a real impact on your life. Coping Mechanism: There are two ways that you can make your goal of debt freedom more tangible. The first is to visualize yourself in your debt-free life. Create the scenario in your head, see what day-to-day living would be like, and really feel your new circumstances. If you can see it, then you can believe it. To really make this tangible, create a poster board with pictures that symbolize your future debt free life. You’ll be so inspired by the pictures you see on the poster board that you’ll be super motivated to keep up with your planned payments. The second way to make debt freedom more tangible is by using a tool with targeted debt information. Plug in your debt, the amount you have committed to pay each month, and then look at where you will be one year from now, two years from now, five years from now. This will help you to see that debt freedom is X amount of years away–an actual, tangible date. For example, “May 2016” sounds a lot more tangible than “someday,” doesn’t it? And best of all, you can change the date if you find ways to pay more each month! Sometimes Our Negative Thoughts Paralyze Us Thoughts are very powerful. This is because the decisions that we make and the opportunities that we pursue are sourced from the thoughts in our head. Negative thoughts can keep us from attaining any goal, paralyzing us in inaction and depression/guilt over that inaction. And we all know that inaction will get us nowhere. Coping Mechanism: You need to stop the repetitive negative thoughts leaving you in paralysis. If the thoughts are based around doing something (i.e. you are afraid to move forward), then it’s probably better to confront the situation and take action than to sit and stew over it. If the negative thoughts have no true purpose, then try to cut them off. When one pops up, ask yourself, “is that really true?” Finally, spend time around positive people, read uplifting blogs, and write down your good thoughts on a list of paper that you keep near you. That’s it! Those are the five biggest mental challenges to paying off debt, in my experience. Hopefully these tips will help you conquer these challenges and achieve your goal of paying off your debt. What do you think? If you have any other mental challenges you’ve faced, post them in the comments below.

Super Sleep Locks Your PC, Only Wakes It with a Custom Hotkey

Windows: Super Sleep is a system tray app that puts your computer to sleep with a key command, and keeps it from waking up until you enter another. Whether you want a little extra security or you're just tired of your computer waking up every time you accidentally tap a key or jiggle the mouse, this app can help. Once installed, Super Sleep runs quietly in the system tray. To put your computer to sleep, press Ctrl+F9. To wake it up, press Ctrl+F10. Pressing random buttons on the keyboard won't work, and neither will moving the mouse. You can also set your own key combinations for wake and sleep if you prefer to use ones that only you know, or you can leave sleep blank so your PC will go to sleep normally, but only you'll be able to wake it up. Super Sleep isn't meant to be a privacy protection app (even though it works well as one.) It's really designed to help you save energy by making sure random keypresses or mouse movements don't keep your computer waking and sleeping over and over unintentionally. It's completely free and available at the link http://www.thefreewindows.com/14096/super-sleep-monitor-wake/